This is My Story, pt 7: // Tom Wallace

Your story is powerful. As you yield your story to God.  He can use it for your good and for His glory. In this message, Tom Wallace shares his story of God's redemption and faithfulness.

"Like my favorite baseball players, I knew all of Jesus' statistics, but I didn't know Him."

"Lies never keep the peace; they only postpone the pain."

"God has an individual healing plan for everyone. He know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it to draw us closer to Him."

"We aren't just saved FROM sin and selfishness, we are saved TO worship and serve."

"Before Christ I stayed busy to avoid pain. After Christ, I stayed busy because I love God and love people."

"God rarely calls you to do whats comfortable, he calls you to be obedient."

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

You're listening to the VFC Termin podcast. At the end of this episode, please take a moment to download our free VFC Comic School app where you can access all of our messages, Termin notes, announcements, and small group levels. Our app is the easiest way to keep up with everything going on here at VFC. We hope that this message helps you in your walk with Jesus and encourages you to belong, believe, and become.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Thank you, Jeremy, for that wonderful introduction. Before we get started, I got some old business I need to handle real quick. Part of my introduction today, God, look at all the people. Woo! Thank you, Jesus. Part of my introduction today is that I'm actually a fantasy football commissioner. If you don't know what that is, it's Dungeons and Dragons for jocks. And uh probably about 10 years ago, we were having a draft up at the old church. There's 10 or 12 guys sitting around. I'm the commissioner, I'm the one in charge, right? So I'm getting ready to stand up, and Pastor Jamie jumps here and goes, hey man, hey, I know Tom's in charge, but here's what we're gonna do. So this morning I've got the mic. So, hey man. I feel better. Um let's pray real quick. Get that off of me. Lord, we just thank you for today. Thank you for your presence already here today, Lord, for moving and for loving us. Lord, just let the words of my mouth and the story glorify you. And we just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. My wife told me in the words of Star Wars to stay on target because I am a rabbit chasing son of a gun. So let's get started. Good morning. I wanted to thank Jamie. And we already did that, I'm sorry. My name is Tom Wallace. I'm honored to be here today to share my story. I'm glad I wrote that down. A few months ago, Pastor Eric did a sermon about Samson, and at the end of it, he said, uh, God is the hero of the story, and that really stuck with me. Um, and that is absolutely true of my story. Now, I don't have Samson's hair. If it's too shiny, I'm sorry. Uh but some people say I have his strength. Um, I'm a long-term member of the VFC family. I'm an elder, and with my wife, Mandy, we're honored to be House Church pastors. And like I said, I'm a fantasy football commissioner. But that's not where I where my story begins. It begins in Gainesville, Florida. Go Gators! There they are. That's right. Yep, that's when they started the new church right there. So I grew up in a family of five. My dad, my mom, me the oldest, my brother David, and my sister Sandy. Now we weren't rich, but we never went hungry. Honestly, I had a happy childhood. My mom was a nurse, she loved to read, she was a writer, she was a painter, she played softball, she bowled, she loved card games, she loved her family, she had a zest for life. My dad was an exterminator, a marine, and one of the most social peaceful people I've ever known. He knew everybody in Gainesville. He played softball, he loved to play bridge, he loved being around people. He's where I got my sense of humor. And he loved his family. Growing up, mom and dad were both umpires, so we spent most of our childhood in small towns around North Florida at different ballparks or volleyball gyms or basketball games. I was a bleacher creature. Um, one of the other things that we did is we went to church. Uh, we grew up in the Presbyterian church. Um, my mom led children's programs. I sang in the choir. Woo! Come against that in Jesus' name. I was even on the bell ringing team. I know, I was pretty cool, man. Maybe we ought to start one here. I don't know. What do you think? So, amen. We went to Sunday school every week. We celebrated Advent. We attended candlelight Christmas Eve services. We observed Lent. We dressed up for Easter. When it came time to join the church, I had to learn the Apostles and the Nicene Creed, and then I had to go through a board of elders who asked me questions to a board of deacons, excuse me, uh, to make sure I knew what I was talking about. Looking back, I realized something. I knew a lot about Jesus. Now that's not Eric. Sorry, Eric. I knew where he was born. I knew about his miracles, I knew about his ministry, I knew about his death and resurrection. It was a lot like baseball. I could tell you the baton averages, the home runs, and the RBIs of all my favorite players. I also knew Jesus' statistics, but I didn't really know him. Still, seeds were planted. As I began writing this testimony, I found myself remembering things I had tried very hard to forget. As a child, I thought my parents were perfect. As an adult, I realized they were just people. People trying to survive. People trying to raise a family. Real people argue. Real people get frustrated. And real people say things they wish they hadn't. But children believe what you tell them. And sometimes those words become seeds. I remember hearing words like ugly, stupid, and worthless. Those became seeds. We had a family tradition of teasing. Now they were all meant to be joking, but sometimes jokes have a way of lodging in a kid's heart. Those seeds started growing. If I could say one thing to parents, it would be this. Your children believe what you tell them. Don't say something to your kids that you wouldn't allow someone else to tell them. The Bible says, Proverbs, in Proverbs 18, 21, life and death are in the power of the tongue. Words matter. Those words produced fear, anger, low self-esteem, self-hatred, and depression. Eventually, what was happening on the inside started showing up on the outside. I became mean. Especially when I got angry. I was much bigger than my brother and sister, and I used my size to control situations. And when I read that this morning, it said on the parentheses, it said bully. That's the word that what that was. For example, when my brother and I played baseball in the backyard, if he got tired before I did and wanted to quit, I'd throw baseballs and baseball bats at him while he ran away. We had a chain link fence beside the gate. There was actually a dent where those bats would hit. Well, thankfully, mom and dad corrected my behavior. My dad believed in behavior modification. I learned yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am. I learned manners. I learned how to behave. But here's what nobody knew. I had learned how to behave on the outside, but inside I still believed I was worthless. As a kid, I found a way to distract myself from what was going on inside. I love baseball. We had church activities, and I'm just gonna be honest with you. I'm a nerd. I have over 10,000 comic books in my collection. I love Star Wars. I love Star Trek. A perfect day back then involved a stack of comics, a Co-Cola, and the Beatles on the radio. It's not a bad day today either. I love superheroes. One character I especially related to was the Hulk. Yeah. His strength came from anger. That made sense to me. Tom Smith! People laugh, but there was more truth in that than I wanted to admit. In high school, I played football, baseball, and uh competed in the weightlifting team. I was also in the drama club. Not because I wanted to act, because somebody had to build the sets and move the furniture. Looking back, all those things had something in common. They kept me busy. As long as I stayed busy, I didn't have to deal with what was happening in my heart. Around the same time, I discovered pornography, books, magazines, and videos. For a moment it seemed like an escape from stress, but it wasn't. It only became fuel for the shame that I already carried. It made everything worse. Even though it looked like I had everything together, I was living a double life. My family thought I was a good kid, and on the outside I was polite and respectful and helpful, but privately I was angry. I was bitter and I was ashamed. Batman had a villain named Two Face. That's who I felt like. I had one face for everyone else, and another one that only I knew about. After high school, I joined the army. If you asked me why I enlisted, I would have given you the respectable answers. I want to serve my country. I want my GI Bill. Those things were true, but they weren't the whole truth. The real reason was I wanted to get away. My dad seemed to know everyone in Gainesville. One night I went somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. I know y'all never done that. And when I got home, dad asked me, where have you been? And of course, I lied. Big lie. He already knew, he had already gotten a phone call. And we had what you call behavior modification immediately. So I figured if I joined the army and got moved hundreds of miles away, I'd finally escape. Well, I became a cook and I was stationed at Fort Polk in Louisiana. That's about 800 miles from Gainesville. One day I was working in the mess hall and a civilian cook walked up to me, said, Hey, is your dad named Taylor? What? I was shocked. Remember, my namesague said Wallace. He told me, he said, your dad was my little league baseball coach. You tell him I said hello. I called my dad later that day. Sure enough, my dad remembered him. He even remembered what position he played. That's when I learned an important lesson that you can never really run away. My dad had people everywhere. When I got out of the army, I moved back to Gainesville. I got a job in a restaurant, started college, met a girl, started dating, and we got married. But because I still believe I wasn't worthy of love, I lied. I thought my lies were protecting her from the truth. I thought they kept the peace, but lies never keep the peace. They only postponed the pain. I wasn't following Jesus. I had grown up around church, but my but faith wasn't directing my decisions. I was living for myself. Whenever I felt criticized, those old seeds sprang back to life. I felt stupid, worthless, and rejected. And I responded with anger. The same cycle repeated itself, and before long, our marriage ended in divorce. The best description I've ever heard came from one of my favorite musicians, Sting. He said, divorce is failing at everything all at once in front of everyone you know. That's exactly how I felt. Then on the very day that my divorce became final, my mom suffered a stroke. I moved to Moultrie to help take care of her. At the time, I told myself, I'm being a good son. But if I'm honest, I was running again. Thankfully, the company I worked for had a division in Tallahassee, so I could make the drive. And once mom improved a little bit, I started driving from Moultrie to Tallahassee for work and then from Tallahassee to Gainesville to play softball. I learned one thing during that season. I know how to kill a Toyota Camry. But while I thought I was driving all over South Georgia and North Florida for work and for softball, God had another destination in mind. I had no idea. He was already arranging a divine appointment that would change the rest of my life. Remember how I said my dad had people everywhere? Well, I've learned that God has people everywhere too. While I was working in Tallahassee, I became friends with some co-workers, and one day one of them noticed something. She said, Why do you drive all the way to Gainesville so often? I said, to play softball. She smiled and said, Well, we have a softball team in Thomasville. Then she added something I wasn't expecting. But you have to come to church. There's always a catch. Looking back now, I'm so thankful that she invited me. Because if she hadn't taken an interest in my life, if she hadn't cared enough to ask, I probably would have stayed on the road to nowhere. I joined the softball team, I got to know the guys and felt comfortable in that small group. And after a couple more invitations, I'm sorry, I came to church here on a Wednesday night. Now my friend and her husband sat on the front row. Now normally I wouldn't sit on the front row, I'm sitting on the front row today, but I normally wouldn't sit on the front row. But since she invited me and I thought I was being funny, I went and sat up next to her on the front row. Then the service started. A few minutes later, someone got up behind me and gave a message in another language, not Spanish. I had never heard anything like that before. My very first thought was somebody better call a doctor because they're having a medical emergency. But nobody else looked concerned. Everybody else seemed perfectly calm, so I stayed. I've often thought about this. If I had been sitting in the back where I normally sit, I would have been out the door and down the road. I would have been gone. But God knew exactly where I needed to be sitting that night. Even though there were things I didn't understand, I experienced something I hadn't felt since I was a little boy, the presence of God. And I experienced something else. The people. They were genuine, they were friendly, they made me feel like a family. Over time, I've learned something else that has helped me in my walk with Jesus. If there's one thing that you don't understand that you don't understand, if supernatural things are awkward and everything else is good in pointing you towards Jesus, don't let that one question keep you from everything God wants to do. Put it on a shelf, keep following Jesus, and he'll unpack it when you're ready. That's exactly what I did with the issue of tongues and the gift of the Spirit when I first began at VFC. The next Sunday I came back and Pastor Larry had a sense of humor. I like that. He gave a message I'll never forget. He talked about Jesus being a carpenter. He said if you stayed close to Jesus, that he would sand off the rough edges of your life. That message gave me hope because I had a lot of rough edges, and Jesus wasn't finished with me. One of the biggest lessons I learned was that healing isn't always instant. Now, physical healing can be instant, but inner healing often takes time. I like to compare it to school. Everyone doesn't learn at the same pace. And schools have something called an individual learning plan. I think God does too. He knows exactly how to heal each one of us. He knows what needs attention first. He knows what we're ready for, and he's patient. So I started getting involved. I played softball, I played basketball, I made friends, we watched football together, we ate together, praise the Lord. And we did life together. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't alone. Pastor Larry and Pastor Ann became spiritual parents to me. I didn't just hear them talk the Christian talk, I watched them walk the Christian walk. That changed everything. In Romans 8.15, it says, You have not received the spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him Abba Father. I got saved in Jamie's front yard. A church member knew it was time and led me in a prayer. I gave my life to Jesus. That was the day that everything changed. Now, not everything changed overnight, but everything began to change. God started renewing my mind through his word. I learned that words are spiritual containers. Words are like bricks. You can use them to build someone's life, or you can throw them through somebody's window. Before Jesus, I spent a lot of years throwing bricks. But God began replacing the lies I had believed with his truth. Instead of believing I was stupid, he said I was renewed. Instead of worthless, he said I was valuable. Instead of unloved, he said I was loved. Instead of living in shame, I discovered I was forgiven. The word of God began tearing out the old roots and planting new ones. I also learned that salvation isn't just being saved from something like sin and selfishness. We're saved to something. We're saved to worship. Worship and serve are the same word in the Hebrew language. So I started serving wherever I could. There were cleanup days here at VFC. If someone was moving, Hallelujah. One person asked me, Are you the moving pastor? Pastor Larry even used to joke that I'd probably have a golden trailer in heaven. But I'm happy to report this morning, I am retired from moving. Hallelujah. I'll to call on that. The difference was this. Before Christ, I stayed busy to avoid my pain. After Christ, I stayed busy because I loved Jesus and I love people. Serving wasn't a distraction anymore. It became part of my healing. I discovered that healing happens in community. I was not alone and I was not the only one going through stuff. I found people who genuinely cared, people who prayed, people who listened, people who walked beside me. You probably heard the saying, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That's exactly what I experienced at VFC. I've been around so long they used to have paper bulletins on Sunday morning. Many moons ago. And on the front of that bulletin it said Victory Fellowship Church and Training Center. Now that word training really stood out to me. When I was in the Army, we had something called the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There were standards, there was discipline, and there was training. And as Christians, we live under a different code as well. The kingdom of God has a culture, it has values, it has a way of living, and God was training me. One of the classes they offered here at the church was an anger class. I took it. Every time it was offered, I took it three times. I took it so often they eventually asked me to teach one of the lessons. VFC will definitely put you to work. But that's how God works. He'll often use the place where you've struggled the most to become the place where you need help to help someone else. Then one Wednesday night, Pastor Ann asked me to close the service in prayer. Out loud. Now that may not sound like much to some people, but to me it was terrifying. I was scared to death. But every time God stretches us, our faith grows. Jeremiah 29, 11 became very real to me. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future. God had a plan. I just needed to get in line with this plan. When I look back now, I can see his hand every step of the way. From Gainesville to Moultrie to Tallahassee to Thomasville. God wasn't moving me around. He was leading me. He was bringing me to a place where I would find Jesus, where I would find healing, where I would find a spiritual family. Then God surprised me again. After my divorce, I told myself, I'll never get married again. And then I met Mandy. Thank you, Jesus. At our wedding rehearsal, we were standing with Pastor Larry practicing our vows, and I looked around and I thought about it, and then I said it out loud. I said, How did I get here? All I wanted to do was play softball. God had completely rewritten my story. Mandy has been one of God's greatest gifts in my life. She loves Jesus. She loves people. She has even learned to tolerate my comic book collection. And I've learned to tolerate the cats. One thing we share is this. Neither one of us grew up in a peaceful home. So together we made a decision. Peace would rule our marriage. In Colossians 3.15, it says, Let the peace that comes from Christ, Jesus Christ, rule in your hearts. I love what the Amplified Bible says. It says, let the peace act as your umpire. Now I love sports, and an umpire makes the cause. The umpire decides what's safe and what's out. We tried to let God's peace make the decisions in our home. There's a couple other lessons God has taught me over the years. One of them is the power of prayer. Several years ago, I lost my job in Tallahassee. So I called Mandy and said, hey babe, this is what's going on. I just lost my job. I'll be home in a little while. So on the drive home, I was rehearsing my speech. You know the speech. Time to circle the wagons. I was gonna be strong. We were gonna be okay. But as I walked in the door, before I could say anything, Mandy looked at me and said, Hey, I called all our friends from church and told them what happened. I have to admit, I got mad. Halt mad. I finally asked, why would you do that? She simply said, so they could pray for us. How do you stay mad at that? You don't. That moment taught me something. The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. When one person hurts, the whole body comes together. Early in our marriage, we wanted natural children. We prayed, we went to doctors, we had friends that prayed with us, but it didn't happen that way we had hoped. It just didn't happen the way we had hoped. That season was painful. There was disappointment, there were questions, but we kept serving, we kept trusting, and we kept showing up. And looking back, God's plan was bigger than ours. Today we have nieces and nephews and godchildren and young people who call us spiritual parents. Our family doesn't look exactly like we imagined, but our quibber is full. Thank you, Jesus. Just as Pastor Larry and Pastor Ann became spiritual parents to me, we have the privilege of pouring into others. That's the kingdom of God. Someone saw me when I was lonely. Someone invited me when I was isolated. And someone prayed for me when I was ready. Now I want to do the same for someone else. Another lesson I learned is never say never to God. Growing up, I rarely invited anyone to my house. I carried so much shame, I want to keep people at a distance. I remember praying something like this, Lord, I'll mow the churchyard, I'll trim the hedges, I'll clean the bathrooms, I'll do anything. I just don't want, don't ask me to have people in my house. Yep, you know it. Then in 2016, Victory Fellowship started small groups. Can you guess what happened? Manny and I opened our home. We've been hosting ever since. And what I feared became one of the greatest blessings in my life. God has a wonderful way of asking us to surrender the very thing we try hardest to protect. Later, our small groups became house churches. Then one day I was asked to become a house church pastor. My first thought was, Jamie, you got the wrong guy. I knew my past. I knew my failures. I knew I'd been divorced. But God reminded me that divorce is not the unforgivable sin. Jesus redeems broken people. He doesn't discard them. I've learned that God rarely calls us to do what is comfortable, he calls us to be obedient. And if we'll trust him, he'll equip us for whatever he asks us to do. I like to finish with one final story. History lesson, kids. I love sports. This guy on the screen's name is Roger Maris. When I was a kid, Roger Maris was a big deal. If you don't know who he is who he is, he was a right fielder for the New York Yankees. And in 1961, he hit 61 home runs to break Babe Roos' home run, single season home run record. That record that he had lasted 1961 till 1998. When I was 11 years old, I was standing at a ball field with a friend, and my friend said, Look, there's Mr. Maris. Then he said, Do you want to meet him? Of course I did. I'll never forget how tall he was, but even more than that, I'll never forget how kind he was. You see, I grew up growing up, I knew everything about Roger Maris. I knew his statistics, I knew his accomplishments, but that day I met him personally. That's exactly what happened in my walk with Jesus. Growing up in church, I knew his statistics. I knew about Bethlehem, I knew about the miracles, I knew about the cross, I knew about the resurrection, I knew all the facts, but at Victory Fellowship, through people who love me, someone introduced me to Jesus personally. And that's the difference. One final thought. Just like I needed a friend to introduce me to Roger Maris, I needed a friend to introduce me to Jesus. That's the kind of friend I want to be. Because there are people all around us who know about Jesus, but they've never really met him. So let me leave you with one question. Do you know Jesus' stats? Or do you have a personal relationship with him? If you know him personally, thank him. If you don't, today can be the day that changes everything. Because if God can take an angry, broken, ashamed young man from Gainesville, Florida, and turn him into a husband, an elder, a house church pastor, and a man who loves Jesus, he can do the same kind of transformative work in anyone's life. And that's why I can stand here today and say with confidence that God is the hero of my story. Thank you very much for listening.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

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