Matthew 4:1-11

Happy Monday, happy summer!  Our new sermon series is going to run all summer, so we’ll have to help each other maintain focus as we enjoy a very different summer from 2020!

We’re so looking forward to making room for things that the pandemic seemed to squash out of existence: travel, family get-togethers, beaches, national parks, barbecues, sports, celebrations familial and national.  At heart, we’re all still kids: the start of summer feels like the arrival of the kingdom of heaven!

Our next series is Make Room: Creating Space for God to Work.  We’ll look at different “spiritual practices” or “exercises”: engagement with Scripture, prayer, silence, fasting, hospitality, worship and similar “spiritual disciplines.”

Some of us may instinctively react against anything that smacks of “getting God to love us through what we do” or “earning spiritual brownie points” or “checklists of have-to-dos.”  We’re with you: let’s not go there!

Instead, let’s look at the ways in which “exercises” and “practicing” have in fact made more room in our lives for something important.  A music student plays a lot of scales – but the point of increasing facility with scales is the beautiful music we can then create.  The athlete practices the same movements over and over, but not for their own sake.  Instead, they equip her to enjoy her sport at levels both higher and deeper than would otherwise be the case.  We non-athletes still need to “work out” in some ways, not for the sake of the squats or push-ups, but so that we can keep up with grandkids or not have our lives squeezed down by ill health.

The point isn’t soil prep, fertilizer, regular weeding and all that for their own sakes -- it’s what they allow to grow.  A garden!

What we hope this series will do is add some tools to your toolkit, some skills to your skillsets, to give you some fresh ways to come at some familiar things.  We don’t read the Bible merely to read the Bible—we read in order to make more room, in our heads, hearts and lives, for the life-giving Word.  We don’t pray merely to “say our prayers,” but to deepen our communion and conversation with God.  We don’t fast from food or the media simply to make ourselves hungry or bored, but to realize that life really doesn’t consist of calories or entertainment.

In the midst of this season that feels like “everything’s opening up again!” please come along with us as we open up a summer-long conversation about how we might open up more of ourselves to God.

What might “more room for God” look like in your life?  And are there ways to move us into a more spacious place with the Lord?  Let’s find out!

We’ll start with different ways of engaging with Scripture.  What words describe your current relationship with Scripture?  Engaged, alert, excited?  Bored, apathetic?  Dutiful but dull?  Curious and full of wonder?  What would you like to be true about you and the Bible?