Jesus didn’t promise us that following Him would be easy—instead, Jesus promised that “we would be absurdly happy, completely fearless, and in constant trouble.”

Transcript

August 3-4, 2019

Pastor Joe Wittwer

Summer Bible Series

Make the Right Decision!

Luke 12:49-59 (p. 895-6)

Opening:

It’s camp weekend! We just finished 3 camps—kids, middle school and high school involving about 1500 students and hundreds of volunteers—and they were amazing! Today our camp worship team is going to lead us in some rocking worship, and we’re going to celebrate with XX people who are being baptized this weekend!

After worship and prayer, we’re going to look at some difficult sayings of Jesus in Luke 12, and think about making the right decision even when it’s hard and others oppose us. Jesus didn’t promise us that following Him would be easy—instead, Jesus promised that “we would be absurdly happy, completely fearless, and in constant trouble.”

That’s where we’re headed—let’s celebrate!

Introduction and offering:

Life is a series of choices, and those choices often have long-range unintended consequences, good and bad. Our life is shaped by those choices.

ILL: Don Smith (3 pics with comment) was the first pastor to hire me and give me a job as a pastor. Don’s wife, Judy, passed away about 18 months ago. Just a few weeks ago, I told Laina that I wanted to visit Don, now 85 years old, and tell him how much he meant to me. Then while I was on my recent motorcycle adventure, I received a text informing me that Don had just been diagnosed with widespread terminal cancer and had days or weeks to live. I received that text on the day we were riding up the Oregon coast, and I knew that at one point, I’d be only 45 miles away from McMinnville where Don lived. So I left my riding buddies at that point, and took the detour to visit Don. I was there for a couple hours and had a delightful time talking and praying with this godly man who had such a huge impact on me.

Don hired me when I was 19 to be the youth pastor at his church—a very risky decision. He pastored a conservative Church of Christ, and I was a flaming charismatic with crazy, out-of-the-box ideas about youth ministry. From the start, I was in constant trouble, and Don had my back.

Three weeks in, I got tired of being a glorified baby sitter, and I told the students, “If you just want to fart around, do me a favor and stay home. If you want to learn how to pray and follow Jesus, come back next week and I’ll teach you.” An elder and his wife were there to see what the new youth pastor was up to; they rushed up and said, “You just killed our youth group.” The other adult there put his arm around me and said, “Good job—let’s do this!” His name was Noel.

Noel became my father-in-law and my lifetime mentor. Had Don not hired me, I may not have known Noel and married Laina. Don’s risky decision changed my life. Did I mention that decisions have consequences—often unintended?

When I dropped that bomb at our youth group, there were about 25 students. That elder wanted to fire me; Don had my back. A week later, we didn’t have 25 students—we had 40—and six weeks later we had 100. It turned out those students were as bored as I was and just wanted someone to raise the bar and challenge them.

Over the next 3 years, Don repeatedly had my back when the elders wanted to fire me. And I made a ton of rookie mistakes—but Don was always patient and encouraging.

At the nine-month mark, we planned a June retreat at a Church of Christ campground on the coast. I made a flier and we mimeographed it and kids started passing them out everywhere. We didn’t do registration—just show up and pay $5 at the gate. Incredibly stupid! We had no way of knowing how many students were coming—but there was a buzz about this event. The day before we were to leave, Don asked me who was cooking. I hadn’t thought of that. “Do you have a menu? Food?” I hadn’t thought of that either. Don put me in his station wagon, we drove to Pay ’N Pa