Does my past define me?

As soon as I walked into my daughter (Kailyn’s) room last night, she announced “Always and Forever!” 

 

If you were not here on Sunday or were serving in the children’s ministry and did not get a chance to listen to the sermon, I would encourage you to listen to it online.  You can find it at www.westk.org.

This past Sunday was the second week in our sermon series Galatians 3: The Performance Trap – we dove into Galatians 3:6-9 and debunking the lie of your past defines you.

I love that in the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 4) and Mark (chapter 1) when Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James and John, it is recorded that he says, “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”  Come follow me… and “I will”, not you will, not your momma will, not your church will, not anything else.  He says, “I will make you.”

This is opposite of how teachers would select their students in the culture that Jesus lived.  In fact, back in that day, every Jewish boy would study the Torah (first 5 books of the Old Testament) and memorize it in hopes of becoming a disciple of a Rabbi.  And when they were ready, they would go to the rabbi and ask  if they could be their disciples.  Here is the kicker, unless you were best and the local rabbi thought you could do what he was doing, you were sent home to finish learning your father’s trade.  Unless the Rabbi thought you could already handle his teachings and instructions, you were not accepted to be under his personal teachings.  In a round-a-bout way, unless your past already positioned you to be a disciple, you would not be accepted.

Having been raised in this culture, these Jesus disciples would have went to synagogue and studied the Torah and at some point had a Rabbi tell him you don’t have it in you to be my disciple.  You cannot do what I’m doing because your past did not position you to receive my instructions.  We know this is true  because of what Peter was doing when Jesus calls him… He is fishing in his father’s boat.

As a teen they had been told “you cannot follow me because you don’t have the ability to do what I do.”  But a few years later when Jesus comes calling, Jesus seeks them out.  They doesn’t seek Jesus out, Jesus seeks them and calls them while they are fishing. 

Have you ever been around someone who has been fishing all day?  How about someone who has been fishing all day half naked, out in the sun, with no deodorant?  Because this is Peter and the other guys.  And Jesus calls THEM.  Jesus seeks THEM.  And he says come follow me and I will make you a fisher of men.  Jesus calls them in all their filth and nowhere does he say clean up your mess.  Nowhere does he say wash up and act the part.  He says come exactly as you are, regardless of your problems, regardless of your past. In essence, he says, “I’m not concerned about who you used to be, I’m not even concerned on who you think you could be, because I will make you a fisher of men.”

That is why I love the church so much.  We are not a perfect church because we are not perfect people.  We got real people, so that means we got people with problems.  We got people with financial problems, marriage problems, relationship problems, identity problems.  We got people who have a past full of sin.  We have the Triple A sinners (recovering alcoholics, addicts, and abusers).  We got people who have been abused, people who struggle to forgive, people whose current circumstances are a result of either their sin or the sin of someone else.

We are a church of messed up people… and I love this church… and so does Jesus…in fact Jesus loved the messed up people in this church so much he was willing to leave heaven and come to earth and to die on a cross so that our past, our problems, our circumstance and situations, the choices we have made and the things that were done to us don’t have to be the things that define us.  So our past doesn’t have to define our future. 

Ronald Rolheiser, in his book the Holy Longing, puts it this way.  He writes: “To be connected with the church is to be associated with scoundrels, warmongers, fakes, child-molesters, murderers, adulterers, and hypocrites of every description.  It also, at the same time identifies you with saints and the finest persons of heroic soul within every time, country, race, and gender.  To be a member of the church is to carry the mantle of both the worst sin and the finest heroism of soul… because the church always looks exactly as it looked at the original crucifixion… God hung among thieves.”

 

Galatians 3 series

Yesterday we had an awesome church service.  It’s only Monday and I can wait to get together with the WestK family next week as we respond to God’s greatness in corporate worship. 

 

Yesterday we started our new sermon series where we’re going through Galatians 3.  If you want a title to this series, I am unofficially calling it the “Performance Trap.”  We started it off by covering Galatians 3:1-5 and the performance trap of: you must become a better you.  If you didn’t get a chance to hear the message yesterday, I would encourage you to listen to it online at WestK.org.  A summary of yesterday’s message – God’s love is not dependent on your performance and it is not achieved, but rather received.

 

This next week we will be covering Galatians 3:6-9.  The message will be surrounding the lie that “your past defines you.”  I am very excited about this series and what God is going to do with it as we become saturated with Galatians 3!

 

Over the past 2 weeks, I have had a couple of different people approach me with the idea of doing a finance class that would lay out a biblical model to our finances.  I have also had a couple of people ask me about tithing.  About 5 years ago, a number of members of WestK went through the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University.  This is an awesome program that really lays out a solid financial plan for people of all walks of life and levels of income.  It approaches it from a biblical prospective and has helps thousands of people to not only get out of debt, but to no longer feel like a slave to their finances.  It is a 9 week program and costs $100 per family.  I know that $100 is a lot of money, but I have never known someone who has gone through this course and regretted it.  In fact, most people who go through this course will tell you that it is the best investment they ever made.  I wonder how many people would be interested in doing this.  If this is something you would attend on a Sunday night, please let me know.  This would be something that we would start in the Fall.  

 

Don’t forget to keep up-to-date with all the events and ministry happenings that are coming up.  You can find that information on the website and in the church bulletins.

 

Coming this week:

July 24^th – Youth Group at the Wehner’s home in Schoolcraft 6:30-8pm

July 27^th - Men’s ministry breakfast @ WestK, 9am

July 27^th – Sims Family (Nic, Susannah, and Violet) are moving here!

 

 

MCSC

Usually we have a guest preacher come in and fill the pulpit when I am gone, but yesterday was the first Sunday in almost a year that I was at WestK and I didn’t preach.  The reason was I spent this past week at Michiana Christian Service Camp with a handful of our students and another 60+ high school students.  As part of the faculty for this week of camp, my roles included: leading a small group, teach a spiritual formation class, take part of all the activities, facilitating discussions, listening to students, giving spiritual guidance, and participating in all three of the daily worship services.  We also spent multiple hours in quiet time which included a devotional guide and journaling.  Basically, this week was very much physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausting. 

With all the activities and things that faculty do during this week, by far my favorite part was spending time speaking God’s word into the lives of the students.  I had multiple conversations covering a large variety of topics with students in which they shared their story and were looking for guidance.  It is in those times that I love to take students to the scriptures and point out what principles or promises that Jesus has given us.  One conversation I had on Friday was with a girl that had just graduated and she was struggling with a couple of decisions that she knew she needed to make.  I asked her if she knew what the bible had to say about her situation and she did.  She was even able to tell me where the references were in the New Testament, but she was still struggling with what to do.  I told her she had 4 choices: obedience, delayed obedience, partial obedience, or disobedience. 

Before I asked her which choice she was making and what choice she needed to make, I also told her that only one of the four was full obedience.  See, Jesus only calls us to full obedience.  He never calls us to partial obedience.  Nor does he call us to delayed obedience.  When the Spirit of God prompts us to act, it is time to act.  Another way to put it, partial and delayed obedience is disobedience.  Look at Matthew 18 when Peter approached Jesus to ask how many times he should forgive.  Peter asks if he should forgive up to seven times.  His request seems fairly impressive, but Jesus responds in verse 22 that he should forgive seventy times seven.  Jesus’ point is that we are to completely forgive because that is how the Father has forgiven those of us who are “in Christ.”  When Jesus calls the rich young ruler in Mark 10 to sell all that he owns and give to the poor and then to come follow him, what he was saying is that when we choose to follow Christ, we follow him completely.  Also, in Luke 9:57-62 we see another question about following Jesus.  In this section of scripture someone tells Jesus that he wants to follow him but he needs to take care of something (read it if you want to know what he wanted to do).  Jesus basically tells him that the time to follow is now.  Delayed obedience is not complete obedience.

So how are you responding to Jesus today?  What is he calling you to do or be?  Are you obeying him, or has your responses been delayed or less than complete?  Only in full obedience do we experience the fullness of life that Jesus has called us to.

Taking Next Steps

Sunday was AWESOME!!!

I never get tired of saying that.  We just finished up our sermon series “Unnecessary Braking” in which we looked at 5 things that can act as an unnecessary brake in experiencing the fullness of life that Jesus has called us too.  If you missed this past week, or any week in this series, you can listen to it online at http://westk.org/grow/sermons-online.html. 

 

In case you were not here this past Sunday or left right after service, we took a vote of affirmation to hire Nic Sims as our next minister on staff and the vote passed.  Nic will plan on being here at church with his family on July 28^th and officially starting as staff on July 29^th.  We are very excited to have him, his wife Susannah, and their baby Violet join our church family.  If you would like to send him a note of encouragement you can email him at: nsims86@gmail.com.  Or if you want you can attempt to friend him on Facebook.  I know he and his wife are super excited to start this next page in their family journey and I also very much look forward to doing life and ministry with the Sims!

 

I would encourage you to not miss next Sunday as Jim Matthew’s will be preaching God’s word to us.  Jim is the Director of Michiana Christian Service Camp and has filled the pulpit for us before.  He is a great communicator and has a deep passion for God’s people.  We are blessed to have him join us next week!

 

In yesterday’s sermon, I skipped a small section of scripture do time restraints, but check out 1 Samuel 17:45-47.  I could do a whole sermon just on these 3 verses.  I love that in these passages David tells Goliath “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”  He ends this passage not by saying everyone will cheer me or glorify me, but by telling Goliath that everyone will know that it was God who saves because the battle belongs to the Lord.

 

As we all take next steps in our faith and spiritual walk with Jesus, know that when we face challenges the battle is not yours.  The battle belongs to the Lord and it is the Lord who saves.  God does not lead us to next steps of faith so we can be defeated.  He leads us to next steps of faith because he has already conquered and defeated and wants us to experience him in greater ways.  Remember, trusting God always leads to a fullness of life!