Welcome and Instructions . Welcome back to our Facebook Church online experience for Wednesday, October 1, 2014. Today’s lesson begins a new sermon series titled, “Aha: Awakening.Honesty.Action.” The sermon for Sunday, on which this devotion is based, is called, “The Aha Experience.” . As a reminder, Facebook Church is one long post. Whenever you have to leave this liturgy to watch a linked video, please come back as soon as you can. That will make this devotion more meaningful. Also, the dots between paragraphs are on purpose—they make Facebook provide spaces between the paragraphs, something that doesn’t happen when the dots are absent. After a time, hopefully they won’t be a distraction. do). . To help you and others have more privacy, I invite you to put on some headphones. Headphones can help you from distracting others, if you’re accessing this at work or even at home. . Please join me now for a word of prayer. . . Opening Prayer . Please say or whisper this aloud: “Gracious God, thank you for presence in my daily life—help me to see, hear, feel, and know you are near. During this time, may your words speak to me that I may be changed and blessed. Help me to find you in these words. Amen.” . . Opening Music . “You are Love,” by the Rend Collective Experiment. youtu.be/mNd22xG4_14 . . Reading Scripture: Luke 15:11-24 | New Living Translation . Parable of the Lost Son To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything. “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’ “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’ “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began. . . Scripture Response: . Let us say together, “This is the Word of the Lord for us—Thanks be to God.” . . Video Lesson . A video clip from Morgan Freeman and his ‘Aha moment.’ youtu.be/8LNphcRoRV8 . . Devotion . An Aha-moment! is that time in your life when you have this sudden realization that you should be doing something else. It can also be a sudden realization of a new truth—like when Isaac Newton was supposedly hit on the head from a falling apple that he understood gravity in a new way. For Morgan Freeman, his aha-moment came when he realized the depictions in the movies of being a fighter pilot was very different from the real life happenings of being that sort of pilot. When he realized that it was the movies’ depiction of what he desired, he changed his career path from being a pilot to being an actor. It was his aha-moment. It was a profound realization that made ultimate sense to him. . In our Bible lesson for today, we are going to be looking at the story of the Lost Son, or the Prodigal Son, as some folks know it, from Luke’s Gospel. In this story, we have the basis for what an aha-moment looks like. Over the next 6-weeks, we will examine the implications of living a life of faith and what happens when you live out your aha-moments. . In our Gospel lesson, a young man confronts his dad and wants to leave home. He hates it there more than anything. He is tired of the family drama, of the rules, and of being treated like a kid. He wants to go find himself so he asks for his share of his dad’s inheritance and leaves home. His dad, heartbroken for sure, allows his son to go with his inheritance in hand. The son then goes to the big city where he promptly spends all of his money on “wild living.” As a famine hits the land, the penny-less son goes to work feeding pigs. In his destitution, he realizes his situation and condition. He remembers his loving dad and hopes that he can be taken back, even if that meant working as a servant. For his dad’s servants were cared for better than what he was experiencing. Humbled, he goes home. . To the Lost Son’s surprise, his dad is thrilled to see him. When the boy apologizes, his dad quickly accepts it—so fast that even the son wonders if his dad heard it. Happy and thrilled that his son was home, his dad throws this giant party and everyone comes to it. It’s very nearly a happy ending—except for his jealous and angry brother. That’s a story for another day. Today, the point I want to make focuses on the aha-moment the Lost Son had while feeding the pigs. . It was then and there that the Lost Son had a realization. He had lived a foolish life and had spent all he had. He sees the error of his ways—or at least, he begins to see it. It’ll take a lot longer for the full effects of his foolish to be understood but he does see what he did and he wants to remedy it as soon as he can. In nearly all aha-moments, there is a pattern of self-revelation that happens. When you realize the new truth, you have an “awakening.” This is the awareness of the new truth. Then, you have a time of being very “honest” with yourself. This is the point of the awakening. An aha-moment without a time of honesty is only an alternate consideration—it isn’t a life-changing aha-moment. Such a moment helps you ask some very honest questions of yourself and you realize its importance. Then, you take “action.” All aha-moments lead to an action—living with the new truth, realizing that it’s really time to get a new job, or leave a bad relationship, or lose that weight. You realize you need to do it, you’ve been honest that you haven’t done all you need to do but now you know it has to be done, and you do it—or at least, you try very hard. Like the Lost Son, you come up with a plan. . I believe God gives us aha-moments that we might appreciate the changes we need to make. If we lived without such wondrous moments of self-realization, just think of all the inventions, ideas, and poetic experiences that would be lost. God, knew we’d need these moments to propel us in our experiences so we were given free-will. The will to change, the will to transform, or the will to do nothing is all part of it. By bestowing free will upon us, God gives us these moments and opportunities where our motivation and change can be life altering and a blessing to many others and ourselves. . What should you be doing now that you have been putting off? What sort of changes do you know you need to do but for whatever reason, you’ve let your excuses opt you out of what you should be doing instead? I pray that God will give you the insight and the umph! to consider the changes you need to make in your life. . . Closing Prayer . Let us pray. . “Awaken me to live the life you would have of me, O God. May I learn to recognize your love, your hope, and your presence in my life. Amen.” . . Closing Praise Music . “You are my Vision” by Rend Collective Experiment. youtu.be/rSAcsNlpidE . . Benediction . If you are able, please say or whisper this aloud: . “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14). Amen.” . . Closing Thoughts . I hope this service was a blessing to you today. If you enjoyed it, be sure to tell a friend about it and invite them to join you next week. . You can learn more about the congregation I serve by visiting our website at cresskillucc.org. . Please come back next week for a new devotion is posted every Wednesday before 12:00 Noon. If you enjoyed today’s Facebook Church, I invite you to share your experiences on your own Facebook page. Thank you for allowing us to spread God’s kingdom message.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:57:58 +0000