It’s hard to believe this is the last Sunday of 2020! What an impact a year can make! Saying 2020 was a difference making year for ALL of us is quite the understatement isn’t it? But I do want to celebrate a few of the wonderful things that happened in 2020 here at BC.

· MORE people heard the Gospel at Easter and Good Friday than any other year in our history and we were virtual only.
· December 22nd 2019 our Hispanic church had 41in attendance. December 20th 2020, they had 123!!
· Our online impact has grown exponentially
· Our Ocon campus moved to the Ocon Community Center and that has been awesome!
· We were able to pay for some incredible missions projects this year, including…
o 2 church plants in Moldova, where our former staff members Troy & Heidi Darrin serve.
o A church plant in Utah, started by Chris Bechtel, son of Al and Claudette.
o Several others.
· We baptized more people in 2020 than any other year since we have lived here.

There are LOTS of things to celebrate in 2020 if you know where to look. And that is true of your life too. Whatever season you are in, there ARE always blessings if you know where to look!

Now, as most of you know, our theme word for 2020 was “BECOMING…” I wanted to speak one more time addressing this word, as a bit of a wrap up message for this year. I thought I would start with how I introduced this word on January 5th of 2020. Here is what I said:

“This year being 20/20, the word needed to be a VISION level word that we could truly FOCUS on this year. The word the Lord gave me is “BECOMING…”

You ARE BECOMING…something! What you are BECOMING doesn’t have to be intentional, it can be accidental. This word isn’t even dependent on being a Christian. Whether you know Jesus or not, you are BECOMING something! What you are BECOMING is because of what you are spending your attention on. What you are BECOMING is because of what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you do… without thinking. What you are BECOMING is because of your HABITS, not your desires, your wishes, your goals, your intentions. As author James Clear says,

Habits eat everything else for breakfast

I think that paragraph was spot on for 2020. And 2020 was chock full of tension, events, grief, tragedies, a world wide pandemic, a presidential election and much more that molded and sanded and sometimes sandblasted your habits, routines and thus your life. Let’s go back to our theme verse for 2020.

You have changed, are changing and will continue to change!

And that can be good or bad! In ways seen and unseen, you are not the same person you were last year at this time. My hope and prayer for you is that you have changed for the better, becoming more like Jesus. That opportunity was there in abundance. You could have BECOME:

· More compassionate with the hurting
· You could have BECOME more intentional towards other races in learning about them and their experiences.
· You could have BECOME closer to Jesus because you pressed into Him, and watched messages, read your Bible, prayed like never before, attended services, whether you were in person or not.
· You could have BECOME more generous in recognition of how much you are blessed
· You could have BECOME less judgmental towards those who were different from you.

The opportunities in 2020 were also present that you COULD have BECOME:
· LESS compassionate with the hurting
· You could have BECOME more judgmental toward other races
· You could have BECOME more distant in your relationship with Christ because you didn’t prioritize faith. You let other things distract you and you drifted.
· You could have BECOME less generous because you were fearful
· You could have BECOME more judgmental of others because of their view on…racism, masks, shut downs, politics, etc.

When you take a hard look at yourself, over the course of 2020, there are 2 questions I want to address today. WHO have you BECOME and WHY did you BECOME?

WHO have you BECOME?

WHO you have become this year ISN’T BECAUSE of all the bad things that happened, but by what you did with all the bad things that happened. Not everyone had the exact same experiences in this last year, but everyone had good and bad experiences. Here is the truth in Scripture.

Matthew 5:45b – NLT – “For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. “

The theological word for this truth is COMMON GRACE. There are some things that we experience just because we are human. If you look at the totality of Scripture, you are not promised to never get sick, to never lose a job, to never struggle with injustice or infertility or to never lose a loved one. Those are COMMON human experiences that ALL of us CAN go through.

But I have learned this:

The same conditions can have drastically different results.

Take a pot of boiling water and place an egg in it for just minutes;
The egg was soft, and now is hard!
– the boiling water changed the egg.
Now take the same pot of boiling water and place a carrot into it for just minutes;
The carrot was hard, and now is soft!
– the boiling water changed the carrot.
Now, say I am a tea bag, and I say to the pot of boiling water:
“Hey Mr Pot you are pretty big, bad & boiling…”
“When the egg was put in you, you changed the egg…”
“When the carrot was put in you, you changed the carrot…”
“But when I come in there, I will change you!”
“You will no longer be called Mr Boiling Water…”
“I will change your name!”
“No longer will you they call you water but now they will call you… TEA!”
“Once you were colorless but now I will add some color to your life.”
“I will change your chemistry…”
“I will change your DNA…”
“I will change everything about you…”

I don’t know about you…but I just want to be a TEA BAG!

The teabag is different than the carrot and the egg. Once it gets placed in hot water, it reveals flavor and fragrance to everything else in the pot. As situations get worse, the teabag continuously gets better and it changes the situation.

How do you handle adversity? Do you get soft like a carrot, hard like an egg, or strong like a teabag?

The same conditions can have drastically different results.

· A worldwide pandemic or losing your job could grow fear OR grow faith?
· The chaos of perhaps the most polarizing election in history could grow confidence or confusion
· The George Floyd tragedy could grow your compassion or your complacency your anger or your apathy
· The uncertainty and tension entering 2021can pull you apart or build your spiritual muscles
· There was definitely ALL kinds of potential available in the seeds of change in 2020! The difference was in YOU and how you reacted to the hot water! Were you an egg, a carrot or a tea bag?

We all had incredible opportunities to CHANGE for the better or the worse. What did you make of those opportunities? The older I get, the MORE I grow to love a passage of Scripture that I used to not understand. I want to break it down for us today.

One of my favorite authors is Mark Batterson, probably for two reasons.
1) I love his writing
2) I went to school with him

I heard him interviewed recently about his new book, “Win the Day”. He has a chapter in there entitled “Kiss the Wave”. That phrase comes from a Charles Spurgeon story where he said that you have to “kiss the wave” that throws you against the Rock of Ages. In that chapter, Mark tells the story of his wife, Laura’s battle with cancer a few years back. She came across this one little question in a poem that said,

What have you come to teach me?"

THAT approach, that question, that way to RE-FRAME your trial is exactly what James was talking about. What if you asked THAT question instead of WHY ME?

· What have you come to teach me, financial struggles?
· What have you come to teach me, marital strife?
· What have you come to teach me, COVID?
· What have you come to teach me, children who won’t listen or obey or follow Jesus, etc. ?
· What have you come to teach me, ___________________?

Could you BEGIN to SEE your troubles as OPPORTUNITIES for GREAT JOY? Perhaps we can if we understand verse 3.

If you have been a Christ follower for any length of time, you should KNOW that the best growth seasons in your life, have likely been in or after some of the bigger storms in your life. When your faith is tested hard, its getting a work out, it has a great chance of growing one CRITICAL quality that doesn’t get talked about enough. ENDURANCE!

I have been a follower of Jesus for almost 37 years. I have been in full-time ministry for over 25 years. In those years, I have seen some incredible people who loved and served Jesus, give up, quit, stop.
· They quit going to church
· They gave up their faith
· They surrendered to their sin

WHY? Not to give too simple of an answer, but I think it boils down to, they did not develop ENDURANCE. Something happened that didn’t fit their script for their life. The TEST that hit them…shook them or broke them. Those tests are very personal and will look very different from each other. The test could be:

· Their friend or loved one died, even though they prayed for healing.
· They suffer some mental or emotional trauma or breakdown
· Their temptation wasn’t removed and they fell, and they carry shame and cannot face their friends or God, so they quit.
· People that claimed to be Christians judged them or treated them poorly. If that is how Christians act, then I don’t want a part!
· I’m SO tired of struggling…so I just give up…

But instead of giving up when trials hit, what if you REFRAMED it with:

What have you come to teach me?"

Do you think THAT would be better for you emotionally, mentally, spiritually? Do you think you could grow IF you could adapt THAT mentality?

Some people seem to think that being a Christian is EASY or that Christians are SOFT, but people of faith who have gone through difficult trials WITH their faith intact are incredibly STRONG. I am really inspired by those who have learned to ENDURE, to hold on, to hang onto their Jesus, no matter what!

This part of this passage makes me want to sing the theme song from “FROZEN” “Let it GROW, Let it GROW!”

The Bible has a lot to say about ENDURANCE!. A verse the Lord laid on my heart to write in all of our Staff/deacon Christmas cards was this one.

Let me give you 2 more.

Romans 5:3-5a – NLT – “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop ENDURANCE. And ENDURANCE develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment.”

We don’t get to choose our race course. We DO get to choose whether we keep on running!

2020 had SO many lessons available to teach us, and the ONE that would probably MOST benefit our life was this one…ENDURANCE. KEEP RUNNING!

Don’t EVER allow the terrible things that happen AROUND you to get inside you! See, it’s not the presence of water that causes a ship to sink, it’s when the water gets inside the boat and you no longer have the will or ability to bail it out. In that same way, it is not the presence of trials, struggles, sin or problems surrounding your life that shipwrecks your faith. It’s when those things are IN your life and you stop bailing them out of your life. You stop asking God for His help and instead become angry or filled with shame and just…stop trying. Stop getting up. Stop running. It’s time to REFRAME!

What have you come to teach me?"

ASK THAT QUESTION!

Don’t fix your heart on things that don’t last!

SO many people fight and work and step on or over others in order to have THINGS that WILL end up in a landfill at some point. You will be a better version of yourself IF you shift your focus from things that are temporary to things that are eternal!

All of that was to address question #1 this morning.

WHO have you BECOME?

Let’s move to the second question:

WHY did you BECOME who you BECAME?

· Average person spends 142 minutes a DAY on social media. That's two hours and 22 minutes which represents 15% of our waking time. And that’s the AVERAGE. Some of you are WAY ABOVE average!
· Average person spends over 3 hours on their smart phones
· Average American spends almost 4 hours a day watching TV
· Among average protestant Christians in the U.S., only 36% say that they read God’s Word daily.

WHY did you BECOME who you BECAME?

The short answer is You became more of what you beheld. That which was the primary or the most important to you, you tend to focus on. What you tend to focus on, tends to GROW in your life. It’s like a seed that you are planting, which WILL have a harvest, good or bad, eventually.
· If you focus on fear, fear will grow.
· If you focus on faith, faith will grow.
· If you focus on food, YOU will grow.

WHERE you sow and WHAT you sow show what you will GROW!

In 2020, there are many of you that CONNECTED or RE-CONNECTED with your faith! Praise the Lord for that! At the same time, in 2020, there are many people that DISCONNECTED with their faith.

It all depended on WHAT you did with WHAT you had to deal with.
· Were you an egg and 2020 made you hard?
· Were you a carrot and 2020 made you soft and fearful?
· Or were you a tea bag and 2020 revealed the strength your faith has?

The difference is really where and what did you sow?

WHERE you sow and WHAT you sow show what you will GROW!
You have BECOME MORE of whatever you sowed in 2020! Now, that may be great news for you or bad news, but it IS the truth. And next week, we are starting off 2021 with 21 days of prayer and denial. We want to start the year with sowing GREAT seed for the first 3 weeks. I will talk more about that next week, but ultimately, I wanted to give you the heads up so you can be thinking about what you want to say “NO” to. Because this is what our 21 day focus is;
Tell your body NO so your spirit can grow!

Fasting has been such an instrumental discipline in my spiritual life. It has tremendously impacted my ability to say NO to things my body or my spirit want to say YES to. And growing those NO muscles has tremendous impact on our ability to ENDURE. So, if you want to further develop the quality of ENDURANCE, decide what you will say NO to for 3 weeks. Take some time and PRAY ABOUT THAT this week. Plan what you will fast.

We have created a Resource page on our app and website. It has a fasting guide. There is also a printed version at the info center. On the Resource page is also a link to our Pathway on self-denial, a Spotify worship playlist, and starting next Sunday…a 21-day devotional written by our pastors will be available in text AND audio.

Let me wrap up with this: I find it interesting that Galatians 6 which we read from a few minutes ago, where Paul tells us “a man reaps what he SOWS”, is only 10 verses after this verse:

Galatians 5:22-23a – NIV – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

When we SOW to the Spirit, we reap THAT fruit or evidence of the Spirit being in charge of our life.

When we SOW to our flesh, we reap THAT fruit. Paul lists some of the things that are fruit of the flesh. Among which are selfish ambition, jealousy, dissensions, factions envy, sexual immorality and others. And he concludes the list with “….and the like.”

SO, examine the fruit of what has GROWN in your life in 2020 and determine what seed you will SOW in 2021.

What you GREW, shows what you SOWED TO

So, God, search our hearts. Show us the fruit. Help us to have the desire to repent for those things that hindered our growth in 2020. We lay those things at your feet today. Cleanse us from the inside out. Give us a fresh start as we enter 2021.