All right, good morning, Church. This morning we have a guest
speaker and he weighs in at 165 lbs.
He hails from Big Rapids, MI. If any of you don't know where
that is, I don't think I can help you.
I don't know where to point to right in.
The middle. But he is, he is a pastor, one
of the pastors, Not necessarily. He's a pastor in training at Res
Life in Big Rapids. He's the head of youth and he
overseas young adults. I got it right.
Young at all? Say what?
Just young adult. Just young adults, OK.
And he's in his second year of training at their school there.
Global. What is it called?
Global. Global University.
So this morning as he comes forward, I want to pray with
him. I'd like for you to give him a
round of applause and let's pray together.
Father, we thank you for this day.
We thank you for Josh. We thank you so much for his
heart. And we just pray that you
surround him with your presence. And Lord, help us to hear from
you. Help us to hear from you
clearly. Speak to us in Jesus name, we
pray and all God's people said Amen, Amen.
Amen. Thank you, Bob.
Let's give it up for Bob. So Bob, the first probably 3
minutes that I walked through the doors this morning, let me
drive his Mustang. So I was saying to the first
service, I think that almost guarantees he gets a Mustang in
heaven. Like I think that's just how it
works. Well, hey guys, my name is Josh
Fulmer. And like we said earlier, I am a
youth leader at Res Life Big Rapids and I lead our young
adult ministry over there called the Bridge.
It's just such an honor to be here.
I, I, I don't take it lightly. The opportunity to get to
minister God's word today and what he shared on my heart and
you guys have been so welcoming. And so I just, I thank you for
the opportunity to be here and get to hang out with you guys
today. I heard you guys had Pastor
Steve here last week. Let's give it up for Pastor
Steve now. Pastor Steve has been like
everywhere, like I feel like every revival or anything that's
really happened in a church, he's been a part of it.
Like we've got to know each other pretty well this past
year. And just hearing the stories
that he has is just, it's, it's, it's incredible.
What, what, what he's been through.
But I love Pastor Steve. He's awesome.
And I'm just excited to get to minister God's word today.
I pray that this word today just encourages you and that you can
get some newness of what God, God has for you.
In my daytime job, I actually am a kindergarten teacher.
I keep. Yeah.
Come on back there. Let's go.
So I'm a parapro at a kindergarten.
Where? Get this.
The entire school is kindergarten.
It's one grade where it is 205 and 6 year olds run around the
building at all times. No, I do not need prayer.
Maybe we need to pray together after the service.
Amen, Amen. Summer vacation.
So no, I, I love what I do and it gives me a lot of awesome
stories and just what they do, just the, the, the good and the
bad. It's, it's, it's something, but
I just love getting to see that child like faith and, and, and
seeing how passionate our kids, even at that age are for the
Lord and it's just, it's amazing.
So hopefully today God has something in store for all of us
today. And I just pray that we can just
walk together through whatever we're going through.
And that got me to where you're at.
He meets you exactly in the place that you are today during
this message. We had a student of mine at our
youth group. And one day, like about a year
ago, he started every single week raising his hand for the
salvation prayer every single week.
And week after week I'm like, awesome.
Like, you know, he's picking up his cross daily.
He's, he's got this thing figured out.
I did it once. I'm so many times like this kid.
And I thought it was awesome. But really quickly, probably 6
months in to this, I heard other leaders saying, you know, does
he know what he's raising his hand for?
Is he doing it because other people are doing it?
Is, you know, is he just doing it to, to say he's raising his
hand? And, and, and so I was like, you
know, he's one of my kids. So I'll go and talk to him and
just just see where his heart's at.
And so I went up to him one day and I was like, hey, bud, what
does that mean to you? I see you raising your hand.
I think it's awesome. I just want to know what that
means to you. And he looks at me and he says
something. I never would have expected a 13
year old to look me in the eyes and say this.
But he looks, he looks at me dead in the eyes.
And he goes, I just, I just want to make all of heaven rejoice.
And I was like, all right, buddy, you raise your hand every
single day. You know what, I'm going to
raise my hand with you. And we're going to do this
together. We're going to sharpen iron
together, you and me. All right?
So today I just just, shouldn't that be how we all live our
lives? Waking up and saying, God, thank
you for today. I want everything that I do
today to honor you. And I know I'm going to stumble.
I know I'm going to fail, but I just want to make all of heaven
rejoice because you are leading my steps by faith.
And I lived a lot of my life not in that position.
I lived a lot of my life leading my own path, leading my own
direction, and really lost for a long time.
And through that God was with me and I didn't really know He was
with me, but He was with me. And I remember the times that I
would pray because I started my life in church.
For the 1st 10 years of my life I was in church.
And so I knew Jesus as Savior, but I didn't know him as Lord.
And so I remember the times where I would be struggling with
something and just just just hurting about something.
Just the pain was filling me. The shame was filling me and,
and, and I was never praying that God would help me.
I was praying that God would just remove me from the
situation, pluck me out like a little flower and put me down in
some great beautiful garden. I was.
But I want you to know that wherever, wherever you're at, I
don't know where what you guys stories are.
I've met some of you, but I don't know where you're
struggling in. I don't know what you're going
through. I don't know what you're praying
about. I don't know what circumstances
are going on in your life. But I want you to know that if
we just start to put ourselves in a posture of receiving from
the Father and understanding that there are times in our
lives where we're going to struggle.
There are times in our lives when things around us are going
to start burning up and the smoke's going to be heavy and
the flames are going to be hot and they're going to be all
around us. And instead of asking God to
take us from the situation and just put us somewhere safe, we
need to open our eyes and see that God is with us.
And this is the title of my message today.
God is with us through the fire. Everybody say through the
through the fire. Father God, I thank you for
today. And I just thank you for your
just amazing opportunity to just get to, to minister your word
and, and share what you've laid on my heart.
God, I pray that today would be a moment of us opening up our
hands to you and seeing you next to us in every circumstance.
God, I pray that you would specifically meet the needs of
this congregation, this body, Father.
And I pray that there would be new transformation, that there
would be new revelation today and that there would be new
blessings on the other side of whatever we're going through.
Father, I thank you for the opportunity and we just thank
you for North Life Church. We thank you in Jesus name,
Amen. Amen.
So being in the elementary, this is going to be my corner back
here. I'm going to be talking to you
guys a lot. So being in school, one of my
very first days, I didn't go to school to be a teacher or
anything or to work in the element.
I never thought I'd be working there.
But one of the very first tools that one of the people that was
training me told me was, hey, you need to use this statement.
And the statement is, if then everyone say if then so with if
then a lot of our kids will come up to me and say, I think they
think that I'm just like a walking vending machine or
something because they'll come up to, Hey, Mr. Josh, you got
any chips? Hey, Mr. Josh, you got candy.
I know you got candy in there. I'm like, dude, where do you
guys think I'm hiding these things in my pants?
Like I, I don't know what you're talking about.
And my goal, like my heart is I want to give them the thing that
they're asking. And most of the time I do, but
and they know that they take advantage of that.
But a lot of times the kids that are asking me for something,
I've just watched them slap another kid in the face, RIP
their paper that they're supposed to be doing and doing
absolutely everything but the thing that we asked them to do.
So the Amen this tool if then helps me in that whole
circumstance because it puts the ball in their court.
Because I see, Jimmy, that you want some chips.
Now, if you want chips, if you do your work first, then you'll
get some chips. If you stop slapping your buddy
in the face over there, then I might want to take you outside
for some extra recess. If then if I sit here and say
God, I want you to use me. I want to be a blank canvas for
you and I want you to use every part of me, and it's your will,
not my will, then you'll know that God is with you through the
fire. If then, and we see so many if
then statements and stories in the Bible, from Abraham to Jonah
to Moses, Joshua, Peter, all the disciples, everybody, we see so
many if then statements in the Bible.
But the one that we're going to talk about today is in Daniel 3.
So we're going to hang out in Daniel three a little bit today.
And this is probably a story you might have heard before, but any
walk of life, I preach a lot to our youth ministry and our young
adult ministry. But I want to talk to everybody
in this room today. I want to meet everybody where
they're at. I want the Holy Spirit to
minister to your guys's hearts today.
And this is second service. This is these are my people.
I'm going to be honest, I've never actually been to our first
service at our church ever. I am a second service kind of
guy. So let's let's let's get into
this today. So in this story, we see a king
of Babylon, an evil king. He's prideful.
He's he's he's angry. He lashes out.
And what he does is he goes, I'm such an amazing king.
I'm such an amazing guy. Everybody in the nation of
Babylon is clearly going to want to see a little bit more of this
guy. So I'm going to build a golden
statue and I'm going to put this up.
And anytime anybody hears music that we play, you are to bow
down and worship this golden statue.
So what does everybody in the nation of Babylon do?
They do it every time they hear this music.
They bow down and they worship well, the king, King
Nebuchadnezzar, he appoints three men, Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego. A lot of us have heard those,
those names and music and, and, and, or in the word, and
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are strong men of faith.
Today we're going to be talking all about trusting God in
trials, trusting God through whatever circumstance you're
going through, wherever you're at.
Everybody in here needs to trust in God that he is with us
through the fire. So, so we see Shatter Agneshach
and Abednego standing there. They're not worshipping this
idol because the word of God says so.
So we see some men called the Chaldeans or the Chaldeans or
whatever. I'm calling on the Chaldeans.
So the Chaldeans are what we like to call in the elementary
world some tattle tales. OK, yeah, we I don't know what
it is about title. I don't care if I physically saw
everything that little John is telling me that that kid saw.
I don't care if I physically saw him winding up and go to.
I don't I don't know why I'm not saying it's right, but I don't
know why I want to get this kid in trouble that told on that
kid. I don't know why I'm not saying
it's right. Maybe we need maybe we do need
to have a prayer circle later. Amen.
So, so, So what I'm saying is, is these men they go up to, and
This is why I know King Nebuchadnezzar was not a teacher
or has probably ever seen a child, because I know the
parents in here understand as well that he comes up and hears
this. He gets so angry, not at these
little tattle tales. He gets angry at Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego. And he's like, dude, why would
somebody not worship this beautiful statue?
So he goes, bring them in. So they bring in Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego and, and they're fine.
They're they're walking in fine. They God's got us and and the
king he goes all right so there clearly is a misunderstanding
here Clearly you didn't hear when I told you guys you're
going to worship the statue the Sound of Music.
So what we're going to do is we're going to play some music.
You guys are going to worship the statue.
If not, there's a fire. You're going to, you're going to
burn to death, but clearly you're going to worship the
statue. It's beautiful, it's amazing.
So we'll just get this figured out.
You guys can get on your way because he says the Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego. Because what God could save you
from the fire in the blazing heat of this furnace?
Maybe that's what the enemy is saying to you today.
Wherever you're, wherever you're at in your walk right now,
whatever you're struggling with, the enemy wants to tell you,
nothing could save you. Nothing could get you out of
this situation. You're way too far gone.
And we want to speak against that today in the name of Jesus.
We want to break down those lies in the name of Jesus.
And I want to show you guys how to respond to this because
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego know the if then statement
because they say Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an
answer to this question and watch this.
If the God we serve exists, everybody say if, if the God we
serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing
fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king.
If then I know I should have put it up, up on the screen, but I
know you guys got your Bibles anyway.
If then, Nebuchadnezzar, we know.
We know what's over there, but we know that our faith and trust
is in Jesus. We know that our faith is in
trust is in the Father. We know that whatever situation
we're going through, God's got us.
Because I should have put this verse on the screen because this
is the punch. Because that statement in itself
of itself is very strong. It's very bold.
I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I've been pressed a
little bit for a lot less of an outcome than what Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego are about to face.
And I've backed up and go, whoa, OK, I'm this is a little bit
over my head a little bit. But they stand firm in their
faith. We see the nation of Babylon is
doing this, but we're not going to because our God tells us not
to make any other gods or idols above him.
So we're going to stand firm in our faith.
And that's the bold statement. But this is the mark on the
stamp. They say.
But even if he doesn't, everyone say, but even if he doesn't, but
even if he doesn't, we still will not serve your gods or
worship the gold statue that you have set up.
But even if I don't get the, the relationship I think I should
have, but even if I don't get the opportunity to that I think
that I should have. But even if I don't get the
opportunities in in my work and in my my jobs, even if I don't
get that promotion, I think that I'm supposed to, even if the
situation and the circumstances that I'm going through right now
are nothing that I ever thought that I would be going through.
But even if it doesn't, I know that God is for me and not
against me. I know that God is going to grow
me and lead me. He's going to put me in a
position to receive from him the love that he's been trying to
give me. But even if he doesn't, I still
will not serve your gods. We need to look at the world and
say, I know that the world looks kind of crazy right now, and I
know that the Lord can save me from my situation.
But even if he doesn't, it won't make me falter.
It won't make me fail. It won't make me stumble because
my feet are on solid ground. Amen.
OK, so you would think King
Nebuchadnezzar is like, OK, these guys mean business.
No, he doesn't. Because what he does is he picks
them, he grabs some of the best guards and, and, and they tie
them and bind them and throw them into the fire.
King Nebuchadnezzar is like, I, I told you guys, this is what
was going to happen. Throws them into the fire.
That's it. He's probably looking around
like, yeah, look what I did. Look at me.
Nobody's going to go against me. Everybody's going to be, we
should make an even bigger statue because nobody is going
to go against me. My, my, what I'm going through,
it doesn't matter because everybody's going to look at me.
Everybody's going to look at what I did to Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego. Look at this golden statue and
bow down in fear. That's what the enemy wants to
say to us. That's what the enemy tries to
speak through us. That's what the enemy tries to
say to us. But even if he doesn't, because
as King Nebuchadnezzar sitting there, he looks and he goes,
didn't we put three men in the fire?
Because I see a fourth man in the fire, and it looks like the
Son of God is with them through the situation.
And I want you to know that wherever you're at, whatever
circumstance you're going through, God is with you.
Through the fire, God is with you, refining you.
Whatever you're getting pressed about, whatever you're getting
pushed about, God is with you. Through the fire, God has always
been with you. But but it's kind of like when
you're on a roller coaster and, and when you go down, if you're
anything like me, I'm Scrouch, I'm I'm, I'm, I'm in a little
ball and I don't know why, but if you look and I wish I put
these pictures up on the screen, but I didn't.
If that camera always catches me in the worst time, like I look
like a weirdo going down those going down those hills and I'm
every single one of them is it is like this.
And I'm scared and I'm in fear and fear.
I'm closing my eyes and I'm scrunching up and I feel like
maybe you're like that today. Maybe you're scrunched up and
you're, you're closing your eyes and you're saying, Josh, I've
heard messages like this. I've heard, I've read the
scriptures, I've heard this. I've been going to church
faithfully and trying to get through the circumstances that
I'm going through. I've been working and trying and
and trying, but I just don't see God in this situation.
I don't see God where I'm at because I'm too far gone.
I'm too, I, I, I'm in too deep. I don't know how to let go.
I don't, I don't, I don't know how to let go of the addictions
that I'm, that I'm going through.
I've heard this, but I'm not. But I believe that God sent me
here today and sent you here today to say, open your eyes and
see that Jesus is with you through the fire.
Jesus is with you in your circumstance.
He's with you in your pain. He's with you in your struggles,
he's with you in your family situations.
He's with you in your marriages. He's with you in the fire.
It would have been really easy for Shadrack, Meshach and
Abednego to say, God, just don't let the flames ignite.
Just just just don't let us be in a situation where we would be
compromised. Or just don't.
But they don't. They say guys got it because the
if then statement, the if is the only part of the conversation we
get to be a part of. The if is OK.
God, I'm going to do this. The then is God's response.
So if then doesn't say I'm going to get rid of the flames, says
I'm going to be with you through it.
God is going to be with you through whatever you're going
through. But we need to be able to ask
ourselves, do we actually trust? I believe that there are people
in here that are looking for answers.
And maybe you've been praying for a sign, maybe you've been
praying that God would show you where you're supposed to go in
an opportunity that you're, that you're praying about.
Maybe you're praying about God. I want you to lead me in this
situation because my, my marriage is so broken or my, my
relationships are so broken or, or, or my job is really, really
testing me or the people that I'm around or, or my family
situation is really rough right now.
And, and, and, and I'm going to, I'm going to see some at
reunions this summer. And, and I don't, I'm going to
be, I don't know how to have these conversations.
It's been a while. And, and wherever you're at,
wherever you're at, or maybe you're struggling with, with,
with church hurt, God's not going to hurt you.
Hurt people are going to hurt you.
Jesus is going to be with you through the unknown
circumstances. He's going to be with you
through the pain and he's going to be with you through the fire.
So that's what we see. That's what we see here is we
need to ask ourselves, do we actually trust, do we actually
trust him when we're getting tested?
Do we actually trust him when things are pressing in on us?
And I want to do a little bit of a self reflection here for every
single person in the room. I want us to all do a, a, a self
reflection into actually seeing where our hearts are at and to
actually respond to this word. I want us to be in a spot where
even from the seasoned believers to the first timers and
everywhere in between, every single one of us can grow with
the father. So I want us to take us through
a little bit of a walk through this story.
And I believe that there are really 4 attributes of this
story and or four seats. And what I want to ask you is
what seat are you sitting in? And I had an idea, bringing up
some chairs and sitting in each one of them and illustrating,
you know what? See, but you don't want me to
sit down and start preaching because you might have to cancel
your lunch plans because I'd be here for a little while.
And, and, but we're OK. So what we're going to do is I
want you to just imagine each attributes of this story, each
characteristics of this story. And I want to see where you're
at in this story. Who are you in the story?
And it's OK if one of them is identifying you.
Like man, I thought I was doing little bit better than that, but
I feel like I'm sitting in that seat.
Let's get freedom in that. Let's get prayer.
Let's whatever that is, we need to respond to the word to
actually begin to trust him more.
Everybody say trust. All right, so the very first
seat that we're going to pull up is the conforming seat.
So the conforming seat was where all of the people in the nation
of Babylon were sitting. So they're sitting and they're
going on about this worship in in this golden statue.
And so they're bowing down. They're conforming to the
patterns of the world. So what is going on is you might
be saying, Josh, you know, I'm not going to bow down to a
statue of a golden idol and bow down and worship it.
And I would hope that that is true.
But what I want to ask you is what about these things?
What about Facebook and Instagram and the likes and,
and, and how much time we spend scrolling on this thing?
And and don't make me ask you guys how much your screen time
says, because I just got my screen time.
And we're not going to talk about it, but how much time we
spend holding that phone with our eyes down when our eyes
should be locked on Jesus. Because what we should be doing
is, is getting into this, not caring about what the world
says, not caring about what the Instagram and the Facebook and
the news feeds are saying, but caring about what the word of
God is saying about us. Because if you spend time in
this, you're going to see that this says do not conform to the
patterns of this world, but be transformed, say transformed,
transformed by the renewing of your mind, not conforming, not
putting idols above God, not putting anything that's going to
compromise your relationship with the Father.
And if you've been sitting there, it's OK because we're
going to get healing from that today.
The next seat is the condemning seat.
So with the condemning seat, we have the Chaldeans.
These are our tattle tales, OK? They're looking around and and
they don't see shattering Meshach and Abednego bowing
down. And so they want some justice to
be done, which is the furnace in the blazing fire.
And you might be saying, Josh, I'm not going to condemn
somebody to a blazing furnace of fire.
And I would say, praise the Lord that you're not going to do
that. I would hope so.
But what about those people at work that we're judging and
saying, man, those are not great people or the family members
that we struggle with, or the coworkers or the people on the
street that we see like, man, they should just get a job.
Why don't why they dress like that?
Why do they act like that? Don't even start me on what June
is all about. We can't be judging people
because if we were spending time and this this would tell us to
love God and love people to love your neighbor as yourself to to
to love people in the way that God would love us to love others
in a way that Jesus has poured into us.
Because as much time as we spend judging other people where this
this says that we're actually judging ourselves because we too
are sinners. So if you've been sitting in the
condemning chair with the Chaldeans, it's OK because we're
going to get healing from that. Because these two, the
conforming and the condemning chair, really bottle up to get
us to our third chair, which is the convicting chair.
And the convicting chair is where King Nebuchadnezzar SAT.
So much rage, so much anger, so much pain and pride is stepping
in, taking over until he makes a statue of himself, tells
everybody to worship it or else. And if you've been sitting in
that seat, this is where you start lashing out, where you
start acting, building up walls, compromising your faith.
And trust me, you're not alone if you've been sitting in this
seat, because I sat in these seats a lot.
I actually pretty much stacked each chair on one and sat at the
top and kind of hung out there for a while because I, like I
said, I grew up in church for 10 years.
Within 10, we had some church hurt in our family and we left
the church. So from 10 to 20, I spent
outside the church, which is a really tough transitional part
of our lives, OK, teenage years. And I'm leading it on my own
strength. Let me tell you, when I was out
there seeking the world, it was nothing fun.
I had open wounds and I was just putting little band aids on it
or or even just putting some paper towel on it.
And what is that going to do? But it's going to seep through
and burst out. I spent a lot of time where my
identity was drinking and women and, and partying and putting
people down. And this is just three years
ago. If you would have told me three
years ago, I'm at I, I, I'd be where I'm at now, I would have
said, no, you're crazy. But how I got there was I had to
look at these seats. I had to see where am I at?
I'm looking at myself in the mirror and I, I hate what I see.
I don't like what I see anymore. I don't like how I'm hurting
people. I don't like the walls that are
up. There's nobody around me that
cares about me anymore. And I start listening to the
lies of the enemy as he pours in.
You're worthless. Nobody cares about you.
What could you do to better the Kingdom?
Who are you to even tell anybody how to act or to judge anybody
if you're there? I believe that the Father wants
to minister to your heart and he wants to heal you.
Because it wasn't until I hit my very rock bottom and I dropped
down on my knees and I say, father, I I've tried everything
else. I've done everything else and I
and nowhere was I satisfied. Nowhere was I going to find any
fruit in my life of anything good.
And everyone is left to me. Every wall is up.
Every person has left me. But father, I just, I don't know
what a relationship with you looks like.
I don't know if if I'm even worthy of being saved, but I
need you. I, I think I want a relationship
with you. I made Jesus my savior when I
was a kid, but I never truly made him the Lord of my life.
And Jesus, I need you to fill my life.
I need you to lead my path. I can't lead it anymore.
I can't choose my own way. I can't choose my own decisions
anymore. I need you to be the Lord of my
life because when I made him savior, my life did not produce
any evidence or fruit that Jesus was actually the Lord of my
life. So Jesus, I make you Lord of my
life. And the second that I did that,
he told me, I want you to stand, Josh.
I want you to plant your feet on that solid ground that I've
given to you because you are home.
My boy has come home. The prodigal son has returned.
And maybe you're in that situation right now that you're
returning home. God put you here.
You could have been out on the boat.
You could have been out hunting or not hunt.
It's not season, but you could be out anywhere else that you
want. But you chose to be here.
And I believe that God is saying my child is back.
He's back. There's no, there's no need to,
to hold on to the shame and to the guilt and to the pain, the
depression, the anxiety, the, the worry, the, the, the, the
sin that's in your life. There's no need.
I don't see any of that. I just see my child that I
created and I put you here for a plan for a purpose.
And I just want to grow you. I want to move in your life.
I want you to accept the love that I've given to you.
I want you to accept the blessings that I've been trying
to give you. I have so much over here.
If you would only step into the places that I have for you,
receive the love that I have for you, be still on that solid
rock, then I would move in your life.
Then you would see that I've always been there.
Then you would stop opening or closing your eyes and saying, I
I just need I, I need something to stop what I'm feeling.
You would say, father, I know that you are with me through the
fire. I know that you are with me
through the challenges. I know that you are with me
through the struggle. And I know that there are people
in here that are hurting. I know that there are people in
here that have been really been getting pressed on and really
the enemy's been doing overtime, but I want to know what the
enemy wants. I want to know what he sees in
you that's so amazing and worthy of him spending his time trying
to RIP you from the desire that God has for you.
What does the enemy want? What does he want?
Because as long as we spend in all of these three chairs, we're
just being distracted by, hey, there's another chair.
We're going to throw that out because the second you make
Jesus Lord of your life, you can sit with Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego in the Christ like chair.
And no, this does not mean that you're going to have it all
figured out. This does not mean that it's
going to be a great, amazing opportunity of, of joy and
skipping and rainbows and and you're going to be having
salvations every day of every person that you ever see.
Praise God. I wish that was how it worked,
but God himself, Jesus himself leaves the disciples and says,
if you follow me, then you will face persecution.
You will face people that oppose you.
It will be hard, but I promise you.
But just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the if then and
the but, but I have something so much greater.
I've something so much better. We're in a race.
Do you want to get there first or do you want to show up
smiling a little bit like smoke? And trust me, I spent a lot of
time in in in that position. But as long as we can sit in the
Christ like chair, this the word of God gives us a, a guide on
how we should live our life. It gives us a rule book and A
and a place to to follow. I don't even want to say rule
book, a guide book so that we can see an instruction manual on
how we should live our lives. But the Lord gives us the FN
statement. He doesn't say you have to do
this. He says if you want to
experience the fullness of the life that I have for you, then
follow me because it's time. And he's put you here because I
believe that it's time. I believe that you're ready and
I believe whatever you're going through, Jesus is there and he
wants to move in your life. But as I close up, you might be
saying, Josh, I've, I've tried, I've been in the church for a
long time. I've been there, I've done it,
I've given it to God and it's come right back.
I've tried to trust him, but I just don't see it.
I don't see it work. I can see that for you and
that's great for you, but it's not working for me.
So I'm just going to put on my happy face, I'm going to go to
church and I'll see you next week.
God, I say to her, I say to our youth kids all the time.
If you texted your girlfriend one day a week, would you be
have? Would you have a girlfriend?
No, clearly they're like, no, obviously.
Why are we praying one time a week?
Then? Why are we spending time with
God one day a week? Makes me think of our first day
of school. This kid, and this is a true
story. This kid, he comes up to me
first cut like maybe 30 minutes and he needed a break.
So I took him to the gym and we're playing basketball and,
and he's shooting and he misses every single shot over and over
and over again. And every time he's getting more
and more worked up, more mad and upset with himself to the point
where he throws himself on the ground.
He goes, I'm done. I'm let's go back to class.
And you know, if a kid wants to go back to class, there's a
problem. There is, there's, there's
something going on. So he goes, let's go back to
class. I go, I go, buddy, if you fail,
don't just give up. You need to try again.
So I looked him. I go, you know, actually stand
up. You need to say that to me.
I'm going to try again. And I go, I I I go, buddy, What,
what do you do when you fail? He goes, I'm going to try again,
Mr. Josh. I go, OK, So he shoots it and he
makes it. And I'm like, thank you, Lord.
Like, I don't know what I would have done if he missed.
So, so he's sitting there and that changed everything for him.
His face is like, why is it like, are you serious?
Like, and that changed his whole year.
That became our thing. All year long.
I go up to him and I was like, hey, what do you do when you
fail? He goes, I try again, I try
again, Mr. Josh. And, and that just became our
thing. He grew so much over the year.
And like I said, we only get him for one year.
So it was really hard for me to say goodbye to him.
And last Tuesday was our last day of school and I'm crying
like a baby all day long. I had to say goodbye to like
every kid in the school. It was it was, it was a lot.
But I go up to him, I give him a hug and I set by and he was sad
and I'm sad and and I say something to him and he walks
out the doors and I go, hey, what do you do when you fail?
He goes. I try again.
And he left, and I. I believe that the Father is
telling some of you guys in here it's time to try again.
I believe that the Lord wants you to try again.
Or maybe for some of you, it's try for the first time.
But God sent a kid from Big Rapids to tell you that you, you
need to try again. Doesn't matter where you're at,
doesn't matter where you've been.
Doesn't matter if the sirens are coming to chase you.
It's it's loud and it's, it's obnoxious.
It's time to try again. It's time to fully trust him and
rely on him through the fire. So if you want to do that today,
I want to give you a tool. And then I'm going to wrap this
up. I want to give you guys a tool.
And this tool is how to better trust and rely on him because
it's so easy to raise our hands and sing that song.
How that was so cool that the that God lined up the worship to
be singing trust in God. And and all these like, it's so
easy to put our hands up and sing those words.
But our life does not produce evidence that we fully trust in
him. And when we get tested, we don't
actually prove that we trust him.
We don't actually prove that he's actually the Lord of our
life. Because if he's the Lord of our
life, then we're adopted as a son of the highest king, the
ruler of all things. And I can confidently walk
through any storm and be still in the fact that I know that
he's fighting my battles for me. So I want to give you this tool
and I'm going to wrap it up. I'm running a little bit long
and I want to, you know, maybe come hang out with you guys
again. So I'm going to try to wrap this
up as quick as possible. So Trust God gave me an acronym
for trust. And I believe this is a a really
good representation of how to genuinely trust him and take
this outside of here. So trust T talk to God.
You need to pray to him. You need to have a conversation
with him, not having it just be a one time a week praying
consistently or you need to read his word.
We need to be a, a, a church family that brings this to the
church. I know you have it on your on
your phone, but at res life, we, we, we're very adamant that we
bring a Bible to church. So that have a have, have a
Bible for your car, have a Bible for your work for for home.
Have many different Bible. Have a Bible that you just have
on hand just in case you need to give it to somebody, but make it
be an awkward silence. Pastor Ross knows this back
home, there is an awkward silence because I would say
probably confidently 95% or maybe more bring their Bibles to
church every single day and there are notes all over it.
Pastor Ross does an amazing job at setting that table.
So we need to be a church body that brings these things
everywhere and still have the Bible app just in case you ever
find yourself at work or in line or or somewhere and you're
scrolling on your phone, maybe scroll through Proverbs or
Philippians. OK, I think there's going to be
a little bit more fruit in that than looking at the Facebook
quizzes and all that now. So we need to be a Bible reading
church. So you is understand it's more
than just reading the Proverb of the day and checking off that
list. Understand, meditate it,
meditate on it daily like Joshua commands us.
We need to meditate on it daily. If it's just maybe one word or
or maybe not one word, 1 scripture, maybe sometimes a
word, but one scripture throughout the entire day,
meditating on that, letting it transform our mind.
That's where we begin stepping into that posture.
And St. the last two is stand firm in your faith that when you
ever walk through a storm. Than when you ever get pressed
on by the world, when you ever are struggling or worried or
weary that you could stand firm in your faith and I'd love yes,
I'm seeing fault. Take a picture of that write it
down. I don't care.
I'll step out of the way so I'm not weirdly in your picture, but
I want you to hold on to this so that you know that there is a
tool for you to take outside if you're to genuinely trust in the
Father. And I have one more scripture
for you and then we're going to send this home.
So God gives US1 in Romans. Whoa, God gives us one of the
biggest if then statements the word of God has, and this is
Romans 10/9. Romans 10/9 says if you declare
with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, I'm going to add a then then you
will be saved. Everybody say I will be saved if
you declare that Jesus is Lord of your life.
There's a difference in in, in, in seeing him as Savior and
Lord. And I hope today that the Father
was ministering to your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Have I really truly made him my Savior?
Have I really made him Lord? So I want to give you guys an
opportunity to respond to that and step into a posture of
receiving. So we're going to pray.
Father, I thank you for today. I thank you for reminding us and
and giving us illustrations and stories of real life occurrences
that that help us to see where we're at and where we're at in
our lives. God, God, I pray that you would
begin impressing on the power of the Holy Spirit.
Everyone in here that needs to take, we all need to take
another step closer to you. We all need to understand and
identify that we can just close our eyes and sit and be led by
faith, not by sight. But Father, I pray that you
would lead us in our decisions, lead us in our in our, in our
families and our communities. Help us to be a light wherever
we're at. And if you're in here today and
you want to make that decision to make Jesus the Lord of your
life, maybe you've been trying, maybe you've made Jesus the Lord
of your life, but you've stumbled and you and you've and
you've fallen and you need to be picked back up.
And you're saying today is my day.
Today is my day that I make Jesus Lord of my life and I
stopped letting the ways of the world, the patterns of this
world distract me from my relationship with you.
If that's you today with nobody looking around, I just want you
to shoot your hand up. It's not for for us to know or
to take tally. This is for you to reach the
hand of God and take his hand and publicly say no more.
Jesus is my Lord. I see hands going up.
So we thank you and praise you and I just want you guys to
repeat this after me. Say Lord, thank you for Jesus,
thank you for your love and your freedom.
I believe that Jesus died and God raised him from the dead so
that I could have new life. Father, use me the way you need
and help me see your victory wherever I go.
Holy Spirit, fill me up from the bottoms of my feet to the tops
of my hair. In Jesus mighty name I pray.
Amen. Let's give it up for everyone
who made that decision today. Well guys, it was an honor to be
here. I hope I see you guys again soon
and I'm excited to meet you guys.
I'd love to meet you guys outside of here, but you guys
have an amazing church family here and we'll see you again.
You guys are dismissed.