Retelling the Story 1 | Acres of Diamonds

Thank you for listening to the Kelowna Christian Center podcast.

Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KT and how to connect, visit us at KTC.net.

Let's give let's give the band a hat for coming early today and prepping with prepping for you.

We've got all of our uh dream team that has still been out there serving in the rain.

How many of you are thankful for the rain right on?

Woo! We're grateful for the rain.

That was uh that was my spirits coming out of me in Kelowna right now.

I'd like to welcome you all to KCC this morning.

My name's Brody Calluman.

I'm the one the lead pastor here at KCC.

And uh it's just a privilege to serve the church.

And how many of you are ready to start September strong?

You're ready to start September strong.

That's right.

Uh I'm sure it's been an incredible summer I've been able to hear a lot of the stories from uh a lot of the people that have been just coming and going, and those who have been continuing to catch up online each week.

And uh I know afterwards we've got a bit of an event happening.

We moved everything that was gonna be on the patio, it would have been a patio party.

We moved a lot of the kids' activities and barbecues out to the gymnasium.

Thank you, Lord, for a gymnasium, right?

Some of you go to the gym to eat hot dogs, right?

And that's that's the place to go.

Uh the only thing we canceled is the axe throwing competition.

And uh just because, like, we care for your limbs, we're a many-membered body, and we want to remain that way, right?

Uh our hope is that you start September strong, and our hope is that uh is you as individuals and families in the church today um have this opportunity as many seasons come and go in terms of the rhythms of life.

There's there are a few times of the year where you're able to get a reset.

And how many of you have have had that situation where your computer's just not working or your phone's not quite working, and you just like you call tech and they're like, Have you tried to power it off?

Like just give it a reset, give it a hard reset, like just unlock it, reset it, and start fresh.

And I think this is a time of the year where a lot of people have gone through the summer and there's been a lot of chaos and a lot of uh a lot of alternative uh options and and just many roads in front of you, and you're just saying, you know what, right now I'm moving into September, I'm gonna move strong.

I'm gonna move with intention, I'm gonna move strong moving forward because the Bible says there are certain things that we actually do that to keep him first.

And when you do that and you keep his house first, and you keep him first, and you keep the things that he values first, then things are added unto us.

We don't have to have, we don't have to uh lend as much emotion and energy to the worries of the world.

And so today I'm praying that as we go through this series on retelling the story, you're given that option and that opportunity to reset and to like put your heels in and dig down a little bit and and and root yourself into where you are at the present time in the present, in the in the present scenario that you may be even in.

Uh, would you just turn to your neighbor and say, be in the present this morning?

Come on, be in the present this morning.

Like be alert and be be in the now.

It's so important.

Everyone has a story, and it's the purpose of why we celebrate anniversaries.

You revisit the story, it's why you celebrate birthdays, you're revisiting the story.

Uh, it's why you have annual celebrations, and stories need to be retold.

They need to be revisited, they need to be recelebrated.

And uh stories are important because there are stories that individuals have, there are stories that communities have, there are stories that organizations tell have, and they bring us from the past into our present, but also help us recalibrate our future.

Where are we going?

Where are you going?

And I love today.

My wife just leaned over to me and she said, I felt, I feel like there's a real sense of hope in the church this morning.

And I could just sense that as well.

I believe that God's giving us a hope that in the future we're looking forward, we're looking forward into what God is actually doing.

And uh I met uh a student that I used to teach about 10 years ago.

Yesterday I was uh grabbing something to eat, and uh I hadn't seen him for a while, and I said, Hey, what's what have you been up to?

Like quickly we exchanged numbers, and he's I said, What have you been up to?

And today, uh today is different than some days, but uh he he began to like show me his arms, his sleeves told the story.

There were tattoos from here and here and all the way up, and I was like, he was like, I've been in Japan, I've been in Asia, I've been doing this, I've been doing that, and I could just see his story.

It was written on him, literally tattooed onto his body.

They're storytellers, they're a part of our culture.

A lot of things change over time and history, but storytelling has never changed.

The dynamics change with time, but the the fact of the importance of the story, the value of the story hasn't changed.

Stories were carved into walls and caves with animal bones and charcoal.

Uh, some cultures built structures that were that told stories.

The Egyptians built whole pyramids using cryptic formulas and star formations to tell a story.

Uh now we listen to Instagram stories, Facebook stories.

Oh, we've we've graduated from the pyramids down to Instagram and filters.

Hi, I'm a puppy dog.

Like, that's the way it works.

To podcasts, we're watching media through Netflix and all the other uh mediums that are there.

For the Jewish people, they arranged seven celebrations throughout the year.

And these celebrations were commandments that they all come, that they were commanded to actually come together and attend, to actually share and remind each other of the narrative of God's salvation.

A lot of their stories are like we once were eliminated and now we got saved, and God intervened and now we're saved.

We once were, you know, we were once were faced with an enemy on this side and this side and this side, and God opened up the scene we went through.

Yay! We once were, you know, we had people against us and they wanted to wipe us out as a people, and God intervened again through Esther, or these stories that they began to share and communicate with their community.

These narratives would happen in speeches, they would happen in songs, they would happen over food and at dinner and at breakfast and large gatherings and small gatherings, people would get together, gather together, and share stories.

I love stories.

I love to hear the stories.

I love, I look around and it's like people in the room today, each one of you has a story.

And that story needs to be retold.

It's God's story in you.

Deuteronomy, uh, book in the Old Testament.

There were there were commandments written in this book, and it says God was commanding the people, he said, Listen, I have commandments.

I have stories that I I want to be upon your heart, like imprinted on the core of who you are.

And you will teach them diligently to your children.

Like sit them down and talk to them, speak to them, speak to them when they sit up, when they leave the house, when they come in, when they're walking on the road, when you lie down, when you get up, tie them as reminders around your hand, bind them with little scrolls on your forehead.

Do you think God is trying to make a point here?

You've got a story that needs to be told.

You've got a story that's valuable.

Now that I understand the first thing that will come through your filter is that my story isn't important.

You'll look down the row and you'll say, their story might be, oh, I know a bit of their story.

And those stories are important, but my story doesn't carry value.

And I'm telling you today, God is writing a story so mysterious, so wonderful for you to comprehend, like you're not even going to realize the depth and the impact of it until, I believe, until we move forward into eternity.

In order to be reminded, walk with these stories.

They have power.

The first story, you know, kids want to ask is they're like, hey, tell me a story.

Where did we come from?

That's always a great story.

The child asked his father, he said, Tell me the story.

How were people born?

So his father said, Adam and Eve, they made babies.

Then their babies became adults, and they made babies, and so on and so forth.

And it was it's a good thing.

And the child then went to his mother and said, uh, asked her the same question.

She told him, We were monkeys, and then we evolved to become like we're now.

And the child ran back to his father and said, You lied to me.

And the father replied, No, your mom was talking just about her side of the family.

Oh boy.

I had to throw that one in there.

The story is really in the hand of the storyteller, what it actually is.

And there's a value in your story.

Your story has value if you can just see it.

You need to see it.

Let me point you to a scripture here, Psalm 119, 18.

It says this read this with me.

Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things.

Open my eyes.

I've got a prayer, and I just would like you just to entertain me for a moment here.

Just place your hands on your eyes, and we're just gonna pray.

You say, Lord, touch my eyes.

Amen.

Amen.

Lord, give me a fresh vision for this year.

Lord, give me, allow me to be able to see wondrous things.

Let me be able to experience wondrous things.

How many of you want to experience wondrous things this year?

Awesome things this year.

These are the things that we want to see.

So I'm gonna start by telling you a true story.

This is uh one of the most impressive stories that I've actually heard that's impacted me.

The story was actually part of a book by Russell Cromwell, uh, wrote back in the 1800s.

And you may say, well, that's an old story.

Uh, what kind of impact could it have made?

He was the founder of Temple University and he founded a book uh that I'm about to share with you, and the book sold seven million copies.

That's before the age of the internet and Amazon and email and radio and TV and any type of media.

He made so much money that uh with the sale of this one book that he was known as the penniless millionaire because every cent he brought in, he put towards the development and building of Temple University that still stands today.

He spoke this message 7,000 times over the course of his lifetime, and it was the same message, and I heard it for the first time last year, and I'd like to share it with you.

Uh, it's the story goes of an Arab guide who's actually traveling with Cromwell, uh Cromwell, and he was, as he was traveling with this Arab guide, he said, this guide who said, I'm gonna tell you the story, but I only tell it to my most favorite of clients and customers.

And he said, There was this man living, it's a true story, in South Africa.

His name was Ali Hafid, and he was a poor farmer, had a little log cabin, he had a cow and a wagon and a plow, he had a little meager space, but he had this acreage that he worked with.

And he worked day to day and he was just grinding out at this acreage and and just toiling from morning till night, until one day, as a traveler came by, he opened up his place to the traveler, and the traveler sat at his table, and the traveler began to talk to him about this this uh whole diamond rush that was happening in India.

And and as the story continued, and I'm sure at that time there was no fact-checking, no Google, you know, it's not like people today during church, they fact-checked the speaker right there, and then he's like, Are you sure that's true?

He began to uh fact-check and he said, or they had no way of fact-checking, and so he said, Tell me more about this.

He began to share about how they're diamonds.

And if you can go to India and you can find this river between these two mountains called the Valley of the Moon, you go in there, you look down into that river, and it's just lit up.

You just drag your hand through that river and you'll pull diamonds out of the river.

And the man thought, oh man, I'm gonna get ridiculously rich.

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna sell everything.

So he sold it all right there and then.

Sold everything he had, put up a little place for his family just to be able to hold out until he returned.

He's gonna come back incredibly rich.

And so he leaves to go to India and he travels through India and he starts chasing the diamonds.

He chases and chases and chases until he's run out of all of his money, all of his resources are burned up.

He comes to a place where he's overlooking a river on a bridge, and he writes a final letter to his family, and he writes down, there are no diamonds here, passes it off, and then jumps into this river, ending his life tragically.

And that's not how the story ends.

Because the man who he sold his property to, the man who continued with the same wagon, the same cattle, the same acreage, the same little log cabin, he continued to work this field.

And as he was working this field, he was coming across these bumps in the in the plow, and he'd pick up the rock and he'd put it off to the side, and he built this mountain of the these black rocks.

He finally came into his uh house and he was just sitting down, and and uh the pastor or the priests in that area came into his house and and uh they were having dinner and they looked up on the mantelpiece, and on this mantelpiece he had taken one of the rocks because we noticed that when the sun shone on a little bit, it cast out the colors of a rainbow.

So he put it on top of his meager fireplace.

And as he put it on top there, he the priest looked and he said, Where did you get that rock?

He goes, Oh my goodness, the rocks, they're everywhere.

My property is full of them, they're everywhere.

They're everywhere.

He goes, You know what that is?

And he the the priest stands up and he looks at the rock, and that rock, he says, That is a diamond in the rock.

And he pulls the diamond, all you have to do is chip out around that diamond.

There's a diamond inside of there.

So immediately they went out into the field to where he had collected all these similar rocks, and inside it was the largest diamond resource.

It's still listed today as one of the top ten diamond mines in the world.

The property was, let me tell you this, it was it's known as the Rotunda Diamond Mines.

It was bought by De Beers, the diamond company, and he was living on literally acres and acres of diamonds.

The man who had left was literally living that one diamond that was sitting on his mantelpiece at that time was sold for$25,000.

You may not realize it tonight, but you need to have your eyes opened as we prayed this prayer.

Lord, open my eyes to see the wondrous things that you are living in a space of diamonds.

You are surrounded, you are around it, you are in it.

The diamonds are in the people that you're with, they're in your family, they're in your in your spouse, they're in your children, they're in your job, they're in your school.

You are in the place where the diamonds are.

God placed a story in you, and it's bringing it out of you, bringing you to a place in order to make a difference.

This story, what has God placed in you?

What has God been developing in you from a young child?

What has God been doing in you from the very beginning?

Things that you might think are common, things that you might think were just traditional and average.

God was preparing you for the time and the season that we're living in today and that you're living in today, preparing you for a future that where God wants to do something in you that's wondrous.

I remember as I was in worship here, I was lifting my hands and I was just raising my hands to God, and I said, and God began to put flashbacks into my own heart.

And my flashbacks are going to be different than your flashbacks.

Of course, every story is different, but God began to flash back to me times when I was, when as a family, we were living in birch estates, and I remember where my bed was, and I remember beside my bed the books, the Bible books that my parents would have me uh allow me to read, and I would look at these cartoon books and I devoured these books.

I remember times when people would pick me up in the morning and I would get up.

I don't know why a 14-year-old would get up in the morning to go to prayer at 6 30 in the morning before school.

But people would drive by the house.

I don't know why God put in my life uh when I my first day of school going to Okanagan Adventist Academy, the Adventist School for Biology in the morning.

I didn't know how to get to school in the morning.

My parents would drop me off at one school, and at that time our pro schooling was actually at another school.

We would take some courses at a different school.

I didn't know how to get there, and this guy rolls in and he's a new kid in the class, and he rolls into school with a Toyota pickup.

He's got one seat in that pickup.

He says, Hop in.

So I hop in.

Times were different back then.

I um random person, and I said, Hi, bud.

Like, my name's Brody, and my name is Josh.

He says, Okay, we make what are you here for?

I'm gonna go into the ministry, he says.

I'm like, oh great.

I never met anyone who was like 16 years old wanting to go into the ministry.

I knew what ministry was gonna be like.

I knew I lived in the I lived in the home of a minister.

My grandparents were ministers.

I'm like, who would ever want to go in the ministry?

I made a really good friend in him.

And uh later on, as soon as we graduated, we were asked to start a junior youth program, and I was like, hey, I'll I'll help you start.

This would be the first step towards ministry.

The first session we started, he checked out and left me in charge of all the kids.

And he never came back, and I was in charge of junior youth ministry.

That was a diamond.

What is God doing?

Plowing around.

I'm all my own here.

I never even wanted this job.

It didn't even pay anything.

I was like, I didn't want this.

And it went from junior youth ministry to senior youth ministry to young adult ministry to music ministry to overseeing helps ministry to helping old seniors and our our uh legacy teams and our houses of mercy and what else that renovations of a facility and working within our community.

And you want to be the lead pastor?

Sure.

You look back at your story, the whole time I'm like wondering, where am I going?

God, what have you got in store?

Open my eyes.

And every day I'd hop in the truck with him, and he'd have preaching messages and worship messages, worship songs going on in hysteria.

Talking about his passion for the ministry.

He had more passion for it than I did, but it bled into me that when it finally happened, I could accept it.

God brought the right people into my life.

God brought the right timing into my life.

It was timing.

I'm like, what am I doing?

I started serving in the ministry.

I think we were making like$500 a month or something.

I'm living at home.

It was a great home, great, great landlords at the time.

But I was living at home.

I'm like, how am I ever gonna get married on on like this?

I can't just survive on my good looks at all, right?

And the Lord began to open doors.

And it was all preparation time.

It was all pressure time.

It was all in the heat of the in the heat, in the pressure, and like I'm in my room on my own, sitting at my desk, studying scripture day in, day out, going through Bible school.

I came to a point in my own my own experience where I was at university.

I completed three years of university, and I walked into one class one day.

And this class, after finishing a year of Bible school, Bible school, three years of university, and I walk into class and they said, We're gonna be learning on uh the indigenous studies, and we're gonna be focusing on the the life of merit, like the culture surrounding merit.

I'm like, oh God, I can't do this.

And that day my my dad said, You want to go to Taiwan?

I was a yes.

And at that moment, I went to Taiwan and we launched a second year Bible school, and I came back into ministry again.

God had everything in order.

If I would have stopped and allowed God to open my eyes to see the wondrous things he's doing for us.

So today I don't stress.

Today I just wait, and my prayer isn't, Lord, give me more followers, Lord, give me more education.

Go out, God, Sam.

I I'm like, I just say, Lord, you've already brought the diamonds to me.

Open my eyes that I might see them.

Not work harder, not do any of these other things.

Just Lord, open my eyes to see what you are already doing.

Open my eyes to see the diamonds in my home.

Open up my eyes to see the diamonds in this church.

Open my eyes to see the diamonds in our worship team.

Open my eyes to see the diamonds in our community.

Open my eyes to see the diamond on our front property.

You see those trucks and those movers, earth movers there?

We're getting ready to do big things.

Open my eyes to see God, the mur the wondrous, incredible things that you've got planned for me.

You've got planned for KCC.

You've got planned for our community.

Too often, if we compare, we'll ruin ourselves.

Comparison is the fastest way to remove your calling.

It's the fastest way to live out someone else's calling and avoid and neglect the calling that God has placed in you.

Robert Madou said this comparison is the cancer to contentment.

When we live with in a place where you say, you know, I don't, I didn't realize how unhappy I was until I saw how happy you were.

And we have this idea that the grass is always greener on the other side when the grass is greener when you're watering it.

The grass is greener where you water it.

Our stories, I don't know, one person who wants to end their life with a story that's not a big time.

Lord, let me do something big.

And the big time, the big story is an attitude.

It's an attitude to where you're at, where you where everything around you may seem small, but you act like it's big.

Get up in the morning.

This is big time.

Coming to church holding an umbrella, watching someone walk in the rain.

This is big time.

I got this.

I'll be okay.

All I have to give is I have this.

That's okay.

This is big time right now because God can't trust you until He can trust something that works through you.

And so we make things that are small.

We don't maximize our story, but until you maximize your story, God can't multiply your story.

And so you look at it and you say, raising my kids, sitting at the table with them, listening to their questions, hearing them argue.

This is big time.

Come on, we can do this.

Come on, we can do this.

Going through that same situation where you're going through the same recycled challenges with those people in your life that you're having to go through day in and day out.

This is big time.

Come on, we can do this.

And it's not stepping back.

It's a big time to load a hamper for a Tuesday.

It's big time to help someone set up for putting me on screen.

It's big time.

It's big time to come early and play and learn your craft in drumming.

Thank you, Ryan.

It's big time.

Don't ever think that it's not big time to be actually spending time in the Word, coming to prayer, getting your own personal times in order and your priorities in place.

This is big time.

Don't miss the fact that you're living in acres of diamonds.

Don't miss it.

There's a joy in the simple things.

There's a joy in the moment.

There's a joy in the present.

Everything you need is now.

Everything you need is today.

Salvation is today.

Deliverance is today.

If you need help, it's today.

This is the moment that we have.

Now, I'm telling you this story because it's real.

And it's not just real because of our generation, our time in life.

This is a story that goes way back.

You look at the prodigal son.

The prodigal son, he he left his father's house because he he thought something else out there was going to be bigger.

It's more fun out there.

There's more joy out there.

There's more experience out there.

Everything out there is going to be bigger.

The grass is greener out there.

There's more.

There's more out there.

There's more in that lifestyle out there.

And leaving the father's house.

And when he went out there and he found all his friends and he spent all his money and he lived his best life and he followed his best truth.

And he did all these things that the culture was telling him that's where life is at.

He realized and he found himself dressed in rags, eating the slop of pigs, and he said, My best life is back in my father's house.

He turned around and he made his way back that he had left the acres of diamonds for something that was superficial and empty.

He had chased something when God had put it all in place at that point in time in his own home for him.

The scripture says when he was a long ways off, his father saw him and ran to him and said, So glad my son who was lost has now been found.

Bring him a robe, put a ring on his hand, wash him up, kill a big fat cow, and put steaks on the barbecue.

Like, literally, we're gonna have a party.

And welcomed him back.

And he was sorrowful that he had left.

Because what he had left was the diamonds.

Your story is an important story.

Time.

The times that no one sees.

That's how diamonds are made.

Time.

It takes time.

And you gotta be patient.

And you can't quit.

Turn to your neighbor and say, don't quit.

Don't quit.

Don't pull up roots.

Don't swivel.

Don't change.

Don't flinch.

Don't quit.

Keep growing.

Put your roots down deep.

There's intense heat.

There's intense pressure.

That's where diamonds are formed.

They're formed in that place.

If you don't have those things, all you'll have is a lump of coal.

But when all those things come into place, that's where you actually find value.

Don't run from the pressure.

Don't look for another way or another day or another place or another spouse.

It's not gonna work.

Another job.

Allow yourself to embrace the challenge.

Allow yourself to embrace the pressure.

Allow yourself to embrace the pain.

It's not easy, but it's where the diamonds are formed.

Listen to this scripture in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 24.

1 Corinthians 9:24

It says this let us not become weary in doing good.

For at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Keep doing good.

Go around and do good.

Turn to your neighbor and say, do good.

Give them a shot on the arm.

Come on, do good.

Do good.

Keep your priorities in place.

I um these priorities, these are just five simple, like everything that you you do can be wrapped up in these five F's here.

It's faith, fitness, family, fun, and finance.

And there's an order of your priorities.

It's where you put your energy.

If you don't give up, keep in it, keep keep pursuing your faith.

Keep pursuing your fitness.

Like keep putting yourself first, putting yourself out there so that you can actually be strong for your own family and for those around you.

Keep putting your family first.

Keep putting fun in your keep putting fun things in your life.

And it's not really a matter of finance.

It's it's just look for ways to actually have fun.

And then find ways to have finance.

And there's conversation I've had with a lot of people about this.

Okay, put them in an order of what you think priority is.

And everyone instinctively says this: it's faith, fitness, family, fun, and finance.

That's what they say to me.

When I look at their values and I look at their life, I see it almost upside down.

They chase most of their time, energy, expense is put together, chasing after finance.

And then they're like, oh, the next thing we should do is actually go out and have fun.

Entertainment, hours burned on entertainment every day.

Then let's uh put our family together because family's important, and then the fitness comes after, and then lastly, faith.

And we need to actually look at this and say, Lord, what are you calling me?

How are you calling me to live?

What things need to be first, and so that I don't give up in doing what's right, doing what's good.

It doesn't matter which life you uh, what your environment is like, in every life, God has placed acres of diamonds in your realm.

Someone can take the same plow that others have, the same old cab and the same cart, and find out that they can find something wondrous and something incredible.

So we need to stand the heat.

We need to put ourselves in places where there's pressure and we need to not give up.

Amen.

All right, will you touch your neighbor and just say there are acres of diamonds in you?

I love having everyone sitting close together because I know those of you who don't like to be touched are like this guy is getting me.

Look them in the eye.

People, you know what?

Sometimes people don't believe it in themselves.

You gotta tell them there are acres and acres of diamonds in you.

Would you bow your heads with me this morning?

Father, I know that the enemy isn't afraid of a big church, he's afraid of a united church.

And a church that's united under the fact that uh we have a story.

And Father, today we just want to thank you for the story that uh there is salvation in your name.

There is hope in your name, there is life in your name, there is love in your name.

We want to thank you, Lord, that that the joy of the Lord can be our strength in this season.

So, Father, as we move forward, Lord, into this next time and this next season in September, Lord, that we would move forward strong.

Amen?

We would move forward strong, knowing that you are opening up our eyes to be able to see the wondrous things that you've placed all around and about us.

We thank you, Lord, for the community we have here.

We thank you, Lord, for the city you've placed us in.

We thank you, Lord, for the church you've placed us in.

We thank you, Lord, for the hope that we have for a better tomorrow.

And we thank you, Lord, for all those things today.

Just as I'm praying here, I'm just going to invite, if there's anyone in this place today, and you've been you've been questioning your own future and you've been searching on your own, looking for another way, and you you're just convinced in your heart now, after hearing this, you're saying, I need to connect myself to God's plan for my life.

I need to give up trying so hard and just embrace what God has already done for me.

I want to give you an opportunity to actually make a decision today, to say, I want to follow Christ.

And just so everyone's heads are bowed, this is a moment between me and those in the room today who have never made this decision before, and you're saying, Today I want to choose to serve Christ.

I'm gonna lead you in a prayer, and uh, we're gonna pray together as a church with you.

Um, but we want to help move you to that place where you're now walking in tandem with God's plan for your life.

Is there anyone in the room here tonight?

This is your first time, you want to make a decision to follow Christ, you want to make a decision to enjoy the life that God has destined it for you today.

Just raise your hand real nice and tall for me to be able to see it.

Amen.

Amen.

Father, we thank you today for everyone in this place.

We ask you, Lord, that uh as we move the church forward, as we move our lives forward, Lord, you would just grace us, Lord, with more of who you are and more of an understanding and revelation to all you've brought around us, Lord, that we our eyes would be open to the wondrous things you have done for us in Jesus' name.

And everyone who agreed just says, Amen.

God bless you.

Thank you for listening.

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