God Isn't Finished With Us Yet |01.19.25|Your Best Yes pt.3
When I was in college in Southern California, I would often make a road trip to visit my grandparents who were living in Phoenix, Arizona. Now these are the same grandparents who actually grew up in the South side of Chicago, raised a family in Aurora. And then once their kids were grown and out of the house, my grandparents decided they had had enough of winter and they uprooted and migrated and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. And let me tell you this morning, I know what they were talking about. When that wind hit me when I got out of the car this morning, but I was in California and it was only five or six hours away and so a couple of times a year, I would try and go visit my grandparents.(...) And one time I thought that it would be a smart idea.(...) If I left at midnight and drove through the night so that I could arrive at my grandparents house in time for breakfast, how wonderful would that be? I would skip the heat of the desert. I would get there, I was young, why not? Now, if this wasn't a foolhardy idea enough as it was,
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it was made worse by the night before I stayed up late with some friends. And so I was pretty tired and I decided, I'm still gonna do it, I can do it. And so you all know the move when you have a late night road trip. I had the energy drink in one hand, I had the music blaring super loud to keep me awake. And at one point I even put down both windows so that the cold wind on my face kept me alert. And it was going well, I was about four hours in, the signs were telling me, Phoenix, a hundred miles away, Phoenix, 80 miles away. The sun was starting to rise up and over the horizon there and I was getting excited to be able to see my grandparents soon. The only problem was there's something wrong with my car(...) because there's some noise,(...) low grumble noise, a whirring noise, growing and growing and getting louder, slowly.
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And next thing I knew, I snapped awake and it wasn't a low growly noise, the speed bump thing on the rumble strips on the side of the road there that woke me up because I had started drifting off and I swerved back into the middle of the highway, I go, whoa, and now I had all that adrenaline. So I was awake again, I was ready to go and I kept driving and it happened a second time.(...) And so I realized that even though I started that trip without the smartest plan, I need to make sure that I survive this trip and make it to the end. So I pulled off at the side of the road, there's some business there and the sun was barely even up and I said, I need to take a nap for like an hour or more.(...) And when I woke up, I was so disoriented because I had had the craziest dream of something and I woke up and I wasn't in my bed,(...) I wasn't in my dorm room, I was in my car. How did I get in my car? When did I get in my car? Oh yeah, I'm visiting Grandma and Grandpa. Where am I? What time is it? Where is the highway? Is there a restroom nearby? I was so disoriented and if I had just started driving, getting on the road and started driving in that moment,(...) chances were high that I would head in the wrong direction.(...) I needed to slow down and figure out,
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one, where's the highway and two, what direction did I just come from?
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So that I can make sure to keep heading in the correct direction instead of going back the way that I come from.(...) And those you know that it's true that sometimes in our life it is good to stop and take stock on where we've come from.
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So we can be sure that we're still headed in the right direction.
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And it's good to pause and look back and think back to where we've come from. And actually today in the life of our church, this is a very big momentous day. We're celebrating 15 years of New Life Lutheran Church, God's worth through our church this weekend. On Tuesdays, the actual anniversary of our church starting. And that is a good momentous reason to look back,
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see what God has done.
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But we look back not for the looking back sake.
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We look back not to go back there.(...) We look back in order to be propelled forward in faith with where God is taking us.
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And so today we're going to be sharing some stories of God's faithfulness. Because if you're new to our church,(...) I hope today actually has a lot for you as well to build your faith, to help you look back on God's faithfulness in your story as well. Because if you've heard any of the stories from the beginning of our church, you just know that God has been faithful. And I wanna tell some of the stories of what God has done in the last 15 years here at New Life. But I wasn't there for many of them. I've only been here at the church for two and a half years. And so I asked for some help from some familiar faces to recount some of these stories. So let's have them say hello on the screen. Hi, I'm Bill Sullivan. Hi, my name is Mitch Sade. Hi, I'm Pastor Phil. Hi everyone, my name is Ben Anderson. Hey everyone, I'm Eric Anderson. And I served as the head pastor at New Life from July of 2010 until the end of August of 2018.(...) And I was the director of youth ministries at New Life from 2012 until 2017.(...) And then since 2017, I've been serving in Southeast Asia as a missionary sent from New Life. I was here at New Life from the very beginning in 2010. I helped lead the worship services until Pastor Bill came. And I've been teaching pastor most of that time and I'm still doing that here. And I got the privilege of serving as the connections pastor first, then a co-lead pastor position into a lead pastor position for six years from 2016 to 2022. I was the discipleship pastor at New Life from 2018 to 2024.
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Now we're gonna hear more from them later on, but I just wanna focus today on why it's important for us to look back and celebrate from time to time, because it's not for the reason that you might think. So open your Bibles with me to the book of Joshua 4. And if you're using the Black Seatback Bible in front of you, it's in page 151 in the Old Testament. And as you're finding it, this passage in Joshua 4, it finds the people of God, the people of Israel, after they've been rescued out of Egypt,
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after they've wandered around the desert for 40 years. And so Moses, the great leader who God had worked through to rescue the people out of Egypt, Moses has passed away and now there's a new leader, Joshua, and he has taken the responsibility to lead God's people into the promised land. And so they get to the Jordan River, it's the last border before they cross into the promised land and God performs a miracle. He creates a path through the river on dry ground, just like the stories that they had all heard from the generation that came out of Egypt. And that's where we pick up together in Joshua 4, let's read starting in verse one. When the entire nation had finished crossing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, select 12 men from the people, one from each tribe and command them, take 12 stones from here out of the middle of the Jordan from the place where the priest's feet stood, carry them over with you and lay them down in the place where you camp tonight.
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Then Joshua summoned the 12 men from the Israelites, whom he had appointed.(...) One from each tribe. Joshua said to them, pass on before the ark of the Lord, your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, so that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, what do those stones mean to you? Then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenants of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the Israelites, a memorial forever. Now skip down with me to verse 19 and we'll keep going. "The people came up out of the Jordan on the 10th day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. Those 12 stones, which they had taken out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal, saying to the Israelites, when your children ask their parents in time to come, what do these stones mean? Then you shall let your children know, Israel crossed over the Jordan here on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we crossed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, and so that you may fear the Lord your God forever."(...) This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. I want us to go through this passage a little bit together because it starts by recounting the whole nation of Israel has just crossed over the Jordan on dry land. And the Lord tells Joshua to commemorate the moment by having 12 guys, one from each tribe of Israel, have each of them grab a stone from the middle of where the riverbed was.
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Now, these guys were probably important.
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They were probably respected in the community. They were probably leaders for each of the tribes. There's a reason why those guys were chosen to represent their tribe, their part of the people of God. But I just want us to notice in our passage,
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they are not named.
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Apparently for the history books, for the sake of what God wanted everyone to know and remember about this moment,(...) those guys, the task that they completed, that wasn't the most important thing to remember.
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But the stones,(...) which were probably huge, right, because the guys had to carry them on their shoulders, the stones were the things that were meant to be noticed. And they intentionally grabbed large stones so that they would stand out as a sign. They intentionally chose large stones so that the next generation would see them and ask about them. They were meant to be conversation starters so that they could tell the story of what God had done for the people.(...) Now, the stones weren't the point, but the stones were to point to what God had done.(...) And this is supposed to be a memorial forever(...) in order to teach the new generations about God's work.
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And I'm assuming that the implication is that the people were supposed to return to where the stones were somewhat regularly so that the kids could see them and know to ask,
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what are these stones all about? Because it tells us when your children ask you, and it's the questioning that actually enables the parents to be able to tell the stories of how God provided for them, protected them. And I love how our passage ends there at the end of verse 24, to be able to tell the next generation so that all the people of the earth may know,
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all the peoples of the earth,
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so that the work of God in their history,
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the work of God in the story of Israel,
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wasn't just for them.
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The work of God in your life isn't just for you,(...) but it's so that all peoples may know. Because the ways that God has worked in your life,(...) probably important to you, probably important to your family and the people that you love,(...) but anytime the Lord works, anytime the Lord moves,(...) we're supposed to share that story with others so that they may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty.(...) Because our stories show how powerful God is. And it's also for another reason, it's so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.
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Because when we remember how God has moved in our lives,
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how he's moved in the lives of others,
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we get to see just what kind of good father he is. It builds faith in us so that we can follow him and obey him forever.
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And so that's why we're taking some intentionality today, some extra intentionality to look back and celebrate because we want to point to God's work.
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Now, we definitely don't have enough time for me to recount every story of how God has been faithful in our church in the last 15 years. And so I want to just highlight a few(...) with some insights from, oh, sorry, before we get there, I wanna highlight a few stories and we're gonna get some insights from our guests. But we're hearing these stories to then ask ourselves how this spurs us forward,
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how it spurs us forward with faith to continue following God where he's leading us. And so to go back to the beginning of our church, we need to talk about how everything started with two churches, two different churches, one in Stirling and one in Rock Falls.(...) Now, both churches were going through a very hard decision about whether or not to stay connected to the regional association that they were members of or to split off.
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And this was because there was concerns about that the Bible was being twisted to change its meaning. It felt like the regional association was trying to push down decisions and force changes that would change the local churches. And they felt that didn't line up with God's word.(...) And so these people in both of these churches wanted very much to make sure that the word of God was respected and honored as authoritative, not seen as something that can be changed by people.
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And unfortunately, human politics got in the way.(...) And all of a sudden there was this group of people who felt like they were no longer at home in their own church.
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They had been there for five generations, some of them. Their families had helped build that church. They had grown up there, got married there, raised families there, said goodbye to loved ones there. But things had changed to where they didn't feel welcome anymore based on their own beliefs. And they had to make a difficult decision to leave.
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Now some had family who were choosing to stay, to try and better the church from within.(...) And it was also a noble effort. But that made the decision to leave even harder for some, even more difficult for some.(...) But then a group of them met together. Later that week, one evening, trying to figure out, what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to join another church? Are they supposed to start a church? What does God want us to do?
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And it was at that moment, as the legend says, that Joyce Devers stood up in the group and said, well, I've rented the Coliseum for this Sunday already in Sterling so that we don't have to miss a week of church.
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And that seemed to settle it. They were able to gather that first Sunday together, January 21st, back in 2010.
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And that's the first stone of remembrance that I want to highlight for us from the last 15 years. I'm gonna call that stone,(...) why not me?
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Because oftentimes we'll be in a group setting and we'll hear someone saying like, oh, someone should do something about, someone really ought to,(...) and then they talk about whatever context that someone ought to do. And yet it's really the type of people that God works through are the type of people that say, why not me?
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Someone really ought to,
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and the answer with why not us? And lean in and say yes to what God has invited them to. And so the decision was made to meet together for worship that Sunday. It was a group of exiles who felt that they had left what was comfortable and known
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to follow God into a journey of trusting him into the unknown, all while holding tightly to the word of God and holding tightly to some of the essential practices at the core of our faith. Pastor Phil actually articulates well what some of these core things are since the beginning. Let's listen to him. We have formed three basic things out of the catechism, baptism. We either dunk them in a big tank or you're at the fountain. But baptism is not some decision we make. Baptism is Jesus choosing us. Second is holy communion. The body and blood of Christ. I look forward to coming here to receive communion. And I think it was Pastor Mann that instituted holy communion every Sunday, every service. And I really do appreciate it. That's very Lutheran, I think, biblical. And the third is confession forgiveness. We do that every Sunday in every service. It's not enough to say to somebody who's struggling with sin, well, Jesus loves you.
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You've got to hear a direct message. Jesus told me to tell you your sins are forgiven.(...) You are forgiven.(...) That message is so needed and it's so powerful.
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A few short weeks later,(...) the second church that had been here in Sterling had made the same decision. And another group of exiles came together with that first group to join on the journey. And that's when we find our first major challenge in the history of the church. You would have thought that leaving your church that you had been in your whole life was difficult and it was, and you would have thought that trying to find a new place to worship would have been difficult. And it was, but now we've added a whole new ingredient to the stew because now you've got two different groups from two different churches, from opposite sides of the river now coming together. And what are they supposed to do? Become one, become united, worship God together. How is that going to work?(...) Here's how Pastor Bill describes it. That can be a challenging time. And to bring people together that have distinctly different experiences in the way their congregations function and a number of different things and to bring them together into one group of people that were only in the same direction was really a wonderful thing to see. And when the folks from the congregation at Emmanuel in Rock Falls who started the congregation
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had folks from St. Paul's in Sterling join them after a few months, it was just really fun to watch God
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bring people together and to work for a common goal of really reaching the Sauk Valley with the good news of the gospel.
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That's the second stone of remembrance that I want to point out for us today, belonging.
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Since the beginning, new life has been a family that you can belong to. Whether you can trace five generations back or whether you just moved into the area, new life is a family that you can belong here. You can belong here with us. Whether you grew up singing songs in church or whether you got saved by God just a few months ago,
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you can belong here or you can grow with us because new life is a family that welcomes, exiles, outsiders, invites all to find belonging. But that's not an overnight process, right? That's not an easy process. It takes intentional effort to know people, to become known. It takes intentional effort to build trust so that you can feel supported and cared for here.(...) But if you stick with it, if you lean in and get involved,(...) you're gonna realize that your best friends are right here in this room, whether you have met them yet or not.
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And that isn't just the case for members of our congregation, but feeling cared for and supported is something that new life has provided for their pastors as well.
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I want us to hear a little story from Pastor Ben.
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Yeah, one of the challenges that I saw as a pastor at New Life was the fact that we only had second, third, and fourth place trophies in the trophy cabinet. And so we worked really hard to get those first place trophies, but no, for real. For Siri, to be serious, probably one of the hardest things that I dealt with personally was something that I saw God use despite the devastating nature of is that my wife and I, as many of you know, we lost a child to pregnancy complications during my time there,(...) and his name was Corbin. And Corbin means gift to God. And so we thought about this and prayed about it. It was like, do we wanna tell people about this? How do we wanna use this? And so we actually not only told people about it, but we used his story as a big part of one of our sermon series, and it had so many people were impacted by that. So in the midst of tragedy, God still used that as a net positive for his kingdom and really opened up a lot of people to conversations about their own loss in their own life and how God has used those things as well.
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Now, Ben and Ashley could have chosen to keep that hurt close and hidden. They could have tried to carry it alone,(...) but the support of their church family, the love and care that they had received already, it gave them the courage to share their story, to share their struggles. And God worked through that to help even more people(...) because God wants to work through you.
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God wants to work through your story.(...) He doesn't just wanna partner with you on your strong days. God wants to partner with you on your weekdays. God wants to work through your sad days. God wants to work through your apathetic days. God wants to work through the days where you don't feel like you have enough. He wants to work through you to accomplish his mission of redemptive love.
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And that's another thing that we've gotten to see in the history of new life. That's another stone of remembrance(...) is people who say yes to God's invitation, even when it means a big change in their life. If you don't know Mitch Sade, he came to us in 2012 as a youth director, helping to train and care for the teens, help them grow in their faith. But after a short term mission trip to Vietnam, he heard God's call to global missions. And while he was excited about the possibility, he also didn't like the idea of leaving behind the church family that he loved so much. Let's listen to him describe it. I kind of had the, oh no, what am I getting into? Why am I leaving new life? Like I love being here. This is my church, this is my family. This is, I'm here, you know, both services every Sunday and every Wednesday and all the time and have such great relationships. And so, you know, I wasn't looking to leave. I wasn't looking forward to leaving,
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but it was something that the Lord was doing. And I knew that I wasn't saying goodbye. It wasn't a, yeah, it wasn't a goodbye. It was a, truly it was a see you later and that we would still be connected in so many ways. And so since that time, I know that new life has just been a huge blessing to me and now to my family, my wife and daughter as well. And all right. Well, a lot has changed since 2017.
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So Twi and I got married in 2023. And then by God's grace, we had the opportunity to come to the US last year for a few months and Twi joined New Life as a member as well. And then in June of last year, we were sent by the congregation as a missionary couple to continue serving here in Vietnam. And then also by God's grace, Mia was born in October and she's sleeping now. And, but she is just a bundle of joy and we couldn't be happier and more grateful and for what God has provided. And so we're a family of three now and we're just so grateful for New Life. And we're just so grateful for what God is doing in our life, in our church, in our ministry here in Vietnam.
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Now, none of that would have happened unless Mitch said yes to God's call. But I also think it's a good reminder of another stone of remembrance in the history of our church that God has used as he's worked through us. And that stone is what I would like to call radical generosity.
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Now, not only have the people of this church been radically generous to support the ministries happening here and we all benefit from that, but this church has from the beginning been radically generous to support the work that God is doing outside of these walls.
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See, we're part of a church association called LCMC, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. And that M stands for mission, as in we're working together to serve others. We're in mission together. And the radical generosity of this church hasn't just been through finances or resources, although that is definitely true. But this church has also been radically generous with talented people that God has raised up here. Because Mitch didn't just go to Vietnam,(...) Mitch was sent.
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And the radical generosity of this church family to recognize that sometimes God calls us to send our best and our brightest to join Jesus in His work. That's what has enabled us to be a part of so many incredible stories of God's faithfulness from around the world. But life change doesn't just happen far away from here. God is transforming lives right here in our community. Let's listen to how Pastor Eric describes it. One thing that's increased my faith and ignited a new passion,
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even in my pastoral ministry, was seeing how men were affected by the gospel.(...) So I got to witness several men who were pretty disconnected from God in a lot of different ways,
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become very connected to Him and become men of faith.(...) And sometimes, we hear about from Paul that some people plant and some people water and some people harvest. And in my time there, I kind of got to see, not only because of my own involvement, but other people's involvement, different men that I was more or less connected to. I got to witness them at those different stages. And so I just really want to give a shout out to Mike Schneider Bower, who's our Youth Industries Director there, because he's one of those men. So I got to work closely with him and see that transformation in him, which is just incredible. Also just the immense amount of baptisms that we've seen over the last couple of years. And I got to witness several of those, those last few years during my time there, but also even since I've left hearing about more baptisms and seeing more happen. It's just been really incredible. So that's given me so much hope that the Lord is still at work and he still transforms people.
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The story of new life is a story of hundreds of different people, each with their own ups and downs.
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And yet God still calls us to himself. And we get to see what Jesus can do through each of us.
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You get to see what Jesus can do through you,(...) because God wants to work through you. He wants to work through your story.
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He wants to bring healing and growth in your life so that that then can influence the people around you and the love and grace of God then overflows to impact countless people in our midst. And I feel so bummed because we've barely scratched the surface of all the different stories you could hear about the ways that God has been faithful through the history of our church. And I've barely scratched the surface of the insights of our guests through those Zoom calls. And I promise I'm gonna try and put together the full interviews soon. But Pastor Bill shared about "Baby's Warm and Dry," how that started, which is the monthly mission this month. You can actually participate out in the atrium. Go find the little baby carriage over there.
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Mitch talked about youth trips. Pastor Phil talked about the core tenets of our faith being what brings hope to our world. Pastor Ben talked about God's faithfulness through COVID. Pastor Eric talked about how our investment
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as a church investing in the people that we've raised up here has actually continued to have influence on countless other people that Jesus has sent people to. And I promise I'm gonna put together all those full interviews, release them at some point. But I thought that it would be fitting to end our time right now with the final question that I asked each of our guests. And that question is, based on God's faithfulness over the past 15 years, what is one challenge or encouragement that you wanna give to the family of new life? Let's hear what they said. So based on God's faithfulness to us, to new life in the past 15 years, I would encourage us to just to stay the course, to remain faithful to the Lord and his word and to continue to love God and to love people well. I encourage you, look for the mystery. God at work in our midst, in creation, in the messages we hear, there's more to life than just getting and spending.
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There's so much more. And I'm finding it here. The challenge, the encouragement that I have really for the congregation of new life is twofold. One for those of you who have been legacy members and helped found the church. Thank you so much for your dedication and your sacrifice.(...) And I don't even think that you even know how much of an impact you've had on so many people.(...) Just the amount of folks that have been through new life, sometimes for a season, sometimes they stuck around. How many kids that new life has been kind of a safe harbor for, how much the gospel has been proclaimed at that place and through the ministry of new life.
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It's so incredible. And it's to a magnitude that no one person I think could even understand how much of an impact new life has had. And that's because of the Lord's work and the Lord's faithless through you. So thank you for doing that. But my encouragement to you is to don't lose sight of that. That's so much of the work that is done and so much of the generosity that happens and so much of the effort that is put in is for people that you may never know, that you may never meet. And so your hard work blesses those that you don't know even more than it blesses you. And for those of you who are fairly new to new life and oftentimes you are benefiting from the hard work of these legacy folks of these founders, my encouragement to you is to buy it. There are so many people who have come before you, who have walked this path of faithfulness. And my encouragement to you is to follow in their footsteps and buying in just as much. Be just as dedicated to the church. Let the church be your community, your family, the place where your children have their friends, the place where you get to connect with other families, with children or you get to connect with people who are older, who could be the adopted grandparents to your kids. There is so much good that can happen if you buy it. Yeah, if I had one challenge to give all the people that we love so dearly at New Life is continue to do what you're doing. In other words, create a space for anyone and everyone to hear about God, to explore their gifts and to begin that life transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. Never make it about you, but make it about the people that you wanna serve. And if you can do that, 15 years is just the beginning. And we'll be celebrating, well, we won't, but someone, our kids, our grandkids, our great grandkids will be celebrating 115 years of New Life's impact in the Sauk Valley. And I would love, love to hear about that someday.
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God is always way out in front of us planning the future that he has, and it's always great. And it's always filled with amazing things that he wants to do. And our job is to simply say, okay, Lord, help us to discern what it is that you want from us and then help us to be willing to not be afraid and to follow confidently(...) where you're leading us in the future.
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God has been at work.
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God has been at work in your life. And he's continuing to work in your life and through your life. And he hasn't finished with us yet. The work that he has been doing in and through our church family is still going. And we are still being invited to join Jesus in his work of sharing redemptive love.(...) And so, yes, let's make sure to celebrate today. After service, there's still gonna be some more pieces of cake out there to celebrate happy birthday and new life. And yes, go eat the cake. Go share the stories of things that you've seen at work, but let's also be spurred on in our faith to continue following him as he keeps leading us. Because there is still healing that is coming. There is still grace to be shared. There's still faith and hope and love to be experienced. And there are still people who haven't yet heard about the love that God wants to give them and the journey that he's invited them onto.
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They have not yet heard that they are invited to come and to belong, to be healed and to grow and to say yes to God as he invites them with us to become transformed by Jesus together
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for the sake of others.
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Isn't that good news?
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Amen.