Sermon Transcript
Man, if only it could have been done in 2 minutes like that video. Fantastic. Can you believe this? We are finally back. We are so happy to be back.
A couple days ago, I was thinking again about, you know, this moment, and what came to mind was Psalm 118:24, this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. You familiar with that passage? Well, this is the day the Lord has made. In fact, would you just say that with me?
This is the day the Lord hath made. I will rejoice, or let us rejoice, and be glad in it. Amen? Yeah. I mean, this is really God’s doing, and you need to know this story.
So, I’m just going to take a moment to recount some of this story of how this all came about, because it was not us, it was God, and He needs to get all of the credit, and we need to continue to just celebrate, not just today, but what He has done and what He is yet to do. So I hope you know the story. If you haven’t heard the story, catch on to some of this story so that you can pass this on to others and other generations, and they can rejoice in the kind of God that we get the privilege of worshiping. This story goes back to July 27th, 19— excuse me, not 19. July 27th, 1847.
2014 may seem like the, you know, other century, but 2014. And actually, there’s a front part to that story, which is it goes back to fall of 2012 when we as a church launched a campaign to pay off a debt. We had a debt on the Family Life Center, and then also to do some remodeling. We got into the project. It didn’t look like we were going to be able to do much remodeling because of the commitments that had come in right up front in terms of pledges and that sort of thing.
And so anyway, we raised funds there for a couple of years, and ultimately we had enough to pay off the debt, and we had some other money that was going to be used eventually for some remodeling, but not very much. But we had $817,000 to pay off the debt. And it was due in July. It was due in July of 2014. There was no getting around that.
It had to be paid. And so, we paid it at that time. We couldn’t pay it in advance because there were prepayment penalties, believe it or not. And so, we had to pay it then. That’s part of the reason why we got into the campaign, was to make sure we could pay our debts when our debts were due.
So, we did that, and then a week or so later, we celebrated the the payoff of the debt by burning a copy of the note. We didn’t actually burn the note, but we burned a copy of the note in both services. This is Rob Lentz, who used to be our music pastor, and we had a fun time there. He didn’t have to use a fire extinguisher, but we just had a great time. We celebrated that on July 27th, so 7/27/14.
That evening, whether it was late on that day, July 27th, or it was early in the morning on July 28th, the flood hit. In the women’s bathroom, there was a pipe that broke. This is a picture of that area that the pipe broke in. You see the picture now, you say, well, it was just waiting to happen, you know. I mean, obviously, it wasn’t in great shape there, but a pipe broke in the women’s restroom.
It flooded the restroom. It flooded the next restroom. It flooded the lobby. It came down the aisle over here on this side, and it came down to this area out here. Of course, we’ve enlarged the stage now, and this was a swimming pool, a shallow swimming pool down here as well, and it went underneath the platform also.
And so, it basically, as we looked at it afterwards, it touched all of the areas that we needed to remodel. The flood touched every one of them, seriously. So now we needed to do something. Before all of that, it was a desire. We desired to do some remodeling in this building.
God simply changed it from desire to you have to, which was wonderful. In some people’s minds, it was a huge answer to prayer. In fact, I had a couple of women a week or so later come to me and say, Dave, you know, I need to be honest about this because I was actually in the bathroom recently and praying that God would give us a new bathroom.
Well, he has, okay? So we were the next Sunday over in the gym, and we’ve been worshiping in the gym ever since for the past 21 months. We didn’t know it would be that long. We figured we’d get in, we’d get out. And they got going immediately on remediation work and, you know, working on the areas that were wet and that sort of thing.
We got going on, do we go ahead with just remediation or do we do some kind of remodel? We spent a lot of time thinking about that. We found out eventually that the insurance settlement would be about $100,000, which is great. And so we went forward with the monies that we had on remodeling the bathrooms. And if you haven’t yet been in the bathrooms, before you leave today, check them out.
They’re really great. They are 1,000 times better than the bathrooms that we had before. I don’t think there’s any question about that. And, you know, we got a new family room over there, and we have an usher’s room that really works well. We got a resource room over here.
We’ve opened up a student ministry center over here. The lobby’s been redone. So, all of that was a part of the initial More to Come initial phase of remodeling, and we’re just so grateful for all that was done there. We were near the end of that, and we were at the point where they were going to have the inspections then. And one of the inspections was going to be with regard to the electrical systems and the new things that had been put in.
In fact, during that phase there, they had to put in a new fire safety system that actually cost us $100,000. This system cost $100,000. So that was huge in and of itself. The fire marshal actually said, I want you to know that you have one of the best systems in the county now. So that was reassuring that we had spent $100,000 and at least we got a great system.
But after all of that was finished, they were preparing to do the final inspections and we were told that if we did not remove some of the lighting systems that we had, we would fail inspections. So ultimately those lighting systems were removed and basically what we had then was flood 2. Because we no longer had lighting systems in the building. We could not get back into here without a new lighting system, and the initial cost for the lighting system was over $400,000. And by the way, what you just saw this morning with all of these new lights that we have is just a little bit of the excitement that we have about the new system.
I mean, fortunately, you’re going to be able to walk in here now and see your notes and your Bible and read it. But you’re also gonna be able to see people’s faces on the stage. I don’t know if you noticed this, but there was not one shadow on a person’s eyes that was on this stage this morning. It was fantastic. I’m so happy about that.
But that would not have happened had we been told it’s okay, we can just move forward and you’ll pass the inspections. We were told we would fail the inspections if something wasn’t done. So, that put us into still more to come. Many of you know about more to come. Well, there was the more to come phase, and we went through all of that, but now we’re looking at still more to come.
We called it Priority 2, and we came to you and we said, what do we do? Do we do a little bit or a lot, or what do we do? And we looked to the congregation for input, and we looked to you for what you thought we should be doing in this building. That was very important, your input. We had a 2.1, Priority 2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3.
And basically what we ended up doing after all of that was $2.1 and a half, somewhere around there. We didn’t go for $2.2 or $2.3, but we said this is what we really sense God has for us. The upshot of all of that is this. This is the result of all of that, of the giving, the sacrifice, the input, and the giving has just been amazing. When we first launched this back in 2012, we said we need about $2.5 million.
If we’re gonna be able to do not only the debt payoff but also the remodeling. At that time, $1.22 million was pledged. So not even half was pledged of what we knew we needed in order to not just pay off the debt but do the remodeling. And yet, to this day, there’s been now given over $2.4 million. We’ve almost given up to the point of where we thought we needed to go.
Amen?
And so when we launched Still More to Come, we did not have the money to do what you see here. This is the result of what’s taken place since last summer. And in our timing, we would say, well, it just seemed like it took so long, and we would agree with that. It’s been 21 months. But in God’s plan, He made it happen this way.
I can’t but say, this is a day that the Lord has made, so we’re rejoicing and we’re glad in this because of what God has done. Now, that fits how God works, isn’t it? We’re told God works in mysterious ways. Have you heard that before? Well, this is the result of His mysterious ways.
It truly is. You familiar with Isaiah chapter 55 and verses 8 and 9? If you have a message note sheet there, I put the passage in there for you just to think with me about for a moment this morning, because there are a couple of lessons that we want to take with us before we just jump on to the next thing that God has for us. Let’s make sure we use this teachable moment and say, what is it, Lord, that I need to remember about what you’ve done during this time? And live that out in my life so that it becomes a part of my life?
Well, I think this little section of Scripture here could be helpful in taking with us a couple of lessons where Isaiah says this regarding God: My thoughts— for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your way. Ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Now, that, of course, is written to Israel, and so Israel is different than the church. I mean, we are the church, we’re not Israel.
But nonetheless, Israel needed to learn about God’s thoughts and ways, and in the same way, we need to learn about God’s thoughts and ways. And I think if we were to just, you know, take all that we’ve been through and put it together, it teaches us something about God’s thoughts and ways, doesn’t it? And about the response he wants from us. I think firstly, this is telling us that we need to trust God’s thinking. We need to trust God’s thinking because his thinking is higher and his thinking is greater.
His thinking is better than our thinking. Not one of us— and I know I had a couple of people come to me and say, Dave, did you go in the middle of the night and break the pipe in the women’s restroom? And the answer is, no, I didn’t think of doing that, but God did. God orchestrated this. I mean, you talk about out-of-the-box thinking, I would call that out-of-the-box thinking.
So that what essentially happened here is that he took what we had as a desire to do some remodeling. It was a desire. We had the desire that we presented to the congregation and said, Wouldn’t it be great if we could modernize this building and we could make things nicer than they are right now? But it was looking like that was not going to happen until God forced the issue and it became a need. It was no longer a desire, it was a need.
And why would God do that? Well, I think there’s another verse that ties into this. It’s Jeremiah chapter 29 and verse 11. Where it says, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. If you’re familiar with that passage, you know that this is a statement that God makes to Judah when Judah is in exile.
They were exiled not 21 months, they were exiled 70 years, okay? So we’re grateful that we’re not exiled for 70 years, but nonetheless, we know a little bit about exile in that we were over in the gym. And by the way, isn’t it amazing that even in God’s timing, the gym that we ultimately went to had just been remodeled within months before? That it was remodeled just months before because the school got on board with pushing that project through, and we joined with them, and they got the whole thing done, and it was beautiful. It was— completely different meeting there for 21 months than it would have been.
But this passage tells us that Judah’s trying to figure out, you know, what’s our future? Does God have a plan for us? Where are we going? And God wants them to know, I’ve got a plan for you. I’ve got a plan that actually is to prosper you.
But I’ve got you right now where I want you to be. They were exiled in Babylon. And while they were in Babylon, God didn’t want them to just be waiting for the day, you know, that they would finally move forward. He wanted them to be busy about doing work where they were. In fact, if you look up a little bit in their passage in Jeremiah 29, verse 4, it says, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: build houses and settle down.
Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Also seek the peace and prosperity of this city— that’s verse 7— to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. I mean, what’s God saying to these people that are in exile? He’s saying, make the most of this.
I mean, yeah, you don’t want to be where you are right now, but I want you to be there right now. And so build houses where you are and settle down and plant gardens and Eat the produce of the land and seek the peace and prosperity of the city that you’ve been carried into. I mean, you may hate these people because they conquered you and, you know, you lost your homeland, but don’t respond that way. Have a, I’m gonna make the most of this opportunity time. And, you know, when I look back at the 21 months that we were out of this building, I think we made the most of it.
I really do. I think that we settled down in there, and it was a challenge week after week after week setting it up because it was like a church, you know, that was just starting and all the rest that was connected to that. But we made the most of it, and God did an amazing work. There are people that are here this morning because they saw the work that God was doing in the gym, and they said, this is the place I want to be. This is where I want to Put my roots down.
And we are so thankful for that. I mean, just even in the last few weeks, there have been people that have come to faith in Jesus Christ as a result of the ministry that we were having over in that building. I mean, how good can it get but that? I love how Robert Morgan talks about this. He says, you may not be where you want to be, but make the most of where you are.
Some of us can totally identify with that right now because it feels like we’re in exile. And like God’s forgotten us. No, he hasn’t forgotten us. He’s got us right where he wants us to be, and we need to realize that his thinking is, yes, going to be different than ours, but he’s got a perfect plan. It’s not just what he wants to do now, but it’s the preparation for what he’s doing now for what he wants to do ultimately in the future.
A couple days ago, I had a conversation in the evening with one of the guys that was here working on the audiovisual systems from Velocity from Atlanta, Georgia. They came in to be a part of this project, and it was just a great moment for me to just hear his perspective. I asked him, so tell me a little bit about what you think of what we’ve been doing here and, you know, your involvement in this. And he said, listen, this has been an absolute thrill for me to be a part of this. This is a Christian, a strong Christian.
He said, you know, I’ve gone to a lot of churches and done a lot of installs and all of that, but for me, this is one of my favorite ones because of the potential that this congregation has, the potential that this building has. You guys are in the heart of the Silicon Valley, and you have the potential to impact people here that can impact the world. And the systems that we are putting into this building hopefully are going to help you do that. And then he said this, he said, you know, I really got to believe that God is after someone. And I would say it’s not just someone, it’s someones, the someones that he’s going to bring into this building that he has plans to impact.
And so from his perspective, this isn’t about, you know, putting up monitors and setting up lights and that sort of thing. This is much greater than that. This is the result of God’s hand and his work and the plans that he has for this congregation. So we may not understand his thinking, but it certainly makes sense to trust it, doesn’t it? Go back to Isaiah 55 again.
It says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher Higher than your ways. So not only should we trust His thinking, His thoughts, but also it’s suggesting here that they need to welcome His ways. We need to welcome God’s ways. Why would we welcome God’s ways?
Because God’s ways are better than our ways. We would have never done what we just went through, but God knew we needed to do that. We needed to do that for what He wants to do now and in the future and what He wanted to do over there. You know, what happened in the gym really did impact the life of this church in significant ways. We grew together in significant ways.
There was a dynamic that took place over in that building that brought a new sense of excitement about worship. It happened over there, and it helped us— when we saw that happening, it helped us think about what needed to be in this building. Closeness, the closeness and proximity, the intimacy that we’re experiencing this morning, we realized that we needed to bring that intimacy back into this building. And so that in some ways is a part of why the building has been improved the way it has, why we have done things on the stage the way that we have, or the lighting systems, or whatever it is. We learned much of that over in the gym and what took place over in the gym.
We would not have experienced that had God not done things His ways. You remember when God led the Israelites out of Egypt, that He could have taken them out of Egypt on the direct route? Do you remember how He took them out of Egypt? He took them out of Egypt on the roundabout route. He didn’t take them on the direct route, He took them on the indirect route.
And it tells us the reason He took them on the indirect route was because He wanted them to learn something. He wanted them to trust Him. He wanted them to see his miraculous work. He didn’t want them to live in fear; he wanted them to live with complete trust. You remember how Job, who suffered and he lost everything, but yet in the midst of all of his suffering Job was able to say this: He knows the way that I take, Job 23:10, he knows the way that I take; and when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
What’s Job doing here? He’s saying, listen. I mean, this isn’t my way. This is God’s way. And God knows the way that I’m going right now.
He’s the one that’s designed this. And I can either fight that or I can embrace that. And Job embraces that. He says, yes, Lord, you got my attention. I know that you’re testing me, but I know on the other side of this I’m going to come forth as gold.
And if you’re familiar with this picture, you know that a goldsmith would take gold that was solid and would heat that gold, and the gold would liquefy. And as the gold liquefied, the impurities in the gold would rise to the surface. They were called dross. And then the goldsmith would skim the impurities off of the surface. You know how the goldsmith knew he had pure gold?
It was by him looking at himself in the gold. And as he was able to see his image in the gold, without any impurities, he knew the gold was pure. And what Job is saying here is God is a goldsmith, and God is taking me this way, and he is testing me. He’s testing me with fire, but there’s a day coming when I’m going to come forth as gold, and he is going to be seen in me. And we would say, and God wants Jesus Christ to be seen in us so that the entire world could learn of Christ through the lives of people that are trusting His ways.
You know what the end of all of this is? Look at Isaiah 55:12. It tells us that yes, there was going to be a future for the people that trusted God and followed His ways. It ultimately says, for you— and this is their future— for you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall shall break forth in singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
I mean, what is that a picture of? It’s a picture of a celebration parade, a celebration parade that not only impacts the people who are now coming out of exile, who’ve been exiled, and now they’re coming out exuberant, joyful, thankful, praising God. It impacts not only them, but it impacts all of creation. It impacts even nature. Is the picture there?
Well, today is our celebration parade, isn’t it? We look at what God has done and we celebrate it. We celebrate what he’s done, and we at the same time anticipate what God is yet to do. I mean, this tells us God has something special for us, that God had enough interest in Bridges Community Church and the building that we were in, that he had enough interest that he would orchestrate things in such a way that that which we did not believe we could do, he would make possible. And so this is a celebration of what he has done, and at the same time, it’s an anticipation of the plans that he has for us.
Of what it is that he is yet to do. Before I came to Bridges Community Church, at that time First Baptist Church of Los Altos, I played a round of golf with Bob Deal. Some of you recognize the name Bob Deal because Bob was on staff here for 33 years. He was the pastor of music ministries. And it was a fun day.
It was really the first time I had met him, but I heard he was living there in Phoenix, and I was living in Phoenix. We were as a family getting ready to move from Phoenix over here. And so I thought, you know, I just got to meet this guy and play some golf. I don’t really remember much about the golf experience, quite frankly. I don’t remember the score, so that means it probably wasn’t that good or I would remember.
But, you know, we played golf and we had a great time out there hitting bad shots together, I’m sure. Probably his were fine. We had this fun time together, and then we had lunch together after that. And we sat at lunch and we had a conversation about a lot of things, because this consumed most of the day, this day with Bob.
And I don’t remember really much about that conversation either. I do remember a couple of things. I remember this man loves God, and I remember this man loves the church. Absolutely loves the church. And I remember him talking about this church, and I also remember him expressing his fears for this church.
He said, you know, Dave, the one thing I fear is that First Baptist Church Los Altos— that’s what it was called at that time— that First Baptist Church of Los Altos might get stuck in their memories and miss out on moving forward with God’s dreams. In fact, he said it this way, churches are headed toward death when their memories are bigger than their dreams.
And I’ve never forgotten that. And I look at this passage and I look at what God has done and what God is doing in the life of Bridges Community Church right now, and I think God is saying, I’ve got dreams for you. I’ve got plans for you. I’ve got new ways for you. And really the only thing that will keep that from happening would— us being stuck in our memories.
And it’s not that our memories aren’t wonderful. We don’t want to lose our memories. We want to celebrate our memories. We want to celebrate all that God has done even over the past 21 months, don’t we? We don’t want to forget that.
We want to learn from that. We want to learn to trust him more. We want to learn to welcome the ways that he brings into our lives that are beyond our thoughts and our imaginations. Yes, we want to remember that and we want to celebrate that. And as far as this building goes, this building is filled with memories.
Some of you have been here for many years. And this was the building you were baptized in. And this was the building where your children were baptized and your building where your children came to faith in Jesus Christ. And this was the building where you got married. And this was the building where you had a memorial service for a loved one or a friend.
And this was the building where you were a part of the choir for a while. And this was the building where you gave your first testimony. You know the memories.
This was the place you found Jesus Christ. And so we don’t in any way lessen those memories. We celebrate those memories, but we can’t get stuck in those memories. And I think that’s one of the things that we want to remember on a day like this, that this is, yes, meant to be a time of celebration, But also, this is meant to be a time of anticipation. And we anticipate what God is going to do when we trust this God whose thoughts are not our thoughts, and we welcome this God to continue doing things the way he wants to do things, even when they aren’t the way that we would do things.
And so all of that is just simply to say, we pray that what God has done in the past will continue, and it sure seems like he wants it to continue, in such a way that it builds new memories.
There are people now in this building for the first time who will have this as a memory. And there are people that are yet to come to this church that potentially can be people who have some memories. And those memories are built here, and their lives are transformed, and their lives are changed. And so we as a congregation are thrilled about what God has done and what God is yet to do. So we can then say, this is the day— say it with me— the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it. Amen. Let’s pray. Father, thank you so much. That we as a church family can gather today and celebrate what you’ve done.
We recognize that we could not have done this, but you did. And you have a plan for us, and we have the privilege of being a part of that plan right now. I can’t even fathom what is yet to come. But we’re wanting to follow you and trust you. And, Lord, when it seems like this just doesn’t make sense, God, elevate our faith at those times.
We celebrate together all that you have done, whether it’s been in the past 21 months or months and years before. And we anticipate what you are yet to do. And even as we’ve been taught, Lord, we want to say, to you be the glory. Great things you have done and great things you are yet to do.
So collectively, Lord, we recognize this is the day that you made, and we are rejoicing and we are glad in it. And it’s in your Son’s precious name that we pray, amen. Everybody said amen. Well, and as we continue to celebrate
