South Fellowship Church

HAPPY: Attitude Adjustment Philippians 2:1-11

HAPPY: Attitude Adjustment  Philippians 2:1-11
I was heading back, a few weeks ago, from a week of teaching in Paraguay with OM.  I had had a great week and was heading to the airport.  I got to the airport in Paraguay, which isn't a huge airport.  My broken Spanish met the desk attendant's broken English and what I thought he said to me was, "When you get to Buenos Aires, you're going to be flying out of a different airport than you fly into."  This was news to me, because it was not on my itinerary that I was suppose to change airports.  Evidently, Buenos Aires has two airports -- one of them is for more local and commercial flights, the other one is for international flights.  He told me it was about an hour away from one airport to the other.  I looked at him and said, "Am I going to make it?"  He paused and that made me feel that he didn't think I would and then he said, "Oh, yeah, you're going to make it."  I asked if my flight was on time and he said it absolutely was.  I text my wife --- Good news: flight's on time.  Bad news: I might not make said flight.  I get on the plane in Paraguay, fly to Buenos Aires; I run through customs, broken Spanish, I get in a cab that I think is going to take me to the right airport; pay a lot of money and he gets me there.  I run in there about 8:30 and at 8:40 I'm standing in front of the attendant in front of their desk and I said, "Am I going to make my flight?"  She looks at me and said, "Oh yeah, you're going to make your flight."  I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "It's delayed nine hours!!"

Defeat in the Land of Victory - Joshua 7

Happy: Gospel Citizens – Philippians 1:27-30

For a video version of this sermon please visit southfellowship.org 

Happy: The View From the Prison of Joy

Happy: The View From the Prison of Joy

HAPPY:Gospel Happiness – Philippians 1:1-11

HAPPY:Gospel Happiness – Philippians 1:1-11

Heart Check Luke 8

PSALMS OF ASCENT: Waiting Psalm 130

PSALMS OF ASCENT: Waiting  Psalm 130
 
This summer when my family and I were on vacation, we went to Legoland in San Diego.  They had a new ride there, Ninjago ride that my son was really excited to go on.  It was a 4-D type of ride where you're karate chopping things that are flying at you, and there's mist and smells.....   It was pretty epic!  We chose our time wisely as to when we wanted to get into line, because the line was long.  It got shorter as the day went on and so around 6 o'clock, when most people with little kids had done the wise thing and left, we were still there.  We got into line.  There was about just five minutes of waiting out front and thought man, we have chosen wisely.  We got through that part of the line and then went into this other room.  There were ropes set up in the next room and there were about five lines back and forth through this room.  The music started to get a little bit louder---that's when you know you're in trouble---they want to distract you.  We got through that room and entered....ANOTHER room!  Music got a little bit louder and we're waiting a little bit longer.  We got through THAT room and entered ANOTHER room!  Finally, we get to the front of the line.  Somebody with what they call a FastPass....which means they spent a ton of money to buy this little device that allows them to cut in front of regular paying customers like us.  They just flashed this FastPass and cut in front of us!  I thought, "What in the world is going on? I've spent 45 minutes in this line now, in these rows, with the music getting louder and louder and somebody cuts right in front of me!!"   

PSALMS OF ASCENT: Perseverance Psalm 129

PSALMS OF ASCENT: Perseverance  Psalm 129
 
Well, we're over a week in now, which means many of us are suffering from sleep deprivation.  Talking, of course, about the Olympics.  Anybody else?  Week plus in and you've stayed up way too late watching sports that in a week you won't care about!  I noticed that I'm spoiled; I don't even want to watch the qualifying races, I just want to watch the medal races.  I also want to know ahead of time if we win, because I don't want to watch it if we didn't win.  I'm spoiled!  There's been one story though.....I love the way NBC weaves in these human interest stories throughout the competition.  One of those stories that stood out to me this year is the story of the Refugee Team that's competing.  A team of essentially homeless Olympians from different parts of the globe, but parts of the globe where, because of the strife that's going on in their own country, they've had to flee.  A number of them joined together as a team of refugees competing in the Olympics.  One of those refugees is Yursa Mardini.  She grew up as an Olympian swimmer from Damascus and part of Syria.  She was training in pools where there were three or four holes where bombs had blown into the roof of the building where she was training.  She had to flee from Syria.  She traveled through Lebanon to Turkey and then left Turkey and was trying to get to Greece when the boat she was in----a little dinghy with 20 people in it, designed for six people----had the engine fail about 30 minutes from shore.  This young, eighteen-year-old (Yursa Mardini) jumps in the water with three other people and ties ropes around her waist and legs and starts swimming.  For three-and-a-half hours she swims.  They eventually get the boat to shore and save all 20 lives.  

Psalms of Ascent - Building - Psalm 127

PSALMS OF ASCENT: Restoration Psalm 126

PSALMS OF ASCENT: Restoration  Psalm 126
 
It's hard to imagine what that day might have been like.  My guess is that they knew that it was coming because the army was gathering and building around the outside of the city.  But that day---that day when the walls of Jerusalem (their very shield) started to come down at the hands of the Babylonians.  That day must have been like no other day they ever experienced in their life.  Every single dad was trying to protect his kids; every single mom was trying to stand in the way of harm coming.   As that wall came down, every single Israelite that stood in the city of Jerusalem knew that their life from that day forward was going to be definitively different.  It happened in 586 BC when the Babylonians came and took over.  They took all the Israelites off into exile where they were to live the rest of their days, presumably, under Babylonian rule.  Where they didn't get the chance to celebrate their own culture, where they didn't get the chance to worship freely their own God.  They were taken from their homes and displaced from everything that they knew and every dream that they had or hope that they saw on the distant horizon; it all vanished on that day as those rocks started coming down.  Can you imagine what that might have been like?  If you're a parent, can you imagine what it might have been like to know that you had a journey in front of you where you had to try to protect your family and your kids, not knowing, even if you made it those 500 miles from Jerusalem to Babylon, what might be waiting for you when you got there?  Could you imagine, if you were a single person and not having protection from a family that you loved and cared for, how alone you must have felt as you made that walk?  It's hard for us to imagine what THAT day might have been like and what THAT cloud that came over that Israelite nation might have felt like.