South Fellowship Church

PSALMS OF ASCENT: Worship Psalm 122

PSALMS OF ASCENT: Worship  Psalm 122
 
What are we doing here?  Have you ever stopped to think about that?  I don't mean the existential question of: what are we doing here on this little blue ball that we call earth?  I'm not asking about the purpose of life or anything all that deep.  I'm simply asking, what are we doing HERE?  At this moment in time, for this hour and fifteen minutes on a Sunday morning.   My guess is you got up---you either set your alarm to get up or someone woke you up.  You woke up, brewed some coffee, went downstairs, ate some breakfast.  If you have kids in tow, you tried to force them to eat, which didn't go all that well.  You tried to force them into the car.  If you're like me and have a three-year-old, you got your three-year-old into the car and he insisted on buckling himself in, which means you all sat in the car for five minutes waiting for him to buckle himself in.  You got here and, if you've got kids, you went to check them in and you encountered a system that we haven't quite worked all of the bugs out of yet.  I promise, we will and it's going to be awesome when we do.  You went over to the cambros of coffee and you may have squeezed out a half cup of coffee.  You came in here, you sat down, and immediately when you sat down I said, "Will you stand up?!"  Then we sang some songs.  Have you ever noticed that this is the only place where we do something like that?!  Throughout your week, there is no other time where you gather together with a bunch of other people and sing songs.  This is unique!!  Why are we here??  Are we here because we're bored on a Sunday morning and we need something to do?  Why are we here?  Why do we gather?

ALL I AM: Breathe In, Breathe Out Hebrews 11:21 & Genesis 48

ALL I AM: Breathe In, Breathe Out Hebrews 11:21 & Genesis 48
Growing up as a kid, I used to love going to amusement parks. We grew up near Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Six Flags, so I used to love to ride those roller coasters whenever we had the chance. I can remember, as a little kid, standing in line and seeing the loops and flips the coaster would do and each step in line getting closer and closer to actually getting on the ride. I could feel my blood pressure rising. It was this nervous, fearful excitement. I can remember getting on the ride and having the time of my life----the flips, the turns, the speed. All of that fear and excitement got turned into a GREAT time! I wanted my kids to have the same experience, so we went to the Eagle County Fair. The "roller coaster" they had was, I think, backed in on a flatbed truck the night before. It had a dragon on the front of it; it wasn't exactly death defying, in any way, shape or form. My kids resisted going on the ride. Like any good father, I forced them to. We were the only people in line and giving them that pep talk --- Hey, you can do it! You can get on this ride! There's tears..... Finally, there's enough bribery that they finally get on the ride. They were flying.....it was like ten feet in a circle. {Ryan puts up a picture of his son and daughter on the ride.} If you could zoom in on Avery's face.....her face is splotchy and red because she was crying. They walked off the ride with THOSE faces! What started off as fear, what started off as anxiety, was turned into excitement and fun!

ALL I AM: Going Back and Moving Forward Genesis 35:1-15

ALL I AM: Going Back and Moving Forward Genesis 35:1-15 Like many of you, we have two junk drawers in our kitchen. Don't lie and say you don't have them! We've got them and it's the place where we put everything that doesn't have a place. It's also the place where we put things that are on counter when we're having people come over! Oh crud, they're knocking on the door right now! and we pull everything into the junk drawer and close it. Inevitably, one of the things that always ends up in our junk drawer is my headphones/my earbuds. I put my earbuds in that drawer; I coil them up nicely. I put them in said junk drawer and close said junk drawer. Regardless of whether or not anybody looks in that drawer, when I go back to get my headphones they are not neatly and nicely coiled. They look like a rat's nest! Anytime you go to pick up your headphones, they don't look like the way you left them. They look like a rat's nest. They're tangled, they're disorganized. I think you could do an experiment----I think you could coil and roll them up nicely, put them down on a table, stare at them for five minutes and it would eventually look like (a mess) without anybody even touching them!! Somehow it just happens. I don't get it.

ALL I AM: Hulk Hogan and Hebrew Heroes Genesis 32:22-32

ALL I AM: Hulk Hogan and Hebrew Heroes    Genesis 32:22-32
 
It wasn't the day that it took place that was actually the hardest.  It was the next morning.  It was waking up and before becoming totally conscious of what the day held ahead, it was that thought for just a brief moment that maybe, just maybe, the previous 24 hours were a terrible nightmare.  But as I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and started to recognize no, in fact, it wasn't a dream.  Like an avalanche or a tidal wave of emotion, it just hit me.  I had these thoughts in my head, these feelings in my heart on that day, July 5, 2005.  The thought that I woke up with was failure.  I'd failed as a friend.  I'd failed as a pastor.  I'd failed as a guide.  I'd failed as a protector.  The previous day on July 4, 2005, I held one of the students in the youth group in my arms and performed CPR for an hour and a half while he took his last breath on a trail just outside of Fort Collins, Colorado.  A lot of you have heard me tell that story before.  You've heard my heart, but it's one of the things I look back on and see God's gracious hand in and his goodness most, but I can tell you that the 24 hours after it were pure hell.  The two years that followed were filled with questions.  I was a pastor and I felt like the biggest hypocrite because I was wrestling with God.  Some of the questions I had for God were:  God, if I'm going to serve you and this is how you're going to treat me, why in the world would I continue to give my life to you?  God, I thought I was following you, but there's no way if I'm following you that life should end up looking like this?  God, if I'm a fully devoted follower of Christ, if I'm a disciple, then why am I feeling so depressed?  This is two years of my life with this cloud, feeling like it's just sitting over my head.  God, if you're so powerful, why in the world didn't you stop this? And it pains me to believe that I know you could have.  Have you ever been there?  Where you just woke up in the morning and just wanted to say back to God, "God, I know you rule the universe and if that's true then why in the world does life stink so badly??!!"  

The Unexpected Journey

I began chemotherapy last February and will finish the 6th cycle this month. I am two thirds of the way through my sixth chemo cycle right now, as I stand in front of you. First of all, I want to thank South Fellowship, and so many others around the country and the world, for walking with us through this journey. Thank you for surrounding us. Loving us. Supporting us. Encouraging us.

Thirsty - Josh Suddath - Psalm 42

All I Am: Masquerade - Genesis 32-33:3

ALL I AM: Transition Time - Genesis 30 & 31

ALL I AM: Transition Time - Genesis 30 & 31
When I was 11 years old, my dad's company that he was working for in California closed their doors. They had offices all over and we were offered four different places to move. We could move to Sacramento, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City or glorious Denver. Praise be to God, my parents chose wisely!! I grew up in California and that was all I knew. My whole family was really involved there, so leaving that place was like tearing up roots that had been drilled deep into the soil of where we were. It was a difficult thing to leave. I can remember two things about leaving: 1) There were a lot of tears. 2) At one point in time, there was a circle of people who surrounded my family and me. To the glory of God, we all sang, with tears pouring down our face, Friends are Friends Forever by Michael W. Smith.

ALL I AM: Filling the Void Genesis 29 & 30

ALL I AM: Filling the Void Genesis 29 & 30
I have quite the challenge in front of me -- I am preaching on Mother's Day out of a passage that has to do with polygamy! Pray for me. In fact, it's even a little bit deeper than that....not only is it about polygamy, it's sorta of a sister-wives meets "Desperate Housewives" meets intervention. That's where we're going this morning. If you've been with us over the last few weeks, you know we've been studying the life of Jacob, one of the great patriarchs of the Hebrew faith. He's one of the more unheroic heroes in all of Scriptures. If you've been looking for glimmers of hope or shouts of light in the story, you've been left wanting over the last few weeks.

ALL I AM: Stairway to Heaven Genesis 28: 10-22

ALL I AM: Stairway to Heaven
I grew up in a family that went to church every single Sunday. While I wouldn't say I was a begrudging participant, I definitely didn't have a faith in Jesus in the way the Scriptures describe that. My parents were very involved (in the church), but my interest in church, for the first number of years in my life, up to the age of 10, revolved around a man by the name of Randy. Randy had a mental disability. He took the bus to church and sat in the very front row. He had a backpack with him in the front row. About ten minutes into a sermon one time, he unzips his backpack, takes out two cans of aerosol deodorant, shakes them vigorously, crosses his arms, puts his hands under his shirt and starts to deodorize himself in the front row!! As a ten-year-old kid, I'm like praise Jesus, right? I thought it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen! That was the pinnacle for me! We had reached the mountain top when Randy double-barreled deodorized himself on a Sunday during the sermon.