Do you know Him?

2 Mar
2010

I got to speak at all three youth services (communion thought, I didn’t preach the actual message) this past weekend.  Here’s what I spoke on.  I will try to put up some audio of it in a few days.

Do you know Him?

Some of us in this room may not even know Jesus at all.  If you don’t, let me tell you that Jesus came into this world to save us from a death we deserve.  Do you want to know Him?

For those of in the room who do know Him, a lot of times we settle for sitting on the sidelines when Jesus has called us to something much greater.   Jesus didn’t call us to live an average life.  God didn’t call us to settle.  We can’t sit in a chair and do nothing and call ourselves followers of Jesus.  He called us to get up out of our chairs and get up off our blessed assurance and show other people the love of Jesus by the way we live our lives.

When we aren’t involved in God’s plan for our life, we are not a threat to Satan.  Because if you do know God, the enemy hates you and wants to destroy you because of what God can accomplish in and through you.

Do you know Him?

James 1:5 says that “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you.  He will not rebuke you for asking”

Jesus came to live a life where people constantly criticized Him, He had the crap beat out of Him, and He hung on a tree to die for us.  Isn’t it funny when we as people of God still get frustrated when we “have a bad day” when we know what Jesus went through?  Even through all of that, He rose from the dead and conquered the grave.  That’s not an average life.  That’s not sitting on the sidelines.  If that doesn’t motivate us to know Him, I don’t know what else can.

Do you know Him?

Jesus never asked us to celebrate his birth; He asked us to remember His death.  That’s the whole reason we take communion.  Because Jesus chose to die for me and for you so that we can have a life of freedom and have eternity with Him.

Do you know Him?

CORE retreat

6 Feb
2010

So I just returned from the High School CORE leadership retreat.  I was a leader on the trip and I had a great time.  I am wiped out, but it was well worth it.  I am praying for these kids because they are pretty special.

Heck, I learned a ton about leadership while I was leading.  Call me a sponge cause I don’t want to stop learning about how to lead to advance the Kingdom!

“Now’s not a good time”

18 Jan
2010

This is the excuse we use all the time to justify about anything.  Think about it, we can almost justify not doing anything by uttering these words.

Let me throw out some examples that we use this phrase -

  • I’m not gonna invite my lost friend to church; now’s not a good time.
  • I’m not gonna accept Jesus today; now’s not a good time.
  • I’m not gonna get baptized right now; now’s not a good time.
  • I’m not gonna check out this potential life changing relationship; now’s not a good time.
  • I’m not gonna get out of a situation that I know God doesn’t want me in; now’s not a good time.
  • I’m not gonna change jobs; now’s not a good time.
  • I’m not gonna pray insanely huge prayers for my life; now’s not a good time.

Here’s my response to all of these: LAME!

All of these excuses are stupid! Where in these statements do we allow the Holy Spirit to move within us? Nowhere!

We must stop focusing on our own selfish will for our lives, and we must focus on God’s plan for for us.  You see, when we use the “now’s not a good time” excuse we really don’t comprehend the fact that NOW WILL NEVER BE A GOOD TIME.  We will always be busy and have stuff going on.

Are we really going to let stuff and day to day responsibilities control our lives instead of Jesus?!?!  Yeah, Jesus conquered the grave so I think he may know a little more than we do about the direction of our lives. (dripping sarcasm intended)

Yes, everything that I just wrote was extremely blunt.  But I am just so tired of seeing people make excuses so they can block the work of Jesus in their lives.

Warped 2009!

1 Jan
2010

The New Years eve lock-in was awesome and I am exhausted. I need sleep so bad it’s not even funny.  I’m not sure of the final numbers, but I think we had around 600 kids there last night.  I worked my tale off, but I also had a blast with the kids.

Our talent show was amazing (and I even got to run a camera for it).  We had Kaitlyn Mayher to perform at the talent show and Charlie got to preach the gospel to hundreds of teenagers in the surrounding area of Parker, CO.  This event had the potential to reach tons of kids that can come to serocks.com on Wednesday nights to hear about Jesus!

What I’m really excited about is that I’m stoked to find out how many kids accepted Jesus last night!  I am so thankful I get to serve where I do.

Some “preaching” notes

26 Dec
2009

Here’s my “notes” for my communion thought I will be giving at one of our Student Ministry services -

One day Jesus was preaching to a huge crowd.  The crowd was pressing in on Him to listen to Him.  Here’s where the story picks up:

3He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down[a] the nets for a catch.”

5Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

“Because you say so, I will let down the nets.”  You see, Simon was committed to Jesus even when it didn’t make any sense to him.  From that story, here’s my question for you – How committed are you to Jesus?  It’s not good enough to simply know about Jesus.  We must truly know Jesus and be committed to Him.

Our commitment to Jesus must come before anything else in our own lives.

We often say, “God, I will commit to you as long as I don’t have to actually do anything.”  We make excuses like,

  • I’ll commit to you Jesus as long as I don’t have to tell others about you.
  • I’ll commit to you Jesus as long as I don’t have to serve others
  • I’ll commit to you Jesus as long as I don’t have to show your love to others.

You see, our commitment always requires some type of sacrifice on our part.  We either choose to commit to Jesus and deny ourselves, or we make the decision to leave Jesus out of the picture and live our lives from our own desires and selfishness.

Our hearts must be open to Jesus even when we face tough situations, fear, worry, or even when we simply are confused and don’t know what to do.  It’s easy for us to be committed to Jesus when our lives are going good, but our true commitment comes out when we face the unknown and unexpected in our lives.

I don’t know where all of you are in your commitment to Jesus, but what I can tell you is that He sacrificed everything so He could show the world He is committed to you.

Do the demons know your name?

15 Dec
2009

In Acts 19, Paul tells a story about how a group of guys (7 sons of a priest) are attempting to cast an evil spirit out of a guy by invoking the name of Jesus since they heard Paul preach about Jesus.

The guy that was possessed by the demon responded to them by saying, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” The demon had no idea who these guys were and they were no match for the demon as “the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all.”  Well, the demon proceeded to beat the crap out of these guys and beat the clothes off of them!  They literally got the pants beaten off of them because they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.  That’s some serious stuff.

These guys were attempting to cast out evil spirits for the wrong reason which was evident by how they were simply manhandled.  Maybe these guys thought it was cool to be like Paul and cast out demons. I don’t know if that was the case, but not knowing Jesus didn’t  work out well for the 7 guys.

We must have a real relationship with Jesus.  It’s not good enough just to know of Him!  We can’t just act like we are homies with Jesus and everything is cool when we don’t have any type of relationship with Him.  You see how far that got the 7 guys.

So here’s my question to you: Do the demons know your name?

2009 Youth wrap up

12 Dec
2009

Serocks-Email-Banner2-378X54

This past Wednesday was the last Sunday that youth will meet on Wednesdays for 2009.  I began volunteering this September and am committed to being a youth leader until May of 2010.  I have to say that I have had a great experience so far.

I have been leading a small group of 10-15 high school guys this fall going through the book of James and simply going through life with them.  My group has had some crazy conversations during our time!  We have talked about everything from Megan Fox to passive men and everything else in between.  But I have to say it has been good.  I don’t know how much I have taught my guys about Jesus, but I hope Jesus has used me in these guys lives  in some way.

The best part of my volunteering experience (so far) is that I got to see 3 of my guys give their lives to Jesus Christ!  There is nothing like getting to see them experience that in their lives as they respond to God drawing them to Him.  These 3 guys stepped over the line from death to eternal life in Jesus and I couldn’t be happier for them!  These guys are getting baptized at the beginning of the year and I will be cheering like crazy for them.

We have our lock in on New Years Eve so that will undoubtedly be a fun all nighter.  I signed up to volunteer for the entire evening and I will probably be worn out the next day but who cares?  We are having a huge talent show as part of the lock in and I got to judge some of the acts tonight that auditioned to be in the talent show.  We had some really good acts!  I’m hoping we have around 1,000 kids at the lock in.

The first half of this serving endeavor has been an adventure so far that I have enjoyed.  I pray the adventure continues and that Jesus uses me in some way to bring these kids closer to Him.

Quick Hits

28 Nov
2009
  • Went to church tonight and it was good.  They preached on Hosea tonight.  Very interesting angle taken but I thought it was pretty darn good.
  • Praying that God continues to work in specific areas in my life like my career.  I want to feel like I am completely doing what God purposed me for.   I’m not quite at that point yet, but I do feel like I am where God wants me to be right now.  He is surely preparing me for whatever is next and I know that to be true.
  • My house is finally clean! You have no idea how better that makes me feel.
  • Just downloaded some free music from Amazon. Gotta love their free deals.
  • I ate way too much for Thanksgiving (just like everyone else), but I gotta admit that I’m pretty much okay with that :)
  • Saw a preview for the new season of 24 that starts in January (and it’s the last season too) and I am freaking pumped!
  • Wondering what the whole seminary experience will hold for me.  It outta be different, but I’m hoping that it will be a good, positive experience on the whole.
  • That’s all I got for now, but I am glad the Dawgs whupped up on Tech!

Pretty cool picture

14 Nov
2009

I found this on the net after the Dawgs beat Auburn tonight.  Thought it was too good not to share:

Joe Cox and UGA before the Auburn game

Go Dawgs!

Some california thoughts

14 Nov
2009
  • It’s been an interesting trip so far.  It’s been crazy busy, but it’s nice to change up the schedule and get outta the rut for a little bit.
  • Living out of a suite case sucks!  I don’t see how some business guys do it, but at least the hotels are nice.
  • I got to go to Newport beach today and it was pretty sweet.  Today was the very first time I have been to the Pacific ocean so that was pretty cool.
  • I got to watch the UGA-Auburn game today.  That was a close one, but the dawgs managed to pull out a victory.  It’s amazing what can happen when you have no turnovers and only a few penalties.  That would be nice if we were able to keep up the trend.
  • I’m missing home about right now.  I do enjoy my life (mostly) in Colorado and I am starting to miss it.  I know that sounds crazy, but even being in California for work is still not a vacation.
  • So I am working on the youth demo web site for my church and we are making progress (slowly but surely).  If you want to check out the demo site, go here.  But remember it’s only a demo site for testing!
  • That’s about it, I’m chilling in the hotel room tonight.  I need to go to bed and get some more rest cause it’s been a loooong week and I have another one in front of me.
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