SPEAKER_01: Your life is not about chocolate.
SPEAKER_01: Life is bigger than you.
SPEAKER_01: It has purpose, and its purpose is to bring glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: I love the opening that's opening music today.
SPEAKER_01: It was fantastic.
SPEAKER_01: I'm made for you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm made for you to worship team, just setting the tone from what we were going to experience today.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what it is, Church.
SPEAKER_01: We're made for him.
SPEAKER_01: We're made for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And to deny that is deny the very essence and the purpose for our creation.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you are encouraged by today's message.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you bring your middle schoolers weekly and we get to hang out with them.
SPEAKER_01: I had this interesting transition in my life that happened about a week ago.
SPEAKER_01: I went and I got myself a teenager.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: For the first time, this is new ground for me.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm and I'm learning as I go.
SPEAKER_01: There's no manual for this.
SPEAKER_01: I talk to friends, I talk to guys that have walked in front of me on this, and you know, what can I expect?
SPEAKER_01: What should I expect?
SPEAKER_01: And I heard this, uh I heard this quote, I thought this was great, in that teenagers are God's reminder to us about how we perceive Him.
SPEAKER_01: They're made in our image, but oftentimes fail to recognize that we exist.
SPEAKER_01: So as I walk through that process, you know, uh pray for us in our home, that God would give us wisdom and that we would do well with our teenagers.
SPEAKER_01: But we love teenagers, we love youth, and it's a joy to serve that way.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that we're gonna go into today, where I want to take us, and and Pastor Steve started the uh kingdom revolution.
SPEAKER_01: We're done, we started Matthew last week.
SPEAKER_01: He'll be back next week to start chapter two uh and go into that.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take just a brief pause because we have Passion Week just in front of us.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Easter is only just a short throw away.
SPEAKER_01: We got spring break this week and around the country, and then we'll be right into Easter.
SPEAKER_01: And so, with that, um, we're gonna take a look and we're gonna be in John 12 today.
SPEAKER_01: But what I want to ask, this is a pretty practical thing, this hit me kind of right between the eyes uh when I was reading through uh the scriptures, and we've been studying John in middle school at flagship, and so we've been going through verse by verse, chapter by chapter, um, in middle school, it's been great.
SPEAKER_01: But we had a chance to unpack chapter 12 a couple weeks ago, and so it was amazing because I was uh speaking to this group of citizens, good citizens, and uh asked them the question you know, who here has experienced trouble in their life this week?
SPEAKER_01: And every hand went up.
SPEAKER_01: So you have a demographic of sixth through eighth graders that are already familiar with this concept, and probably even before that, because I thought about growing up some things where my heart felt troubled.
SPEAKER_01: And it was often the response, and we can all relate to this, where mom said, just wait till your dad gets home.
unknown: Boom!
SPEAKER_01: And the trouble sets in, and then you wait, and you wait for what dad wants to unpack, mostly on my bottom.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that I and I deserved it.
SPEAKER_01: I will tell you that I never got a whooping that I didn't deserve, and probably should have gotten more than I did.
SPEAKER_01: So, but so this is a very practical thing that we're all dealing with today, and I want us to go somewhere in the text because I think the Holy Spirit is revealing something here in this passage that if we're not if we're not careful, we miss it and we pass it over.
SPEAKER_01: And it's these two verses that are tucked inside the middle of John chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: And it's something where we all relate and what we can do, and Jesus is walking this out in a very real moment in his humanity.
SPEAKER_01: So, what I want to do, just as we start, I'm gonna ask you, and you may not know your neighbor, so we're gonna ask the trust factor to kick in here, but I want you to close your eyes for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Just briefly, close your eyes and search your heart right now, search your soul for the moment of either this week, this month, this year, or maybe this day.
SPEAKER_01: Where is your heart troubled?
SPEAKER_01: Where has it been troubled inside of 2019?
SPEAKER_01: And let's just pause there for a minute, because I want you guys to wrestle with this for just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you can open your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: I get the privilege of being on staff and seeing the prayer chains that come through this church, the prayer requests on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_01: And I will just tell you, I don't know what was happening in the universe on March 19th of this week, but March 19th was I got more emails about prayer from this body, about the things that we were experiencing and troubling on our hearts, about things that you guys are walking through than any time in recent history or my mind.
SPEAKER_01: And so I love the fact that we have that, it goes up, and then our prayer warriors come around and we support you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Pastor Steve was on it this week.
SPEAKER_01: You know, relapse into sickness, traveling, stress is that way.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Pastor Vince had to travel, and Cindy is recovering from illness.
SPEAKER_01: And you heard Pastor Vince's testimony about what happened in her life.
SPEAKER_01: And so, stress, troubled hearts, troubled hearts, and so what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_01: Where do we go in those moments where we are troubled?
SPEAKER_01: And what does Jesus give us?
SPEAKER_01: So, real quick, um, just recap.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the Gospel of Matthew, as Steve explained, is the emphasis on Jesus as the Messiah and the one who prophesied.
SPEAKER_01: It also, Jesus is explaining the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: But in John, in the Gospel of John, we see something a little bit different.
SPEAKER_01: It's a different spin, right?
SPEAKER_01: What do you know was written several years later and after the book of Matthew?
SPEAKER_01: And in the book of John, what we see is the focus of Jesus' identity as the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Essentially, it's about his sonship to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So that's where I want to pick this up.
SPEAKER_01: The Gospel of John is giving us an invitation not only to understand, but to participate in the message of sonship.
SPEAKER_01: It's revealing throughout the text this relationship of God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is so tangible in his humanity in these moments that we see in this scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And how he speaks to his disciples, the broken, the cast down, the sinners.
SPEAKER_01: But most importantly, it's how he talks to his father that if we're not careful, we miss some of this language and what we're supposed to have the opportunity, where we have the opportunity to communicate to the Father ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: And so, just an example here, John 5.19.
SPEAKER_01: Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself.
SPEAKER_01: He can do only what he sees his father doing.
SPEAKER_01: Because whatever the Father does, the Son does also.
SPEAKER_01: John 12.50, therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.
SPEAKER_01: The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me.
SPEAKER_01: That said, we have trouble.
SPEAKER_01: And if I asked everybody to raise their hands, my guess is I'd have at least 95% participation on who's experienced trouble in their lives this week, this year.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 14, 1, how do we face trouble, right?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus opens John 14, 1 to his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Do not let your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Trust in God, trust also in me.
SPEAKER_01: But just two verses before that, two chapters before that, we see Jesus is troubled.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of God is troubled.
SPEAKER_01: And so his point here is that it's not that you're not going to have trouble, but don't let your trouble overwhelm your soul.
SPEAKER_01: So what is your soul?
SPEAKER_01: That's what I want to unpack real quick for you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody say soul.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions.
SPEAKER_01: Say it after me.
SPEAKER_01: Your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So when we get to chapter 12, what we see is Jesus is processing this situation in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: And he's processing it through his mind, his will, and his emotions.
SPEAKER_01: So give a little context.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 11, Jesus has just done the greatest miracle of his time on this earth.
SPEAKER_01: He raised Lazarus from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: This will be his greatest miracle apart from his own resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: That particular miracle puts him in the sole focus and concentration of the Pharisees and the priests, and the plot to kill him now accelerates.
SPEAKER_01: This guy's gone too far.
SPEAKER_01: This is too much.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, we're not going to go after just Jesus, but we're going to go after Lazarus too.
SPEAKER_01: So now Lazarus is trying to duck and dodge.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 12 opens up, it's the feast.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus comes in on the donkey.
SPEAKER_01: We see him, he's glorified.
SPEAKER_01: Hosanna, King of Kings, Majesty, they're worshiping him with palm branches.
SPEAKER_01: But in the middle of this chapter, he has just finished talking to a group of Greeks who had come to see him to meet the Messiah, to hear about the guy who's raising people from the tombs, bringing them back to life.
SPEAKER_01: If there was a guy walking the earth right now, I'd want to meet that guy too.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to talk to him.
SPEAKER_01: I have some questions.
SPEAKER_01: So the Greeks do the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: They're sitting down with him.
SPEAKER_01: And in this passage, right before we get to chapter, or verse 27, Jesus has just finished talking about his own end, where he's headed.
SPEAKER_01: He's just described to them his own death.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a very real moment because now he has just heard the words come out of his mouth, and now his soul is troubled with what's directly in front of him.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of God is troubled.
SPEAKER_01: He has a troubled soul.
SPEAKER_01: He is grieving because he knows that his appointment with the cross is directly in front of him.
SPEAKER_01: The word in the front of John, the beginning of John that opens across the waters, right?
SPEAKER_01: The word became flesh.
SPEAKER_01: The word was God, the word was with God, the word became God.
SPEAKER_01: God in the flesh is having a troubled soul.
SPEAKER_01: Let's let that sink in for a minute because we, as humans, discount maybe the fact that we should or shouldn't have troubles.
SPEAKER_01: But if God, the Son of God, God is in the flesh and he's having a troubled soul and a troubled heart, well then we should we are not exempt from this.
SPEAKER_01: Troubled in this text, distressed, full of heaviness, greatly afflicted, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's stirred, he's agitated.
SPEAKER_01: Now my soul is deeply troubled.
SPEAKER_01: See, since he was born, Jesus has had a death sentence hanging over his head, and a grisly one.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he knows that he's going to face the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that he's here, his sole purpose of his life is to exchange on the cross what Adam failed to do in the garden.
SPEAKER_01: He's here to redeem eternity.
SPEAKER_01: He's here to redeem humanity for all eternity.
SPEAKER_01: So we're not exempt from this problem as followers of the faith.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity is not a crossless faith.
SPEAKER_01: We have trials and we should have to expect that we're going to face them.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't necessarily to say that we're going to go face them in a masochistic way and we're looking forward to the problems and we're excited for it.
SPEAKER_01: No, of course not.
SPEAKER_01: Neither was Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But 1 Peter 4 12, dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through as if something strange were happening to you.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, be very glad.
SPEAKER_01: For these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity, and I found this fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: I was looking this up and actually verifying and fact-checking and all that, but Christianity is the only religion in world history that at the center, at the core of its faith, lies the humiliation, pain, and suffering of its own God.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing else in world history has that as its core of its faith.
SPEAKER_01: So if our own God goes through that and is troubled by it, then let's not discount the things that we feel about the troubles that we face.
SPEAKER_01: What's a posture that we take in the moments when the phone rings and we get the news?
SPEAKER_01: Where does our heart align and point in those moments?
SPEAKER_01: Is our initial response of trouble to go to prayer?
SPEAKER_01: Is that where we go right to the phone call?
SPEAKER_01: We hang up the phone and we go right to our knees?
SPEAKER_01: And we tap into the source that's available to us?
SPEAKER_01: We say, God, what do we do with this?
SPEAKER_01: Or do we take it to friends or our spouses or our parents or our pastors?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we go to Google.
SPEAKER_01: Guilty?
SPEAKER_01: Something's wrong, doesn't feel right.
SPEAKER_01: You wake up, you're like, uh, my big toe's not bending.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: This is weird.
SPEAKER_01: I should be able to walk.
SPEAKER_01: All I did was go to bed and I woke up and now my big toe won't bend, and you go to WebMD, and that's a bad idea.
SPEAKER_01: There should be a disclaimer when you go to that website that if you are not medically, if you don't have medical black background and training, you have no business being on that website.
SPEAKER_01: Because the next thing you know, your big toe won't bend, and then then there's something wrong with your elbow, and you have devoid journal uh deferred joint pain, and and the next thing you know is that it's gonna tell you that your arm's gonna fall off or something awful like that.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna lose a limb, and uh I've never had a lot of experience with WebMD that's been positive.
SPEAKER_01: Although it did give me enough symptoms that I did go figure out that the big toe problem, there's a word for that, it was gout, and I thought, what is gout?
SPEAKER_01: But these are the things you start to think about when you click over that uh fourth decade.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm going, okay, gout's a real thing.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, that's a lot of information, more than you probably want to know about me.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, I've heard Steve up here talk about all kinds of things, pulling splinters out, almost cutting his hand off with a knife.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a lot of things that he unpacks up here, so I make no apologies for my gout.
SPEAKER_01: All right, which is under control.
SPEAKER_01: I'll have you know.
SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your prayers.
SPEAKER_01: No, but what is our posture?
SPEAKER_01: What is the posture that we take when we get those calls?
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we take it to our friends, we take it to our community, and we and we want to support each other, we want to bear each other's cross, we want to lift up each other's burdens.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's natural for us to do that too.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna find out here in a minute what Jesus' response is in a little bit deeper way.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just say, on the heels of this, just knowing so many people's stories, beloved people in the church, that I've I've just been, it's been an honor and a privilege to walk beside this year.
SPEAKER_01: And and I was talking with the staff, we were having a staff team meeting, and it was early on in the year.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, 2019 had clicked over, and we were just maybe in the first half of February.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought 2018 was rough for me personally.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: There were some challenges that I had to face.
SPEAKER_01: I had a troubled heart for most of 2018 from what I, you know, in looking back and looking in the rearview mirror, but I would trade every problem I had in 2018 for the first 60 days of what happened this year.
SPEAKER_01: And my problems pale in comparison to a situation in this church, a family, a dear family, beloved family, friends of ours that are walking through some of the hardest moments and days they've ever faced.
SPEAKER_01: And I look to them and I'm like, how are you doing this, man?
SPEAKER_01: I pray for you, I love you, but I don't know how you're doing this.
SPEAKER_01: And they give glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not doing it on my own.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do this in my own strength.
SPEAKER_01: All right, chapter 27.
SPEAKER_01: Now my soul is troubled, and what should I say?
SPEAKER_01: See, Jesus has two responses, two options in this moment that he's looking at.
SPEAKER_01: As he's looking at the cross, and his heart is troubled, he's got two options in front of him.
SPEAKER_01: What should I say?
SPEAKER_01: Father, save me from this hour question mark.
SPEAKER_01: That's an honest response.
SPEAKER_01: Save here, sozo, the Greek word sozo, uh, immediate rescue, deliver now, keep safe from danger, healing.
SPEAKER_01: We love the immediate sozo.
SPEAKER_01: We welcome that.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like we say the prayer, I need healing.
SPEAKER_01: Sozo, deliver me now.
SPEAKER_01: We love that.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for that, we want that, and we invite that.
SPEAKER_01: It's a natural response.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is exit is modeling that out.
SPEAKER_01: His first response to that is a question: save me from this hour.
SPEAKER_01: Will you, Father, save me from this hour?
SPEAKER_01: Not unlike what we're gonna see him pray three times in the Garden of Gethsemane a few chapters after this, right?
SPEAKER_01: But in this moment, in this moment, save me from this hour.
SPEAKER_01: On the way to church today, my son asked me, What are you speaking on, Dad?
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of unpacked this a little bit to him and was explaining a little bit, gave him the cliff notes, and um we had this dialogue, and he was still kind of like, oh, you know, trouble, okay, I get that.
SPEAKER_01: And I go, but there's something deeper here.
SPEAKER_01: What if, son, you knew on Tuesday of this coming week that you were gonna die a horrible, grisly death, and that was the situation you were looking down at.
SPEAKER_01: That was directly in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, it wasn't like if or when.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's now.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus knows that his time is coming to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: How do you deal with that?
SPEAKER_01: Man, it was an honest answer, and I love that.
SPEAKER_01: I love that honesty from our children sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I'd find another way, probably something less painful.
SPEAKER_01: I'd try and find another way out of it.
SPEAKER_01: And we do.
SPEAKER_01: We try and kind of slip by, we try to we try to go past it, we want to sidestep some things, right?
SPEAKER_01: We all want it.
SPEAKER_01: It's in our nature.
SPEAKER_01: But the question today, church, is that the trouble that we face today, maybe it's part of our purpose, right?
SPEAKER_01: This hour that we've come to in our lives is part of his purpose for us.
SPEAKER_01: Now I agree that we should all pray for sozo, right?
SPEAKER_01: Healing now.
SPEAKER_01: I don't disagree with that.
SPEAKER_01: I think that we should pray for that.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that, we pray with each other for that, and I'm not disagreeing or saying that we should do otherwise.
SPEAKER_01: Because he hears our prayers, but often it's not in the way that we think he's gonna respond or might expect us to uh to come and meet us there.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the timing.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we're not saved from that hour.
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes it's a now and not yet, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's an agreement made, Father meets us in this, and now we walk it out in faith.
SPEAKER_01: You said in that prayer and the faith, the Lord does something, and you walk in faith knowing that he met you, but it's a process to that promise.
SPEAKER_01: Many of us are in a process at this moment, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
SPEAKER_01: I hate that word.
SPEAKER_01: I hate that word process.
SPEAKER_01: Because that means that it's not now, right?
SPEAKER_01: We want the now.
SPEAKER_01: But we're all being transformed from glory to glory and Morin's image through that process.
SPEAKER_01: We're all in a process, we're all in some sort of a process today.
SPEAKER_01: 27b.
SPEAKER_01: This is Jesus' response to that first question.
SPEAKER_01: That's the second choice that he makes.
SPEAKER_01: But for this purpose, I came to this hour.
SPEAKER_01: This is the hour I was meant for.
SPEAKER_01: This is why I was born.
SPEAKER_01: There's purpose for this hour, and Jesus steps into the trouble.
SPEAKER_01: He positions his soul and steps into his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't step to the side, he doesn't try to maneuver, he owns it.
SPEAKER_01: It's not wrong to feel this way about our troubles.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is feeling this way initially about his trouble.
SPEAKER_01: Is there a way to get around this?
SPEAKER_01: Do I have to do this?
SPEAKER_01: The difference is though, instantaneously, Jesus recognizes this particular trouble, he recognizes this particular trouble as his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: It's why he was born, it's why he was created.
SPEAKER_01: More times than not, we feel that these horrible things and these situations that happen to us, if we're being completely honest, they stand in the way of what we feel our perceived purpose is.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is that the trouble we face is often part of our purpose.
SPEAKER_01: So he's settled now.
SPEAKER_01: He's settled, and what does he do?
SPEAKER_01: This is where he models it.
SPEAKER_01: And I love how he explains this to his disciples and the crowd around him, is he steps into this and he says, Take this thing.
SPEAKER_01: Father, glorify your name.
SPEAKER_01: Glorify your name.
SPEAKER_01: See, this trouble is bigger than me, is what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about me, it is about bringing glory to the name of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And if we're not careful, we miss this interaction.
SPEAKER_01: He steps right into it and says, Glorify your name.
SPEAKER_01: See, your life is not about you.
SPEAKER_01: Shocker.
SPEAKER_01: Your life is bigger than you.
SPEAKER_01: It has purpose, and its purpose is to bring glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: I love the opening sets of music today.
SPEAKER_01: It was fantastic, right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm made for you.
SPEAKER_01: The worship team, just setting the tone for what we were going to experience today, and that's what it is, church.
SPEAKER_01: We are made for him.
SPEAKER_01: We are made for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And to deny that is to deny the very essence and the purpose for our creation.
SPEAKER_01: Our life is not about us, it's bigger than us.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is saying, I exist for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: This ultimate mattered, this ultimately mattered more to him than his own suffering.
SPEAKER_01: I exist for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Can you?
SPEAKER_01: That's what the challenge is right now, church.
SPEAKER_01: He existed for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Can we exist in our own presence, in our own problems, in our own situations for the glory of God?
SPEAKER_01: And that's the challenge I have to everybody in this room that's carrying troubled hearts today, troubled souls, how we're experiencing life, how we're processing that.
SPEAKER_01: Our soul is the unit of which we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Process our will, our mind, and our emotions.
SPEAKER_01: Our souls are troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' soul is troubled.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, it's bigger than me, and I give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: And use this to glorify your name.
SPEAKER_01: Heaven's response to this, heaven's response to this is so beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: It's so, if we're not careful, sometimes too, we miss the Father's response.
SPEAKER_01: And then three times in the Gospels, twice in John, but three times in the Gospels, we see the Father, God the Father, open up the heavens and respond to his Son.
SPEAKER_01: This is the second time in John.
SPEAKER_01: Heaven's response to Jesus' prayer.
SPEAKER_01: 28.
SPEAKER_01: Then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and I will glorify it again.
SPEAKER_01: I have already glorified it, and I'm going to glorify it again.
SPEAKER_01: What is he saying here?
SPEAKER_01: What is he saying?
SPEAKER_01: The Father's responding to his son, and he's unifying his heart with the Son.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying, Heaven's perspective of Jesus' trouble is this.
SPEAKER_01: The things you are facing, I'm going to use again to bring glory to the earth.
SPEAKER_01: I am essentially taking you from glory to glory to glory to glory to glory.
SPEAKER_01: Hello, can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_01: This is encouragement for us.
SPEAKER_01: This is meat.
SPEAKER_01: This is milk to our bones.
SPEAKER_01: The problem is, is that sometimes for us, and by the way, if you have had heaven open up and respond immediately after your prayers, I want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: This doesn't happen to me.
SPEAKER_01: Not to say that it's not available, but sometimes it's more like in my life, it's glory.
SPEAKER_01: Glory.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: There's that little word, two, T-O, it's two, it's a short word, but sometimes there's so many O's in between.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, oh, oh, I need glory.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I need your glory in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I need rescued from this purpose, from this mission, from this situation.
SPEAKER_01: But it's glory to glory.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Father's response to our situation at this time and place.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's giving us.
SPEAKER_01: Now, last week Steve unpacked the term Kavad.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't know it was already in my notes.
SPEAKER_01: He took it from me.
SPEAKER_01: We could.
SPEAKER_01: It actually was in my notes, to be fair.
SPEAKER_01: But I love the fact that he started with it because he did a better job explaining it, but it's in the notes today too.
SPEAKER_01: But Kavad, the Hebrew word, has meant importance, weight, deference, heaviness.
SPEAKER_01: But primarily the word kvad means glory, respect, the weight, the majesty, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so what God is saying to the Father is, I'm giving you my Kabbod.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is coming on.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to raise you from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to glorify my name through your purpose.
SPEAKER_01: My will will be done.
SPEAKER_01: There's deliverance in this for us.
SPEAKER_01: For our souls, right here, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because we can anchor ourselves in the name, the strength, and the power, the might of his glory in the Kavad and rise above our troubles.
SPEAKER_01: Because what Jesus does in that moment when he says, Father, glorify your name, he uses it as a pivot point.
SPEAKER_01: He uses it as leverage.
SPEAKER_01: And he comes out and he comes above his situation.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we have option.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we have access to, church.
SPEAKER_01: Because when we do it in our own strength, in our own understanding, and our own energy, we fail.
SPEAKER_01: The stuff that life throws at us is hard, it's heavy, and we fail.
SPEAKER_01: But when we use it and we step into it and we use it as a leverage point and we come above it, then we become an anchor.
SPEAKER_01: Then we become an example to the world.
SPEAKER_01: And the world looks at it and says, How is he doing that?
SPEAKER_01: How is she going through that in her in this way?
SPEAKER_01: But it's because the weight and the kavod and the glory of God is sitting on your situation.
SPEAKER_01: He's using it through you and from you, and he's lifting you above your situation.
SPEAKER_01: And there's hope there.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It lifts you above what you're going through.
SPEAKER_01: It renews your mind.
SPEAKER_01: It brings alignment to your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Externally, things may not change.
SPEAKER_01: Externally, the situation remains the same.
SPEAKER_01: The diagnosis, the finances, the divorce notice, the phone call, you know, suicide of a loved one.
SPEAKER_01: In there?
SPEAKER_01: That's heavy trouble.
SPEAKER_01: That is deep water for our souls.
SPEAKER_01: And what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_01: How do we respond?
SPEAKER_01: God, glorify your name in this.
SPEAKER_01: Use this for your purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Use my life for your purpose, God.
SPEAKER_01: Then internally, things change.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Internally, things start to change.
SPEAKER_01: Trouble is dealt with because God's glory, his supremacy, his majesty, his weight, his kabbat, and the reality of who he is for me and with me and in me begins to transform me.
SPEAKER_01: And then we become thankful for the trouble, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because it changes us, it grows us, and we become stronger.
SPEAKER_01: We hear the Father saying, The things you're facing, the trouble you have, I will use it to glorify my name.
SPEAKER_01: This is the posture we see in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: This should be the position of our souls and the context of our prayers to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: In our weakness, we are made strong.
SPEAKER_01: Let the weak say, I am strong.
SPEAKER_01: Paul describes in his text, he references that there's a thorn in his flesh.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know what the thorn is, but we know that he walks through life with this thorn, this injury, this wound, and he prays to God, three times he prays, to remove it.
SPEAKER_01: As far as we know, it's never removed.
SPEAKER_01: He walks through life with that thorn.
SPEAKER_01: And so what I'm saying to you today, church, is that sometimes the trouble we face, the trouble we have, God will save us from that.
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's not always in the way that we think it will be, but sometimes it's for our purpose, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's for our purpose that we are wounded, we are made weak, so that God can perfect his strength in us and through us.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul at some point resigns and says, Okay, God, I'm meant to I'm meant to carry this, I'm meant to have this thorn.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna walk in your grace, in your purpose, and I'm gonna rely on God the Father to make me strong in my own weakness.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul puts that on the shelf.
SPEAKER_01: Now, God may have healed him.
SPEAKER_01: We don't see that in the text, but we see him reaching out and asking for it.
SPEAKER_01: Again, it doesn't come in the way that he thinks it ought or should.
SPEAKER_01: We are not to boast in our strengths, right?
SPEAKER_01: We boast in the Lord in spite of what we're facing.
SPEAKER_01: And I and again, I've seen it where a friend of mine who has every right to be angry, and probably is on some days, but how he carries it.
SPEAKER_01: How he's carrying the troubled heart.
SPEAKER_01: What is he doing with that?
SPEAKER_01: He's waiting.
SPEAKER_01: While his faith is built in perfect timing for the glory and the Father's glory being revealed through the troubles, both in us and through us.
SPEAKER_01: This is my invitation.
SPEAKER_01: As we start to settle into worship today, church, we're gonna have communion set up on the sides.
SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage you to take communion, do business with God.
SPEAKER_01: Be honest with yourselves today.
SPEAKER_01: You have troubles.
SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna do with those?
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna step into it?
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna say, God, use this to glorify your name?
SPEAKER_01: This is bigger than me.
SPEAKER_01: This is about you, this is about your kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Come in my life.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have our ministry prayer teams available on the sides after communion or during communion, during our worship.
SPEAKER_01: And if you want prayer, if you guys need prayer, you want encouraged, you want lifted up, our prayer ministry team is here to encourage you guys.
SPEAKER_01: We're here to walk this with you.
SPEAKER_01: All of us today, to some degree or another, are facing some version of trouble in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're not guaranteed that right now.
SPEAKER_01: We ask God, God, this is supposed to be the good life, the joie de vive.
SPEAKER_01: But it's a yes and no.
SPEAKER_01: It's no not yet.
SPEAKER_01: Now is not the time.
SPEAKER_01: Now is the time to carry your cross.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, is for eternity.
SPEAKER_01: I've gone to prepare a place for you.
SPEAKER_01: My father's house has many mansions.
SPEAKER_01: That's what's in front of us.
SPEAKER_01: But now is the time to face our purpose and what God has in our troubles.
SPEAKER_01: God wants to give you peace today.
SPEAKER_01: In John 14, 27, 29.
SPEAKER_01: I am leaving you with a gift.
SPEAKER_01: Peace of mind and heart.
SPEAKER_01: And the peace I give is a gift of the world, cannot is a peace the world cannot give.
SPEAKER_01: The world can't give you the kind of peace that Jesus is offering in this text.
SPEAKER_01: So don't be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is advising his disciples in 14.1, don't let your hearts be troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Because he just modeled what to do with that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's not ignore that today, church.
SPEAKER_01: I am going away.
SPEAKER_01: Remember what I told you, I am going away, but I will come back to you again.
SPEAKER_01: If you really loved me, you would be happy that I'm going to the Father who is greater than I am.
SPEAKER_01: You have access today, church, because of the transaction that Jesus did on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: The transaction that he did there.
SPEAKER_01: We have access to the sonship that he's modeled, that he's postured for us.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't take advantage of that, that's your decision, but it's there and it's available, and he wants to meet you there.
SPEAKER_01: He's not asking you to go through your troubles alone.
SPEAKER_01: He's just asking you, will you let it be bigger than you?
SPEAKER_01: And will you let me use you to glorify my name?
SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Road.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road.