(tonight's message - inspired greatly by Jeanne Mayo)
Styrofoam Cup Theology
Part One
What is it that you are holding in your hand? These are cups, disposable cups. Can you use these again? Can they say, go in the dishwasher? Will they hold up over time? No, these are only good for temporary use, right?
Hmmm. You could kind of say that about you and me, couldn’t you? When you consider that time has stretched out for at least 4000 years already and you and I only last about 70 or 80 typically. Our bodies weren’t crafted for the long haul, were they??
Tonight we are talking about Styrofoam Cup Theology. Everybody say it.
1 Corinthians 4:5-7 tells us that we are like these cups. “We do not tell people of ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as servants for God who said, ‘Let there be light out of darkness’ made light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory. But we have this treasure inside of us like throwaway cups and like jars that can be broken.”
The treasure is God’s glory and light. We contain Christ.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27
We are these weak, disposable cups. The Bible refers to us as earthen vessels, jars of clay, tents, grass that withers, flowers that fade, but a vapor. We are nothing on our own. What can we do?
We can contain Jesus. That’s right, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
It’s pretty ridiculously awesome that Christ’s Spirit dwells in us. Honestly, we have it even better than the disciples. Sure, they got to walk with Jesus. They ate with Him, hung out with Him. But Jesus was human and still needed to sleep, to spend alone time or down time. In His human form He was limited to being only one place at a time.
But now, because Jesus is IN us in spirit form, He is not held back by human limitations. He’s with you from the moment you open your sleep crusty eyes in the morning to when you lay your head on the pillow at night. You literally can walk every step, every day with Him. We all can. What’s more is that the Bible tells us the Holy Spirit is a deposit, guaranteeing our future in heaven. The Holy Spirit is a constant reminder of our future destination.
Because Christ is IN US - we can pour Jesus out to the world around us. I think you will find that as Christ pours His Spirit into us we can’t possibly contain it anyway! The natural reaction to ‘too much’ is to pour out.
So this evening we are going to talk about that pouring. We’ll start in 1 Samuel, talking about David and Jonathon. You all remember David, right? Rockstar shepherd boy who took out Goliath with five smooth stones?
Well, really that was just the beginning of his awesome rise to fame in Israel. And what often happens with rockstars, a few haters come to the surface. For instance, Justin Beiber is a modern day example. How many of you like Justin? Come on, we can all admit he’s talented, right? The kid is 17, and could sing circles around me and probably every person in this room. But a few folks just can’t stand him. My daughter, Sarah, is one of those people. She can’t stand the sight of his floppy hair and pretends to punch him every time she sees a cardboard cutout of the boy.
Well, back to our story. David had a hater as well. And unfortunately, he was a hater with a lot of power and influence. King Saul couldn’t stand to see David coming, and he wanted to do a lot more damage to David than punching a cardboard cutout! King Saul was determined to kill David.
But God had David’s back and brought him a smart and powerful friend; Jonathon. Jonathon’s main source of influence was the fact that he was Saul’s son. Did you catch that? Jonathon, David’s best friend, was the son of King Saul, the man who was out to kill David. Sounds like a soap opera, right? Not the Bible.. I’m telling you, you should read this book, there’s all kinds of fantastic stories in there.
Here’s a verse that tells you what kind of friends David and Jonathon were.
1 Samuel 18:1, 3- 4
After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. 2 From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. 3 And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 4 Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.
God gave David a soul-knitting relationship with Jonathon. 1 Samuel 1:8 “And the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.” God knew that David needed a Jonathon if he was to survive King Saul’s attempts to murder him.
What does soul-knitting mean? Well, let’s start with what is your soul? Your soul is your mind, will and emotions. All of these ingredients combine to make your soul. Soul knitting is a combination of God’s supernatural plan with your day to day choices. It’s when your will lines up with God’s will and you act in accordance with His word and plan for your life.
Jonathon chose to daily care about David, even when it cost him dearly. I can’t imagine Jonathon had too great of relationship with his dad, King Saul, after he started hanging out with David.
You and I need to look for opportunities to develop soul-knitting relationships. There are people hurting all around us; at school, in your neighborhood, as you are walking down the street. I have started praying, “God give me eyes to see your souls.” as I drive or walk or go to the grocery store.
See, sometimes we are guilty of seeing people just as people. Sometimes worse than that, we see them as obstacles, in the way of what we want. It’s easy to do, there are so many of them. But God sees them as souls. He sees lost and hurting souls, in desperate need of a relationship with Him. And we have an opportunity to be the conduit (the link) between Jesus and people. God can use you and I to pour Jesus into people’s life through deep relationship.
But we need to be on the look out for opportunities to develop those relationships. And there are opportunities everywhere. My best friend, the one that I’ve been friends with for fifteen years now, well we met during the most boring sociology class of all time. Why? Because we took the opportunity to develop a soul-knitting relationship.
Part Two
So how do we develop a soul-knitting relationship with another? Is it magical? Does it just happen instantly? Is it like ‘imprinting’ in the Twilight books where you have no choice as to who or when?
Nope. You have to look for opportunities. Then you need to make unselfish covenant choices. Meaning, consistently choosing their best interests over yours.
We read on in 1 Samuel 18:3 “Then David and Jonathon made a covenant, because Jonathan loved David like his own soul.”
Jonathon and David made a commitment to place the other’s best interests first. They decided to love each other unselfishly. Did you hear me? Love is a decision before and after it is an emotion. Deciding to love someone daily is what builds a long term friendship, or one day a marriage. Deciding to love someone is what allows you to overcome the little irritants of the every day.
It’s a dangerous thing to pray “Brand me with unselfish covenant choices.” But that is what God wants for our lives. In fact, it’s exactly what Jesus modeled for us by coming to the earth as a baby and dying on the cross as a sinless man.
Our society says, “Love is an emotion. When you fell a certain way, than you act unselfishly.” This is a problem for sure, because as soon as that feeling starts to fade, you stop acting in the other person’s best interests. What happens next? The relationship starts to fail.
This is what happens in over 50% of all marriages. The couple starts out feeling like they adore each other, and when the feelings fade or the honeymoon wears off, they stop making unselfish covenant choices and suddenly the marriage ends.
I used marriage as an example but what about friendships? I’m sure the statistics on friendships are even higher, but that’s not something that anyone has tracked. Because unfortunately, I would guess the rate of failed friendships is even higher than the rate of failed marriages in this country. How many of you have had a friend that is no longer your friend? And how many of you have been married and no longer are married? See, point proven. Friendships die all the time, because you and I are are unwilling to make unselfish covenant choices.
Styrofoam Cup Theology tells us instead that right choices will eventually bring right emotions. See, when we are constantly pouring Jesus into our life (by reading the word, and praying, worshipping) we are compelled to do right things. Even when we don’t feel like it. When you start doing right things, eventually you will start to feel really good about those right choices.
I remember when I first rededicated my life to Jesus. I was sixteen. My dad and I had a way bad relationship. It pretty much consisted of yelling at each other. After I rededicated my heart, I knew it was wrong to yell at my dad. So I stopped. Cold turkey. It was really hard, especially since my dad didn’t stop yelling at me. In fact, he was annoyed that I didn’t fight back and so he yelled even louder. Those first few months of being yelled at were really hard, I had to fight my emotions not to yell back every day. But eventually, my heart got in the right place and I had no desire to yell back. I just felt really bad for my dad that he was hurting so much that he felt he needed to yell in order to release it.
Right choices will eventually bring right emotions. The only way to learn to consistently make right choices is by spending time with Jesus and allowing Him to teach you right ways.
Part Three
Jonathon was willing to lay down his life for David. We find this in verse 4. “Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.”
At that time, when you gave someone your robe you were saying “I give you myself.” But when you gave someone your weapons, you were saying, “You have conquered me. I will serve you.”
Styrofoam Cup Theology teaches us to be willing to genuinely lay down our life for others. To give them our robe and our weapons. In our stewardship series last month we talked about how everything we have is God’s and we need to be willing to give it away. Being generous is vital. But the higher standard is laying down your life for them. Considering their needs above your own.
Does this sound at all familiar? John 15:13 “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Jesus set this perfect example for us, didn’t he?
What if you look around and think, there’s no one here worth laying my life down for. Well, Jesus probably could have thought that about us, too, right?
Sometimes we need to be a friend rather than to have a friend.
Pastor Rob knew this kid in high school. His name was Nate Hanlon. He was a little slow. You know, kind of talked funny.
“I don’t know what you be talking about. I talk just fine.”
He tried to be a tough guy, wearing his leather jacket and all. He was kind of mean. But Rob noticed that Nate got picked on a lot. In fact, one day some bigger high schoolers were picking on Nate and Rob happened to be nearby. And because Rob was walking with Jesus, he had a swell of confidence and stepped in – asking the guys to leave Nate alone. Nate started hanging out with Rob. Rob invited him to the bible study he led on campus. Then Rob invited him to youth group. Nate gave his heart to Christ not long after that. And Rob and Nate made many great memories together in those years.
Often times our friendship can be a help up to a person around us. Just the fact that you have Jesus and are extending that to the people around you – you have something awesome to offer. You can be a good listener. You can genuinely care. You can be an encourager. You can just be there consistently. You can be honest. All of those things are qualities that people look for in a friend.
In fact, best selling author, Carol Ladd composed a list of seven qualities that people look for in a friend. They are as follows.
1) Genuine interest in others.
2) A giver, not a taker.
3) Loyalty.
4) Positivity.
5) Ability to appreciate differences.
6) Common interests.
7) Honesty and openness.
Wow, six of those seven qualities are built into the Christian life. And the one that’s not, ‘common interests’ can easily be resolved by making the other person your common interest. People are always interested in talking about themselves, it’s the subject they know the most about!
If you want to be like Jesus.. as we practice this Styrofoam Cup Theology.. we need to pour our lives out into others. Your friend will be the one whose need you can meet.. Not the one who meets your needs.
Altar/Prayer
God, tonight, place people in our hearts and minds. Help us to see the people around us as souls that are precious to you. Give us a deep appreciation for each one, as well as a burden for their salvation. God help us to see the individuals around us as Your masterpieces, objects of your affection. God we know that you loved each of us enough to die on a cross to restore relationship with them. God give us that love for the people around us. Allow us to be your hands and feet. Let us pour out our lives for the people in our world. God, give us opportunities for soul-knitting friendships. Help us to make covenant choices for the people in our lives. Keep us from abandoning relationships, but allow us to serve the needs of the people around us. Help us to be willing to lay down our lives for our friends as Your Word says. Help us to be good friends that continually point others to You.
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