South Fellowship Church

LIFE IS A MAZE(ing) | Stars and Knees | Romans 12:1-2 | Week 1

How many of you thought that was a Christmas song [We Three Kings] that we just sang during our offertory? Here's a little pastoral rebuke for you:  It's actually not.  It's not a Christmas song at all.  It's a song about a season that actually begins today.  Christmas technically ended yesterday, and today we begin a season in the church calendar called Epiphany.  Epiphany comes from a Greek word that means "to manifest" or "to show" or "to reveal."  It's the day where the church comes together and celebrates the magi.  They were sort of pagan stargazers who came and worshipped King Jesus.  There weren't three of them; there were probably multitudes of them.  They brought three gifts, though, and that's where we probably get the idea of "We Three Kings."  Just a nerdy, anecdotal side note:  The Church celebrated Epiphany for hundreds of years before it ever celebrated Christmas.  We started, as a Church, celebrating Christmas because of some heresies that arose that said that Jesus wasn't really fully man; he was actually sort of a spiritual being.  The Church said no, no, no, no, no, it's so important that Jesus was actually born of a woman, we're going to start celebrating THAT day.  We call it Christmas now, but for hundreds of years before the Church ever celebrated Christmas, it celebrated Epiphany.  Today.  The revealing or the showing of the Messiah.
If you have your Bible, open to Matthew 2:1-2.  {This won't be our main text for today.} After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?  We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."  I've thought about that this week as I've been dwelling on this transition from Christmas, and the celebration of incarnation, to Epiphany, the celebration of the revealing of the Messiah.  I don't know about you, but I'd love to have a few more stars in my life.  Wouldn't you?  I would love to have a star over.....hey, here's the city you're suppose to live in.  In fact, let's get more specific, why not a star over the house you're suppose to rent or buy?  Or, how about a star over....here's the job that you're suppose to take.  Or, how about a star over the date you're suppose to retire.  Let's get a star for that, God!  Why don't you deliver on that one for us?  Or, here's a star over the person you're suppose to marry.  I haven't gotten a whole lot of stars in my life.  What about you?...

Life in the Vine | John 15:1-17

Billy Berglund - Middle School Director

Filling Up Christmas | The Fullness of Freedom | Galatians 5:1 | Week 4

I've been reminded, during this Advent season leading up to Christmas, that there are two kinds of people in the world:  There are those that agree with me and are right; there are those that agree with my wife and are wrong.  I grew up watching the movie "A Christmas Story," and I happen to think it's a brilliant film. Not everybody agrees with me.  There's one scene in this movie that makes me laugh every time I see it.  {Ryan plays scene where Ralphie's overly dressed little brother falls in the snow and can't get up.}  How many of you have felt like that at some point in time?  I can't get up!  I'm too bundled up.  I've got too much going on.  I think if we're honest, we all come to that place at some point in our life where we go life feels cumbersome.  There's a lot of weight to carry.  There's a lot of things going on.  Sometimes they wrap us up in such a way that we can't get up.  
Last year, I decided to read a book that my English required I read and I never did!  Shhh!  It's called The Grapes of Wrath.  Written by John Steinbeck in 1939, it's about a family that lives in Oklahoma during the dustbowls.  They decide to move and leave because their land is depleted and their lives are depleted.  The book is about their journey on the way to California.  They have this hope that when they get to California it's going to be greener pastures, it's going to be a better life.  There are signs along the way in the gas stations, and there's this hope that when they get to THAT place, eventually they'll be able to get up.  Eventually they'll be able to live.  Eventually they'll find some sort of satisfaction, some sort of pleasure, some sort of freedom.  If you've read the book, what you know is that when they get there it's like chasing the wind.  It's an allusive mist that they try to grab.  They wind up feeling just as empty as when they left.  I got to the end of the book and thought I think this book is so popular because it's well written, number one, but it's the human story in a lot of ways, isn't it?  We leave one place that doesn't satisfy, in order to go to greener pastures and quiet waters, and it ends up just leaving us wanting...

Filling Up Christmas | The Fullness of the Spirit | Galatians 4:6-7; 5:16-25, Romans 8:14; 14:7-8 | Week 3

Last week I opened up by saying one of my favorite things about Christmas is Christmas movies.  That is true.  One of my second favorite things about Christmas is the songs.  I love singing Christmas songs.  {Ryan asks congregation to share favorite songs with person next to them.}  One of my favorite Christmas songs this year is "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."  But there's a song that's not growing on me [like Hark the Herald].  Every time this song comes on the radio, I think to myself, "I don't know.  I'm not sure."  The song is "Mary Did You Know?"  Before you hate me, here's what's going on in my head the entire song --- SHE KNEW!  SHE KNEW!  Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?  She knew.  Mary, did you know that your baby boy has come to make you knew?  She knew.  Mary, did you know that this child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you?  Yes, she knew.  Mary, did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?  She knew.  Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?  She knew.  She knew.  I am lamenting this, in our kitchen, and Kelly says, "Well, did she know he'd walk on water?"  Okay, 75% of the song, she knew!  How do we know?
If you have your Bible, open to Luke 1:30-35, that's where we're going to start today.  Here's the way we know that SHE KNEW.  It's called the Annunciation.  And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God." {Isn't it interesting that finding favor with God has the potential to lead us to fear?  Sometimes what God does in our life are things that we don't quite expect and maybe didn't chart out on our own, and every time we find favor with God, we either have the choice to operate in faith or fear.  That's a side note.}  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."  And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"  And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy----the Son of God...

Filling Up Christmas | The Fullness of Family | Galatians 4:4-20; 3:28-29; John 1:12 | Week 2

I love the Christmas season!  One of the things that I think I love most about this time of year is those Christmas movies.  My favorite Christmas movie---judge me if you must---is "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation."  One of my favorite scenes in the entire movie is where Clark W. Griswold has worked for days putting up lights on his house, and he's finally got them working.  [The camera] pans to the scene where Cousin Eddy is unexpectedly there.  He's got his RV and he's staying for an indeterminate amount of time.  One of the things I love about this movie is it points out some of the comedy, and in a very funny way, the pain of family.  We all probably have someone in our family like Cousin Eddy, where we wonder, "Are they coming this year?"  If you don't have a Cousin Eddy....you might BE Cousin Eddy!  
The longer I've pastored, the longer I've worked with people, the longer I've counseled people, I've come to find out that Christmas, and the holiday season in general, is sort of a double-edged sword.  As Dickens writes:  It's the best of times and the worst of times.  For some people, there's joy and elation....oh my goodness, Christmas is coming and it's marked on the calendar.  For others, oh my goodness, Christmas is coming and it's marked on the calendar.....and it's sort of in 'red,' do you know what I mean?  If we went around the room and shared, and if people were bold enough to say, "Hey, this is why Christmas is hard for me," a lot of what we would see if we drilled down deep enough, is a lot of the pain and a lot of the questions and a lot of the angst around the holiday season in general, has to do with family, doesn't it?  For some, maybe there's a fracture in the family, so when people show up, it just reminds you that things aren't what you wish they were or what you think they should be.  For some of us, we have a very empty seat at the dinner table for Christmas dinner, don't we?  Some of you are coming up on that for the very first Christmas and you don't know what it's going to do to you?  For some, it's just man, family's coming!  It raises the level of anxiety because it's sort of a wildcard.  It might be amazing, it might be great, and it might hit the fan!  Who knows?...

Filling Up Christmas | The Fullness of Time | Galatians 4:4 | Week 1

If you're anything like me, I get real excited about the Christmas season, I get excited about Advent, and we put a lot of energy into it and then we feel exhausted when it's done.  Are you with me? December 25th hits and we're like, I don't want to see anybody, I don't want to talk to anybody.  I know that Jesus has been born, but I've drunk so much eggnog and had so many parties and I've seen so many people, I just need a moment to myself.  Is anybody with me?  We get done with Christmas and we're like, hey, we can only do this once a year, because it's exhausting.  What if we could make a few minor changes in the way that we think, in the way that we act, in the way that we engage this season, rather than ending this season feeling like we're running on empty?  What if?  Imagine in four weeks you felt like you had more energy, you felt like you had a bigger vision for what God was up to, you're more excited for what was coming in the future than you are right now.  I think that's what God wants to do in our lives as a community of faith over the next few weeks.  We're starting a series this week that we're calling "Filling Up Christmas."  We all fill up Christmas, we just sometimes fill it up with the wrong things.  I want to point us back to the Scriptures, over the next few weeks.  I want to point us back to the way of Jesus, in hopes of really painting for us a different picture of what Christmas might look like.
Every year when I was growing up, I had elementary teachers that had us make a Christmas chain.  Each one of the links in this chain represent one day from now until Christmas Eve.  So there's twenty-two links on here and each one represents one day.  As a kid, I remember making these in elementary school and thinking, "It's coming! Christmas is on its way!"  Every time we tore off one of these links, the anticipation just started to build.  Oh man, it's one day less before that present that I have been waiting for is at my door.  It was our way, as kids, of counting time...  

Bleeding Hearts: Praying Through The Unexpected | Ephesians 6:18-20

Josh Suddath - Student Pastor
My prayer life often feels abysmal. I often feel like I’m just not going to God like I should or as much as I should. But 6 years ago married to a prayer warrior named Kristine and she’s fantastic. And my bible tells me that through marriage and the uniting of our spirits we are two people acting as one. So for the next half hour I’m going to act like her prayer life makes my prayer life better and pretend I know what I’m talking about.
6 years into our friendship, and 2 years before we got married, my wife started praying that God might do something in the heart of a slow, clueless Southern boy from Tennessee. She prayed, and she didn’t tell anybody, for 2 years. As year 2 came to a close, she went to the beach with her friends and shared her heart with them – “I’ve been praying for 2 years now and nothing has happened...I’m ready to give it up...

Hills + Valleys | Going Home | 2 Kings 2:1-17 | Week 7

Next week, we will be done with this series on Elijah; we've given seven messages in all. This brings us to the conclusion of this life of the ancient prophet of Israel, Elijah. We saw Elijah burst onto the scene, sort of came out of nowhere. He stepped into the king's palace and made a declaration about drought and a confident call that Yahweh was the King above all kings, the Lord above all lords, the God above all gods. We've traced Elijah's journey over the last few weeks and now we're coming to the end of his journey. The end of his journey is unique. It's not intended to be looked at as normative. Elijah is one of only two people we have recorded in Scripture who didn't die. Enoch is his counterpart in Genesis 5, but Elijah's ending is as strange as his life, in many ways. It comes to an abrupt end where he's taken---spoiler alert!---in a chariot of fire up to heaven. As we read his story, his story conjures up all sorts of questions in our life, at least in my life....questions about what heaven is going to be like. I think there's this sort of transcendent human longing to figure out what's next. We have people who have these, supposed, experiences of heaven and they write books. A guy named Don Piper wrote a book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, in which he was supposedly in a car accident and died and for ninety minutes spent some time in heaven, came back and made millions of dollars and wrote a book about it. I'm not saying it didn't happen. He very well may have had that experience. In Heaven is for Real, you have this four-year-old boy who dies and goes to heaven and experiences things and learns things he really shouldn't have been able to learn in any other way. His dad wrote a book. 90 Minutes in Heaven has sold over six million copies, Heaven is for Real has sold over twelve million copies since it came out in 2010. I tell you this, not to say you should go buy one of these books to figure out what heaven's like. I'm not saying they're wrong, but I'm just saying somebody's experience is never a great foundation to build your theology off of. I think, we should go to the Scriptures and see what the Scriptures have to say about heaven. If you want to read an interesting book, pick up one of those, but then really hold it up to see what the Scriptures say...

Hills + Valleys | Go Back | 1 Kings 19:19-21 | Week 6

If you've been with us over the last few weeks, you know that we're journeying through the life of one of Israel's ancient prophets, his name is Elijah.  Elijah sort of jumped onto the scene in 1 Kings 17, where he burst into King Ahab's palace and declared, "It's not going to rain again until I say it's going to rain."  Doesn't exactly make you a lot of friends.  Elijah quickly found himself on the run, led by God into the wilderness, the place at Kerith, where he was both cut down and then built back up.  Shortly thereafter, he went to Zarephath and met a widow.  God continued to build Elijah's faith.  We've sort of seen this journey Elijah's been on as one where God is growing him and shaping him and molding him into the man of God that He designed him to be.  His faith grows at Zarephath, so much so that he calls out the prophets of Baal.  He tells Ahab to have the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah to meet him on Mount Carmel.  At that place, Elijah challenges them to see whose God is the God of all the gods.  Elijah calls down fire from heaven and the fire consumes this sort of small mountain they're on.  Elijah, instead of beating his chest and saying God, you're at work, God, you're amazing, God, you're great, actually runs.  Finds himself in the season of depression where he's wondering where God is and he runs to the wilderness.  He runs to Mount Sinai.
Last week, Liz Ditty did a great job of preaching that text in 1 Kings 19, and we're going to pick up where she left off today, but I just want to remind you that the context of our passage this morning comes out of verse 3 of 1 Kings 19 and it says this:  Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.  He's been on the run.  He's heard the voice of God in the midst of this mountain---in the cleft of the rocks.  He does not hear Him in the fire, not in the earthquake of thunder, but God in the whisper.  This intimate, still small voice of God declaring His goodness and His love.  The question I want to ask today is where do you go from there?...

Hills + Valleys | The Whisperer | 1 Kings 19:9-18 | Week 5

Guest Speaker: Author and Spiritual Director Liz Ditty
If you could have the 100% complete and honest answer to any question this morning, what would you ask?  When I was twelve, I only had one burning question, and that was.....Does Jonathan Green have a crush on me?  Fortunately, I was a child of the 80's, so my cousin had the foolproof thing that could give me my answer.   The magic 8 ball.  I must have shaken this thing thirteen times, and it always came up doubtful.  The truth is Jonathan Green never had a crush on me.  I'd like to think that's because early on God knew that He had Mike Ditty, who was going to be the perfect man to walk with me through all the ups and downs of life.  That Mike's best friend, Rob Colwill, would be the best man in our wedding.  That he and his wife, Kristine, would speak wisdom and life into our marriage years before he became an elder here at South.  That if Jonathan Green had gotten in the way, we might not be here this morning.  I'd like to think that it's that well thought out, but the truth is I was a quirky kid and I cut my own bangs and I'm pretty sure that had a lot to do with it.
As that little girl grew up, my questions grew up with me.  I wanted to know why it was so hard to make friends and why I was so lonely all the time.  I wanted to know why, when I finally got my dream job, I didn't actually like it.  I wanted to know why I couldn't make my family look like I wanted it to look like.  I wanted to know what success actually looked like in my life and how I would know I had it.  None of those questions could be answered by two words on a 20-sided dice.  Today, we're going to rediscover the most important questions that we have and the best place that we can take them.  I think Elijah can help us...