Ilife, Part 1

You know, we’ve been talking about these big questions in life and what we shared last week for a few minutes is, "Why am I alive?" I think there comes a time that we begin to think about these type of questions and these are questions we are going to be working on these series of iLife. Last week we started this quest and our prayer is that during this series that you and I will have some deeper thoughts about life that go beyond I gotta get this shirt out of my closet, and I gotta find out did we get those brownies made, and gotta check out to see if I got those socks washed. Those are very important things -- how many know that it’s important that we don’t have smelly feet? Can I have a good amen? But there comes a time in life that we begin to ask about deeper questions. Why am I alive? Why am I here? What is my life meant to accomplish in this life? Where does life being? How did I get to the place that I am at? Why do I life? What makes me live? What causes me to live? What makes me feel fully alive?

These are deeper thoughts that I believe God is going to help us uncover so that we can live the life that God intends for us to live. Turn to the person next to you that you like, don’t turn to the one that you don’t like, turn to the one you like and say, "I want to live the life that God intended for me to live." Don’t you love just talking in church and I know it irritates so many of you and I love to irritate you, it’s one of my calls in life is not only to be your pastor but to be your pester. I thoroughly enjoy getting on your nerves at times -- I pray for it, no I’m just kidding.

I really believe that God wants us to live the life He had in mind for us to live as an individual, we talk a lot about that here, but then also as a church body, as a gathering, as a group of people that have come together for a purpose. You know the mission of our church is be a healing place for a hurting world, that is our mission. That is why we are here. We believe that’s why God put us here. I believe that’s what God had in mind for us. I believe that’s why we are in this city; I believe that’s why God put us in this region. That’s why we are in this world, and that’s why He put us here in this community 13 years ago. Was to be a healing place for a hurting world.

You know, I thought about that the other day. I came up here early to the church and our sign was on. Now our sign got damaged during the hurricane. We had some neon around it, and I don’t how many people who said when they saw that neon on our sign they wanted to know what the cover charge was. Just neon...purple. I said there’s no cover charge just come on in. But you know I would see our sign when I come here early in the morning...that sign is just like a beacon that just says "a healing place for a hurting world" on Highland Road all night long. It always thrills me when I hear stories about people that ride by late at night and they see that sign and maybe God does something. How many knows that God can use almost anything to get peoples’ attention, and we thank God for that. I had one lady tell me one time, I’ll never forget, she came and saw me she said, "Pastor, I don’t know if you know what happened this past Tuesday night...I’ll never forget her sitting in my office. She said I’ve just been going through things, I’ve had so many losses in my life, I’ve made so many mistakes, I’ve had so many failures." She said, "I was just out riding real late all by myself about 2 in the morning and I just didn’t know why I wanted to live, I just had no purpose in my life and I just felt so depressed, and I started riding down Highland Road." She said, "I was just riding thinking about how bad my life was - somewhere or another I just started to turn around, and I couldn’t find anywhere to turn around. So I turned around in your parking lot and eventually just parked there. I looked up and saw that sign...A Healing Place for a Hurting World, and if this is such a healing place, God, if you care about me...if there’s anybody up there I’m going to go in there and see if there’s anybody at this church." And she knew there would be nobody here, it was 2, 2:30 in the morning and so happens she went to the front door and it was open. Now how many knows that our church stays open a lot of times. If I asked how many people have a key to our church, half of this church has a key to our church. She came and she opened up the door. She said, "my goodness what’s going on 2:30 in the morning?" She came on inside and guess what, there were 3 or 4 guys in here talking. They were up here doing some music. Most of them didn’t even go to our church they were just believers that were using the building. She walked in and she said, "have you seen...do you know if there’s a blonde-haired guy by the name of Dino that pastors this church?" They said, "yeah, you’re in the right place." She said, "well, could you pray for me, I need help?" And those young musicians reached out and prayed for her that night. She saw me about 2 days later, and I’ll never forget, I was able to lead her to Christ in my office. And do you know, to this day she is still serving the Lord? She moved away and she emails me, she contacts us every once in awhile at the church...wants a CD set, wants our new music -- anything like that. See, that’s a beacon!