An entire year of my life has gone by… what? Yes, it’s true, I graduated a little over a year ago today. Technically, it was May 24th when I walked to receive my diploma; however, today is graduation Sunday. So, in my mind, it’s the same thing. Either way, a year has gone by and it has been far from anything I ever expected it to be. A year ago, I thought I’d be in Ecuador by now. A year ago, our church still (technically) had two pastors named Dave and Joe. A year ago, I had never met Chip Bullock, our church’s new pastor. A year ago, I had no clue what I was doing with anything… I wasn’t even an adult. A year ago, I heard a sermon that changed me as a person.
Titled, Doing Good In a Broken World, I heard the last sermon my youth pastor would preach at NapNaz. A year ago was Joe’s last Sunday with us before he ventured to Mt. Sterling (which is wonderful, in case you’re wondering). In this sermon we ventured through the book of Titus. The notes looked something like this:
Chapter 1: Doing Good in the Church >> We need leaders.
Chapter 2: Doing Good in Relationships >> You need to know who you are.
Chapter 3: Doing Good in the World >> We need to know our place.
What Good Things Should We Be Doing
- Obey the law.
- Serve the community.
- Guard your tongue.
- Refuse to fight.
- Be winsome and forbearing. (love people)
- Treat everyone like a VIP.
Maybe you’re asking why I’m writing about this? Well, it’s simple. I’m trying to do my part in reminding this world that we need to do good. I’m not saying, “if you do good things you get to go to heaven.” What I am saying is, if you love Jesus, if you’re living your life to honor the Lord, you should be doing good things. Those six things listed above come from the Bible (Titus 3:1-3).
This sermon changed me on many levels.. not because of who spoke it, or where it happened, or the day it happened.. but because the Word of God changes people. Today as our church recognized seven wonderful graduates, this sermon came to mind. In the past year, a lot of people have told me to “do good stuff.” My calculus teacher always told me to “do good stuff.” I may not get everything right, but as I live life, I reflect on the words of my pastor quite frequently. The “good things” we should be doing aren’t difficult. They may be hard sometimes (or a lot of times). But they are simple things we can be striving towards every day.
So, today, I bring you this. Love Jesus and do good stuff. It’s really that simple. If we all lived a life based off of those verses in Titus, I think the world would be a much more beautiful place.
stirring the pot 