Walking with Christ in a Stressful World: Week 1

Welcome to the Church of the Cross Sea. My name

is James, and we are so glad that you are

here today. On your way out today, we're going to

actually have multiple places set up for you to purchase

this Walking with Christ in a Stressful World devotional that

we as a church will be going through the next

three weeks. Michael Thickpen wrote it and it's an excellent,

excellent devotional. I actually started it, and let me tell you,

I was telling Michael that I had a few times

this week whenever I was doing this devotional that I

just stopped and really just connected deeply with the Lord,

and so I would encourage you. It's ten bucks and

so we can either take cash or we can take

your card or whatever. So but please grab one on

your way out and journey with us over the next

few weeks as we dig into the series that Michael created.

Also today we have a special guest. Where's the Monty Dillard.

I don't know if Ayboy's gonna be able to see

you if you stand up. Once you go ahead and

stand up, this is our Everybody give him a big

hand before I tell you what. And his wife is

here too. Hi, how are you doing? It's hard for

me to see up here. I'm sorry, but Monte is

the new director of General Director of the Church of God,

and so it's a it's a pleasure to have you

here today, and I'm gonna tell you a true story

about you. You don't know this, but so I've been

to a couple retreats with him back in the day

when I first got here, the roundtable retreats that some

of the pastors go on together, and so he's a

really quiet guy on these retreats. Well then he was

preaching at the National Convention this summer and I'm sitting

back going, okay, well he's a pretty quiet guy, all right,

might have to really lean in to listen to him.

And he gets up and he preaches one of the

most powerful sermons I ever heard of my whole life.

And it was outstanding. And I mean he proached it.

Matter of fact. Do you still know it because you

can do it today. Whatever you did is so much

better than what I got. But uh, but here's here's

a true story. Uh he preached and I'm just like,

oh my gosh, this is phenomenal. But my wife was

sitting in the back Nott next to me, and when

we walked out of the convention center, I couldn't look

at my wife because I felt like she heard a

real preacher. I was a little ashamed of myself, like, well,

now you know what it's supposed to sound like, yeah, yeah, yeah,

But anyways, thank you for serving the Church of God.

We're glad you're here today, and let's pray as we

dig into God's word. God, we just thank you so

much for the encouragement today of your word. We thank

you for your love and God help us today as

we dig into your word, help us to build our

life upon your word in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it's

the beginning of football season. And one of the things

that you either like it or it's really annoying at

the beginning of every football season is the conversations around rookies. Okay,

because everybody wants to know, is this rookie gonna change

the team? Is this rookie gonna be a future Hall

of Famer? Is this rookie gonna lead this team to

the Super Bowl? And by the way, every NFL team

that does not win the Super Bowl, they're praying during

the off season that they will draft a savior rookie

that will change the corporation. Well, they've been talking a

lot about these rookies the last few weeks, an awful

lot of coverage and guess what we're about ready to

start here in the next few weeks. Basketball's abot really

start up, and we're gonna be talking about basketball rookies.

And let me tell you something, basketball goes. They go

way over board when they talk about these rookies because

they talk about it's just a once in a generation player.

I mean, they hype these guys up to the point

where if they're not amazing, then their life is almost

a failure. But we hear about rookies, rookies, rookies, rookies,

and then if we have more than one rookie, that's

good that year. I'm twenty five years into this conversation

on ESPN. Listen. Then they switch to is this the

greatest rookie class we've ever seen? And they start comparing

old rookie classes, And let me tell you something they're like,

is Alan Iverson's class the best? Is Kobe's class the best?

Was Jordan's class the best? But let me tell you

which class was the best. I'm gonna show you his

picture up here, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. I'm sure

no Indiana person's gonna disagree with this, and some of

you people who were smart enough to move from Michigan

would agree with Magic Johnson as well. But this, this

was the greatest rookie class. Okay, actually have that card.

I was gonna bring it today, but I was afraid

one of you would ask to touch it. But these

guys changed NBA. Okay, people all of a sudden start

watching it. The league was not ready to fall apart,

and then these guys came out. Between these two, Larry

Bird and Madge Johnson, they won eight of the next

ten NBA championships. Okay, they set the stage for Michael

Jordan and it's been crazy every since then. But again,

we always talk about rookies because there's so much hope

when you see a rookie, there's so much things that

could happen. It's exciting, and every year we get a

new crop of rookies. Nineteen seventy nine was a great class.

But when it comes to the Kingdom of God, nineteen

forty five was a spectacular class for preachers. Preacher rookies

and maybe you've heard of some of these guys. If

you've heard of a guy, he was twenty seven years old,

but he was coming out of the gate. His name

was Billy Graham. Yeah, and Billy Graham, let me tell

you something about him. He keeps storming out of nowhere,

and all of a sudden, thousands of people are coming

to Christ. He is packing out auditorium sometimes thirty thousand

people are coming to hear him speak. And on top

of that, I mean, people's lives are being changed. And

it's just like this phenomenon where we're having a revival

in America and it's being led by this great rookie,

Billy Graham. But he wasn't the only great rookie that

year that was packing out stadiums and auditoriums. Have you

ever heard of a guy named bron Clifford. Matter of fact,

here's what you might not know. Bron Clifford was considered

by many to be significantly better than Billy Graham. Matter

of fact, let me tell a little bit about bron Clifford.

As he jumps out, they started to say, bron Clifford

is the best preacher in America for at least the

last two or three hundred years, and we're talking about

counting those preachers during a second grade awakening, and they're like,

he is the man, And let me tell you something.

He preached the auditorious of thousands of people. People lined

up ten twelve deep just to come here and speak.

One year, when he heard he went to Baylor University

to preach. The president of the university turned off the

class bells so that he would not be interrupted, and

for two hours and fifteen minutes he preached on Christ

and the Philosopher's Stone. Could you imagine how much you

would hate me today if I preached for two hours

and fifteen minutes, But apparently he could, and they loved it.

And so here's this guy. He has this great career.

Matter of fact, you know, uh, he was setting all

these at tennis records. People are saying, well, you know,

Billy Graham's good, but this bron Clifford, he's way. He

was tall, handsome, intelligent, eloquent. Hollywood even came to him

and wanted him to play the role of Marcellus in

the movie of the Robe. It seemed like he had everything.

Great rookie class nineteen forty five, two men of God

coming out of the gates, changing thousands of lives. Well,

we've all heard of Billy Graham, but how come we

haven't heard of bron Clifford, especially when they both came

preaching out of the shoot so strong in forty five. Well,

let me tell you about bron Clifford. By nineteen fifty

four is nine years later, he lost his family, his ministry,

his health, and then his life. See, the storms of

life began to overwhelm him. And when these storms of

life and these pressures started coming into his life, he

delved deep into alcoholism. And then his life just got

completely out of control. And the next thing you know,

he left his wife, they had two children with Down syndrome,

abandoned them as well. They found him dead of cirrhosis

of the liver, and a small hotel on the edge

of on a Rillo. The local preachers they gathered up

enough money to have a burial, and they actually set

him up north and buried him and what they would

call a poor person's cemetery. One preacher said he he

was unwept, unhonored, and unsung. So here we got we

got two guys extraordinary gifts. They're preaching the gospel. They're

doing amazing things, but within ten years only one is

still standing strong. And let me tell you why Bronze

life did not endure the storms that came his way. See,

he preached Jesus, but his life did not follow the

teachings of Jesus. I'm gonna say that again. He preached Jesus,

but his life did not follow the teachings of Jesus.

And even though he had talent, intelligence, resources, the storms

of this life wipe them off his feet. And I

don't care who you are. I got two things to

tell you at the beginning today. Number One, this is

a guarantee. I could put a stamp on this if

you would like. Storms are coming your way. Two trials

are on the horizon in your life. Sorry to tell

you that you don't get out of life without some

major storms. And let me tell you something. Each storm

is either gonna lift us up. Are they gonna throw

us down? The storms that are gonna come your where

You're gonna lift you up and you're gonna grow, You're

gonna be mature, you're gonna become more like Jesus, and

you're gonna overcome them. Or are they're gonna throw you

down and your faith is gonna be shaken, and you're

gonna walk away, make some bigger mistakes and compound the

pain in your life and the Troy. The choice is

up to you, my friends. It's your choice now. Unfortunately

for us, Jesus understood how life worked, and he knew

that every human whoever led, was gonna endure some incredible

storms in their life. Now here's the good news. Okay,

Now look at this. Jesus's hopes and desires are for

every single one of us. If you're in this room today,

here's what I want you to know. Here's Jesus' hope

for you. That you will not only survive the storms,

but you're going to thrive in and through the storms.

You're going to grow through these storms. Now, how do

we grow through a storm? Let me tell you how

I survive storms. When I'm in the middle of a storm,

I have to keep reminding myself that my God is good,

that my God is faithful, and even though this season

is painful, I know he has me in his hands

now because I know he's good, because I know he's faithful,

because I know he has me in his hands. What

does that allow me to do, That allows me to

endure the storm, that allows me to keep my eyes

on him, and that allows me to not go for

all the creature comforts that destroy our life, you know,

all the things that we try to comfort our pain with,

because that's what we try to do when we have storms,

we go and find comfort through the things of this world.

But because I know Jesus has me, I don't have

to go there. And because I don't go there, I

actually can thrive through these storms. And so here's what

we're gonna do today. It's a very fascinating passage. Jesus

just is the sermon on the plane, okay, in Luke

chapter six, and he does a phenomenal job. Is one

of the greatest sermons ever. And he concludes his sermon

in an interesting way. Okay, So as a preacher, you

have some options, like today, guess how I'm gonna end

as sermon. I'm gonna make fun of you. No, I'm kidding,

We're gonna have communion. That's how I'm gonna end the

sermon today. Spoiler. Okay, Now, Jesus has some choices. He

could have prayed, he could have had an alter call.

He could have healed the people, but he actually had

a healing service before he preached. That would have been redundant,

and he could have had an alter call. Here's how

Jesus ended this famous sermon, which is very fascinating. At

the end of his sermon, he ends it with a

piercing question, and it's a type of question that every

single one of you has to answer today. Are you

ready for that question? Here it is. He says, why

why do you call me lord? Lord? And you don't

do what I say? Now? At first glance, this looks

like an interesting question, like why do you call me

lord and then don't do what I'm saying? By the way,

Jesus was not confused. He wasn't going on, I don't

know what understand this? What's going on here? No, it's

with a broken heart, he saying, why do you call

me a lord and then just still go live your

life however you want? Why do you make excuses for

the way you live? Why do you call me lord

but you don't actually follow me as your lord? And

it's a sincere question, And let me tell you something.

In other words, Jesus saying, why don't your words match

up with your actions. You have these words, but I'm

not saying you live it out. And let me tell

you something. Many times I've said across a weeping spouse,

and you witness this moment of silence when the guilty

party who's cheated on their spouse says, but you got

to know I love you. I've never seen someone who's

been cheated on by a spouse else go oh, well,

that changes everything. No, it actually causes more tears. And

almost every time I hear someone in that situation say.

But but, but but baby, you got to know that I

love you, it always causes more tears because inevitably it's

followed up with this next phrase, if you love me,

then why.

Did you do that? And see, in many ways, Jesus

is saying, like, you call me Lord, you say you

love me, But but why are you doing whatever you

want to do when you want to do it? Because

you want to do it? And he asked this question.

But here's the thing. He asked this question, but he

asked this question with deep concern and deep love because

he wants the best for these people. He knows storms

are coming, and he says, then you've got to build

your life on my words. So why are you call

me a lord? You're not, but you're still doing whatever

you want. And let me tell you something. You might

be sitting here today, like all right, lord, lord, we

could go over that word and it can just go

right past us. Let's talk about that word lord. What

it means. Okay, Theologically, the word lord, it's the person

that to whom you belong. Okay, if someone's your lord,

you belong to them, your life belongs to them. Now,

initially this word lord was a gardening term. There was

a lord of the garden and that was a famous term.

And then over the centuries and by the time we

get to the Jewish culture, this word lord actually took

on a much more powerful meaning. The word lord meant

king or your master. It meant your god. In other words,

when when they use the word lord with the capital L,

it meant something. When they call someone the lord, that

meant my life belongs to you. Whatever you tell me

to do, I will do. I owe my life. Am

I allegiance to you? So this word lord meant something.

And Jesus saying, hey, you're calling me lord with the

big L, but you're not living your life in the

way that I've called you to live. And again he says,

why do you call me a lord? But don't do

what I say now. I've always recognized that talking to

Americans are those who moved to America, we sometimes have

a hard time even grasping what it means to understand

what what does lord mean to us? What is a

king mean to us? Why? Because because we don't live

under a monarchy. We were under a monarchy for a

hot minute. And then George Washington cross the Delaware and says,

I don't think so. Matter of fact, I think about this.

Our country was actually born in the middle of a war,

and the war was simply that they said, King, George,

you gotta stop telling us what to do from across

the ocean. We have no representation, you're taxing us, you're

making all these decisions that only benefit you. But we're

the ones here. And so they gathered up and said,

you know what, we gotta do something about this. And

I'm talking to you about the American ethos. I'm talking

to you about the spirit of an American because what

you need to understand is says I'm talking about lordship today,

but inside of your DNA, every single one of you.

Inside your cells, there's this little DNA that says, you're

not gonna tell me what to do. We don't follow naturally,

do we. Now we're Americans. Rebellion is our natural posture.

And so they had the greatest army. They had the

greatest navy. We had shopkeepers, blacksmiths, and farmers. We grabbed

some muskets. We went to battle man a valley forge

in the middle of winter. Our boys were wrapping up

their feet with rags and still standing guard in the snow.

Why as they hated the king. So we threw off

At Yorktown, we declare victory, and we threw off a monarchy.

And from that point on. Now, let me tell you

how this affects you today, This DNA, this attitude against lordship,

against monarchy, it plays out today in our politics. Don't worry,

I'm not gonna talk about politics. Okay, these are just

some overall observations. Here's what we need to understand about

politics in America. All right, For centuries people had a monarchy,

and a monarchy inherited it or won it a battle,

and the people had no choice. They had to do

what the monarchy said, in America, we choose our leaders,

and guess what if our leader does not do what

we want them to do, what do we do? We

vote them out? And guess what our leaders do? Our

leaders they've been to our will. If all of a

sudden tomorrow we all woke up in America and decided

our flag should be purple, at first the politicians will

be like, look, can't be purple. Can't be purple, can't

be purple. And then we were like, we want purple,

or we're going to vote you out. I've always loved purple.

Purple is a great caller. Let me tell you something

I said years ago. Didn't I tell you, honey, we

should have purple. See, they've been to our will. We

don't bend to their will. So we have a rebellious spirit.

So when I'm talking about lordship, when I'm talking about hey,

you must submit yourself to the teachings of Christ. Not

only submit yourselves, but live them out. This is something

we struggle with. Now Jesus understands this. So Jesus ends

his message with this question, why do you call me

a lord? But don't do what I say? But then

he says, I want you. I really love you, and

I want good for you. So let me just tell

you the reality of what will happen if you don't

follow my words. So then he gives a parable. He

wants us to see through this parable, what will happen

to our life if we don't live out and follow

the words of Jesus. All right, let's look at this. Okay,

here we go again. We get to this movement here,

and Jesus says, ask for everyone who comes to me

and here's my words, it puts them into practice. I

will show you what they are like. He says. They're

like a man building a house. Now and it says

he dug down deep. We'll get down to this here

in a minute, and laid the foundation on rock. Okay,

when the flood came, the torrent struck that house, but

could not shake it because it was well built. So

he says, all right, one guy built his life on

a solid foundation. Storms of life came. He was okay,

let's look at the next one. But the one who

here's my words and does not put them into practice

is like a man who build his house on the

ground without a foundation. The moment, the stor the torrent

struck that house. It collapsed and its destruction was complete.

So Jesus says this, all right, I'm your lord, and

you have a choice. You're either going to actually pay

attention and live out my words that I teach you,

or you're going to do your own thing. But let

me tell you. You need to understand that storms are coming

your way. Your life is going to have some day

of days, and let me tell you how you how

it ends up for you depends on what you do now,

not when the storm happens, but now as you prepare

for the storm. Now here's the interesting thing. Here's what

I want to do for the next few moments. I

want to compare the three commonalities between these two here,

and then I want to talk about the three differences,

and then I'll wrap up. Okay, So there's three things

that these gentlemen had in common. Number one. The first

thing that they had in common was they both had

dreams for their life. Now, what do I mean by this,

and this is the first bit of interpretation that we

want to do today, is understand that the house, the

house that Jesus is talking about in this story represents

your life. It's talking about your life and the choices

you make in your life. So every single one of

you right now, you're building a house with your life, okay, philosophically, metaphorically, spiritually,

you're building a house okay now, And it's easy to

see how our life it could be compared to home

that we get to build now when we build our house.

Let's talk about human nature for a moment. As we

build our life. How do we build our life? I

think we build our life according to our dream. I

think that a lot of you, when you were in

junior high you start dreaming about your life. Some of you, ladies,

knew exactly what your wedding was going to be like

by age seven. When I was young boy, I dreamed

of being a baseball player. Then as I got older

in high school, I wanted just to be a successful person.

But then when I came to christ I start having

different dreams, and I would dream and dream and dream.

But I remember at a certain point I turned in

my Walk with Jesus, says I dug down deep with Jesus.

I remember at that point where I started asking Jesus, Okay, Jesus,

I have all these dreams for my life. But let

me ask you a question, Jesus, what's your dream for me?

And that's that's the move, that's the switch that the

first here had. Okay, at a certain point, it says

he dug down deep. In other words, he's got to

know Christ. In other words, he handed over his dreams,

he handed over his desires, and he says, Lord, what

type of life do you want me to build it?

And Jesus said, build your life on my words, follow me,

do my will, and build your life there. And all

of a sudden, you make that shift from living out

your own dreams to saying, Jesus, what are your dreams

for me? And I'm going to build my life around

that with your help and your leading. Have you made

that switch yet? Have you made this switch to you?

Have you actually asked Jesus, Lord, what are the dreams

that you have for my life? Did it happen twenty

years ago or two weeks ago? See, when we call

him Lord, Lord Jesus, we invite him into these dream

sessions for our lives. So all of us we have

this say, we dream about our future. But my question is,

have you invited him into your dream sessions? As we

look one person said, yes, Lord, I want to build

my life around the dreams you have for me. The

other person built his life around his own desires. Number Two.

The second thing they had in common they both received

the same directions. In other words, the word of God

is the word of God for all of us. Number Three,

they both experience horrendous storms. There's a downpour they experienced

see the same storm in the story hit the house

with the rock foundation, also the house on the sand,

And Jesus says to all of us, by the way,

you're all gonna face trials. We're all gonna have serious storms,

and ultimately we're all gonna have the ultimate storm of life.

Do you guys know what the ultimate storm in life is?

That's death. Let me tell you something. I hope that

those of you who are young in this room, I

hope you understand something I've been a pastor for, Oh Lord,

coming up on twenty six years. The people who endure

the toughest trials in our church, for the most part,

are really old members who are facing death because man,

a lot of times are really sick. They can't do

anything for themselves, and they realize death is coming. That's

a big storm. That's a really big storm. And so

we have the storms we have during life, but then

we have this ultimate storm at the end of our life.

And so Jesus wants us to be prepared for every

storm that we're in it. Ultimately, by having our faith

in Christ, we're prepared for the ultimate last storm. And

now here's the thing. That death rate is still one

hundred percent. We've learned how to push death back a

few years, but it's still coming. But either way, both

men received a huge downpour. And let me tell you,

I've been here for coming out eight years. I've watched

a lot of people in our church get ear cancer diagnosis,

a lot of people in our church. I've watched you

lose your jobs, watched some of you go through a divorce.

I've watched some of you lose your relationship with your children.

I've watched some of you have a rebellious child. I've

watched these storms. And here's the thing. These storms come

to all of us. They're gonna come whether you've built

your house on a solid foundation or not, We're all

gonna have these storms. And Jesus wanted to make clear, Hey,

the storms are coming, but he wants you to succeed

in this storm. Now that they also share three differences.

Number one, there is a difference in follow through. Okay,

the man who built his house on a foundation, It

says he hears my words and puts him into practice.

So he hears and obeys. Now, what does it mean

to hear and obey? That's the classic definition for disciple.

On the count of three, everybody say disciple one, two, three, disciple.

Here's what a disciple is. A disciple of someone who

hears and obeys Jesus. Okay, if you just hear Jesus,

you're a church attender. But if you hear and obey,

then you're a disciple. It's all about to follow through.

The second person didn't have any follow through. Says this person,

here's my words. That does not put them in to practice.

The second difference is foundation. Let's look at the first

man's foundation. What does it say here? It says that

he dug deep. He dug deep. Now what does it

mean to do that he dug deep? It means that

he passionately went all in in his relationship with Christ.

He wanted to know Christ, he wanted to walk with Christ.

He wanted his life to be molded by Christ. So

he dug in and he had a deep foundation built

on the rock of Jesus Christ. That means one to

ever he had the storms man, it was connected deeply

with Jesus. The second man built his house on the

ground without a foundation. Was it built on God's word?

I ran across the story a few years ago about

apparently his true story that happened in the town about

the scarbage dump. Had many years before that they had

covered it up with dirt, and many many years later

a guy came in, a developer, bought this huge piece

of land from the county, and then he brought in

a lot more dirt, tamped it down, and then he's

certain laying out streets, and he built a huge subdivision.

To subdivision was a huge success, sold all the homes.

It was beautiful, beautiful homes. A bunch of young families

moved into this neighborhood. Many years went by and everything

was great. But then storm after storm after storm after

storm started to erode some things, and people started to

notice that there were some cracks on the sidewalk, some

cracks in the street. Probably nothing like haverstick drive, but anyways,

but there was cracks in the street, and the next

thing you know, there was cracks in the foundation, cracks

in the walls. The roofs began to sack one by one,

each family moved down until there was no families left.

And when they were being interviewed by the paper, one

of the old men in town says, yeah, they built

their houses on garbage. And Jesus says, build your life

on my words. But how many of us in our

culture build our life on garbage? Wanting to be like

to Instagram people, we live our life by taglines or

cool sayings. We follow social media to the point where

we want to shape our life. And so we're looking

at these things in the world and say, hey, I'm

going to build my life on these principles. When you

do that, you're building your life on garbage instead of

building your life on the words of Jesus Christ. You know,

over the years, I've seen people build their foundations on

different things. I've seen people build their foundation of their

life on a lover or on a spouse, and I

see that come crashing down our They build their life

on a career. Then it goes away and they don't

know how. They don't even know who they are after

they lose their job. I see some people build their

life on a reputation, one news cycle that's gone money.

Some people build their their their life on money and

it watches away. I remember the first time, when I

was in my mid twenties. I was so excited because

I finally got ten thousand dollars in savings. I was pumped.

So I went to my mentor pastor lunch and I said,

guess what pastor lunch where Bob Evans. I'll still never

forget this conversation. Said, I finally hit my goal. I

have ten thousand dollars in the bank. He looks at

me and he says this, well do you do well? No, No,

I'm a mean old man, mean o man. He says,

it could be gone tomorrow. Okay, some weird encouragement not

behind your lunch. We were supposed to move and plant

a church. We didn't. That got canceled. We moved to Pittsburgh.

Our house didn't sell because of the housing crisis. Guess

what about a year later to my ten thousand dollars.

I don't know have you seen it? I don't know

where it went. So we build our life on these

things on this earth that they go away just like that.

The third thing, the third difference, was their fate. When

a flood came to torn struck on the house, but

could not shake it because it was well built. But

then the other person, the moment the torn struck that house,

it collapsed and its destruction was complete. Now, this was

an actual thing that people had seen before in Palestine.

During this time, people would travel from all over the

world and they would find a nice, beautiful, smooth area

and they would build, like you know, their tent homes,

and they'd be, man, we found this great piece of property,

nobody's around us. They'd build there during the summer, far

away from the community. They start having their animals and

they're and they're doing their shepherding, and the next thing,

you know, winter hits and all of a sudden, a

huge torrent comes their way and wipes away every single

thing they owned. Why they didn't realize that they had

actually built their house on a dry river bed. And

this happened all the time and their culture and so

Jesus was hearkening to something that they understood. He goes,

you know, you better make sure that there's some rock

before you build your house. Because we know about those

people who build on sandy and how everything gets crushed away.

Why because they don't build on the right foundation. And

my question today is simply this, are you a here

or are you a doer? Because if you hear God's

word and you're living it out, you are building your

life on a solid foundation. If you're only hearing, but

you're you're living your life however you want, you're a life,

my friend, you're building it on some shaky ground. Let

me tell you about a family, Jim and Elsa croucher Man.

They really loved on me when I first went into ministry.

They were older couple and they would come by the

office at Brial Boulevard and they would take me out

to lunch and they would encourage me. And Jim used

to take me out on his boat all the time

and we would fish the lake and he would teach

me how to fish. And every time we got out there,

he'd say, how's your family, how's your ministry? And then

he'd always ask is there anything our family can do

for you? And every Sunday when he saw me, he

would just tell me how proud he was. I mean,

he was one of my biggest encouragers early in ministry.

I found out after I was there for a couple

of years the reason behind their ministry. Their ministry was

called CADV Citizens Against Domestic Violence. Jim and Elsa have

been followers for Christ for over twenty some years. Their

daughter was in the youth group that before I became

the youth pastor there, and their daughter, Tina, had a

boyfriend and he was pretty abusive to her. So the

friends in the youth group said, hey, man, you can't

be having it. So she dumped them, and he came

over to her house one day while mom and dad

weren't work, and he tried to reconcile, and she said, no,

we're not getting back together, and so he shot and

killed her. Then he killed himself. Mom and dad got

a call from work and they had to come there,

and Jim and Elsa's life was devastated, absolutely devastated. Jim

and Elsa, I've told stories over the years, and Jim usaid,

tell me this story about how for years afterwards he

would have these nightmares where his daughter was yelling for him,

but he couldn't get there in time, and those nightmares

were so bad that he eventually grinded out his teeth

and he had to get all new teeth put in place.

And those of us who have kids, like we get this,

like you're gonna go through it. It's the worst nightmare ever.

We love our kids and we can't imagine this. And

I've often thought, what would happen to me? I wonder

if I would just give up or be angry at God.

But here's what they did. Because their foundation was built

on Jesus. They said, you know what, Jesus were not

going to allow this story to be a story of

victory for the enemy. And so they started a ministry

where they went around to tens of thousands of students

over the next twenty years, and they taught about teen

dating violence. A matter of fact, the Teina Act passed

in Ohio in two thousand and nine where every school

has to do the training in Ohio to look for

evidence of dating violence. Teachers have to be retrained on

every five years. And not only did they do this training,

not only did they just talk and train people about

domestic violence, they started this other ministry where they would

actually go rescue women from abusive homes. And there were

several times where they called me up and they said, hey, James,

to get over this house immediately. The husband's gone. We've

got to get the furniture out, we've got to get

the kids out, we've got to get the wife out.

And we'd run over there, and let me tell you

something that's kind of scary. You're rushing get all this

stuff out, thinking, man, if he comes home, it's gonna

get bad. They put the woman in a safe house,

that get her a job, and they would rebuild her life.

They did this until they died just a few years ago.

I think about how easily our lives are washed away

by trials, by storms. But let me tell you something.

Jesus tells his story because he knows, and he knows

that if you build your life on him whenever storm comes,

that you will thrive in and through it. But also

on top of that, ultimately you will bring Him glory

through your storms. Because let me tell you something, over

the years, I've watched so many of you in this

church bring glory to God through your storms. I've watched

some of you as your spouse has died devastation. But

then I watch you with these funerals. Minister to everybody

else and coming to church next week in love on

everybody blows my mind. I've watched some of you get

cancer diagnosis that should have rocked your world. But I

hear you say over and over again, all right, God's

got me. God's got me. God's got me. And even

if he doesn't have to, he'll this. I will be

with him. I've watched a lot of you lose jobs,

and I turn around and say, that's all right. The

Lord's got this. The Lord's got this. Those who build

their house on the teachings of Jesus and dig deep

with him, you live a different life. So the question

is today, what type of foundation are you building? A

disciple hears and obeys can Let's just take a moment,

and you know what, I can't answer any question for

you right now, but you can. Will you search your

heart right now ask Jesus that question. Lord am I

hearing and obeying you? Lord am I being a faithful disciple.

Let's go ahead, take some time, go ahead and ask

the Lord that bow your head and let's ask the Lord.

Allow the Holy Spirit to show you, to speak to you.

Hm h m hm. And maybe right now, Lord has

shown you some things. Now receive his grace and his mercy.

Ask him to forgive you and walk with you and

give you strength, and he he will overwhelm you with

his grace. H We're gonna wrap our service up today

by taking some communion. And here in a moment, the

ushers are gonna come down, and the servers are gonna

come down, and we're gonna dismiss you row by row.

And what we're gonna do is simply serve you some communion.

You go back to your seat and you'll take it

whenever you like. But before we take communion, we remember

what communion is about. Communion is about Jesus declaring that

he gave his life for us, that his body was broken,

and that's what the bread represents. That his blood was

poured out for us for forgiveness, and that's what the

wine represents. And so whenever we take communion, the first

thing we do is we search our soul. And so

if there's any sin in your life, this is a

time to confess it. So let us go before the

Lord and let us confess our sins. Jesus, we thank

you for your forgiveness, We thank you for your grace,

We thank you that communion is a celebration where we

can celebrate the mercy and the grace that has been

lavishly poured out on us. We give you praise today

and we love you in Jesus' name. Amen, let us

stand as we're prepare to continue to worship in the

Ushers will dismiss you Robiro, so you can come and

receive the elements