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