C3 Church - Central BC (Vernon, Kelowna, Revelstoke)

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Dave Olson
Lead Pastor - C3 Church Central BC

What is C3 Church - Central BC (Vernon, Kelowna, Revelstoke)?

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It's good to see you guys. I was thinking about you next week in Rebelsok. I'm going to be in Rebelsok next week and you're translating for me next week. Yes. All right, so you can invite your friends. Okay. You know, for years and I just, there's a couple things I want to say. I don't get to be in all our locations very often. So, you know, I get to kind of say a little bit. There's a couple of things I want to say to us as a church. One is, you know, when we do communion And if you've come from a different church, you may go, "Why is everybody coming?" Like, "Wouldn't it be easier just to have somebody serve us?" And us sit there. And the reason we do that, there's a real specific reason behind that, is 'cause communion, fellowship, relationships are messy. And you have to engage in them in order to benefit from them. Here's a promise I make everybody in our church. If you stay with us long enough, you'll get offended. What's the last thing you want to church I'm going to promise you that. Because if you don't get offended, you never learn how to get over it. And you walk through life crippled because you can't get over stuff. And it God puts us in this group and this family and this relationship so that we can be different and that we can say things that people don't agree with and we can grind. We can just kind of bump up against each other and cause troubles with each other so that we can grow and get healed. Because you can't get healed here, where will you get healed? Right, this is a place. You're in a great place today, and so thrilled that you're here and able to be with us and enjoy being family together. Enjoy being family together. Now I want to share something with you today. We're going into a new series. They're the month of February, usually every about four weeks we do a new series. And we're going to go back to the Old Testament specifically in this series. I don't know how many of you know that there's three quarters of the Bible is considered the old Testament the first three quarters I was in a conversation with a Jewish businessman the other day and First thing he says to me, you know after you know what do you do and That's always the tough one for me when I say you know when people ask what do you do? Because inevitably they've been carrying on as if they didn't know who I was and Saying things that all of a sudden you know that they'll say what do you do? and I said I'm a pastor. And they go like, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. So I actually try to avoid saying that, but this is Jewish gentleman, he says, be so to you I said I'm a pastor. Oh great. I want to ask you a question. I'm Jewish. Do you Christians actually read the part of the Bible that we have? Yeah, do you accept it? Do you agree with it? Yeah, actually, too, because that's actually the only Bible Jesus add. And so if that's the only Bible Jesus add, then there actually's got to be a lot of really really good stuff in there. Got to be a lot of really great stuff how we can learn how to do life. And you know one of the things that I've discovered in life is that a lot of times where we get to in life is not exactly where we hoped we would be. You know, it's kind of like you get this, maybe I'm the only one, but you get this point in life and you go, "You know, that wasn't kind of what my dream board said." That whole place that I wanted to be, there were a few things happened in my life that I didn't see them coming and I couldn't avoid them. What was I think we went through the last couple years? that stuff that happens, and going, "My life is not where I expected I would be right now." Anybody with me on that, you know what I'm talking about? I got to that place, and this life that I have right now is not exactly what I expected to do. So how do you, what do you do when you discover that the life you have is not the life you wanted? What do you do? There's this story in the Old Testament, so we're gonna go, we're talking about Saul and David, And it's about David, and if you'll allow me today, I actually wanna read the passage all the way through. It's in Psalm, sorry, 1 Samuel chapter 26. 1 Samuel, "Capitolo, benthise." That's the extent of my Spanish for the day. And it's a story of David and Saul, and there's a whole context too, but if you'll follow along with me, I'm reading in the new living translation, if you have your Bible, If you got your phone, it bibles on there. And it just follow through with me as I read this. It starts in verse one, I'm going to read the full chapter, 25 verses. It says, "Now some men from Zif came to Saul at Gibbia to tell him David is hiding on the hill of Hakkillah, which overlooks Jeshaman. Now I practice hours just to get those right." Not true, I'm lying. So, but it's the only time. So Saul took 3,000 of Israel's elite troops and went to hunt him down in the wilderness of Zif. Saul camped along the road beside the hill of Hackelot near Jeshaman, where David was hiding. And when David learned that Saul had come after him into the wilderness, he set out spies to verify the report that Saul's arrival. So Saul was the existing king. David was the new king in waiting. He's a new king in waiting of Israel. Saul has been demoted, but he hasn't given up his job yet. And he would prefer to kill his successor. David's life was not turning out quite the way he anticipated. He was now hunted. He was living in caves. And it wasn't what we call camping. It was survival. And he was living in these caves and Saul was chasing after him. So this is where we find the story. So David sends out these spies to check out Saul's army, little army of 3,000 people chasing after David. That's a lot of people to send out chasing after David. So here we continue on. It says David slipped over to Saul's camp one night to look around. Saul went out near, son of Nure, who was the commander of Saul's army. We're sleeping inside a ring formed by the slumbering warriors who will volunteer to go in there with me. David asked to him like the hitite and Abishai son of Ziraya, Joob's brother. You don't have to remember all these names. There will be a test, but you don't have to remember. I'll go with you, Abba Shai replied. So David and Abba Shai went right into Saul's camp and found him asleep with his spear stuck in the ground beside his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying asleep around him and God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time. Abba Shai whispered to David, "Let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear. I won't need to strike twice." He shouldn't have to. Anyway, No, David said, don't kill him for who can remain innocent after attacking the Lord's anointed one. Surely the Lord will strike Saul down someday, or he will die of old age or in the battle. The Lord forbid that I should kill the one he is anointed but take his spear, and that jug of water beside his head, and then let's get out of here. So David took the spear and jug of water that was near Saul's head, then he and Abishai got away without anyone seeing them or even waking up because the Lord had put Saul's men into a deep sleep. David climbed the hill opposite the camp until he was at a safe And then he shouted down to the soldiers into Abner, son of Nurt. Wake up, Abner. Who is it, Abner? Demanded. Well, Abner, you're a great man, aren't you? David taunted. Where in all Israel is there anyone as mighty? So why haven't you guarded your master the king when someone came to kill him? That's a good question. This isn't good at all. I swear by the Lord that you and your men deserve to die because you fail to protect the master, your master, the Lord's anointed look around you. Where the King's spear and the jug of water that were beside his head. It's gonna let me just pause it for a second. I want you to catch something here. David's being hunted by Saul, and yet he gets after Abner, whose Saul's bodyguard. It says, "Why weren't you looking after the master, your master?" Okay? There's a little kind of something going on here, because David's the one being hunted by Saul and yet he's saying, "Abner, you should have looked after him better." When David could have killed him and he's blaming Abner. Abner, how come you're not looking after like I am? Just think about that for a minute. This isn't good at all. I swear by the Lord, you and your men deserve to die because you failed to protect your master, the Lord's anointed, look around, where the King's spear in the jug of water that beside his head. So Saul recognized David's voice and called out, Is that you, my son David? David replied, yes, my Lord. Why are you chasing me? What have I done? What's my crime? But now my Lord, the King, my Lord, the King, listen to his servant. You hear what David's doing? Say, now I'm still your servant, even though you're trying to kill me. I'm still honoring you, even though you're trying to kill me. What's my crime? Let the Lord listen to his servant. If the Lord has stirred you up against me, then let him accept my offering. But it is simply a human scheme that may those involved be cursed by the Lord. For they have driven me from my home, so I can no longer live among the Lord's people. And they've said, "Go worship pagan gods. Must I die on a foreign soil, far from the presence of my Lord?" Why is the king of Israel come out to search for a single flee? Why does he hunt me down like a partridge on the mountains? Saul confessed, "I've sinned. Come back home my son, and I'll no longer try to harm you. for you valued my life today. I've been a fool and very, very wrong. Here's your spirit, King David replied, "When are your young men come over and get it? "Lord gives His own reward for doing good and being loyal. "The Lord gives His own reward for doing good and being loyal. "And I refuse to kill you even when the Lord placed you "in my power for you or the Lord's anointed. "Now may the Lord value my life even as I have valued yours today. May he rescue me from all my troubles. May he rescue me from all my troubles. What do you do? What do you do when the life you have isn't the life you wanted? David's response to that would be may he rescue me? May he rescue me from all my troubles? In the final sentence of this whole paragraph from the story, and Saul said to David, "Blessings on you, my son David, you will do many hero deeds and you will surely succeed. And then David went away and Saul returned home. What do you do when life has not kind of gone the way you expected it to go when things did not turn out the way you planned? When we were newly married, we had-- or not newly married, we've been married for a while, but we met these people. And every year they went away and had a five-year plan. We thought, man, we've got four kids. We can hardly get a two-day plan. And we had, I have to say this about, you know, one of our kids, our youngest kid, one day we got a call. He was in high school. And we got this call, and we have four kids, two boys, two girls. And the youngest one is the last one in school. He's, and we get this phone call from the high school. You know, that's never a good thing. But it turns out it would come from the high school, and they said, they said, hey, can you bring this, whatever it was, muffins or baking, whatever it was, it's not my department, it's my wife's. And you know, muffins, baking, whatever, you don't want to eat one of baked, I'm just saying that. And would you bring that to the band concert? And she's on the phone, you know, back in the day when there were still chords connected, yeah, that's it. You remember that some of you do, and they're toys now. But anyway, and she's on the phone, she looks at me while she's on the phone and she goes, do we have a kid in band? It's true story. We just-- OK, a five-year plan? Forget it. We were getting through day by day, and we didn't even know what our kids were doing sometimes. Fortunately, he was just in band. But you know, so we had these people-- they were doing this five-year plan. See, it's all working out. I can't imagine the disappointment when it didn't turn out. And they had to re-plan every-- and some of us-- we've got this all planned out. We wanted to be a certain way. God, you got to show up at this time. And God, you got to do this. And when this goes on, God, we expect you to do this. And yet it doesn't seem like it works out that way. And then we look at the day, look around us, this wasn't quite what we thought it was going to be like. You got married. And conversation was somebody the other day. And he was telling me what is-- you know, we can be like when he's married. And it's going to be all this romantic stuff. And it was all going to be, have all these feelings and these emotions. And I went like, oh, I didn't say what I was thinking. 'Cause, you know, I just, you know, husbands and wives are people. And sometimes you get along, gone along the way in your relationship, you discover something about your wife, my wife and I've been married, it'll be 42 years this year. Well, let me tell you, I'm still discovering some things I don't like about her. (audience laughs) And she's still doing things that I irritate. No, I mean, this year it takes me. I still do things that irritate her. And if I was gonna go, hey, this is just the perfect picture. I gotta tell you this story 'cause this may be help you understand. When I grew up in my home, I never saw my mom and dad disagree ever. My mom, my dad would say, this is what we're doing, and mom would say, yeah, let's go. And so I never heard my mom and dad ever disagree. I'm sure there's nobody in this crowd. No, no. My wife's family was different. In their family, whoever yelled the loudest one. So can you imagine what happened? We got married and just see, we don't even, we don't even know each other for a year. And we got married. And I was expecting, I had this picture of how marriage would be and how my wife and I would get along blissfully because there would never be any disagreements and there would never be anything. And she came in going like, Whoever yells the loudest wins, and would, is she through knives at me? Also true. And I was sure within the first few months that not only was I going to die, but of this marriage was not going to last. And the whole dream of this wonderful marriage was going to be end up in divorce, and it just was not the life I signed up for. Now fortunately we kind of got through it, worked it out, figured out some stuff along the way because we're and she wasn't a very good aim with her knife So I've never taken time to teach her how to But but there was still this point when I'm going like man, I don't this is not what I was expecting And I know for many of us we get this point alive Well, this just is not what we're expecting and David is exactly the same situation Here he is hiding on the mountain. He's going, "You know this is not what I was expecting to be. Hi, Bodhi." And this is not what I was expecting to have happen in my life. It was not what I was expecting would turn out. You ever think about this fact that David didn't choose to be king. He didn't ask for this life. You know, sometimes we read these stories in the Old Testament. You know, here's this David, King and all that and we just think he wanted that. No, he was out busy taking care of sheep, which he was quite happy with. When all of a sudden a stranger showed up and said, "Oh, the current king of the country is going to be deposed and we're getting ready him and we're going to pick you instead." It wasn't what he signed up for. He didn't sign up for that. In fact, his first Samuel 16, verse 13, says, "As David stood there among his brothers, Saul took the flask of olive oil. He had brought an anointed David with the oil and the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully on David from that day. One day he's out looking after sheep, just doing his thing, and he comes inside and the Spirit of God's power has come to him. Ones him, on him and it's changed, but it wasn't what he planned. Wasn't what he was expecting. He imagined 16 years old and somebody comes along and says, "Hey, you're going to be a king." I can imagine you start feeling like, oh yeah, yeah. I'm going to be king. Hmm. On this, that's, you know, I'm, that's exactly what's going to happen. So, the truth is, he did start acting that way. And what do you see his brothers and his little story, some of you may have heard story, little story of a guy by the name of Goliath and David and little story there. And one of the conversations David has with his brothers, you're so full of pride. Yep, that'd be about accurate. David was just full of himself. He didn't ask to be king. First time you 26, 19, I read it already, but it says, "Now, but now let my Lord the king listen to a servant, if the Lord stirred you up against me, then let him accept my offering, but if this is simply a human scheme, and then may those involved be cursed by the Lord. For they've driven me from my home so I can no longer live among God's people. And they've said, go worship pagan gods. David's driven from a soul. I think that day that he's standing with Saul, that he's kind of snuck down there thinking, I didn't want to be camping today. I didn't want to be hiding in a cave. I didn't want to be doing all these stuff. There's things in my life. I did not choose this life. I didn't choose to have a marriage because my wife got pregnant. I didn't choose to go through life's single. I didn't choose to, whatever it might be. I didn't choose it. But there's something interesting about David's response and all of this. And if you, maybe later when you go home and you take a look at this passage again in these few 25 verses, 15 times, David talks about my Lord. 15 times he gives my Lord, but not in the context of my Lord, Saul, but my Lord God. 15 times that a whole passage, he goes, "My Lord," and my Lord's anointed one and the anointed one, and I'm following my Lord, and all of these kinds of things, and nobody else in this story says that. There's really four people in the story, and out of those four people you've got Abishai who acknowledges God and you've got Abner who basically doesn't say anything. And then you've got Saul who really is just kind of making excuses. But you have David who over and over keeps going back to my Lord, my Lord, my Lord, because here's what's happened with David. As David's gone through his life, he's ended up in a place that he didn't want to be living a life that he didn't really desire and the one thing he did is he chose to keep following the Lord. What do you do when the life you have? Isn't the life you wanted? You keep following the Lord. What do you do when you haven't chosen? I didn't choose this life. What do you do? I keep following the Lord. it really is that simple. If you don't get anything else, if you can't walk away today, remembering anything else, keep this phrase in your mind. Keep following the Lord. Stuff is going to happen. Stuff has already happened. Things have occurred in your life over which you had no control. It has modified the course of your history. It has modified the way your life will end up. And you can't do a thing about it, but what you can do is what David did. He said, "I'm going to keep following the Lord. I'm going to keep following the Lord." It's another thing, though. Can I help you with it? You don't really know what God's doing. Oh, yeah, I know. You know, I, I, something's got really spiritually right. God's doing this in my life. I don't believe you. You know, God worked this all out and God did this and God did that. I don't believe you. Here's one other occurrence where in this passage where the Lord comes up. You might have not even noticed it because nobody else noticed it. Abishai didn't notice what God was doing. He didn't notice what the Lord was doing. He thought he did, but he didn't quite get it. Abiner didn't notice at all what God was doing. He was sleeping. a great way to go through life. Saul didn't know what the Lord was doing. In fact, the reason Saul didn't know what the Lord was doing is he wasn't paying attention to the Lord anymore. That's part of what God had him into the situation he was in. But even David didn't really notice what God was doing. The only person who saw in this story, the only person who saw what God was doing was the narrator. I know we don't usually talk about the Bible in a narrator, but somebody wrote it down. It wasn't David. And it was somebody that wrote it down with the benefit of hindsight. And I don't know if you caught it when we were reading it, but here in verse 12, it says, so David took the spear and jug of water that were near Saul's head, then he and Abish I got away without anyone seeing them or even waking up because, because they were really stealthily quiet and they could sneak past 3,000 men without ever being noticed, carrying a jug of water and a spear. No. But David doesn't pay attention to that. I just got out of the way. We just got out of there. I don't know, this isn't a side. I'm not sure why David went down there in the first place. He didn't plan to kill Saul. Why did he go down there? Because David was kind of cocky. But here he is. He's getting back out from having been with Saul, getting out of there. And he doesn't even notice. But everybody is dead asleep. And nobody notices until they're gone, past 3,000 people. and he has to yell back and wake Abner and Saul up. And he doesn't even notice. You know, sometimes we say, "You know, I know what God's doing. I can see what God's doing." Can I just tell you this? He got no clue. Most of the time, I don't know what God's doing in my life. And it's not because I'm not trying to find out. It's not like I'm not trying to see God in the situation. I'm always trying to see God in my situation. I'm always trying to see what the Lord is doing in my situation. I'm always looking because I'm always needing him to do something in my situation. Always. But can we just get this? You just don't know. So what do we do? I just keep following the Lord. I got no idea what God's doing. I just keep following the Lord. I just keep going, God, I'm just gonna keep following you. This is not what I was expecting. This is not going the way I thought. This is not happening the way I hoped it would happen. I really got no idea what you're gonna do. David didn't know if Saul would kill him. In fact, if you read into the next chapter, the very first thing he says, as he says, David says that because he didn't know if one day Saul wouldn't get him, he left the country. David had no idea. You know, we got this thing of David. David's got it all figured out. David hasn't got anything figured out. There's only one thing David has figured out. I'll follow the Lord. I'll follow the Lord. No matter what happens, I will follow the Lord. No matter what goes on, I will follow the Lord. This is one last thing I want to kind of mention about David is I've already said it, but you know David really didn't have his act together You know how many of you heard the story David and go I just what you're handling for a minute. I just want to check make sure you're here David David and go I And you know we love the story David and go I you know this little guy who just defeats this big giant and goes out You know it's his great thing and he kind of get this thing you know the David really had it together. You know he didn't need a sword, he had a slingshot and five stones and you know he was just running there. But the fact is David actually didn't have it together. He didn't, you know I mentioned it earlier but David was really really kind of a cocky 16 year old. Know anybody like that? Think back to when you were like that? David shows up and he goes, "Oh, you know, I can do this." The whole rest of the army, just think about this. The whole rest of the army experienced soldiers are saying, "No, we're not taking this guy on." And then, "Oh, I could do it." I have a few grandsons, and some of my grandsons would do that. I know, "Well, I can do that." Probably you can't do that, but I can do that. Any of your kids play Minecraft? Any of you know what Minecraft is? Just checking, just checking. My nine-year-old grandson annoys me to no end when it comes to Minecraft. I come in there, he's nine years old, you know, and I'm a good grandfather. I got Minecraft on my laptop, or on my iPad, on my phone so I can play it, and they can say, "Hey, our papa plays Minecraft too." Except my nine-year-old grandson, he's like, "Oh, you're such a nub." yeah he'd be the one right here you idiots there you you guys in the art you got no clue about how to feed defeat the guy if you know i know how cuz i'm not david i know how because you know i i you know i look after sheep so therefore i know how to kill a guy little cocky day david david didn't have it quite all together david could get really hot headed and vengeful. He could. If you read the chapter before in 1st S. 25, it's this whole story about how David been camping around this one place and his men had been sort of making sure, you know, protection. They were making sure that nobody else's stuff got stolen, nobody else's stuff got, you know, killed and after they'd done it for all the while, they said, "Hey, you know, we just want you to know." It's kind of We just want you to know that we've been looking after your sheep and your flocks of protecting them. And if you could drop a little tip in the box, we'd be really happy and appreciative of it. And the guy goes like, "Who are you guys? We don't care." David blows up. Like he's just angry. And he's fun. I like -- I guess the passage. First, every 25, 21, 20, David just been saying a lot of good it did to help this fellow. to help this fellow. We protected his flocks in the wilderness and nothing he owned was lost or stone, but he's repaid me evil for good. May God strike me and kill me if even one man of his household is alive tomorrow morning. Well, a guy had a temper problem. He didn't have it together. David did not have it together. David committed adultery. David did all these things that David should have never done. David did not have it together. David did one thing. David followed the Lord. He kept following the Lord. Messed up in my life. You mess up in your life. Sometimes you go, "Well, you know, that's just the consequences of what you've done. Keep following the Lord." Something happens completely out of of your control. Keep following the Lord. The only thing, this is the only thing we can talk about so much stuff in this page. This is the only thing I want you to hear. Keep following the Lord. Keep following the Lord. Keep following the Lord. Yeah, but God isn't doing anything for me, not that you see. Keep following the Lord. But I've messed up so badly. God wouldn't Let me keep following the Lord. But I didn't choose to be in this situation. Keep following the Lord. Keep following the Lord. But life is not what I wanted it to be. Keep following the Lord. We stop following the Lord when we think we're smarter than Him. We stop following God when we think we know better than God knows. which is why I say keep following the Lord. Keep following the Lord. So come to the end of the service. I'm not quite sure because every time I come here to burn and pastor to sign, pastor Kim will have decided to do something different than the last time. Why do that happens everywhere, but? I'm not quite sure how they want to close it, but I know how I want to close it. I want to sustain. You can do that. You can sit for a while. And see, the whole point of this message, did you get it? What's the point of the message? What do I want you to remember? My wife got it. It's good. Life is good. My wife heard what I said. [laughter] [laughter] [laughter] It's funny that she says with me as long as she does. She must love me. I'm pretty fortunate. The whole point, the whole point of looking at David's insult today is to say that we're only going to get through everything we're going through. The only way we're going to get through life is if we keep following the Lord. Now you might be here this morning and you know I don't know many of you here today. But you may say well I have never decided to follow the Lord. You might be here this morning and say you know I'm actually not a Christian. I just came to church because Esme is invited to come really just as daughter. Or you know saw the sign I came. I don't know why you're here, but you're here, I believe God has you here so that you can hear Him say, "Keep following me." And if you haven't already started, then please follow me. I can't promise you today and I won't even attempt to promise you that life will suddenly be a fantastic and everything will work out because it won't. I already told you if you come here you'll get offended. But I can tell you this, you'll never find the reason for your life until you discover the one who created you. Purpose just doesn't come any other way. I'd like it if we're going to pray and I'd just love it if you guys would just bow your heads, close your eyes with a man. just about to pray, I'm gonna ask you just individually if you could think about this. Maybe you have never made a decision to follow the Lord. Here I'm talking about following the Lord. Maybe you've never made a decision to follow Jesus. I would really love to encourage you to make that decision right now. It'll be the best decision you could ever make in your life. Two most important moments in your life are one the day you're born and two the day you realize why. And when we decide to follow Jesus, that's the day we realize why I'm here. If you're here this morning and I just want to ask you, just genuinely sincerely for my heart, If you've never followed Jesus before and you would like to, you'd like to make a decision and say, "Hey, I'm gonna follow Jesus." You don't have to follow Jesus by yourself. We do this together. It's part of the beauty of church and relationship. But you're here today and you just say, "You know, past the day, I want to follow Jesus. I've decided I want to follow Jesus." I want to find that meaning. I want to find that purpose. Can I just ask you, would you slip up your hand? Nobody's looking around. Just slip up your hand. opportunity prayed for if there was anybody here today and you're saying hey I want to follow Jesus. Awesome. That's so cool. So let's keep following Jesus. Let's keep following Jesus. If you're if you haven't been following Jesus very long just keep following. You've been following for a while maybe you've forgotten how to talk to people about Jesus. It's become a kind of a quiet following but you know, as people all around us, you just are looking for some reasons for life. And that's only going to be found if we keep following Jesus. Lord, I want to pray today, God, pray, God, for every person here. I pray, God, that your spirit would rest on them. And God right now is we've thought about, we've talked about, we've just considered that keep following you, you no matter what happens, no matter what comes our way, even if we didn't pick the outcome of our life and it hasn't gone the way we anticipated or expected. God we make the choice here right now that we will keep following you, we'll keep following you, we'll keep going in the direction you're going, we'll keep moving with you, we'll keep following you and honoring you in our life. God I pray. God for courage, I pray for boldness, God I pray for endurance. that we would be able to every morning when we wake up and say, "God, I'm gonna follow you today. "Take me God where you need to take me to dam "and I'll follow you today." 'Cause Lord, I know that your way is better. It's all follow you. God, I pray for everybody here today. It's a person gonna pray. You're blessing on them. God, you're strengthened on them in Jesus' name. Amen.