“Growing up in church while living for yourself.”
Passage: Matthew 5:6; Ecclesiastes 12; 1 Timothy 4:12
Speaker: Kurt Goglin
Bridgewater Montrose’s Podcast
Your Story: Week 4
Welcome to Bridgewater. My name is Kurt. I come from Tunkanic. I'm glad to be with you here this morning and greetings from all of those in Tunkanic. I'm sure they would say hello as well. I want to greet those who are online as well as those who are in Hancock and I want to say if you haven't visited Hancock yet you need to do it. It's so much fun to be there. So I encourage you to visit there. As I said my name is Kurt and I've gotten to know the people here for a little while particularly Pastor Bob and one of the things I appreciate about Pastor Bob is his love for tomatoes. When I first went into the office and and like oh look he's he's there he's slicing a tomato right then and there as he's preparing to have his lunch and I was like wow someone else that loves tomatoes I think he might love them a little bit more but but I appreciate his love for tomatoes and certainly his encouragement along the way and the other thing was I've gotten to know Eric for a little bit and Eric I have enjoyed getting to know him and I appreciate his organization. As a person who is not organized and spontaneous I really appreciate someone who is organized so I do I appreciate that certainly is love for Jesus but he is an organized person. I will say that I had a client before who had obsessive compulsive disorder and they would sit in my office and they said I cannot sit here and look at your bookshelf anymore. So they had to move seats because they couldn't take looking at my bookshelf. So I am quite disorganized but I'm going to share my story with you this morning as this is our second to last week in the Your Story series so I'm glad to share that with you this morning. So I wanted to tell you if you haven't met my family I have a wife Amanda who I've been married to for 21 years and she keeps me in line she's she is very organized and she's often my timekeeper as well such an encouragement and then I have my son Elijah who is 19 and attending Karen University and my son Ezekiel who's here today he's a junior in high school and so we're glad that I'm glad that he could be with us today and so I wanted to share a little bit about my story. I grew up near Cleveland Ohio and then went and attended Baptist Bible College. Of course that's where I met my wife and my salvation story is pretty simple. When I was five years old I heard the message of the gospel at church and I decided that I needed to know Jesus and I went home and my dad prayed with me in my room and I chose to embrace Jesus as my forgiver and leader at five years old. I grew up in the church and my dad was always an example to me he was an elder in the church and a youth leader he always and I can often find him reading his Bible. If I ever got up early enough in the morning I would find my father sitting at the kitchen table reading his Bible and he never really knew that of such an example to me but it was because he led by example and my mom was the same way she led by example she did she did the church bulletin for those of you that remember those days right she did the church bulletin she was very involved she I was one of five kids and she got us all up on a Sunday morning so I appreciate that and I went to church every Sunday. I was always a kind and caring kid but I always saw approval and acceptance from others in the public school. I was pretty shy and passive I I began to participate in sports I had some level of acceptance that I experienced from that but it wasn't it wasn't very much and then I stopped going to church around junior high and then I began drinking alcohol and attending parties my sophomore year. I liked how alcohol decreased my inhibitions which I didn't know what inhibitions meant at the time but basically it gave me that boldness because I was a shy kid and that was not the type of way that you want to have boldness I felt like oh I could talk to girls I could I could say what's on my mind and so what what happened is I continued to play sports and then I'd have friends over to have parties at my house my parents they went out of town repeatedly for some reason but they went out of town and they had complete trust in me what were they thinking I'm not sure but they had complete trust in me and but while they went out of town I would throw these these beer parties and and they weren't any the wiser and what would happen was I'd find myself at basketball practice on a Saturday morning with a hangover from drinking too much and then what I really felt bad about was then my dad went to bat for me with the coach why isn't he playing right some of you may relate to that but the reality was well because I have a hangover and because I'm not committed to it you know so I wasn't playing it was on me it was my own fault as to why I wasn't playing and so I want to give you a little bit of a picture of how I was like back then this might be a surprise to you that this I'm going to share a video with you here this morning that shows a little bit about something that I'm that I've been pretty passionate about and so I'm going to go ahead and share that with you this is me lip syncing gangster's paradise as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing else because I've been bracing and laughing so low that even my mama thinks that my mind is all right I try and resist the the bouncing when I'm up here listening to that so I was I became pretty known for that so I had this little Chevy Cavalier that I drove around and in that Cavalier I had a 250 watt amp two 12 inch subwoofers in a box in my trunk and man so if you heard your windows shaking you knew that I was coming down the street at that point in time so I do want to say this I want to apologize on behalf of all the kids that do that today when they drive by your house I apologize on behalf of all of them that was me I was the one bumping by your house listening to my explicit rap music so you see this what this reminds me of is this sort of reminds me of what King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 8 which says everything is meaningless says the teacher completely meaningless and that brings us to our first point here today and there's that we must find our satisfaction in God we must find our satisfaction in God you see I sought to find my satisfaction in life in the pursuit of self I thought that if only I dare to talk to people then I'd be good to go if only I had a girlfriend yeah then I'd be good to go I'd have all that I needed I dated a couple girls and during my my sophomore year of high school and then but the reality was it was truly meaningless and it was the pursuit of self I thought I'd be fulfilled by having a girlfriend or or having the courage to be cool around my perceived friends but it was all meaningless for those who've used other translations of scripture it might say vanity of vanity all is vanity but essentially what this passage is saying is that everything being completely vain or meaningless you might even add a translation that uses the word useless but then what happened one night a Saturday night church service and I don't even know how I got there but my friend and I we both we had both partied together we attended this church service and that night God convicted us and that night we realized we were convicted by the Spirit of God and we were realized that we needed to give our entire hearts to Jesus you see I understood we both understood the basics of the gospel alright Jesus died on the cross from my sins and he rose again and I need to believe in him to have life but we didn't understand that it's about a relationship with Christ I didn't understand oh wait Jesus wants a relationship with me he wants me to know him intimately and so we decided that night we were done we were done with the drinking instead of living for ourselves we're going to truly live for Jesus and it was that night although I understood salvation before it was that night that I really began to grow in my relationship with Jesus and I began to find satisfaction in him above all which leads me to my life first here and that is in Matthew five six says blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled that is what my friend and I began to do we began to pursue Jesus with our whole entire hearts and that's the next point here is that we must seek his righteousness we must seek his righteousness I hungered and I searched it for something more for some satisfaction the satisfaction that I wanted I wasn't getting if I only had the courage to talk to girls and have a girlfriend if I only had the courage to talk to people without drinking but no it was meaningless compared to knowing Jesus if we claim that we want to please him if we want to please God we must seek his righteousness and we must be in his word as we learned in the most recent series direction not intention determines destination when God truly got ahold of my life there was a change there was a decision that was made but it was followed up with action it wasn't just I made this decision no I made the decision I'm following up with action I learned how to do a daily quiet time and you know that makes a huge difference statistics say that if we spend four days per week reading the Bible in God's word that significantly affects our ability to overcome the roadblocks that we have in life four days out of seven statistically affects that if we are pursuing Jesus and we're in his word and that's why this the song I'm gonna explain to you next resonates a lot with me you see one of what was interesting one thing that happened after my friend and I started living for Jesus we still like I still like rap music by the way I love Christian rap all right I still so one of the things that we did is that we put one of those explicit rap music CDs right into the CD player and then we began to listen to it and because our hearts were changed so much we're like oh like oh this is awful like I can't even handle this like the beats nice but that's about it right so so my friend ejected the CD and threw it out the window and so we began to we got worked in our lives we began to change and it changed what we put in our minds and that was and that was music and this song that I'm gonna that I'm sharing with you here is not a rap song anyone ever heard of the group Jars of Clay all right it's a couple out there Jars of Clay was one of my favorite bands and there was a song they wrote called love song for a savior and it's just such an amazing song and some of the lyrics here go like this it seems too easy to call you savior not close enough to call you God so I sit and think of the words I can mention to show my devotion I want to fall in love with you I want to fall in love with you I want to fall in love with you and this was the heart this was my heart I was saying Jesus I want to fall in love with you I want a close intimate relationship with you that song continually points to the desire and longing for Jesus if we continually seek him and his righteousness you know what everything else will seem less appealing it will lose its pull on our lives if pleasing Jesus becomes more important which leads me to what Solomon says in this next verse Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 13 says that's the whole story here now is my final conclusion fear God and obey his commandments for this is everyone's duty after Solomon Solomon is considered to be the wisest man who ever lived he finished this book and throughout the book he states multiple times how how many things are completely meaning meaningless in life and he got to do everything anything he wanted and he said it's meaningless but he ends with this it's meaningless and he concluded what does give meaning is God what does give meaning is God he gives meaning he gives satisfaction he gives contentment but we need to seek him with our whole hearts and thirst for right living according to his word not according to our agenda or what we want out of life but to see his righteousness according to his word in there it says it talks about fear fearing God fear means reverence it means that we're going to out of out of a reverence for God we're going to pursue him because we're pursuing that relationship with him because we love him and we want to please him that's why we do what's right not just because we feel guilty or because we want to check the box off no we want to do it because we love him and we want to please him and that is how God got a hold in my life and the myths of all that there were students from the youth group that would constantly try and invite me to youth group and I would always ignore them and I would always say no you know when God turned my life around and I started attending youth group again like for the first time they came up and said to me hey we've been praying for you and you know they meant the world to me like they don't even know who I am but they've been praying for me they've been asking me to come to youth group and then it was for years so don't give up for those of you that are praying for people to come to youth group and for people to come to know Jesus because it just sometimes it just takes time I was so encouraged by that God began to use my friend and I in the public school that we attended because it was a drastic change the courage that I sought in alcohol I found in Jesus my friend and I we we boldly proclaimed our faith we started a Bible study after school my friend began to lead the football team in prayer we were inviting people to youth group constantly I'd fill my little Chevy Cavalier and it'd be bumping because I've had some music on Christian music but it was it was bumping along the way I think it said only five I think we got seven or eight in there sometimes but as many as people as we could we got to use group and guess what kids started getting saved kids started coming to know Jesus and as a teenager I got to lead people to Jesus I tell you outside of salvation there's nothing better than having the opportunity to lead somebody to Jesus and I got to do that we began seeing teens embrace Jesus as a forgiver and leader and because all these people were like what's up with Kurt here he's throwing these parties over here and now he's like now I'm not doing that anymore and I'm going to church what's the deal with that so people were curious and so that they started to come and it reminds me I think back on this scripture and first Timothy 4 12 it says don't let anyone think less of you because you are young be an example to all the believers in what you say in what you and what you say in the way you live in your love your faith and your purity so don't let that shake you if you're young be an example of those who believe that's what happened in my life and during my teenage years my youth pastor helped me develop leadership skills learning how to lead people to Jesus and that's where began to have a heart for for knowing people and and and helping people I had a friend that was bipolar and a friend who was schizophrenic who came to know Jesus in my our youth group I went so I began to grow and a desire to help people after that I attended Word of Life Bible Institute down in Florida Florida was not there's a there's a campus in New York and Florida I chose Florida that was not a spiritual decision I like warm weather so but regardless God used used that in my life to to give me a love for his word and to help other people and after that I applied to Baptist Bible College in Pennsylvania where I looked at the counseling program and my interest was peaked because I wanted to help people and I wanted to help people using the Bible but I graduated from BBC got my bachelor's degree and throughout the whole time of my working over the past 20 years I pretty much worked in the secular counseling field I worked as a therapeutic staff support which is one on one with kids I did I was a case manager I did a program called partial hospitalization therapy that's in between inpatient and outpatient and then I did psychiatric rehabilitation and then got my master's degree and then I started to do outpatient therapy and although I love counseling I'd love to do all that I felt limited I felt limited because I couldn't always be like oh here's what the Bible says oh you need Jesus I it frustrated me and I'm like God why am I here still here why am I doing this for 20 years and but I knew God wanted me to keep doing it and I did and God opened doors there were some people that would never stepped into a church that I had the opportunity with and there were people that claimed that they were a Christian so then that gave me a green light sometimes to share the Bible with them and so all that time I was I struggled and God gave me opportunities to reach people for Jesus in the midst of that there was even one time I decided that one day I said I can't take it anymore I got to share Jesus with this person I pulled him aside in my office and just gave him the gospel and I don't think I got in trouble for that at least to this day I don't think I did but the reality was that was a struggle and I didn't always understand why but during all that time I did a discipleship in church and and I worked with the youth in church and I began to grow a love for small groups a lot of my experience in therapy was doing group therapy so some of you may have met me through small groups somehow that is my passion that is my heart because I see the change I've seen secular therapy I've seen the dynamics of group help people and then you introduce Jesus into that picture you introduce Jesus into that picture and Jesus transforms lives so you have a bunch of people following Jesus together some serious awesome healing can take place when that happens that is why I'm a little obsessed with small groups okay because it's not about the program it's about Jesus as we need to walk together as we walk with Jesus and so that is that is a passion of my heart one of the passions of my heart and I get so excited to what I see going on here at Bridgewater with that so what ended up happening was two and a half years ago I became the campus pastor in Tunkanek and I began to understand I began to understand God why did you have me in secular therapy all this time because God wanted to use it I have openings and I have connections in Tunkanek I never would have had I have relationships with people that walk in the door that have been my client or been somebody that I've worked with in social services in some way I can get into this school because of the credentials that I have I'm like oh you ever get those moments oh God that's what you were doing and that's exactly what happened in my life and that and then God has given open some doors to continue to have us reach more people for Jesus to hear at Bridgewater I'm excited to see what's happening here in Montrose and in Hancock and online and just I'm just glad to be a part of it one thing my my wife and I came in we said we want we want to be a part of what God's doing here because God's doing a great work here at Bridgewater and so we don't want to get in the way we just want to be a part of what God's doing so as we finish up this morning I want to say that I want to challenge you to believe that God can use you believe that God can use you so we must find our satisfaction in God we must first seek his righteousness then we must believe that God can use us God can use you young or old to bring people to himself that's what thrills me when I see a young person lead someone to Jesus the reality is the same Holy Spirit that lives that if you've given your life to Jesus the same Holy Spirit lives in you and you can be used by him your story is a letter of Christ and you could be used by him to lead other people to him and that is my challenge to you as you talk about it in small group this week how can I can my story be used to lead other people to Jesus let's pray you heavenly Father I thank you God that you are good I thank you that you love us that you set your son to die in the cross first in so that we could have life I pray that you would use us in a great way each and everyone here to lead more and more people to you God because people desperately need you what may we be available God and work in and through us we love you when we praise you God we pray these things in your son's precious and holy name amen well would you stand as we close this in this last song you came to the world you created trading your crown for a cross you willingly died your innocent life made the cause (gentle music)