Church of the Lookout

Hi, welcome to the Vine Life Church podcast.

We're in Boulder, Colorado, and we're following Jesus by staying rooted in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission so that hearts are awakened with his awe-inspiring love.

And if we can help you in any way, reach out to us at vinelife.com.

For now, here's a short sermon from last week in Divine Life.

Again, thanks for joining us.

If you're visiting with us, first of all, I want to say again, welcome.

Thank you for being here.

If you're newer to Vine Life, I also want to say welcome.

What I'm going to be sharing today is very specific to the 40-plus year journey of this church community.

So if it feels a bit different than what you expected, it's because we're on a journey and uh and we're excited to have you with us today.

So let's let's just pray before we jump into the word together.

Let's settle our hearts and invite the Holy Spirit.

We need your voice, we need your heart, we need your vision, God.

And today, as we open up the word, as we share some time together, as we talk about what we believe that you're doing among us, Jesus.

We thank you to get us, God, to get our attention.

Speak to us where we need to be spoken to, heal us where we need to be healed.

Enliven us.

Where we need energy in our bodies and souls and spirits, God.

We thank you.

That you are the resurrection and alive.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Don't you know that nothing can grow there?

So it was the late 1970s.

There was a group of believers in Southern Hills Baptist Church in Boulder.

They started getting filled with the Spirit, which sometimes happened among the Baptists.

They ended up launching off and founding a church called Bethel Fellowship in the early 1980s.

And as they started to grow and experience this life of the Spirit, they set their sights on this hill right outside of Boulder as what they believed to be their future location.

And it was really a bold move.

First of all, there's clearly nothing up on this hill, except at that time a tiny little building that belonged to another struggling church.

That building was what we now call our theater on the other side of this facility.

It's on the east side of the property.

In fact, the building was home at that point in time to four failed church plants in a seven-year period.

So when the founding pastor, James Rile, had suggested that maybe God was leading the church to move up here, he was met understandably with strong resistance from that body of believers and several people that were close to him.

Now, James passed away back in 2016, but in my recent conversation with his wife, Belinda Riley, she said, the tone of the feedback they were getting sounded a lot like this.

Don't you know that nothing can grow there?

That's where churches go to die.

It's going to be a death sentence to even move up to that hill.

But as they were standing on the word of the Lord and the leadership of the Holy Spirit, it was around this time that the Lord came to them through Scripture, specifically illuminating Isaiah 5 and Isaiah 27.

When Isaiah 5, there's a promise to Israel, and that was kind of received as a fresh word in this body of believers.

Isaiah 5 says, I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard.

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.

And Isaiah 27, 3, sing about a fruitful vineyard.

I the Lord watch over it.

I water it continually.

So these words about being a fruitful vineyard on a fertile hill is it was a promise and an anchor point.

It is what they needed both to overcome the naysayers, but also their own insecurities.

As they were launching out to something they didn't even know would work.

And everyone was telling them that it wouldn't, and the track record proved that that would be the same case.

But something was happening on the inside.

It was a seed of faith, because that's what faith does.

And as the word of God is received in faith, it does something to our insides, right?

And all this, all the naysayers and all the feedback about what would happen to a church moving up to a hill, a lonely hill, all that was coupled with another dynamic that they face, and I would argue that we continue to face in Boulder and the surrounding area, that uh the spiritual climate of this general region is more or less what you could call hostile to followers of Christ.

And I don't want to create like a victim mindset or like we have all these enemies or anything, but we we live in an area, um there is a clear, there's a spirit of intimidation and sometimes a spirit of mockery that whispers to anyone launching out to do a new fresh kingdom work, uh, this this kind of um this uh this this little whisper, this lie that says, listen, whatever you think you're doing, it's not going to work.

Oh, you want to live a fruitful life, you wanna you want your life to mean something?

Well, all of your efforts are gonna be futile because this is not the place, don't you know that nothing can grow here?

I don't know if you've ever heard that voice.

I know I have.

The moment that you start to step forward into your calling, the moment that you start to step forward into something that God has for you, oftentimes the enemy seeks to squash it and diminish it with a voice of intimidation that says, Whatever you think you're about to do, if you think it's gonna work, just cut your losses and stop now, because nothing can grow here.

So as this body of believers took hold of the word though, no, no, no, God has a different plan.

He he plans to have a fruitful vineyard on a fertile hill with great faith that they knew God would make a way.

And so on Easter 1985, they renamed and relaunched what is now, or what was known as the Boulder Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship.

How many more words can you work into that?

And in the 90s, built this room that we're in with a decision to make the front of the room a wall of windows.

And it was a major expansion, and they did that because they wanted to make it clear that as they were here, that God's intention was to be able to look out and to be a place that was fruitful.

And they believed that the church would grow and it did, and it was fruitful.

In 1999, later on, the name was changed to simply Vine Life Community Church, and even later abbreviated to simply Vine Life Church.

And it was led into any season by Pastor Walt Robertson, who was a spiritual father to me, and the one who initially invited me on it, took a chance on me, on staff.

In the church, we continue to stand on the word that this church had a calling to be that fruitful vineyard on a fertile hill.

Now, certainly every family has its own twists and turns, high points and low points.

This church family does, and I'm sure yours does too.

There's things in our families that we're proud of, and things that we wish were different.

And that is the story of our lives.

But the good news is, and this is a word for some of us here, the good news is this God wastes nothing.

Let me just speak that to your heart today.

God wastes nothing.

And if you bring to Jesus the soil of your life, no matter how bad or barren you think it is, no matter how many weeds have grown from that soil, how many plants that have died from that soil, if you bring Jesus the soil of your life, he can and will grow good fruit.

Nothing can stop the word of the Lord.

Nothing can stop a church filled with faith, submitted to in humility, in the fear of the Lord, walking in step with the Spirit, willing to do whatever he says, willing to go wherever the Spirit leads, nothing can stop the word of the Lord.

So we fast forward to 2020.

That was an interesting year.

So during the pandemic, all of this surfaced in a new way for me because I was reading about some of the history of this church that, quite honestly, I wasn't even really aware of.

I'll be frank, it was a little disheartening to meet outside with a fraction of our people all distant from each other, wearing masks.

It did not appear to be fruitful, nor fertile.

And the wind was terrible.

And we got snowed out a few times, and it was like, what are we doing?

And while I was grateful that we could gather with people, there was still some of it was like, oh man, God, what are you doing?

Is this what you had in mind?

But even in that time, there's this special precious gifts from God.

While we longed to be back in our buildings and our facilities and with our air conditioning and comfortable seats, I remember God sternly reminding us in that time, and he reminded our leadership.

Listen, he said to us, This building is not my church.

You are my church, and my church is what I am building.

In other words, you may not always have a building, but you will always be my church.

And I'll send you wherever I want to send you, whether you have a building or not.

You are the living stones that I am building.

So I'm gonna do whatever I want to do with this property, and you get to say yes, and it is your honor to say yes.

Now I'm not saying verbatim, that's what the Lord says.

That was the tone that I believe that we received.

And it was a time of just kind of re-establishing.

No, no, no.

The church is the people, is what God is doing.

And we get to rejoice that He's given us a property, the building, but let's make no mistake, this building is not the dream of God.

These windows are not the dream of God.

The view is not the dream of God, though it's pretty dreamy.

His people is his dream.

The people, his beloved bride, the body that he is knitting together with Christ Jesus as the head.

That is his dream.

It's always been his dream.

To have a people he could inhabit.

And so during that time, it was a holy moment.

And as a response, we started referring to this building as the property, as the lookout.

We were the church, and we met at the lookout.

It was a way of acknowledging a distinction between the people and a place.

And it was a time, honestly, of great thankfulness that we have even been given a place.

We had church plants meeting up on our property that got kicked out of schools.

And we had, you know, there was just a time of gratitude just to even celebrate that we've been given a plot of land.

But over the last couple years, this the name has even started to take on more significance, not just because we're on lookout road, or even that because we have a great view, but it has become really apparent that even a lookout has a significant connection with a vineyard.

You see, in the Middle East, every vineyard had in its center a watchtower.

In fact, the rendering of Isaiah 5 in the message period phase says it like this It says, The one I love had a vineyard, a fine, well-placed vineyard.

He hoed the soil, pulled the weeds, and planted the very best vines.

He built a lookout, built a wine press, a vineyard to be proud of.

So a watchtower or a lookout has a special place in the vineyard of God.

And so there's a photo.

This is probably the closest we can find to maybe what a watchtower would have looked like, with maybe a tent structure even over the top of that.

It was often called a watchman's booth, and it was a small sheltered structure in the middle of a vineyard, and it was different than the it was different than some of the passages talking about, you know, walking on the walls of a city or the a tower connected to a city.

A watchman's booth was a little different than that.

This was a this was a place to climb up into to gain a broad perspective.

Uh, it was a place of refuge, it's a place to look out over the harvest.

If you wanted to know what was happening in your vineyard, if you wanted to see the outer reaches of what was happening in the land, you would climb up into the watchtower to gain perspective.

And this is what some of the writers, specifically in the Old Testament, had to say.

In Proverbs 18, 10, it talks about the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous man runs into it and is safe.

The name of the Lord is like a tower we go to.

Habakkuk 2.1 says, I will climb up to my watchtower, I'll stand at my guardpost, there I will wait to see what the Lord says.

So it was a place of positioning, it was a place of I can't see everything I need to see on my own.

I need to go into a new place in order to get a new kind of perspective.

And so, in terms of a vineyard, the lookout was a place that you'd go to get a higher perspective, to look to the horizon, to be stirred with gratitude towards the harvest that is, but to even look out with a vision of what could be.

And to be clear, a watchtower wasn't just a place to keep a safe distance from the world.

It wasn't just a place of refuge, it was a place that offered a new vantage point from which when you would leave the watchtower, you would go back down into the vineyard with renewed strength and with faith and with joy to be a part of what God was doing.

And so I say all this because on this journey it's become apparent to our elders and leadership team that Jesus was leaving us a trail of bread clumps to find the entire time, we believe.

He's had us on kind of a little treasure hunt over the last few years, and we believe even today, he's inviting us into a new expansion of our identity as a church and even a new name.

And so today we're uh we're gonna we're closing one chapter of our story as Vine Life Church, and we're starting a new one.

And I want to show you a uh a short video that introduces that.

So it'll recap some of what I said, but just hang with it for a second.

Let's watch this.

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard.

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

Nearly 40 years ago, this was the promise from Isaiah 5 that was the foundation from which this church was built on.

A fruitful vineyard on a fertile hill.

This was and is an invitation to become the kind of people who live radically in step with the Spirit of God, submitting to the leadership of Jesus.

And as we do so, our lives bear fruit that's not good just for ourselves, but fruit that is good for the whole world.

Today we're rooted in the legacy of this story that started years ago, but also we believe we're entering an exciting new chapter in this journey.

You see, in the same passage of Isaiah 5, it says that in the middle of this vineyard, God built a watchtower, or as one translation puts it, a lookout.

And the point of a watchtower or a lookout was to be the place from which you could just go ascend and get a broad perspective.

It was a place of safety from enemies, a place to survey that vineyard and to be thankful for what is, but also to look out toward the horizon and see the harvest before us.

And so the time has come to enter a new season as a kingdom church, and we believe this picture perfectly captures a new name and a new identity for this new season.

So that's why today we're excited to put a close to our chapter as Vine Life Church and enter into a new season as Church of the Lookout, or The Lookout for short.

And to us, it's more than a name.

The Lookout is an invitation to rise up and see our lives and stories from God's perspective, to see beyond ourselves and overflow the goodness of God into the cities and communities all around us.

It's an invitation to come together as a people, a family, and turn our attention to what God is doing in our time and in our day.

And as we look out, our vision is Jesus, abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.

Welcome to Church of the Lookout.

Come on.

Now you were given stones on your way in.

This is not a time to throw those at me.

Those are for a moment from now.

Yeah, the team's gonna come here.

So, so friends, it is an exciting thing, and one thing I want you to know is this isn't the kind of thing where we're we're shutting out an old season and trying to start something new.

We are turning a chapter in a long story that will continue to go.

We have a root system that goes long before us and will continue after us with by the grace of God.

And so we're just entering a new chapter and we're trying to do our best to name a new chapter and a new season so we can respond to the fresh invitation of God.

We are a vineyard that's been given a lookout, and what exactly are we looking for?

We're looking for the arrival of the kingdom of God.

We're watching to see what Jesus is doing in our time and in our day.

God, I believe, is training us to see through the lens of the kingdom of heaven coming to earth.

And I believe this morning, there's a couple invitations as we as we enter this transition point.

And first of all, today is this.

In the scriptures, and ever God changes a name, it was to set up for a new season, but it was a it was always a marking in time.

It was a marking of a new season.

And the and and the people would often commemorate a time or the marking of a new season by building an altar of worship or erecting stones of remembrance.

And today, I believe if if we were to respond in any way, um if if you sense a yes in your heart as I'm sharing, if you if even if you're newer to the community and you're like, I'm not even sure if I I don't know anything about the history here, any of the significance of any of it, that's totally okay too.

And you're just here along for a ride, that's totally fine.

But I believe we have an opportunity today as a church family, before we launch forward into something else, to do what the people of God always did and and and and erect stones of remembrance.

And what the people would do is when they when God would change the season, that they would erect stones as a place that anybody who would encounter that place would remember that surely God was here.

And so today, you've been given a stone on your way in.

And this stone, we want to invite you to do something with the stone.

We're gonna create a space here as a community.

And in fact, what we're gonna do is we're gonna put some white markers up on the front of the stage.

And we want to create a space simply for gratitude.

To become aware of the faithfulness of God throughout seasons.

And for some of us, that gratitude might have to do with how God has shown himself to this church community, how God has shown his nature, how God has sustained us, how God has God has carried us, how God has continued his goodness and his commitment to his word among us.

Maybe you're not as connected to that story, but you're connected to the story of God in your life.

And if nothing else, this is a time for you to create a stone and say, Who has God been in your life?

Where has he been strong where you have been weak?

Where has he brought comfort in times of pain?

Where has he brought provision in time of need?

How has he sustained you?

How have you gotten to where you are because of his loving kindness and his faithfulness and his goodness?

And so what we're gonna do, we're gonna take some moments to do this, and I want to ask you to reflect on this, to reflect on who has God been to you, who has God been to you over the seasons, who has God been to us.

And when you're ready, I'm gonna invite you to come to the stage, and you can begin to write on these stones.

The nature of God or the goodness of God, or what you what you would want future generations to remember about God before the service I wrote on my stone.

I wrote sustainer, eucharyas.

There's one thing that I'm aware of this morning as I'm kind of talking and sharing this large story that even I came in halfway through, it felt like.

And maybe you feel the same way too.

I just I see the thread of the faithfulness of God.

It didn't even start 40 years ago, it started thousands of years ago.

And we're a part of something that God is doing, but we have all been given a revelation of God that's got us to where we are.

And I just want to invite you, even right now, who has God been to you that needs to be written on a stone of remembrance today?

And what we're gonna do is we're just gonna let the team play here.

And when you're ready, I invite you to come and grab a marker and write a stone, write what you want on a stone, and then just place it on the front of the stage, and we're just gonna create our own little altar today to remember God, to remember the faithfulness of God.

So let me pray for us as we enter into this time, this moment.

Just try to close your eyes around the room.

Father, I thank you.

That we get to mark a time and a season.

I thank you, Lord God, that today, as a church, we get to enter into a new name and a new identity, a new continuation.

But all of this is because we're building upon you, God.

You are a foundation.

And it's only by your faithfulness that we got here in the first place.

So, God, I just pray that even now you would bring to remembrance your goodness, your mercy, your grace.

And God, may our lives become an altar to you of worship Jesus.

So when you're ready, feel free to come up front and ride on your stone.

Worthy of God, we could have worthy of it, bread, be good at her.

We live for you.

Holy, there is no one like you, there is none beside you.

Open up my eyes in wonder.

Show me who you are in me with your heart, leave me in your love to God.

Worthy of all the praise we could ever breathe.

We ever heal.

We look for you.

There is no one like you, there is none beside you.

Open up my eyes in one show me, do you like me with your eyes with me in the right view?

There is time you hope to cut my eyes in one touch.

Do you understand me with your eyes with me?

If you love to love the land, I will come in.

I will match in you.

There is no design you're sure.

Need me.

There is none inside you.

Oh you want show me who you are in me with your heart lead me in now.

We'll build our lives on you.

You are our cornerstones.

We'll put our trust in you as you and you alone, that I will build my upon you in his conversation.

There is none beside me.

Open my eyes in the monster and show me who you are and feel with your heart in your love to the God.

Jesus, Jesus.

We thank you, God.

We thank you, God.

We say thank you.

Can you thank Jesus in your own words here this morning?

We say thank you, God, for who you've been, who you are, and who you will always be.

We thank you, God, for these beautiful stones of remembrance, these prayers, these declarations of who you are.

And we acknowledge today, Jesus, that our lives are built on you as our cornerstone, God.

You are the one that we move forward, through whom we move forward, through through which we our lives have breath, through which we live and move and have our being.

So we say, be praised in this place, God.

We declare that we are yours and this church is yours, and your this region, this land is yours, this valley is yours, the entire earth is yours, God.

May the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, like the waters cover the seas, Lord Jesus.

We declare as a people that we are in this for your name and for your honor and for your glory, and not for ourselves, but for who you are and who you will be known as in this region, Lord God.

May your name be lifted high.

May this place and this people be uh be found as a people known for exalting the name of Jesus above every other name.

We exalt the name of Jesus above every other name.

And we thank you that this church is not built on a building, it's not built on a piece of land, it's not built on a 501c3, it's not built on a fancy logo or brand image, it's not built on a person or a stage, it's built on Jesus Christ.

Christ, our cornerstone.

May we always be dependent on you, God.

May we walk together in the fear of the Lord.

With our eyes purified to see you rightly, so that we may see the world rightly.

Holy, there is no one like you.

There is none beside you.

Open up our eyes in wonder.

Show us who you are and fill us with your love.

Fill us with your heart and lead us in your love to those around us, God.

I can't think of a better way to say it, God.

We want to look out to see your glory so that we can look out to be shown in compassion.

God, the ones that you've given to us, the ones who need to hear of your love, the ones who need to see your holiness and your glory, God.

Show us all of it, Lord God.

Open up our eyes and open up our ears to what you're saying and what you're doing, God.

God, I thank you that you cause fruit to grow even when the enemy says that nothing can grow here.

I thank you that out of the soil roots will bear fruit.

One of the invitations I believe this morning is as we come into the season as we've been praying, is this welcoming for us to change the way that we see so many of us, so often I, so we can live at ground level.

We pay attention to what's going on at ground level.

And I just believe that we're in a time in the season, God's saying, I need you to come up in altitude a little bit to see things, see what I'm doing from my perspective, not as a better than or a higher than everybody else type of thing, but the truth is that we're seated in heavenly places in Christ, and so we our minds and our hearts have to be filled with the perspective of God so that we can be effective, so that we can be released back into the neighborhoods and cities and the fields where God is sending us.

And the question I want to ask is what would happen if we could look out and see the world through heaven's perspective?

We can see in the natural, you can name what you see in the natural, but what happens when you see with the mind of the spirit towards what everybody else is seeing in the natural?

What would happen if you could see your neighbors through the lens of freedom?

What would happen if you could see yourself working with Jesus to dismantle the works of the devil, to set captives free, to heal the sick, to prophesy destiny over people and things and situations that others have judged and come to conclusions about, but God hasn't come to his conclusion yet.

And so, what would happen if you partnered with him to get his perspective and then declared that into the world?

What would happen if you extended bold faith into impossible situations?

And see, this is the invitation, this is how we become agents of the kingdom of God.

This is how we live in such a way where the kingdom of heaven comes to earth because we get eyes to see where the kingdom of God has already arrived, and we just call it out and we practice it and we invite others into it.

If God, if if if we can touch heaven in the sanctuary, we can live from heaven in our cities.

I believe that God has transform wants to transform the way that we see.

This is a little bit of what James Rylan back in the early 90s when he was even He had a series of dreams in the early 90s.

Some of you remember maybe that time there was a series of dreams that has become known as Sons of Thunder.

And it was this prophetic word that went around the nation and around the globe about this new movement of worship and evangelism that was going to go out in unprecedented ways.

But it's really amazing because in the first paragraph of this word, which you can Google it and find it online, he says this.

He says, In August 1990, the Lord spoke to me through a dream.

He said, Prior to that dream, he gave me a scripture, Isaiah 21, 6, which says, This is what the sovereign Lord says.

Go appoint a lookout and have him report what he sees.

When the Lord gave me that verse, he said, I'm doing this in your life.

I'm appointing you as a lookout.

You will see things, and when you see these things, you report them.

I am now reporting to you what I have seen.

He wrote this as something God was speaking to him specifically.

But I as I went back and read that, and those obviously those words stuck out to me.

I just believe again that there's an invitation for us here today.

What do you see when you look out?

Do you have eyes to see and ears to hear what Jesus is doing in our time and in our day?

And that's the question I want to leave us with today.

That we all get to participate, we all get to stand in our place, we all get to look out and be a part of what God is doing.

Amen.

Amen.

So let's stand together this morning.

And uh, you know, I just just logistically, as you guys know, it's not like a small thing to change a name of a church.

And so we're gonna live in a liminal space somewhere between vine life and the lookout for the next uh bit of time, and so you're gonna start to see some things change.

We're gonna send out some communication about that.

Um, but listen, I I I just want to thank you this morning as you know, as we're laying stones of remembrance, as we're entering in a new season together.

This is something we get to do and to get to move forward together.

And it starts with a yes in our hearts, and I just want to say thank you for being a part of this journey and for being willing to change into a new chapter.

And as we go here from the lookout, may we be a church, come on, guys, maybe a church that rises high, that looks beyond and loves strong.

We love you guys.

Be blessed in the name of Jesus.