South Fellowship Church

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

"
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

"
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....?"

Postcards from the Edge | A Letter to Misdirected People | Revelation 2:12-17 | Week 4

"
Over the Christmas and New Year holiday, my family and I had the chance to get away and we went up to a cabin in the mighty metropolis of Hot Sulfur Springs.  My whole family was there and we had a great time.  We had planned this pancake breakfast for New Year's Day.  There was no shortage of texts messages back and forth about the kind of pancakes we were going to eat.  Oatmeal pancakes.  Banana pancakes.  We got up on New Year's Day with sleep in our eyes and deprivation in our souls because we had stayed up past midnight.  We made the pancakes and were keeping them warm in the oven.  We started putting them out when someone in my family asks, "Did anybody bring the syrup?"  Here's the question: What do you do when you have a pancake breakfast prepared and you forget the syrup?  Here's three options:  1) You try to make syrup out of something else.  2) You don't eat the pancakes.  3) You eat the pancakes plain.  {Ryan has congregation discuss it.}   In my opinion, number three is the only non-option.  You CANNOT eat pancakes plain.  They taste disgusting!  You don't notice it when you put syrup on it, because syrup makes it all better.  It covers a multitude of sins.  The only reason we have pancakes is so that we can get syrup into our mouth!  
I want to talk to you about syrup this morning.  About the one thing that changes everything---with it everything falls into place and without it, nothing else matters.  Open your Bible to Revelation 2.   You'll remember that we're starting a series and journeying through the first few chapters of Revelation, where Jesus is writing, through the Apostle John, to specific churches in his day.  He's giving them encouragement, he's writing to the context that they're in uniquely, and he's got a word, both of commendation, of correction, of instruction for the churches he writes to.  Listen as he begins these letters with a letter to the church at Ephesus:  To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:  'The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.     Remember, last week we saw Jesus lifted up, we saw Jesus reigning above, we saw Jesus advocating for, and we saw Jesus walking among the churches, and John wants to reiterate that as he writes to the church at Ephesus......"

Postcards from the Edge | A Letter to Hurting People | Revelation 2:8-11 | Week 3

"This Christmas I got my wife an Instant Pot.  It's a modern twist on the old pressure cooker.  It essentially works the same way----the top seals on there pretty tight.  Inside there are two things that happen:  heat that starts to buildup and steam that is released.  You can put in a whole frozen chicken and in three minutes it'll pop out to be dinner for you!  It's awesome!  Maybe not, don't try that at home.  It's a little nerve wracking with this 'bomb' you have in your kitchen.  We turn it on and my wife, Kelly, backs up, and all of the kids have their biking helmets on when she's cooking with it.  It's a little bit crazy.
I think sometimes life feels a little bit like an Instant Pot, doesn't it?  It presses in on us, and the heat gets turned up, and the steam gets released.  Sometimes in those seasons we have questions for each other, we have questions for God.  We ask God things like:  God, do you see?  God, do you care?  God, are you going to do anything?  God, in this situation that I'm walking through right now, what do you want me to do?  Sometimes the pressure situations can seem small......it's a child that won't behave, or the job situation that's not working out exactly the way you wanted it to.   But sometimes it feels like you're just in the thick of it and the temperature keeps going up and up and up and up.   The news from the doctor isn't good.  The relationship is falling apart.  It just feels like the pressure is just building.  What do we do in situations like that?  I sometimes think that as the Church, we're not good at talking about lament and grief.  Some seasons of life just aren't fun.  Can we admit that, even though we're in church?  Sometimes it feels like the pressure is just getting turned up...."

Postcards From the Edge | A Letter to Misdirected People | Revelation 2:1-7 | Week 2

:
Over the Christmas and New Year holiday, my family and I had the chance to get away and we went up to a cabin in the mighty metropolis of Hot Sulfur Springs.  My whole family was there and we had a great time.  We had planned this pancake breakfast for New Year's Day.  There was no shortage of texts messages back and forth about the kind of pancakes we were going to eat.  Oatmeal pancakes.  Banana pancakes.  We got up on New Year's Day with sleep in our eyes and deprivation in our souls because we had stayed up past midnight.  We made the pancakes and were keeping them warm in the oven.  We started putting them out when someone in my family asks, "Did anybody bring the syrup?"  Here's the question: What do you do when you have a pancake breakfast prepared and you forget the syrup?  Here's three options:  1) You try to make syrup out of something else.  2) You don't eat the pancakes.  3) You eat the pancakes plain.  {Ryan has congregation discuss it.}   In my opinion, number three is the only non-option.  You CANNOT eat pancakes plain.  They taste disgusting!  You don't notice it when you put syrup on it, because syrup makes it all better.  It covers a multitude of sins.  The only reason we have pancakes is so that we can get syrup into our mouth!  
I want to talk to you about syrup this morning.  About the one thing that changes everything---with it everything falls into place and without it, nothing else matters.  Open your Bible to Revelation 2.   You'll remember that we're starting a series and journeying through the first few chapters of Revelation, where Jesus is writing, through the Apostle John, to specific churches in his day.  He's giving them encouragement, he's writing to the context that they're in uniquely, and he's got a word, both of commendation, of correction, of instruction for the churches he writes to.  Listen as he begins these letters with a letter to the church at Ephesus:  To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:  'The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.     Remember, last week we saw Jesus lifted up, we saw Jesus reigning above, we saw Jesus advocating for, and we saw Jesus walking among the churches, and John wants to reiterate that as he writes to the church at Ephesus....."

Postcards from the Edge | Upsizing | Revelation 1:1-20 | Week 1

"The year was about AD 90, around two decades before the temple that stood in Jerusalem had been absolutely leveled.  Emperor Titus, along with his Roman army, came in and absolutely leveled the central spot of worship in Judaism.  In doing so, they started to remove even the very soul and heart of that religion.  They've never worshipped the same since that building was destroyed.  The Apostle John, at this point in time, is a friend of Jesus.  He's one of the only disciples still alive.  In fact, most people would say he's the ONLY disciple still alive, and he finds himself in exile.  He finds himself on this little island off the coast of what's now modern-day Turkey.  It's about 24 miles from the shore.  He's there as a prisoner of the empire of Rome.  Rome, in AD 90, is ruled by a man by the name of Domitian.  Domitian was the very first emperor that required that he was worshipped as both god and savior.  John refused to bow his knee.  Can you imagine standing before the emperor and being required to bow down to worship him as god?  John, this friend of Jesus, the one who cared for Jesus's mom after Jesus was crucified, risen . . . the one who leaned up against Jesus during the last supper meal he celebrated with his disciples. . . .this John.  This John refused to bow his knee.  Tradition says that Domitian got a pot of boiling oil and dumped it on the Apostle John to try to kill him.  It sort of backfired on him though.  The people there that were witnessing this 'murder' actually turned and started to follow Jesus because they saw that it didn't affect John in the way it should have.  Since he couldn't kill him, Domitian thought he'd put John on an island with other criminals....."

Christmas Eve | Home | 2 Samuel 7 | Week 4

Advent | Instead | Isaiah 61:1-11 | Week 3

Dwell | The Power of Pistis | 1 John 5:1-51 | Week 6