Easter Countdown | Pastor Brodie Kalamen

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Sometimes when I go into these songs that we sing on church on Sunday, when I really look at them and on Monday mornings, we we review a little bit of the music and we just review some of the words because some of the language in some of these songs can be kind of strange.

Have you ever noticed that?

And uh even today we're singing a song on Raise a Hallelujah.

What does that mean?

Anyone want to give it a stab?

Come on up.

No, I that actually that word means a lot to me.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah to me, halal means to, it's like there's a word, it means to polish or to shine up or to make look like to make something look perfect.

Like halal means wow.

It's just it's the wow.

So when you raise the wow, it it's when we're singing this song, it's raise a hallelujah.

We're saying, raise the wow to God, like show off how big God is in the face of unbelief, in the face of sickness, in the face of despair, raise that hallelujah.

And I have this great image, and I'm a visual person, and I and I have this image of when we're saying, raise the hallelujah in the presence of my enemies, that we're saying, Come on, God, flex.

Come on, just flex.

Like halal, flex on the enemy.

Just when you could be standing right there, and you could be right in front of you know your enemy, and your enemy's roaring like a lion, making himself look big, making himself look tough, and you just say, Come on, God, it's not in my strength or in my ability, but it's in your ability.

Come on, God, raise the hallelujah, and God just is like, check it out.

And the enemy, and the enemy just the Bible says the enemy will run, will flee from you when you submit to God, you lift him up, he'll run from you.

And so that is the halel of God.

That is the in the presence.

Now, I know that there are families today that realize that they're going through tough, tough situations and difficult situations, and you might just be facing family, you may be facing culture, you may be facing issues that are present in your life, and you just have to raise up hallelujah.

Come on, Jesus, come on, flex for us, show us how big you are, how great you are, because it's true.

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

Greater than he's got greater power, he's got greater ability, he's got greater wisdom, he's got greater capacity, he has greater resource, greater is he that is in us.

Amen.

Father, we thank you this morning for your presence with us.

We raise halal, we raise a hallelujah.

Shine, Jesus, shine.

Show off how great you are to the world.

Show off your love, show off your peace, show off your joy, show off your your cap your capacity, Lord, so that this world will know how great and how awesome you are.

Amen.

Everyone who agreed says, Amen.

Amen.

You guys want to go home now?

You can go home.

The word is so rich and the presence of God is so rich.

I just feel that when you come to church, sometimes we come to church with our heart closed, and we do everything we can just to remove those distractions so that when you come in, your heart's already, your heart's open.

So, you know, we put coffee in the lobby and you know, nice comfortable seats for you to sit in and prefer, you know, you're sitting beside some people who are who are pleasant, hopefully.

You know, just look at your neighbor, say, You're a pleasant neighbor, you're you're pleasant, come on.

Um, you know, so that your heart is open because we just want to receive all that God has for us, right?

Everything, every last drop we want from God.

Amen.

Well, it's a super exciting time of the year.

It's one of my favorite times of the season.

Um we're coming into uh, like obviously, naturally, the sun's coming out.

It kind of overcasts a little bit today, but sun's coming out, people are coming out, it's like the groundhog, you know, they're poking their way out of their the hole and they're they're looking around and the sun is shining and you're soaking up vitamin D.

Turn to your neighbors, hey, you could use some to come on, get in the sun.

Um but it's the middle of spring break, and we're coming close to this great celebration that we love to celebrate at KCC, Easter.

Easter, it's a countdown to Easter.

It's following our baptism Sunday.

And I want to take you on a little bit of a journey in the next few weeks as we talk about uh not specifically what Easter is, but more the responsibility of the believer in approaching Easter itself, approaching the day of Easter.

Do you know that since we've been given so much, we're responsible for so much.

We've been given so much, now we have that weight that we carry to actually not just come to a moment where we're celebrating the death and the resurrection of Christ, we're not celebrating it for ourselves, but we're saying, come on, world, hear the message.

God, Jesus died for sinners, he died for you, he died for me, so that we could be free, we could experience freedom.

This is the message that we have.

And in our church, it's it's that day is about, you know, for the kids, it's a big day.

We do a bit of a party outside in our lobby.

Um it's a day that we celebrate the goodness of God.

So we like to just step into that moment.

I know it's four weeks away, but already let's prime our heart to like, what is this, what does this message mean?

What does this Easter message mean to us?

So coming to a church can often be a daunting experience for a lot of people.

It's different than going to a health club.

People just don't walk in or a restaurant.

You don't just walk in, people don't find their way uh regularly into KCC.

They come because of invitation, and they come because people have gone out and witnessed, shared what they've experienced with other people.

And for people who are new, they come and they say, you know, what's this all about?

How do you do service?

Do you stand?

Do you sing?

Do you do I have to do something?

Do I have to wear something special on that day?

Um, when I come to church, and we just we just have to answer a lot of their questions.

And some of the questions they have when they come to church, and these are some of the questions we've heard from our Next Steps program, is they say, hey, how do you go about actually reaching people for Christ?

How do you go about reaching people who are far from God?

Like, what is your strategy that way?

Because it's a strategy that we as a family, we as an in uh, I as an individual want to buy into.

I want to I want to agree with it.

And so let me just share with you a little bit of our perspective because there are a lot of different organizations in the city representing uh God, and they're they're going door to door, or they're standing on corners, or they're uh inviting you to some kind of or form of a secret society.

It just takes all shapes and forms.

So, what is it in KCC?

How does KCC respond to the world, reach out to the world?

Well, it's really simple and it's actually really personal.

We say this: we say you need to number one, take and accept personal responsibility.

It's personal responsibility.

We're gonna talk about this a little bit more today, but each of us has a personal responsibility to be a witness, to witness what God has done in us.

And in the culture today, uh people like to say, it's it's on you, Pastor Brody.

That's right, it's your job because you're the one who's hired, you've got the title, you reach people for Christ.

But how many of you know that that's our responsibility?

That's like that's my responsibility, that's your responsibility, it's our responsibility, and we can't rely just on a pastoral team to be responsible for reaching people for Christ.

So we need to also build personal relationships.

And these are relationships where we don't treat people as projects, they're like, they're not a project, but we just are normal.

Do you understand that?

Like, you're just normal.

I don't have to go into it, I shouldn't have to go into it, but sometimes things that are very evident sometimes seem to be complicated, or we like to complicate things.

Just be normal.

Um, I might just stop there.

Just build relationships.

It's important for me.

Just do you know your neighbors?

Do you know their first name, last name?

You maybe have eight.

If you're surrounded by neighbors, two, four, six, eight.

Do you know their names?

Do you know their kids' names?

Like, are you engaged with just your neighbors that are around you?

Uh, those relationships are relationships I don't have.

They're relationships that I believe God gives you intentionally, on purpose.

Because God wants to bless those people by putting you in their life.

We're called to be a blessing.

And the only way we become a blessing is when we engage within our community, we engage within our relationships.

Thirdly, we share your personal story.

Don't share my story, don't share someone else's story.

Just share your story.

Share it.

Uh, each of us has a story to tell, and when you tell your story, it's irrefutable.

It's each of us has a story, and no one can can uh react to your story because it is yours.

It carries an authority, it carries a witness to it, it's your personal testimony of this is my life, this is where I was, this is where I am, this is what I was experiencing, this is I currently what I currently now experience.

It can contain the dirt, the ugly parts, the good parts, the places where you may still be lost.

Be free to share your story.

And lastly, give a personal invitation.

The fact that we're believers is the fact that we've been given something, and so the message is not to hold it and hoard it to ourselves, but the fact is to go out into the people that are in our lives and actually share an invitation with them into to join with the story that you've experienced.

So it's very simple.

It's very uh oftentimes people when they hear about this strategy to reach people and to fulfill this great mission that we've been given, oftentimes people just are like, yeah, that sounds pretty easy.

It's not about a tent meeting or a camp meeting or becoming a specialized evangelist or going to Bible school for six years or whatever it may be, having to have been a Christian for X amount of time years that would qualify you, being able to operate in certain spiritual gifts and not others.

It's just simple.

You make it simple, make it personal.

The weight is on me to be able to fulfill this mission, but oftentimes, and in fact, if we were regularly doing this, we wouldn't have empty seats beside us.

And it's the reality.

The fact that most of the church doesn't go about making that invitation, in fact, they don't go, some people don't go about making relationships or building connections.

They're okay with the current connections and relationships that they currently have.

Um, they don't accept personal responsibility, they don't see it as my responsibility to God is to actually go around into the world and love others.

And by loving others, share Jesus with them, share this message with them.

Uh we don't share our personal story, and we because oftentimes we think, you know, this story maybe it's not as exciting as someone else's story, or maybe their story is different, but we just don't do it.

And so the first place we need to look when we're actually looking at at why we don't do this and why we have an empty seat beside us is here.

Not at me.

Not at me.

I'm saying it's here to yourself.

You have to everyone take your finger and point at you.

It's not at me, like I'm doing a poor job.

It's it's me.

Like, say me.

I don't know how else to explain this.

It's like I'm really trying to throw it on your lap, and I'm just gonna go home now because I feel the love.

But the fact is, we oftentimes ask what, like the first thing is we disqualify ourselves because we often think that we're not good enough.

Why would God choose me?

And the first lesson I learn about Easter is the fact that I was important enough for Jesus to die for.

And I was, God had enough faith in me that he was willing to leave the mission of reaching the whole world after sending his son to die for the world.

He was willing to leave the mission in my hands because he believed I was capable.

I am capable.

You are capable.

God chose you to extend and fulfill the mission of reaching the world and drawing people who are far and bringing them close.

You don't have to do all these other things, you don't have to uh compete with all these other people in your world.

You just need to be you and trust God and the power of the gospel that's in you.

Uh I love the fact that we can do new things, but oftentimes when we opt out before we actually make an attempt, it's the most frustrating to me.

Uh the other day I went out with my kids, and we were at the H2O uh water park in Klona, and they my youngest, six years old, he just reached that that height level that now he could go down the water slides by himself.

But he it's it was scary for it's scary for him.

He's looking, he's hearing the water rushing through these pipes and the slides, and watching people come out the bottom of the slide in a big splash, and and he gets up to the wall, and you know they have a height requirement.

And before last year, he wasn't able to do it because he was too short.

And this year he walks up to that little line and he's above the line.

Well, last year he had an excuse.

You can't go, and I was like, ah, let's try it anyways.

And no, you they won't let you on there, apparently.

Apparently, kids could fall off the edge.

I don't know.

But in I watched though, as he looked and he he saw that now he was capable of going.

Now the question is, is he willing to go?

Because there's a difference between being able and being willing.

We are all able.

We have a tongue, we have vocal cords, we have a story, we have an ability to socialize and connect and make invitation.

We're all capable, but are we willing?

So I walked up those flights of stairs, and one flight, two flights, and I look behind me, he's still there.

Three flights, four flights of stairs.

We're up four or five stories, and we're looking over the edge, and it's pretty exciting.

And I look at my son, and I'm putting him in front of this one tube, uh water slide, and you could hear the water rushing through the tube, and I was just praying, oh Lord, just get him in there, just go.

And and in fact, he he sat, he was like, you could sense the intrepidation, like you sense the anxiety.

He's like, ugh, this is something else, this is a new big step.

And and I know that feeling because I've experienced it myself.

I know what it means, I know what it's like to have that intimidation, being able to do something, but not wanting to put myself at risk and go that extra push.

And I watched him, and one of the greatest pleasures I had was I watched him sit down and push to the point he leaned until there was no more return.

And the water just took him away, never to be seen again.

And I watched, and they can't let someone else go, and I watched, and at the bottom, he flew out the bottom, and there was a big grin on his face because he had actually done what he had intended to do.

Like, the next thing you know, I think how many times did they run up that those five flights of stairs?

It's like probably 30 times.

After that, there wasn't a question, he was going at it because there was a pleasure in the process, and the fear that was limiting him was now overcome with the pleasure of doing it, of going ahead and moving forward.

You are worth it.

Jesus placed that mission in you to complete.

That accepting personal responsibility is the first step to actually uh completing the mission, to to actually experiencing that fulfillment.

We read about this in uh in uh Matthew, where in Matthew, Jesus, before he's let he leaves the world, he says, go into all the world, go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father.

And he's like looking.

He's like, Yeah, that's right, Brian.

Yeah, that's right, Evangeline, that's right.

Come on.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm talking to you, Dave.

Go into the world, make disciples of all nations, go preach the gospel, go lay hands on the sick, go help them to recover, go into the place where they're not obeying God and teach them the value of obedience and the freedom that comes from obedience.

And lead them.

And the Bible says that he's with you to the very end of the age.

And we read about that even in Acts, where Jesus says, Listen, I'm gonna give you power, and that power is gonna enable you to be a disciple, to be a witness, to go into the world and actually witness.

Witness in BC, witness in Canada, witness in Kelowna, witness in your own backyard.

I'm gonna enable you to be a witness and allow that message of the gospel to resonate in your heart because it really is the power of the gospel.

Romans 1 16 says this.

This is powerful.

It says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.

First to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

It's like This is a a message that has power to it.

And no matter what we do or how we how we communicate, we always have to allow the gospel to be the message and be the power.

And it's what has the capability to reach people and help transform their life.

I can't do it.

Brody doesn't have the power to change the world, but the gospel message does.

This good news message that we were once dead and now we're alive.

We were once far from God, but now we've been embraced by his love and made to feel close.

We've this is this message.

Once we were a sinner, weighted down with sin, taken to death on a one-way ticket to death, and God said, No way, and pulled us into eternal life.

This rescue, the rescue of God.

This is our heart, this is our message, and we can't be the type of people that live a life that really is supernatural.

Think of Easter, I think of that day, and I think about man, the fact that the temple veil was torn and the sky was dark and the graves broke in half, and dead people came alive, and this message is just like Jesus walks out of a grave.

This message is supernatural.

And I think of the church today and I say, are we super?

Are we?

Are we super in our in our our life, in our experience?

Is this church super?

Is the church even natural?

Is it something that is that the world sees and goes, I want in.

I want in, I want to be a part of this.

It's the heart.

And so we can't deny the power.

We can't like live with God on one side, saying, I want the power of God, I'm going to live in this experience of God, but yet not witness on the other side.

Witness of what God has done.

So again, why are there why are there empty seats?

Like those empty seats weigh on me.

We have 500 seats in here, half of them are full.

Those empty seats weigh on me.

And I understand like no one wants it to be their job to fill those seats.

Because in order to fill those seats, you gotta put yourself at risk to be rejected, to be despised, to be persecuted, to be made to look look and feel stupid.

It's a place that we don't want to go to because of the insecurity that we carry in our own heart.

And so we say, Brody, it's your job, and pastoral team, it's your job.

And I'm not just saying you do.

I'm saying culture and church of Canada and the Church of North America has said, just leave it to the church, leave it to the organization to reach people, but we're the only culture in the world that's doing this.

The rest of the world, you go to China and like some of the spate places we're at, we've gone.

Like I can only say from my experience, Mexico, these places, the people are reaching people.

We haven't got to this mentality, it's like, I'm gonna consume, I'm gonna consume, I'm gonna consume, and I'm gonna make it so that the pastor is provided for so that he can take care of us.

But we're not reaching that that seat.

We're not responsible for that seat.

We're each of us are responsible for that seat.

I'm responsible, you're responsible.

We're when we get to heaven, we're gonna be asked, what did you do with that seat beside you?

Did we accept, did you accept a personal responsibility to pray, to commit for that?

Listen, I understand it.

But if we don't, if we don't move beyond our comfort, if we don't move beyond that sense of comfort, the church will just go into a cycle that will cause it just to shrivel up and die.

We'll just grow old with the church, and we see churches on corners, we see churches.

I forget the number.

How many charities closing this year?

Was it Martin told us?

9,000 in Canada.

No one likes being rejected, and I understand that.

And I I I agree, like for me to come to church and preach on a Sunday, it doesn't take courage for me.

You all love me, you have to.

You have to say, Amen, good message, preach it, so good, that's awesome.

You have to.

It takes courage for you to go out and actually step on toes with the gospel and push against the gates of hell as the church.

And the risk, I I like I love preaching, and I love preparing, and I love reading and researching, and I love podcasts, and I love listening to the word of God.

But sometimes we can be so good at preaching, and we have such a hunger for the word, the preached, the preached word, that we're not good at actually sharing the word.

We're preaching, but we're not sharing.

We're happy with it being preached on a Sunday, but we're not sharing it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

And if we're not careful, we slip into this cycle.

And this church of comfort, and the and the current culture of the church is like, hey, go to church and be comfortable.

And I'm the first that says, hey, I want you to be comfortable.

I really do.

I think it's really important.

You can't be open to hearing the gospel message if you're concerned that your kids are running around in the parking lot.

Right?

So we put measures in place.

We're gonna provide maximum comfort for you so that when you come in here, it's between you and God.

That becomes your neighbor, your a visitor, a guest.

They're coming in and their comfort.

I get comfort, but I'll tell you about the first church.

The first church, their first priority wasn't comfort.

The church's priority was courage.

When they came together, they prayed for courage.

Courage.

They got together and they encouraged themselves because they needed it.

Because they were going into this world and they were being pushed into a place where their leader was just hung on a cross as an innocent man for something he never did, for crimes he never committed, and he was killed, and now we, as his ambassadors, are gonna go out and continue to preach that message if they did it to him, if they whipped him and mocked him and hung him on a tree, what do they think they're gonna do to you?

And so Peter and John, they're thrown in prison, and everyone's laying hands on them after they escape out of prison.

And they lay hands on them, and what they do is they pray for courage, and they're saying, You can do it, Peter, you can do it, John, you can go ahead, you can make it happen.

Paul tells the Ephesians, he says, pray for me that I could preach the gospel.

Pray for me that I can preach the gospels I ought.

I need your prayers.

Where we're praying for each other, saying, Come on, church, get courage, come on, church, take courage.

You can do it.

Put yourself out there, lean over that edge.

Come on, push yourself down that slide.

Get go over the limit that you're comfortable with and commit.

I can share with you right now, Paul said about Timothy.

He said, Timothy, it's not a spirit of fear, it's a spirit of power that you need.

Courage, boldness.

You need that spirit in you.

Come on, you can do it.

Push down fear and come on, embrace boldness.

How bold is the church, how courageous is the church to actually push forward.

It really is an enemy, a plot of the enemy.

I I don't want to sound so like uh conspiracist, but I it's true.

The enemy doesn't want the church to succeed.

So the enemy's gonna say, you're inadequate, you're not capable, you can't do it, you're not worth it.

And reality, uh like I don't want to lower the bar and say, yeah, let's just just because you're feeling that, I'll take the weight from you and I'll make it so that it's easy for you.

And we lower the bar of the church instead of me saying, you know what?

Step up.

Step up, take responsibility for the chair beside you.

I'm gonna fill this chair, I'm gonna reach, I'm gonna speak, I'm gonna communicate, I'm gonna share a message today with someone who has never heard Christ.

I'm gonna step out and I'm gonna embrace them and trust the gospel and trust the message that is in me, my testimony, to make a difference.

And I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna push forward.

I don't want to lower the bar for you and keep the church in a weak, apathetic place.

You know why?

Because my kids will never succeed in a church like that.

They'll walk away from the church if the church looks like that.

If the church looks weak and apathetic, and the church looks like they just comes and eats and consumes and embraces, you know, whatever, it just comes on a Sunday and has coffee and drinks songs, or drinks coffee, sings songs, listens to a humorous message.

That's what the the world is, that's what church is all about.

You know, 70% of young people today, once they hit 18, leave home, they they stop going to church.

They walk away from their faith, and they don't walk away because the faith that God isn't real.

They walk away because they haven't experienced the reality of our faith, the richness of our faith.

Where people stand up and they pray and they don't just pray a prayer as if, like, oh, thank you, God, for this day today.

It's such a wonderful day.

They don't pray, they pray as if they're praying to God.

They're praying to God.

There's a reverence and a heart in them that's saying, God, I want you, I need you.

I pray for those who are lost beside me.

I I'm I I pray for Susie and Jake and John and Paul and all the team.

I pray for them today.

I'm believing for them.

Lord, give courage today so I can go out and make a difference.

And go in and believing for things that are difficult and hard.

I want my kids to experience that.

If they don't experience that, if they don't experience true worship, they just experience singing songs.

What good is that?

If they experience the message, but they never experience what true unity and agreement means.

And now the church can rally.

I have no problem that our church is 300 people.

I have no problem because I believe God can do incredible things with 300 people.

I have no question, I believe God can do things with 100 of our kids downstairs, 300 of our people upstairs.

I believe that God can do amazing, incredible things, but we need to embrace this message.

We need to carry it in our heart.

We need to believe that it will make a difference.

For my sake, but for my children's sake as well.

I I I don't know what else to say at this point.

I'm just gonna invite Bernice to come up.

I was gonna close at this point.

I had a lunch this week with someone who'd been with a church for a long time, and uh 20 years ago came into church and said, uh said, you know, when I came to church, my first day I was at church, someone opened up their home for me to come to my house, their house, invited me for lunch, connected with me, welcomed me, sat with me.

The first time I came into KCC, they weren't looking for other people, they were looking for me.

Their head was up, their eyes were up, their eyes were scanning, they were looking for me.

And I just want to I want to bear the weight.

I want to bear the responsibility that I'm just I'm watching, Lord, bring the right people my way.

Bring them into my Lord, use me to make a difference.

Would you just bow your heads with me?

Father, today, I just come to you with a sober heart.

I come to you with a heart that just says, make it, would you do something in our church?

Would you do something in our people?

In me.

Lord, would you give us courage?

Would you give us discomfort as a blessing?

Just let us learn to embrace discomfort and not be concerned with our insecurities or our inability.

But Lord, be more in awe and more halal.

God, you are a big God.

God, you're greater.

God, you're more capable.

God, you're you're in me.

You've got everything that this world needs.

It's in me.

It's in me because you're in me.

And Father, we just ask today, Lord, for people to come to know you as their Lord and Savior.

We welcome the opportunity to share the gospel, the good news.

We welcome the opportunity to make a difference in our community.

And in our church, Lord, we pray right now for every seat that remains empty.

Father, we just believe that there's a soul that's to fill that seat.

There's a soul that's in the in this community that deserves to be in that place.

There's a soul in our neighborhood that needs to be seated in that place because you love them and your your heart towards them, Lord, is that you want the best for their life.

That's your desire for them, to help them and cause them to reach that place of completeness in you.

And so for today, Lord, I just pray.

I pray for the church.

If if that's you today, just raise your hand, just pray for that courage.

I'm just gonna pray, Holy Spirit, just if that's you and you want to be used by God in a in a more effective and powerful way, just raise your hand.

Raise both if you want it.

And I just pray, Lord, power, Holy Spirit, relationship, that capacity, Lord, to take the word and to enjoy it and love it and in turn overflow with your presence and who you are, Lord, in our lives.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

And if you're here this morning and you've never welcomed Christ into your life, you've never been given perhaps even the opportunity to welcome Jesus into your heart.

I want to provide you with that opportunity today.

And just in front of everyone here, every head is bowed, every eye is closed, no one's looking around.

Uh, but you're here and the message is resonating in your heart.

You believe today that God is calling you to come closer and you're wanting to respond to that call.

Would you just raise your hand?

If you're here today, just raise it real high in this place.

Raise it real high so I can see.

I see that hand.

Father, today we pray.

We pray today and we believe today for every soul in this place.

They would come to know you in a richer way.

But today, Lord, we pray for those who want to experience you fresh.

And so, church, would you just pray with me as we lead in this prayer?

Just pray this prayer along with me.

Say, Heavenly Father, today is my day.

A new beginning.

I want to know you.

I want to be known by you.

I believe in Jesus Christ.

I believe that he is the Son of God and the Savior of our world.

Right now, I give you, Jesus, my life from this day forward.

I believe that you paid for my sin.

And you've given me a new start.

I welcome you.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you.