I have decided to……

 

  Pastor Fred started a sermon series on the book of Galatians this week and he started off in chapter 1.  There are several things that caught my eye. The first one is during worship when we sang the song I have decided to follow Jesus. I remember singing that song as a kid either at camp or at VBS and it got me thinking. It is good to be reminded of the basics of our faith and the time we made that commitment to follow Jesus. The more pressing thing that came to mind is not only are we teaching our kids what to believe but also why. When we do this, our children will know what they believe and be able to defend their faith as they grow older. Hopefully this will lead to kids wanting to grow their faith deeper and be spiritually mature. 

   The second thing that caught my eye is how the Apostle Paul tells the Galatians to be aware of the people who are trying to pervert the Gospel and for the evil that is running rampant in the world. All one has to do tis pay attention to the newscast or your favorite social media outlet over the last month to know the circus that is going on here in Minnesota. What gets me is that the people who are perverting Gods law and justice so they can feel that they can do whatever they want in the name of God.  Are we doing things such as marching in the streets, making vile social media post condemning the other side all to get clicks and for the approval of those we value and to vilify the other side. Or are we more concerned with Micah 6:8 of acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God. She we are concerned with justice, which we should be, is our own form of perverted justice that doesn’t care about Micah 6:8 or are we humbling ourselves seeking Gods face before we act? 

  So here is a question that goes back to my first point, and that is, have we forgotten the faith and grace we first turned to so that we can become popular or stay in the popular crowd? Or are we seeking Gods face and doing the hard and uncomfortable work of having the Holy Spirit change us through the reading and implementing of Scripture into our lives, or are we too busy changing God into our world view?  The song also demands us that we put the cross of Christ first and that are we willing to follow God by ourselves? 

  I will leave with these two ideas. The first one is that we live in a dark and corrupt world, are we being like a lighthouse send out light to a dark and unforgiving world? The second one is that in Romans 1, Paul tells us that things will get so bad that God will actually turn us over to the desires of our hearts and this is when it will get scary. So are we getting to the point of God letting us fulfill the evil desires of our hearts?

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Seeking Heaven

 

  In this weeks message Pastor Fred finished up the series The Next Advent and the preaching passage is from Colossians 3:1-4.  The Apostle Paul tells us if we have been raised up with Christ, we are to have our focus on heaven and everything that is holy and righteous. Here are some observations that I came away with. 

  My first observation is that we are to keep seeking. It is not a one time thing, but it is a continuous action. Within the last week, I was out at my parents house and I lost my car keys, which also had the key to get into my apartment building. I continued to search for them so I could get home and even got help from my mom. We kept looking for them until they were found on the roof of my van. Heaven is the same way, we need to keep seeking it. Or another way to put it, are we pursuing it like we do our favorite sport team or video game, or the next great online deal. We wont stop pursuing our fandom until that championship is won or that video game is bought and conquered or that great deal is secured on that thing we really need. Just remember, if we stop seeking or our seeking is off, we might miss heaven all together

  It is hard to be born again if we don’t die first.  This reminds me of when Jesus and Nicodemus met up in John 3. Jesus shares that the only way we can see heaven is if we are born from above, or born again. This has Nicodemus confused, so he ask the question of how can one be born again because they can not reenter their mother’s womb? Jesus response was that we are to be born of the spirit. This means we let our fleshly desires die so that God Spirit can enter our hearts. This is where we desire the things of God and not what this world has to offer. Both Gods desires and our fleshly desires can not coexist and we must choose one and let the other die. If we want our garden to grow and be successful, the seeds we plant must die first before they can reproduce a good harvest. The same is true with our spiritual lives, if we are to be fruitful spiritually and see heaven, we must die to ourselves first. So here is my question, what are we allowing to live in or lives and what are we catering too? Is it Godliness, eternal life and peace, or is it the desires of our flesh that leads to destruction? 

  My final observation is that God expects and requires our participation. Yes, we are saved by faith and grace alone, but those things require a response. For those of you who are either engaged or married, at some point the question was ask “will you marry me?”. That is a question that demands a response and it usually is done rather quickly. Both parties participate in the planning and execution in anticipation of the big day. Baptism is the same thing. It is us saying yes to Gods free gift and we participate in Jesus death by being dunked in the water and we are raised with Jesus when we rise from the water. Baptism signifies and is an action of dying to self and embracing the Holy Spirits work in our life. It allows God to transform our lives. I love some of the liturgy of the Catholic service, and one of the things the priest often tells the congregation is to remember their baptism. Not only does this remind us of who we belong to, but God is also calling us that we are to keep responding to His grace and to share that grace with a dark and broken world. Also it is a reminder that this world isn’t our home and for those who believe, will be praising Jesus in His presence for eternity, whether He returns and calls us home as a whole, or He calls us home to heaven on an individual basis. 

So here is a couple of questions.

 What prevents us from dying to ourselves and embracing Gods plan for us? 

  Do we need to remember our baptism?

  How good are we at continuously seeking God and His Kingdom?

What will be Me?

 

   Pastor Fred continues the series of the Second Advent and the hope and expectation of Christ return as King. One of the main passages that Pastor Fred preached on is 1 Corinthians 15 and the resurrection of the body. There are many different things we can expound on, but here are a few things that caught my eye. 

  The first one is how the Apostle Paul and the writers of the Gospels responded to this idea of Gnosticism. One of the main ideas of Gnosticism is that it makes life and Christianity a head game and that our bodies don’t really matter. It’s that we can do whatever we want as long as either no one gets hurt and or everyone gives consent to said action. This thought allows us to dwell in sin and to make it acceptable. Whether it is and addiction to pornography, food or any other activity, we can say as long as we are not hurting others, anything is fair game. The truth of it is, not only are we hurting ourselves when we do those things, but we are putting up barriers with other people and it changes our relationship with them. There are countless studies out there proving that a pornography addiction ruins marriages or at least puts a strain on them. This next idea is primarily for guys. When you struggle with porn, it will change how you look at woman, especially it will change the relationship with your wife and kids, especially if you have daughters. We can’t see people in what can they do for us and what kind of distorted personal gratification we can get when we give into these desires. 

  My second observation is that we can’t grow and be fruitful unless we get planted. Before a seed gets planted, it dies first. I think what Jesus had in mind is the idea that in order to grow, we must die to ourselves and to our desires and to put on what God has designed for us. So what are those attitudes and actions that we carry and live out that we need to put away and let die? To be blunt, there are some things that will keep coming back because we keep on feeding it and we won’t let die. Or what are those things that need to be killed. 

  My final observation is this, our bodies are a good thing. Not only did God call creation good, but Jesus came in, resurrected and is coming back in human form. I don’t know exactly what our resurrected bodies will look like, but we will have them. I know that when we get then, we won’t have a need for doctors, lab work or hospital stays. This is why we should care for them, because God gave them to us and we are to take care of what He gives us. The Apostle Paul tells us that we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Just as we take care of our holy spaces, should we do the same with our bodies?  I hope everyone has a great week

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Second Advent

   As Pastor Fred continued our Advent series with starting with the reading of Mark 13:23-37. The main point of the message is the shifting our focus from the first Advent, which waiting for the promised Messiah to the second Advent, which is the return of Jesus as King. This where God will make everything complete and His judgement will be made final. One of the things that I found interesting is that there are 300 references to Christ return in the New Testament alone. Since this is the case, how shall we live in the light of this news. 

   I think the first thing we need to realize is that this world isn’t our home. I remember growing up there was a Christian comedy show that played on Sunday nights on a Christian radio stations across the country and the theme song was This World is not my Home. The theme of the song was that we are just passing through this world and our final destination is heaven. In essence, we aren’t to get to comfortable because there is something greater than what this world has to offer. I will give these two warnings. The first one is that we are not so heavenly focused that we are no earthly good. The second warning is that we can not be so earthly focused that we will miss heaven. It is striking that balance of knowing what are destination is and working towards it, but is also being in tune to the worlds needs and meeting them. So here is my question, how do we strike that balance?

   The second thing we need to realize is this idea of “the signs of the times.” What I mean by this is that we know everything has a season and we can sense or see the changes coming. Whether it is the changing of the leaves, the days getting longer or shorter and a change in temperature. When this happens we often go into a mode of preparing for the upcoming season. Whether it is making sure we have the right equipment and toys out and working along with putting the previous seasons toys and tools away. So, here is my question, how are we preparing for the return of Christ? What are the things we need to put away for the season or just get rid of? How does one prepare for the return of Christ? Besides making Him the Lord of our lives, how about putting on the full armor of God found in Ephesians 6 or the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5.

  The third thing we need to realize is the idea that if Jesus didn’t know the time or day of the return, we won’t either. I think this is a good idea because if we did know, we would procrastinate on what God has called to do. A few years back, there was a jeweler in Superior who felt led to sell off his inventory because he thought the return of Jesus was soon and he wanted to get things in order. He didn’t give any bold predictions of day or year when he thought Jesus was returning, but he wanted to be ready and he also wanted to shift his focus on building Gods Kingdom. Christ will return and making bold predictions of day or year does more harm than good. I think it’s a misuse of our time and Scripture when we try to iron down a date. Our calling is to be prepared for Christ return

  I will leave with this. We are called to be good caretakers of what God has given and blessed us with and one day when He returns, we are going to be judged and held accountable for how we used the things that God left us in charge of. So how are you being responsible and developing Gods gifts in your life? Is God going to find you faithful when He returns?