Dark Stretches on the Glory Road- Breakthrough Faith

Well, the uh I'll tell you a little Scottish story here.

Uh actually I think uh this uh uh I'm I have a feeling and I'm s I've been told this really happened This happened actually at a little Scottish Seaside Resort, and wrote down some of the details to make sure I get it right, but these fishermen I 'd had a long day at sea, and so they were relaxing in the this little Scottish uh seaside inn, and one of them, trying to tell one of his fish stories and describe the fish he had caught, knocked over the teapot And the teapot went flying and and it la I know you think I'm gonna tell a joke here, but I'm really not.

I see this skepticism in your eyes, but um and and it goes over and it shatters on the wall and leaves this big tea splatter on the wall.

And so the owner's a little perturbed and he said, you know, there's really no way to get that out.

He said, he said, uh You're not going to get a T-stain out of that wall.

So he said the the whole wall's probably going to have to be repainted.

And one man spoke up from another table.

He's like, well, I don't know where.

He says, maybe not.

He said, would you uh would you give me an opportunity to uh to try to do something with that?

And if it meets with your approval, then you don't have to repaint the whole wall.

Okay, well he's kind of like I got nothing to lose.

So the stranger opened up a little kit that he had and he had brushes and paint in it actually.

And he went over there and he started to draw lines around the stain.

And then he started to put splashes of paint and swashes here and there.

And after a while you began to see something emerge on this wall.

And those random splashes of tea on the wall were becoming a painting of a deer, a huge buck with his large rack.

It was just amazing.

And the whole tea stain was simply part of it.

And the innkeeper, everybody was just stunned.

And then they read the signature on it.

And the man who was in that little seaside room there was the well-known wildlife painter E.

H.

Lanseer.

And everybody was amazed at the fact that who would have thought it was possible that an ugly stain Doesn't just have to be covered up, but that an ugly stain can be turned into something really beautiful.

When you've got a master working on it.

We have episodes in our life and we still have some ahead. that are stained with grief and suffering and pain And we're not quite sure.

It looks like that stain will never come out.

It's always going to mark and and discolor our life.

But Master Jesus comes along, and if we bring our suffering into the glory zone.

Which sounds almost counterintuitive and contradictory, he is able to paint that into a beautiful Painting that we never could have imagined.

And how that happens is the subject of our study this morning.

It's interesting as you go through the Gospel of John that Jesus picks some very strange places to display his glory.

He displays his glory uh uh with a blind man by the road.

You wouldn't expect a glory outburst there, but he said, this has happened to this man, so that the works of God would be revealed in him.

And then you go to John chapter 11.

And it's and and Lazarus dies and Jesus says, no, no, no, no, this sickness is not unto death.

This isn't about him dying.

This is going to be about you seeing the glory of God.

And I'll be glorified through this.

So it shows up in the cemetery.

And then the glory shows up, of course, on that Roman cross.

Now, we're talking about the dark stretches of your life.

Some of you are in one, some of you are headed for one, don't know it, and we all have them, and we're all gonna have some more.

It is the nature of a sin-stained planet.

But remember this about the dark times.

Here, I'll give you an example.

When we took our team, our Nagelswings team to Alaska in July, you realize that it's dark there.

Like all winter, they have one month to go crazy.

Because it's like it's always light.

I mean, even at 2 a. m.

I went up on a mountain on a four-wheeler with with a missionary there looking for a place for us to pray over a village.

And it was like 2.30 in the morning, and it was still like dusk.

It's crazy.

So they're just like, don't sleep for the month of July.

Get it all in.

Because about August 1st the cold wind blows in.

It's like a right-on-clockwork.

Fall starts.

But then that lasts a day, and then it's winter.

That's an exaggeration, but it's close.

Well, what we were in uh Kodiak, Alaska with the team, and uh it was the Fourth of July.

And if we're in the town on the Fourth of July, if we can get into some fireworks, we will.

Well the where what time did the fireworks start in your town?

You know, put nine o'clock, something like that, as soon as it's dark?

Oh, they start at midnight uh in Alaska They gotta wait till a lot later.

Well why don't they just start at nine?

That would be a lot more convenient.

Seems like more people might come if you had a little more convenient time.

Why do it a minute?

Well you say, well, Ron, you're not gonna put off fireworks in the daylight I mean what makes it what makes the fireworks fireworks?

What makes them a spectacle?

Well it's obviously against a backdrop of a dark sky.

So it is with the glory of Jesus.

His fireworks, his splendor, show up the most in the darkest times.

So when it's night He may be at his best.

His glory shows up most against life's dark backdrops.

And when you can see your suffering through Jesus' eyes, it becomes another stretch of the glory road An unexpected, unlikely Glory Road stretch.

Passion number six on the Glory Road is embracing God 's purposes for your suffering.

Embracing God's purposes for your suffering.

And the way we're going to look at that is with what I'd call four game changers for your dark times that really that they don't they don't take the suffering away they may not change the situation but they sure do change you Let's take the first one.

First game changer.

And we go right to John 11 for this, your compassionate savior.

This is a game changer to understand the compassion of your Savior at this time.

Let's go to John chapter 11.

You remember Jesus loved Mary, Martha, Lazarus.

We needed to hear that because it doesn't look like it for a while.

Because he lets Lazarus die.

He says, this, remember, this is happening, so the glory of God will be revealed.

Jesus' decision to delay going there has left some very grieving people.

If he'd gotten there sooner, there could have been a lot less tears. a lot less hurt, a lot less pain.

But he literally makes a choice that causes pain short term.

But when Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

He knows he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

But he is weeping with Mary.

Where have you laid him asked?

Come and see, Lord, they replied.

Jesus wept.

He wasn't sad because Lazarus was dead.

That ain't going to last long.

Lazarus is going to be back with him pretty soon.

But he's weeping because they're weeping Jesus wants more.

Here we go.

Deeply moved.

He is very emotional about this.

Deeply moved, came to the tomb.

It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

And of course we know what comes back.

And next is Lazarus come out.

Well, I want to go over to Psalm 56. 8 and notice this.

David says to God, you keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle You have recorded each one.

You've recorded every tear in your book.

Here's the point.

Jesus weeps when we weep.

And he feels the pain that his plan causes.

That's important to remember He doesn't just go, oh , just deal with it.

Get through it.

I'm going to do something great eventually.

Just hang on, hang on.

No, he comes and weeps in the sense he caused the pain.

His plan of waiting and doing it on his time so it can be a greater thing is what's causing the pain.

Jesus could have avoided them going through all this grief.

But he cares about the hurt that his plan causes in the interim before he acts.

Does that make sense?

And doesn't that help to know that?

That he knows that pain and he enters into it.

Listen, um parents know about this I mean, um, you've ever taken a young child in for uh you know a shot or some painful procedure?

Uh we've been there with uh with Taylor through so many surgeries And uh and you know at the time the child is like, dear, I mean, you wish you could explain.

When they're really young, it's like if you 're like, why are you doing it?

Why are you letting a doctor do this to me?

If you love me, you won't let me do it.

You know, they're not saying it, they can't articulate it, but you feel horrible about it.

You don't go, no, no, no, stop, doctor.

I don't want my I don't want my child to cry No, no, no, no, no.

You don't want them to cry.

And you feel it with them.

And you may cry because they're crying.

But you you know that this is on the way to helping them do better, be healthier, be protected.

This is a good thing, but you've got to go through some pain for it, and you feel that pain.

Well we're that's what Jesus is like.

He feels the pain that the plan causes.

It's good to know about that compassionate Savior when you're feeling that deep pain.

I love Psalm 147.

And we're going to start with verse 4.

Go to verse 4.

This is just, I love this side-by-side verses.

I'm going backwards.

I'm going to go back to three in a minute.

He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.

We are told that there's probably a hundred million stars in each galaxy.

There are a hundred billion galaxies.

And he he's got a name for every star.

Hello?

Can you even conceive of that?

So here is this cosmic manager who knows everything in his creation.

And here's little me.

Hurt, grieving, sad, confused.

Go back one verse He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

He manages the universe And hears you cry.

Is that amazing or what?

So know that that is the Savior who walks through this with you.

We know that from Hebrews chapter 4.

Let's go to you got the verse in Hebrews 4 there, Dustin?

We have a high priest.

It says we do not have a high priest who is not touched with the feeling of our weaknesses.

But in all points was tested or tempted as we are, yet without sin.

He feels it with us.

Secondly, Uh let's go ahead and what you had up there.

The second um a game changer is the Christ-honoring commitment.

First of all, you say Jesus, I know you get me, I know you know how I feel, and I know you cry when I cry.

Boy, this Comforting to know.

Now there is a Christ-honoring commitment that also helps the dark time turn into the glory time.

Philippians chapter 1, verses 20 and 21 are an example of that commitment.

I eagerly expect and hope, Paul said.

He's in prison now, not knowing his fate I will in no way be ashamed.

And he asks for sufficient courage.

Isn't that?

That's a good prayer, by the way.

The Apostle Paul's counting on God to give him courage when the moment comes.

I don't know what I'm facing, and I don't have that courage now, but I'm counting on God that I will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be, now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body.

I want to be a glory showcase.

Whatever my circumstances, whether this has a good ending or a bad ending for me, I understand that the my my reason for being here is to demonstrate, to exhibit, to exude, to show people the glory of Christ.

So if that means I live, then I will live To bring glory to Christ.

If I die, I'm gonna die in a way.

I won't be able to determine the cause of my death.

I don't get to do that.

But I can determine the kind of person I am when I die.

I can pre-choose that I will die for the glory of Christ and I will go out honoring and glorifying him and making people think about him instead of me.

So that is a I'm working my way to the Christ honoring commitment.

You remember that the uh several years ago the the major earthquake in Haiti?

I mean we all saw the tremendous devastation in uh in Port-au-Prince, especially.

And there was a local uh world vision leader there, a local lady.

She's the uh wife of a pastor, and here's what she said afterwards We survived.

We can be sure that God spared us.

Now the next question is what?

What's the question you always ask?

Why?

Yeah.

The next question is why?

She said, what am I going to do with the fact that he spared my life?

She said, I need to stop asking why.

I don't know.

I don't know that I will know But she said, I need to be asking, I got my life back.

He gave me my life back.

What am I gonna do with the fact that he spared my life?

Will I be the same?

Is this gonna change me?

How will I use it to care for others?

Now, she's on the right track of beginning to look for God's agenda in her suffering.

So we replace Y with this question.

How can I bring glory to Jesus in this?

I can't answer why.

But I do know that the ultimate outcome and the ultimate purpose of everything in the universe is to bring glory to Christ.

How can I use this to bring glory to him?

John chapter 21, Jesus made an interesting statement to Simon Peter that he really was wrestling with.

You might remember that he really predicted his death.

He says, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted, Peter.

But when you were old, you remember how Peter died He was crucified, and the church tradition says that he said, I'm unworthy to be crucified as my Lord, and asked to be crucified upside down.

When you are old, you will stretch out your hands.

And someone will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.

Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would what?

You're gonna live in a way that will bring glory to me, and you're gonna die in a way that will bring glory to me.

Then he said to him, follow me through it all.

Um and it may seem kind of weird to decide how you're gonna be when you die, but maybe we ought to give that a little forethought, not to be morbid about it, but Has anyone in this room seen the glory of Christ by someone's deathbed?

In them?

How many of you had that experience?

There's been a believer that died and you just, it was like.

Heaven was in the room.

I I don't know how to do this.

I never died before, but I mean I just but I I I just I want to make the commitment.

I want to make the commitment that my stuff will be for his glory.

That whatever it is, whatever my stuff turns out to be, my suffering, my pain, my disappointment, my hurt, my betrayal, I say I'm going to offer this to you as a way to glorify you, Lord.

And that is a Christ-honoring commitment.

I'm going to commit myself.

I don't care what the circumstances are.

There is a gentleman named Jerry Sitzer who lost his wife, his mother, and his daughter in one single car accident in one moment.

And he wrote a book.

It's called The Grace Revealed, How God Redeems the Story of Your Life.

I'm going to read you what he said about the worst thing that ever happened in his life Even this tragic event does not stand on its own or exist unto itself.

It is part of a larger story.

That's really important.

To pan the camera back, get out the wide angle lens, and say if I just look at this chapter I can't get through this.

But I understand there's a story being written.

And in the context of the story, well, I'll read on what he said.

In that moment, I have no idea how, that it is for me to discover in the future.

That's I'll figure that, I won't see the story till later.

For now, in the painful silence.

You know about the painful silence?

That's what Mary and Martha were feeling.

It is enough to know there is a story out there.

It is enough to know there is a story out there that can make sense of my own story.

But it is not merely a story.

It is the story.

That's pretty cool, isn't it?

That's pretty enlightening.

I want to see this in the context of a larger plan and how God is going to get glory from it.

Let's move on to the third kind of game changer in our suffering, and that's his caring purposes.

We got a compassionate Savior, and there is a Christ-honoring commitment we can pre-make that whatever comes into my life, my I want my, I hope my first response to be, how can I bring glory to you by the way I handle this?

Now his caring purposes.

Romans 8.

28.

You know it.

All things God works for the good of those who love him and who are the called according to his purpose.

Right.

And Ephesians 1, 11 and 12.

By the way, do you know didn't it say all things are good?

I mean, was the crucifixion good?

That's not a trick question.

In itself, the mangled body of the Son of God nailed to a cross.

It's not doesn't look like a good Friday to me.

Looks like the worst Friday ever All things work together.

The word there is the word we get synergy from.

Synergeo is the Greek word.

So all things are synergized into something good for us.

The event itself, what just happened, it may not be good, but it is being it's part of a weave that is going to make something good.

For God is the grand weaver.

So in all things, he works it together for good, and then he says this, in him we were also chosen.

Oh go back to I can't read as fast as you can go.

In him we are also chosen, having been predestined. according to the plan of him who works out everything , including this thing, which makes no sense it's happening.

He works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for The praise of his glory.

The pain always has a point.

Write it down.

The pain always has a point.

God does not send or in some cases permit.

Because God certainly doesn't instigate everything, but nothing can happen without at least his permissive will, and nothing happens without it having a point.

Look at John chapter 16, verse 20.

Here we go.

Now we are back in the upper room.

It is the night.

It's right before Jesus is to be arrested.

And The disciples uh I mean you you all know what it feels like to lose an anchor person in your life probably when you talk about losing an anchor person Jesus said I'm going I'm leaving you guys They've left everything for him.

They've staked everything on Jesus.

And he's like, I'm leaving But then he gives them of course the great news about the Holy Spirit.

See, you know Jesus promised, I will be with you always, even to the end of the world?

Well, the only way he could keep that promise was through the Holy Spirit.

Because Jesus could only be with them in human form.

He could only be with them where he was.

He was geographically kind of located in one place.

But with the Holy Spirit, that means that a believer in Mongolia this morning and a believer in South Africa and a believer in uh Guatemala and a believer in the uh the bare near the Bering Sea of Alaska, all of them have Jesus with them always, even to the end, through the Holy Spirit.

So they don't realize that they're going to go through some real pain. and some real fear and some real uncertainty going into a new season, like some of you are, going into a new and scary season of their life.

And Jesus is trying to prepare them for that.

He says, you will weep and mourn.

You're gonna grieve.

I mean I can't we can't do this without you going through some pain.

You will weep and mourn, and the world's gonna be rejoicing.

And we know the Jews were rejoicing, the Romans were rejoicing.

A whole more, a lot more people were glad Jesus was dead than were sad he was dead.

So you're gonna be, you feel very lonely when you're crying and everybody else is having a good time, and they're gonna love what happened.

You will grieve, but always the important part of a sentence.

You will grief, but your grief will turn to joy.

Great example.

Jesus the master analogy guy.

A woman giving birth to a child has pain.

How many of you could testify to that?

Is there anybody here who knows that to be true?

Okay.

All right.

A woman giving why is my hand up?

A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come.

But when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish Because of her joy that a child was born into the world.

So with you.

Now is your time of grief.

But I'll see you again and you'll rejoice and no one will then take away your joy.

You see this in your notes God is birthing something beautiful through the pain.

But there's no way to the beautiful except to go through the pain Uh I've um never had baby.

It's a shock.

I have no scientific um discovery to announce.

But I've been with somebody each of three times when she did.

And I've been very close to daughters, daughter and uh daughters-in-law and and and know some of what they went through.

And um and I I what's amazing is this.

I mean it I mean there's y there's young women who are like I'm never having a baby.

Heard my mother talk about it.

Yeah, I don't know if you ever heard you're you're like scared to death like uh uh she I love Jabez in the Old Testament I don't know where this is coming from.

You know they name people based on on, you know, uh something they wanted them to be or something about their life?

Jabez, the prayer of Jabez.

You know what Jabez means in Hebrew?

It means pain.

I think his mother said, I know what I went through to have you, boy.

I'm gonna call you pain.

That's what you cost me.

I'm just imagining.

So the rest of his life, people go, yo, pain.

I think it was his mother's revenge, but that's my, you know, I read the Bible differently.

God, you know what?

It's interesting that women, I know like Karen, for example.

As far as I know, she did not seem to enjoy labor.

It was not like, this is great.

Honey, could we do this again?

And how about again?

Some of you ladies went back three, four, five, six, seven times.

What's wrong with you?

You're a masochist?

You say, no, no, no.

No, Ron, don't you understand?

Yeah, you gotta go through the pain, but the pain lasts a short time.

But the beautiful thing that comes from the pain lasts a lifetime.

That's right.

And that's the very example Jesus used.

The pain lasts a short time. comparatively, because we are looking at life against an eternity backdrop, not against 70-year backdrop.

We don't have this little stage, we've got this whole eternity thing.

The blessing lasts for a lifetime.

And Jesus said, I want you to understand, I've got a purpose in what I'm doing, and you can get through the pain if you know it's the labor pains that will take you to the beautiful thing I'm birthing.

Do you know what Jesus said to the disciples in John 16 about his going away?

These four words.

It is five words.

It is for your good.

It is for your good.

Oh for goodness sake.

They're like, how can you leaving be good?

I just explained how it could be good Because they're going to get something better with the Holy Spirit.

And they're going to do greater things than Jesus did.

He told them that that night.

I want you to somehow, I know It will take all the faith you've got to look at what may now be the most seemingly senseless, random, sin-caused, hurting, heartbreaking thing.

But you must know that God would not have allowed that or sent it unless he could stand over it and say, you won't get this right now.

It is for your good.

Though it may have even been an evil thing.

Look at Joseph.

Look at Joseph I mean, it was an evil thing to be thrown in a pit and left to die by your own family.

Thank you, brothers.

That's an evil thing to be sold into slavery for heaven's sake.

To go to a foreign culture, you don't know the language, you don't know the people, and you have no idea what fate awaits you there except to be sold at a slave auction Great.

That's not a good thing that you you do the right thing Where you work and you finally get promoted because you're such a faithful guy and such a competent guy, and his wife accuses you of raping her?

When in fact you ran from her?

And her powerful husband has you thrown in the king's prison.

Oh, that's nothing good there.

And I could just imagine God standing over all of these things, wicked things, evil things that were done by evil people.

Saying, Joseph, it's for your good.

Wait till you read the story.

I know these are terrible chapters.

I know you can't imagine these chapters having a happy ending.

Hang on, Joseph.

We all can smile because oh yeah, yeah, I know the rest of the story.

Uh uh excuse me.

Joseph had no uh peak at the end of the story The chapters just were happening as they're happening.

And then two he meets two servants, former servants of Pharaoh, and they they go, we've had dreams.

And Joseph hears that and he goes, ooh, dreams?

Did you say dreams?

I do dreams.

And he told them what it means.

And one of them, he said, that's in the Hebrew, the do pun , and he said, you will, one of you is gonna uh is gonna uh go back and be restored to favor with Pharaoh, and the other one's gonna die It happened.

The one who gets out says, Joseph, I'm getting you out of here.

I'm going to be where I'll be, I work for Pharaoh.

I'll talk to the boss about you.

Forgets him for two years.

Do you ever feel like your last hope walked out the door?

I mean, Joseph's gotta be saying my last if that was his if his hope was those guys.

I don't think it was And then of course Pharaoh has a dream and you know the rest of the story.

Joseph becomes the second most powerful man on earth Positioned by God to save thousands of lives, including his own family.

Who could have ever guessed that when he's in the pit?

When he's on the slave block?

When he's in prison for doing the right thing, who could have ever guessed God is going, it is for your good?

Hang on for the rest of the story.

He's saying that if you can know that he's speaking that over what happens in your life too.

Let me look at some of the glorious purpose.

I said glorious purposes, and they are.

Pain is not glorious, but there are glorious purposes for it.

Number one, seeing God as we've never seen him before.

Seeing God as we've never seen him before.

There was an interesting story in the news about a man who walked, you know, you ever see these people who kind of power walk through malls?

You know, early in the morning.

Don't get in their way.

I mean they're they're like here you know I just I hate people who walk fast and And uh listen, I have to make it up on RPMs, okay, because I don't have the long legs.

But uh but they they they power walking through the mall.

This guy who actually had uh b uh lost his sight, uh most of his vision in his left eye.

Maybe this is why, but I don't know if he was looking around, looking in the store window, whatever, but he literally walked into a pole and almost knocked himself out falls to the floor and when he gets up his vision is coming back in his left eye.

He said I had to run into don't try it Connie.

He said he said he said I had to I had to run into a pole To be able to see.

So do we sometimes.

And sometimes God has us run into , seems like we ran into a pole.

But the fact is, he wants you to see what you've never been able to see before.

Job found it out.

I mean, if there's anybody synonymous with suffering, no Jobs here.

We got no Jobs.

Nobody's been through any of that stuff.

Job replied to the Lord, I know that you can do all things.

No plan of yours can be thwarted.

My ears had heard of you But now my eyes have seen you.

Death of his children, loss of his fortune Loss of his everything but his life as far as his health.

Miserable.

In misery.

Every hour, every waking hour of his life.

He says, God, I'm gonna tell you what.

I'd heard all this stuff about you.

I had the left brain relationship with you.

But I got a right brain relationship with you now Because I have experienced you.

I have seen you.

I have touched you.

Paul said my thorn in the flesh has given me a touch of Christ's power.

I never would have felt anyway because it had to erase Paul to get God.

And so I'll tell you, there are people in this room right now.

And the the most profound moments you've had with God were in your darkest hours.

Am I right?

You would never choose to go through what you went through, nor would you choose to go through it again.

But God said, I want you to touch me as you've never touched me and see me as you've never seen me before You know what happens when God brings those kinds of things into our life?

You might want to write this down.

We ask questions we would never otherwise ask.

We examine priorities we otherwise would never challenge We see sin that we otherwise would never see.

And we make changes that we otherwise would have never considered.

Boy, I can testify to that.

You do.

You start to go, because you're you're trying to figure out why and what's going on, and you start to go, Lord, is there something and things that were have become too important to you?

get to where they belong.

And things that have become the because we have the two lists in life.

Things that really matter, things that really don't, we get, we know what we do, we get our lists mixed up.

And we get things that really don't matter on the really matter list and things that really matter on the don't matter list.

And when we hit a crisis man, that list gets all straightened out.

And we seek first the kingdom of God and the things that really matter.

How many times have you seen on the news, or maybe experienced it, where a house has been wiped out by a tornado or one of these these raging fires or a flood and you see people go, yes, we've lost everything we've owned, but I've got my family.

The things that really matter.

It's like, you know what?

All this earth stuff, I mean, I I thought it was so important.

I've lost it all.

And in losing it all, I realize what really matters are the people, not the things.

It happens.

So it clarifies a lot of things.

Second glorious purpose of God for our pain.

Oh, wait.

I do have to tell you a story.

It's an Alaska story.

My wife told a couple people this the other night, reminded me of it.

When we were up in Alaska, you know, we have to we had to fly to most of our events.

They fly to their games.

You know, like we have a an activity bus, they have an activity plane.

Because if you look at a map of of uh Alaska, over here is like Anchorage and Fairbanks.

And all the roads are over here.

There's no roads all over in this whole part of the land.

Look on a map.

You'll see no roads.

You have to fly everywhere.

So we were with missionary pilots.

And at one point I was up there with my family.

This was not with Arn Eagleswings, but I'd been asked to speak up there and they offered to bring the family up and that was wonderful.

We'd never been to Alaska.

We were so excited to go.

It was February Uh so honey we're going to Alaska in February.

Well, still it was great to go.

And um And at one point, the kids had to get back to school.

I had to stay and speak for some assemblies and stuff like that.

So we got this wonderful missionary pilot, Moody Grad, Dick Page, and um The there's been you know how those you get a double triple freeze and you get these rutted layers of ice that just start piling up?

Well that was the runway on this airport.

I'm gonna say airport that we were at Dick says, okay, we gotta get the plane out.

I'm like, they're flying on the so I get to help Dick push the plane out.

I've never done this before.

I've never pushed a plane out but there was no way to motor out on that so we get it out on the ice and Karen is looking at this and I'm looking at it I'm going how are you gonna do this?

How are you gonna take off in this Well these missionary pilots are absolutely amazing.

So he gets them you know settled in and buckled in and you know five souls aboard, four souls aboard, five, yeah, that's right, and the kids are all in the back, and Karen has become the co-pilot now.

Like, great.

Something happens to him.

It's all me now.

And uh they start to go down that runway And I it's nerve-wracking for me, I'm not in the plane.

I it's probably more nerve-wracking for the kids are like What is happening?

They're losing their fillings.

I mean everything is, you know, I mean this.

There is a stand of trees.

And Dick is so skillful, he will play one engine against the other engine and know what he's I mean somehow he's able to maintain his balance and to keep from sliding off.

I mean it just it's dangerous just to go down the runway and Karen said these trees are coming and they're coming and they're coming and she's and they're praying this is uh amazing developments in their prayer life at this point and and and they're and they're headed for that they're headache for that stand of trees and man she said it just at the last second it lifted up And over those trees?

She said, then the rest then it really was bumpy.

It was like the runway in the air.

Because I mean, you know, Alaska and all those. all those thermals and air currents, so it's like and they're hanging on for dear life.

It's like, welcome to the rodeo.

And then that stopped.

And Karen said, all of a sudden, we were looking at the northern lights in all of their glory.

It was a breathtaking, unforgettable photograph in your memory for the rest of your life.

I was jealous.

I thought, isn't that interesting?

A bumpy ride to a beautiful view.

Welcome to the ways of God.

It may be a really bumpy ride right now.

But you, I tell you, you're on your way to a beautiful view.

Second glorious purpose is equipping us with compassion to help the hurting.

Equipping us with compassion to help the hurting.

There's a recent book that came out on suffering and I thought this was a great thought.

He says when suffering turns to compassion.

The questions provoked by suffering can find resolution.

This is a profound statement.

Pain breaks us open.

Isn't that true?

Pain breaks us open, allowing us to become kinder and more generous to those who suffer Pain breaks us open and what comes in is compassion.

But this is so biblical.

2 Corinthians chapter 1 Paul, who was, you know, he was had a master's degree, if not a doctorate, in suffering.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Many names forgot in the Bible, but the one Paul had come to know was He's the Jesus who is the, and the God who is the father of compassion.

All the compassion in the world comes out of the heart of God through humans.

And the God of all comfort, all comfort initiates with him, who comforts us in all our troubles.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. who comforts us in all our troubles so that, here's purpose statement , we can comfort.

Comforts us so we can comfort.

Those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

I walked through this with Jesus.

Now I want to help you walk through this.

Those who've experienced the deepest pain in this room have been qualified by God to be his wounded healers in a broken world.

You are his wounded healers.

I watch on basketball courts on reservations the most horrific stories of abuse and rape. and parental neglect and parental abandonment and parental brutality.

And I watch as God takes that and they begin to talk to other herding native young people and these young people on those reservations who are trained because of their culture to never talk about this keep it all inside, which makes it a a a a ticking time bomb that often goes off in suicide or anger.

And within twenty minutes of being with one of our warriors, they will say, I've never told anybody this but And often they will come to Christ and the healing begins on that basketball court because someone who went through it and now knows the God of all comfort and the father of all compassion could reach out and rescue somebody who never ever would have even told how they were dying inside.

That's part of the glorious purpose of our pain, equipping us with compassion to help the hurting.

We are sensitized to walk through their valley as Jesus walked with you.

His third purpose is prying our hands off the wheel.

Prying our hands off.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's a big one.

What no maybe I'm the only control freak in the room.

There might be one other one.

But just in case, there's one other control.

I'll talk to myself and I'll talk to you You know, I am not the Messiah.

Well, one of the ways he teaches is that.

Well, look at Paul.

2 Corinthians chapter 1.

We don't want you to be uninformed about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.

Now you're going to be able to relate to some of these statements.

Great pressure?

Describe anybody right now?

We were under great pressure.

Far beyond our ability to endure.

It's really more than I can take.

Been there?

So that we despaired even of life.

What?

This is wait, Paul.

Not you, not the apostle Paul.

He said, we we we pretty much gave up on life.

Paul Indeed, our in our hearts we felt the sentence that we felt like we were dying.

But but here we go.

This happened.

Read the rest with me out loud.

That we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

He said, I went through all of this because it took that.

It took that to break my hold on the steering wheel.

I have been driving, I gotta do it, I gotta run it.

And he said, I went through all of that.

I got to the point where I couldn't run it.

I couldn't handle it.

God says, good.

Now he will you let me drive?

And finally, he relinquished the wheel.

He was going to crash if he kept driving.

And God uses our pain to pry our hands off the steering wheel.

God has great pride busters in his toolkit.

He will not let us continue to get away with pride.

Remember this, brokenness precedes greatness.

Brokenness precedes greatness And then the fourth purpose is making us more like Jesus.

Because Romans 8. 28, all things work together for good, is followed by The ones he predestined, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

So the good is to accomplish his purpose.

29.

Oh, good.

I wonder what his purpose is.

To be conformed in the likeness of his son.

So whatever God brings into your life, success, failure, Happiness, sadness?

Tragedy?

Triumph?

He says, right now I'm going to take this out of my toolkit.

Because right now, this will make them more like Jesus Moving our heart cry from get me out of this to get glory out of this Oh, there's a bag back there, guys.

Can one of you bring me there's a little bag with some equipment in it.

It's kind of like a burlap bag, little bag with handles on it right there.

Do you see that?

Around you?

Oh, we got the whole crew looking for it.

Yes, I have to get my uh there it is!

Okay, you guys keep looking.

Um This is my lovely polka dot bag.

Um I am floor.

This is hammer of thor.

Let me ask you this.

Does a hammer build or destroy?

Oh really?

Doesn't do a thing.

Well it doesn't do a thing, that's true.

Who uh how do uh what decides if it what decides if it's gonna build or destroy?

Oh or the user?

So uh right now I decide.

The hammer is neutral.

The hammer can build or the hammer can destroy?

Look at suffering as a hammer.

There's no doubt it hammers us.

And the same experience, the loss , the illness, whatever it is.

For some people, it destroys them.

Destroys marriages, destroys faith For other people, Carolyn, what you described is building you into a better you, a more of Jesus you But you know what?

The hammer will not decide.

It is not the suffering you're going through that will decide.

It's what you do with the hammer And if you say, Jesus, I'm going to embrace your glory, purposes for this, it would not be in my life if you did not have a glorious purpose.

And I am going to seek to glorify you.

I'm going to be ooh my.

Are you going to become?

I'm going to become when you want me to become.

So you decide what to do with the hammer.

Will it build you or destroy you?

It's up to you.

Remember this, there's no way to the promised land except through the wilderness.

Could we just go to Canaan?

Nope.

And you can't get to Easter except through Good Friday And the last thing that's going to help us make this a glory road is the crushed enemy.

Oh, I love this.

It looks like Jesus' suffering is the end.

It looks like the enemy's winning.

But Jesus said, now is the time.

He's just announcing, I'm about to be glorified.

I'm going to die.

Now is the time for judgment on this world.

Now the prince of this world will be driven out.

I am when I am lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all men to myself.

He's like, I'm getting rid of Jesus.

And Jesus goes, that's what you think.

And that's what it's going to look like.

It's going to look like that you have won.

But as a result of what's about to happen, all kinds of people are going to leave you.

You're going to lose people by the billions.

Because of what's going to happen, what you're going to call a victory.

If you understand that ultimately the enemy's purposes, because the enemy's going to try to use this, he will be crushed Because, first of all, all of the enemy's attacks are father filtered.

Remember that.

Nothing can happen to you that Jesus and God have not said was it they would allow because they see God sees a bigger purpose that will be accomplished through it.

Look, could the devil just do whatever he wanted to do with Job?

He's like, God Father, may I?

Can I do this?

God, and and to this day, we are blessed.

Through Job's life, though he never knew about the conversation in heaven.

He does now.

Jesus said to Peter in Luke 22, right but last night in the upper room, he says, Satan has desired to have you to as sift you as wheat.

The Greek says, basically, and you'll see this in the NIV.

Satan has asked permission.

Ah, Jesus, excuse me.

Can I sift Peter his weed?

Because he won't be a rock if I do.

He says, he asked permission to do this to you, but I he didn't say I said no, he said, I have prayed for you, that your faith will not fail, and you will end up strengthening your brothers.

It's comforting to me to know that all the enemy's attacks are father-filtered.

I'll tell you, nobody said this better than the former and now in heaven pastor of Moody Memorial Church.

Alan Redpath, this is going to bless you.

There is nothing, no circumstance, no trouble, no testing that can ever touch me until first of all it has gone past God and past Christ right through to me.

If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment.

But as I refuse to become panicky as I lift up my eyes to him , and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart.

No sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret, for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is, and that rest is victory.

It's father filtered.

Secondly, all oh I love this.

All the enemy's victories are temporary.

All any time Satan wins.

It just, it can't last.

I mean, that was, that's exactly what happened with the crucifixion.

But but in the book of Acts, when when Peter prays, he says, yeah, he says, Oh, here it is, magically appeared.

Herod and Aunt Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the Israel conspire against your holy servant Jesus whom you appointed And they did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

Satan's agents got their way.

They did what their strategy was.

But what they didn't know was this was all part of a bigger plan of God.

I love what uh Charles Spurgeon said.

Satan is a lion, but he's a lion on a leash.

Satan is a lion, but he's a lion on a leash.

And guess who's holding the leash?

I, there is this song you've probably never heard.

I won't sing it, but it's called Well, I'm just going to read you the course.

It's a Gaither type thing, but listen.

Wait a minute, devil.

Don't start your party yet.

A temporary victory is all that you can get.

Don't celebrate our troubles.

God's word already said, you will be bound and Jesus crowned.

Don't start your party yet.

That awesome.

So all of Satan's victories are temporary.

Woo!

Well I think the classic example in most recent times is what happened in Charleston, South Carolina, not very long ago.

When one young man full of racial hatred came into a church prayer meeting and spent an hour praying with people, not praying, but there as they prayed.

And one hour in, as they're starting to break up the prayer meeting, pulls out a gun and kills in cold blood nine people because they are African-American.

The eyes of the world were on Charleston.

CNN had all their main people there.

People moved their anchormen there to uh to broadcast from there.

And there were some extraordinary things that happened.

Alana Simmons' grandfather was killed in that shooting.

And she remembered her mother saying this, sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.

She hang on to that at that moment.

Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.

Well, in the four days after, the world probably learned more about the Christian faith.

And what God can bring out of sadness and the difference Jesus makes, then they have learned in a long, long time.

Millions of people who will never be in a Christian meeting. watched the glory of Jesus in the grief of Charleston.

And Anatean Calliw, the daughter of the church janitor, as they brought in Dylan Roof, the shooter.

And the people, they asked if they, the the the families of the victims asked if they could talk to him.

And she was typical of several.

She said, you hurt me?

You hurt a lot of people.

But God forgives you, and I forgive you.

I don't know if you heard the news anchor people.

They did not know what to do with this.

They were groping, they always have something to say.

They were groping for words.

And I thought, there is so much pain there, but there's so much grace.

And people saw the glory of Christ, and I'll tell you how they put it.

The people who don't know what to say about it, don't know our words for it.

Um I wrote down a couple comments.

Mark Gargus, the uh famous attorney.

He he's shaking his head.

And he I saw him, he said on CNN I have never seen in my entire career such an outpouring of forgiveness.

He said it's stunning.

Anderson Cooper standing there as the crowd is outside singing Amazing Grace lost their objectivity that day.

He said, there is so much grace here.

Is this Billy Graham talking?

There's so much grace here A hero, amazing grace, he said, is not just a song.

The world was amazed by grace that day.

Because some people embraced the purposes of God in their darkest time.

The biggest mistake we can make in our storm is the one the disciples made, and we're not we'll not take time with the scripture, but you know in the storm Jesus came walking to them on the water, they're terrified, and they don't recognize him That's the biggest mistake you'll make in your storm is failing to recognize Jesus in it because all you're thinking about is how it hurts.

The storm gets worse.

Isn't it interesting in John 14 how Jesus put it?

Let not Your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Do not give your heart permission.

You have to let it be troubled.

You have to let it be afraid.

But at the end he said, peace I leave with you.

My peace I give to you, as they are on the eve of their entire world being rocked.

He says, I have peace to give you.

Don't let your heart be troubled.

Each new day, until the day you see him, I'm suggesting that Jesus might want to have with you the conversation he had with Simon Peter in the closing verses of John.

John 's gospel.

As he says to him, Do you love me?

After his abysmal failure, do you love me?

Why three times?

Peter Hart of Hearing?

No.

Some say it's because Peter denied him three times and he asked them once for each, and that's possible.

But I think there's another reason he asked them three times.

Because it's really easy to give a cheap answer.

Do you love me?

I know this one.

Yeah.

Oh good.

Oh silly boy.

Of course I love Jesus.

Do you?

Do you love me?

Well Well yeah Yeah, I of course I love Do you That's what he really wants to know What we learn from the vine and the shepherd is that this isn't about a religion or a rat race or a list of performances or Christian duties to carry out or what we're supposed to do.

It is a love affair.

It is a relationship.

It is remaining in the vine and maybe you've been abiding in something else. and your thoughts during the day are about your pain, about your bills, about your worries, about your failures, about your past.

Who, oh, I don't know.

Whatever.

And if you're abiding there, you do not have fruit.

You do not have prayers answered.

He says, live in me.

Are you living somewhere else right now half the time?

Live in me.

Do you love me?

Then he says, follow me.

Just figure out, watch where I'm going and go there.

We can do this from now on, Peter.

If you love me and you follow me, it's sad , don't make it so complicated.

So let me just review where we've been and we're done.

It is possible for us to see and behold his glory, as Jah said he did He wrote his gospel so we would see his glory and as a result would believe in Jesus because he's so overwhelmingly believable in And I suggest to you from the Gospel of John, what I discovered is that there are six passions that become the governing passions of the rest of your life.

They become the deciding drivers for you.

They drive you from here on.

One is, I am going to love you, Jesus, because of the incalculable sacrifice you made And I will revisit that sacrifice and keep focused and not lose focus and not drift off into things that are less eternal than that.

Secondly, Jesus.

I will believe you for amazing miracles.

For that's how the purpose, but I'm going to ask you for what will reveal your glory, because I want to be part of the, not just the miracle happening, but the purpose of the miracle is to reveal your glory.

And if a different miracle will better reveal your glory, okay.

But the one I'm going to believe you for, all I can do from Earth side is believe you for this one.

But I believe you for, and so Lord, show us your glory by doing something supernatural.

Thirdly, the third passion is to join Jesus in his life-saving partnership.

Come with me.

Come with me, he says.

And let's rescue some lives together.

And as the glory of Jesus dawns on a new person, it will re-dawn in you.

And you will see and feel and touch my glory as that glory is birthed in another heart through you.

And come with me to the pasture.

In the vineyard.

Let's go there together And learn that the only way you can pull this off is to give up performing and give up your spiritual to-do list and give up this flesh-driven faith.

And surrender.

And say, I can't, I have failed, but I am now downloading your spiritual empowerment because I'm out of the way, Jesus.

I have resigned my I've turned in my Messiah card.

Better yet burn it.

And Jesus says, come with me to the upper room.

And there you say, Jesus, I am gonna, I want to follow your example of servant humility for the rest of my life.

For your glory is revealed to me and through me as I wash feet and do the hard thing.

And last of all, Jesus, when I'm in the dark time, when I hit the valley, I will embrace your purposes.

And my question won't be why.

My question will be how can I glorify you through this?

How can I bring glory to you by the way I handle the hammer?

I love sunrises and sunsets.

Sometimes I go out in the morning.

I'm almost always up for sunrise.

And um I go outside.

I don't have cows to milk, so I go outside with my um daily light with this the scriptures in it And I face the east and I face the sunrise.

It's different every morning, of course.

Some mornings it comes late because of the clouds.

But I stand there and I read the scriptures aloud.

This is new for me, just in recent weeks.

I want to hear myself reading God's Word. as a new day is dawning.

First of all, for me, it gives me a physical representation that this is the day the Lord has made, as his sun rises.

His new day that I'm not going to do my day.

I'm going to discover his day.

I'll be discovering the day that he already made My health didn't make it.

My finances didn't make it.

Some people didn't make it.

He made the day.

And I will rejoice and be glad.

I just love to do that.

By the way, we have evangelized sheep and goats where we live now because they come over and listen.

It's amazing.

I expect them to come forward anytime.

Rachel, calm down.

And so they're but I mean it's funny, they just they stop and they go, oh, what's he saying over there?

So it's great.

I it they they listen better than people sometimes.

And um but you know what I have come to love sunrises, even if it's really cold outside, and I used to often go out without a big heavy coat or anything and just stand there and read scripture.

I don't even feel the cold.

And then I read Proverbs 4.

18.

And I thought this is a fabulous description to summarize the glory road.

The path of the righteous.

Is like the first gleam of dawn.

You've all been there.

You've seen the sunrise.

You've seen the dark sky.

And then you've seen that first little glow on the horizon.

And it's usually darkest right before that, right?

Right before the dawn.

And then you see that little and then the the different hues and there's just like something's happening out there and there's a loop, but everything's still dark, you can't see much. and uh if anything's going on out there you really won't be able to know when it is.

And then if it gets brighter and brighter, it sometimes takes about an hour, and then man, suddenly you just see that that blaze start to peak over the horizon and then pretty soon it starts to move up in the sky and literally you watch the darkness start to be overcome by the light as it spreads more and more and more until eventually in a very short time, I mean there you can't find any shade because the sun has illuminated every corner of the darkness.

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn shining ever brighter till we see it all.

We shall behold him.

Ever brighter till the full light of day.

Did you know what Jesus was called right before he was born by John the Baptist's daddy?

He said in Luke chapter 1, the rising sun will come to us from heaven and shine on those in the darkness and on those living in the land of death.

He is the rising sun.

And the life that is driven by these holy passions we've talked about.

Well as you as you walk down that road, more and more of you and more and more of your world and more and more of your life and more and more of your future starts to get illuminated And you're walking more and more in the light because there's less dark and more light until the full light of day comes and there's no darkness anymore.

That's the glory road.

The rising sun.

Let him rise on the rest of your life. by chasing his glory with these pursuits.

Let's pray Oh Lord, this is a beyond words.

You are beyond words.

You gave us words to at least get a little of it, but.

Lord, I should pray we'll all become glory junkies.

And that we will want to be and do.

What brings your glory into our day?

As the sun rises And illuminates more and more of our questions and more and more of our path to travel.

Lord, I pray for my me and my brothers and sisters.

First of all, that we would repent. of unworthy passions and unworthy preoccupations.

Let's just call them what they are, sinful.

Idols. distractions.

We will become like what we abide in, what we dwell on.

So we repent.

We want to leave those, Lord.

We have been driven by far less holy passions. that have determined our mood, our values, our worries, our fears, our decisions.

We repent of those And ask you instead, Lord, to replace that with a insatiable appetite to begin our day in the glory of Jesus.

To listen to you as a sheep to a shepherd, as you call us by name each new morning, to follow you.

Making sure that we are anchored to the vine and realizing that the fruit comes from the vine, not from us.

Going through our day looking for people who have never been touched by your glory and seeking to bring the glory of Jesus into another life.

Not just looking at what we can do and what we can think might happen, but realize you are the miracle working Jesus, you are the miracle maker, and to believe you for something only you could do.

That we have no clue.

We ask you, Lord, that you might help us to live with the humility of the foot washing Jesus.

And to embrace the plan of God before we know what it is.

When we cannot see your, when we cannot, we cannot uh see your face.

May we still trust your hand and your hold your hand.

And Lord, may some of us who need to make a new surrender today.

Because we've been in the way of the power flood from heaven.

Because we had so much of us in it.

And just not enough you and way too much me.

And we will start and stay where it all began at your cross. where the lamb, God's lamb, was slaughtered for us.

And where he won the victory that overcame the world.