Some of these are ‘off the beaten path’.  There are other dishes in area to try (e.g. Perry’s porkchop), but these are likely some that you may not have had yet.  They are in no particular order.

1. The “Stone Bowl” at Korean BBQ (435 El Dorado)

The best way to describe this is like fried rice prepared tableside.  Very fun experience.

2. Grilled Pork Vietnamese Sandwich at Nobi (528 & Blackhawk)

A crispy French roll with grilled pork, shredded carrots, cucumber, cilantro, and jalapenos.  If you want it less spicy, make sure to ask for no jalapenos.

3. Jerk Chicken at D’Caribbean Curry Spot (2548 Broadway St, Pearland)

Everything here is an experience in the Caribbean.  Make sure to try the doubles – chickpeas in a zesty sauce in a flatbread.

4. Seafood Gumbo at Floyds (Pearland)

The best gumbo around!  Shrimp are perfectly cooked.

5. Bratwurst at King’s Biergarten (1329 East Broadway)

In same location as King’s Carwash across from Floyds.  Very authentic German food.

6. Pupusa at King Chicken (548 West Nasa Parkway)

Think of a pupusa as a thick stuffed tortilla with a cole slaw side.  Pretty tasty!

7. Fried Chicken at Pollo Campero (702 W Bay Area Blvd)

A Guatemalan chain.  Very good chicken and sides.

8. Vanilla Iced Nirvana at Dunn Bros Coffee

Cold brewed coffee with vanilla and cream.  A good smooth afternoon treat!

9. Homemade tamale plate at Alamo Tamales (13914 Highway 3 – near 2351)

Tamales with chili and queso.  Not for those on a diet.

10. Philly Cheese steak at Antonini’s Subs (Med Center Blvd and hwy 3)

He’s from New Jersey, but he makes a pretty good cheese steak.  You will get messy, but it’s worth it.

Typically, here is what happens in a church.  Someone comes to understand Jesus as their Savior and Lord and comes into a relationship with Him.  We call this ‘being saved’.  We then immediately try to get them caught up on discipleship, which means teaching them to read the scripture, take part in worship, be a part of a group, etc.  And then we also encourage them to take an active part in ministry, serving God either in or outside of the church.  A basic, simple plan that often works to reshape lives.  But it does so without a deliberate focus on one step – being delivered from sin.

What I mean is this, we jump right from being saved to being discipled without taking the time to deliberately deal with the sin that we are being saved from!  We accept forgiveness and move on without taking a decided look at the sin that we still cart around.  Being saved doesn’t mean that we immediately are cleansed from the mess that surrounds our lives.  Usually we just limp along, hoping that we will figure it out ourselves.  We don’t ackowledge that we still have struggles and, as a church, we do little to help people overcome sin.  We have lots of classes on how to study the bible but few about how to heal broken marriages, overcome addiction, get our finances in order, or be a parent that builds children of faith.  We skip our problems and try to get past them somehow so we can become disciples.

I wonder what the church would look like if we took the time and effort to really look at how we overcome sin?  What would it be like if we were willing to acknowledge that we are still dirty with sin even after we are saved and that we need help getting our life in order?  Maybe it’s time for us to look at discipleship in a new way – not just about learning and active ministry but also about restoring ourselves to the people God created us to be.

1. Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never while away time, nor spend more time at any place than is strictly necessary.
2. Be serious. Let your motto be, ‘Holiness to the Lord.’ Avoid all lightness, jesting, and foolish talking.
3. Converse sparingly and cautiously with women, particularly with young women.
4. Take no step towards marriage without solemn prayer to God and consulting with your brethren.
5. Believe evil of no one unless fully proved; take heed how you credit it. Put the best construction you can on everything. You know the judge is always supposed to be on the prisoner’s side.
6. Speak evil of no one, else your word, especially, would eat as doth a canker; keep your thoughts within your own breast till you come to the person concerned.
7. Tell every one what you think wrong in him, lovingly and plainly, and as soon as may be, else it will fester in your own heart. Make all haste to cast the fire out of your bosom.
8. Do not affect the gentleman. A preacher of the Gospel is the servant of all.
9. Be ashamed of nothing but sin; no, not of cleaning your own shoes when necessary.
10. Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. And do not mend our rules, but keep them, and that for conscience’ sake.
11. You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not only to those who want you, but to those who want you most.
12. Act in all things, not according to your own will, but as a son in the Gospel, and in union with your brethren. As such, it is your part to employ your time as our rules direct: partly in preaching and visiting from i house to house, partly in reading, meditation, and prayer. Above all, if you labour with us in our Lord’s vineyard, it is needful you should do that part of the work which the Conference shall advise, at those times and places which they shall judge most for His glory.

2 Timothy 4:5-8

These are Paul’s words to his young compatriot Timothy – words of challenge and focus for the future and words also of victory, true victory of the soul in Jesus Christ.

We’ve talked a lot over the past 7 weeks about struggles in life – both temptations and trials that we must endure.  We’ve worked within the imagery of life as a race and eternity as a prize to be won.  But I’m here to share the greatest of hope today and it is this – we have already won.  We are victorious today in Jesus Christ.  Our eternity to come – the kingdom of God promised to us is already ours, and the beauty is that it is not some far distant reward but also a real and present reality of our life in Jesus Christ today.  When we take that step from selfishness to selflessness, from sinfulness to sinless-ness, from our own form of self-made righteousness bound to our actions, as though life were weighed on some cosmic scale that measures our good intentions against our not so good actions – when we turn away from this selfish ambition to be our own god and realize that our only hope is in the grace of Jesus Christ, a grace granted to us the moment we put our faith in, and act on that faith, – put our faith in the death of Jesus as the sacrifice for the sinful, selfish nature of our lives and the life received in His overcoming death on Easter morning – when we begin to live our lives not for ourselves but for God, we – have – victory.

This may be review for some of us, but it is a hope worth repeating – we have victory in life through the power and grace of Jesus Christ – through his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection to life everlasting.  And our victory, though it is ultimately an eternal reward of God’s kingdom – a complete renewal of our souls to the purity of life before the fall of sin – our heavenly reward of life in the presence of God – we also celebrate that our victory is today.  We have victory today, in this present reality, through the power of Jesus Christ.  It is like Penny said to Secretariat – though the race has yet to be won and the final finish line yet to be crossed, we have already won.  Our victory, eternal in its scope, begins when we put our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  Our victory is not just some far off, waiting at the final finish line of life, but is ours today in Jesus Christ.

Friends, we are victorious today in Jesus who gives us salvation from sin.  Because of Jesus Christ we no longer need to be bound by our sinful nature, but Jesus has set us free from the slavery in which sin entraps us.  Listen to Paul’s words to the Romans:

Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was. Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.  7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also share his new life. We are sure of this because Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. He died once to defeat sin, and now he lives for the glory of God. So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:5-11

If we look into our souls, deep into the places where we are afraid to look because we know what we will find, all of us discover that we have darkness within us.  That darkness is our sinful nature – that very selfish core of us that wants to have our own way and to be our own God.  In fact, that’s a good definition of sin – the acrostic Selfish In Nature.  It is our desire to be our own boss and do things our own way that leads us to actions that do not honor God or show love to others.  That darkness, left to ourselves, is undefeatable.  We may think that we can handle it, that we can make good decisions and escape on our own, but we will always fail.  But the good news of Jesus Christ is that He has defeated the darkness of sin, not just in the world, but also in our lives.  When we trust in Him he breaks the bonds of slavery to sin and death and sin no longer has power over us to destroy our lives.  Our victory over sin is not just some far off hope, but a present reality – God, though the power of Jesus and the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit, gives us victory over sin today.  Our salvation is a saving from sin today – we no longer need to fear the darkness of our souls because we now have the light of Christ.

Our victory, though, does not end with salvation.  As great a gift as freedom from sin is, it is just the beginning of a life with Christ.  Trusting in Jesus begins a lifetime of transformation into new people with new natures that long for the things of God instead of the things of earth.  Turning our life over to Jesus, accepting that gift of salvation, is just the beginning of the work of God transforming our lives.  Often we make the mistake in the church of portraying the Christian faith as being about a point of decision.  We even ask the question, “Are you saved?” Which implies a yes or no – either you are or you are not.  It also implies that the Christian faith is just about this question – which side of the ledger do you reside on.  But to speak of faith in these terms is to limit the beauty of salvation to a singular glimpse of the greatness that God has for us.  This isn’t what the church, or the Christian faith, is really about.  When Jesus gave us our marching orders he didn’t say, “Go and make converts” but He said, “Go and make disciples.”  A disciple is a student or apprentice, constantly learning and growing into someone who is more like their master.  Our salvation is not the end of our journey of faith, but the beginning of a lifetime of transformation.

Back at the beginning of the Methodist church, John Wesley arranged his churches into small groups.  It really is funny, because a lot of what we hear about churches today and the need for smaller groups of community within the larger church to build relationships and hold each other accountable to growing as disciples – all of that can really be traced to the roots of Methodism.  Within these groups, Wesley had a series of questions that he would ask, particularly of the leaders, and one of those was this, “Are you going on to perfection?”  This is the question of transformation.  Are you not merely settling with salvation, but are you allowing God to continue to transform you in the perfect creation He will remake you to be at the end of time?

Friends, God loves us enough to not only save us, but He loves us enough that he doesn’t leave us as we were.  Our victory is that God is at work today, building and molding our lives into the image of Christ.  Paul reminds the church at Corinth of this:

So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now! What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun! All this newness of life is from God, who brought us back to himself through what Christ did. And God has given us the task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others. We are Christ’s ambassadors, and God is using us to speak to you. We urge you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, “Be reconciled to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

We have victory today in Jesus to not only save us, but to transform us.  God is at work mending and molding the broken parts of our lives that we are willing to turn over to Him.  Our victory today is a victory that means our life does not need to be the same – being free from sin we are now restored and transformed into the men and women God originally created us to be.  This is not just some distant hope, but a present truth – in Christ we are now a new creation – our old life of sin has gone and we are free to become someone new through the power of Jesus Christ!

Our victory is not only a present salvation from a lifetime bondage to sin and an ongoing transformation into a new person in Christ, a movement towards perfection, but our victory is also a reconciliation with the great King of Heaven.  Humanity, from creation, was made to be in relationship with God.  Genesis tells of God shaping man and woman in His own image, placing them in the perfection that was the garden of Eden, and then we hear that God walked with them in the cool of the night.  We were created to commune with God, to share our life with Him as we journey together.  But with sin came separation.  Our nature that chooses our own wills over God’s will creates a rift between us and God, a chasm that no good works will ever build a bridge enough to cross.  Our relationship with God is ripped apart by sin.  God, who is completely perfect, cannot bear the imperfection of our sin in His presence.  And on our part, exposing our sinful selves to God reveals the filthy nature of our souls.  This is what Isaiah experienced when he saw a vision of God in the temple. He reports in Isaiah 6:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple… And I said: “Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Isaiah 6:1, 5

This is the nature of sin in the presence of God – woe and fear of destruction.  But through the cleansing of faith in Christ Jesus, we are able to stand once again in the presence of God without fear.  The great chasm that separates us from the author of life is bridged by the cross.  We have access once again to life in the presence of God and God’s presence now rests with us in the Holy Spirit – God with us guiding, strengthening, and communing with us each day.  What great hope we have!  Our victory in Jesus means not only that one day we will worship God, casting our crowns before Him for eternity, but that today, even this day, we can stand in the presence of God.  Romans chapter 8 gives us this promise:

What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? (Even the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:31 – 39

 Friends, today we are victorious because God is with us!  Nothing in life, no temptations or trials, no hardships or troubles, can keep us from God.  Our victory in Jesus assures that God is with us, that the barrier of sin no longer keeps us from God.  We have victory today that not even the powers of hell can keep God’s love away.  This is our victory.  This is our daily promise – that through Jesus we are saved, we are made new, and we are restored into that gentle stroll with the Lord of all creation.  Through Jesus we have victory today – victory that saves us, victory that transforms us, victory that restores us to true life with God through Jesus Christ.

The race is not over for us, though some of us are closer to the finish than others.  We will continue to struggle through life.  The obstacles of sin are constant.  We cannot avoid completely temptation or trial and we will struggle, and even at times fail, to progress towards our desired goal.  But one truth remains above all others – we have victory.  One day we will stand before the throne of God and because of our faith in Jesus Christ we will claim the victors crown.  That eternal victory is assured.  But take hope and courage today that our victory is not some distant hope but also a constant daily reality.  Through faith in Jesus we have victory over our bondage to sin – no longer do we need to live in the darkness of our selfish souls that lead us to hurt ourselves and other.  We have victory over our old life of sin and are being made new, transformed by the hand of God into a new creation, ones becoming perfect in Christ.  We have victory that restores us to Eden, that we can have a relationship with the creator and sustainer of all life again.  Though battles are still before us, today we have victory in Jesus.  May that victory save us, may it transform us, may it restore us to life again through Jesus Christ.

I’ve mentioned before that my father passed away of cancer when I was 15. It was colon cancer and it was a lengthy fight that brought my dad, who was once a linebacker for a semi-pro football team, to a mere shell of a man – nothing more than skin and bones. In addition to the obvious physical deteriation, the cancer and the drugs to treat it took a strong mental toll, making him often very angry and sometimes violent. It was an anguishing time and one that was tough physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I had times of anger and doubt with God and often, though I went to church, I didn’t really feel a passion for worship. I did continue to go to church and to participate as I could in the student ministry. One side note to parents out there – encourage your kids to be involved in our children’s and student ministries, even if it seems at times you need to force them to go. I am the man of God I am today because of them and, if it were completely up to me, I may not have been as active when I needed Christ the most. Anyway, I remember one morning, I don’t really remember the full of the lesson, but I do remember us reading this scripture:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

It spoke right to my heart! I was weary. I was weak. I needed the strength of God. I reread it again to see what I needed to do to get it – wait. Just wait.

Last week I said to endure trials we need to have faith, act on that faith, and to wait. This week, I want to dive a bit deeper into the ‘wait’ part of that equation. We’ve already said that wait means more than just some passive holding pattern – like waiting in line to get your license renewed or waiting for the light to change. Waiting like that is merely a passive coasting through life that blindly wishes for good things but has no active role in bringing them about. Waiting, we said, can also be translated as ‘to expect, hope for, to look eagerly toward.’ This kind of waiting is more than just waiting for a chance to float by in life, but an active expectation – like being on guard, looking for the right moment to come. Waiting doesn’t need to be a last ditch chance of life swinging your way, but can be an active pursuit of the expected action of God – a continual longing and looking – an expectation – for the work of God active in your life.

So how do we actively wait for God?

It begins, first of all, with an understanding of the sufficiency of God’s grace. Whatever is before us in life, God is big enough to handle. Paul, the great apostle of the church, more than certainly understood this. In 2 Corinthians he reminds the readers that he’s not had a sheltered and cushioned life. He’s endured ship wrecks, beatings, lashings, the dangers of first century travel, hunger, physical distress – it’s almost as if he says, “You name it, it’s happened to me.” But then he goes on to talk about the strength of God even in the midst of trouble.

So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Paul understood that, despite the trouble of the world, God was with him and that in his weakness, the strength of God is revealed. Friends, I’m not going to lay on you some trite expression like, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” Life at times for all of us is way more than we can handle. But it is never too much for God to handle.

Lucien and Penny, in the clip from Secretariat we just watched, are discussing which is the best way to prepare Big Red for the Belmont, the last and longest race of the triple crown. They are concerned that he may not have the stamina and wonder how to best prepare him for the hard race. Contrary to the expected training method of the time, Lucien wants to run him harder instead of resting him, but this comes with a risk. They could wear him out and he would have nothing left in the tank, so to speak, to run the race. “If we take a chance, if we push instead of rest him, it could be dangerous. No one knows how much he can take.” Lucien says. “He does. He knows.” Penny responds.

Waiting on the Lord means we must trust that God does know how much we can take and that nothing is too big for God. The troubles and trials of life may be too much for us, but they are not too much for God. In our weakness, God’s strength is revealed. Actively waiting on God means trusting that God is strong enough to handle the trials and troubles of life.

Waiting, actively expecting, on Jesus also means we must shift our focus. One of the dichotomies of the Christian life is that we, though we are spiritual in nature, live in a physical, temporal world. Everything around us is solid and seems to have lasting strength, but the reality is that nothing in this world matters in the grand scope of eternity. All of the physical blessings and hardships of this life are not directly translated into the eternal kingdom of God. This is why Jesus warns us to store up our treasures, those things that matter most, not in this physical world of money and goods, but in the eternal, spiritual, relational things.

Like it or not, even the most abstract thinkers among us revels in the concrete. We may be able to conceptualize God at work, but we do it in concrete ways. We visualize a future filled with earthly blessings which are merely temporary and fail to really see that God is more concerned with granting us greater eternal blessings. Now this isn’t to say that God isn’t looking out for us in this world or that God doesn’t care to provide for us. In fact, Jesus told us not to worry about the things of this world because God will provide all we need. Our greater focus should be on our greater blessings – seeing our lives through the lens of eternity.

The temporary things of this world will never fulfill the eternal longing of our souls. The abundant life that we are promised when we surrender our wills to Jesus – stop trying to live by our own rules for our own rewards and accept the gracious gift of salvation offered to us through faith. It is by surrendering our souls to Jesus, to our salvation and reconciliation bought by the blood of the cross, it is in that surrender that we can begin to receive the abundant life that God promises us.

Friends, all that glitters is not gold. The things that we think matter in this life are only temporary, as our the pains. But the Word of God, that is Jesus Christ, endures forever. Actively waiting, hopefully expecting on God to act in our lives relies on us shifting our focus from the temporal trinkets of this world to the great and everlasting treasure of God.

Waiting also means expecting God to speak and listening. The best example of listening to God comes from Elijah. Following his great success in defeating the prophets of Baal, Elijah goes into what can best be described as a deep depression. He finds himself all alone and is being pursued by Jezebel, who wants him dead. He finds his way to a cave where God calls him to go out and stand before him. This is what scripture reports after that:

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

1 Kings 19:11-13

Sometimes, when life seems too much for us and we must wait on God’s strength to carry us through, at those times we must also listen for the voice of God. And often, as Elijah discovered, that voice does not come as we might expect. One would expect the voice of God, mighty and strong, to be in the great storm or the earthquake or the fire, but it takes peace of heart and focused listening to hear the soft whisper of God in our lives.

Listening is something that we can all do better, especially when it comes to God. We often think of prayer as delivering a long list of requests to God and then going on with our day. The truth is that prayer is a two way communication – God speaks to us just as we speak to Him. Waiting means developing in prayer an ear that is tuned to listen to God. What helps with this is praying with others. We have a number of prayer groups here at the church and every person in one would be the first to say they are not experts. They are merely opening themselves up to God, expressing their hearts, and listening. You don’t have to be an expert to communicate with God in prayer or to be in a group that prays together. In fact you don’t even have to pray out loud. Each of us can pray and can listen to God, but the blessing of a group is that others are listening with you. This is why James calls us to pray together:

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

James 5:14

Friends, there is great power in praying together. Just think – that’s more ears to hear God’s voice! Waiting, even waiting on the Lord, is much better when it’s done with a friend.

Finally, expectant waiting means acting on God’s call. When we know what God calls us to do then we must act, trusting that God is faithful in His work as we are faithful in ours. Paul writes to the Galatians:

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Galatians 6:9-10

Waiting does not mean that we have a free pass from doing the things that we already know God is calling to do. While we wait for God’s strength we must also actively serve God’s will in what we know. It is that faithfulness to God that strengthens us to endure. It is that faithfulness to God that God honors by bolstering our weakness with His almighty hand. To wait isn’t to sit back, but it is to act on what we know and trust that the unseen God of the universe is actively bringing about His perfect will in our lives. He is bringing the blessings of eternity to us, even if we may have difficulty seeing them through the clouded lenses of this finite world. God is whispering to us and, if we are peaceful enough to listen and if we surround ourselves with others who can listen with us, He will tell us how to act. But regardless we must press on to win the prize that is eternal life.

It is said, courage is not the absence of fear but the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The courage to win the grand race of life requires that we wait on the strength of God. It requires understanding that God is greater than the fears of this world and that His eternal blessings are much greater than the temporary things of this world. When we actively wait – trusting that God is enough, that God’s eternal blessings are greater than this world, that God speaks and we can listen, and we can confidently act on what God has said – then God will strengthen the weak, bolster the faint. Christ is big enough to carry us through any burden in life if we will wait and rely on His strength. Let us wait together, and expect that God will strengthen us for the troubles and trials of life.