1. UNSTUCK

UnStuck

POINT: Throughout our Journey of Life Culture leads us to fit and maintain the status Quo.

I am so grateful to Pastor Jeff for this opportunity to walk with you through our next series…

… the truth is it’s pretty tough to get a barometer on where people are in this season…

… There are so many things going on all around us that have pushed us all into

unfamiliar territory and in unfamiliar territory we ALL respond different…

… But if I had to venture a guess… I would say one thing we all have in common is we are just worn out…

… Worn out with hearing about, talking about, leading around, and some of us even

experiencing COVID…

… Worn out from all the political mess… The grandstanding… lying… and backbiting…

… Worn out watching our nation turn against itself and instead of pulling together and striving

for unity… drawing even deeper lines of division and hostility…

NOW before we get too far, I want to take a minute for a quick side note…

#1… Thank you for using wisdom and staying home if you are feeling sick or you are in someway compromised… I’m not gonna lie… We truly do miss seeing your face, but we are grateful that you are taking measures to care for yourself and protect your church family…

#2… Go out and vote this Tuesday… EXPOUND

… God’s plan has never been for us to stick our heads in the sand…

… His plan is that we seek Holy Spirit wisdom and allow our Biblical and moral

convictions to be what determines which candidates we give our support to.

And remember no matter what happens this Tuesday… no matter who is declared to be our local… state or national leaders… your Heavenly Father is still on His Throne!

… And although we were never promised that this life would be easy…

… We were never promised that our American rights would be protected…

… We were definitely never promised that our Religious convictions would be honored…

… What God’s Word has promised very clearly is that He will never leave us… that as

we put our trust completely in His capable hands… He will never fail us…

Think about it this way… “If politics was how God had planned to bring hope to the world… you can bet that Jesus would have been born in the king’s palace… a political influencer…

… But God’s plan was never a political plan… It was a relational plan…

But as we launch into our new series this morning I want to ask you all to close your eyes…

… Think of a time long long ago… in a galaxy far far away…

… all the way back to when you were a kid…

… Now we understand that for some of you this is gonna take a little longer to get that

far back… but How many of you can still remember what it was you wanted to be

when you grew up?

- Turn and tell your neighbor.

- How many professional athletes?

- How many firefighters? - Supermodels? (Rich Pinkerton) - How many rock stars?

Aggghh… Don’t you remember what it was like to dare to dream?

… That belief of just how amazing your life was going to be…

ME

But then somewhere along the way we were all introduced to this little thing called Middle School…

… A volatile and ugly place… Full of miniature humans… all jockeying for position in the social

hierarchy…

… A relentless proving ground that has but one Motto, “If you want to survive… then you

better fit in!”

And then Middle School leads to High School and High School leads to Adulting… and along the way we get knocked down a time or two… experience a few heartbreaks and disappointments…

… And slowly and systematically it seems that life erodes away at our dreams…

… introducing us to words like “can’t”, “impossible”, “too big”, “unrealistic”

- AND FINALLY, we catch back up with our current reality… only to discover that our lives have turned out very different from our dreams…

… And maybe for you it was after you said... “I do” or... “We're going to have a what?” or “Tuition costs how much?” … but one day you wake up and it’s like you swallowed the red pill instead of the blue and all of the sudden you realize that your life of limitless possibilities… has somehow turned

out nothing like you dreamed… and instead it pretty looks like the lives of everyone else around you.…

And you ask yourself… “How in the World did I get here?” When did I trade my dreams and ambitions and uniqueness to be just another number?...”

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- I mean let’s be real… How many of you when you were planning your future said...

“When I grow up, I want to drive a sensible crossover that gets good gas mileage and has

plenty of room for my 2.3 kids and all their friends?”

For that matter how many of us when making our 2020 resolutions thought… “I’m determined this year to isolate myself from all the people I love and all the activities that I enjoy, and wear a facemask any time I am around anyone!”?

- And again it’s one of those surreal moments in life when you get a before and after shot… BEFORE: I had dreams and plans and goals... I was unique… I was going to conquer the world

I was committed to making 2020 my best year yet…

AFTER: All I am is just another employee… another social security number… another random

masked face following orders from someone above me… another person whose schedule is dictated by the needs of everyone else…

- And suddenly it feels like your life is closing in around you like a strait jacket or more like a noose and you just feel STUCK.

- And honestly it shakes you up a little bit… and you start asking yourself questions like...

… “When did I trade my sportscar dreams for this minivan reality?”

… “When did I abandon who I wanted to be in order to become just like everyone else?”

… “What’s it going to take for me to finally see my dreams fulfilled?...

- And inevitably the more time you spend pondering these questions… the more STUCK you feel… The more desperate you become to find a way to get UNSTUCK…

… and the truth is we have a pattern being modeled for us every single day of how to get UnStuck…

We have to RUN AWAY!

- “If I don’t run away... I’ll be stuck in this dead-end job forever...

- “If I don’t run away... I’ll never have the kind of marriage I’ve always dreamed of…

- “If I don’t run away... nothing is ever going to change, and I will be stuck here forever…”

- And we tell ourselves… “I know when I run its going to break some hearts... it’s going to destroy some relationships… it’s going to put my coworkers in a bad spot... it’s going to leave a trail of bad debts... but If I’m ever going to get UnStuck and find myself again… I have to go now.”

- So, you start looking for excuses to not be home… not spend time with your family.

- You start to look for that new career opportunity… that next big thing...

- You start searching out that crowd that makes you feel alive and desirable again.

- You start to give a lot more thought to some of those old relationships that seemed so much more passionate than what you have with your spouse…

And the desperation you feel being STUCK in this life you’ve grown to resent… sends you down the path toward RUNNING AWAY!

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WE

- Now as uncomfortable as it makes you to hear me say these things… if you were gonna be honest with yourself, you would all have to admit that you’ve felt this exact way at some point in your life…

… but some of you are especially uneasy because this is right where you are this morning…

… STUCK in a place where you’re having to choose every day… “Will I stay or will I run?”

- And you may have even tried running a time or two… but the mind-numbing truth you’ve learned about running away is……………

- No matter what town you lived in… what relationship you were in… what unsatisfying job

you were working… every time you ran away life didn’t get better… it only got more

complicated.

… because the one common denominator in every situation that has ever frustrated you

in life is… YOU!

- BUT even knowing this… your dissatisfaction with how things are… that choking feeling of being STUCK is tempting you to RUN again.

GOD

- But… Can I tell you something this morning that you may have never heard before? …

- Your Heavenly Father… COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDS the way you’re feeling…

… He knows how frustrated you are…

… He knows how STUCK you feel…

… He knows how tempted you are to just cut bait and run… or run again…

… BUT His question for you today is, “What if there was another way…?”

… “What if there was a way for you to get UnStuck that didn’t involve breaking the hearts of

the people you love, that didn’t leave destruction and eventually regret in your wake?...

… WOULD YOU TAKE IT?”

- This morning I want to introduce you to a scripture that will be our THEME verse over the next few weeks…

… You will see this verse over and over again… and I want to encourage you to memorize it…

… Because in His wisdom God knew that at one time or another… in some area of our lives…

that every one of us would eventually come to a place in our lives where we felt STUCK…

… Trapped in a season of isolation… maybe an unfulfilling job… or a lack luster

marriage… and in that place He knew we would be tempted to RUN…

So, in His wisdom he offers us, in Romans chapter 12, another way for getting UnStuck…

… but I have to warn you...

… it doesn’t involve reinstituting your wants or needs or ambitions as your highest

priority…

… it doesn’t involve abandoning what you have… or who you have…

… it doesn’t involve Running Away…

Slide

Romans 12:2 says it like this…………...NLT

“Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world,...”

The apostle Paul is saying “Listen I get it… you feel trapped and like you’ve lost your individuality… but think about it… you can’t escape BEING like everyone else by DOING what everyone else does…

… Don’t follow the example of everyone around you who just run away...

Slide

“… but (INSTEAD) let God transform you into a new person…”

You’ve seen it a hundred times… the worlds answer to getting UnStuck is messed up…

… So Paul is saying… “Why not invite God into the equation…

… Quit just telling Him all the things you want Him to do that will meet your needs… your wants… your desires and instead let Him fulfill the promise He made to you about giving you a transformed life… by making you a NEW PERSON…

Slide

And how is He going to do that?... Paul says…

“...by changing the way you think.”

- Now before you tune me out and put on your pouty face saying… “I knew you were going to try and make me the problem Pastor Roger!” let me just state 2 facts that I’m pretty certain we can all agree on…

#1 What you believe will always impact what you do...

#2 What you do will ultimately determine the outcome of your life…

- In other words, the decisions you make or don’t make will determine your future...

- You have the job you have today b/c you chose to take that job.

- You are married to the person you are married to b/c you chose to say “Yes” to them. - Your finances are in the shape they are in b/c you chose to save and now you have extra or

you chose to spend and you have none.

- But for better or for worse your life is the direct result of your decisions.

This is probably not ne information for any of us… but what may be a little less obvious is that

Slide

- behind every decision that you make is a belief system or a way of thinking that drives you to make that decision.

- So what Paul is trying to tell us in Romans 12 is… “You cannot change the outcome of your life simply by changing your decisions… The outcome of your life will only change when you allow your Heavenly Father to give you a new way of thinking… and THEN this new way of thinking will impact your decisions and ONLY THEN will your outcomes be any different.”

-B/c SAME thinking will lead to SAME decisions and SAME decisions will lead to SAME

outcomes.

- This is why 2nd marriages have over a 60% divorce rate.

Because so many times one or more of the people believe that the problem in their first

marriage was their spouse, but again they’re forgetting that the only common denominator in

both marriages is THEM.

- SO here they are 2 or 3 marriages into it and still wondering “How do I always find the losers?”

- Maybe you’re on your 3rd or 4th job in 2 years and you’re wondering again… “How do I keep choosing jobs that my boss is such an incompetent idiot?…”

… “Why does every church I go to the Pastor ends up singling me out and preaching at me…”

- Paul is saying …. “Hold on for a second… what if the problem isn’t your boss or your Pastor or your wife, or your husband… what if the real problem is your way of thinking.”

- Now I know that there are people in this room who aren’t ready to hear this message.

- And you are likely sitting there thinking… “Well I don’t care what you say Pastor Roger… I’m

not the problem…they’re the one with the problem.”

… and you refuse to believe that there may be something that you need to change.

… And that’s okay…

- But for the rest of us… those of us who aren’t afraid to be a little uncomfortable… we’re going to spend the next few weeks investigating this BOLD claim that the Apostle Paul makes on God’s behalf…

This claim that God has a strategy for helping us get UnStuck that starts and ends with HIM transforming us by giving us a NEW WAY OF THINKING…

Paul’s claim that God’s never intended for us to live our lives STUCK in dissatisfaction… in fact… God wants us to have a spectacular life.

- BUT this doesn’t just happen by deciding to make different decisions… it requires each of us

to go through the messy, process of allowing God to change the way we think.

- And renovations are always messy…

- You have to go in and take out all the bad stuff… the rotting floor, the damaged drywall, the 1960’s fixtures… the way that you have been taught to think about life and marriage, and jobs, and finances and sex, and morality...

- BUT then God brings in the new stuff.

And throughout this messy process you begin to see things the way God sees them and you begin to think the way that God thinks.

Then on the other side of all that messy work the entire direction of your life can changes…

… Because when you learn to think different… suddenly you begin to decide different… And

when you decide different ultimately the outcomes of your life will be different.

WE

- I mean can you Imagine what would happen in our lives and in our community if we would allow God to renovate our way of thinking?

- If we would start to see our marriage through God’s filter not societies

- If we would start to see our purpose in life through God’s filter

- If we would start to see our role as Jesus Followers in this ridiculous season of life through

God’s filter

- What if allowing ourselves o get frustrated and depressed… instead of just running wawy from our responsibilities… we would take a TOTALLY DIFFERENT PATH… toward being fulfilled and feeling totally alive again…

What if we would have the courage to invite God in to renovate our way of thinking…

BOW HEADS