Choosing to Trust | February 22, 2026

Good morning.

Thank you for taking the

time to be here today.

Annie has asked us all to preach

on one word for the year, a

word to focus on for the year.

So I just have one question for

you, actually, probably more than

one now that I think about it.

But what is your perspective?

What is your perspective

and what does that mean?

Your perspective in

life, your perspective,

where you are at home, at work?

First, your perspective probably

revolves a lot around your position.

Your position in where you place

yourself, your position at your job.

Maybe you're a boss, and so that's

gonna affect your position of

how you see people around you.

Maybe you're someone who is low on the

totem pole at your job, and that's gonna

affect the way you see people around you.

Or maybe here in church.

That question of what's your perspective?

Maybe you think of who you are

and maybe how you deserve to be

sitting in this church, maybe as a

sinner, and you feel like not worthy

when you're around other people.

Maybe you're someone who works really

hard at your relationship with God and.

Maybe you just think you've been

doing such a good job and then you

see people around you who seem like

they're not trying as hard, and that

affects the way you view people.

Our perspective really affects

the way, not just the way we see

things, but the way we behave.

Get a good glimpse of

Paul on his perspective.

In Ephesians three, eight, he talks

about the concept, and you don't have

to turn in your Bible there, but he

talks about the concept of of being

less than the least of all people.

That is what he says in

Ephesians three, eight.

I mean less than the least of all people,

which is strange.

Now looking at it, Paul is kind

of the biggest name other than

Jesus that we think of when we

think about the New Testament.

And here this guy viewed himself as

the less than the least of all people,

sometimes.

All the time

when we put ourself or at least view

ourselves as less than the people

around us, it actually elevates us.

It makes a difference in the

people's lives around us.

I think all of us at some point have

had a boss who likes being a boss, and

maybe not for the good reasons, right?

They put themselves above other people.

They look down on other people,

and none of us like that.

I can look back at the bosses I've

had in my life, and the best bosses

that I've had are bosses who while

still exuding great leadership, still

treat themselves as one of the lowly

employees treat themselves as the rest

of everyone else who they work for.

Those have always been the best

bosses and the bosses that I love.

I think ironically, the bosses

who are power hungry are the

bosses that nobody likes.

So how does that affect us as Christians?

It's kinda interesting 'cause

it doesn't just affect even

how we are with other people.

If you go back to Genesis, right at the

very beginning, God creates the universe.

God who is the alpha and the omega.

He is everything.

He creates the universe, he creates

man in his own image, and then

man, while on earth listens to the

serpent and the serpent tells, man,

if you eat this fruit, it

will make you like God.

Right?

Satan works and lies.

I actually think that that right

there wasn't exactly a lie.

Now it was deceiving.

I think it did make us like God now,

not in the way that maybe Adam and Eve

thought or wanted, or at least it gave

us the perception that we were like God.

And here's what I mean by that.

God is the Alpha and the Omega.

He created the universe.

He is the center of all things.

God is the center of all things.

We ate the fruit.

We kind of made ourselves

the center of all things.

We acted as if everything

revolves around us.

Right?

Once we ate that fruit, things became

about what we wanted and what we need.

And that's how it's been

ever since, that first sin.

But we're not the center of the universe.

God is.

But when we put ourselves in that way,

that's when everything falls apart

and it affects the way

we are with other people.

Right.

That other thing, going back to Genesis

is that God made man in his own image.

When we look at other people,

they're image bearers of God,

and especially when we look at

Christians, we're told as Christians

that the Holy Spirit dwells in us.

We are a dwelling place

of the Holy Spirit.

So how does that affect the way

we interact with other people?

The things that we say to people,

to their face, the things that we

say about people behind their back.

We're saying those words about

image bearers of God, dwelling

places for the Holy Spirit.

Is that the perspective that we have

when we're walking around the world,

talking about our coworkers, our

family, or even watching the news and

seeing what politicians are doing?

Is what you say about any of those people?

Are you really having the

perspective that that person.

Is bearing the image of God

that that person is a dwelling

place for the Holy Spirit.

If I look at myself, I don't think I

always speak in a way that is honoring

to that person being in the image of God.

That's a perspective we ought to have.

So what is your perspective?

And maybe when you think of

perspective, maybe it's all blinded

by some of the things that you got

going on in your life right now.

Right.

We have troubles, we have problems.

I can say for me that this, I

think the last six months even has

been not the hardest six months of

my life, but one of the hardest.

Right.

Jackie's brother passed away

last fall, and that's been hard.

And

we, uh, Jackie had a job opportunity

that, well, I was the one who

said from the get go, Hey, let's

not get our hopes up about this.

And we weren't even sure that I

was super excited about it at first

because we've just been, you know,

Jackie does this night shift thing

and it's hard, but it's kind of all

we've known for this amount of time.

And so at first when she talked

about working day shift, I was

like, I don't like this idea.

And then the more I thought about it,

I realized how much that would free up.

Well, a, it'd be seven nights

a week where I'm actually

sharing a bedroom with my wife.

And I was excited about that.

But um, it was also realizing like

how much more ministry I could

do when I have my evenings open.

There's so often where I

struggled with things of.

Wanting to meet with people in

the evenings or um, go to men's

groups and things like that.

And I realized, oh my gosh, that

would all be open and we could go

to going to church every Sunday.

I, maybe not everyone sees this,

but a lot of people who come

here early see me struggling with

trying to get Sunday service ready

while chasing after my three kids.

Um, I realized that's gonna go away.

And I started realizing all

these things will go away.

And so I got my hopes up

a lot and my wife did too.

But, um, I'm the one who gave the wisdom

advice of not getting our hopes up.

And then I immediately did it.

And then that job didn't come through.

Um, and that crushed me, I think

maybe even more than my wife

did or than it did for my wife.

Um, and then it was just, and these

are just everyday things and I'm trying

not to turn this into me coming up here

and whining about my troubles, but,

um, I'm trying to give perspective.

I. We just had our, our water heater

then died, and then our dryer died.

Um, and, and it was just all these things

and I started worrying about finances

and, uh, just I started worrying about

things and then I just got really down

about all this, all these things and

just, it's one of those times, right,

where just things like, everything

just comes one hit after another.

And I was just, I was struggling.

Uh, and honestly, I've been struggling

and I would say I'm still struggling.

We see Paul deal with this as well.

Paul had a lot of troubles in his life,

as everyone does in Philippians, the

first chapter of Philippians Paul.

Then he's talking about how he's

been imprisoned and then he goes

into to talk about these things.

And Paul basically says, you know,

now I want you to know brothers and

sisters that I have been praying

earnestly, nonstop, and really hard.

And now I have found myself in prison.

I have been beaten.

I have been mocked, I have been scorned,

and even through all my praying, all this

stuff still happened, and even all my

duties and my faith to God, this has still

happened, and it was all for nothing.

It was a waste of time, and I'm miserable.

That's not what Paul says.

Paul says.

Now I want you to know brothers and

sisters, that what has happened to me has

actually served to advance the gospel.

As a result, it has become clear

throughout the whole palace guard and

to everyone else that I am in chains for

Christ and because of my chains, most

of the brothers and sisters have become

confident in the Lord and dare all the

more to proclaim the gospel without fear.

Paul, who was imprisoned and beaten

for significant amount of times, and

Paul, who some of the times wasn't even

supposed to be beaten because he was a

Roman citizen and had every right to.

Get angry about that is

thankful for his persecution.

He's thankful for his troubles

because of how it moves the gospel.

And Andy just talked about it

last week in his sermon about how,

you know, people don't wanna see

Christians who have their life so put

together and everything is perfect.

And they're like, well, I'm a Christian.

I've been following God, so

my life is great and dandy.

That doesn't make people really,

doesn't make God sound impressive.

It's easy to follow God when

everything's great, right?

And yet I think that even speaks more

because we so much live in a world

where we want our problems to go away.

We want to not have problems.

Now, I'm gonna date myself as someone

from the 19 hundreds, which I am.

Uh, but.

Raising kids has given

me this perspective too.

I know all the parents in the

room can, can testify to this

when I see my kids and how

quickly they get bored.

And boredom is like the

worst thing in the world.

And we have so many ways of

avoiding boredom now, right?

We have iPads.

I mean, Rus you were talking about.

You can go to the most remote places in

the world and people have cell phones.

And I've realized over the years how

quickly I am to just pull out my phone.

The second I'm in a second of

uncomfortability, I pull out my phone

just to occupy my time right now.

I was alive before smartphones.

I remember being a kid and being bored,

and what did we do when we were bored?

We made up something.

We found a game.

We invented a game to

have fun and to play.

Now teens.

I hope this is not me sounding

like some old person telling

you how you got it so easy now,

but I've realized our solutions to

our problems usually end up creating

more problems because I think it's

important that we're bored sometimes

because that boredom breeds new things.

It breeds creativity.

And when we don't have boredom, we don't

exercise that creative part of our brain.

Now, this isn't really about boredom.

This is about our troubles.

When we have all these ways with

our technology of solving our

problems, we don't know how to

deal with problems and we solve the

problems before they ever happen.

So we never learned to deal with them.

And I'm not trying to sound Amish in

that all technology is wrong and the

advancement of the world is wrong.

But I'm saying it's important

that we're uncomfortable.

It's important that we do struggle, and

I'm realizing that more as a father,

'cause I've been facing this last six

months and how hard it's been and how I

want some of these problems to go away.

But what I'm starting to see is my kids

see me deal with problems, and my kids

see me deal not well with problems.

And then I see my kids go through problems

and not deal with those problems well.

And I'm like, what are you doing?

Why would you react this way?

Oh yeah.

'cause I'm reacting that way.

How great would it be for my kids to see

me persevere through problems, to not

lie and grumble and complain about my

problems, but to view these problems?

This is what I like to

call spinach gratitude.

All right.

Right when you were a kid, there's

probably that food that you had to

eat that you didn't want to eat.

Maybe it was spinach.

Maybe it was broccoli, maybe it

was asparagus, Brussels sprouts.

It was probably one of

the green vegetables.

It usually is.

And it was that thing, right, where your

parents would be like, no, you need to

eat that before you can have your dessert.

Or before you can eat this.

And you'd be like, fine.

And you'd like shove it into your mouth.

Maybe you try to hide it, you shove it

in, and then maybe try to tuck it in a

pocket and then spit it out somewhere.

Like you probably had your way

of dealing with that problem.

But those things are good for

us and that's why our parents

wanted to eat, us eat, eat them.

And it's funny 'cause now I'm

an adult and I love asparagus.

I love Brussels sprouts, I love broccoli.

I love all of those things.

They're still foods I don't

like, but those ones I love now.

And they are so good for you.

And I think when I look at my troubles

that I face in life, pers whether it's.

Persecution, which let's be honest,

us in the states don't really

know what real persecution is.

But even just the problems that you face

at your job, the problems that you face

in the world with money, with friends,

with drama, all of those things, those

problems, I still deal with those things.

Like it's my family, my

mom making me eat spinach.

God places me in a, in a place

in life where I can persevere and

I'm like, oh fine, I'll eat it.

Uh, and just complain the whole time

I'm shoving it in my mouth or trying

to hide it, trying to avoid it.

How great would that be?

I think it was a father.

How great it is at the table.

If my kid was like, broccoli, let's go.

Can I have that broccoli?

Gimme that broccoli.

Do you want the rest of your broccoli?

I'll eat your broccoli.

That's so nice to hear as a parent.

And what if I faced my problems that way?

God, thank you for putting me in

this place in life where I can be an

example to other people, to my kids.

Thank you for letting me go

through problems so that I can

grow in my own faith with you.

God, thank you for letting me face

problems because if I didn't have

these problems, I probably wouldn't

clinging to you, I probably wouldn't

go to you 'cause I'd have it all

figured out and I wouldn't need you.

Your perspective of your troubles

helps with how you wander.

And Paul even goes on to talk about

how all of these things are helping

him spread the good news, and

that's the important thing, right?

The word gospel means good news.

Here's why that's important.

It's not good advice.

It's good news.

Sometimes we look at the Bible as a

book of advice, and while in some ways,

yeah, there's things for you to follow.

So it's kind of advice,

but it's not advice.

It's good news.

It's truth.

Because if

you're looking at it as advice,

sometimes we, we go to the Bible and

we say, I'm gonna read this thing and

it's gonna make my problems go away.

And so I think people crack open the

Bible and they, they expect it to make

their problems go away and they don't.

And then they're like, I

tried that Christianity thing.

It didn't work.

Well, that's not what it's meant to do.

It's not a book of advice,

it's a book of truth.

It Jesus Christ died for you so

that you could be free from sin.

Not that you wouldn't face sin, not that

you wouldn't face troubles or persecution.

In fact, the Bible

guarantees you that you will.

It's not a book of advice, it's a book

of news that that troubles that you will

face are not a death sentence for you.

We have been freed from all of that.

They're temporary.

We are to deliver good news

and how we behave around people is

how we can deliver that the best.

What is your perspective?

Do you have a perspective of possibility?

When you look at where your life is,

the trajectory that it's on, what are

the possibilities for your life still?

Maybe you're really young and that's hard

to imagine what it could possibly be.

Maybe you have expectations.

You have perspective of what your

parents have placed for you and what

you're supposed to do, and maybe you

align with that and maybe you don't.

Maybe you're middle aged and you're

just tired and worn out, and you don't

even feel like looking at what's said.

Maybe you feel like you're towards the

end of your life and you're kind of

just riding it out now and doesn't,

maybe there's not as much to look

forward to or maybe to look ahead at.

I'm Marty.

I'm already where I need to be.

There's not much more to go.

The thing is, in any of those

cases, that perspective is your own.

It's your perspective, and

our perspective is mortal.

It's limited to what we can see, which

is not very far, and we can't even begin

to grasp the possibility of our God who

exists outside of time who is eternal.

In Ephesians three, Paul

again talks about this.

In fact, it's in a benediction

that he gives to the church of

Ephesians at the end of the chapter.

Now, to him, who is able to do

immeasurably more than all we

ask or imagine according to his

power that is at work within us.

To him be glory in the church and

in Christ Jesus throughout all

the generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

God is able to do immeasurably

more than we can even imagine.

All of those troubles that

we talked about, right?

They seem so much harder because we're

still looking at 'em from our perspective

of how we could possibly get around them.

And we try our best to think of how we can

get around them with our own means, but

it's hard for us to take into account how

God can maybe get us out of those things.

And so a lot of the times

we just have to trust God.

I don't know what's going on,

but I'm gonna trust God that

he's going to show me away.

That doesn't mean being lazy and just

sitting around being like, you know what?

God's gonna figure it out and

like not putting any effort in.

We have to, we have to strive

towards God and towards doing

what he is guiding us towards.

We have to be careful that we

don't let our own mortal plans

get in the way of God's plan.

And our past, our perspective

of our past can sometimes define

our trajectory of going forward

and that can block us and

that can get on our way.

When I was in high school,

I,

I had, I had, well, going back, even in

middle school, I was a kid with a speech

impediment, with a learning disability.

And, and then in high school, I, uh, met

the most beautiful girl in the world.

Uh, and, and I was like, this,

this is a girl I'm gonna marry.

And I was so.

That, that was my trajectory.

Right?

Um, and I ended up talking to

that girl and I pursued that girl.

And what ended up happening is, um,

I was catfished by that girl's mother

and I was groomed by that girl's

mother, and I was in a relationship

that was abusive and unhealthy

for a year and a half of my life.

And I was ruined and I was

broken for the longest time.

And I spent years after high school

trying to recover from that and trying to

figure out who I was and not believing in

love and thinking that it was all a lie.

And that was not something

I would ever get.

And it took me years

to heal from that abuse

and for, uh, the self-esteem

that I did not have.

My perspective was, was very low.

And I spent times in high school

sitting on the floor crying,

staring at a gun because I

didn't see where else I could go.

I lost perspective of the future,

but now on the other side, it's

so interesting to look at that.

I'm a happily married man who is

married to the most wonderful woman.

I have three wonderful kids.

My perspective is completely

different than what it was then.

And not because I've honed my perspective

to be better, but because I started

trusting God in his perspective.

So when we stop caring about our

perspective and start caring about his,

that is when possibilities happen because

you can't imagine what is ahead for you.

Now maybe, maybe you don't have some past

that's haunting you, but maybe you're

just going through the thick of it.

Now, maybe you've lost someone that

you really cared about and that's hard.

Maybe you've lost a job

and that's really hard.

Maybe you don't know where you're

supposed to go, and sometimes we're

in those places and we're mad at

God 'cause he's taken something

away that we wanted, that we were so

convinced was the right thing for us.

I just wanna say something to you.

If God can take away something that

you thought you could never lose,

imagine the thing that he can give you

that you thought you could never have.

If God can take something away from you

that you thought you could never lose,

imagine the thing he can give to you

that you thought you could never have.

Our God is good.

Our God is great, and

he brings so much to us.

And I can personally testify to that.

And I think it was cool that

like a month ago when we had the

snowstorm, and so there's just a

handful of us in here, and everyone

just started sharing their stories.

Do you have the perspective of immortal

or do you have the perspective of a God

with endless possibilities of immeasurable

possibilities that you can't fathom?

So maybe you have some

perspective shifts, right?

Some paradigm shifts of

what you're gonna do.

Okay, Dax.

But what do we do with that?

Well, I think changing

your perspective is great.

Focusing on that,

what's your perspective of serving?

What does that look like for you

as a Christian, as a husband, as

a son, as a daughter, as a spouse,

as a neighbor, as a coworker.

What's your perspective of serving?

Do you think of serving?

When you think of your job, do you

just think about it at the church?

I mean, I think a lot of times when we

hear serving, we're like, yeah, I know

I need to serve at children's ministry.

I need to serve at the youth ministry.

I know we do those things, but

it's so much more than that.

And those things are important.

Don't let me detract from that,

but maybe where you are in life,

if this is your first time stepping

into a church, or maybe this is

you coming back to a church after a

long time of not being in a church.

Maybe you're someone who's

like, I'm not very involved.

I don't know you guys that well.

Maybe what serving is for you,

even just today, is just how

you serve and worship, right?

Worship is, this is not a concert.

You don't come to Sunday

to go to a concert.

You come to church to worship.

Rusty and Tony and all the other

people up here, they don't come here.

'cause they like putting on a concert.

They come here because they want

everyone else to worship with them.

Our worship is a service to

God, not because he needs it,

but because he deserves it.

And it's also a service to us because

when you actually, whether it's

physically or spiritually, give yourself

up and praise to God it changes you

and it changes your perspective.

I think it's interesting to look

at our glimpse of heaven and

the Bible talks about angels

who are higher beings than us.

They spend eternity just

worshiping God, singing the

same lines over and over again.

That's crazy because I think of

here on the earth, sometimes we'll

go to church and I'm like, oh,

I'm kind of tired of this song.

I've heard this a bunch of times.

I really want to hear this song.

Why don't they do this song?

But that's not what worship is.

It's not about hearing

a song that you like.

You can go to the radio if you

wanna listen to a song you like.

Church is about worshiping God,

and so maybe,

maybe serving God is just you actually

getting down physically on your knees

to help you give yourself over to God.

In the New Testament, when Jesus

is tempted by Satan, Satan talks

tells him to bow down before him.

That's one of the things

he tells Jesus to do.

That word bow down, right, that

comes from the word prostrate, right?

That doesn't just mean to get

down on your knees, that means

to lay down face first into the

ground, all the way down like this.

It's vulnerable.

It's uncomfortable.

That's complete submission, which

is why Satan asked Jesus to do

that, to make himself vulnerable

so that Satan has all the power.

Maybe service for you today is during

worship, to just get up and lay down,

face down on the ground, and not worry

about what other people think, and not

care about what other people think.

Because it is easy to be, like,

they're probably thinking he's

down at the altar, bowing.

He must, he must have just had an

affair on his wife or something

bad's going on in his life.

But that's not what it's about.

It's about submitting yourself to God.

My uncle once told me a story who, he's

a pastor and he was at a, um, he was

just at a worship service in church and

he was sitting in the back, uh, and the

band was playing or whatever, and, uh.

And he was just kind of sitting there,

just listening to it, maybe just not

caught up in the worship, listening to it.

And I think it's easy as a pastor,

sometimes we get caught up in

what are other people doing?

You know, how's the congregation doing?

Does everyone seem like they're into this?

Is do people feel like they're

appreciating this or getting

caught up in his own head?

Uh, I don't know exactly what was

caught up in his own head, but

doing that, and during the worship

song, he all of a sudden just felt

someone just shove his head down.

And so like immediately he got

really mad, like, who is this jerk?

Like telling me what to do?

And he turned around,

there's no one around him.

And he said, and then in that moment,

like it just became clear to him,

like God was telling him like, you

just need to worship me right now.

You just need to bow down.

And I think about that story all the time

because sometimes I get caught up in my

own head and my a DD of paying attention

to what, what these lyrics mean, or.

What's going on in my life, you know, just

even my everyday struggles or or whatever.

And sometimes I just need to bow down

and worship God and submit to him

spiritually, physically, emotionally.

And of course there is our standard

serving that we need to do.

We need to encourage our

youth and be with our youth.

We need to be there for our

children in the children's ministry.

There are parts in our church

where we're struggling,

but

it's important that you do that if

that's what you're supposed to do.

If that's what God is telling you

to do, you should not be serving

out of guilt but out of purpose.

And so if perhaps you maybe have been

telling yourself, you keep getting this

nudge to go help in children's ministry,

but then you're like, yeah, but I'm not

good with kids, so I'm not gonna do it.

Again, is that your perspective

or is that God's perspective?

I can promise you high school Dax

was not meant to be a pastor and

was not in a place to be a pastor.

And I could never imagine

myself being a pastor.

And here I am preaching

and only because I have complete

confidence, not in my preaching, but

because this is what God called me to do.

And maybe you think, look, serving in

children's church and youth ministry

or in any of the other ministries in

the church, that's a young man's game.

That's not what I'm supposed

to be doing right now.

And I'll just say, Hey, there

are people who serve in those

things who are not young people.

But also I get that to a certain extent.

There are other ways that you can

serve and maybe you're serving

as even in just your praying.

How much time do you dedicate in your

day to praying and not just praying for

your nuclear family, for your coworkers,

praying for your church members,

for your friends, for your family,

but it also goes beyond what

you do praying at the home.

Our church, we used to, I don't think

we've done this in quite a long time.

There was actually a prayer team who

would go around and walk our church

property and pray every Sunday morning

for our church and for the people in our

church, and we've gotten away from that.

Maybe if you're someone who you have

the time to come to church Sunday

morning, I encourage you, if you feel

like God's may be encouraging you to

be more of a prayer warrior, if you

don't have the energy to do the other

things, I bet you can come to church.

10, 15 minutes early, you can just

walk these rows of chairs, touch

every single chair and pray for the

person who's gonna sit there today.

What is your perspective of sharing?

What is your perspective of worship?

If I can get the worship

team to come back up and, uh,

do the last song

I want this morning.

And here's the thing, A lot of people

are gone on marriage retreat, okay?

So this is a much more of

a tight knit family feel.

I want you to maybe use

this quieter morning.

To really focus on what is God

trying to change your perspective on.

We're gonna do a long last worship

song and I encourage you not to worry

about what other people are doing

and not what other people

might be thinking about you.

And don't be thinking about other people.

Just focus on yourself.

And I want you to worship God

in a way that your perspective

is on him and not yourself.

Try to forget about all

of those things going on.

Close your eyes if you have to.

I'm gonna encourage you to worship,

and maybe that means

getting down on your knees.

Maybe that means coming up and

laying down, face down on the ground,

and, and I wanna encourage people.

Don't let this be an opportunity where you

see someone else kneeling at the altar.

A lot of times I'm okay with this,

but for today, don't go up and put

your hand on them and pray for them.

Because I want you to be focusing on

yourself, on what God is telling you.

God, as we start worshiping you

and start praising you, I just ask

that you will rid the things in

our mind that are stopping us from

having a closer relationship to you.

Draw us closer to you and take away things

that may be drawing us away from you.

Help us focus on you,

and we want to bring gratitude

and praise and reverence to you.

Amen.