SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, calling family. This is Pastor Michael, and welcome to our church podcast. I'm so grateful for you tuning in today, and I believe today's message is gonna strengthen your faith in Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Pastor Michael, when he asked me, hey, Don, could you come speak this summer? Um, and then he told me, he said, hey, we're doing a summer in the Psalms theme. And I love what he sent me in this email. He says this, he says, the Psalms are where human emotion meets divine presence. I like how that's written. Human emotion meets divine presence. The psalms are real, they're raw, and they're reverent. Ah, I love that. One of the reasons I love that so much is I have had a bumpy relationship with my own emotions over my lifetime. In fact, back in 2008, almost 20 years ago now, I accidentally ended up in group process therapy. Accidentally, that's right. I accidentally signed up to go to therapy without realizing I had signed up for therapy. Who does that? I did that. You're like, how did that happen? Well, first of all, let me tell you what that kind of therapy is. Process therapy is where you develop a personal awareness of and identify with repressed thoughts, emotions, and experiences that impact your negatively your life on a daily basis. Okay, that's what that kind of therapy is. And I accidentally signed up to be in it. What had happened is the church I was on team with uh with back then, we started utilizing Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend's materials, the boundaries books. Some of you, how many of you have heard of boundaries books? Some few of you have heard of them, okay. And Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend are incredible Christian psychologists and authors. And so we really got into their books uh back in the day, and I saw that they were doing a week-long advance for uh like a retreat for Christian leaders, whether they were in the ministry, so full-time pastors, as well as marketplace. And I was a full-time pastor back in those days, and I thought, my gosh, a week with Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend, sign me up. I did not read the small print. Okay? I don't read small print. I'm the same way if you if I go and buy something that has to be put together, I don't read the directions. I just try to figure it out, right? I don't think I'm the only one like that in this room. So I didn't read the small print. All I know is I'm gonna go spend a week with Dr. Cloud, Dr. Townsend. This is gonna be amazing. And as we got closer to the date, I began to read a little bit more, and I thought, you know, I might have gotten myself in a little deeper than I realized, but I had no in my mind back in those days, I could not see how therapy would have anything to do with leadership. All right. My mind has changed a lot since then. But back then, I mean, I had been a youth pastor for 10 years, our youth ministry had gotten really large. I had been in adult ministries. At this point, I'd been doing executive leadership for about four years in our church. And um I was very goal-oriented, very driven. Let's go take the mountain, let's do it. And so I wasn't thinking that I needed therapy, I thought I had it all together. Boy, was I wrong. Um, but I didn't know it at the time, so I just thought, well, let's go to this advanced, let's go to this to this retreat. And so we go to this retreat, not this retreat, it's not just like it was in Orange County, so it's not like I would drive home every day. Instead, you literally stayed with these people. You were, you know, at this, uh I did have my own room, but you are you actually got away somewhere, and then you would have all your meals with them. So it was Monday through Friday. And when I got there, what happened? Instead of Dr. Townsend and Dr. Cloud, I thought they'd speak all day, and it would just be amazing. But one of them spoke in the morning and one of them spoke at night, and the rest of the time they put us in small groups with a therapist where we practiced process therapy. And when I got into my small group and I sat there and I looked around, I realized that the people in my group, they knew what they signed up for. They came prepared for this time. They started opening up, and there was all these tears, and there was this rehashing of painful moments from their past. And I'm sitting there wide-eyed, wondering, what did I give myself into? I didn't know the answer to the questions that were being asked. In fact, I didn't even know how I felt. I was so disconnected from my own emotions, I couldn't even name them. And that was, as I sat there completely uncomfortable, like, what am I doing here? My friends, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The best thing. I was exactly where I needed to be. In fact, I believe now, looking back, it was a divine setup because Jesus was getting ready to confront me on some things. And he confronted me through a person that I considered, and I'm not proud of this, but this is how I felt back in those days. And I was nice to her, don't get me wrong, but needy people freaked me out in those days. By needy, I mean like people who came across, I don't know about like a needy person on the street, okay, who's obviously needs um some financial assistance. I'm not talking that. I'm talking needy people who come across maybe a little clingy, weepy, helpless. And and I remember there was this woman in my group, and I don't remember her name, but she came across to me as being really needy. She was sort of whiny, and she was a lot older than me. She didn't whined and she cried a lot and she had these issues, and and I was like, oh Lord, she needs help, right? And I like I said, I wasn't rude, but I like I didn't get to know her or anything because like nah, she freaked me out. And in the middle of our entire group on that Thursday, in front of everybody, she looks at me and says, Dawn, I feel you pushing me away. And I just sat there. And then she said, You keep me at arm's distance, you won't let me get close. And like everybody's looking at me in my small group, and I don't know what to say. And for the first time, I was really confronted with some things I had going on inside of me. Because what I ended up learning, because the therapist turned to me and said, Don, do you want to talk about this? And we began to unpack my life in front of all these people, and I learned that I was afraid of my own needs. So anyone who seemed to be needy freaked me out because they were reminding me of what I didn't want to be reminded of, that I had needs as well. You see, in my family growing up, we didn't talk about emotions much, and because of some stuff that happened with my parents' divorce, and just there was emotional abandonment and all of that, I'm the oldest. I was the parentified child. I took on more responsibility than I should have at 12 years old, but I couldn't show that I had pain or needs because to show it in my world back when I was 12 meant that I was weak, and how was I gonna survive? So I learned to be strong, to put on a front and shove my needs down, right? To just like sit on them and pretend that they weren't there. And because of that, then I was afraid of them, so I held people at a distance and I wouldn't let them get close, especially if I saw them as being needy. So when I got out of that week of accidental therapy, I found a therapist because I realized I got some things I need to unpack. And I found when I went to therapy during it was back in 2008, I found that I was completely unaware of my own emotions. I didn't even have a vocabulary for them. My therapist would say, How are you doing today? And I'd say, Fine. Well, and then she'd ask me all these, and my answer was always fine or good. And she's like, Dawn, you you have no vocabulary for your emotions. So she introduced me to what is known as the wheel of feelings. The wheel of emotions. Now we're gonna throw it up here in the in the back, it'll be behind me here, and we'll see if we can get that up. It'll be after it's somewhere here in these uh in our slides. Okay, look at this, my friends. Um I had no idea there were so many emotions, so many feelings. This was the wheel my therapist gave me, and she said, you know, and I'm just saying fine. And if you look, fine's not even an emotion that's listed. Instead, there's all these others, and she wanted me to begin practicing, getting in touch with my emotions. And thus became my um inauguration into really learning a lot about what was going on inside of me because my family didn't talk about those things, and yet those emotions are real. If, by the way, if you want a copy of it, just Google Feeling Wheel and it'll maybe surprise some of you as well how many emotions there actually are out there. Now, let me just say this: we don't steer our life by our emotions, okay? We don't steer by how we feel, but neither are we called to stuff emotions. Um, it's summertime, right? So maybe some of you have a pool or you have access to a pool and you might have a beach ball. You ever try to take a beach ball and put it under the water and sit on it and keep it stuffed in the water, like without it coming out? And you balance for a little bit of time, and then inevitably the balance flips and the ball goes shooting out. That's what it's like to try to stuff our emotions. Or you can imagine a bunch of ping pong balls. We try to stuff those under the water, but you can't keep them stuffed because they're going to come shooting out at some point. And what happens is when we stuff emotions and we think, no, I don't, and we pretend like they're not there, we don't see them, I'm stuffing anger, I'm stuffing grief, I'm stuffing whatever it is, disappointment, all these different things. They will come shooting out and exploding out and resurfacing in various ways in our relationships and impacting them. And that's what was happening in my own life. I was doing some research for my book actually on emotions, and it was saying in one of the articles that I read that 30% of us, 30% of us have experienced an anxiety disorder at some point in our life. And 20% of us have done so in the last year. An anxiety disorder. And there's no shame. If you deal with anxiety or some or some type of an anxiety disorder, there's no shame in that. If we try to pretend like it's not there, that's like stuffing it. And the reality is there's actually even a book called this The Body Keeps the Score. It comes out in our personal health and in our relationships. Emotions, they're not meant to be a thermostat that sets the temperature of our life, but they are meant to be a thermometer or a gauge to tell us what's going on underneath the hood. And awareness of our emotions opens up the opportunity to process them with Jesus. You see, all those years that I was pretending like these emotions weren't in my life, all these years I was stuffing them and putting on a strong face, I was missing opportunities to encounter Jesus in a deeper way because Jesus wants to meet us in the midst of our emotion and bring healing to the part of our heart that's broken. He wants to meet us there. And so the psalmist, those who men and maybe women, I don't know, but those who wrote the psalms, they voice their emotions. They are in touch with their emotions, they have awareness, the emotions of hurt, of pain, of joy, of love, of uncertainty and thankfulness. Wherever they find themselves, they voice it, and we get to read about it in the book of Psalms. They draw near to God and they experience God's presence in the midst of their emotion. So, what Michael wrote to me as well when he was sending me like the what to what to focus on, he says, you know, the Psalms are what faith sounds like when life is unedited. That's powerful. You see, so many of us are hunger with a deeper connection with God, and that's simply what the Psalms are. They're an opportunity to let God go beneath the hood in our life and minister to our real needs. And you know, one of the things I've learned is that it's not bad to have needs, it's actually human. It's healthy to have needs, and to bring those needs to Jesus. So today we are going to unpack the key scriptures, actually, each scripture in Psalm chapter 46. That's our text today. If you have your Bible and you want to open it up, and we're gonna focus here on how do you find strength when all chaos breaks loose, when things go sideways in your life. Now, verse one, we're gonna go verse by verse. It's a short Psalm, so don't worry, just to get out on time, but we're gonna go verse by verse, all right? And the first verse says this God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble. For somebody here today, you might want to memorize that. That's a faith statement, my friends. That is a faith statement. Refuge, a refuge is a place of trust, it's a shelter from danger. This is a truth statement. It's a rock, it's a foundation. God is my refuge, he's my strength, he's where I go when I need shelter from danger. He's always with me. And verse 2 goes on to say this. Therefore, let me just stop on that word. Um, when I was on team over at faith, Dr. Jim used to teach about whenever you come to a passage in scripture and it says, therefore, look to see why it's therefore. All right. There's a therefore because it's therefore a reason. So it's interesting. This next verse starts with, therefore, therefore what? Well, therefore, because God is your strength and your refuge, because he will never leave you, we will not fear. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging. Because God is our refuge, friends, because he's our strength, because he's always there with you no matter what you're facing. And the examples that are first given in the scripture, you can take a look at in the physical realm of the world. If you face an un man, that it's been awful watching all that's been happening with the earthquake that took place where the people in Venezuela, where the people have just, I mean, it's been devastating to watch that, right? The scripture says here in the physical world, right, where when the earth, when the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, when you're facing earthquake, when you're facing, literally facing storms and floods and the mountains quake, we will not fear because God is with us. And so it applies when chaos breaks loose in our physical world, but it also applies in when chaos breaks loose in the other parts of our world. This is also metaphorical. When all chaos breaks loose in your emotions, when your mental health, you're feeling like just anxious all the time. When relationships or your finances, when all of that, when chaos breaks loose there, we will not fear, for God is with us. Now, this doesn't mean that you don't experience fear. Fear is an emotion. If I were to put that emotion wheel back up there, a feelings wheel, you would find fear there. Fear is not a sin. Here's the thing, but rather fear will not call the shots in our life. Fear will not call the shots. Why? Because he's our shelter, because he's always with us, because when he when we're weak, he's strong, because you're never alone. It goes on to say in verse 4 and 5 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall. God will help her at break of day. These two scriptures are a picture of peace. Peace in the in the days of uh the Old Testament, they they would use the word shalom, which means everything coming together for the good. It's a picture of peace. If you right now were to close your eyes and picture like the most peaceful place that you could go to, what would you picture today? For some of you, it might be like sitting out at the beach, looking out at the ocean on a summer day. This week between today and next Sunday when I get to see you again, I'm on my way Tuesday, driving out to Lone Pine, and on Wednesday we have permits to hike Mount Whitney, which is the tallest mountain in the lower 48. For me, a peaceful place is a mountain lake with a view, and I look forward to that. What is it for you? And you just go, ah, that's just my place of peace, my place of comfort. What the scripture is saying here is that there is this river that God makes known to us, that it's the city of God, it's his actual presence. When you have God's presence with you, God is with you, he can bring peace into your life even in the midst of chaos. Chaos does not overrule the peace of God. The peace of God overrules the chaos. Your outside circumstances may not change, but what you have on the inside with his presence with you gives you the power to be at peace even when chaos is breaking out around you. It's a picture of peace. It's shalom, everything coming together for the good. You see, as a follower of Jesus Christ, when you invited Jesus to come into your life, the Holy Spirit came in and took residence inside of you, which means that you are never alone. The third person of the Trinity lives inside of you, and you have access to peace even in the midst of chaos, even when things are going crazy. It goes on to say in the scripture nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall, he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. What is this talking about? Sometimes the world around us, and this is like what the psalmist is talking about, is nations were trying to be in uproar against God, and all God had to say is as he lifts his voice and the earth melts. God just speaks, and all the nations that are railing against him just scatter because our God is powerful. He says, Come and see what he's done. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of the things that God has done. When Jesus came into the world, one of the names that was given to describe him was Emmanuel, which means God with us. Do we realize, if we were having coffee right now, I went to coffee on my way here today, a place called Mandarin, like a block away from here or a mile away, had good coffee. And if we were having coffee together this morning, I would be looking at you right now and just saying, hey, do you realize, do you realize right now the terror that goes into the heart of your enemy, the enemy of your soul, when he sees God's spirit in you? The absolute terror. Because it's the same God, the same God who parted the Red Sea so the Israelites can get through when the Egyptians were chasing them, and then had the sea crash onto the Egyptians and destroyed them. That same God is the God that fights for you. It's the same God that brought the walls of Jericho down. They didn't do anything except march around the walls, and the walls come tumbling down. That same God, that same spirit lives in you. The same God that slew Goliath, who was this mighty, huge man, by the hand of a shepherd boy. That same God is in you. That same God that healed a man blind since birth, who drove demons into pigs, that same God who broke open the prison doors so that Peter and John could walk free. The same God, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is inside of you. When the enemy sees you, he sees the spirit of Christ living in you. That should make us stand up a little bit taller, walk with a little bit more confidence. Oh, all chaos is breaking loose. Okay, I still have peace. Why? Because he's with me. He will never leave me, he will never forsake me. He walks with me, he fights for me. He is with us, he's our shelter, he's our refuge, right? Says this in verse 9. He makes war cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire. My friends, we need to look and see what he has done. No enemy can stand against him. We need to review his faithfulness. What are the things he's done in your life? Keeping a written record. Remember when I was doing communion, I talked about remembrance. Sometimes we forget to remember what he's done. But if we will remember what he's done, our faith is built up. Few months back, I was talking to my best friend, and just I was facing some uh challenges, and um, and they tend to be on the financial nature, and my best friend then starts reminding me. She goes, You know, I remember when this happened, and then God did this, that, and the other in your life. I had forgotten to remember. This is why it's also good to be in community and have people who know your story because sometimes we forget to remember for ourselves, but when we have good Christian friends around us, they can help remember for us and remind us what God has done. And so, as my friend was telling me, Don, I remember this and that and the other. I just felt my spirit get a lot bigger on the inside because I remembered, oh wow, I'd forgotten to remember that. That's right. The God who has already done this in my life, I can trust that He's gonna take care of this giant that's in front of me right now. I don't want to forget to remember. It goes on to verse 10. I love verse 10. Oh my gosh, I love verse 10. It says this He says, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Let's camp on be still for a few minutes here this morning. The commentators will say that in the pat this particular context of this scripture would say that it was written specifically to be an illustration or showing us that God is telling the enemy, be still. So if the enemy has brought chaos into your life, that God himself is telling to the enemy, stop it. Be still. It reminds me of Jesus when he's out in the storm and he's walking on the water and the disciples are freaked out, right? And so Jesus comes into their boat and there's I and then Jesus just calms the water, just be still. Actually, that was that was the walking on water part. There's the part when he's asleep in the boat. And the boat's being tossed all over the place, and the disciples think they're gonna die because all chaos is broken loose. And then they find Jesus sleeping. It says his head is on a cushion. Aww. Sleeping in the boat in the middle of their storm. You ever find Jesus sleeping in the middle of your storm? And you're like, Jesus, where are you? What the heck? I'm going under. What are you doing sleeping? So they wake him up. Jesus, we're gonna die. And Jesus is like, can you imagine Jesus waking up from a deep sleep? I wonder if, I don't know, I mean, Jesus was perfect. He didn't sin, but I wonder if he was a little grumpy though, still. Like, what are you doing? Man, what's wrong, guys? And then he just gets up and like be still. And the ocean calmness. Commentators say that's the initial context that this is being spoken to in by the psalmist, and that Jesus or Jesus, the that God will tell our enemies, stop it, be still. But there's also application in our own lives. Because sometimes there's a storm without and a storm within, and we need to hear the be still ourselves. So the storm without, maybe you get a cancer diagnosis. I know I have an extended family member that recently got a cancer diagnosis. And it's all, you know, at first it's like, ah, but then it's just like, you know what, I'm gonna trust Jesus through this. Be still. Or maybe it's financial hit that you've taken. The economy is a little crazy right now. And it's like, ah, this is crazy. And it's be still. Or maybe you're facing some type of social injustice. And our God is a God of justice. And the Lord comes on the scene and just is like, be still. So it could be exterior, it could be without, but there's also the storms that happen within us. Maybe you face anxiety at two o'clock in the morning and it wakes you up. I know that's one I've faced many times. Why is it always two in the morning? You know? That seems to be the problem. We should all just call each other, those of us who wake up at two in the morning with anxiety. We'd have the 2 a.m. club, right? So maybe it's the anxiety at 2 a.m. and it's stealing your sleep. That's the storm. Or maybe the storm for you is fear. And your reaction is to either fight, I don't, you know, I don't know. They say that fear causes people to do one of, I think, four things: either fight, flee, run away, fawn, pretend like it doesn't exist, or freeze. How many fighters in the room? It's alright. I I am too. If you shock me, like jump out at me and it's dark in some hallway, I'm gonna hit you before I'm gonna take a look to see. Like, yeah, I'm gonna fight, right? How many fleeers in the room? It's okay, there's no judgment. Any fleeers? Anybody here who will runs away when it's I used to try to scare my mom when I was little, and I don't know why. Jump out at her, you know, in the dark. Ah, she'd run. Maybe some of you are fawners, fawners or just pretend like it's nothing. But inside you're dying, right? Or freeze. If I just stand here, nobody will see me because I'm stowed all still like a deer in the headlights. Maybe it's fear that you're dealing with. Maybe it's where you just feel like you you're sick inside because you feel like you're on a hamster wheel and you're having to keep performing. And God forbid you don't, you, you mess up because you everybody's depending on you and you've got so much you're carrying, and you feel like you're juggling all these plates. And so inside is just this storm that's brewing. And maybe we find ourselves self-medicating because we're trying to make the anxiety go away. And so maybe we're drinking too much, or we've got other addictions, or maybe we're constantly scrolling on the phone because we're distracting ourselves from the pain, or maybe we're just numbing out with TV or watching every single soccer game that's on TV right now, which I'm doing too. But um, whatever it is, right? Where we're trying to, you know, just not have to look and deal with what's happening on the inside. And what does Jesus want to say to us today? Be still, be still and know that I am God. Be still. We have a temptation to cower, live beneath our calling because we're so afraid of so many different things. But God says, No, I'm your refuge, I am your strength in the midst of fear and anxiety. I won't leave you. Be still. Where we don't succumb to grasping and manipulating and trying to force things. What does it look like to be still? How do what does this look like in a practical way in our life? It's leaning into God, who is our refuge, while standing our ground and not backing down. Being still, peace in the inside. It's learning to process our fear and our courage with Jesus. It's being honest about our fear. It's being honest about the situations we're facing and the emotions that we have. If you have anger inside that's buried deep, that's not a sin. Just bring it out to the Lord and honestly bring it to him. If you've been grieving, if you've been anxious, if you've been discouraged or despondent or whatever it might be, you can bring those things to Jesus and process those things with Jesus and allow him to speak stillness into your life so that you become courageous in the midst of the storm because he's with us. Now I use the word courage on purpose. And here's why. Oftentimes we use courage and bravery synonymously. And if you do that, I mean that's fine. I don't not gonna take issue with it. But years ago, I was doing some research and I came across this article, and it made a distinction between being brave and being courageous. In this article, bravery was talked about like this. They said some people are just born brave. And in being born brave, they don't have fear. When they face something, they automatically actually think they're bigger than the situation, even if they're not. They truly believe they're gonna overcome it, whether or not they actually do, they really believe they will. I'm reminded of if you saw the movie, it was a documentary called Um Free Solo. Um, and that's with um Alex Hinault, and he was free climbing El Capitan in Yosemite. And if you've ever been to Yosemite, El Capitan, I think it's 3,000 vertical feet of rock. And he climbed it without ropes. No ropes. And National Geographic filmed the whole thing while he was climbing it. Like this is crazy. No ropes. He falls, he's dying, right? And they uh they interviewed him afterwards, and he talks about the fact that at one point, scientist uh psychologist wanted him to take a test, and they were examining through this test in his brain, they did a brain scan, they saw that his amygdala, which is where the fear response is, did not fire in him. It wouldn't fire up. So he wasn't feeling fear. Now, whether or not he was born that way or through all the stuff he's done, he's sort of deadened that fear response. I don't know. But when I think about brave and not like that amygdala is not even firing. The other day I was standing on top of the rock on top of Cucamonga Peak, which is a really cool, it's actually the picture that's on my book. Like you stand up on this rock and you're looking out over the entire inland empire. And I was getting dizzy. Like I was getting like I have to get off of here, let alone climb 3,000 feet on El Cap, right? But they said that his amygdala wasn't working. So a brave person, they just they automatically feel brave. They're just born that way. Well, you know what? That's nice. It must be nice to be born brave. Most of us were not born that way. Courage, this in this article, was different. They said with courage, the person does not automatically feel bigger than the situation. The person does feel fear. The person does not think that they're for sure gonna overcome. They feel like, well, maybe I won't. But they choose to do it anyway to face it because there is a cause that is on the other side of it. A cause that is so great that it causes them to rise up in the midst of fear. So imagine this: those of you that are parents, or I'm not a parent, but I'm an auntie. Um, if your child was in a burning building and you were outside of the building, I bet you every single one of you parents would be afraid of the fire, without a doubt. You would not feel bigger than the fire, but every one of you would go running into that bill into that building that was on fire to save your child. Why? Because the cause, your child and your love for your child is so great, you would face your fear and you would just go after it. That's courage. Courage is a choice. When we are courageous, you can be fearful and you can still be courageous because we face our courage with faith. And that's what this passage of scripture does. It gives us courage. That we can be in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the chaos, but we have a cause, which is the cause of Christ, that is so big and it is so rooted in the fact of verse one of this passage that we read. If you remember, verse one said, God is your refuge, he's your strength. So, because of that, he is an ever-present help in your trouble. So you can choose courage. You don't have to lay down and take it when the enemy comes after you. You can step up and walk forward because Jesus is with you. In fact, he's with you in the same way. Yeah, you can give him some praise. He's with you today. One little more story out of the scripture before we close it, and that takes us to the story out of Daniel. I love this. Daniel is, and it's not, we're gonna actually talk about his three friends, Chadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And those three men were told, bow to this idol, or you're gonna be put in a fiery furnace. And they choose, they say, we're not bowing. And so the king's like, I'm gonna throw you in the fiery furnace. And they're like, our God is able to save us, and even if he doesn't, we're not bowing. So they take these three men, they bind them up with ropes, they toss them into this fiery furnace, and King Nebuchadnezzar's watching. He thinks he's gonna watch them in a horrific death, and instead, this is what happens. In verse 4, it says, Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisors, weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire? And they replied, Certainly, your majesty. He said, Look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed. The fourth looks like the son of the gods. Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, come here. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. And the satraps, prefects, governors, those are all leaders, and royal advisors crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed, their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. How? There was a fourth man in the fire with them. That fourth man was a pre-incarnation of like Jesus that went and joined them. And my friends, when you face chaos, when you face the fires of the craziness in our world, you're not alone, just like they're not alone. They didn't even smell like fire when they came out of fire. They had to go through the fire, all right? And oftentimes Jesus saves us through the chaotic situations we're in. We are like, Lord, I don't want to go through, but he's like, sometimes he lets us go through. And we're like Jesus, why? It gives him honor, it gives him praise, it gives him glory. His ways are higher than our ways, but we're never alone in the midst of the chaos. And we can stand up and be strong because he is with us. That same God, the same God that showed up in the fiery furnace with these three friends, shows up in your world here today. If you'll invite him in, if you'll let him. Exodus 14, 14 says, For the Lord will fight for you. You need only to keep still. Stillness, interior stillness. That trust that's like I'm gonna trust him even when I'm in the fire. Why? Because my God is good, because my God is my refuge, because my God is my strength, because my God is an ever-present help in my trouble. So today, I want to close us, and I think I may have done this once before a couple of years ago. I want to close us, though, with a prayer practice that you can take home with you. And I want to encourage you to practice this prayer this next week. Now, obviously, I believe prayer oftentimes should really come as just that something we're just saying out of our heart without a doubt, but there's also power in having a prayer that like a contemplative prayer, could to contemplate just means to wake up. And so to have a little contemplative prayer that we can take to put into our devotional time, and it's super easy. Super easy. And here's how it works. I'm gonna take you through it today. If you remember, Psalm 46, 10 said, Be still and know that I am God. It's gonna be based on that. If you'll go ahead with me and just close your eyes right where you're at. And it's just you and Jesus. Take yourself back to the most peaceful scene that you pictured earlier when I talked about me going to a mountain lake in a couple of days, whatever your peaceful scene is, see yourself there and see yourself there with Jesus. And I just want you to be comfortable there in his presence. And I'm gonna take this verse and I'm going to say it, and I'm gonna let there be quiet. And in the quiet, this is your opportunity to hear what Jesus wants to say to you in the midst of your storm right now, and think about whatever your specific storm is, and what do you in your heart want to say to him? And I'm just gonna give a few seconds of quiet, and then I'm gonna say something else, and we're gonna do the same thing. There's gonna be quiet, and then I'm gonna say something else, and then there's gonna be quiet, and I'm gonna walk you through this, and I want this to be a time for you to really be still before him and experience his presence in the midst of whatever chaos is going on in your life. So with your eyes closed here today, be still and know that I am God. Everything coming together for the good would overwhelm our lives here this morning. God, you know specifically the stories of every person here, God, what it is they're facing, the storms, Lord, that the enemy has tried to bring in and tried to destroy and tried to discourage and try to inhibit. But Lord, you are with us. And if we're in the midst of the fire, you're the fourth man, you're right there with us. And God, I pray we would know that peace, God, today. Your presence, God, today, that God, we would rise up to be courageous. God, that we would bring our emotions before you and process them with you and receive the healing needed in our hearts, that we would be reassured, God, of your presence and your love and your goodness and your power, that we would walk with our heads held high, knowing that we are sons and daughters of the King. We invite your presence, and Lord, that it wouldn't just be here on a Sunday morning in church, but God, it would be with us Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday and throughout our week, God. That we would know who we are and whose we are. We thank you, Lord, that you are with us. And this morning, with every eye still closed, nobody looking around, if there's anybody here this morning, and you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, maybe you did at one point and you walked away, you've been doing things your own way. So whether that's your very first time you're like, I've never known Jesus, or you have, and you've walked away, and you want to get things right with Jesus today, and I want you to do something here with for me. I want to pray with you. So, what I'd like for you to do is I'd like to come into agreement with you by you opening your eyes, looking at me, and just putting your hand in the air that I can see you and pray over you today. Is there anyone like that here this morning before we close out who would like to get your life ready with or um right with the Lord Jesus Christ? Just look up at me and raise your hand. I see you back here. Amen. Anyone else here this morning? I'm gonna ask us all to repeat a prayer after me. This prayer is um a prayer of giving our life to Jesus for the one, maybe there's more, who is praying this maybe for the first time or as an act of recommitment. I encourage you afterwards today to be come forward to the prayer team where people can pray for you individually. Don't be embarrassed, don't be ashamed. Your love, this is a safe place. But you all repeat this prayer after me here this morning, dear Lord. Everybody you can say this out loud. Dear Lord, Jesus, I know that you are the Son of God, that you died for me, that you rose again on the third day, that you're alive today. I want to give my life to you. I confess that I'm a sinner, I need a savior, I accept you as Lord and Savior. Come into my life, forgive me of my sin, set me free from my sin, from my past, make me new. I want to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for filling me with your spirit today. In Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's message. Our mission as a church is choosing Jesus, chasing freedom, discovering our gifts, and serving Jesus. I have a question for you. What is your next step with Christ? Take your next step today by visiting thecallingla.com. If today's message touched you, we'd love to partner with you in sharing the hope and the message of Christ. So visit thecallingla.comslash give.