Navigating Modern Challenges with Faith, Prayer, and Biblical Wisdom

So glad that you're here today.

My name is Randy and I've met a few of you.

Thank you, some of the first timers here and you are super important to us.

We know that God, I think, is in charge of all of that, and God always has.

Who is in the room together in the room for a reason.

And I also like to give a shout out to those of you watching online today, because we know that you know you've, some of you are hindered and you can't get out.

Some of you this week, more than any possibly, is a vacate, a last vacation weekend right before school starts back.

So I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna greet you.

My shout out today is to all the people in this family, somerville Baptist family, who are on vacation and you're watching from the boat dock, from the mountain edge, you know the back deck of your mountain or that yacht that you've got now out in the bay, and all I got to say to you is must be nice, turn to your neighbor and say in your most whining voice you can, must be nice, we're glad you're here.

We also part of my prayer, actually on a very regular basis, is that anytime we get together and we are one church, two locations, five services that in every time we come together there'll be folks in the room it won't be a hundred percent room, and what I mean by that is a hundred percent of that room does not know Christ yet Not all of the hundred percent.

And I think that's a good thing, because part of our mission is to be soft and light, to tell you how much God loves you, but also to tell you how much we love you, because God's love is in us Not perfect, but it is in us.

And so if you're kind of figuring out what your place in this world is and spirituality and all like that, and you're not really sure you know about the historical Jesus but you're still trying to put a little bit of faith together, I think you're in the right place.

There's a ton of people that are sitting right close to you, wherever you are today here, that didn't know Jesus like a year or five years ago, and so I think this is a good place to explore.

That AP poll back in June had a little bit.

It just polled a bunch of thousands of Americans on a bunch of issues.

One was how much you are disappointed, or not disappointed, in democracy in this country as it stands today?

And boy, that is a loaded question, is it not?

And one in ten this was shocking to me.

Only ten percent of this country polled said oh, I'm really pleased with the state of our democracy.

Now, what they're?

They're not voting against democracy, they're voting on how well it is being executed in their position today.

And one person that they polled personally his last name was Brown.

He said well, I'll give you a, for instance.

He said it's the economy, but nobody's talking about the economy.

He said I'm making as much money as I ever have, but I'm struggling as much as I ever have financially because of the inflation.

And he said I see a lot of people trying to crucify each other on opposing parties.

I don't see anybody talking about solutions to the economy.

And that's just a.

For instance, why do I bring that up?

Because when you're disappointed in an institution, a person, a job place, whatever that may be, the next reflexive emotion is lack of trust.

Those two always go hand in hand.

Trust is an all-time low in institutions.

We know that, including this place.

But if you're like me, let's be gut, honest for a second.

If you walk into a new place or a place you haven't been very much.

You're constantly critiquing, you're sending feelers out all over the place.

Is that true?

Can she be trusted?

Can they be trusted with my child?

And we're making those value judgments every day.

A lot of you who don't know me, you're trying to decide right now can I trust that guy or not?

And you may still be kind of a question mark about me when you leave here today, but our number one purpose is to tell you as best we can, as clearly as we can, you can trust this.

This, we believe, is the word, the very actual Word of God, the very mind of God, as evidence through Jesus Christ, and this institution is based on that.

Those standards, those truths, which are timeless.

They're not going anywhere next week.

They won't be changing in the next several years.

Hopefully, they'll never change.

They haven't changed since the beginning of time either.

And so if we base everything on that, even though we're all wired right now to be a little disillusioned or a little cynical or a little bit untrusting, I got some good news for you.

God never, ever, has disappointed a devoted Christ follower.

The key word there is devoted Christ follower.

We can be casual, right.

We can flip in and out.

We can be convenience Christians.

We can show up when we want to.

We can open our Bible at home, maybe when we're in trouble we can kind of go there when we need to go there.

Or we can show up to check off a list.

Because that will determine I'm a good guy and if I'm a good guy, one day I'll end up in heaven.

I'm not talking about that.

You're gonna stay disappointed most of your life because you have the whole wrong expectation level and perspective.

The Christian life was never intended to be about me or you.

The Christian life is intended to focus on him.

In the event of following him, we will realize my life in some ways is harder.

Thank you very much, but we will look back on our lives one day and we'll all agree he never disappointed me.

He never disappointed me.

He's incapable of that type of untruth.

So I'm going to just share with you quickly and today is a big day with Lord supper.

We get to do that.

Then Just relax.

If you're new here, I'll walk you through it.

It's not going to be awkward for you or any of that stuff, but to lead up to it.

How about turn to Colossians, chapter 4?

Colossians 4 · chapter mention

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We are wrapping up a series we've been in all summer in the study of Colossians, called the path.

We're all on a path.

The question is, whose path is it?

Is it mine, is it the Lord's, is it the world's?

So turn to chapter 4, verses 2 through 4, because if that statement is true that God's never disappointed a devoted Christ follower, we need to see what we need to make sure we have in us in order to be in position for that to happen.

And I just want to take a second and thank you for being faithful and being here today.

On the 6th of August, we had a full house at 9 o'clock.

This is pretty near a full house.

The balcony y'all are exceptionally packed out today.

So thank you for showing up in the balcony.

You must have got in free.

Is that the case?

Up in the balcony, you did, okay, good deal.

So verses 2 through 4, we'll read first.

My first point of essentials is we are goingwe're simply going to pray with our eyes open.

We're going to pray on the alert.

Is what we're saying?

Devoteverse 2, devote yourself or continue to be committed to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

Watchful and thankful in this translation.

Does that sound at all familiar.

In other places you've read in Scripture.

Well, it ought to, because in the book of Matthew, jesus used the exact same phrase.

It is a critical period in his life.

It is right after this happened here for the first time.

They're out in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus pulls three of his inner circle together, like the executive level of his followers together, and he says stay with me, my soul is troubled, watch and pray.

Watch and stay alert, watch and be vigilant.

Now I don't have time to unpack what I think was going on with Jesus at that point as a human, his need to be supported by somebody, his need to have people who we would say today had his back.

Sadly, it did not happen at that hour.

But we see a divine but also a human Jesus saying man, what's going to be happening over the next 24 hours is going to be crazy.

I dread it.

Will you just pray for me, but watch while you're praying?

Now Paul wrote this letter to a church this is even more impacting to me where he says this type of advice calls he's praying for some, he's asking them to pray for things that got him in prison.

He is in the second of three jail terms here.

And so this man, paul, really looks like to me y'all.

He doesn't know how to quit, he doesn't know how to back up, he doesn't know how to re-kent what he has been committed to.

And that leads us to a really important thing, I think.

Let's examine my prayer life in yours.

Do we pray the safe prayers or do we pray the dangerous prayers?

Did I finish reading here Verse 4,?

Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.

He goes in verse 3,.

He says pray for open doors, pray for opportunities that we won't miss in order to proclaim what?

The mystery of Christ.

When he says mystery of Christ, he means the revelation of the truth of the book.

But he's talking about what we call the gospels Jesus coming, his ministry, his death, his murder and his resurrection.

He's not necessarily talking about what they all read at that time.

All they had was the Torah, the Moses Laws.

Those are important, those are great.

Jesus comes along and says I didn't come to end with that, I came to fulfill or complete that, and you're about to see what I mean by that.

That's what Paul anytime he says there's a mystery that I'm going to reveal to you.

It's not really a mystery anymore to us.

We have it in print.

It's called the gospel.

It's called why we have the opportunity to have a relationship with Jesus.

Dangerous prayers are around that.

Can I give you an example?

A safe prayer is God.

This has happened, I'm in trouble.

Please get me out of trouble.

Please get me out of this hard fix that I'm in.

Please do this so I'll feel better.

Nothing wrong with those.

Those are what's called.

What Safe prayers?

What's a dangerous prayer?

A dangerous prayer is Lord.

This present condition that has happened stinks.

Let's just be honest.

But while I'm here, will you show me what I need to learn?

Will you conform me more into the image of Jesus through it?

Will you make me a better woman or man of faith through it?

And possibly would you, if you are, would you prepare me for what's next?

Because God's always pointing us toward the future?

That's why it's the path that's a dangerous prayer.

Can I give you an abbreviated version of a dangerous prayer?

Dear Jesus, whatever, amen, you know what I mean.

That means whatever's coming.

I don't have to like it, but I'm going to accept it, whether it is a bone crushing, knee buckling, pain, giving experience, or whether you're suddenly going to do the Joseph thing and put me as second in command of the whole country.

Whatever you choose to do, that's your business.

I just want to do whatever you have for me.

Let's deal with a specific.

Some of you like the parallel reading for devotion stuff, the upcoming right down.

Acts, chapter four.

Acts, chapter four is a good read.

The whole chapter Unbelievable, unbelievable.

I'll give you the real condensed version of it.

Verses like seven through thirteen the disciples are so happy to know that Jesus is alive and he had to be.

He is the Messiah.

Now there's a no doubter in their mind.

They're certain.

They're going out in the streets and they're just saying hey, do you know about Jesus?

Do you know about Jesus?

And it really, really irritates the establishment because that's why they killed Jesus.

Right, they thought we solved that problem.

Oh, and now it's worse.

And they haul in the leaders, who are Peter and John, and they say basically, we're going to give you a strong warning, we're going to let you go, but this is considered this a first time warning.

The second time warning you are not going to like.

All we need you to do is cease talking about Jesus in the streets and Peter and John basically say well, you know, I guess we have a dilemma here.

We can either obey you or we're going to obey Jesus.

We can't do both.

So I think you know how this is going to happen, don't you?

We're going to obey Jesus, and as they're leaving the courtroom I love this verse I can't remember, I think it's like verse 13.

Verse 13,.

The guys who have arrested them and warned them are puzzled.

Now why?

Because they perceived, they knew these guys were uneducated.

A couple of them might have even been illiterate, but yet they knew two things.

That was one.

The second thing they knew about them they spent a lot of time with Jesus.

That's it.

That's it.

Is that enough?

That was enough.

So when they called them in, they said so what authority?

Whose name are you doing this on?

Because you don't.

You didn't get no permit, you didn't get this and that.

What are you doing on the streets?

You're not rabbis, you're not church leaders, you're not pastors.

What are you doing, stirring up trouble like that?

Whose authority?

You know what Peter said again?

Well, his name is Jesus.

You know him.

You killed him, remember.

He threw that in their face.

He said we're in the name of Jesus, the one you crucified but who's now alive again.

So this is like your worst day, it's our best day.

He's back.

This is then they cap it off by saying you know, by the way, here's the mystery of the gospel there is no other name by which a name, a person, must be saved than the name of Jesus Christ.

I know we're here to kind of be sentenced, but can we fit this in in the middle of it?

We're here because of him and not only because of him.

Since you ask, we operate in his name, because that's the only way you all are ever going to know what's up in your life.

That's the only way you all are ever going to have a path to follow is the name of Jesus Christ.

We have seven core values here.

You've heard one of them at the Bible distribution.

We also believe that prayer changes everything.

Now the theologians in the group are going to question that, and I'm glad you are.

Wait a minute.

Is that the act of prayer?

Is that no, no, no, no, no.

What we're really saying, because we want you to think, we want to have a motive behind the core value.

What we're saying by that is if you are devoted, truly committed to prayer, you will change every single time.

And when you change, situations start to change, and so things do change.

Everything does change because it begins with me.

And you right, we're not talking about situations and circumstances, we're talking about the core of a person.

I don't know about you.

I kind of like seeing mission statements and core values as though they get my wool changed and, of course, they got it on their wall.

Is it not hard to not critique that and say, oh, they didn't do that one.

Oh, yeah, pretty good at that.

That was terrible there.

They didn't do it, but they all are a little bit repetitive, are they not?

What do we value?

Loyalty, being on time, integrity.

They're all sound about the same.

Well, of course, would you want to go do business somewhere where their core value is?

We want to be the most corrupt business in Dorchester County?

Of course not, but what we try to do is define hours that have a little motive behind it.

For instance, we believe generosity impacts the world.

Well, that's a big statement.

How do you know?

Because Jesus Himself said whatever you give to me, I'll run it through, press it down, turn it over, multiply it and give it back to you.

So we don't have a way of doing it mathematically.

But everything that goes out the door to help other people missionally here will be multiplied, and it's multiplied in your life, in your spirituality.

Again, that's between you and God.

We also believe that courage is essential for faith.

Courage is a key thing that's going to be needed more and more as we move on in a nation that is increasingly less godly and more secular.

Slash pagan, that's the fact of life.

But maybe it will help you and me to know that we don't have to have the natural courage.

He will supply it based on our pursuit of our relationship with Him through faith.

And the more Jesus said, the more faith you have, the more I work.

And so when those defining, when the Peter and John are hauled into court days happen to you on a smaller scale, you're able to say well, I know what would be the easy path, but the God path is going to be the hard one.

So I'm going to choose the God path and I'm just going to trust Him, because he has never disappointed me yet and I don't think he's going to disappoint me in the future either.

That's why we say our job in outreach, this community of Somerville, is to bless the rest.

When you walk into a room at work or school or wherever you are neighborhood, hoa, whatever you're doing just take a quick look around and say, reminder.

You know I may be a little bit anxious, I may be like, feel like I'm the most unqualified to be here or whatever.

That's not the point.

I am not alone either.

I have the Holy Spirit with me and that means my primary job is to look around and see who in the room I can bless in some insignificant, seemingly, some small way, or maybe some big way.

Some of you were very generous and also compassionate.

We hit three or four of our core values back around.

I can't remember as dead winter, that cold snap when it was getting down to 16, remember that, that 102 heat index day, it was 16 like a strand of nights there, engaged with a homeless guy in a wheelchair who not only was homeless man, he was like mobility challenged, he's just exposed.

And some of you kind of banded together and got him in a place for three or four nights that was warm and safe and clean, even got him to a couple of church services here, got him a Bible, got him back on his way.

I think there might have even been some support if needed be for his medical treatment.

Well, guess what?

Early this morning I'm on my way here.

I stop off at a convenience store to get some coffee to bring in.

I walk out still dark out there.

I walk out in my parking lot and I heard a voice Pastor Randy and I looked around and there he was.

Only he wasn't in a wheelchair, he was standing, he was perfectly good, he had been all healed up.

Now he's still homeless.

But the point is, you guys poured some compassion, poured some generosity into him.

He remembers it to this day and he thanked me one more time.

He said, man, I appreciate the help.

And I said, man, you're within walking distance of us today.

You know, and for all I know, he may be here in this room today, or he might have been at nine o'clock, because he feels like this is his place now and if we continue to pour into him and love on him, we may see him do some amazing things one day, because God has a plan for him, just like he has a plan for my life and your life, correct?

And if he'll let him, god's not going to disappoint him either.

So, as we talk about praying with opportunity, praying with your eyes open.

Personal question for you and me to apply walking out of here today check the content of your prayers and check the consistency of your prayers.

Your prayer life is just a way of connecting with God.

We don't ask that's not permission to be asking constantly for stuff.

If we need to, we need to.

But what is the content of your prayers?

Are you praying for other people too?

Are you praying for spiritual stuff?

Are you just praying for rent money or an extra hundred dollars to buy the bass boat?

Are we praying for people's souls that are close to us and far from God?

Are we praying for marriages to be healed that are broken?

Are we praying for opportunities to bless the rest of Somerville?

That's the content.

Consistency is like a running conversation with Him every day.

So let's move on.

We're going to pray with open eyes, but we're also going to profess with open spirits.

Look at verse 5 and 6, be wise in the way you act toward outsiders.

Make the most of every opportunity.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

He says be wise in the way you act toward outsiders.

That might sound a little bit rude today.

You know those are outsiders.

That's not what Paul means.

He just means people who have not yet come to faith, people who are not yet Christ followers.

Just be wise, don't run them off, but also don't ignore them.

Treat them with kindness and respect and dignity, no matter who.

Because in those days there were people everywhere who were like our friend down the street, who were either homeless or widowed or no income support or just really really bad shape.

And he's talking about them.

But he's also talking about the upper crust elite, the 1 percent who most did not have any clue either about who he was.

And then verse 6, he says always be full of grace, be positive, be forgiving, understand that they don't know, sometimes, spiritually, how it works.

Seasoned with salt.

Can I give you my version of salt?

What we're supposed to do would be salt.

Did you know that it is a sin to bore people with the gospel of Jesus Christ?

It ought to be, if it ain't.

That's not why we're here.

We're not here to wear a sad face and be against everything, including fun.

We're not here to be stoic, robotic, unresponsive, unemotional people that gave us those things.

We ought to love what he loves, we ought to hate what he hates.

Jesus spent more time crying than anybody I can find in the Gospels.

He was wired with this capacity for compassion and generosity and inspiration and motive.

When he looks at his group in church that day right before the crucifixion and says see that woman, she gave a couple of pennies, she gave more than anybody, I think he's doing this.

I don't think he's trying to be cute or smiling.

I think his heart goes out to her and he's rewarding her in front of a few people.

But I think he's also making a mental list when she gets up to glory, we're gonna have a parade for her.

She'll be on the board of directors up there.

So, man, we we need to profess unashamedly to people who are not yet there to encourage them to be You're not, you're not gonna determine the success.

Anyway.

You have never caused anybody to get saved, nor have I.

It's always a Holy Spirit, right.

So the pressure's off, the pressure's off.

All we got to do is to be a is be a very positive role model.

Did you know?

One of our core values is boy, nothing is better than a changed life.

Have you heard that one?

Every time we do a baptism and we got one in three weeks coming up, had one last week.

Nothing beats a changed life.

I'll go to my grave saying that Nothing beats being in the room when somebody, broken as all, get out, bows their head, and when they turn, when they open their eyes again and they lift up their head, they know Christ and they'll never be the same.

Nothing beats that.

And we don't have to be experts, we just have to be authentic and we have to be so.

How do we do this?

Just be decisive and what your message is.

When you have the opportunity to be verbal about it, just be decisive.

You don't have to know the Bible from cover to cover.

You don't have to be.

You don't have to have figured out the most complex, sticky theological issues.

All you have to know is how you got where you are and how they need to get where they are, and also the stuff that goes along with that, or stuff like oh, I'm sure I'll tell you this.

There's a few things I will never do and there's a few things I will always do.

That's being decisive.

If you needed a little bit more clearly defined think of a grandparent or a parent, aunt and uncle, maybe who.

You would say that about them, that they may not even be here anymore.

But when you look back on their life you are so inspired and so grateful because you can just say you know what about Uncle Bob?

There's a handful of things I never worried about him doing because I knew he would never do that.

But I also knew this he was so predictable In this area here he was always going to do that.

He couldn't pass up a guy in need.

He would give him the shirt off his back.

He could not be loving, even to the people that bit it, bit the hand that fed him because he had the love of Jesus in his life.

You know my grandmother Polly.

You may say, oh, there's certain things she was never going to do because for her that would dishonor Christ and that was not on her agenda.

It's not about keeping the rules, it's about being a grace follower.

Here's another honest, gut-level thing.

You know everybody in this room and everybody out there.

Y'all have all had anxious moments.

Some of you may battle anxiety on a daily basis.

I'm not a counselor with the magic words about that, but I would encourage you to do this because it helps me sometimes.

Boy, just shift your dependency on to Christ and say I can't really control this right now and I dread what might happen tomorrow, but I know you are there tomorrow.

You'll be with me tomorrow.

I know this is true and I know in my life so far you have never disappointed me.

I'm going to trust that for tomorrow too.

That's called dependency.

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.