2023 Sermon Transcripts

Full Sermon Transcript

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Full Sermon Transcript

I have a question for you. Does anybody have any good news? And the reason why I ask that question is because I think I could pull up any app, any news app, any TikTok, any Instagram. And most of what you scroll through is not good news. It's bad news. Matter of fact, I did that this morning. I pulled up one of the news apps, and I started scrolling. And I didn't even look at the articles. I just looked at the highlights and the taglines. And I looked at all of it, and I'm like, well, that's terrible. And this is terrible. And they killed this many people. And this war is happening. And these people and the government and whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's not just that, right? Like you've had bad news. Like many of you, when it comes to Christmas time, you think about the news that you got when maybe your loved one was about to pass away and then did. And so every time Christmas comes around, that's the memory. That's what you remember. Or maybe you got that diagnosis that really hit hard. Maybe it was a job issue. Or maybe you were expecting that bonus, and it didn't come because things were hard. And whatever it is, we're filled with all sorts of bad news that we get all the time. And all of you are thinking, oh my goodness, well, hey, am I grateful to come to church today? I promise you, you'll be grateful that you came to church today because there is good news. And really, the point of Christmas is the fact of good news. And so I'm going to show it to you in Luke chapter 2. It says, and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. And imagine this for just a second. You're out in the fields. You're doing your thing. You're working hard. And all the sheep seem to do well. And an angel appears, and the glory of the Lord shows up. And your response is fear.

How many of you walked in today, and you were even terrified from walking through the doors? Or how many people out there are even terrified to even embrace or come to think of a church or coming to experience God and His goodness? We're terrified. They're terrified. Are you terrified? But the angel said to them, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. And some of you in this room, that's the message you need to take home today. Some of you might just need to write that down. You need to sink that deep down into your heart that God has showed up today to tell you, do not be afraid in the midst of your news. Do not be afraid, because He brings you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Good news that will bring great joy for all the people. So if you're taking notes today, I want to tell you that there is good news that came from heaven to earth. And the first point is, never mind, it's a verse. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. And the first point is, it brings us great joy. Even though you got bad news, even though news is surrounding us all the time, that God brings good news. The reason that Jesus was born was to bring us great joy. But here's the interesting part about that, is that in the verse, it says, and it's not 2 Corinthians, it's Luke, whatever verses we were in before, it's totally fine, we'll fix it before next service. This is the angel, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. So you think, oh my goodness, Jesus showed up on planet earth, and then every single person on planet earth got great joy. But that is not the truth. The truth is that when you receive Jesus, when you come into a relationship with him, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, you will be caused to have great joy.

And so we look around our world that's filled with bad news, and we see all the hurt and the pain and the conflicts and all the turmoil and the tensions and the wars and the rumor of wars, and we wonder why it's happening. It's because so many people have not received the Savior and not received the joy that he has for our lives. Listen to me, people who know Jesus do not kill other people, at least they shouldn't.

Because joyful people don't kill people. Joyful people don't start wars. Joyful people don't do that. So it's good news. It's good news that causes great joy for all the people. And you know what's crazy is we end up searching for joy. We call it happiness, but really happiness is not the same as the joy that comes from the Lord. How many of you all know who know the Savior that the joy of the Lord is our what? It's our strength. How about those of you who grew up in churches years ago? You sang the song, what is it? I forgot it. The joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where joy, I forgot it already. Guys, it's really hard to do what I do. It's hard to be up here and think about, I don't know if you know this, this is just free of charge. I have like 15 things going on in my head right now.

Where am I?

I've got the joy down in my heart. Where? Where?

And what's crazy about this is so many of us, again, we go back to that moment where we step back into Jesus. You're what it's all about. And yet we chase all these things, hoping for a quick fix, or that's going to do it, and that's going to do it, and this is going to do it. And we get so distracted by life. But isn't it true? Let me think about this for a second. If God gave us joy through Jesus Christ, then why do we think that our house is going to give us that joy, or our car is going to give us that joy, or the world is going to give us that joy, or the government is going to give us that joy, or money is going to give it that joy? Listen to me. The world can't give it, and the world can't take it away. Your house can't give it, and your house can't take it away. Money can't give it, and money can't take it away. Your job can't do it and your job can't take it away. Listen to me. Someone needs to hear this today. Your boss can't give it. I try.

And he can't take it away. Because something that God gives is something that God gives and nobody's gonna take it away. Here's the second part of this great message that he gives us great joy. And it's also, man, a savior was born. This is so crucial for us to understand. He says, for as for you, this is in Ephesians 2, one through five. As for you, you are dead in your transgressions and sins. Who was? All of us. You, me, your neighbor, your coworker, the people you run around with, every person who's ever lived on planet earth, you are dead in your transgressions and sin in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air. But the spirit who is now at work, oh, that's the spirit who is now at work. That's Satan and those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time. Like you've been that, you've done that, you've seen that. Maybe you've been living that and it's time to come back, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. And we wonder why we're living a joyless life. We wonder why we're lost and why we're afraid. We're terrified and we're concerned is because we've walked away from him. He has not walked away from you.

Because he gives us great joy and a savior was born. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of God's wrath because God is just and he deals with things that are unright. But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy did what? Made us alive with Christ. Even when we were dead in transgression, it is by grace you have been saved. God gives you salvation. Guess what friends? Aren't you grateful this morning for God's salvation that was provided to you in Christ Jesus. You need a savior, I need a savior. I said this before, there's not a lot of people lining up to die for you, but that's what it takes in order for you to have a relationship with God through Christ to go to heaven and not to hell that you can be forgiven and not condemned. That's how it happens. It's having a relationship with God himself. And here's the crazy thing, it's about great joy and it's about having a savior that was born to us. And number three, here's the crazy thing, it's for all people. How many people? It's for?

But not everyone's gonna receive it. Not everyone believes it. Not everyone receives it, but it's for all people. And some of you came in today and I wanna tell you that it's not just for those people, it's not just for the people you think that sit here all the time, it's for you. That Jesus Christ sat on a throne in heaven and he left it and he was born in a feeding trough for you. He lived a perfect life and died a sacrificial death on the cross for you. It's not just for those people, it's for you.

Right in Luke chapter two he says, but the angel said to them, do not be afraid for I bring you good news that will cause you great joy for all the people. How does that happen? You believe in the one who was sent to bear the burden of your sin for all of eternity. That Christ Jesus was born to cause you great joy for all the people. Let's watch and look at this. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, he is the Lord. And in 1 Timothy, I love this verse. It says this is a trustworthy saying. And everyone should accept it. Like think about that for a second. Have you accepted it? Have you really accepted it? Have you experienced the joy of the Lord, the savior of all mankind who was born to die for you?

Everyone should accept it. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and I am the worst of them all.

For just a moment I want you to take a second and I want you to insert your name where the word sinner appears because this is what Christ Jesus has done for you. This is a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it. Christ Jesus came into the world to save Dan of which I am the worst. I don't need you to point fingers at this moment. I know it.

I know it. Do you?

Christ Jesus came into the world to save Kelsey. Man, Kelsey is phenomenal. How many of y'all like Kelsey?

She's cute, lovely, adorable. She's amazing. She makes everyone feel like they're her best friend. Guess what? I see the dark side.

Because I live with her. And she sees the dark side of me. And this isn't a place where you're just gonna throw elbows at the person next to you because yes, they need Jesus but you need him too. And Christ Jesus died not just for them. He died for you.

This is a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it. That Christ Jesus came into the world to save you of which we are the worst of them all. And the team has no idea what to do right now because it says 11.40 on the clock up there. I'm done.

So get your butt back up there.

Come out. I told y'all I'd be quick today. Hey, sometimes you don't need a long message. You need a good message because there's enough bad news in the world, we need some good news. And Jesus came to bring you good news. Of great joy, of having a relationship with him, the king of kings and the Lord of lords. Are you grateful for Jesus today? Are you grateful for Jesus this Christmas? And here's what I want you to do. I want you to go out today and I want you to say Jesus, I am so thankful for you and I want you to go out into all the world for wherever you go this week and I want you to think about man, it's for all people. It's for all people. I am of the worst and I was forgiven, I was set free, I was saved, he redeemed me, he cleansed me, he healed me and there's people that I'm around every single day that are not below it, it is for them as well. How are you going to invite them into receiving Jesus and his joy and his salvation and his for what? For all the people. Count the seats.

You don't really have to count them.

You don't have to count them. You don't have to count them. You don't have to count them. But man, what if this room was filled with people who needed to know that there is good news this Christmas?

And there's all of the bad news. There is good news. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you for your grace and your grace. We are a just God. And that you don't just wink at sin and say it's okay. You deal with it. And so you said the payment of sin was death. And so every single one of us, we are dead in our transgressions. We are dead in our sin. And that sin separates us from you. And so we walk around trying to fill that void with everything the world offers. And it's vacant. It's a counterfeit. It doesn't work.

And so we're grateful, Jesus, today for the good news that you left your throne in heaven to come to be with us, to show us the way and to provide the way, to forgive us of our sins because of what you did in dying on the cross and rising again. And God, that you brought us up out of the grave as you got out of the grave and you filled us with your Holy Spirit,

a deposit and a guide and a power that would overcome sin and death

and give us life and life to the full. It would bring us joy. Even the midst of the bad news, it brings us joy.

And so God, right now I pray that if anyone's in the room or watching online and they've never received you as their savior,

I pray that they would know right here and right now from your voice, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that you came and you died for them.

And it is good news. So in this moment, I want you to receive this Christmas,

I want you to receive the gift of salvation provided to you through Jesus Christ.

I'm gonna ask you to pray a prayer with me and you can simply from your heart to God communicate right where you are. You just simply say, God, I know I'm a sinner in need of a savior.

And right now I turn from that sin and all the desires of my flesh and all the ways in which I've been distracted and ran to other things for help. I turn from those things, God, and I turn to you, the author and perfecter of our faith and life. In this moment, I believe in you, Jesus.

I give my life to you.

I declare in this moment, Jesus, you are my Lord.

Come inside of me and change me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. And from this moment forward, I give you everything I am and everything I'll ever be. It's in Jesus' mighty name I pray, amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

It was about 2010, I was living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It was right before I moved up to Michigan. And I was working for a really big church in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and I was overseeing adult ministries, which included young adults. And so I had the opportunity to meet several young adult pastors in that area. And there's one in specific, his name is Jonathan Bacluda, who is just, man, he's an incredible guy, incredible pastor. And he and I were kind of friends during that time because we'd gather together as young adults pastors. And he shared something about this story about a missionary. When you see in 2010, the earthquake obliterated the country of Haiti. Do you remember this? Like it was devastating to this nation. And so all of our churches began to participate and send missionaries to Haiti and aid to Haiti. We sent a convoy of, like all these things to Haiti to be able to love and care for them. And I'll never forget hearing Jonathan Bacluda, who was telling this story. He said, man, we went to Haiti multiple times, and we came across this family who, the daughter was sick, and they brought her in, and they were praying for healing. They were asking God for a miracle. And then right after they prayed for the girl, the family, this Haitian family, took the girl to a voodoo priest to ask for help. And I'll never forget this because he's, you know, he's explaining this, and he's asking the question, like, why would they do that? Like voodoo is literally of the enemy. It's of Satan. It's not godly. It's not Christian. It's not biblical. Why would you do that? You're a Christian. You asked for healing in the church from God, and then you went to the voodoo priest to get healing. And I'll never forget the families, the missionaries' response of why they do that. He said, because the Haitian people believe that the Christian God is slow. Can anyone relate to that feeling? And here's the reality. Here's what the missionary said about the people in Haiti, that they're 80% Catholic, they're 20% Protestant, but they're 100% voodoo. And here's what I mean. He said it's so prevalent in their culture that it's crept into all aspects of faith and church. And it's a blind spot for the people. It's a blind spot for the people. It's a blind spot for the people. They become so inoculated by this idea that they're seeking after a false God's help that it's this massive blind spot for them. And it was like he was describing this, and we all became so concerned. So like, what is wrong with that? And why on earth aren't the Christians in Haiti concerned about this? It's because they become so, again, it's a blind spot for them. They don't even see it anymore because they've been so inundated with culture and what they think that they're literally seeking after a false God. And so we began to ask this question. And then the question was, what is the blind spot for the American church? Like, what is that thing for us? Like, if a missionary were to leave their land across the seas, Kelsey and I, man, I don't know if we fell in love on a missions trip, but we really connected. We connected on a missions trip in Uganda and came home and started dating. And five months, four months, five months later, we were engaged. And then four or five months later, we were married. So something happened on this missions trip in Uganda. I'm just saying, go on missions and you might find your spouse.

But I'll never forget the experience of going on foreign missions and just experiencing the joy that people had. Can I tell you something? When we interacted with the people in Uganda, they changed our lives more than we changed theirs. And I wonder if a missionary was sent abroad to America, what would they see? Like, what would they see in the American church, in Christians, that is so crept into how we live and what we do as Christians, that it's unbiblical, it's out of whack, it doesn't follow the scriptures, it's inconsistent. What would that thing be? Like, what would we be so inoculated by that we wouldn't even see it because it's a blind spot? And of course, Jonathan is telling the story and we're interacting with this. And he says, man, he had this experience where a foreign person came and he asked that question, what is our blind spot? And he'll never forget it and I'll never forget it either. It was just two simple words and those words were public storage.

And he was like, what?

Public storage. He said, your houses have closets that are so full of things that they're overflowing and you don't know where to put them. Your garages are so full that you can't park your car in them. And as you drive down your highways, you have buildings everywhere because you can't fit things in your apartment or your house that you have. And so he began to say, it's public storage. You're storing up things. And then he said, America is some percentage Catholic, it's some percentage Protestant, but it's 100% materialistic.

And it seems as though the American church and Christians has become containers and not conduits. We've become pails and not pipes. And of course, if you understand the analogy there, a container is right where you store things, but a conduit or a pipe is where you get things where it needs to go.

And God has made every single one of us as a part of the church. As Christians to be, to not be a pipe, not a pail, but a conduit and not a container. He wants us to be a pipe, not a pail, a conduit and not a container. He entrusts, listen to me, he entrusts things to us to move things through us to get them where they need to go.

Generosity is living, is the living antidote to materialism. You'll notice that when you go, go on a foreign missions, especially to a third world country like Kelsey and I did in Uganda, is man, you start to realize, man, these people don't have anything. They don't have a lot. They're walking, they're literally built in shacks. They don't even have, they don't even have, what is it called? Plumbing, like hello. And yet you'll never find more joyful people in the entire world. And yet we're so filled with anxiety and depression and angst and man, it's, and so I know some of you, you'll think, man, well, the church just talks, they just want money. I can tell you from a fact from the scriptures that God doesn't just want your money. No, no, no, no, no. God is after your heart. And your heart is connected to money. It's connected to things. A matter of fact, Kelsey and I were discussing this yesterday, probably because I'm preaching this message and I hope you know that when I preach a message, I begin to see God, what do I need to change? What do I need to do differently? And I started to think about our kids that have all these toys. And I started to think about like, how do I teach our kids generosity? How do I teach our kids to be givers and not just takers? How do I do that with a five-year-old and a seven-year-old and a 10-month-old? The 10-month-old will not get it, but hopefully the five and seven will.

And so we're gonna dive into this topic today because I think it's so crucial for all of us that we have a blind spot. And here's the reality, Matthew 6, 21, right? Jesus says this, he says, for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. It's connected, your stuff is connected to your heart. And too often, your things, your stuff, your storage is taking you away from God and not bringing you closer to him. And so we're gonna take a look today at where generosity comes from in scripture, what it needs to look like. And we're gonna go to 2 Corinthians 9. If you have a Bible or a Bible app, I encourage you to pull it open. We're gonna go to 2 Corinthians 9, verse six and eight. And it starts here, or no, I'm starting in chapter, starting in 2 Corinthians 8, I'll get to chapter nine. And it says to this, in the midst of a very severe trial, so this is the Macedonians, Paul is talking about them. In the midst of a very severe trial, have you faced severe trials? If you look at the last five years of our lives, we had a global pandemic, we couldn't go to school, we couldn't work, we got shut down, we had to wear masks. Should we wear masks, should we not wear masks? Should we get, what's the word for it? Shots, should we not get shots? The economy, wars happening abroad. Like, you could argue that we're having a very severe trial. We've gone through some stuff. And Paul wants to know that this is what this church was facing. They were facing a severe trial. But they're overflowing joy in the midst of a trial. And even in their extremities, in poverty, it welled up in rich generosity. Even in the midst of severe trial and overflowing joy, and in their extreme poverty, you see why we go to places like Uganda and these people blow us up with this joy-filled, just unbelievable, generous spirit. And it's contagious. And we come back and we're like, what are we doing with our lives? It's because they're living this out. It's because they're living this out. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. And that's what I'm gonna talk about today. That's what I want you to leave here with is that how do you give even beyond your ability?

And that's where I want you to focus your attention as we leave here today. That's what I want you to get deep into your spirits is that we need to be able to be people as described by, this is like, imagine with me for a second, ask this question, why would the Holy Spirit of God preserve this text showing us the church that Paul is talking about saying, this is the model of what it looks like to be a generous people and a generous church, a generous Christian. That even in the midst of trial, even in the midst of poverty, they had overwhelming joy and they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. Can I tell you, church, I plead to God that we would become like this church. That we would be known for a rational generosity and I'm gonna show you why over the next couple minutes. And so the first thing we need to get today is we need to be people who give generously. We need to give generously. Because in 2 Corinthians 9, verse 6, I don't think it's on the verse. Is it? Oh yeah, it is on there. It says this, I'm finally in 2 Corinthians. 9, 6, it says, remember this, whoever sows sparingly and other gives will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. And so what do we want to be as people? We wanna be godly people. We wanna be this kind of church that doesn't just give sparingly and sow sparingly. We want to give generously. And so what do we have to ask the question? If you're gonna give generously, it means you can't just give generously. Conveniently. You can't just be comfortable in your giving. Comfortably would be sparingly. And God is not calling us to be comfortable people. He's calling you to give not comfortably. He's calling you and me to give generously. Listen to me. Generous giving is giving that you actually feel. Someone once said, man, I know an extraordinarily generous person. Man, I went to lunch with this person. Or dinner with this person. And they said, man, this guy, he tipped 30%. That dude is generous. Well, maybe not. Maybe he's just rich.

Like, how do we know if a person is generous?

Well, how do we know if a person is generous? Like, could you imagine with me if I showed up next weekend and I said, guys, I gotta tell you something. This is absolutely amazing. We need to praise God for this. Someone gave God through New Life Church a million dollars. Would y'all be excited for that? Would y'all praise God for that? Do you know, would you say, is that a generous gift? The answer is no. We don't know if that's a generous gift. Because we don't know what they actually have. We don't know what they're actually capable of. For them, it might not be generous. It could just be, pocket change.

But what do we see in scripture as being an example of a person who is generous? Jesus, in Mark chapter 12, 41 through 44, it says Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd. Imagine God himself sitting right next to the offering plate and watching exactly what you do. Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watching exactly what you do. I'll be honest, I love that we have boxes in the back that you can put gifts into. But I want to be very clear. I want to be extraordinary clear about what happens at New Life Church. I think it's about 85 to 90% of people give to God through New Life Church and the mission that we have online. So when we pass the buckets, it's not because we're begging you for money. It's because we're praying you for money. It's because we're praying you for money. It's because we're praying you for money. Can I tell you, it's actually the opposite. We tried to get rid of the boxes for a really long time and then we learned something from another church that they actually use the boxes not to collect the money but to give the money out. Did you know that when you see cash in the buckets, it's usually not from people who put it in that weekend. It's because we've pre-stashed it with money so that if you have a need, you can get it out of that bucket and take it with you because we're here to help God provide for your needs not to just take for ours. Amen. Can I tell you that? That's why we do it. Like for me, I would rather get rid of the buckets. It's a little bit clunky. It's a little bit like people are like awkward. They're like, do I do it? Should I pass it? I feel guilty. I feel condemned. I don't have anything in my mouth. And I'm like, I'm just, oh, here's 10. Here's a quarter. And it's so awkward. But this is Jesus. Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offering was put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple, treasury. Again, that's the local church. And many rich people threw in large amounts of money. But a poor widow came and put in very, two very small copper coins worth only a few cents. And calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. Jesus is telling us that yes, someone could give a million dollars and it could be, we would be so grateful and we're gonna do a lot of things with a million dollars. So we're gonna do a lot of things with a million dollars. So we're gonna do a lot of things with a million dollars. So if you have it, you could still give it. I'm not shaming you.

But what we see in scripture that the Holy Spirit has preserved for thousands of years that Jesus himself showcased is the life of a generous person is not giving out of an abundance. It's a giving out of everything that I have. And he showcased this woman as a model for this. And so generous giving, can I tell you, it's not just giving out of our wealth and our abundance. It's giving out of our abundance. It's living out of our abundance. It's living out of our abundance. It's living out of our abundance. It's living out of our abundance. It's literally giving to the point where we actually feel it, that there is a cost to it, that it actually cost us something to bless somebody else.

And this is the example of what it looks like to be a faithful, generous church, to be a faithful, generous people. The generous giving, it's something, it impacts you. Again, God doesn't want just your money. He wants your money. He wants your heart.

And so we need to become these kinds of people. What if I,

you know, and some people, let me back up this for just a second. You know, again, some people are like, Dan, you just have to say this. You're the pastor. You see the funds and you know that what is needed and you're just coming up here asking for money. Listen, I hope you know this. I don't. I believe in what we're doing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna preach the word of God. I'm gonna share with you what he says. It's not my words. I didn't write the Bible. I'm sharing you what he says. But can I tell you something? I wasn't always a pastor.

Like I came into church as a senior in college walking in for the first time extremely hungover.

Aren't you glad you brought your kids into church today?

Like I probably smelled like the smoke of the club that I was in. I was in the night before. And I remember like I walked in and I began to have this interaction with God and he began to change my life through his word and through his people and through his church. And can I tell you something? For a long time, I had come to faith and I was learning and I was growing and I watched the plate pass every single time and I'm like, it looks like there's a lot of people. I'm good. This is good. And then I began to realize like, you know, and nobody asked this question. Like they come into church and they're like, well, who pays for the seats? Like, like who, if I was a businessman, like I'm selling a product that makes money to provide for the business and the workers and the things that are happening that's going on. But who, how do they turn the lights on? And how do they proclaim the gospel? And how do they get the word out to so many people? How does that happen? Who does that? And because I wasn't a pastor, I wasn't a believer because I didn't know anything about this. I didn't realize that God invites all of us to participate in his mission so that the gospel of Jesus Christ to go, can go to as many people as possible. And so I did something extravagant. I decided, man, I'm going to pull out my $10 and I'm going to pop in the plate and sit there and go, God, I hope you, hope you realize how, how lucky you are. Have me on your team.

And it had nothing to do with generosity. It was ego and it was being a stupid young kid. And I didn't know anything about this. And so I'm, I'm telling you right now, if that's you, there's no shame or guilt in that. This is like, like we're going to get to the, God wants you to be a cheerful giver, not to give out a reluctance or, or, or pressure. Like God wants to invite you into his kingdom's work. He wants to invite you into his blessings. He wants you to invite you into his generosity. And I, my life began to change so much. And man, this, this, this, this church began to teach me about being generous and about giving and, and being a part of it. And I didn't always do it, but I do now. And, and man, even my wife and I, as we started the church and it was like, hey, we were leaving our full-time jobs and, and incomes and like, how is this going to work? And man, can I tell you how it is to live on faith? Try leaving your jobs, having no income and no insurance. And you have a baby and you have a, and you're like, where's your money going to come from? And, and guess what? It's, it's the people. Okay.

You wonder why pastors have anxiety. He's asking me to trust you.

That came out. I hope you think that was funny. I'm going to pull that one back in. I'm just giving you a glimpse into my life.

Here's another question to ask when we talk about generosity. Again, because the scriptures say, right, you, you, you sow and reap and, and you give to, and so you, it begs the question. It almost seems like that, like the scriptures is saying, man, we can give to receive. Because again, I dropped the $10 in and I, I wrote on the, the, the card, like my, my name and my address and my email. And, and you know why I did that is because, so I could get the tax credit. And I, so I want to talk about that for a second. Let me ask the question. Do we just give to receive? Because it seems like the scriptures allow us to do that. But I want us, I want us to kind of get over that because literally it's reap what you sow. But listen, the heart, the why behind why God gives us the things he does, that the motive of a generous heart isn't to give, to receive more. To keep. It's to receive more, to give more.

God doesn't give you more to just increase your standard of living. And of course that's how we approach our budgets and our lifestyles. And I'm guilty of that too. He doesn't just increase your standard of living. He wants to increase your, he wants to give to you to increase your standard of giving, because he loves a cheerful giver. The. The text says, and why does God love a generous, cheerful giver? It's because he is a generous, cheerful giver. Say it with me. Say it with me. Say it with me. Say it with me.

For John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that. He gave. This is who our God is. Let me ask this question for a second, because you know that we preach on tithing and giving 10% and, and, and, and really delivering a generous life goes so much further than that. Because let me ask you a question. For God so loved the world that he gave. Let me ask you a question. Did Jesus tithe his blood for you? Did Jesus give 10% of his life? Did he give his life for your sins and for mine? No, he models for us what it's like to give everything. In 2 Corinthians 9, we're going to continue. He says this, each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give. Again, not reluctantly, not under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. Why? Because he is a cheerful, generous giver. So the first thing we need to do is we need to give generously. The second thing we've got to do is we've got to give generously. The second thing we've got to do is we've got to give generously. The third thing we want to do is we've got to give cheerfully. The fourth thing we want to do is we've got to give cheerfully. We love to do this. We consider it a joy to do this. So when we pass the buckets, again, why do we do that, we don't pass it so we can get. We pass it so that we can give, so that when people come in here, they don't just think we're just trying to get money. No, we want to bless people. Not under compulsion, not under reluctance. Could it be possible that the greatest act of worship that you make on a weekly basis to God isn't just coming into the seats, sitting down and singing songs of praise or raising your hands. It's likely that the greatest act of worship is your giving because you're literally telling God, I'm not worshiping my things, I'm worshiping you. And it's because God loves a cheerful giver. It's worship. Hebrews 12 too, again, this is Jesus. He said, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame.

Like he died for you. And it was a joy-filled, generous expression of who God is. Because God loves a cheerful giver. And so I want to invite you to make this a family thing. Man, if you're married, man, man, talk about this with your wife. Pray about it. Become united in it. Man, talk about your kids. Teach your kids how to be generous. Like Kelsey and I had a fight yesterday.

And it was over money. And it was over, man, how do we teach our kids to give? And we had this conversation, and I'm not going to share which one is on which side, but because I didn't get permission to share the story.

But our kids, can I tell you something? Our kids, our kids have an abundance of things. They have an abundance of toys. And I don't know about you, but Christmas is coming, and the toys are coming too. And so we're going to stack toy upon toy upon toy upon toy to where I literally ask, again, because I'm preaching this message, I ask Kelsey, where are we going to put this stuff? And she said to me, well, what about Ali? He's only 10 months old. What if he wants to play with this four years from now? To which I said, the toys are going to keep coming, because birthdays keep coming, and Christmas keeps coming, and you keep going to Target.

I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

So here's the deal. I'm inviting you into what it looks like to be a, a generous follower of Christ. I'm inviting you into a life-changing journey, that God wants your heart, and he wants to change it. And when he changes your heart, he will change other people's hearts. And I want to even say it this way. If you need accountability in this, man, invite other people into it. Say to them, like, look, I'm a little bit reluctant. I'm a little bit, I'm not as generous as I should be. I haven't stepped into giving as generously as I should be. And honestly, I'm not joyful. I'm like white-knuckling my things, going, I'm going to have control over this. And maybe it's stuff or status, man, has a grip on your heart. And man, there is help here for you. 2 Corinthians 9, 8 says this. It says, Does that sound like you'll ever lack for anything? That this is who our God is. It continues, As it is written, They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor. Their righteousness endures forever. Forever. This is who we're to be. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. This is who God is. Imagine being the first farmers on planet earth. That God gave you a harvest. He gave you food out of the ground. And they took that and they could have ground the seeds of wheat into making bread to eat. But God told them, man, take some of that seed. Plant it in the ground. So that it can be harvested to bless somebody else. Would you have done that? Or would you have just cared about your family and your own needs? And man, I need to eat and we got to have bread. And there's nothing else. But man, for some reason, they had faith in God who supplies everything according to his righteousness and his riches in Christ Jesus.

You will be enriched in every way. So that you can be. You will be generous on every occasion. Again, we're not just getting to consume. We're not just getting to collect and to be pails and to be containers. Man, God is giving us so that we can be generous on every occasion. And through us, your generosity, our generosity will result in people, other people outside the church giving thanksgiving to God. Your generosity will show them how good your God is. Amen.

And so that his service that you perform, again, this is the church, is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people. Again, thank you for your generosity. My family ate last night.

Like I'm working for the church. I stepped out in faith. We stepped out in faith to plant a church. And what you give, yes, it does provide. I hope you're grateful that when you see Sam and you see Aaron, that you are paying for their life. That you're paying for their marriage. I hope when you see Taylor. And Andrew, that you're supplying for their needs because they're serving in the church to serve you. I hope that you see Jess and Chris. I hope, now their husbands have other jobs. Thank God for that because we can't pay them all that they need. But it goes beyond that. Supplying the needs for the Lord's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Again, people are going to see our generosity and they're going to see God because of it. This is why. This is why. This is why. This is why. This is so important. Because it allows people to see the heart of who God is and it sees the heart of who we're supposed to be. And so we need to live these generous lives. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies. Look at this. That accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ. Last week I talked about how crucial this was. That every part of generosity that comes into and flows out of this church has to be about the confession. Of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're not just called to just meet the needs of people. We're here to rob hell and to populate heaven until we die or until Jesus comes home or brings us home.

And so what do we got to do? We got to give generously. We've got to give cheerfully. Here's the third one. We've got, not yet. And for your generosity and sharing with them and with everyone else. Generous living. We've got to give faithfully. We've got to give generously. We've got to give faithfully. And too many times, right, we come into church and we're like, man, we're just like, oh my gosh, I didn't know what I was doing. I hope I have something to give. And man, living a generous life is living a life of intentionality. It's giving faithfully. And let me tell you this. Giving faithfully is actually two meanings behind it. It's giving in faith that God is going to do something extraordinary. And the other thing is it's giving in faith. It's giving regularly. It's giving faithfully. It's, it's, it's, we give in faith to reap a harvest of righteousness, to proclaim the gospel. But two, it's giving regularly. So we, we can't just wait to the end of the year because that's convenient. Or make it, we got to make it a regular part of our act of worship. We give in faith and we give regularly. Here's verse 13. Again, because of the service by which you have proved yourselves. Others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession. Confession of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Friends, this is what the church is all about. It's presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to anyone who would listen. Right here in this room, in this city, our state, nation, and around the world.

And, but, but, but you probably have this question. Again, going back to what I said earlier. Well, what if I give too much that I don't have enough? Has anyone asked that question? Like, what if I give too much that I don't have enough? What if I give too much that I don't have enough? Or, or, or can I do this or, or, or have that if I do, if I do give? Maybe, maybe, let me put it this way. Maybe we've become too responsible to live this out.

And it's maybe kept you from giving generously, giving cheerfully, and giving faithfully. And so I want to show you this in the scripture again. Again, my God will meet all your needs according to the riches, of his glory in Christ Jesus. This is a promise of God. He will meet all your needs. Do you believe that?

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The earth is the Lord's and everything in this. Do you believe this? Let me put it another way. Some of you, you're in the marketplace. You're in business. You're, you're, you're working. Can I tell you something? God owns your business. Do you not think that God doesn't want your, your business to succeed? He owns it.

And so this is the question. Do we believe God? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap. They don't, they don't live this practice out. They don't store away in barns. They're not containers. They're not pails. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. He cares for them. He provides for them. Are you not much more valuable than they are?

And so imagine with me for just a second,

have, have a pail that God gives you some stuff.

This is your life. And all your material possessions, your job, your everything that you have. It's God gave you some skittles. She loves skittles.

I wonder if like, if I gave this to my kids, if I, if I, if I gave these to my kids, they would be so, I know, I know our middle child loves skittles. If I gave these to my kids, I wonder if I gave them to him. If I said, Hey, Hey, can I get, can you just give me one of those? I would love a skittle. They look so good. I wonder if my kids would do it. I just gave you a bag and you can't even give me one back. This is why we need this. God owns everything. God has given you everything. And the problem with our generosity, the problem, why this is a blind spot. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. The blind spot for us is because we don't understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. We don't know, understand who our God is. Look, I could have, what our kids don't understand is, is, is, Hey, you just give me some, give me some back. I gave you the bag, but literally I could, you don't understand this. I could pull out my debit card and I could buy you an abundance of skittles. I could buy you every pack of skittles in the store where I got that one, but you can't even give me a few back. You can't even give a few to a couple others because you can't live a generous life. Listen, this is who God is. God is the supplier of all things. He owns everything and he has more than enough. Let's pray together. Heavenly father, we love you and we thank you that you are a generous God that you gave your one and only son. Amen. That if we would believe in you, that we would not perish, but we would receive eternal life. And God, that when we receive you, the Holy Spirit comes inside of us and inside of us and changes us. And so God right here and right now, I pray that you would be going to do heart surgery on us, that you would create in us a generous heart, a generous spirit, that we would be people that live our lives based on loving you and supporting your mission, that the gospel of Jesus Christ to go to every single person on planet earth. Okay. You can get it because you've given to us cheerfully, generously, faithfully. God, we pray that we wouldn't be containers, but that we would be conduits, that we wouldn't be pails, that we would be pipes. God, that as you give to us, that we would be people who respond to you, that we would take what you give us, that we would, that it would go through us to where it's going. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

God, right now we, we declare that we, we acknowledge, we are grateful that you supply all, all of our needs according to your riches that are in Christ Jesus. We pray that we believe that like never before. If you're in the room today and you've never responded to Jesus Christ, I want you, I want to give you the opportunity to do that right now. That in faith, you can choose to believe who He is and I hope you see it very clearly through the scriptures.

God, right now, I pray that they would respond to you, that they would give their life to you as you gave your life for them.

And right in the room, right now, if that's you, the Bible says that God stands at the door of our heart and knocks. And so what I like to say is if he's messing with you right now, respond to him and give your life to him.

That you believe in him for your salvation and that you believe in him to fill you with his spirit that you might live this kind of life. And so if that's you, if he's messing with you right now, I want you to step over a line of faith. And I want you to shoot your hand straight up in the air right now. One, two, three, shoot your hand up. Responding to God, thank you. God sees you in this moment.

All you need to do is respond to him. Believe in him for the salvation and forgiveness of your sins. And in your heart and in your mouth, you need to declare, Jesus, I make you Lord of my life. What you say, I will do.

And you'll never be the same because of it. You can slip your hands down. And as you put your hands down, we're gonna put our hands together and celebrate. Our God who saves.

Full Sermon Transcript

ive been. Well we are starting a brand new series of messages today called greater and if you were with us about a year ago we started talking about this series called greater. It was vision. We were casting vision to our church about what we could become and so a year ago it actually started about two years ago with our leadership our trustees we started asking God like what's next for new life church if you don't know if you're visiting for the first time we were in Madewon high school for about five years we were in the. The center at western Michigan university before that and we were setting up and tearing down church every weekend every Sunday we would set it up and we would tear it down and how many of you are glad we don't do that anymore. So we cast vision last year for this for man what would it be like to have our own facility that we could use not just on Sunday mornings but but really all throughout the week and so we started this vision and we called it greater because we wanted to see God do have greater reach in this community we wanted to establish greater relationships and see God have greater impact through new life church. And so before I start I want to share with you some statistics of what we've seen God do in the last year of new life church but before I do that I want to tell you that when we share statistics here's why that matters is because what we measure is what matters. Let me give you an example like if you want to have a good budget you need to know you need to measure what comes in and what goes out why because it matters I don't have five kids I have three kids and so if we're on vacation and I'm looking around the car and seeing who's in the car I'm not going okay I got two of them that's good enough no no no no no like I need to have three in the car or four if you include my wife in that as well. So we measure what matters and so I want to share with you some statistics of what matters when it comes to new life church and the impact that we have and the first thing I'm going to share with you is some financial numbers when we set out in this season called greater casting vision for getting into this facility and establishing new life churches ministry in a greater way. Our goal was to bring in three million dollars over a two year period so we started last year and our goal was three million dollars over a two year period so we're coming up at the end of year one in this and when we cast this vision last year those of you who are part of new life church at that time you pledged two million seven hundred twenty thousand dollars like that's pretty awesome. Well let me tell you what has happened what we've received since last year at this time one point two million dollars so we're doing pretty good does it look like we're on the way to accomplishing the goal that God had given to us that's pretty awesome and we're not even at the end of the year yet like we have still a couple months to go so I believe we're going to see God do extraordinary things but let me tell you I talked to you for just a moment so share some numbers with you about the goal that God has given to us. We've seen greater reach that we've seen God have in this last year we've seen three hundred and thirty four first time guests come to new life church in the last year and two hundred fifty six of those or seventy six percent of them came since we moved into this building in July that's amazing. That is amazing. The year prior to this we had about a hundred and sixty average attendance in people and since we moved into this building we have a three hundred and ten average that's a ninety four percent increase in people coming to new life church since we moved into this building that is amazing. Let me talk about greater relationships for a minute because if you if you've been around new life church for some time we're not just interested in you filling a seat on Sundays like we want to get you connected into relationships with people that you can be known and no other people this is one of the most important things about new life church so we currently have eighteen life groups that meet throughout the week and two hundred and thirty four people individual people in those life groups thirty per sick thirty five. Thirty six percent of which are in middle school and high school that is awesome like that's kids young kids pursuing God being a part of the house of God and growing in their faith. Let me share you some impact numbers because we were after greater impact we've seen two hundred and seventy four people get saved by Jesus this year fifty yeah. Fifty seven percent of those happened since we moved into this location so that's two hundred and seventy five seventy four people this year that will be in heaven instead of hell to God be the glory come on somebody. Man new life church you've you've served people every single weekend here on the dream team but you've also gone beyond these walls and you've served over four hundred forty people through six different serve projects this year and thirty three people have joined our dream team just this year to date that is phenomenal. I want to share a little bit about missions because if you don't know this when you give to new life church we actually give to missions on your behalf like we're committed to give outside of these walls of course when you give it turns the lights on and the heat on and the air conditioning when it's needed and it pays our staff and cares for their families and it does extraordinary things in our ministry but let me tell you what goes out of this church because of your generosity. Since we started new life church you've given a hundred thousand three hundred and eight dollars to local missions which include clues the Kalamazoo gospel mission alternatives of Kalamazoo and now safe families for children over a hundred thousand dollars have come out of this church to local missions since we started seven years ago. One hundred and thirty two thousand six hundred seventy seven dollars has been given to national mission the national mission of planting other churches just like us through the association of related churches and fifty two thousand eight hundred fifty two dollars has been given to global missions things like eradicating Bible Bible poverty building a shelter in our in our connections to through through one child in Honduras and beyond you've you've helped give money to disaster relief and as a man on and on it goes to God be the glory man thank you thank you thank you I would even like to say this because some of you man you might ask God like what you might be able to give to like what organizations should I partner with man we we take it very seriously when it comes to where our missions dollars goes the first criteria of our missions dollars is is it Christ centered is it Bible based because our mission isn't just do what we do. Good things of course we're doing good things throughout the world but the end goal has to end up in heaven can I get an amen and so I want to tell you that when we give to missions that is the top priority of this church so when you give generously to New Life Church man it goes through you to the work of God all over the world man and we get to do it together we get to be a part of this together and so now that you've seen the numbers I want you to see the people. Well before I came to New Life I was a very lost depraved soul I was constantly in bars my my life basically consisted of alcohol sleep and work over the past two years has really been pretty tough for me. September of last year I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and that really brought me down a whole lot I had to go through chemo treatment I was in and out of the hospital a whole lot and during that I was in eighth grade so I really didn't get that eighth grade experience. My life before I found New Life I always had a strong connection and believed in the Lord and I was searching for a place that you belong you know when you walk into a place or when you see the people where you belong. Now that I've been planted at New Life Church my life has been completely different I am serving almost every Sunday I am involved I've been involved in multiple life groups which have been a great source of community it's been kind of amazing finding friends that didn't have my old lifestyle and realizing that it is just so comforting and loving to know that you have people that worship the same way. I love him just as much as you do and you can encourage each other in your journeys each and every day. I wanted to go to Access because first off it sounded super fun and at first going into it I was like I don't really know if I should or not but I was super excited to go and I was really excited to get closer with God and that just made me super happy. It was very special it makes me think that I'm actually doing something right and parenting knowing that my children made that decision for themselves to follow Jesus and to get baptized. My son at the time was dealing with stage four cancer he felt the spirit of New Life and he said I want to be baptized. I think we've been here for two Sundays I believe and it's just something in my heart I just pulled at my heartstrings and I was worried because he was the oldest but he was still my baby and I was worried about getting him in and out and each time he went to get in like this but the church just came over and just lifted him up and he wasn't ashamed he was ready and all this stuff was just so amazing. And then I was just filled with so much joy and so much happiness. My favorite thing about my relationship with God that he hears me. What I took away was the messages like it really like there were some that really like hit me hard and like that I could like really understand and I was like wow I'm not the only person going through this. So people ask me said you said I don't know how you do it I don't know how you make it you lost both of your children one year apart and both of your babies went home a year apart. How do you do it how do you get up. It's my faith in the Lord and it is you'd have to come to New Life in order to to feel like him. I can say it's the connection with New Life that I have that supports me every day whether I speak to them every day or watch the videos again every day. It's my connection with New Life that keeps my faith going up.

Come on let's give God praise. Are you grateful for a church that has vision like like we were portable for seven years and we had the vision to and you might think man that seems so simple of course you want your own building course you want a place to meet in the man the vision was you the vision was people for God to touch and change people's lives and we're seeing him do it greater greater is all about vision. The Bible says in Proverbs that where there is no vision people perish like like people are literally dying in life because they they don't have vision and so I want to talk to you about vision today not just the church's vision which we're going to talk about that but I want to talk about vision for your life vision as people vision for your family vision for your marriage because vision is a preferable future. It's a picture of what could be and so I want to share with you a vision that my daughter had she wrote down this a couple weeks ago. This is the vision of the top 10 traits. She wants to find in a husband.

My daughter is seven.

And it's I'm going to translate for you case you can't read it. The first one is my husband needs to believe in Jesus as good parenting right there. Number two that he welcomes people he's hospitable number three is that he's nice number four is he has a good personality. It's important. Number five is that he's caring number six he makes me laugh number seven he gets me coffee in the morning come on ladies. Number eight number eight number number eight number eight he snuggles me at night. Number nine he loves me more than everything and number 10 he has a lot of joy in his body.

And we talked to you about vision that's vision that's vision for many of you. You need to get vision back into your life in a vision of a preferable future a picture of what could be for some of you it could be man I need to get sober. For some of you it could be I need to overcome this issue I need to get healthy I need to take these steps in my faith for some of you it's man I need to be planted in the house of God to grow in my faith I need to get connected into a life group maybe it is man I want to I want a family someday it's it's vision. And I want to share with you from the Apostle Paul today some thoughts found in Philippians chapter three Paul was towards the end of his ministry and honestly the end of his life life and he talks about vision. And he accomplished a lot of things and he said this not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it but one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead. I press on towards the goal to win the prize of which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus today's message is titled why vision matters why vision matters. And out of this particular passage scripture found from the Apostle Paul and Philippians I want to give you three thoughts three commitments that every visionary needs to have. And by the way you need to be a visionary a visionary for your life you need to have vision the first one is I'm not going to settle I'm not settling. So Paul's at the end of his life right and he'd accomplished all these extraordinary things he planted churches and he'd reached people and he overcome all these obstacles and hurts and he ended up writing two thirds of the New Testament at the end of it he's literally say man I haven't arrived yet I haven't hit my goal yet. Man I'm moving forward I'm not settling with what has happened I'm going to go after it till the very end listen to me you need to not settle. Don't settle if I need to say anything to my seven year old daughter right now don't remove absolutely any of those items on that 10 10 10 trait list do not settle you keep all 10 baby girl you don't drop it down to five you don't go six you keep all 10. Don't settle and so you have a vision to get sober you have a vision for a family don't settle a vision to get unstuck in life to get healthy to overcome some things listen do not settle. Here's the second one I'm forgetting what is behind I'm forgetting what is behind and I want to talk to you about two particular ways in which this happens. I think sometimes we we actually have great things happen in our life we have some victories we have some wins and and then we settle and and we don't we don't forget him here's what I mean when I was a football player in college I played football for the University of Texas for a coach name or not pastor he's not a pastor coach Mac Brown who now coaches for the the the. Oh gosh where's the coach now North Carolina Tar Heels Yes, thank you he lost yesterday so he's he's not celebrating wins but one thing I always remember coach Brown would always tell us after we won a game and we won a lot of games is he said guys you have one night to celebrate this win. One night and then tomorrow we're going back to work because we got another game next week for too many of us man we need to forget man Yes, we won some victories Yes, we overcome some things but man if you have vision you're not just relying on what happened in the past you're not just saying oh my goodness here's where I came man you're straining towards what is ahead you're thinking about man I'm going to forget that and I'm going to go after the next vision I'm going to go after the next win. Can I tell you something as a church man we celebrate all the amazing things that we have seen God do in the last year of New Life churches history we praise God that were able to move into this facility that honestly so many of you came to you didn't even know we were a church a year ago. You certainly might. Some of you might you might not even know that New Life Church was in Madeline High School but you do now because we had vision. We saw it come to fruition. And so we're yes we celebrate the wins but man that doesn't keep us from just saying okay I've arrived. We're here. We've done that. Now we're straining forward we're forgetting what is behind the second part of forgetting what is behind and I think this is what so many people maybe in the room might need to hear today when it comes to vision for your own life is that you need to forget what is behind in other words some of you. Maybe you don't think you're good enough to get to that vision God's given you. Like maybe you think you're too far gone. Like you've made too many mistakes or man if they just knew me or if God just knew me man I don't know but listen vision for your life God wants you to know him to find freedom to discover your purpose and to make a difference with your life. You are not too far gone. You got to forget that nonsense that you've made too many mistakes. You know failure oftentimes keep us keeps us from moving forward in faith. We are a faith organization believing God for more and so in this moment maybe if you're thinking man I got a pass and it's holding me back and it's holding me down. Let me tell you right now you can turn from that past turn to God let God change you renew you and help you to overcome the vision that he has for your life. Friends you can get sober. Yes you can overcome. Yes you can find freedom. Yes you can find friendships. Yes you can find salvation in the Lord. Normally at this time I say when you respond and clap and whatever I'll preach better and faster. So here we go. Here's the third one. I'm straining towards what is ahead. Paul said I'm straining towards what is head. I'm not going to settle. I'm not just going to be happy with what I have done what I have gotten. I'm not. I'm going to look forward. I'm going to forget what's behind and I'm going to chase after I'm going to strain towards what is head strain to strain means to make a great effort. It makes to work hard. Let me dispel a myth that maybe I don't know if any of you have experienced this or heard this or been in church. Yes we're a faith organization but it doesn't mean that that just because you have faith that it's all going to be easy. That it's just going to come and it's going to be easy and life is going to just work all out. Listen just because God calls just us to something doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. So God wants you to be sober but the journey to becoming sober is probably going to be hard. God wants you to be healthy emotionally mentally physically spiritually. He wants you to grow in your faith. God wants that for you but the journey doesn't mean it's going to be easy. God told the nation of Israel that they would possess the promised land right that everywhere. He literally told Joshua that everywhere that Joshua laid his feet they would possess the land. But guess what they went to war for 30 years before that promise became a reality. The myth of faith isn't that it's just easy. It's faith. It's vision. What does God want to see vision happen in your life. What kind of vision does God want for your life because God told them and he's telling you now that if you go with him man you're going to have to fight. But he's going to give you the victory in Jesus name and you need to have vision for your life. What does it take to have vision. It first starts with a willingness to say yes to God. You got to say yes to God. You got to go with you. You got to have a willingness a willing spirit that says God I'm going to I know you're going to be with me. I'm going to overcome this. I'm going to get past this. I'm going to accomplish this vision because you because you've given it to me. But you're going to be with me every every step of the way. What is vision. It takes a generous spirit that you get to do it together that you get to be a part of something that's even bigger than yourself. It's a fighting spirit. I once shared last year when we started casting the vision for getting into this particular building. You know I had a verse that came to mind and I don't think it's on the screen so I'm just going to kind of paraphrase it. But I don't know if you know this but as a as a human leader. Whatever. Are any of you guys planners.

Who's not a planner. Let's let's see. Not a planner. Now raise your hand. Not a planners are not very confident. Who are the planners. I know you're confident. Did you know the Bible says that many are the plans of a man's heart but it's the Lord's will that prevails. Can I tell you something. When we cast the vision for getting into this building and wanting to move here.

A year ago I had no idea if it would happen. But God. I saw it. It was a preferable future. Is it was a picture of what could be. But it wasn't just the building. It was you. There's so many of you that have come to this building and that's the that's the vision that God gave to us gave to me. But here's the deal when we cast vision for things when we seek God for vision in our lives man it's his ways and his will that prevails not just our plans. And so I want to tell you as we start this second phase of this greater vision for new life church and for your life. You got to know that God's vision for your life. No matter who you are from Genesis to the maps in the back of the Bible is for you to know God personally. To experience his extravagant freedom that yeah you have a past but he wants to set you free from it and walk into new life. God that he wants you to discover a purpose that he has for your life and to then live it out by making a difference that something in something bigger than just yourself that you're making an eternal difference in the lives of other people. So I want to tell you man I am extraordinarily grateful.

For new life church. And for your generosity and commitment and faith and prayers over the last year man that when we cast vision to say hey maybe three million dollars over the next two years to accomplish some of these things look at what God has done. You committed two point seven million dollars over a two year period and we got into this building can I tell you something let's praise God for a moment with cash.

And can we better can we be a little interactive for a second can we just like have a conversation can we do that. How many of you all walk in this building and you think well okay let's do this how many of you all think it's a really cool building.

How many of you all feel like it's a little sterile.

There's a few of you here's why it doesn't feel sterile because the people.

The people make it amazing but can I tell you some it's pretty sterile. And so we need to do some things now that we've gotten in it let's when we cast the vision for three million dollars there were things that we wanted to do in this building that we didn't do because we didn't have the cash. To do it. But thank God we're in it right. And so man here's some things just a little things that's off the top of my head that we would love to do is we would love to bring some warm fuzzy cozy like furniture into the lobby to make it a little bit more homey feeling like the best. People are. Would that be nice. If you've ever seen the kids have you ever peaked in the kids hallway. Man our kids ministry volunteers are the best on the planet because they make it exciting there and kids want to find faith there and grow in their faith there but if you look at the walls it's boring.

It's very stale it's very sterile. Our kids need better. Do you agree. Like we need to we need to take that to another level. And so now that we're in it man we yeah we paid in cash and but man we got we got work to do we've got to strengthen what God's doing right here how many of you walked in to this particular room over the last couple of months and said man that's smaller than I thought. Anybody. I didn't expect that. Can I tell you why it's this small. Because we paid in cash. Plain and simple. This is what we could afford. And we did what we needed to do to steward God's resources through the faithfulness of his people to see God do amazing things in the last 94 percent increase in attendance since we've moved into this building. Hello. Salvation's through the roof the impact. It's unbelievable. It's I want to share with you that we're going to strengthen what God has here and over the next couple of weeks I'm going to unpack a few more details about vision of how we're going to grow and become stronger as a church together but I got to tell you right off the bat that oh it's up there I didn't sorry I should have peaked. We're going to do let me put it this way we're going to do whatever it takes to make sure as many people as possible in our city in our region can experience the love of God through New Life Church. Are you with me like we need and we're not the only church and matter of fact every time I pass a church I'm praying for other churches we're not the only church but we're going to do everything we can to make sure people can come into a relationship with God and grow in their relationship with God through the work of New Life Church can I get an Amen and so.

To be honest in the last two weeks. None of you track church like trends and statistics and whatnot do you did you know that there's a statistic that when like 80% of the room is full people actually start stop coming. They think it's too full. This is a sociological psychological sociological I don't know what it is but they actually do this in theaters. In theaters they have the same thing they they only want to sell like 80% of tickets because it's kind of like the bro rule you know when you go to a movie with your bro you don't sit right next to each other there's like gotta be a seat in between you. It's really it's a really dumb rule but I'm just saying that this is in people's psychology simultaneously if it's an empty room people go out it's not very exciting people don't want to be there. But we don't have we have we have the tension of we're approaching too many people in the room. Praise God for that. And so what do we do. Well we're going to keep adding services which means we need more people and we need more volunteers and we need to do everything we can to reach more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ and or. We're also in conversations as trustees and myself counting the cost figuring out what would it look like to expand this room. And so right here if you see this dark blue this dark black outline here this is the room that you're sitting in right now. And this is the potential expansion so we have the ability to over double our seating capacity in this building. Are any of you fans. You don't have to be fine you don't have to be. I also want to be very transparent I don't try to hide things. This is a leased facility. So we have a seven year lease in this building and we know almost 100 percent fact it might be 99 percent fact that the at the end of seven years we're moving somewhere else. So we are already in conversations with our landlords. Yes they are. There's a there's a nano chance that we could extend our lease if we needed to.

But we're going we are already starting right now to look for where we're going to move. Somebody you're like I we just got here. Well that's my job is to make sure that we're ready to move. And so we're already looking like is there land that we need to buy and build. Do we need to buy a building and renovate. Like I need to be thinking about that right now because if we're moving in seven years we need to start building and renovating in five years. How many of you all know in five years that's coming quick.

So we're preparing for that thinking about financial stewardship like what do we need to save what do we need to get together over the next several years to make sure we're prepared to make that kind of move while simultaneously stewarding and moving. And make sure we're doing the best we can with what God has given us right here and right now. And so we're kind of.

Full Sermon Transcript

Well, this series, You Are Not Alone, it's actually just a two week series and this is the second part of it. And so if you missed last week, I highly encourage you to go back and to watch it because last week, again, this series, we're diving into mental struggles, mental issues that we may have, depression, anxiety, stress. And we're talking about, man, last week we talked about what are the things that get you into that place? Like, yes, there may be things you might have a diagnosis of depression, bipolar disorder, or maybe it's even postpartum depression, whatever it is, you may have that, but there's things that you and I do that can keep us there and that can add to that place. And so I talked last week about what are the things that contribute, that we do to contribute to that? And honestly, you might not have known this because I don't think I shared this. Almost everything I shared last week is actually verified from psychologists and psychiatrists. So nothing that you heard was totally outside of what scientists or counselors would tell you. But then I brought in the Bible and talked about how they play roles together on what you see. And we talked about this guy named Elijah. But before I get there, if you are visiting for the first time, one of the things I did last week is I also shared that I've had my own battle with depression. Years ago, when I was on my way to getting married, I had just gotten engaged to my wife. I got super dizzy overnight and literally I couldn't walk, I couldn't drive, I couldn't work, I couldn't look at a computer. And here was supposed to be the greatest moments of my life engaged about to be married to my bride. And all of a sudden, my whole world got turned upside down. Well, because of that and not knowing what the answers were and not having a diagnosis and how to get help, I became very depressed, very anxious and very depressed to the point where I was actually having vivid suicidal thoughts. And so I share that with you to tell you that I'm not just someone who's standing up on the stage with no experience with what I'm talking about. I've been there. But I also need you to know that I'm not there anymore. And God just doesn't want to teach you some things to get you to cope or just to settle or just whatever. Like God wants you to find freedom. Can I get an amen? Like he wants to pull you out of that darkness and into his everlasting light. And so that's why we're diving into this series that you are not alone that even myself, I can identify with this particular thing. And of course, we've talked about in scripture, many different people in scripture, Bible believing, God following people who have even despaired of life, even been suicidal and they weren't alone. And so we're diving into this series. We talked about Elijah's story last week and Elijah was known as this great prophet of God. Matter of fact, he was so well known by God and even kind of elevated to this point where Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah show up and they're like these big deals in front of the disciples. So even heaven kind of like elevates this guy named Elijah as being this great phenomenal man of God. And of course we see in first Kings, the story where Elijah had defeated the prophets of Baal, they were showing off the Baal, the false God of Baal. They were like trying to get their God to prove himself. And so they set up this altar with this firewood on it and they didn't take a match or a light or anything like that. And they were to call on their God and see if their God would create fire from nothing. Of course, if you know this story, when the prophets of Baal, 850 of them did that, nothing happened. And the reason for that is because it's a false God, that God doesn't exist. But then there's Elijah who serves the one true God and he puts the wood is there and he goes, you know what? The wood is not just enough. I'm going to douse the wood in water. And I don't know if you've ever tried to start a fire that's covered in doused in water before, but it ain't going to work. And especially if you don't have a match or lighter fluid or whatever, it ain't working. And so of course, Elijah, he calls on God. God literally sets the wood ablaze and consumes the entire thing. Basically making a fool of this false God. And here he is, Elijah is on the highest of highs. He then sees God perform another miracle, sending rain in the midst of a drought. And so this is Elijah, a man of God who's seen God work incredibly in his life and through his life. And then in a moment later, he gets this text message or this comment on Facebook from Queen Jezebel. It was through a messenger. And so maybe it was Facebook messenger. We don't know that didn't exist in Bible times. But what happened is Queen Jezebel said, man, I'm going to kill you, is what she said to Elijah. And in a moment, the words of Queen Jezebel to him, man, it destroyed him. It like took him out of the game. It so disrupted him that he was like, he didn't even think about those miracles that he just saw God do. In a moment, he had completely changed and he ran away. He had went into isolation and he began to despair of life itself. In a moment's notice, this happened. And so I wonder even if that message today is, is you got that email, you had that word spoken to you by a boss, a friend, whatever, and it has consumed you and taken you to a place that you feel like you're all alone. You're isolated and you don't know what to do. And so that's where we pick up the story today is Elijah's story. And he says in 1 Kings 19, it says that he laid down under the bush and he fell asleep. And all at once an angel touched him and said, get up and eat. Now, how many of y'all like me really want a word from the Lord that says, get up and get some food. Like, like we think when God's going to speak to us and angels going to show up and it's going to sound like, man, you suck or you need to figure it out. You need to fix that. You're not, you're a dirty scum dog sinner. Like you need to repent. You need to do all this stuff. And yet the word of God to Elijah is get up and have a snack. How many of y'all are glad you came to church today? Like this is good preaching. Get up and eat. And Elijah looked around and there by his head with some bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water. And so he ate and drank and then he took another nap. So today, the first thing I would like to tell you is go home, eat some food and take a nap. And then what happens? The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, get up and eat for the journey is too much for you. And those of you who find yourself in this place, you feel overwhelmed. You feel like the journey's gotten too hard. It's gotten too rough. You can't handle it anymore. And you need to hear from God. Maybe the answer isn't to just fix all these things that are going on. Maybe the answer that he first wants to tell you is that you need to get up, eat some food, get some strength back, take a nap, get up again, eat some more food, take a nap again, and step into what God has for you for the journey is too much for you. So he got up and Elijah ate and drank and strengthened by that food. And I would even say the rest. He traveled 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horeb, which is where the mountain of God was, the presence of God existed in the old Testament. He went there and he was strengthened by that food. The first thing I need to tell you today is, is that if you want to step into renewal, that's today's topic. That's today's title. If you want to step into renewal, the first step is that you need to take is to step into a needed recovery. You need to step into a needed recovery. A couple of years ago, a pastor friend of mine, he was actually our church planting coach. So when we planted New Life Church seven years ago, we had a guy on the east side of the state near the Detroit area who coached us and helped us to know what to do and how to do it. And he was kind of a sounding board to figure things out. And years into his own church planning journey, and while he's planting other churches, his liver began to fail. And so he had all these tests done and they found out that he needed a transplant. He needed a living transplant, a living donor. And so if you know anything about transplants, if you don't, I'll help you out a little bit. Like they do all sorts of tests, blood tests. They need to figure out your blood type, a donor's blood type. They need to find the right match, the right thing to put in the body. And so they're going through all this process with my friend and they found a donor, they found a match, all the things seem to be lining up. And they even had a date on the schedule when they were going to make this transplant happen. And so they began to do some final tests, some final things, making sure that everything was good. And the doctor came back and told him, and he said, I got to tell you something. We actually have to postpone this because your body isn't healthy enough to receive the solution for what ails you. And I want to tell you today that some of you, and maybe many of you, you come to church looking for God's solution for your life, but all too often you're too unhealthy to receive the solution that God has for you. Like you need to step into some recovery. You need to step into a moment where you say, God, I need some help in a different way. And so what we see here is Elijah saying, man, it's not just spiritual. Like you need to get your body ready, right? You need to get your diet right. You need to eat some food. You need to get some rest. And you know what's crazy? I've been doing this for a very long time, and I've preached many messages on this probably multiple times a year. But the number one contributor to mental struggle and issue today is out of control life schedules. It's your time.

It's how you spend your time. And can I tell you something? But then the reason for that is, is if you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. Like, I don't think I have to convince you of this, but your boss has a priority for your life. Your kids' coaches have a priority for their lives. Their schools, the pressures, your business, all the things that come along in this life, they have a priority for your life. And what happens is over and over and over again, you're running from this thing to that thing. You're busy, busy, busy. And you wonder, man, why don't I have peace? Why do I have all this anxiety? Why do I have all these issues? And it's because we've allowed it to happen. We've allowed all of these things to dominate our lives. And all the while, the word of God is literally saying to you and to me today from the story of Elijah, take a nap.

Get some food.

Like, chill out for a minute.

And the reason why I keep preaching about this over and over and over again is that I know I'm a really good preacher.

But I often wonder, like, is your health ready to receive what God's solution is?

And so we need to take an inventory for a moment and just ask, like, what is it that's keeping us from stepping into needed recovery? Because what the definition of insanity is, is doing the same thing over and over and over again and trying to find a different result. And that's what the pace of our lives are. And so God speaks to this directly. And in Psalm, I love what the Psalmist said in Psalm 90, he says, teach us to number our days. Now, that's not counting, like, how many days I have left, because none of us know. It's really saying, man, what is the priority that I should have with my life? Recognize how few my days are and, man, help us, God, to spend them as we should. And I say this a lot. I say, you know, it's not necessarily the good things.

Sorry, I don't know. It's not necessarily the bad things that destroy our lives. Some of sometimes it's the good things. Because there's so many good things that are asking for our attention, that want our schedules, that want our time. I've often said that it's saying no to the good things so that you can say yes to the great things that God has for your life. And so what we find here is we need to allow God to teach us what is most important in our lives. So we pick up the story in 1 Kings, Elijah. It says, there he went into a cave and he spent the night and the word of the Lord came to him and said, what are you doing here, Elijah? In other words, why did you run away? Why are you hiding? Why are you isolated? Why are you afraid? What is going on here? Why did you end up here? And Elijah replied, man, I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. Man, I've been showing up to church. I've been doing the things. I've been all of this. Man, the Israelites, man, they rejected your covenant and they tore down your altars and put your prophets to death with the sword. How the only one left to know they're trying to kill me.

Welcome to New Life Church. I'm full of shenanigans. All right. And the Lord said to Elijah, go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart, shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. By the way, earth, wind and fire didn't get their name from themselves. That was the Bible. That's free of charge.

But isn't it true that, man, we're always looking for God in these monumental moments, these extravagant experience, these mountain top highs. And yet God is saying, man, be, man, man, chill out. You, you, you want to know why you can't hear me. It's because your, your pace of life, it doesn't even, it doesn't even allow my voice to come through the clutter, to come through the chaos. Because you can't hear a whisper in the midst of pandemonium. It's not how it happens. And so the second thing we need to step in into is a God encounter. We need to step into a God encounter. And again, we're not looking for this in this massive experiences. Yes, that can happen. But man, God often does speak, he, he speaks in the still small voice of the Lord that only can happen when you remove distractions and remove, remove, remove all the chaos and all the distractions to hear from the Lord. But all too often, right? We're looking for the dynamic, but God is just in the intimate. He's in that special place, that quiet place. We see this in Psalm 46. It says, be still and you will know that I am God.

So what have you created a space to encounter God in stillness?

Have you? Yeah, you're coming to church and man, we're, we're high fiving and having a good time in the lobby and, you know, navigating through traffic, you know, barriers and all that kind of stuff. And, and we have great worship and, and awesome. But man, every single day, do you clear it all out? So that you can have a moment with God to hear from him and to experience him, man, it's the most powerful thing you can ever imagine. I want to, I want to talk to you for a moment about worship because this is, it's really all about worship. And I shared this in the first service. I'm going to try and do a good job of this, but I think guys, uh, I mean, this was awesome. I don't know if you notice this, but I noticed this. Did you notice that almost our entire worship team today was men? None of you. We had one woman. Now I'm not, I'm not demeaning women. We want women up here and we have a lot of them and we could use more of them. But man, can I tell you that, that we have in our world, in our nation, we have an issue of, uh, men who are not worshipers.

And, and, and, and let me put it this way. I, I am a man. You're welcome. I'm glad I could explain that. And I know that innately within us is this like comparison thing and, and what are they thinking about me and man, am I going to measure up and, and man, am I, am I going to look the part? Am I going to have the answers? I going to be able to fix it. Am I going to have it? Am I going to be able to have it all together? And can I tell you something? When you have that, you're lacking the power of God. Like it, you have to come to a place of surrender before God to experience God and his power through your life. And here's what is so powerful about worship. Worship doesn't mean that all the issues that you're dealing with, all the struggles, all the things that you're seeing on the news, all the things that you're dealing with, it doesn't mean that that stuff goes away. But in the face of almighty God who spoke and the earth was formed, who spoke and the heavens and the earth were created, who spoke into you, breathe life into you, the creator of the heavens and the earth, the one who is, who was, who is, and is to come the same who was yesterday, today, and forevermore. The God almighty who created the heavens and the earth and everything in it, man, in the face of his power and glory, man, your problems and issues are so small. And worship has this powerful way of diminishing what you're seeing and you begin to see God through it, no matter what you're experiencing. And so I want to encourage men, women, children, it doesn't matter how what age you are, it doesn't matter what happens, man. The word of God says that God is seeking and searching for those who are worshiping him. So if you want to be found by God, become a worshipper because he's looking for those who are worshiping him. And so I want you to come into this space and I want you to encourage you to have a place every single day, every single morning where you're still before the Lord and you're worshiping before God for who he is and you're not thinking about yourself, you're not thinking about who you are, how you can fix it, your focus, your mind's attention and your heart's affection is on God himself. And in that place, man, you're going to hear the still small voice of the Lord, that intimate voice of the Lord that will change you, encourage you, protect you, guide you, and you will have an encounter with God Almighty that will change you. But you're not going to find it in the chaos. You're not going to find it in just running and running and running and going from this activity to that activity. I love what the Psalmist said. He said, when I tried to understand all this, so I'm trying to figure out all the world's problems. I'm trying to figure out my own problems. I'm wrestling with what do I do here, what do I do there? And I got to get the kids there and I got to do this, I got to do that. And while I'm doing that, I'm becoming deeply troubled until I hinged, until I entered the sanctuary of God, until I entered worship, until I entered that place with God, I had a God encounter. Let's see what happens in the book of 1st Kings with Elijah. It says, when Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and he went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. And then a voice said to him, now let's focus on this particular section for a second. He pulled a cloak over his face, you know, a couple years ago. And it still happens today. We still have people doing this today and it's totally fine, but we have people that were all masked. And you'd walk into a store and you'd be like, is that you, Jerry? Like you couldn't identify who they were. You know, do you know who struggled with that the most kids? Like we could kind of figure it out as adults, but kids, man, they didn't know what to do with that because your identity was who I'm looking at, who I can see. Now we know that identities can be found elsewhere, like your fingerprint, your eyeball, you die in a plane crash, they can check your teeth and say who you are. But man, really how people know you are is your face. And so what Elijah is doing is he's covering his identity and he's also going in front of the face of the Lord, which in the old testament said, man, there's no one can come face to face. But can I tell you something? Because of Jesus, you will be face to face before Lord God Almighty, because of who he is. Can we get an amen to that? But here's the problem. So many of us are hiding our identity. And most of that is because we've been told we're something that we're actually not. Let me put it this way.

Several years ago, I had a woman come up to me in New Life Church and told me, man, I don't know how to pray. And honestly, I don't even want to pray because when I was little, I had a person in my church or maybe it was a leader in the church tell me I'm not good at praying.

I don't want to slap that person. Like here's a young person trying to just talk to God. And someone had the audacity to tell them they weren't good at it.

Well, what happened? She formed the identity that she wasn't worthy. She formed the identity that she wasn't good enough to talk to God. Because of some idiot's words, it changed her identity. It changed what she thought about herself. And honestly, one of the worst epidemics that we have in our culture today is people have been spoken over things that God doesn't say they... I don't know how to put this.

It's not who God says they are, it's who idiots are saying they are. Like it's not true. And you've formed an identity. Like I'll never forget this.

You know, years ago, I don't even know if this is years ago. I think I'm getting better at this. But I've always said like I'm a red-haired Irish Texan and I can get very angry very fast. Apparently that's a red-headed gene. Yeah, where my redheads at? All right. Apparently that's a thing. I don't know. Anyways. Well, I could hear that and say, you know what? I'm always going to be that way. Is that who God says I am? Is that who God says I can be? And for some of you, you've heard a voice spoken over you that has defined who you are and it's not who God says you are. Like you've heard a voice that says, man, you're not good enough. You're not worthy. Man, you've maybe even been to churches or hear street preachers. I don't even... Or maybe you've even made this up in your head because you've seen it online. But you think, man, Christians are just a bunch of people saying, you're going to hell. And that's how we say it, right? You're going to hell. It's like, hell. I was a pastor in the South for a while. That's probably where it comes from. Have you ever felt that way or thought that way? I remember one time my brother said he was nervous about going to church because he felt like everyone was looking at him.

Can I be very clear about what the Bible says about that particular phrase? All of us are going to hell.

But thank God Jesus Christ made a way so that that wouldn't have to happen.

So Elijah pulled his cloak over his face. Why? And he went out and stood at the mouth of the cave and then a voice said to him, what are you doing here? Why are you hiding? Why are you afraid? You're a prophet of God. You saw me perform all these miracles and now you're hiding. Be some girl sent you a text message saying she's going to kill you and you're afraid of her.

And he replied, again, he's continuing the words over and over and over again, I have been very zealous for you, Lord God almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, put your prophet to death of the sword. I'm the only one left and now they're trying to kill me. So what do we need to step into? We need to step into God's true identity for your life. You need to know what God says about you. That God says that you are forgiven, you are redeemed, you are rescued, you are a child of God, you are a worshipper, you are a son and daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And he that he says that there is no weapon formed against you that shall prosper. Like you need to replace the lies that have been spoken over you and replace it with God's true identity for who you are. I mean, I even know that fathers, that we have a fathering issue in our society and really across the world where we even have dads that haven't spoken love over their kids, affirmation over their kids. We have parents, we have kids who grew up in households where they literally were never told by their dad that he loves them. And still to this day, guys especially, like because of that, you're still trying to figure out your worth. Because you never had a dad tell you that you had worth, that you had value, that he loved you, that he cared for you. We had, I grew up, I started ministry in Austin, Texas and I lived and we worked in a very high-end area of town where there was a lot of business leaders and a lot of CEOs of major corporations, a lot of really busy people. And mom and, listen, mom and dads were home, like they were together, but they weren't there.

Like we had all these kids in my student ministry who man, their kids, their dads weren't incarcerated or they weren't drug addicts or they didn't have whatever, which is another issue in other areas of society. But they had, from the outside looking again, these people had it all together. But the dads weren't present. They weren't there. They weren't supportive. They weren't emotionally connected to their kids. They didn't speak words of love and life over their kids, affirmation to their kids. And yet we have, so we have this generation of people wondering who they are, wondering what their identity is. And it's because they haven't found it from God himself. And so here's Elijah. He keeps repeating over and over and over again these things about what he thinks is going on and he's making all these excuses. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna kill you. And so I'm gonna share, can I share with you my own little version? Like today I'm unleashing the Pastor Dan translation of what Elijah was saying. Can I do that? Are you okay with that? This is not the word of God. This is just me being me. I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. I've been preaching and leading people in churches for 20 years. But then the government and Dr. Fauci wouldn't let us have church. People tried to cancel us and culture is going to hell. Israel is under attack. They're being blamed for it. The government can't find any leadership and I'm the only one left and now they're trying to kill me too. Facebook messages and Instagram messages and email messages. Everyone hates me. Eleanor Roosevelt put it this way. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Like you have to allow it to come in. You have to accept, you begin believing the lie. Isn't that right? Right last week when we talked about his rumination, then we then we begin doing what Elijah did and he keeps repeating it to himself over and over again. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I'm not, I'm gonna die. I can't do it man. I can't measure up. I gotta be a fix it. What if people look at me when I worship and man, I don't know. I'm over and over again. I can't pray good enough. Sorry. What? Look what Elijah, what the Lord said to Elijah. He says, go back the same way you came and go to the desert of Damascus when you get there. Anoint Hasselow, king of Aram. Now I want to talk about this for just a second. Go back to the way you came because if you don't understand what's happening in this particular scripture, you might miss it. Like you've had experiences with God. Like you had moments with God where you felt him, you knew him, and maybe it's gone, something happened and you've lost your way. And he's gone out of the way. And what Elijah did is right, he got this message from Queen Jezebel that she was going to take him out and kill him. So he ran and hid and he isolated. He went into the cave and he became depressed and he despaired of life, even to the point of having suicidal thoughts. And so he's wrestling with God and God tells him, go back, go back to where you were. Go back the same way. And now what you don't see in the scripture, but you would if you knew, if you go back and look how, like what was the progression of how he got to this place, he actually passed through a city called Beersheba. And Beersheba is a city known as the place of the oath. Now to Elijah, Elijah's moment with God, where God called him to be a prophet, where God had this powerful interaction with him, where God said, this is who you are, Elijah, and this is what I want you to become. This is what your identity is. And Elijah received it from the Lord. When God says, go back the way you came, he's telling you, remember who you are. Remember what I've called you to be. Remember what I've called you to, to do. You need to remember, you need to go back from where you came. So he did that and he went and anointed Haziel king over Aram, also anointed Jehu son of Nimshit king over Israel, and anointed Elisha son of Shef, whatever that says. And from Abel, aren't you glad you can identify with me too? I can't, I can't pronounce them either. From Abel, from Abel, Mihola, and to succeed you as a prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the word of the sword, can't even read, who escaped the sword of Haziel and Elisha will put to death any who escaped the sword of Jehu. Yet I reserve 7,000 in Israel whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and his mouths have not killed him.

Elijah in his despair from that one message from Queen Isabel, Jezebel, not Isabel, Jezebel, like he ran and he hid and he was afraid and he was isolated and he kept repeating over and over and over again, I'm the only one left and I'm gonna die, they're gonna kill me. Can I tell you something? It's not true. You are not alone. And so, so God sends him back, sends him back through Beersheba. He reunites with his purpose. He reunites with who God had called him to be, who he was meant to be in Christ. And he realizes, man, I'm not alone. There's more people that exist that believe in the one true God. And so there's not all these people who have bowed down and to kill him. And so what you need to understand is you need to step into a new assignment. Right? That was what God said. Go back to where you came from. Go back to where you were. It's calling him back to that moment where he had this experience with God, where he discovered exactly who he was and what God had, God's purpose for his life. He knew what it was and he was coming back to it. You can even ask psychologists and psychiatrists today. One of the most important things to mental health and life really is that you have a purpose, that you have a project, that your life exists for something bigger and better beyond yourself. Like it's not just about you. Like here's the tragedy of life. The tragedy of life is if you begin to think that you're just here to get a job, pay taxes, pay your bills and die. Like that your life is not worth more than that. That it's not transcendent. Right? Again, psychologists and psychiatrists for years are coming back together to what God has already said to us from all along. And even Maslow's Hierarchical Needs, you study Maslow's Hierarchical Needs, is like every human being has to have these needs. And they actually added a need at the top and it's the need of transcendence. That your life, your purpose, goes beyond yourself. It's why on our wall out there it says that our vision is to help you to know God. We want to have, we want to get you to a place where you can encounter God personally in relationship with him. That you can be still and know that he is God. That you can find freedom. That you can come out of the darkness and into his everlasting light. Then you can discover your purpose. You have that moment like Elijah did in Beersheba when you find out exactly why God has put you on this planet. And then you begin to step into it to make an eternal difference in the lives of other people. Can I, that's the Bible. Like that's the summary of God's calling over every one of our lives. But here's the tragedy that we find in Proverbs. It's actually not 28. It's 29. I found that out from a lady last service. Proverbs 29, 18, it says where there is no vision, people perish. Like there's not, there's not that innate like why am I getting up in the morning? Why am I doing this? Why am I going to serve those people? Why am I going to pray? Why am I going to help? Why am I going to serve? Why am I going to worship? Something that goes bigger and beyond ourselves. And by the way, in the next couple of weeks I'm going to be sharing more about this, about vision, how to have vision in your own life. A godly vision and how are we going to do that together as a church? But I love what Victor Frankel said. Victor Frankel was a psychiatrist, or psychologist, not sure which one. I'm not sure the, not even sure I know the difference, but anyways, that's why I keep saying them together. Someone can explain that to me afterwards. But Victor Frankel was in World War II, through World War II, the Holocaust experience. He was a Jewish man and coming out of the Holocaust, man, you had, like you, you talk about PTSD. Like, can you imagine the PTSD that these people had coming out of the atrocities of the Holocaust? And so Victor Frankel began to help these people to step out of this and really prevent thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people to step out of their darkness, out of their depression and into the light. And here's what Victor Frankel said. He said, people have enough to live by, but nothing to live for. They have the means, but they don't have meaning. That's why we gotta have a purpose. Something that's bigger than us. That's not just about us, that God has something for us that will literally impact and shake eternity. The apostle Paul, who knew a lot about going through troubles and trials, man, the apostle Paul, you think of this guy as a giant, he wrote two thirds of the New Testament. Man, he planted churches, he was a specific leader, but did you know that he wasn't just whipped one time like Jesus was, he was whipped five times. He was snake bitten. How many of y'all like snakes? Nobody. Nobody wants that. He was shipwrecked. He was imprisoned. He was beaten. He was stoned to which one person said, well, at least he got some relief, but it wasn't that kind of stoned. It was like rocks to the head type of stoning. Like this guy had some issues. He was getting a beat down. He was going through some stuff. And yet this is what the apostle Paul said. He said, therefore we do not lose heart though outwardly we're wasting away. Inwardly we're being renewed. This is stepping into renewal, doing these things, getting some rest, taking a nap, getting some food, taking a nap again, getting some food, getting our hearts, minds, bodies, spirits, souls ready to receive God's solution, having God encounters, man finding our purpose in life, man finding our true identity with who God says we are, not just what people have said about us, man, the things that are not true, man, man, man, they may not pierce us. Our heart, soul, mind may be devoted to God that we're renewed day after day after day for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. That we're going to step into renewal. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal. So here's where Elijah ends up. He went from there and he found Elisha son of Shafat who he was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen and he himself was driving to the 12th pair, driving the 12th pair and Elijah went up to him and he threw his cloak around him and here's the last part. It's really everything about New Life Church is everything a part of New Life Church that we're about is not just about getting you into a seat to experience a phenomenal message. You're welcome. Thank you for coming to church today but it's to get you into relationship with people. It's why everything about our church is devoted to groups. It's about getting you to know others and to be known by others because this is what he did. Elijah threw his cloak around Elisha and he knew he was not alone. So your fifth thing is you need to step into relational strength. So in this moment I want to give you this last quote and then we're going to close with prayer to think about. It's a bi-ed author named Kevin Eikenberry who says look carefully at the closest associations in your life for that is the direction that you're headed. You show me your friends and I'm going to show you your future. If your life is out of control, if it's filled with chaos, if it's filled with darkness, if it's not filled with light, if it's filled with discouragement instead of encouragement, who are your friends and I'll show you your future. Let's pray together heavenly father. We pray right now that we would begin opening up our hearts and minds that we would remove our our calloused hearts things that might even prevent us from from hearing your word and allow it to saturate our minds, our souls, our bodies and our spirits. God we pray right now that you would speak directly to us in the ways that we need you and God that we would receive your solution to bring us out of darkness and into your everlasting light. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

But today we're diving into a series called You're Not Alone. And the reality is that it's talking about depression. Today's topic is depression. And the title of today's message is, How Did I Get Here? Because the reality is, so many times we have dis-ease in our minds and our emotions. And sometimes it comes out of nowhere. Sometimes it's a slow thing that happens. Sometimes it happens in a blink of an eye. And whether you've dealt with depression before or known somebody who has, we've known people who have struggled with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, postpartum depression. And it can grab you at a moment's notice and even be a gradual thing that happens. But I want to tell you first and foremost that you're looking at a guy that has also experienced the same thing. In July of 2013, I woke up one day, I went to bed completely fine, normal, a guy who was on top of the world doing what he loves. I had just been in, did I just say July of 2013? No, I've already told this story wrong. July of 2013, I got engaged to my wife, the Vanna White who just saw, brought out the TV. July of 2013, we got engaged. Happiest moment of life, the greatest moment of my life. And then fast forward a month and I woke up one morning and I was dizzy, like completely disoriented. I couldn't drive. I couldn't look at my computer screen without kind of being all wigged out. I couldn't function. And this is a guy who, like, I grew up as an athlete and like, I can do anything and I can conquer the world. And as I felt like he's on top of the world and all of a sudden everything just changed overnight in the blink of an eye. And so over the course of time, I began to see doctors asking. And so the first thing the doctor said, I went to my physician and he tried to do, how many of y'all have heard of the ear crystal thing? Like, what do you call that? What? What? Ear crystals. So there's like ear crystal things and they do this little weird thing. If there's any doctors in the house, please tell me that the correct things, but they like, they like lay you down and then twist you. And then there's like this whole, it's just weird, but they tried to like get your ear crystals back in order. So they did that. Didn't work. Did it again. Didn't work. So he's like, okay, well, let's get you to a physical therapist. They might be able to do it better than I can. So I went to a physical therapist. They did the same thing over and over again. Didn't do it. I went to a massage therapist. Maybe I'm just a little tense and there's some things going on that didn't work. Then they sent me to the ear, nose and throat doctor. And they, I don't know what even what they did, but they did stuff and they said nothing. And then they took me to a neurologist and I'm like, oh, this is great. And they're testing me for, you know, who knows what a tumor or whatever. So they do that. They scanned my cat. They MRI.

I don't know how to recover from that anyways. So they were, they were doing all these things and nothing was working and there was no diagnosis and I didn't know what was happening. So, so over the, over this amount of time, a month or two, like one of the time periods of my life that should have been the happiest, most joy filled, like I just got engaged to this beautiful woman and I should be having fun. And like my whole life has been turned upside down and I couldn't work. I couldn't function as a normal human being and I wasn't getting a diagnosis. And how many of y'all think that the people around me started to think, is this guy crazy? And I even began to think that myself, like, is this just like, am I just making this up? Is this like my, like what is happening? And I became so depressed over this amount of time that I began to have vivid suicidal thoughts. I mean, this is a guy like, right. You look at a pastor or a leader at church and you're like, man, you're the guy that has all the answers and you're the one that has it together and you have God in your hip pocket and he's on your side and man, you should have it together. And here I'm like, this is one of the most miserable moments, time periods in my entire life. And it's the moment I'm literally preparing for a wedding to be married to my beautiful wife and just, it's awful. And I'm experiencing this and I realized that there's so many things that were happening, that were causing it, but there were also things that I was doing that was making it worse. And so I got to tell you, the first thing I want to share with you today is one, you're not alone that I can identify if you've been through any time of depression. And even if you're a seasonal depression, right, we, the clouds have already arrived and this blanket of gray is, is here to stay until May, right, in our region, which I'll, y'all ask the question, we choose to live here, right? But that's like, and so it's real and we have this, but what I realized is, is my depression, the depression is not just malfunction of the mind. It can be a signal, like this, something is not quite right. Something is off. And obviously I knew that. And you know, you know this for a fact, like if I were to be wearing eyeglasses right now and I do, I wear contacts, but you would be able to see like, I need help with my vision. Like I can't see quite right. And so, you know, there's an issue with my eyeballs that needs me to need, that forces me to need glasses. If I had a broken arm, I'd put a sling on it or something or a cast, you would know there's an issue that needs to be healed. But so often in the mind, the issues, the disease in the mind, when we have things like autism, when we have depression and anxiety, you can't see it, but that doesn't mean it's not real. It doesn't mean that there isn't an issue that needs to be dealt with. And so here's Kelsey, right? We're, we're, we're engaged to be married. We're planning for the wedding and she begins to see me spiral out of control mentally and not be able to see anything physically wrong with me. A matter of fact, I began to go to a physical therapist. Once I learned what my diagnosis was, which by the way, my diagnosis was vestib, something vestibular. There's a vestibular system. Let me explain to you what that is real quick. It's basically in your ears, you have signals that are telling your brain where you are in space. And so I had a virus that attacked my inner ear and I lost 80% of my function in my left ear, my vestibular function in my left ear. So, so what was happening is 20% of this side was, or a signal was being sent to my brain of a 20% capacity versus a 100% capacity. And how much do you know? How much do you know? Like if, if there's a hundred percent and 20% signal being sent, the brain is going, what is happening? And you can't see that on the outside, but that was what I was experiencing internally. And that began to, to help me spiral out of control. And so Kelsey's looking at me going, man, is this, is this who he really is? Like, did he just cover this up? Did he just, you know, just have this facade upon him and he was just, you know, putting it together to make it himself look good or is this the real Dan? And so I remember with a fact, she was beginning to question like, should I even marry this guy? And, and thank God we had a pastor who, and a spiritual leader who said, listen, here's what you need to know. I don't want you to be, to understand this, that you do not, Jesus said in this life, you will have trouble. You will have trials and you will have tribulation and guess what? You don't get to, you don't get to choose what those trials are and you don't get to choose when those trials are going to happen. And so he said very clearly, clearly to Kelsey and I is like, this could happen right now, or it could happen six months into your marriage. And so you need to understand that this is going to happen in life. So she was asking the question of my brother, like, is this, is this him or is something off as something not right that he needs help with? And I want to tell you today, if you've struggled with depression in any way, any disease of the mind, you need to understand this fact that your illness is not your identity, that what you're going through isn't who you are. A matter of fact, in Galatians, this is what Jesus said. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, that God wants you to get through these things. He wants to help you to get through it. And so today what we're going to do, what we're going to unpack is we're going to talk about depression. And I'm going to show you that in the Bible, there were specific people in the Bible that dealt with depression, even suicidal thoughts, we're going to look at their stories and we're going to talk about today, how did they get there? Because there's a reason you get to that place. And then next week, I'm going to bring you another message of how do you get out? Like, what are the things that you can do to get out of this, this funk to get out of this cage of depression to get out of this, this, this completely unrelenting place. And there's things that we can do. And so I want to talk to you about that. But I want to share first and foremost from Lamentations. This is the, the prophet Jeremiah, Old Testament prophet who did extraordinary things for God. And he also wrote the book of Lamentations. Do you want the book of Lamentations basically is, it's basically my depressive thoughts. Like it's, there's an entire book of the Bible talking about, man, my life, this, this is hard. Like there's, there's trouble here. So we're going to be honest about this. And I hope that even me sharing my story, my wife even shared this yesterday on social media as we prepared for this message. If you've ever met my wife, she is one of the most joy filled, friendly, life giving, encouraging. Like you'll feel like you're her best friend the moment you meet her type of person. And yet every kid that we've had, we've had, she's had three kids, every kid that she's had, she's had dealt with postpartum depression. And so she's been engaged in this. And so she might show up with a smile on her face and make you feel like your best friend, but she too. So we need you to understand that you are not alone. And so we're going to dive into this topic. And so the book of Lamentations, this is the old promise prophet, old Testament prophet Jeremiah. He says, I've been deprived of peace. I've forgotten what prosperity is, man. I thought it was all supposed to be, you know, sunshine and rainbows, and I was going to have everything I would. And God was going to give me the best house and the best friends. And I just lived this life and it was going to be awesome. But man, he's forgotten that. So I say, well, my splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord. Have you ever wondered about your own faith and thought, man, I thought God was going to show up. I thought God was going to do something. Even my prayer life during that season of depression, I began to proclaim God's words over my life. And I would begin to say, God, I am a co-heir and I am a conqueror with Jesus Christ. That you are for me. You're not against me. God, I pray for your healing. I pray for understanding. I pray that you do something. And I just, I prayed over and over again. And here's what I know about God. God has, and he does intervene in this life, but he doesn't always do it. But here's what I can promise you. Here's a fact that you can take to the bank with your entire life. Jesus Christ came on a rescue mission to rescue you and me from this broken world that's filled with evil and distress and pain and hurt and disease to get you out of here one day and into paradise with him personally. That is a promise for your life. But we're going to go through some stuff here. That this is a broken place, but God intends us to be with him in eternity. But so we got to learn how to handle it while we're going through it. So we might have hopes from the Lord, but it might not all come out how we think it is. So he says, I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. Maybe you found yourself in that place. I will remember then them and my soul is downcast within me. That's, that's depression. Like my, my, my emotions and my, my mind, my, man, it's, it's got me trapped. I feel like I can't get out and you find yourself in this place and maybe you haven't and maybe you will someday and you're going to need to come back to this message. Maybe you, you know, someone who's going through it and you, you need to encourage them and come alongside of them. It's so important to make us, to, to make everyone know that they are not alone. Can I get an amen? So we're going to talk about this. Here's, here's a new Testament, a new Testament guy. This is the apostle Paul in second Corinthians. He says, we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles that we've experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure. In other words, there's things you're going to go through in life that, that you need help from God for. A lot of times people say, you know, like God will not give you more than you can handle. Can I tell you that is a lie from the pit of hell because God is going to take you through stuff that's going to force you to rely on him.

It may be more than you can handle, but it's not more than he can handle. So far beyond our ability to endure, this is the apostle Paul. So that we even despaired of life itself. They were suicidal. They were like, we're done. We can't, we can't handle this anymore. Like it would be better if we were just gone, if we could just get out of this and die. And so we're going to talk about what are the things that bring us to this place? Like how did, how did I get here? And over the next two weeks, this weekend and next week, I'm going to, I'm going to bring these messages from the prophet Elijah found in first Kings chapter 19. The prophet Elijah is, is a guy that was known as like one of the best of the best. Like you read this story and you're like, Oh my gosh, this guy was amazing. So much so that on the mount of transfiguration, Jesus brings his disciples and he's, he's, he's all of a sudden, you know, Jesus gets, gets transfigured and it's this glorious experience where, where it's like heaven opened up and it's just the glory of God is filled there. And two guys show up on the scene, Moses and Elijah. So, so heaven is literally like elevating these two men, Moses and Elijah. So Elijah must have been a man of God and a prophet of God that, that God was like, man, I'm going to show this guy is awesome. And here's what happened in first Kings chapter 18, Elijah, the prophet comes up against, he was surrounded on our side by the enemy. And it kind of sounds, let me, let me put it this way. It kind of sounds like what's happening to God's covenant people right now in Israel. They're surrounded by on all sides of, of, of, of each other with the enemy. And here's what was happening then. And it's happening now. They were trying to, they were trying to figure out who's God is better. Who's God is greater. A matter of fact, if you, if you know anything about this, I probably need to do a side message to share this, but, but, but really the Islamic people, what they declare over and over and over again, when they say, I don't even know how to pronounce it, Alilah Akbar or whatever it is, they say, it means our God is greater. They are coming against the God of Israel. They're coming against the God of Christianity. They're coming against Jesus saying that their God is greater. And the same thing was happening with Elijah in first Kings 18, where that we're all the, the, the prophets, the false God prophets of Baal were coming alongside of him. And there was 850 of them and they began to have this competition and they went on up to Mount Carmel and they, they created this, this sacrifice, this, this, this, this, this, um, what do you call it? An altar and they put wood on it. And basically they had this competition. They said, okay, if your God is greater, they'll burn up the wood. And if your God is greater, they'll burn up the world, the woods supernaturally. So there's one prophet, he's all alone. His name is Elijah coming against 850 prophets of Baal. And I forget the other one at the moment, because I'm just, I'm ADD. Does anyone know the answer? A sharer. So they come, so they're 850 prophets. They go first false gods and they put the wood on the altar and they're dancing around, calling on their God, God to burn it up. That's the competition. What, which God is going to burn up the wood. So 850 prophets are dancing around, trying to get their God to react and do something. And nothing happens. Their God doesn't show up. Why? Because their God doesn't exist. Their God's not real. Elijah, because he's cocky, I don't know if that's true. That was just my version. When it comes to his term, he's got the wood there and he decides, man, I'm not just going to have the wood there and call God to supernaturally devour with the flames. Like they didn't have a match. They didn't have a lighter. They had none of that. It was like just God. And he decided, I'm going to, I'm going to have my God show up. So he douses the wood with water. How many of y'all have you tried to go out and make a bonfire today? It wouldn't work because of the dayluge that happened in the last two days. Like maybe it was, maybe the wood was covered and it's good. But if you had to have a bonfire today, it would be really hard to start that fire, especially without a match, lighter fluid, without any, that kind of thing. So here's Elijah with the wood doused in water. He prays to God and it's obliterated in flames. God shows up and shows off. And then he goes on and all the prophets are slaughtered. And then he goes on, there's a drought in the nation. He prays for rain and three years later it begins to rain. But here's where Elijah, so this is what Elijah did. Elijah had these amazing experiences, mountain top experiences, spiritual experiences with God and seeing God show off and do what only God can do. And then in a nanosecond, this is where Elijah finds himself in first Kings 19. Ahab told Jezebel, this is King Ahab, the leader of the armies that were coming against him and his wife Jezebel. Ahab told Jezebel, everything Elijah had done. So this is what his God did in the face of all these other gods that are fake and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. This is one guy against 850. Hello, scenes outnumbered. But Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, may the gods deal with me, be it ever severely, if by this time tomorrow, I do not make your life like one of those 850 prophets. In other words, I'm going to kill you, Elijah. And Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. And isn't that what depression does? Like we go through maybe a failure or maybe we even just have a success and all of a sudden that one text message that gets sent to us that's against us or that one comment on social media that comes against us, that one thing that's odd, like it tears us up. It's a message from Jezebel saying, I'm going to take you out and I'm going to take you down. And this is Elijah who just saw God do extraordinary miracles in the face of 850 false prophets, worshiping false gods, trying to get them to do something supernatural. Their gods didn't show up because they're not real. Elijah's God did not just then, but he did in the killing of the prophets and in the sending of the rain.

And yet, and I don't mean to put down women in this, but now Elijah is just afraid of a woman who just sent a text message saying, I'm going to kill you. He just took out 850 prophets by himself and now he's afraid and he runs for his life. He was on a mountaintop experience with God. And yet in a nanosecond it all changed. And he says when he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there. Isn't that what depression does? It makes you to isolate the people that care about you. You're pulling away from them. You're not engaged as much anymore. You're socially isolated. He left his servant there while he himself went on a day's journey into the wilderness. It's kind of a bad place to go by himself. And he came to a broom bush, sat down under it, and he prayed that he might die. He became suicidal. I've had enough, Lord, he said, take my life. And then he begins to compare himself to other people. Here's the guy that Jesus even brought into the transfiguration, something that heaven even elevates. He says, I'm no better than my ancestors. He just saw extraordinary success in the things that God had called him to do in a nanosecond it changed. And you may find yourself in that place. And maybe it's a day or maybe it'll be in a day in the future. But just like I was in August of 2013, had a phenomenal job at a church and I was getting married and man, it all changed. But I got to tell you something. You're not alone. And neither was Elijah. And so we're going to take a look at Elijah's story today of the things that he did that got him into that place and then kept him there. And then next week we're going to come back to his story and talk about how did he take the steps to get out of that place. And so the first thing I want to tell you is that we have life in balances. Like there's so much of our life that we begin to, again, if depression is just a signal of things that are coming, there's things that are happening. Like there's things that we do that lead us to this place. I want to share this quote with you because it's a phenomenal quote that I read actually a couple years ago by an author named Stephen, I don't know how to pronounce the name, Ayardi. And he says this, we were never designed for the sedentary, sitting on a couch, eating potato chips, playing video games, indoor, socially isolated, thank you COVID-19, fast food laden, sleep deprived, frenzied pace of modern life. Can I tell you one of the greatest, in my opinion, one of the greatest acts of the enemy of your soul and my soul was a two word phrase called social distancing. Now listen to me, I think our leaders did the best they could with the information they had in extraordinary circumstances. And it's easy to criticize on the other side, right? But physical distancing, like, yeah, let's hang out at a little bit of a distance, maybe you have to put a mask on or whatever. But the worst thing you could have ever done to humanity is tell us to separate, to be socially isolated. Social distancing is the worst thing that's ever happened. And I believe it was led by our enemy because this is what leads to a depressed life. And so I want you to look at this list for just a second. And maybe it's not all of these things that you deal with or that you have dealt with, but maybe it's one of them. And maybe it's a signal to you today to maybe think, well, how is my life out of balance? What are things that I need to do to maybe tweak these things to get out of the place that you find yourself in right here and right now? Ecclesiastes says better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and a chasing after the wind. You know, this is, this verse is really the opposite of the American dream. It's with the American dream is you just chase, just get everything you can get more, get more house, more money, right? One handful with tranquility is better than two handfuls. But we in our world, in our lives, we think, well, if one dollar is good, two dollars is. You can speak louder. It's okay. If one dollar is good, two dollars is. If one car is good, two dollars is. If one wife is good, no, come on. All right. Some of you are like, I've heard that joke before. Yes, you're right. I tell the same joke every time I preach on this message. But isn't this true? Like we can't just, we can't ever just get enough. Like we just, we're always chasing after the wind and we never find ourselves in a tranquil place, a peaceful place. And my question is why? Are you unsatisfied? Are you not content? Are you always chasing? Maybe it's a signal of the dis-ease that you find yourself in. The dis-ease of your emotions, your mind, your spirit, and even your bodies. And so let it be a tale, a telltale of the signals that come. Here's the second one. And it's comparing ourselves to others, right? The prophet Elijah, that's what he did. Even at the end, we don't know exactly how he was comparing himself to it. But he says, he compared himself to his ancestors. He says, I'm not any better than they are. How many of y'all do that? You look at social media and you go, I just can't measure up to that person. I don't look like them. I don't have the skill set. I don't have the job. Man, I wish I could do this. I wish I could do that. And you begin to compare yourselves over and over and over again. And it's a dangerous game to compare yourself to other people. Matter of fact, Theodore Roosevelt said this, comparison is the thief of joy. So you want to find out why there's not joy bubbling up inside of you. It's because you're constantly looking at other people thinking, or even wishing that you were like them instead of being blessed by the person that God has created you to be. Galatians puts it this way. This is the apostle Paul. He said, each one should test their own actions. Don't, don't just pay attention to everybody else. Test that you're doing the right thing for who you are. Then they can take pride in themselves alone that God designed you on purpose with a purpose. He, he created you with your personality type. He created you with your body type. He created you with your looks and your beauty, your heart. He created you with your talents, your gifts, the things that you bring to this life. He wants you to bring them, but he wants you to have confidence in who you are and who he's created you to be. And the enemy wants us to compare ourselves to other. So take pride in yourselves alone without comparing themselves to someone else for each one should carry their own load. You need to do what God has called you to do. You need to be the best godly version of you. And man, when you get into that place, when you have confidence in who God says you are and who God has created you to be, I can tell you it's one of the most tranquil, peaceful, blessed places you can ever find yourself. Here's the third one. And the third one is ruminating and self-talk. This is one of the worst tricks of the enemy. You have an enemy of your soul and your mind that his, he likes to whisper lies to you. And we begin to take those lies and we begin to ruminate on them over and over and over again. Like, like you may have failed and then you begin believing the lie that you're a failure. You may have done something wrong and think you can't ever get over it or learn from it or get better than that or become become an overcomer. And you begin to ruminate on those thoughts over and over again. I'm not good enough. I don't measure up. I can't do this. I can't do that. I'm the worst. And you keep thinking it over and over and over again. This is what Elijah did, right? He left his buddy and he went out into the wilderness and he began to have these thoughts of like, man, I had just seen God do these miraculous things in my life and through my life. I was on this mountain top high and all of a sudden he's like, I'm no better than everyone else. I'm comparing myself and man, I'm an idiot. I wish I could die. Like I'm the worst. And how many times in your life, whether you get home at work one day and then you're just like, man, I just, I'm, I'm really bad at this. I'm really bad at my job. Matter of fact, I got off stage for service and the minute I walked off stage and I thought, man,

guess how crazy it is. I began to think about how I prayed and I began to think I didn't even pray right. The most vulnerable thing that I ever face in my life personally now is I'll leave a Sunday morning and I could be blown away by, by, by God and who he is through worship and they're coming together and seeing you guys and, and seeing what God's doing in your life. I can hear stories of how he's speaking to you and what he's doing and how he's changing you. And I can hear all these amazing stories and I can walk off stage and I can begin to say over and over and over again, that sucked. You, you blew that. You said this, your fly was down. That has happened before. And it's just, if I'm not careful, I can stay there and ruminating, right? There's ruminating animals. You've heard me talk about this. I talked about it last week. A ruminating animal is a cow or like a camel. We can show the video. Here's what, here's what they do. A ruminating animal, choose the cut. And here's what a ruminating animal does. He eats the grass. He chooses it up. Swallows it. He throws it up. He chews it again, swallows it, throws it up. Guys, this happens for hours. This is what you do with your self-talk. This is what you do in your thoughts.

Like as you negatively talk to yourself or, or hear these words that you ruminate over and out, you're not good enough. You're, you're terrible at this. You're a failure. Like you, you ruminate on this over and over and over again. How you, how, how many of y'all know when, when the cow choose the cut, when it comes back, it doesn't taste better and neither do your thoughts. And this is what, this is how we get here. It is, we, we have this ruminating idea with our thoughts, this, this negative self-talk. And here's, here's, here's what Brian Tracy said. Another author says, 90% of your emotions are determined by the way you talk to yourselves. It's not just what your wife or, or, or husband is saying to you or what your kids say by listening to me. My kids, they're seven, five, and eight. They know nothing about life.

And yet even their words and actions towards me can make me go, they don't like me. They hate me. You felt that from a kid. And yet it's not really their words that hurt.

It's what I take and think about over and over and over again. It can destroy your life. Here's what Philippians says. It says, finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent, or praiseworthy, think about such things and the God of peace will be with you. That's a promise of God. And yet so many of us throughout our lives, throughout our week, if you think about the thought life that you have from just seven o'clock in the morning until noon, how many of your thoughts would be like this?

And you, you asked the question, how did, how did we get here? How did I get here? It's because our life is filled with imbalances. We're, we're sedentary, we're isolated, we're socially, we're comparing our self to others. We're, we're ruminating and having this negative self-talk where if we did the things that God says to do, he says he has a promise that the God of peace will be with you. If you knew that this promise would be real in your life, how would you adjust your thought life? What would you do differently? What would you say differently? And can I tell you, this is why it's so important to get around people who have the ideas of God and the word of God in them, why it's so important to be in a place like this church that we can talk about these things that realize you're not alone. Because when you're in this self-talk rumination and you get around other people that can say, listen, stop saying that to you. Stop saying that to yourself. Like there's, there's, you are more than that. You're, let me tell you what God says about you. Not just what you're saying yourself or what the enemy's saying about you. There's something better, something different. And I would even, I'll come back to it. I'm going to come back to this one. The fourth one is inability to process pain in a healthy way. Again, Jesus said that in this world, you're going to have troubles, trials, tribulations. It's not a matter of if it's going to happen, it's when it's going to happen. You don't get to choose it. You don't get to choose what's going to happen. You don't get to choose when it's going to happen. It's going to happen. You know, one of the things I didn't realize at the moment when I became dizzy and became depressed and anxious and went through all of that stuff, had suicidal thoughts, checked myself in, I don't even know if I said this, I checked myself into an outpatient week-long therapy at Pine Rest to get through this before I walked down the aisle with my bride because I knew I needed help. I needed more than I was getting and I needed help. And can I tell you something? I want to tell you today from me to you, there's Old Testament prophets who needed help. There's New Testament prophets who needed help. You have a pastor stating on this stage who needed help. If you need help, you are not alone and you need to get help. Can I get an amen? I want you to know that I am not just a pastor who doesn't identify with you, who doesn't have empathy what you could be going through because I've been through it myself. And what I didn't realize is when I went through all that dizziness and depression and anxiety, like again, I was an athlete, division one, one of the best college football schools in the nation on top of the world about to be married to this wonderful woman with an incredible family. And man, my life was amazing. And overnight and over a couple months period, it all got shaken up. But what I didn't realize is that coming out of that, God began to bring all of these people into my life who then were going through or had gone through that exact same thing. It was amazing. Guys, I had never heard of the word vestibular in my life. I didn't know what vestibular was. I didn't know there was a balanced function in your ears that made your brain know where it is. I didn't know any of that stuff. And then one by one, God began bringing people into my life who are dealing with the same thing and or dealing with depression or dealing with anxiety. You know, I used to have this mindset again as an athlete, and I still have this to some degree, it's kind of that athlete mentality, like you get knocked down, you get back up, you dust yourself off again, you keep going, you keep fighting. And that's true. But sometimes you need to realize that you're on a team and you're with a group of people that want to help pick you back up and want to help dust you back up and help you get back in the game and you need other people and you need to know that you're not alone. And so yes, I believe that God came on a rescue mission through Jesus to take us one day into heaven where there is no sickness, there is no disease, there is no depression, there's no war, there's none of that. But in the midst of it, he has some tools to get us through it. And one of us, one of them is our our our changing of of how we process pain in a healthy way. And here's what Second Corinthians says, it says, God, God comforts us in all of our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort that we ourselves received from God, guys, I received so much comfort. And now I have the opportunity because God has comforted me to comfort so many people who have gone through similar things in my life. And you need to hear this from me that you may be going through something right now. And you might know not know what the purpose is, but God is going to bring you through it. And you're going to help somebody else down the road to get through it as well. That there is a plan that God has for justice, we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ. So also our comfort abounds through Christ. And if we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation. So you need to know that there is purpose in your pain that you can what God brings you through. God's going to bring you to someone else to be a help to be a light to care for someone else. There is purpose in your pain. The fifth one is isolation and loneliness. Again, we are the most lonely generation, psychologists and if you if you study this, they say we are the most lonely generation of all of human history. And isn't that interesting because we're the most what's the word for it digitally connected. Like social media is not really that social.

It's created a conflict where we think we're together, but we're really not. A matter of fact, in this moment, I want to take a moment to look at the camera and because there's probably people that are watching this message today because you heard the topic or maybe some of our people shared it with you and you want to learn how to get through this. But I got to tell you that one of the greatest ways and only ways you're going to get through it is if you come and be with the people. You need to know something that Jesus came from his throne in heaven. He came to earth to be with us to be God in the flesh. So the enemy meant for evil social distancing is anti God. And then some of you, you might not just need a message or a word of encouragement. You might need a hug like an actual physical hug. You might need someone to look at you and say, I know what you're going through and I know what God can do and I know what he that he is with you and we are with you. We're together in this, but you have to, you have to get out. You got to come here. You got to be a part of the group of people. Did you know that the first problem in the Bible that the Bible ever talked about wasn't sin. The first problem in the Bible wasn't sin. It was solitude. Matter of fact, the reason why sin came into picture is because Mary, not Mary, Adam and Eve, Eve went off by herself. She was isolated. She went isolated and that's when the enemy attacked. That's when they came alongside of her. The Lord God said this in Genesis two, the Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone. That's the first thing he said was it's not good for us to be in isolation and solitude. And yet that's where the the prophet Elijah was. He sent his servant away and he went out into the wilderness and that's where we find ourselves in the midst of depression is we feel like we're in a cage that we can't get out of and we certainly don't want any help and we certainly don't know how to get help. And so I want to tell you, man, you're not alone and you can't stay isolated. And so man, you got to be here. Come, be hugged, be encouraged, man, get around people who want to help you. In Romans Paul says since we are all one body, we're not just lonely isolated individuals. We're a part of the body of Christ. We belong to each other and each other and each of us needs all the others and you need people. You need to be around people. You need to have help when you get through those those phases where where your life's out of balance or or maybe you're comparing yourselves to others. All those things you have the rumination self-talk. You need to be around other people who can encourage you and help you and challenge you to get out of where you are. And we're going to talk about this more next week. Now I want to I want to take a moment to just say as I close this message and say that if you have ever had a diagnosis whether it's autism or bipolar, depression, manic, even if it's even if it's postpartum, you need to know that you're not alone and there are ways that that that God has created people to help you. Psychologists, sociologists, doctors, like I will never tell you that you should not go get help in those ways. I did. I went I went to get help in the way I needed. I went to my doctor. I went to Pine Rest. I got the help I needed. But you also need to know that there's something bigger going on here and it's not just physical and it's not just earthly. It's it's actually spiritual and so I need you to know that there is spiritual warfare happening. I want to put it this way. Most of the time we look for for physical solutions for our ailments, physical bodies, whatever emotions, mind. And when we think of ourselves as a physical being, right, you exist. You're there. Like I could I could go you could punch me. I was going to say punch you but I thought that was probably inappropriate. You could punch me. You could like physical, right? But the reality is is that you're more spiritual than physical. Like like you are you are not having a temporary spiritual experience right now in a physical body. You are a spirit being having a temporary physical experience. Like like the spirit man that that what God created you to be the the spirit side of you is the only side of you that's going to live forever. And so we need to understand that our spirit selves, our spiritual selves, are the ones that that creates the most health within all of who we are.

And so you need to be aware of this. This is how you pop this is how Peter puts it in first Peter. He said you need to be self-controlled and alert. He's basically saying wake up. Yeah, yeah, you can get help in these different ways but you need to understand there's something spiritual that is happening that you have an enemy of your soul, the devil, that prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Let me put it this way. The devil, Satan, the enemy, he doesn't show up like Sam did in the beat. Hi, I'm here to take you out. I want to destroy your life. I want to eat your flesh and your brain and this that went way too far.

No, he's sneaky.

Right a lion, he like sits, he sits back in the, a lion is the same color as the grass. And he's sitting back and he's watching what you're going through and what you're dealing with.

And he's seeking someone to devour.

And so the Bible says, resist him. Stand firm in the faith. Stand firm in the faith. When you have the enemy whispering lies to you, when you have your own thoughts that you're ruminating on, your self-talk that is destroying you, you need to stand firm on who God says you are and what the Bible says about you. In the very first ordeal, right, Adam and Eve had sinned, they ate of the forbidden fruit and and for the first time, right, they were, they were lied to by the enemy and, and they said, you could be like God if you did this. And then they did it. And then they realized they were naked and they felt shame and they felt guilt. They felt like failures and they began to ruminate on their self-talk. We're failures and we need to fix this. And, and so they fashioned our leaves together. And what did they do? What did they do? They heard God pursuing them. They heard God coming to them. They heard God coming to help them. And what did they do in their thoughts and in their lives they hid from God. They ran away. And this is what depression does. This is what your thought life does.

And God comes up to them and they say, where are you? And they're like, we're hiding. And he's like, why are you hiding? He's like, we're hiding because we're naked and we feel shame and guilt. And God's like, I never intended any of that to happen to you. And they said that they were afraid. And so they hid. And God's comment to them was who told you that? Who told you you were a failure? Who told you you couldn't overcome this? Who told you you were worthless? Who told you that? Because I didn't.

And God does this. So you got to resist the devil, resist the schemes of the enemy, resist him standing firm and who God has called you to be and who God says you are. And then we've got to put on the full armor of God that there are weapons in our arsenal. Some of it's defensive and some of it's offensive that there's weapons that God has given us to defend against the enemy schemes. But it's not just sitting there going, okay, I wish my armor would do its work today. No, he says you got to put it on. Like you actually got to use the tools that I've given you. And we're going to talk about more of that next week, but we got to put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the enemy schemes because God has given us authority. But we've got to use it to overcome what the enemy means for evil. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we love you so much. And we are thankful that we can talk about these things and be open about them and have empathy with one another and sympathy for one another. And we can realize that we're not alone. That even the greatest people in your kingdom, God, your prophets and pastors, like they deal with this stuff. And so if they deal with it, man, maybe I need to deal with it. So I pray in this moment that God would speak to you directly that you are not alone. And he wants to help you to get through this. And he's put us here to help you too. So God, I pray that you would speak to every heart, soul, mind and spirit today in the place where you know that every single one of us needs you. That we can stand firm in faith and we can overcome these trials that we're facing. In Jesus name. Amen.

Full Sermon Transcript

the title of today's message is how do I handle, how do I get through, how do I get, I'm trying to remember what the exact title is in my head because I'm so ADD, but it's how to handle life's worst moments. Like you got fired from that job or maybe you had to file for bankruptcy. It could be you lost a loved one, you lost a parent, a mom, maybe you lost even a child. We have all these things that could have happened and it could be smaller than that. It could be as simple as what happened even in my week this week. I found out that our water heater went out. And so literally we didn't have hot water in our house for two days. We had to go to other people's houses to shower and bathe our kids and we couldn't even heat up water for that. And even furthermore, a couple days after that, my car wouldn't start. You know, like it just, and so here's really, here's really what the message is all about and that is it's always something, right? Are you feeling me? Like it's always something. Like something's always happening. And I love how the scripture keeps it real. It goes on and says, I gotta get my happy fingers going, right? In 2 Corinthians it says, I don't want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles that we experienced in the province of Asia. In other words, you've heard this in scripture, it says that we're gonna face various troubles and trials of many kinds. And so I'm gonna tell you that you're either coming out of some trouble, you're in trouble, or trouble's coming. You're either coming out of trouble, you're in trouble, or trouble is coming. And some of you are like visiting for the first time, saying, man, I'd really love some positivity out of this message and this church today, pastor, and I'm here to tell you I am positive that trouble is coming. Like it's because it's always something. And the Apostle Paul, this is the Apostle Paul writing this particular thing, he says, you don't want, I don't want you to be uninformed, troubles are gonna happen. But it also happened to me too. Like the Apostle Paul, right, the guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, like he had stuff going on as well, and he even said this, we were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure, so much so that we despaired of life itself. This is literally the Apostle Paul telling you and me that he was actually suicidal. Like he was facing so many things, so many issues were coming at him, that he despaired of life itself. This is the guy who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. And you're wondering, man, how can I relate to the Bible? Well, you can relate to the Bible because the people in the Bible, they lived in a world where you and I live. Where there's always something. And so how do we handle, how do we get through, how do we overcome life's worst moments? And so we see here that the Bible has a lot to say. And so today I'm gonna give you six particular things, and it's honestly kind of the pathway or really, or what happens when these things happen. And the first is, first out of six is, oh, there's another one. Indeed we felt we had received the sentence of death, but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves. So in other words, I need to look at God who can actually raise the debt. Like I need something beyond myself to handle this particular situation. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. And on him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us. Say that with me. He has, he will, and he will continue. Do it again. He has, he will, and he will continue. Let's do it as if you believe it this time. He has, he will, and he will continue. As you help us by your prayers, then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of the many people. You were in it together. You were praying together, and God was doing something. But we're gonna face trials and sufferings, and we all face them in different degrees and at different moments. And quite honestly, here's what happens. Here's the first one. It's shock when it does happen. Like when you got that news that you were fired, when you got that news that you had to file bankruptcy, when you got that news of that diagnosis, whatever that issue was that you faced, you were shocked. Like you didn't see it coming. But I got to tell you something. God never has this emotion. Like God, God is never shocked by what you're dealing with, by what you're going through. Because God stands outside of time. He is, he's outside of time, and he never wonders what you have wondered. Your emotion of, man, I didn't see this coming. God, God doesn't have that emotion. God doesn't say, well, I didn't know that was going to happen. But you did. You had that emotion. It was shock, and it was, how is this gonna happen? And so we got to understand that when it does happen, it's shock. And the first, the first instinct for us when those things happen is right, is to recoil, is to get by ourselves, and to get alone. And man, we run away from people, and we run away from God. But the Scriptures say that two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. And so no matter what happens, whatever the suffering you face, if you lost that job, what, you're embarrassed. You're in shock. You don't know how to handle it. And you're afraid to even let people know. And so you begin to just cower unto yourself, man, a couple years ago. Actually, let's go back even further. When I was a, I think it was a senior in college, I got a phone call, and the phone call was really three or four days late. And let me tell you what it was. I got the phone calls telling me, my parents telling me that my dad had just been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. And it was shock, right? I didn't see it coming. And what's worse about the story is it was four days late. My dad got rushed to the hospital and was gone to the ER, checked into the hospital itself. And the day after, so he's hooked up to all the machines, they're doing all the tests and trying to make sure he's okay, and they're got to do some things with his heart. And the next day, so my mom goes home, and the next day, my mom, on the way to visit him, gets smashed in an intersection and the car is destroyed. So she has to, they're telling me, again, they're telling me this four days later. My mom has to walk into my dad's hospital room and she says, now, I need to tell you something, but I don't know if you can handle it. I just, our car is obliterated. I think I'm okay, but our car is gone. And so here's my dad laying in the hospital. My mom's car is obliterated. She was safe and okay. And then I got the phone call four days later. I was in shock and my shock was pissed off at my parents that they didn't even call me the day of. Hello? So fast forward to story from that moment, if you have gotten any kind of diagnosis like that, congestive heart failure is a hundred percent fatal. Like it will kill you. It's not a matter of is it today or tomorrow? It's, it's gonna happen. It's, and so from that moment forward, literally every time I got a phone call from my parents, I wondered, is this the phone call where I'm gonna find out my dad has actually died? And thank God that the prognosis was about five years of life. He lasted like 15 or 16. Like he far out exceeded it, but I did get that phone call a few years ago and, and I was in shock in the moment. And you know this when you have those emotions, but, but God knows what you are going through, what is happening, and he knows you need people. And so I got in a call, I got in a car, quite honestly, they were keeping my dad alive on machines. I got in the car, I drove all the way to Iowa where I'm from to get there. And, and one of Iowa's finest state troopers, God bless them, pulled me over. I'm looking at the sign to get to the hospital and it, and he pulls me over for speeding and I get a ticket. I'm like, he's like, why are you going so fast? I'm like, I've driven through the night to get to my dad who's dying and he's like, yeah, well you could have killed someone else. Here's a ticket. Well, thank you, mister. It's, it's always something, right? And my dad passed away and I'll never forget Doug who just shared a minute ago on this stage. This is why groups are so important that we don't just have a church where we gather on Sundays, but we try to pair you together in groups because when life happens, you need each other. And you may not think you need each other, but you do need each other. And sometimes when those moments happen, you don't know how to ask for help, which is why we did sandbags years ago because those people who are struggling with sand with their houses being flooded, they didn't know how to ask for help. So we, we showed up with help. And if you've been through anything at New Life Church, you know that if you've gotten involved in any way, we don't ask you sometimes how you need help. We just show up with help. And we may ask, how can we help you? And most of the time you're telling us we don't need help or let us think about it or let us talk about it. But, but oftentimes we just have to break through and just show up. Well, Doug and his family actually showed up in Iowa. They drove the eight hours or whatever it is to get to my house. And I can tell you, like, they didn't have to say a lot, but their presence, I knew they were with me. And friends, when, when you have these things happen, you know that you have to know that you have people with you because two are better than one. And we need each other to pick us back up when we're going through these particular issues. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Like when things go on in life, when you lose a loved one or when things, when tragedy strikes, we're looking at the people of New Life Church and we're asking how can we serve them? How can we help them? How can we show up to them? It's not just, hey, I want to pray for you. No, I want to surround you. I want to make sure that you don't feel like you're alone. And so the first thing that happens is shock. And so we get it, we need to show up. And I say this often, sometimes it's just showing up and shutting up. Like it's not just telling them what they need to hear, but it's just showing them that you're there for them. And here's the second thing that happens is sorrow. When we face those times, we start to experience sorrow. And sorrow is a great thing. When you begin to cry, the women here yesterday had a great conference. How many of you all were here for the made conference? Was it amazing? Don't worry if you missed it, women. We're having another one next year. You can go to it. I don't know when the date is, but you're invited. Guys, you're not. But I asked Kelsey how it went and she said, well, there were a lot of tears, which means there was probably a lot of sorrow that needed to be dealt with, that needed to be processed. One of the greatest things about God, about Jesus, is one of the most powerful verses in all of Scripture is the shortest verse in all of Scripture. And it is the verse that says Jesus wept. Like it's not bad to cry. It's powerful to cry. It's powerful to grieve. It's powerful to shed a tear. But too often, we don't process or maybe we don't begin to process the sorrow. We try to hold it back or especially men, we try to be tough and tough through it and then we just explode with emotion. So we need this grief process. We need to go through it and crying is a powerful tool for that. But one of the tragic things that can happen is that we can be overcome with sorrow. Have you ever been there? Where it like just takes you over. And here's what the Bible has to say in Isaiah 53. This is Jesus. He was despised and rejected by mankind. He was a man of suffering familiar with pain. And why was this so? Let me let me put it this way. There's a theology throughout the Scripture. When Jesus became man, when he left his throne in heaven became man, one of the primary reasons for that is he wanted to identify with your trouble, with your trial, with the things you grow through, with the pain that you have, with rejection, with the relational turmoil. Jesus can identify with you. And so when you go through these issues, when you go through suffering, guess what? You can go to Jesus with those things because he understands. Like when you pray to him, when you give it to him, when you tell him what you're going through, he can identify with you. It's the identity, it's the theology of identification. That Jesus understands pain. A matter of fact, when it says Jesus wept, it wasn't that he was, here's the situation if you're new to church. Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus had died. He was buried in a tomb and he shows up on the scene and he begins to weep, but did you know that Jesus actually knew that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead? Like Jesus knew that he was God and he was going, that Lazarus's death was not going to end there. That he was going to raise him from the grave, but do you know what he saw? He saw all the hurt and pain of all the people who loved Lazarus. He began to see their pain for their loved one that was lost and he wept because he identity, even though Jesus has the power of life over death, he wept at the pain that you and I face on a day to day, that's always something and he can identify with it. That he was rejected, that literally when he was on the cross, bearing the weight of your sin and my sin, that he knew something about rejection. He knew something about people who would betray him, who would crucify him, who would hurt him, who wouldn't believe in him. He knew something about it and then if we're not careful though, our grief, our sorrow can be overwhelming. This is David, hear my cry oh God, attend to my prayer from the end of the earth. I will cry to you and my heart is overwhelmed. This is when sorrow gets overloaded and you can't control the emotions anymore. You just can't get out of it. You don't know how to deal with it and so what is David's prayer? He was surrounded by all all these issues. He says when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. In other words, I need God's help. I need to see it differently. I need a perspective shift. Do you know what one of the most powerful things that happens and if you've never experienced this before is when you go in through suffering or trials or things that are going on your life, one of the most powerful things you can do and quite honestly it's sad that more people don't do this but it's when you get to a point, David wrote so many of the Psalms and so many of the Psalms are songs of worship to God. David had so many stressors. He was being attacked by even Saul. He was coming at him to kill him and he faced all these battles and he was a warrior and war was happening all around him constantly. People were second-guessing him and when he came back through all these trials and circumstances, one of the first things David always did is he worshiped. In the midst of his trial, in the midst of his struggle, in the midst of his pain, the first thing David did is he worshiped because there's something powerful about worship and there's something powerful that changes the perspective that you're just seeing all the issues that are surrounding you and when you begin to take your eyes off of your issues and the stuff that you're going on and focus it on God, something about worshiping God, God's begins to magnify himself and begin to make the perspective, the filter through which you're seeing things that the problems start to diminish. Have you ever seen this? Have you ever felt this in worship? Because worship changes everything and too many times we try to fix it, right guys? We want a white knuckle control and we're gonna work it out and man I'm gonna get it together and I'm gonna fix, I'm gonna make it happen but too many times we get overwhelmed by all that because it's always happening. It's this thing, then this thing, then this thing and it keeps happening and I keep trying to seek out an answer over here and over here and I try to trust myself and it's not working because worship changes everything. It changes your perspective of what's going on and going through and the next one though is struggle. It is that white knuckle. You're trying to fix everything yourself, control everything. When you come to a place where shock has hit you and sorrow has hit you and you didn't see it coming and you don't know what's gonna happen and maybe you fixed one thing but then there's another thing and it just keeps happening and some of you, you're starting to realize that this is where you are, that this is where you live your life. It's in the struggle. You begin to ask that three-letter word right when all these sufferings happen. It's the question, why? Why did this happen? Or why is this happening? And it's one of the struggles that we deal with. I love what Jeremiah said. He even asked the question, why was I born? Like enough is enough. This is craziness. I'm dealing with all this crazy stuff. Why was I even born? Was it only to have trouble and sorrow and to end my life in disgrace? And little did Jeremiah know and some of you may have faced this before that I don't know why I'm even here. I don't know why I'm going through all these issues and I want to tell you that the why is real. That we can ask the why but do you know who understands the why better than we do? God Himself. And it doesn't make our why any less real. It doesn't make our question any less valid. But we're in this place where we're struggling with why does this happen and you're trying to figure out a solution or a fact. And here's the fact of the matter. When I got that phone call from my mom saying that my dad was entering the hospital, I knew I had to get some clarity from my father-in-law who's a doctor and told me to get in the car to go see my dad. But I knew it was the end. And here's the fact of the matter. It's our time is always going to be up at some point. And it doesn't mean you can't ask the question why but it's going to happen. I have been pastoring for over 20 years now and I've done many funerals and many funerals from people older and younger and middle aged and I can tell you that we want to ask the question all the time. Why did this happen? Why didn't God step in and do something? I've seen him do this stuff. I've seen him do miracles. I've read about the miracles. Why didn't he do it this time? And that's the question that we're wrestling with that Jeremiah wrestled with and Jeremiah ended up writing two books in the Old Testament. Why was I born? You wouldn't have two books in the Old Testament if he wasn't born. But he still dealt with trouble and sorrow. This is Jesus himself. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You asked the question why is this happening? Why am I going through this struggle of this suffering? And I can tell you very clearly that the reason why is because this earth is broken. The Bible is very clear that this was created, that the earth was created by God to be paradise, to be perfection. But then sin came into the world and destroyed all of that. The reason why it's broken, the reason why you have broken relationships, the reason why we have broken government, the reason why we have wars and strife, the reason why we go through all these sufferings is because of sin entering the world and it's broken. But can I tell you something that the reason Jesus was on the cross speaking these words is because God's intent for you to live in paradise with him in the beginning is still his purpose today. It's still his mission today. That Jesus came on a rescue mission to take you out of this broken world into the perfect world in heaven to come. Do you believe that? Only a few of you. Because even Jesus himself when he's on the cross, this is the fourth statement that Jesus makes on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It literally says the the Elogean say that when he's hanging on the cross that when he, the Bible says that Jesus became sin. And you need to understand something that a holy God and sin do not go together. They are separated. A holy God cannot be in the presence of sin. So when Jesus became sin, there was a separation for the very first time between Jesus the Son and God the Father. And in that moment, Jesus realized that there was more pain that he had never experienced before and that was being in a world without a relationship with God himself. That he despaired in that moment and he said why? And he understands what's going on. I want to tell you this for a second so many times again when we ask the question why we read the scriptures and we want, we see the scriptures, we see God, we see what God did with Noah and we see what he did with Abraham and we see what he did with Moses parting the waters and we see all the miracles that are happening and when we face these issues and we're praying for a miracle, we're praying through suffering and we're wondering well why did they get the miracle and I didn't? And we see even in Hebrews 11, you go and read it, there's all, it's the heroes of the faith right? We're looking at these heroes of the faith and we're like we want to be like them. We want to experience what God did in their lives in this moment when we're asking our why. We want God to rescue us. We want him to deliver us and here's what happened if we read the end of that Hebrews chapter 11 it says, but there were others and so many of us don't realize that there were others who were tortured, who were persecuted and mistreated like you and I are. The world was not even worthy of them. They were so good and yet they were mistreated and tortured. They wandered in deserts and mountains. These were people of faith that God is commending living in caves and in holes in the ground. These guys, these people of faith were all commended for their faith yet none of them received what had been promised. In other words, they were people of faith expecting a miracle. They were people of faith expecting God to do something in their time, in their moment and they began to ask God why didn't we get what the others received? And that's because there was something on the other side of the promise that wasn't gonna happen in their lifetime but it was gonna happen in the lifetime to come since God had planned something even better for us that only together with us would they be made perfect. That God has something better. That God is outside of time and you're wondering why your little finite brain in time is wondering why is this happening? But God was never shocked. God was never wondering, man how did I not see this coming? But there was something better on the other side because guess what? He has, he will and he will continue. He has, he will and he will continue even in the midst of your why. God has something better. When I have been in moments with families who are grieving who have lost a loved one and that's the biggest one like can we be honest? That's the biggest one that people always ask about. We go through problems, we lose our jobs, we might lose our houses. Man talk about safe families. Can you imagine being a parent and being looked in the eye and saying hey we're taking your kids? And in the foster care system they're probably never coming back but that's why safe families exist so we can get them back with the families. That's just a little side note but can you imagine? Like I spend time with families who have lost loved ones and one of the things that we don't, they begin to, they have sorrow, they have grief, they're struggling with what's going on and what's how did this happen and maybe if I would have done my diet better or maybe they would have done this a little differently they would have made it through and but one out of one of us dies. But God doesn't want us, listen to me clearly, God is on a mission to rescue us from the broken world and the broken issues and the strife and pain that our world has and he's on a rescue mission to take us back to paradise and for those who have lost a loved one, man that is God's goal is to take us back to his promised land to get us back into paradise, to get back into heaven, into relationship with him. And so we can be in those moments and we need to remind each other when we go through those issues, when we host funerals here it can be one of the most beautiful things in the world when we get to tell our families who are grieving that their son, their daughter, their wife, their husband, their mother or father, whoever, their friend, that they're never more alive than they are right now in the presence of Almighty God. In Paradise where there is no sickness, there's no strife, there's no economic problems, there's no bill paying hello, there's no weather issues. You know the Bible, we have weather issues, do you know why the weather issues are happening? Because this is a broken world and it came to be because of sin and God doesn't want us in it, he wants us into paradise and so someday, how many of y'all remember the old hymn, I'll fly away. I can't really sing it. Like there's something beyond, there's something better on the other side. So when this life falls apart I must keep my eyes focused on the life to come. That it's gonna, that it's all gonna be worked out, that I'm gonna go through these troubles. It's not a matter of when it's gonna happen, it's going to happen. Do not be uninformed. I am positive it's gonna happen but when this life falls apart I must keep my eyes on the life to come. Here's the next one, it's surrender. Surrender is when you've been in that mode of struggling, trying to figure it out. Why, why, why? And surrender is when you literally give it over and you say I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna keep white knuckling this issue. I'm gonna surrender it. And do you know that one of the most, one of the most dangerous sicknesses that we have in our world today that we're actually gonna talk about over the next two weeks is depression and anxiety and really that comes because of lack of surrender. It's because you're white knuckling. You, my staff always tells me that they don't love when I use this illustration but I'm gonna use it. It's the chewing of the cud. Because one of the greatest issues that we have in our world today is, is this idea of ruminating. It's, it's rumination. It's really, it's literally when you begin to ruminate on those thoughts over and over and over again. You, you don't get past the why. You, you, you, you want to, you want to experience the other side of the why. You want to experience the better but you won't let it go. And like a cow, choose the cud. You, you ever, you ever pass a field and you see it. Have you ever noticed the cow is always chewing? And the reason why it's always chewing is because they're, they, they do this thing called regurgitation. They, they chew it. They swallow it. They chew it some more. They swallow it. They chew it. And how many of y'all know like it doesn't get better each time it comes up. Like it gets worse. It gets grosser. That's what you and I are doing when we were ruminate on these thoughts. When over and over and over again we, we just keep it. We keep going why, why, why, or why is this happening? Or man, we just keep going back over and over and over again. And we wonder why we become so sick in our, in our minds. It's, it's because of this idea of rumination. And, and, and, and here's the point. The antidote to that is surrender. Like the most powerful thing you can ever do in your entire life is this. It's trust in the Lord. It's five letters, trust. And here's why this is so important. Because you can't trust anybody or anything like you can and should trust the Lord. Like, like, let me put it a different way. How many of y'all fully trust our government? How many of y'all fully trust your boss? Is that me? How many of y'all fully trust your kids? How many of y'all fully trust your friends, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your wife, your husband? How many of you fully trust that addiction you've gone to thinking that it would fulfill you? That would handle the problems that you're dealing with, that alcohol, that, that weed, that, that, that, that drug, that, that pornography. You can't trust anything or anybody completely. You can trust God. And so we've got to surrender the things that we go through. We got to stop white-knuckling everything about our life and trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. And in all your ways, here's the word submit, means surrender to Him. And He will make your path straight. Here's the point. You want to try to find peace for your soul and for your mind, for your body, for your situation, but you're not gonna find it in each other all the time. You're not gonna find it in yourself. You can't trust yourself. Trusting God is the only pathway to peace. It's, it's surrender. You want to know if you're wondering why we, why we have people who raise their hands and worship. First of all, it's scriptural that we do that, that we're bowing down to God Himself, that we're worshiping Him and not ourselves. We're not worshiping each other. You're certainly not worshiping me. Can I tell you something? You may have honored me today, but I promise you if you stay here longer, long enough, I will let you down. That's a fact. Because you didn't come here to worship me. You came here to worship God. And you shouldn't put all of your trust in me. I'm gonna do my best. And I will, I will hopefully share with you my flaws and the issues and, and things that I'm learning and things, but you can't, I am not a hundred, I cannot trust myself. I need God. Because trusting God is the pathway to peace. Here's the fifth one. This is the one of the hardest ones is sanctification. That when you go through these things, God wants to do something with it. Not just on the outside, but inside you. We continue to shout our praise. Have you ever walked into church or, or somewhere on a Sunday morning and they're just all leaving? What was I saying? Have you ever walked in and go, hey, how you doing? And they're like, I'm good. Is that the normal response? I'm good. Have you ever walked in and said, hey, how you doing? And everyone and someone said, my life sucked this week. I just can't wait to tell you about it. You guys didn't even know what to do with that, did you? We continue to shout praise even when we were hemmed in with troubles. James, we went through a whole, a whole series on James, right? And James, the, the book of James, James says, I consider it pure joy when I face trials and troubles of many kind. And here's why I know this is powerful. If I were to, if I were to ask you a question, I was, I was hemmed in with troubles because we know how troubles can develop passionate patients in us that when we go through these troubles and trials, God actually uses it for good. He does something in us to change us and to grow us. If I were to sit you down in a, in a, in a cafe out there and have a conversation with you and I asked you the question, man, can you tell me one of the most important moments of your entire life, like, like something you look back on in my mind, this man, this is this, this thing, man, I learned so much from this particular experience. I guarantee you, most of you will not talk about the great thing that happened or how you just succeeded beyond all expectation. You will tell me a story about how you were struggling or went through a trouble and you came out better because of it. Because God does something. That God is always working. When you're asking the why and you're wondering in the moment of your trouble and trial and, and in your moment of suffering, God sees it all. He, the Bible says that God is the beginning and the end and even if you can't see the end, God does see the end. And he knows what's happening and he knows what he's doing. And can I tell you something? He's got you. He loves you. The Bible says he will never leave you nor forsake you.

And he wants to do something in you that even in the midst of pain, something is happening. God is doing something and patience, man, in turn it, it forges the tempered steel of virtue. This is, this is building your character. This is the stuff your entire life is built upon. Keeping us alert for whatever God's gonna do next. That there is actually something on the other side of the pain. That he knows is coming. So be truly glad there's wonderful joy ahead. You may not see it in the moment, but he will see you through it to the other side. And even though you have to endure many trials for a little while, these trials will show that your faith is genuine. It's being tested as fire tests and purifies gold. In other words, man, all the heat and the pressure, it's, man, if you know everything about a goldsmith, he keeps turning up the heat. And if you have ever seen gold in its rawest form, it's dirty, it's ugly, it's got chips, it's warped, it's not, it's a big old chunk of, it doesn't, it doesn't look like the gold rings on your finger or in your ears or on your teeth. Just popped in my head and thought I should say it. But when the trials and troubles come, the heat gets turned up and all the crap begins to surface. And when you trust God, you allow him to show you those things that aren't right and aren't good. You give it to him, you surrender it to him, you allow him to sanctify you and you begin to let him change you. And just like gold is being purified through the fire, God is purifying you through the trials and through the troubles and through the suffering. That iron sharpens iron, that it can, it can do this, but you'll come out sharper with more character on the other side. He purifies gold, though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. In other words, you're more important than that thing. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. He's beginning in the end. My pain is either a jail that imprisons me or it can be a school that shapes me. Here's the sixth one. And this is what so many people have experienced when they've gone through these things. The sixth one is, is service. Like God can actually do something through your pain. You don't believe it, let me show you. Praise be to God, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all of our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort that we ourselves received. That thing you went through, that thing that God brought you through, that He brought you in the relationship with others you came back to church for. Maybe you're like, man, I tried chasing all these things to fix my problems and my pain and it wasn't working and you came back to God and he saw you through it. You got on the other side of pain. You were comforted by God to then be a comfort to others. You know, one of the most powerful things that happens in the church isn't that you get to hear from me. It's that when you get to hear from each other, it's when you get into a group and our whole church is built on the idea of we don't want you to do life alone. We want you to have relationships where you can be known and know other people. You can come alongside of each other and help each other and one of the most powerful things that happen in these groups is you realize that whatever trial or trouble that you're going through, whatever suffering you've been through, that there is someone here that has already been through it and can look at you in the eyes and can tell you you're not alone. That thing you're facing right now, let me tell you what happened to me six months ago. Let me tell you what happened to me ten years ago. Guys, one of the most powerful things that happens in church is over and over and over again. We've become comforted by those around us who have already been comforted by God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ, if we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer and our hope for you is firm because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort, we get to have both. We suffer together, we enjoy comfort together, we suffer together, we enjoy comfort together, we suffer together, we enjoy comfort together.

Full Sermon Transcript

directions Today's topic is an important one. It's the topic of how do I overcome fear? How do I overcome fear? We all have fear. We all face it. And honestly today what I want to get to is I want to show you the biblical example of how do I overcome fear because there is an industry out there that's writing all sorts of what? Self-help books and how to get over this and get over that and man they sell out because y'all want to know the answer to these questions of how to overcome some of these things. And so I got to show you this out of the Bible. Here's the greatest verse that you can see in the Bible about fear. It comes from Joshua 1.9 when God says, have I not commanded you be strong and courageous to which a lot of us say well that's that's easier said than done right? But we want to be that way. And God says do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Be strong and courageous. I love if you study fear at all about the scriptures. Scholars have said that that there's literally 365 references in scripture specific scriptures that address fear. I don't know about you but I think that's fascinating because it's literally 365 times for 365 days that we're gonna face stuff in our lives and to overcome fear. And so this is what we're after. We're after a life that allows us to become strong and courageous. Now if you study fear which most of us don't right we didn't go to college to study fear but if you're a psychologist or maybe a sociologist you study some of these things maybe you're a psychiatrist and there is actually a hierarchy of fear like things that we're afraid of. There's a hierarchy and some are more intense than others and some of us we all have it but maybe not at the same degrees. And so I want to show you that today and the first one is fear of death. Now this one is is I think pretty common to just about everybody. Now we don't necessarily walk around every single day afraid of dying but we as humans know that that that one out of one humans we we die and so we know that this is coming. And so we might not think about it every single day of every single moment. It might not be a paralyzing fear for us but the reality is that at some point in your life you think about the fear of dying the fear of death. It's a reality and so that is a fear and this these honestly these kind of these these kind of build off of each other. Here's the second one it's the fear of injury right when lumped into this particular group is when man you're all sorts of afraid of insects and man right now I have right a seven-year-old seven-year-old and a five-year-old girl and the seven-year-old man you you can't get her outside to play right now because every time she sees a bumblebee she's just terrified. Or every night right she's she wants mom and dad to check for for spiders how many of y'all afraid of spiders? I said spiders spiders Tim Geddings raised his hand loud and proud he's afraid of spiders so obviously his kids aren't calling him to come take care of it. How many of y'all are afraid of snakes right snakes you're afraid of injury of any kind this is actually where if you were to go to the doctor you have something going on with you that that may be not diagnosed or you don't know what's happening right what do you start to do you start to Google everything and you start to look at every single symptom and and that actually begins to build up more fear in you because you're afraid of that diagnosis you're afraid of what's going on and and so you begin to build this fear and that's where we find fear of injury here's the third one it's fear of immobilization this one is where you would get those who are claustrophobic right I remember back in the day I was in high school and I actually went to this is the most ridiculous thing in my life but I went to a kicking camp right because I was a kicker right on a football team I went to a kicking camp and and these guys I don't know what they were thinking but they wanted to to like escape the kicking camp and go somewhere and to make poor decisions let's just put it that way and they decided they were going to pack into this guy the back of this guy's pickup well the pickup was closed like it had a top on it and and they were gonna pack us into this backside of the truck and and I got into it and it the minute that door began to close I was like I'm getting out of you so I got a kicking camp right I kicked the door open I got out and and honestly I've been a somewhat a fear of this immobilization this is all also like if you've ever been afraid of have you ever thought about what if I were to go to jail what if I were to go to prison and that clank that you this is that fear the fear of not being able to to move about there's fear of isolation there's so many of you you're paralyzed by the fear of of what if this person found out who I really am and man that's an isolation fear you're afraid of being rejected you're you're afraid of man what if I am alone forever there's a fear there and you're afraid of what's gonna happen and here's the here's the fifth one it's the fear of humiliation right this one is the top fear if you were to study it really it really anyone who studies fear the top fear of all of them is the fear of public speaking and the reason for that is because you you feel exposed you're like man I can use you're all looking at me and and what could like what if something happens that that's embarrassing like you know several months ago I actually was in we were still in Madeline High School and my fly was down in the middle of service and I don't know if it was Kelsey or Taylor or the combination of the two they kept doing this from the front row which isn't distracting at all and and then I'm like what do I do because I'm exposed here and so you can go back and watch the message I don't have any doubt any doubt that our team is gonna go find the film and show it on social media this week but I kept doing this all service because I didn't know what else to do with myself and it's a good thing that I just you know it I've just learned to laugh at myself because the things you know it just happens but we have this we have this fear of humiliation and it's a hierarchy but I got to tell you something so many times when we think about fear and in dealing with these particular issues is that we we deal with maybe the symptoms of them or we we try to treat them from a very superficial level a shallow level and so that's where the self-help books come in and and we start to learn like what should I do to overcome this and overcome this but really there's a deeper issue that's going on inside of us I gotta tell you something that Satan our enemy has a mission with fear like fear has a mission and let me put it this way fear is actually a spirit behind everything that you're dealing with the fear is wanting to suppress you the fear the spirit of fear wants to suppress who you are and who you're called to be and what you're capable of doing in God and and so fear suppresses you but but faith right on the opposite side it blesses you and allows you to step into how God has created you and who he has created you to be and so that's what we're after today is we want to get past this spirit of fear and get into the the faithfulness and the and the faith faith filledness of believing that God is capable and so when I when we talk about this for a second I want to go to the book of what is the book judges and it's honestly if you know the story of Gideon it's one of my favorite stories in all the Bible it's a fantastic if you don't know that the name Gideon it's it's you know you know those guys that hand out the Bibles the Gideon's Bibles like this is the story behind the Gideon people and so they're there and so this is this is where we're at judges sick sick says this the angel of the Lord came down and and sat under the oak tree in Ophra that's not Oprah it's Ophra that belonged to Joe Ash the abysri and here is what happens Joe Ash right Joe Ash's son is there Gideon and he was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites now the Midianites were constantly attacking the Israelite people and so they had built up this this this healthy maybe unhealthy dose of fear that that they have they had opposition coming their way they had an enemy that was coming their way and if you read this scripture very quickly you don't really understand what's happening but but if you know anything about threshing wheat like like you don't do that in a wine press well what is a wine press a wine press is actually dug into the ground and it's it's literally a pit so so Gideon is in this pit and he's trying to thresh wheat well well what happens with when you when you thresh wheat you really want to be an open-air situation either on a mountain or out in the field because when you thresh wheat what you're trying to do is you're trying to get the grain separated from all the chaff is what it's called you're trying to separate all the crappy useless stuff from the good stuff which is the grain and so here's where Gideon is Gideon is trying to get the grain but he's doing in the wine press why is that bad because when you sift wheat you want the wind to be able to to pick up and take all the chaff away from the good stuff so you need to be threshing wheat in open air so you have the wind to support it are you following what I'm saying and so Gideon is in a position in a pit threshing wheat trying to do the things he needs to do to care for himself and his family but the reason he's there is because he's afraid of the Midianites Gideon is is hiding and how many of us we live our lives right when we're fearful we we end up hiding from it and we don't actually step out and live the life God wants us to live because we're afraid and this is where we find Gideon and so watch what happens the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and he said here's the here's a statement of faith Gideon the Lord is with you mighty warrior I love God and here's one of the reasons why I love God is because God doesn't call you who you think you are he calls you who he says you are Gideon is in the wine press he's in the pit he's afraid he's full of fear and God steps in and says you're not afraid I am with you and you are a mighty warrior he's speaking faith into vidians in into vidians into Gideon's life but what happens how does Gideon respond even to God into the angel of the Lord what does he say he says pardon me my Lord he's trying to be respectful getting replied but if the Lord is with us why is all this happening now how many of y'all have asked that question have been in that place like what why is all of this happening and how many of y'all know if you've read the scriptures that everything that God says that God promises does come to pass like God everything everything in scripture that God has said he will do he has done and yet we find ourselves maybe in the waiting period of wanting God to work and we want him to work now right and so when he doesn't work exactly right now there's probably something else that God is doing he's not waiting on the sidelines he's not he's not just checked out he's doing he is always at work doing something and so this is Gideon's reply well if you were with us man why is this has this happened to us we're where are all the wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said man did not the Lord bring us up out of each ship and so he's he's questioning God he's questioning well are you with us are you not with us and and and here's what is happening Gideon's fear starts to produce in himself an emotion which all too happens in our lives and I'm gonna show you three emotions three things that happens to us when we're living in fear here's the first one or I missed a verse but now the Lord has abandoned us and give us into the hand of Midian it he's angry Gideon is angry at God Giddy is angry at his circumstances I don't know about you but but when things happen in in our lives that that allow us to become fearful we in turn take that into different ways and the first one is Gideon is taking into anger I'll never forget this experience I'm gonna share this maybe a couple times but a few years ago my family and I were vacationing up north in Boyne City and and there's a beach there and we were hanging out at the beach and and and off in the distance there it's kind of roped off the beach the swimming areas roped off and they have what is it a blob is that what it's called or it's like a trampoline thing that just sits out in the water you picturing what I'm what I'm saying well my wife had just had our second child Gracie May and she was an infant I don't know exactly well she was born in September so she was probably nine ten months doesn't matter whatever and and and Harper decides man she wants to go out to this trampoline she wants to go check it out well I'm like I'm the man I'm Dan I'm Ryman man and and I'm just gonna take her out I'm gonna swim out I'm gonna take Harper out well we get out there and it's it's no longer like I cannot stand on dry ground so I'm swimming Harper doesn't have a life jacket I don't have a life jacket we start to climb up this thing and and and Harper's fear starts to take over and so she starts I'm holding on to the thing she starts to jump back on me and not go up so she does this again and again I'm trying to get her up on the thing she keeps jumping back on me well as big and tough and bad as I am that is exhausting over time to the point where I need to make a decision I neither even need to somehow figure out how to get up or go back in well I decided to go back in and and and and this is this is embarrassing and humiliating at the same time but Harper was in such distress that she kept flopping around kicking me elbowing me they say this about people that are drowning to the point where I begin to sink and she began to sink and we're not far from shore but but but Kelsey is out there trying to have this baby and she doesn't have a life jacket I don't have a life jacket so finally I'm trying to get as far as I can and I'm sinking and I begin I just take one I'm yelling help help help and I take one last heave and I toss Harper cuz I'm like if if at least I can do is just kind of gather myself and then come back and get her but I have to get her safe and so I toss her and she gets rescued but can I tell you something that particular experience has allowed me to have fear when it comes to my child because I don't want her to to to to get hurt I don't want her to drown I was at a football game this weekend with my family and it was homecoming at Madeline High School and there's people everywhere and and Kelsey's carrying our son and I got our two daughters and and it guys if you've been to a high school football game or college like it is it's crazy and I'm like these are little kids and they're good-looking little kids let's be honest and so I'm like girls hold my hand not and then they say I'm not holding your hand and I don't know if that's like I don't want to be seen with you I don't know whatever I don't care what the reason is but at this point my as my dad instincts I'm afraid I'm afraid of they could get lost I'm afraid of they could get hurt I'm afraid they could get taken and so what is what is my response I'm starting to get ticked off at my daughters because of anger anger is the secondary emotion anger is the secondary issue the issue is fear and too many too often we try to what we try to treat the anger we try to treat those things that are actually a secondary issue not the main issue and so that's what why why we're talking about this today then it goes on in Gideon's story it says the Lord turned to him and said go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Medians hand here Gideon you're hiding in a pit I've called you a mighty warrior I have I have called you to do this great thing go out and save Israel out of Midian's hand am I not sending you how many have how many times of God called you to do something and and you're just kind of hesitant because you start thinking man I don't know if I can do it I think it's I think the statistics is six sixty three percent of women wake up every day with the the the blank of I'm not good enough I'm not beautiful enough I'm not capable enough I'm not whatever enough 63% of women wake up every day with that thought do you know what the thought every every man wakes up thinking do I have what it takes do I have what it takes to be a godly man do I have what it takes to be a godly husband do I have what it takes to earn and and to be a provider for my family do I have what it takes to be a good dad or a good husband do I have what it takes and this is what Gideon is gonna say to us is pardon me my lord Gideon replied but how can I save Israel my clan is the weakest in Manasseh he begins to throw a pity party for himself he's saying man and this is all true his clan was the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family he's thinking about his circumstances he's thinking about what he has done and what he's capable of doing he's not thinking about who God is and what God is capable of and so how many of you find yourselves in this particular position of insecurity like like fear has a way of making you insecure like you're not gonna step out because it's again fear is diminishing and suppressing who God wants you to be and so it's again it's a secondary issue how many people in I'm so I'm so proud of this but how many of you have have never taken a step of faith with God because you're afraid you can't measure up maybe it's it's leaving that particular thing and you think you're gonna you're gonna fail you're like man I have this addiction I want to work through it but you're not even willing to take that step because you're you're just afraid you're gonna fail you don't think you can overcome it how many of you have been in a situation where we're talking about discovery and you're like man I don't know I I don't know what what if they find out who I am and man what I've done and what I did last night and and man I don't know if I can measure up to this and listen to me God calls people as who he says they are not who they actually are and he brings us into the people that we are to become this is insecurity this is this is fear-based living and so this is the second one first is anger that the fear produces the second one is insecurity let's keep going in the judges story of Gideon the Lord answered I will be with you he says it over and over and over again and he's saying that to you today I'm with you every step week we repeat this to our kids all the time when they're going to school we repeat it when they're going out in the yard when when they're facing their fears whether it's the bumblebees or whether it's the crickets or you know whatever I don't know what it is it's funny because they'll pick up frogs and they'll play with turtles and they'll do all sorts of things but when it comes to my wife is it's snakes for my wife for me it's fear of heights I guess I could point back to so many different experiences my life have you guys ever been to Willis tower in Chicago and some of those things heck to the no like I'm not doing that there's there's a picture of me I was a senior I just graduated from high school and I got to go to Europe on a track team and we we went up the Eiffel Tower and there's a picture of me standing at the Eiffel Tower it's one of the old-school pictures from that like remember those phones you got where you'd like oh man have we come a long ways haven't we but it's one of those pictures and there's there's two of my teammates standing next to me just smiling and just this is the greatest thing ever and I'm like holding the side going so we need to be reminded we need to be reminded over and over of who God is and what he's called us to be and what he's called us to do and how to step out of fear to overcome the spirit of fear and have faith because this the Lord is answering he's saying these are words of faith these are statements of faith that God is speaking over getting I will be with you and you will strike down all the mediate's mediate's media nights the mediate's were mediate's leaving none alive but Gideon replied okay if now I have found favor in other words man he hasn't heard that the Lord has favor with him already the Lord is already speaking faith over his life getting replied if now after my rebuts the last couple times if now I've found favor in your eyes give me a sign that is really you talking to me give me a sign how many of us we need that confirmation we need that solid and the Bible says like like we have faith we have faith in in an unseen God but man we see him clearly at work like this is this is what faith is but we want to see control please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you and the Lord said I will wait until you return he's gonna be with him and here's the third response that a lot of us have to fear and the response is control like we got to manage every single thing we want to we got we got a white knuckle every single little bit of our finances like the world we see the world and we see the news and we see all that's happening and and man is is Congress gonna man get over this hump and man I mean are we gonna be able to have a budget I mean how many trillions of dollars are we in debt how is that gonna work man I'm only $500 in debt and I feel like I'm being swallowed alive and and then we see all the issues in our nation and we're afraid of terrorism and we're afraid of people robbing us and we're afraid of all these things and and man so what do we do we white knuckle our lives and we try to control it so fears response that we have is is is anger it comes out in insecurity and it comes out in control have you ever been to on a vacation to where there are bears in the last couple of weeks I don't know what it is but we've been to the beach a lot and I'm just kind of over it it's probably my skin tone I'm tired of getting burnt all the time but we're we're literally planning I'm planning to be honest here I'm planning our summer vacation with our kids and we started looking at could we go to Canada could we go to the Rocky Mountains could we go to the well that is that is potentially Canada could where were we talking about Gatlinburg could we go to the Smoky Mountains and really I'm if I'm being honest my my goal is can can the kids see something else besides a beach and water like could they see the majesty of of God's creation in a different way and and a part of me has been like man it'd be really cool if we could see some fun animals whether it's moose in the wilde or bears or whatever but if you've ever been to Yellowstone Park or any of those places where there are bears one of the first things they do is they bring you aside and they tell you what not to do and what to do when you're faced with a bear now most of you're like you're gonna run for the hills and so I'm thinking myself how would I respond would I would I would I would I run if I saw a bear well I at first glance I was thinking about this well I could probably run faster than my wife I could probably run faster than my seven-year-old daughter I could probably run faster than I'm still faster than you and so right we have these it's fight or flight right or am I gonna might get a duke this guy out and win or am I gonna flee and run but and so that's why they got to teach you what are you gonna do you got to stand firm they teach you you got to stand still okay there's a bear right there and I hope he doesn't smell the pee that's running down my leg welcome me to life church where I'm gonna say anything and then they teach you what it's really convenient that they sell bear spray right like it's it's how they keep the parks open I think but that's that so we were facing fear and and we want to control it but we got to learn how to live differently we got to learn how to do things differently we get and this is why it's a spiritual battle that we need to learn how to handle because Satan wants to use fear to take you down and to take you out like are you gonna be Gideon in the wine press hiding from all the issues are you gonna create this culture in your family where your where your kids are afraid of everything because you're afraid of everything are we gonna learn to face it the way God wants us to face it it's I want to I want to use this acrostic how many all love the old-school acrostic the first one is is you can even write it down in your notes it's gonna be s t o p no no nope nope it's spot I said that wrong it's s p s p o t wow I'm a hot mess this is humiliating so the first one is stay in your ground right like the like the bear like you you know what you're supposed to do you know what you're you you've been trained in it you know what's coming what did what happened in the book of Exodus Moses answered the people do not be afraid again they were fleeing from Egyptian captivity and the armies of Pharaoh were coming after them and do not be afraid Moses said stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today and so those those those Israelites are standing there right there they're at the waters and and the army is coming upon them and Moses saying chill out the Lord is gonna deliver us well we're I guarantee you that I think those people the Israelite people were probably having that fight-or-flight moment like we either need to like jump in the water and go or we need to stand up and be ready to fight but God had a different plan Moses says do not be afraid stand firm and you're gonna see the deliverance of the Lord the Egyptians you see today you will never see again the Lord will fight for you you need only to be still now how many of us we've been in church a long time and we've heard the words of God we've heard the promises of God and yet they seem to escape us maybe you're just checking this thing out and you got to know something that we serve an all-powerful God we serve a God of miracles one that can do anything and everything that he ever says he literally speaks and he creates the mountains he speaks and the heavens are created you are you and I have been created by him by the sound of his voice intimately and the Bible says all sorts of beautiful things in the face of fear right that we can believe and trust in God that we are co-heirs and conquerrs with Christ Jesus that we don't have to be afraid of death because Jesus has conquered death can I get an amen he says that we are the head and not the tail we are above and not beneath that he is with us every single step of the way but fear wants to destroy that wants to take us out he wants to he wants to diminish us but the Lord do you believe this the Lord will fight for you you need only to be still the second one is we need to pray for peace the first one is stand your ground and the second one is pray for peace pray for God's circumstances to come in the midst of that trial Philippians do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving percent present your request to God in other words you're telling God what you're feeling you're telling God what you're facing maybe maybe it is a crisis of health maybe it is you're faced facing one of those those those issues of having the injury or humiliation maybe it's isolation it's it's literally telling God it's giving it to him it's praying to him but all too often what we try to do is right we come out we see it happening and fear takes over and we become angry and we become we that was the second one insecure and we try to fight through this in different ways but we got to go to God with prayer God knows what's happening but he wants to hear from you and you know what's amazing about worship is worship has this ability of when we worship God we it's not that our problems get smaller it's that God in our eyes gets bigger it's that we begin to see God for who he really is that we can come into this place and we realize that that in the face of Almighty God that the trials and the struggles that we're going through are quite small and they're quite temporary and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus when the enemy is trying to bring fear in your life to suppress your faith we need faith to fight back to begin to to get over it here's the third one we got to object to lies you got to realize that you have an enemy of your soul that's that's constantly whispering to you that you're not enough that you're not good enough that that you'll never be forgiven that you'll you'll never overcome that issue that you're dealing with that maybe God has planted in you a calling on your life and you begin to think that you're insecure or you think that man I'm afraid I can't do it or you become isolated because you don't know how to deal with it you got to object to those lies you got to fight your fear with God's truth with God's faithful words and so we got to object to the lies and replace it with what God really says we demolish arguments second Corinthians says and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought and we make it obedient to Christ this is what God actually says are we gonna live in fear we're gonna live in in faith here's the last one we're gonna trust in God I'll never forget this as I read the story of Gideon years and years and years ago I was in student ministry I was reading it because I was very intently because I was about to preach it and I think about the story of he's in the pit and he's afraid and he's got this enemy that's coming at him and and God calls him he says man you're a you're a mighty warrior and how many of you are in this room today and you feel like Gideon you're in the pit you're hiding from one of those fears from from death from injury from isolation from immobilization from humiliation what is it and you see it playing out in your life and anger and insecurity and control and God continually speaks to you through his word through worship through the people of God words of faith and not fear

will you trust him will you trust him no matter what because Gideon man he he got out of the pit and he starts to have this conversation with God he's God saying man I'm gonna I'm gonna take you out and you're gonna have this army with you to go against the Midianites and it was quite a substantial army and he's like okay I got these people with me I'm not alone and I got God on my side and and then God starts to like whittle down the army he's like okay I'm gonna give you 10,000 I'm gonna take that down to 300 excuse me what 300 people in the midst of this massive army the point of Gideon's story isn't that Gideon was all that it's that God was and God is and what he promises he will always fulfill he will always win but we need faith over our fear so Psalm 56 says when I am afraid I put my trust in you God and God who whose word I praise and God I trust and I'm not afraid what can mere mortals do to me when I have God on my side friends it is time to fight because my future your future is on the other side of your fear let's pray together Heavenly Father we love you we thank you for your word we thank you that we when we come into this place we can be filled with faith that literally by the preaching of your word and by worship we can see our lives and where we're living it and we can respond in faith to who you have called us to be and what you've called us to become it's a right here and right now I pray for everyone in the room that that they would see their fear as just false evidence that's appearing real but that your truth your statements of faith that you've spoken over our lives God that no weapon no weapon formed against us will prosper God that you are for us and that you are not against us so if you are not if you are for us then who can be against us God so we put our trust in our faith in you to overcome our fear and to step into the faith that you've called us to live

Full Sermon Transcript

Jesus told us believers that we were to go into all the world and to make disciples to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teaching them we're supposed to teach the world how to obey what God has commanded us to do and how to live and so my question really last week was well how do we live up to that particular verse that Jesus gives us if we're not willing to actually stand up in culture and teach people what God says and vote how God says and engage in our world how God says and so that's kind of what we talked about last week and but this week I want to give you some handles on who to vote for you're like you're not doing that right I'm actually not doing like I'm not gonna tell you hey you're gonna vote for this candidate or this candidate I'm gonna help you to have a godly filter for how you look at the candidates that that present themselves to you in any election and so if you're a note taker I think it's a great day to to take notes but I want to start with this verse found in first Timothy because this is what God has to say about our leaders someone's happy clicky you didn't even get me a chance oh I'm sorry I didn't even touch it yet let's guys I have a problem with the screen let's see if the screen wants to work today are you doing it for me yes she came to work

Timothy says this he says I urge you that's us first of all to pray for all people we're to pray for each other and ask God to help them we're going to intercede on their behalf and give thanks to God for them how many times do you do you give thanks for for your fellow brother and sister even if they're on the opposite side of the aisle pray this way also for kings and all who are in authority so I love that word authority when I think about authority I think about families I think about the the authority and families do you pray for your father and your mother kids adult kids do you still pray for your father and your mother do you when you think about school do you pray for your teachers your your coaches your your principals can I get an amen my brother-in-law he's not in here all right he doesn't get prayer today but your superintendents your school boards you think about do you pray for man your your city councils your your township councils do you do you pray for them do you do you pray for your mayors do you pray for for for governors and in our in our leadership in the house in the senate in michigan do you pray for leaders because god is telling us that we're supposed to pray for all who are in authority I love this I love this word all because in the original greek language it literally means all I hope that works better in the second service all who are in authority why why are we to do that so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives who doesn't want that like like who doesn't want to live that kind of life and here's the key to it when it's when we when we when we pray this way it will be marked by godliness and dignity so I asked the question today and we were talking about this because you and I have a responsibility as christ followers to do what god has commanded us to do and so if you ask the question christ follower man if we've elected this leader or that leader and they're ungodly where does that responsibility lie it lies with you and me because we elected them we we might not have prayed for them we may not have have have sought a grid for how we should see people and so that's what we're going to do today we're going to look at what does god have to say about this particular thing because there is one god and one meteor mediator who can reconcile god and humanity to himself demand christ jesus he gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone so so how do we live our life and faith in the country that we live in in the world that we live in and under the leadership that we live in how do we vote how do we voice our opinion how do we engage in constructive dialogue and so today i'm going to give you four questions so again if you're a note taker we say that note takers are world changers so take notes i have four questions to ask and and and really we're asking these questions of any potential candidate that's in front of us from school board to the president of the united states but you also need to understand that that you should probably even ask these questions of yourself the first question is the character question do they have character do they have character i love i love i love what what what the bible says it says that we are not fractions of a person we're a whole person and so how are we living our life is it filled with character because proverbs 29 says it this way when the godly are in authority the people rejoice why because the godly people have character but when the wicked are in power the people groan and moan and i don't know about you but i have seen us groaning and moaning in culture and in life for a long time and so i'm asking like is it our politics that are is that fault or is it is our is it isn't our church is it the church of jesus christ who's been silent and not stepping up and stepping out here's the here's the next verse i love second corinthian says god made him this is jesus who had no sin to be sinned for us so that he in him we might become the righteousness of god how do we become righteous it's not it listen it's not that you're just a good guy or a good girl that you're just righteous that you just do all these good works now if that were the case then why would jesus had to have come to lend his live his sinless life and die a sacrificial death on your behalf in other words you can't be righteous without jesus christ and so here's a question the character question if we want to elect godly leaders who lead us to live this peaceful life that that is filled with godliness and and we're going to rejoice the question is are they actually a believer in jesus christ because the only way they're going to be the righteousness of god is if christ himself lives in them and so we have to ask that question the character question again i love that word authority because you have to ask the question of any candidate of who is their authority like like who are they answering to are they answering to themselves are they answering to a political platform a political party or are they answering to god himself because how they live their lives god says in his word that that if you're a believer you will show the world who you are by your fruit by by how you live your life and so you can look at candidates and you can look at their character on on how they're voting how they're leading how do they lead in the marketplace how what kind of lawyers have they been are they family what kind of families do they have how have they lived in character throughout their life can you see a track record of them being under god we're supposed to be one nation under god and yet we're electing leaders that do not have anything to do with god and we're wondering why we're groaning and moaning here's the next one philippian says it this way therefore god exalted jesus to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name again last week i said no matter what political party you vote for or belong to no matter who's in power no matter what nation you live in god is sovereign above them all and there's no escaping this because he is the name that is above every name that at the name of jesus every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth every knee that ever has lived is living and will ever live will bow before the name of jesus the question is have the candidates that are putting themselves out there have they bowed the knee to jesus willingly because how they live their lives is a testament to whether or not that has actually happened in their life and you know this i don't think you have to you know be a rocket scientist or a scholar to know this but our politics are really just after power they're just after who can keep it and who can have it and and so we have this issue of just fighting back and forth did you know i i don't know some of you i i don't always uh my wife's growing in her political acumen right it's you you're you're engaging and and so i don't know if you know this but historically um from the standpoint of platforms of political parties republicans used to be democrats and democrats used to be republicans did you know this did you know that if you look through history what they voted for and what they stood for and it's actually flip-flopped multiple times do you know why because they're just trying to keep power they're just playing games with what they believe in because they just want to say well if the democrats say this then we're going to go the other way and if the republicans say this we're just going to go this way and it's gone back and forth throughout history because they're just trying to obtain power so have they bowed the name the knee to jesus because every knee will bow and every tongue will confess acknowledge that jesus christ is lord to the glory of the father the question of every candidate the question for you in your life is have you willingly done that because i promise you if you haven't your your life is going to be filled with grief and moaning and groaning but if you do you're going to see that you're going to you're going to rejoice because you have god on your side in second peter it says his divine power has given us everything that we need notice it doesn't say the right side or the left side or the donkey or the elephant has given you everything you need now god himself in his design divine power has given us everything we need to live a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and by his goodness here's a here's the question that that you need to ask of of of of the candidates that will will be presented before you and and really the question uh the idea or statement really of your own life ask this question character let me give you a definition character is who you are when no one is looking like like are you doing the godly thing are you doing the right thing because it's the godly thing to do like like you're not doing it to please someone else to or to to please your neighbor or to please your boss or you're not just trying to to to to win the argument or again that's that's where we find ourselves is is is we're politically posturing to find out like okay if the democrats say that then we got to go over here and the republicans say this we got to go over here and and and and then what we see is leaders without character who are mistreating their spouses who are having affairs who are cheating on their own taxes who are cheating on on on maybe investing in certain things because they know the outcome of a law that's about to come and we look at this and we wonder man the character question who they are when no one is looking is who they actually are that's a sobering statement isn't it that literally i i could think of it this way i've often said this throughout the history of the church that if if you could like if you were to see all the sins of dan smith on that screen right now man it would be brutal it man if you could see the sins of of yourself on the screen right now it it would be brutal but character isn't just saying okay i'm a sinner it's saying no i'm not going to do that anymore it's looking at okay i i i used to be this or i i'm struggling with this or i'm sinning in this way and you know what because of god because of the grace of god i'm not doing that anymore why because it's hurting my relationship with god it's hurting my relationship with my wife it's hurting my relationship with my kids and it's hurting the relationship with the people that i'm called to serve and do life with and what's interesting is we just keep doing what we want to do and a lot of times the sinful ways that we live in right we just try to hide it and so who you are character is is is who you are when when no one is looking who you actually are and we're the righteousness of god and christ so when christ comes inside of us he gives us the power he gives us everything we need to overcome the issues that we have the sinful choices that we make we it was stated in the bible right jesus says that a wise man builds his house on the rock but but a a a a foolish man builds his house on sand are you building your house are you building your life on the vibes and the whims of what culture has to say of what the right and the left have to say about what republicans and democrats are vying for power to say are you building your house your life on the rock of jesus christ in his word because the righteousness of god this is what we do we build our houses we build our lives on the rock not on the sand when you think about your own life and when you think about even who you're voting for i like this statement the choices we make choose the consequences we take so again you go back to that that early scripture right in in in in in proverbs 29 too when it says when the godly are in authority the people rejoice but when the wicked are in power they grown and mown who's responsible and i and i and i'm putting it this way because this message is really about it's it's it's going back to last week's messages is where is the church where is the church standing up for what we believe in i love what what what doctor um tony evan said last week that i shared again you got to go watch it i i had to sit down for eight minutes and watch another pastor preach because i couldn't do it justice he said the greatest thing i believe in is the church a believer can ever do is is to vote democrat light and to vote republican light and then we are to as a christian bring the light the light of christ into both political priorities we are supposed to make either side the most godly it can possibly be but where are we what are we doing are we engaged because god told us to go into all the world to make disciples to teach people to everything that he has commanded us to do and so the question is are we as christians the church doing our role because the choices we make choose the consequences that we're going to take here's the second question it's the conviction question what are you convicted by conviction is standing on the foundation of what you believe are you believing in man and and and and its own philosophies and its own ideas about how to live are you living your life built on the rock of jesus christ and his word because one the one way the bible says leads to death and destruction the other one leads to everlasting life the question is your what do you believe proverbs 21 28 1 says the wicked flee though no one pursues but the righteous are as bold as a lion church christian are you bold in the face of adversity are you as bold as a lion in the face of of opinions of people that are going to the right or to the left we're certainly not godly and certainly not built on biblical standards because this is who we're to be the wicked flee that no one pursues but the righteousness are bold as a as a lion can i tell you something we need leaders who christian leaders who are not politicians but are statesmen like they love our country they love but they want the best for our country they want the best for its people they're not serving their own agendas they're not serving their own political parties they're serving god himself and they're serving the people and when the godly are an authority the people rejoice i don't know about you but that's a good place to clap and here's the statement we need leaders who aren't looking for what they can get but what they can give to serve our country we have too many politicians that are just looking after their own well-being we have we have we have lifetime politicians that have served themselves more than they've served you and me and we can't be naive to that matthew 537 when i talk about conviction it's like where do you stand how do you when you see that when you see the things that are out in our country that are that are politicians are debating or what's happening in our country our world what grid do you filter it through do you do you filter it through the the grid of the media because you're going to get a distorted viewpoint are you filtering it through the grid of of what your your friends think or what your parents even think or or even what your co-workers think or are you filtering it through the grid of what does the bible actually say the conviction question jesus puts it this way is you got to know what you believe and then when you know what you believe all you need to say is simply yes or no means you know what to do and how to stand firm and any being anything beyond this is from the evil one guess what you have an evil one who has an army of deceivers out there that are whispering in your ear telling you what is maybe even looks right and feels right but it's not right and so how do you know if it's not right you take it to the word of god some people ask the question well i i heard the holy spirit speak to me i heard god speak to me and god does speak to you i can tell you that for a fact but if you hear a whisper from the holy spirit of god or or something so big and so bold and and you hear it from the holy spirit and you're like what is is that the holy spirit or is that what i ate for lunch i'm not really sure how do you know for sure you take it to the word of god because the holy spirit of god wrote the word of god and the holy spirit will not be in conflict with himself you want to know if you actually heard from god you go to the word of god i think i've someone wanted to clap there yes

i'm gonna move on i was gonna say something but i'll probably get myself in trouble

conviction is follow through conviction means you you you know what it is that is right because of god's word and you you live according to it you're not being swayed by by by people or popular culture or again the media you're you're following through with what god says i like to think about the difference between tolerance and acceptance you know acceptance is man we accept everybody listen i could tell you this from the moment that new life church existed we've opened our doors and we welcomed everyone who would come because can i tell you something after time if if you find if you find out that your life is living against what god says listen that's not tolerable it's not tolerable for me for me do you know what's interesting is is in in in our society in our culture you know if a professional athlete has an affair it's like it's news right it's like it's the end of the world if if a if a ceo has an affair it's like it's brutal but you know what so many so many affairs they it's like in the news but they don't get fired for it guess what if i have an affair i don't have my job anymore you want to know why because i'm a christian because the bible says that that's not good for me it's certainly not good for my wife it's certainly not good for my kids and so there's a protective nature there that is a godly substance and so we accept everybody but but but listen if you're caught in sin if you're living in sin we don't tolerate the sin we love you as the sinner but we're not going to tolerate your sinfulness i've been so thankful over the years of of of my life that i actually had coaches and and and family members that i've had counselors that i have a wife that won't let me get away with things that are sinful in god's eyes that they'll actually speak the truth to me and love and say dude you're messing it you're missing it you're you're you're missing the mark here you're messing up why because the godly this is what the godly do they call each other back into rightness with god we we accept everybody but we don't just tolerate what you're doing with your life because you are a sinner in need of a savior but the savior didn't just come to to leave you the way you are he accepts you for who you are but then he changes you into what he wants you to become let me be abundantly clear on who we accept at new life church we accept homosexuals through this door we accept adulterers through this door we accept fornicators we accept all sorts of sinners and liars we accept prostitutes we accept the prideful we accept for the people that that that don't obey what god says but you know what we accept them we welcome them we'll give them big donuts for for our seventh birthday celebration we'll give them the best coffee we will serve them and love them and help them but we will not tolerate their sin as you will not tolerate my sin because god doesn't do that culture in our political landscape says you have to accept everybody and and approve of their behavior that's not what the church does we we don't applaud or approve the behavior of the fornicator the adulterer the liar the homosexual and or any other sin in our lives we don't applaud that the bible says that god hates sin he loves the sinner but he hates sin first gretien 6-8 says this instead you yourselves cheat and you do wrong and you've done this to your brothers and sisters some of you to your wives or your husbands some of your to to your kids or or do you not know that wrongdoers will and will not inherit the kingdom of god so don't be deceived you won't be inherit the kingdom of god if you're like this neither the sexually immoral not let me stop there for a second because you think sexually immoral and you think homosexual you think transgender but it's also it's also the heterosexual couple that's having sex right now before they're actually married it's it's for the man and the woman who is watching pornography jesus said that when you look at a woman lustfully when you look at a man lustfully in just your mind just your eyes you are committing adultery in your own heart neither the sexually immoral the people that are living each other before marriage nor idolaters like you're putting everything else before god i often think you know some people come to church and they say man i don't know if i like that message and and can i tell you i think the reason why that is most of the time is because you didn't you didn't listen to the previous like five six seven eight messages because i preach in a series and so once one message undo itself you missed a bunch of stuff that you needed to hear from god's word and so you're just getting part of the deal and then you get mad at me because of that because idolatry there's so many idols in our world that are keeping you away from god's house god's word god's people god's church in worship that you're not even hearing the things that you know that you need to be convicted by you you don't know where you're supposed to stand firm because you show up once a month maybe once every couple of months and and listen to me we welcome you we we want you to be here but man if you if you're living a life listen the goodness of god that we spoke about just a moment the goodness of god is also in his correction of your life and of my life i am so grateful for the moments that god's word and god's people have corrected me to become a more godly version of me like i i need this for my life my marriage needs this my kids need this my other schools my kids go need this our culture needs this if you don't think that our world needs christians to become better more godly versions of ourselves we're missing the point of why we even do this in the first place some of you are really i'm gonna smile for a second because i was told sometimes i don't smile and when i get intense it makes you feel like i just you know i do love you but this is we need to hear this and so what do we see that neither the sexually immoral idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men or women who have sex with women let's just make that clear nor thieves nor the greedy wait so we're not just talking about homosexuality we're not just talking about you know transgender we're not just talking about these big huge issues but we're talking about people who just they're just greedy like there's never enough like i just have to have another boat i just have to have another car i just have to have another house i need you to make more money i gotta add more zeros to that bank account what about drunkards man christian man you you you drink alcohol that's fine but do you continually get drunk because you're in this list nor slanders you're slandering other people you're swindlers you're trying to get the good of someone else none of these people will inherit the kingdom of god i hope that's a sobering message for you because it's a sobering message for me and that is what some of you were some of you some of you have stepped out you've you've seen the list of things that you are and that you have been and you're like you know what i'm looking at god's word and this does not measure up to being a godly man or a godly woman so you know what i know that i'm dealing with this but this is not okay according to god's word i'm not just sinning against my father or my brother or my sister or my sons and daughters i'm sinning against god himself and that action is not okay and if you think it's not okay for the politicians that we elect then it's certainly not okay for you and me

and yet as leaders we're like where we look at our leaders and we look at we're like we just want to throw them under the bus and like man president biden is the worst president that's ever existed man president trump even is the worst president have you looked in the mirror oh this is a great message for our seventh year and a birthday

can i tell you something i don't always love what god calls me to preach i don't always love the fact that i'm preaching things that don't make you leave here feeling all warm and fuzzy i want to leave here warm and fuzzy

that's why we have coffee yeah that's why we have coffee and donuts next week we'll have ice cream it'll all be good here's the third question i gotta get moving but you were this is this is what you are though when you're a christ follower you were washed when you became a christ follower you were sanctified you were justified in the name of jesus christ because jesus christ offered his perfection for your sin it's the great exchange so when you put your faith in christ the right you become the righteousness of god in christ because his perfection has now been deposited into your account do you want godly leaders to lead our nation have they had that relationship with jesus christ have they bowed the knee before the king of kings and the lord of lords because the only way they're going to be that is if they've submitted themselves to the authority of god himself you were justified in the name of the lord jesus christ and by the holy spirit of god if we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth then what sacrifice for sins is left do you know what that means you basically said jesus i believe man i'm a sinner i need you i'm in need of a savior but i'm just gonna keep living the way i'm living i'm not gonna deal with it i'm not gonna turn the other way i'm gonna just keep doing it and in the meantime do you know what you're doing to god himself do you know what you're doing to jesus who offered his life to you who gave his life for you you're literally flipping him off and saying you know what

i'm good there's no sacrifice for sins left but only a fearful expectation expectation of judgment listen friends that you want to know who is the real deal and who is not is is when you i i'm starting to believe this or everything i i am if if you are corrected by god your answer is okay i'll change that i'm i'm gonna do this differently because that's what you said and you're my authority and you know what i over the 25 years that i've been a believer i've been in the church my whole life i've been a follower of christ for over 25 years now and i can tell you every time god has corrected me through his word or through his people man it has been hard in a moment but my i am grateful for it are any of you like like here's the third question i gotta get moving the courage question the integrity of the upright guides them but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity you ask that question look at your politicians are they saying one thing and then doing another are they promising you something and they never get to it like are they just preaching platitudes and they don't actually take action for what they're saying they're going to do they're double-minded christ followers are we that way are we making promises and then not keeping them parents let me put it this way are we making man man man you're gonna get this consequence if you do this behavior again and then you just you just let them get away with it you're like it's okay little johnny let's have some cake and ice cream and you just you hopefully you don't do that again kelsey is knows i'm preaching at her right now i didn't say that but since she's telling me to take it easy i just thought you'd let i thought you'd like to know that you're getting better you're but baby you're so much better and i'm better because of stuff you've said to me yeah you're welcome

if we confess our sins

jesus is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness do you know what politics do they don't do any of that they they don't own when they're wrong they they just if you don't if it doesn't pull right they're just going in a different direction

i mean seriously have you have you seen anyone in the last five ten years fifteen years of our politics say you know what we really blew that like like we got all these issues going on our culture and and and neither this the the democrat or the republican can come together and say wow we really messed that one up let's figure out how to make it better no no they're just getting on fox news and they're just getting on abc news or mbc news or cnn or whatever and talking crap about the other person

is this helpful or are you just like i should have come next week courage is behavior courage is what are you actually doing proverbs says that oh if we claim we have not sinned we make him out to be a liar don't don't claim to not have sinned like own your sin make don't make jesus out to be a liar because if you do that his word it means your response to him it's your let me put this let me make it crystal clear you are not a follower of christ if you're not correctable by god you are not actually the real deal

i i don't know how i'll make that clear but it you need to take inventory of that with your own life romance six says what shall we say then shall we go on sinning that grace may increase by no means romance he continues we are those who have died to sin so how can we live it in it any longer or don't you know that all of us who are baptized into christ jesus we're baptized into death means it's no longer the sinful nature lays inside of you it's christ nature we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father we too may live a same life as we've been living it doesn't say that it says we're to change we're to be different if i were to ask your friends man are is he different is he a more godly version of himself right now than he was this time last year or is he still doing the same things is she doing the same things is is there any effort to to change to be a more godly version of ourselves here's the last one the compassion question is is does a candidate or do you speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves for the rights of all who are destitute

i skipped a lot of stuff so i'm trying to figure out where i'm at

what what's compassion ask that ask that question what is compassion it's loving people in action not not just in word but it's in in it's in action let's talk about let's talk about the role of government versus the role of the church because the role of government is to protect us

it's to protect us it is to deliver justice on the earth it's to protect our nation it's to protect us from evil it's supposed to protect us for people who are doing stuff that's wrong government's job is to protect the people protection protection protection that's what government exists to do protect to protect us church ask the question what's our role

our job our our role in culture is to care for the people who need it right jess and in the beat shared that amazing thing that happened that

this this guy named lorenzo that we met just a few weeks ago he he saw our sign go up on the building and his mom he grew up in church his mom raised him in church he'd left the church for years and he saw our sign up he called his mom dorothy i don't know if she's here today she'll probably be in the second service she called dorothy she said he said mom when when when when the new life church opens we're going i'm going to the new life church and a mom who raised her kid in church can you imagine how excited she was for that moment

and so a week after a week would go by and it wasn't open it wasn't open it wasn't open and man did it take a long time to get open but then we opened and they came and the first time

lorenzo's wife was sitting in between lorenzo and dorothy the mother-in-law and in worship she looks to her left and looks to her right and dorothy is sobbing and lorenzo is sobbing and she's like what am i going to do with these people dealing with stage four cancer wife dorothy dealing with about to lose her son to cancer who just lost her daughter a year ago to cancer

that sunday they were in the right place they weren't in a government building they were in the church building where the people of god are where the compassionate god is who lifts up the broken-hearted who draws close to those who are crushed in spirit who places the lonely in families years ago i heard a message by pastor rick warren very well known pastor retired a few years ago i think and he was actually speaking to congress he was speaking to our elected officials and he was talking about one of the biggest issues that we have in our culture is is that we always talk about the public sector and we talk about the private sector we like public sector government government government government government and private like the businesses the businesses the businesses the money the money the money and we're expecting the public sector the government and the private sector the businesses to handle all of the world's problems but most of the time they're the ones creating the problems

and he asked this question and he said imagine that all of life is a stool

and and you're trying to place all of everything that needs to go on that stool to stand firm again built on the rock or built on sand and he says can a two-legged stool stand with the weight of the world's problems on government and private sector business the answer is absolutely 100 percent no

so he begged the question of congress he said i need you to see the third what do you what would you call leg the third leg of the stool

it's the church

the church all of compassion that is supposed to be delivered to the world is supposed to go through the local church and you know what our politics have done our politics has shoved the church away and said you just gather and you do your own thing separation of church and state we don't want anything to do you with you and so what we have now is we have government and private sector paying off governments large sums of money to try to get them on our side like hey we'll give you this aid and let me ask you this question do you know where that aid what that aid is doing in a foreign country

do you think our government knows what their money is doing for you here

so let me ask you this question this is what what what pastor rick warren said

he said let's say that that someone a family member in iran or iraq one of our quote unquote enemies let's say a son or a daughter needs health care they don't know where to go they they broke an arm broke a leg they have they have pneumonia they need help

it may be days to get to a local hospital my wife and i we started dating after going on a mission trip to uganda and man it was it was literally a day's walk to get to a health care clinic but do you know what was close a local church what if the local church became the compassionate entity which was meant for us to be in christ jesus to the world what if medicine flu was was was i'm trying to think of the right word went through the local church

i can tell you what happened if if so-and-so's son or daughter was healed in a local church their hearts would probably change and they probably wouldn't want to kill us or bomb us they they they they'd actually appreciate us and love us

so

i'm gonna i'm gonna use this illustration i've used it many years before

i'm can i tell you something i'm so grateful for the faithfulness of the people of new life church that have continued to serve people in any situation that people show up in god guys we have people that have dealt with unbelievable things in their life you've shown up to provide them meals and you don't even know them you've provided for them in ways you don't even know we have partnered with our all sorts of incredible ministries to do this guys we open the doors to lorinto and their family that he might find life and healing from jesus and you know right now he's not here with us physically but he's more alive in eternity with jesus than he ever has been on planet earth can i get an amen and because of your faithfulness let me put it really simple because of your faithfulness in giving like in money monetary

we were able to love 200 people who came to the funeral we had people who volunteered from the dream team to leave their jobs to say you know what i have a job i have work to do but i'm going to show up and i'm going to love on this family with everything i've got and they came and they said man we we've never felt more loved and you know what it caused them nothing

because this is who we are in our seven-year history we've never been able to host a funeral to love people to provide the compassion for people listen it's not the government's job to do that it's the church's job

it's estimated there are two billion christians on planet earth two billion that's a lot

what if two billion christians on planet earth

brought tithes and offerings to the compassion entity of jesus christ

let me tell you what could happen let me tell you what could happen if if two billion christians saw that the church the delivery system of compassion to the world was a local church let me tell you what happened if two billion christians brought their ties and the offerings to the local church in one calendar week what would happen by monday starvation around the world would be completely eliminated by tuesday every person on planet earth could have access to clean drinking water by wednesday every person with a medical need could receive proper medical care because the church that exists all of the world where hospitals don't exist would be there to provide that medical attention by thursday poverty could be completely eradicated around the world by friday every orphan and widow on the planet would have a family because god places the lonely in families the government doesn't do that and by saturday not only would the entire world know the name of jesus but they would be able to see him clearly through his church and on sunday oh man on sunday we would gather together around the world and we would worship jesus like we've never worshiped him before are you building your life on the rock of jesus in his word and are you gonna vote for those who do the same let's pray together