Sermon Recap: Hilltops

Sermon Recap: Hilltops & Valleys
Week 6
Teacher: Nate Milnik

Good Afternoon Church and Happy Monday to you all. We sure hope you enjoyed a restful weekend. Or maybe it was wild and equally as enjoyable for you. My girls and I visited family in the Folsom area Friday-Saturday and were reminded, as we are every time we leave, that it is just so good to come home here to Tuolumne County. Not having grown up here and always assuming I'd raise a family in a large, urban city, I surprise myself every time I call this home and absolutely love it.

If you were at church on Sunday, or watched on YouTube, you heard a similar story from the Moody's. You'll recognize Paul from the sound booth on Sunday mornings, ever faithful to handle our sound board and tech (THANK YOU!). His wife, Cathy Moody, is a teacher at Soulsbyville Elementary. They too, moved here from the Bay Area as God dug them up and re-rooted them. My favorite line was when they said, "God was digging us up and we didn't even know it". You can watch the full episode on our website here.

To wrap up our 6-week Hilltops and Valleys series, long-time congregation member, Nate Milnik, brought us the Word. I will likely refer to him as Milnik in this post so don't get too caught off guard if (when) I do. He and my husband, who he referred to as "Turner" during the sermon, only refer to one another now by their last name and it's grown on me (and our children). Milnik (see) led us through the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, found just after the Proverbs. Ecclesiastes 1 begins with calling everything vanity, or meaningless, vapor, a wisp of smoke, and then questions, "What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" (v. 3). To best understand where Nate Milnik was headed with this, he began with their story- the story of he, his wife and their now three boys. The highest point of their hilltop was in the beginning, when Nate and his bride, Heidi, were first married and ready to take on the world, so sure that their world-wide adventures would continue with children. UNTIL God, unbeknownst to them, dug them up. At just a few months old, their first born son began showing symptoms of atopic dermatitis, which led to extended months of extended food allergy diagnoses. Shortly thereafter, their second son was born. The advice of physicians was to not hold back and feed their second born just about anything. Seven months later, the Milnik family found themselves in the lowest of lows of the deepest of valleys, as their second born went anaphylactic then limp after an unknown allergic reaction to a nut-butter blend. Two young sons now with severe food allergies not only left Nate and Heidi feeling extremely nervous and frustrated, but lonely. They'd watch or hear as friends and family would gather, travel or simply go out to dinner and they couldn't. The allergies were so severe, there had to be no chance of cross-contamination, which was often uncontrollable. Between the physical isolation and mental/ emotional isolation, Nate and Heidi toiled.

"Faith," as Milnik defined for himself, "is believing God's revelation to the point of a response". Their response was to do whatever they had to do to support their children. He made reference to the Southern California Allergy Institute, but what he didn't mention were the countless number of drives down to Long Beach (sometimes down and home in a 24-hour period) for the hundreds of appointments, the thousands of dollars (because insurance doesn't cover this) to spend on treatment, housing and gas, and the billions of tears cried during this process. Their responsive faith led to the upslope they're currently on, as their second born son recently graduated from the program and their first born is now micro-dosing peanuts, which symbolizes an upcoming completion of the program. The upslope is unique because it forces faithfulness.

What is God increasing in you today? Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12 encourages us to hold one another up. We were never meant to go at life alone. Likewise, Galations 6: 1-2 tells us to bear one another's burden as it so fulfills the law of Christ. What Milnik didn't quite realize until later was that God was growing empathy in him. We develop character through repetition. So what are we repeating in our lives? Are we nurturing anger and resentment, faithlessness or pride? Then so shows our character. Or are we nurturing and practicing gratitude, love, care and hope? Then so shows our character. What is God increasing in you today? What are you repeating in your life?

Closing out our Sunday morning, long-time missionaries, Jon and Jerry Smith encouraged us to continue living surrendered to where God has us. Be praying over them as they lean in to God's next moves for their family.

Maybe God is increasing His presence and truth in your life, and through that, you desire to respond by leaning in to the local church. Well, great! We have some excellent opportunities in store for you as we RECONNECT. It's no secret that the pandemic and global tensity has had an affect on the global and local church. We've all felt it and continue to see the affects of isolation. What do we all need? Connection. In the coming weeks, with the desire to bring hope and light, we will have ministry highlights and invitations to participate, LIFEGROUP sign-ups, a church picnic and MORE!

Thanks for being here, church! And thank you for being exactly who God called you to be and allowing Him to increase in your life. Amen.