Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Our Homecoming Journey | February 28th, 2021

Welcome Kelowna Christian Center.

We're so glad that you're joining with us for church today, church at home.

It's so great to be able to gather together, even if it is online.

Each week we like to be able to give an invitation for you to share what's happening on Facebook, send a quick text, let people know that we're gathering with church, and it just makes a difference when everyone comes together.

While you're doing that, we want to just say thank you.

Each week we're saying thank you for your faithful giving and just being committed and supporting the church during this time.

We are so grateful to have a good community around us that wants to see the church not only be maintained but grow and excel during the season.

If you've got questions or if you have uh things that you're going through, the church offices are open Monday to Friday.

And we encourage you to come on by and just say hello.

If you'd like to come by and uh ask some questions.

We do have some ministry that's still available out of the offices and in the church.

We've got some marriage workshops that are happening, some small groups, we've got kids' programs, youth programs.

We want you to be able to take uh make available all of the uh options that we have for the ministry at this point.

So thank you for being with us today.

Now we're on this homecoming journey, and we're still on it as the way life is.

We start and we're continuing to go on this journey towards sonship.

And the Colossians chapter 1, verse 28, which is our text today, says this.

Colossians 1:28

It says, It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone, teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present ourselves mature in Christ.

That's Colossians 1, 28.

This maturity in today's topic is on spiritual maturity.

Are we spiritually mature?

Are we on that journey towards spiritual maturity?

Or have we stopped?

Have we slowed down?

Have we uh hit a wall or an obstacle and we're just not moving past it?

We want to be people who are continuing to grow and continuing to move on this journey.

Our goal in life is to live completely from what we've called chair one.

And this chair is our perspective and our lifestyle as a son of God, living in the kingdom of God, thinking about his kingdom first.

And that would demonstrate spiritual maturity to me.

Spiritual maturity is not achieved because you made a decision to follow Christ when I was in Sunday school and prayed a prayer with my Sunday school teacher.

It's not achieved when you uh come to church just consistently every week, or even by logging in online each week.

It doesn't demonstrate spiritual maturity.

It's like someone saying, I went and I registered at the gym and I pay my dues every month, and I go in and they gave me a fob for my keyring, and now I walk around and I'm a part, but I'm not growing the way being a part of the gym should should uh give you a return.

Or you go to the gym and you don't exercise the way you should, and you use the opportunity for socializing.

Maybe I'm hitting a little home here, but the purpose of the church, the purpose of our relationship with God, is actually move spiritually to a place where we identify and relate and have connection with Father God.

And that doesn't happen one day when we just wake up and all of a sudden we know the heart of God and we know it implicitly and explicitly.

We know who he is and we understand the depths of who he is.

It doesn't happen like that.

It takes us, we're on a journey.

So you will not discover your spiritual maturity in church.

The proving ground of your faith is going to be found in times that were similar to what we're living in today.

Times when your day-to-day life is interacting with others and the complications and the obstacles and the challenges that you experience from from moment to moment, how you deal with joy, how you deal with grief, how you deal with accusation and offense and jealousy and envy in your heart, how you deal with things when other people are succeeding and you desperately want to succeed yourself.

How do you manage?

How do you grow through these obstacles that you face?

And in 1 John, he says that this journey starts with a child, as a child or an infant or a babe.

It's the same terminology.

You start as a child, you move to a teenager, and then from moving from that point to an adult.

Maturity is achieved when you look at life the way, and you live life from the vantage point of the Spirit of God.

So you see through, you begin to see through the prism or the lens of the kingdom.

You see God's perspective, you see God's ways, you begin to speak with his words and listen to what he's saying and not what the world is saying, that you begin to walk that walk.

So when someone is spiritually mature, and I wrote this down, that person is progressively, by the power of the Spirit, becoming the kind of person who engages and responds to hardships of life with patience, with endurance, with joy, because they don't lose sight of the true story of who they are and whose they are and who they belong to.

That's why in James he says, count it all joy, my brethren.

When you experience these obstacles, when you experience difficulties, because when you experience these difficulties, it will lead you to another point of maturity.

You are you'll develop patience, you'll develop perseverance, and you'll grow.

And most of us reach a point in our life where we find comfort.

And that comfort, it it's it's soothing, it's it's relaxing in that place, but God wants us to be in a place where we're pushing forward because He has more for us.

He has more waiting for us.

Can you believe that?

God has more waiting for you, God has more waiting for me.

So we look through life and this reality at times is flip-flopping between us living for the kingdom of God and us living for the kingdom of self.

And we experience this flip-flop.

And we look at life through the eyes of God at times, but then we look at it through the eyes of Brody at times.

I experienced it this week where I had a challenge relationally with someone.

And I was speaking with my dad, and of course, it's always great to have your dad who is a pastor and knows the biblical precepts, like the principles of the scripture.

And I was saying, Dad, I've got this challenge.

And he was saying, Well, have you followed Matthew 18?

And I thought, well, I know Matthew 18.

You don't have to remind me of it.

It's when you've got a challenge, you have to go to that person individually.

And then if they don't listen, you've got to you bring someone with you for accountability.

And then if they don't listen, this process continues.

And I didn't want to hear that answer because I was living from a perspective of self.

I wanted him to say, hey, Brody, you're right.

I'm with you.

You he I just wanted him to validate my own feelings because I wanted what I wanted.

And that's the challenge today.

We flip-flop from self to doing God's way and doing it our way.

So living from this chair two position where it's all about me, is a foolish place to live.

It's a reality that we're in.

I agree, it's a reality that we live in because it's natural and sometimes it's comfortable, and and we get what we want in the process.

We get to control our own destiny, and we get to say to others, you know, they can back off, or the haters can hate, and you don't really look at your own life and say, God, what are you wanting to do in my life?

Perhaps you've recognized a scenario like this in your life today.

And you may think back on it.

I remember a time when I was in ministry and there were people speaking in front of me, and they were incredibly accomplished people.

And I've had the privilege to speak at some pretty great places around the world.

And I had these great ministers in front of me, and I remember thinking, oh my goodness, I have to follow what they were saying.

I have to follow what they've done.

And I remember being in the Ukraine one time and thinking, I'm just not cut out for this.

And I began to feel the fear, and I began to feel the intimidation, and I began to feel the pressure to compete with our brother or our sister in Christ.

And here's the attitude that's where self mattered to me.

And I had to reset for a moment, and I had to say, it's not about myself.

It's not about a son doesn't compete.

A son completes each other.

An orphan competes, but a son completes.

It's like the family business, the kingdom of God is this family business.

When one person's stock goes up, they all go up.

It's like when the tide comes into a harbor.

That tide that comes into the harbor lifts all ships.

The small ships, the larger ships.

Every ship gets lifted when the tide comes in.

And that's the way the kingdom of God is.

And I had to reset and I had to think, no, thank you, God, that you've brought these incredible people together.

Thank you for the ministry that you're giving them, and thank you for the ministry you've given me.

And I began to operate not from a place of pressure, but from a place of pleasure.

God's pleasure towards me is, Brody, I've given you everything you need.

You just need to go ahead and do what you've been called to do.

And that pressure just released off me, and I could just be who I am.

This pressure is something that we need to resist.

And we when we feel it, we need to push it back.

Because God gives the keys to the kingdom to sons.

And he says, I've got so much available for you, but you need to position yourself as a son.

And that means being maturing to the point where I can give you the keys to the family business.

In fact, Matthew 18 and in Matthew 16, twice in Matthew, Jesus speaks of these keys and he says, I'm going to give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

God, Father God, is giving us keys to make a difference in this world.

And when I look at myself as a son in the right perspective on this journey of maturity in Christ, I need to identify who I am first.

And who I am first is how God sees me.

It's how God in heaven sees me.

And I and what I have right now is not based on my material things that I possess at this moment.

It's based on what He has.

And anytime that that point comes where I have a question, is there enough sufficiency for me?

Is there enough sufficiency for my family, for our church, for our city?

I don't look at what we have.

We say, God, we trust in you.

You're our all-sufficient one.

You're the one with all the answers.

You're the one with the capacity to give and the capacity to make a difference.

Allow us to be the steward.

Allow us to be the sons.

Pass on the keys so we can make that difference.

We grow up.

We mature in Christ.

And this isn't supposed to be something that's personally offensive to you.

It's not something that we as a church go through and say, oh, this person's a teen or an infant or this person's a spiritual adult.

It isn't something that we grade.

It's something that you need to recognize in your life because you are on your own journey.

You're on this spiritual journey, and our journey is to mature in Christ, to fulfill this mission that God has placed us on this earth to fulfill.

And we use those keys that God has given us to make that difference.

But it's one of the hindrances that will hold back the church from completing their mission.

It's one of the issues that will hold us back, is that the church is still maturing.

And if we're not positioning ourselves to continue to grow and continue to press in, then the world is not going to hear this message.

And we aren't going to grow.

And we're not going to set the example that our family and the world needs.

We all need to grow in our spiritual maturity.

And this is old news.

This isn't just suddenly something that I decided to preach on today.

In fact, Paul said it in 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

He says, starts off and he says, I, brothers, he's speaking to the church, like I'm speaking to the church today.

I can't speak to you as spiritual people, but as carnal people, he said, as to babes in Christ.

I feed you with milk and not with solid food.

For until now you were not able to receive it.

And even now you're still not able, for you are still carnal, where there's envy, strife, division, arguments, all this type of complaining that's going on among you.

He calls it carnal.

He says you're behaving like mere men instead of who God has called you to be.

So Paul's addressing this church.

He says, brothers, and he calls them carnal.

And this word carnal is a Greek word, it means sarkikos.

Sarkikos, which means fleshly or like an infant, new.

And Paul says, you're carnal men, you're immature, you're like a baby, and you need to grow up.

Now I can't, I can't imagine being at church or like, or even when I was a kid, and someone's saying you're acting like a baby.

It is just so insulting because you actually see yourself as growing up.

But there are points in my life, and I admit to you, where I'm still working on maturing.

And I wish I could say I'm the spiritual father or the grandfather.

But in fact, I'm still growing in my faith.

There are places and times where I've got to repent and say that was childish.

And the scripture says, well, men at times says, there's a comes a point where you need to put away childish things and pick up that high calling of being a man and grow up.

And that's what the challenge is here.

That there's this challenge to put away those childish things and grow up.

So we're on this journey towards sonship, journey towards responsibility.

And it's going to come with tests, and it's going to come with opportunities for obedience.

It's going to come with pressure.

And it's going to come and you're going to have to face that challenge.

And it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, it doesn't matter if you're nine, ten years old, it doesn't matter if you're 80, 90 years old, and all in between, we're going to continue to grow in our faith and run this race, maturing together.

How can we ever move the church forward if we don't decide to mature?

If we don't mature as a church, will the world see who God is?

There was a church that took a poll.

It was a thousand-member church, and it was a real reality check for this church.

As they took this poll, they asked one simple question.

They said, Why does the church exist?

And 88% of the church responded that the church existed to take care of their personal growth and their family's personal growth, their spiritual needs.

And only 11% of the church responded and said, Our role is to win the world to Christ.

Our role and our job is to equip the believers to grow up into pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets, apostles, foundation builders, and go into the world and reach the world, plant new churches, open up new missions fields, and go and make a difference.

And spiritual maturity in a church like that on 11%.

Imagine if the church was operating at 100%.

Imagine what they could do.

So the pastor of that church realized the deficiency, realized that only 11% of the church was at that place to make a difference and had to work with the other 88 or 89% together.

You see, babies are cute.

They're great when they're little, they can cry and they get what they want.

They can scream, they get what they need.

I think it's awesome when a new person comes to know Christ, they're a babe in Christ.

They cry out to God and God answers.

Anytime someone comes to Christ, you tell them, ask God for whatever they need.

Because God responds to that babe in Christ, that that infant in Christ.

As soon as they come and become a believer, it's an incredible experience for them because it's like the world awakens around them.

But as you get older, there's more pressure and there's more responsibility that becomes laid on your shoulders, not all at once, but God helps us mature.

And as we mature, we begin to grow.

And you begin to expect different as you grow up.

Paul describes the diet of someone who's young in their faith.

He says, I feed you with milk, but I haven't been able to feed you with meat.

Because meat requires you to digest.

It requires you to absorb the nutrients and pull out the nutrition from that meal.

It requires you to chew it up and then swallow it.

And there are things in our life that we need to chew on and swallow.

There are things that we need to wrestle with and rest on to grow up.

And so sometimes it comes to a point where we think about our salvation, and if we live in that space, that's wonderful.

We go back to our testimony.

Look at where God brought me from at that point.

But we're not looking, God, where are you wanting to take me to?

And that's the difference between like a gospel of salvation that's all about me.

Look what God did for me, look what God did for me, versus what can God use me?

How can God use me to make a difference for others?

And that huge difference is uh is fulfilling.

I I love milk.

I can drink milk, but what I really have come to enjoy is an iced steak.

And if someone was to take me out for dinner and they just put in front of front of me a glass of milk, I'd be a little suspicious because I know that that milk is not going to satisfy my hunger.

It comes a point in our life as we mature, we begin to grow in our faith.

We begin to press in on our faith.

And the Bible says that the implications of this growth are a number of different areas where you become fervent.

And this word fervent means it begins to boil like a pot on a stove full of water and it's bubbling over.

You become fervent, like aggressive.

Excitable.

You become expectant in prayer.

You become fervent in prayer.

Colossians talks about being fervent in your worship, being fervent in your love, being fervent in your service, being fervent in your integrity.

It means like I want to do things right and I want to walk right and I want to serve and I want to pray and I want to am fervent for the word of God in my heart.

I hunger for it.

I get up early, I read it, I apply it to memory.

I want the word in me.

That's maturity.

Maturity.

Paul says the church needs to mature.

And he was constantly helping the church mature on this journey that they were on, move from babes to spiritual fathers, spiritual mothers, spiritual people that could lead others.

A mature church.

When I think of a mature church, I think of the prayer that Jesus prayed.

A mature church looks at things differently from a different perspective.

Is there sickness in heaven?

No.

So the mature church contends for healing.

It contends any opportunity.

We pray and we believe for healing because we're mature.

Is there broken relationships in heaven?

No.

So in this world, we contend and we press for peaceable, reconciliatory relationships, relationships that are that come back together and there's unity between people.

That's what we want.

That's a mature church.

A mature church, is there division in heaven?

Is there racial divide?

Is there gender divide?

Not at all.

We're looking at the world from a point of not out of hierarchy, but we're looking at ways we can serve each other and bless each other and support each other and help each other grow.

That's the church that God has intended us to be.

Thy kingdom come on earth like it is in heaven.

And Paul said the carnal church, the fleshly church, they deal with jealousy and division and argument and complaining and bickering and just strife all the time.

That's flesh.

But the mature church looks for unity, the blessing of God, his word over man's word.

He looks for the anointing, the word of God to rule and reign supreme.

Not just my, not my thoughts or my opinions.

And that's what we want for KCC.

And what's so exciting is that there's a divine shift that's happening.

The good news is that there's something happening.

And Malachi, this is the prophet, not our youth pastor.

Malachi spoke of this and he said right before Jesus' arrival, he said that there will come a time when he will turn, God will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.

And he will turn the hearts of children back to the fathers.

That there will be this great opportunity for people to grow up in their faith, to grow together.

God is moving us to a point of desire where we don't just want visitation.

We want God's habitation, where we're not looking for what we can achieve.

We're looking for, Lord, what can we receive from you today?

What can we receive so that we can pass it on to others?

I love what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman.

She was at a well and she was uh she had come there to collect water, and Jesus was there, and she gave some water to Jesus, and she asked if he was thirsty, and he asked for a drink, and there was this whole process there.

There's this discussion at the well.

And he says to her, he says, I've I've got something that satisfies more than just physical water.

And I've got food.

Later on, he tells the disciples, I've got food that satisfies better than just bread.

I've got something better in me.

And Jesus said to this woman, he said, Listen, this true worship that you have, this true worship that you want to experience, is this worship where you worship God in spirit and in truth.

It's more than just coming to church, it's more than just being at home today or being at home throughout the week and playing the Christian radio.

It's more than just having a Bible sitting on your table.

It's more than just lifting your hands in church and clapping or responding and dance or saying hallelujah or amen or agreeing with the message.

You can do all those things and walk away and not be changed.

Jesus was saying, worship, connection with me will actually change your life.

It makes a difference.

Those people, those true worshipers who worship, worship in spirit and in truth.

And it makes a difference.

Mary said it in Luke.

She said, My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God.

Like there is something that happens internally.

And I don't know if you can capture this passion today, but it's more than just a verbal message.

It's more than something that's just taught.

It's something that's caught.

It's something that's taken in, and you allow it to grow within your heart and your life, and you and Father God develop and grow together in relationship with each other.

And it makes a difference because Jesus said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can come to the Father except through him.

We need people who know the way to the Father.

We need people who know the truth.

We need people who have experienced the life.

And when we have those people together who are the way, who know the way first, they know the way to the Father through Jesus.

And they spend time remembering that way.

They go that way every day, multiple times a day.

I'm going to make my way to the Father today.

When I wake up, I'm going to make my way to the Father.

When I get to work or get my vehicle, I'm going to make my way to the Father.

Every opportunity I get, I'm going to make my way to the Father so that I experience this life and this life that's in me that can make a difference.

The Spirit of God gives life.

Another way that we grow in our faith is we don't rely on ourselves.

We rely on the Spirit of God.

And this is when I lean into the Spirit, and I encourage you to lean into the Holy Spirit.

The flesh loves rules.

Religion loves rules.

Governments love rules.

It's ways that you can control and put boundaries around a society or even God.

But the spirit is different.

Paul said it this way, he said, the letter kills.

2 Corinthians 3, 6.

The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

And if we're not careful, we begin to create rules where we put God in a box and we say what God can and cannot do.

But it's the Spirit of God in us, with us, that releases us into life and brings us to a point of celebration through life.

Secondly, we abide in love.

We need to hear God's voice, the Father's voice first.

We need to know that we're loved by Him first.

All other voices need to be silenced compared to His voice.

And this is where you seek first the kingdom of God, His righteousness, and all other things will be added unto you.

Everything else will be taken care of.

We welcome His voice first.

And when we do that, all the pressure, all the intimidation, all the anxiety will fall away.

And there are times in my life where I've just had to reset by just walking in God's love and just being awake, just abiding, sitting, relaxing, taking a breath, and realizing, Brody, whose are you?

Who do you belong to?

And how much does God love you?

And will he ever leave you?

Will he ever leave you alone?

And I realize, no, he's always going to be there with me.

If you're listening today, you may have heard a few points in this message that you're just gravitating towards and saying yes to.

And I want to grow and I want to move in my spiritual maturity.

I want to move on this journey towards sonship where I'm walking hand in hand with Father God.

I want to know him.

I want to be known by him.

If you're walking in that way and you're on that journey along with us, I want to invite you to take a moment and really question: are there areas in my life where I'm living in fear?

And are there areas in my life where I need the love of God to come and displace the fear?

Are there areas in my life where I'm living in shame?

And I need the love of God to come in and displace the shame.

Are there areas in my life where I'm blaming everything around me?

And using it as an excuse instead of saying, Lord, I really need to know what your view of me is.

And I need to live within that revelation, that understanding.

If you want to take a bit of time today, you can do it just by sitting where you're at.

You can do it later this afternoon.

You can do it right after this message, which is ending shortly.

Take a notepad, a journal.

Go ahead, find a quiet place, and listen to the Father's voice.

The scripture says, the sheep know my voice.

The sheep know the voice of the shepherd.

And he is our good shepherd.

And my belief, my sole trust is that if you ask Father God to share with you today, to spend time with you, he will be there with you and he will answer your questions that are going on in your heart and help you grow.

Amen.

So today, declare with me that the Holy Spirit is there with me, is with me to bring me life in such a way that I can begin to learn how to abide in love and how to live my life as a son.

God bless you.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

His face shine on you, be gracious to you, lift his countenance over you, and give you peace.

God bless you.