Fresh Start: Buck the Stuck

I have been thinking a lot about the journey that God has had us on the past 7 years as a church. All the moments I didn’t see coming, all the twists, turns, and changes that come with building a church.

And I was reminded of a passage of scripture in Isaiah 43:18-19 that says,

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

This is what we are going to focus on this week, walking in the NEW thing. We have to chose not to live weighed down by the old, the past, the what was, but to have eyes to see the new thing that is springing up.

We know that there isn’t a redo button in life, but there is always a reset button for our souls.

Romans 12:1-2 say…

 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 

Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

All disciples believe in Jesus, but not all believers in Jesus are disciples, and that is what we are focusing on being during this series. Our aim is to be disciples not just believers. We want our lives to be a living sacrifice to worship Christ and be wrapped in the majesty, joy, kindness, and grace of him.

The challenge of this is not to conform to the world around us, but to live transformed. We want to be people who live our lives with Jesus, to become like Jesus, so that we can do what he did.

What we do when we’re stuck

Everyone has moments in life where you feel stuck. You might feel stuck in your relationship with God, maybe you feel stuck in a cycle that is leaving you exhausted, or maybe you feel stuck in a relationship with someone in your life. No matter what the situation, feeling stuck is hard and can make you question what you have been doing, and who you are.

There was a moment in the life of Jesus where two people felt stuck. In Mark 5 they encounter the God who turns ashes into beauty.

“When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him.”

The hopelessness that this man must have been feeling is hard to put into words. But despite the hopelessness he must have been feeling, Jaruis (the father of this little girl) teaches us in verse 22 how to move from stuck to freedom.

“…when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him…”

The First Step

The first and most important thing to “bucking the stuck” is the humility of laying our burdens at the feet of Jesus. During difficult seasons and situations often the question we are asking ourselves is: am I looking for a way out of this?, when we should be asking Am I looking for Jesus?

You see God is more concerned with our hearts, and that means that he uses the pain and the situations we face to get to our hearts and wants to walk with us through it.

No matter what mountain you are facing, no matter the clouds that are over your head.  At the end of the day don’t let what is happening around you, keep you from hungering for Him.

It is Jesus, who turns our morning in to dancing, it is Jesus who turns the ashes of our lives into places of beauty. 

Psalms 40:1-3 says,

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.”

Don’t take the bait of isolation and frustration that tempts all of us when you feel stuck.

Same Stuck

Mark 5 goes on at verse 24 with someone else that felt stuck and it says…

“A large crowd followed and pressed around him.  And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.  She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 

 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 

This shows us a new stuck person but the same bucking principle. Scripture tells us that this woman had tried everything to no avail, then she heard about Jesus. She reached out to Jesus through her shame. Some historical context tells us that this woman would have been considered unclean. She couldn’t be made clean, she needed what only Jesus could provide.

Verse 29 tell us, “Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her sufferings.”

The space between our brokenness and God’s righteousness is the work that Jesus can do. The other trap we fall into is believing the lie that God has forgotten about us. When we hear other’s trials and how God delivered them, our hopelessness can try to convince us that it will never happen for us. That’s where we must remind ourselves to just believe. Radical faith is foolish to those who don’t believe. People aren’t going to understand, so take note that those you position around you matter. Those that you surround yourself with have an impact on your faith.

God stood in the gap of what we couldn’t do and did what only he could do. God bucked the stuck, and when we remind ourselves of that we have a huge advantage over our temporary situations.

Jesus is with you, and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. Amen