(Matthew 13:12-14) Message:

"Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That's why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they're blue in the face and not get it. I don't want Isaiah's forecast repeated all over again: 'Your ears are open but you don't hear a thing. Your eyes are awake but you don't see a thing." Christ quotes the prophet Isaiah as does Paul about the obvious is not seen or perceived unless there is a readiness to make it personal.

A former speaker of the House said that 'all politics is personal politics.' You cannot run for Congress by speaking to the man on the street in terms of global issues, the United Nations, NASSA and its space program or foreign policy. The man on the street wants to know about his paycheck, health and personal well-being. All other political agendas mean nothing to him except what affects his world. He will vote for the man running for Congress who addresses his world. This is what Christ did in teaching through parables. He reduced the cosmic, absolute and universal truth to its least reality to make it personal.

It seems that when we gather as a church our understanding of God's Word and the fellowship of each other is quite the opposite. We are uninterested in what affects our world but get all excited over universal, absolute and cosmic truth. For instance, I can tell you that one day Christ shall return and the sea and earth will give up its dead like a vision of dry bones from Ezekiel. (1 John 3:2) "…what we will be has not yet been made known…we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." I can tell you that one day the eastern skies will tear open and Christ will ride out on the back of a white stallion with his church by his side to reign for a millennium on the earth and Israel shall see the Messiah. I can tell you that Satan will be bound and thrown into the Abyss for that millennium. I can continue to tell you about the absolute universal and cosmic truth of Christ the King who is eternal, immortal, and invisible whose eyes are like fire, with hair as white as snow, wearing a golden sash around a white robe down to his feet, and those feet will be like burnished bronze, whose voice is like a mighty thunder with a two-edged sword, holding in his right hand seven stars and his face is like the sun in all its brilliance. We say 'amen' to these truths but do not talk about what the Word of God says about my personal world. I can tell you about vision for this house. When I talk about buildings, people, a school, global outreach northwest, ministering to our student body the response is generally 'amen.' But at what point does this become personal enough to change your schedules, change your priority, change your routines or in other words 'change your world.'

When we stand before God one day it will be highly personal because God will look at your world not 'the' world. (Revelation 22:11) Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy Whatever you have been you will always be. It will be fixed forever. There is no second chance. The seed of this ministry gets sown into your personal world and not generally with generalizing in such a vague way you can respond but be personally unchanged.

There was a man who went to the same barber for ten years who heard the Word of God preached and it became personal enough for him to get saved. He went to his barber and before he began the man told his barber that he had been given a new heart from God. The barber told him that he too was a Christian for all his adult life. The man leapt up from the chair and asked the barber why for the past ten years had he said nothing. He had been through divorce, bankruptcy etc. The barber had known all the man's troubles through conversation and said nothing.

You have no right to reach the unsaved and the un-churched unless there is a tear in your eye. You can have the right words, right Bible verses, and right doctrine, right opportunity but a wrong spirit about you. The man with AIDS bought and paid for it but Christ weeps at his bedside bating his gaping sores saying 'my son what have you done to yourself?' God's Word has to be personal to you. Cosmic truth is that we shall all stand before God to be rewarded for judged. How is this reality reduced to be personal? Think of a soul that has lived a life of hell. Abused, violated, corrupted and cursing God with their last breathe. They shall be raised to stand before God one day. They will say, 'Thank God it all came to an end because the grave has tormented me.' Then with a horror they never anticipated it dawns on them that they were raised from hell to be judged and sent back to hell. Is that a close relative or is that you? City Church has to get personal.

The enemy of reaching the un-churched and the unsaved by personally challenging their world is individualism. We are a nation of individuals whose core values are deeply rooted in personal freedom that have been documented to include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That value has been surrounded by surreal influences from movies that portray isolated heroes, classics like 'I gotta be me' or 'I did it my way' to literature with the best selling self-help book 'Looking out for number one.' The purpose of these influences is to connect you with yourself rather than the transcendent Creator God clearly pointed out in the very documents of our freedom.

When Japan had an earthquake in 1995 there was no looting or rioting but in our culture another man's downfall is our opportunity. Pieces of the Trade Towers being sold on ebay. Take anyone out of this culture and put them in another culture and complete identity would be retained because the power of being an individual will even keep us alive. A mom will have a baby and toss it into daycare while she gets on with her life. By age 3 the child decides what it wants to eat. Age seven they have mail and email no parent sees. Age 12 the role models for leadership are not mom and dad but some shallow celebrity. By sixteen we are not sure if they are still a virgin. Your television brings the world into your home but at the same time keeps you from the world. But it leaves you thinking you are connected to the world. You know what is happening in the world and the city but you have never seen it for yourself. Our culture produces the most depressed, bipolar, ADHD, homicide, teenage suicide and stress related illnesses that are more clinical than real. Insurance companies that used to be a rock in the community want you to be the rock. The military want you to be all that you can be.

How easy it is to walk into City Church and hear the great, cosmic, universal and absolute truth of God's Word - as long as no one talks about your world and the chaotic mess it is in but how surrender and submission to Christ can set you free. Do you watch late night TV filling your face with more food than you need? Do you find yourself awake at midnight but cannot be fully awake until midday the next day? Do your phone records show how insecure you are calling your spouse five times a day because you have trust issues? When you finish work or come home from school do you dread the atmosphere at home? Do your house payment, car payment, household appliance payments and other payments mean that your lifetime will not even pay the interest? Are you addicted to pornography, gambling, alcohol, painkillers or some type of prescription? Do you have a problem in building, maintaining and keeping friendships? Then you do not need to get lost in the awe and wonder of cosmic truth but its least reality to your own world.

(Proverbs 19:19) "Do not rescue an angry man, lest you have to do it again." Nicodemus was a ruling Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrim Counsel. He was a teacher of Israel and Christ indicated. (John 3:10) "You are Israel's teacher…" he had a world to live in that was not like anyone else. But at some point the seed Christ was sowing became personal. Joseph of Arimathaea who was also a ruling Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin Counsel. (Mark 15:43) "Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. He had made a tomb for himself in a tranquil garden but gave it to Christ. Both Nicodemus and Joseph took the body of Christ down from the cross. (John 19:40) "Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen." Using 75bls of spices they carefully and gently wrapped his body. The nameless centurion came to Christ in an open street. (Matthew 8:8-9) "The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, `Go,' and he goes; and that one,`Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, ,`Do this,' and he does it."

April 7th 1942 the Japanese in WWII shot down Clarence Stanford. He washed up on the shores of Pawa New Guinea unconscious and tossed around in the serf. Cannibals on that coast came out to finish him off. They opened his shirt to cut his throat and saw a cross around his neck. They knew that missionaries were untouchable in their cult and presumed he was one. They took him to the mission tent where he recovered. His testimony was simply, 'I was unconscious, tossed in the tide, facing death and destruction but I was saved by the cross.' So simple and yet redemption was planned even before God said 'let there be light.' Cosmic, universal, powerful and absolute truth reduced to personal truth.

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