7: What's going on. Hope family. What I love about that story, uh,
is it shows a young man who understands that God's just not with us.
When things are going well,
that he is also with us when we're going through a difficult time.
And not only is he with us,
he's actually working through the trials that we find ourselves in.
We're actually gonna be talking about that this weekend, our time together.
Just by way of introduction, uh, if we have never met, my name is Jason Gore.
I have the humble privilege of serving, uh,
this church family and the role of lead pastor. Uh,
if we have nice sort of woo over there, I guess my,
my mom's back there in the background. We, uh, hey look, if we've never met,
if you see me around a campus, please pull me aside.
I would love to shake your hand. I'd love to hear your story.
We'd love to meet your family. Uh, but,
but if you're new and just checking us out,
what I hope that you're experiencing, uh,
is a church that just wants to treat you like family.
Like regardless of what you come in here from, uh, I hope you know that you're,
that you're just wanted to be a part of what it is that we have going on here.
I hope you see a group of people that by no means act like we have everything
together. But maybe there's something different about us. Like, uh,
not just that we're a little crazy, but that we also love God and,
and that we just unashamedly follow after the ways of Jesus.
And that we don't just talk about hope when we get together,
but we actually share hope with the world around us with everything that we've
got. And so welcome into that.
We are in a series right now that we have been calling the Jesus Way. Alright,
in the New Testament, Jesus says to people, he says, follow after me.
And so this series is all about what does it look like to walk in the ways of
Jesus.
And so we've taken a look at what does it look like to live a life of worship?
What does it look like to live a life of service?
What does it look like to live a life of generosity?
What does it look like in the hustle bustle and the nonstop world that we live
in?
What does it look like to make sure that daily we have time to spend in silence
and solitude so that we can actually hear from God?
And then last week a friend Ben Foot was in town and he talked to us about this
idea of Sabbath and what it really means to take a whole day each week to just
set it aside, to not do work and just enjoy God's gifts to us in this life.
This week we're gonna be talking about trials and how they impact every
single one of us and how they play into the ways of Jesus.
Anybody ever going through a trial? Anybody? Yeah. So here's the thing.
I'm gonna give you the bottom line right now, like right outta the gate.
I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna tell you and then we're gonna live in it and
then we're gonna hit it again at the end. This is what I want you to know.
Hard things help us grow. Alright?
Now we know that and we talk about it in a lot of areas of life. So we just,
we're kind of right in the middle engaging the summer season.
If you're anything like me,
you go into the summer season thinking this year when summer comes around and
it's vacation time, I'm gonna be in better physical shape.
And so I'm just gonna ask us to confess together across all of our campuses.
If that's you, if you came into the summer saying,
this year I wanna be in a little bit better shape.
Can we just all raise our hands together? Just some of us, most of us, right?
We wanna be in some kind of shape, right? Some of it's round,
some of it's not as round. Look, here, here's what I would say to us.
If we want to grow and be in better physical shape, that's gonna take work.
Like we're gonna have to do some hard things.
We're gonna have to change the way that we eat. That could be hard.
We're gonna have to go to the gym, right?
And maybe we're gonna do some things that we don't normally do.
There's this principle that I talk to people about when they ask me like, Hey,
how do we get in a little bit better shape?
And it's the principle of progressive overload. It's really very simple.
What it says is, whatever you do this week,
just make sure next week you do the exact same thing and just do one more rep or
add five more pounds. That's it. Now, you can't just start at zero, right?
Like you're gonna kind of start close to to where your max is.
But what happens is, um,
your body gets broken down and then it adjusts to the stress that you've put it
under and then it comes back stronger than it was before. Progressive overload.
What if God's plan to see our character and maturity grow
spiritually wasn't all that different?
And so this week we're gonna see that when it comes to the way of Jesus trials
in our lives, they're not only unavoidable, but they also,
they they actually serve a critical role in us growing in the way that God wants
us to grow. So if you have your Bibles, uh,
I want you to turn to James chapter one.
We're gonna be looking mostly at verses two, three, and four.
While you're turning there, uh, I just wanna say this,
if you have a Bible at home, I just wanna encourage you when we come here,
like to talk through what the Bible says.
I just wanna encourage you to bring it. Um,
you could be tempted to think when somebody gets up here because they're
potentially a subject matter expert, um,
that they're doing some kind of magic tricks when they open this thing up and
preach it.
But what you'll see is really all we're doing is opening this up and just
reading what it says and we're recognizing some things that we see and we're
just trying to see how God would have it apply it to our lives.
And so if we see that and do it here,
we're gonna be more prone to do it when we get home,
which is gonna help really all of us. So let's try to bring our Bibles.
If you don't have one,
I'd encourage you to stop by next steps on the way out at all of our campuses.
They would be happy to try to find out how to get your Bible. Okay, James,
chapter one, verse two. It says, consider it all joy.
My brothers and sisters, when everyone in your family is healthy,
your kids are making straight A's and your spouse is doing all the laundry,
mowing the lawn and still making six figures.
8: I.
7: Mean, it's inflation. So probably seven figures would be better right now.
But look, it doesn't say that. But that is why you should bring your Bibles.
'cause I could tell you anything I want, we can put anything up on the screen.
So here's what it says. Count it all as joy. Consider it all joy,
my brothers and sisters. When you encounter various trials,
knowing which that seems weird by the way,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let
endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete,
lacking in nothing.
I wanna recognize right outta the gate,
most of us don't get that phone call that we never expected to get in.
Our immediate response is joy. Now it's not a normal thing.
And so I just wanna take that thought and we're gonna set it up here on the
shelf. We're gonna pull it back down in a moment.
But first I wanna recognize a couple things. I want you to notice that James,
the author, starts out by saying, my brothers and sisters, uh,
in the early church and really all throughout scripture, um,
you see this picture of the church not really viewing itself as individuals
doing church or going to church,
but you see them as like a family who understood they were the church.
And so what you have is James here saying, my brothers and sisters,
what he's doing is he's kinda showing himself as like a spiritual big brother.
And he's speaking to those that are going through trials and you know,
things land a little bit differently on us when they know that it's coming from
a place from someone who cares about us, someone who loves us.
And we've gotta see that right outta the gate. Because to be honest,
this is gonna be a hard word. Like he's,
he's calling us to take on a perspective that most of us don't naturally take on
us. So you don't wanna miss is coming from a place of love.
And so I just want to, I do wanna pause for a minute, for a quick aside,
give you a moment of reflection. And I wanna ask you a question.
Do you view yourself as a part of the family of God here at Hope Community
Church or do I love that?
Or do you just see yourself as maybe like someone who passively shows up and
attends church? And, and look, if that's you, you're checking things out,
that's great. But you gotta realize if families engage at a different level,
alright? And so, but we can't miss right from the start,
this is coming from a place of love. Secondly, we need to see the context.
He says, when you face various trials,
notice he doesn't say if I think all of us who have lived long enough know like
a trial is coming. I've heard it said, you're either coming out of a trial,
you're in a trial, you're headed towards one, right?
And so you can't go through a series entitled the Jesus Way and not recognize
that the way of Jesus is through trials. Jesus actually told us in his word,
he said, in this life you will face trials. He guarantees it.
So James is talking to us, is a loving family member.
He's addressing the various trials that we're inevitably gonna face.
And this is what he says to do.
Consider it joy when you encounter them.
And so we're gonna pull this back off the shelf and I just wanna acknowledge
there's tension in this. Um,
I go to the gym pretty regularly,
but I don't just wake up joyful to go to the gym for another round
of progressive overload, right? Like, that's just not how it works.
And if we're being honest,
we would say we don't actually feel joy in the trials that we find ourselves in.
And so you gotta learn,
you gotta really lean in to see what James is saying to us. He,
the verb that he uses to consider it actually means to deem or
to regard. So it actually takes into account like we might have came into this,
we might have had a natural tendency to see this in a different way.
And so if if that wasn't the case,
we wouldn't have to consider something different. This is like me coming home,
um, from work. And by the way,
like we don't have these split gender roles in our house.
Sometimes my wife cooks, sometimes I cook,
but this is like me being showing up home from work and Diana saying to me,
Hey tonight, um, we're gonna have leftovers. And then I say, Hey,
would you consider maybe us going out to dinner or me pulling something from the
fridge and throwing it on the grill?
He's actually inviting us or really telling us, he's saying,
as followers of Jesus, we need to stop.
We need to take a breath and we need to do a mental evaluation of the situation
that's going on.
And we need to take on a new mindset and we need to make an inner decision to
actually consider it joy. When we find ourselves in trials,
he's really saying take on the mindset that might not be natural,
but take on the mindset of joy. My brothers and sisters ,
when you encounter trials that you're for sure gonna face,
and I wanna stop here just for a minute and recognize that in our society and in
our culture right now,
like doing something different than what comes natural to us or what feels good,
it's just not a normal thing. I mean, we live in a world right now that says,
Hey, you do you like whatever seems easy for you, whatever seems right for you.
And then we get on social media and there's these algorithms that just put us in
in an echo chamber and tells us that everything that we want is what we should
live out.
And the reality is it takes a level of mental toughness to actually set
aside our immediate desires and our comforts and to take on a new perspective.
But the reality is the Bible tells us we're instructed as followers of Christ to
be willing to take every thought captive and look at it through the lens of what
God's word says. And so James says,
consider it take on a mindset of joy when you face trials.
That's the command considerate joy. Why does he say that? Verse three,
he says, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
So this is like the progressive overload moment, right?
Like he's giving us the knowledge that we need to change our mindset.
He tells us that if we go through trials, that testing of the faith,
it will produce something in us that we need. He says,
when you go through something difficult,
it's gonna create an environment for you to grow. Remember,
hard things actually help us grow. Um,
the word choice here in Greek, uh,
it actually gives this connotation like the testing of your faith, um,
of something that's continually working,
that it's like actually going to work down inside of us until it gets to that
place of completion. Like until it does what it's there to do,
it's gonna stay there. Which in this case is endurance.
Some translations say perseverance. And if you really break it apart,
it's like painting this picture of someone who is underneath a heavy load and
willingly sits underneath that heavy load and laborers faithfully for
that heavy load to do whatever it is that it's supposed to do while they're
sitting underneath it. Um, my kids, uh,
we have three aid Madison, Connor, they have like this insane work ethic, um,
in many areas they take after their mother. I will say they're not perfect, um,
by any stretch, but especially when it comes to the area of athletics.
And this is like I picture my 15-year-old son Aiden, who's a fantastic wrestler.
Uh, he's a great wide receiver, but it's,
I picture him like going back into the squat rack for like one last set and he's
doing one more rep and he's doing one more rep and he's doing one more rep and
he's doing one more rep and he's heavy and it's hard and he's getting tired and
he does one more rep and he's willing to do that even to the point of failure
because he knows even if he does this to the point of failure and even if it
hurts,
he knows that what it's gonna do is it's gonna produce it's more strength,
more explosion, and more speed.
So he willingly comes up underneath it and endures it.
I read in a New Testament commentary this week, the theologian said,
when we face trials this way,
it's not a passive attitude of quiet submission or resignation,
but rather a brave manliness that confronts the difficulties
and contends against them.
It's the tenacity of spirit which holds up under pressure while
awaiting God's time for dismissal of the test, test are for his reward.
People don't write like that all that much this often, but, but I mean,
you read that and you think, man,
the the world right now could use more men and women that would
stand strong under the trials that we face in the world right now.
And as I was going through this, I thought, man,
this is probably to a large degree why the church has lost its voice a bit in
today's world. 'cause we just don't get this. We don't understand it.
Like this is a hard word. I'm telling you this is a hard word to preach.
And I've been through some trials in the last six years, so,
so I needed this message, but man, it's the church.
Our tendency is to not sit up underneath it,
but to kind of step back and to walk away from it.
And so whether that trial is a temptation or a sin, we say, well, you know what?
It feels right to me, so maybe we'll sit in it or the world is saying this,
but I know scripture says this and so I should probably stand strong and be
willing to speak truth into the situation, but instead I'm gonna step out.
But by God's design,
we have to sit under the trials that we find ourselves in as this church because
of what it is that he wants to do in and through us.
So the command is to consider it joy when we face trials,
the why is to develop endurance. But what's the goal?
Like we don't just run because we want to be a better endurance athlete. Uh,
unless you're crazy, like you probably wanna win a race to some degree,
you have a goal. You don't want to just build muscle just to build muscle,
right? Like maybe you read, um, some type of journal that says, um,
those that have a higher level of skeletal muscle mass typically live longer.
Or maybe it's for a more shallow reason. Like,
you just wanna look good on your honeymoon. I, I don't know, but young people,
that's a good thing to work for, that'll work out well for you.
But what's the goal? Verse four, it says,
and let endurance have its perfect result so that you may
be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Let endurance have its perfect result.
You could read that at first and see that word let and just kind of read it as
like it's saying, Hey,
just passively allow it to do what it is that it's supposed to do.
And that's not really what it's saying here.
The Greek there doesn't actually have a direct English translation.
And so it would be better to recognize it is saying it's actually a command
that's intended to put us on guard against a significant danger,
which is allowing the chain of results to be interrupted.
So it's not saying just passively allow, it's saying like,
clinging to stay in whatever you do,
stay in the situation that you're in so it can do what it wants to do.
Said in another way, if you're in a trial,
you're in a process and whatever you do, don't jump out.
Don't abandon that process that God has you in. James is saying,
do don't skip that last rep. He's saying stay in it.
He's saying that there's a result that you only get and that you desperately
need,
but you only get it if you labor well faithfully through what it is that God has
you in. And then James,
he jumps to the end like he jumps straight to the end of that cycle and he says,
here's the result that you'll be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.
What the heck is he talking about ? What that perfect and complete means,
it actually means like a maturity of character for us as followers of Christ
like that we would grow into what it is that God has for us. Um,
there's two adjectives there, perfect and complete. The first adjective perfect,
um, when you look at it,
it paints a picture of someone who's like moved into spiritual adulthood
and it contrasts directly with truthfully like a spiritual baby. Alright?
The Bible tells us that, um, before we make a decision to follow Christ, uh,
we're actually spiritually dead.
And then we recognize by God's grace and mercy who Jesus is what he's done for
us. And when we put our faith and trust in him as our Lord and Savior,
it says we move from death to life. We've been reborn. But just like us,
we don't come to life born as adults.
You're actually born as a spiritual infant,
but the Jesus way is not to stay as a spiritual infant.
We've been talking about what that journey looks like over the last few weeks.
So we wanna move God desires to see us move from a spiritual infant like a
spiritual child,
and then from a spiritual child to like a spiritual middle schooler like sweaty
and stinky, right?
And then from there we move into a spiritual high schooler and then from there
into a spiritual young adult. But if we're raising kids, man,
we don't wanna have young adults living with us forever.
We wanna raise them into where they can be like spiritual parents and then
spiritual grandparents where they can then in turn,
turn around and equip and empower and help others grow.
At Hope Community Church. Across all of our campuses,
we have somewhere between six and 7,000 men and women and students and children
that attend all of our campuses. Um,
let's leave the spiritual realm for a moment and just talk physically.
Could you imagine if all six or 7,000 of us that showed up to all of our
campuses on Sunday were all infants,
like just a bunch of babies crawling around like that,
that would be tough to manage, right? Um,
right now some of you are at our Apex campus and you're thinking, no,
I just served in Kid City. That's what it seemed like back there. I don't,
which is my plug to tell you. If you serve, if you attend any of our campuses,
that you consider yourself a part of the family of God,
there are children who desperately need you to step in, uh, not just to babysit,
but to actually help them grow from spiritual infants into spiritual adults.
And so if you're a part of this family, uh, jump in,
but that would be crazy in the physical sense.
But now let's go back to the spiritual sense.
Could you imagine if we were a church of six to 7,000 men and women students
who all carry themselves as spiritual infants?
I mean, that'd be a mess.
And right now the world needs more desperately than ever.
It needs a church that is filled with men and women and students because this
thing is limited by physical age who understand they're call to grow and to
spiritual maturity and to be the church that the world desperately needs.
That's the adjective perfect, the adjective complete.
That's the same word that's used in the Old Testament when it talks about
intact, um,
animals that were perfect and spotless and blameless and were suitable for
sacrifice before God on the altar. It's actually staying complete in our terms,
is that we actually have the virtues and the character of Christ that would be
capable of living lives suitable,
but able to lay down our lives as a living sacrifice for God and ultimately for
the world around us. James is saying,
if you endure trials God's way,
you will come out on the other side more spiritually mature.
So don't break the cycle. It's important, uh,
I think for us to note the maturity and completeness.
It doesn't actually come from the number of trials that you go through, okay?
So, um, we can go through a a, a, a number of trials. It,
it has to do with the way that we actually go through those trials. So, um,
you can go through the same trial a thousand times and actually not grow. Um,
if you ever met somebody who's going through something and you can tell it's not
where they wanna be in life, um, but their tendency is to complain,
um, to blame other people, uh, to not take ownership,
to actually play the martyr card. Um, I'm telling you,
those are the characteristics of someone who's spiritually immature.
And that's not to say like if that's where you are, that's wrong.
But that's just to say, Hey, in the way of Jesus,
that's not where he wants us to stay.
Like he wants us to move into a different direction into this,
this state of being perfect and complete the way it's described here in the
text. And so if we labor through them faithfully,
it will produce growth in our lives.
And that's why we need to consider them joy when we face the trials,
uh, lest you think that James is just, uh, a glutton for punishment, uh,
you see Paul write something very similar to the church at Rome.
It says in Romans chapter five, verse three through four. He says,
not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings.
This is gonna sound familiar knowing that suffering produces endurance and
endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
I don't think there's one of us right now across any of our campuses that
wouldn't say amen. We could use a little bit more hope in our lives right now,
but it actually comes through suffering, through enduring through,
and it develops something in us. And you know why that happens?
Because we go through these trials
and if you've never been there, you will, but we,
we actually do have to do the mental exercise to consider it joy, okay?
So we do that.
But what you do is you get to a place where you realize like you just can't
mentally tough yourself through this thing. Like I, I like I read David Goggins,
but you can't, David,
even David Goggins comes to the end of what it is that he can go through.
And so you get to a place where you have to fall down on your knees before God
and you say, God, I don't have anything left,
and so I need you to see me through what it is that I'm going through right now.
And then what happens is God shows up
and he sees us through and we start to develop this confidence. And we,
our faith doesn't go from zero to a hundred overnight,
but the Bible does tell us that the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains.
So we go through these trials depending on God and he shows up.
James is calling us us to endure the trial in the way
that will produce the most benefit for us, but allow us to feel it the least.
You know, how I get to the gym on a regular basis is,
is not by focusing on progressive overload, ,
that's not all that motivating.
I want to go in there and I'm just gonna work hard. I mean every now and then,
but I'm not just that motivated, like I have to keep the end goal in mind.
And so for me it's things like, like I love this church and,
and I have a desire to see this church presented back to Jesus,
mature and complete. I have a desire to see this church live out,
the impact that God has for it. And so I wanna be at my best.
I wanna do everything I can do to take care of myself. I have a daughter,
she's beautiful, she loves the Lord.
Like I wanna walk her down the aisle one day, which by the way,
she's not allowed to date anyone until six months before she gets married.
So we'll see how that goes.
I have a 12-year-old son and a 15-year-old son.
I have two young men that live in my house and I go to the gym to make sure that
they know that as long as they live underneath my roof, they better not test me.
That's a real reason. Like I'm telling you that is a goal.
So here's what James says, you're going through trials, it's gonna happen.
Consider it joy,
persevere through the trial and let's grow in spiritual maturity.
I I want you to know that, um,
I don't share this with you as a guy who's not been through some hard times.
The last six years of our lives has been absolutely crazy. Uh,
in 2018, uh,
I'll never forget I was in a conference room where I'm standing right now
physically at the Raleigh campus and I got a phone call, uh,
and it was my brother.
He doesn't normally call me during the day and I answer the phone and he says,
Hey Jason, um, I think dad's dead. And,
um, I think, well that's wasn't expecting that. I mean,
he did have a debilitative disease,
but like that should have been like playing out over the long term.
Like I knew something tragic must have happened,
something traumatic must have happened. So I jump in the truck,
I head to their house and I get there and sure enough,
I mean the situation that I find is not something that you would wish on anyone.
Um, my mom is there a couple years prior to that.
She had had a back surgery. Um, she had some health issues. Uh,
she was actually in a state of depression.
She was in some ways unable to fully take care of herself in a lot of ways.
He was like her primary caretaker.
And so all of that fell on my wife and I just like that.
And we do have other family,
but the truth is like as a result of like some of the trauma of how everything
happened, it triggered some things in some of my family.
So we were really the only ones that really could step fully into this thing.
And I didn't have any experience like managing a state. I didn't have,
I wasn't prepared to like be the primary caretaker for my mom. So that's 20 18,
20 19. Uh, that was my stepdad that I was just telling you about. Um,
my dad was going through depression, he's been diagnosed bipolar,
and I just lost one dad in my life. I didn't wanna lose another.
And so we actually helped him get out of his house in Windell and move closer to
where we live so he could be closer to us and to the grandkids.
That was a tough stint. Uh, in 2020, I could probably just leave it there.
Um, covid happened, right? And I know 2020 was hard on everybody.
I'm telling you in church leadership, it was a special kind of heart. It's like,
do we gather, do we not gather? Do we wear masks? Do we not wear masks?
And it doesn't matter what decision you make because of what the media's saying.
Like, and I talked about this already. We're a family.
No matter what decision you make, the family's like split on itself. 50 50,
everybody's mad at everybody. That was a tough year.
And then we get to 2021 and we had some significant leadership transition here
at Hope. Our founding pastor at the time, uh,
made a decision that no one was really expecting. And, um, immediately retired,
resigned myself and the elders went through a process for a couple months.
They believed that, um, God was telling them that uh,
they were supposed to ask me if I would consider stepping into the role of lead
pastor here at Hope. My wife and I prayed about it,
and we did in fact believe that God did have this call on our lives.
And so we step into this role, but legitimately two days after that,
we find out that there actually was more to the details that none of us knew
about, but about what was really behind that immediate resignation.
But we're like sitting on this thing and I'm like, okay,
well this is gonna be more difficult than I imagined.
That's 2021 and 2022. My dad's mental health,
um,
kind of switched directions completely and he had a severe and significant
manic episode. And, um, when I tell you that it was a nightmare,
I I like, that's as g-rated as I can possibly. I mean, I mean,
I'm talking about worried about his life,
worried about the health and wellbeing of others,
worried about my own family's personal safety. And listen, my dad, um,
is a great man. Um, mental health and mental unhealth is a real thing, man.
It's challenging and he's in a better place right now.
He's kind of moving into a good path. And so thanks be to God for that.
But I'm telling you that year and a half it was hell.
And now we find ourselves in 2024 in the truth is, um,
hope Community Church has had an incredible 30 year run.
We just celebrated 30 years of hope.
But God's been speaking some things to me and to our elders and to some of our
leadership here, that it's kind of time to put a bookend, um,
on those first 30 years and that God has actually calling us into a new
direction, into a new identity as a church, right?
And so he's got this new season for us. And if I could be, I,
and we're gonna talk more about that when we get into the fall,
so you'll hear all about it. But I just wanna tell you,
as a man before God and as a brother before you all,
there are days where I'm like, God, am I really the guy to step into this?
And then not only that, um,
we have this model here at Hope from a teaching side where we say we want to
have unique voices with a unified vision.
And so for the last few years I've just been saying,
so I'm just gonna work behind the scenes and I'm gonna help make sure that we're
moving in the right direction as a church. But recently,
I believe the spirit of God has been saying to me, yes,
this is the direction that we're gonna be heading in as in a church,
but I'm also calling you to step into a more upfront role,
preaching more regularly casting vision for the congregation,
calling them in to what it is that I have for 'em. And I'm gonna tell you,
there's been moments where I've said, Hey, I didn't, I didn't sign up for that.
And then God has lovingly and gently said,
I don't know who you think you are to tell me what it is that you're going to
sign up for. So I said, you're right.
But here's the thing.
I've been through enough of these moments that I've had to get down on my knees
and say, God, I don't have anywhere else to turn.
And God shows up and it develops this hope
And it develops this confidence and this faith in God.
And I tell you that because I want you to know that I've had these moments where
I've had to ask, man, is this really worth it? You can ask my wife,
she would tell you,
I've had the nights where you're laying in bed and your chest is so tight that
you can barely breathe, much less sleep.
Like I've had mornings where I wake up and I just have to get down on my knees
and, and I can have to say, God, is this ever going to end?
Are we ever going to go back to normal in our lives?
Like what is that even gonna look like?
And I share that with you because I know there's someone that can hear my voice
right now, and you don't know if you can keep going
and you're in a place right now where you're saying,
you're telling me to consider it joy and I don't know if I can get outta bed
tomorrow. And if that's you right now, I just want you to look at my face.
Don't give up.
This Bible is filled with stories of God's people getting right up to
the edge. And at the last minute,
God's showing up and he does it so that he can bring glory to himself and God's
people leave stronger as a result filled with more hope.
You have people that love you. You have a church that's not perfect,
but we wanna be like a family to you.
You have a God that loves you and you cannot listen to the lies that the devil
wants to tell you that you can't make it one more day.
I am standing in front of you as a broken man,
and I need this to be true as much as anybody does.
And so I'm standing strong on the word of God and I've seen it play out in my
life. I've had people, I i legitimate,
I've had people ask me over the last few years, man, you've been through a lot.
Like, how do you actually get over the pain?
And if I can be perfectly honest with you, I don't know if you do,
but you begin to learn how to trust God with the pain.
9: And.
7: You actually learn over time that there's something more beautiful on the other
side is your faith in him grow.
I want you to know that Jesus struggled with the same thing as we wrap up. Um,
it was the night before the crucifixion
and Jesus is with his disciples and he goes into the garden of Gethsemane and he
says this to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray.
And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee,
he began to be sorrowful and troubled. And then he said to them,
my soul is very sorrowful even to death.
Remain here and watch with me. And then going a little further,
he fell down on his face and prayed.
Remember like the key to making it through difficult times is not just pulling
ourselves up by our bootstraps. We have work to do.
We gotta try to change our mindset,
but the power comes when we lay down before God and we say, God,
we need you to move. And Jesus prayed,
my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
Nevertheless, not my will,
but your will be done.
I want you to know that the way of Jesus
leads to trials and the way of trials can lead to death. I'm,
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna tell you anything different,
but what I do want you to remember is on the other side of death through Jesus
is resurrection. Okay?
And this is why we have to remind ourselves of the gospel all the time,
every single day. It's not something that we need one time to get this,
get outta hell, jail free. It's because trials are gonna come.
And we have to remember in that moment, no, no, no. Wait a minute, Jesus said,
nevertheless, this isn't what I long to do. But nevertheless, Lord,
if it's your will, I'll take this on.
And he went to a cross and he paid for my sins and for your sins.
And he rose from the grave three days later overcoming sin and death so that in
this moment we could all stand together as a church family and say,
we have hope.
Jesus didn't go to a cross
so that we would sit in a place of hopelessness.
I told you earlier that he said, in this life, we will face trials.
He finishes that verse by saying, but take heart.
I have overcome the world.
One of our elders earlier this morning, he said, man,
there's no greater picture of progressive overload than the garden
of Gethsemane or on the cross of Calvary.
Um, I've said this once, I just wanna say it one more time.
Jesus didn't go through what he went through on that cross for you and I to sit
and despair when the stone rolled away three days later,
he ensured that you and I can have hope and whatever trial it is that we face,
I'm just gonna ask you to bow your heads across all of our campuses.
And I just wanna pray for you.
And so I'm gonna ask that if you find yourself in a place right now,
if you find yourself in a trial where you just need God to move,
I'm just gonna ask you to raise your hand
and you can just hold it there.
This is a sign of surrender as a sign of dependency on God.
Father I, I lift up
my brothers and sisters,
the men and women and students across all of our campuses,
whether they're walking down the street right now,
listen to this with their hand in the air. Lord,
you your word tells us in this life we will face trials.
And so I pray right now that your Holy Spirit would bring a supernatural peace
which transcends all understanding.
Father,
I also wanna pray that we would be able to live out what your word calls us
into, that we would not break the cycle of what it is that you want to do in our
lives.
That we would find a way to mentally considerate joy when we go through these
trials because we know that it's moving us from a spiritual infant into a
spiritual adult.
And we know that this world needs men and women and students who can stand
strong in the face of trials. So Lord,
I pray that you would give strength. I pray that you would bring healing.
I pray for the man who's worried about his children. I pray for, uh,
the the child who's worried about foster care. Lord,
I pray for the individual who's worried about a sickness,
who's maybe looking at surgery down the road.
Lord, I pray for the marriage. It's on the rocks.
Lord, we lift them up to you. And Father,
as we wrap up this series called the Jesus Way,
Jesus calls us into a new way of life. Lord,
would we be a church that willingly steps into the life that
you have for us and boldly live out what it is that you call us into for a world
that desperately needs it ultimately for your glory? Lord, we love you.
We thank you for the good news. We thank you for the gospel.
We thank you for the hope that we have and everyone said together and amen.