Cornerstone Community Church, San Jose Ca

The question we're addressing this morning is this: "How do I integrate God's Word into my life? How is what I read in the Bible relevant to my life here and now -- to my family life, to my occupation, to school, to my dreams about my future, to all the parts of my life that mean so much to me? What is the significance of this book written so long ago to my life today?" This morning I want to use my favorite book in the Bible, the Book of Revelation, to illustrate how to integrate a truth written 2000 years ago into our lives here and now.

Have you ever heard anyone say this to you when talking about the Bible: "You know, you can make the Bible mean whatever you want it to mean. After all, look at all the different denominations. Some say the Bible means this, and some say the Bible means that. It's all just a matter of interpretation, and the fact is you can make it mean whatever you want it to."

I'm at the age where it's getting harder for me to read without glasses. Actually, I've been at that age for a while but have just been unwilling to admit it. The experts tell us that our eyes begin to change shape around age 40, so at 56 it's safe to say my eyes aren't what they used to be. But if I really don't want to use glasses to read, there's one other trick I can resort to. Like many of you, I've discovered that if I have a bright enough light, I can still read even very small print. The best light is sunlight. Even the brightest lights in my office are dim compared to sunlight. Every once in a while if you come to church in the middle of the week you might find me sitting out in my car in the parking lot on a sunny day making use of the sunlight to illuminate the book I'm reading. If I want the words I'm reading to be clear, what helps me the most is bright light.

A few years ago, Federal Express debuted a hilarious commercial during the Super Bowl that spoofed the movie "Cast Away," in which Tom Hanks plays a FedEx manager whose company plane crashes, stranding him on a desert island for years. You might recall that in the movie Hanks opened up most of the FedEx packages that washed up on shore with him, but for some reason he decided not to open up one particular package. At the end of the movie Hanks drives out into the middle of nowhere to deliver the package to its intended recipient, albeit about four years late. In the commercial we see a FedEx employee go up to the door of a rural home, package in hand, just as Hanks had done in the movie. When the woman who lives there comes to the door, the actor in the commercial explains that he survived four years on a deserted island, and during that whole time he kept this package in order to deliver it to her. She gives a simple, "Thank you." But he is curious about what is in the package that he has been protecting

One of the most popular new TV shows this season is called "Once Upon A Time." If you've watched it at all you'll probably agree, even if the show isn't quite your cup of tea, that it's quite creative. One minute we're in a modern day town called Storybrooke, Maine watching the interactions of people by the names of Emma and Henry and Regina and Mary Margaret. And then the show shifts in time and we're in an Enchanted Forest, and we learn that Mary Margaret is really Snow White and Regina is the Evil Queen. All in all it's sort of a fun way to revisit some of our favorite fairy tale characters.

It’s the most important book in any library. It’s the best-selling book of all time. Many of us have three, four or more copies in our homes. And yet for some reason it can be such a difficult book for us to actually read, and even harder for us to understand. It’s called the Bible, and it’s actually 66 books in one. It was written over a period of 1,500 years by 40 different authors. The first book – Genesis – was written nearly 3,500 years ago; Revelation – the most recent book, was written over 1,900 years ago. So why read it? Can we trust it? Can we make sense of it? And what difference could it possibly make in our lives today?

Think with me for a minute about your favorite worries. When you do worry, what do you worry about? What is it that keeps you tossing and turning at night? What can't you get your mind off of, as much as you would like to? What concerns make your stomach churn and your palms sweat? Let me suggest a few common categories and see if any of these ring a bell.

Have you ever noticed how quickly we can lose our strength? It happens to me every time I am away from the gym, even if I just miss a few days. I'm one of those types who likes to do pretty much the same exercises week after week, who likes to do the same number of reps and use the same amount of weight. Most of the time that works just fine for me. But then I'll get a cold and miss a few days, or I'll be out of town and skip some workouts. And when I go back to the gym and try to pick up where I left off, I inevitably discover that what felt like just the right weight last week is now uncomfortably heavy for me. For some reason I am surprised every time this happens. It doesn't seem fair to me; it doesn't seem right that I could get so much weaker so quickly. But fair or not, the result is the same -- I have a power deficit.

I am not a cat person. I have always had a love affair with dogs and an equally strong aversion to cats. I am convinced that cats can sense this about me, that they can sense that I don't like them, don't want to touch them and don't want them around. Which is precisely why at least one of our neighborhood cats has decided to follow me home whenever he sees me hanging around outside. He knows I want nothing to do with him. He also knows that our dogs are gone and that it's now safe to nest in our yard. I used to shoo him away with a broom, at least when I was sure no one was looking -- you don't want to get a reputation as a cat-hater. But I don't anymore. The cat has won. I am now resigned to the fact that if I'm out for a walk or out working in the yard and this cat sees me, he is destined to follow me home.

With our country falling deeper and deeper into debt, our government commissioned a "super committee" to find a way to reduce our deficit by $1.2 trillion. They worked hard at their job, they negotiated, they brainstormed, they debated -- and they failed. Once you're in a deficit, it's hard to climb back out. Getting into a deficit, on the other hand, is pretty easy. Many of us are in one right now, as we get hit with the credit card bills we racked up over the holidays. Before long we'll have property tax bills to pay and income taxes to cough up. We keep looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and it just seems to keep moving further and further away.

No one has to tell us -- we have a deficit problem. Our national debt is now over $15 trillion. Reducing the deficit has been the subject of seemingly endless debate in our nation's capital, but despite all the talk the national debt just keeps growing. In this, an election year, we can be sure we'll hear this message over and over, from both parties and from all the candidates -- somehow, we have to reduce our deficit.

I was not having a most wonderful time. We had just flown from Washington, D.C. to Dallas, and were about to embark on the second leg of our journey back home to San Jose. I had made the plane reservations over two months earlier and had planned the flights to get us home at 5:00 p.m., but American Airlines had changed our flight plans three times and we were now scheduled to get home at 8. They had also changed the seats I had originally reserved, which had me, my wife and my oldest daughter sitting in the same row together near the middle of the plane. Now Brenda and Stephanie were in one row and I was in another, and we were all in the very back of the plane -- right next to the jets, which are very loud. As we boarded the plane we noticed the power going on and off. Once we settled into our cramped seats on a completely packed flight, the pilot told us that the plane's GPS system had shorted out and they needed to do some work on it. I thought this was a bit troubling. I really like to be on plane

Erma Bombeck once wrote, "There's nothing sadder in the world than to wake up on Christmas morning and not be a child." In many ways I would have to agree with her; I know that Christmas was my favorite time of the year. But even as a little guy I had lots of questions about the whole thing, especially about Santa Claus. That Tim Allen movie from a few years ago cleared up a few of my questions, like how does Santa deliver presents to a home that doesn't have a chimney? You'll have to rent or stream that movie to find out the answer. By the way, what do you call a person who is afraid of Santa Claus? Claustrophobic. Do you know why Santa's little helpers sometimes feel depressed? Because they have low elf esteem. And even if you are more Grinch when it comes to Christmas, or to life in general, then you'll appreciate this quote by Victor Borge about Santa Claus: "Santa Claus has the right idea -- visit people once a year."

Christmas is a time for choosing to choose the courage to answer God’s call to do hard things for the sake of the Kingdom.

Did any of you see the movie that came out a year ago called "Waiting For Superman?" It's a movie about the struggles of the American public education system. It shows both the despair of many students and parents and the hope that some educators have been able to offer. I was particularly curious about how the producers chose the title of the movie. Early in the film one of the central characters, an educator named Geoffrey Canada, tells the story of how as a child his mother told him one day that Superman wasn't real. Canada said he still remembers the anxiety and sadness he felt when it dawned on him that if Superman isn't real then "no one is coming to save him." And as I understand the metaphor, the movie-makers want us to come to grips with the fact that Superman isn't coming to save our education system, that if we want to make the system better we're going to have to do something ourselves.

From time to time when I was growing up I would go horseback riding with some friends and neighbors. When I was a kid we still watched a fair number of old westerns, so we thought people who rode horses were pretty cool. Then when I was 13 I was riding with the girl next door, Jaime, who loved horses and who was a far better rider than I was, when something startled the horse Jaime was riding and threw her to the ground. Jaime suffered a compound fracture of her arm -- the bone in her arm was rather gruesomely sticking out of her skin. It was the first time I had ever seen an injury like that, and the fact that Jaime was pretty dramatic about the whole thing didn't help. I did my best to stay calm and to act like everything was going to be fine, but the truth is that I was just a bit freaked out by the whole experience.

I have only tried surfing once in my life, and I wasn't very good at it. But when we go to Hawaii I do enjoy body surfing. I love swimming out a bit into the waves, and then letting a wave carry me back into shore. Years ago, when our kids were fairly young, I was trying to encourage them to give body surfing a try. On one particular day the surf seemed to me to be just perfect. I was having a great time out in the water, so I took my two older ones out in the water with me. They didn't seem to enjoy it quite as much as I did for some reason. At first I thought they just weren't getting into the flow of things, but then I caught a wave that nearly knocked the wind out of me and sent me crashing into the muddy ocean floor. As I was shaking the cobwebs out of my head, my young daughter asked me a question. She pointed to the shore and said, "Daddy, what do those red flags mean?" I didn't know what they meant; as best I recall I told her those flags were just there so you could see which way the wind w

If you have seen the movie "Soul Surfer" or if you know Bethany Hamilton's story, I imagine that you have been impressed, as I was, with her resilience and her faith. She was only 13 years old when a shark bit off her left arm. And while that was an incredibly traumatic experience for her, she spent almost no time at all feeling sorry for herself. Her almost immediate response was, "OK God, how can you use this for good? How can you use me for something good?"

Three blondes died and found themselves standing before St. Peter. He told them that before they could enter the Kingdom, they had to tell him what Easter represented. The first blonde, an American, said, "Easter is a holiday where we have a big feast and we give thanks and eat turkey." St. Peter said, "Noooooo," and wouldn't let her in. The second blonde, a Brit, said, "Easter is when we celebrate Jesus' birth and exchange gifts." St. Peter said, "Noooooo," and he wouldn't let her in either. The third blonde, a Canadian, said she knew what Easter was, and St. Peter said, "So, tell me." She said, "Easter is a Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover. Jesus was at a Passover feast with his disciples when he was betrayed by Judas, and the Romans arrested him. The Romans hung him on the cross and he died. Then they buried him in a tomb behind a very large boulder ..." St. Peter said, "Verrrrrry good." Then the blonde continued, "Now, every year the Israelis roll away the boulder

We all know from personal experience that life is an expensive sport. Going to college is expensive. Getting married is expensive. Having a baby is expensive. Buying and insuring a car is expensive. Medical insurance is expensive. Buying a home is expensive. Owning a smart phone with the monthly data plan is expensive. Have you ever refinanced your home? When you do that you have to go through the process of adding up all your assets and all your liabilities and coming up with your net worth. You have to list how much you owe on your cars and on your credit cards and on your school loans and on your equity line and on your mortgage; you have to specify how much you pay each year in property taxes and in insurance. It can be a little depressing, frankly, to sit down and tabulate your debt. It can make you wonder whether you will ever be able to pay it all off.