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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
This is a reading from 1 Peter
4:1–11.
Since therefore Christ suffered
in the flesh.
Arm yourselves
with the same way of thinking.
For whoever has suffered in
the flesh has ceased from sin,
so as to live
for the rest of the time in the flesh,
no longer for human passions,
but for the will of God.
For the time
that is passed suffices for doing what
the Gentiles
want to do living in sensuality, passions,
drunkenness, orgies, drinking
parties, and lawless idolatry.
With respect to this, they are surprised
when you do not join them
in the same flood of debauchery,
and they malign you,
but they will give account to him
who is ready to judge the living
and the dead.
For this is why the gospel was preached,
even to those who are dead.
That though judged in the flesh
the way people are,
they might live in the spirit
the way God does.
The end of all things is at hand.
Therefore, be self-controlled and sober
minded for the sake of your prayers.
Above
all, keep loving one another earnestly.
Since love covers a multitude of sins.
Show hospitality to one another
without grumbling,
as each has received a gift.
Use it to serve one another as good
stewards of God's varied grace.
Whoever speaks
as one who speaks, oracles of God.
Whoever serves as one who serves
by the strength that God supplies,
in order that in everything
God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
To him
be glory and dominion forever and ever.
Amen.
Well, good morning and
welcome to the weekend
gathering of Christ Community Chapel.
My name is Zach. I'm
one of the pastors here.
So glad we get to be part of your weekend
and I'm also glad
you picked this weekend to come
because we get
I get to introduce an amazing
guest speaker that we have here.
You know, I was in an event, recently
where they said
the true mark of a Christian leader,
a Kingdom leader
is that their name is on nothing, but
their fingerprints are on a lot of things.
They're not after credit.
They're after impact.
And there is no one,
I think, who typifies that comment more
than our guest speaker, Larry Osborne.
For decades, Larry led North Coast Church
in Southern California,
all of the most influential churches
in America.
There are a lot of things that you love
about church small groups,
video screens that were Larry's idea,
where he took mainstream.
He spends much of his time now investing
in young pastors like me, developing us.
In fact, it was a couple of years ago
I hung out with Larry and came back
and said to the team,
we need to start a Thursday night service.
And his influence is everywhere here,
even here at Christ Community Chapel.
And also what I love about Larry is he's
been married to his wonderful wife,
Nancy, for 48 years.
They have three believing children,
eight grandkids,
all who live within
about 15 minutes of them
because they're the kind of people
you want to be around.
It is a privilege that he is here.
Would you join me in
welcoming Larry Osborne to come
give this weekend's message?
And it
has been a total blast to be here
since, last Wednesday.
I came in Wednesday
because you can't get from San Diego here.
On a Thursday
and make sure you're ready to preach.
But just meeting with your team, and, I am
I I've been excited
knowing Zach for what God is doing.
I got to meet Joe and spend some time
with him to understand
what God had done and has done
and will continue to do.
And, you guys just got a great team
and a great thing going.
And, as someone who gets to see
lots of churches all around the country,
I hope you realize that sometime
familiarity can breed a little sense.
Hey, it's always this way.
And and God's on the move.
And, I hope you, embrace
every moment of it, but today
we're taking, continuing this series
you've been doing in first Peter. And,
you know,
first Peter is basically a letter
that was written, about how to follow
Jesus when following Jesus is really hard.
One third of the verses, are on suffering,
persecution or hardship
tied to our walk with Jesus.
36 out of 106 verses,
in his letter and explains why it happens
and then how
we're supposed to think about it
and how we're supposed to respond.
So today, out of the whole passage
that was just read what I want to do is
I want to step back
and we're just going to look again
at the first two verses and try to mind
the depths of what they have to say.
So we'll put them up on the screen,
for just a second,
since they're for Christ
suffered in the flesh,
he tells us to do two things,
one on themselves
with the same way of thinking
as we suffer, the things we do.
Hey, learn to think and respond
like Jesus did.
And the second is for this reason,
for whoever suffered in
the flesh has ceased from sin
so as to live
for the rest of the time in the flesh,
no longer for human passions,
but for the will of God.
Now I know we're in church,
but let's be honest for a second.
The second thing here,
that is not the experience
I know, personally or people
I'm around like.
Like what? It what it's gone.
But, what do you mean?
Whoever is suffered in
the flesh has ceased from sin?
Well, the problem is, when you read that,
you'll kind of go, okay,
but in your heart, you know it's not true.
And the
and the problem is that we miss understand
what he's talking about
when he's talking about suffering here.
So I'm going to actually take
the second thing, what I call the elephant
in these verses in the room.
And I want to talk about suffering
and, well, how in the world does that
bring breaks, since grip on our life.
And then we'll circle back and say,
this is how we're supposed to think
and respond, but what we need to
understand is simply this,
that he's not talking about suffering
in the way we normally think about it.
He's not talking about the suffering
that is a human experience ever since.
Thank you, Adam and Eve.
In this fallen world,
we're all going to face death.
Unless you
die at a young age or through an accident,
you're going to lose loved ones.
You're going to be betrayed.
You're going to be hurt.
You're going to have financial hardships
that come upon you.
You're going to have medical things
that, you know, like, where did this come?
Oh, just a fallen world.
Everything is broken.
There are weeds in every garden.
There is no job this perfect.
It's like everything is broken.
And so normally when we read
about suffering, that's what we go to.
Hey, I just lost my job,
or I just got a diagnosis
that, is not a good one from the doctor.
And yes,
the Lord shows up in that suffering,
but that's not what he's talking about.
He's talking about a special kind
of suffering.
The suffering that happens
when you when, as a result of you
and I following Jesus,
when you have made the right decision,
when you have done the right thing,
but the wrong result shows up.
And that's always a confusing time.
Would you agree with me?
And if you've any of you
who've had the privilege of walking
with Jesus a long time, I know a lot of
you are new in your faith journey.
But as you go through it, I'm
going to tell you there going to be times
where you do exactly what you know.
Jesus wants you to do,
what Scripture tells you to do,
and you look up
and we all have this tendency
to think, well, everything ought to go
great. I just obey the Lord.
And yet
the reality is often we do the right thing
and the wrong results happen.
So it is our fear of those wrong results
that often causes us to go.
I don't know, I'm
not sure God's got this one right.
It's a rule for everybody, but
I'm not sure it fits my unique situation.
I would step back and point this out.
I think that when you and I, with our eyes
wide open, choose to disobey God,
do something.
We know we shouldn't or not
start something we know we should.
The reason is fear.
We're afraid of something.
And so we think, in my case,
this doesn't apply
what we tend to be afraid of
are two things.
Number one, we have a fear of loss.
And number two,
we have a fear of missing out.
Let me kind of flesh those out
for just a moment.
The fear of loss will be those situations
where I look at it and I go,
I know what the scriptures say here,
but if I were to stop doing
what he wants me to stop doing, I'm
going to lose this relationship.
I'm going to lose these relationships.
You know, my, my, my work
career will not quite
be the same
if I don't just go along with everybody.
The little business that I own,
if I play by all the rules
when nobody else is playing by the rules.
Wait.
If I tell the truth in this situation,
I mean, I could go on and on.
You see where I'm going?
That there is this sense of like, Well,
I know what I do, but, like,
I'm afraid of what I lose.
There's also this fear of.
I'm afraid of what I'll miss out on,
pleasure and advancement in life,
just all kinds of things.
That's actually, in the Garden of Eden.
That's the the trick Satan used with Eve.
He said, you've been told
you can't eat any of these.
You can eat everything but this tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.
And he said, let me tell you why.
God knows that the moment you eat of this,
you'll be like him, knowing good and evil.
Well, the master liar.
Half truth.
Yeah, they know good and evil
after they ate of it.
But they would know
good and evil by experience,
not by knowledge of a concept.
And it was a fear of missing out
that caused Eve and then Adam to say,
okay, let's go there.
So whenever
I fear I'm going to lose something,
whenever I fear that,
well, I won't experience something.
I do what
we do, what I like to call
calling an audible.
The Bible calls it sin,
but it's football season.
So let me talk about calling an audible.
And those of you who hate football,
toughen up.
Too bad. Here we go.
What happens is a quarterback gets a play
sent in from the sideline, the coach
and and the play says a running back
is going to go right over here.
And he gets under center.
And he looks.
And there's nine of the 11
defensive players over here.
And only two of them over there.
So what's the quarterback do.
He does what's called an audible.
He changes a play
that was sent in from the sidelines.
And he does a counter play where it looks
for a moment like we're going here.
And then the running back
goes over there and touchdown.
And then everybody praises the quarterback
for his game awareness,
for his ability to to see what's going on
and to check off the play.
The coach sent in and call a better play.
Well that's great
if you're a football quarterback.
But guess what?
Human coaches sent
in the wrong play every now and then.
But when God sends in the play,
I would suggest it's
not a very good idea to change it.
Would you agree?
And but what happens is I don't treat
God as God.
I treat him as my cosmic consultant.
And I go, well, good idea.
Normally you got this one, but
in this case, and I got all my reasons why
we're going to call an audible.
And when we call the audible,
nothing works out
because he knows what he's doing.
Even if, by the way, play after play after
play goes into the teeth of the defense
and nothing happens, I guarantee that
the human coach over there is going on.
What do I do
now? God, he's got a game plan.
He knows exactly why
he's setting the stage up over there now.
That's why we sin.
And but yet that verse says,
if I will not call the audible,
I run his play
and his play doesn't work out.
How does that help me cease from sin?
How does that breaks his grip on my life?
Well, here's why.
Because the thing that I fear most
when I do what God calls me to do,
is never as bad as I thought it would be.
And the thing that I missed out on is
never as great as I thought it would be.
But we don't know that
till we experience it.
I know some of you
who have been through that,
where you've gone
through a deep, dark valley and you
and if you had been told ahead of time
you're going to go through this, you'd go,
there is no way
I can make it through that.
That is absolutely impossible.
And then you get on the other side of it
and go, man, that was hard.
But nowhere near
as hard as I thought it would be.
Some of you been there
and missing out is the same thing.
And here's why.
Because in the Valley
I'm afraid to go there.
But I'm going to call your play.
And sure enough,
it doesn't work out as I'm in that valley.
Guess what?
God shows up with all the grace,
strength and mercy I need.
But here's the problem
it's a just in time delivery system.
I hate that
if you're in a business world,
you might know the name Deming.
He's the guy who came up with it
just in time.
Delivery systems.
And instead of building
big warehouse houses and
and having all kinds of inventory,
cut the cost
and have all the parts delivered
just in time, put it together,
save a lot of money, much more efficient
and whatever.
By the way, the American industry ignored
it, Japanese industry bought into it.
And now, of course, American has.
But it's just in time.
And I remember reading about that and
thinking, oh, that's what God always does.
If you go back to the Old Testament,
there was a thing called manna
that showed up every day,
one day at a time, just one day supplies
the children of Israel
wandered through the wilderness.
Well, here's my problem.
When I'm about
when I'm tempted to call the audible,
I look at the valley
and I go, I can't make it through.
And guess what? I can't
as I am today with what I have today,
but I can
when tomorrow on my doorstep shows up.
Just what I need now.
What I always wish, I wish my garage
instead of being full of junk,
was full of pallets of mercy,
grace and spiritual strength.
Wouldn't that be cool
if I had pallets full of it?
I look in there and whatever it is
the enemy wants to put in front of me
to lift us. I got I got all the supplies
I need for this,
but that's why it's called Faith.
It comes one day at a time.
Well, the flip side is
when I do what God says to do
and I miss out on something,
I'm really not missing out on anything.
And when I do the right thing over time,
he gives me
what actually satisfies, even though
sometimes it's not what I want.
Because one of the worst experiences
in life
is when I get everything I want,
only to find out it's nothing I want.
I call it destination sickness,
and I can't tell you how many people
I've known in life, both Jesus followers
and non Jesus followers
who have chased the path because this is
where I'll find all I want.
And then things they knew
were not the right thing to do
to make sure they got it.
They were afraid to lose out
only to get there and go.
Is this all there is
to find out
the greener grass was painted concrete?
You ever had that happen to you?
It's like, what's up?
That brass ring was just a bubble.
And so how sinless this is.
Grip is very simple
because after I've gone through that
a few times, I realized, like,
there's nothing to fear here.
He's going to give me what I
really need, which is far better sometimes
than what I thought I would want.
And that valley I have to go
through is nowhere near as severe
and as horrific as I thought.
And every time I go through that,
I get stronger and stronger and stronger
because my fear gets less
and less and less.
That's what he's talking about.
Well, how do we get there?
Well,
we think in respond like Jesus thought
and responded in the face
of suffering for doing the right thing.
As I like to say,
when you do the right thing
and you get the wrong result,
so let's pivot now and take the rest
of our time and take a look at if
we're going to think like Jesus thought.
What?
How do we think and what do we do now?
By the way, a good starting point
would be to take a look
at what the Bible actually says.
Let's see, first of all, here first
Peter four one since therefore
Christ suffered in the flesh, arm
yourselves with the same way of thinking.
The problem is, he doesn't tell us
right now what that means, right?
And if we're honest,
we often have a Jesus and a Bible
that's more a figment of our imagination
than what actually says.
Do any of you
remember those little bracelets?
Wwjd? Anybody here? Remember those?
Okay, for those of you
who do that, it represented
what would Jesus do?
And for a short period of time
it was all the rage.
The problem is, these bracelets were worn
by a bunch of people
who had no idea what Jesus actually did.
They just had a Jesus of their own.
Well, I think Jesus would do this.
Of course he'd do what I would do.
So we're going to now explore Scripture,
and we're going to find some things
for Peter and other passages
that are a little surprising and others
that absolutely confirm
what you've always been told.
So let's start with verse one
suffering persecution.
Number one, if we're going to think
like Jesus, believe it or not,
we're going to avoid it if possible,
we can avoid it if possible.
We are not called as Jesus followers
to seek out hardship and persecution.
We are called to accept
hardship and persecution
and that's a massive difference.
I remember one conference
I was speaking at, and the dude
who was speaking before me was talking
about what it means to take up your cross,
you know, and, and follow Jesus.
And, he was talking about
being a radical disciple,
Navy Seal for Jesus,
you know, all that kind of stuff.
And and I'm
Melissa and I go, dude, you are crazy.
And his
his, his major illustration was,
if you're serious about following God,
you're going to take up your cross
whenever you have in life a choice
and one way is easy and one way is hard.
You're going to take the hard way.
And I remember thinking,
I just want to get up in the next
talk and say, this dude needs a counselor
because he wasn't
talking about discipleship.
That guy was a masochist.
Like, you're, you're crazy
if you choose a hard road just hit you.
There is no value in that.
The value is in accepting what God puts,
before us when we have the choice.
You see, when the Bible says
save your cross and bear it,
he he's he's not talking about.
I want to tell you, here's
what the Christians life's going to be.
Sign up for it. It's absolutely miserable.
And so
just every day that you're following
Jesus is going to be a hard day tomorrow
worse than today.
And that means you really love Jesus
and he loves you.
No, Jesus was saying
a cross was an implement of death.
He says, if you're going to follow me,
you need to be ready to go wherever I go
and you need to be ready
if called upon, even to die.
We've got 12 apostles.
Judas was kind of a loser,
so we'll go with the 11 left.
And ten out of those 11 died
for their faith.
One of them, he lived to a ripe old age.
It's up to God, whatever he wants to do.
He's not saying be miserable.
He's saying be willing to go
and do whatever it is I call you to do.
You see that difference?
It is. It is very massive.
Here's
what Jesus actually said about hard times.
In Matthew chapter 1128 to 30,
come to me, all who
labor and heavy laden, and I will give you
what my church folks for me.
So help me out.
I will give you what rest.
It's not like
I'll show you how hard it can be.
No, I'll give you rest.
Take my yoke.
My stern guide upon you.
Learn from me I am gentle, lowly in heart.
And you will find rest for your souls.
Because my yoke is what is easy.
And my burden is light.
That's why you and I, when we walk
through a valley, Jesus sent us in.
We didn't send ourselves in that.
You get to the other side, you go, wow,
that wasn't as hard as I thought
because his yoke makes it easier
and his hand makes the burden lighter.
You realize
Jesus came to go to the cross right?
That's why he came.
But what did he do before
he went to the cross?
He went to a place
called the Garden of Gethsemane,
and he brought three of his closest guys
with him.
He said, pray for me.
He went over here and he pled with the
father that he wouldn't have to do that.
And when the father said,
no, you need to do it,
he asked two more times.
Sounds like a toddler.
Like, are you kidding me?
And then he said, okay, obedience
is that path,
but I don't want you to miss that.
And by the way,
maybe some of you have seen the pictures.
You know,
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
You know, he's by this little rock.
He's got his hair all nicely done
in that little funky robe would wear.
And then there's that little shiny light
around him, I guess was always there.
And he's like this prayed.
That's not what the Bible says at all.
The Bible
says he told his three to go there,
and then it says, he went here
and he fell on the ground,
groveling in the ground
with a horror of what was in front of him,
saying, Lord, is it father?
Is there any way to avoid this?
He told his apostles, when you go town
to town, stay where you wanted.
But if they don't want anything, leave.
He said, when they persecute, you, flee.
Now I need to take
a little sidebar here,
because there is this problem.
Sometimes the hardship and persecution
and rejection
we go through is not because
we're being obedient to Jesus.
It's because we're being a jerk for Jesus.
It's self-inflicted.
And I thought it'd be practical
because we got this thing called
the holidays coming up, where some of us
get to be with the people we most love,
and some of us are experiencing
the two days, three days we mostly.
And you know,
you're getting this family gathering
and they want nothing to do with Jesus.
And all the things they're talking about
are things like they're not very good,
that many of us speak up in those things
and get some rejection, some hardship,
some suffering, whatever it would be.
And we think we're suffering for Jesus,
and we're suffering
because we don't know
how to keep our mouth shut.
You are
not a coward when you keep your mouth shut
around.
People who don't want to hear
what you have to say.
As a brand new Christian,
I didn't understand this.
I mean, you need
Jesus eternal life, forgiveness.
You need Jesus.
There is no other way.
So I want to tell everybody.
And so if I sat next to you on
an airplane, a bus, God knows what it is,
I put a mirror in front of your face.
It fogs a little.
You're alive. Boom!
I'm telling you the story.
And the truth of the matter is, I actually
some people pray to receive Jesus.
Not really to receive Jesus, just for me
to shut up and leave them alone.
Right.
But. But the thing was, I misunderstood
the fact that what
I'm called to do is to speak
where people
are interested
and not to stand up everywhere
and bring it and then say, oh,
I'm being persecuted for Jesus.
When he sent out his 12 apostles later
on, 72 two
by two is advance teams to go to towns
he was going to around Galilee.
He said, when you're welcome,
you stay there.
But if they don't want to hear you
stand on the corner
anyway and keep preaching
until they put you in jail. No,
he said, women don't want to hear you
shake the dust off your feet and go away.
They want to hear you,
but you.
Timing matters.
How many, how many of you would love a
blessing if I were to give you a blessing?
How many? You'd like that.
Okay.
The rest of you were asleep, right? Okay.
Right.
It's a good thing,
but not if I give it to you at 3 a.m..
See, Proverbs says a blessing.
Good thing too early in the morning
will be taken as a curse.
What we need to learn to do is to accept
or when asked.
I love how Peter puts it always be ready.
Give an answer to everyone
who asks you for the reason
of the hope you have.
I thought it was tell everybody a reason
whether they wanted to hear or not.
Tell everybody. Living a godless life.
Here's five reasons why you're wrong,
even though they have no interest in it
at that point.
Does this make sense? What I'm saying?
And our job.
Peter even says that you saw it earlier,
live such good lives
that they start wondering,
why are you different?
And then they ask,
and then you speak into that situation
when, if at all possible, avoid it.
And like I said, you're not a coward.
You're wise when you know when to speak
and when not to speak.
Now there's a second thing, though,
which is accept it.
If the only way to avoid
it is disobedience,
right?
Jesus pleaded, pleaded, pleaded.
And then it's like, nope.
The thing I'm called to do
is go to the cross.
And he went to the cross
and and there are situations
where the only way out of the loss,
the only way out of the pain,
is to do the wrong thing.
And at that point I will embrace
and I will accept
whatever he brings out of my life.
And guess what?
In obedience, God always shows up
with that just in time delivery system.
Here's another passage speaks about it.
First Corinthians chapter ten, verse 13.
No temptation has overtaken you.
That is not common to man, though
sometimes when we think, come
on, God, I'm the only one going through
this.
God is faithful.
He will not let you be tempted
beyond your ability.
Well, every now and then we go, come
on, God, I don't think I can handle this.
And here's what he says.
But with the temptation,
he'll also provide the way of escape.
So you can endure it
as a new Jesus follower
reading that in the Bible, I wonder,
well, where's what is the way of escape?
I you ever done an escape room?
I kind of thought,
like maybe that's what it is.
If I'm really smart, I can figure out
know how to get out of this thing.
But in reality,
you know what the way of escape is?
It's very simple. Obedience.
No matter
what the scoreboard says,
no matter what's going on,
you run his play
and that is always the way out.
And the way that we receive all
that we need.
Now, in the midst of that,
there's a third thing I want to point out,
and that is we never return evil for evil,
no matter what.
That's how Jesus did it.
I want us to put up first
Peter chapter two, verses 21 to
23 for a second for
this year has been called because Christ
suffered for you, leaving you an example.
So this verse says, see what he did
and do it
so that you might follow in his steps.
Now remember, he committed no sin.
Neither was deceit found in his mouth,
perfect, sinless Son of God.
And when he was
reviled, he did not revile in return.
When he suffered, he did not threaten,
but he simply continued to entrust himself
to God, who judges justly.
If we're honest,
everything in us
wants to repay some measure of evil
for evil.
Is that is that okay to say right,
whether it's road rage
or a massive injustice,
I don't want you to get away with it.
So I need to figure out, like,
how to do it.
Road rage is such a funny, strange,
weird thing to me.
You almost kill me,
so I decide I need to let you know.
You almost killed me. I hung my horn.
But in my flesh.
I also want to teach you a lesson.
So instead of honking my horn, what
I really want to do is just lay on my.
Horn. Right?
And then I.
It would be nice to tailgate
you maybe roll down the window and
will not wave at you.
That's what I want to do right?
Well, the problem is, whenever I return
evil for evil, I think I may the score,
but the person on the other side
always does their math differently.
Have you been there or noticed that?
I think we're even now.
You almost killed me and I let
you know I wasn't happy about it.
But what's he think?
He thinks he's one behind,
so he slows down to two miles an hour
and the battle begins.
Whenever you return
evil for evil, what you end up doing is
you've got a fire going on in the kitchen,
and you've grabbed the hose
and you put water on it.
Only realize it's a grease fire.
It always makes things worse.
And tied to that is his fourth principle,
and is that we need to choose
forgiveness over bitterness and revenge
and circle, highlight and underline
the word choose.
It's a choice.
How are we going to respond?
I mean, let's be real.
None of us will ever suffer
injustice to the level our Lord Jesus did.
We call it Good Friday
because of what happened on Sunday?
It was actually damnable Friday,
the most evil in just wicked
24 hours in human history.
Yeah.
What were his words, father?
Forgive them.
They know not what they do.
Now, when I choose forgiveness,
you need to understand.
That doesn't mean I choose to forget.
I choose to give you a knife
so you can stab me in the back again.
I choose to trust.
You know. Forgiveness is given.
Trust is earned.
I don't even have to invite you
over the Thanksgiving dinner.
There's a lot of people I don't invite,
but what I
do need to do is quit looking for ways
to let others know the evil
you did to slander you, and worse,
to let you live rent
free in my brain.
Have any of you ever let somebody live
rent free in your brain?
You know, the other thing we do is
we have what I like to call brain debates.
You ever have those?
I have never lost
a brain debate in my life.
I just annihilate the person I'm.
And the thing is, they're just going on
with life, not even thinking about me.
And I'm just consumed
because I've chosen not to say, Lord,
it's yours.
By the way. Read the Psalms.
You can actually say, Lord,
I'm entrusting you with it.
And by the way, sic them.
Now he'll decide what he
wants to do, and I need to remember
he died for me while I was his enemy.
So he my turn my enemy
into my brother or sister.
But but bottom line, it is a choice
whether I'm going to let this thing go
or not in a
in a real, practical way.
A mentor of mine taught me something
just in the small grievances.
It was this phrase he said, Larry,
you need to learn to go towards
your enemies.
Well, what do you mean by that?
So he said, when somebody has hurt
you, has done you wrong.
And your role as a pastor,
they've not left the church,
which is fine,
but they've left it flaming everything
along in today's stuff on social media.
They're going all after it or whatever
it would be, he says.
When you see them in aisle
seven, everything in you wants to go
leave the store, go down aisle nine.
Am I mentor taught me
no, go down aisle seven.
I want to tell you that's a choice.
There's nothing I want to do.
But what I learned
is every time I would go down aisle
seven and I'd say, hey, how are you doing?
How are the kids or the spouse or whatever
it is?
They flamed our church
as they go to another church, ask,
hey, how's it over there?
It, you know, Christ, community chapel or,
you know, wherever it would be.
I hear good things are going on.
You know what would happen?
It's like when you get an infection.
It's like you pop it
and all the pus in the poison comes out.
It is one of the most freeing things
in the world
to go towards your enemy
with grace and mercy,
instead of the chains of holding on
to praying debates,
living rent free in my mind, bitterness.
It's counterintuitive.
I'm standing up there and I go, yeah,
but that means they got away with it.
And Lord goes, I know the play.
I got the right play.
Do not worry.
And the last thing I leave you with
is this we're going to be like Jesus.
We're going
to keep our eye on the finish line.
Because no pain, no gain isn't a cliche.
It's discipleship.
And I love Hebrews chapter 12, verse two,
where it says he it.
Jesus endured the cross for the joy
set before him, despising the shame.
And I want to tie this all together
with those three words, endured the cross.
That means he didn't like it.
It's really okay
to not like it, to just go.
I don't know if I can make one more day
as he keeps showing up his man
his just in time delivery system.
Why? For the joy set before him,
he had his eye on the long term.
But I love this
all the while despising the shame.
I go, I can do
that because I used to have the idea
I'm supposed to be like, oh, fun!
Suffering for Jesus. No.
Call the play.
Because you know the joy.
Even if you despise the process.
You know what faith is?
Faith is trusting
God enough to do what he says.
And it's not the thing
that causes every trial to go away.
It's the thing that guides me
through every trial.
And that's what it means
to think like Jesus.
And when we do, awesome things happen.
Father, would you take the things
that we have looked at?
And Lord, we don't want to hear them
as if your scripture has binoculars,
what we see in other people,
but make it a mirror
to help us realize
what step of obedience is our next step
to your glory and honor.
In Jesus name, Amen.