South Fellowship Church

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."...  

LIFE IS A MAZE(ing) | Listen to Your Heart (?) | Philippians 2:12-13 | Week 5

I can remember when I was freshman in college and went and purchased the album that song (Obsession) is off of.  It was written by Martin Smith, but recorded by David Crowder.  I remember lying in my bed in my dorm room at Colorado State, having my Discman next to me.  I was listening to the song and thinking to myself, "My heart does burn.  Jesus, I want you.  Closer than my skin, yeah."  All that stuff Crowder's singing, I want it.  I was going onto high school campuses and telling people about Jesus; people that didn't want to hear about it...it didn't matter to me.  My heart burned.
Around that same time, I started to want a Jeep CJ-7.  My heart burned for that too.  I went out and bought one, not knowing anything about car mechanics and having zero propensity for repairing anything.  It was a 1985 CJ-7 and it didn't have a hardtop (just a soft top) and soft doors.  I remember driving away thinking, "This is my freedom."  I was on my way home---it was a 45 minute drive from where I purchased the car to my parent's house---and one of those Colorado thunderstorms formed.  I was in this Jeep with no top, living it up, when a thunderstorm of epic proportions came right over my head.  It was a deluge!  I remember getting absolutely destroyed by this thunderstorm, and people in cars next to me were absolutely laughing.  It was coming down so hard I had to pull over and I had this thought almost immediately, "Not everything my heart wants is good!  Not everything my heart wants is worth wanting!" because I wanted this...and maybe I shouldn't have...

LIFE IS A MAZE(ing) | Discerning Doors and Detours | Acts 6:6-10 | Week 4

Last weekend as the elders were headed up to Estes Park for our retreat, our middle school group was also heading up to a retreat at Buena Vista.  They had left at 5:00 p.m. and were heading up 285 and there was a sign over the road that said, "Road Closure in Fairplay," which isn't a good thing if you're headed to Buena Vista.  Through a few radio calls back and forth to the various vans, they decided to take a little bit of a detour.  They eventually found themselves at Wadsworth and Chatfield, right near where they left from!  From there, they headed up I-70 to miss the road closure and what was suppose to be a two-and-a-half hour trip up to the mountains ended up being a five hour excursion.  
Isn't it interesting how we spend most of our lives trying to avoid situations like that and they're the very things that stick with us?  Have you ever thought about that?  The perfect trip isn't usually the one you remember the details of, it's the one that was a total mess.  You remember that trip where nothing went right?  Wasn't that great?!   We spend a lot of our lives trying to figure out what's the right way to go and what's the right thing to do.  It's oftentimes in those in-betweens, in those detours, in those closed doors, that life actually starts to come alive.  That's why we've called this series "Life is A Maze(ing)."  Because it is!  It's both...

Exam Time | Matthew 15:21-28

Dr. Scott Wenig - Guest Speaker

Life is A MAZE (ing) | A Holy Hunch | Acts 15:1-29 | Week 3

It's a bit of irony that some of the greatest movements in the history of the church have been birthed out of some of the sharpest disagreements.  Some of the things we celebrate most started off as.....well, a fight.  They started off as people on two sides of the aisle unable to come to a conclusion and having very different opinions about the way that things should progress.  In Acts 15:1-2, we see one of those situations.  But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, {The brothers---the church in Antioch) "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved."  And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the other were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.  What follows, in Acts 15, is what we will refer to as the Jerusalem Council.  It was one of the church's first ever business meetings. You didn't want to miss a business meeting in the early church though.  Some business meetings ended with your teachers being sent on the very first ever missionary journey.  You don't want to miss that one.  This one you didn't want to miss either.  This Jerusalem Council, this church business meeting, actually set the trajectory for the New Testament church.  I think what's decided in Acts 15 is the biggest decision the church has ever made.  
Can you just imagine what this 300 mile---probably fifteen to twenty day journey---was like?  What do you talk about on the way up to Jerusalem from Antioch?  Three hundred miles.  Paul.  Barnabas.  Some other people.  There might have been some men there that had a vested interest in what this council would decide.  Do I have to have a surgery to be part of the church or not? That's part of what's being decided here.  But at the core of what they're going to figure out at the Jerusalem Council is what does it really mean, at a very base level, to follow the way of Jesus?  What does Jesus ask of us?  Is it Jesus AND Moses?  Is it Jesus AND surgery?  Is it Jesus plus fill-in-the-blank, whatever law you want to fill in from the old covenant?  Is it Jesus plus or is it just Jesus?  That's what they're going to figure out.  A three hundred mile journey and they walk into this meeting where they're going to make the biggest decision the church has ever made.  Here it is in verse 5:  But some believers who belonged to the part of the Pharisees rose up {Notice: These are believers who are part of the party of the Pharisees, so they got a little residual, okay?}  and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them {Gentile believers who have come to faith in the Jewish Messiah, his name is Jesus.}  and {This is a big 'and.'} to order them to keep the law of Moses.  

LIFE IS A MAZE(ing) | Guidelines and Guardrails | Ephesians 5:1-21 | Week 2

Last week we started a series we're calling "Life is A Maze....ing."  We're talking about discovering God's will.  It's these questions we all have ---- What job should I take?  What city should I live in?  What relationship should I pursue?  We all have these questions, don't we?  God, what do you want me to do with my life?  If you're God, and I believe that you are, and you have a plan, and I believe that you do, how do I align myself with it?  We spend a lot of time, and we might lose a lot of sleep asking that question?  At times it can be laborious and at times it can be a little bit annoying to go God, I just don't know.  That feeling of 'I don't know' is also the very feeling that makes us feel like we're alive.  If we did away with that, if we knew exactly what to do at every moment and time and we were just robots being controlled, life wouldn't be nearly as amazing as it is.  The reality is that God has given us choice.  He's given us freedom.  If you came last week, that's why you're back today, because you believe that your choices matter.  You have the ability to choose between a myriad of different options and what you do with your life.  If you didn't believe that, you wouldn't be here today.  If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be giving this sermon!  
We'll talk about this each week because we want to give a little bit of framework.  Last week, we said that if you were to read through the Scriptures, you're going to find three different types of wills of God.  You can't go through a single passage and find these, you need to sort of dig and mine a little bit.  Let me give you the first one:  It's God's sovereign will.  That's the 'thus saith the Lord,' this is going to happen.  God is in heaven and he does whatever pleases him, the psalmist says.  But that's different than saying 'everything that happens is God's will' or 'that God wills everything that happens.'  Within his sovereign will, God says to some things, I'm going to give you freedom.  You're going to have to use your brain.  It's not a decoration.  It's not a hood ornament for your life.  You should actually use it.  We're going to talk about that today.  Within God's sovereign will there's a lot of freedom.  We said last week:  God gets everything he wills, but he doesn't get everything he wants.  There are some moments that God says to us, I've given you free choice and you've chosen to go one direction, but I wish you would have done something else...

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...