Even Still

Pastor Jamie Prescott

Transcript

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Get started today. It's a one-off message as we kind of get ready to roll into next week and get into a whole new series. Uh, but I'm excited for today. Uh, did anybody wake up this morning and feel like they just wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, right? I mean, it's raining, it's thundering, and you're just like, uh, but not just because of that, but because maybe there was some stuff, some junk going on in your head, you know? And you're just thinking of like, oh, I don't want to tackle today. I don't want to like, you know, do it, you know. We kind of wake up sometimes and we have these images of having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Does that sound like a book that you read sometime when you were younger, right? Like this one that you see on the screen, Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. You guys remember that story? He would wake up and possibly find gum in his hair, and it was gonna be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, right? Or he would reach into the cereal box looking for the prize only to find out that everybody else had gotten one except for Alexander. But his solution for it was what? I should just move to uh, you guys have read the book many times and reading it maybe to your own kids or grandkids, right? Is Australia really that much better? I don't know, hey. Let's all go and find out, right? But that's the solution to our problems. Just move to Australia. Well, this is what it was for Alexander. Book was written in 1972, so but sometimes that's how it is, right? We wake up and it just seems like the day is just starting off dark. We're reminded of some of the stuff that's going on in our own life. Yesterday we had a funeral in this room to come in and find out that tech wasn't working the way it should, you know, and we wanted it to be, you know, a wonderful service for this family, and we had to just try to figure it out. It was like, uh, what are we gonna do? And believe it or not, as I preached the first service, it zomped. It went down. I don't think it's gonna happen this service, but the lights went dark, not completely dark somehow, but everything went down. And as I came here this morning, I usually have this Sunday routine of where I've got my notes, I've gone through my message multiple times before Sunday morning, but I'll go sit at McDonald's and kind of go through it. I learned that from Nate years ago. McDonald's is the best place to do that. And then um, but it didn't today. And so I just decided, you know, I'm gonna get my stuff to go, I'm gonna sit in my office, I feel pretty good about it. And guess what? We were already having issues when I got here this morning, and so it was like all hands on deck trying to figure this out. And it was like, God, what are you doing with today, right? Like, and it was just and not only that, but we had a leak in the lobby going into the there that I could name thing after thing after thing, right? And here's the thing when it comes to that kind of stuff, some of us can get really bogged down with those kinds of things, and we can get distracted, and it seems as though darkness is beginning to take over. And those things that I'm talking about, those are medial compared to some of the things that we deal with in life, aren't they? Those are those are just you know not quite big deals, but we all know what it can be like to wake up and to feel like that, to feel like we're walking in darkness. Why don't you think about it for a second? What are some of the big deal incidents that could make your day go terrible? Friendships that get broken, family relationships that are somehow being severed. I mean, I could tell you of messages that I've gotten, I mean, harsh messages that I've gotten from family members, you know, and it's like that's not the way it was, but yet that's the way that, like, you know, and and and and and you don't know what to do. You know what I'm saying? Like families should like be together, but somehow it gets severed, or just bad news that you get, illness, loss, fights, failures. The date was July 9th, 2002. My wife and I were doing a funeral for our youngest at the time, Gavin Bryan Prescott. Never planned on that. But we had gone into the hospital for just a routine sonogram, and we're excited, right? This is gonna be our third child. As my wife laid there, you know, if you've ever experienced it, they're going around with that instrument and they're looking for what? A heartbeat. Right? And they went around from here to here, nothing. And when you've experienced darkness, you know what I felt, and you know what my wife felt. And as we stood there, and the longer it got, I began to see a tear picking out of her eye because we'd had three or two previous. We knew what we should hear, and we weren't hearing it. And so that tag said, Let me let me step out for a second and go find somebody else. And they come in. Only to agree that there was no longer a heartbeat. And only when you thought things were dark it got darker because we were far enough along that she had to deliver. There's grief in that. Part of my grief is not necessarily knowing that my wife was experiencing something different than what I was dark, and you ask yourself, what did I do wrong? And we didn't do anything wrong. We live in a broken world. And there are things like that that happen that we have to go through. And so we gave birth. And I have the cards right here, and I pulled them out yesterday with little hands and feet right here. So tiny. But so real. Of a baby that we didn't get to hold. It's dark. Dark. And there's many things, I'm sure, in your own life that you can think about that you are thinking about right now that you faced. And you said, God, is there more? Is there more to life? Because you just feel like that's the end of everything, right? That the darkness is just gonna take over and you're gonna spend the rest of your life there. It can be scary when the sun sets and it starts to get dark, but listen, there's something that holds true, and that is this, and that is that just as the sun sets every day, it always returns. In the same way, listen, God never leaves us in the dark. That was so many years ago for me. And had God left me in the dark, I can tell you right now, I would not be standing on this stage. He's been so faithful. The sun did not set and stay set that day. Listen, I love that the Bible was written by real people, and I want to talk about one and one who experienced some darkness in his own life, and that is a guy by the name of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet. In the Old Testament, God spoke to the people through prophets. And so Jeremiah was like that close to God, and God would say, Listen, I need you to tell the Israelites this. And here's the thing: I mean, how incredible would it be to be a prophet, right? But the thing about Jeremiah is he was a bad news prophet. He would share like truths of darkness to the Israelites. That was how God used him. Thanks, God, for letting me be like your messenger, but that's not the kind I want to be, right? But that's who Jeremiah was. And he would share messages like, you know, to the Israelites saying, Listen, I need you to stop mistreating others. This is what God is relaying to you through me. Be stop behaving unjustly and start following God, listening to him. Stop submitting to these things that are only going to bring darkness to your life. He would continue to share to them and basically say, listen, if you don't stop doing this, disaster is going to come. There are going to be consequences for these decisions. And listen, as darkness is in our world, sometimes it can be because of some of the decisions that we make. But sometimes it's similar to what my wife and I experienced. Right? But we get the opportunity to make choices because God has given us free will, right? And so, with that free will, we hear the same message that Jeremiah was delivering, and that is listen, steer clear as much as you can and live on the side of light, right? Don't do the things that will bring darkness and consequences to your life because it'll be painful. And so today's story begins with God's people experiencing those consequences. They didn't completely stop, and so the consequences came, and there was this empire called Babylon that was invading, and so they were forced to flee from their houses and their homeland. I mean, imagine the worst of the worst, running and just trying to find a safe place to live. Jeremiah's words didn't stick. And so they were having to face those consequences. And here's the thing: Jeremiah, I mean, the guy who, you know, at this point, they're like, Jeremiah, now we now we want to believe. Now it is too late. And not only that, but their messenger was thrown in jail. And not by the Babylonians, but by the very king of Israel, Zedekiah. You want to know why? Because he didn't like the message Jeremiah was delivering. He felt like he was demoralizing not only he as king, but his army. Give us some encouraging words. Help us to go out and to fight well. Because all you're doing is saying negatives. But God was just trying to change the direction. So that's where we find ourselves. Jeremiah's in jail. A dark day. Jeremiah 32, 1 to 12, as you see it on the screen here. This is what it says. The following message came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah. This was also the 18th year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. Jerusalem was then under siege from the Babylonian army, and Jeremiah was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace. King Zedekiah, he had put him there, asking why he kept giving this prophecy. Why do you keep bringing bad news? This is what the Lord says. I'm about to hand the city over to the king of Babylon, and he will take it. King Zedekiah will be captured by the Babylonians and taken to meet the king of Babylon face to face. He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, and I will deal with him there, says the Lord. And if you fight against the Babylonians, you will never succeed. And at that time the Lord sent me a message and he said, Your cousin Hanamel, son of Shalom, he's gonna come and he's gonna say to you, Buy my field at Anatoth, and by law you have the right to buy it before it's offered to anyone else. And then, just as the Lord had said he would, my cousin Hanamel, he came and he visited me in prison. And he said, Please buy my field at Anathoth and in the land of Benjamin, and by law, you have the right to buy it before it's offered to anyone else. So buy it for yourself. And then I knew that the message that I had heard from the was from the Lord. And so I bought the field at Anathoth, paying Hanamel 17 pieces of silver for it. I signed and I sealed the deed of purchase before witnesses. I weighed out that silver, I paid him, and then I took the sealed deed and unsealed copy of the deed, which contained the terms and conditions of the purchase, and I handed them to Baruch, son of Nerah, and grandson of Messiah. I did all this in the presence of my cousin Hanumel, the witness who had signed the deed, and all the men of Judah were there in the courtyard of the guard house. What in the world does this have to do with darkness? Right. I tell you this, it actually has more to do with light than it does darkness. Because what God was doing was God was saying, Listen, I know you're sitting here in prison. I know you're experiencing dark times. But Jeremiah, what you have to understand is this is not the end. And so I want you to buy this land because I want you to plan for the future, because there is a future. There is going to be a day of light. Darkness will not last forever, and you will live here again, and things will grow and things will flourish. Think about that for a second, and the things that we've experienced in our own lives, and the times that we've allowed that darkness to hang on just a little bit longer than we would have loved for it to. Some of us in this room who we've seen out the other side. And listen, had I not seen out the other side, I would not be here today. You have heard that from me. But Jeremiah was hearing the word of God saying, There will be a future, there is hope, there will be joy again. This will not last forever. And so in the middle of that darkness, Jeremiah bought that field. That's crazy. It is a crazy story. In the midst of being in prison, I want you to buy something. But Jeremiah believed that there was truth. He still trusted God's promises. Jeremiah 32, 13 to 17 goes on with this story, and this is what it says. It says, Then I said to Baruch, as they all listened, this is what the Lord of heaven's armies, the God of Israel, says. Take both this sealed deed and the unsealed copy and put them into a pottery jar to preserve them for a long time. We're gonna get back to that at the end. So think about that. And for this, what the Lord of heaven's armies, the God of Israel says, someday people will again own property here in the land and they're gonna buy and they're gonna sell houses and vineyards and fields. It's going to turn around. And then after I'd given the papers to Barug, I prayed to the Lord, Oh sovereign Lord, you made the heavens and the earth by your strong hand and powerful arm. Nothing is too hard for you. Not even being imprisoned. Nothing is too hard for you. He took those receipts and he took that deed. And where did he put it? He put it in the place where things of value go. Things that we want to remember, things that we want to know where they're at, things that we know can be protected. So that he could one day pull that back out and be reminded that God is good. And truth and light prevails. Listen, I was sitting with my wife a little while back, and we were sitting in the living room, and you know what? I've said this before, and my wife reminds me don't watch the news. And as we sat there, all we did was focus on the hardness and the darkness, right, in the world, and we said, ugh, doesn't seem like a very fun, good time to live in right now, does it? But I think everybody that's come before us has said the very same thing. We live in a broken dark world. But listen, just as the sun sets and it rises again, so does the light of God in our lives. Darkness reminds us of our need and our desire for light. Right? We don't like the darkness. I want to read another passage here in a second, but God promised Jeremiah that good crops would grow again, right? But listen, what does God promise to you and me? Where does this go for us? What does it mean for us? And I believe that Jesus began to help us to understand through the disciples as he left this earth, as he went up to heaven, he gave them a message, right? He said, Listen, just because I'm leaving, things are not over, things are not done, but you are gonna continue to spread the message. And so I want you to travel all around and I want you to share the good news. But as they did so, do you think everything was perfect? No. As a matter of fact, they suffered and died just as our Savior Jesus died, died as well, didn't they? Persecution, darkness. They faced it. And Paul wrote about, wrote these words as he went through that in 2 Corinthians 4, 7 and 9. And this is what he says. He says, listen, we now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like what? Fragile clay jars containing this great treasure, this reminder. Right? This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Again, because of the treasure that lives within us, when darkness comes, we have to pull that out and we have to be reminded again that Jesus is alive, that Jesus prevails. So, what is this verse saying? Four things it says, listen, you're not gonna be crushed. If you're walking and you're acknowledging as the Israelites were not, that God is there and that God has a better plan, that joy and the hope comes from him. Listen, we will not be crushed. You don't need to despair again because our hope is in him. You won't be abandoned, he will never leave you, just as he never left Jeremiah as he was in prison that day, and you won't be destroyed. This is what comes again from a relationship with God the Father. So, what's the bottom line today? And that is this right here that is that God's promises are true. They're true. We have to stand on that. The things that He has told us in Scripture, listen, those promises are true. The experiences that we have and for the things that we have seen on the other side, those things are true. There's a place on this planet that's called the Rahman Crater. It's actually near the very place where this story that I have read to you uh uh took place. The Raman crater, though, if you were to see it, it would look like this. Look how huge that is, and it just looks so deserted and so hot and so dry, and like I would never want to be there. But if you were there at night, this place is considered a dark reserve. Look at it, this is what you would see. You'll never see that in Lawrence, Kansas, as you look. You'll see a few stars, but you will never see that many. Listen, light finds its way to prevail, and even in the darkest place of this earth, it shines bright. Listen. That helps us as we move from here and try to determine, okay, Pastor Jeannie. Yeah, we agree, there's darkness. We've experienced it, and I know that even as I leave here today, I'm gonna face it again. What do we do? What do we do next? I believe that the first thing is this right here, and that is to be honest about the darkness. Acknowledge it. You know, when we were little kids, you know, maybe we would struggle with going to bed. I did. And one of the things that I had the hardest time with is I was scared of the dark. And I would lay in bed, and you know what I would do? Probably the same thing many of you have done. I would sweat so bad, but I would take those covers and I would pull them up beside my head to where what? When you look left and you look right, you couldn't see what was there because I was so afraid of what might get me. My parents let me watch some bad movies. And I was so afraid the clown was gonna come out from under the bed, just like in poltergeist, you know. Don't let your kids watch those movies as little kids. But I'd say, Mom, dad, I'm scared of the dark. You know what? I acknowledge it today. I'm scared of the dark. I'm scared of feeling things like what I felt when we didn't hear the little heartbeat. It's okay to grieve and to Be honest about those things. Nate reminded us in the funeral yesterday. Listen, that the two grief and joy can happen and live within us at the same time. We can still have grief, but yet still know that there is hope as we move forward because of the joy that God puts within us, knowing that He is in control. So the second thing that we can do is to look for the light. Acknowledge the darkness, but you know what? You've got to look for the right because why? We will not and do not want to stay in the darkness forever. If I had, I wouldn't be here today. I've said it over and over again. It's all over the Bible. Listen, the light is all in there. Look for the light. Look for the things throughout your day where you can see God's presence. Maybe just in your little children or whatever you do, look for it. Record those things. Because there is light in dark places. And the third thing is this, and let's just trust God's promises. We can remind ourselves, right, of what is true even when it doesn't feel true. And God's promise for me. God's promise for my wife was I still have a plan for your future. This is tough, but I'm here with you. Right? But there are promises all throughout scripture. Promises like this right here. As we look, Philippians 4.19, it says this, and this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Another one, Joshua 1.9, says this. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. And that's just a couple. They're all throughout it. The day was September 25th, 2003. You're sitting there on the edge of your seat thinking, oh no, not another one. September 25th, 2003. God gave us Keith Everett Prescott. It was our fourth, third living. But as that moment came, I know within my wife there was a fear, and even within me, what will we face? But we believed in the God that we serve. I can tell you we believed so much that even when we did the funeral for little Gavin, we printed these words in the pamphlet. I want to read them for you. This is the words of a song that says, Hear your words, hear your voice, like the sound of rushing waters through my soul, in the company of mystery. I'm lost, I'm found, and in the whirlwind of my mind to comprehend all the vastness of your beauty, Lord. Please tell me, I cannot touch you. In this holy fear that you are near me, I cannot hold you. In the silence, I will know you will. I cannot see you. Hear me, Lord, but I know you. Here I fall at your feet, and my heart will lift its cries to be relieved of the things that keep me from you, Lord. My soul knows that one day when his body and this mind, when this body and this mind have perished, then I will join in heaven's songs until then. So what does this mean for us? That we are not to stay in dark times and let it prevail. That there is light on the other side and it comes from God the Father and the relationship with Jesus Christ. And if we did not believe that, we would have not printed those words that many years ago. And here's the thing I still believe those words, or I would not be before you today, wanting you to know and experience that same light. So as we prepare to worship, listen, I just want to remind us don't just learn to live in the darkness. Sometimes that's what we do. We're like, no, I guess it's just the way it's gonna be. Bad things always happen to me, so I should just get used to it. Listen, that is not the way God planned things for you. Stop settling and don't learn to live in the darkness. God has promised us good days. God has promised us days of light, joy, hope. Would you stand with me?