Remember When

What is worship?

Defining worship and its significance to our relationship with the Lord is crucial. Lacking clarity in worship indicates a gap in our understanding of Jesus. To address this, let’s briefly explore the concept of worship, aiming to gain some clarity and deepen our perspective.

For starters, we are given the essence of worship by Moses,

Deuteronomy 10:12 “12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,”

We pull 4 keys out of this passage:

Fear the Lord - we fear the Lord out of a deep respect and understanding of His power, presence, and glory. When mankind stands before the glory of the Lord it is so overwhelming that it wrecks us. We find ourselves at a loss because of how clearly our imperfections are seen as wickedness next to true glory and power.

Walk in all His ways - Because God is so fare beyond us, so much greater and more than we can even begin to imagine, we are called to walk in His ways. As we study the Bible, as we live our lives and look with a biblical perspective, we continually see that when we choose to live God’s way, it is honoring to Him, but it is also good for us. When you live in light of God’s purpose and plan, upholding His commands what you find is that each of them have been given to protect you from a life of self-sabotage and greater brokenness.

Love Him - We are called to love God. This is not a casual love. But being fiercely committed to Him. Committed to spending time with Him. Committed to rejoicing and celebrating over every blessing of your life both with Him and as an act of praise toward Him. It means when we struggle, when we have pain that we bring it before Him - even if we find ourselves angry with Him we love Him enough to go to Him.

Serve the Lord - Notice how it says, “serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” Whenever there are extended qualifiers or statements that clarify, we have to pause. We have to dig in and ask why did the Lord prompt the writer to add that phrase? Well, in this case, if you look up the word used for “serve” in Hebrew, you find that it is synonymous with the word worship. In fact, because of the sentence structure it would appropriate to rephrase this to ‘Worship the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” Yet, the word serve is used in translation because it is a more common word and it is more specific to how we worship. The key take-away here is that to serve the Lord is to worship the Lord. But we are not called to merely serve, we are called to be dedicated, focused servants who are intentional about giving the ambition of our hearts and the depths of our souls to serve, to worship the Lord.

This morning, we are going to walk through some of the ways in which we have seen the Lord move in the last 18 months. We are not here to lift ourselves up, or to take some form of credit. There is nothing for us or anyone else to take credit. Everything that is good, right, pure, or holy comes from God and is given by God in His timing. Meaning that we recall the movements of the Lord with great joy! Understanding that it is out of His sovereign grace that we have been able to partner with Him. So we celebrate!

Our aim is to follow Deuteronomy 10:12 by walking according to His word. Loving Him has to do with considering all the ways that He has been faithful as it has to do with our gratitude toward Him and it gives us greater hope for how He will continue to be faithful. And that as we recall some of the ways we have been able to partner with the Holy Spirit to serve and worship the Lord - in this time, we want to celebrate Him with the depth of our souls.

In student ministry, one of the things we talk about is “Remember When....” Remember when we prayed about that situation and God answered it? Remember when God stirred something new in you and helped you to see a blind spot in your life? Remember when you were looking for opportunities to share your faith and God brought someone to you? Remember when you had a big decision to make, you were nervous and the Lord met with you?

Today, we want to honor, celebrate, worship the Lord by remembering the ways in which we have seen His hand move.

Culture of Prayer

For the past few years, the Lord has placed it on the leaderships heart to build a culture of prayer here at Grace Church. Pastor Tim has been instrumental in helping us grow in this area. Admittedly, in the first few years, we would all say that there was some movement. But it was minimal. Then as we came into last fall, there were several who were burdened to pray in a new way. I can personally say that I fasted and prayed more times last fall than I have in my entire life. It was not out of a personal desire but rather as a response to God placing the burden for prayer on my life in a new way. Through interacting with others, I learned that there were several in the church who felt the same burden and were leaning into prayer in a far more serious way. As we cam into the new year, we dedicated the month of January to prayer and our series was “It’s Time.” In the first worship service of this year, we heard from Tim, a sermon that was titled “Jesus is worthy” and in that sermon - the Lord laid it on His heart to help us have greater clarity about how worship and prayer go together.

This is all significant because as we came into 2023 as a church - The Lord had already cultivated a movement of prayer. Then, we dedicated a whole month to intentionally seek the Lord in worshipful prayer that was centered around the person of Jesus. This is so key for us, firstly because THAT'S THE CALL OF THE BELIEVER! Secondly, because I believe the Lord used that time to spiritually awaken many in this church.

Church, remember when the Lord drew us to Himself through prayer.

Spiritual Hunger

In the past 8-10 weeks I have had a few conversations with people who have pointed back to this last winter and recalled 21 people that experienced a Spiritual shift. The shift was a new found spiritual hunger. Where they were not reading their bible to know more but now were reading their bible to meet with God. The purpose of prayer shifted and now they pray because they want to worship rather than experience God or bring a litany of requests. These are just 21 who I have heard about in recent weeks - its not to say that there are not others in the church that the Lord has pressed this spiritual hunger into as well.

Friends, remember when God created spiritual hunger in us?

Asbury

It’s also important to note that this desire for prayer, this new found spiritual hunger is broader than Grace Church. In fact, we have seen ripples of this same type of prayer and hunger around the country. Do you remember February 8? When a prayer and worship awakening started at Asbury in Kentucky? Do you remember reading and praying about what the Lord might be doing there? The awakening was a 24 hour a day worship service that lasted for 17 days and drew in more than 70,000 people to worship the Lord. On February 17 , three of us went to Asbury to see what the Lord was doing. On February 18, Shellby Lippold reached out to the pastors to see if we could just unlock the church so people can come and pray. 35-40 people came over 8 hours and just prayed together. On February 18th, the three who went to Asbury came back to give you a report, in response to what the Lord was doing, for the next four Sundays, the Lord compelled us. Each week after the service ended, many stayed here in this room for 30-45 minutes to pray and worship!!!!

Remember, when God called us to do nothing but worship Him in song and in prayer together.

Salvation's

We also know that it wasn’t just believers who were being stirred up. But that there have been many who have come to Christ this year. In fact, I want to share with you about two people who the Lord powerfully met.

Rodney - Freddie

In early February - There were two teenage boys from Gladstone who were in a place where they didn’t know where they were heading, had some idle hands, they made a few poor decisions. Neither of them had a drivers license, but they decided to grab a car and take off across the country. Nobody knew where they went, where they were going, or why they left. Their families were at a loss for what was happening. The Sunday after they left, two of the pastors had two different students come to them for prayer about the situation. That afternoon, the two boys split up. Freddie - left by foot, walking three miles through the middle of New Mexico. He went to go up to a house where he was held at gunpoint, until officers arrived and then arranged for Freddie to go home. Freddie’s dad felt a conviction to go look for the other boy and found himself on the road, praying that God would help him find this lost boy. A few minutes after praying, Freddie’s dad saw the jeep the boys had taken and followed him to a gas station.

Recognizing the need to figure something out as a family, Freddie’s dad came into Grace two days later to meet with a pastor. By the end of the conversation, I was assured the boys would be at youth group and coming to winter camp along with Freddie’s older brother Rodney. At camp, Taylor Wilson was able to lead Rodney as he chose to put his faith and trust in Jesus. Rodney connected with our youth group and did personal bible studies with a few of our students for the next several months. He started regularly texting Taylor and myself - asking questions about the Bible and about Jesus. About 4-6 weeks after camp, Rodney felt a conviction to pursue prison ministry and began pursuing ordination online.

Freddie slowly connected with the youth group. This fall, the Lord burdened Freddie in a way that he could not ignore. Near the end of October, Freddie came to me, it was clear he was searching. We talked for a while and I asked him several pinpointed questions, he didn't know how to respond. He left that day, struggling to surrender. On November 15 at youth group, Freddie only made it a few minutes into our teaching time he grabbed his small group leader, Taylor Wilson and left the room. They spent the night talking about a variety of internal struggles. Later that night, Taylor received a text message from Freddie that said “I think I’m ready to accept Jesus into my heart, and I would really want you to assist me in doing so, because I don't know how. So would you want to meet before Church?” Taylor agreed and on November 19, they spent 30 minutes together. Praying, reading through scripture. At the end, Freddie prayed to receive Jesus as his personal savior.

The Lord used two boys who took off across the country. Through that incident, the family turned their gaze towards the Lord, two of them came to Christ, and one is now ordained! God is so good!

At this point, I want to invite you to join me. We have just been reminded of some ways in which the Lord has been at work. Yet, we have a tendency to quickly forget. This is not a new issue either. In Psalm 106, the author points to a pattern where the Israelites see God work, they praise Him, and then they begin to look forward and forget.

I want to ask you to join me in reading the opening and closing to Psalm 106 with me as a way of proclaiming blessing and praise to the Lord. Would you join me in reading this passage allowed?

Psalm 106:1–2 “1 Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! 2 Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord, or declare all his praise?”

Psalm 106:47–48 “47 Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. 48 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the Lord!”

I cannot say enough, how much the Lord has done here this year. As we take a step back, we see that there have been some really beautiful moments where the Lord has gone before us. I want to share some numbers with you. Each number represents a life, a story of how God has brought light to the darkness, stories about healing, gospel seeds that took years to grow. These are not just numbers, these are moments where God has done a work through us.

We were able to participate in a number of events this year where we trained, proclaimed the gospel, and participated with area churches to reach our community.

In our Children’s Ministry

At Vacation Bible School this year, we had 130 kids who came to learn about the armor of God and hear the gospel. To pull it off, the whole church was decorated and it took 90 people with ministry hearts to pull it off.

We have had 46 Sundays with kids programming where they study the Bible and hear about the gospel. This is a big deal because this year in our children's ministry, we have seen 78 new families. Not all of them have stayed here with us, but what we see is that our children’s ministry is growing.

Our Children’s Ministry team also hosted a grand parenting seminar that had 60 grand parents attend to receive training on how to intentionally invest spiritually in their grandchildren.

Our Student Leader Team for Youth Group started serving at Bay Pines in March of this year. The student leaders have gone over several times to bring the gospel message, connect internationally, and intentionally build friendships. Tom Wetthuhn, Jaimie Sanville and the staff are really doing a great job over there. They are building a healthy culture for these kids; they are seeing the Lord move among their students. This year, we were able to watch three students from Bay Pines make the decision to get baptized. Each of them being able to clearly articulate the gospel and claim it as believers.

We were able to partner with 10 other local churches to help host the Jesus Festival at Luddington Park. Between the churches there were over 200 volunteers. We believe that approximately 2,400 people attended the weekend. Of those 26,000 more than 260 indicated that they had made some form of decision for Jesus, whether it was a re-dedication where they recognized sin and drift from the Lord in their life and then turned back to Him or made a decision to accept Jesus as their savior. On the last night, 40 people decided to get baptised.

This past fall, our women’s ministry had made the decision to restructure and give emphasis to teaching women how to study the Bible. In recent years, we have averaged around 30-35 women signing up for these studies. In this restructuring, it was an act of faith and obedience as our women’s ministry team really worked hard and wrestled with what the Lord wanted them to do to address some of the needs that they saw in the church. Well, the Lord went ahead of them as they made a goal of having 50 women sign up. For their kick-off event, about 70 women signed up to participate in these studies. This semester has been a powerful one. I spoke with some of our women's ministry team and they were reflecting on how they have seen God meeting some of these women and doing a powerful work in them.

We have seen movement and meaningful ministry take place among the body and in our community through our congregational care team, our men’s ministry events, and the ongoing work of our connections team. We have seen God use each of the ministry teams and various people at the church to reach people in the places they needed most.

Funerals - Pastor Dave and his team are

We have also seen a number of people who want to get baptized. This year we had 20 people who took a step of obedience in their relationship with the Lord by getting baptized. Not only did 20 get baptized, but we also have several ready to get baptized on January 14th.

Speaking of baptism, I want to show you a video of a special one that took place just this week, take a look at the screen.

Can we give thanks to the Lord together? I want to invite you to read another passage with me. As we read it, lets collectively proclaim this praise to the Lord.

Psalm 111:1–4 “1 Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. 2 Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. 3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. 4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful.”

As we reflect, there have been some amazing, beautiful moments. Here at Grace, I am personally aware of 13 people who put their faith and trust in Jesus this year. All of which are precious and have their own story to how the Lord reached them. But I personally love hearing about situations like When Peter Dells was able to Pray with his Daughter Laurel after service to receive Christ! Or when Shellby Lippold was able to lead Jayden Lippold to Christ along with the girls who went to fall camp. Who then all prayed over her.

God has been so gracious to us this year! By His hand we have been encouraged, drawn closer, molded by His Spirit! Thanks be to God, for all the work He has done among us this year!

Donna

-3/17/23 had a meltdown at home & ran away from home with the phrase “my life is in Gods hands” -3/18/23 had a crazy experience that led to me meeting you at the YMCA.  When you said “I will pray for you”…it was like a prompt for me to stop and ask you more details.  I also remember you saying “I go to Grace Church…funny enough, I preach there tomorrow”. I remember saying “of course you are”…& just thought “yup that’s why I’m here”.  Cause the craziness of that day was for a reason, & I felt like that was my reason.  I slept in my truck that night in the Church parking lot. I was there for 10 hours impatiently waiting for Church. -3/19/23 attended Grace Church.  Just fyi…your cry room works really well!  I don’t remember your sermon or what you said…but I remember how I felt & feeling overwhelmed with emotions.  I cried the entire time. It was like God placed a hand on me to tell me what I was doing wrong. Followed by a giant hug to comfort me. After Church I am hugely thankful for the opportunity to sit down with your family. You set me straight in so many ways. The biggest part was seeing the love in your family. The love I saw at the ymca between you & your kids was what drew me in.  It was like seeing how love is supposed to look…instead of a lifetime of how people had made me feel loved.  It was like seeing true love for the first time.  I had been loved many times, but it wasn’t always a pure unconditional love. -4/2/23 first time at New Life Church. I ended up going to lifegroup after church, found out about Celebrate Recovery on Tuesdays, & went to their annual “Abide” for women that Friday.  I got connected into things right away which was a huge help. CR is how I learned about being in Recovery & that’s what started my Recovery Journey -4/9/23 Chloe & I got baptized.  New Life was having one in May but I felt pushed to do it right away.  It was something I had been called to do since just after my spiritual awakening at Grace. -5/21/23 Bud got baptized at New Life Church -7/10/23-7/13  Chloe & I did VBS, & stayed at the campground during that week. -August 9th-14th- went through CCAR training to be a recovery coach.  I felt like God was calling me to be a recovery coach to help lead others into the light. -8/19/23 WEDDING. -October I started going into Oconto jail to facilitate AA meetings for the women.  Gods message was to help other women not only with addiction, but to hear my story & help them turn to God.     You know my story, but there are some things that God has done in my life that still shocks me. I think for me…I spent 4 months in limbo trying to figure out what higher power was changing my life. So when I came to Grace Church it was like God showed me it was him. It was a feeling, a knowledge, a faith…& seeing the proof that it was God. That’s all I needed to jump in.  I’m an all or nothing kind of person. I have love, trust, & faith in this world…& I know without a doubt the Holy Spirit moves my life.  I don’t have the control, anxiety, addictions, or selfish toxic ways that I used to. God is working on my character defects & I am thankful for him!

Looking ahead with anticipation

Bay College

Its all about you Lord

Spiritual Gifts Seminar

What’s the Bible all about