Speaker 1: We're so glad that you've joined us today on the relevant church podcast.
Speaker 1: There's so much God wants to do in and through you as you listen to this message.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about relevant church, visit us online@thisisrelevant.cc,
Speaker 2: go to first Kings chapter 19 if you've got a Bible, go to first Kings chapter 19 we're going to be camping out there.
Speaker 2: We've got a new series starting out called seasonal survival kit seasonal survival kit.
Speaker 2: I don't know how about you, but the change of seasons does something to me.
Speaker 2: It puts me in a funk.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you guys.
Speaker 2: How many people here deal with seasonal affective disorder when it starts getting fall?
Speaker 2: October, cold, chilly.
Speaker 2: It starts getting a little, a little, a little chilly for us and I didn't know the seasonal affective disorder was actually a real thing.
Speaker 2: I just noticed a few years ago, the older that I got, I just didn't like the winter anymore.
Speaker 2: Like I'll get to the point where I would just get really frustrated in the fall.
Speaker 2: I'll start getting really irritable.
Speaker 2: I remember this started happening.
Speaker 2: Even when we started planting the church, I would tell, um, our team, I was like, Hey, don't judge me from October to April because I'm just in this weird funk and I am just not friendly.
Speaker 2: I'm irritable, I'm just moody.
Speaker 2: I just want to just be in my office, shut the door and not talk to anybody.
Speaker 2: I don't know if anybody deals with that, but you know, I'm pretty, I'm a Mo, I'm a motivated person.
Speaker 2: I'm a go getter.
Speaker 2: I like, you know, don't one from mine.
Speaker 2: I like working hard and I just didn't understand why I would feel this way.
Speaker 2: I'll just get this weird cloud over my body and my body would ache and it just, it's just this weird funk summer.
Speaker 2: So that one time I just, I just went to the high, I went to the doctor, I said, doctor, there's gotta be something wrong with me.
Speaker 2: I dunno if I'm sick.
Speaker 2: I don't know what, you know, internal disease.
Speaker 2: I'm also a hypochondriac by the way, guys.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, I go to the doctor a lot because of things.
Speaker 2: Someone said that.
Speaker 2: The doctor told me one time that he was like, don't come back unless you're dying, unless the hospital calls me.
Speaker 2: You're not allowed to call me.
Speaker 2: I had SARS, I had swine flu, I had everything.
Speaker 2: And so I go to the doctor and he's like, man, you're, you're okay.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're not okay, but you're okay and it's okay.
Speaker 2: I was like, what are you talking about dog?
Speaker 2: Why are you speaking in dr Seuss riddles right now?
Speaker 2: He says, listen, you're just sad.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yo, I gotta told you that I got this weird funk over me.
Speaker 2: And he was like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: You're dealing with seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 2: He's like, when it starts getting colder, when the, the nights get longer, there's something that happens to your body where you start reacting in a different way.
Speaker 2: There's, there's lower serotonin in your body and melatonin and it's, it's kind of throwing you off and it's okay.
Speaker 2: You're not okay, but really it's okay.
Speaker 2: You're going to through this.
Speaker 3: You know, I just thought, I just hated winter.
Speaker 3: I still kind of don't like winter.
Speaker 3: I don't like this.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 3: People were like, Oh, this Noah's so pretty.
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, it's so cold.
Speaker 3: They're like, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: It's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: Look at that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, no.
Speaker 3: It's so uncomfortable to be in and driving.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's interesting because it's not just the change of weather that messes us up.
Speaker 4: I mean, nobody, nobody really liked driving in the snow and Michigan's nose, Indiana's nose,
Speaker 3: it's brutal out there.
Speaker 3: Blizzard is coming down.
Speaker 3: They don't shut down anything.
Speaker 3: You know people in Florida, it looks like it's frost on the ground and like the whole state emergency shutdown in Michigan is three feet of snow.
Speaker 3: They're like, ah, you'd be alright.
Speaker 3: Two hour delay.
Speaker 3: Get there.
Speaker 3: You'll make it.
Speaker 3: Let the sun come out.
Speaker 5: [inaudible]
Speaker 3: it's not only the change of seasons that affects people.
Speaker 3: It has been stated now as studies has shown that it's the holidays that affect people.
Speaker 4: As we're coming into Thanksgiving, as we're coming into Christmas, the holidays bring about stress and anxiety.
Speaker 4: Intentions of what people are about to encounter or what they're not about to encounter.
Speaker 4: The cousins who they don't really want to see.
Speaker 4: And the parents that keep getting on them about why they're not married yet.
Speaker 4: And while all this, they're like there's a stress and anxiety that drives up into people.
Speaker 4: Christmas is coming around and the kids, my kids have already started asking me, y'all dad for Christmas, I want this.
Speaker 4: I'm like, how about you
Speaker 3: Joe?
Speaker 3: Quit asking me for stuff.
Speaker 3: I am not the genie in the bottle.
Speaker 3: Only Christine can rub me the right way.
Speaker 3: I see you must seriously like the seasons affect people.
Speaker 3: Holiday affects people.
Speaker 3: It said here, let me give you some statistics.
Speaker 3: 14% of people affected, 14% of Americans are affected by the seasons.
Speaker 3: Number one.
Speaker 3: The reason you know why they say they're affected by the season, why people don't like like this fall season.
Speaker 3: It's a simple, it's cold and unfortunately McKayla didn't get the memo cause she's at church in shorts and a tee shirt, I don't think called people.
Speaker 3: I mean people who liked the cold need to find out if they really saved or not.
Speaker 3: And I'm joking.
Speaker 3: McKayla.
Speaker 3: I know you say I baptized your girl.
Speaker 3: I know you say sometimes, sometimes, but like this circadian rhythm is thrown off.
Speaker 3: So like our internal biological clock that you know likes daylight.
Speaker 3: Our bodies are meant to be outside and enjoy sunshine and all of that.
Speaker 3: It gets thrown off because there's reduced sunlight and so now sucks.
Speaker 3: You feel sluggish, you constantly feel tired.
Speaker 3: Our melatonin levels, like I said earlier, drop in so now messes with our sleep.
Speaker 3: The pattern.
Speaker 4: So you know you want to sleep when you should be awake and you're awake when you should be sleeping and it just kind of throws our bodies off.
Speaker 4: But that's 14% of American now.
Speaker 4: He goes a crazy thing.
Speaker 4: 68% of Americans say they
Speaker 3: feel stress and anxiety during the holiday season.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of us are 70% pretty much.
Speaker 3: A lot of people claim that they're financially strained during the holiday season.
Speaker 3: Gifts, you know, travel, family coming in like this is so much that is expended so many resources that are expanding and people feel signed nationally.
Speaker 3: Stress, loneliness.
Speaker 3: People feel loneliness.
Speaker 3: Maybe they lost a loved one and they remember how Thanksgiving was with this family member, how Christmas was at this person's house.
Speaker 3: And they start feeling the sense of loneliness, this sense of brokenness and just every minder that things aren't okay.
Speaker 3: And some people, they're just traveling.
Speaker 3: I know in this church we have a lot of people who are ex Patriots to Michigan and Indiana.
Speaker 3: Their families are all over the country, all over the world.
Speaker 3: And so it's like the Thanksgiving and Christmas comes and they're just like, man, my family is so far away.
Speaker 3: Me, my own parents, my parents are 10,000 miles away.
Speaker 3: I remember Christmas and Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving was our thing because we love to eat.
Speaker 3: And so like we would all gather to my parents' house and my siblings, my uncles and aunties, like everybody used to be at my parents house cause that was the place that was home base.
Speaker 3: You went there for Thanksgiving and now my parents being gone.
Speaker 3: I could not tell you the last time I spent Thanksgiving with my family, with my siblings, with my uncles, my aunties, and some people feel the pressure of unrealistic expectations.
Speaker 3: You should have achieved more by now.
Speaker 3: Or are you still dealing with that man?
Speaker 3: Are you still in that relationship or you still have that job or you still don't got a job, you're still living in that house there.
Speaker 3: These unrealistic expectations that are placed on us and then we've got to carry these things into encounters with family.
Speaker 3: We've got to smile when we really don't want to, so the pressure gets really crazy and what we want to do in this series is figure out some solutions to beat the winter and the holiday blues and kind of the base text that we're using offer this kind of the text that's going to be the theme that's going to carry us through this whole series is Isaiah 26 three listen, this has been one of my favorite texts.
Speaker 3: If you call me, if you send me a message and you're like, man, pastor, I'm feeling low.
Speaker 3: I'm just feeling like I'm kind of going through it.
Speaker 3: I feel anxious.
Speaker 3: You have probably received this text from me because it's a text that I fall back to all the time when I started feeling though you will keep in perfect peace.
Speaker 3: Everybody say perfect peace, perfect peace.
Speaker 3: All who trust in you mean trust in God.
Speaker 3: God will keep in perfect peace.
Speaker 3: Not just regular peace, not just okay.
Speaker 3: Peace.
Speaker 3: Not just shake like perfect peace.
Speaker 3: How many people in here love to experience
Speaker 4: perfect peace, perfect peace to all who trust in you all whose thoughts are fixed on you.
Speaker 4: So that is kind of the base of what the series is going to be about is how can we find perfect peace in the times of turmoil and stress and anxiety or sadness and brokenness.
Speaker 4: How do we survive the seasons?
Speaker 4: We've put together three messages that will hopefully give you the toolkits to survive this season.
Speaker 4: This series is not going to be like super deep theologically.
Speaker 4: God really just wanted us to say, what are some practical things that we can do today, tomorrow, the day after that, that are going to allow us to engage our faith in such a way that we are able to overcome the pressures and the stresses of the seasons or if any time in your life, because every season is a new season and it comes with a different baggage and different tensions and all of that.
Speaker 4: So like I said, we're in first Kings chapter 19 one through eight and the story is about a guy named Elijah.
Speaker 4: Let me give you a little bit of the backstory on this situation.
Speaker 4: Elijah is a prophet.
Speaker 4: He is called out by God.
Speaker 4: He sends messages to Kings and leaders that come specifically from God.
Speaker 4: A new King is coming to power, his name is Ahab.
Speaker 4: He marries this old crazy lady called Jessebelle.
Speaker 4: Him and the crazy lady started doing some crazy things cause that's what crazy people do.
Speaker 4: And they started worshiping all types of idols and they're uh, not praying in the temple anymore.
Speaker 4: They're forgetting God.
Speaker 4: They're doing their own thing.
Speaker 4: There's all type of illicit activity happening in the nation.
Speaker 4: They're defiling the name of God and these are supposed to be the people who were called after God's name.
Speaker 4: These are the people who were specifically chosen by God and yet they've turned their backs from God.
Speaker 4: So Alijah gets upset and he's like, you are not going to shame the name of my God and be okay with it.
Speaker 4: You're not just going to go around and say, Hey, we're the chosen ones but let live and ratchet on the side.
Speaker 4: He's like, listen, I'm going to put an end to this.
Speaker 4: In fact, guess what's going to happen?
Speaker 4: The rain will not pour.
Speaker 4: There's going to be a famine.
Speaker 4: There's going to be a drought until I say so.
Speaker 4: No, he had some man parts cause back in the day you don't just go to a King and tell it like it is.
Speaker 4: See this wasn't 2019 or 2018 where you can say whatever you want about the president and be all good with it.
Speaker 4: No matter what president is empower you in this day and age.
Speaker 4: I can go on TV and cuss out the president, call him every which way, name whatever, and guess what?
Speaker 4: Go home and go to sleep at night.
Speaker 4: Cause I got freedom of speech back in the day.
Speaker 3: You look like you don't like the King.
Speaker 3: He's killing you, your family, your household, an entire generation.
Speaker 3: So it took some real guts for Elijah to be able to stand up to the most powerful man in the region and say, you know what, I'm cursing you today.
Speaker 3: You are no good.
Speaker 3: And so he curses the land and Jessica Bell, she reacts, she goes and she kills a whole lot of gods profits.
Speaker 3: So now Elijah is really, but he's big mad.
Speaker 3: Oh, so you just don't care.
Speaker 3: So you just, you just going to kill all our profits now.
Speaker 3: Okay watch.
Speaker 3: So he goes back to Ahab.
Speaker 3: He says, call all of your profits.
Speaker 3: Call 950 profits of bow and Shera, all your false gods.
Speaker 3: Bring them together.
Speaker 3: Let's go to this cult mountain called Mount Carmel.
Speaker 3: And we're about to have a showdown.
Speaker 3: We're going to see whose God is really the real guy.
Speaker 3: So he has them set up altars and sacrifice animals and he says, listen, I want you to pray to your God and fire to come down from heaven, call fire to come down from heaven and consume all of these sacrifices so we can see how strong your God is.
Speaker 3: So they do it, they pray it, run around doing the hokey pokey and they're just everything to try to get this far to come down.
Speaker 3: Nothing is happening there.
Speaker 3: God is not working.
Speaker 3: So Elijah, I like Elijah because Elijah is petty and he was really funny to me.
Speaker 3: He's like, Hey, cry louder.
Speaker 3: Maybe your God is sleeping.
Speaker 3: So they are crying louder.
Speaker 3: And he was like, maybe he's in the bathroom.
Speaker 3: How come he's not showing up and they're cutting themselves?
Speaker 3: They're bleeding all over themselves.
Speaker 3: Nothing happens.
Speaker 3: And so what does he say?
Speaker 3: He said, okay, go get me some bulls.
Speaker 3: Let's sacrifice them.
Speaker 3: Let's put put them on an alter.
Speaker 3: He built this rock altar.
Speaker 3: He goes on and falses, knees.
Speaker 3: He says, God, I need you to show up and not awesome when you can just go to God.
Speaker 3: You ever been in that situation in your life where you know you can't do anything else?
Speaker 3: I got, I just need you to show up.
Speaker 3: And then he actually shows up and he comes through and you didn't even like you halfway, didn't really believe that he was going to come through.
Speaker 3: And he's comes through and you're like, Oh, you did show up.
Speaker 3: So Elijah goes, and he's a God, I need you to show up.
Speaker 3: And immediately fire comes down.
Speaker 3: It looks up the entire sacrifice.
Speaker 3: It burns all of the stones, it makes a hole in the ground.
Speaker 3: And everybody was like, Whoa, that is the real guy.
Speaker 3: So Elijah goes, you know what?
Speaker 3: Take all of the profits of bow.
Speaker 3: Get rid of all of them.
Speaker 3: Take them all out.
Speaker 3: And you'd have to admit you ma, you must be on a spiritual high when that happens, right?
Speaker 3: I call it fire from heaven.
Speaker 3: It came down, God gay dude, God's on my side.
Speaker 3: Ooh, you're walking a new step.
Speaker 3: You're spring in your step.
Speaker 3: In fact, it tells us this, and in chapter 18 verse 46 it says, and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
Speaker 3: The hand of the Lord is on.
Speaker 3: It was all good in the hood with Elijah.
Speaker 3: He gathered up his stuff, my God, and he rolled out.
Speaker 3: He ran me for him.
Speaker 3: So now he's excited.
Speaker 3: He's the pinnacle of his experience right now.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows.
Speaker 3: Don't mess with Elijah.
Speaker 3: Don't mess with his God until
Speaker 2: how the seasons change.
Speaker 2: Chapter 19 verse one AE had told bell snitch, you can't handle the Joseph.
Speaker 2: You had to go to your wife.
Speaker 6: [inaudible]
Speaker 2: Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done this.
Speaker 2: Verse one and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
Speaker 2: Then Jezza bell sent a message to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and more so if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow, she says, you're dead.
Speaker 2: There's a bounty on your head.
Speaker 2: I'm coming after you, but check this out.
Speaker 2: Verse three,
Speaker 3: did it just say the hand of the Lord was on the Lija?
Speaker 3: Didn't Elijah just call out to God and God show up?
Speaker 3: Verse three, then he was afraid
Speaker 2: how the seasons will shift on you.
Speaker 2: How one moment, everything is going really good and then the next moment everything falls apart.
Speaker 3: He was afraid and he Rose and he ran for his life.
Speaker 3: You just stood before 950 profits, uh, of, of, of the, of the King.
Speaker 3: You're standing before the most powerful man in the world and you're running away
Speaker 2: from the psycho woman.
Speaker 3: And that crazy, some of the things that will set you off are some of the things that like you would've never been afraid of.
Speaker 3: You would've never been frustrated by any other time in your life, but sometimes it just hits you.
Speaker 3: He walked into Israel with the plan.
Speaker 3: Everybody's got a plan like my Tyson said, until they get punched in the face
Speaker 2: and Jezza bell has just, she's punched him in the face.
Speaker 2: Do you know how?
Speaker 2: Cause he knows that she's a woman who is real about what she says.
Speaker 2: She's actually going to go after him.
Speaker 2: He knows that his life is really in danger.
Speaker 4: Then he was afraid and he Rose and ran for his life and came to bridge Sheba, which belongs to Judah and left his servant there.
Speaker 4: Point number one,
Speaker 2: it's okay to not be okay.
Speaker 4: Why is it okay to not be afraid?
Speaker 4: Because he's facing a real threat.
Speaker 4: She was ruthless.
Speaker 4: She had murdered people before she was manipulative and this was a woman who was going to dedicate her entire life to taking this man out.
Speaker 4: He knew that no matter where he ran, no matter how far he went, Jessebelle bell would not stop coming after him.
Speaker 4: And how many of you guys know here, no matter how much you try to must up energy, no matter how much you try to think good thoughts.
Speaker 4: No matter how you try to meditate, depression, anxiety will chase you down.
Speaker 4: You can try to keep a smile on your face.
Speaker 4: You can try to act like everything is all good, but that thing will come after you at night.
Speaker 4: In the daytime, when you are minding your own business, depressant anxiety, the presses of life will show up and it's real.
Speaker 4: It's real.
Speaker 4: And here's the deal that I want to do at this church.
Speaker 4: We want to be a church that gives permission to people, to people, to let them know that it's okay to not be okay.
Speaker 4: What did we say here?
Speaker 4: No perfect people allowed.
Speaker 4: In fact on our, our new relevant swag, uh, Ryan's got it right there.
Speaker 4: It says authenticity only.
Speaker 4: Authenticity is the only requirement at this church.
Speaker 4: You can walk in.
Speaker 4: And I remember I used to go to this one church, um, no shade to that one church, but just, you know, just life experience.
Speaker 4: And I try to test it.
Speaker 4: You know how everybody says, you know, Hey, how you doing?
Speaker 4: Hey, you're doing well.
Speaker 4: And at church the church face answers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 4: And so one day I tested it, the pastor came up to me, Hey, how are you doing?
Speaker 4: And I was just like, man, life is terrible right now.
Speaker 4: I was like, Oh cool man.
Speaker 4: I'll pray for you.
Speaker 4: Did you hear what I just said?
Speaker 4: Sometimes, especially at churches, we don't give people enough permission to know that, Hey, you know what?
Speaker 4: It's okay to not be okay and pass a, Bobby did a very good job of laying that out last week and so we're just picking up from where he left off.
Speaker 4: It's okay to not be okay.
Speaker 4: I remember earlier this year, pastor Jonathan a couple of weeks ago, if you were here, he outed me.
Speaker 4: I couldn't stand him.
Speaker 2: My pass to be telling all of my business just wants to have pastoral confidence.
Speaker 2: No out me in front of my church.
Speaker 3: But earlier this year I was not okay.
Speaker 3: I was not okay.
Speaker 3: It was bad.
Speaker 2: I was depressed.
Speaker 2: I was sad, I was anxious, I was tired, I was exhausted.
Speaker 2: I was spent.
Speaker 2: The life pressures were just too heavy.
Speaker 2: And as a pastor, you got to keep a smile on your face.
Speaker 2: Everything is good.
Speaker 2: I gotta make sure everybody knows that I'm okay.
Speaker 2: I'm not crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm not losing it.
Speaker 2: Pastor's not unstable and what does it do?
Speaker 2: Just causes you to fall deeper and deeper and deeper until you're broken?
Speaker 2: As I remember, every time I left work, every time I left the office, our office is right on the bridge.
Speaker 2: I'm right, right by the bridge and right behind us.
Speaker 2: You could just go down the little Hill and you can go right into the water and every time I drove away from work, my mind would be like, maybe I should just keep driving and just go into that water
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 3: I couldn't shake that thought.
Speaker 3: Then I remember going to Texas on a trip.
Speaker 3: We went to Texas.
Speaker 3: How many know when it rains it pours?
Speaker 3: So I go to Texas.
Speaker 3: I'm on this trip.
Speaker 3: It's supposed to be a great trip.
Speaker 3: I'm already not feeling very low.
Speaker 3: I'm not feeling very excited.
Speaker 3: I told Christine like I'm only going because this is out of duty.
Speaker 3: I don't really want to go.
Speaker 3: I go and get a rental car and get into a massive accident.
Speaker 3: The next morning after I picked up the car, I am just like, I'm tired.
Speaker 3: I'm tired.
Speaker 3: God, I'm done.
Speaker 3: God.
Speaker 3: And I remember sitting on the ramp and all these cars are rushing passes.
Speaker 3: We're waiting for the police to show up.
Speaker 3: And I'm just sitting there standing.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I could look, I could junk Sinatra come in.
Speaker 3: I can end it all right now
Speaker 2: I got life insurance, Christina and kids would be taken care of.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm rationalizing.
Speaker 3: I was not okay.
Speaker 3: And I remember getting into the airport and calling my wife and saying, babe, I'm not okay.
Speaker 3: There's something definitely wrong with me.
Speaker 3: I'm sad, I'm depressed.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of pressure on me right now.
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to figure out how the heck am I going to survive this thing cause I don't like my life anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm just, I'm living in dysfunction mentally, emotionally sad.
Speaker 3: So he was afraid and he Rose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah and lets his servant there, verse four.
Speaker 3: But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat under a broom tree and he asked that he might die saying it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life for I am no better than my fathers.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been at that point with the sins that your father or your father's father or your mother and your mother's mother dealt with in your life?
Speaker 2: I'm no better than them.
Speaker 2: I got the same addiction.
Speaker 2: I'm going to have the same fate.
Speaker 2: I've got to say, listen, everybody in my family was divorced.
Speaker 2: I'm in this marriage.
Speaker 2: I might as well just get a divorce because I'm no better than them.
Speaker 2: I'm stuck at this chemical addiction because everybody in my family was stuck in this chemical addiction, so I might as well just keep up with this chemical addiction because I'm no better than everybody else.
Speaker 2: My dad was a rolling stone.
Speaker 2: My mom used to sleep around, so I'm just gonna keep doing it too because that's just what our family does.
Speaker 2: I'm no better.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be any better.
Speaker 2: He's like, it is enough.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 2: He asked her, he might die.
Speaker 2: He was like, I've, I've reached my wits and anybody in here ever reached their wit's end where you're like, I'm just done.
Speaker 2: I'm just done.
Speaker 2: Like where?
Speaker 2: There was no even emotion with it anymore where you weren't even like, you're not crying.
Speaker 2: You're not sad.
Speaker 2: You've just grown cold.
Speaker 2: I'm just done, done fighting, done wrestling.
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 2: Point number two, go to God and get real.
Speaker 2: It says, he left his servant in Beersheba and he went a day's journey into the wilderness.
Speaker 2: He retreated to go meet with God alone.
Speaker 2: There was a common thing to do in scripture.
Speaker 2: When you look through scripture, whenever somebody has a big issue that's taking place, whenever they've got to encounter God, what do they do?
Speaker 2: Is they leave their servants where they're at and then they keep going further.
Speaker 2: Abraham, God says, Hey, listen, I need you to trust me on this one.
Speaker 2: I need you to sacrifice your son.
Speaker 2: Really God, are you serious?
Speaker 2: This is what you want me to do.
Speaker 2: So he's going up the mountain.
Speaker 2: He leaves his servants like, okay God, I got to go meet with you on the mountain.
Speaker 2: We got to go with my son, but I, I just, I'm trusting this moment.
Speaker 2: I got to go have an encounter with you and what happened on the mountain?
Speaker 2: The angels sows up and says, you are faithful.
Speaker 2: Here goes a a, a goat or something else.
Speaker 2: You don't, Aramco caught in the thicket.
Speaker 2: You don't have to hurt your son.
Speaker 2: I just want to know that you were faithful.
Speaker 2: Jacob, his brother is attacking him.
Speaker 2: He's afraid for his life.
Speaker 2: He feels like he's going to die.
Speaker 2: He takes his family.
Speaker 2: It takes all of his service.
Speaker 2: He says, go before me and he stays back and he has an encounter with God in his mind.
Speaker 2: I'm a screw up.
Speaker 2: I'm a mess up.
Speaker 2: I've messed everything in my life up.
Speaker 2: I betrayed my family.
Speaker 2: I betrayed everybody else.
Speaker 2: I'm a liar.
Speaker 2: I'm a cheat and God encounters in there and lets them know it's okay to not be okay, but guess what?
Speaker 2: When you leave this place, I'm changing your name and you are going to be a father of many nations.
Speaker 7: Jesus,
Speaker 2: it's dealing with the most heavy pressure of the world.
Speaker 4: He's about to go to the cross and suffer under the righteous wrath of God, the father,
Speaker 3: okay?
Speaker 4: Every sin of the world is about to be put on his[inaudible]
Speaker 3: back.
Speaker 4: He is going to suffer under the judgment of heavenly father and what does he do?
Speaker 4: He takes his
Speaker 3: disciples
Speaker 4: into the wilderness and he says, stop right here and he goes a little further.
Speaker 4: I need to go have an encounter with God.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you this, how many of you guys are going a little further?
Speaker 4: I just stepping out a little bit more and going to have an encounter with God.
Speaker 4: How many of us are saying the pressures is too heavy, so I need to go meet with God.
Speaker 4: I need to go talk to God.
Speaker 4: God, I need you to show up because I'm done.
Speaker 3: My kids are acting in ways that I'd never imagined they would act.
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 3: My marriage is falling apart.
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 3: My career is falling apart.
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 3: I feel like I haven't achieved the things that I wanted to achieve.
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 3: The weather is changing.
Speaker 3: I feel the depression.
Speaker 3: I feel the anxiety.
Speaker 3: I'm done.
Speaker 3: Here's the deal.
Speaker 3: God can't heal what you won't reveal if you try to hold onto that thing.
Speaker 3: Hey, here's the date.
Speaker 3: Can I say right now?
Speaker 3: I see it in this room.
Speaker 3: I started talking about how guys don't like to reveal their brokenness
Speaker 4: and as soon as I started talking about me going through what I go through, I see some guys stiffen up.
Speaker 3: It's okay to not be okay.
Speaker 4: Don't let this world lie to you and say, guys, don't hurt too.
Speaker 4: In fact, there's no reason.
Speaker 4: I feel that there's a reason that the say that men die earlier than women.
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 4: Because we want to hold those things in.
Speaker 4: We want to push those pressures down.
Speaker 4: We want to act like everything's okay.
Speaker 4: We want to act like I'm good.
Speaker 4: I'm good.
Speaker 4: When internally you're dying.
Speaker 2: Listen, you won't get free if you don't give yourself permission to be free.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember
Speaker 2: shortly after that experience in Texas, I get back home and I called rod Lawrence who, one of my mentors, one of my coaches, one of my spiritual fathers.
Speaker 2: I hit him up before church and I'm like, Hey, pass around what you're doing after church.
Speaker 2: He says, I got no plans, and I'm like, Hey, I'm showing up to your house.
Speaker 2: Can I come?
Speaker 2: He was like, is everything okay?
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, it's an emergency.
Speaker 2: I need to come to speak to you.
Speaker 2: He said, cool.
Speaker 2: So we get here, we go to church, everything is great.
Speaker 2: I leave.
Speaker 2: My wife is the only person who knows where I'm going and I shoot straight out to Ben Harbor where he lives and I go and I sit on his couch.
Speaker 3: I just vent and I'm like, I'm just done.
Speaker 3: Pass ride, just spent.
Speaker 3: I'm tired, I'm frustrated.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you just got to retreat and go and get real.
Speaker 3: There are times where I would get up in the middle of the night, 1230 at night and I'll just drive the city and I'll just go pray over the city, pray over myself pro with my family and say, God, this is hard.
Speaker 3: I need help.
Speaker 3: I need you to step in for me.
Speaker 3: It's okay not to be okay.
Speaker 3: You got to go to God and get real.
Speaker 3: Point number three you got to feed on the food God has provided to fuel your fight.
Speaker 3: You got to feed on the food God has provided to fuel your fight.
Speaker 3: Verse number five it says, so he goes out into the wilderness, came sent under a broom tree and he laid down and slept under a broom tree.
Speaker 3: And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat, and he looked and behold there was at his head cake on hot stones and a jar of water and he ate and drank and lay down again.
Speaker 3: Verse seven and the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, arise and eat for the journey is too great for you.
Speaker 3: The journey is too great for you.
Speaker 3: The battle that you're facing, it's heavy.
Speaker 3: The situation that you're in might swallow you up.
Speaker 3: Anybody had that diagnosis that you did not expect?
Speaker 3: Anybody had that family member who was the patriarch in your family, the matriarch in your family pass and you did not expect had lost that job that you didn't expect.
Speaker 3: The situation happened that you just didn't expect.
Speaker 3: You thought you had a plan and then you got punched in your face and then you had to deal with the fact that the journey was about to be long.
Speaker 3: Aren't you glad that God will meet us in those times of retreat and give us the fuel for our fight?
Speaker 3: God came to him and said, the journey is LA.
Speaker 3: The journey ahead of you is long.
Speaker 3: You're about to get into a fight.
Speaker 3: You're about to be in the fight of your life.
Speaker 3: The journey is long and God provided the food for his fight and for many of us, when the seasons change, literally the nights get long, literally and figuratively.
Speaker 3: It just feels like a never sequence of pressure, a sadness or frustration.
Speaker 3: The cloud appears.
Speaker 3: The at T the tensions rise, the the realities of your current situation begin to manifest and you're just like, man, I don't know if I could do this thing.
Speaker 3: You know that the journey ahead of you as long, but God will always give you food for your fight.
Speaker 3: What food are we talking about?
Speaker 3: His word, Psalm one 19 one Oh five says this,
Speaker 8: you got it.
Speaker 3: Your word is a lamp to my feet.
Speaker 3: The journey is going to be long, but he's got a lamp for your feet.
Speaker 3: You might go through a wilderness, but he'll be a light to your path.
Speaker 3: No that he's got you.
Speaker 3: He's providing the food for your fighting.
Speaker 3: Get into his word retreat back.
Speaker 3: Be real with him.
Speaker 3: Isaiah 26 three we said earlier today, you will keep in perfect peace.
Speaker 3: Who trusts in you whose thoughts are fixed on you?
Speaker 3: You want to get through the fight, uh, fix your thoughts on God.
Speaker 3: A fix your thoughts on his word, a fix of what he declares over you.
Speaker 3: You are a Victor.
Speaker 3: You are above and not beneath.
Speaker 3: And Isaiah 61 this is a prophecy talking about Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: In fact, when Jesus eggnog aerated his ministry, the first message that he spoke in the temple was this.
Speaker 3: He was quoting directly out of Isaiah 61 one through three.
Speaker 3: He said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good things to the poor.
Speaker 3: You ever felt poor, poor in spirit, poor and health, poor financially, he's going to preach good tidings to the poor.
Speaker 3: He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted.
Speaker 3: Ever felt brokenhearted, ever felt sad, ever felt like you weren't good enough.
Speaker 3: Ever felt like the whole world is against you ever felt like the whole, just everything is on your shoulders.
Speaker 3: He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim Liberty to the captives.
Speaker 3: Yup.
Speaker 3: That addiction that you've had for years, that anxiety that has held you captive
Speaker 4: and opening of the prison of those who are bound.
Speaker 4: God says, I am making a way out of nowhere.
Speaker 4: I will open the doors and you will be able to walk out.
Speaker 4: You'll be able to walk out free.
Speaker 4: You'll be able to walk out liberated.
Speaker 4: You'll be able to walk out confident knowing that Jesus is with you.
Speaker 9: Yeah,
Speaker 2: to comfort our home more, to give them beauty for ashes.
Speaker 2: It just felt like everything around you is gone up in flames.
Speaker 2: Have these fallen apart.
Speaker 2: You know I love this text that says he will make all things beautiful in its time.
Speaker 2: You trade beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, joy, not happiness, not temporary fulfillment, but a deep seated, deep
Speaker 3: lasting joy for your mourning.
Speaker 3: The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
Speaker 4: This, this, this word praise is not just simply yay, I'm happy and no, it's, it's an animation of your body.
Speaker 4: It is a full movement, a full range of motion because when you are feeling way down, when you're feeling heavy, it's his.
Speaker 4: Got you on the ground.
Speaker 4: When God gives you that praise, you're able to break out.
Speaker 4: You gave it a dance.
Speaker 4: He able to jump.
Speaker 4: You able to move with freedom
Speaker 2: that they may be called the trees of righteousness,
Speaker 3: rooted, planted, strong, sturdy,
Speaker 2: that easily swayed.
Speaker 2: The winds will come, the leaves will rustle.
Speaker 2: Some of them may fall off, but you will remain a tree of righteousness.
Speaker 2: The planting of the Lord
Speaker 3: that he may be glorified.
Speaker 2: You're going to get through it.
Speaker 3: Last one.
Speaker 3: Number one, it's okay to not be okay.
Speaker 3: Number two, you got to go to God and get real.
Speaker 3: Number three feet on the food God has provided to fuel your fight, and number four, get moving.
Speaker 3: Get moving.
Speaker 3: It says in verse eight and he arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of the food, 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb the mountain of God.
Speaker 3: He arose and went in the strength that was provided by God.
Speaker 3: That thing that you're wrestling with, you're going to get through it.
Speaker 3: God is going to raise you up.
Speaker 3: He's going to give you the fuel for your fight.
Speaker 3: Listen from Beersheba to Mount Horeb was 250 miles.
Speaker 4: He had enough courage.
Speaker 4: He had enough strength to go the entire journey, and next week we'll discover what he encountered at Mount Horeb.
Speaker 4: But just know that everything that you need to stay in the fight, everything that you need to get back up, everything that you need to get over your pressure, anything that you need to break those barrels, anything, then you need to break those chains.
Speaker 4: God has given it for you, but you've got to get up and get moving.
Speaker 4: Get up and get moving.
Speaker 4: See seasonal affective disorder, the pressures of the season, the presses of the holidays, they want you to stay where you are.
Speaker 3: They want you to stay sad.
Speaker 3: They want you to stay withdrawn.
Speaker 3: They want you to stay hidden.
Speaker 4: Well, we've always said this around relevant church.
Speaker 4: You cannot stay where you are and go with God.
Speaker 3: You want to encounter God's presence in your life.
Speaker 3: Get going.
Speaker 3: If you want to see miracles, show up, get going.
Speaker 3: Because remember, you will never get free if you never give yourself permission to be free.
Speaker 3: And some of us are our thoughts and our emotions have lied to us and say, you don't deserve it.
Speaker 3: You're too broken.
Speaker 3: You're too messed up.
Speaker 3: And God says, no, I've done everything possible to get you free, but you've got to get up, man.
Speaker 3: Can I just share this text with you?
Speaker 3: One of my favorite texts in scriptures, Peter locked up in prison.
Speaker 3: He's chained up next to guards and it says the angel of the Lord came and put the guards to sleep and he opened the prison doors and then the chains fell off of Peter.
Speaker 3: But then he said to Peter, get up and put your clothes and your shoes on.
Speaker 9: [inaudible]
Speaker 4: I will do everything miraculous, but I need you to get up and get some skin in the game.
Speaker 4: I'll take care of everything that you need, but what you need to do right now is get up and get moving.
Speaker 4: God gave him the food, but he had to exercise the faith
Speaker 3: to turn the food into fuel for his fight.
Speaker 3: He had to get up, he had to get moving.
Speaker 3: He had to go from laying down to motion.
Speaker 3: Hey, here's the deal guys.
Speaker 3: Let's make this real practical.
Speaker 3: What does this mean for us?
Speaker 3: We gotta get moving.
Speaker 3: Literally, we've gotta move our physical bodies.
Speaker 3: We've got to get up.
Speaker 3: The first tool in our toolkit for the seasonal survival kit is the tool of kinesthetics.
Speaker 3: You've got to get your body moving.
Speaker 3: This is the body being in motion.
Speaker 3: This is your body actually getting up and being mobile.
Speaker 3: Remember he exchanged his praise for heaviness.
Speaker 3: He animates your body and that's how you get rid of all the pressure.
Speaker 3: It says here that people can manage or avoid effective disorder with 30 to 60 minutes of exercise.
Speaker 3: Daily studies have shown exercise.
Speaker 3: People who exercise have lower rates of depression.
Speaker 3: So let's, let's get even more practical.
Speaker 3: So how do I motivate myself to exercise?
Speaker 3: Cause I know I haven't exercise and by eight years somebody in here feels my pain and it's hard to get up and get moving.
Speaker 3: But I know did if I get up and get moving.
Speaker 3: I remember when I used to work out, I remember the energy levels that I had.
Speaker 3: You got to get up and get moving.
Speaker 3: Number one, like drink lots of water and this is biblical.
Speaker 3: How do I know?
Speaker 3: Remember what he said.
Speaker 3: He says, arise and eat, and he looked and behold there was at his head baked on stones, hot stones and a jar of coffee and a can of monster and a jar of five hour energy.
Speaker 3: It says an a jar of water.
Speaker 3: Drink lots of water.
Speaker 3: Start exchanging some of that pot for water, that coffee for water because I need that confidence.
Speaker 3: Survive.
Speaker 3: Sarah shirk, um, water.
Speaker 3: Get plenty of sleep.
Speaker 3: What did he do when he went and he sat before the face of God.
Speaker 3: He cried out to God and he rested.
Speaker 3: He rested, he slept.
Speaker 3: Get plenty of sleep.
Speaker 3: Arrange your schedule so you're out in daylight.
Speaker 3: It'll boost your vitamin D levels.
Speaker 3: It says, listen, if you're in one of those jobs where you got to take your lunch inside and there's not too much light outside, it says, listen, organize your schedule so that you eat for 15 minutes.
Speaker 3: You've got 30 minutes.
Speaker 3: Take the first 10 to 15 minutes walking outside and they come inside and eat for 15 minutes, make some practical changes and if you've got an hour walk 15 to 20 minutes and then come and eat for the last 40 minutes.
Speaker 3: It says engage pets.
Speaker 3: Friends, kids go out instead of standing outside.
Speaker 3: When you're cold by the door and letting the dog go do the thing.
Speaker 3: Walk with the dog.
Speaker 3: Walk the dog down the street, walk up the street.
Speaker 3: Call a friend.
Speaker 3: Hey, would you walk with me?
Speaker 3: I need some motivation.
Speaker 3: I need somebody to be with me.
Speaker 3: Take your kids out.
Speaker 3: It might be a good time for conversation for you and your kids.
Speaker 3: You might learn some awesome things.
Speaker 3: My son, whenever we just get the two of us, he asked me the most awkward, uncomfortable questions.
Speaker 3: He's 14 now and it's just like, can you stop please?
Speaker 3: But it gives me time with him to walk with him.
Speaker 3: Enlist a personal trainer.
Speaker 3: Listen, we've got some gyms that have just opened up right here and now it's fit.
Speaker 3: Stop 24 we already have
Speaker 2: SLR Pilati is the YMCAs there.
Speaker 2: We've got trap house fitness.
Speaker 2: What work?
Speaker 2: I'm getting a members.
Speaker 2: I've got a membership, a trap house.
Speaker 2: I can't wait till they open on Tuesday.
Speaker 2: That's what they told me they need to hurry up.
Speaker 2: Cause this right here got the goal and here's the deal.
Speaker 2: If you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling the PERMA cloud over, you
Speaker 9: [inaudible]
Speaker 2: get professional help.
Speaker 2: It's okay.
Speaker 2: You're not crazy.
Speaker 2: We're all crazy.
Speaker 2: Every single one of us in this room needs professional help.
Speaker 2: That's why we need Jesus.
Speaker 2: But Jesus, God has also in part in wisdom and knowledge to profess those to be able to walk alongside of us.
Speaker 2: Get professional help.
Speaker 2: Can we say, can we share just one last thing.
Speaker 2: Go back to Isaiah 61 one through three.
Speaker 2: Remember the story is about Jesus.
Speaker 2: It's a prophecy about Jesus.
Speaker 2: Isaiah 61 once you see says the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news and tied into the poor.
Speaker 2: He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim Liberty to the captives and opening of the prisons of those who are bound.
Speaker 2: Go to the next one to comfort all who mourn, to give them beauty, for asses the oil of joy, for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
Speaker 2: How many of you guys aren't glad that Jesus, when he had the
Speaker 4: cloud over him, when he was sad and depressed, when he was sweating, blood didn't stay in the garden, but he got up and he walked to the cross.
Speaker 4: He did his torch in a 50 mile March.
Speaker 4: He went, he died.
Speaker 4: [inaudible]
Speaker 2: he died and Rose again so that you can have life and life abundantly life to the full.
Speaker 2: You can make it.
Speaker 2: This season doesn't have to get you.
Speaker 2: The pressure doesn't have to weigh you down.
Speaker 2: Jesus has promised life and life to the full, to everybody who walks in step with him all eyes close, all heads bow God.
Speaker 2: We come to you with thank you for your love.
Speaker 2: We thank you for your kindness.
Speaker 2: We thank you that Jesus Christ modeled what it is like to go through the pressures of life, to go through the anxieties, the depression, so much so that he sweat blood.
Speaker 2: When he was getting ready to go to the cross, he felt the pain.
Speaker 2: The Bible says we don't have a high priest who's not endured what we've endured.
Speaker 2: He can sympathize with every single one of our tensions in life and because he was strong enough to get up, get real with you and go to the cross and and and March his 250 mile and die on the throne and the third day raise up again.
Speaker 9: Hmm.
Speaker 2: To let us all know that we can beat it too.
Speaker 2: Whatever it is that's weighing us down, we can beat it too.
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