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The other day when I was out on my prayer walk, I saw all these acorns laying on the road. I had just read Jesus’ Parable of the Sower and before I know it, this whole story came together on my mind. I came back, wrote it down and spent a couple of days worth of spare time illustrating it and animating it. This is a parable about the church and our part in it as believers. It’s a simple story to help explain something more complicated. I pray it blesses you.

Lately I have been thinking about my childhood quite a bit. I have marveled at how the things I dreamed of as a child have become my life’s work in a way I never would have predicted back then. You see, I’m a pastor and when I was a child that wasn’t even on the radar. As a matter of fact for most of my life, that was one of the last things I ever thought I would be. Growing up we weren’t church folks. A friend of mine growing up played the piano for her church on a regular basis. As a result she was at church every Sunday, which to my preadolescent mind seemed like cruel and unusual punishment.

My earliest memories of church were pretty disjointed. I have a vivid memory of creating a craft by pressing leaves between two sheets of wax paper with an iron (don’t worry, the teacher used the iron), and of a little boy who had a few odd bald spots on his head because he didn’t sit still while the barber was giving him a buzz cut. I remember going to vacation Bible school more because of making friends with people from other schools who didn’t know I was a bullying target than anything spiritual. More than anything, I remember the song. You know the one. The first one they teach you. The one even the most marginally churched kids (like me) learned.

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong.
Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me,
Yes Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.

It’s the first song you learn in Sunday school, I probably knew it by the time I was three and we didn’t even go to church regularly) and here I am, a pastor, life transformed by Jesus, Masters of Divinity Degree, working on my doctorate, and after all of that, I am struck by an inescapable conclusion.

The first thing I learned is the most important. More than anything else in the whole world, the most important thing you can learn is this song and the facts that inspired it. Jesus loves me, I know this because the God of the universe gave us a book that all points to that very fact. I was made by Him and I am His, and in this world I have nothing to fear if He is with me, because He is more powerful than all things. I can place my faith and trust in Him, and live forever and the Bible shows me the way. Jesus loves me. It’s the most important thing I can know.

And He loves you too!

God bless you,
Pastor Dave

Today I was out on my prayer walk, just trying to sort out what’s going on, what I should be doing and not be doing, how can I better lead my congregation and be the best pastor I can be and on and on. Yes, it was that kind of morning. I was fretting over some struggles I am having and over the condition of our world and that’s when it hit me. I’ve been running around this mountain for quite some time, and in truth this is nothing new, it just sort of came into focus for me. The answer is what it has always been. The answer is the Gospel. 

I wasn’t called to politics. I was called to the church. I wasn’t called to change minds with my superior intellect, which is good because I’m not sure I have that. What I was called to do was to communicate a simple truth about a God who loves and a Savior who died and rose again. I was called to share the message of Jesus and to trust that from that point, the Holy Spirit would do His work on hearts and minds. This led me to a simple prayer. “May everything I do be for the furtherance of the Gospel.” 

Now I’ll admit when that first hit me, I wanted to put qualifiers on it. Like “May everything I do in my church” or “in my ministry” but none of those qualifiers felt right. But what if I loved my family for the furtherance of the Gospel. That I lived such a good, God glorifying family life that people saw it and wanted to emulate it in their own lives, would that further the Gospel? I think it would. In the art work I enjoy creating, does that mean all my pieces have to be about Jesus? Not necessarily. What if I created the work I create to open doors to the Gospel? More than that, what if I asked God to amp up my creativity so all my work furthered the Gospel both directly and indirectly? Think about it. There are a lot of ways to further the Gospel with my life. Exercising strengthens me physically, which will give me more stamina to do the work of the Gospel. My reading and studying of course can further the Gospel. 

What if I was more careful with how I use my time? What if I looked more at how I use my leisure time? Could my hobbies be used to further the Gospel, or do I need to change what I do to unwind? Am I eating well and getting enough rest? This is the only body I get and this life is my one chance to further the Gospel. So this is my prayer. 

“May everything I do be for the furtherance of the Gospel.” That’s my prayer. What’s yours. 

Announcements and Pastoral Prayer

Suggested Worship Music
Battle Belongs

Suggested Worship Music
One Thing Remains

Suggested Worship Music
Living Hope

Intercessory Prayer
Contact Pastor Dave with any prayer requests

Scripture Reading: Matthew 13:1-23

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake.² Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. ³ Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. ⁹ Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

¹⁰ The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

¹¹ He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. ¹² Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. ¹³ This is why I speak to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see;
    though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

¹⁴ In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
    you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
¹⁵ For this people’s heart has become calloused;
    they hardly hear with their ears,
    and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
    hear with their ears,
    understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’^[a]

¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. ¹⁷ For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

¹⁸ “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: ¹⁹ When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. ²⁰ The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ²² The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²³ But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Sermon: The Red Letters 23: The Sower

Suggested Worship Music
Waymaker

Final Thought

Here at Springfield, we have now returned to worshipping in our Sanctuary after spending 11 months worshipping in our Fellowship Hall. We are still social distancing and trying to follow the guidelines for public gatherings as best we can, but things are getting a little more back to “normal.” I wanted to take a moment today to express gratitude. First of al I am grateful that we had the Fellowship Hall to meet in these many months. While it was definitely different from our usual worship, it made it that we were able to return to in-person worship fairly quickly and that was a blessing. Some people made comments over the last year as if those who wanted to return to in-person worship were idolizing their buildings. Nothing could be further from the truth. What was really happening was the family of God wanted to regather to be the body of Christ.

Secondly I am grateful for all the skills I learned in the last few months. I’ve learned how to make videos, how to stream on Zoom and my PowerPoint game has really improved. I would not have had to learn these skills in most other years, but this little trial by fire forced me out of my technological comfort zone and allowed me to learn things that will help me to spread the Gospel far and wide, even long after all the restrictions are gone.

Finally, I want to say I am grateful for this congregation. You all were so helpful and cooperative. Many of my colleagues were experiencing all sorts of struggles and division, but you were patient as we figured out how to weather this storm together. You blessed me with kindness and compliance. I know you didn’t all agree with all the policies in place, but rather than following the patterns of the world with all the acrimony that came with it, you loved your neighbor as yourself and looked out for one another, and for that I am eternally grateful.

The fact of the matter is even the oldest folks among us, have never lived through a worldwide pandemic, and there were a lot of huge lessons to be learned. Thank you for having teachable spirits and a lot of patience. I never led through anything like this before, and I pray I will never have to again, but to this congregation, I will echo the words of the Apostle Paul, who said to the church he founded in Corinth. I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 1:4. Thank you for being so graceful, now let’s move forward in love and reach our region with the love of Jesus Christ. I am grateful to you and I am grateful to God for you!

Pastor Dave

One of the things I see over and over again is people who are beaten down by the world. People who are bullied and put down and threatened and often just made to feel like they are something less that what they were created to be. Sometimes their worst critic is internal, but even this usually comes from outside stimulus over time. People really need to remember who they are and know their value. 

Friday, April 2, is the day the Christian world calls “Good Friday” and there is no better illustration of your worth. The God of the Universe, the Creator of all things, gave His only Son to p[ay the price for our sins and shortcomings. He took our beatings, our nails, our death and our sins and bore them on Himself, so that we could be free. Consider all that this means. The perfect God gave His perfect Son to pay the price for imperfect you and me. Why would He do that? Because He loves us and wants to be with us for all eternity. In our sins and imperfections we would only ever end up destroying the perfection of Heaven, so we enter Heaven only when we receive His salvation. The technical terms for this is imputed righteousness. Having no righteousness of our own, especially when compared to His perfection, He gives us His. This is not to say Christians are perfect, far from it, but through the Savior, we can be made perfect in Him. 

Consider what this says about your value. The God of all things loves you enough to trade His perfect Son for you. How can anyone think they are worthless, when God paid so high a price to be with you? This is what we need to hold on to. Next time you start to feel worthless, remember what you were worth to God and praise Him!

Have a blessed Good Friday.

From time to time I will see things proclaimed by church leaders that will baffle me. They will be going along with the latest trends and following after the culture. While being current and up-to-date, or as some would say “relevant,” is certainly not a bad thing, there is a boundary and it’s an important one. I look at what they say and think “What Bible did they read that in?” The Bible is the boundary and it’s an important boundary. I also maintain that the Bible is relevant on it’s own without any help from us.

Here’s what we need to remember. The Bible may have been written by human hands but its author is God. These human writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Bible was given to humanity by the Creator of all things. He is the One who made it and knows how it works. He knows what will work in His creation and what will not. He knows what is beneficial to us and what is not, and those things which are not beneficial, are detrimental. He is a loving God and Father and, as such, those things which will be detrimental, He calls sin. Those things are a boundary that we ignore at our peril. We need to avoid sin and turn from it when we are in sin.

Today though the trend is for people to embrace sin, and there is a pressure on the church to embrace it as well. May succumb to this pressure. We try to tweak the Word of God to be better received by the culture. We think this will make the Bible and the Church more palatable to the culture, but there is a problem. God is the author of life and He has not amended His Word. Changing the Word is a false Gospel, that will do nothing but leave people stuck in the very things Jesus died to save us from. This, in effect cheapens the Sacrifice of our Lord.

Here’s the thing. If the Bible was given by a loving, benevolent, self-sacrificing God, then it is a gift of love meant to tell people how to navigate this life and find the truth in Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. We are not supposed to change the Bible, the Bible is supposed to change us.

One of my favorite illustrations of this principle, is to set up two paintings on opposite ends of the room. One is a loving portrait of a smiling Jesus in profile looking toward the center of the room. The other is a maniacal portrait of the stereotypical image of Satan. He too is facing toward the center of the room.

I then stand in the center of the room. I speak to sin and temptation and I face the image of Satan. Noting the position of my body, I note that in order to turn toward sin and temptation, I need to turn my back on Christ. This is precisely what we do every time we choose sin. The good news is, we can turn from our sin. The literal interpretation of the word repent is to turn around and when we turn from our sin and turn to Christ, He is ready to receive us with open arms.

Watering down the Gospel to match the culture deprives people of seeing the need to turn around. It contributes nothing to the church but to leave people stuck. 2 Timothy 4:3 speaks of the time we are in when it says, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” My “tongue-in-cheek” motto has always been, “If your ears itch, get a Q-tip, because here we love you (and we love God) too much to preach anything but God’s truth that sets people free.” The most loving thing any church can do is follow Paul’s admonition to speak the truth in love and we do love you right where you are, and so does God.

He just loves us too much to let us stay where we are. God has something better for you!

(Reprinted from Pastor Dave’s Creative Ministry Blog AMOKArts.com)

And it matters a lot. It matters in the way we conduct ourselves around others. It matters in the way we act when we are wronged and it matters how we act when we’re right. It matters how we act when we lose and when we win. It matters in every single thing we do and every single choice we make. Think about who we serve. We serve the One who laid down His life for everyone including His enemies. He is the One who washed the feet of His betrayer, knowing full well what His betrayer was about to do. He is the One who called His followers to go the extra mile and turn the other cheek. He’s the One who called us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Think about how and why He died. In the natural world, He died in large part because His own people wanted Him to go to war, to overthrow their human oppressors, and give them power and might in this world. He had a longer view in mind. He laid down His life to overthrow our much more powerful spiritual oppressor and give us eternal life. Let’s not become short sighted. We are in this world to carry on His work and represent Him. The salvation of humanity hangs in the balance. Will we be a wall or a door? Will our actions, and the way we represent Jesus, draw people to Him or make them turn away?

The answer to this is harder that you think, sometimes. I know for me, there have been many times when I have wanted to get out my poison pen and create work that puts people in their place. I’ve wanted to shout people down, win the argument and rule the day. The thing is, if I do that, even if I win, I lose. We need to be like Jesus. We need to live His way. If we are going to take a stand, it needs to be His stand, and we need to stand like He would stand. None of this is easy to navigate in this world, and I confess that I have failed too many times to count. While it is wonderful to be able to rely on God’s grace, people’s grace is often much harder to get. People matter, and they matter a lot. The Bible tells us that’s it’s God’s will that no one would perish, but that everyone would come to repentance. The only way to avoid perishing is to come to Jesus. My prayer is that I will never ever be a stumbling block that keeps people from finding the hope that I have found in Him. And the key to that is to remember that no matter what happens, I need to live in that hope. 

Lord help me to represent you well in ever aspect of my life, because how I represent you matters. 

It matters a lot.

Did you ever think of what it took for God to send Jesus to earth? I wrote this little imagined dialog between Father God and one of His angels. It’s not from the Bible, it’s a work of fiction but I can’t help but wonder what it must have been like. Check it out.

I was out on a long prayer walk this morning and had a few thoughts that I thought I would share. If I look like I am extremely sweaty, it’s because I was extremely sweaty, but I felt like I had to get it recorded right away. I pray it blesses you.