South Fellowship Church

Easter Sunday | Green-Thumbed God | John 19 & 20

Welcome to our celebration of the resurrection.  My name's Ryan.  We get to celebrate the reason for hope today.  That's why we gather.  A few weeks ago, my friend, who's also a pastor in the area, Nirup, sent me a text message.  It said: What's your morning look like MC? {Because people call me MC.  Just kidding, they don't.  I don't know why he said that?}  Have you ever read a text message, got the words right, but the intent wrong?  I wrote back to my buddy Nirup and said this:  I get up at 5:45 and go on a run (treadmill in the basement).  Then read scripture and pray.  Then wake the kids up and get them ready to go on the bus.  On late start days, which is Wednesday, I have time for additional reading. You?  He responded to me:  That was very descriptive.  I more meant yo dawg my meeting canceled.  You bored and wanna grab coffee later.   He's right, I was descriptive.  I broke it down on days.  I gave timestamps.  Wow!   I had the words right, but I had the meaning wrong.
I think when we hear resurrection, we have the words right, but we might get the meaning wrong.  I think a lot of us, we hear the word resurrection, and we think, this is the good news, we get to go to heaven when we die.  That's a part of the story, but it's a really small part of the story of resurrection.  That's getting the text message just a little bit wrong.  What I'd like to do this morning is look at John's gospel; if you have your Bible, you can open it to John 19.  We're going to let John, one of Jesus's good friends, sort of reframe that word resurrection for us.  Maybe build it out a little bit.  Maybe we can get the text message right...

Jonah | Swallowing The Story | Jonah 4:6-11 | Week 6

We're jumping into Jonah 4, if you have your Bible, you can flip there, swipe there, click there, however you want to get there this morning. It's the final message in the series of Jonah as we continue to journey towards the cross and the resurrection. We've been utilizing this book of Jonah to lead us to Easter. We've been saying, throughout this series, that part of our goal has been to rescue Jonah from Veggie Tales and the flannel board. We often view this as a kids' story. If you've been coming over the last few weeks, I hope you realize, by this point, this is certainly applicable to kids, but it's no kids' story, is it? There's a lot of depth, and a lot of beauty, and a lot of subtlety and nuance, and sort of hints and winks and nods in the book of Jonah. It's intended for adults.
The story of Jonah is the story of a resentful prophet who encounters a relentless God. In week one, we said Jonah could be split in half. The first half of Jonah gives us one message and the second half of Jonah builds on that and gives us another message. In the first half of Jonah, Jonah shows us what it's like to run from God through outright, willful disobedience, doesn't he? Jonah is a prophet of God and gets a call from God. He's told to go and preach against Nineveh, that their wickedness has risen up before God. God's calling him to go to Nineveh, which is about 500 plus miles east of where he was. Jonah hops on a ship and heads to Tarshish. Jonah is outright disobedient and saying to God, "God, I know what you've asked me to do, but thanks but no thanks." You'll remember that we were wondering throughout the entire first few chapters of Jonah, why is Jonah running, and the narrator strings us along and doesn't give us the answer until we get to chapter 4. Jonah said to God, "I knew it! I knew you were slow to anger. I knew you're merciful and abounding in steadfast love. I knew it! My worst nightmare's come true. That's what you're like." In his disobedience, we see that God pursued Jonah through a storm, through a fish that vomited him out onto dry ground... 

Jonah | God in Mind | Jonah 4:1-4 | Week 5

This is our fifth Sunday in a series that we're doing on the book of Jonah, that's guiding us through the Lenten season.  Jonah's a short little book in the minor prophets; he's minor, not because he's unimportant, but because he's short.  The book is short.  It's significant but it's only four chapters, and it packs a punch. 
Let me share with you a little nugget from the Paulson household.  Most weekends, my kids will ask to all spend the night in a room together and to do a sleepover.  Most of the time, Kelly and I say no because we want to remain sane, but there are moments of weakness and we'll let them sleep in the same room together.  A few times, we walk by the door and sort of listen.  They play this game, "I have an animal in my mind...."  The game is that one of them thinks of an animal and the other two ask yes or no questions and try to guess what the animal is.  I thought, in light of what we're going to be talking about this morning, that it would be fun to play that game together.  I have an animal in my mind and I would like you to ask yes or no questions to try to identify said animal.  Will it fit in a bread box?  I could fit it in a bread box.  Does it have a tail?  It does have a tail.  Does it say meow?  It does say meow, especially when you.....{Ryan makes kicking motion with his foot}.  Any guesses?  A cat.  Yes, it is a cat...  

Jonah | House Rules | Jonah 3:1-10 | Week 4

We're going to be camping out in Jonah 3 today.  Let me just give you a bird's-eye view of where we've been. The book of Jonah is a story of a portion of the life of Jonah, and you sort of need one step and one phase to build on the other.  Hop online to fill yourself in on the blanks I'll leave out today.  
Jonah is a prophet of God who prophesied in roughly the eighth century BC.  He was a contemporary of Amos and Hosea.  They were both prophesying at the same time.  Amos and Hosea had a hard word for Israel.  They said that Jeroboam II was using his militaristic might and power in order to expand the empire and they were not okay with that.  Jonah, however, was just fine with that.  He wanted to see Israel expand at any extent and in any degree and he was happy with however that happened.  This is the book we have of Jonah's "prophecy;" in many ways the book is more prophetic than Jonah.  We're going to see that today as it comes to light...  

Jonah | Belly of a Fish | Jonah 2:1-10 | Week 3

We've been in a series in the last few weeks going through the book of Jonah.  Jonah is the fifth of the minor prophets.  He prophesied in the latter half of the eighth century BC, so a long time.  Jonah is unique because it's mostly a narrative; he's not making big proclamations and all these sorts of things, it's telling us an interesting story.  Hosea and Amos were also prophets at the same time, and in all three of those books there's this running theme of God showing God's mercy to other nations.  God calls Jonah to go share this good news of this mercy with the Ninevites. The Ninevites were bad people.  They were often brutal, they disregarded human life and all these sorts of things.  The whole book is really about God's extravagant mercy.  
Jonah was disgusted at the idea that God would show mercy to people that Jonah felt didn't deserve it.  So, when God calls Jonah, he runs.  He pays the fare to get on this ship, and as he gets on the ship, he goes down into the belly of the ship and he falls asleep.  God sends a huge storm, and the sailors realize that it was because of Jonah that this storm was happening, so they were freaking out and woke him up.  Ironically, the sailors, who didn't know the God of Jonah, acted more in line with God than Jonah did.  They asked him to appeal to the Lord, his God.  He didn't.  He was in full-on rebellion, so he suffers the consequences of running.  He was tossed overboard and sinks to the bottom of the sea.  You know the story.  Here's the thing that's so ironic, God does for Jonah what God wanted to do for the Ninevites through Jonah.  Pretty wild, huh?  So, just as Ryan shared a few weeks ago, we see a resentful prophet meeting a relentless God.  That's the story of Jonah...

Jonah | Prophetic Pagans | Jonah 1:4-17 | Week 2

Storms are an interesting deal, aren't they?  We're going to read about one in the life and story of Jonah this morning.  The book of Jonah is literary genius.  Please don't hear me saying it's fairy tale, or parable, but it's written geniusly.  It's intended to be funny.  It's prophetic, which means before it's parable, before it's literal, before it's either of those things, Jonah has a message for us.  It's prophetic.  That's the type of book it is in the library of the Scriptures.  
Jonah's going to encounter a storm.  I read about this storm in 1850, that battered against the northern island of Scotland.  The tide rose and then receded, and the storm revealed these ruins that were underneath.  Ruins that were buried underneath these grassy hills and nobody near they were there.  I think it's similar to the way storms work in your life and the way storms work in mine.  We often think the storm creates something.  I'd like to propose to you today that the storm typically doesn't create anything, it just reveals what's already there.  It reveals what's underneath.  It reveals the things that we're maybe good at keeping hidden, on normal days, but when the storm rolls in, and we get the call from the doctor about our health, or the call about the Stock Market crashing, or any other thing like that, when the storm rolls in, it has this tendency to reveal what we're actually holding onto.  It has a tendency of revealing what's underneath it all...  

Jonah | Life on the Run | Jonah 1:1-3 | Week 1

Over the next six weeks, we're going to have the chance to journey with Jonah, to allow Jonah to be our guide through the Lenten season. Our guide to the cross. Our guide to the resurrection. Metaphorically speaking, we're going to take Jonah's hand and we're going to go for a little bit of a walk. My guess is, even if you're not a follower of Jesus and you're here today, even if you don't know much about the Bible, you've heard about Jonah. Turns out the story about a person getting eaten by a fish and living for three days in its belly is ubiquitous. News about that travels. My guess is you have an opinion about the book of Jonah.
I can remember being a college pastor and walking onto a college campus in southern California, and having someone come up to me. We started a conversation about life, and faith, and Jesus, and it was almost like they hit pause and said, "You don't really believe in the whole Jonah story, do you?" How do you answer somebody who has no interest in faith, has no background in faith or maybe stepped away from faith? What do you say? Here's what I said, "Well, I believe that Jesus of Nazareth died, and was buried in the earth for three days, and walked out of the grave, so I guess believing that somebody survived in the belly of a fish isn't any harder than that." My goal was let me get to Jesus as quick as I can... 

Unexpected | Matthew 4:12-23

{Ryan Paulson:} Our teaching text is Matthew 4:12-23 today.  If you have your Bible, you can open up there.  I'm going to read it, then Larry Boatright is going to come teach it.  When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee.  Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali---to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:  "Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles---the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."  From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."  As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew.  They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will send you out to fish for people."  At once they left their nets and followed him.  Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John.  They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets.  Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.  Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.  This is the Word of God.
{Larry Boatright:}  Good morning.  Today is the last Sunday before we begin the season of Lent, as Ryan sort of shared.  It's really a season where we acknowledge our own mortality.  It's designed to help us to stare at that, and it's probably good to do that every year.  It's beautiful because we go into Easter, and Easter is just so significant because of that.  This week we kick off Lent with Ash Wednesday service.  I really hope you'll come to that.  I think it'll be a really meaningful time for all of us, and I'm excited about it...  

LIFE IS A MAZE(ing) | God's Voice or Bad Pizza | John 10:1-21 | Week 7

If you really packed the guys in, you could probably get 15 people in one of those boats.  These guys were pros and they'd been on this sea hundreds of times in their lives.  They'd been there in the middle of the night because some of the best fishing happened in the middle of the night.  As they started to go across that 13 mile journey from one end of the shore to the other in the Sea of Galilee, a huge storm just came out of nowhere and started buffeting against their boat.  You can imagine wind and waves and water rushing to your face.  You couldn't see anything anyway since it was pitch dark; three in the morning by this time.  Inevitably, the question had to come up, because all the disciples would have been asking it:  Whose idea was it that we cross the lake in the middle of the night?  You guessed it!  Jesus's idea.  You wonder if there was a conversation that happened back and forth:  Man, we've been trusting that guy with an awful lot, is he trustworthy, because it certainly seems like this little boat is going down?   It was at that point that they looked out, and shining through the darkness looked like a ghost.  A ghost!  Out of the darkness comes a voice:  Take heart!  It is I!  Do not be afraid!    If you're one of the disciples, you might have shouted back: That's easy for you, Jesus!  You're not the one seeing the ghost, or somebody walking on water!  Either way, it's a bit frightening!    Take heart it is I, do not be afraid. (Matt. 14:27)  The next thing that happens is shocking.  I for one am so glad.....Peter gets a bad rap, but I'm so glad Peter's there.  Any time you start to get down on Peter, just remember, he's one of only two people that have ever lived that have ever walked on water!  So don't slam him too quickly.  We wouldn't have nearly the humorous stories we have in the Bible if it weren't for Peter.  Lord, if it's you, if it's really you....I know that you've said it's you, but if it's you command me to come out on the water.  Come.  Come.  Not...Peter, I want to assure you this is Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah, the long-awaited King of Israel.  Here's my ID.  Here's my driver's license.  Let me give you just a few things only you could know about, Peter.  I want to assure you it's me.  None of that.  Just.....come.  I can imagine Peter getting up on the edge of this little 15-person fishing boat.  Pitch dark.  Wind. Waves. Getting ready to step out of the perfectly good boat, that seems to be holding up, even in the midst of the storm, into the middle of the sea.  I wonder if he's thinking as he's stepping out, "How sure am I?  Sounds like your voice, but I'm not so sure..."  

LIFE IS A MAZE(ing) | All The Feels | Matthew 6:9-13 | Week 6

February 13th, just this last week, flight 5763 took off from the Orange County Airport on its way to Seattle.  It didn't quite make it there, because over the High Sierras, it hit what you might refer to as a little bit of turbulence.  One of the passengers reported that, along with the flight attendant, the drink cart hit the ceiling of the aircraft.  Another passenger said that the plane did not one but two nosedives, sort of ninety degrees down.  Just imagine being at 34,000 feet, cruising altitude, having your plane, that's sailing through the air, immediately doing a ninety degree nosedive, and the flight attendant next to you in the air.  Five people were injured.  The plane had to land in Reno and didn't make it to Seattle because five people had to be hospitalized.
If you've ever been in a situation of turbulence, either in an airplane or in life, you know that you don't just have thoughts in your head that affect the way that you interact with that situation.  Your whole body gets into it, doesn't it?  If you were to take your pulse, it would be elevated, would it not?  Your palms might be a little bit sweaty.  You might be yelling things uncontrollably.  My parents were in a turbulent situation in an aircraft and somebody grabbed the hands of the people next to them and started praying "The Lord's Prayer."...