South Fellowship Church

Ethos | Kingdom Apprenticeship | Matthew 4:12-23 | Week 1

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about what type of community "that brand new world" starts to give birth to.  What type of community it starts to form.   We're calling this series "Ethos."  Ethos is a Greek word that means values, the character of something.  It also means things that we believe and things that we dream about, things that we hope for, things that we plead with God for.  Over the next eight weeks, we're going to take a step back and go, God, who are you shaping us to become, and what are you shaping us to do, and what are the things that we hold dear, and what are the dreams that we would say, collectively together, we have about the way that you would use this little community of faith to make a massive difference in your world?  That's where we're going over the next few weeks.
I thought we would start where Jesus starts.  That's never a bad idea, right?  To ask so, Jesus, where do you start?  Jesus, what are you up to?  Jesus, how are you at work?  We're starting with a pop quiz.  What did Jesus talk about most?  If we were to read through the gospels and take a note every time Jesus talked about a theme, what would he have talked about most?  A.  Love    B.  Heaven/Hell    C.  The Kingdom of God    D.  Money    Interesting.  We have a pretty wide-swath of answers.  Let me let Jesus answer that question for us.  If you have your Bible, open to Matthew 4:12-17.  In Matthew 4, Jesus is just coming on the scene.  If you know anything about the gospel of Matthew, Matthew wants to walk us through the birth narrative---tells us how Jesus was born and focuses primarily on Joseph and the courage Joseph had to have.  Chapter 3 is Jesus's baptism.  Chapter 4 is Jesus getting led out into the desert to be tempted by the enemy.  Half way through chapter 4, Jesus comes on the scene to publicly begin teaching and ministering to people, and listen to what he says:  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 Jordon, 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..."  

4 Days that Changed the World | Dawning of a New Day | 1 Thess. 4:13-18 | Easter Sunday

Sometimes when we gather for Easter, we sing songs about life and resurrection, and it can feel a little bit like we're telling an incomplete story.  We all know that, in the end, it's coming, SOMEDAY, but TODAY there's some stings, aren't there?  Life is awe inspiring, and it can be awful.  Life is painful, and it's powerful.  Life can be holy in one moment and harrowing in the next.   That's the life that we live, isn't it?  We have these moments of bliss and then we have the reality of brokenness.
If you've ever been on a vacation and if you're anything like me, I'm a time guy.  I always want to know how many days until the vacation, how many days are we going to be on vacation, and then once we hit halfway point on the vacation. . . . .anybody with me?  I start doing a time clock in my mind of 'this is great but it's going to end.'  Halfway point, the day is great.  Next day, it clicks over and 'oh no, it's ending!'  The beauty of being there is sort of overshadowed by the reality that life's coming again.  It's temporary.  I think so much of our lives carry with it that in the shadows we hear this voice saying, "It's good, but it's temporary."  It's good, but eventually you'll have to say good-bye.  It's beautiful, but eventually you'll breathe your last breath...  

4 Days that Changed the World | Divine Descent | 1 Peter 3:18-20, 4:6 | Week 4

We are in a series that we've entitled "4 Days that Changed the World."  That's not some sort of spiritual hyperbole, this is the most talked about week, most written about week, most debated week, in the history of the cosmos.  On Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered into the streets of Jerusalem, you start a clock ticking from there. One week.  It's about .06% of Jesus's life and it's roughly 33% of the gospel narratives.   Do you think they thought this was important?  Just a little bit.  
Two weeks ago we talked about what happened on Thursday.  On Thursday, Jesus reimagined for us and taught us what love really looks like.  He shed his outer garment and got down on his hands and knees and he washed his disciples' feet.  It's this picture of what you do when you have power.  You don't use it to oppress people and keep people down.  You actually leverage your power to lift others up.  Last week, we saw that on the cross, on Friday, Jesus offers us forgiveness.  He takes on our forsakenness and that he says it's finished. . . .you're reunited with the King of kings and the Lord of lords, God Almighty.  If you weren't here last week, I'd encourage you to hop online and watch that video, if you can...

4 Days that Changed the World | Good Friday: What happened on the cross? | Week 3

As a youth pastor, I can remember telling my students a fictitious story about a father and a son.  The father was a draw-bridge operator.  His son was with him at work, down climbing around in the gears, having a good time.  A train was coming.  The drawbridge was up.  The father had to decide:  Am I going to crush my son, kill my son, and save everybody on the train?  Or, am I going to let my son live and everybody on the train die?  It's a very emotional story and one that stirs the human heart.  The punchline was that this was a picture of what happens on the cross, and God decides to kill his son, so that we, humanity, on the train might live.  It's emotive.  It stirs a response.  But is it accurate?  Is that what's going on on the cross?  Ever since there's been a cross, there's been discussion.  Paul would say:  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God [to save].  (Romans 1:16)    The reason he's saying 'I am not ashamed' is because there were some people who were ashamed.  There was shame to be had.  The cross was as much about shaming someone as it was about killing someone.  
Jesus's cross wasn't the only cross people had seen.  It's the cross we talk about, but there's this story that Josephus records.  He was a Roman historian.  He wrote that in 4 B.C, when Varus, one of the governors of Rome, propped 2000 people on crosses. . . . .ONE day, outside the city of Galilee, and he crucified them all in ONE day.  People in Jesus's day would have understood the shame of the cross.  They would have understood the pain of the cross.  They would have understood the cross in a far better way than we do.  They would have struggled just as much with Paul's statement that the cross is the wisdom, and the power, and the glory of God.  How could something that was so shameful be so glorious...

4 Days that Changed the World | Downward Mobility | John 13:1-17 | Week 2

From the moment Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, at what we refer to as the Triumphal Entry or Palm Sunday, to the time he rises from the grave is about .06% of his life.  Not a lot of time.  But if you read through the gospels, that one week encompasses 33% of the gospel narrative.  It's one-third of the story that the gospel writers tell.  If you put it all together, this one changed the world.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John felt compelled to tell us about it.  From a lot of different angles and a lot of different ways to recount that week, and specifically these 96 hours----Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday---of that week changed the world.  
There's a way that the world works.  If you watched the Academy Awards last week, you know this way.  Here's what it looks like:  If you're beautiful, if you're wealthy, if you're famous, then people cater to your every need.  They put out, literally, a red carpet for you.  The more powerful you are, the more prominent you are, the wealthier you are, the more people you have to cater to your every need.  I read an article a while back about the way celebrities use their assistants.  Christian Bale has an assistant who, as he walks down that red carpet, actually smells his armpits to see if he has B.O.  Madonna has an assistant that wakes up every hour (six times during the night) to get Madonna a cold glass of water.  She also has somebody who goes into the restroom before her with Lysol and disinfectant, and wipes them down from top to bottom before she uses it.  Mariah Carey, who is a notorious diva, has somebody who holds her drink for her while she drinks out of the straw.  She has somebody who washes her hair for her.  She has somebody who walks in front of her so she doesn't trip while wearing her high heels.  That's pretty impressive!  Ceelo Green has somebody in his entourage who is responsible for dabbing the sweat off of his brow.  Can you imagine being THAT dude?  Where do you sign up for that?  Or, Prince Charles.  Prince Charles has somebody who irons his shoelaces before he puts them into his shoes. . . . .and it shows!  He also has somebody who undresses him after his day and puts him in his pjs before he goes to bed.  Prince Charles walks in, falls down on his bed, somebody takes all his clothes off and puts his pjs on.  Frank Sinatra had a butler who wash his boxers (his underwear), by hand, and followed him around to straighten his toupee in case it got off...   

4 Days that Changed the World | The Turning Point | John 12:20-36 | Week 1

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We are starting a new series today that we are calling "4 Days That Changed the World."  Sometimes a walk has a way of changing things.  I did a wedding yesterday --- those doors in the back of the worship center opened, and a bride walked down the aisle to be received by her groom.  Anecdotally, it was a 'Cook' marrying a 'Hunter.'  By the end of the wedding, it was two had become one.  Some walks change everything.  March 21, 1965:  Martin Luther King, Jr., and a number of his civil rights workers with him, left from the city of Selma, Alabama to march to Montgomery, to fight for the right for African-Americans to vote.  They'd been turned back two times already, but this time they had the backing of President Johnson.  He had given his support to the march.  Instead of having armed guards there to turn them back, they were there to protect the marchers as they embarked on a 54-mile walk.  When they got to Montgomery, Dr. King gave one of his most famous speeches.  It was summarized by the phrase "How Long, Not Long."  In that speech he said, "Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us.  We are moving to the land of freedom."  On August 6, 1965, African-Americans were given the right to vote in this country.
Some marches change everything.  It was March 29, AD 33.  Jesus of Nazareth got on the back of a colt to ride into Jerusalem.  We call it 'The Triumphal Entry.'  It started the clock ticking on a week that has changed the world that we live in.  Maybe in more ways than we recognize, that week changed everything!  The reason you have Sundays off as part of your weekend?  It's because Jesus rose from the grave on a Sunday.  It used to be that followers of Christ, until Christianity was the religion in the Roman empire, would go to church before work, early in the morning, before the sun came up, to worship, then go to work.  Because Sunday was just like every other day in the week.  THIS changed everything!  We now have a weekend.  It changed more than that.  Over the next few messages, we're going to wrestle with these four days, these 96 hours that changed the world.  My hope is that over the next week, the Spirit of God invites you into this story to know it better, but maybe knowing IT better, we would be known.  That we might not just regurgitate it and the facts of what happened. We're going to wrestle with questions like:  Why did Jesus die?  Why did Jesus have to die?  Who killed Jesus?  Who did Jesus "pay off" for the debt of sin?  What was that all about?  Please come back.  We're going to wrestle with a new type of influence. . . .an influence of love.  We're going to talk about 'he descended to the dead' or 'he descended to hell.'  What does that mean?  On Easter morning, we're going to celebrate the fact that what Jesus does on Easter morning changes definitively the world we live in.  It's a march that changes everything...."

Postcards from the Edge | A Letter to Independent People | Rev 3:14-22 | Week 8

Good morning.  We are on the last Sunday of an eight-week series, where we've been studying the letters that Jesus writes, through the Apostle John, to the churches in the book of Revelation (chapters 2 and 3).  This final letter is written to the church at Laodicea.  Open your Bible to Revelation 3:14.   As we've done in each letter, we've given the church that Jesus is writing to a title.  I've tried to summarize who they are, their ethos, their DNA as a church.  This letter I'm entitling as the letter to "Independent People."  Some form of independence is really good. When my kids move out of my house, my hope is that they're independent, which means they don't come back and live with me again.  If they do, they'll be welcomed back with open arms and rent to pay.  But some forms of independence aren't that healthy.  Some forms of independence actually prevent us from getting where we want to go.  I saw a Pepsi commercial a while back that I think summarized it well with a little phrase that you'll hear repeated throughout the commercial --- I'm good!  {Commercial shows accidents and injuries to someone, but they're "good."}  Have you ever been there:  Your arms are full of grocery bags and someone says, "Hey, can I help you take those to the car?" and you respond with, "I'm good."  Or maybe, if you're married, and men you may be able to relate to this, and you're sharing with your spouse the ailment you're trying to walk through.  She says, "You should probably get that checked out.  There's a whole branch of professionals that deal with sickness."  Most guys respond with. . . . ."I'm good."   {My wife says, "Then don't complain about it anymore, if you're not willing to go and get it checked out."}  Or. . . ."Do you need help with that problem in school that you're wrestling with?"  "I'm good, I'm good."  The marriage is sorta getting on the rocks, but. . . . ."We're good."  I think all of us have something in us that we rely on and in moments of trepidation, in moments of fear, we resort to that and we go, "I'm good."  I'm a hard worker. . . . .I'm good.  I know how to make money. . . . .I'm good.  I've got this web of relationships; we've got a strong family; I've got people that care about me. . . . .I'm good. 
In 1875, the British poet, William Ernest Henley, wrote a famous poem.  At the end of it, he wrote this stanza: "I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul."  Essentially he goes, "I'm good.  I'm good."  If you're familiar at all with the Biblical narrative, the story that as followers of Jesus we would say that we find ourselves in, in the very beginning of the Scriptures, you have this incident between Adam and Eve, who God creates perfectly and places in a garden, naked, in order to be in relationship with Him.  There's a serpent that comes in and says listen, I know God said you can't eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but you should eat from that so that you can become like God, knowing good and evil.  The relationship that Adam and Eve are designed to have with God is one of dependence.  One where they run to Him, one where they go to Him.  This movement towards this tree is a movement of independence.  God, we don't need you.  God, we can figure this out on our own.  God, we're good, thank you very much.  

Postcards From the Edge | A Letter to Weary People | Rev 3:7-13 | Week 7

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William Cimillo, on March 28, 1947, woke up and went to work like he did every other day.  He was a bus driver in New York City.  This day was a little bit different.  William started out on his normal route, and instead of making his first stop in New York City, he just kept driving.  He went to New Jersey and had a sandwich in a café for lunch, then he just kept driving more.  Driving and driving.  Eventually he got to Washington, D.C., in his RTD bus.  He got out, took a look at the White House and decided to keep going.  He traveled down the East Coast, from New York City to Hollywood, Florida, where eventually he ran out of money and gas.  He went for a night swim, camped that evening, and in the morning called his "former" employer.  He told them where he was and what he needed.  They sent the FBI to come and investigate---it was a state bus.  No one was able to drive the bus, so William had to drive the bus back to New York for them.  He did.  By the time he got there, word had spread about his little meltdown.  He was so popular that he was too popular to actually fire, so they had to keep him on staff.  They asked him what had happened, and he said, "I was just tired of it all.  I felt like a squirrel in a cage, just running around and around, and I guess it got the better of me."  I think he was greeted with such fanfare when he got back to New York because EVERYBODY has thought about doing the same thing.  Haven't we?  We've been on our way to work or an appointment and thought, "Heads: California, tails: Carolina."  Right?  It's just too much.  
I think a lot of our lives we feel like....{Ryan blows up a balloon}....we're full and life's good.  Sometimes, because that's the case at points in our life, we expect that it'll be the case at every point in our life.  But we all know that that's not true, don't we?  There's things that we walk through that sort of take the air out of us a little bit.  Some of you, in the last few weeks, have gotten a diagnosis from the doctor that you weren't hoping to get and. . . . .{Ryan releases air from the balloon} it's taken the air out of you.  Some of you in this room are single parents.  You're working and holding together a family {Ryan lets out more air from the balloon}, and it feels like you're on life support.  Like the waves are beating against your boat and when is it going to stop.  Some of you have some things that have happened in your past.  Maybe it's abuse or maybe it's bad decisions you've made, and anytime you let your mind relax, instead of disciplining yourself not to think about that. . . . .{Ryan releases more air out of the balloon} that's what you think about.  I don't know about you, but it can feel like {Ryan releases remaining air out of balloon and it's deflated} the life that we were suppose to live that is full, and meaningful, and vibrant, is elusive.  We live in a day and time where we are more disconnected from the things that fill our soul than any generation in any time has ever been.  We are entertained, but we're not enriched.  We're busy, but we are not full.  Our schedules are jammed packed, but our souls are on life support.  We can look at a picture like that and go, "That looks about right."  Especially after a week like, as a nation, we've walked through.  We can go, "It feels like we're running on empty."  It's a condition we would call weariness, or a tiredness of soul, not just body, but soul, where we know that if we cut things out of our schedule, it doesn't solve the problem.  If we go on vacation, it's still there...."

Postcards from the Edge | A Letter to Stuck People | Revelation 3:1-6 | Week 6

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The words from God to this nation were "keep going."  But they were words that were built on a story.  They weren't just said in a vacuum.  See, this nation of roughly 2,000 people found themselves in a valley, and they heard those words from God, but BEFORE that, they'd seen the hand of God.  It was God who'd led them out of 400 years of slavery into freedom, but he led them to this place where they were on this peninsula.  Water surrounding them on three sides.  Miraculously, the Red Sea parted and they walked through on dry ground.  But he didn't stop there.  Every morning when they woke up, there was a little bit of bread they called manna that was lying on the ground, just enough to get them through the day, and the next day it was there again.  Sometimes, quail came in, so they got a little meat in their diet, but not regularly.  They had just enough.  They were in the wilderness and walking through the desert and they had no water and God told Moses to hit a rock with a stick, and the rock turned into a well and water just started flowing from it.  They'd seen unbelievable things:  their clothes didn't wear out, their shoes stayed good, they saw God's gracious hand of provision all along the way.  He said to them, "Keep going.  Keep going.  You're out of slavery, you're in the desert, but I'm leading you to the Promised Land.  Don't stop here."  
They were sent to spy out this land.  A land that they found was flowing with milk and honey.  They brought back grapes for people to taste.  Evidently they were amazing grapes!  They said, "Yeah, there's milk and honey.  It's unbelievable!  It's wonderful!"  God said, "Keep going."  But they said, "There's also giants in the land."  I don't think you understand, God, or maybe you do, but we're sort of like grasshoppers and they're sort of BIG and if you really wanted us to keep going, you should have made us a little bit stronger.  So they stopped.  A people created for the Promised Land found wandering in the desert for 40 years.  Because God wouldn't force them to take that step.  He gave them every resource they needed; it was right in front of them and they said, "No, thank you."  People created for the vast horizon, for the expansive landscape, for the milk and honey of the Promised Land, SETTLED for the desert...."

Postcards from the Edge | A Letter to Apathetic People | Rev 2:18-29 | Week 5

"Do we have any foodies in the house?  I've changed, dramatically, the way that I've been eating the last couple of months, but for some reason I've become addicted to watching travel food shows, where people go to other countries and eat what I can't eat right now.  My favorite new show is called "Somebody Feed Phil," about a guy named Phil Rosenthal, the creator of "Everybody Loves Raymond."  He travels around and experiences the cuisine from all of these different cities from around the world.  What's really interesting is that he bears a remarkable resemblance to an older Ryan Paulson.  {Shows picture}  
He (Phil) goes and explores all these different cultures and different foods.  I love that too.  If I'm traveling and I go to a city, the first thing I do when I get to my hotel is to open up my favorite app, which is YELP.  I look to see 'what is this city known for?'  A lot of larger cities are known for food or drink.  If I say Chicago, what comes to mind, food-wise?  Pizza.  Hot dogs.  New York?  Pizza.  Seattle?  Coffee.  Philly?  Philly cheese steaks.  Highlands Ranch?  {Laughter. . . . Chick-fil-a}  
Have you ever thought what your city was known for?  Have you ever thought about what your family was known for?  Have you ever thought about what your church was known for?  In the last several weeks, we've been in this series called "Postcards From the Edge," and we've been journeying through Revelations 2 and 3.  These are the seven letters to the seven churches from Jesus through John to the churches and to us.  We've been learning some real unique things about those cities.  Our hope isn't that we have just a bunch of knowledge about these cities, but that we could learn about the city and the church and figure out what does God want to say to the church at South today....?"