"Running Towards Freedom"

You can run away from your problems and they'll catch you later or you can run towards an atmosphere of freedom and experience positivity. When you confess your mistakes to God, you allow God to give you a new edge on your mistakes because everything is out in the open.

Kids learn to lie when the punishment from telling the truth is greater than the lie.  Running away can seem like the safest thing to do, but we all know that the truth often has consequences. But it is so freeing and empowering to confess our mistakes to God and our closest spiritual guides. There, the aim is restoration and to end the power of hidden unconfessed sin in our life.

You can never grow or get better until you can publicly admit you are wrong and set a plan to make your heart right.  It’s just repeated mistakes until that time.  That’s where pastor Mark Nsimbi’s sermon comes in this weekend from Psalm 51, "Running Towards Freedom".

My Grandpa White used to tell the true story of a boy who grew up in the cattle country around Joseph, Oregon. When he was old enough he moved out of his parents' home and started to run with the wrong crowd of cowboys.  He started carousing with bad influences in his life.  He thought he was discovering his real self but as almost anyone in town could tell -  he was instead discovering his worst self.

 Soon he and some of his friends made a plan to rob the Joseph city bank.  He was a kid among the older bank robbers. They all had spent time in prison and he was the naive one taken in by all their talk. When they robbed Joseph bank they knew there wasn’t much law there. In fact they knew the sheriff and his deputy were out of town for the day. But what they failed to recognize was that this little cattle town had seven saloons full of hard working cowboys. So when they came out of the bank with the banks' money there were loads of hard working cowboys coming out of their saloons and they shot the bandits up.  He was shot in the thumb and was the only one to make it out alive with the money. The posse chased him all the way to Nevada but he got away.  He had such a great childhood in Joseph Oregon that the Holy Spirit started to convict him that what the new-him had done, was wrong.

So he came back to Joseph and returned the money to his neighbors and friends. After spending time in prison he got out to get a job at a neighbors' ranch and then worked at the bank he had robbed. Eventually this friend of my Grandpa was so entrusted by the cattlemen in the valley that they voted him as the bank president of the very bank he had robbed as a young man.  He and Grandpa have long since died but once-a-week the town reenacts the bank robbery and the shoot-out for tourists so that they can also celebrate in the power of confession and friendship.

Join us this Sunday at 10:30am in-person or online as pastor Mark Nsimbi brings a fresh perspective to our church story, and teaches from Psalm 51: “Running Towards Freedom".

 Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White