Producing Fruit June 26, 2016

You're in the Family June 19, 2016

Updates and Stuff

Hello people!

Been away a long time, School, Work, and Church seem to keep me a lot busier than I thought it would. I have been keeping it together (barely) but nonetheless keeping it together. Making a final push for finishing my degree, I have been at St. Paul UMC 7 months now, and plan to do my internship there. Registrar says I have 3 classes until Graduation after the Summer, plus my internship!

I am working on a website for my new appointment to go with the Facebook page. I have also started video recording my sermons the YouTube playlist is here. 

Well, gotta run, will talk later I promise!

Hello World! (Again)

So, I have been away for a while,  almost a year, a lot has changed. I am not at Haven Chapel in East Columbia anymore. I am now the pastor of St. Paul UMC in Galveston Texas, beautiful church on the beautiful Island. I have been appointed there since July 1. Great church, I love that I get to preach every Sunday now too.  Check their Facebook page out and give it a like if you have not already done so.

Galveston St. Paul UMC

Here is a clip of me preaching there too:

Christ the Conqueror

I have a new day job as well, same function (Audio Visual Engineering) same customer/contractor (Exxon Mobil) just new company paying me (Mechdyne Corporation).  I have enjoyed the company a lot of opportunity for growth, the previous company was good, but I could only be an AV Technician if I wanted to be promoted I would have leave AV and manage a mailroom, file room, or furniture moving department.

I joined another Fraternity over the summer, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated. I have also started taking classes for Perkins in Dallas, well one class. So I drive up after work, go to the class in the evening, and drive back the same night. Just doing what I have to do to finish this degree...

I will have more ramblings to come just need to get my head around all the changes. In the meantime though, my podcast is up weekly for sermons Pastor Johnnie's Podcast

God Bless!!!

The Press

The Press- Philippians 3:12-14

I like to study words and it intrigues me, when a word is used as slang, but those using it for slang are actually using it in its proper definition unknowingly. I remember a scene from The Wire; a character called Monk was giving out money to the kids in the neighborhood so they could purchase school clothes and a young man named Michael wouldn’t take the money out of pride. Michael’s walked away and Michael’s friend Randy asked if he could have Michael’s share. Michael’s other friend Namond told Randy not to press. It was slang for being bothersome, but the slang was the actual definition. When someone is obsessed with someone else, others will say that person is pressed. I like that word press, some definitions include:

a :  a crowd or crowded condition :  throng

b :  a thronging or crowding forward or together

a :  an action of pressing or pushing :  pressure

b :  an aggressive pressuring defense employed in basketball often over the entire court area

To move or cause to move into a position of contact with something by exerting continuous physical force.

That is what the Apostle Paul is speaking on in the text, a continual force, pressing toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call, or in the King James Version the mark for the prize of the high calling, takes continual force. Tony Robins says that repetition is the mother of skill, and when we press toward the mark we need to do it repeatedly.

At the beginning of chapter 3, Paul says rejoice in the Lord, he says it again in chapter 4 rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice. Now scholars like to argue over the proper use of the Greek for that verse because the word can be used to mean rejoice, and so, and finally, to me I don’t want to spend that much time worrying about it, because I think whether it is the beginning, middle, or end, we need to rejoice in the Lord and praise him anyhow.

Psalm 34

Praise for Deliverance from Trouble

¹ I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

David wrote that while in a foreign land, his own people wanted to kill him so he sought refuge with the Philistines, well David had killed Goliath so he wasn’t going to get much refuge there, played crazy to get away from them. If David could bless the Lord at all times while 2 different kings wanted him dead, surely we could rejoice in the Lord always.

Back in the Philippians Paul says he has reason to boast, he was circumcised on the 8^th day, from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, Paul knew the law because he was a Pharisee, and persecutor of the church, righteous when it came to the law, blameless. If anyone had something to brag about it was Paul, good family, good education, good reputation, but when he compared it all to Christ it meant nothing, it was worthless.

That word rubbish in verse 8 does not adequately describe what the Apostle Paul was saying in the Greek. I would suspect because it is in the Bible, and would be read in church during worship that the translators would want to tone it down a bit. The Greek word skubalon, meant more than trash, it was actually dung, fecal matter, but not the biological terms the vulgar terms we would use when describing those things. All his education, all of his bloodline and professional status meant nothing when it came to Christ. All of his accolades were “rubbish” and discarded that he might gain Christ. What to do we worship? You can tell what you worship by looking at your bank account and credit card statements, seeing where the money goes to most. Looking at our calendar, seeing where we spend the majority of our time. What are we willing to sacrifice or lay aside to get closer to Jesus?

The good thing is we can get closer to Jesus by faith, in verse 9 there is some discussion among the scholars about what is going on here. The church at Philippi was one that was mixed, meaning there were some Hebrew believers, and there were Gentile believers and the scholars believe that the Hebrew believers might have thought that they were better than the Gentiles. I mean I could see that, I could see some saints, a church, or even a denomination, caught up in their methods, to the point that they would not work well with other new members and visitors, I can see the Hebrew people being used to doing something a particular way and then going against the influx of new people on the scene. The seasoned saints had done a whole lot of things under the law prior to Jesus coming, now these Gentiles didn’t have to jump through the same hoops to get to Jesus, so they got treated bad. Paul was saying the righteousness didn’t come on our own through the law but through faith.

Paul wanted to become like Christ, and in all the work he did, he still was working toward that goal. Nobody is perfect, but we work towards perfection when we try to be like Christ. Paul in all his accolades said he had not obtained or reached the goal but he pressed, he pressed to make it his own because Christ Jesus had made him his own. You cannot be perfect on your own but you can be perfect in Christ Jesus. You can’t be perfect on your own, but you can be perfect with some help. Just like the football coach that says the individual players are not perfect, but if they all work hard together and press toward the goal they can be perfect. Press toward perfection. I said earlier that when you press you exert continual force you do something repeatedly. One thing I learned from playing sports in school is the value of practicing and conditioning. Take the 100 meter dash, they said during a 100 meter dash, a sprinter may only run at their top speed for 30-35 meters, the rest of the race is building up to that top speed, trying to maintain it, then trying to keep it together as they slow down. The continual training is what helps the runner get to their top speed before their top speed before the competition, the continual training is what helps them maintain the top speed for 35 meters instead of 30, the continual training is what helps the runner keep their form once they start getting tired, what you see on race night is 6-8 weeks of preparation and conditioning.

The same is true with Christianity, this is not just a Sunday experience for an hour and a half, this is a way of life. The continual prayer and fasting is what will keep us having a peace that passes all understanding,

1 Thessalonians 5:17New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

¹⁷ pray without ceasing,

Philippians 4:6-7New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

⁶ Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Not vain and repetitive prayer, but you must do something often if you expect to see some results, I can’t go to the gym work out one time, and then wonder why I am not losing any weight. I must bench press repetitively, shoulder press repetitively, leg press repetitively, and then over time, I will start to see some results.

When we press toward the mark, we also can’t be reminded of our past, our past is there for us to relearn it, not to relive it. Going back to the athletes, the best athletes I know have short memories, they don’t get caught up in their mistakes because that would mess with their confidence, the keep moving forward leaving the past in the past.

 

2 Corinthians 5:17King James Version (KJV)

¹⁷ Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Paul is telling us to press forward, don’t quit, we are closer than we think we are, closer than we have been before. We just have to keep trying, and learn from our mistakes.

Thomas Edison famed inventor, had 10,000 failed inventions, but we remember the things he invented that worked.

He is quoted “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

And some of these “failures” went on to be ideas that others made work,

Edison tried to invent a voice recorder but it didn’t work, someone thought to press on with that idea, He tried to invent an electric pen that made multiple copies of handwritten documents, somebody pressed on with that idea.

Edison invented a talking doll for kids, but if you dropped the doll it would stop working, then the voice would get weak if you used it too much, but somebody pressed on and made working talking dolls.

Edison came out with a home service club, you join it, and they sent 20 records in the mail to you a month, didn’t work, he also was the first to put projectors in people’s houses to watch movies at home, all these things and more people pressed on with ideas and made them work.

Steve Jobs got fired from the company he started, he worked harder, pressed on came back and brought Apple to world dominance.

What I’m saying is, whatever idea God put in you, don’t quit, keep going, the work is for you to be better than the competition at that one moment. The word used for Goal in the Greek is about achievement, maturity, the accomplishment of the goal, it is more about the end and working towards it, than your win loss record when you get their. At the end of the season, the champion is the champion regardless of what their seasonal record was. If they make the playoffs and keep pressing toward the goal they win.

We press on because Jesus didn’t quit, didn’t quit in the garden of Gethsemane, didn’t quit when they took him, didn’t quit when the whipped him with a cat of nine tails, didn’t quit on the way to Calvary, didn’t quit on the cross, didn’t quit in the grave, didn’t quit when he rose again, and didn’t quit because he is coming back again!

Preparation and Experience

Proverbs 22:29New King James Version (NKJV)

Do you see a man who excels in his work?

He will stand before kings;

He will not stand before unknown men.

I have been thinking about preparation and experience lately, I have decided that if I had to choose between being prepared, talented, smarter, skilled, or posses natural ability that I would choose to be prepared. I value talent, skills, knowledge, and natural ability, but I've seen proper preparation beat all of them time and time again. Over the past few months on AV gigs, I have been asked to "show someone what I did" because I got a more desired result, seemingly effortlessly.

I would try my best but I knew this was a pointless exercise. I was able to get the desired result because I had been practicing and preparing for years, I spent years learning, years experimenting, years troubleshooting, years failing, failing a LOT,  years reading, years going to seminars, being pushed out of the way so someone else could fix what I messed up, all of this prepared me so that when I approached certain problematic situations, I would be able to solve them quickly.

Sure I can show someone what I did, but why it works and how I knew to do this in that situation cannot be shown so quickly. Showing them what I did does not prepare them to identify why the problem happened, why my actions solved it, or what to do if the first set of actions do not work.

I think about this not just for AV, but for pastors, bankers, lawyers, doctors, to excel at any profession, one must be diligent in their work.

Doing More With Less – (Matthew 14:13-21)

 (Photo taken from Google Image Search)
Sermon Audio can be found here: http://goo.gl/zJhc6B

            I like this text; it is one of the passages regarding Jesus that is in all four gospels. Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:1-13. I have a bit of a fascination with the phrase “doing more with less” whether I hear it being used as a cliché to justify mass layoffs without the expectation of a reduction in production, or if it someone truly capable of getting more out of something than the average person is able to do. I think about our armed services veterans deployed in the field with M.R.E.s or meals ready to eat. The MRE contains:

Main course (entree)

Side dish

Dessert or snack (often commercial candy, fortified pastry, or HOOAH! Bar)

Crackers or bread

Spread of cheese, peanut butter, or jelly

Powdered beverage mix: fruit flavored drink, cocoa, instant coffee or tea, sport drink, or dairy shake.

Utensils (usually just a plastic spoon)

Flameless ration heater (FRH)

Beverage mixing bag

Accessory pack:

Xylitol chewing gum

Water-resistant matchbook

Napkin / toilet paper

Moist towelette

Seasonings, including salt, pepper, sugar, creamer, and/or Tabasco sauce

The MRE is designed for soldiers in combat out in the field who can’t just take a break to go back to the cafeteria or mess hall for food. Because the MRE is designed for lightweight packaging and has a shelf life of 3 years, they usually don’t taste too good. That being said, savvy veterans come up with little tricks to make the taste of the food more desirable. They will do things like mix the creamer and sugar with the crackers to make it taste like a sugar cookie. In 2011, the website www.supportourtroops.org put an effort together to send spices for the soldiers, oregano, garlic, red pepper, parmesan and other spices in little packets in an effort to help with the flavoring, trying to make more with less.

Another example I think of is prison; the food in prison I hear is not that great either. Archbishop Ashe spoke of his time in jail before he passed that he would rather eat food people threw away than jail food. I also heard an interview with boxer Bernard Hopkins and he spoke on his time in prison in a New York Times article:

“Not surprisingly, Hopkins hated the food in prison, all the powdered eggs, yeast and starch. The menu was posted at the beginning of each week, so he learned how to work around the worst meals, smuggling leftovers to his cell or drinking water to fill his stomach. He traded cartons of cigarettes and cases of cups of noodles for more desirable food. He could subsist on meals, sometimes for days, of peanut butter and bread. “You learn how to survive, buddy,” Hopkins said. “You learn how to make an oven out of batteries and aluminum foil and a shoebox. You become a farmer’s market, an entrepreneur.[1]

Bernard Hopkins made more with less, he is now out and as a champion professional boxer he doesn’t have to do that anymore unless he wants to.

I like to see people do more with less and that is what happens in the text that we read, Jesus does more with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread then most of us could have done with a team of chefs.

Rest-

First thing I noticed about Jesus in text was that he rested, in the 13^th chapter Jesus is teaching in synagogues and doing mighty works. Until he was rejected in his own hometown of Nazareth, Jesus went on to say that “a prophet is not without honor except in is own country, and in his own house,” and then he left, at the beginning of chapter 14 Jesus gets word that John the Baptist, his cousin has been beheaded as a birthday gift for the daughter of Herodias. Jesus had been working, he heard some bad news, and so he went away to rest. We ought to rest more, our body needs it, we can be so much more productive people if spend some more time resting. But notice I said Jesus did some work first, don’t use this as a reason to perpetually rest.

We often hear the term multitasking doing multiple things at the same time, but studies have shown that multitasking is actually not productive at all.

According to a published report:

More than one task splits the brain

Whenever you need to pay attention, an area toward the front of the brain called the prefrontal cortex springs to action. This area, which spans the left and right sides of the brain, is part of the brain’s motivational system. It helps to focus your attention on a goal and coordinates messages with other brain systems to carry out the task. 

While the right and left sides of the prefrontal cortex work together when focused on a single task, the sides work independently when people attempt to perform two tasks at once. Scientists at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) in Paris discovered this when they asked study participants to complete two tasks at the same time while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). When the scientists told the group they would receive a larger reward for accurately completing one of the two tasks, they found that nerve cell activity increased in only one side of the prefrontal cortex. However, when the greater reward was associated with the other task, the other side became more active. The findings suggest that when there are two concurrent goals, the brain divides in half, says INSERM neuroscientist Etienne Koechlin, who led the study.[2]

So even if you think you are doing both tasks well, you still are really focusing on the one you think is more important or gives you more to gain. The article goes on to say that you don’t get better at multitasking with practice, in fact gets harder with age and people who multitask have a harder time ignoring external distractions. Multitasking defeats the purpose, rest.

Do what you love

Second thing I noticed when people are doing more with less is that they are doing what they love. In the text Jesus was resting, he wanted some time away he just heard some bad news, but the Bible says that he saw the great multitude and was moved with compassion for them. When you do what you love it seems easier to work, sometimes it doesn’t even feel like work. That compassion of Jesus is shown by how he tends to the multitudes needs by healing their sick. That word for compassion in the Greek also means to move. Jesus didn’t just say “I love you, be blessed” he did something, it also means deep as in dealing with the anatomy the inward parts. Not a superficial feeling but something that is deep on the inside of us. When you have compassion or love for what you do, the troubles of it don’t seem so bad. I am so glad that Jesus loves us.

Ephesians 2:4-5

New King James Version (NKJV)

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

1 John 4:9-11

New King James Version (NKJV)

⁹ In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

 

1 Corinthians 13 

New King James Version (NKJV)

13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. ² And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,^[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.

⁴ Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; ⁵ does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; ⁶ does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part.¹⁰ But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. ¹² For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

¹³ And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Prioritize

The third thing I noticed about the text and those who do more with less is that they prioritize. The disciples wanted to send the multitude home, Jesus wanted them to stay the priority was the work being done, not going home to shop for food. I also noticed in some of the other gospel texts, when the disciples say how much it would cost to feed the multitudes, no one ever says they don’t have the money, only that it would cost a lot. Decisions in the texts, right or wrong, were decisions made based on priorities. When you have the right priorities you will be able to get a lot more accomplished.

Ask yourself, what are your priorities? If you have some trouble answering the question, look in your checkbook, which will help you figure it out, check out a bank statement online or paper copy, whatever you see the most going to, I would be willing to bet that is a priority. If not money, look at what you spend the most time doing, where you spend your time and treasure will tell you what you consider a priority. Only what you do for Christ will last

Know where your help comes from

The text says that Jesus took the bread, looked to the heavens and blessed it. He knew where his help came from, notice also that the boy is not mentioned anymore after he hands over the food. You turn your problems over to the Lord and you don’t have to handle them anymore.

Psalm 121 New King James Version (NKJV)

A Song of Ascents.

121 I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
² My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴ Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
⁸ The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore.

Psalm 54:4New King James Version (NKJV)

⁴ Behold, God is my helper;
The Lord is with those who uphold my life.

Romans 8:31-39

New King James Version (NKJV)

God’s Everlasting Love

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”^[a]

³⁷ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

---

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/sports/surviving-the-bernard-hopkins-way.html

[2] http://www.brainfacts.org/sensing-thinking-behaving/awareness-and-attention/articles/2013/the-multitasking-mind/