2 MINUTE WARNING

Angie and I got a chance to get out and see a movie this past weekend.  And, as usual, the great movies, the great stories, and anything that is worth its weight in salt is embedded with the gospel.

As children usually do (in movies and in real life), the precious young girl in the movie offers an incredible nugget of wisdom to her wise caretaker.

“Sometimes to go forward … 

you have to go back.”

Amen.  Amen.  And Amen.

While both characters were living in an incredibly difficult life, one of them knew how to deal with it.  She faced it.

And sometimes this is the case with all of us.

As people, we are known to mask our pain.  We sometimes cover our scars with pills, or drinks, or food, or by simply walking through life trying to ignore our past.  We have become experts in “walking numb” through our lives.

But God offers us something better.

He offers us a chance to see life as what He gave it to us to be.

God gave us Free Will.  Freedom to choose.

And with that Freedom to Choose, we made a horrible decision.  We chose NOT HIM.  And when “we” (all mankind) chose NOT HIM, we got to experience what NOT HIM looks like.

I don’t know about you—-but I don’t like what NOT HIM looks like.

1 Peter 2 ²¹ To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.  

²² “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”  ²³ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. ²⁴ “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” ²⁵ For “you were like sheep going astray,”but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

And to seal the deal —- Jesus dealt with what NOT HIM looks like too.

He asked God “why have you forsaken me?”

He begged God to “take this cup”.

He endured all of the things that we might endure—and more.

And He did it so that we could go back and face our stuff — so that we could then move forward.

I do not want any more of NOT HIM.

Do not miss the opportunity to give the gospel to the one who is hurting—even if that someone is you.

They … we all … need it so badly.

It is our only hope.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

Lathered in grace as The Father intended, there is nothing more important or life changing than the gospel.

As I spoke these words to myself in church (“Build your house on solid ground”), I couldn’t help but wonder — “what if you didn’t?”

Matthew 7 ²⁴ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

So what if you didn’t set something up on solid ground?

What if you didn’t set up a company, or a financial decision, or a life choice?

In fact, what if you acted in pride, or individuality, or even in sin, when you set something up?

I literally asked God….”God, what about the things that I totally screwed up at their very outset?  How can they survive?”

And I was drawn back to a problem that we had at a house that I once owned.  Our steps leading up to the house were cracked all the way up into the house–and sinking.  To me, it looked like a major problem…..

But to the man I talked to, it was no big deal.  He simply said:  “Call a mudjacker.”

I had never even heard of a “mudjacker”.  But they can repair and even raise a cracked and sinking foundation.  They pump in a mixture of sand, cement, and soil to your slab and they can repair a drooping concrete pad.

At the risk of sounding “unholy”, our Father is the greatest of all mudjackers.  He is the One who can fix our cracks, our flaws, and our crumbling concrete pad.

With Him … it doesn’t matter that we didn’t set it up right.  It matters that we change our direction in the now.

God is the great Redeemer.  He RUNS for the broken.  He WAITS and is PATIENT for the lost.  He sends out EVERYTHING He has to rescue the desperate.

When Jesus was on the cross, He vied for the salvation of all.  He cried out for the broken, and He even saved the criminal beside Him as He writhed in agony.

As Jesus died on the cross, God tore the curtain in the temple from top to bottom—not from anger but from His desire to never be far from us again.  He tore it that ANYONE could seek His face and be saved.

And so He could commune with ALL of us, He sent His Spirit.  He sent Him to counsel, to convict, to inspire.  He sent Him to minister, to heal, and to empower.

Our God is not below our cracks or our sinking foundation.  Our God PLANNED for them.

He PLANNED to revive our bad choices.

He PLANNED to promote us when we did not deserve it.

He PLANNED to have us commune with Him.

Receive your gift.

Bask in it.

And then give it away to someone else.

And then you can say, “Even though I didn’t … I Built My House On Solid Ground.”

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

“Father …

I have nothing for you.  NOTHING.  What I bring can not even be counted.

Change my heart.  Help me not to hold on to things that truly mean nothing.”

Mark 10 ¹⁷ As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  ¹⁸ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'”  ²⁰ “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”  ²¹ Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”  ²² At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

“Father, the man in Mark 10—that’s me!  I hold on to things that are truly worth NOTHING while ignoring what truly means everything.

Fill me, O God.

Give me something to hold onto, O God.

Show me the way to You.

For You, and You alone, hold the keys to eternal life.”

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

Weeks before she died, my mom looked up and all around and told my wife:  “The helpers are everywhere.”

I do not believe that this was Alzheimer’s.  God was there.

And that is what I would like to communicate with all of us today.  He is the God of everything that we are a part of—the good, the bad, the terrifying, and the incredible.  He is there.  I think Solomon, in all his wisdom, was trying to communicate this in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 3 ¹ There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:  ² a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, ³ a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, ⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, ⁶ a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

When I am down in the dumps, He is there to lift my head.

When I celebrate, He makes me want to jump for joy.

When I am angry, He is there to ALLOW me to be me while influencing me to change my heart.

When men have surrounded me in anger, He has stood beside me.

When there was nothing, He was there to provide all that was needed.

What a God we have.

He is there.

As you spend time in worship this morning, rejoice in the fact that no matter where you are—-He is there to meet with you.

Hallelujah

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

From his palace balcony David saw Bathsheeba, in all of her beauty, and acted.  And then he tried to cover it up.  

David, and everyone in his circle, paid for his terrible choices.

And when man decides, David’s soon to be illegitimate son would also be punished with the sins of his father.  Probably banned from greatness due to no actions of his own.

But man doesn’t decide…God decides.  And Solomon would not only flourish, he would listen to God and write Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.  

God decides to find, fill, and fix all of us should we choose to let Him.

Because of Him, we are born into Hope.

We are not rejected because of what our dad did, or what our grandfather did, or what our family did.

We are not rejected because of our race, or our socioeconomic status, or our culture.

We are sought out by the God of the universe.

Titus 3 ⁵ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

Our hope is not in where we came from.

It is not in what we can do.

It is not in another person bailing us out.

Our hope is not in our government.

Our hope is in the mercy of Jesus.

Lift your hands today and declare it to Him:  “There is is no one like You”

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

Last week was a tough week.

A tough week to follow a tough year.

Today, let’s pray for the broken.

• Let’s pray that we could repair our racial tensions.
• Let’s pray for small businesses.  That they could pay their rent and their employees.
• Let’s pray for our prisoners and law breakers and broken.
• Let’s pray for our homeless population.
• Let’s pray for our police officers and firemen and those who work so diligently to protect us.
• Let’s pray for all of our national leaders.  That they would listen to the people and to each other.  That they would seek not to position, but to listen.

One of the reasons that I love coaching is that we, in sports, have been able to make it work.  We have black, and white, and brown.  We have liberals, and conservatives, and independents.  We have rich, and poor.  We have Christians, and Muslims, and atheists.  And, most of the time, we have figured out how to get along in a highly competitive environment.  So I know that it can be done.

But as I say that, I want to have compassion for those who are desperate:

So let’s purpose pray for those who have to worry about tomorrow—what they will eat, where they will live, and how they will survive.

Matthew 6  ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

And as we do that, let’s ask ourselves—-

What can we do so that someone else can live out Matthew 6:34.

How can we help?

How can we aid them into being in a position to not be in a place of desperation?

Have a great week.

Seek the Living God and ask for His help in being a part of healing the broken.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

As we enter 2021, I am calling the “David’s” of our generation to stand up and FIGHT.

Not with people.

But with the evil of our generation.

The evil of our generation would say:

You will never measure up.

But our God doesn’t say this.  When He called David up, He said this:

1 Samuel 16  ⁷ But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

And so David responded.  The son who defended the flock, who worshipped on the hillside, who followed dad’s orders … He was being trained for great things because his heart was fully the Lord’s.

The evil of our generation would say:

You will never defeat the evil in front of you.

But our God doesn’t say this.  When He called David up, He said this:

1 Samuel 17  ⁴⁵ David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. ⁴⁶ This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. ⁴⁷ All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

And he did just that.  Killing the monster of a man with the first “bullet”.  And he stood on the hill, cut his head off, and made an example for everyone to see.  Don’t ever mess with God.  He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

The evil of our generation would say:

You should live in a spirit of punishment and revenge.  An “eye for an eye”.

But our God doesn’t say this.  He called David to honor the king.  And He claims that He OWNS revenge—not us.  So David stood behind Saul—who wanted to kill him—and refrained.

1 Samuel 24 ¹⁰ This day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you; I said, ‘I will not lift my hand against my master, because he is the Lord’s anointed.’

And Saul received mercy.

The evil of our generation would say:

You will never be promoted.

But our God doesn’t say this.  He PROMOTES us before we earn it.  He GIVES GRACE to us in our inequity.  He walks as our friend.

Acts 13 ²² After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’

And David flourished because he was a friend of God.

The evil of our generation would say:

I am behind you ONLY IF YOU WIN.

But our God doesn’t say this.  He is behind us NO MATTER WHAT.  He is our friend in weakness and in strength.  In sin and in spirit.  In all of our weaknesses He stands in the gap—and He HAS OUR BACK.

1 Samuel 30  ³ When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. ⁴ So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep  … ⁶ David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.

And though David had no loyalty from men, the loyalty of God saved him.

The evil of our generation would say:

Don’t Be A Fool!

But our God doesn’t say this.  He says that we who worship deeply truly understand the forgiveness that we have been given.

2 Samuel 6 ¹⁶ As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.

And so David danced.  And worshipped.  And walked as God’s friend.

The evil of our generation would say:

You can’t go back from your mistakes.  It says:  “It is too late to go back now.”

But our God doesn’t say this.  He says come back to me.  And I will renew you and restore you.  I will put a new heart in you.

Psalm 51 ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  ¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.  ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

And so David blew it.  And he paid a hefty price.  But God took him back—and he loved him deeply.

You are called.

And your life is sacred.

And your future has hope.

Do not let go of the Lord.

And don’t ever, ever, ever, let the enemy tell you who you are.

You belong to God and God alone.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

Abraham knew. 

As he took his son to the mountaintop in sheer obedience to God and going against all of his dreams … He knew.

Hebrews 11 ¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, ¹⁸even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” ¹⁹Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

He knew that God was all that he had.  That without God, He had now hope and no future.

And he knew to the point that he believed in resurrection before resurrection was even a thing.  God had promised him that he would bless his offspring through Isaac … so he knew.

David knew.

When he gathered up 5 stones I like to think of Chuck Missler’s explanation:

“He had heard that Goliath had four brothers.”  But, regardless of this, David knew.  He knew that with God behind Him, he had nothing to fear from a giant of a man.

And so he went, and confronted the Philistine, and cut his head off in front of two armies.

And my wife recently pointed me to this verse in Isaiah and the 6 qualities of Jesus. 

Isaiah knew.

Isaiah 11 ¹ A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

² The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him- the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD – ³ and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.  He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; ⁴ but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.  He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.⁵ Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

And all of them knew before Jesus came to be in the flesh.

I love what Isaiah says about Jesus:

He has the Spirit of WISDOM … and UNDERSTANDING.

He has the Spirit of COUNSEL … and POWER.

He has the Spirit of KNOWLEDGE … and THE FEAR OF THE LORD.

We have all that we need to walk in the Lord in 2021.

And as we enter into a new season, I want to encourage you to walk in the fear of the Lord and ask God to give you everything else that you need to move forward.

The Fear in front of us is like a rabid pitbull on a chain.  It hates us, it threatens us, and it shows its ugly teeth, even charging to constantly test the strength and grip of that chain.  And, in essence, our strength to move forward.

But the Fear behind us is an unchained Male African Lion.  He is untethered, unafraid, and lying in wait.

For us to back away from a 60 pound pitbull into the grip of a 550 pound Lion is utterly foolish.

And yet, we do.

As we walk into 2021, I want you to encourage you.

God is with you.

He overrides all that you fear and holds all that you love in the palm of His hands.

He fears no man and Kings will bow down to Him.

His provision is abundant … He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

He scoffs at death and defeats the enemy’s plan to indict you for all of your shortcomings.

And He lies in wait until the right time to come to the forefront.

And so I must ask:

Do You Know?

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J

The Christmas story is hard for some to fathom.

And it was no different 2000 years ago.

Mark 6 he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. ³ “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

All of us must decide if this is an ancient story or the very thing that we need … Our only hope.

To me, Jesus is Our Only Hope.

It was hard to fathom when He told me to pull off at the exit as I was driving to California … but when I met the man with no legs trying to change his tire —- I understood.

It was hard to fathom when He told my wife and I NOT TO DECLARE BANKRUPCY IN 2008, but when we came to the other side many years later—- I understood.

It was hard to fathom when He told me to speak at my father’s funeral in 2010.  But when He used that very action to heal me —- I understood.

I think Einstein must have struggled with this also.  When he said:  “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  He, too, had to have been thinking about the divine, the miraculous.

So what do you think?

Read before and beyond this Mark 6 verse.

Ask God to convict you.  To show you.

The reason that they asked is the very reason that you should.

When this Christianity became a thing 2000 years ago it was just that …

The men and women who knew Him, and walked with Him, and watched Him preach, and saw Him do miracles, and watched Him rise from the dead …

They Became The Champions Of A New Faith

It Became Their Single Minded View

Their New Hope

And It Was Based On That Question:

Isn’t He This The Carpenter?

YES.  YES.  THIS Is The Carpenter.

In The Name of the Father and the 

Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Coach J