Therefore: Stand Firm

Well. Good morning church.

It is good to be with you.

So glad that you're with us today.

If you're visiting, we're especially glad that you're here and hope that you'll stick

around for a couple of minutes after and give us a chance to greet you.

Uh, one of my favorite things about the Broadway Church family are all the kiddos and the

babies and the toddlers and the little rascals, as I like to call them.

Um, and I love that they make noise.

And if you're a parent and one of yours is making noise, would you just know how much I

love that? And we love that.

It doesn't bother me one bit.

It reminds us that God is continuing to bring new life.

So if you have a kid who comes and screams and whines, you just need to know there are a

lot of adults who would like to join them, right?

Uh, me being one of them.

Uh, so we'll let their cries be our cries, and we'll gather it all up and trust that the

Lord is doing something powerful in that.

Um, before we begin, um.

Or before I open us in prayer, I want to update you on a couple of things.

I'm really excited to get to tell you about something that the elders have blessed me

with, that I get to do in the next couple of months, and that's go on a sabbatical.

Now, some of you may not know what a sabbatical is, or some of you may have heard about

it. You may work on a college campus or may have heard something about that.

It's not super common in Churches of Christ for ministers to get to take some time away

on a sabbatical. So I wanted to explain that a little bit.

So you answer some questions, because as I've told some people about that, they gave me

this funny look like, so are you quitting?

And I'm like, no, I'm going on a sabbatical.

And they're like, okay, well, are you going to interview at another church?

No, I'm going on a sabbatical.

Well, Carl, what is a sabbatical?

Great question. I'm so glad you asked.

So maybe most succinctly, a sabbatical is a period of time.

This for me.

I'm going to get eight Sundays.

So eight Sundays and the four in October, the four in November, where I'm going to get a

chance to step away from my normal duties as kind of lead minister preacher.

And I get to chance to reconnect with God and with my family and with some of the things

that help make me, me.

Uh, if you've been alive since 2020, you recognize a lot has changed in our world.

But for me personally, a lot has changed over the last few years and a lot of challenges,

a lot of, uh, transition and change.

And so what I've come to realize is I've got to do a better job of caring for myself.

And so the last couple of years I've gotten into therapy.

I'm meeting with a mentor, I have a coach who's helping me, all these different pieces.

And so sabbatical gets to be a part of all that.

In fact, I've got a couple of goals that I've set.

I've given this all to the elders so that they know and can hold me accountable to those

goals. But the first one is just rest and renewal.

Just need a chance to to take a breath, to decompress, to get to spend some time with my

dad. Spent some time with some family that I haven't gotten to be with much recently, but

also get a chance to do some renewal.

Typically, this sabbatical is oriented oriented around spiritual practices of just

allowing that rest and renewal, not just to be going off to be alone or quiet.

Though I will go spend some time alone in solitude, in the mountains, praying and

listening for God as he talks to me about who I am and who I'm trying to be in the

ministry here at Broadway and the church, and where we're going and what we're doing and

all this kind of thing.

It's actually this next few weeks, our entire leadership team is going to be working

through a lot of those questions.

So I'm going to take a chance to get to do that.

It's also about some self-care and personal renewal.

So like I mentioned, I've been doing some therapy.

I'm going to get to check in with my mentor and spend some time with him and spend some

time with a coach who's helping me kind of learn some of the change that's happened in my

life. As I've taken on some new responsibilities in leadership here at Broadway, and it's

been incredibly life giving, but it's also been incredibly different than anything I've

done before. And so I can honestly tell you, I love my job now more than I've ever loved

it. I love doing it.

I love getting to do the work with my team.

I can also tell you it is the hardest job I've ever had in my life.

And so that's Q that's where the mentor and the coach kind of come in to help me with

that. The other piece is, as you've noticed, there's been a lot of change in transition,

just even in our church and in the city of Lubbock.

And so as a leadership team, we've been thinking and praying together about, okay, God,

what's this next season of ministry look like here at Broadway?

What does that look like?

And so part of my time, I'm going to be spending kind of pressing into that question and

getting still before God and asking him, okay, what are some of the things that we need

to be about? What are some of the ministries that are just growing and seem to be really

fruitful, and how can we orient our church to better facilitate those?

What are some of those things that we've done before?

But maybe it's time to let go.

Just kind of dreaming and praying and thinking about that.

And so I would invite you, if you would, to please join me in praying for not just me

while I'm on sabbatical, but also for the rest of our staff and our leadership team as

they get a chance to navigate that.

I realize even as I'm talking about this, most of you don't get to do this.

So I hear that, and I want you to know that's why I'm telling you what I'm going to do,

that this isn't just Carl's going to take the next eight Sundays to go play golf, you

know? Uh, it wouldn't help even if I did that.

Uh, this is really.

It's an opportunity to dive back into some spiritual practices that have been really

challenging in this late season of of life, as I've navigated the loss of my mom and

trying to help my dad manage this new stage that he's in.

As we've tried to manage staff transitions and folks coming and going on the last four

years, we've completely turned over our student ministry.

Next gen ministry staff, lots of change, lots of things happening.

And so the elders have been so gracious and kind to say, would you take some time to stop

and think and pray and really listen for God's voice?

And they're going to join me in doing that.

They're going to be doing that work as well.

So I invite you to join us in that.

Um, I'm a nine on the Enneagram, and I know that some of you, that means something to

others of you.

That doesn't mean anything.

But one of the things that nines are known for is where the peacemakers, which I think is

one of the gifts that God has given to me, is I can help navigate hard situations.

I can speak into things, and I can use some of those gifts that God's given me to to help

us kind of navigate challenge.

Now, it can also mean I avoid, right?

I avoid hard stuff.

I avoid hard conversations.

I can avoid conflict as a way of saying, well, I'm just going to be at peace and I'm

going to sweep that under the carpet and hope nobody sees the little bump in the rug.

You know, in the living room kind of thing.

And so again, part of this is this two year journey that I've been on, of navigating

grief has taught me that in order to to really be who God needs me to be and wants me to

be and gifted me to be, I have to learn how to navigate hard stuff.

Now, I've been doing this in some way, shape or form my whole life, but in this most

recent season, it's kind of taught me a new way to view hard and challenging

circumstances. In fact, that's part of why I wanted to preach this passage this morning

is that I kind of tended to view life as if good stuff happens, then life is good.

But if bad stuff happens, life is bad.

So in my kind of, uh, uh, simplistic way, the thought kind of came into my head and I

didn't really consciously do this.

It's more subconscious.

Just avoid bad stuff.

Avoid talking about bad stuff.

Avoid doing bad stuff when you're watching a television show.

And there's this really awkward conversation between two people.

I'm the person who's like, I got to change the channel.

I just can't take it, you know?

Uh, even though it's not even real, it's just make believe.

But it's just so ingrained in me in ways that I've avoided stuff.

So I've been learning with the help of a lot of folks, uh, again, mentors, coaches, my

therapists, helping me learn to reorient things, to see that when I was doing that, what

I realized was I wasn't just dampening down the negative, I was also dampening down the

positive that if I wasn't free to actually experience life as it is, that I cut myself

off from real joy and real hope because I had to put a wall up to protect myself.

And so I'm learning now.

Okay, that's not helpful.

And so the last couple of years I've been trying to do that.

I hope that you've seen some of that journey in me.

I hope you've heard it in some of the ways that I've preached the last couple of years,

that some of that kind of leaking out, some of that growth and change.

And for those that have said something to me about it, I, I appreciate that.

I've been trying really hard to to grow in that.

There's a song came out recently by the modern day maybe theologian some might call him

that Post Malone, uh, who wrote this song called nosedive.

And the chorus goes something like this.

Sometimes you're driving, sometimes you're stalling.

Sometimes you're flying, sometimes you're falling.

But there's still beauty in the nosedive.

Sometimes you're running.

Sometimes you're crawling.

Sometimes you're broke.

Sometimes you're bawling.

But there's still beauty in the nosedive.

Now, one of the things that's meant so much to me is learning to see the beauty, if will

actually let life in.

I've begun to appreciate things that at one point I would say I tried to avoid it because

it was bad or it was negative.

And now I'm learning. No, no, no.

That's life.

And part of the beauty in that nosedive is we get to do this together, that I don't have

to walk this road of grief alone.

I don't have to walk this road of life and ministry alone.

I get to do it together with you.

And so my hope is again in these next many weeks as I'm away, that you'll get a chance

and in some way, shape or form, to have your own version of sabbatical, where you can

take a break from your normal duties to just stop and listen for the Lord to lean into

and to ask the spirit, would you be at work?

Would you open my eyes?

Would you open my ears?

And so let's do that together now.

God, would you, uh, would you do the work in us this morning that only you can do?

Would you speak to us?

Would you help open our ears and our eyes to the things that you're presenting to us, in

whatever way that may come?

This morning, even as we lean into this passage of Paul's and first Corinthians 15.

But, God, I know, just like in my life, I've got to let some things go, turn some things

loose, open myself up in some ways to be vulnerable.

And, God, I can only do that because you are good and you're faithful, and you love me,

and you love each and every one of us.

So much so that you don't want to leave us where we are.

You want us to keep growing up and maturing.

And so, God, some of us come today just like these sweet, precious little kiddos.

And the only language we have right now to express what's going on is to cry, is to to

call out to you.

So, God, would you give us the courage to do that, father?

Others of us are still navigating and negotiating some things.

We're not sure exactly what to do.

So in our own silence, God, would you hear us?

And God, some of us are are riding a really positive wave right now.

God, things are are coming up roses and we're just so thankful.

And we just want to bless you and thank you, God, wherever we may be this morning.

Would you hear us as we offer our hearts to you in prayer?

Thank you father.

Thank you for your goodness and for your grace.

And now, Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of each and every heart be

acceptable and pleasing unto you.

Oh God, our rock and our Redeemer.

Amen. Amen.

Well, I just want to say thank you again, church, for being the kind of place where we

can be real with each other.

We can talk about what's really going on and where you have a leadership team that's

willing to invest in me in this kind of unique way.

I know some of you are thinking, well, if you're not here for eight weeks, Carl, I mean,

does church even happen?

I mean, right, Terry?

Well, yes, absolutely.

Church totally happens.

We have some of the best preachers.

Some of my favorite preachers are going to be filling this pulpit the next eight weeks of

the four in October and November.

And so I'm excited for you to get to hear from them and and listen to them.

We're going to do a series called God of the impossible.

And so I've just challenged each one to pick one of their favorite miracle stories and

just come tell us about how the God of the impossible makes all things possible in and

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Well, if you have your Bible, open over to first Corinthians 15.

I know some of you are looking at your clock and you're thinking, dude, you just where

are we? Like Terry's already giving me the stink eye, like three times.

So here's the thing.

We're going to read a little bit of scripture together.

It's a passage I actually got to preach a few weeks ago in a different series, but I get

to come back to it and revisit it because it's in the therefore series.

And to me, this is one of my favorite therefores in Paul's writings.

So we've been thinking together about this word, therefore, that we find in Scripture and

how it's this conjunction, it connects things that happened before with things that

happened afterward.

And so we looked at a few of those so far.

We looked at Jesus, therefore in Matthew chapter six, where he's pointing us towards

priorities. Don't worry about your life.

Don't worry about all those things.

Instead, seek first the kingdom.

Right? This reminder that therefore is therefore to remind us of priorities.

We looked at Paul's writing to the church in Rome and and looked at Romans chapter eight,

maybe one of the more familiar ones that this reminder of we got to be powered by the

Holy Spirit if we're going to live into the life that God has created us and called us

to. We're going to have to be spirit powered.

And so he says there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

In fact, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same spirit that will

raise us to new life, right?

Last week, we got to spend some time in Romans 12 with this reminder of the therefore is

to worship, but not worship only with our mouths, but to worship with our lives.

Therefore, offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

This is true worship.

This week we're going to look at first Corinthians 15, because it forces us to deal with

a couple of things. And maybe it's there's some things that that you've been having to

deal with, kind of like I have like, number one, have you ever noticed that life doesn't

always work out the way you plan it?

Is that just, like, so annoying.

You kind of have this plan.

You you put everything in place, and then it just doesn't go that way, you know?

Or maybe you've seen this.

Things aren't the way they should be.

Have you ever had something happen?

It's not supposed to happen like that?

That's. That's not the way this is supposed to work out.

Kind of leaves you asking, how do I live in light of those realities?

Like, things aren't going how I wanted them, how I planned them.

And and things aren't the way they're supposed to be.

Well, the world offers a lot of options to us on how to manage that.

And sometimes they say, well, just turn inward.

Just focus on you being you and getting what you want, managing your desires.

Right? Just that's what you focus on.

Or they say, turn outward, just focus on someone or some thing.

And friends, as Brian reminded us, there's like all this pressure to say what you need to

focus on is happening in November.

That's the most important thing you could ever even think about, right?

In the news, just drubbs over and over again, right?

Some world religions come along and say, no, no, no.

The way you manage all that is, you just empty.

Just empty.

Become this empty vessel.

Become one with nature.

Don't. Don't have any desires.

That's what's getting you into trouble.

So just. Just empty yourself, right?

I mean, we could keep chasing different options that are given to us, but none of those

are the way of Jesus, right?

Jesus was all about emptying ourselves, but it was not so that we would be empty.

It's so that we would be filled with the way of Jesus, with this divine life, with God's

presence, that we would become the people that God created us to be.

You know, God creates the world and he creates humanity, and there's an order and

purpose. We talked some about that before the last few weeks, but that challenge of how

do we learn to live out that way when we can see all around us things are not the way

they're supposed to be, right?

Sin and brokenness have invaded the world and have wrecked things.

How do we live in light of that brokenness.

Well, Jesus came to show us a different way, right?

So it offers us this other set of questions that I think are really important for us to

navigate. Its how would you live if you didn't have to worry about death and dying?

Like, how would you live differently if I imagine I could give you a pill, you go home

today and in the morning you wake up and the fear of death is gone.

And not just physical death, right?

But the fear of emotional or relational.

Like, I don't have to worry about what other people think about me.

Like it might cost me some relationship, might die or.

Or the way people see me.

How would you live differently?

Would you live differently?

See, I think the church in Corinth was wrestling with this when I was a sophomore, or I

think, a junior in college.

I had a buddy. I was spending my summers in San Antonio working at the church that I grew

up at as a youth intern, and one of my best friends in the world was interning at another

church, and we all went to camp together.

And so one night, all the students, all the campers had gone to bed and I was hanging out

with my buddy in kind of the mess hall.

And there were some folks in there in the kitchen kind of cleaning up.

And it was just he and I were talking.

We were having a great conversation, and he's like, all right, dude, you trust me?

I'm like, yeah, I trust you. He's like, okay, close your eyes.

I said, okay. He goes, listen to the beat.

Do you hear that beat?

Like, pick your favorite song and just imagine that song playing.

And I said, okay. And he goes, no, no, no, close your eyes.

And I said, okay, close my eyes.

He said, now do you feel the rhythm?

Do you feel that beat pulsing?

I said, yeah. He goes, all right, how are you going to dance?

How do you dance to that kind of music?

And I started my dancing, you know.

And it was really good. You guys, I wish I'd had it on video.

Y'all would be like, that is amazing.

Dance moves. You're just going to have to trust me on that.

And so he's like, keep your eyes closed and just dance.

Like, if you didn't have to worry, you just had this song.

You could just.

What would you. Well, what he didn't tell me was he had gathered all those people in the

kitchen to be cleaning up so that they could walk out at just the right time to see Carl

with his eyes closed. Listen to that beat in his head dancing, doing all this in front of

everybody. So of course I opened my eyes and total humiliation.

You know how many of us have had that kind of experience just in our life, right?

We've trusted somebody or something.

And, man, we're dancing and we're grooving, and we open up our eyes and we're humiliated

like life just not supposed to go this way.

Now I can't help but think of this picture.

Like when you read the letter to the church in Corinth.

If you haven't done it, I invite you to do it.

It's crazy, the stuff that they're dealing with.

It's insane. The culture around them.

It's the first century, but in many ways it's similar to our 21st century.

But there are all kinds of ideas about how to live life, how to manage all the different

things there were. It was religiously pluralistic society.

You could pick all kinds of options that were out before you.

But the church was navigating and trying to wrestle with how do I live as a believer and

a follower of Jesus?

How do I navigate how we worship?

How do I navigate relationships like marriage?

How do men and women handle each other?

How do they take care of themselves and their own bodies?

How do we deal with conflict and struggles and fighting in the church?

In relationships?

Just because we go to church doesn't mean we're exempt from the problems and the

realities of life.

So how are we going to deal with them in the world around has all these options of how we

can deal, but so does Jesus.

So how do we deal with them?

And so this question starts to happen in the church and you can read it.

It's not so much a specific conscious question.

Maybe. Maybe it was, but at least in Paul's letter, we hear the echoes of this question

can we really trust Jesus?

I like his way. Does it really work?

Is that really an option because the majority of people around me don't choose it.

So why would we like it?

What was the gospel again?

What was happening?

Like, what's that about?

In fact, it's gotten so deep that some are saying, and maybe it's no surprise that can we

really trust that Jesus was raised from the dead?

Like, is that real?

Could that have happened?

I just don't know.

Right. There's this angst going on.

And so Paul's writing into this church to try to encourage them and remember this,

therefore, that we're going to get to.

There's a beginning and an end.

Let's look at some of the beginning of chapter 15 where this therefore lives.

So we get caught up some on how we got to this.

Therefore, Paul says friends, and I'm reading from the message translation, by the way,

and part of why I'm doing that, I love the way that that Eugene Peterson captures, I

think, the essence of this argument.

And so I'm going to read quite a bit of text, but I think in the midst of it, you'll hear

this wrestling. He says, friends, let me go over the message with you one final time.

This message that I proclaimed in that you made your own, this message on which you took

your stand and by which your life has been saved.

Now, I'm assuming now that your belief was real and not just a passing fancy, that you're

in this for the good and holding fast.

The first thing I did was place before you what was placed emphatically before me?

That the Messiah died for our sins.

Exactly as Scripture tells it, that he was buried, that he was raised from death.

And on the third day, again, exactly as Scripture says.

He presented himself alive to Peter, then to.

His closest followers, and later to more than 500 of his followers, all at the same time.

Most of them are still around, though a few have since died.

That he then spent time with James and the rest of those he commissioned to represent

him, and that he finally presented himself alive to me.

It was fitting that I bring up the rear.

I don't deserve to be included in that inner circle, as you well know, having spent all

those years early on trying my best to stamp God's church right out of existence.

But because God is so gracious, so very generous, here I am, and I'm not about to let

this grace go to waste.

Haven't I worked hard trying to do more than any of the others, but even then, my work

didn't amount to all that much.

It was God giving me the work to do, and it was God giving me the energy to do it.

So whether you heard it from me or or from one of those others, it's all the same.

We spoke God's truth and you entrusted your lives.

Now, do you hear the angst that's happening in that young church going, what is it that we

believe again? And Paul says, let me let me remind you one last time, this is the story.

This is our song, right?

This is what we're. We're resting it all on.

And again, he walks them right through the gospel story.

And he wants them to know it's not just some idea floating around.

Right? This is rooted in God's story that began at creation.

So when you read through the scriptures, it's speaking out this story.

That's why he keeps saying, just like the scriptures said, exactly as the Scripture says.

He says that 2 or 3 times, no matter how you heard it, you believed it.

In fact, you trusted.

You entrusted your life.

Now he says, let me ask you something profound and yet troubling.

If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen

from the dead, how can you let people say there's no such thing as a resurrection?

If there's no resurrection, there's no living Christ.

And face it, if there's no resurrection for Christ.

Everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on

is smoke and mirrors.

Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God.

All these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ.

They're just sheer fabrications.

If there's no resurrection If corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't because he was

dead. And if Christ weren't raised, then all you're doing is wandering about in the dark,

as lost as ever.

It's even worse for those who've already died hoping in Christ and resurrection because

they're already in their graves.

If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty

sorry lot.

But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who

are going to be leaving cemeteries.

Church, there are going to be a lot of empty cemeteries because Christ has been raised

right. This is everything Paul says.

This is the fulcrum.

This is the keystone.

This is the linchpin.

Whatever, whatever picture you want to put in your mind.

This is it all hangs on this that the resurrection actually happened, and if so, if so,

he says, let me tell you something mysterious.

Let me tell you something wonderful.

This mystery I probably never fully understand.

We're not all going to die, but we are all going to be changed.

You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet.

And in the time that you look up and blink your eyes, it's over on signal from that

trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves.

Beyond the reach of death, never to die again.

At the same moment, and in the same way, we'll all be changed.

And the resurrection scheme of things.

This has to happen.

Everything perishable, taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this

mortal replaced by the immortal, then the saying will come true.

Death has been swallowed up by triumphant life.

Who got the last word?

O death, O death, who is afraid of you?

Now it was sin that made death so frightening.

And the law code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power.

But now, in a single victorious stroke of life, all three sin, guilt and death are gone.

The gift of our master, Jesus Christ.

Thank God.

You see how Paul speaks right into the middle of all that they're wrestling with and

struggling with to say, listen, it's all bet on the resurrection that the tomb is empty.

And if that's true, then Jesus has conquered death.

And the thing that makes death so scary to us, so hard to talk about, right?

For so many years, I wanted to not think about it.

I wanted to avoid it because I knew it was coming for me, Paul says.

You don't have to be afraid anymore, because not even death can separate you from Jesus.

Death doesn't control the story.

It doesn't control the outcome.

Even though in our world, that's a 180, right?

Most of our life in this world is built upon.

Don't die.

Because that's the end of your story.

Resurrection ushers in this new possibility, right?

All of a sudden transformation, a new life that doesn't have to end.

So though we may have laid my mother's body, physical body in the ground, that's not the

end of her story, right?

In fact, according to Paul and to others New Testament writers, she's more alive now than

she's ever been.

I just can't see it.

But that's a me problem, right?

That's not a God problem.

So resurrection now, if it's true, if it really happened Well, Paul, what's the

therefore? Therefore.

Therefore, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground.

Don't hold back.

Throw yourselves into the work of the master, confident that nothing you do for him is a

waste of time or effort.

What's the therefore? Therefore, look, if resurrection is true and friends, it's true.

Stand firm.

Don't quit now.

Don't give up the work that God's given you to do.

Throw yourself fully into it.

And Paul, to the church in Colossae talks about this amazing thing about our sufferings

and how our sufferings are gathered up with the sufferings of Christ.

And somehow God.

God makes sense of those things.

He works them all out in a way that that nothing is muted or minimized, right?

No pain or no tear is unnoticed, but God does something powerful through His Holy Spirit.

I mean, if the resurrection is true, Paul says, Then Jesus really accomplished what he

said he accomplished.

Then all these questions we've been wrestling with, I had to treat one another.

Whether or not we can stay married in hard circumstances, whether or not when I have a

problem with you, should I just take you to court and put it to rest?

Or how do I manage my body and how I live?

Or what do I eat or not eat?

Like all these questions that that in that day certainly were huge.

And still many of them are big in our day.

Paul says how we live that out, it actually matters.

You know, Jesus didn't come to earth and just kind of tread water for 33 years, just

like, okay, okay, finally the cross.

Okay, here we go. It doesn't make it.

Why did he live for 33 years?

If it only was just to get you into heaven when you die.

And Paul says, no, no, no.

That's part of the story.

That's not the whole story that God is doing this transforming work.

In fact, the testimony of Scripture is what he began in the beginning.

We see at the end in revelation.

And that theme that runs through the whole piece is God is with his people.

They will be his people, and he will be their God at this dwelling place that through

Christ. Now Paul says, you get to be a part of making that a reality for someone else,

and someone else gets to make that a reality for you.

You see, there's this continuity between who we are now and and what God is going to do.

And there's this mystery.

Paul says it's I don't quite understand all of it, but somehow God is going to

mysteriously make this mortal become immortal.

In fact, if you see the stories of and read about the stories of Jesus resurrected body.

When he shows up, they know it's a he.

They know it's a person, but they often mistake who it is, right?

Mary thought it was the gardener until he said her name, and then it was like, oh, I know

that voice. And others thought it was a ghost.

Others weren't sure what to do, but there was something, something familiar about Jesus.

Remember when Doubting Thomas said, I'm not going to believe it unless I stick my hand in

his side and my finger in the holes in his hand.

And Jesus appears to Thomas.

And what does Jesus have?

Holes in his hand and hole in his side.

His resurrected body.

Have you ever wondered about that?

That's so mysterious.

Like what? But yet somehow those wounds aren't lost.

They're not forgotten. They're not minimized.

Oh, they didn't matter.

No no, no. Somehow in this beautiful mystery that God is working out, like even the hard

things we go through.

God's not wasted that he's not forgotten you or left you.

It's not that he doesn't care.

He cares so deeply.

And one day it will make sense.

And between that day and this Paul says, if the resurrection is true.

Church, don't.

Don't quit. Stand firm.

Keep doing the good you're doing.

My friend Emily tells me that all the time.

You have no idea how much good you're doing.

I'm like, whatever, right?

She says that to everybody.

Well, maybe we ought to take a cue from that.

Like Paul says, you have no idea.

You have no idea the good that you're doing.

Yeah, but, Paul, I'm just a middle school man.

What could happen? You have no idea the life that you're introducing to another middle

schooler who thinks they don't matter.

And you saying no, you matter.

Come sit with me. You have no idea.

You have no idea.

Right. When you're at work and it's not going well and the boss is just.

And chewing on a co-worker, and you just come along beside him and say, hey, I know I'm

with you. You matter.

You have no idea the good that you're doing.

So Paul says, don't quit.

Stand firm, stand firm.

Keep going.

Because what God's doing, he's going to take your art.

He's going to take your conversations and your work and your home life and your medical

history. And he is working all that somehow to bring about his purpose.

Right. And we may not see it now, but one day we'll see.

And so Paul says, don't don't quit church.

The therefore is there to remind us.

Stand firm.

Don't quit now.

Oh, God, help us to stand firm this week.

We're going to be in some situations I know it where we're going to be challenged.

Right. That we're going to be tempted to want to drift into anxiety or fear or worry or

anger or despair or hopelessness.

God, would you help us stand firm and remind us that standing firm.

It's not something we do on our own.

It's your Holy Spirit at work in and through us.

God, would you help us stand firm together?

God, would you help us to give ourselves more fully to the work that you've called us to?

Because somehow the work that we're doing, it's not lost that you were going to take it,

and you're going to weave it into this tapestry that right now we can't really see.

All we see are the little threads.

We don't know how they're going to go together.

But, God, you are weaving them together.

God, we have this hope because the resurrection, it's real.

It really happened. Jesus is no longer in that tomb that you are bringing about new life

in and through your people here.

Oh, God, would you bring that new life?

Would you help us to stand firm?

We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.