Contentment

 

 It was a wonderful weekend celebrating with friends and family the milestone of the church turning a century old this year. Having the church services outside this weekend was amazing. It reminded me of years past when different holiness groups held a thing called camp meetings, where people would gather underneath tents to hear preaching and to pray for a revival and an out pouring of the Holy Spirit.  Sunday morning, we had the pleasure of hearing Nathan Rasmussen provide the message and his preaching passage was from 1 Timothy 1:15. There were a couple things that caught my eye.

  The first one is that if any church or movement is going to start, it takes an act of faith. I will be honest, it can be easier to jump on a train that is moving rather than to get that train in motion. A big part of this is because faith often takes risk and when we take risk, we could fall flat on our face and fail. I don’t know anyone who likes to fail, but some of the life lessons that we remember the most is because we failed somehow. We only truly fail if we don’t learn anything or put what we learned into practice.

  The other aspect to risk and faith is that there is a good risk and there is also stupid risk. I can have all the faith that I can run a marathon, but my faith will ground me and not go run I that marathon tomorrow. Our faith should encourage us to continue to strive in what God has revealed to us already and who He has created us to be. God gave us a brain and the Holy Spirit and we need to implement them both. 

  My second observation that there is an element of contentment to our faith. There are two people we need to look at contentment. The first one is wisdom from the Apostle Paul and he proclaimed that he was contend when all of his needs were met and when he had nothing. Being content means that we trust in God to provide what we need when we need it. When we trust God, we trust Him for who He is and not so much what He provides us. Just a reminder Jesus didn’t die so that we can get a new vehicle or live comfortably. When we live comfortably, we don’t trust God as often as we should and we become complacent. 

  The second person we need to look at is King Solomon. He was one of the wisest people to ever live and he wrote three books of the Bible. He got to a point in his life where he had everything and he still wasn’t content. He ended up taking some wives and making alliances with people that he shouldn’t have and it got him in trouble. How often when we are not content with God, we go on rabbit trails and we get ourselves in trouble. We end up trying to find things to satisfy us and it doesn’t work. We end up depressed and eventually will claim that everything is meaningless. 

 

  I will close with this. In Africa, there has been a thirty percent increase of people who identify as Christian over the last decade and here in the West, there has been a fourteen percent decline of people who identify as a Christian during the same time period. So here is my question, in the West, especially here in America, we have the freedom to worship whatever deity we please along with going through a drive thru to get our six dollar coffee and a pastry to go to work or said worship service. In Africa, not only do they face persecution, but one could loose their life because of their faith in Jesus. Maybe we need to be content in who God is and not so much what He can do for us and our faith is us stepping out in response to who God is. Here are two things to ponder, do we only follow God or are Christians because of the benefits or are we Christians because God is God and He also is holy and just?  To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, God isn’t safe but He is good. So how many of us would rather serve a safe God rather that a good and perfect God?

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Time

Pastor Fred continued the current series by preaching out of Ephesians 5:7-17. As Pastor Fred was reminding us that we are supposed to be a pleasing aroma to God, he listed off some of his favorite smells. As a farm kid, I realized that he missed the two greatest aromas of all time, which is either fresh cut/baled hay or fresh turned dirt, and I can’t decide which is my favorite. Maybe it’s because there was hard work involved and there is a sense of accomplishment involved. 

  I verse 7, Paul uses the word theorem, so we must ask the question, what’s it there for?what is he referring to? If go back in the chapter, Paul tells the church in Ephesians to not participate in idolatry along with not participating in foolish or course talk, and not being greedy. So if Paul were here today, he would tell us those things and that we should also be careful what we watch to what we post on social media and consuming when we are doom scrolling. Also being wise in what we listen to, the movies and shows we watch and even the jokes we share. More importantly, it’s how we talk to each other or about each other. How often are we willing to build people up instead of mocking them, or even bringing them down. Even worse, how often do we start rumors about each other and label it as prayer request, so that we can make ourselves look more holy. So what do we do?

 Most importantly, we need to redeem our time. How often to we pick up our phone to check something “important” and forty five minutes later we have accomplished nothing. I can’t be the only one who does this. Here is something that hurts to hear and that is time is not ours because it belongs to God and He gives it to us. The scary part is that He expects us to be good stewards of that time that he gives us. I challenge you to write down how you either spend a day or even a week and then review it. How much of it is God focused and how much of it is me focused? This doesn’t mean we should be spending all of our time at church or praying. We can pray as we do dishes or work on a project to the best of our God given ability. Redeeming Gods time means that someone will be mad because we tell them no because it’s not what God has for us at that time. 

 Another important concept is that we change our time to what is important. How often do we run ourselves out of gas because we are doing everything. There are seasons of our lives that are going to be busy, but is it God glorifying, or is our schedule running our lives to the point of exhaustion. Remember when we fail to plan, our plans fail. How about we check in with God for direction in the morning, but also throughout the day. Remember, if you don’t hear from God, keep doing what you know God has called you to do. 

  When we honor the time that God dives us, we are redeeming that time for something holy. We gave countless choices that come our way ranging from horrible, to good, to God honoring. The last time I checked, God wants us to do what’s best, because at times, doing what is good may look holy but in all reality it is the antithesis oh doing what is holy.

  I will close with these two things. The first one is that Glorify God in what we do and how we do it, we become that sweet aroma I mentioned earlier. Secondly, if we done steward our time well, we end up asking where am I at and how did I get here? This tends to lead to a boat load of questions and guilt for opportunities not taken. If you ever listened to the song Cats in the Craddle by Harry Chapin or the countless covers of the song, you know that song is about a father regrets for working all the time and not having a relationship with his son. The final verse is the father realizing that his son turned out just like him which led to immense guilt. So here is my question, do we steward are time well in what we say, watch and do so we have a clean conscience or do we mishandle it  and deal with guilt, and shame?

Grace and Peace,

Tom Boustead

 

Family Strong

 

  Pastor Fred continued our current series by preaching out of Ephesians 2:11-22. One of the themes that the Apostle Paul uses in this letter is one of family. Throughout the letter, Paul references husbands, wives, children all multiple times. So how do the themes that Paul talks about two thousand years ago apply today and how do we apply them to our work family, friends who are like family, our biological family and even the family that we don’t like or talk too. 

  My first thought is that every family has a set of rules that are both spoken and unspoken. If you are to interact within the family, you are going to abide by these rules and when you don’t, it could lead to alienation. Within the extreme conservative Amish culture, when these rules that are set by either the family or the local Bishop are not met, people are shunned. It can be as extreme as the shunned not being able to sit at the family table or meals. They have to sit by themselves and often receive the cold shoulder to the point they are not a part of the family until something is either amended or made right. Healthy families have healthy rules to help people stay in healthy relationships and provide a way for restoration. So here is my question, are there rules that are either stated or implied that tend to either drive people away or alienate them because they are legalistic or not Biblical?

  My second thought is that as a church family we are all adopted. What this means is not only are we now all family and we should act like it, but we were also bought with a great price. Christ great sacrifice is what allows us to be family and that makes none of us are second class citizens in Gods family. My niece and nephew are adopted and I don’t see them as second class citizens, but as family that is apart of me and I in them. When you are adopted, you receive all the benefits and responsibilities of being apart of that family. When we become adopted by God through Jesus, we get the benefit of the Holy Spirit, our sins forgiven and the promise of heaven. 

  My third thought is turning strangers into friends. It goes back to that thing of being responsible. It is more than just telling people about Jesus, but it is loving them like Jesus. As a church, we are blessed to have three different services and most of us go to a particular one on a consistent basis and when we adventure to another service, we see different people we don’t know and each service has its own vibe. For me, I attend the Saturday night service, but this week I attended the 8:30 service and I didn’t know a lot of people. Turning strangers into friends takes some risk on everyone’s part and putting ourselves out there. 

  Another part of turning strangers into friends is called hospitality. We all know that one person who can connect with just about anyone and makes them comfortable. Hospitality is more than this and inviting people over for meals. True hospitality is being intentional at relationships, and finding ways to not only bringing people together but fostering a deeper relationships no matter the team they root for, people they vote for or their view on church and religion. There has been a movement called Dinner Church and its whole design is to bring people together from different backgrounds for a meal and to discuss that weeks message. I do something similar. I meet with two guys on Saturday morning for breakfast and to talk. Now  we do share a lot of laughs, but we are there to encourage each other and we have had some serious discussions. We don’t agree on everything but we are still there to encourage and to pray for each other. I want that for everyone

My final observation is about that dirty little word called submission, and no I am not using it in a Mixed Martial Arts reference or for men to control woman. In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us that we are supposed to submit to each other. To be honest, we can’t submit to each other, unless we are submitting to God first. Submitting to each other doesn’t mean we are on some power trip trying to be controlling, but it means we want what’s the best for each other in the light of Gods grace. This means that we do things that promotes being family strong, both in our individual families and our church family. This also means we do our chores. Just as we do our dishes or laundry at home, there are chores in the church that we need to do. Everything from changing diapers in the nursery to shoveling to for someone who can’t. Submitting means takes a lot of humility because it often takes us to places we don’t want to go, things we don’t want to do or gifts we don’t want to develop. Humility doesn’t mean we think less of ourselves bout we think of ourselves less. It is finding our and others worth in Christ. Godly submission also doesn’t mean we don’t have a backbone, but how we use it. It is finding the right way to do and say things. So being family strong means that we realize that everyone is created in the image of God with unique giftings and how are we living up to that

Grace and Peace

 

Tom Boustead

Trust and Rest

 

  Pastor Haven preached this weekend and his passage was Psalm 23. One of the assumptions that we could make of this passage is that everything is going well for David, but it’s not completely true. This is a season where King Saul becomes jealous of David because he was next in line for the throne, and that he was not only winning battles, but he was also adored by the people. So Saul decided to take matters into his own hands and go after David to end him. This caused David to go on the run and he ended up in a cave scared, hungry, and alone. In the midst of this, David wrote this Psalm. 

  To help give Psalm 23 a little more context, go back and read Psalm 22. It’s a famous Psalm because Jesus quotes it when He was on the cross. Jesus was asking why He was forsaken. If you were a first century Jew and witnessed Jesus crucifixion, you would recognize that He was quoting Psalm 22. This Psalm probably is David reflecting on his time on the run from Saul. This what makes Psalm 23 more important because even though David was on the run, He still trusted in the goodness of God and relied on His protection and promises. So when we are on the run and even pooping in a cave, who are you trusting?

  My first observation is that with God being our Shepherd is that He provides everything we need. I remember growing up and every fall we get the Sears catalog that had all the cool toys and clothes for the Christmas season. I remember going through the massive advertisement and wishing that would get all the cool toys. Here is the thing, I don’t remember getting any of those cool toys. Now I did get Christmas gifts, but there is a difference of getting what I wanted and what I needed. My parents were wise enough to know the difference. This is the same with God, He provides everything we need. Also, how many things do we want or we think we need will be our downfall if we actually get it? According to the ESPN Documentary, after two years of retirement, 78% of NFL Players are either broke or under financial stress and five years after retirement, roughly 60% are bankrupt. Having everything isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. In the documentary, former NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar essentially said that when you are broke, no one recognizes you and that is a blessing because they are not hitting you up for money for “great opportunities.”

  My second observation is that we need to be intentional about finding rest.  As many people can attest to, life gets super busy. From working, to various family/friends obligations, and projects around the house means that someone or something is always demanding our attention or time. If we are not intentional about being restful, it won’t happen. Even if we claim that we will rest when the current project is wrapped up, it probably won’t happen because something will demand our attention. When this happens we need to develop healthy boundaries and learning when to put off till later or even saying no. There are times where we need to prioritize our time with God and our mental health because others likely won’t. also means that we do things that are restful.

 Being intentional means knowing the activities that drains us and another activities that restores our soul. For each person, this is different. For me it’s doing laundry, so when I need to rest and for my soul to be restored, I don’t do that. Instead, I grab my camera and head to a local trail or state park to take pictures. This allows me to connect with God and to be constructive. Or if I need a change of pace, I go catch a midweek matinee movie by myself and the theater is usually fairly quiet. If we are not intentional and create plans to rest and connect with God, we end up either becoming super busy and we end up crashing and burning or we accidentally spend hours scrolling on our favorite electronic device and we become mush. If we are not intentional, it won’t happen, no matter how much we want it because we do what we prioritize even if cost us dearly. So are we prioritizing time to rest and to commune with God?

  The biggest take away that I took is this concept of trust and who do we trust more. Do we trust God that his gifts and peace are perfect and what we need, or do we trust ourselves to go out and get what we need? Trusting God is the only way we will find peace and rest. Now there our things that we have to be responsible for and do, but it is trusting God to provide the things that only He can provide. I know there are some of us who have a hard time of creating healthy boundaries and saying no and sticking to it. The only way we can find true rest and peace is when we trust God completely. 

Grace and Peace 

Tom Boustead 

Living on a Prayer

    Pastor Fred continued the current  series by preaching from Ephesians 6:18-22 and the focus is prayer. Throughout his writings the Apostle Paul references prayer or prays for believers multiple times. Prayer is so important that it is one of our core beliefs here at Journey. So here is my question, how is your prayer life? Is it something we only do when our backs are against the wall or something big is coming up, or when we remember or feel like it?

 My first observation on prayer comes from my favorite C.S. Lewis quote of “ I pray not to change God, but I pray so that He changes me.” So here is my question on prayer, what is our intention when we pray. Is it something that we can get what we want or to make God more like us? If that is the case, either God isn’t all who He says He is, or that our egos are pretty inflated and we think we are better than what we really are. In the Lords Prayer, there is the famous line of “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It is saying that Gods plan and glory comes before ours and the only way this happens is if God changes us. 

 My second observation is that prayer is a form of communication. Just a thought, if you don’t communicate with a spouse or a loved one, how is that relationship going? My guess is that it isn’t and there could be a lot of hurt and miss managed expectations that comes from this.  The same is with God, how can we know what He wants when we don’t talk. One of the foundations of ant relationship is communication and it is true with God. As we see throughout Scripture, there are many forms of prayer, whether it is a prayer of praise, lamenting, asking God to provide, questioning, to even a prayer of yelling at God because we are mad. Different seasons require different prayers, and my challenge is are we doing them on a consistent basis and for moe than thirty seconds. 

 My third observation is that God commands us to pray for our enemies. If we spend any time watching or reading the news or our social media pages, we realize that we have an easy time distrusting people and creating enemies, especially those who are in power. This is my guess, we would rather crucify them rather than praying for Gods grace for them and that they might walk with Jesus. Even something more radical, how about we pray that God will bless them. Here is the thing, when we pray for our enemies, we might realize that we play a bigger problem in the situation and we are the ones who need to seek forgiveness. In essence prayer is the great equalizer. 

  My final observation is this, when we pray, are we spending time listening? Prayer is more than giving God a laundry list of things to take care of. In all reality, God isn’t a Genie whose sole purpose is to answer our wishes. Any part of good communication is the art of listening not to respond but to understand. I have a running joke with my mom that we don’t tell each other things. Most of the time the problem is that the information does get shared but someone isn’t listening. As the band MercyMe points out in their song, Word of God Speak that sometimes in prayer we are a at a loss for words and that is ok. 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Gifts

 

  Pastor Fred continued our series by peaching out of Ephesians 4:7-16. The crux of the message is that we all are a part of the body of Christ with various gifts and that we need to use them not only for the church to run well but it is our form of worship. Using our gifts causes us to be stretched and to grow. 

  My first observation is that God calls us to something unique and special. In essence God gave us a particular gift to use so that we can glorify Him. Even though the two same people may have the same gift, it looks different because of how God has wired us and how He wants us to use it. For those who are gifted with kids, some might be called to children’s ministry and others are called to the foster care system. Same gift, it is just being played out in two different ways. I know when I am out taking pictures, I have met some unique people and the conversations have been random at best. I have even shared by faith with people that I have encountered.

  My second observation is that the gifts are suppose to bring growth and unity. How often when we are using our God given gifts do they stretch us and take us out of our comfort zone. Gods gifts are not only designed to bring Him glory, but for us to rely on Him. How often does God call us out of our comfort zone? Whether it is public speaking, to God having us call out the elephant in the room with family or friends. We can’t always be true Minnesotans and be passive aggressive about everything. If we are truly to use our gifts for God and to do great things, we need to rely on Him and not on our own strength. 

  How Gods gifts bring unity is that our gifts can not operate independently from each other. Just as a baseball pitcher relies on their catcher and defense to have a good game, we need other Christians using their gifts to make our gifts go and to make more of an impact. We all have a role and how our we using it? In order to make something go and run well, everything needs to work and work well. Just like a vehicle, if the battery doesn’t work, neither the lights will work and the vehicle won’t start. This is the same with the Christian faith, if we don’t do what God calls us to do, the church will not run as efficiently as it could or should. This is where unity comes in, it is going in the same direction for the same purpose.

  My third observation is that no one gift is greater than another. How many of us want what I call the big beautiful gifts. Whether it is teaching from the stage to running the sound board. We all have that one gift that we desire and we think is a little better than the rest of the gifts. I will be honest, one gift isn’t better than the other, because they all are used to glorify God. Whether it is sweeping up Cheerios after kids church to fixing a single mom’s car for free, it’s all about glorifying God. Gods gifts are perfect and He gives is those gifts because He has wired us a particular way so that we can reach out to particular people. So instead of whining about the gifts we do have or the lack of the big and beautiful gifts we don’t have, how about using what God gives us to glorify Him

  I will close with this, and that is we all have gifts and God expects us to use them. How often do we think that something isn’t our job or someone is better suited to do it and then it doesn’t get done. When this happens, things don’t run as smoothly or they fail. Also, when we use those gifts, we tend to grow and mature. In essence, God is calling us to get off of our hands and to grow up so we can use our gifts to worship Him. Using our gifts doesn’t save us, but should be a response of what God has done for us and through us.

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Where are You Walking Towards?

 

   Pastor Fred picked up the current series by preaching out of Ephesians 2:1-10. The theme of this weekends sermon is what are we walking to and more importantly, what are we walking in? How many of us knows someone who walks (or marches) to the beat of their own drum. They do their own thing and don’t care what anyone else thinks or says. My junior high English teacher told me I was a wonder because I could be found wondering the halls and not in class. So when we are walking, do we have purpose and intent or are we just meandering with no purpose. 

  My first observation is that with free will, there are things that are Godly and things that are pure evil. God isn’t going to force us to love Him, or even choose Him. We can choose God or we can choose our own thing and to satisfy our own desires.  To put it another way, in 1 John 1, the Apostle John tells us that if we walk with God, we are in the light, and if we don’t walk with God, we are in darkness. When we are in light, we seek the truth and we live a holy life for all to see. If we walk in darkness, we want to hide in the shadows and we hide our evil thoughts and deeds. In essence we become so warped and calloused, we become like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy 

 My second observation is that there are a lot of times when things are not as they seem. How often have you walked into a room and there is tension in the air and it is extremely uncomfortable, no matter what is being said. I know spiritual warfare is a topic unto its self, but we gave to realize that most of the battles we face are not of flesh and blood, but of good vs evil. One way we can look at is that Satan is trying to deceive us and to make sure that we don’t walk with God and he makes things look awesome until the bill comes due. Are there times when there is spiritual warfare going on and Satan is out in full force trying to deceive us? Yes there is, but we also have to realize that we live in a fallen state and we do what we think is good or makes us comfort able, safe and even happy. When we walk in darkness, we conceal, hide and distort any mention of Godly truth and love because it is all about me. 

  My third observation is there is a difference between walking in darkness vs walking in the light and it is love. My question is, who or what do we love more? Do we love chaos, destruction and ourselves more than walking in light that brings peace, comfort, and a knowledge that God loves us and we don’t have to or need to hide in fear or conceal anything from God. It’s that peace that passes all understanding. In essence, do we love ourselves more and what we can get away with or do we love walking in light and the truth and peace of God?

 So here is my final question? What steps do we need to take in order to walk in the light? If I am brutally honest, we all have that one thing that God has been calling us out on. It could be a small whisper to God using a megaphone announcing what He is calling us too. Most of the time it is an elephant size thing that God is calling us to walk in. To paraphrase an idea and that is the best way to take care of an elephant is one bite at a time. When we decide to walk in the light and to eat that elephant, we can have more success when we share our journey with someone. Not only does it help us with accountability but they also say that confession is good for the soul. How many times have you brought something into the light through confession and you felt ten times better and a weight has been lifted. This means we don’t have to work so hard to hide something and to act a certain way to make ourselves and others think that everything is good. Also it might help with anxiety and depression. To close out with a walking metaphor. Life is a journey and the destination matters and walking in darkness and walking in light takes us to two different places. 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Meditaton

  I had the privilege of giving the message at youth group tonight while the youth pastor was at youth camp.  My teaching passage was Psalm 119:1-24. This chapter happens to be the longest chapter the Bible with 176 verses. Even though there is no author listed, David is attributed as the author of the this Psalm. As we have explored this summer, all of the Psalms that we have covered have dealt with a specific story. Whether it is David being on the run from Saul to David confessing his sin with Bathsheba. This chapter doesn’t look at a single story, but takes the big picture approach and shares what it means to live a Christian life. In essence this Psalm is probably written over a long period of time and it is a reflection of David and what he has learned. 

  There are Two words that keep coming up in this passage. The first one is the word law and it comes up 25 times in the chapter. Think of it as God is teaching us His commands and it shows His authority. The second word is the word precept and it has a meaning of a person who manages and investigates Gods law and puts it into practice. We are like the manager inspecting what God has for us and putting it into practice. One of the things I think that God is telling us is that we can investigate His commandments and see for ourselves how good they are. In essence God isn’t afraid to be questioned because He gave us free will and we should use it. 

   I have some observations from this chapter and the first one is how teachable are we? How many of us seek advice from a parent, friend or trusted adult and then not do it? We often do this with God. We seek Him and what He has to say, but then not do it because it will be to hard or it’s not our brand. The Psalmist declares that we need to follow all of Gods laws and not pick and choose which ones we want to follow

   My second observation is that memorizing Scripture is key and something I need to get better at. When we meditate and memorize Scripture, we know what it says and how it applies to our life. Growing up, I had about five phone numbers that I knew by heart. Yes those numbers were called frequently, but also if I had a question or needed help, I could call any one of those numbers and things would be resolved. When we memorize and meditate on Scripture, not only do we know what God desired of us and we can call on it when we are in need.

 May question is that we memorize and meditate on Scripture to make us look better or to worship God. So are we memorizing Scripture as random facts to impress people, or do we do it so we can put Gods commandment to use and honor God in all we do. In verse 11, David writes that he hides God words in his he heart so that he does not sin against God. When life comes at us fast and when we get into sticky situations like wanting to cheat on a rest, we don’t have to ask what would Jesus do, because we would already know what Jesus says and has commanded us to do in those situations. The best way to do this is spending time regularly reading the Bile. Some other ways is writing out our favorite verses and meditating on them while we do it to find out what they mean and asking God to reveal what He has for us. Singing Scripture can help to. A lot of the Psalms were meant to be sung and there are different modern worship groups that puts the Psalms and other famous verses to songs so that we can sing them in our worship services.When we commit Gods law to memory, as Scripture puts it, God is writing it on our hearts. When we have something on our heart, it means that it is important to us and easy to recall in times of need. When we say we love someone with all of our heart, it means that we love them with all we have. Or when we do something with all of our heart, we do that thing with great care and we give it our best effort 

  There is the famous saying of “crap in, crap out.” This often refers to how we eat, because the better foods we eat, the better we feel and less health issues we have. This also applies to the videos we watch, games we play, and the people we read or listen too. If we consume questionable stuff, we are going to think, say and do questionable things. But if we consume Godly things, we often think, speak and act Godly. When we consume Gods word and write it on our hearts, when we encounter new ideas or are faced with a particular choice, we can decipher if it Godly or if it is trash. It also allows us to live out our faith and to glorify God

  In verses 21-23 David tells us that God puts the arrogant and prideful in their place. The prideful often lean on their own understanding and they often attack people who don’t see things their way. As we look at David’s life, he spent plenty of time on the run because people were trying to hunt him down

  The main point that I want us to walk away with is this. Having a position of authority and or knowing things doesn’t make you a Godly person. It is about digging into Gods word, testing it and putting it into practice. Are we taking time to delight and to enjoy Gods teaching. I will close with this question of what are you meditating on and and pairs with the theme verse Revolution Youth which is Joshua 1:8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.  

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

 

Grace and Peace

    Pastor Ben preached out of Judges 6:1-24 and how God used Gideon to rescue the Israelites from captivity. One themes of the Israelites, especially in the Old Testament is that things go well, then the Israelites get cocky and do what is right in their own eyes, God punishes them by sending them into captivity and the Israelites eventually repents, God forgives them and delivers them from captivity and then all is well. This cycle happens a number of times throughout the Old Testament 

  One of the things that caught my eye is how often do we blame God for our own stupidity and for the situations we get ourselves into? We often want to take responsibility for the good things we do, but when we do something stupid, or even sin, we blame God and or others. We blame God for not taking that temptation away or we wouldn’t have said something that was hurtful if the other person didn’t say what they said or done what they did. In essence, we enjoy quite well playing the victim card and somehow try to escape our punishment. Here is where the rubber meets the road and that is we may not be able to control what others do or say, but we can control our response. God Gave us the gift of a free will, so we can make choices on how we respond. How respond often reveals our heart and our intentions. Consequences, both good and bad are a result of our actions and intentions. They often point out the direction we are going. 

  How often do we make excuses? When God called Gideon to go rescue the nation of Israel from the Midianites, Gideon came up with every excuse not too. He claimed that he was the weakest of his clan and his tribe was the weakest of the 12 Tribes of Israel. Making excuses is nothing new and famous Biblical characters made them also. The biggest one was Moses. When God called him to go free His people, he claimed that he stuttered and that he wasn’t nothing to look at. We often make excuses because it will make us uncomfortable and it is going to cost us something great. We are more concerned with our comfort than doing what God calls us to do. 

  Gideon decided to obey God and go rescue the nation of Israel, here is my question for all of us. When we do this, we are being obedient, even thou we may be entering a storm and we have a peace about doing it. Could it be fixing a broken relationship or making better health decisions, no matter the what comes our way. Here is the thing about Gods peace, it doesn’t mean the absent of strife, but it is our condition and who we trust. The cool thing about Gods peace is that we don’t get it when the battle is over, but it often comes during the battle. In John 14, Jesus is celebrating His last Passover meal with His disciples before He is beaten, crucified and resurrected. The disciples are scared with what Jesus is telling them. Jesus tells them the peace He gives them and peace is what He is leaving them. Gods peace is that comfort that goes beyond human explanation and it keeps us focused and calm. Gods peace is knowing what we are doing is right, no matter the chaos that is going on around us or what others may say, because God is whispering in our ear His comfort, approval and direction.

  I will close with this, Gods peace doesn’t always mean that things will be put back together here on earth. Even though Gideon rescued the Israelites, the Midianites were still out there as neighbors. Or we tried to put the marriage back together but still ended in divorce because of a cheating spouse. The list goes on, but it is seeking God with all we have, even in the midst of the chaos and taking comfort in His grace, goodness and holiness. 

Grace and Peace

Tom

Godly Vision

 

  Pastor Fred kicked off a new series by preaching out of Ephesians 1:15-23.  I echo what Pastor Fred said and I encourage everyone to spend some time reading the book of Ephesians so that we be transformed by Gods grace. Also a little context, while Paul was writing this letter, he was locked up in prison because he was proclaiming the Gospel. One things that impresses me is that even though Paul was in prison, he was still proclaiming Gods grace. 

  One of the main points that I observed and that Pastor Fred preached on is about our vision or our eyesight. How often do we see things through our own eyes and try to convince God that how we see life is the way He should see life. How often do we tell God our life stinks and that He should do something about it. Or do we follow certain news programming or particular people because we agree on how the see life. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t listen to these people, but are we filtering what they say and do through how God sees things. My prayer is that we start seeing things as God sees them.?  

  One of the things that makes cults so popular is that there is an element of truth within their belief system, but that truth gets so distorted that it becomes a bold face lie. This is where we need the eyes of Jesus so we can decipher between what is actual truth and what is aimed at making us feel better. Or something that is scary is bold face lies that people try to pass off as Christianity. Jehovah Witnesses try to pass themselves off as Orthodox Christians but if you are to dive into their theology, you would realize that they don’t view Jesus as the Son of God, but a god. This means that there is no Trinity and this is an essential part of Orthodox Christianity. So are we praying to have Gods eyes so we can develop discernment and know the difference between wheat and chaff?

  Another thing about having the eyes of God is realizing that we are greatly loved. Within Greek (what the New Testament was written in), there are several different words and meanings for the word love. They can range from a brotherly love to a sacrificial love. Sacrificial love is loving someone with everything you have and are willing to lay down your life for that person. The other part of sacrificial love is not so much giving what someone wants but what they need. The best part about Gods sacrificial love is that there is nothing that we can do to earn it. The only thing we can do, is respond to that love. Do we live a holy life honoring God or do we do what we want to do and self destruct?

  I will close with this. When we have Gods eyes, or vision, we can properly put this life into perspective. As mentioned before, Paul was jailed for his faith at the time he wrote this letter. He still found joy and was dedicated to teaching the church of Ephesus through letter writing. Paul knew that the trials of this world has nothing on God and His goodness. We don’t let the trials of this world keep us down because Gods love and grace is greater. 

  There is the famous hymn Be Thou My Vision is based on a poem. The author of this poem was blind when he wrote it. Even though he could not physically see, he still knew what it meant to have Gods vision. So my final question is do we have Gods vision or are we to distracted and focus on everything but God?

Grace and Peace 

Tom Boustead

How is Your Faith?

 

  I hope everyone has had a great holiday weekend. Pastor Fred preached from Acts 14:8-22 and this is Paul’s first public ministry and what kind of day would of been on our first day on the new job we heal someone who is crippled and by the end of the day, we were left for dead outside the city limits. How many of us would go back to this place some time later to encourage people in their faith. This happened to Paul and here are some of my thoughts from this passage. 

  My first thought is that I wonder who is this man who could walk from birth? The only thing we know about him is of his ailment of not being able to walk. I find it interesting that there are miracles throughout the New Testament that we don’t know much of the persons story or even their name. Pastor Fred asked me a question this week on this passage that got me thinking. The question essentially was, what made Paul go over and heal this man? There was no recorded conversation between the guy and Paul, so why did Paul heal him without knowing his story or faith. My thought was that maybe it was done so that the glory of God could be revealed. How often are we healed or delivered from something and we forget to praise God for it? Instead we promote the hard work and sacrifice that we did to make something happen and we forget about God being all powerful and deserving of glory and praise. One explanation is that Paul did it to show Gods authority over all. 

  My second thought is that we are often really vain and we really like to promote our goodness or place other people on pedestals and then we crucify them as them for any wrong doing. As Christians we are guilty of this. Bill Hybels and Mark Driscoll both were pastors of fairly influential churches in the early 2000’s and often were keynote speakers at church conferences and people listened to what they had to say. Then they both had their fall from grace and were crucified for their words and actions. Now, they needed to be held accountable for those things, but I wonder if that fall from grace would of been minimized if we didn’t place them with that God like status and they didn’t allow their ego to be fed and allowed it.  When the people called Paul and Barnabas gods and were about to make sacrifices in their honor, they told them no and tore their clothing. They realized the real power was from God and not them. 

  My third observation is that after Paul and Barnabas preached the good news of the Gospel and telling the people that God made Himself known through the sending of rain, the people became fickle and let the nay sayers talk them into stoning Paul and Barnabas, even after the miracle. What gets me is that they were left for dead and after they were healed up, they went back to minister to the other believers. I would have said peace out and not gone back, but Paul and Barnabas realized that there were brothers and sisters in Christ who were struggling and they went back to minister to them. This not only took courage, but faith also. They saw the bigger picture and glorified God by going back. 

  Here is the application for us today. Throughout this whole passage, faith is at the core of it. Paul healed the man who couldn’t walk not to make himself look better, but he realized through the Holy Spirit that he had faith to be healed. There was also faith for Paul and Barnabas to go back after they were left for dead and minister to a church that was struggling. So here is my question, how is your faith doing? Are you trusting God to provide or have you become bitter enough to walk away or not trust as much? At some point we all hit rock bottom and we have three basic choices. The first one is to grab some dynamite and keep digging. The second one is that we sit there and whine above our problems. Or the third option is that we act out in faith and we stick out our and callout for Jesus. Remember, for those of us who are not at rock bottom, we use our faith to come alongside those are struggling and encourage them. 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Holy Play

  Pastor Fred continued the series by preaching out of Zephaniah 3:9-17 and we learned about how play as worship. Play can be defined is something we get to do and not have to do and enjoy doing. For clarification, this form of play is God honoring and often feel His presence and joy over us. Here are some random thoughts about this weekends message

  How often do we see God not as joyful, a singer and who delights over us but as angry, domineering and even vengeful. Do we take Jonathan Edwards famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (it’s a classic sermon and deserves to be read and meditated on) to the extreme and think that God wants to smite us for every little thing we do.  Now I recommend reading the three short chapters of Zephaniah to gain a context for the final eight verses, because in those chapters God is judging His people for their sin and stupidity, but there is hope. The first sign of hope that there are consequences for sin and stupidity and we are going to be held accountable. Secondly, God wishes for no one to perish, but to seek forgiveness and to be made new. Thirdly, God promises us a remnant or a group of people who stayed faithful to His calling and sought forgiveness and grace and continued to seek after Him. So instead of seeing God as vengeful, see Him as a loving Father who desires to sing with and over us.

  I consider Luke 15 as the Lost Chapter. Luke shares three parables of a lost sheep, lost coin, and the lost (or parodical) son. In each of the stories, someone or something was lost. When all three things were found or returned home, God celebrated by stating what was lost is either found or came home and all of heaven and earth celebrated. Instead of the father shaming the son, or the shepherd doing the same to the sheep, they were met with great joy and a celebration ensued. Now there were consequences to be dealt with, but they could wait till tomorrow. When something is lost and is returned, we often feel great joy. How often have we lost something of value, such as car keys, a wallet or even a child in a busy park. We often put everything else on hold so we can find those things often turning everything upside down. God does the same with us. 

  If God laughs, rejoices, sings gand creates, shouldn’t we do the same since we are created in His image. In essence holy play is when we worship as we play. Telling great jokes, putting together puzzles to spending time outdoors hunting or fishing. I consider holy play as worship because it’s not only fun and something we enjoy doing, it also helps us connect with God and for us to not only delight in each other, but also it helps us to keep God in His proper place. For me, I like to be go to various state parks to take pictures on my days off.  Not only do I spend time in thought and worship, but I have found people who go to state parks friendly. I have my share of random conversations with random people on various topics and had many laughs. My favorite is when my mom and a family friend joins me to go exploring. We share many laughs and take many rabbit trails but often ends with either a picnic lunch or ice cream. In essence, Holy Play is time for worship and for finding joy in God, but also connecting with others. If we go back to the creation story in Genesis, God created us so that He could be in relationship with us. This means that we can and should commune ad enjoy God and each other. May you find time and events to holy play and to worship God with each other. 

Grace and Peace 

Tom Boustead 

Sacrificial Worship

  Pastor Fred continued the series on worship by preaching out of Ephesians 6:5-9. One of the things that hit me as Pastor Fred started out is that does our worship have purpose? One of the things that often gets us in trouble is that when we worship, we just go through the motions. In essence, it is just something that we do so that we can check it off of our list. Whether it is our devotional and prayer life, or coming to church and even sharing the Gospel. Do we do it so that we can check it off of our list and we can go do our own thing. True worship should be in everything we do and takes our all, whether it is worship in a church service to how we work for our paycheck and how we interact with everyone we come into contact with. 

  I was doing some reading this week and was reminded that worship is sacrifice. As we have gone through this series, Romans 12:1-2 has come up weekly and it is Paul telling us that we are to be a living sacrifice. When we become a living sacrifice, we say that it is not our will but Gods. When we worship and become a living sacrifice, it’s often means that that it is going to cost us something great. Could it mean we get a little less sleep, or go without so others can have something. Often when this happens, God puts us in uncomfortable situations, not because He is a jerk, but it allows u to either trust Him more or to walk away and do our own thing. Sometimes God calls us to sacrifice something that we hold valuable because we have placed it over God and we would rather worship that instead of God. Maybe we Gould spend less time on social media or drop it all together because we either care to much about what other people think or their reaction to some news story or gossip. I know I can be guilty of this, it is saying something just to get a reaction out of someone while sitting back and watching them fume. Sacrificial worship is keeping the right things in the right place and giving God all the glory. 

  So here is a question I thought of, can we truly worship without joy? We can worship when we are happy, because that is more circumstantial and we are in a good mood for various reasons. Worshipping with joy means we worship despite our circumstances and what is going on. Can we worship when our boss is being unfair, or our significant other said or did something extremely hurtful. True worship is handling those situations with grace, forgiveness and not sweeping it under the rug. Or how about when we are the idiot and do or say something that is hurtful. We shouldn’t have joy because we did those things, but joy in worship comes in seeking forgiveness and making restitution so that it does not happen again. 

  Over the last few weeks Pastor Fred has repeatedly said that worship happens in all area of our lives. One of the big areas is how we worship at work. Most of us work at places where Christianity isn’t the only option and there are even people who are hostile towards Christianity. Worship at work is more than requesting Christian music be played or praying for our meals during our lunch. True worship is how we work. Do we do things to the best of our ability, do we take shortcuts in our projects, to how we interact and talk with and about people. People often notice and believe in more of what they see us do and how we react people than the words we say. I have worked with people who had the ability to talk about big game, but when it was time to work, they had no work ethic and treated people like garbage and most people knew it. 

  One of the interesting things with working at Wal Mart is that I work with a lot of younger people and they have no connection with God. There are two guys in particular that I interact with a lot and we are all history fans. So we often share tidbits of history stuff with each other and ask historical questions. My latest question was asking them what famous world leader past or present they would like to interview? I got everything from Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler.  The conversation it led to was interesting. When we worship as we work, people tend to notice and ask questions. Through that, we can build relationships and point them to Jesus. 

  I will close with this. We are all created to worship God in everything we do, and yess sometimes it is hard work and sacrifice, but life goes better when we do it Gods way. 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Work as Worship

   Pastor Fred continued the series on worship by preaching out of Colossians 3:18-4:1. The crux of the message is how do we bring the sacred  to the secular. As Pastor Fred was preaching, I was reminded of when President Kennedy as he was campaigning for the White House in 1960, he had gotten a question about being Catholic and President. He responded by saying that: 

     “He wasn’t a Catholic running for president, but he was the Democratic Nominee running for president 

       who happens to be Catholic.”

  In essence, he was saying that his faith or worship wasn’t going to affect how he was going to run the country and interact with other world leaders. When we take this view or approach, our faith or worship isn’t that important to change how we do things and see the world. Our faith becomes very private when we do this and we loose that communal feel not only with God, but others also. Here are some thoughts from this weekends message.

  My first observation is about our sincerity in worship, not so much when we are in church, but we live life when we are with our family, at work, or even when we are doing our hobbies. How often do we zone out while we are doing those mundane task whether it is doing dishes, pointless paperwork while at work. Sincerity in worship means that we do those things to the best of our ability, no matter if it is for our best friend or that boss we could care less for. Remember, everyone is created in Gods image, and we worship God in how we treat them and do things for them. 

  The Apostle Paul in his letter to Philemon, he encourages the runaway slave Onesimus to go back to Philemon and to work as he is working for God. This idea of work is more than performing task, but it is glorifying God in all we do and doing things to the best of our ability. Paul also tells Philemon to treat Onesimus with care and respect because he is a believer and a child of God. 

  My second observation is that according to the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:10 that we are Gods handiwork and we were created for a purpose. God has created each one of us uniquely and it not only shows the vastness and greatness of God, but our worship back to God is taking the gifts that He gives us and doing them for His purpose. God designed each one of us for a specific task and to reach particular people. Where we get ourselves in trouble is when we take those gifts and use them for not their desired purpose. Even worse is when we become jealous of other people’s gifts and we either try and develop those gifts and become frustrated when we don’t get the desired result, or we sit down, throw our hands in the air and throw a fit. Bringing the sacred a little closer to the secular is taking those gifts that God gave us and taking how He designed us and we go out and we change the world. I call this work as worship, because we are not only worshipping God through song, but in action also. 

  I will close with this and it has been a theme throughout the whole series. We are to be a living sacrifice, and when we do this, it requires everything from us. We can not keep certain things from God, we are getting off of that altar and doing our own thing, we go from worshipping God to worshipping ourselves. When this happens, the secular and sacred get further apart and when we do this, we put God in a box and we only open that box when we need Him. God is not only supposed to transform our song and who we pledge allegiance to, but also in what we do and how we do it.

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Worship as Response

 

  

  Pastor Fred continued the series on worship by preaching out of Colossians 3:12-17 and we could spend forever in this passage mining the truths that the Apostle Paul gives not only to Timothy and the church at Colossae in the first century, but to us in the twenty first century. If you want a piece of random information, theologians like John and Charles Wesley along with Martin Luther took popular songs of their day and put sound theology to the melodies and they used it in their worship

  The first thing that hit me was that forgiveness is apart of our worship. Just as we were forgiven by God, we shall forgive others as a part of our worship. Can we truly sing and worship God if we have bitterness, fear or hate in our hearts? Throughout the whole Bible, God tells us that He would rather for us to be in right relationship with Him and others over a well sung song or the gifts that we give. Even Jesus tells us to leave our gifts at the altar so we can go make things right with others. Can we truly sing and worship God without giving and receiving forgiveness?

  My second observation is that worship is sacrifice. In Romans 12 the Apostle Paul tells us that we are to be a living sacrifice. This means that worship takes our whole life and dedication, wether we are singing in church to mowing the lawn, and even at our place of employment, we do things and interact with people as a form of worship and for Gods glory and also to exalt Him. But I will warn all of us, being a living sacrifice means that it’s for Gods glory and not ours. The other is that being a living sacrifice means that we like to jump off of the altar and not be that living sacrifice because things get uncomfortable or we don’t like the direction that Gods calling us. 

  My third observation is that singing often is a great unifier. I was at a conference in college and the worship duo Shane and Shane led worship. After one teaching session, they came on stage and led worship and there is something about a bunch of over caffeinated and sleep deprived college students who came from all over the Midwest singing and worshiping together. God showed up that night and we worshiped as one. It didn’t matter our college, where we were from or if we had Armenian, Reformed or  Pentecostal theology, or who we voted for, because we were all there to worship the same Savior. Worship, especially singing helps us not only unifies and builds community, but it also restores our focus on who should be worshiped and that is God. 

  I will close with this, it’s easy to worship when we know the songs and we like the style, but can we still worship when we don’t know the songs and or despise the style? Also, do we check out when we don’t like the song, style, or are distracted by that days events. True worship is singing no matter if it is a Chris Tomlin song or a hymn from the 1500’s played on an organ, we worship God in song, because worship, especially singing is our response to what God has done for us and even through us. 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Holiness

 

 Pastor Ben continued the series on worship by starting with Romans 1:19-20. The passage states that God made Himself known to His creation and that He is holy. So what does this mean that God is holy and what does this mean? How often when we hear of Gods holiness do we shut down or redefine it so we can do what we want to do? When we do this we are making God in our own image and even making ourselves equal with God. Eve did this in the Garden of Eden and it didn’t work out so well. 

  My first thought is that God is transcendent. This means that not only is God holy, but He is also greater than us. Our greatest thoughts do not even come close to God and His greatness. Gods transcendence means He is all powerful, knowing, sinless and everything begins and ends with Him. This also means that God is everywhere and He sees everything. There is nothing that we can we can do or say that we can hide from God, so why do we even try to hide from God? The other thing about Gods transcendence is that since He is perfect and loving, He gets sets the standard of what is right and wrong. This also means that He will judge us for our actions. Even though God is holy and transcendent, we can still know Him through Scripture, creation and through Jesus. God gives us those rules because He is holy and that means He can not be in the presence of sin. The rules are not designed raptor be vindictive, but good and to protect us. 

 My second observation is that Leviticus 20:26 God states that He is holy and we should be holy also. So what does it mean to be holy? The first idea is that God calls us to live differently. One of the big tale aways from the book of Galatians that we went through is that we are not to bow down to or live by our fleshly desires. Being holy is about putting down our fleshly desires for those of the Holy Spirit. Holiness can be summed up in two concepts. The first one is that being holy means we are set apart. This means we belong to God and He has created us for a specific purpose and to fulfill that purpose which is to worship God with everything we have and in everything we do. The second part of being made holy is following the  two greatest commandments, which is loving God with everything we have and loving our neighbor as ourselves. The only way this can happen is letting God come in and change our hearts. This means that we allow God to come in and change our desires from worshipping ourselves to worshiping Him with all we have and wanting to honor Him in all we do by being obedient to His leading.

  My third observation is the idea is how do we become holy?  The first thing is that we can not just accept Jesus as our Savior but we also must make Him our Lord. We can only pledge complete allegiance to one thing or person, and it needs to be God. Not only is He our Savior, but we also need to make Him our king and be obedient to His leading. There are two theological principles come into play here. The first one is what God does to us. This is how we become holy, by God not only forgiving us, but changing our desires and ridding our sinful nature and replacing it with His if we allow. The second part is what God does through us. What Good is being holy if we don’t let God work through us. This is where loving our neighbor comes in. Being holy is more than prayer, Scripture reading and going to church. It is about God working through us so when He calls is to serve that person that we don’t like and maybe even hate, we can rely on Gods grace and Stregnth and not our own. When we do this we see how God values people and not how we vale people because we can treat others or ourselves like garbage. Holiness provides a way to live a changed life while impacting the world for God. 

  I will close with this. The great church reformer John Wesley has a quote that goes “there is no personal holiness unless there is social holiness,” means that our growth in God has to lead to building personal relationship with God is good, but we also need to share our relationship with God and how He has changed us with other people. 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead 

Worship in Spirit and in Truth

 

 Pastor Fred continued our series on worship by preaching out of John 4:19-42. A brief synopsis is that Jesus has a back and forth with the Samaritan woman at the well. The essence of the conversation is where is the appropriate place to worship because the Jews and the Samaritans had two different places where they thought the appropriate place of worship was.  It’s because they had a dislike or borderline hatred towards each other dating back to the Old Testament. The other part of the conversation is how do we worship. In the worship wars, have we ever thought of asking Gods how we should worship instead of doing it our preferred method of worship?

  So my first observation is what does it mean to worship God in Spirit and in truth? This phrase has always perplexed me because what does it mean to worship in spirit and truth. My first observation is that God is Spirit and He is to be worshipped in spirit. We can accomplish this is because we are spirit too a because we are made in His image. The wonderful thing about God being spirit is than He can be every where at one and yet in one place all at the same time. We don’t have to worry about God not showing up because He is already there, we just need to realize it and embrace it. 

   Worshipping God not only means that we are learning more about God, but also putting it into practice. This is when knowledge becomes wisdom. This comes down to realizing that all goodness and truth comes from God and can not be found anywhere else. How we do this is more than singing a few songs, but spending time in prayer, studying the Bible and pushing each other to grow. What is the point of knowing something if we don’t use it. 

  Worship is also about submitting to God and His ways. Submission can create some raw and bad emotions. We can wither submit to sin and destruction or we can submit to God and His ways, and be set free. Submitting to God takes humility and a realization that we can not do it and it is allowing God to and giving Him all glory and praise for doing it. We all submit to something and what are we willing to submit to?

  Worship is about sacrifice and giving our all to God. The Apostle Paul in Romans 12 writes that we are to become living sacrifices and when we do this, we get on Gods altar allowing Him to do as He wishes. But here is the problem with being a living sacrifice, we tend to want to get off that altar when things get to uncomfortable or hot. True worship is submitting to God when we don’t want to or when we think it is too hard or we don’t want to. I was living in Oklahoma at the time and I developed a relationship with a guy who needed a lot of grace in my book and I even thought he didn’t deserve it most of the time. I remember God telling me to go to his place to connect with him and I told God that He was crazy. After arguing with God, I did it and he wasn’t home. I was glad but then God kick my butt, and I had to repent. I know this idea is a whole blog by itself, but true worship is an act of obedience to God. Through out the whole Bible, God tells His people to either leave their gifts at altar to go make things right with other people or that God doesn’t want gifts, but He desires a pure heart and right relationships and at the end of the day, this is a big part of worship. 

  To close out we are all created to worship something, whether it is God, ourselves, others or a particular way of doing things, we only have room for one thing on our throne and I pray it’s God. Also it is not a one and done thing because it is something we need to to on a continuous basis

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Worship

 

  Pastor Fred started a new series this week on worship and the passage we started off with is Mark 14:1-9. Here are some of my thoughts about worship

  My first thought is that we were created to worship. We either worship God, ourselves or something else. There is only room for one thing at a time in the center of our lives. If you wonder what you worship, take inventory of what you spend the most time doing and thinking about? In essence, what does our life revolve around and what consumes us? Just a reminder that worship is more than singing a song, but it’s what we do and who or what we give the highest priority in our lives. 

  My second thought is that true worship not only should cost us something great, but it is also extravagant and even scary. Just like when Mary anointed Jesus feet with the perfume that was worth a years wage, she went against every social norm of the time. Not only was feet washing ment for the lowest servant, but also she was female with a troubled past. Mary had to swallow her own pride and not listen to the snarky comments and thoughts of the disciples to anoint Jesus feet. True worship is not a public showing or a look at me moment, but it is putting God where He belongs in our lives. I’m all for corporate worship but it’s the appropriate response and expression to Gods grace in our lives. 

  My third thought is that worship isn’t always easy nor convenient. How often do we feel like we don’t have the energy, time to worship or that our relationship with God is so dry that we don’t have the desire to. Pastor Haven has told the youth more than once that when it’s the hardest to worship, that’s when we should worship the hardest. In essence, worship is a choice and something we need to be intentional with. Worship is even singing songs we don’t like, serving people we don’t agree with and even giving up something of high value or taking a personal hit on how others see us. 

  I will close with this. Fanny Crosby who wrote over 8,000 worship songs and is the author of the great hymn Blessed Assurance. She knows something about choosing to worship because was blinded at six weeks old due to medical malpractice. She chose to worship God despite her horrible condition that wasn’t her fault. No matter what our circumstances are or how we feel, worship is something we choose to do with everything we have because God deserves it and so much more

Grace and Peace 

Tom Boustead

New Creation

 

  Pastor Fred finished up the sermon series by preaching out of Galatians 6 and the crux of the message is that we are a new creation and we should live like it. Here are some of my thoughts. 

 My first thought is that life is hard and life is even harder when we do stupid things. How often do we say or do something stupid that we immediately regret. I can not be the only person who does this. How often do we say something stupid and then we immediately hope no one heard us. Instead, not only was it heard, but it gets immortalized and even taken out of context. Then we try to recover and it makes it even worse. Maybe this is why the Apostle Paul tells us to take every thought captive. It’s so we can think about what we say and do before we actually do it. 

  My second thought is what tables in our lives need to be overturned by Jesus. What are the areas where we either have slacked off, or gotten to comfortable. One of the tragic things is that as people we don’t change when we are comfortable or things are going well. It takes some major discomfort for us to change and that’s something we don’t seek in Western Christianity. It either takes us suffering the consequences of our stupidity or Jesus coming in and kicking over tables Himself. How often would we exchange Gods greatness so we can be comfortable and live that American Dream? Maybe there is a reason why Christianity is growing in places like China, maybe because they are comfortable with being uncomfortable. 

  My third thought is this idea of grace. The book of Galatians is filled with it, whether it is how God relates to us, how we relate to ourselves and others and even the application of the Fruits of the Spirit. But we can abuse that grace. We abuse it by caring what we look like on the outside rather than the inside. To put it Biblically, we become white washed tombs. We look good on the outside but we are filled with dead stinky bones on the inside. Our lives often become a live social media page where we only project what is good and only the viewpoint we like. Allowing Gods grace in our lives not only should affect how we relate to God and others, but seeing and doing life in Gods reality.  Gods grace along with the Holy Spirit allows is to see and live life as it should be

I will close with this. We need each other and not only laugh with each other, but to cry and to hold each other accountable I find this with one other youth leaders of the church. Yes we spend time together pouring into the teens on Wednesday nights, but we often gather together to do life together outside of Wednesday nights. Whether it is testing out the new slushy machine to having dinner together to build relationships. My favorite is when I was in the hospital earlier this year a group of leaders came in together and we had a party in my room and it was the highlight of my day. So my final question for the series is, what would it look like for you to embrace each other and to live out Gods grace?  After aLowe are a new creation in Christ and maybe we should act like it

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Bearing each other’s burdens

 

  Pastor Ben continued the preaching series by preaching out of Galatians 6:1-10.  One of the big things is that we are to gather together to bear each other’s burdens. We are not supposed to live or do this life alone. This means that we need to be intentional on being in each other’s lives. Yes it takes work and it will cost us something and it is usually something great. If we are going to bear each other needs, we have to be responsible and take care of what God calls to do in out own lives. When life gets heavy and or stressful, we should come alongside each other to help through them through the season. It could be providing a listening ear, child care or even money. The other thing is that when we bear each other’s burdens, we have to be honest with each other. We don’t make things out better or worse than what they are. Or ducking questions by exclaiming “living the dream.” So here is my question, are we willing to sit around and lie to each other or are we going to tell the truth?

  Margins are important. If we don’t have margins we tend to get burned out, bitter and even jagged. Another thing that will happen is that we become so focused on the task at hand that we miss God moving.  Essentially, we are going to miss God appointed meetings to share His grace and love with others. More importantly we could miss the opportunities to be changed by God. How many of us are so busy doing things for God that we miss out on being with God? Or we keep our plate so full because we are either avoiding others or God? It could be because we don’t want to be uncomfortable and change. Or is it because we don’t want to spend the relational cash because we view the other people not worth that relational cash for whatever reason.

  Transgressions is willful sin. We know it’s wrong but we still do it anyway. How often do we use the  phrase “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission” with close friends or even God. In essence we are caring more about what we want to do than our relationships. In Romans 6, the Apostle Paul ask the question of should we keep on sinning so grace may expound more? His response was a solid no because that would be abusing Gods grace. The goal of salvation and Gods grace is not only to save us, but to transform us. Why ask for forgiveness when we continue to eat out of the pig trough. 

  Restoration is key. Not only is our relationship restored with God, but we should seek out others so they can have that same relationship with God. This can only happen if we and others seek forgiveness from God and turn from those ways that got us in trouble. It will get messy, because we will have to call out some ugly things and it will be uncomfortable. Just remember, when we are pointing the finger, there are at least three pointing back at us. When we are seeking out others, are we willing to journey with them as they overcome their issues, or do we just call them out on their behaviors? A part of restoration is walking along side each other and bearing each others burdens. Some people might call this discipleship. 

  Restoration doesn’t just happen between us and God, but with each other also. How many of us have strained relationships. Are we seeking forgiveness and restoration with the other person? Forgiveness is a must, especially when it comes to the sins we committed, but restoration might not be possible until heaven because we either need healthy boundaries or that the other person had died or not doing their part. So who are those people in your life that we either need to go forgive or ask forgiveness from. Restoration can not happen without forgiveness. 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead

Fruit of the Spirit

  Pastor Fred preached the most famous passage from Galatians which is Galatians 5:22-26. This section is known as the Fruits of the Spirit passage. It’s one of the few Bible verses that I remember from kids camp because it was put into a song. Its amazing how often we remember things that are put to a popular song or jingle 

 One of the things that we have to wrestle with is are we dominated by our feelings or by Gods fruit. There isn’t anything wrong with emotions, but when we are ruled by them it’s not good. Emotions can change quicker than the weather does when the wind switches off of Lake Superior on a nice summer day. Gods fruit is filled with holiness and not only does it look at the long term, unlike our emotions, but it is Gods character dwelling inside of us. So are we seeking to run our lives through how we feel or by Gods character?

  Even though God makes the fruit grow, we still have to do our part. Anyone who has a green thumb knows that in order to harvest fruit and veggies from the garden, they need to till the land, pull weeds, actually planting the seeds and keeping the varmints from eating the garden. So are we doing the work to allow God to grow those seeds. Whether it is spending time in Gods Word, prayer and fellowship with other believers. The important part is being obedient to what we know what God has called us to do. Here is the thing about the Fruit of the Spirit, it doesn’t grow overnight, and takes patience and hard work. The Fruits will become evident when we have self control or peace, or any other of the Fruits grow. Often other people see that growth in us before we do. It’s hard to see the growth when we are in the middle of it. 

  One of the things that I was reminded of is that love and self control book ends the Fruit of the Spirits. We can’t have such things as peace, patience or humility if we don’t have Gods love and grace permeating through our lives. In essence love is what make those things real and is what drives those characteristics in our lives. Self control is what I would call the applicator of said Fruits. As people we may be naturally gifted with at least one of the Fruits, but eventually we will become unhinged and lose our peace and patience. In essence, our flesh and sinful nature take over and we worry or we have an epic meltdown. Toddlers in Wal Mart aren’t the only ones who like to kick, scream and make a scene. Self control is putting away things that will get us in trouble and to embrace and live in the freedom of boundaries. In essence, they are called Fruits of the Spirit because we can not produce them and sustain them on our own. They come from God and only grow and multiply when we are obedient to Him. 

 To close out, the Apostle Paul talks a lot about the freedom that God provides vs the deeds of the flesh and the destruction that will follow. A reminder that our actions do have consequences, both that are good and also ones that are disastrous. So do we live in the freedom of God, which allows these Fruits to grow and the world to be attracted to them, or do we live an unhinged life by doing what we want to do and suffering the pain and consequences of said choices?  So do we want to love those who are difficult to love, have patience when we don’t know what’s next or to have peace when everything is falling apart? This is when we submit everything to God and tell our flesh and Sinatra we can not do things my way.