Living sacrificially

   

  Pastor Fred continued the What’s Next Series by preaching out of Acts 14. There were quite a few nuggets that I picked up on and here are a few of them. The first one is that one of the underlying themes of the sermon is, What is Truth? This has been a long debated subject etc and one of the more famous examples is in the Gospel of John when Pontius Pilate asked that exact question to Jesus. The subject of truuth can be put two ways. There is Truth with a capital T that is absolute and no way we can get around it no matter how hard we try. It’s like gravity, eventually airplanes are going to land because they can’t fly forever, or when a person jumps up, they will come back down to the ground, no matter how much they want to fly. Then there is truth with a little T. This is like Duluth being 55 degrees and foggy while  people in Moose Lake or Barnum have it sunny and 75 degrees. Both are true and this form of truth is based on location and even experience, whereas Truth with a capital T is universal and applies to everyone and we can not avoid it. 

  My second nugget is that most of us struggle with contentment. Is we “need” or we really want something because it will make something better. So we get on our favorite app or website and have it shipped within two days in a lot of cases. Amazon makes over one billion deliveries a year and now imagine what the numbers are with places like Wal Mart doing the same thing.To put it another way, Americans has over 1.25 Trillion dollars in credit card debt alone. This does not include student loans, mortgages, medical bills or any other debt. Then we have to find places to keep the stuff that makes us content, we fill up garages, attics and even renting out storage units for all of our treasures that makes us content us happy. The sad thing is, we often forget about those things and move on to another project, or trip over them looking for something else. Just remember what Jesus said during the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. We shouldn’t find our contentment or treasure in things that collect dust, rust, break or magically disappear, but in things that are eternal. 

 My third nugget is how often do we get distracted. I know I am not the only person who sits down to check something on their phone and twenty minutes later I completely forgot what I was looking up. When I go hiking with two people, and when we are traveling to our destination, random thoughts pop into their head and they share them. It’s often not what we were talking about and the goal is to push my buttons. It’s worth it because there is often chocolate or ice cream involved. So here is my question, do we allow ourselves to get distracted because something is to hard or we don’t want to put on the big kid pants and not deal with it, and hope it goes away. It’s like not paying a speeding ticket and then a bench warrant comes in the mail from the county court and mom happens to pick up the mai when everyone is coming home from school. When we get distracted, bad things happen and it usually makes ir worse. 

My final nugget is discipleship and this is where we intentionally become more like Jesus. 18th century theologian John Wesley was a big advocate of discipleship. He created something called band and societies and they make the current view of small groups look like child’s play. There was a list of five questions that was asked of every person during these groups and that 5th question was “do you desire to keep anything secret?” How well do things go when we keep the important things from the significant people in our lives? Most of the time it doesn’t go well, and we are more likely to do it again with bigger things. Discipleship comes in where a person ask God and a few trusted people to not only keep them accountable but also to be an example and to carry each others burdens. Discipleship is point people to Jesus and encouraging them to take that next step. Also, there are even times for correction when something goes wrong. The biggest part of discipleship is that you can’t not expect others to what you are not willing to do yourself. 

  I will close with this, the main point of Pastor Fred’s sermon was that how are much are we willing to hive. With the pig and chicken wanting to start an all day breakfast joint, are we going to be like the chicken who gives a little each day for the cause in the form of eggs. Or are we going to be like the pig and give everything it had so there could be bacon and sausage. My guess is that most of us want to be the chicken, and give a little daily, but God is calling us to bid that pig and give till we are uncomfortable and then give a little more. We all have that one area where God is calling us to give more to the point where we are out of our comfort zone. Could it be tithing more, participating in a ministry of some kind to having a difficult conversation. I will close with this illustration. When I was in seminary, there were a number of people who fought God about going into full time ministry. Some of them had that fight for several years and even a decade in some cases, but eventually said yes. For some it was harder because not only were they a full time student, but they had a family to provide for. So our we going to keep fighting God or are we going to submit to God and give it our all.

Grace and Peace 

Tom Boustead

What’s Next?

 

  Pastor Fred started a new series called What’s Next and his preaching passage was Acts 13:1-12. The crux of the series is that we are going to be going over Paul’s three missionary journeys.  Not only does the Holy Spirit show up throughout the book of Acts but is the star of the entire book. Without the Holy Spirit leading and guiding, we either wouldn’t have a church or it would look completely different. So as we go through the book of Acts pay attention to how the Holy Spirit moves and works through people. 

  My favorite verse of the chapter is verse 10, which Paul asks the question of “will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?”  I can’t be the only person who gets snarky from time to time and take what someone has said to either get a rise out of them or to even manipulate them to get what we want. In essence, we do the same with God. How often do we try to manipulate or even pervert Gods law or Gods best for us. How often do we want to do things our way because we think it is easier, better or that  we want to put on a show for other people and have all the attention on us. In essence we are rebelling against God. We are essentially telling God off when we are doing thins and we become like that toddler in Wal Mart having a tantrum that the whole store can hear because they can’t get what we want. We never grow out of our tantrums, they just look different as we age. So what are the ways are we perverting or replacing Gods ways with ours?

  My first observation is that we shouldn’t oppose God because our ways are not Gods ways. How often do we go to God in prayer time and have all these great ideas for God to tell us no. Or how about paying attention to what is being taught and promoted in our schools and culture. As an Orthodox Christian, when  one opposes or have a different view on such things as pronouns, abortion or immigration, we get labeled a bigot and a whole host of other words that are not nice. Just remember, Jesus telling His disciples and us that if the world hated Him, it’s going to hate us too. 

  Another side to this coin is that we are seeking God and trying to follow His will, but God has a change of plans because He knows what is better and He created us for a particular purpose. In Acts 16, Paul is on his missionary journey and the Holy Spirit shows up in a dream and gives Paul a change of plans. The change of plans and the Holy Spirit led Paul and his traveling party  to go to Macedonia to preach the Gospel. Because of Paul’s obedience, people were saved and the church of Phillipi was started. This is where we get Paul’s letter to the Phillipians because it was to the Believers in Phillipi. 

  My second observation is that we should never let our past hinder our future. How often do we think that Gods grace can’t cover our sin or stupid choices we have made. Or thinking that God can’t use us because we aren’t that talented in our eyes and we don’t have any of those magical abilities or gifts. When we do this, we down play Gods grace and power. In essence, we are letting our past hinder what God can’t use us do in our lives. Now there are consequences for our actions, but God still can work through those consequences so that Has name will be made known and others can receive that same grace we can. Sometimes our lives can either be an example to others of what not to do, or having an understanding of what others are going through when they made the same bonehead choices. You can jump in the hole with them because you have been there and know the way out

    My final observation is do not neglect the Word of God. If our ways are not Gods ways, how do we find out what Gods ways are? It is by spending time in the Bible and being obedient to the Holy Spirit. This means we shouldn’t turn off our brains either. Some of the smartest people I know are deeply committed Christians who use their brains. Some of them have advanced degrees, and others Got their education from the school of hard knocks. One of the most prolific Christian writers, A.W. Tozer didn’t have much more than a high school education, but he spent time in Gods word and he used the brain that God gave him to impact the world. There was a popular phrase at one time of God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. It is a good phrase and all, but if we are turning off our brains and blindly following it, we a fall for anyone who is charismatic enough or a smooth talker. I’m essence most of these people are false teachers and don’t know God. So when we come to church or open our Bibles, to we use our brains either and reading that God gave us, or do we turn it completely off and focus on feelings?

  To close out, our church just celebrated a century worth of being Gods light in Cloquet. Do we sit on our accomplishments and hope we survive another century, or do we move forward and tap into the Holy Spirit for another century worth of being Gods light in a dark wold? 

Grace and Peace

Tom Boustead 

  

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