South Fellowship Church

TRANSFORMED | Transformed View of God | Ephesians 3:14-21 | Week 7

The topic I'm looking at is a transformed view of God.  That's a big topic to take.  My hope is that we'll be able to come up with some kind of a working definition that may kind of stretch us a bit; we've got to be stretched when we're talking about God.  I believe very strongly, as I've been working on this sermon, that this view that we have of God influences the way we view life.  I think it's pretty important that we have a good view of God, if we're going to be stepping into life and meeting the challenges we'll face day by day.  
We're going to be looking at Ephesians 3:14-20.  For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge---that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen...
 
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TRANSFORMED | Transformed View of God | Ephesians 3:14-21 | Week 7
Speaker: Pastor Dan Elliott
South Fellowship Church
Based in Littleton, CO 

TRANSFORMED | Kingdom Refreshments | Romans 15:23-33 | Week 6

Toward the end of July I was approached by a gentleman in this church that I did not know well, who asked me how my family was doing. I shared with him the excitement that my wife is pregnant with our fourth, and that Jesus definitely doesn’t love me because it is another boy and I wanted a little girl. The man (whom I won’t mention by name because he’d get mad) piped in and very caringly asked, “How is your wife? I remember that you guys have had some issues with pregnancies in the past and how is this one going?” Immediately my heart was warmed, this man had remembered something from over two years ago about our family's journey. I was glad to share with him that this pregnancy is going well so far in every regard, except that it was just so hot in July, and we don’t have AC in our home so that makes my wife uncomfortable. The man nodded and we went about our days. The next day, the same man called and arranged a meeting with me at the coffee shop. I walked in and he handed me a gift card with a considerable amount of money on it and said, “Go get yourself a portable AC unit for your bedroom so you and your wife can sleep peacefully.” Needless to say, this man’s gift was and has continued to be incredibly refreshing for us. Incidentally, my wife and I also happen to be lacking a private jet to travel the world if anyone is feeling extra generous this morning...

TRANSFORMED | Transformed: Body | Romans 12:1 | Week 5

Uuugghhh! For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  (Romans 7:18)  For I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  (Romans 7:16-17)  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  (Romans 7:22-23)
Here we are in a series of transformation and I've got the wonderful topic of the body.  How many of us feel the same type of angst that the Apostle Paul felt in those verses?  Just like Larry gave us this wholeness wheel {Spirit--Mind--Body--Emotion--Relationships--Vocation--Resources} at the beginning [of the series], if I were to take a look at that and talk to God about how am I doing with my body in this journey of transformation, I feel some of that angst!  It's interesting that over the last couple of weeks of preparing this message, I feel like God has turned up the volume on my hunger, and I've become real aware of that.  I have hunger!  I know that's silly, but I think that sometimes I fall asleep to my body and I don't even realize I have these kind of urges or cravings.  As God's been showing me that I have this kind of hunger, you know where I go to fulfill it?  The donut shop!  Because fall is amazing....I go get a half dozen donuts and I polish them off throughout the day.  Great!  I'm doing awesome!  At night I get the munchies.  There's a lot of stuff in my refrigerator, but I'm really in the mood for salt.  I'll polish off half the bag of chips.  I love the fall and I need a boost of caffeine and get my brain awake, so I'm going to go to Starbucks and get my Pumpkin Spice Latte and I'm going to satisfy my craving.  God's been showing me that I have these cravings, these yearnings, these urges, and it's really easy to go and satisfy them myself.  It's easy because it's accessible.  I've got food in my cupboards and refrigerator.  I've got a car and can drive to the restaurant of my choosing or the store and fill whatever that craving is.  So I'm susceptible to following the cravings my body has and trying to satisfy them myself...

TRANSFORMED | Transformational Community | Gen. 3:6-19, Matt. 12:46-50 | Week 4

Some of you may know that my wife Heidi and I used to live overseas for most of a decade.  The question we're asked the most is "What do you miss about living overseas?"  It's really easy to answer that because we miss the community.  Whenever you leave someplace you tend to idealize it, so I realize that could be part of it.  But we were, as a foreign community, several hundred in a city of several million, so you immediately had this island mentality----we kind of have to take care of one another.  We had a shared purpose.  We were involved with different works, but almost all of us were there to encourage the local population in the name of Jesus; to help them in practical ways and do other works.  There was a sense of being known and needed.  As one of the docs in the community, I would often get phone calls....What do I do with these symptoms?  Where should I go? Do I need to leave?   Probably what I like the most more is that the communities were overlapping.  If I go to work, I don't see the same people there that I see here on Sunday, and I certainly don't see them in my neighborhood; they're all very disjointed.  But there, I'd see a lot of the same people, whether I was at the clinic, or at International School, or at fellowship.  It was a sense of being known and being a part of things.  
As I thought about that I realized that it wasn't like that at the beginning.  I went overseas when I was in my early 40's, so I had roles that I played, I had some titles [here].  Then all of a sudden I found myself living in a community where I couldn't speak to most people around me, at the beginning, but even those people I could speak with didn't know who I was.  It was very unsettling.  How about you?  Have you had a similar experience?  Maybe you've recently relocated, or maybe your life circumstances have changed in such a way that you suddenly feel like you're not known.  That raises the question--Why do we get so much joy when we know we're in good community?  Is community optional?  We've all got apps---NextDoor, South app; I have this great Peak Finder app to use while hiking.  Is community like an app that you can add on and it makes life better?  Or, is there something so important and fundamental to who we are that if we're not in community, we miss out and the community we should be a part of misses out?...

TRANSFORMED | The Mind and the Heart and Fits and Starts | Romans 12:2 | Week 3

We're in a series called "Transformed" and the last few weeks have been journeying together toward biblical wholeness.   We’ve talked about how the Scriptures call us to be transformed, and that we are being transformed into the wholeness of Jesus.  I love what professor, pastor, and author Robert Mulholland says:  "The Christian journey, therefore, is an intentional and continual commitment to a lifelong process of growth toward wholeness in Christ."  We put up this slide a couple of weeks ago to show you that our lives are very complex, there's multiple parts to our lives.  Even though we're complex and have a lot of different parts, the good news is that the Gospel has the power to impact far more than just our relationship with God or our standing with God.  The Gospel should impact all of our lives.  So in this series, we’re looking at different parts of our lives that should be transformed by the power of the Gospel.  Last week, Dr. Wenig shared with us about transformed relationships as an area God wants to heal.  Relationships are currency of life, aren't they?  Almost everything you think of that you do involves relationship of some kind...  
 
Helping people live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.
 
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TRANSFORMED | The Mind and the Heart and Fits and Starts | Romans 12:2 | Week 3
Speaker: Pastor Larry Boatright
South Fellowship Church
Based in Littleton, CO 

TRANSFORMED | Transformed Relationships | Philippians 2:5-11 | Week 2

As Pastor Larry said we're going to continue our series on "Transformed," and we're going to look at an issue that's hugely important in my life and your life....and that's relationships.  I'm going to ask you to join me in prayer and then we're going to unpack a variety of Scripture to see what the Lord would show us today on this crucial part of our lives.  So let's bow together in prayer:  Father, we thank you so much for your compassion and mercy, the grace you've poured out on us in Jesus.  Lord, wherever we're at today, whatever situation we've entered this auditorium today---emotionally, or spiritually, or physically, financially, relationally---Lord, I pray that you would come and meet with us in an individual way today.  Lord, we need your grace, we need your guidance, and so as we look in your Word today, from a variety of angles, Lord, I pray that by your Spirit, by your power, you would instruct us, you would guide us, you'd teach us and encourage us.  Lord, we want to be whole people, we know that's your call, so we ask for your help in that process.  We ask for this time now, that you would be glorified and we'd be blessed.  We pray this in the great name of our Savior, Jesus.  Amen...

TRANSFORMED | An Invitation to Transformation | Romans 12 | Week 1

I went to Florida last week.  I used to live in Florida and one of my favorite beaches is called Clearwater Beach. It's consistently rated in the top beaches in the country.  I parked my car and immediately went to the beach, dropped my towel, and got into the water.  It felt so amazing!  I bobbed and floated a bit, and then I saw these two guys on a sandbar.  A sandbar is sand you can stand on out in the water; it's almost like walking on water. It was about 100 yards out there and I've swum that a bazillion times.  I'm a pretty good swimmer so I took off.  I'm working and working to get out to the sandbar.  Normally it takes three or four minutes to get out there, but I don't think I noticed how hard the waves were coming in that day.  The waves were relentless and pounding on me as I was going out.  I didn't notice how hard I was working until I started feeling pretty tired; like my whole body tired, like my arms tired, and I've never really felt that way before.  It's a little bit scary to be out in the ocean and feel that.  It had been about fifteen minutes.  The guys had swum off the sandbar, so I had lost my frame of reference of where I was going.  I was so tired but I thought I'd better check and see how close I was to the sandbar.  I popped my head above the waves and it was still a little ways out; I was discouraged because I wasn't really getting anywhere.  I got nervous because my arms were tired and my heart was really pounding.  I was gasping for air and I was breathing in salt water.  My lungs were burning.  So I had to make a decision, do I continue working and trying to get to the sandbar or do I turn around and head for the shore?  I decided that I was trying so hard to get to the sandbar, but I just wasn't making it, so I decided to go back.  I turned around and the shore was SO FAR AWAY.  My lungs were burning, my heart was pounding, my arms were exhausted.  I started to get a little bit scared because I realized I'm just a few moments away from running out of gas and I don't know what to do.  The thought occurred to me, "It's very possible I'm going to drown, because I don't think I have what it takes to get back to shore."  There's no lifeguard; there's nobody close to me.  I had to fight for every breath.  I kept swimming but I was slowing down rapidly.  Just when I thought I couldn't go any farther,  I decided to check and see if I could touch the bottom. And thank God, I could stand on my tiptoes, so I used my last bit of energy to get out of the water, and I was completely and totally exhausted.  The funny thing is, at the same time I thought I might drown, I thought to myself, “If I don’t die from this, I could use this as a sermon illustration.”  I swear I thought that!  So here it is...
 
Helping people live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.
 
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TRANSFORMED | An Invitation to Transformation | Romans 12 | Week 1
Speaker: Pastor Larry Boatright
South Fellowship Church
Based in Littleton, CO 

Camping Under the Clouds | Numbers 9:15-23

As a young boy, I remember my dad taking me camping in the Nantahala Forest in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Now if you’re a rugged Colorado adventurer, you might turn your nose up at our itinerary for the weekend, but to me this was adventure.  A weekend with my dad in the woods.  I’d get to ask him life’s questions, we’d share some holy moments, and he’d share his heart, and maybe I’d share mine. We would make a couple meals over a fire, camp under the night sky, and then in the morning, brave the class 2 rapids of the Nantahala River, in our own personal rafts called "duckies."  As it turns out however, we were not the only ones spending the night in the Nantahala Forest that weekend.  Word had made its way around the camp that it was very likely that an out-of-town guest had also decided to make camp in those woods that night.  Eric Rudolph, top ten on the FBI’s Most Wanted, the Olympic Park Bomber, who, as time would tell, would last for the next five years hiding out in the Kudzu-laden forests of the Nantahala, had made camp somewhere near ours.  Now I was twelve years old. This was no measurable threat.  I owned a Swiss army knife and knew how to whittle. I was not fine.  I was afraid. I didn’t deserve this!  I wondered why God and my dad had brought me to the woods to meet my demise.  I slept with both eyes open and I needed the sun to come up a little sooner than was planned for the next day.  I wanted to get the heck out of that camp, get in that raft, paddle as fast as I could, and get to where we were going.  And looking back, I think I missed out on some holy moments with my dad. 
I wonder what life would’ve been like as a young Levite boy, traveling with the Israelites in the desert on the way to the Promised Land.  They were camping out.  If you have a Bible today you can turn with me to the book of Numbers 9:15.  And as we jump into this journey with the Israelites today I was reminded of a quote from one of my favorite pastors, Mark Dever, of Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington, DC. --- "The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed." In another book he wrote:  "The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed."    Whether that saying is original to him or not, I don't know, but I know that he's echoing the words of Paul in Romans 15:4 -- For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope...  
 
Helping people live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.
 
 
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Camping Under the Clouds | Numbers 9:15-23
Speaker: Pastor Josh Suddath
South Fellowship Church
Based in Littleton, CO 

We Are South | Exodus 35

April 22, 2019, started out like any other Monday, post Easter.  We had a fun time as a community, leading up to Easter.  We did an Easter Art Show that was amazing.  We had over 1400 people coming to our campus over Easter weekend.  The Monday started out with me having a lot of energy, a lot of excitement over all that God had done, but our team was a little bit tired.  The other thing that was kind of at play for me is that for the few days leading up to Easter, I had some kind of weird things going on with my heart.  My heart rate was fluctuating some and elevated at times when it shouldn't be.  I had a little bit of tightness in my chest, but I tried not to make too much of it, like it would just "go away," right?  I went through Monday and did my thing, but when evening came I wasn't feeling too well.  The tightness was pretty solid in my chest and my pulse rate was fluctuating, so I did what most men do, I hoped it would go away.  I tried to go to sleep, but it didn't feel right and like something was off.  So I did what you should NEVER, EVER do late at night when you think something is wrong with you.....I went on WEBMD!!  And of course, all signs were pointing to a heart attack.  I began to be very anxious, and was afraid to go to sleep, thinking I might not wake up again.  My wife had taken her sleeping meds, and I knew she couldn’t drive me, so I chewed on what to do.  And so finally, I texted my mother-in-law Connie, who lives with us, and said, “I think I’m having a heart attack and I need you to drive me to the emergency room.” She took me, and the moment I told the hospital staff, “I’m having chest pains,” they whisked me back to a room and a whole host of people surrounded me, hooking me up to wires and all sorts of things. And within about 30 seconds, the doctor was in there.  I just want to give you some free advice: no matter what your ailment, you can skip the long wait in the ER if you simply tell them you are having chest pains! Finally, after about $10,000 worth of tests, the nurse came in.  I gulped and waited for the bad news, assuming it was open heart surgery time.  She said, “You’re most definitely not having a heart attack.”  She could have told me she just got back from vacationing on the moon and I would have believed her just as much, because WebMD told me I was having a heart attack.  The doctor came in and told me the bad news...I was having a panic attack.  That was kind of embarrassing.  I didn't believe it.  The doctor said all my symptoms were due to stress. I’m not one to really have anxiety or to feel stress, so I didn’t recognize the symptoms in my body...

The Parables of Jesus | An Invitation to Unravel | Matthew 9:14-17 | Week 7

Pastor Yvonne Biel  ---  Have you ever felt like your life was unraveling?  As if all the threads that held your life together at one point were coming undone.  I've been there.  I woke up at age 27 in my high school bedroom looking at a calendar with absolutely nothing to do.  I was thinking back on a time in my life where Jesus seemed to make sense, and I knew who God made me to be.  I was living as a missionary in Vienna, Austria, teaching students the Bible and they were coming to me with their questions about Him.  Each day I was praying the gospel over me.  I was so confident and I knew who I was and I knew who God created me to be.  But, I was back in Michigan longing for some answers.  I found myself listening to an album called "The Undoing."  It felt like all these ways that I interacted with God were coming undone.  I picked up a book called "Thrashing About with God" because that what it felt like.  I didn't understand, necessarily, how to interact with Him, and I felt like He was calling me into a new season, to just learn how to BE with Him.  But I didn't know how to do that.  I just really hoped, and I wished, and I wanted to go back to a season where things made sense, where I knew how to interact with Him.  But I found myself in this place of unraveling.  
Maybe you've found yourself there.  Maybe it was a season where you left your structure, your home, and your community environment and went off to college.  Then you start asking all these questions about faith, and about who you are, and what you're suppose to do with the rest of your life.  That can be a place of unraveling.  Maybe it was in the middle of your life where there's a death of a loved one, and you don't know how to act, or be, or function without them.  Maybe it's a loss of a job; you were so confident in that place and now it's gone.  Maybe it happens even later in your life and you've finished your season of work and you entered into a new season called retirement, and you think, "God, I don't know what to do now and it's not what I used to do..."