Whatever You Do
Teaching Series: Whatever You Do
Kurt Vander Wiel
Orchard Hill Church
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Some of us would draw our lives this way:
That’s not the way to live. God isn’t one slice of the whole. He’s the whole!
A more accurate diagram of how we’re to live would be:
From God, flows all.
Whatever You Do
Teaching Series: Whatever You Do
Dave Bartlett
Orchard Hill Church
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If I were to come and sit in the seats next to you and ask, “Tell me what you did for God this morning. What did you do?”
What would your response be?
The Biblical answer is: Everything.
That is a paradigm shift that we need to make in our congregation and lives if we are going to make the steps to being fully devoted followers of Christ.
Something’s Gotta Change
Teaching Series: Homework
Alice Shirey
Orchard Hill Church
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I’m glad to be here this morning. On Friday, our furnace blew up. It’s 50 degrees at our house. I might stay here today…
Dave gave us two assignments last week:
Story: I made Pizza Panini last week. They were great. But this revived the story of the time I made the pizza rice recipe from the church cookbook. Seemed like a surefire hit. I talked it up. When it came time to eat, the pizza rice was horrible. Still, I made everyone eat it! (Ha!)
I put pressure on myself to get married by age 22.
All throughout college, finding a girlfriend and getting married was the goal. That sounds like the plot to another crappy “American Pie” movie, but it’s true. My three-plus year relationship had come to a screeching halt during the dead of winter, sophomore year, and I was crushed.
The two-below-zero temperatures outside felt like 200-below.
I don’t know why age 22 was my target for getting married. Maybe it’s because I had it stuck in my head that that was around that age of my parents when they brought me into the world and I felt internal pressure to “keep pace.” I’m not even certain of their age though, and that makes my “Married by 22″ declaration even more ridiculous.
Now, after the breakup and without a girlfriend, at 21 years old, I was left to search. But I was searching for the wrong thing: another girlfriend to replace the one I had lost.
Psalm 91 is a Psalm about God’s faithfulness. God is our refuge, our fortress, He saves us, and protects us. God is faithful no matter the circumstances, good or bad. He’s there whether you feel like it or not:
Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the LORD:
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him. For he will rescue you from every trap
and protect you from deadly disease. He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection. The LORD says, “I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life
and give them my salvation.”
-Psalm 91:1-4, 14-16 NLT
God knew I didn’t need another girlfriend. He knew I desired a wife. He also knew that my first love is to be the Lord, a lesson that took me a couple years to acknowledge.
Two years after the breakup, I prayed for God to be my focus and desire. It was a re-commitment of sorts when I put down the video game controller and picked up the Bible. I was praying more regularly and making decisions to honor God with my time, money, and in my relationships with family and friends. By no means was I perfect, but my first love became clear: God.
A short while later, Liz and I met. And in a flash we were married. Not because we had to beat the buzzer on an age limit, but because we realized the faithfulness of God and the work he had done in our lives.
He was faithful. He simply needed me to be faithful as well.
Everybody’s journey is different as they grow in Christ, but God’s faithfulness is always the same. Thank God for his faithfulness and take comfort in knowing He will always be there for you.
Question: How have you experienced God’s faithfulness throughout your life? Click here to comment.
There is nothing God can’t do. As Richard from Tommy Boy would say, “He could sell a ketchup Popsicle to a woman in white gloves.”
The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a shrine for elite baseball players. Only those with an elite career magnitude make it in and are honored with a plaque so that a young son can ask his father, “Tell me about what he did, Dad.”
Or when I played AAU Basketball, our team won its fair share of trophies and medals, each one of them a symbol of what our team accomplished at that specific tournament. The box full of trophies, medals, and awards currently collect dust in my basement but they are still a reminder to those experiences.
We want to remember the good times and preserve greatness from going grey. And God wants you to remember the good things he has provided as well. In Joshua chapter 4, we read about God bringing the Israelites out of slavery, through the desert, and into the Promised Land. He delivered on his promise to take them from slavery to freedom.
Because of what he did, God did not ever want the Israelites to forget the magnitude of this promise, the miracles he performed, and what a mighty and powerful God he is:
5 And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, 6 that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ 7 then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.” -Joshua 4:5-7
Think back for a minute. God has done some amazing and powerful things in your life. He may have performed a miracle or healing or taken you from an addiction and into your own Promised Land. Take some time today to remember the mighty things that God has done for you.
For me, he restored relationships with my family members, delivered me from binge drinking, has blessed me as a husband and also as a father. All of these things point to God’s incredible love, grace, power, and promise that I don’t want to forget. They give me hope, comfort and courage for today.
Praise Him and commit that you will not forget the amazing and wonderful things he has done for you.
Question: What is something God has done for you? Click here to comment.
