Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Lost in Translation | May 2nd, 2021

Welcome everyone to our KCC lobby.

That's where we are shooting this morning because our main auditorium has been transformed into Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

It's part of our drama through the Heritage Christian School, and every part of this building continues to be used.

Every corner continues to be used throughout the week.

So we find ourselves in the lobby.

Don't get distracted by people walking by, cars driving by, birds flying by.

We just want to be able to join together and I want to thank you for being so flexible.

I know many of you are parent pastors at home, you're raising your kids, you're doing kids' programs with them at this time, and continuing to worship together, continuing to invite the presence of God into your home and listen to the word of God.

I encourage you to get out a notepad, get out a pen and paper, open up your tablet, take some notes today.

Today's message is going to be a good message.

I'm so honored that you've given us this time of the week to be able to share with you and transform the environment that you're walking in right now, you're living in right now.

We believe that even though this is a virtual cast, we're virtually broadcasting, I believe that the word of God still has power and can meet you where you're at, in your home, in your car, at the gym, in the park, wherever you may be listening.

So go ahead and share.

Make some noise.

Let people know that church is live.

It doesn't matter when people log in, let the message ring true for them in their hearts.

Now, today we are in the middle of a series entitled Lost in Translation.

And this is where we're addressing the tensions that we face on a regular basis.

It's a push and pull tension within our life where we're pressured each day to wake up and actually take aside.

And culture is demanding us take aside, take aside, take aside.

We heard last week, as part of the message, that when it comes to these choices, when it comes to being a demand being made upon us, we consider, we we consider whose we are and where we belong, where our true citizenship lies.

There are people of different genders, there are people of different races, there are people of different financial statuses and positions, people from different countries, or people from the East and the West.

All those things don't matter when you're walking in the kingdom.

As a kingdom person, we walk as kingdom people, serving one king, one message, and we're called to act, speak, live, love, function in our businesses and our personal lives day to day, representing him and only him.

And when it comes to the choices that we make every day, we consider him first.

We consider Jesus first.

We consider what would Jesus do?

We ask that question because we've got a challenge in the world as the world is actually contending for our attention, for our perspective, for our pleasures.

And we need to make sure that our attention, our pleasure is being put, being given to the Lord.

Today I'd like to address an attitude that should be within us when considering our approach to the future.

When we're actually thinking about the future, and Paul addresses it to the church in Corinth this way, and I just love the way he starts this message or this letter.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 6, it says, Dear, dear Corinthians, I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter wide, open, spacious life.

2 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

We didn't fence you in.

The smallness you feel comes from within you.

Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way.

And I'm speaking, I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection.

Open up your lives.

Live openly and expansively.

This is God's heart, and I'm sure it's in your heart today, too.

This message to live open, to open up.

Like I believe it's so important during this season, especially.

I've been made so aware of it, the importance of opening up, opening up our lives, our homes, our churches, businesses, uh, borders, nations.

I think it's so important for us and how blessed it is when we live in an open environment.

So, what do you do when your life feels closed?

What do you do when you feel fenced in, when you feel small?

Well, again, we go back to these two views, these two perspectives.

And Paul addresses it this way: he says, you can either live with God's perspective or you can live with your own perspective, living life through your perspective.

And as we address the first week in the series, we have an enemy whose sole purpose is to distract you and keep you from experiencing God's best for your life.

And we we don't want to give him any power.

We don't want to give him any right to influence our life and our choices.

And Paul made it very clear in this portion of scripture that we find ourselves living in small spaces, little living, he would say, and it's because of us.

Because we've given him power.

It's not anything that God did to us, it's what we do to ourselves when we release ourselves to him.

We allow it.

We're the ones who establish our boundaries, we're the ones who set our limitations.

My wife, she likes, uh has a few scripture verses.

She scripted them, put them on the walls in our home, in different places, and I'll hear her share this verse quite often.

And this is really, in essence, God's plan.

God's plan, Psalms 18, 19.

It says, He brought me out to wide open spaces.

He pulled me out safe because he's pleased with me.

That's God's heart for us.

God's plan for us.

When we approach God, when we approach him with our future, despite the immediate conditions that we might be living in, we need to realize God's plan for our life.

And God's plan for our life is open, spacious.

Jeremiah 29, 11 says it this way: it says, God has plans for you.

Plans for you, says the Lord.

Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a future, a hope and a future.

And it's irregardless that you see that scripture verse painted on you know bumper stickers and on old like old frames.

It rings true.

The truth remains.

God's plans for you are good plans, a good future, a good hope.

And you can say amen to that if you're at home today.

You can just say amen.

God's got a plan for our life, for open, spacious living.

Paul said that, but John said it this way as he was approaching his friends.

In 3 John chapter 1 and 2, he says, Dear friends, I pray that in every way you may prosper.

3 John 1 · chapter mention

You may prosper, you would enjoy good health as your soul also prospers.

So you would enjoy health, you would enjoy prosperity with family, business, friends.

Life would in you would appreciate and enjoy life.

It's not a sin to enjoy life.

The scripture says it's the enemy that comes to rob, kill, steal, destroy.

But God came to give us life and life to abundance.

It's an abundant life that God's given us.

God's plans for us are never small.

You need to say that.

His last commission, his last commandment to us wasn't a small commandment.

It's called the Great Commission.

In Mark 16, he says, Go into all the world.

Preach the gospel to all creation.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

Whoever does not believe will be condemned.

And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name.

They'll drive out demons.

They'll speak in new tongues.

They'll pick up snakes with their hands, and when they drink deadly poison, it won't hurt them at all.

They'll place their hands on sick people and they'll get well.

There's a power that will be given to go into places, dark places bring light, sick places bring healing, tormented places and bring life and peace.

He knew that the world would need this radical gospel.

He knew that the world would need an overcoming gospel message, and he gave it to us in this soul-prospering way.

So get ready for an open, spacious life.

And Paul's saying this to the church of Corinth: don't settle, don't fence yourself in, don't submit to small living.

Instead, wake up and uh become alert and aware of God's plan for your life.

And really, we need it this way.

We need it this way so we can impact our society, we can impact our communities, to impact, you know, build uh orphanages and feed the hungry and see sick people well and see torment or mentally distressed people come to a peace in their heart and in their mind.

We need this kind of power.

We need this type of uh living in every believer, and that includes you at home today.

That includes you.

So coming back to the start, when we look at this scripture, we we realize that we are the ones that place limitations on us.

And that same fight that Paul was having for the church of Corinth that needed the church to be alive, uh, Moses also had it when it came to addressing the people that were going through the desert.

And Moses, before he even approached the Hebrew people, he had he encountered God at the burning bush, the bush that burned but yet didn't burn.

And God spoke to him from this bush, and he said, I've come to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up out of the land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

And that's what God's plan was for the Hebrew people who were enslaved in Egypt.

He said, I'm gonna bring them out, I'm gonna bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey.

And the people left Egypt.

And Moses led the people across the Red Sea or through the Red Sea to the other side.

And he said, You know, you don't have to bring too much with you.

They left with very little possessions, but God was leading them to a place that was going to flow, that was rich in the land, and it was large inland.

It was a place that was flowing with uh honey and milk, which really refers to the honey being fruitful.

Like where there's honey, there are bees, and where there's honey, there's pollen, and where there's pollen, there's trees that have flowers and buds.

This is a place that was full of fruit, full of harvest.

And it was a place where there was flowing with milk.

It was a place where cattle could graze and where the goats and the sheep could be there.

This place was the promised land.

And unfortunately, as Moses contended with the people, they decided to murmur, complain, and live with the disbelief that God's plan was really to bring them to a promised place.

Instead, their response to God was, and response to Moses was, have you brought us out here to die?

And that disbelief caused them to miss out on the promise.

So Paul is contending for the church in Corinth, and Moses is contending for the for the Hebrew people.

God's plan for us was for more than we're experiencing now.

God has more for us.

God has more for you, He has more for your family, He has more for the church, more for our community.

Despite the environment we're in, God has more.

So the challenge for us is that when we approach these opportunities and God moves us out into a place of greatness, into a place of bounty, a place of prosperity, and a place where we stop thinking small, we start thinking large, what happens is we're confronted immediately.

And we're confronted often with criticism.

And criticism comes to the front to discourage you, to hold you back, to keep you from walking into your promise.

And it's been my experience that when you move into greatness and you don't know or you don't have a guarantee of the outcome, people will attack with criticism.

They did it with Moses, they did it with Paul, they came at him with criticism.

They said they weren't sure about the guarantee, they weren't guaranteed, and so they criticized the plan.

But let me share with you an example of someone who was able to push through this criticism, push through these obstacles of smallness and move into greatness, and in so doing actually move into the promise.

And so we can, I believe, learn some lessons today from a man who you probably already know the story of, but let me share it to you from a different angle, is the man of David.

David.

Now let me tell you a little bit about David.

David had a secret, he was a man after God's own heart, a man who God loved, who was a friend of God, and he had a secret that still applies for us today.

And it allowed him to overcome these criticisms and obstacles that would keep us from experiencing our best life and keep him from experiencing his best life.

And he learned to overcome them and not to allow criticism to actually compromise his calling.

So what you see in heaven, you would see on earth.

And so, how did he do it?

Now, from what we've learned of David, uh we realize that people blamed him, used him, took advantage of him, they accused him, and and he was still able to overcome.

So David was literally a shepherd boy.

When he first comes onto the scene in scripture, he's a shepherd boy, and the shepherd boy was like the it was the job that was the most novice of jobs.

It was like you had a paper out as a kid.

It was a job that everyone had to do, or and he continued to have to do it.

It was the first step, it was not a noble job, but it was a job that was just required by the call the society that they were in.

He was just a simple shepherd, and he had no experience as a king, no experience working with royalty.

He was the youngest of 11 brothers, recognized as the runt of the of the brothers, the smallest of the brothers.

He was often forgotten about as he was out with the sheep.

Oh, that boy, he's just out with the sheep.

In front of everyone in his family, when it came time for Samuel to anoint the next king, they pulled him out of uh working with the sheep and brought him in front of all of his brothers.

And Samuel pulled the cork and poured the oil over his head and said, Hey, I'm gonna anoint you king over Israel, to be the king of next king over Israel.

And when he did that, I'm sure David felt like, man, this is from shepherd to king in a moment that he felt like, I just don't belong here.

This isn't comfortable for me.

Yet when he went through it, when he experienced that pressure, he pushed through and he to experience the promise.

He experienced the pressure, but it didn't restrict him.

Even when he went to see his brothers at the battlefield, where Goliath was yelling at the troops and telling them off.

David went to see uh his brother Iliab, and Iliab said to him, Why are you even here?

Who's with the sheep?

I know why you're here.

You're such a wicked kid.

You're here because you just want to be entertained, you want to hang out with some of the people from the battlefield.

Now get back home.

Like, challenged him that way.

He wasn't wanted, he wasn't desired by his even his own family.

So, how would a young man like that overcome and move from that position to the position of king?

When David was in those positions, he pushed back.

And I believe what his secret was was that he carried a confidence in his heart, a confidence that he carried that strengthened him that in the face of critics, that allowed him to stand up in the face of criticism, and it allowed him to advance and to move forward in the God's plan for his life.

The writer of Hebrews says it this way in chapter 10, verse 35, he says, Don't throw away your confidence.

It's so important that you carry your confidence, it will be richly rewarded.

And the writer is assuming that he's seen people, he's watched people throw their confidence away, and he's saying, don't do it.

It's so important that you hold on to it because if you do, you're gonna be richly rewarded.

So we don't throw away our confidence, and we need to say this at home today that I won't throw away my confidence, I won't treat it as something light.

I'm going to hold on to the areas in my life where there's confidence, where I know the confidence, I have a security, there's that confidence.

And we see this demonstrated clearly when he goes on the battlefield against a giant, Goliath.

Uh, after no soldier would stand up against Goliath, David said, I'm going to fight him.

And his response to the king, when he goes to King Saul, he says, Uh, let no one lose heart.

Everyone, it's gonna be okay.

On account of the Philistine, your servant, me, David, is gonna go and fight.

And Saul said, You're not able to go and fight him.

You're not able to go against the Philistine.

You're only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.

Again, as soon as David decided, I'm gonna go and fight, I'm gonna do something that is uh that will take me from a small place into a great place.

He was faced with the first person, the first comment was that of criticism.

He says, You're too young, he's older, you're too uneducated, he's experienced, you're too uh small, he's too big, you can't do it, David.

And this response didn't put David down.

In fact, David responded on how God had brought him through victories in the past.

And he started to review those victories.

And so when we think about the confidence that we need in our own hearts and in our own lives, we need to walk in such a way that we won't waste.

Our testimony.

We don't throw our testimony away.

We instead let's review it.

We need to remember the time where God took us through an obstacle.

He helped us through a difficult time.

And he brought you through, and he'll do it again.

He'll do it again.

And that that opportunity and that moment of confidence that you experienced in the past can be a stepping stone for you to take that next step.

And I believe it.

He brought KCC through this last year, where we had very limited services throughout the whole of the year.

And he brought us through, and he'll do it again next year.

And he's brought us through 40 years of ministry as a church, and he's going to bring us into a greater 40 years in time.

God's done it before, and he'll do it again.

Amen.

You just need to say amen.

I'm not going to lose the weight of the testimony.

Because that testimony is something I'm going to hold dear to my heart, hold close to my heart because that testimony, if I hold on to it, there's a confidence that's attached to it, and that confidence has a reward attached to it.

Your marriage may be struggling.

Your marriage may be failing.

And you can look back at times where you overcame the difficult times before you can do it again.

Your business may be struggling right now, but you can look back at times where there was a struggle in the past and God brought you through.

You might experience your times in your life where you felt sick or you felt an issue with your health, and God healed you.

And again, God will bring you through.

We have confidence in those moments.

We need to bring them back to the Lord and tell the Lord what he's done, remind him of what he's done, recite what he's done, and then celebrate what he's done, and allow that confidence to build in your heart.

And Paul said it this way at the close of talking to the church in Philippi.

He said, You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

After it's all said and done, there is nothing impossible for God.

And he can do anything and everything through you.

He'll give you the power to accomplish and the grace to push through and the creative wisdom to push through any situation or obstacle.

I believe it today.

So when the devil comes at you, you have to say, Not today, Satan.

You're gonna say, you're a liar.

You're not gonna take anything from me.

I'm not going to give up one inch.

And Samuel, in the book of Samuel, David said that.

He said, Listen, king.

When I was keeping my father's sheep, when I was taking care of the sheep, there was a lion, there was a bear, and they went to carry off the sheep from the flock.

And I went after it, and I struck it, and I rescued the sheep from its mouth.

And when it turned on me, I grabbed it by the scruff of its beard, and I struck it and I killed it.

Here's David saying, I took on a lion, I took on a bear.

Your servants killed a lion and a bear.

This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them.

He's defied the armies of God.

The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of the Philistine.

Confidence comes when your life is built on the word of God and his righteousness, and you can say, you know what, nothing can come against me.

There's no weapon formed against me that'll prosper.

Nothing can tear me down.

If God is with me, who is who can stand against me?

And my grandpa used to say this, he's he when I was younger, he gave me this lesson.

He I remember where I was at his front patio door, and he said, Brody, I remember there was a time when you know when the Bible says that the wicked they run when no one's pursuing them, that a bird flutters in the bushes and they turn tail and they run.

But the righteous, they're as bold as a lion.

They're as bold as a lion.

David understood that he wasn't going to defeat Goliath in his own strength.

And we'll work ourselves tired trying to defeat Goliath in our own strength.

We can't build confidence the way the world builds confidence.

We can't build it on our image or our education or our financial wealth.

We can't build it that way.

David was given the armor of the king, Saul's shiny armor, and he put it on.

He said, I can't do it this way.

It's got to come from inside.

It's got to come from a relationship that you have with God Himself, that He's open to have with you.

And David came against this Goliath in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, who he defied, who Goliath was defying.

And he said to Goliath, and I just love this trash talk on the court, he says, This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I'm going to strike you down and cut off your head.

And this very day I'll give your carcass to the birds of the air and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

And the city began when he did that, and when he finally put Goliath down and he took off his head like he said he would, the Bible says that the crowds of people in Israel celebrated him because this confidence is attractive.

And they began to say, Saul, you've claimed a thousand lives, but David's slain tens of thousands.

And this attraction was towards David because of the confidence he held in who God was.

When your eyes are too close inward and so self-conscious, you'll never have the view of God that He has for you, for your family.

And we need to know that.

We need to hold on to that confidence.

God, what is your perspective, your view for my life?

And don't throw away your confidence.

Hold on to it.

Don't allow COVID to take it.

Don't allow closures to take it.

Don't allow petty arguments to take it.

Just flip the script.

Flip it and change the narrative of the culture.

Even in crisis, I'm going to hold on to my confidence and I'm going to remember that my God does not fail.

He will not fail me.

Paul reminded the people.

He said, listen, you're doing no favors by acting small.

It doesn't help anyone get better for you to act small.

It doesn't help anyone get bigger by you acting small.

He said, act big, because you've got a big dad.

You've got a big God.

You've got a big dream.

You have a big vision to accomplish.

You've got the great mission to fulfill.

And it's about the world.

It's not even just about your home or your neighborhood.

It's about the globe.

God's called us to be global in thinking.

Throughout his life, David stretched this muscle of confidence and he built it day in, day out.

And we read about it in Psalms, starting chapter 27, he said, The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Who shall I fear?

He reminded himself.

He said, The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 28, the Lord is my shield and my strength.

My heart trusts in him.

Psalm 46, God is a refuge and a strength, a help in times of trouble.

Psalm 59, God is my strong tower.

He constantly built his confidence.

And I'm hoping today I'm building your confidence in God that God has for you, in you.

And we need to be thinking this way.

We need to think this way because in order to think big, we need to think long term.

It's not a short-term thinking.

We need to be thinking about the long game here.

And we need to think about God's mind for the world, God's mind for our city, God's mind for our families, and we need to elevate our thinking.

We need to think this way for our jet for generations.

We need to think this way for legacy.

What we do today will actually affect generations.

And our investment in the people is not in vain.

Every time we do a challenge, or every time we experience a challenge in the day-to-day, we can't grow weary because God has a plan.

And we need to showcase this greatness for the sake of our children, for the sake of our children's children, for the sake of our children's children's children.

They need to be able to know God did it for dad, God did it for grandpa, God did it for great-great-grandpa, he can do it for me.

If we have to start the church over and we have to start from just ground zero, every generation will never impact the world.

But each time we build, and then the next generation builds on top of the previous generation, then maybe we'll have be able to make a difference.

Then we'll be able to impact the world and uh create change.

So legacy matters.

Legacy matters.

Your confidence matters.

Till your last breath, your confidence matters.

I hope you've heard my heart today.

I hope you've heard it in Paul, his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul and his letter to the church in Philippi, Moses to the people, the Hebrew people, that God's plan for them is bigger than they could even imagine.

God's plan for them was a great promised land.

Hope you hear it in the life of David, that no matter the giant you may be facing, no matter the obstacle or the crisis you may encounter, if you stand firm in the Word of God and in His righteousness, you'll be as bold as a lion.

You'll be able to have that confidence to stand up against that giant and take it down.

So I hope you've heard my heart today.

And you might be saying, Well, I haven't been living that way.

And what should I do?

And my first challenge to you would be to stop and find some time today and just on your own, just confess to God, say, God, I've been thinking small.

I haven't been thinking big the way you've wanted me to think.

This whole culture, all the media, all the news has made me think only internally.

I'm just staying at home.

I'm living that quarantined, closed, fenced off life.

And God's saying, I've got more for you.

I've got more for the church.

And that's not gonna stop God's plan for us.

So repent.

Go to God and say, I'm sorry.

God reignite in me a fresh passion, a fresh courage, a fresh confidence.

And Lord, today I declare I'm gonna hold on to it with all my might.

And secondly, go to someone and say, you know what?

I have I've been living small and I need your help.

Sharpen me.

Keep me in line, keep me tight so that I can walk in the promise that God has for me.

And so I can make a difference, not just for me, but for my children and my children's children.

And make a difference for generations.

Announce and decide today, you're gonna be that legacy starter, you're gonna be that legacy maker.

Amen.

If you heard that today, I'm just gonna pray with you.

And I'm gonna just come into agreement with you today.

And if this message is spoken to your heart and you've heard God speaking to you, then would you just join me in this prayer as we just pray together and just agree?

Say amen, say yes, make it a verbal agreement from wherever you're at.

So I'm not good, that I'm not gonna live in that small-minded space.

I'm gonna live the promise that God has for me.

So, Father, today we come to you with thanksgiving in our heart and we give you thanks for all that you've given us.

Every bit of of power, every bit of authority, every bit of position you've given towards us.

And today we just lean into you.

We say, your will be done on earth the way it's done in heaven.

And Lord, we recognize that the way you're going to make a difference on this world, on this earth is through us.

And so, Father, today we just open up our hearts to you and we say yes to you, Lord.

Yes to your plan, yes to your vision, yes to your mission, and we say, Lord, we submit ourselves and we submit our lives to your calling.

We're not gonna compromise our calling because of criticism and because of small thinking.

We're gonna walk in the boldness that you've called us to walk in, walk in the courage you've called us to walk in.

Today, Lord, we ask for that new grace, that new strength.

Lord, let it just be a milestone moment in our lives today as we move forward for every man, for every woman, for every child, for every teen.

Father, make a difference today and build your church for the sake of your name in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.

Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for giving up your time and giving up your attention today.

And open your heart to this word.

We believe it'll have an incredible impact for you and your home.

God bless you.