Fish out of Water

Afternoon Stirring Family, at home and here. I hope this day has been a good one for you. I am happy to join you all tonight with great music, community, and art. And if I am not mistaken, we have that for the kids as well over in Hope 4 Kids. So Stirring Kids, you are dismissed to enjoy your own community and lessons. Have fun!

Alright, well, we are finishing up series called “Shallow End of the Pool.” The first week Eli highlighted the importance of a devotion to scripture as being the key to navigating the deep end of the pool of faith. Last week he unpacked moving to the end of the pool in our faith is more of a process than a moment. God calls all believers into movement toward maturity. In this he looked at the things that hinder us and the things that we should be moving toward. Both sermons were solid at giving us perspective on moving to the deeper end of the pool of our faith, so go back on any of our media platforms to check those out.

One of the things that I think we cannot remember enough,which is stated in the first two messages, is that God does call us into the deeper waters of faith but we truly are so comfortable in that shallow end. I mean, if I am floating on a raft, I know someone is going to try and flip me. I would much rather float in the shallow end where I can touch the ground. At least then I might still keep my hair dry.

But God doesn’t just want a relationship with just half of us does he. No he wants us completely, from our heads to our toes and from our core to our skin, from ever single cell to our soul. But like Eli said, it’s a process right, so tonight I wanted to look at three stages we find ourselves in. There could be more, but I think we can find ourselves in one of these three stages in this process of maturity in our faith as we head to the deep end. 1. Called out! 2. Called on. 3. Created for. We might move from one stage to the next and back from time to time, but it has been true for me that I can usually find myself in my faith in one of these three stages.

ILLUSTRATION:

I feel cruel even bringing this up, but remember that weather we had like a week ago where it was still nice and warm and we could still actually swim in a pool? Well let’s think back to then, and there is a beloved pool game called Marco Polo, right. I assume you all know the game but just in case, it’s like tag but in the pool.

The person who is it has their eyes closed and they yell Marco, and everyone else in response is to yell Polo. The tagger is trying to find the others only by following their voices. Well I have always played with this variant, that if the tagger was getting close to you, you could always get out of the pool and run to a different part of the pool. But if the tagger yelled what? Do you know? That’s right “fish out of water” then you were it.

“Fish out of water”, you were supposed to be in the water, but you are out and you are not where you belong, and you got caught. Right? You see, God calls us out wherever we are in life. When he pulls on our heart, we usually fight the urge to believe that we are not good enough.

That’s the reason why this first stage is called .. Called out: “I’m not good enough”

But I hope tonight that we all hear, that if we are in this stage that our “not good enough” is enough for Christ to work with. The scriptures are filled with God showing us he has a soft spot for calling out people that are not good enough and doing something amazing with them.

Let’s look at two of Jesus’ primary disciples, arguably two of the most influential, Peter and John.

In Acts 4:13 it says,

The Jewish leaders understood that Peter and John had no special training or education. But they also saw that they were not afraid to speak. So, the leaders were amazed. They also realized that Peter and John had been with Jesus.

Here we have Peter and John only a few months, if that, after Jesus had been crucified and resurrected. They are sharing this truth of Jesus’ life, love and miracles with people in the Jewish communities and these Jewish leaders find out, arrested them, and essentially are calling “fish out of water.” They believe they are spreading false truths, yet Peter tells them the same thing he told the 5000 people before. This Jesus man is real, he died under mankind’s cruelty and even sin, and is the only way for us to be right by God. “fish out of water (point and shake hand)” some would even say they were not educated enough to even speak this.

Just think, roughly three years before then they were both casting nets over their boats asking each other what they were going to eat for lunch. “Whachya eaten?” Fish... yeah me too. Yet here comes the son of the creator, this radically different teacher, Jesus and says hey guys I think you would be great students for me, come follow me. You don’t think in that three year internship, they didn’t think, we are not good enough to do this. What do we know, we are just fishermen.

If you are in this first stage, maybe even in the shallow end of the pool. God is tugging at your heart, telling us to get back in the water. Yet we fight it. We are not good enough. Who am I that God would call me, I'm just... a liar, a cheat, a sinner. Im just a fish out of water, I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in a church. I don’t belong being loved by God. I don’t belong telling his story.

But the beauty of it is, that is exactly where God calls us out. Because when he calls a fool like me to do something for him, and it succeeds. I hope people will say, that man ain’t got no sense, but I can tell he has been with Jesus. Remember, Your “not good enough” is enough for God to do something with. He is the God who made creation out of nothing, He is the God that raises life out of death, and he is a God who takes great joy making something out of your “not good enough”

If you are in this stage, the next time you think “I am not good enough” and follow it up with “I will never be good enough”. Try this. When you say “I am not good enough” next time, next time follow it up with and that is enough for God to do something with.

So then what, okay now that I know God can love me and can use me what now. I still really like it in the shallow it. Well tag your it... God called you out, you responded with here I am. Now it’s your turn to be it.

You have been Called on: find something you can say “I can do that” with. In other words, take the easy first step.

I have this quick video that I think usually portrays those of us in this stage. Check this out.

VIDEO

Hahah. You like that. Here we are we get in the water, and are so afraid we are going to drown that we hold our ground and never find out that we can stand up.

Start small. Some people have the ability to do a cannon ball into what God is doing. I admire them, adore them even, but I can be a little more timid. I am a planner, it’s safer, or at least I think it is.

It’s like when my son was learning to swim. I picked him up and threw him in, and he learned to sink or swim. That was that. NO! Are you crazy. Maybe some of you are, but like I said I am slow.

We let him sit on the stairs and kick his feet around first. We then let him eventually hold our hands as he walked down the stairs. Then we held him as we walked into the deeper water with him. And so on... With every new step we were there with him. So is it with God! God shows us what we can do, and we start there.

That first step toward the deep end, toward maturity in the faith is simply getting involved the easiest way you know how, baby steps. I am so fascinated with the moment in acts when deacons or servants of the church were first founded. It’s in Acts 6:2-4.

The disciples were sharing the story of Christ everywhere they went, but there came a moment that some of the gentile widows were not getting their food that the church was helping them with, yet the Jewish widows were getting theirs. So we had a delima and it was brought to the disciples’ attention. And this is what happened.

And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

Out of the seven that were chosen, two stick out to me prominently, Stephen and Phillip. Could you imagine being in this situation? Your whole community is picking seven men from among you for something, but you may or may not know what it is. They come to you and say will you be one of the seven. Sounds pretty big deal right? “One of the Seven...” Well, that depends on what do you need me to do? We need you to serve bread to the widows.

I know Stephen and Phillip were more devout than this but I can‘t help but picture them thinking... “Psh! I can do that!” I was worried it was going to be something harder. Nope, it’s just really important to us to care for one another. Can we trust you to do this. Yeah, I can do that.

But what is so astonishing about this situation is that it started with just serving bread or food. But the next two chapters focused on where it led them from there.

Stephen gets arrested for defending the faith and is martyred for it, even at the feet of Paul before God got ahold of him.

Phillip, traveled away from home and shared the story of Christ with them, and even shared Jesus with a traveling Ethiopian that is believed to have been one of the first to take the faith to Ethiopia because of him. But it all started with serving food.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have waited tables in my days, and if you wait tables God bless you. So serving food isn’t all that simple, however, it was simple enough for Stephen and Phillip.

What is your “I can do that”, you may have been sitting in this stage where God is calling on you to take the next easy step. There are plenty of places to take that first step, there is Stirring Kids, there is art and events, there is greeting and welcoming, and that is just the Stirring. You can contact Amanda Asbell to see where your “easy step” is.

Hope is one of the most amazing places to get connected, and I am not just saying that because I am biased. It is one of the few churches I know that people start coming, because they first served. You see, God does something in you when you serve. He begins to prove to you that you can be used, and he wants to use you.

The beautiful thing is, you just keep taking the next easy step and before you know it you are engulfed in God’s work, and you have moved from Called on to Created for. You eventually become addicted to God using you that you just can’t get enough of him, you feel like you may be even made for it. You see Stephen and Phillip were only called on to deliver food, but they couldn’t help to do more for God.

So the last stage is Created for: “What else can I do?”

Spiritual growth is us moving from “I’m not good enough” to “I was created for this.”

There is a funny thing about someone who realizes that God is using them, they just can’t stop. In the same way when my son started swimming, now he is in tears to pull him out. He wants to find out more that he can do in the deep end. Diving in, spinning, Diving down to the bottom, etc...

I once had the chance to go to a beautiful tropical beach. Talk about going to the deep end, this wasn’t man made, there is a lot more scary things out there. It’s a whole new level of unknown. But when we think about the depth of God, we need to see there is so much more of him that we cannot even fathom.

Well at this beach, I got the chance to snorkel. I was born in Florida so I'm okay in the water, but that didn’t change that when you are underwater with creatures you are not familiar with, it gets freaky real quick.

So I proceed to test the water, okay. A little cold, but its clear so I test the snorkel. All I see is sand, but then I look into the depths and it drops... So I go to the edge and look over. Yall, I kid you not. It was like straight out of a national geographic magazine, the colors were vibrant the fish exploded everywhere, coral of every color spectrum, aquarium fish shooting every which way. It was brilliant. I couldn’t get enough of it. Then I realized I needed air. I came up to breath, shared my enthusiasm and then went back down. I had forgotten any fear, but was overwhelmed with what laid under our noses the whole time, just a little deeper in the water.

There comes a time in most believers lives where they take a peak further into the arms of Christ, and they get lost and never want to look back. It was there the whole time, just a little further in their pursuit.

Consider what the psalmist wrote in Psalm 73,

God—you’re my God! I can’t get enough of you! I’ve worked up such hunger and thirst for God, traveling across dry and weary deserts.

So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open, drinking in your strength and glory. In your generous love I am really living at last! My lips brim praises like fountains. I bless you every time I take a breath; My arms wave like banners of praise to you.

Spiritual growth is us moving from “I’m not good enough” to “I was created for this.”

Eventually as we mature in this faith, as we venture deeper into God’s love for us we begin to see that God can use our “not good enough”, and even more so, as we look back we realize that he created us for this... We find where his great love meets our greatest gifts and we can’t help but continue to serve him in all that we do.

It is then in Eph. 2:10 where it really bares weight in our lives.

God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would do good works. God had planned in advance those good works for us. He had planned for us to live our lives doing them.

Did you hear that? God made us what we are. In advance , he knew what good we would be used for.

I was in my yard the other day and my daughter came running up to me with her hands all covered in mud. Immediately, I am like where in the world have you been. So I go looking and I see where she had taken one of my screwdrivers and started stabbing the ground to dig up the dirt.

Now she did some pretty good damage with the screwdriver, but imagine what she could have accomplished if she took what was designed to dig, a shovel and did the same thing. Even more so, what would that little hole look like in the hands of a skilled and able workman.

You see our lives in our own hands, doing what we think is best is like that screwdriver in my daughter’s hands digging the dirt. Sure it’s doing something, but it’s a fish out of water, it’s not good enough. But our lives in God’s hands, doing what he has created us for is a spade in a skilled laborers hands making the earth move.

Even more so, a tool on the shelf can accomplish nothing unless it is in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. This is the heart of that Ephesians verse. God made us to be instruments for his purpose, love and glory. He is the skilled maker and laborer who knows how to use you. And when we are in his hands, we are held in awe of who he is and we can’t wait to be used again in all that we do.

In this third stage we realize that we were created by God for a purpose. This is true for all of us, but we might still just be in the shallow end, or clinging to the rope not ready to put our feet down and stand up. But I am here to tell you when you see the riches of the depth of God’s desire for you and others there is no fear in what you do because you are enamored with the next beautiful thing he shows you.

If you are in this stage, you have the beautiful opportunity to tell others how the water is. Much like my joy and excitement of seeing the coral reefs and the treasures beneath, you call out to those in the shallow end and lead them to what you have found.

Let’s try this... Marco (wait for it) POLO! If you are in swimming in the deep end of your faith with God, share it with someone new this week. If you are being called on to take the first step of being used by God, remember just put your feet down, God will not let you go.

God is calling us all to swim in his love, so if you are feeling like a fish out of water, remember God sent Christ so that he can use our “not good enough.”

So jump in, the water is great!

Let’s pray...

Thank Artist....

BENEDICTION

“And now may Jesus himself and God the father, who reach down in love and surprised us with gifts of hope and grace, may he comfort your hearts, stir a kind and good work, and inspire your speech this week and forever.”

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