Unhindered

Good Morning online Church! It is super cold out there - i hope and pray that you are warm and safe.

A few announcements this morning - as we can’t be together, but life goes on!

First, Mens retreat - if you wanna go - we need you to sign up online ASAP - they are almost sold out and when theyre gone, theyre gone. If you haven’t registered online - DO SO TODAY! Feel free to call me if you need help doing so.

Second, We are starting three community groups during the first full week of February. These groups will help us with our disciplship, and give us a place to have a deeper community.

Ariana and I will host Tuesday evenings at 6:30pm, starting on February 6th.

Jeff and Lois Goff will host Thursday evenings at 6:30pm, starting on February 8th.

John and Megan Shubeck are hosting Saturday Mornings at 8:00am, starting February 10th.

I was gonna have sign up at church this morning - but i guess we will have to wait till next week. I highly encourage you to join a group! These are a great way to plug in, practice our discipleship, and build true and deep community.

Lastly, next week we should, lord willing be all back to normal schedule wise.

I hate having to not hold church service so we can all be together - but as I look out my window and see drifts literally three or four feet tall, and seeing the news of people ending up in the ditches, it is wise - and it makes me glad for technology like this, where we can still get into the word together, albeit remotely.

And it makes me remember the Joy of the presence of God - who no matter where we Go, he is there. So yes, we are physically a part from each other - but in Christ, we are all still one.

Let me start my devotion this morning with a word of Prayer. pray

At one of the other churches I served I, I was a student ministry pastor, and for most of my time there, I got to work with other youth pastors, and it was amazing to have Godly coworkers to do ministry with.

One of the men I got to work with was a man named Mike Ashley, and he had a deep heart for discipleship of students - and knew that parents were the integral part in discipling young people. And so each year, when students would “graduate” into our student ministry from elementary school, our first event wasn’t even for the new students - but for their parents. We would meet at a local Park, and we would answer questions, and vision cast - but more than anything, Mike would encourage the parents to prioritize their kids discipleship through church activities.

He had an illusion that stuck with me. He’d say: Okay parents - your kid is only a sixth grader now, but in just a quick seven years, they will be leaving home for college, or work, as an adult. Picture your student as that 18 year old - and as you consider that - what characteristics do you want to be true of them at that point? Describe what you want them to be like.

He’d then let the parents brainstorm, and the answers were quick - Christ-like, kind, respectful, responsible, things like that. the fruit of the spirit. What’s interesting is no one that i’m of stated they wanted a dynamite football player. Or super involved student activist. No they were all really character traits associated with what we know are the fruit of the Spirit.

Then Mike would continue - okay - we, as parents and adults get to help our students reach their goals - so what activities and habits do we need to commit to to ensure the growth of those things in your students? What would be the best thing to commit to to grow Christlikeness - and the fruit of the spirit?

Mike would then argue that Student Ministry and church were things we needed to commit to in order to grow in discipleship.

Beyond that - he argued that parents would need to say no to things with their kids and in their own life to make sure that sort of thing happened. As parents, if we work 60+ hours a week, come home, eat food, are grumpy, put on the TV and then go to bed - what does that show our kids? If we encourage our families and kids to be involved in every single sport or extracurricular that we regularly miss church and youth group - can we be surprised that upon graduation students don’t go to church?

So mike said, one of the keys to student ministry is saying no to certain things - so we can engage in the best things.

That’s stuck with me, but way beyond youth ministry - but discipleship in general.

So many of us want whats deeper - we want to follow Christ - and yet we fill our lives with so much stuff that when Jesus says to follow him - we are so weighed down - so hindered we can’t move!

We are currently studying how we practice the faith through different spiritual practices - and instead of going over a new practice online - we are going to talk about subtraction rather than addition.

The text that comes to mind this morning is Hebrews 12.

If you have your Bibles at home, why don’t you turn there.

Hebrews 12 comes after hebrews 11 which is known as the “hall of faith.” the author of Hebrews goes over some amazing old testament stories and the characters who overcame by faith. He goes over story after story - then starts in hebrews 12

verse 1 - therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us.

So the author says - look at all the people God has used by faith - look at their example.

Therefore, he continues, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. for the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Wow. Love these verses.

Consider the heroes of the faith - biblically, or perhaps those who you know in your own life - those whom God has just used mightily. Consider what they laid aside to follow Christ so fell.

Notice, the author says lay aside every hindrance and the sin. They both so easily ensnare us.

It’s interesting to me, that he uses those two words.

Laying down sin to follow Christ - that makes sense to a lot of us. A lot of us are good with doing out best to avoid sin (or at least the big ones). Don’t do the bad things - okay, check.

But the first word used is “every hindrance.” The word used for hindrance is onkos and it can also mean weight, or impediment.

These are things they may not be bad at all, but they are heavy and weigh us down. In fact some may feel good - even be good - and yet they hinder us from runing the race after Christ.

I had a friend growing up who was really into working out and being fit. We lived maybe a half mile from each other down a gravel road - and he would run over to our home to see if we wanted to play - but he would tie ankle weights on his legs. each leg would have 10 extra pounds - that’s extra, that’s a lot. And so he was hindered. He would have ran much faster and longer without those weights.

The fact of the matter - most of us fill our lives with things that can hinder us from running the race that is laid before us of faith.

Be it chasing the almighty dollar - work, side hustles, etc. Some its the activites of our children - each kid in 2 or three activities and your out of the house now almost every night a week and getting to church is hard, and so is sitting down together as a family for dinner. Some of us get so into hobbies and entertainment that we neglect just how much our comfort hobbies shape us.

Some of us are hindered, not necessarily by actions, but by faulty thinking. Perhaps we are prone to anxiety, or conflict avoidance, or people pleasing - and the emotions we feel when we have to step into hard conversations keeps us from pursuing what God is calling us toward.

This was something i found this last season in my own life. I was feeling burned down, exhausted, depressed, adn like God was absent and distant. I felt like what he was asking of me was too great! Well working with a counselor and with my wife - I figured out I was burning out not because of my relationship with Christ - but because I wanted to please and impress others more than hearing from God well done good and faithful servant. I realized that i had found myself in a trap of people pleasing and affirmation seeking. Oh the freedom, when I, by grace, realized my hindered heart, and could confess it to God and put into practice things to keep me centered on teh grace of Christ.

Some of us have sore spots in our beings that were wounded by bad upbringings in our past. Perhaps everytime you pray or get emotional you hear your father jeer at you and make fun of you for being a sissy. Well, perhaps we need to forgive and do some work in healing so we can move on from that hindrance.

For a lot of us on the discipleship journey, we do okay at getting rid of the blatantly pagan or wretched things in our lives - but all the extra weight, hinderances - we struggle to see those or get rid of them - because we like them. And yet - they may get in the way of us running the race with endurance.

So we need to lay aside every hindrance AND the sin.

Friends - we need to time and time again stop and pray and ask along with the Psalmist that God would search our hearts and bring out every wayward thought in us. Have we tricked ourselves into justifying sin in our lives?

If you are nursing some private sin - I would call you to repent in Jesus name and receive forgiveness. That sin is lying to you. It wont bring life - only pain, and it will keep you from running the race well.

Ultimately, this journey we are on, to practice the faith, it can just be discipleship by addition. It has to first be going before the Lord and allowing him to tear out of our lives all the things that get in the way. The Sin, yes, and that can be painful. But also the extra. The fat, the portions that aren’t necessary and need to be removed from us.

SO that we can run with endurance. Keeping our eyes on Jesus - as he is the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith.

This is very similar to Romans 12:1 which says.

Romans 12:1 CSB

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.

Our whole lives as a sacrifice - giving GOd the right to say yes or no to what is in our lives - that is our true worship.

Okay - now we ask our question - even remotely - So What?

Friends - if you want the deper life - if you want to follow Christ - if you desire the disciplship - it takes subtraction before addition.

So the invitation this morning is simple - evaluate your life. If the Goal is following after Christ so we can become people of love for the sake of the world - if that’s the goal, then we can take different parts of our lives and evaluate whether different things are helping, or hindering us.

that’s the invitation - to do some soul work and life work. What do we fill our lives with? Perhaps you need to put a time limit on your phone.

PErhaps you need to throw away a bunch of alchohol that is in your cubbard.

Perhaps you need to cancel a subscription, pay off debt, talk to your kids about activities.

PErhaps you need to confess sin, or need to talk to a coach or counselor about a hindered heart you inherited from your parents - okay do that.

Beacuse frineds - Christ is calling us to run with him and after him on this great race - but its a marathon - and we are gonna need to strip off every extra weight so we can run well.

Thanks for tuning in with me this morning - I pray that God would speak to you today as you stay warm.

We have community groups starting soon - sign up next week! Next week we will be studying the pratice of fasting - excited to go over it with you.

Let me pray

Blessings