Forged - Heart & Hammer

Good morning and happy Mother's Day.

It is a beautiful day today.

And can we take a second and put our hands together and celebrate all the moms in the house right now?

We are in this series called Forged, and we're looking at really our spiritual formation and the fact that God uses the experiences that we go through in life to shape, mold, and refine us.

And we kicked off this series last week with my friend Pastor Terrence, who absolutely did an amazing job.

If you missed it last week, I am asking you to go to our website, go to sermons, click on the message from last Sunday and to catch up because uh what Terrence did was set us up with this imagery of a blacksmith that our lives, like a blacksmith uses a forge with heat and with a hammer, and then with the quenching of water, and then the manifold uh craftsmanship to make something beautiful.

And we see through the scriptures how God also uses the fire.

And today we're gonna talk about the pressure to mold us and to make us.

And the title of my message today is Heart and Hammer.

So everybody say, Heart and Hammer.

See, we all have pressures that we're experiencing in life and overwhelming things that happen, but can we all agree that mothers have very unique pressures?

They really do.

There's just a whole unique set of pressures that come with being a mom.

And this week of Mother's Day, it for lots of different reasons, whether you're a mom or you're not a mom, or hopefully you have a mom.

Um this week, depending on what your circumstances are, maybe you've lost your mom and you've had grief that you've been going through.

And God can use all of those circumstances that are going you're going on in your life to begin to mold you and shape you and show you who he's making you in to be and the purposes that he has over your life.

And so as we come today, and yes, we're gonna talk about mothers in particular, but really all of us are experiencing these pressures.

Now, for the parents in the room, we know that parenthood uh at times it overwhelming is an understatement, right?

Uh I'm gonna show you some pictures of some kids uh that hopefully won't give you PTSD, but it may be flashbacks for you.

I haven't had a toddler in the toilet yet.

Uh but uh look at these messes.

The the a uh kitchen with uh peanut butter.

Oh my goodness.

Um yeah, flower all over some of you.

This is like giving you flashbacks of your life.

New parents, welcome to your new reality.

Um but uh not just that, just the other crazy pressures.

Actually, last month in April, there was a three-year-old boy in Northwest Montana who went out into the woods after playing with his dog, got lost for three days.

And drones and search parties looking everywhere for him after two days of them searching, they finally found him.

It was a miracle because in northwest Montana, there's bears and mountain lions, and they miraculously found this little boy two days later, completely unscathed.

He got checked out, he just was thirsty and he did something, but you gotta see this kid's face.

Like he went through some things out there in the woods.

He saw some stuff out there, okay?

He went in those woods, the boy came out the man after those three days.

There's just crazy pressures that come in our lives, and and every single one of us, as we make it through life's difficulties, it's not just about us surviving in the face of adversity, or about us bouncing back after we have failures or setbacks, or continue on in our faith, or it's not just about us just trying to each and every day just hold on and try to survive, but instead us wisely persevering towards God amidst the challenges that life brings.

And each one of us have a different set of those challenges and circumstances, and you're walking in today, and those challenges and circumstances are a reality in your life, and God knows every single one of them.

Every single detail about what you're going through, and you're in this process, just like metal is shaped and formed through heat and through the hold and through the hammer.

I wonder today if maybe we could see how our response to pressures that we face, that those are the things that actually help to reveal God's purposes for us.

How we respond.

See, because even in moments of crisis, those crisis moments are what create our character and expose it.

I heard long ago somebody say, and always stuck into my head, that in moments of crisis, you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your preparation.

So how you have prepared in advance.

And some of you are walking into the room, and maybe you're in this time or the time that you know is around the corner that you're gonna be overwhelmed, maybe even feel like you're being crushed, defeated, circumstances are overtaking you, anxieties and exhaustion.

Some of you felt it on Mother's Day because uh this morning my family and the mother in our house woke up to a giant pile of dog mess in our kitchen.

And as we were cleaning it up, and I was gagging, I just looked at Emily and said, Happy Mother's Day.

A unique set of pressures, and it's it's daily forming that's happening, and we're formed through the pressure.

And no one shows us this better of a mother in the scripture than Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is as a disciple who is forged through confusion, through heartbreak, and through surrender.

And we're gonna look at a story in the New Testament and the Gospels that's actually the only account of Jesus as a boy.

And where we find Jesus and his family is that they have traveled to Jerusalem from Nazareth for the Passover festival that they did every single year that happens in and around the time of Easter, so this time of year that we're in right now.

And as they travel down and they experience the Passover festival, then they return to Nazareth.

But this trip that they take have taken repeatedly, year after year, with friends and family, this time it all goes sideways.

So let's take a look at it together.

This is Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

If you have your Bible, verse 41, you can turn to it.

It'll also be on the screen here as we start in verse 41.

Every year, Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.

When Jesus was 12 years old, they attended the festival as usual.

After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth.

But Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem.

His parents didn't miss him at first because they assumed that he was among other travelers.

But when he didn't show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends.

Verse 45, they couldn't find him.

They went back to Jerusalem to search for him there.

Three days later, they finally discovered him in the temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions, and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

Verse 48.

His parents didn't know what to think.

Son, his mother said to him, Why have you done this to us?

Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.

Verse 49.

But why did you need to search?

He asked.

Didn't you know that I must be in my father's house?

But they didn't understand what he meant.

And then he returned to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them, and his mother stored all these things in her heart, and Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.

This is the only account that we have of Jesus' early life.

As a 12-year-old boy, and the account that we get is not just Jesus getting left in the grocery store.

He got left by his parents for three entire days.

Can you imagine the pressure of raising Jesus?

I mean, the pressures that we have as parents, just in normal circumstances, but the son of God that they lost for three days?

My wife's family tells this hilarious story of when my wife was young and her sisters, they were going to Southeast Christian Church in Louisville.

It's a great church that many of us know.

And this is uh one of their previous campuses, but Emily's mom and dad drove separately to church that morning, and after church, they drove back to Shelbyville, and one pulled in the driveway, one pulled in the back of the house, and they met in the kitchen, and both of them looked at each other and said, Where are the kids?

They got back in the car, headed all the way all the way back to Southeast to find their daughters waiting with the senior pastor, Bob Russell, that we many of us know.

His wife was there waiting with their kids, and so embarrassed, so embarrassed, they put the kids in the car and they made it back.

And that story always sticks in the mind, and we laugh and we laugh about it.

And I think about uh Joseph and Mary, and they're seeing Jesus, they've left them three days, they finally show up, and Mary tries to do some parenting.

Mary tries to give a little bit of a lecture to Jesus and say, Why did you do this, son?

Your father and I were frantic, and then Jesus turns this lecture and turns it completely around and gives her a lesson about being in God's house.

Could you imagine raising the perfect son of God?

You just try to do some parenting, and then he's parenting you.

There's so often times where I get so frantic, so worried.

And even in that frantic, just fold under pressure.

Where are my worst case scenario people in the house?

Got any of those?

Man, oftentimes that's where my mindset goes.

But a couple years ago, I got set free because somebody told me the worst case scenario rarely happens.

And I always try to remember that.

And in this journey of church planning over the last few years, I feel like God has even just been forging me from the first couple of years of just constantly feeling in fear.

And then last year, as we talked about the fear of God and God transforming my heart to wanting to fear him more than fear the circumstances.

And we went through the series last year of to fear God and to see that.

And but I'm still not immune to getting into this mindset of being frantic instead of being in a mindset of faithfulness.

And I wonder for you, and I bet some of the moms in the room, you've probably walked in and you felt the waves of pressure that have overwhelmed you before, maybe even this week.

And sometimes what we end up doing instead of trying to find God is hiding from Him in the pressure.

And what we see from this story of Jesus, even as a young man, and the lesson for us that as we just think about being his parents, and for us today in 2025, we need to go where you know to find him.

That's my first point for you.

You need to go where you know to find him.

Jesus looked at him and said, Why were you searching?

Didn't you know that I was going to be in my father's house?

And so for us today in 2025, we need to find our place where we go to find Jesus, where that's a place to pray in his word that that calms the worries that we have in our life, to practice worship just as Jesus and his family did.

They had this habit of the of traveling and to the Passover celebrations.

There was consistency.

He was in his father's house, there was healthy rhythms and their family, but the world tells you, hey, it's no big deal to skip worship.

It's 2025, there's a lot going on, the calendar's full.

But what is what we have seen now in just the course of the American church is that what you make optional for your kids will then be obsolete to them.

Well, it's okay, you know, we can just get worship this week.

And then later in life, they're like, Well, is that really that important?

And I wonder for you in the house today, are you going to be a person who runs to a place of prayer or somebody who runs to a place of panic when life hits you, when you're taking the hits?

You know when you lose your keys, where do you look?

Not in just like random places, but you go to where you last saw them.

So why, when life unravels, do we act like Jesus has disappeared?

When you feel distant from God, don't wander from Him, go to where you know you'll find Him.

His word, His house, His presence, the scripture, worship, community, prayer, what you're doing right now.

And you may find yourself frantic, like we see.

I mean, Mary even says this of herself in verse 48.

Says, we we are frantic.

And then we see that after this is all said and done, that Mary keeps this memory in her heart and stores it up in her heart, is what the scripture says.

And I don't know about you, but if I was Joseph, what I would have been staring up in my heart was a heart attack, okay?

I wouldn't be storing up some great memory.

Could you imagine Mary and Joseph as they're traveling all the way back from Nazareth, a long journey, and they probably were like, How in the world did you lose the son of God?

You are his father, you're supposed to know where he is all the time.

Mary, how in the world did you lose your son?

You're supposed to be the mother in this situation and know where this kid is.

I mean, there's a there's a pretty important purpose in this kid's life.

I can just see them bickering back and forth as they're heading back to Jerusalem.

They're frantic and trying to figure out what they're gonna do.

And we see a frantic Mary.

But she's not gonna stay that way.

It's easy for me to just assume that everything is on me to fix in my life.

And to just trick myself into thinking that what I'm going through, that God has never dealt with it before.

Or not help anybody else through that same circumstance.

And maybe you found yourself in a place where you've been controlled by fear, and your faith is the first thing that you ditch and that you give up on.

And this is just this has just hit my soul this week that we should turn our frantic into faith.

We begin to feel that feeling of life being out of control, that we remember the fact of who is actually in control, and who holds us in his hand, and who loves us.

And and when we start to begin to feel panic, then it should be a trigger for us for prayer and petition of God.

Not of hiding, not of running away, but the world tells you it's all on you.

Figure it out yourself.

You made your bed, lay in it.

But this calling and this purpose that we see in Mary's life as a steward and a parent, a son of God, this great purpose that she had, it wasn't just for her, it was forming her as well.

She's frantic at the beginning, and then she's looking back at the situation, and she's keeping the memory in her heart, knowing that God has her in his hand.

And for me it's a challenge, and it's a challenge for you as well, that even when life is scary for us to believe that God is shaping us.

You know, when your Wi-Fi drops at your house, you uh just get closer to the router, you figure out where it is.

You don't question the existence of the internet.

Okay?

You just reconnect.

It's the same way with God when panic ensues, when circumstances hit, when you feel like that you've been cut off, you haven't been cut off, God has gone nowhere.

He is waiting for you to come back to him and to reconnect.

To connect back to his love and connect back to his purposes that he has in your life.

And for you to, like this family of Mary and Joseph, for you to have these healthy habits as a family of going to God and in prayer and being in his house and being in his word and and knowing the scriptures.

You know, if you only choose to be in church when your life is falling apart, you will never mature.

Because you're never going to be prepared and developed for life's difficulties.

When your toddler spills the milk, you don't cock on 911.

That would be an overreaction.

When the frantic comes, often it's because we overreact to small things, but because we're underprepared for the big ones.

See, our faith is what helps us to respond in those moments, not panic.

And Mary is being prepared, and this is her preparation.

This is her preparation because we see Mary at different moments throughout life throughout her life and throughout Jesus' life and ministry, where she is present, where she's showing up, where she sees what's going on, where she's actively seeing and playing a part and miracles that happen, even the first one.

And Mary in these different moments, she's participating and she's witnessing Jesus' ministry, and she's following him as well.

And all of this is confirming what an angel told her back at the very first Christmas that her son would be the savior of the world.

And she's staying near to her son and fulfilling the purposes that she knew that was going to happen before he was even born.

And it's her faithfulness all the way to the cross where she sits at the foot of the cross and she sees her son, and she's there present at this horrific moment that even some of the disciples had abandoned Jesus, but she had not.

Being faithful to him.

Look at this scene.

We just talked about it at Easter.

John chapter 19, verse 25.

John 19:25

Standing near the cross where Jesus, his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopus and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple, he loved, he said to her, Dear woman, here is your son.

And he said to his disciple, here is your mother.

And from then on, this disciple took her into his home.

We see at the foot of the cross a faithful Mary.

She's gone from the early days of the frantic, the panic, to now a lifetime of ministry and walking with Jesus and being his follower all the way to the very foot of the cross where she.

Don't abandon him.

And Jesus is caring for his mother through the cross, but also on the cross.

As he tells the disciple who Jesus loved John to take care of his mom.

Jesus loves his mother while he's on the cross and he's loving her through the cross and even the cross that she's going to bear and burying her son.

And we all have different crosses that we carry and that we bear.

Mothers, you have unique ones.

Raising kids and figuring out how life is going to go.

And trying to keep everybody on the right path.

And also take care of yourself as well.

And Jesus loves you so deeply that even on the cross, he's caring for you, wanting for you to be his disciple and to be changed and be like him more and more every single day.

Moms in a room, moms in a room, can I encourage you right now?

Repent, follow Jesus, and believe who he is in your life.

And what he's done for you.

And the sustaining power that he's given to you through the power of the cross.

Because as the pressures get so great, and the hardships that we endure, it's on us to not walk away from the one who wants to be near to us and love us.

The scripture says that God is near to the brokenhearted.

We just have to be the ones to open our eyes and see him and not walk away.

Walking towards him, even in life's most difficult pressures and difficult circumstances, there is purpose in the press, and we have to find your purpose in the press.

In those moments that are so overwhelming, instead of us asking, Why God, we ask, What?

What God do you need me to learn?

What am I needing to see, to be changed by?

And so often the press of life, it isn't punishment, it's preparation.

It's preparation for what's to come and the plan that God has for you, and to be able to help others who are also going through it as well.

Are you going to be someone who lets the pressures crush you or shape you?

At 20 years old, the artist Michelangelo somehow captures the tragedy of the moment of the cross, the unnatural way of a mother burying her son in the paeta.

It's this statue that was chiseled out of stone that now resides in the Vatican.

And it's this image of Mary holding her broken son.

And he chiseled it and sculpted it out of stone, but it was the Spirit who sculpted Mary's heart.

She wasn't just at the cross that day, she was prepared for it.

She heard Jesus say that he was going to die and be raised back to life.

And when she was squeezed, she didn't look away, she didn't run away like the other disciples.

When she was squeezed, faithfulness overflowed out of her life.

Right there at the foot of the cross.

And when you're in the squeeze, when you're in the press, is it good that comes out?

Now there's multiple ways to make coffee.

And I'm not an expert on any of them because I'm not like a daily coffee drinker.

I'm more of a social coffee drinker.

But we've got several coffee aficionados in our church.

One of those is this man who's right here, who normally is hidden in this cage back here, the drums, Mr.

Austin Slusher, but we've let him out today because he's a coffee aficionado, and what he's got here is what's called a French press.

And the way that it works, so you just show us how it works.

It uses the steeping process to crush the coffee beans, not a pour, not a trickle, but a press.

Man, that smells good.

Oh man, that doesn't smell good.

This is this is expertly made by a coffee aficionado.

Any moms in the house want this coffee right now?

Anyone want one?

And with this press?

Anyone?

Come on up here and grab it.

We've had a long day.

You get to keep this mug as well.

It says trust in the Lord with all your heart.

And it also has some beautiful coffee in there for you.

Made by an aficionado.

As Mary was pressed, we see a forged Mary who's gone through the hardships.

Because here's the thing Mary didn't know that on Friday that Sunday was coming.

She didn't know that the same Jesus that she lost in the temple and now again on the cross would rise and meet her in resurrection power.

She heard it, she believed it, she was there, she was in the resurrection, she was there that that at the tomb, preparing for Jesus' uh his body for burial, and they see the stone rolled away, and she in that moment at the crucifixion, she didn't know exactly what was going to come, but what she experienced was three days later, eternity, in a moment.

And I wonder that as she experienced the risen Jesus after three dark days, did she think about those three days 21 years earlier that she lost her little boy?

But there was purpose in it, and God was shaping her and was molding her, and the pressures that she was under, and what she saw at the cross, those pressures that she felt turned into the greatest purpose that the world had ever seen in the salvation of humanity.

Through Jesus walking out of the empty tomb.

Well, very simply, the first thing that you need to do is you need to pause and you need to tell God what's happening because he already knows.

He's already aware.

But you need to be in a conversation with him.

Because the second thing you need to do is you need to ask, where is Jesus in this?

Because he's near to you.

He's not forsaken you, he's not walked away from you.

And then for you to respond in worship instead of worry and let God shape you.

Somebody needs to hear this this morning.

Your story isn't finished, your story is being forged.

Just like that little boy who got lost in the woods last month, all the dangers.

He didn't know which way was out, but he wasn't alone.

He just couldn't see that rescue was coming.

And some of you feel that way right now.

But what if the fears and the confusion and the pressure that you're under right now, what if it's not the end?

What if you're right in the middle of it?

What if today is your moment for God to find you?

And as you find him, you realize that he's forging you through what you're going through.

Then on the other side of it, you're gonna be more filled with grace and with love and peace, like his son intends for you.

In a room this size, there's so many things that are going on: grief and death, and financial pressures and burdens, hardship, broken relationships.

Your story's not finished.

You're in the middle of the forge.

Are you gonna let these pressures crush you and turn you from God?

Or are you gonna let them shape you for the future that He has for you?

And if you're not in the press right now, get prepared.

Don't just wait to go to God in the moment of crisis, but be with him daily so that you're being prepared each and every day.

So then when you walk into the press and the hardship comes, you know who's got you in his hand.

You know who loves you.

You don't question his love for you, you recognize it and you say, God, you promised that this world I'm gonna have troubles.

But to take heart because you've overcome the world.

And a peace that surpasses all understanding can be delivered to you as you walk closely with him and you know his word.

I'll end with this.

To the news.

He said, Over his whole career, there was one family that stuck out to him.

But as they sat at their table and the news was given to them that their son had passed and was killed, through tears, the husband and wife, the mother looked at him and said, We thank God for the 18 wonderful years that we had with our son.

And their grief turned to gratitude because of the gift that they had been given.

And in the moment when he had seen so many people's lives fall apart and crumble, in that moment, their faith had them in a mindset of gratitude of what God had given them.

And I wonder for you today, where's your mindset?

Where's it gonna be when the pressures come?

When the fire's raging, when you're in the heat, when the hammer of life is pressing down on you, you have a heart of worship, or you crumble, worry in sin.

I I pray, I pray to God that I'm the one that I'm able to have that type of mindset.

And for all of us to be prepared.

Because life is hard.

None of us get out of it without having hardships.

But God delivers himself to us in the midst of it, and we have a hope.

We have a hope of a plan and a future that God has for us.

It doesn't just end in this life, but it walks us from this life into perfection for what Jesus did on the cross for you and for me.

And so our room today, we're grateful, we're grateful for the mothers in our lives, we're grateful for the families that we have, we're grateful for the ways that God has blessed us so richly.

And we hold ourselves in a spirit and a posture of surrender at the foot of the cross, as Mary did, knowing that he loves us and has forgiven us and wants to set us free.

That what we couldn't do for ourselves, Jesus did for us in dying on the cross to save us, to save us.

And so today there may be some in the room that you need to put your faith and trust in your allegiance in Jesus today, that you've been trying to fix all the problems on yourself, you've been trying to do it all the ways of the world, and today is your day that you connect, that you come to, that you put yourself at the foot of the cross and you give your life and heart over to him so that you can be saved, forgiven, healed, and free.

And some of you are in the room and you've walked with God, but you've walked away, and today is your day to go back to him.

Today is your day to recognize that he hasn't walked from you, that he's patiently waiting for your return.

Would you bow your heads?

Father, all across the room today.

I pray, God, over this room, for people who are in the room today who may have felt like that, God, you've been distant or abandoned them.

But God, I pray right now, Father, that they would see, that they would have eyes to see, God, that Lord, you're near to them, that you're near to the brokenhearted.

That God, even though this side of life we're under the curse of sin and death, that Jesus, you came to save us, to help us in the hardships that we go through, and the challenges that we go through, and not only on this side, but into eternity, that we not be separated from you in a place called hell for the demons and for Satan, but that you allow us to have everlasting life in heaven with you.

And today we say thank you.

So, Father, I pray right now in this room for anybody in this place who needs to receive you as their savior, who needs to be forgiven, needs to put themselves at the foot of the cross and ask for your forgiveness and be saved, to be transformed, to be made new, to turn away from the old, their past, and to be restored and redeemed.

If that's you today, you need to give your life to Jesus.

Pray to him, Jesus, save me.

Pray in your heart and mind, Jesus, save me.

I believe that you're the Son of God, that you died on the cross for my sin, and that you're alive.

Forgive me, cleanse me so I can be in heaven with you one day.

Thank you for saving me.

I give you my life as you gave yours for mine.

Nobody looking around today.

You prayed to receive Christ as your Savior.

I wanted to count a three for you to raise your hand as a signal for heaven, and so I can pray for you if that's you.

Ready, one, two, three.

Raise your hand.

Father.

I see you.

Raise it high, raise your hand high.

Father, thank you, God, that you're changing and you're molding and you're shaping us, Father.

God, we thank you, Lord, that you're doing a work in hearts and that, Father, you're restoring and you're redeeming and you're saving us.

Father, you're shaping us for what you have called us to.

So, Father, now we're gonna respond to you in worship.

Trusting the worries of this life in your hands.

Everybody said you stand at your feet.