Trusting God - Into the Deep Series - Week 8

What if the turning point you’re waiting for is not clarity, but trust? We dive into a bold, practical journey of faith that starts where our understanding ends—moving from self-reliance to God-reliance in grief, confusion, and cultural noise. We open with a fierce reminder of Christ’s victory over death and darkness, then trace the quiet courage of “next-step faith”: obeying the one step God lights up today and resisting the urge to rush the process. Along the way, we name the tension many of us feel—how to honor real emotions without letting feelings become our leaders.

We sit with the tenderness of “Jesus wept,” letting that moment affirm our own sorrow while renewing our confidence that miracles can be on the way even when tears still fall. From there, we ground our hope in the cross, not in headlines or circumstances. Romans 8:28 and Colossians 2:15 reframe the chaos—God weaves everything for good, and the powers of darkness have already been disarmed. That truth reshapes how we respond: less outrage, more obedience; less panic, more presence; less scorekeeping, more covenant unity.

Trust also means living holy without legalism, stepping out of complacency, and seeking God with intention—studying Scripture, praying with expectation, and becoming vessels the Spirit can fill and pour through. We talk about leaving the shore to go deeper, letting go of patterns and circles that tether us to who we used to be. And we get practical about everyday evangelism: noticing people, speaking life, and trusting the Holy Spirit with the results. By the end, you’ll have a picture of trust that is honest, resilient, and actionable—worship while you’re weeping, pray while you’re doubting, and keep walking with a steady confession: You are still my God.

If this speaks to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope today, and leave a review to help others find this message. Your step of faith might be the bridge someone else needs.

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Transcript

Praise and Christ’s Victory

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Come on, if you trust him today, lift up some praise to him. Lift up some praise to him. Come on. Come on, act like you trust him. Act like you trust him today. Come on, lift up a shot of praise to the king of kings, to the lord of lords. He has never lost a battle. He has never been challenged and had to step back. He is the King of Kings. He is the Lord of Lords. He is our Redeemer. He is our salvation. He is our restoration. He is the one, the true, the undefeated champion of the world. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Woo. When you nail to the cross, the enemy begins to dance and shout because he thinks for a moment that he won. But not only did Jesus come to conquer the earth, but he went down and he faced death. He went down and he got the keys to the jail cell and he set the captives free. The Bible says that even those who are in the building, they became free. The dead begin to walk around. I think today God's bringing some life back to these dry bones. I believe that the church house, the church house that has been sitting in a pew for long enough silent, not speaking out on anything that concerns anything. And we want to come to the church. We want to get baptized. We want to get filled, but we don't want to change. I don't know about you, but when God did something in me, it started making me want to do something out there. Woo! Hallelujah. I don't think God's coming back looking for a complacent church. I'm going to be alive and well and waiting for his return. When he splits that eastern sky, I want him to clearly be able to find me. I don't want him to have to waste a second to look. Some of y'all played hide and seek. It's not legalism, it's living holy. God's coming back for a holy church, not a prostitute of a bride. Look over in Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5 and 6. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 5 and 6,

Call to a Holy, Uncompromised Church

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and it says this. You can hear from the song we just sang. I added this one to the end of our list this morning because I was like, this just fits. We have to sing it. We need to remember that we as children of God can fully trust the Father. Do you understand what I said? Not trust him with some stuff, not trust him with the little stuff, or even some of us like to just trust him with the big stuff, but we can trust him with all the stuff. Chapter 3, verse 5 and 6, it says, Trust in the Lord with all. Look to your neighbor and say, Oh. Look to the other neighbor and say, oh. Oh, your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. I have a message from the Lord today. Your understanding next to his. You look stupid. Thank God he's if he wasn't smarter than me, I wouldn't need him. I wouldn't have to lean on him because I forget it already. How many of us know we go through the same cycle of life because we ain't leaning on him? We're trying to do it our way. Ooh, y'all ain't with me, but that's all right. We're gonna get the rest of y'all in a minute. Seek his will in all you do. Turn to your neighbor and say, uh turn to your second choice and say, uh gonna have some marital problems after that one. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. How many of you are glad that the Lord ain't gonna leave

Trust in the Lord, Not Your Understanding

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you stranded on the path? That he will show you the path to take, he will make your path bright, he will make it clear so that you can step. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your presence here today. We pray, Lord, for a continuation. Let your word come alive to us. Let us be hungry to partake of the meat today. In your name we pray, amen. I've told y'all this many times, but some of y'all are new. I don't ask God to show me four steps ahead. I don't ask God to show me three steps ahead. I don't even ask God to show me two steps ahead. I want him to show me just the next step. And I promised him with my life and with my family and with this church, if you will show me the next step, I will step faithfully. If you don't show me a step, guess what? Don't move. How many of us, if we're being real today, if we don't see God ordering our steps, we get a little antsy. Oh Lord, where are you? Oh Lord Jesus, where are you? Did you leave me? Where are you? And he's like, Will you just shut up and chill out for a minute? I'm trying to do something here. The big, the grown folks are talking. Some of y'all need to be reminded that the Lord of your life is the Father and you are the child. Woo! Because we got some teenage Christians. Hey, teenagers talk back and think they know everything, amen. Some of y'all come, y'all are with me. Come on now. We're getting from the milk and we got you some mashed-up mashed potatoes, okay? We're gonna get you to the meat, all right? We're gonna try to get you there. So trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not depend on your own understanding because you don't see the big picture. You don't. You don't have the viewpoint of God, you don't have the wisdom of God to know everything. Now, God gives godly wisdom. It's one of the gifts. I believe God has given me the wisdom so that I can counsel people on things that I have never experienced myself. He gives wisdom, things flow out of me that are not of me. And that's why I tell people, God has given me the gift. I am not wise. Do you understand me? There's a difference between pointing glory to the Lord and receiving it for yourself. Y'all need to write that one down. So we're on week number eight. Somebody asked me this morning, how many more weeks we go? We're gonna go on this. I don't know. I have no clue. But I do know this. Today is week eight, and we are on trusting God. If you're gonna go deeper with God, you gotta trust Him. Some of us are, and listen, it's a great thing to be full of the fire and you step out of the boat. But how many of you know one small act of faith can turn into a disaster screaming for Jesus' help? So you got to keep your eyes on the proper prize, you got to keep your eyes focused on the Lord, keep your eyes on Jesus so that when you do take the step of faith, it's just a smooth walking activity that you can walk to the shore with Jesus and you don't have to scream for

Next-Step Faith and Waiting Well

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help. Some of you will sit there, this ain't in my notes. Some of you will sit there and scream and drown before you ask for help. And you know why? Now let's flip the other side of the coin. You know why people aren't asking for help in the church? Because the church people are so critical of anything that they do. I just got all of you in two sentences. If we want to go deeper, we have to trust God. Anchored not in our feelings, but in the unchanging character of God. You understand what I'm saying? There are moments when life hits hard, when we lose the people we love, when our prayers feel unanswered, when darkness seems louder than the light. This past week, many of us have heard the shaken news to your core and foundation that Charlie Kirk, a man who's outspoken of his faith, he was very political, but he was God first. Some of you, if you celebrated that, you probably think abortion is okay and homosexuality is of God. Y'all didn't catch me. If you celebrated someone losing their life, no matter who it was, especially if you go political with it, you probably think abortion is okay. It's murder. And homosexuality is still a sin. Transgenderism is a demonic attack of the enemy to confuse us. There's a reason long ago the enemy has started trying to take fathers out of the home, it's because then people won't know what a father is. And we can't look to God as the father because we have no earthly example. We've got to understand that the enemy is attacking, he is doing everything he can to divide us, and we got to make sure here in the church that we stay on task and not get stupid in our own feelings. For some of us, when this happened, it brought questions, it brought anger, it brought grief. But it's in these moments when emotions are raw and they are real. I'm not downplaying anything that you feel this morning, but I want to tell you stop focusing on your feelings and meditate on the facts. That God, as we started this little message on, God is still on the throne no matter what they do out there. It don't matter who sits in the White House, it don't matter what kind of disaster you have in your house, he still sits on the throne. The mention of his name pushes back every demonic presence that is there. All it takes is the mention of his name. How does the mention of his name happen when people who believe in the name they speak stand up and they speak against lies of the enemy and the demonic disaster, and we speak out truth in the name of Jesus? Hallelujah. Hallelujah. It's in these moments when emotions are raw. Our heart, the heart of our faith is tested. Can I trust God when I don't understand? This is my biggest one. Let me be very honest with you for a second. When I don't understand or see the end result, sometimes I want to fix it myself. Now, some of you are like, oh, you're a pastor of a church. How dare you try to do that? Can I point you to Abraham, the father of God's people? The miracle that was promised to him and given to him, he tried to do it himself before it actually happened. And it cost nothing but disaster in the house. If you got chaos in your house, maybe you're doing things your way instead of God's way.

Feeling vs. Faith in Cultural Turmoil

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Can I worship when I don't feel like it? If you can praise through the pain, you'll dance your way into the promise. If you can feel bad and still have faith, if you don't know how it's gonna go, but you still believe that it's gonna go in the direction of the Almighty of how he wants it to go. If your life belongs to God, your will is aligned with his, not his to yours. God ain't asking you to live your way and how you see in your truth, and he's gonna stamp his stamp of approval on it. You've got to realign with his will. What does that look like in your life? First, get in the word to know what that means. If you ain't digging in the word yourself, if you ain't living by this book, you ain't living by God. We got a bunch of people who think they got fire insurance in the church and there ain't nothing godly about them. Can I still believe when I feel broken, when I feel lost, when I feel disaster? The answer is yes. Not because of what you feel, but because of who he is. It should all point back to God, it should all point back to Jesus. If God, if Jesus didn't resurrect, this is all pointless. We might as well be Jewish. So let's just go ahead and get to the point. That was an introduction. Trust begins where understanding ends. Trust begins where understanding ends. You go back to the very beginning of the book in Genesis, and Adam and Eve, they didn't trust. They had everything that they could desire. And yet they were sold a bit of goods that was saying there's something beyond what you know. You could know more. You could know more. You could know more. Don't depend on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5. Do not depend on your own understanding. Trust is easy when things make sense. Trust is easy when it's going my way, and I fully understand what is at hand. Trust is easy, but real faith is forged in mystery. When I don't know. When God says wait, but you don't have a why. When God says go, but doesn't give you the details. When God allows something that breaks your heart to be in your life. Sorry, 55. Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55. We're gonna look at verse 8. Isaiah 55, verse 8. My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. If we only trust God when we understand him, he's not your God. I'll say it again, because some of y'all didn't catch that. If we don't trust God beyond our understanding, then he is not fully your God. And if he is not fully your God, then your heart does not fully belong to him. I said this in the beginning, God's not coming back for a painted up church. He wants purity. Jesus in the Bible, he makes me laugh so much. When he calls out the Pharisees, he's like, Y'all have a bunch of whitewashed tombs. Like you're you're pretending to be pure and clean and nice and all pretty up, but you still stink of death. When we come to Christ and we're forgiven of our sins, that death, that stench, is washed away. It's covered by the blood. They were in routine religious looked like they had it figured out when in reality they had no concept of the actual heart and compassion of God. If you only trust God when you understand him, he's not your God. You are. True worship says, even when I don't get it, I still give you everything. I still trust you completely. Look over in John chapter 11. John chapter 11. If you got the notes from the church text, if you don't know that that number they told you to text earlier, 9494,000-94000, you text New to Connect, and through that text message is what I send. I send the sermon notes out with the points and the scriptures before Sunday morning so that you

Trust Forged in Mystery

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can have notes there and if you want to add extras to it. So make sure you you sign up for that so we can get that to you. So John chapter 11, trusting God, point number two, doesn't mean you don't feel it. Trusting God doesn't mean you don't feel it. So let's let's watch this. When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing, this is where Lazarus was dead. Wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. Where have you put him? He asked. They told him, Lord, come and see. Shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus wept. This is probably one of my favorite verses. If you know me well enough, you know I like it short and sweet and to the point. Don't play games. Jesus wept. That brings a level of humanity to my Savior. To where he just he wasn't always some rough and tough carpenter dude that walked around casting out demons and and you know stirring up the church folk. That he had a compassionate side, which we know this from all the healings and miracles he would do, but just this to me was like, wow, Jesus felt it. Jesus felt grief. He felt pain. It even says he felt anger. Jesus didn't hide his emotions. He felt the pain of loss so deeply, even though he knew. Listen to this, he wept, but he knew resurrection was coming. He was still moved with compassion, even though a miracle was on the way. He felt what he lived. That means it's okay to feel, hear me, guys. It's okay to show that you have emotions. We see a main emotion instilled in us from birth all the time, and we don't want to call it emotion when we get all emotional. Let's let's change that word over to what it actually is, and it's anger. That's why the Bible talks about get angry and sin not, because we're really good at getting mad and sinning. Anger is an emotion. Jesus showed this anger, loss, frustration, heartbroken. But your feelings should not be the foundation of how you react, respond, or live. Jesus should be. Psalm 34, 18. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. What a great God. That in our times of crushing, in our times of loss, in our times of troubles, He is near to us. He is not a distant God, He's not a man upstairs where you have to go and clock in, and maybe you'll see Him out of the floor every now and then. He is a personal God that we can petition and approach the throne room, the Bible says, boldly to cry out, and he is near to us. You don't have to clean up your grief to come to God. Bring him the real you and trust that his word is true and that he is near. Point number three: our hope is built on victory, not circumstance. Look over in Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, verse 28. Some of y'all know this one very well. And we know that God causes everything. Turn to your neighbor and say, everything. Not just the good, not just the bad. Everything you go through can be used to further the kingdom of God. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. We don't just hope that it gets better. We know

Jesus Wept: Grief and Compassion

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that it will get better. Look over to Colossians 2.15. Life in the Spirit. That's what I'm talking about. Y'all go get some extra text right now. Come on. About to give him the microphone, let him preach. Colossians 2.15. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. The cross has the final word. It doesn't matter what they're doing out there, it doesn't matter how big evil seems right now. We know this blessed assurance that the cross has the final word. And if God is in the middle of it, he cannot be defeated. The cross wasn't the end, but it was the beginning. And because Jesus already won, our hope is secure. Don't let things you see on the news or out there destroy your hope. It is so easy to get caught up. And all the little that's all they do. And wear their pawns to make money. Don't get distracted by this information. Put that on a t-shirt. The cross wasn't the end, it was the beginning, and Jesus had already won. Our hope is secure. Even when it feels like evil is winning, God has already written the final chapter. Even when we lose someone here on earth, heaven still holds them securely. Even when we are overwhelmed, his presence will sustain us. Point number four, God is trustworthy because he is good. Psalm 23, 4 through 6. Psalm 23, 4 through 6. 4 through 6. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid. For you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. Some of y'all don't like that protect and comfort in the same one. It corrects as well. You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies, your honor. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life. And I will live in the house of the Lord forever. God's goodness doesn't mean we won't hurt, but it does mean we will not be alone. The Bible does not promise us that we will not go through things. Matter of fact, it promises the opposite. And it even promises even more so. The more you speak out for your faith, the more you speak up for God, the more and the bigger and the badder

Hope Built on the Cross, Not Circumstance

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the enemy's gonna try to look like. The Bible says he's rolling around like a lion. Pay attention. To me, he reminds me, I think of the devil like a big old puffer fish. He tries to blow himself up to look a whole lot bigger, so so you think that you're in trouble, but really he's just a little tiny skinny thing with nothing but bones. When up against Jesus. Look at Lamentations 3. Some of y'all are like, where Lamentations chapter 3. I mean, it's after Jeremiah, if y'all need some help. After Jeremiah. If you don't know where that is, just see me after church. We need some, we need to help you. Lamentations chapter 3. Verse 22, 23. Let's go to 24. The faithful love of the Lord never ends, his mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh each morning. How many of you are thankful for his mercy to be new every single day? I say to myself, the Lord is my inheritance, therefore, I will hope in him. Grief will come, confusion will try to distract the church. Loss will happen. But God's mercy will meet us every single morning. His grace will hold you in every single season. All good, all bad, his grace and his mercy will hold you and care for you. His goodness will pursue you all the way home. So, what does trust look like? If you say, I trust in God, I trust in God. Some key words on that song that we sang a minute ago is I sought the Lord. I sought. The church, the mature Christian, should have a lifestyle of seeking the Lord. There's a difference between reading Scripture and studying Scripture. There's a difference in praying and seeking. There's a difference in coming to church and being the church. There's a difference in being a follower and a leader. And right now, this world needs more godly leaders to step up and step into position to push back the kingdom of darkness. I don't know if you understand this fully or not, but if you just go out there, Walmart would be a great place. Just go to Walmart and look at people in their lives and see that there's most of the time a lack of hope. That us as believers, the Bible tells us to be ready to answer for the hope that is within

God’s Goodness in the Valley

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us. So why do we on look instead of reach out? If you have the hope that is within you, if you have the hope of Jesus, nowhere in the Bible does it say, first get your junk together and then go out and try to reach the lost. Because if you read scripture and you study the people who were the mouthpieces of God over and over and over and over again, they had some sort of big issue, and they always looked on the outside to the people they were prophesying to as godly men, but yet they would be depressed. Yet Moses would doubt himself and say he couldn't talk. And even so, he was disobedient, he was a murderer. I hope none of you in here are like that. But what I'm saying is, I did not just give a go-ahead. Finally, he said I could, because God would forgive. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, nobody in here, under the sound of my voice, is not called to share the gospel. Every person has a job and a purpose to reach out to the people who nobody else wants to reach out to. I've heard story after story after story of thousands of churches. When they exploded was when the church actually got into the places where nobody else wanted. The drug addicted, the alcohol, the broken families, all the things that a good church person would criticize because, oh well, you just don't know the Lord. You're right. How will they know the Lord? By the people in the church claiming the Lord, loving them, and showing them that they matter. I went up to a guy at our men's breakfast at the first of the month. I see this dude at butcher shop every single time I'm there. And he was standing there next to the little where you get your drinks and all that stuff, and I was getting coffee, and I'm like, I looked at him and I said, I just felt like I needed to be compassionate towards him. I don't know the guy. But I looked at him and I said, you know, I see you working hard every time I'm in here. I just wanted to say I see you and I appreciate you. He stopped what he was doing, and he looked at me and he said, I'm surprised anybody noticed. And it broke me. How many of us that are supposed to be God's extension, hands and feet of Jesus, and we don't stop to recognize people every single day? If we trust, listen, here's it a lot of us hold back because we're scared we're gonna say something stupid or we won't really have the words to say. The answer is yes, probably so. But I have an example in Acts chapter 2 where people came out of the upper room and the words they were speaking was not their native tongue, but it was someone else's. And the Bible says that when they spoke, the people heard in their own language. That means that the responsibility of what the Holy Spirit does when you speak is not yours. The burden is God's, the burden is the Holy Spirit's. We are being we are called to be vessels, to be vessels where He can pour into so that we can be poured out. Now, here's something to think about. If you're thinking today, well, Lord, I trust you, I want you to use me, yet you will not empty yourself. So that he can fill you, you have a problem. We first must, as believers, empty ourselves out and then say, Lord, fill me.

Seeking God and Becoming Vessels

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Because if not, we have a contaminated cesspool, and then we want to go share it with other people. Some of y'all can't stop complaining long enough to share Jesus. Thank you, Lord. The Lord's going to rebuke that critical spirit. And if somebody will be willing to step out and allow God to do it, or if all of us here will examine ourselves and say, Lord, is it me? Imagine what God can do when we stop. Some of the greatest times of my life where God really moved in my life was when I came to the end of myself. I had nothing else to try. I had no other option except for just to fully trust the Lord. And when I fully trusted the Lord, guess what? Things happened in the way that I wanted them to happen originally. The Bible says he'll give you the desires of your heart. It may not be packaged the way you thought it would. Now you're stuck. Some of y'all need to pray harder. But we should have a desire to pursue God. Because here's the thing: if we trust God, if we want to go deeper in the Lord, if we want to go out into deeper waters, we have to let go of the shore. You cannot go into the deep unless the shore is to your back. You cannot go deeper with the Lord unless you leave behind the things that you once held on to. And it may look like people. That was one of the hardest things for me to walk away from people that I truly enjoyed being around. And I realized that they were actually the thing holding me back and tethering me to the old me. So what does trust in God look like? It's worshiping in spite of when you're weeping. It's praying even when you're doubting. It's showing up and walking faithfully in the valley and saying, You are still my God. You see, a lot of us, we will check out of churches, we will check out of being in unity with the body, we will check out of things because people offend us. And if you're keeping score, you're not really in it, anyways. Let's back up. Think about this. If me and my wife talking about our relationship, talking about our marriage, if y'all know if baseball is three strikes and you're out, right? Y'all know that some of y'all may not, but that's okay. Just letting you know, three strikes, right? So let's say my wife, she does something, and I'm like, oh, that's strike one. And I'm not talking about me getting upset. I'm talking about me divorcing her. I'm about to walk away. Let's get serious. Listen, if you ain't with God, you are divorcing him. You're not under the covenant if you're not with him. And you can't half be. If I was half with my wife, y'all look at me sideways. But yet we prostitute ourselves out with our relationship with God all the time, and we think it's okay. You're either with God or you're not. You understand what I'm saying? So as soon as I get in my head, oh, strike one, that immediately says that there is a limit to how much I will love her and serve her. Immediately. Doesn't matter if I get to strike three or not, I have said in my heart

Unity, Covenant, and Costly Commitment

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that there is a unless, unless a miracle of God, see, here's the thing: God has not called us to be angry and at each other's throats in the church. What he has called us to is unity. And I don't know if you know this or not, but if you are all in with God, with the church, with the vision and the mission, then there is no way out until God moves you. It's not even an option. Divorce is not an option. Divorce is not a word that is used in our house because it is not an option. Because I'm not going to stop and cut myself off until God says, not from her. That would be death. And she may pray for that sometimes. Just kidding, probably. But trust isn't pretending that you're okay. You don't have to pretend that your world's not falling apart around you. God, God sees right through that. You don't have to listen, read David. In some of his Psalms, it's like he is up and down emotionally. The guy's a basket case. He's like, oh, you're the greatest God. Oh Lord, we're I mean, all the time it's like this. But he always comes back to his senses, and the Bible frames him up as being the man after God's own heart. It's because he was real with God. And if you're asking where God is, that means you are seeking. You are searching. God is not scared of your questions, He's not scared of your doubt. But trust isn't pretending that you're okay. Trust is saying, even when I'm not okay, Lord, I know that you are still faithful. If you'll stand with me with every head bow.