The Bigger Picture

...that was the name of the sermon God spoke through me on July 19th. I praise God for those of you who came to support me. I pray you left encouraged and changed! For those of you who weren't able to make it... you can contact my church (http://www.koinoniabc.org) and get a CD ($5) or you can read some of the main points here, although it won't be the same!
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Daniel 3:13-15 (yea... go get your Bible!)

Background:

King Nebuchadnezzar was having dreams. He wanted someone to not only interpret teh dream, but also tell him what his dream was. No wise man in Babylon could do that, so he was gonna have them all killed. But God revealed the dream and its interpretation to Daniel who went to the king. Basically it was a dream about this big statue made of different materials... the head was made of gold and represented King Neb who was the first great king on earth. This gave King Neb literally a big head! He erected an image of gold and proclaimed that everyone needed to fall down and worship the image of gold when they heard the music and whoever did not would be thrown into a blazing furnace.

Picture this:

You come into work at 8:17 (supposed to be there at 8:00... but come on, thats on time!) There is a huge crowd of people and your boss is standing on a platform in front of them all with a... something covered in a large cloth. Your boss calms the crowd and rips of the cloth unveiling a large statue of... himself... and informs everyone that "if yall want to keep your jobs, when I click play on my ipod, yall must bow down and worship this statue." Your first thought is, "Bow down and worship what?" But then you start thinking- 'things are pretty tight right now... if I lose this job, in today's economy, I surely wont find another one... what about the house, the children, food, the cable, internet... God, you want me to be a provider...' You default to the whole "God knows my heart..." I will bow on the outside, but on the inside, I still love you Lord. No- your outward actions whould reflect your inner thoughts, beliefs and convictions!

So- that might not happen... but there are many things of this world that are constantly tempting us to bow down and worship them. What am I talking about? There are things that we place more value or trust in than God... that might be ourselves, our education, another person (husband, wife, mom, pastor...), money, cars, houses...


Daniel 3:16-18

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow to the image of gold. They had followed the rules until they came into direct conflict with the commands of the Lord: no other gods before Him and do not make idols. In this case, in order to gain the favor of the king, they would have to disobey and dishonor God.

We have many decisions in our day to day life where we have to choose between the world and God- we cannot please both. What holds you back from obeying God? Why do we fear what people will do or think of us more than we fear what God will do or think of us?


Bottom issue: TRUST

We don't follow what He says for us to do or not do becasue we don't trust that He has a bigger, better plan.

The 3 Hebrew boys would not disobey God whether He rescud them from the fire or not... their faith was not dependant on he end result, but rather on the God who knows the plan...

Illustration:
I like to draw and while I was writing this sermon God placed a picture on my heart and told me to draw it. I was like, "No, God, I am writing a sermon." (Seriously, Kelly?!?) So I picked up the marker and started drawing in an artform called pointillism. This is were a whole bunch of little dots come together to create a picture:
If you look at just a small, zoomed in portion of the picture, you will only see dots. It doesnt make much sense and you cant tell what the bigger picture is. That is just like our lives. I am one dot, you are one dot, I can see past and present dots, my financial dot, my mom, my dad... the things and parts of our lives that we see- that seemingly dont fit together and can be chaotic at times. When I focus on my dots, I cant see past them.

But we must trust that what the Word says is true: All things... all the dots in our lives... work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes... and praise God- He can see the big picture!

All those dots come together and make sense. God had a plan... a way to redeem us since the beginning of time and His name is Jesus: All of our dots work into that plan! We can't always see the bigger picture, but God works so intricatley in wach and every moent of our lives... He has His hand in every dot!

My past dot:

When I look at this picture, I see one of my dots somewhere along the blood dripping liek a tear from Jesus' eye. There was a time in my life where I could not see God in anything- a time when I believed that suicide was the only way out, a time of isolation and depression. I would dream of ways of killing myself, like 'accidentally' driving off the side of the road in the rain. I could have felt alone in a room filled with people. But I praise God for that dot! I praise God for bringing me through it! I praise Him for allowing me to still be here today to be a testimony of what God can do! God spared me death- that I might be here today to speak to (write to) one of you... God spared me death so that I can continually walk in His ways wach day and shine for Him... God spared me death that I may step into my calling as a missionary...

Kenya:

If you are reading this blog, you probably know I am moving to Kenya. What you might not know is that I will be leaving everyone and everything that I know: my family, my church, my job, language, culture, home... to be obedient to God. And in this obedience I will be entering into a land full of war, AIDS, famine, drought, hopelessness... I will be living in a city with some of the highest rates of rape, murder and violent theft in the world.

I have trust in God... He has already shown Himself fatihful because of how He delivered me from my dot of depression...

Get back to the text: The 3 Hebrew boys were thrown into the furnace...

Daniel 3:25 (read it- its great!)

King Nebuchandezer called them out of the furnace and there was not a mark signifying that they had been in the fire... nothing on their skin or clothes.

He showed Himself faithful by rescuing the 3 Hebrew boys from their dot of a fiery furnace! But He didnt just rescue them out of the furnace- He was in there with them! (thats your shouting cue!!!)

We must trust that even if we are facing a fiery furnace, when things dont look promising- God has a bigger, better plan! He knows the bigger picture! No matter what the outcome, I will not bow to any other god! I will not disobey or dishonor Him!

All of my dots and all of your dots are there... in that picture... they are working together for your good, ye who loves the Lord!

Don't let the dots you see control your faith in an all powerful, all knowing God- who loves you and cares for you so much that He sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die so you may live!

This is the Word of God for the people of God... hear it and do it!

Youth Mission Trip

At the beginning of July, Pastor Corey and I took 9 youth from Koinonia to the Navajo Reservation on a mission trip through YouthWorks! I know its taken a while to blog on this experience because life has been (and still is) crazy! But I did want to just give some highlights! We went for an entire week and stayed at a mission at which we slept on air mattresses and shared 2 bathrooms for 40 girls(there were a few other church youth groups there too)! This was a humbling learning experience for most of our youth in its self. We split into crews and did two days at Kids Club- providing attention and structure to the children's lives. We played games, gave piggy back rides, did memory verses, sung songs about Christ, performed skits, made crafts, read books and in general, just loved on the children! We spent the other two days painting houses... this is important because paint helps seal the houses but it also allows the residents to have pride in the place in which they live and gives us an opening to be able to share with them the love and hope of Christ. We painted Grandma Rabbit's house (they call her this because she has all gray hair except on the sides, its bright white and looks like rabbit ears). It was great to get to know and serve her and her family. During the evenings we had time to learn about the Navajo culture by story tellers and dancers and also time for worship and reflection. During one of the "church group" times (time where you meet with just the people from your church) we talked about what Christ is saying to you, personally, today. It was an amazing night! The youth were challenged to change and to be bold and to step into their callings. They were challenged to TRUST God with everything- their past, present and future. They knew that they had to start or stop doing things in their daily life and in doing that, they might lose friends but they had to trust that God has a bigger and better plan for them even when it doesn't feel like it at the moment. They had to let go of some FEAR that had bound them. It was so amazing to see youth call out to God in such a fervent way and I pray that their fire, their passion does not die, but rather grows. I pray that they will always remember the mission trip and how it felt to serve and to really seek Christ! Thank you to all those who supported in prayers and money... the youth of Koinonia and the people of the Navajo Nation will be forever changed!