On May 12th, 2024, Rev. Matt Sapp discusses Ascension Day and Mother's Day, highlighting the importance of Christ as the keystone in our lives, providing strength and support. It emphasizes the concept of shared worship and the ability to hold things together when Christ is at the center.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome
01:13 The Keystone
13:31 Painting by Sara Arnall
14:16 The Benediction
Psalm 93
The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength; indeed, the world is established, firm and secure. Your throne was established long ago; you are from all eternity. The seas have lifted up, Lord, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea—the Lord on high is mighty. Your statutes, Lord, stand firm; holiness adorns your house for endless days.
- where all generations worship, grow, and serve together.
- where women and men have equal opportunities for leadership.
- where traditional worship is engaged with excellence.
- and where diverse approaches to Christian faith and theology all find themselves at home under the lordship of Christ.
Want to learn more about Central? Visit our website at centralbaptistnewnan.org or give us a call at 770-683-0610.
[00:00:02]
Steve Cothran:
Happy Ascension Day. We welcome every one of you to worship today, especially on this Ascension Day and Mother's Day. There may be a guest or 2 among us. If there if you happen to be worshiping with us, for the first time, please take just a moment during the service and reach into the pew rack in front of you and get one of those new to central cards. Fill that out and drop that in the offering plate when it's passed around a little bit later so that we might have a record of your visit and let you know some of the many opportunities for worship and service that happen every single day here at Central Baptist Church.
We're glad that you have arisen, rised, rose. We're glad that you got up this morning and came to join us in this worship service because we are convinced here that every single time we gather, this experience of shared worship has the power to change our lives. It did at one time or another for you, or you wouldn't be here unless, of course, it was your mother who made you come to church like mine did.
[00:01:14] Matt Sapp:
In 9th grade geometry class, we had to build a bridge out of plastic drinking straws. We were each given 40 McDonald's plastic drinking straws. And the McDonald's straw part is important because McDonald's straws used to be sturdier. Does anybody else remember this? They're a little thicker plastic, maybe a little wider diameter than the average of straight pins, and we were supposed to build a bridge. The structure we would build had to bridge an 18 inch span or or something like that, and you couldn't use anything more than what you'd been given. We had 2 weeks to build our bridges at home. And then one day in class, we would place our bridges between 2 desks set exactly the prescribed distance apart, and we would hang an empty plastic solo cup by 2 little strings from the bridge, and the cup would hang down into the empty span, and we would slowly fill the cup with pennies.
The bridge that could hold the most pennies without collapsing would be the winner. I am terrible at projects like this. I'm not good at building things. I'm the world's biggest procrastinator. So I went home that day with my grocery bag full of drinking straws, threw them on the kitchen counter and promptly forgot about it. The day before the project was due, everyone in class was talking about their bridges. They'd all been spending hours and hours designing and cutting and penning and testing and reinforcing and perfecting, And all I had at home was an untouched grocery bag full of plastic straws.
So the night before, and even the morning of, let's be honest, I was trying to come up with something simple. Just trying to make anything out of straws that would sit steadily. Not even sturdily, just steadily, and bridge that 18 inch span. That's it. That's all I was aiming for. So I start to stick some straws together, and I make a a rectangle with the straws, and then I I turn it into kind of a three-dimensional rectangular box. It's all kind of big and tall and unwieldy, this fragile straw structure is, and empty, very empty in the middle. The angles are all off. The orientation is all off kilter. And I still have like 30 straws left. I don't, superstructure, the longest rectangle on either side, I put a little arch. Superstructure.
The longest rectangle on either side, I put a little arch in the in the middle of it. I took like 5 straws and I stuck them together, sticking one end inside the other and I I bent them inside that empty rectangular side and I pinned the ends down in one corner and then the next corner, and then I pinned it right at the top in the middle, the the arch inside the rectangle. But I still had like half my straws left over, and this thing that I had built was huge. I mean it just looked large and and tall and wide and wonky looking and as I carried it to school, it kept coming apart in places, and I had to keep trying to put it back together. And and when I got to geometry class, my bridge did not look like all the other ones. First of all, everyone else had used all of their straws.
And many of them looked like bridges you might actually see out there in the world. The tight and compact structures of these reinforced triangle trusses. All of their corners were square. The various dimensions of their bridges were well pro proportioned, and many of their bridges performed well in the test, supporting 100 of pennies their bridges could. Finally, it came to be my turn. I as I as I carried my ugly duckling of a bridge up to the front of the classroom. To call my bridge unique among the bridges constructed in my class would be an understatement. And when I set it down across that open span between those two desks, it didn't sit flat at all. That's what I was I was worried about. I couldn't even get all four corners to touch the ground.
So I I carefully set it down gingerly, and I just kinda slowly backed away, like we might do at our house with when the Jenga tower gets tall and kind of kind of wonky. As as my bridge sat there off kilter with 3 corners down and one corner up in the air like a wobbly bar stool, the whole thing leaned to one side so that my rectangular structure looked more like a parallelogram. And then the teacher walked up with the cup and the pennies. She looked really nervous too. She was holding her breath trying not to knock it over. The whole class watched with bated breath, but guess what?
My bridge performed shockingly well. I was more surprised than anybody, I promise you. It supported a shocking number of pennies. If all four corners of my bridge had actually touched the ground, there's no telling how well it might have done. When all the student bridges had been tested, our teacher brought out 2 bridges she had constructed herself to show us, and she talked about their relative strengths and weaknesses. One of the bridges she brought out was one of those compact triangle truss bridges, much like the very best bridges some of my classmates had constructed. But the other bridge was a bridge featuring a central arch.
Not nearly as large and unwieldly and poorly constructed as my arch bridge, but the same idea. And she talked about the surprising stability and strength of that shape, and its ability to evenly distribute heavy loads across a span. The oldest known bridge still in use anywhere in the world is an arch bridge in Izmir, Turkey. It was first constructed in 850 BC, nearly 3000 years ago. Still gets used every day today. In Dubai, a new arch bridge is being constructed to span a distance of more than 600 meters. Despite all the advances in modern technology and materials, the simple arch continues to be one of the sturdiest, strongest, most reliable support structures in all of architecture.
We have arched windows and doorways all over our church. You are all surrounded by them on every wall of this room now. And the strength of any arch lies in the keystone. The last piece to go into place at the top of the shape. Until that last piece is in place, the entire arch will collapse in on itself. The arch is a self supporting design element. It has no structure, no support at all, until it is completed. But once the keystone is in place, right at the top, and in the very center, it holds everything else together.
Today is Ascension Sunday. The Sunday 40 days after Easter when Christ assumes his eternal place in heaven, on Ascension Sunday, the keystone gets put into place right at the top and in the very center. And when Christ is in the proper place in our world and in our lives, everything else somehow seems to hold together. Life can feel a little bit like a like a juggling act sometimes. Today is Mother's Day. Moms are great jugglers. The the best jugglers in the world aren't circus performers. The best jugglers in the world are busy moms. Work calendars and kids' schedules, and and send this into class with that kid and show up at preschool for this event. And tomorrow is superhero day in this class and cowboy day in that class. And don't put peanut butter in that lunch. There's an allergy in that classroom. And soccer practice is canceled today, but their dance recital is on, and family is coming into town, and what will we feed them? And there's church on Wednesday night and how can we possibly have so much laundry and I have an important meeting tomorrow and I hope the 3 year old will take a nap so I can focus on that meeting and she doesn't pop screaming into the background of my video call with my boss.
Moms are the best jugglers. But as you get more and more balls in the air, all of us feel like we just have to keep going because if you miss 1 ball or stop even for a second, you feel as if you'll drop them all. Everything will just come crashing down around you in a heap at your feet, just a pile of stones. But here's the secret of Ascension Sunday. It doesn't all depend on you, moms, to hold it all together. When Christ is in the right place in our lives, right at the top and in the center of who we are. You can just stop juggling, and it will all still hold together.
Maybe even with an elegant simplicity and a surprising amount of strength, like the humble arch. Because it doesn't all depend on you. When Christ is at the top and in the center of who you are, all of the weight of the various abilities seems somehow to be evenly distributed across the span. You discover maybe that you're not as vulnerable to single points of failure as you thought you were. You discover that you're stronger and more resilient than even you had ever imagined. Psalm 93 says this, the Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty.
Established, firm and secure. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea. The lord on high is mighty. On Ascension Sunday, we remember that Christ is the keystone. He holds all things together. Even your juggling act. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, we do celebrate with you this morning, the day when you took your rightful and eternal place in heaven. Seated at the right hand of the father, to rule forever over all things in heaven and on earth, even to rule over our very lives. To take a place in each of our lives that holds it all together for us.
Help us to put you and keep you in that place. And remind us that it doesn't all depend on us, that you do hold all things together, even us. We offer our prayer and our whole selves to you this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. The cover art on your worship guide on Mother's Day is from one of our mothers, Sara Arnall. The painting now sits in our newly dedicated renovated prayer chapel. I wanna call call your attention to it for one reason. The radiance of the sun at the top of that painting, if you'll look closely, is made up of carefully folded and painted hymns torn out of old hymnals. And if you'll look even more closely, many of those hymns are the very same hymns we've sung and worshiped today.
Thank you, Sara, for your contribution to our worship this morning. I want to thank all of you for being present in worship. Hope every last one of us leaves this hour of worship encouraged and emboldened to be faithful representatives both of our church and of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:14:16] Steve Cothran:
Having been reminded on this Ascension Sunday that whether we come to God willingly or we're dragged kicking and screaming, God calls us all beloved children. So go now strengthened by the knowledge that Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, our keystone, holds not only our world altogether, but you.
Happy Ascension Day. We welcome every one of you to worship today, especially on this Ascension Day and Mother's Day. There may be a guest or 2 among us. If there if you happen to be worshiping with us, for the first time, please take just a moment during the service and reach into the pew rack in front of you and get one of those new to central cards. Fill that out and drop that in the offering plate when it's passed around a little bit later so that we might have a record of your visit and let you know some of the many opportunities for worship and service that happen every single day here at Central Baptist Church.
We're glad that you have arisen, rised, rose. We're glad that you got up this morning and came to join us in this worship service because we are convinced here that every single time we gather, this experience of shared worship has the power to change our lives. It did at one time or another for you, or you wouldn't be here unless, of course, it was your mother who made you come to church like mine did.
[00:01:14] Matt Sapp:
In 9th grade geometry class, we had to build a bridge out of plastic drinking straws. We were each given 40 McDonald's plastic drinking straws. And the McDonald's straw part is important because McDonald's straws used to be sturdier. Does anybody else remember this? They're a little thicker plastic, maybe a little wider diameter than the average of straight pins, and we were supposed to build a bridge. The structure we would build had to bridge an 18 inch span or or something like that, and you couldn't use anything more than what you'd been given. We had 2 weeks to build our bridges at home. And then one day in class, we would place our bridges between 2 desks set exactly the prescribed distance apart, and we would hang an empty plastic solo cup by 2 little strings from the bridge, and the cup would hang down into the empty span, and we would slowly fill the cup with pennies.
The bridge that could hold the most pennies without collapsing would be the winner. I am terrible at projects like this. I'm not good at building things. I'm the world's biggest procrastinator. So I went home that day with my grocery bag full of drinking straws, threw them on the kitchen counter and promptly forgot about it. The day before the project was due, everyone in class was talking about their bridges. They'd all been spending hours and hours designing and cutting and penning and testing and reinforcing and perfecting, And all I had at home was an untouched grocery bag full of plastic straws.
So the night before, and even the morning of, let's be honest, I was trying to come up with something simple. Just trying to make anything out of straws that would sit steadily. Not even sturdily, just steadily, and bridge that 18 inch span. That's it. That's all I was aiming for. So I start to stick some straws together, and I make a a rectangle with the straws, and then I I turn it into kind of a three-dimensional rectangular box. It's all kind of big and tall and unwieldy, this fragile straw structure is, and empty, very empty in the middle. The angles are all off. The orientation is all off kilter. And I still have like 30 straws left. I don't, superstructure, the longest rectangle on either side, I put a little arch. Superstructure.
The longest rectangle on either side, I put a little arch in the in the middle of it. I took like 5 straws and I stuck them together, sticking one end inside the other and I I bent them inside that empty rectangular side and I pinned the ends down in one corner and then the next corner, and then I pinned it right at the top in the middle, the the arch inside the rectangle. But I still had like half my straws left over, and this thing that I had built was huge. I mean it just looked large and and tall and wide and wonky looking and as I carried it to school, it kept coming apart in places, and I had to keep trying to put it back together. And and when I got to geometry class, my bridge did not look like all the other ones. First of all, everyone else had used all of their straws.
And many of them looked like bridges you might actually see out there in the world. The tight and compact structures of these reinforced triangle trusses. All of their corners were square. The various dimensions of their bridges were well pro proportioned, and many of their bridges performed well in the test, supporting 100 of pennies their bridges could. Finally, it came to be my turn. I as I as I carried my ugly duckling of a bridge up to the front of the classroom. To call my bridge unique among the bridges constructed in my class would be an understatement. And when I set it down across that open span between those two desks, it didn't sit flat at all. That's what I was I was worried about. I couldn't even get all four corners to touch the ground.
So I I carefully set it down gingerly, and I just kinda slowly backed away, like we might do at our house with when the Jenga tower gets tall and kind of kind of wonky. As as my bridge sat there off kilter with 3 corners down and one corner up in the air like a wobbly bar stool, the whole thing leaned to one side so that my rectangular structure looked more like a parallelogram. And then the teacher walked up with the cup and the pennies. She looked really nervous too. She was holding her breath trying not to knock it over. The whole class watched with bated breath, but guess what?
My bridge performed shockingly well. I was more surprised than anybody, I promise you. It supported a shocking number of pennies. If all four corners of my bridge had actually touched the ground, there's no telling how well it might have done. When all the student bridges had been tested, our teacher brought out 2 bridges she had constructed herself to show us, and she talked about their relative strengths and weaknesses. One of the bridges she brought out was one of those compact triangle truss bridges, much like the very best bridges some of my classmates had constructed. But the other bridge was a bridge featuring a central arch.
Not nearly as large and unwieldly and poorly constructed as my arch bridge, but the same idea. And she talked about the surprising stability and strength of that shape, and its ability to evenly distribute heavy loads across a span. The oldest known bridge still in use anywhere in the world is an arch bridge in Izmir, Turkey. It was first constructed in 850 BC, nearly 3000 years ago. Still gets used every day today. In Dubai, a new arch bridge is being constructed to span a distance of more than 600 meters. Despite all the advances in modern technology and materials, the simple arch continues to be one of the sturdiest, strongest, most reliable support structures in all of architecture.
We have arched windows and doorways all over our church. You are all surrounded by them on every wall of this room now. And the strength of any arch lies in the keystone. The last piece to go into place at the top of the shape. Until that last piece is in place, the entire arch will collapse in on itself. The arch is a self supporting design element. It has no structure, no support at all, until it is completed. But once the keystone is in place, right at the top, and in the very center, it holds everything else together.
Today is Ascension Sunday. The Sunday 40 days after Easter when Christ assumes his eternal place in heaven, on Ascension Sunday, the keystone gets put into place right at the top and in the very center. And when Christ is in the proper place in our world and in our lives, everything else somehow seems to hold together. Life can feel a little bit like a like a juggling act sometimes. Today is Mother's Day. Moms are great jugglers. The the best jugglers in the world aren't circus performers. The best jugglers in the world are busy moms. Work calendars and kids' schedules, and and send this into class with that kid and show up at preschool for this event. And tomorrow is superhero day in this class and cowboy day in that class. And don't put peanut butter in that lunch. There's an allergy in that classroom. And soccer practice is canceled today, but their dance recital is on, and family is coming into town, and what will we feed them? And there's church on Wednesday night and how can we possibly have so much laundry and I have an important meeting tomorrow and I hope the 3 year old will take a nap so I can focus on that meeting and she doesn't pop screaming into the background of my video call with my boss.
Moms are the best jugglers. But as you get more and more balls in the air, all of us feel like we just have to keep going because if you miss 1 ball or stop even for a second, you feel as if you'll drop them all. Everything will just come crashing down around you in a heap at your feet, just a pile of stones. But here's the secret of Ascension Sunday. It doesn't all depend on you, moms, to hold it all together. When Christ is in the right place in our lives, right at the top and in the center of who we are. You can just stop juggling, and it will all still hold together.
Maybe even with an elegant simplicity and a surprising amount of strength, like the humble arch. Because it doesn't all depend on you. When Christ is at the top and in the center of who you are, all of the weight of the various abilities seems somehow to be evenly distributed across the span. You discover maybe that you're not as vulnerable to single points of failure as you thought you were. You discover that you're stronger and more resilient than even you had ever imagined. Psalm 93 says this, the Lord reigns. He is robed in majesty.
Established, firm and secure. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea. The lord on high is mighty. On Ascension Sunday, we remember that Christ is the keystone. He holds all things together. Even your juggling act. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, we do celebrate with you this morning, the day when you took your rightful and eternal place in heaven. Seated at the right hand of the father, to rule forever over all things in heaven and on earth, even to rule over our very lives. To take a place in each of our lives that holds it all together for us.
Help us to put you and keep you in that place. And remind us that it doesn't all depend on us, that you do hold all things together, even us. We offer our prayer and our whole selves to you this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. The cover art on your worship guide on Mother's Day is from one of our mothers, Sara Arnall. The painting now sits in our newly dedicated renovated prayer chapel. I wanna call call your attention to it for one reason. The radiance of the sun at the top of that painting, if you'll look closely, is made up of carefully folded and painted hymns torn out of old hymnals. And if you'll look even more closely, many of those hymns are the very same hymns we've sung and worshiped today.
Thank you, Sara, for your contribution to our worship this morning. I want to thank all of you for being present in worship. Hope every last one of us leaves this hour of worship encouraged and emboldened to be faithful representatives both of our church and of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:14:16] Steve Cothran:
Having been reminded on this Ascension Sunday that whether we come to God willingly or we're dragged kicking and screaming, God calls us all beloved children. So go now strengthened by the knowledge that Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith, our keystone, holds not only our world altogether, but you.
