Magnificent Defeat: Ashes

Wonderful choir music today. A real blessing -whispered prayer
Don't miss Good Friday Choir & Drama 9:15 11:15

Luke 12:16-21 Dave Ens
www.Eastview.org
Metaphor for life: A shoe in the middle of the road. How do you lose one shoe? Cars whizzing by. No stopping our progress to pick it up. Leave it behind. Do you ever feel left behind? Feel like that shoe? Why does no one stop to help? The day you were born you started to die. It's important to know that. God asked the rich man - are you prepared to die?
We are dust - from dust to dust. Think about death so death can be interrupted by life. Ash Wednesday ashes are last year's palm branches.
How are you? I'm fine! Not - I have 20 years to live.
Death is part of life. Ps 5-5:4-8 Let me fly away and be at rest. Why am I feeling this way? Isn't God supposed to make me happy? Why can't we have the Sunday resurrection without the Friday death?
With all the medical advances over the last century we will all still die.
If I can avoid sin we think we can avoid spiritual death and we get so busy being nice that we forget our mortality.
The irony of the cross is that it looks like defeat but it brings unleashes life.
I Cor 1:22-25 God's weakness is greater than human strength
Sin leads to death but we need to understand that in Christ comes our life. We can't boast in ourselves but in Christ alone. We journey to the cross aware of our mortality.