Let’s Be Real

Before Sunday's service, Pastor Colombo shared a brief message inspired by Raised to Stay: Persevering in Ministry When You Have a Million Reasons to Walk Away by Natalie Runion, encouraging us to pursue unity, grace, and faithfulness within the local church. It was a timely reminder that, while no church is perfect, God calls us to love His people, extend grace, and remain committed to the body of Christ as we grow together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Father, I just give you glory and honor this morning. And I just ask, Lord, that you would mark my words, direct my spirit to do your will. Because I believe, Lord, that you've given me something here this morning to share with God's people. And I'm just naming it, Let's Be Real. So, Father, I'm asking you to touch my lips for a few moments before we resume worship and singing. And I'll give you the glory and the honor in Jesus' name. Amen. As I've said, the last five books that I've read, this is the last one I've been reading. I'll read more. It's all about the church because I believe the church is the healing center of the community. And I believe unless we understand what a church is, we're gonna fail in the last days that we're in. This book that I'm going to refer to in the next few moments is about a young woman. She's in her 40s now. She's a pastor's child, and she was very hurt uh in the church. And uh I just want to read to you what happened to her, just as briefly, and I'm gonna tell you why I'm reading it. She said these words The summer before my senior high school, in the senior high school, my parents, younger sister and I, were called into an early Sunday morning meeting where, much to our surprise, it was announced that we would leave the church immediately without any explanation or choice in the matter. I'll never forget standing in front of the congregation that very Sunday, my father speechless, as we were forced to say goodbye, unable to defend ourselves or help them come to a better understanding of what was happening. We said goodbye to our church family, the people who had raised me, prayed over me, threw birthday parties for us, and shared in every celebration and loss. That same week, we packed up the parsonage, drove miles out of town to a horse farm owned by a family friend. We spent much of my senior year of high school living in a one-bedroom efficiency apartment over a barn. This is the same girl whose dad said this to her early in life. I want to read this to you. Her dad said these words to her as a young woman, and she never forgot them. She said, My dad used to tell me that if I ever found myself alone and afraid in a new city to look for a church. I'll read that again. My dad used to tell me if I ever found myself alone and afraid in a new city to look for a church. I'm a person that goes by a lot by statistics and seasons. When I meet someone, I look at their age group basically. I try to match that with the season of life that I have studied for so many years that they might be in. I look at every 10 people, and I know the statistically, out of every 10 people, a certain amount of people have diabetes, some people have hypertension, some people have emotional issues, some people have sexual dysfunction, some people have marital issues. Out of every 10 people you meet, there's a certain amount of people that are alone and feel lonely. So I said, okay, where are we going with this, Lord? And here's what I want to share with you. The Lord says in the book of Genesis, that it's not only related to marriage, it's not good for man or woman to be alone. It's been announced in the last year or two that in America loneliness is an epidemic. Some of you went to bed lonely last night. Statistically, I know that for a fact. Statistically, some of you went to bed lonely last night. You might even be married and still be lonely. That's the way you went to bed. That's the way you woke up. So here's where I'm going with this. I'm going to the book of John, chapter six, for a few minutes, and I really want to challenge you about a few characters in this story for in the next few moments. The Bible says this after these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias, and a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles, which he had did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples, and the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was nigh. Look at verse number five. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company come unto him, he said unto Philip, Philip, whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? He asked Philip a question. And God's going to ask you some questions here this morning. He's going to challenge you with some questions. That's going to be related to these biblical characters here in the next few moments. And he said, to prove him, for he himself, Jesus, knew what he would do. Now you you came here with problems this morning. You came here with conflict. You came here with things in your mind that you have questions about that you have not received an answer for. But here's what I want to say to you. When Philip came, okay, to Jesus, Jesus already knew the solution to his situation. When you walk through the door of this church, if we follow this pattern this morning, Jesus already knows the solution for your situation. You may be in the dark this morning, and you probably are statistically. Of course, we look through a glass darkly. But I guarantee you that God, who sits on the throne, who created the universe, knows the answer to your question. Now listen to what happened. Philip answered him: 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. Now, wait a minute. You see, this is us. We're gonna try to figure it out. We're gonna try to solve it. We're gonna go to ten people and figure out what do you think and what do you think and what do you think, and what's your opinion? But you know who we leave out? We leave out Jesus. And we try to master these great ideas in our mind that were so smart and so efficient and so sufficient. I'll figure this thing out by myself. See, I don't need any help. You see, Philip, at that moment, he was trying. He was saying, Lord, we we only have a little bit of money. How there's no delicatessen here, there's no Walmart here, there's no, there's this how are we gonna feed people? Well, then something happens. Okay, look what happens. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said unto him, There is a lad here, a young boy, which has five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? Now ask yourself a question. There's 5,000 men in this audience. And if every man is married and has two children on the average, you're talking about 20,000 people. Where does Andrew get off going into this crowd of 5,000 people? You see, he's searching. That's what God wants us to do this morning. He wants us to search, search our hearts, search our relationships, search our church, search our family, search our country. Where does Philip, where does Andrew get off moving and roaming into a crowd of 5,000 people? What are the probabilities? What are the statistics for you that took statistical courses in school, in hollow in college, or graduate school? What is the odds of this man fighting a young lad with five loaves and two fishes? It's almost impossible. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. But yet God was guiding him. And you see, that's what I want to say to you this morning that you're here because God is guiding you. You walk through the doors of this church, not the church around the corner, not the church down the road. You walked into the doors of this church. There's a reason that God drew you here. Because he wants to give you a solution and he wants to challenge you and say to you this morning, Do you have five loaves and two fishes? You see, think of this this morning. You're hungry. You've been three days in the wilderness with Jesus, you're hungry, and you're a young boy. Maybe you're 12 years old, and you have five loaves and two fishes. Swart on the part of his mother, probably, who said you better take lunch. But to give up five loaves and two fishes? What is God asking you to give up this morning? Come on, are you with me? What is God asking you to give up this morning? Let's be real. Let's not play church. What is God saying? What are you holding on to? What are the five loaves and the two fishes that you're holding on to? That God is saying, let go! Let go! Give it to me. Good, bad, or indifferent. Give it to me. But we hold on. And some of us will come back next week with the same issues and the same problems. Statistically, you'll walk through the door with no solution, not accepting the challenge if you're not careful, and saying, Well, it is what it is, and I have accepted this as my new normal. I hate that. I hate that. What's a new normal? What's a new normal? We're Christians. We're above normal. Come on here. We're above normal. Because we serve a God that says I can do exceeding abundantly above all how we can ask for a thing. I asked my wife the other day, are we actually living abundant life? Jesus said, I've come to give you life what? More abundantly. I'm asking you a question this morning as you're a pastor. Are you living an abundant life? Or you're in the crowd of 5,000 or 20,000 trying to search out someone for an answer. Or are you looking in the wrong place for an answer? Are you looking in the wrong place for affection or love? Are you looking in the wrong place for affirmation or confirmation about who you are and what is your identity? So what happened here? The Bible says this. And Jesus took the five loaves. You see, he wants to take something from you this morning. He wants to get rid of what is negative, and he wants to take from you your worship and your praise and your love and your kindness and all the virtues that he gives us through the power of the Holy Spirit. And the Bible says, and he took the loaves, and he said, He had given thanks, he distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down, and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. And when they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragrance that remain, that nothing be lost. Now let me just share this with you, and I'm gonna be quiet. Philip was trying to figure it out. Jesus always knows the answer. And when we fail to go to him, you'll never get the answer you need. Oh, you might get an answer from somebody, but it's gonna be not biblical. 5,000 people. Here's Andrew searching. What are you searching for this morning? What are you searching for? What did you come here for? Did we come here to sing, you know, four or five songs and hear a sermon and go home and say, hey, praise God, we'll see you next week. Is that church?

unknown 12:21

No.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Is that what church is? No. Come on, think about it for a moment. Let's be real. Let's be real. This lad had five loaves and two fishes, but he was willing to depart with them. Are you holding on to anything? Praise God this morning, that he, the Lord Jesus Christ, wants to take from you. Oh, you you we can sit here this morning and we can, you know, dig in and say, hey, I'm good. I don't know about you, but in these last days I have become undone. I feel like Isaiah in the word of God. I'm an undone, I'm a man of unclean lips. God send the cold from heaven. He is shaking my faith. He is shaking my faith. And he's trying to get me to the place, praise God, where I can walk in the secret place of the Most High God, in the shadow of the Almighty. I want to tell you something. We will never be able to do that without the power of the Holy Spirit. Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Now, what what's he saying here? Like a computer, when you defragment your computer, you're optimizing the performance. Like your computer, allow the Lord to make sense of your fragments and bring them full circle. Optimize your disk, your hard drive, so to speak, your spirit. Defragment your hard drive and consolidate space to improve performance. What is it that God is trying to consolidate in our lives? What are the fragments that He's trying to gather and say, these you need, these you don't need? What are the distractions? Someone asked the pastor, what do you think the greatest threat to the church is in the last days? Do you think it's persecution? He said, No. It's distractions. We are so distracted on our phones, even in church. We're on our phones in church. We don't silence our phones. Because we gotta find out who texted us. We gotta find out what hey, what's going on in the world? What is going on in the world? It's complete chaos. It's complete chaos. But Jesus is saying, what's going on in the church? But more than that, what's going on in your heart? What's going on in your heart? Listen. Be real with the Lord this morning, because that's what I want to be real with the Lord. I want to tell you, I can't even explain to you the emotions that I've been going through the last little while of my life. I have I've had to fight the cloud of being forlorn, the cloud of doom. I've had moments of elation where I was feel like I was on the mountain walking with Jesus. I've had highs and lows, and sometimes my my spiritual life is spiritual bipolar. Come on now. I feel like it's spiritual bipolar sometimes. I'm way down there, and all of a sudden, praise God, I'm I'm praying, or someone's praying for me, and I'm on the mountaintop again. I'm saying, Lord, what am I gonna level out? Are you with me? I'm gonna shut up here in a moment. God's challenging me and He's challenging you, and He's challenging this church. If we want to just be same old, same old, then we'll reduce ourselves to be the same old, same old. But if we want to respond to some of the things that have been said here this morning, God challenging us. Because you know what? We're all walking in a wilderness. I said we're all walking in a wilderness. And you know what a wilderness is? It's a place that's ready for pasture. Hear what I'm saying? I'm gonna be preaching on this shortly, someday. A wilderness is a place that's ready for pasture. You see, you can look at a piece of land out there and you can say to yourself, man, that's a piece of junk land. Oh no, it's not. Put that land in the hands of a farmer, put that hand, that land in the hands of a man that has equipment, and he starts to till up that land. And boy, I want to tell you something. You see that wheat growing, you see that corn growing, you see those soybeans growing, and that, praise God, is no longer a wilderness, but that's a pasture, praise God, that's gonna give a prayer, a prophet to that farmer. And he's gonna put food on our table because of what he's done. I just wanted to interject. I I I'm so full this morning, and I'm gonna preach here later, God willing, whatever he wants to do, but I tell you, I I want I want God to challenge me, and I want God to challenge you. Father, I just thank you for this just brief moments that we've had together. And I just, Lord, pray that God, that the word of God, that what has been said, will be absorbed into our spirit and will touch us in a mighty way in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you. Would you stand with us?