While they are beautifully made and often colored a radiant gold-yellow, it is not appropriate to use a rubber chicken to represent the LORD your God. The LORD can't be contained or described by a rubber chicken.

Is it absurd to think that you would do that? Perhaps. But when you look at the whole of your life, how often do other things, people, or pastimes take the place of God? Perhaps not by eliminating what is holy from your life, but by edging it out until you're left holding onto the equivalent of a rubber chicken instead of the LORD who can set you free?

Today we talk about the Second of the Ten Commandments. And baseball. Really.

So many people believe that the Ten Commandments are an important part of life, but so few of them can tell you what they are. There are a lot of reasons for that, including the fact that there aren't ten commandments and the fact that different faith groups read the same scriptures and separate them in different ways, leading to disputes about which one is more important or whether some parts are one command or many. And when we strive to make a certain set in a certain order be the one that we want to go with, we are faced with the reality that the Bible lists them twice and the two don't match. Different order, different wording - does that change what they mean?

We're going to spend the next weeks breaking down and understanding these commands which have molded a significant part of our world for thousands of years. We'll start with the first commandment - as soon as we figure out what it is...

"I'm grateful - don't do it again!"

Paul wraps his letter to the Philippians up with this awkward-sounding (to us) "Thank you - No thank you" thing which is intended to help share the joy of the gospel with them and with others. How? And why do we care?

Join our walk through the last verses of the book of Philippians and find out!

Conflict abounds! I suspect most of us are involved in multiple conflicts, varying from minor annoyances and open disagreements to national and international disputes. And we each add to or subtract from those conflicts, don't we? What if there was a way to resolve every one of those disputes completely? What would that be worth to you?

Well, good news! Not only IS there a way to end every conflict, but the steps we each need to take to do so are carefully laid out for us. They are SIMPLE, they are SHORT. Ordinary folks like you and I can do them! In fact, we need to.

You know who really sucks? THOSE people. THOSE people over there. The ones not like us. How dare they refuse to conform to all of OUR expectations? Why won't they just do the things we wad to do? How can they ever be like us if they don't live out the same experiences and habits that we have chosen to make central to our way of life? Well, if they want OUR approval, they're going to have to straighten up and do things OUR way!

EXCEPT... Paul says this isn't true. He did all that and it's crap. There's something better; something which makes all of the things we have valued seem like they are not the gleaming gemstones we thought, but instead they are sticky balls of... Oh, I'm out of space. Guess you'd better listen in on today's teaching about why we should REJOICE!

Can violence be redemptive? Scripture (and history) says no.

And yet, we keep trying.

Today we revisit the story of Cain and his brother Abel to see if we can understand the root of violence and how God responds to those who perpetrate it. How are we told to respond?

Paul had said that we need to have the same attitude and make the same choices and take the same actions as Jesus. Which he knew a lot of folks would think might be too hard! So he gave us two examples of ordinary folks who lived that out so that we could know it wasn't just some kind of unreachable goal, but was actually something that is EXPECTED from each one of us.

Who were they and what was their witness to the world? And, more importantly, what is YOUR witness? Are you a testimony to Christ or do your choices suggest you are following a different commanding officer?

Look, I'm sure that your national pride, like that you might have for a favorite sports team, can be a fun component of your approach to life. However, Followers of the Way of Jesus need to make sure that Jesus is Lord!

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul lays out the requirements for being and keeping our citizenship in God's Kingdom. Those may start and end with rejoicing (they do!) but citizenship has both rights and responsibilities attached. If we refuse to live those out, then we aren't citizens of Christ and maybe we never were. But don't despair! Paul explained in some detail the attitude we need to have to be successful! So listen to today's message, then go live it out.