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"Dave Weiss was at our church tonight and all I can say is wow! What a gifted artist and fine preacher! People really responded well to him and I hope to have him back again. Some of the finest preaching I have heard in a long time."
Jim Baker,
Pastor, Lorida Church of the Brethren, Lorida, FL
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Many Parts... One Body: A Creative Way to Teach the Importance of every member in the body of Christ. Available in three versions: Small, Medium and Large Group Sizes.
Running AMOK: Random Musings for the Creative Hands of the Body of Christ by Dave Weiss
Last night Dawn and I became the owners of a Dodge Grand Caravan. The faithful Trailblazer was getting up in years and we needed a little more room to run AMOK (or at least haul all the AMOKArts supplies from place to place). I really like it so far and my prayer is it will see a lot of work helping us to spread the Gospel and build up the Body of Christ. (If you can help in that mission, contact me at amokarts@aol.com)
When I test drove my van, I didn’t drive it like my favorite NASCAR driver, Jeff Gordon did in the video (for which I am sure my salesman Jose is very grateful), but I’m still pretty happy with it.
I posted this video partly because it’s funny and partly because it gave me a thought. I don’t know if this was a real prank or if the salesman was in on the joke, but let’s say it was real. There are thousands, maybe even tens or hundreds of thousands of people who would pay good money to have Jeff Gordon drive them around like he does in this video. They would laugh and want him to go faster and crazier (frankly, I’m one of them, if I had the money.) Had this salesman known who was driving him, he would have been having the time of his life, instead he was terrified and I think that’s the point. How we experience the wild and crazy rides in our life depends on our confidence in the one behind the wheel.
Who’s behind your wheel? I know someone who can handle your life even better than Jeff handled that sweet Camaro. His name is Jesus. Put Him in control of your life and hold on.
I realize that today is a day of rest and hopefully you are using it that way, but as you go to worship, start to look for the ways you could use that gift to serve the Lord. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking they will never accept what I do., Remember that you serve the God for whom all things are possible. Look for small ways at first and work your way up. Pray and ask God what He would have you do. You are gifted the way you’re gifted for a reason, you are in the church you’re in for a reason. God has a way for you to use at least one of the gifts He has given you for His purposes in your congregation. Look for the ways you can serve, pray for the open doors and work in faithful preparation toward that goal.
Last night was a tough one for my wife Dawn and I. We closed the church we have led for the last 10 years and while we know that God has something great for us and confirmed that this door was closing, it was definitely bittersweet. We’ve been ministering with the core group folks for over 15 years. They planted with us and they closed it with us. They stuck with us through thick and thin and parting was really, really difficult. It was time and we all knew it, but tears flowed as we locked the doors on New Creation for the last time.
A thousand questions run through your mind at a time like this. A ton of “what ifs” circulate through my psyche but to be honest, none of that matters. God closed the door and I know that God is not always predictable, but He is ALWAYS good. I know God used that congregation to grow us, perhaps me most of all (most of what I share in this and my speaking ministry and nearly everything I know about leadership was learned at New Creation). I know God walked with us through every trial and every victory. I know He used us to touch hearts and change lives and I know that any congregation that receives “my people” receives a blessing. I know they will always be in my heart and I’ve always known they love me and for that I am grateful.
There are aspects of all of this that feel a little unfinished, and that’s okay. Scripture says “He who began a good work in you will carry it through to completion in the day of Christ Jesus.” God started it and God will finish it. This door has closed for us, and I know He is opening another and I believe it will be good, because I know God is good!
In your own life it’s the same way. God opens and closes doors. It’s okay, trust him and be faithful. He began the good work and He will complete it. We should praise Him because He allows us to join Him on the journey.
Today my message will be on David and Bathsheba. It’s a story of grace and it’s a story of consequences. Most people equate grace with the removal of consequences and this is completely and utterly wrong. Science tells us for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I believe this could be equated with sin and it’s consequences. Sometimes we receive grace from the consequences of our actions, most of the time we don’t.
David sinned with Bathsheba, that was bad enough, but the attempt to cover his actions placed him on a slippery slope to an eventual murder. The prophet Nathan confronted David with a parable, a symbolic story to show David what he’d done. David not realizing he was hearing a parable, pronounced his own judgment declaring what should be done to a man who did such a thing. “The man deserves to die,” David said. That was in fact what David’s sin deserved at that time in history, maybe even today. Instead David, when he realized he was the man in question, confessed and received grace and was forgiven.
That being said, the consequences still came to call. Everything God said would happen to David, still happened. Consequences are not a sign that God has removed his grace, as a matter of fact it’s just the opposite. God allows us to experience the consequences of our actions by His grace. Consequences are designed to turn us back to him, to bring us to a place of repentance, because it’s in repentance that we turn to Jesus and find grace and forgiveness.
Consequences are not a sign that God has given up on you, they’re a sign that you are on the wrong track and need to turn back to God. Remember sin and God are on opposite ends of a continuum. To turn to one is to turn away from the other. Consequences are designed to turn us back to grace.
I saw this video on YouTube and thought it brought about a pretty great perspective on the things that bother us. If it were my video, I would have taken it a little further and reminded you that the God we serve made all that stuff, He is bigger than it all and yet He knows you by name and loves you so much that He gave His only son.
Romans 8 asks the question if God is for us, who can be against us? Judging from the size of the things we have just seen, I’d have to say the answer is No one!
It’s funny. When I’m preaching, it’s almost as if it’s me on display and somehow that feels wrong. What I’d like people to know is that in a sense, I’m just the worshipper facing in the wrong direction. The message and it’s preparation are my act of worship. I hope it touches heart, I hope it changes lives, etc. and often it feels like it doesn’t. As a matter of fact there have been many times where I’ve felt like turning around, facing in the same direction as everyone else and talking to the wall. When I feel this way, I know I’m out of order. I worship for an audience of One. It’s not my persuasive words that changes hearts, it’s His Spirit. I offer my best to Him and He works on the receptive hearts. If the hearts are not responsive, the best I can do is pray for them and give my best to God.
It’s the same with all of our acts of worship. When I paint in a service, it’s really easy to let my inner critic take over and tell me it’s not good enough. That’s not my issue either. I’m called to give my best with what I have in the time I have. It’s an act of worship for an audience of the One who knows whether or not I’ve given my best. Whether the people like it is not my primary concern and its ability to touch hearts is not dependent on my ability or the beauty of my work. It’s dependent on the Spirit’s work on receptive hearts.
It’s the same with the music, and everything else we do in worship and life. It’s not about virtuoso talent, it’s about offering our best to an audience of One. The rest is up to Him.
This message explores the times when God is silent by looking at the two four hundred year periods of biblical history when the Bible is “silent” between Genesis and Exodus and between Malachi and Matthew to ask the question is God really silent or are we just not listening?
I was talking to a dear and trusted friend about some of the great things that are happening in my ministry right now, especially related to A Night AMOK. I said, most sincerely that I am having fun. She challenged me on that a little bit, thinking fun might be “trivializing” it a bit (my word not hers). Because she is such a trusted friend, I took her comment to heart and began trying to redefine it by explaining how I am feeling.
I’ve expressed before on this blog how when I am doing things like A Night AMOK, I feel like I am doing what I was created to do. It’s one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done. I described the feeling I get as I am doing these paintings as an almost child-like joy and that’s when it hit me. At 48 I am doing what I dreamed of doing as a small child.
I remember being a child and making art, writing and telling stories and acting things out. I dreamed of making movies though that was outside the realm of possibility for a little kid in the early seventies. My school years were pretty terrible and most of that was driven from me or beaten out of me by my peers. I spent a lot of years wandering around trying to figure out who I was. When I look at A Night AMOK and a lot of the other things I’m doing now, I realize the Lord has restored my childhood dream to me. Thing about it. I am painting large pictures, using them to tell stories combined with “movies” I’ve made. I’m even acting. God had given me back what the enemy has stolen and with His help I will use it to His glory for the rest of my life or until He tells me to stop. My life has come full circle.
My friend was right, fun is too trivial for what is happening to me right now, but I really am enjoying every moment.
Romans 5:6-8 says You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Isn’t that a beautiful image. We see God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice and our salvation as a demonstration of God’s love, but what put Jesus on the cross? God’s love? Of course but we also see Jesus died for the ungodly.
Jesus died for sinners. He died for you and me because we are sinners and sin separates us from God. God’s love for us put Jesus on the cross, but our sin was the reason He needed to go there. Our sin put Him on the cross just as surely as if we had held the hammer and drove the nails through His hands and feet. That’s the reality. We killed our savior and every time we choose sin it’s as if we drove the nails again. I know this might feel like a beating but I have to establish this first.
Too many Christians forget this point and when we forget it, we get proud and we forget about the grace we’ve received and when we forget we’ve received it, it makes it very difficult for us to give it.
When we forget grace, we either cheapen it or we withhold it. Let’s look at withholding it. In Matthew 6, Jesus taught his disciples to pray. We call it the Lord’s prayer, but really it should probably be called the disciples prayer, a prayer all Christ followers should take to heart. Now I could do a whole sermon on this prayer but for today I want us to lock in on verse 12. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Do you see what Jesus is doing here? It’s a little strange, but it’s as if Jesus is teaching us to pray to God, giving Him a loophole on forgiveness. Work with me on this for a second. This statement is conditional. He doesn’t just say “God forgive me.” He says “God forgive me the way I forgive others.” How are you doing with that? See this is where it gets tough. What condition would your soul be in if you were forgiven based on your forgiveness of others? Anyone else a little scared? check verses 14 and 15. 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. All this forgiveness is really hard. I can almost hear people thinking “but Dave you don’t know what He or she did to me…” or “you don’t know what he put me through…” And before we go any further, I want to remind you, I struggle with this too and this is hard for me too, but I have to ask you this question and I ask it of myself too.
Does any of the things they did to you compare to driving nails through your hands and feet? Did any of them hang you on a cross and leave you for dead? Because that’s what you and I did to Jesus. I mean as He hung on that cross I believe He knew you and I and the things we would do that put Him there and He cried out “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.” That’s the grace we have received and it’s the grace we are called to give. Just like in this painting. We see two bloody hands one holds the bloody nail, the other the bloody hammer. Both are guilty in the death of the Savior, and this is what it’s like when we forget grace and withhold grace and point fingers. We ignore our guilt and focus on another’s sin and that helps neither of us. When we accept God’s grace and we forgive and extend grace, we acknowledge our own guilt and we point the way to grace for others. Isn’t that what we’re called to do? You’ve received grace freely isn’t it time to give grace freely?
