Building from Obedience

Transcript is automatically produced. Errors may be present.

Good morning friends. How are you doing? Resounding. I love it. My name is Alex. I’m one of the pastors here, and today is gonna be a bit of a different. Day. Instead of speaking for about 40 minutes I’m gonna speak for about 20. Now there’s some bad news there because I’m okay at writing 40 minute sermons, but I’m terrible at writing 20 minute sermons.

So what you’re gonna get is this like 40 minutes of content, and I’m just gonna talk really fast because. That’s what I do. But good news is this for the last half, for the 15, 20 minutes after that, you’re gonna get to hear from Steve, our retiring executive pastor who has just a wealth of experience, learn over 30 plus years of ministry, of pastoring.

Churches. And so I’m just so excited to hear what he will share with you. So I’m just gonna get through my stuff and then we will get to that stuff. We let you know last week, we have a couple of staff changes going on. In light of that with Steve stepping aside, retiring, Andrea Jones’s gonna step into our executive pastor role.

We’re really excited to just. See Andrea’s experience in all sorts of things. And then Aaron, who’s just been just a beautiful gift to this church from this place, is gonna get to bring more of his just brilliant strategy and his thinking to all sorts of places. And so just really excited to see.

Yeah, clap away. The the people clapping are the ones that took last week off, so I got my eye on you as well. I, I get it. We are in a series called The Things We Build with this kind of subtitle. Are they good? We’ve been tracking human creativity over thousands of years and just noticing.

Ways that we have a tendency to infuse some negatives to that to bring some of our own brokenness. And occasionally we get to do things that are really beautiful in the midst of it too. So today I’m gonna start with a question that may to start with seem a little abstract. It’s this one.

What does the word comfortable mean to you? Yeah. Now you can’t get out of it by saying being with God makes me comfortable. That’s cheating. And actually, if you read the scriptures, being with God is not always comfortable at all. In fact, it’s actually life changing. I have noticed more as I’ve got older that I come from a comfortable.

People, this is my parents’ house back in England, quintessentially in English. They have been in that house for just coming up to 35 years. When they moved from another house a little way down the road. And when my dad moved to that house, he moved from a house, the other side of the road. They have lived in the same zip code for the entirety of their lives.

And in England, like a zip code’s like 10 houses or so they just are there and they love it. And if they’re honest, they don’t really want to go anywhere. Their favorite son out of five lives in America. And they, I think anyway, but, and they. And they love their spot that they have. My dad will go down to the to his barn, which is really three different rooms, and he’ll just sort things.

He’ll move things from one room to another room and just potter in his space. As I get older, I’m starting to reflect on that. The comedian Nate Bar Gaze talks about this idea that in your twenties, your friends only have to call you and say, Hey, do you want, and you don’t even need them to finish the sentence.

You’re like, yeah. I’m going like, let’s go. It’s gonna be great. You don’t even know where it is. In your third is you start adding kind of asides to that. Like, where are we going? Is it far? I will be driving separately. All those sorts of things that enable you to have control in your forties. You move to the idea that, no, I’m not going.

I’m annoyed that you ask. I can’t even believe that. You’d think I would go. I’m starting to find some of that. My, my spirit animal. My, my character of choice has become Bilbo Baggins, who says this? I miss my books and my armchair and my garden. See, that’s where I belong. I even brought some of my books to just make sure I feel comfortable, and I brought one of my plants to make sure I feel comfortable.

I brought this chair for $25 and it’s just this beautiful space of rest and peace. I don’t own any new furniture. I love this chair. It fits me perfectly. I hope to sit in it for the rest of my life. Bilbo also said this. We are playing quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things make you late for dinner.

All sorts of bad things happen when we kinda get adventurous. There’s something about humanity is longing for comfortable spaces. The CEO of Starbucks years ago, Howard Schultz said this, not billbo, Baggins forgot to change that. Customers don’t always know what they want. The declining coffee drinking was due to the fact that most of the coffee people brought was stale and they weren’t enjoying it.

Once they tasted as and experienced what we call the third place, a gathering place between home and work, where they were treated with respect, they found we were filling a need that they didn’t know that they had. Go out to Europe and find yourself in one of the piazzas where families hang out, laid at night, feeling comfortable.

You start to get a sense of some of that. At the same time, there’s some ideas that float around that suggest that actually comfortable isn’t always good. For us or not as good as we think. Bill Bo himself said I think I’m quite ready for another adventure. Seth Godin, the author of Tribes, said this, if you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain that you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

And we get to extrapolate some of that out. God, it seems at times, wants us to be uncomfortable. And Jesus was the one that said, foxes have their holes and birds have nests. But the son of man has no place to lay his head. He speaks to some of the cost of following him. There’s a discomfort at times.

Being the people of God as we look across thousands of years of history, can be an uncomfortable experience. Last year we left the people we’ve been following who had built this place, Jerusalem, and we left it in ruins. This was their question at the end of the book, mentations Your Lord, rain forever.

You are thrown in jurors from generation to generation. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return, renew our days as of old, unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us. Beyond measure. Heartbreaking end to a book that sees the city of cove of good in, in ruins the dream of a good city created by humans is over.

And then surprisingly as this, people in mass are taken off to the nation of Babylon are essentially exiled from their homeland. This is what God says, Jeremiah 29. This is what the Lord Almighty the gut of Israel says. To all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and settle down plant gardens and eat what they produce.

Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters increase in number that do not decrease also. Seek the peace and prosperity of the city, to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it because if it prospers, you will prosper.

Yes. This is what the Lord of my dear God of Israel says. Do not let the prophets and divine us among you, deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. Their prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them, declares the Lord. There’s a group of people there that are like, we’re gonna go home soon.

And it’s no don’t believe that. We’re gonna be here for a while in the midst of exile. Surprisingly, God says to his people, this, get comfortable. We’re gonna be here for a while. Find some space, settle down, not far from the American dream, right? Other than the land piece they grant you, but the prosperity and life, all those sorts of things.

What is he saying here? And then he says this in the next few verses. Now, if you’re a fan of Jeremiah 29 11, you’re gonna get the context of it here. So know if you love that kind of concept of Jeremiah 29 11, I know the plans I have for you. We may have to go into exile first for it to be true. It’s just a little point.

It might wanna take it down from your wall. This is what the Lord says when 70 years are completed for Babylon. I will come to you and fulfill my good promise. To bring you back to this place for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me. And I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord and will bring you back from captivity. The city of to lies in ruins. God says to his people, get comfortable and gives this long distance promise of a rebuilding that is to come.

Something will happen at some point 70 years down the line. Now hold onto that for a second. If you have a scriptures in front of you, we’re gonna turn to a book called Ezra. Nehemiah is. Counterintuitively for us is in front or before Lamentations, even though it happens after Lamentations.

That’s the way the scriptures work there. Ezra and Nehemiah, the book after it are one book in the old Bibles or Old Scrolls. It would’ve just been one continuous text. You can’t read one without the other. So first Ezra chapter one verse one, 70 years later. In the first year of Cyrus King of Persia, in order to fill the word of the Lord, spoken to, spoken by Jeremiah we’re going back to that story.

Now. If you were a good Hebrew reading this, you would know when it says the word spoken by Jeremiah to go back and check out Jeremiah. It’s some people call it a hyperlink. So you know that moment where you get a message on your phone that says, apple has new terms of service, and you click on it and it says, read the terms of service carefully, and you do what?

Read them carefully, right? Making sure nothing’s changed. Accurately getting a grasp of the information, and then you click the agree button, right? All of you? No you don’t. You skip skip. We’re, I guess gonna do the same today, but you are already in on the information. A good Jewish person will go back and read everything that Jere Jeremiah said about this prophecy, but we’re in the picture.

The Lord moved the heart of Cyrus. King of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it into writing. 70 years later. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, if you know what Jeremiah said, Cyrus, the king of the biggest empire in the world, suddenly turns pro. Israel, a pro Jewish people.

He sends them back. Anyone who wants to go, he says this. Look at the language here. Sounds like a prophet, not a king of a different nation. The Lord, the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has appointed me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem. In Judah, any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them.

So you have this moment where people begin to go back and a guy called Ezra goes back and in Ezra chapter one to six, he rebuilds the temple. And in chapter seven through 10, there’s this conversation around Torah and obeying the law. But the rebuild isn’t complete. And so imagine we’d read all of Ezra and now we turn the page to Nehemiah.

And this is what you hear in Nehemiah, where we’re going to pause. Nehemiah chapter one, verse one and two, the words of Nehemiah. Now son of Aya, in the month of Kle in the 20th year while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hannah and I, one of my brothers, so he’s in a certain place, one of his brothers comes back from Judah with some other man, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem, the city in ruins.

And this is what I heard they said to me, those who survived the exile are back in the province and are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire. When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of Israel.

And then I said, this. Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keeps his commandments. Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel.

I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses saying, if you are unfaithful. I will scatter you amongst the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commandments, then even if your XR people are at the furthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my name.

Nehemiah, unlike us when we’re mourning or grieving, doesn’t go for the ice cream or go for the comfort food. He begins to fast. And begins to pray continues. They are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this, your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name.

Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man of the king. Of Babylon, Nehemiah enters into prayer that he might be involved in the rebuilding of the city, and then he throws in the line that we pass by. At times, I was cut bearer to the king. If anyone out of the people that had been comfortable in Babylon had a reason to stay comfortable it, it was Nehemiah.

In a place of authority controlling access to the king, wealthy, having his food provided for him. He’s someone who’s thrived in this place where he called to be comfortable and Nehemiah’s never even been to Jerusalem, but his heart is for the good of this city. In chapter two, we see the audience with the king In the month of Nissan on the 20th year, king Artes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king.

I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart. I was very much afraid. But I said to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?

The king said to me, what is it that you want? And he is Nehemiah’s request. I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, may the king live forever. Why should my face, oh, sorry. Hold on. I reading it again, then I prayed to the God of heaven and I answered the king. If he pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.

In the first seven chapters of Jeremiah, Jeremiah goes back to the city of Jerusalem and he rebuilds the wall. So you get this process of almost three separate stories, temple. Torah walls and the city has life. Nehemiah receives what could be called a call a Call of God but it’s different to most of the calls in scripture.

Most of the calls in scripture have God’s presence come down in significant ways. There’s almost a very personal interaction. N Nehemiah is far more like I would describe Michael, the, this sense of I feel like there’s something to do. Some place to go. I actually, if I’m honest, didn’t want to leave the little place that my parents live.

I was quite happy planning to spend the rest of my life there. I love to travel, but I always wanted to go back to a chair, not unlike this one. To sit quietly in comfort. Nemar receives more like that kind of call. It’s not spectacular. It’s not like breathtaking. It’s this awareness that there’s something to do.

What is mine to do appears to be one of the great questions we get to ask ourselves. God, how are you directing me? May maybe if I ask it like this what is yours to do? What do you feel like you’re called to participate in that? That’s been one of the human wonders. People have done some of the most extraordinary things.

This is a city out in the desert built by a guy called Paolo Solari. He went out in his fifties and took a bunch of people with him and more people followed, and he built this whole city ti just out of nothing. Just found what they could find and just built it up. He did that into his nineties, and when he got to his nineties, this is what he said, I’m retiring because there are other things I want to accomplish.

If you’re in your nineties and there’s other things you want to accomplish, I love that. This is Joshua Ker. In his seventies, he built a ship and sailed around the world by himself. No one had done that. He was so intent on what he was doing. He didn’t think it through to this extent. He got caught in a storm and held on desperately to the gun whale.

As the ship turned over and in his journal, he writes this, I suddenly remembered that I could not swim. There’s a human capacity to enter into some incredible things, and yet good as some of those things are and valuable as some of those things are. There’s this idea that for us as followers of Jesus, the way that we called lands in a very specific place.

This is my favorite author, Frederick Beater. The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. Imagine that thing that you’re passionate about, that you see about the world. You say, that isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, and imagine what it would be if you took that and combined it with the things that you’re good at, the things that bring you joy.

There’s something about that sense. This isn’t work. We’re not talking about work. We’re talking about what is it that outside of that perhaps, and maybe in inside of that, that you see and say that needs to change. How can you direct your resources, your time, your wisdom to that thing? How can you make a difference?

Nehemiah does that. He acts in hope. In chapter six we read these interesting words. The word came to sandal, his enemy, Tobiah and ham, the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it. Though, up to that time, I had not set the doors in the gates. Sandal and ham sent me this message, come let us meet together in one of the villages on the plane of Ono.

But they were scheming to harm me, so I sent messengers to them. With this reply, I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you? Something about them is so intent on something about him is so intent on what he’s doing. He can not stop.

They were all trying to frighten us. He says, thinking their hands will get too weak for the work and it will not be completed. But I prayed Now strengthen my hands. Nehemiah is one who chases after that place of his great passion in the world’s great need. And it seems if we become people that do that, a couple of things that happen, we will have all sorts of reasons to return to comfort.

Stepping out into un uncomfortable places has that tendency. Sometimes it’s just easier to go back. The risk feels too great. The uncertainty feels too uncertain. When we step into places like Nehemiah, we’ll have all sorts of reasons to return to comfort, and in the end, you might not achieve all you hoped.

Nehemiah rebuilt the walls. And yet at the end of the book, he looks around and notices that the people who he encourage, the people who he lifted up they aren’t interested in the temple anymore. The walls are becoming dilapidated and they’re not obeying the law that was given back to them. And this moment where he says this, remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God.

When you enter into that space, you may do all sorts of wonderful things, and it may not look quite like you hoped, and that’s okay. In this case, the city is rebuilt, but it’s still not good, and there’s a good reason for that. No human could do what was needed. Back in Jeremiah in chapter 31, he says this is the covenant that I God will make with the people of Israel.

After that time declares the Lord, I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their garden, they will be my people. This work could only be done by Jesus. Through his death, through his resurrection. What was not needed was more wars. What was needed was change of heart. And Nehemiah worked as he could towards God’s preferred future, but he didn’t get all the way there.

And that’s okay. ’cause I think this is true too, as we read scripture, and it’s hard for us to hear from an American context. This seems to be the message of scripture. You will have all sorts of reasons to return to comfort, and in the end, you might not achieve all you hoped, but God delights in faithfulness, not successfulness.

We have a culture that worships success, reaching your potential. All of those things like we hold Dia two. And God doesn’t seem that interested in success. He determines that sometimes it will happen by accident and you’ll be part of it and you won’t know why. Sometimes you’ll intentionally plan to do something and it will go well.

Sometimes you’ll intentionally plan to do something and it won’t go well, and there’s a mystery there. There’s appointed to the fact it was never about us. In the first place, our gifts may be good. We may be smart, we may try hard, and yet it seems that there’s this thing that God does that’s outside of us, and isn’t that a wonderful thing?

Faithfulness seems to be key. After years of ministry, the writer of the message, Eugene Peterson, met with a bunch of pastors. And they all came to talk to him about how wonderful he was. And as they talked, one message came o out over and over again. The pastors would say to him, Hey, Dr. Peterson, thank you so much for keeping the church small.

Like you wrote all these books, but you only pastored a church of 300 or so. And that must have been really hard work to keep it like that small community of faith. And one of the pastors says as each one of them talked, he watched Eugene Peterson’s face and he looked more and more confused as they continued to talk.

And in the end he said, this guys, I didn’t keep the church small because I was humble. There’s the best I could do. Like I poured everything into that and nobody else came. The great writer of all these books acknowledged that he did everything he could. And it was never quite what he hoped, but I would suggest God delighted in faithfulness, not his successfulness.

The There’s a reason that Jesus in Matthew 25 21 says this, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Faithful, not successful. God’s interest is passion for us. Seems to be faithfulness. I’m gonna hand over to Steve, who is someone that I look at in ministry.

As a young pastor and see beautiful success. But more than that, I would suggest I see faithfulness and that’s I think what we really need.

A pretty da pretty dangerous thing to have two pastors in the same day.

It’s an honor that my family’s here today and my good friend Steven came. Thank you for being here. I’ve always loved the church. I still love the church. My earliest memories of church are from the Garden Park Church near Lakewood, here in the Denver area where my dad was the pastor, and I was very young.

My dad was a good pastor and he was consistent. The same guy that you saw on Sunday, he was the same around the house. I really grew up in San Jose, California. We were in Denver for a while. My dad pastored in Eugene, Oregon for three years, and then when I was in fifth grade, we moved to San Jose.

Of the many people that influenced my life there, ed Boschman was probably the most, he was my youth pastor and I loved youth group. I think we had, I don’t know how big the youth group was, but we had at least 15 different high schools represented. I went to a public high school, but my life during high school was youth group church.

We had a youth choir. I learned to play guitar. We went to the beach. I remember thinking man, I. Ed gets paid to do this. Like he takes us on trips and he meets with us and takes us out for lunch. What a great job. Like I think I’d like to be a youth pastor. I found myself as a leader of the youth group and by then I could sense already a call that God was placing on my life to, to be a leader.

And I headed off to College Tabor College in Hillsborough, Kansas to get. Some training in becoming a youth pastor. While I was there, I attended Parkview Church. I helped in their youth group as a freshman in college. During those years I met Penny. We got married in 1982 and headed off to Visalia, California where I had my first paid pastoral position.

I was their youth pastor. I even bought a. License plate, the personalized license plate, to let everyone know that I was a youth pastor there. That was important to me, I think. And I thought I was God’s gift to those kids. And, how lucky are they to have me as their youth pastor?

That’s what I was thinking until one Wednesday night I was over in one part of the church running the student ministry thing, and I forgot something back in the office and I went back to the office and my office was just down the hall from the lead pastor’s office and out of his office came walking several of the parents of the students and I had no idea there was a meeting going on until later when I found out.

They were all in there complaining about me, and it was humbling, and I think it was a wake up call for me that I needed. I just probably had too much pride at that time. And my senior pastor gently tried to. Encourage me to grow. The verse that stuck with me then and continues, has stuck with me during almost 40 years of pastoral ministry is First Thessalonians 5 24 Faithful is he who calls you, and he will also bring it to pass.

I was 34 years old when God called us to move to Bellingham, Washington and plant a church there. That was a hard time in our life. There was a lot of pressure from our denomination at the time we were with the Mennonite Brethren denomination. I had pressure on myself. I figured I’ve been pretty successful in my life.

I think I could plant a church or build a church, and Jesus said no, that’s my job. I worked hard at it, very hard. And eventually a church did grow and we got to the place during those 13 years where we bought a building and we had maybe 150 people or so. It wasn’t big, but it was fun. And I was 47.

When a church in Kansas, the Parkview Church in Kansas, was calling me to see if I would be their lead pastor. That’s when Steven and I started serving together at that church. One of my regrets was that I wish I would’ve said to them when they called me to come I, I’d love to come, I give me a few months to prepare the church that I planted for this change.

I remember one couple in that church when I announced that we were leaving to go pastor a church in Kansas. They said I thought you were gonna be here till you died. Like in, in their upbringing, that’s kinda like the pope. You serve until you’re gone. Until you die. And then you, the church gets another pastor and, in the timing of things, we announced in October that we were leaving to move to Kansas and move our family there, and by the end of December we had moved. My regret is that I didn’t prepare the church better for that change. I. The church hired an interim pastor, and he was there about a year, but people started leaving and people started leaving and then he left.

And then a volunteer said maybe I could lead the church. And more people left. And after about three years the church dissolved. There was nobody. And that was hard. That was very hard for me. It I think it pricked at my pride, that was my church and. I struggled with guilt over whether I should have left or whether I should have somehow done something to help that church prepare for the change.

And it, it took a number of years before Jesus said to me, it’s okay. I. You were faithful. Many people came to know me during those years and now it’s okay if they’re worshiping somewhere else. But that was one of my regrets during so at the Parkview Church in Kansas. I think that felt like kind of my prime.

I was 47 when I moved there. We had a few of us on staff. The church seemed pretty healthy by that time. The church had about 125 years of history already, so I couldn’t mess things up too badly. I became a denominational leader at that point, so when the whole denomination would gather for conferences, I would often be the one upfront on stage leading those meetings.

It was 2012. I was 55 years old when I got my first Sabba, real sabbatical. It was a three month sabbatical. And I’m so glad South has a sabbatical policy. ’cause you don’t understand the weight and mantle of leadership that a pastor carries unless you’ve been a pastor and how heavy that is. Even when you leave for a week or two of vacation, but you’re still thinking about the church and praying and wondering how so and so is doing.

And it, I was given three months off and it really took me two or three months to unwind and stop thinking about how the church was doing. And it was during those months and at that season in my life where I began to meet with a group of pastors, I connected with Steve Rimer, a spiritual director friend of mine who I still connect with on a regular basis.

And I came to the sobering awareness that I had most likely unaware, been unaware of my previous addiction to seeking the approval of people. And you know what feeds that? Being on a stage, being on a stage just feeds that. And once I became aware, and by God’s grace he was showing me, you don’t need the approval of people.

I love you just the way you are. And it was a sobering. Awareness time for me. And so I stopped doing a number of things that I had been doing where it just was feeding that addiction and I tried to get out of the limelight as much as I could.

I remember where I was standing in our kitchen in Kansas, and at this point I was age 59. And I was talking to Penny and I said, you remember my dad had cancer and he died at age 62. What if I only have three more years to live? What would I wanna do and where would I wanna be? By that time, Carrie and Heidi, our girls had moved to Denver.

Our grandkids, all our grandkids were in Denver. We said, I think we should move to Denver. God is speaking. And then she said, what would you, what would we do there? And. I think it was a Jesus thought because it popped into my mind and I had never contemplated this before, but the thought was, we’ll buy a great harvest bakery and be run the bakery.

Now, where did that come from? I don’t know, but that’s what we did. We looked into, what is it? It’s a franchise, how much do you have to pay? I was at the age where we emptied all of our retirement account and we decided we’re gonna invest in our own business rather than the stock market or whatever else.

And we moved here end of 2016. I was 59. And that was the hardest thing we’d ever done in our life. If your sweets baker texts you or calls and says, I’m sick, that meant I would get up at 1 45 in the morning and go in and make all the sweetss. Or if it was the bread maker, I would get up and at 3 45 and go make all the bread for the bakery.

I thought, yeah, this is gonna be great. I’m gonna be my own boss. Life is good when you have your own business, right Dave? A few others around the room. Yeah, life is good. You become a slave to the business. We started attending south in 2017. Ryan was the preacher here. I never stepped foot on this.

I was a little smaller in the square stage, but I never stepped foot on the stage for a long time, and I didn’t want to, and I knew I didn’t want to. This may surprise you, but I went over a year. With never opening my Bible. That book represented work for me. Now. I was close to Jesus, so I hope that doesn’t mess with your theology.

I still love Jesus and I loved the church, but I didn’t open, I didn’t touch my Bible. It just sat there. Until the time came when I wanted to again, but it wasn’t to plan another sermon. After three years or so of running the bakery, we were both just running very exhausted, tired. And we decided January, 2020 we’re gonna sell the bakery.

And so I began to, on my walks with Jesus, I’d say, Jesus, what’s next for me? And all he said to me was, I want you back in the church. And I would say like, where, what does that mean? We like South. We don’t want to leave Denver. I don’t feel like being a lead pastor and writing sermons every week like, what does that mean?

I want you in the church. And he wouldn’t tell me. We were sitting right over here in August of that year when Larry, our previous executive pastor, preached his last sermon on this stage, and at the end of the sermon he announced that he was moving, and then Jesus said, that’s gonna be your job. Oh, I had never once thought of being an executive pastor, and then I said to Jesus and I used these words, you rascal for almost four years you’ve been preparing me.

To be an executive pat, I could not have had this job had we not run a bakery. I learned about QuickBooks commercial leases, tent being a tenant running about a million dollars through every year, running a staff payroll. I learned all of that stuff, how to run your own business and make good decisions.

And I didn’t know that. I thought that was a fun little detour with Jesus. He saw it as total preparation for this job. Here’s how I got the job. Jesus told me that in August, but then he said, but don’t ask for it. Because I can be pretty good at trying to manipulate things and make things happen.

And so I was obedient, I said nothing. The bakery sold about the third week in September that year, and two weeks later, this guy Tom Walker, who was the head of the elders at the time, caught me back there and tapped me on the shoulder and said, can we have lunch together? Can we talk about you filling in?

For the executive position because ours has moved away. And I said, sure. And next thing you know it, he’s introducing me to Alex. And I got this job

after nearly 40 years of pastoral ministry. I’m retiring. What am I retiring from? I’m retiring from getting paid to be a pastor. That’s all. That’s all. I, God gave me a pastor’s heart. I think I’ll have that till the day I die. We’re gonna be at South we’re gonna still have a life group. I’m gonna still invite my friend Andy.

We’re gonna do those estate planning things every couple times a year. I’m gonna be on Mel’s volunteer team. I think I saw Mel here this morning. Like facility management kind of stuff. We’re not going anywhere. I still love the church. I, I don’t know of a gr of a greater joy that you can have than to love a local church, to stick with that local church instead of hopping around.

Just plant yourself. Give financially, give of your time. ’cause Jesus said, I’m gonna build my church. He put all his eggs in one basket and it’s called the local church. And I figured if he believes that strongly in the local church, we should too.

Andrea,

God is my witness, that I have stewarded the resources and finances of this church with integrity and transparency, and now it’s your turn and I’m giving that to you and I’m leaving you a gift in my office.

These are from my bakery days, but I know you’re just as comfortable as I am with one of these. This is a position of serving, right? We serve the church, we serve the elders, we serve Alex. We don’t have to be upfront. We can do what we do from behind the scenes. And we don’t have to get accolades or anything like that.

I’ve got lots of good memories and some sad memories from being a pastor. I grieve the years in my early years when I was very judgmental when I thought ignorantly that if you don’t vote like I do, or if you’re not the same gender as me, or if you don’t. Have the right theology about creation or end times that somehow you aren’t right or good enough or whatever.

And Jesus has reminded me often that he can grow his church with or without me. It’s not up to me. In my earlier years, ministry was a burden to carry. It was a task to be done. It was an act of obedience to God’s calling in my life. It was a commission that I gladly accepted from Jesus. It was a huge responsibility to bear.

It was an assignment in which I needed to show progress and growth. And it was a challenge to get people to come with me, and there was some sense of satisfaction of seeing numbers grow and people thinking that I was doing a good job as a pastor, that was important to me back then. Now, being a pastor is still a privileged calling, but it’s a journey to share with others.

It’s a light burden to carry because Jesus shoulders 99% of it anyway. It’s something I do because I want to do it. I no longer feel any need to show or produce certain results. Now, joy comes from seeing others grow in their walk with Jesus and being generous with my time and my money and my resources, whatever I have.

And the deepest joy is just knowing that Jesus is my friend and that he is with me and that’s enough for me. And I no longer need a personalized license plate or the accolades of people. My friend Jesus knows me and he knows my heart, and I’m content. It’s well with my soul, and I’m trying to get to the place where I no longer need a role or responsibility or a task to define who I am.

I wanna lead from a self that is being transformed. By my encounters with Jesus, I came to understand that the best gift I could give my family and my church is a healthy me. And in the last 15 years I’ve been working it just soul care, letting God change me and transform me more and more into his image.

And then I love walking alongside of others to do the same thing.

I wanna read a paragraph from Ruth Haley Barton’s book, strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. She says, every time I read about Moses’s relationship with God, I’m filled with longing. And it’s not the longing to get somewhere, although there are always new places to get to. It’s the longing to be a certain kind of person.

A person who knows God, a person who is faithful against all odds and does not shrink back a person through whom God can perform whatever deeds need to be done, mighty or otherwise, but a person who can be just as content settling down beside a well, or sitting on the side of a mountain in God’s presence, someone whose face shines because she or he has been talking to God.

Someone whose every move is a result of an attempt to listen to God and then do what he says. Someone who, when God says It’s time to let go, it’s time for you to come home easily. Lets go and rests in the arms of this one whom she or he has grown to love and trust with her varying being or his Jesus words to me and to you.

Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke from me and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Thank you.