Don't Begrudge That Nudge First B Jackson 2023-02-26 Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record. ---- Hey, man. How are doing? You got a guitar. I was like, okay. Like, hey, man. I was like, I'm just bringing my guitar in. Don't I'm cold. Yep. They're like, oh, so you can play. I was like, what? Oh, yeah. Ten k. Right? And they slept on my floor last night. Did that Alright. Good morning, everybody. How are we doing? Yes. I love that enthusiasm. Thank you. Thank you. Hey. As people are walking in the door, let's, what do you say we we stand and worship together in song? Here's an encouraging word from Psalm 32 to lead us in worship. It says, I will instruct you and I'll teach you in the way that you should go, and I'll counsel you with my loving eye on you. Let's start by singing morning by morning. Daily, daily, I surrender. Morning by morning. Morning by morning Amen. Wow. Y'all can have a seat. Oh, it's good to see you this morning. I don't have the clicker in my hand right now, but Monday nights are happening. Monday nights are happening. What's happening, Carl? We're on tomorrow at 06:00. Meal, music message. It's the transfiguration of Jesus, a mountaintop experience. Hey. That goes right along with coming back. We had a men's retreat this weekend that has been pretty awesome. I was on it. I haven't been on one of those. I was trying to think it's the last time if I've ever been on one, it's been at least a long time, eleven years, fifteen years maybe. And amen. We're not announcing that it's happening this week. We're announcing that it happened and it was great. Connect hours between services. We try to do this to keep the services together. So they're a little different bit of music style. But in between, we meet together down the hall and have coffee. Next week, we're doing something new. This is a little bit of a new slide. We're bringing it's almost a whole potluck. It's a share a dish Sunday. So bring something next week for the connect hour between. Ladies fellowship is happening down the hall. Sisters Saved by Grace, Thursday, six p. M. In the Fellowship Hall. All ages are welcome. It is a great Bible study, but it's also a place where we get together. They get together and eat and they pray for one another and they take the time sitting around the tables. It's really good. There's a women's retreat. This has been changed from being at the Moss Avery Lodge where this men's retreat just was. It's going to be a one day event. Stay posted. We'll keep you posted. Stay tuned. We'll keep you posted for when that's going be. It's going be a one day event here at the church. Student Ascent is our high school ministry. It's happening in, alliance with other churches in town. So they will, meet Thursday evenings at 06:30. Student Ascent is the name of it, and it's pretty awesome. So three or four churches have banded together. They're high school ministries, and that's happening. There's a young adult Bible study. We're bouncing through these things today. Got a lot of sugar to put in this bag. Young adult Bible study happens on Sunday evenings. They don't have a permanent home for that Bible study, so they bounce and they go from place to place. 06:30PM location changes. You can contact Erin Anderson if you want to know where it's going to be, but the time is 06:30 in the evenings on Sundays and she'll tell you. The IF gathering is coming up. So this is a women's event, March three and four, which is right around the corner. Is somebody else going to fill in more details for that? Nope. If it's a gathering, it's happening this week, right? So sign up this week, make it happen. March three and four, you can sign up at jhwomensbiblestudy.com. And we are one of the churches that is and actually a couple of guys here are also part of some churches in Idaho Falls. Will Graham is coming to Idaho Falls in September. Musical guest is Crowder, like Dave Crowder Band, it's now known as Crowder. And, we're doing some church prep briefings before that, 03/03/2010 right here and a few other Christian Life and Witness courses are happening here at the church before that event happens for follow-up after that event happens. So, that's happening. Anything else, Blake? Black screen. We get to praise the Lord again. Would you stand up and welcome to all of y'all. This is amazing. It's really good. I see some faces I haven't seen in a while and it's just awesome. Welcome. Speaking of Crowder. Defender, deliverer, king of kings, helper and leader forevermore, savior and shelter through every storm, our refuge, redeemer, who lord of lords, he is child of heaven and son of man, the protector, the great I am, alpha will make a beginning God, how true. And we say that. We say that right now. All that we're needing, you are truly comforter, counselor, prince of peace, author and maker of everything, defender, deliverer, king of kings, and so much more. Thank you God for being what we need. We come to you God just humbly, just as we are, as we are, because that's how you take us. Amen. But God, you do the work. You do the good work in us. Thank you. Amen. Here's a good word from second Corinthians. For all of God's promises have been fulfilled in Christ. In Christ, those promises have been fulfilled with a resounding yes. And through Christ, our amen. Ascends to God for his glory. You can have a seat for a moment here. We're it's the worship through giving part of the service. I'll invite the ushers to come come on forward. And from Jeremiah 17, here's a good here's a good word to us. This has been bouncing around in my my mind this week. It's blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They're like trees planted along the riverbank. With roots, they reach deep into the water. Such trees, they're not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. That's a good word to us. And Ray, would you pray? I will. God almighty, I'm thankful to be here this morning, gather with the family of God. Thankful, overwhelmed, Lord, with gratitude. In Jesus' name, Lord, I ask for your for your blessing, not to rest just during this service, just on this service, but that you would go forward, Lord, from here, that you would be carried out from here that we would reflect a good and glorious, loving God by the way we live our lives, the way we use our words, by the way we act. In Jesus name, lord, I pray that you would do whatever it is that you want to do with this offering. If people place financial resources in the plates, Lord, do whatever you want to with them. If people say, I'm gonna give you my time. I pray, Lord, that you would show them how productive time can be. Nothing that's done for the Lord is ever in vain. God almighty, I pray that whatever's placed metaphorically in these plates would be blessed and multiplied to do your kingdom's work. Lord, we long to do your will and your way. Would you do that? Lord, here among us and as we go forth to the rest of the world. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Alright. Y'all can have a seat. It's time for children's church downstairs. So there goes the cavalcade. It's fun. If you're sitting in the back and you want to come forward, some of those children just left some empty seats, you're welcome to fill them in. And Matt? Matt Litzelman is an elder at the church, has been for some time, a good good guy. God has said so. Right? Amen. Amen. I'm going invite Matt up and he's going to grab a mic and he's going to leave. So, love you, brother. Looks like I'm hot. You guys can hear me. I'm overwhelmed. I need to dry my eyes here so I can see you all. In the song we just sang, I'll make room for you, I just want to honor these guys for making space for this weekend. Everybody that came, if you don't know anything about a word retreat, we really don't tell you what we're gonna do. It's kind of a mystery and the things we experience are all part of a way to encounter Christ and have a just really a moment where he can break through in our lives and change us for his good. For our good. And so I just want to thank you guys for taking time out to It costs you. It costs you time. It costs financially away from work and many other ways personally that I'm probably not aware of, but I know it's expensive. Also wanted to share my very deep gratitude for all of you that supported us over the weekend with meals and just your prayers, which I believe I believe were instrumental in what God did in many of these men's lives, in my life. The other song, guys sang, Carl, thanks for choosing, my confidence is in your faithfulness. And that's my testimony of God's goodness in my life that he always comes through. Always there every moment, Even when I don't want him there or can see him there, he's there. And his faithfulness came through this weekend in really, really, really powerful ways. The main thrust of what a word retreat is is that we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. In the process of that, selecting the guys that are gonna share their testimony, the team, which I'll introduce to you in a minute, is a group of guys that, by God's grace, I got to choose. I handpicked them and invited them to be a part, and and many of them volunteered before I even asked brothers that came from Wenatchee and Oregon and Idaho lead and support and and bring Jesus. So in the process of sharing those testimonies, guys just got wrecked. Literally. And God just showed us showed himself true and faithful. The other main part of this retreat is to make disciples. It's about men coming alongside each other and loving one another, taking the time to ask the hard questions, to pour their lives out, and then after the fact to make a determined decision to continue and to stay together and reach out to one another and bring that accountability. And that's part of I'm just going to want to hit first B a little bit as an elder, thrust towards life groups and community where we can live life together and encourage one another in Christ to grow together and disciple one another. You guys gotta do that. I'm gonna have a few guys come up, share their experience of this weekend, and kinda give you a little peek in the window of what we did and how they were impacted. And I'd like to invite up Buster Bruce to share with you guys first. Buster, the last you. Yeah. I'm gonna give it to you, man. Really? I'm trusting you. You gotta do Buster, does anybody know what a paladrome is? This is like a number that goes the same forward as it does backwards. If you flip it, it looks identical. I just thought I'd share with you that today is seventeen thousand and seventy one days since Jesus rest me out of a drunken stupor. So I just signed up to be a driver. You know, I just drove a 150 miles out of the mountains that I lived in to pick up a couple of guys in Idaho Falls, and I just got invited along by my brother Steve over here. You know? So why don't you come too? So I was grateful to be there. Really an awesome experience. You know, every couple times a day, some of the men would give their testimony about how their life was shattered and torn and ripped apart and how Jesus rescued their lives out of the pits of hell and brought them to salvation and turned them into men of God today. And it was really touching, you know, that I mean, it bring tears to the eyes of most of us in the audience listening to their testimonies. There were several incidences where we went for walks in the snow. You can see one of them in the picture here. After we sat around the campfire, we all went for walks. And it was the idea was walk with Jesus where we could share with one another like we were sharing with the Lord. And there was, you know, the the little group of guys that I was with, you know, we got to unload some stuff that had been burdening our heart and interfering with our our walk with God. And, you know, we got to pray with each other, you know, for healing, and it was really awesome times. They put us at tables with teams and, you know, I was probably the oldest guy there. And I was real fortunate, you know, that I got to sit with the lions of Jackson, the young men. Stand up, please. You three guys, stand up. And these these guys are absolutely awesome, you know, and the fact that at their age, you know, they're taking a stand, you know. We we had to do a little portrait with that related to a scripture, and we had to name our team. So our team was the Freedom Fighters. You know? And we had a scripture that John eight thirty two, if any of you know it. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And these guys drew a really nice representation of the truth as opposed to the father of lies on a scale of justice and the truth wins every time. Yeah. It was just really great time fellowshipping and getting to know these men. And I look forward to our continued contact. The last group session that we had, we were posting a bunch of feelings that or the basic feelings that God gave us on the wall. And then how if we don't deal with them appropriately, how they can turn into all kinds of other things, like criticism, sarcasm, depression, and there's a whole list of other feelings. And it it really kinda brought to light to me something, you know, an area that I was struggling with with my wife. And, you know, hopefully, you know, in realizing that and with the support that I've got with the team of guys that I'm hooked up with now, I'll be able to go home and be a better husband for my wife. And I just want to thank you all for inviting me along. Thanks. Thanks, Buster. If Corey would come up and share just for a minute what he has for us. Obviously, by design, I had no idea what I was getting myself into this weekend. So, at the beginning, they had us share expectations and my pure one expectation was to just go grow closer with God. And I couldn't have asked for a better group of men to do that with and to help me achieve that goal fairly early on. So, therefore, throughout the rest of the weekend, I was figuring out new goals for myself and I'm glad to say that I achieved most of them. So gotta thank all of you. Matt, thanks for the invite. Really appreciate it. Thanks, Coy. Cole Gardner, would you come up please and share your heart? Cole, Cole, Cole, Cole. Well, I would say that standing up here talking about this has to if it's not the most improbable event in my life, it's top five. And so was so was attending this retreat. And and coming into this thing, I was coming from a place of a spiritual no man's land, trying to live in this place where I had one foot in and one foot out, trying to pick and choose what parts of this thing I wanted to have and which parts I didn't. And I knew that didn't work. And so I decided that if I was gonna come into this thing, I wanted to come out of it with a sense of conviction. I said I want to stop living in this place of, is this real? Is this legitimate? Is this complete hogwash? What like, I want to come out of this one way or the other. And it was through largely through hearing the testimonies of these of these men who've been through, like, legit struggles, like, stuff that I just couldn't even fathom. And I'm and I'm hearing largely hearing what these guys are going through going, what I'm going through is not that bad. And and also just hearing their conviction and going the only path that saw them through it was God's path. And it didn't take long for me to go, nope. This isn't this isn't BS. I think I'm into this. And so I've come out of this for the first time in my life being able to look in the mirror and go, I can be an authentic promoter of this and not feel like a fraud anymore. So that is pretty cool. And none of that happens, by the way. And this is the last thing I'll say. None of that happens if I wasn't encouraged to come to this by my friends. And these guys built up equity over a long time for that to happen. And that's what I would leave everyone here with. Like, real human connection is there's no substitute for it. And there's no shortcut for it. Actually caring about somebody and investing the time and energy that it takes to do that, the dividends that get paid out from that are immeasurable. And that's the only reason that I get to stand up here and talk about it, is these guys put that effort into me. Thank you, guys. I love you all so much for that. Cole and you know, I'll say something that I thought was kind of funny earlier. I was thinking to myself and there was a really handsome guy about, oh, don't know, two months ago that preached on John 15 about discipleship and and what that means and how to abide and and live for Jesus and be a disciple. And then about four weeks, five weeks later, another really handsome guy preached on John 15. And talked about discipleship and I think God's saying something about discipleship to us. And we encourage you to lean into that. The last guy I'm going to share have share is Mr. Glenn Owings. He's a new elder here at First B. And I want to give him a chance to talk. Yes. Had a handful of takeaways from this experience. I think all of us were humbled by the servant's heart of the leadership team. And just they build instant credibility. I think it's a good example of how we build credibility with our friends and neighbors we serve. And that's a great example to us. You've heard the testimonies mentioned. I think that was a very powerful thing for all of us. And it reminded me that vulnerability in the right context is a powerful tool. And it's something that's difficult, you know, difficult for all of us and to be vulnerable with one another. Pretty much independent of background or age, it's just difficult. But in the right place, in a safe space, and under God's umbrella, it's beautiful and it's perfect. And that's an amazing tool. Just as a specific example of of something that I'll always remember from this this experience was that about two two years ago, I was just spent some some time in prayer asking for God to show me like, what's this Who's the Who's a person that I can can pour into prayer for and encouraging Christ? And he put a specific person on my heart. And that person joined us this weekend. And God showed up for him. And I think that goes along with kind of the theme of a lot of the testimonies is God puts these touch points in our lives that we can go back to and rely on. They're kinda like a North Star. Know, these points where you know just beyond the shadow of a doubt. You know more than you know anything else that that God orchestrated this thing. And those are priceless. And there's nothing that can take those away. And so that's my encouragement to all of you, is be looking for those in your lives. And be praying for those in your lives that those God would provide you with those and he will. Those touch points that you can go back to. So that's that was a big takeaway for me. I would encourage, you know, some of us are local here. You know, as you see one another and you see some gentlemen who were trip, that you just asked them what their experience was, what they learned, what God showed them. And just, you know, hold all of us accountable for remembering what we've, you know, what we've learned and grown in our faith. We'll try to, to share with you those important things that we learned. Like anything, this is not meant to be a one time thing. This is growth. And that goes from here. So I hope that's the case for all of us. Wow. I want to honor a friend. And Glenn alluded to that touch point experiences that nobody can take away from you, that you just know that you know that that was a God moment. And one of our brothers experienced that. Tiernan Schultz made a decision for Christ over the weekend. I just want to honor you. Well done. I'm going to introduce my team. And I'm just going to have them come up, and we'll just line up across the front right here. I want to have Mark Bovard come up first. Mark's a close brother to me and has really been instrumental in mentoring and discipling me. And was on board from the very beginning of this retreat. And Dave Miller, the same. These guys are from Mnatchee, twelve hours away, came to be with us. Art. Art Ivan Enco. My brother. Rob. The man. Rob came from Memphis to be with us to serve. My good friend Steve McLean from Idaho Falls, pastors in Idaho Falls. And the guys in my life group that supported me and were all in in ways that I really can't explain because they've never done this before, and they just gave it just a 150. Jim? Hans. Hans York. And Mr. Dan Tolleson. So the best part about having a team is you have guys on your team that are type A guys that are great leaders, and they remind you of things that you forget. And last but not least, Mr. Jeremy Walker. So I just want to take this opportunity to honor Matt. He came to Wenatchee back in 2019, and I was able to pray for Matt and pray with Matt and just get to know Matt. And from that point, he'd said, Man, I'd sure like to take this back to Jackson. And so it was just like the door was opened there. And so, Matt, I just want to honor you and all you've done in making this a reality getting this here. It's been a long road. There's been trials and you stuck through it. Well done. It's accomplished. Thank you. Thank you. Lastly, I want to give each of the guys a cross. You see these guys all wearing these crosses. Mainly, just represent something bigger than us. We're a part of something that is larger than us. Jesus, for sure. I think really a purposeful discipleship opportunity. These guys hold me accountable and are welcome to speak into my life at any moment. So I'm gonna give Mark will probably help me here just a little bit. These are a little hopefully not too tangled. And I'll just invite the guys up. For me that cross means don't forget the girl. I laugh so I don't cry. My first retreat in '19 where I met Dave, I went and my desire when I was asked what I wanted to get out of the retreat, I wanted to I wanted to love my wife better. And God met me there. So I don't know what these crosses will mean exactly to y'all, but just remember that you're part of something that's that's more. So Kyle, would you come up, sir? Jeff? Mr. Buster. Thanks for driving the bus. Matthew. Pastor Ray. What I love about this group is there's some giants here. Not just in the physical. Cole Abel. Brother. Ben Upton. Yeah. Mister Asher, will you come up, please? Cole? Dearning show. Gil? My good friend, Ron Robinson, Blackfoot. Mr Dale Woolwine. And last but not least, Glenn Owing. Roland. Sorry, bro. Where are you hiding back there in that orange? Yep. Right there. So I just, as you guys are finishing, you can just see the love and the bond that God's done in in this weekend and the way he's changed our hearts and what he's ask him what God did and some of the miracles that he did in the time we were together. So I just I don't have any more. We're at the hour. Mr. Karl can come up and close us in a song, and we look forward to sharing God did over the weekend. Thank you, guys. Would you stand and we'll sing together? I think this is appropriate song to close with, make room, that we would make room. Amen. Amen. Our benediction today is from Isaiah 55. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Turn to the Lord and he will have mercy. Matt said something to me this week that I had not thought about in a long time. I I questioned whether I even said it in the first place. But he says that I did not trust him. There was a step of obedience that was required in going to this thing that I did not want to take. In fact, I said to several people, I'd rather take a public beating on the square. But a good and merciful God nudged. Don't begrudge that nudge. Alright? Don't do that. Something that Matt says that I said is that when you take a step of obedience, everybody after you benefits from that obedience. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Listen to him. Listen and obey right away with a happy heart. Call on him while he's near and turn to the Lord and he will have mercy. Amen. Amen. Amen.