Speaker 1 0:41

[inaudible] felt like your

Speaker 2 0:43

Applause is a little premature. So if you want to go do that now it'd be maybe be more. Yeah , no , it's great to be here. It's great to be here. I got to tell you one thing about me. It's like when I meet people in my community, I don't tell them I'm a pastor right away, because I know that that'll shut all kinds of doors. Right. And one of the things I missed during COVID was just sitting like in a Starbucks or in a restaurant , just, just meeting people and then not knowing a pastor. So it's kind of fun. Like I was sitting there one day, this is pre COVID. I'm sitting there one day and this particular Starbucks only has two comfortable chairs. I think they do that on purpose, but it was only, I had one of them and this guy plots down next to me. He goes, do you mind? I'm like, no, no problem. So we're sitting there for a while . He starts into this whole thing. I find out like, he's a nurse. He works three 12 hour shifts a week. But he's thinking about getting a job at Starbucks. And I'm like, really? Why would you do that? And he goes to meet the ladies. No joke. He proceeded to tell me which girls who worked there were the most attractive who had the best smile who had the best eyes the entire time. This is probably takes 15 minutes for him to tell me his whole plan, his whole strategy. I'm just listening the whole time. A number of people come through a number of women come through Starbucks. Every one of them knows me. Every one of them walks in. Hey John. Hi. Hi. After a while , like a couple of times he like looked at me and he keeps telling the story how he wants to meet women. This guy knows every woman that's walked in here. How is this possible? And then one of them walks out and she says, my pastor, he says, did she say master? I said, yes, she did. Adam. Just sit with that for a few minutes. And then I told him, no, actually she said pastor, but I'll tell you, speaking of pastors, I love yours. Larry Davis. Great, great guy. He and I go way back. Yeah, you can clap for him anytime . He, and I go way back. I may tell you a little bit about that later, but I just want to say, man, it's so good to be back here. Um , throughout the year, Larry and I talk and we just get on the phone and just check in on each other. And I know that this has been a rough year in a lot of ways for a lot of, a lot of churches all over the place. And it's just nice to know. And now being able to be back after a couple of years , um, how, how good things are happening going on and how good things are going right now. I've been tracking with your series, the series of Jeremiah. And I started with the very first one back. Well , I think it was like Memorial day weekend. And Larry kicked that off. But I was really interested last week because Kayla was talking and she had the best verse that anybody could have during the series, Jeremiah 29 11. Right. And so she actually was saying like, there's other people though in the series that had stolen her verse, you remember that if you were here last week, you remember it's like, they'd stopped. Like three other people had used her verse. Like, that's my verse. Like Larry gave me lemon tations . Ain't nobody been stealing my verses. I'm just telling you right now. It's like, he asked me months ago, if this weekend would work, I'm like, yes. And I was so excited. And then just all like, I don't know , like a month or two ago, he goes, Hey, this is the series we're going to be in. I want you to cover some stuff in Lamentations. I'm like, where is that in the Bible? I have not, I've never done a message out of laminate , like preach through limitations. And we're going to get there in a minute. But I want to set this up that this guy is in his pet delivery truck. And as he pulls up to the light, he jumps out. He has a two by four. He hits the side of this truck and he jumps back in, goes to the next light. Red light, jumps out and grabs a two by four starts banging on this truck, jumps back in, goes to the next light. And there's people with him and traffical what is going on. And so one guy just rolls down his window. Next stop. He gets out, hits the side of this truck and he goes, what are you doing? He goes, I've got four tons of canaries in here, but it's only a two ton truck. I got to keep half of them in the air all the time. When I read that story, I was like, does that, does that sound like your life? Maybe sometimes you're trying to, they keep everything going and it just it's, it's tiring. And it's frustrating. And then as crazy and weird as life is, then you add a worldwide pandemic on top of that. I mean, that's a pretty good description of last year. You got, you're beating the side of this truck and you got COVID. It's like so many things went wrong long in the last, you know , 16, 17 months. And I know good has come out of it, but, but Lamentations takes us to a place where we just kind of take a moment and we pause, wait , wait a minute. What have we lost?

Speaker 3 5:33

Let let's let's name the hurt. Let's

Speaker 2 5:35

Let's understand where we've been. And what's happened instead of just being, you know, Pollyanna and looking for the silver lining right away. It's like, there needs to be this time where we kind of stop and we look around and we embrace it. Now, before I get to limitations, I'm going to read this passage out of Matthew and it's out of a translation called the message. So it's maybe a little bit more wordy than the translation you're used to, if this is a familiar passage, but this is out of Matthew 11, listen to this . Are you tired? Look at this, burned out on religion. Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me, watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. And what an amazing invitation when life is crazy to the max, how inviting is that yet ? I read that and I think, but there's a whole bunch of people who don't Jesus up on his offer. Why not? Let me give you just a few reasons why we may not do that. And then I'm going to make the connection between like where Israel is at in this book of Lamentations in just a moment. But let's just, this is an amazing invitation. Why wouldn't we take him up on that kind of an offer, right? And so here's a few reasons. First one is pride. Sometimes we just don't want to admit that we need help. Like my life is crazy. And on top of that as COVID, but I got this. That's how we say it. I've got this and pride. Pride can be a problem for a lot of reasons. In fact, the Bible has tons of verses about pride. One of them is in Proverbs 18. Look at this. It says proud people will be ruined. I mean, that's enough proud people, movie ruined, but the humble will be honored. Sometimes pride gets in our way. Sometimes just guilt gets in our way. And the guilt is just saying like, I am so ashamed. I don't like I'm too ashamed to even admit that I need help or that I could ask God for I'm too ashamed to go there. Psalm 40 says this, I'm going to read this for you. This is so good. Now God, don't hold out on me. Don't hold back. Your passion, your love and your truth are all that keeps me together. When troubles, when troubles , ganged up on me, a mob of sins, past counting, I was so swamped by guilt. I couldn't see my way clear. Now listen to this more guilt in my heart, then hair on my head. Like, why does it have to go there every time? Right? So heavy. The guilt that my heart gave out, I don't know about you. I always spot those verses that. Talk about God, numbering the hairs on our head and all that. And there it is so much more guilt in my heart then hairs on my head. But you know, that feeling right? So much guilt. So , so shame. Like I can't ask God for help again, for the same thing again, because I blew it again. I don't want to go to him. I don't want to have, because of that guilt, another reason is fear. It's just the fear of, you know , um , I'm so afraid that maybe I'm going to mess up. Maybe I'm going to give up in the middle of it. I don't want to, I don't want to do that.

Speaker 4 9:02

Yeah . It's just fear. When one guys

Speaker 2 9:07

Fallen off of the cliff and I like to mountain bike and we have mountains all around us and I love it. And one time my wife, who's stunningly beautiful and she's sitting over there anyway. I always tried to make sure she knows how I feel about her. But anyway, one time she asked me to go play tennis with her because she loves pit tennis. And I said to her, I don't want to play. Cause I might get hurt. And that I couldn't ride. And she says, wait, you ride on the edge of cliffs. And you're afraid of getting hurt in tennis, right? So I know about falling. So anyway, this guy falls off this cliff and is literally hundreds of feet, but he grabs this one branch and he's just holding on for everything he's got. And he hears this voice. It says, let go, and I will catch you.

Speaker 5 9:55

Who is this? It's God,

Speaker 4 9:59

Let go. And I will catch you. Anybody else up there?

Speaker 2 10:06

I don't want to let go. Right? So what , what if , what is that fear? It's just kinda like paralyzes us sometimes mark 8 36 says this, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? I think sometimes our fear gets in the way of us making the most important decision we could ever make. And we hang on instead of letting go, another one is worried and worry is a simple one. Really? It's like I confuse, well, I called the decision phase with the problem solving phase. The decision phase is the part I just gotta make. But we, we, we don't get there because we're trying to figure out , well, what would that look like? What would I have to give up? If I'm going to follow Jesus, if I'm going to take him up as an invitation, you know what, where does that go? Instead of just saying, you know what, I'm going to follow him back in 1963, it was a good year I was born. Which just means I'm all like, some of you are like, you were born before 2000. Wow. Yeah. Way back then. But our president at the time, John F. Kennedy said in 1963, before the decade is over, we will what? We're going to put a man on the moon. Did they have it all figured out yet? No decision was made though. And so everybody worked on it and the decision to follow Jesus. Sometimes it might be scary. It might be a fear-filled thing, but it's also one of those things where I don't have to worry about how it's all going to work out. Just just know that he is going to be with me and walk with me through those changes. He wants to bring in my life. And here's the good news. I love this in Philippians one six, check this out. It says, and I am certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. He's not gonna let you hang. He's going to be there with you. He's gonna walk with you through all of this, but, but there's still another one. And that's a doubt. Doubt. Sometimes just gets in the way of me wanting to follow him. I love the story in the Bible of a guy named gyrus. He has a daughter who's really sick. And he says, geez , if you , if you would, I know you can. It's like, if you would, you, you could heal her. And Jesus says, you just have to believe. And Gyra says something that I absolutely love and I can connect to. He says, I do believe help me with my unbelief. You know, that place where like, oh, I , I believe, but I'm not sure I believe enough. Like it's okay. Don't let that be the thing that hangs you and hold you back. Like it's okay. I think all those reasons are why we get stuck sometimes. And we don't take Jesus up on his invitation, but they're also mixed into all the reasons why Israel was in trouble at the time of Jeremiah's teaching. And when he writes the book of limitations, you know , we know like they had turned their back on God. They had gone there . But uh , why maybe some of those reasons, you know, doubt, fear, worry, pride, all those things that get in the way for them as they get in the way for us. But when we get to the book of Lamentations, it's kind of smack dab in the middle of what Jeremiah writes about it . And actually there's no place in Jeremiah that says, or in limitations that says Jeremiah wrote this, but most scholars believe it was Jeremiah. And it's the same time period. And it's the same kind of thing where he's walking through this city. That once was their pride, that once held the temple, that once had these amazing Kings who ruled over other nations, it's like, it was this amazing place. And it's just rubble. Now everybody has been taken away except for the poorest of poor to kind of maintain some of the broken down vineyards. That's all who's left and they just walk around and it's just, it's depressing. But there's this lamenting that happens, this lamenting, that that goes on. And I'm just going to look at a few different places. It's just a short little book, but I don't want to look in chapter one. And he says this in verse one. How does lies the city one ? So full of people. He says how like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations. She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave. I read that. First-line how deserted lies the city once so full of people. And I thought it's hard to read that without thinking about COVID in the early days, remember the full lockdown, like nobody's on the freeways, nobody's walking around. It was like, it had that eerie kind of a feeling. And just a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I and my dad was over. We were , we just kind of find old action movies and watch me watched San Andreus . You remember that one? So in San Andrea's , the entire city of San Francisco is shaken and then crumbles. And then on top of that, a tidal wave wipes. It's like I had that too, when I was reading that. And you know how deserted lies the city because of this earthquake in his tidal wave. But then he's walking around the very real scene of Jerusalem in ruins. If you read through the old Testament, you come across another book by a guy named Nehemiah, and he's actually one of the ones who's been taken into captivity. He's not there, but he gets word of how bad it is. And he breaks down and cry and fastened praise and ask God to show him what to do. How can you help? I mean, it's, it's bad. Look at verse two, he says bitterly. She w weeps at night, tears are on her cheeks among all her lovers. There is no one to comfort her, by the way, that's kind of a weird reference here, but he's saying you have committed spiritual adultery. Like you left me to run after all these false gods and now look, what, so where are they to help you now? That's the reference he's given here. He's like we had this intimate relationship. You're my people. And you walked away from me and now there's all kinds of consequences, but you read kind of chapter one, there there's more there, but I'm just going to say this. When you read chapter one, you get the sense that lament corporate, like, we need to kind of like go through this together and name some of these together. And we feel these things and experience these things together. There's part of this corporate experience and it requires maybe what we've lost, maybe as immunity or as a church or as a family. We , we go through these things together. I live in a valley. That's had major changes when I went there 34 years ago, it was really primarily known as a retirement community. There was more money on our main street called Florida avenue than any other street in America, except for wall street, retired people move there , put their money in the bank. And it's like literally more banks and more money on any street in America, except for wall street. That all changed over time. It was changing already, but in 2008, when the crash hit a lot of people, I would say a third of the people in our valley moved , just left, had to find work or got out for whatever reason. And they were replaced by, by people who were just getting out of prison by gangs, by other issues. Our , our valley really made a big, big change just a few years back. And there is a sense of lamenting that's gone on in our valley. In fact, I like to listen to on other people's conversations in restaurants, that's a bad habit, but it's kind of fun sometimes. But typically like in our town, like you go to a little diner and you get some old, good old boys sitting there. And they're like , yeah, I remember when we never had to lock our front door.

Speaker 3 17:28

I remember one just stay out. As

Speaker 2 17:30

Long as we get , when we were kids, we didn't have to come home to the lights. The street lights went on, you know, it's like, and now you can't let your kid go anywhere. Cause they might get abducted. Right? So it's like, they're talking about the past, lamenting the past, going through all of that. In fact, I looked up the name of my town. It's called Hemet . It's not very popular every now, then it makes the news for not a good reason. And up on a thing called an urban dictionary. I encourage you. Don't go there if you're offended by strong language. But urban dictionary is interesting. I looked up him . It did I give you a slight for this one? Maybe I didn't. Okay. Well, I'm going to read this to you. It said this urban dictionary here . It is a small city in the inland empire of Southern California, known for meth, evangelical Christian, extremist, racist and gun toting hillbillies. The vast majority of young people. There have absolutely no ambition to go any further than working at Walmart said, youth are also encouraged to pump out kids as soon as possible. This ties into the town's typical religious views. It is far out of the way of any other bastion of civilization and takes about 30 minutes out of town just to get to a freeway. And then in all caps, you know what that means avoid at all. That was one of the depressing definitions of the town that I live in. Now, by the way, I looked up Benicia,

Speaker 1 19:01

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 19:02

Nothing so bad. I just thought this was interesting. Every teenager says he or she hates this place, but secretly loves it. Oh, that's so sweet. I've got gun toting hillbillies. And you have kids that can't admit that they like it. There's there's a big difference. That's right. When I met Larry Davis, your pastor, he was a little kid. The church that I'm a part of was a little tiny church that had broken away from another church that was doing nothing to reach young people. But they said we're going to reach young people. So a group of retired people left that church to start a church, to reach young people. That was their vision. Now you can imagine that a church of retired people is not really a magnet for young people. They asked me to be their youth pastor in 1987. And I went through in 1987. There was two kids in the church, two middle schoolers. So we don't want you to take care of our two kids. We want you to get kids. We want you to minister, to young families. We want to do what our church was started to do. And then about three years into that, they asked me to be the minister, the pastor. And there's all a bunch of baggage that came with that because the guy before me had some issues, but they said we still want to reach younger . So I was, I was there at that time and that's when I met Larry. He would come and visit his grandparents

Speaker 4 20:17

At that church. When he was a kid, by

Speaker 2 20:21

The way, his parents, his grandparents were lamenting the church that it used to be. It sang the songs they wanted and did things the way they wanted. And Larry himself would argue with them and say, no, I like him. He's doing what needs to happen. If you're going to reach young people, he's a young person. He's like, I like this change, right? Lamenting is something any of us could do for any kind of in any number of reasons, like whether we're just lamenting the good old boys or what, but in this case, in Israel, in Jerusalem, they're lamenting the fact that what once was their pride, like the temple, the city of Jerusalem high on a hill was just in rebels. We have skip on to chapter three and he says this. I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord's wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light. Indeed. He has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long, he has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with a bitterness and a hardship. He has made me dwell in the darkness like those long dead. He w he started with this corporate picture, but then he really says, lament is also very personal. He's like this, this feels like God has done this to me. And then maybe like, I have to own a part of like my sin . I have to own a part of my , my walking away from God. And maybe that wasn't Jeremiah's story, but he's understanding same thing with Nehemiah and Linden , when he does pray to God, he says, hi , you hear how bad it is. God forgive me because I'm a part of this

Speaker 3 22:04

Too. This is my people

Speaker 2 22:06

I'm in is it's very personal. And I think the lament that is personal is when we begin to name what we lost. And maybe this year you lost and you lost friends and maybe it was related to COVID. Maybe it wasn't, the COVID made it so much worse. You couldn't sit with him in the hospital. You couldn't have the Memorial service that you wanted. What did we lose? Some of you lost a job. Some of you lost financial security. Some of you lost a lot of things. This last year, it's like in a personal way, while we all experienced it, there's some personal ways. It really hit home for us. We all go through it, but we all go through it differently. And then we get to chapter five, kind of skip down towards the end of that one and verses 20 and 21 says this. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long, restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return renew our days of old , look at the stove. Why do you always forget us? Have God forgotten them? No, but that's what it feels like, like literally, like lament honestly acknowledges that space between what feels like and what is, what it feels like as a God's miles and miles and miles away. But in reality, he's still there. There's also another kind of space and tension that we have to deal with when we're dealing with difficult things. And it's that tension between maybe I brought on myself by my own stupid choices. I don't know if anybody else has ever made those. I have, right. We bring on some of our own consequences. And there's other times we're in the midst of consequences. We did not bring on ourself like this, this last year. Like I don't, I'm not sure that anybody in the room or even watching online was responsible for COVID. Right. But man, we all had to deal with it. And so sometimes like I bring it on. Sometimes it's , it's brought to me, but I have to deal with this pain. And I have to, I have to find somehow that God is still in the midst of it . Even though he feels like he's a long way off. I mentioned before, my wife loves tennis. She really does, but I love watching tennis. I like to play, but I like watching tennis just as much as she does. And so when the grand slam of ins , come on, we sit down together. We watch those. I remember just a month ago or so it was the French open and it reminded me. Tennis is the only sport that I know of where you can literally give up and still win. What you talking about Willis. Yeah. It's the only sport that I know of where you can completely give up and still win . You can give up on one set. Maybe, maybe for whatever reason, it's just your , your serves not clicking. Something's not happening . Or the other person is on fire and you see that you're down early. And so you just like, eh , I'm not going to win this set. Don't worry about it. I'm not going to spend much energy either trying to get back in this set. I'm just going to , I'm just going to let it go. Like Novak Djokovic. She's the number one player in the world right now. He did that in the fringe open. He's just like, and once I just like I'm done. And so it doesn't mean that he just like walked away and didn't, didn't try to hit a ball, but it may be maybe during that time, instead of spending energy, writing back and forth, if they hit the ball over there and he's like, okay, good shot. But if I'm going to work on my backend or I'm going to work on my server or whatever, during this time, I'm going to give up on this one set, but I'm not getting it. He came back and he won the match and then round one won the championship. And I've seen that over and over in people's lives. There's times where maybe what I have to do is I have to give up this one thing in order to find the win in something else. And that's where I really want us to focus on as we wrap this up. And when I say wrap this up, don't get all excited. Like I'm not even near done. Larry said be done by noon. And so I will, I will work on that, right? It's like, how do I find the win in the loss? That's what I want us to focus on. That's what they had to do in Israel. But I want to make it personal for us. Can we show them the picture of the Awan sauce? I just noticed it . I don't know anybody like a one sauce. Come on. Our hands in the air. You like a one sauce, a few of you. All right . But I don't know if you ever noticed this established in 1862.

Speaker 3 26:28

I was like,

Speaker 2 26:29

That was smack in the middle of the civil war. Like somebody says , you know what? This country really needs

Speaker 5 26:38

Is a great steak sauce, right

Speaker 2 26:42

There . There's a wind in the middle of a huge, painful conflict going on. So unless humorous way, maybe in a more practical way, we, how do we find the win in those things in life where it didn't go? How do we find the win in the midst of a worldwide pandemic? How do we get there? And I think maybe some of you are like , are already getting there. You've already kind of wait a minute. How many of you will show of hands? How many of you did something that you had been putting off for a long time? And then the world finally came to a screeching, halt, anybody do something around your house or try something, anybody learn a new skill during COVID like I started doing, I do photography, but I started working and learning how to do video stuff and how to edit videos. That was all part of like YouTube university during COVID. Right. So I learned how to do some things like that. Some of you maybe learned a new skill. Somebody who maybe dove deeper into relationships with family and friends are reconnected in ways because there was more time. I don't , I don't know, but I see already some wins that have come out of it for people. But I think at the very heart of what Israel was going through and maybe at the very heart of whatever we go through, the most important win is that we reconnect with our God that's what has to happen. And that's where we need to get. So let me just quickly do this. I'm going to give you a few ways. We can reconnect to God or connect to him in the first place, whatever our situation might be. But as we, as we go through difficult times and it feels like God's miles away, but he's really not. He's actually right here. How do I reconnect with him in the midst of that kind of pain? And there are some choices that I have to make. So I'd encourage you with these choices. Number one, I want to accept God's son as my savior. I mean, that's, that's like starting launching point to everything we're going to say, but this, this is key. This is important. This may be the very step that some of you took a long time ago and you got like knocked off track a little bit. Oh yeah. You're still showing up at church, but it's like, let's just admit that we're not really where we need to be in our relationship with him. And then don't make the mistake that he is just our savior.

Speaker 3 28:50

Akia is king. He is Lord. I mean,

Speaker 2 28:54

He is Lord. Think about that. Calls the shots in our life. We're not just using Jesus as an add onto our life. I'm like, I've talked to people say , yeah, but if I become a Christian and when I have to go to church, all right. So here's the idea, basically becoming a Christian means, say the same person I am get God's help occasionally when I need it, because I can't do that by myself. And then I have to add church to my schedule. Woo . That just sounds so enticing. No, Jesus is not just an add on, and he's not just a get out of hell free card. He is

Speaker 3 29:29

Lord he's Lord.

Speaker 2 29:32

And that , that just got needs to hit home to us over and over and over again. So even those of us who have made that decision to before , yes, I want Jesus as Lord and savior in my life. Like we need to re up like every day, every week and come in this place in this space and rub shoulders with people who are getting in the same direction. We need that kind of encouragement because it's the most important decision we make. Romans 10, nine, and 10 says this. If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart. Believe in your heart. That God raised him from the dead you'll be saved for is with your heart. You believe and are justified. And it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. Number two, I accept God's word as my standard. I mean , God's word literally is the foundational rock for my life. When everything around me shifts and moves like the culture. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but the culture changes. Its mind. Sometimes it's shifting, it's moving. It's always on the move, but the word of God is like a rock. I can build my life on that. And I want to make sure that I accept God's word as the standard for my life. Second Timothy three 16 says this all scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true. And to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. It just so happened that Friday night, we got a chance to meet , uh , Larry and Michelle for dinner. And Larry said, at one point on the freeway, we were actually right by each other. We didn't know it like he saw my Jeep, but didn't know it , my Jeep. And he's looking at the license plate and my license plate is epic LF. So it stands for epic life, but I couldn't get all those letters on there. My, my niece and nephew thought it said epic leaf. They thought that was funny. So epic life. But that really is not just about being in a Jeep or being on a mountain bike. It's really about four commitments we made at our church C and the east ends for everyday with Jesus. So we just got our people to say, we're going to commit to this every single day, we're going to read our Bible. We're going to pray every, every single day we're going to be in the word of God, because it is the standard for our life. It's not just a catchy phrase every day with Jesus sounds so nice. It's like, no, we're going to do that. We're going to do that. And other ones I will accept God's will as my strategy, gee , God, like, what do you want to do to me today? By the way I woke up today, I was breathing. So God must still have something for me to do. Like, God, who do you want to love through me? What do you want to do through me? Like if we could just make that our , our opening prayer every day, God, what do you want to do through me? Who do you want to love through me? And let him work and move it. Like let his will be our strategy. Psalm 40 verse eight says, I take joy doing your will. My God for your instructions are written on my heart. I take joy. Number four, I accept God's power. As my strength, I accept God's power. I know you're not going to I'll remember all these different things we talked about today. Maybe there's one thing that you needed to, but , but I love that last phrase. God , God's power is our strength in mark chapter five, Jesus heals the guy who's filled with demons. He's been ostracized by the community. They don't know what to do. They've actually tried to tie him up and he just bust out of the ropes, the chains, whatever he has a supernatural strength. He hangs out in the cemetery, oftentimes cutting himself. He's possessed. And Jesus shows up and heals the guy. And then the people come out. If you know the story, there's some other things that happen, but the people come out and they see this guy sitting there and he's clothed. That's a new thing. He's clothed . And he's in his right mind. And one of the people do, Jesus, would you, would you leave? Like, it's scary. Like what ? This Jesus comes on the scene and deals with the person they couldn't deal with. And he begs Jesus to go with them . And Jesus says, no. I mean, I would, I would want to go with Jesus. He says, no. He goes , I want you to go back. And I want you to tell everybody what God has done for you. Next time, just kind of flipped through the book of mark. The next time Jesus shows up in that area. He feeds over 4,000 people. Why? Because that guy couldn't stop telling everybody what God had done for him. And by the time Jesus comes back the next time everybody's like, I've heard of this Jesus. And they come running and they went over that . That's the picture of transformation. But that story itself reminds me of what you guys hear on a regular basis. Listen to this. There's nothing so dead.

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That can be resurrected again. Nothing's

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So lost that it cannot be found. There's nothing so broken that cannot be mended on this side of eternity, but we've got to go to him and whatever the loss we're feeling, whatever we think is going on. It's like, it always is not a bad plan to say, I'm going to reconnect with God. I want Jesus as my savior and my Lord and my king. Maybe, maybe one of the best verses in the Bible about finding the win . And the loss is in Matthew chapter 10, verse 39. Here's what it says. Whoever finds their life will lose it. Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. Whoever loses her life for my sake will find it. Here's what I want you to hear. I want you to see this picture. I don't know if you know the person Henry Nowan he's a world famous writer, but before that he was a Catholic priest. He also excelled in education. He had multiple Ivy league degrees, multiple PhDs. He was the top of the game. Like he was teaching at Notre Dame at Harvard, at Yale. He was world renowned . Everybody knew who he was in his mid fifties. He gave it all up and he went to serve at a special needs facility in Canada, changing diapers for adults who couldn't change their own diapers, bathing people who couldn't bathe themselves. He lost the life he had because he felt like he really wasn't with Jesus and letting Jesus flow through him. I just came across this story recently, but he, he, he had this guy that he had met had become a friend who was one of the patients there. His name is Trevor and Trevor had serious psychiatric issues. And so they had to take him to a psychiatric hospital for some ongoing testing and treatment. And so Henry now who , uh , cared about his friend wanted to go visit his friend . So he called the hospital and made arrangements for him to come and visit his friend word, got out that the famous Henry Nowan was coming to this hospital. And before you know it , by the time Henry got there, they had a special event planned like a special lunch in a special room. And that hospital, it was rarely used. It literally had fine China. It literally had like the most precious silver where it's like special room. They had just for these kinds of things. And so can now , and he gets there and they Osher him into this room, the golden room it's called. And it goes in there and he's sitting there. All of these people, all these doctors, all these important people are there, people that come to it just because they got word of mouth, they were invited. They , they were there. And Henry keeps looking at for his friend.

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He goes, where's Trevor. And the guy in

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Charge says, oh, we have a strict policy here that doctors and patients don't eat together. We

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Just don't think that's right. He says, well, if Trevor's not here, I'm Al I guess

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I figured it was more embarrassing to have Trevor in the room then have their famous person leave. And so they bring Trevor him and he sits down right by Henry and, and a meal together , all these people. And in entering Alan's in a conversation with the guy next to him on this side, and Trevor is maybe a little bored. He gets up , he walks

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Around winds up on stage with a microphone.

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All of a sudden they spotted him because he says, if you're happy and you know, it raise your glass. You can just hear the murmurs in the room like, whoa, who gave him away ? How did you get there? Who is, I wonder what was going on? If you're happy and you know what ratings you got , if you're happy and you know, then your face will surely show it. If you have BN , you know, raise your

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Glass. And everybody's just like, but

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Trevor, wouldn't give up. If you're happy and you know, raise your glass. And then a few people started singing with them. If you're happy and you know, raise your glass. And then more people are singing. If you're happy and you know, then your face was early. Show it. If you're FBN, you know, raise your glass. By the time , um , he was done, the whole place was on their feet. They're all singing. They're all grazed in there . They're all laughing. They're , they're just having a great time all because one guy said , I know I'm important in a lot of people's minds, I'm gonna go

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Work in a special needs place in the middle of nowhere. So the people like Trevor know the Jesus loves him

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Because Henry showed that kind of to Trevor. Trevor was able to show

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Something to these stuffy people. And maybe they had a chance for a moment to lose the life that they were caught up into. And they got to get a glimpse of what really life could be. I'm going to pray for you.

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I don't know where you're at. I don't , I don't know spiritually in your journey where you're at, but I just want to pray for you.

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You'd be willing to like say, okay, God, I'm going to lose control of my life so you can, can take control of my life and let's pray. God, we thank you for your , your presence with us today for being with us, Emmanuel with us. Thank God we know that there's been a lot of hurt and pain in the last year and a half lots of it. But in that you have not been absent. You have been with us. And so God, my prayer today is simple. I just want anyone here who, who wants to connect or reconnect with you to have that opportunity to do that? God , let them see you with arms wide open, ready to welcome them home and to your family in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.