South Fellowship Church

Hills + Valleys | Depressed, Alone and Running | 1 Kings 19:9-18 | Week 4

What do you do after you've been miraculously fed by ravens; they've brought you little cakes in the desert?  In a middle of a drought, you had a brook that gave you enough to drink.  You saw oil and flour not run out; miraculously multiplied over and over and over again; God's provision that's unmistakable.  You saw somebody raised from the dead, because you prayed and laid down on this young boy and he came back to life.  Then you stand on Mount Carmel and you call down fire from heaven and it comes down.  {Quick survey---How many of you have down ANY of those things?}  What do you do after that?  After that scorched earth is still breathing up the remnant of that fire, where you see these prophets that are slaughtered in this valley.  I mean, this is when, if you're Elijah, you have people hoist you up on their shoulders and carry you down the mountain, right?  This is where you cue the confetti for the Super Bowl parade.  This is where there's high fives and there's no going back.  This is where you beat your chest and go, "That's my God!"  Only that's not what happened!  As high as Elijah was on that hill, he drops almost immediately to the valley.
1 Kings 19.  We're going to see more of the human, frail side of Elijah this morning.  I think maybe we can relate to that side of him a little bit better than we can relate to the side that calls fire from heaven and sees it happen.  I don't know.  Just me.  Verse 1 ---  Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. {You'll remember, if you've been here over the last few weeks, Jezebel is Ahab's wicked wife.  She's a worshipper of Baal.  She's brought that worship to Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  She's killed many of the prophets of Yahweh.  She's a blood-thirsty, vindictive, violent woman.} So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, "May the gods {Those gods that were silent, those gods that weren't able to produce fire, those gods that Yahweh was more powerful than....those gods.} deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them."  Then Elijah said, "Well, MY God raised the dead!  And MY God called down fire from heaven.  And MY God is with me.  And MY God is for me and you're not going to tell me what to do because....[Ryan sings] my God is greater//My God is stronger//My God is higher than any other...   Right?  That's what I expect and that's what I hope for from one of the ancient prophets of Israel, one of these guys we still name kids after.  That's what I expect...

Hills + Valleys | Main Card Yahweh vs Baal | 1 Kings 18 | Week 3

I can remember this day because there was a lot of buildup.  The day was January 28, 1997.  It was the summer before my senior year of high school.  A bunch of my friends and I had gone in together to buy a Pay-per-view boxing match.  It was Evander Holyfield vs. 'Iron' Mike Tyson.  Most boxing matches you don't remember; my guess is, you at least have a recollection of this one.  In the third round, Mike Tyson came out of the gate, tried to spit out his mouth guard, and promptly bit off a portion of Evander Holyfield's ear!  I had just dipped my first chip in the queso and I'm putting it up to my mouth and it's over....because a portion of Holyfield's ear is on the floor.  I decided that day that I'm not a huge fan of boxing.  What I recognize is that there is this draw to see a fight.  Whenever there's a fight, there's a crowd that forms, right?  There's something in us where we go......I at least want to look on and check it out.  I have a friend that invited me to go see Conor McGregor vs. [Khabib Nurmagomedov].  It was billed as the best UFC fight in the history of UFC.  I said no because I had been watching the Kavanaugh hearings that week and I'd seen enough fighting.
Have you noticed that all around us there is fighting?  There's a survey that's done by the Institute for Economics and Peace.  They give the world a peace rating every single year.  Peace is steadily on the decline, but what they found out in their most recent survey of the 162 countries around the globe that they surveyed, only ELEVEN of them are without  military conflict of some sort.  162 countries surveyed and only 11 can say we're not involved in some sort of war or some sort of conflict with our military.  That's been the case for a long time.  It is the case now.  Here's my question:  Are we just not listening to John Lennon; have we just not given peace a chance?  Is that what's going on here?  Or is there more going on in the world than we can see with just our natural eyes?...  

Hills + Valleys | The Widow at Zarepath | 1 Kings 17:7-24 | Week 2

I was in second or third grade and I was in a particular math section.  The teacher was trying to teach us some math concepts, and for some reason, my brain could not get it.  She gave exercise after exercise and she circled the plane ten different ways.  Now when my kids come home and they ask for help with math, there's like 117 different ways to it and they have to know them all, I'm like, "Can't help you, dude, sorry."  I was not getting it.  She gave us this very specific process to follow to explain this particular type of math.  Then she gave us a test.  As teachers often do, she asked us to show our work, which means you've got to show them to do it the way they taught you to do it.  I didn't like that because it seemed real hard, so I came up with my own way to solve the problem.  A new technique, if you will.  On the top right of my paper, I wrote, "Here's a new way to do this the proper way."  I was trying to teach my teacher the right way to do this.  I wrote this formula---here's how you do it---and I was hoping she'd learn from this---it's going to be in a textbook someday.  I showed my work according to my own sort of plan and then I solved the problem.  She was not as excited about this path as I was, which is really, really interesting.  The other thing is.....it was ALL wrong!  Every bit of it!  The process was wrong.  The final answer was wrong.  All of that!  After sort of going I don't want to choose this hard path, I had to go back and choose the hard path, because she made me redo it all.  I still don't understand how to do it!
We're in the series called "Hills and Valleys" and we've been exploring what do we do during uncertain times and how do we navigate through those?  We're looking at the life of Elijah to help us walk that journey.  Last week, Ryan talked about how being in the wilderness is a training ground.  I remember listening to that and going, I don't know about you, but I hate that.  I was like I do not like this --- the wilderness is a training ground.  I think it's because I wish there were a better way to experience growth.  But I've learned, as many of us have, that it seems like those wilderness moments have such power to shape us into who God created us to be...

Hills + Valleys | Water in the Wilderness | 1 Kings 17:1-7 | Week 1

If you have a picture in your mind about what a prophet is like, might I suggest to you that the biblical image might ruin your idyllic view. Prophets, in the Scriptures, weren't people who had their own TV show, weren't people who made a lot of money, they weren't people who flew around and had large followings. They were sort of fringe folks. They were the people that were on the outside of the norm, as far as faith went. They were people that took off their clothes and preached naked. They were people who cooked their food over a flaming pile of dung. They were people who married a prostitute to make a point. The prophets were on the fringes of faith. They were sojourners. They were wrestlers. They were people who had to fight for their faith. Far from being stable, they were people who doubted God. If you read through the prophet Isaiah, if you read through Jeremiah, oftentimes you'll get this lament, "God, where in the world are you?" Sojourners---physically and spiritually.Elijah, who we're starting our series on today, was no different than those other ancient prophets of Yahweh. His life is full of ups and downs, of hills and valleys. We'll see next week that Elijah sees the dead raised. He sees fire called down from heaven to wipe out the prophets of Baal. Then after that, he runs for his life for fear of Jezebel, this wicked queen. He hides in the desert. He laments that he was ever born. He contemplates taking his own life. He's a prophet who tastes joy and sorrow. Immense success and incredible defeat. He is a prophet who has great faith in God and doubts God. He's a prophet of both the hills and the valleys...

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? | Eternal Hospitality | Mark 6:21-44 | Week 4

We're at week four of a four-week series that we've entitled "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" It was inspired by Jesus who inspired Mr. Rogers who then inspired us. We've been talking about being neighborly. Not about defining who are neighbor is but about becoming neighborly. We said, a few weeks ago, that that's not always easy. As long as there's been hospitality, there's been complaining about offering it. The Scriptures are real honest and say: Offer hospitality without grumbling. Evidently that was a thing 2000 years ago too. Last week we said that the ordinary table might be the best evangelistic invention ever created; that something sacred happens when people gather around a table. These four weeks are really one message put together, so today is the conclusion those messages --- Won't you be my neighbor?I grew up in southern California, so like Colorado, most of the days were sunny, although there seemed to be a cloud that hovered over one house on the street that I lived on. It was the house of Mr. Marshall. Before there was Clint Eastwood telling people to get off his lawn, there was Mr. Marshall making it clear he didn't want you anywhere near his house. It was covered with overgrown juniper bushes and the lawn was unkempt. Even if it was sunny and 85, which it was most days, his house seemed to be covered in a cloud of gloom. We avoided it---this was how bad it was---even on Halloween! He might as well had a sign, outside of his house, that said "Keep Out." If a ball went into his yard---which it did often---it stayed there. Keep out... 

Won't You Be My Neighbor? | The Meal Is The Method | Luke 7:34-50 | Week 3

Welcome.  You're here on week three of a four-week series called "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" How many of you have seen the Mr. Roger's documentary that they did?  Amazing documentary and tribute to an amazing man who really lived out the way of love, and did so in a compelling, breathtaking way.  Kelly and I saw the movie and I thought I really need to do a series on this because my heart's plea to Jesus is that our church would look a little bit more like Mr. Roger's neighborhood.  The first week we talked about the fact that God isn't calling us to identify or define our neighbor, that's sort of a low-level question.  In fact, He's asking us to become neighborly to whomever we might meet.  Last week we said that's not easy; as long as there's been hospitality, there's been complaining about offering it.  In 1 Peter 4:8-9, Peter writes to the church and says:  Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.  We typically grumble when we offer hospitality.....They're coming over again?  How long are they going to stay?  Are they going to jack up our house and eat up all our food?  My goodness!  We said we've got to build margin into our life if we're actually going to live out this way of Jesus, of not just offering hospitality but doing so without grumbling.  
I don't know about you, but as I've been wrestling with this topic more and more, and Jesus has been calling me to open my heart, my life, and my home, more and more, I've been seeing more opportunities to do that.  Anybody with me?  At the beginning of September, I was asked to be on a world religions panel at Kelly's high school, Mountain Vista.  I was there along with a Buddhist, a Hindu, and a Muslim imam.  They asked us a number of different questions.  At one point, the Muslim was explaining things we get wrong about Islam.  He asked the class a question:  How many of you guys have a Muslim friend?  A few of the students' hands went up.  I thought to myself, "I can't raise my hand to that.  I don't have a Muslim friend."  In that moment I thought, "But I want one."  After the panel, we all left and I was driving back to work thinking, "I really want....I would love a Muslim friend."  So I emailed him.  I said something like hi, this is Ryan from the panel.  Great job.  Really fun to meet you.  I don't have any Muslim friends and I would like one.  I felt like I was in middle school again....Will you be my friend?  Check 'yes' or 'no.'   He wrote back and said, "I'd love to be friends."  We started up this conversation via email and last Monday we went out for lunch together.  We got to talk about our faith.  We got to talk about our families. We got to talk about our upbringing.  We got to talk about Jesus.  It was as though as the table sort of turned into this altar, where something unique and something special started to happen...   

Won't You Be My Neighbor? | Leaving the Edges | 1 Peter 4:8-9 | Week 2

This series is like one long message! You may have walked away last week thinking, "Yeah, I know, hospitality's really good, Ryan. That's a great idea. BUT...." We have a whole list of "buts," don't we? We have a whole list of reasons why it's really, really hard. To that, I want to say, "You're right! It is." I want to spend the next 35 minutes or so affirming you're right! BUT.... I was a sophomore at college at Colorado State University and was walking across the courtyard. I saw a man who had a long beard, sort of unkempt, had a smock on (it looked homemade), had pants that looked like they were homemade, and he was holding a cardboard sign that said: "What do you think about Jesus?" At that point in time, I was a follower of Jesus, I was serving with Young Life, and I thought, "Wow! That's really cool that he's sitting in the middle of our courtyard just striking up conversations with people." I went up and met him. His name was Jerry. We got into a conversation about Jesus. At the end of our conversation, I said to him, "Hey, Jerry, if you ever need a place to take a shower, here's our phone number, give us a call." He was experiencing homelessness. I found out that homeless people take you up on offers that other people sometimes won't. Two days later my phone rang. It was Jerry and he asked, "Does the offer still stand to come and take a shower?" I was living with three other guys and asked if they were cool with it and they said yeah, they were. So Jerry came over and took a shower. As he was leaving, we said, "Jerry, if you know any friends who need a place to take a shower, our house is open, call us anytime." He did.....and so did his friends. We said, "Hey, Jerry, if you ever need a place to throw your tent, you can throw it in our backyard." So....he did! It was really cold one evening, so we poked our heads out the back door and said, "Hey, Jerry, (and to his friends) if it's ever too cold for you guys and you'd like to come and sleep inside, come on in." And they did! For two-and-a-half years of my college life, I lived with four to five homeless guys who slept on our couches, on shelves in our garage. I can tell you this, it wasn't always easy. Eventually we had to ask them to leave... 

Won't You Be My Neighbor? | Neighborly | Luke 10:25-37 | Week 1

A few months ago, our elders started to ask this question: What would it look like to create a culture of hospitality? Where, as a church family, we didn't just attend, but we gathered together and linked arms and hearts. Not just show up on a Sunday morning, but open our homes and our lives to the people who we worship with. It was our conviction, not that we weren't that place, but there were some ways that Jesus was drawing us deeper and inviting us to more, that this would feel more like a family. One of our values here is that we're family together, not just on Sunday morning, but throughout the week as well. About that same time, my wife and I went out on a date night and we went and saw a movie. This will give you a little insight on just how nerdy we actually are. We don't watch superhero movies---nothing against them, just not our jam. We went and saw a movie called "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" It was a documentary about Mr. Rogers. I walked out of that movie with this angst in my soul. My wife Kelly watched the entire movie with a Kleenex in hand, crying a little bit throughout the whole thing, and popcorn in the other hand. I walked out with this conviction, this thought in my head, "What if church looked more like Mr. Rogers' neighborhood?" Where there wasn't any other standard than presence to be invited in. Where you didn't have to reach some sort of affluence level. You didn't have to have a certain color of skin. You didn't have to talk a certain way or be from a certain place. If you were there, you were invited. I walked out of that movie deeply touched and it stuck with me, and it's helped to shape and form the next four weeks of our teaching series. In case you haven't seen the movie, I just wanted you to get a little glimpse, here's the trailer. {Video plays}"The greatest thing we can do is help someone know that they're loved and capable of loving." How many of you watched Mr. Rogers at some point in your life? I did. After I watched the film, I remember trying to remember an episode of it. I can't remember any single episode of Mr. Rogers, but I can remember the way that I felt when I watched it. It was drawing me in. There was this sort of healing balm, this love, that just sort of beckoned and said, "Come a little bit closer. It's safe here..."

Sermon on the Mount | Building a Life | Matthew 7:21-29 | Week 14

My family has been here two years and we just love this body and being at South Fellowship and plugging in with the Young Adults.  A few weeks ago, we were going to have a worship night and I had this vision months before.  We were going to have lots of young adults come to the great outdoors of Colorado and enjoy seeing the creation God has created.  We'd have the mountains in the background and enjoy worshipping our Creator outside.  We've ended previous summers with a worship night in the park (Clement Park).  I was really excited about this year and wanted to plan something really cool.  A few months ago, the Ascent Project Band led worship here at South and my wife and I looked at each other and said, "This would be a great band to lead that night."  I contacted them and they were willing to come.  Our own Erich Schmitt came out and set up all his sound equipment.  Earlier in the day, there was a chance of rain forecasted.  I was praying, "God, this night is for you. A hundred young adults would be coming to worship you.  We're going to see what you're going to do tonight."  Everybody was praying for no rain.  My wife called me when she brought the kids to the park and asked, "Do you think we should go to the library first?"  I told them not to take the risk so they went to the library.  
Let me tell you about my family.  I'm married to Ellen.  She's an incredible mom, an author, and passionate worship leader.  We have four kids:  David, Emily, Lucy, and Elizabeth.  We've been blessed with their energy, excitement and their joy in our life.  I'm beginning my third year at Denver Seminary...

Sermon on the Mount | False Prophets - Then & Now | Matthew 7:13-20 | Week 13

My name's AJ.  I'm from Grand Rapids, Michigan.  It's really good to be here.  Here's a question I want to begin with:  Can we go deep this morning?  Is that okay?  Richard Foster had this amazing sentence in his work, Celebration of Discipline, when he says, "The world's greatest need today isn't for intelligent people or cool people or innovative people.  All that's well and good.  The world's greatest need right now is for deep people.  People who are thinking deeply about good questions about life and beginning to live in accordance with what they're discovering."   
In America, I'll suggest this, fifty years ago, God was largely assumed, so the temptation was to doubt.  In America today, God is largely ignored and the temptation is to believe.  We've entered a kind of cultural moment where the longing for something transcendent is returning.  I think we're discovering the career ladder isn't enough and that our consumer habits don't quite satisfy like they once did.  And more technology has only led to increased anxiety.  Do you remember the fax machine?  When that came out, everyone thought finally, we can rest, right?  I think many are beginning once again to ask the great questions, curious if maybe there is something beyond the stars.  Maybe what you're going to hear for the next few minutes isn't actually for you, but it's for your colleague, for your neighbor, to better understand the cultural moment that we're in, that we can begin to sort of say that's the frame of the twenty-first century American life.  How do I actually live within that frame given my neighbors and given my friendships and given my family members, who are just now moving out of cynicism and beginning to say maybe there is something beyond our grasp....something beyond that maybe just knows our names and maybe calls us the beloved. There's a haunting suspicion, I think, that's returning to the twenty-first century western hemisphere.  The haunting suspicion is that perhaps the cosmos is, in fact, enchanted with the divine, and that's it's not all just probability and a collision of molecules...