South Fellowship Church

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.  

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.