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At Sandals Church, our vision is to be real with ourselves, God and others. This channel features sermons and teaching from Pastor Matt Brown and other members of the Sandals Church preaching team. You can find sermon notes, videos and more content at http://sandalschurch.com/watch
Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, god, and others. We're glad you're here, and we we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I would love it if you would just humor me just for a moment as we begin our time today and just close your eyes for a second. As you close your eyes, I wanna invite you just to bring to mind that person in your life that you most admire. Who is it? And it's gotta be someone you know, not a celebrity, but that person that just pulls the best version out of you. When you're around them, how do they make you feel?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What is it about them? What does their life say to you? And now I want you to picture yourself at age 75. For some of you, that might be easy because you're already there. But who do you want to be?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:How do you want people to feel around you? What does your presence communicate to them? And and what does your life say when you've reached that point? And maybe even this question for our special attention is this, how is how you're living your life today taking you where you want to go, forming you to who you want to become. Your your morning routine, your habits, the the first thing you do when you wake up, your work hours, your weekend plans, your spiritual practices, your diet, what you give your attention to, how you spend time with entertainment, what you do with your physical and sexual desires, all of that combined.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Is all of that aiming where you want to go in life, or is it slightly off? You guys can come back to me and now open your eyes. You see, I would imagine for many of us, we all have good intentions, like, we mean well with what we want to do and who we want to become, but sometimes we're just still wandering a bit, struggling to aim at that specific target. And so my question is this, what what's the path you're on? And really think about this, what is that path that you're on doing to you?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because there's no neutrality in life. We are all being formed right now into someone and something, and so maybe there is a very wide gap between who you intend to be and who you actually are. This is one of the core problems that I think every human being struggles with, what we intend to be and do and what actually happens, which is why when you have said sorry, I would imagine at some level, when you found yourself apologizing, you've told someone that is not what I intended to do. How many of you said that? Because oftentimes, our intentions outrun who we actually become.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like we mean to be, like we mean to be kind, we we desire to be loving, to be present, successful, but still relational, you know, not like we're trying too hard at it. But oftentimes, we all wake up realizing that we have become a certain kind of person, a certain kind of doctor, a certain kind of pastor, a certain kind of parent, a certain kind of friend, a certain kind of spouse, and that has not always met or hit the expectation of what we've intended. This is the gap that we all live with. And so is how you're living today taking you where you want to go. Because Jesus today invites us into embracing an entirely different way of life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We have been over the last few weeks in this series called Image in which we've been wrestling with one of the most human questions ever, which is who am I? And discovering through scripture, mainly Colossians, that we have an identity, not that we have achieved, but we've received it from God because he loves us. And with that identity has come a calling and a direction for who he's inviting us to be. And today, we bring that series to a close as we think about who we are and the way that that shapes the kind of life that we live and the kind of life that we offer to the world. Now I know, you know, that might be sad for some of you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We're ending our time in Colossians, and maybe I didn't get to your favorite verse. I'm sorry. That's not what I intended. But, thankfully, just because the series ends in Colossians doesn't mean your time in Colossians has to end. In fact, in just a few weeks, I'm gonna be starting an online bible study diving deeper into Colossians.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:For any of you watching, you are more than welcome to join us. If you kinda just think that Fredo just plugged his own bible study, let's just keep it moving. Right? And in so doing, I'm gonna ask that if you are willing and able, that you would stand with us for the reading of God's word today. If you got a bible, we'll be in Colossians 4, and if you're watching online or somewhere else, I would encourage you just to pause for a moment, and draw your attention to the reading of God's word, and this is what Paul writes starting there in verse 3, And pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Pray that I might proclaim it clearly as I should, and be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone. This is God's word. Let's pray together.
Morgan Teruel:Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today at Sandals Church online. Before we continue on in the message, I just wanna take a moment to invite you. If you'd like to be a part of the work that God is doing in and through Sandals Church, we would love to invite you to go to give dotsc right now. For now, let's hop into the message with pastor Freda Ramos.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Heavenly father, what a gift it is for us to gather in this way together, and we pause in prayer to acknowledge the fact that you have gathered with us too. So we ask now that as we have heard your word read, that we would hear your voice speaking to us. So as Jesus said, would you give us ears to hear today? Give us eyes to see and and a heart that can receive all that you have for us to become in Jesus. We pray these things in his name.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Amen. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. Now Paul, I think, ends this letter in a pretty unique way.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Oftentimes as he finishes a letter that he wrote to a church like he did here with Colossians, he'll end with kind of a final greeting where he restates what he opened with, which is something like grace and peace and he'll list some names of people that he wants to thank and he does that here in Colossians too, make no mistake about it, But here in Colossians 4, right before the passage we just read, he talked about devote your life to prayer, which is a great way to end the letter. See you. Devote your life to prayer. But what's beautiful about his sign off is that he has one last thing for us to consider, and it's this, he wants us to examine our way of life. Notice in verse 3 something that Paul understands where he says, pray for us too that God may open a door for us for our message.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And here's what I want us to know that Paul fully knows, It's that god has a way of opening doors in our lives like nobody else. Amen. Like right now, in your season of life, what doors is God opening for you? What opportunities are available to you? Now, when we think about doors opening, we might tend to think of a different kind of door that's opening, maybe a door that's a little bit more self serving, like lord, open that door for a new job, open that door for a new raise, Hello, somebody.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Open a door to meet that girl or that guy. Like a dating show, you just open that door, and there's that tall, dark, handsome man who's only 24, and he already has a 401 k ready to go. And that all may be good and fine if if god is opening those doors in your life, but the door that Paul is referring to specifically here is open a door for our message. In other words, what he's saying is that our lives would be available to people and all that we have received in Christ would be shared with the people around us. Meaning meaning your life, your private life in Christ is meant to be a gift to the watching world.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so what he's saying is we're praying for a door to be open so that we might bear witness to all of who we become in Jesus, and then offer that for other people. He goes on, he says, be wise in the way that you act toward outsiders. Now, when you read that, you might consider that what he's implying is that your life is actually lived without outsiders. So that to be in Jesus is not to retreat from the world, though there's practices that we do in that way, But he implies and and assumes you and I all will continue to live our lives with people, which we should be doing. But he says be wise in how you do it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He goes on to say, you you should think about your speech being full of grace. Speech full of grace. Notice he doesn't say speech full of grumbling, complaining. He doesn't say speech full of cheese meh. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Or gossip for those who don't know what that understand, you know. And then he says season with salt. Now now we know that salt has a way of enhancing flavor, but listen now, salt also has a way of making us thirsty. So what Paul is saying is imagine a conversation you have with someone, or a relationship that you have developed with someone, or a way in which you have walked in your manner of life that actually leads people to get thirsty for God. And the way that they ask themselves, and they maybe even ask you, what is it about you?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They get curious about your way of life, and they start to think, man, maybe maybe I want, I'm thirsty for what they have. Like, imagine if our lives were oriented around making people thirsty for what their souls needed. Amen. Is that how we talk now? That verse, speech full of grace seasoned with salt.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now I gotta be honest, as a younger Christian, that's not how I read that verse. As a young zealous Christian who loves studying the bible, I got a degree that said I studied the bible. I read that verse as may your speech be full of truth and apologetics so that my conversations were ready to tell people why I was right and how good Jesus is. So good that he's sending you to hell. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's how I read that verse. One night I can remember, it was a long day of work, young young married man. I think we had a kid at the time. Getting some groceries with Ashley at Stater Brothers. We pull the cart out, up to the car at night, and a man approaches.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Startles me a little bit, jump back. He's a kind man. He's a Mormon man, well dressed, very gentle and kind, and we start to have a conversation. I'm like, alright. I'm up for this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so I say some things that remind him that I'm right about Jesus and that he's wrong. He says some things about the Book of Mormon. Conversation ends. I'm like, I won, obviously. I get into the car, and Ashley just looks at me and says, what what was that?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What was that? You were not kind. You rushed him. There's nothing wonderful about that. Nothing in which my grace or my speech was full of grace.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Definitely no salt, the wrong kind of salt in that conversation. And and the reason why I think that is is because no one really comes to Christ because you have right answers. People come to Christ because we have right attitudes.
Morgan Teruel:Come on. Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Our lives have been changed. Yeah. And and we walk with a different kind of pace. And and notice that last phrase, so that you may be able to answer anyone. That's not a call to know everything you believe in.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I mean, that's part of it, but what he's really saying is an implication that people will actually ask about your life. To be able to answer someone first means that they have asked you a question about your life, and so really what I'm getting at is, do we live lives in Jesus that beg the question of other people? In other words, is there anything distinctive about who you are and what you do that leads people to ask questions of you? That's good. That help them better understand the way of life, the identity that you have embraced for yourself.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Yeah. Because to find myself in Jesus, listen now, means I find a whole new way of life. Paul is abundantly clear through Colossians that you have, in Christ, put off the old self, the false self, the dead self, and you are learning to walk in the new. Meaning you are reordering your entire life around Jesus. Last week, we said that if Jesus is in fact before everything and he's holding the entire universe together, then why do we treat him as someone we only care about on Sundays?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's got to mean much more than that. In other words, your entire life has got to be reordered. Your whole way of being needs to consider significant change because he in fact is the weightiest part about you. A number of years ago, when Eli was really young, we had a trampoline in the backyard, and he loved to jump in this thing, and I loved to get in there with him. And the first few times that I would get in there, we'd have a great time with there was a basketball hoop attached to it, and so we'd shoot hoops.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so there was always, like, basketballs, footballs, stuff in there. But anytime I got into it, like, everywhere I went, the balls would follow me. And for young Eli, he's like, this is magical. But what he didn't realize is that that was the heaviest thing in the trampoline. So naturally, science would tell you they're all gonna gravitate towards the heaviest thing.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What I'm saying to you is that if Jesus has become the heaviest thing, all of your way of life needs to gravitate around him. That's what it means to embrace a way of life in Jesus. Everything must be reordered around it. Amen. Now that's not all the case for some of us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Meaning, if career and success is where you have found your greatest weight, significance, and identity, then that means your priorities and your practices will revolve around you getting successful and building the career you think you need to have. If adventure and fun is the greatest significance and weight where you find your sense of self in, then all of your priorities, Monday through Sunday, will be geared around ensuring you have great adventures and your life is fun. If the greatest weight and significance in your life is your happiness and your comfort, then guess what? Your entire schedule, all that you do, your priorities, your practices, your habits will all be shaped around ensuring you're happy. But Jesus is inviting you to consider something much more weightier than that in himself.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so here's what I'm saying to you. The question isn't so much, do you have a way of life, but do you know what your way of life is right now? What does your life say right now? What is it communicating? What is it sharing with the rest of the world?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And is how you're living today taking you where you want to go? Because as we close this series, the invitation is to consider that to be in Jesus is to embrace a whole new way of life, way of life. Now for some of you, that might sound like a strange phrase, and so I wanna spend a good amount of our time talking through what we mean by that, why we need a way of life, and how we start to build 1. So first, the what. A way of life simply defined is a simple schedule and set of practices that help me become who I truly am in Jesus.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's all it is. A way of life is a schedule and a set of practices that I give myself to as I'm on my journey of becoming who I truly am in Jesus. Notice Paul in Colossians 4 verse 5. He says, to be wise in the way you act toward outsiders, Make the most of every opportunity. Now that phrase, wise in the way you act, literally translates to to walk in wisdom.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:In other words, what Paul is saying is be thoughtful about the way you are living your life in front of other people. How do you begin to do that? Consider developing a plan, a way of life, a schedule, a set of practices where you're intentional about what you find yourself doing on a regular basis and what those things might be communicating to other people and when what they might be saying about how you truly see yourself. A helpful image here is actually where way of life or what some refer to as a rule of life get their origin from. It's a trellis.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So imagine for a moment a a a vineyard, a beautiful green lush vineyard. If you live in San Jose, Manafee, you already know about this. Right? But imagine a vineyard, and you see rows of grapevines. What those grapevines are all attached to, for many of them, they are trellises.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're structures. Now I don't know a single thing about grapes, growing grapes. I know a thing or 2 about a good Cab, but but what my research has taught me is that a grapevine can actually grow just fine, like, wildly, like, on the ground. It can even bear fruit, but what the problem is that it starts to grow out of control, and it can't bear the best kind of fruit. So a grapevine that's attached to a structure or a trellis, where we get this word whey, allows it to be cut and pruned in the way it needs to and to grow the best kind of fruit.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is precisely what Jesus is telling us in John 15 where he says, remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, he says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:A way of life is simply a trellis. It's a structure that allows you to grow not wildly, but properly in the direction that you need to grow. Being pruned when you need to be pruned so that you can bear much fruit. It helps you. A way of life is you thoughtfully thinking about the things that will keep you connected to the vine and Jesus and what will allow you to grow.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Now here at Sandals, what we often talk about in our journey of discipleship of following Jesus in authentic way are 9 essential practices. Nine essentials. We actually had a series last year called the essentials. It wasn't called the optionals. It was called the essentials because we believe that they are an important part of your life on a regular basis.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Things like getting baptized, reading scripture, learning to pray as an expression of your love for God, things like serving people, opening your life with the resources through giving and generosity, gathering with other people on a regular basis as an expression of your love for people, and then things like sharing the good news, helping other people follow Jesus, baptizing them even as an expression of us living our life on mission. As Paul would say, being wise in the way that we act towards outsiders. Now these 9 essentials you can think about as, like, the the major food groups. Right? That was that old school pyramid from our classrooms, like, here's the major things you need to eat.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But I say that knowing that some of you eat only meat in here, and then some of you I know one in the back doesn't eat any meat in here, right? There's always at least one good vegan around and he's a good friend, But these are the 9 essentials. But I say that also, Mani, to say this. Anything could be a spiritual practice. Anything can be a spiritual practice.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Listen to Paul in Colossians 3 17. Whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the lord Jesus. Anything could become a spiritual practice, Bible reading or a nice walk, prayer by yourself, laughing with friends, silence in the morning, or a nice glass of red cab at night, if that's your conscience. Right? So what makes this a spiritual practice?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's simply this. A spiritual practice is anytime you connect the gift to the giver. That's what it is. A spiritual practice is anytime you connect the gift of what you are enjoying to the giver who has allowed you to enjoy it. That's make that makes it a spiritual practice.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So that's why he says, whatever you do, word or deed, do it in the name of lord Jesus. In other words, you can do it as an expression of who you are in him. Driving to work is a spiritual practice. For some of you, that's where you grow most. Gyms, exercise could be a spiritual practice.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Right? I know for some of you, sitting down to read scripture is the hardest thing to do. So go for a walk and listen to it. Right? Anything can become a spiritual practice when you simply connect the gift to the giver.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's what you're invited to do and become thoughtful about that. So when you think about it, practices are not a way for us to earn anything from god. They're simply a way for us to get in God's way to receive a blessing from him. It's like my kids, someone should have told me before I had kids that when you have kids they're constantly in your way. Like we live in a small home and the one thing I'm regularly saying to them is you're in my way right now.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They're all constantly in my way. Why are they in my way? Because I live with them, and they live with me. I don't know why that's funny, but, like, they're close to me. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That's the point. They're always in my way. A spiritual practice is a way for you to stay in God's way all the time and to be ready to receive a blessing. Amen. And the reason why we say that these are essential practices and you create a schedule for them is because they are a continuous part of your life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:As pastor Matt has regularly reminded us, you and I will never become what we occasionally do. So every aspect of our life is an opportunity to encounter god because it all matters to him. Paul says, make the most of every opportunity. All of it has a potential, and every aspect of your life is pregnant with opportunity for you to meet god, to be changed by him, and to allow that to be a witness to the watching world. It all matters to him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And because it all matters to him, we commit it to him. A way of life when you think about it, it's a commitment. It's like a vow. When I officiate weddings, I'll get on a call with the the couple, and I'll say, listen. I can't wait to do this.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I get the best seat in the house. I really have one requirement, and that's that you say vows. Why? Because nothing's been done until you've said a vow. Now why?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why would we take such passionate, excited, young love, and then dole it down with this dry vow? Because love needs a vow to sustain it for the long haul. A vow, a commitment, a way of life is like a pot in which a plant is able to grow securely and safely in. And so when you think about this way of life, it is never a means to get more of god's love for you. That's not the point.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It is to protect and contain and allow you to grow, flourish, and deepen the love that he already has for you. Because when you think about a wedding moment, those 2 individuals, that man and woman, when they say vows to each other, they're not doing it out of legalism. They're not even doing it out of fear. They are making a commitment and saying a vow because they love each other. And so when we decide that a way of life is a simple set of, practices and a schedule that allow us to stay committed, we're not doing it out of fear, we're doing it out of love.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's a way for you to keep your vows to Jesus. That's all it simply is. Psalm 56 says it like this, I am under vows to you, my God. I will present my thank offerings to you for you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life. I'm under vows.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Why? So that I may walk with God in the light of life. This is the picture that we're giving. You see, vows are how we learn to live in the promised land when you have grown up in Egypt. And all as you've known is bondage and slavery and your old false dead self.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:To live in the promised land means you need new vows. You need a commitment. You need a way of life, and that's exactly what the people of god got once they were delivered. Now at this point, let me be abundantly clear about what I'm saying here. Meaning, a way of life isn't about addition, but subtraction.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So a way of life is not an added thing to do. A way of life is simply you getting thoughtful about the things you're already doing because the things you are doing are doing something to you. So to follow Jesus is not about addition, but subtraction. It's about eliminating everything out of your life that is not serving your growth. That's what a way of life is.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Don't think you have to add burdens. You're subtracting things that are cluttering you right now. Because I would imagine that many of you watching this, you don't have a problem with Jesus. You're just too busy for him. And so a way of life allows you to declutter the things that are keeping you from connecting to him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Secondly, a way of life isn't about compartmentalizing life, but integrating all of who you are. Right? In this way of life, it's easy to think about compartmentalization. Meaning, we say this part of my life belongs to God, Sundays, but then Monday through Saturday, that's all me. Jesus gets this day, I get the rest, or this has to do with God, but this has nothing to do with God.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:But the image of the person that you and I are being renewed in calls for everything to belong to him. Jesus as lord means he has all of us or none of us. So a way of life is not about compartmentalizing all the different things you wanna do, but integrating all that you are and all that you do around him. And I know that people mean well when they say this, and so they'll say something like, you know, I just wanna put god first in my life. And a part of me chuckles inwardly because as if to say god isn't also second, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, down the line.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:He's involved in everything. Every aspect of life belongs to him. Your work life, your leisure life, your sex life, the way you eat, the way you drive, the way you talk, your relationship, all of it, your hobbies, your money, it belongs to him. And so a way of life, as, Ken Shigematsu says, is simply a rhythm of practices that empower us to live well and grow more like Jesus by helping us experience God in everything, in everything. Thirdly, a way of life isn't about preventing bad behavior, but promoting Christ like behavior.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:When Paul says be wise about how you act, he's not saying be a good person, don't cuss. Like, sure those might be good starting points, but a way of life is not about you managing sin, but about you promoting and thinking thoughtfully what's gonna cultivate my character in Jesus? What's gonna grow my love? What's gonna grow my joy? Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Laws, like a speed limit, are preventative, but a way of life is promoting you into something more so that you spend your time not thinking about all the things you shouldn't do this week, but you start to imagine, man, what are all the beautiful things I can give myself to? In other words, a way of life is not a life hack to holiness. This is not you and I on TikTok trying to figure out how to maximize every moment of our day, but it's about thinking thoughtfully about what I'm already doing and how it's impacting me. A way of life is not you creating a goal list that you will never achieve. Right?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:It's simply you thinking about what I need to do today that might bear witness to the world that I am in Jesus. That's simply it. And and what kind of character do I need to cultivate so that I might, in certain moments, speak with grace and speak with kindness? And I and I imagine that in this current political climate we find ourselves in, what if this is an open door as Paul said? What if this moment of of of just fear, of hostility, of what some call tyranny is actually an open door from God to to be wise in how we live our lives?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Like this moment of fear, what if you were built for this moment? I believe you are. I believe we all are. This is a moment. This is an open door for us, not to make memes about what happened over the weekend, not to laugh about it, not to, you know, turn it into a new monetary way of doing business, but what if this is now an an opportunity for us to describe what it's like to live in Jesus' kingdom Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And his way of life. Man, what a gift we can be to a world that desperately needs to see people who have become wise in how they walk towards outsiders That's right. In what they say. This is about a deep inner work of change. Now secondly, here is why you need it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I need a way of life to help prevent life from having its way with me. Notice Paul in in in verse 3. He says pray for us that God may open the door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, notice this phrase, for which I am in chains. Paul's in chains. He wrote Colossians in prison.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Imagine yourself getting in prison. What opportunities are there? For Paul, a lot. He wrote letters from that place, right? So a way of life is helping him to and keeping him from having, you know, life have its way with him.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:That that's what's going on here, and it's beginning to change the way you see everything so that, you know, when other people see difficult circumstances like sickness, you see the possibility for healing. When when when people kind of have, you When when when people kind of have life sweeping them away, you see a chance for stability to be anchored. Imagine for a second, not just a trellis on a grapevine, but a boat and its anchor. If you go out on a boat today, you'll need an anchor because the sea is always moving. And an anchor, a way of life is like an anchor.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You actually don't feel the anchor unless what? You actually start to drift. Then you feel it tug on you. A way of life is only designed to make you feel it tug on you when you're drifting, when when the culture is pushing you in one direction, when life circumstances have you in prison like Paul. See, a way of life is meant to give you stability, to anchor you somewhere.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I grew up sailing because my dad sailed all the time. I said I grew up sailing. I don't know how to sail still to this day, but he was an incredible still to this day, he knows how to sail any boat. It's incredible. And I remember one of the things he would constantly teach us is pay attention to the wind.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And I was like, dad, I don't know what that means, but pay attention to the wind. But I would always love when he would stop, you know, navigating through the wind, and he would just anchor us, and we would just stay there. And you would feel the breeze, you would feel the movement, you would feel the force of what it was like to be in open water, but you were anchored. So you didn't move, and you enjoyed that situation. That's what it means to have a way of life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You're anchored. You're anchored. And and this kind of being is designed to keep you from just drifting constantly. I would imagine some of you are drifting. Some of you have drifted away from prayer.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Some of you have drifted away from scripture. You've drifted away from community. You've drifted away from church, and what you need is a way of life. You need an anchor right now to plant you. Will you feel its tug?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Of course, you will. You're still moving, But its goal is that it would learn to actually keep you stable. That's right. Because all of us, listen now, when life has its way with us, we start to reach for things. We all have unhealthy habits and practices we give ourselves to when life is having its way with us.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What are those things? And then ask yourself, is that really better than what Jesus offers? I don't think it is, friends. And so as we bring this to a close, let's talk about how. How do you build then a way of life?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Simply, you start to create a structure with practices, people, and places that help you stay rooted in Jesus. That's what you do. The first Christians were not called Christians. What were they called? People of the way.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Meaning, they had cultivated a way of being through their practices with other people and in certain places that helped identify them as Jesus followers. Jesus has a way of life for us today. Let's hear these words from Matthew 11 when he writes, are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me, Jesus says. Get away with me, and you'll recover your your life.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I'll show you how to take real rest. Sounds amazing. Walk with me. Work with me. Watch how I do it.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. When Jesus says to come to him and find rest for your souls, he makes it really clear, and then learn how I do it. In other words, take my yoke on you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Meaning, the invitation of Jesus is not to come and find rest and then do whatever you want. It is to come and find his way of life. And I share this as someone who's not arrived at all, but on this journey with you. This is what it looks like oftentimes. For me, I think about my way of life most on Mondays, and sometimes even on Sundays.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Because unlike you, my weeks actually starts on Sundays. And so I'm starting to think about what are the practices I wanna give myself to? How did I finish last week? Like, I don't know about for some of you, but I'll I'll wake up on a Monday and, like, dang, again, a whole another week. And and then I imagine, man, what are the practices that I need to give myself to this week?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:What are the the who are the people that I wanna give myself to? Think about my son, Eli. He's 10 years old, which means I have maybe 8 years left with him in the house. In 8 years, I won't give a rip about how good this sermon was. What I will care about is him saying, dad, would you come play soccer with me one more time outside?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:I would give anything to hear him say that. Anything to hear Ella say, dad, would you come play with me? And so I think about what are the kinds of people and what kind of time do I wanna give to them as an expression of my love to them? So when do I get off work? When do I put my phone away?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:When do I say no to things so that I can be present at home? I think about the places. How how can I put myself in an environment where I'm with Jesus more this week? Is it is it with just more walks? Is it with some exercise?
Pastor Fredo Ramos:Be creative about the places you need. You know yourself well enough to know the places that really fill you up. Now, of course, most of us in California, the beach. Right? But you know the places where god meets you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:So take observation of that. Write it down and create a system, a structure, a way of life that allows you to be in that environment to stay rooted. Think about the kinds of practices you need to give yourself to. What are the things you do that help you hear the voice of god? And listen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:They might be different for all of you, and that's a good thing. There's a ton of spiritual practices because we are all very different kinds of people. And some, you know, practices serve you well in seasons of life that other times they they just don't. And so find a way of life that actually works for you. This is your race, not anyone else's race.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so start with where you're actually at, not where you want to be. Start with creating a way, creating a system that works for you, and and maybe this means you don't add to your week, you actually take stuff away. Maybe what you have is good, but the problem is you have too much other stuff there. So the the it's not growing, right? There's too much wind.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:You you need to anchor it a little bit deeper. So maybe for you on how you start to think about your way of life, you start cutting things out. You prune things away. Because there will come a day when we all wake up and we realize that we have become a certain kind of person. And oftentimes, if you're like me, you realize your best intentions have still left a gap between where you actually are.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:And so what I'm saying to you is every week on Monday, when I think about my way of life, I get to Friday and I realize that I have still missed the mark. But you know what? That's okay. Because we are people of grace, and growth, and progress. This is not an invitation to get perfect.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:This is an invitation to grow, to grow and make progress. Because this question again rings true of all of us is how you're living today taking you where you want to go. Let's pray together. Jesus, we want to hear your voice today inviting us to find rest in you, to learn the unforced rhythms of grace. And so would you now, by the power of your holy spirit, help us to see our way of life and to think about how we might reorder everything around you as we follow you.
Pastor Fredo Ramos:We pray these things in your name. Amen. Amen.