Understanding Your Pain | Broken Things Restored

Follow along with message notes at https://www.westsidecommunitychurch.com/notes-resources

Join us as Gabe Kolstad brings us a message about Understanding Your Pain.

#broken #repaired #restored #Jesus #fullservice #fullchurchservice #christian #sermon #worship #westside #church #2026sermon #churchonline #gabekolstad

Westside is a place made up of real people from all walks of life. We are a “come as you are” church that strives to be a safe place for people to investigate faith. No matter your story, questions, doubts or struggles, we’re glad you’re here today.

LINKS & RESOURCES:
SUBSCRIBE to always see our content and let us reach more people for Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/westsidecommunitychurchpdx?sub_confirmation=1
Give to support this ministry and help us reach people all around the world: https://www.westsidecommunitychurch.com/give

STAY CONNECTED:
Website: https://www.westsidecommunitychurch.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/westsidecommunitychurch/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/westsidecommunitychurchpdx/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Question for you as we get started in this brand new series Broken Things Restored. I want to know, did you have or do you have a favorite board game? Anybody have a favorite board game? Yeah? What do you got? Tinzi. Clue. Monopoly. Trouble. Life. What was that one back there? Aggravation. Aggravation? Alright. Sorry, okay. Shoots and ladders, anybody? Okay. That's like my style. Okay, go ahead, right up front. Jenga? That you said? Okay, cool. Alright, good deal. Well, I have one right here. You might know when I don't know if you can tell what it is right now. I'm gonna open it up and you'll be able to tell. You'll be able to tell. It's not gonna, it's not gonna No, you think it's battleship. Somebody thinks it's battleship. Any other guesses? Guess who? What do you think?

unknown 1:07

Guess who?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

She thinks guess who. Operation. We got operation. Okay. Now, when I opened this up, all the pieces fell. So I'm gonna spend a minute here as I explain trying to put a couple pieces back here. Um but the way this works is that this is a dude who has some ailments. And um I think his name's Cavity Sam, if I remember right. Cavity Sam has some ailments. Everybody see that okay? This is this is like one of the best. Um although I'll be honest, I haven't played it in a while. So I got this the other day and I had to read the instructions. So, you know, that tells you what it means. That tells you about me and games. I'm not so much of a game person, but um I like this one because it's very, very simple. And what you do is you find one of these cards and uh they're about to fall. You find one of these cards and you look at it and it tells you what you're supposed to fix. Okay, so this one says, Achoo. Uh, poor teddy bear. Her nose feels all clogged, looks like, looks like she is stuffed. Okay, so we're gonna come up here to the teddy bear, and you're supposed to get with these metal tweezers, you're supposed to get the the thing, you're supposed to remove the problem with these tweezers. But the problem is, you know what it is, right? Uh there's you can't touch the sides. And the pro the problem is that you have to try to pick this thing up and not ooh, I just did it. That's like the first time I've succeeded. Let's try, let's try one more, okay? So you're not supposed to touch the sides. Um, here's another one. Whoops, cavity Sam tripped, and now his ankle feels sore. Looks like he has a twisted ankle. So I'm supposed to go down to the ankle over here, and you have to try to get this out without touching. So that's what happens if you touch the sides. Did you see that? You touch the sides and it does that. But you can't sometimes get so I got it out, but anyways, this is um this is my attempt at a board game. Uh so, but also it's my attempt at helping us to kind of frame up what we're talking about today, which is this. I'm gonna pick up my cards that fell. Um, what we're talking about today is understanding your pain. Understanding your pain. Anybody in here ever experienced pain? Just raise your hand if you've experienced pain before. Okay. Obviously, you have, and I have too, and it's a major part of our lives, isn't it? Um, some of you, I realize some of you are in chronic physical pain from some injury or accident or you know, something happened, and you're in chronic pain, like all the time. You always feel pain. It's so much that sometimes you forget about it, but when you think about it, you realize it's there. Some of you are in different kinds, we all have different kinds of pain, but I I guarantee every single person who's with us online and welcome online, and every person who's here in this room experiences pain every single day. And what I want to talk about as we start this new series is understanding your pain. We're teaching our way to Easter. Easter is coming up in just a few weeks on April 4th and 5th. Those are our Easter services, seven of them, as the girls said on the video. Um, it's gonna be very exciting. Um, and I want you to get your spirit ready for this because we're gonna be talking about, of course, the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter, but really that came after the death and burial of Christ. And what we want to ask is, what came before all that? We know pain came before all that, but how do we understand our pain? I think this is a big important part of getting our spirits ready for what God wants to do next in our lives. And so you look at Cavity Sam, you know he's got pain. I know you've got pain. How do you understand it? Uh there's a book called The History of Pain by Roslyn Ray, a Harvard Press book, and she says every civilization builds a worldview explaining why pain exists. So there's different civilizations of the ancient world. They said pain is a spiritual, supernatural cause of demons, divine punishment, etc. That's that's what pain was from. Uh the Greek, the Greeks brought this thought. They said, well, it's no, it's it's natural and it's body imbalances, and so the solution would be bring balance to the body and you solve pain. In the Christian Middle Ages, their thought was it's punishment, it's discipline, it's purification, maybe even participation in the suffering of Christ. The Enlightenment era said, well, no, actually, it's biology and nerve systems. So now we're really zooming in on specifics about the body. And then modern medicine says it's biological, it's a problem that medicine can control. We've probably all had mixed results with that answer, but but the point is that everybody has a different way of saying, here's what it's from. And I want to go back to what the Bible says about it. In fact, I want to go all the way back, okay? So grab your notes out, hi online. If you didn't already pull up the notes there in your notes tab, do that. And everybody here, you can do that as well. You got the paper copy, you got the tap connect, however you want to do it. But it says at the top of your notes, says in the beginning. In the beginning. This is Genesis 1.1, the first three words of the Bible in the beginning. Goes all the way back, all the way back to the creation of everything that we know and see. And I think it's absolutely important for us to go there as we explore, trying to understand our pain. Where does pain come from? Why does it happen? And what does it mean? So, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's what Genesis 1-1 says. And this chapter one of Genesis, the very first chapter of the Bible, is a beautiful depiction. And I call it, I don't, I don't call it the creation story. Personally, I call it the creation account because I think this is the historical account of how we became to be. And uh and I think that's an important way to think about, like, this is God setting everything up. And how he set everything up and why he did what he did, I think is super important for us. He in Genesis chapter 1, it's it's it states that God said, states that two-word phrase ten times. God said, Let there be light. God said, Let there be plants and animals. God said this, this, this. And so he did this ten different times in Genesis chapter one. And then seven times he said, and it was good. And the Lord God said, it was good. So he creates plants and animals, he's like, good, you know, creates the rivers, good. Creates the sun, the moon, the stars, good. And the very last thing he created, he said it was very good. Very good. Why? Why did he say that? Because he was talking about people. So he creates all this amazing stuff. I mean, think about the universe for just a minute. If you anybody got a favorite constellation or a favorite mountain or a favorite natural scene, and you're like, oh, this will take your breath away, the northern lights or the Grand Canyon or something like that, and you're like, oh, if it was God, he'd be looking around like going, yeah, the northern lights, the Grand Canyon. Okay, yeah. People. You are it in God's eyes. I mean, you are the cream of the crop, the cherry on top. You are the most special creation that God ever made. So when you think about yourself, I want you for just a moment to think about what God thinks about. He is enamored, he is in love, he loves you. I think he thinks everything else is good. He thinks you are very good. You're his creation, you're his favorite. That is important. When he created Adam and Eve, you might know that he created something else called free will. That was the problem, right? That was part of the problem, is that they were beings that could make their own decisions. And he gave them some instructions, and they didn't obey. You might know that. So that leads to other things that happen, and we're gonna talk all about that today. I think that's what takes us back to, I would say, the scene of the crime, the epicenter of pain in the universe. And I actually, on Wednesday, was getting ready for this message, and I decided to go down to downtown Portland. I go to the city often. I love Portland, I love the city. Part of the reason why I love it is I grew up around here, so I've got lots of great memories, but I also just love the hopefulness of Portland and the potential of Portland. But there is a place that I go to sometimes, it's called the epicenter of pain in Portland. That's literally what they call Old Town. The epicenter of pain in our city. It's kind of the scene of the crime. It's like where so much of the hurt in our city originated from. And the other reason I go there is because the Society Hotel has a coffee shop that's awesome on the ground floor, and they got a fireplace, and it was Wednesday, and it was raining, so I wanted to be in the society coffee shop. But I'm sitting there looking around, going, like, yeah, I get it. You know, there's plenty of crime, there's plenty of homelessness, there's plenty of problems. And it just reminds me that God loves us as we're teaching our way to Easter. There's hope. We're talking about restoring. I wrote this down in my notes. What we broke irreparably, God is restoring completely. And I want to press that thought into you as we begin this series. So, what is happening in Genesis chapter 1 is this great, beautiful creation. Then in Genesis 2, we see God setting up Adam and Eve in the garden. He's finishing all of his work and he rests. And then in Genesis 3, we see somebody else show up. His name is Satan, and he shows up as a serpent. And he asks a question to Eve. He says, Did God really say that you're not supposed to eat from any of the trees in the garden? And he she was a little bit stumped. She's like, hmm. You know you ever do that? You're like, is that what the Bible says? Is that what the Holy Spirit was trying to tell me last night? You know, there's this temptation kind of dangling in front of me. You're like, am I sure that I know that you know you're starting to kind of split hairs, you're starting to second guess yourself, second guess what you heard. And that's what Satan did with Eve. And as you know, she caved, and then Adam caved, and then sin came. And that is the epicenter of pain in our universe, right there. That's the scene of the crime. Uh, we're gonna look at some truths, I think, that we see from this whole account. And the first one is this you can write it down your notes. Number one, our pain points us back to the problem. Our pain points us back to the problem, the problem of sin, okay? This is what our pain points us to. And if you're taking notes, I want to I wanna mention that I don't think all sin, I don't think all pain comes from our personal choices. I think all pain is a result of the original sin, but I don't think that you cause all the pain in your life by your choices. I think there's three reasons, if you want to write them down, I think here they are. One, the devil. He's a pain creator. It's what he's here to do: steal, kill, destroy, according to Jesus. So pain comes from the devil. Pain comes, secondly, from something called decay. Because the moment that Adam and Eve sinned, what happened was the world started falling apart. And it continues to. And you don't have to look far to see evidence of that, right? And the third one I think is detours. That's where you and I come in. We go the wrong way, we go the other way. We hear God's commands, we hear God's instructions, and we go this way. And that's what Adam and Eve did. And I think they invited, uh, along with many other problems, they invited this pain in their life. Pain is not random. It entered our story at a very specific moment. And Genesis chapter 3, verses 8 through 10 talks a little bit more about it. So look at this with me. It says, When the cool evening breezes were blowing, they were in the Garden of Eden, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. I'm going to pause there and say, this was the picture of what paradise was like. They were in the Garden of Eden. They had everything they could ever want. They were at total peace with one another and with God. And God in fact was walking among them. Then they sinned, and God is there again. And it says he was walking about in the garden. It says, so they, now this time they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Verse 9, then the Lord God called to the man, Where are you? You ever played hide and seek with a toddler? Where are you? You know where they're at, right? Uh it's like a rhinoceros trying to hide behind a telephone pole, you know. Adam and Eve are like, oh, if we stand really still, he's not gonna know we're here. But it's God, right? So he knows. And he's saying, Where are you? Adam replied, I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked. And if you keep reading, God goes, Who told you you were naked? I mean, they didn't even know this before. They were totally innocent. And at this point, one of the things that came into our experience and has been here ever since is this one thing called shame. They felt it. They knew they crossed a line they shouldn't cross. And they felt that shame. So their tendency, like ours, was to hide themselves, run, distance, right? And that's what they did. It was paradise lost. It was departure from innocence. And the the consequence that God had already warned them about, that even Satan repeated to them was, you will surely die. The word die, death means separation. The literal Hebrew word means separation. They were separated then in their relationship with God. In fact, uh, I think the deepest pain in our life is disconnection. At least that's been my experience. And if you look through history, you see this disconnection. Here's what happened literally to them at that moment. They they had a disconnect. They were separated from their intimacy with God. So they they were alienated in that primary relationship with God. They were separated in their fellowship with people, they had a disconnect in their relationship with people. You watch what happens after this? Cain kills Abel. I mean, all of a sudden, strife enters. After that, they also were separated from their relationship with the world, their vocation. They were there to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. In other words, they were there to lead the planet, and they had great influence. And at that moment, that influence cracked, it broke, and all of a sudden the earth started doing its own thing, and they had very little control. And they were now responding to what the earth was doing. Totally backwards, right? So they had their relationship broken, cracked in three places. And I think what I read from the Chalmers Institute that does great work in community development, they say poverty is brokenness in your relationships with several things, including God, people, and the world. This is what Adam and Eve experienced was essentially poverty all of a sudden. They were bankrupt. And that is our condition still, that we are bankrupt in those three areas. What we see is Romans chapter 5, verse 12 tells us this. It says, When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death or separation, so death or separation spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. I mean, it was not that you were there, I wasn't there, but I participated through my humanity in what they did because it's been handed down to everybody since then. You just get this gift when you're born of being somebody who has this propensity to go the other way, to take a detour. You hear something that says, go this way, and your spirit somehow goes, I'm gonna go exactly the opposite way. That's not a surprise. We all have that same propensity, that same condition. So what we see is our pain points us back to the problem. So every time, I hope that this kind of gives you something to go of. Like maybe every time you take a step and that that ankle hurts again, that you that you go, yeah, I remember why. Why this all happened is it goes way back to the scene of the crime, the original sin, and that's why we actually have pain in the world today. Now, here, number two in your notes is that problem made way for a promise. That problem, sin, made way for a promise. So there's great news in all this because it's not like it ends there. That's not where the story of humanity ends. The story of humanity keeps going as God gives us a promise that we get to experience. Ephesians chapter 2 said that before long ago, before you were ever born, before your parents were ever born, before the United States was a nation, before the world was formed, God thought about you. He knew in advance that you were gonna need a savior. And he decided to send that savior. I think this is absolutely fantastic. It's like, it's kind of like having an emergency fund. You know, emergency fund is there because you know, it's not like in case you're gonna have a problem in life, right? No, you know you're gonna at some point have a flat tire or the fridge is gonna stop working. There's gonna be a reason why you you've got that margin, right? And God decided in advance, before the problem even happened, that he was gonna solve it. It's a beautiful thing. I remember years ago I was on a camp out with Westside. We were a bunch of people at the beach, and we decided, a few of us, to go uh motorcycle riding up in the Trask River Trails. So I think I was on a quad, and I remember Pastor Stephen Rady was in a side-by-side and we were cruising around with a bunch of people. We get to the top of this hill, beautiful scene, absolutely gorgeous scene. So we get off and we're just like checking things out. I suddenly realize I'm starving and about to die of thirst. And I'm not necessarily the guy that always comes with like, you know, all the supplies. So in fact, I got invited on this thing. I didn't have anything with me. I just I just hopped on a quad and started writing. So I get up to the top, I'm like, man, I'm gonna die here. I gotta have something to drink and maybe a little snack. So I'm asking around, nobody has anything, and I look over at Pastor Stephen Ray and I said, Do you have any stuff? He was in this side by side. He practically opens up like a fridge, you know, and has oh much like diapsi and the waters and they got the granola bars and they got the fruit roll-ups, they got everything. And I'm like, dude, how did you come with so much stuff? He goes, My wife set me up. And I was like, okay, so I renamed him that day. I named him 7-Eleven, and I started calling him 7-Eleven. He's like, I could come, I could look for anything. You got it all, you know. That's God. He was prepared for this problem. He was prepared for this problem. And here's what we see in Genesis chapter 3. Right right after the problem, you see something amazing. It says, and I will cause hostility between you and the woman. He's talking to Satan, and between your offspring and her offspring. Who were Eve's offspring? Well, Cain and Abel, and everybody else whoever came after that, but namely one person named Jesus. He was talking about Jesus. This promise is in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. It says, He will strike your head. He's talking to Satan. He, the offspring of Eve, will strike your head. Who is he talking about? Jesus will inflict a fatal wound on your head. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel. Interesting that Jesus was nailed to the cross, his feet crossed over and nailed to the cross. You will strike his heel. And the theologians say this is the first promise of the Messiah in Scripture. I love that it comes right after the problem. God was so prepared and he instantly had this plan in place to go, I'm gonna rescue you. Yes, you're separated, but I'm gonna send the rescuer. Yes, you're separated, but I'm gonna restore that relationship through my son Jesus. One of the things that happened when Adam and Eve sinned is that Satan gained power. This is interesting. Satan gained power. In fact, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4 says that he is the God of this age. So you look around the world and you're like, yeah, I do see how the devil is creating chaos in this world. He's not the only, he's not the only source of pain, certainly a big one. And so the God of this age. But you know what the Bible also says in 1 John 4, 4 is, but greater is he who's in you than he who's in the world. So yeah, there's a ruler in this world, but the Bible says, but the Holy Spirit that's in the followers of Jesus, living inside of you, is even stronger. And so we know we overcome. This promise is so strong because it begins to see how we can overcome. But the reason why Satan is got powers is why we have things still like anxiety and addiction, and we have sickness and we have conflict. It's here because of the scene of the crime, because of the problem that was created, right? And Paul describes this longing in Romans 8 that I know you're gonna resonate with. I want to read it to you. Verses 20 to 23. It says, Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. Back to Genesis 1, right? Genesis 3. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. We get to be free from it. It says, For we know that all creation's been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan. Everybody give me a groan real quick. Ready? One, two, three, groan. Oh, yeah, okay. We believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste. Of future glory. For we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. That's gonna happen one day. We too wait, it says, with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us. Yeah, we get new bodies. And uh, I don't know who was here last Sunday, last weekend, you were here, and I had really long hair. Okay, that's gonna be on my new body. I've already asked God. Like, give me that. Give me that. My wife is not excited about that. All right, but it says we're gonna be released from sin and suffering. Released from sin and suffering. It says we wait with eager hope. That's very important to think about. In fact, specifically means this. It means to expect fully that this is an expectation. I mean, it's as sure as April 15th is tax day. You're like, no, this is gonna happen. It's on God's calendar. Like, I fully expect to be released from sin and suffering, to be freed from decay and death, and to receive all of the rights as an adopted child of God, even a brand new resurrected body. Unbelievable what's coming for us. And I think what we have to understand is that the problem makes way for the promise. This is the promise in Jesus, is that we have that total freedom. I mean to put away the old and welcome the new. I have a friend recently passed away. It's always really hard when you know someone who's passed. Um I've had lots of friends and family pass in my lifetime. Um some of them knew that something was coming. Some of them knew, some of them didn't. David was maybe one of the most prepared people I've ever experienced a time with right before he died. I got to go see him um a couple weeks ago, and I got to sit in his living room with him. And he was on his hospital bed, and I'll sit on his couch, and you know what? He he was lucid. It was it was one of his great moments before he died where he was totally lucid, and we got an hour together to just talk and laugh and drink coffee together, and I don't even know how he was able to drink the coffee because he wasn't even supposed to be eating or drinking anything, but he drank coffee with me and we clinked the cups and we just had a really beautiful conversation. Because here's the thing he was excited. He knew what was coming and he was excited. I asked him a question because I was very curious. I've always been very curious. What's in somebody's mind when they know they're about to pass from this life to the next? What's in somebody's mind? I said, David, what's the biggest thing on your mind right now? And he said, he leaned forward with a smile and he goes, I want to know how it's all gonna go down. I want to know how it's all gonna go down. Like he was thinking, like, so what's what's it gonna be like? I'm gonna meet my savior face to face. He's like, what is that? He was at he was like, what's the transition gonna be like? Like, how fast is this? What will I be thinking? What will I be feeling? And he was excited. I mean, it for him, it was like, I know this day is coming, and I'm excited. And it changes everything about the way you live when you live with that kind of hope. Even though we also live in a world racked with pain, right? But when you know this isn't it, oh my goodness, it changes everything. Do you know what's coming for you? Are you are do you have you received that promise? Have you received God's grace so that you know for sure this is your inheritance that's coming for you? Here's the third thing I want you to write down. That promise, that promise is fulfilled in a person. That promise is fulfilled in a person. A while back, uh, Melissa and I, we had our roof repaired on our house, changed, done, on our house, redone. And um, this is like 10, 12 years ago, and I remember that uh I remember that it was a long time ago because I I remember what we paid for our roof, and I remember what some of my friends have paid more recently for the roof, and I'm like, oh my gosh, we must have gotten our roof done at the right time because it was really, really less expensive. And I was just, you know, celebrating that up until about the second or third day afterwards when it started leaking, the new roof started leaking. And I'm like, oh no, I don't know if we did the right thing. So the roof's leaking, and I'm like, oh wow, this is not great. So I call the number, you know, I call the number, and I'm expecting what you probably would be expecting, like some put on hold, transferred to another department. Like, am I ever gonna get somebody on the line? Well, instead, the owner answers the phone. And I'm like, oh, surprise, surprise. And he's what's going on? I was like, oh, the roof is leaking. He goes, Oh, I'll be right over. I'm like, oh wow, okay, that's great customer service. He shows up, busts out his ladder, climbs up on our roof, is up there for a couple hours, totally fixes the problem, right then. I mean, like, no delay, like boom. He he didn't send a contractor, he came himself and he fixed it. And this is how I think we ought to understand how God wants to rescue you and me. You're gonna reach out for help. God, help. That might be today. If you've never received Jesus as your savior, that might be today. Here's what you can expect. He's not sending a contractor. He shows up himself. He will put his ladder up, he will climb on your roof, he will fix the source of the problem. And the source of the problem is sin. And he will remove the sin from your heart, and he will give you a new heart, and he will write your name down in the Lamb's book of life, and he will invite you into his family, and he will give you new life. That's how Jesus restores our pain. First Corinthians chapter 15 talks about this. It says, So you see. Oh, I'm gonna oh, sorry, I'm gonna read uh Romans 5, 18 to 19 first. Let me read that first. It says this it says, Yes, Adam's one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. That's Adam and now us. But because one other person, Jesus, obeyed God, many will be made righteous. It's a trade, right? We're trading our unrighteousness for God's righteousness, and he's giving it to us as a free gift. Crazy. First Corinthians 15 says, So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there's an order to this resurrection. Christ was raised as the first of the harvest, then all who belong to Christ will be raised back when he comes back. Crazy. He's giving us this hope. It's in a person, it's Jesus. He's the one that's gonna make it all happen. And I was thinking about this in my conversation with David, and I was thinking, yeah, what is it gonna be like? I mean, what's he promising? He said he's promising to come back for us. That he's gonna set up a new heaven and a new earth, that he's gonna create a beautiful eternity with us, and that he's gonna be with us forever, and that we're gonna be free from all this stuff. What is it? It describes it like this in Revelation 21:4. It says, He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There'll be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. I mean, I love that. I love the thought. It's like my roofer comes by himself, you know, he comes himself and he puts the ladder up and he climbs up and he does the work. And Jesus is going like, no, I'm I'm coming to wipe your tear away. I'm coming to heal the pain. I'm coming to make it better, I'm coming to fix the problem, I'm coming for you to rescue you. This is what we see in Jesus. It's it's it's the hope that we have even in the midst of pain, is that, yeah, we were part of the problem. But Jesus is the total solution. And today, he wants to be that for you and me. So he gives us this amazing framework, I think, to live on. It's in Romans 16, 20, and it says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. What was that first promise? It was he will strike your head. Another version says, He will crush your head. Jesus is gonna crush the head of Satan, and now Paul reminds us the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. This is the attitude of victory and overcoming. Yeah, we live in a world of pain and sin, but we are the overcomers because Jesus has made us right with God and he's coming back to be with us forever. Amen. Now, how's he gonna do that? How is he gonna accomplish all this? Politics. No, not politics. Can't be, right? Okay, no. No. It's money, right? He's gonna do it with money. No. Not gonna do it with money. It's self-help. That's how he's gonna do it. Self-help. No, no. Obviously, it's AI, right? I mean, that's definitely the solution. No. Jesus is the only way. There's no one else that could do that. It's Jesus, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Prince of Peace, the soon and coming King. He's the one that's gonna do it. And I think if pain teaches us anything, it teaches us that we need more than just a little bit of help. It's that we need rescue. We need to be rescued by the rescuer. And I believe that every single one of us is walking with a limp today. You got you got something. You got some pain. And I would love if you would bow your heads with me and we release that pain to the to the rescuer today together. Would you pray with me? Father, as we understand the depth of the reality of our pain, and that it is not a light problem, it is an irreparable problem. Humanly speaking, there's literally nothing we can do to fix it. If we could, it would be fixed by now. So, Lord, I we recognize and we admit there's only one way out of this. There's only one way that we can receive real healing, real repair, and it's through you, Jesus. I want to give you just a minute to think about what is your pain? Where is your pain? What hurts in your life? What we see with Adam and Eve is there were three major breaks in their relationships. The first one was with God. They had a break in their relationship with God. It wasn't there. They were dead, they were separated, their spirits were dead, they did not have a relationship with God. And truthfully, that might be where some of you are today is that you're not sure what your relationship with God is, whether you're part of God's family, how you could know. Some of you, your pain is in the area of relationships with people. There's a problem and you don't know how to fix it. And it hurts, and you're trying to you're trying to do it on your own, and God wants to be the rescuer there. Some of you, you have the same break they had with their relationship with the world. Do you know what that is? That's our vocation, that's our mission, that's our our approach. That's us wanting to be useful, wanting to our lives to matter in this world. It's wanting to know how we make a contribution. And that might be where some of you are today. So I would just like to pray with you right now. In fact, I'm gonna ask you to help me to be able to pray for you. So if your heads are bowed and your eyes are closed, that'll be helpful. And if you're online with us, I'd love for you to participate as well. And that is this I'd love to know if you're here and your pain is that you want your life to matter, and you can't seem to figure out how you make a difference. You've tried things, you've got this inner longing, and you you've you've been desperate for God to open it up so you could know which way to go, so you could make a difference, so you could give back. You desperately want to be used by God. And it seems slow in coming. And I would love to pray for you today if that's your place. Would you raise your hand right now so I can pray for you? You're in this room and you want to make a difference. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Lord, thank you for those of us who we just we want to be useful. So show us the direction. Open the doors for us, Lord. Even this week, even today, would you open a door today? An email, a text, an idea, an invitation, Lord, whatever it is you want to do, but help us to see it so we can follow through. I realize there's also gonna be some of you today who your pain is in relationships, so I'd love to pray for you. If you've got a relationship pain right now and you want God's help in it, would you raise your hand up with me right now? It's probably all of us, right? It's probably all of us. Lord, we need your help in our relationships. We're desperate, we're desperate, God. We don't want to be trying to fix things and making it worse. We want you to show us the way, we want you to do the work, we want you to go before us, we want you to give us the words, we want you to change our hearts, we want you to change their hearts. God, this is work that only you can do. And so we ask for that repair in that break, Lord, with people. Now, some of you are here online and here in this room, and your pain is in the area of your relationship with God because it's broken. There is not that clear flow, there is not that confidence. You need Jesus. And if you're here today and you're ready to say yes to Jesus, I want to ask you to open your heart to him. If you're online with us, you know he's waiting for this, he's been knocking on the door of your heart, he's been with you your whole life waiting for this moment. I believe he brought you here today so you'd open your heart to him. If that's where you're at, I want to ask you right now, would you raise your hand up? I'm gonna give you some language to pray. Would you raise your hand? If you're ready to say yes to Jesus today, thank you. You're ready to say yes to Jesus, thank you. Let me give you some words that you can say back to God in your heart if that's you today. You can tell him this, Jesus, I give you my life. Thank you for saving me. I believe in you, your life, your death on the cross, and your resurrection. Forgive me of my sins, fill me with your Holy Spirit, lead me and teach me to follow you. Ask it in Jesus' name. And Father, we thank you that you're with all of us. We pray that you would empower those who are making a choice today to invite you as the rescuer into their life in some way. We thank you in advance. We expect you to come through. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.