Formed in the Fall - Pastor Robin Allen

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Thank you for joining us, and let's get into the word of today.

All right, well, I'm excited today because I get to speak to you about my favorite season.

And that's the fall season, church.

I'm telling you, fall is, in my opinion, the best season.

I told the boys, I said, y'all, we can we can divvy this out however you want to.

I'm just not taking winter.

Okay?

Wasn't born for winter.

I was born in Alabama and there was basically no winter.

We skip it on purpose.

So I didn't feel equipped enough, passionate enough to share with you about winter.

So we're gonna let that be somebody else's responsibility.

For me, I'm gonna talk to you about my favorite season.

Okay, so I love the summer for a lot of reasons, but fall just does something to you.

Come on, church.

I think it's funny because some seasons that that come up, we we sort of just merge into them.

We wake up and we're like, ooh, it's a little crispy outside.

It's a little bit spring.

Spring tried to stay around a little long this year and kind of get up in summer's business.

But then fall, I feel like our culture, our society is so excited for fall that we kind of we kind of put the gas on a little too quick.

You know what I'm saying?

You're gonna go to Target today, and you're gonna see Halloween costumes and pumpkin candies and pumpkin everything, and it's and the candles are gonna be out.

They probably already have the sale happening at Bath and Body Works.

Like, you gotta get in on it.

And it starts kind of doing something to you, and and then on August 25th, all my Starbies out there, Starbucks is gonna drop its fall menu.

I don't do um Dunkin' Donuts or scooters or any of that, but I'm sure they have theirs too.

But that's when you really know it's the fall season, right?

Is whenever you can get anything and everything flavored pumpkin spice.

That's how we know that we're entering into a new thing.

But the thing that I believe really helps us with fall is that our rhythm gets back into motion.

We all sort of take a little, you know, break in the summer.

We get we get vacations and and we get all the time off maybe to spend with family or friends, and we do little, you know, getaways here or there.

Maybe we just aren't on our same rhythm.

Maybe your small group took a break, whatever it could be, but summer kind of gave you an opportunity to step away from those things, but fall brings us back, and what it really does is it resets you.

And so school gets back into session, and and all the things I heard a parent say, hallelujah! Come on now.

How about football?

Football's back, care nothing about it.

All your small groups and your activities are gonna start up soon.

Your calendar is gonna start to fill back up.

How about some chili?

Get some chili brewing in the kitchen.

Some of the all some of those of you who taught me that apparently you're supposed to have a cinnamon roll with your chili.

I don't understand this.

I feel like this is something that Pastor J D would do.

Can you just see him just sitting there with a bowl of chili and just dunking it?

Just putting it all in there.

Like, what is this Midwestern?

It is just so strange.

I'd never experienced anything like it before.

And but the thing that I find so fascinating about fall is that it really helps us see that we almost kind of start like a new year, even though the year is, you know, we're we're eight months into the year now, but it feels like a new year, it feels like a new thing, it feels like an opportunity to reset, and the temperature starts to drop, and the air starts to change, and the leaves start to change colors.

Things that were used to be green, maybe they start to turn red and orange and yellow.

And the landscape changes.

And one of the things that I think is so fascinating about fall is that the change isn't just happening in a way that we can't see, like spring, but it's visible now.

It's visible now.

A lot of stuff happens under the ground in spring, and we've been talking about that.

And and then in summer, a lot of stuff starts happening really internally with with roots and and things being tested under the heat of it all.

But by fall, now we can see what the season has actually been doing.

That things have been maturing.

Are you with me, church?

The fruit is ready, the leaves start to release, and the evidence of the season becomes visible.

And spiritually, this morning, I wonder if that's one of the gifts of certain seasons in our lives.

That eventually they reveal what's actually been happening inside of you.

We spent this series talking about different seasons of our Christian walk with the Lord, and the reality of it is that there's a lot of us in this room this morning, but there's not everybody in the room is on the same page.

Not everybody in the room is in the same season.

Some of you might be in the summer right now, and you might feel the heat, and you might feel some pressure, and some of you, the Lord's doing some stuff way down under the surface, and he's in refining you, and you're in the spring season.

And others of you might be in your fall where you start to feel the promise of it all, the harvest of the things that God's been doing in your lives.

And so today I want to spend, I don't want to spend quite as much time talking about what God's been doing around us and looking around to see the fruit, but I believe that God wants us to focus this morning on what has this season produced in me.

Here's the thing, church, if we don't allow the Lord to do what he needs to do in each season, then we aren't growing and we aren't learning and we aren't developing and we are not maturing.

And that season will repeat itself until we can learn the lesson that God might be trying to teach us and grow us in our lives.

So although seasons might be hard, it's important that you don't skip them.

It's important that you don't skip the work, it's important that you don't stick your head in the sand and try to just breeze through a season without being affected by the season.

Because here's the thing when we drive down the street in a couple of weeks and begin to see the season change, there's no escaping at church.

The leaves are gonna be green, then they're gonna turn colors, and it's gonna be beautiful for just a couple of weeks, and then they're gonna fall.

Because they are telling us of something to come called winter.

And if we're not careful and we want to skip things that are too difficult in life, we don't understand the process of maturing and releasing.

So I believe that God wants to teach us this morning on becoming mature.

Can we pray?

All over the room with your heads bowed, Lord, we thank you, Father, for what you are doing in this house.

Lord, we celebrate our children, we celebrate the growth of this house, we celebrate the opportunity, Father, to come into community this morning.

And Lord, I pray, Father, this morning, as we as we learn and grow in the scripture, Father, that you be the teacher.

Father, that you aren't just refining for the purpose of fixing us, God, but you are refining for the purpose of maturing us for helping our faith grow strong.

And so, Lord, this morning we pray your anointing over this word and hearts and minds to hear the word in Jesus' mighty name.

We pray, amen.

Amen.

Yesterday, my husband and I, we celebrated 18 years of marriage.

Yeah, 18 years, bruh.

That's a lot of time.

A lot of time with one person.

We took a walk and we were just talking about all the things that we've experienced and learned over 18 years.

And he's like, you know, you were like the longest girlfriend that I had.

He's like, you're my 18-year-long girlfriend.

And I was like, that's true, I am.

I was like, I taught you what it means to be committed, sir.

Taught you so many things.

Like, you know, it's that whole maturing thing that I'm talking about.

I've been waiting a long time for that church, and the maturing is finally showing itself.

You know what I'm saying?

We joke all the time and say that if anything were to ever happen, we're not starting over.

This took me too long, okay?

Too much time, too many tests, too much of this and too much of that.

That we're just we're good.

I got mine, I'm good.

Amen.

But I've been thinking a lot about this whole week and this preparing for this, for this sermon and and and thinking about being married for 18 years because we got married in the fall, and and we got married in San Antonio.

It was beautiful.

It was it was hot, it wasn't like fall crispy, it was hot, and uh it was a great day that felt like it was really full of a lot of promise, full of a lot of emotion, but full of a lot of promise.

And I remember standing there and making those vows, and I knew that I loved him, and I knew that I wanted to build a life with him, but I had no earthly idea what 18 years, what 25, I don't even know what 25 years looks like yet.

But I didn't know what I would know now after 18 years.

I need some married folk to talk to me this morning.

Come on, I didn't know that there was gonna be seasons that we would walk through together that would be those of some of them of great joy, like having our three children, buying our first home, all those wonderful things that we've done, watching each other grow in our giftings and our talents and our careers.

But then there's a lot of seasons of disappointment.

Personally, professionally, financially.

Come on, somebody.

Like all the way around, you just look around and you're just disappointed.

Seasons of real pain and health struggles and a lot of questions you don't know how to answer, seasons of extreme loss.

I know I cannot be the only person in this room this morning that's experienced these seasons.

And here's the thing that I know now is that seasons where we had to carry each other and where our prayers weren't weren't always being answered, and we were waiting a lot.

You know, you don't know all of that while you're standing there making a commitment to one another.

You're just looking at each other's eyes and saying, You're cute, I'm cute, let's do this together.

Amen.

It's going off of faith.

That's all we got.

Faith in my bank account, faith in you, faith in me.

We got it.

Right?

I was just saying yes.

I was just saying yes now, 18 years later, and we still say yes every day, because it's a decision every day, not because every season that we've gone through has been easy, or even that I happen to think that maybe the next 18 years might be even easier, but because I believe that the harvest has always looked the way I imagined it would if I didn't quit.

Doesn't that remind you of Galatians 6 9?

Come on, let's say it together.

Let us not get tired of doing good.

For we will reap at the proper time if we don't give up.

So I can't understand the fruition of 18 years of marriage if I stayed married for 18 months.

Let me throw that to your relationship with Christ.

I can't understand the faithfulness of a savior over my period of life if I only gave him a week and a half.

So I have to understand that a commitment to something is not just for the purpose of saying, I did it, or let's let's make this happen, but the purpose of it is so that I don't quit.

That something in me is allowing something to grow so that it can be matured and available even to pass along to others.

But I cannot get that if I give up.

So Galatians 6 9 is a promise to us.

But here's what I've learned.

Sometimes you reap a harvest and it doesn't look anything like the harvest you pictured when you planted that seed.

It doesn't look anything like it.

You got married, you had the kids, you got the job.

It didn't look any, now it looks nothing like the picture on the box.

I thought I was buying that.

I I thought I was gonna get, you know, the easy breezy package.

I I don't know when we decided as Christians that when we sign up to be Christ like, that somewhere along the way God was just coming in to make my life easy.

Because I don't know if you've read the same Bible that I've read, but the one that I read says, count in all joy, because in this life you will have trials, you will have suffering, there will be tribulation.

And I don't know about you, but if you last time you looked up those three words, they don't come with a pretty bow attached, they come with the stuff that's hard, they come with the stuff that you don't understand.

I can't understand how the bad stuff or the hard stuff or the painful stuff produces a harvest if I give up.

So go with me this morning.

Some of the greatest harvest of these 18 years hasn't been something that you could take a picture of, church.

Yesterday I didn't even post on social media.

It's like, first off, love y'all, but y'all don't need to know everything.

I went on a walk with this man and I told him everything because that's what matters.

But every this because it because the bottom line is there's so much that's happened in 18 years.

I couldn't snap a picture of the deep work.

I can't snap a picture of the hard stuff.

I can't snap a picture of the stuff that looks like a breakthrough and an opportunity.

I can't snap a picture of stuff that looks like a blessing all the time, or an answer all the time, or a promotion all the time, or an increase, because sometimes something is something that God wants us to have isn't so much about what He's He's giving you in your hands, about Him blessing you with a tangible something.

But sometimes the greatest harvest is never showing up in your hands, it is showing up in your heart.

It's the stuff that God's doing that nobody can see.

So maybe the harvest of that difficult season was actually just humility in my life.

If you've been married for longer than six minutes, you've had an opportunity to be humbled.

If you've had children, you got a toddler, they start learning how to walk or talk, you will be humbled publicly.

They're gonna tell the stuff that you said and you thought they couldn't hear you because they was watching a YouTube video, and they're gonna go back to kids' church today, and they're gonna tell all your business.

Then you're gonna get in the car and you're gonna give them that whole speech about, you know, sweetie, what happens in the house stays in the house.

They don't understand.

They said, Mama, you said it.

Why can't everybody know it?

Maybe the harvest of waiting was patience.

Maybe it was so that you might produce discernment.

Maybe the loss in your life deepened your compassion for the person sitting next to you.

Maybe walking through something you never wanted taught you to depend on God in a comfort in a way that comfort in your life never could teach you.

Maybe you didn't come out of the season with everything you wanted, but you came out looking a little bit more like Jesus.

And that is what I want to talk to you about this morning.

If you're taking notes, the title this morning is Formed in the Fall.

Because we've been saying that you're built for this.

You're built for this.

Not saying that you're built for your neighbor's season.

You're built for the season God has you in right now.

You are built for it.

And you're not just built to survive changing seasons, but you're built so that God might transform you through them.

I want to show you a little picture this morning.

And I'm not a good drawer, so we're just gonna doodle a little bit.

If you take in the small group leadership course, you know I'm not good at even writing basic words on a whiteboard without people being able to tell what it says.

So I'm just gonna draw you a doodle.

So I want you to imagine that your spiritual growth looks something like this.

Can you see that?

All right.

That's what I think that we, when we become Christ's followers, become saved when I stood at the altar with my husband.

This is why I imagined our relationship.

This is the start line right here.

Oops, I said I wasn't gonna write, but I did.

That says start.

And so this is what we imagine is that we're just going to up, up, up, up produce growth, never disappoint, increase, increase, increase, increase.

I'm gonna understand more.

Things are gonna improve.

I'm gonna struggle less, I'm gonna become stronger, and everything just keeps moving up and to the right.

That is the biggest lie that you can tap into as a Christian.

And if you're making a disciple in this house, I want to caution you not to tell them when you find Jesus up and to the right.

This is what it looks like.

Because, you know, you you find Jesus, and you know, he's the answer to all your problems, and before you know it, you're just everything's going right for you.

And it's gonna be so easy for you to lay down that stand, and it's gonna be so easy for you to move out of that house with your girlfriend, and it's gonna be so easy for you to do these things, and you're gonna have such a desire for the Bible, man.

You're just gonna be like just consumed with Bible study time.

You're gonna have all these creative ideas to start ministries.

Everybody's gonna respond when you talk about Jesus.

When you go to church or you go to you go to your workplace and you talk about God, nobody's gonna look at you like you're an idiot.

It's gonna be amazing.

Up and to the right, let's go, let's follow Jesus.

Well, if it was this way, why aren't there more people doing it?

The Bible says that the that the the the path is narrow.

This is what we think about when we think about, and we won't admit it, right?

Because we're all real holy in this room.

So we won't admit that this is what we are kind of hoping.

Maybe if I just do all the right things, I'm hoping this is the way my my relationships are gonna work, my relationship with Christ is gonna work, but you know, I honestly think that there's gonna be a little bit more like this.

That's reality.

Up and down, up and down, up and down.

But look here.

Still moving forward, still going the same direction.

Unfortunately, though, I'm not just gonna get superhuman and move forward.

I'm gonna look just like myself.

Some days I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna feel like I'm on a high for Jesus.

I'm gonna start a new Bible study.

And then I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna feel like, oh man, I don't want to do that anymore.

So then maybe I wake up the next day.

I'm I'm really gonna go to church today.

And then the next Sunday, you know, I really think that it's, you know, doesn't it feel a little bit crispy outside?

Like it's a little bit cool.

Maybe I'll stay home today, make that chili that Pastor Robin was talking about.

I'll just watch church from home.

I'm getting in your business too much.

Let me get back to my notes.

I want you to see something that the low point of even this scenario, the lowest point is still moving you forward.

So that means that there's a possibility that I can be mourning and still be growing.

I'm just teaching you this morning.

I can be mourning something in my life and still actually be growing towards something.

Let us not forget Naomi from Scripture.

Do you remember?

That she returned to Bethlehem and she was grieving an enormous loss in her life, yet her story was still moving towards Ruth, Boaz, redemption, legacy.

Jesus came from the line of Ruth.

Are you with me?

You can be confused, even, and still be maturing.

Y'all remember Peter.

Peter from the scripture was repeatedly misunderstanding Jesus.

Jesus was just irritated with how many times he had explained himself to Peter.

And yet Jesus kept shaping him into the leader that he was going to become.

So he's still moving forward.

There's a possibility this morning that you can be in a season of waiting and also still being transformed by God.

Let's not forget Joseph.

That years passed between the dream that God gave Joseph and the fulfillment of that dream.

That he in the waiting, he was developing a character.

Imagine if Joseph had had the dream that he, his brothers, and everyone was gonna be bowing at his feet and then it happened the next day.

What a mess that would have been.

I want you to think about your own life right now.

Is there a season of your life where you were living out something you said, if this had happened 10 years ago, I would not have responded the same way.

Best believe I would have made a mess out of this all by myself.

Why?

Because it's possible that you could be waiting for the fulfillment of a promise that God made in your life, waiting for the harvest of that thing, and still being transformed by God so that once it comes, you can handle that blessing.

So you can feel even disappointed, and you can also still be developing.

Elijah, let's remember him this morning that after the victory on Mount Carmel, he crashed emotionally.

Do you remember that?

He fled and he felt completely discouraged.

And yet God met him there and continue preparing him for what came next.

So you could have a full crash out and God still got mercy for you.

You can feel like you're losing and still be moving forward.

Remember Paul that he was imprisoned and persecuted.

He had setback after setback and weakness that looked like losses, yet the gospel kept advancing, and Paul kept becoming even more like Christ.

So you come, church, from a long line of overcomers.

Do you hear me?

You come from a long line of overcomers.

That there are people ahead of you that have faced the challenges of life, went through the hard stuff, went through the easy stuff, and God was making them and maturing them and transforming them through every single thing.

You come from a long line of overcomers.

And that's why I believe that God is saying to us in this season, you were built for this.

You were built for what you're going through, built for those mountaintoptop moments, and you were built to follow Jesus all the way through the coil.

You were built for it, church.

Let's open our Bibles this morning.

I want to take you to Matthew 5.

Matthew 5.

Jesus here is recorded giving his longest sermon in the Bible.

And he's describing here at the top of chapter 5 traits that he was looking for in his followers.

This is your job description, church, right here.

You want to be a follower of Jesus?

Read Matthew 5.

You want to look like a disciple, read Matthew 5.

He said that God blesses those who live out these traits.

So let's read them together.

We're going to start at verse 1.

One day, as he saw the crowds gathering, Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down.

His disciples gathered around him and he began to teach them.

Verse 3, God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Verse 4, God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.

God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.

God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.

God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

God blesses you, church, listen to it.

When people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you, because you are my followers.

Look at verse 12.

Be happy about it.

Listen to what he said.

Be happy about it.

Be very glad.

Sense a little sarcasm.

Be very glad.

For a great reward awaits you in heaven.

Church, if I just read that list and you say sounds a little bit like my seasons, be happy about it.

Be happy about it.

Listen, who's he talking to in this scripture here?

He's not talking to the large crowd.

Large, large crowds were gathering everywhere that Jesus went.

He was the most popular.

He was the most known.

He was the most talked about.

Large crowds were gathering everywhere he went.

But you know what he did?

Instead of talking to the large crowd and sharing this with the large crowd, he took his disciples and he said, Y'all come here.

I gotta talk to you.

Y'all come here for a second.

Because we got to get this right.

If we can get this right, those people out there that are following us will exhibit traits that only God can help us to perform.

And this is how we become disciples.

So it's interesting to me that instead of him sharing this with a huge crowd of people, he goes to the people that are the closest to him.

And he says to them, this is kingdom fruit.

This is kingdom fruit.

That in his kingdom, what matters most is faithful obedience, not just out of behavior modification, but flowing out of your transformed heart.

And the list of traits does not sound very much up and to the right, does it, church?

Does it really sound very up and to the right?

Increase, increase, improve, improve, understand, understand.

It doesn't.

If we're judging by circumstances here, some of these actually sound like terrible seasons.

Some that I would really love to just go ahead and skip.

And some of you in the room today can even relate to some of this.

You might today be in a season where you feel empty.

You might today be in a season where you're grieving something.

You might be desperate for God or misunderstand, understood in a situation, opposed in some sort of way.

And Jesus keeps saying, be blessed.

That it's possible that we have been using the wrong measurement to determine what makes a season good.

Because fall is the season of harvest, and it's when you finally begin to see what has matured and survive the heat and what grew from that seed that you planted, what's ready to ready to be gathered.

And Jesus is showing us in the Beatitudes this morning that the greatest harvest of a season is not always what's growing around us, but it's what he's matured within you.

So, what does the harvest of a transformed heart this morning really look like?

It looks like this.

You can write this down if you want to remember, but maturing in faith in fall is realizing that I need God.

It's that simple.

I need God.

Maturity is not becoming so strong that I no longer need Him.

He's matured my gifts and my abilities and my talents and my skills.

So before I know it, I'm operating out of the things that I know how to do.

Maybe I'll come to the Lord when I'm feeling, God, you know what, this is a little outside of my comfortability.

So I definitely do need help with this, Lord.

But for the most part, I can function in that role.

I I've been trained, I know, I know how to handle certain situations.

And I know that we don't say that to the Lord church, because that would be wild if we were like, oh, most holy God, please only help me in this area and not the other.

We wouldn't do that, but we do it.

But we do it because we don't feel the need for God.

We don't understand the depths of how that without him I truly am nothing.

That from him, every gifting, every talent, every ability, every breath that we take is just gifts drop from heaven every day.

So I need the Lord, and it's becoming secure enough to admit how much I need the Lord.

That some seasons strip away even our illusion of control.

I couldn't fix some of this stuff, and I couldn't prevent it, and I couldn't carry it by myself, and maybe that's part of the harvest.

Maybe that's part of the harvest.

I've been married to him for 18 years, and there's a million things that I could tell you I could not fix.

Not about him, but I'm saying there's a million things that I know we couldn't fix it, I couldn't fix it.

It didn't matter how many more degrees or certifications or opportunities or stages to preach from, it could not be fixed, but by the hand of God.

Church, when we understand our deficit of humanity and who he is and his divinity, then now I understand how much I need you, God.

See, church, I think we need to get back to a healthy hunger for the things of God that I know.

Lord, if you don't show up, I can I can train up my children and I can teach them the ways of the Lord, and I can live a life in front of them that I can, but they are going to make their own decisions.

And without God and his grace and his provision, I pray all the time, God watch my babies from things I cannot protect them from because I understand who he is and I understand where he goes, that he goes before and behind and all around, that he is omnipresent and I am not.

I'm talking to people who understand a season where you need God and you're saying, Lord, I have come to an understanding that I am undone without you, Lord.

I can't save my own soul.

I can't save my own soul.

God make it a conviction within us, Lord.

We get too comfortable in our lives, church, too comfortable in our culture, too comfortable that we fit in and we do not stand out enough to remind ourselves that God Almighty orders my steps.

God Almighty orders my steps.

I look at this man right here who never graduated from college, and I have watched the Lord order his steps, open doors, wide as they possibly can be.

Give him the opportunities, mention his name in rooms that he was never in because the favor of God, like the Bible said, surrounds him like a shield.

It's something I cannot do.

Only God can do it because he decides who he favors, who he mer who he pours mercy, he gives all these blessings from heaven.

I can do it.

Maturing and fall is realizing I need God.

I need the Lord.

I need the Lord is saying I can mourn this season honestly because I need the Lord.

Because I understand, Lord, the pain is so deep and the pain is so difficult, and to the point that I feel like I can't breathe without being in physical pain because of situations that I'm going through.

I need the Lord, and the temptation that the enemy would like to offer you this morning is to isolate yourself and to pull yourself out from the crowd and allow yourself to just go to a corner and weep about your issue and have a pity party.

But I believe that God wants us to mourn in a healthy manner where you go into his presence every morning, and like the Bible says, that he would be like a wraparound presence and he would be a comfort and a and a guide.

And Psalms tells us that he's the shield around me.

Why would it say that unless you need a shield?

Why would it say that unless you need something to defend you?

Sometimes the harvest of a hard season is deeper dependence on a holy God.

Write this down.

Maturing in fall is realizing I want different things.

I want different things.

We're just going through the Beatitudes this morning.

In these, it mentions to hunger and thirst after justice, after righteousness, says to be pure in your heart.

Maturing in the fall season is realizing that some things, some desires that I used to have have changed.

And there are things that I used to chase that I don't chase anymore.

Maybe I used to need your approval, but I'm alright now.

Maybe I used to need to be in the middle of it.

I needed to, I needed to control that thing.

I needed my opinion to be known.

I needed, I needed everybody to know I'm good.

Maybe I needed some recognition.

I needed people to understand what I can contribute.

I needed credibility, but you know what?

I'm okay.

God fights for me.

Maybe I needed some of the comforts of life, and I needed some things to help me when I'm having a hard day, and you know, just help me escape reality just a little bit when the anxiety is too difficult, and the nervous energy is too difficult, and I just have some comforts that I'm just, you know, I haven't really haven't really felt ready to give that stuff up yet, but maturing is me saying, Lord, you are all that I need.

Lord, that your rod and staff, they go with me, they comfort me.

I want you to think about that this morning, the imagery of a rod and a staff.

If you think about a shepherd, maybe you just imagine one of those old Sunday school photos that you've seen of the shepherd with their little shepherd's hook and they walk beside the sheep.

And the Bible specifically gives us that to say that the rod and the staff would bring comfort.

How so?

Because the rod and the staff is what's used when the shepherd is trying to herd the sheep in a particular area.

So there might be times that they have to kind of nudge them along.

Sometimes it feels good, sometimes not so good.

How does that comfort me?

Well, the Bible says that the Lord disciplines those that he loves.

Discipline could be a hard season.

Doesn't always feel good when the Lord tells you to shut your mouth.

Doesn't always feel good when the Lord tells you stop entertaining that thing.

When he tells you go ahead and end that relationship.

When he tells you to go ahead and take that job, even though it might be with less pay.

There's a lot of comforts in fall.

It's a lot of things that we do to cozy up.

Feel the comfort of the weather and the and the entertainment and the food and the drinks and all the fun things that bring comfort and settle us in to get ready for winter.

But God's comfort looks different, church.

And this morning, maybe he's saying to you that when he's ready to mature you, he doesn't just change what we do, he changes what we want.

And I believe that really honestly, in this season, our church is getting right now that what I've noticed is the harvest looks like a greater hunger for the Lord.

I don't know if y'all have been in church, but I've been here.

And that's what I'm that's what I'm observing about what God might be doing in this season with our church is that the harvest might be that you have a greater hunger for the presence of God, that you have a greater hunger to spread the good news, that you have a greater hunger to go home and not forget about God Monday through Saturday, but actually talk about Him when you walk around and talk about Him when you sit down and talk about Him to your children.

That's what Deuteronomy tells us, church, that we gotta be wearing it, the scriptures around our neck, that we might meditate.

On the word of God day and night.

That's the harvest.

Maturity changes your appetite.

Helps you see that those easy, quick fixes they fizzle way too quick.

Next thing you know, you need another another thing that brings you some more comfort.

You need another thing that gets you all riled up.

You're addicted to drama.

Just out here.

I need to know.

I need to know what's happening with so-and-so.

Scrolling until you somewhat feel satisfied.

Can I tell you, church, there is no end to the bottom of that screen?

You just keep scrolling.

You can sit at home today and scroll for three hours and you'll never find the end of it.

That says something to me, church.

I can go as deep into the garbage that I want to go.

What is it the Lord's saying to you this morning?

I can't answer that for you, church.

Maturing in fall is realizing I want different things in my life.

Write this down.

Maturing in fall is realizing that my fruit isn't just for me.

This has been talked about several times from this platform, and we're gonna keep saying it, but uh my fruit isn't just for me.

This is the part of the Beatitudes where he talks about being merciful.

All those in the room that took your spiritual gift test and your mercy was a zero, talking to you.

Bible says, be merciful.

Says be a peacemaker.

He said blessed.

Blessed.

Listen, if you read and you study the word blessed, it does mean happy in the Hebrew.

The way that he describes that does mean happy.

It doesn't necessarily mean happy in the understanding that we get it as a Western culture of Christianity.

We're happy, we think of is how I feel when I take my first swig of my pumpkin spice.

Life latte.

Look, don't get after me.

I am 100% basic and I'm fine with it.

Pumpkin spice, everything.

But I'm saying that to say that he said be happy about it in the sense that there's a contentment in me that God has gifted me and given me the ability, even if it's not something that comes naturally, but he can give me the strength and the ability to allow mercy and peace to flow from my life.

And because of that, I'm happy because God is working through me.

There's a contentment that I can feel knowing that I am a vessel.

I'm a vessel.

He's able to flow.

And here's what I love about harvest that fruit isn't grown for the tree to eat.

Pastor Tommy said this last week.

It can't eat the all the fruit that it bears, but somebody else is gonna come along and he's gonna pick that fruit.

It benefits other people from what the tree produces.

So if this season matured mercy in me, then somebody should experience more mercy from me.

And if this season produces patience, somebody, I'm sure somebody, anybody is hoping that they're gonna get some patience out of you.

Maybe the season has softened you a bit, it's been a harder one, it's been something that you've walked through some difficult stuff, and that was for the purpose of softening you so that you might exude compassion.

The Bible said that the Lord looked upon the people with compassion.

This is coming from our Savior, who we say we want to be like, who we call ourselves many Christ, disciples of the Lord, but yet I have no compassion for that.

You see that stuff over there?

I ain't got time for that.

Is that biblical, sir?

I'm not talking about boundaries, church.

I'm saying you ain't got time.

You ain't got time to stop.

See people the way that God might see them.

Remind yourself that you had a low point.

Maybe your low point looks different than low point, but look, all these look the same to me.

They're all low.

All of it's hard.

All of it might be confusing, all of it might be difficult, all of it might be challenging.

And you know what?

If I was down here, I don't want to stay here.

I might be moving forward, but I definitely didn't want to stay down here.

I was trying to climb, I was trying to get back up.

How do I not know that the person I'm talking to is in the same boat?

They're also trying to get back up.

The Bible says, you who are more mature, restore those?

Restore them?

What did he say?

Gently.

That's making disciples, church.

Are the people around your life benefiting from what God has been growing in you?

Think about that.

Are people around you benefiting from the fruit that God has been growing in your life?

Because if it's not, if it's not producing something, if it's not releasing something, if it's not giving out something, and I'm keeping it to myself, then my fruit can get rotten.

My fruit has a possibility of shriveling up, dying, no longer producing growth.

Write this down.

Maturing in fall is realizing that my yes can't depend on my season.

Look at the beatitudes where we read that last portion of scripture where it said, hey, listen now, those of you that are being persecuted, those of you that are being mocked, those that of you are that are being opposed, listen, because of him.

I want to make that clear, church.

Okay, being opposed, being mocked, being being persecuted in this passage is not talking about somebody disagreeing with your opinion.

It's not talking about somebody commenting on your Facebook.

It's not talking about the trivial things that we understand in our culture and under and our society.

It's talking about the deep stuff where you're a reflection of Christ.

You're living it out, you're standing up for the right things, you're you're showing mercy in the right places, you're pure in your emotives, you're pure in your heart, and yet people consistently oppose you.

Oppose what you stand for.

These are the things where he says, When you are persecuted because you are my followers, count it all blessing.

You are blessed.

Jesus ends this whole Beatitude passage, the first part of this sermon talking about opposition.

Because eventually, mature faith has to answer this question.

Will I still follow Jesus when following Jesus cost me something?

When obedience doesn't produce the outcome that maybe I thought it was going to, I obeyed the Lord.

He told me to do this, I obeyed.

I he told me to pray for my coworker, I did, and then they started telling everybody I was a lunatic.

When obedience to God doesn't produce the outcome that you imagined in your mind, when you feel much understood and conviction in your life begins to cost you friendships and relationships.

When the season in your life gets difficult, immature faith says, I'll follow as long as this works out for me.

Remember when I talked to you about my marriage for 18 years, the things that I could not have possibly understood if I'd only allowed it to work for 18 months.

But now that I have an understanding of where all God was trying to grow me, I have that because I didn't say, okay, as long as this works out, we'll stay in it.

As long as you're nice to me and I'm nice to you, then we'll keep it going.

I'm nice all the time.

I'm sorry, Lord, I can't stand up here and just keep on going after that whole lie.

But your faith says he's still Lord.

He's still Lord.

So although I don't get it, and although I feel misunderstood, and although I feel like I did what you want me to do, God, but it's just not changing anything.

You know, I feel like I'm doing all the things that you want me to do, but God, my life is not getting easier, it's getting harder.

Welcome to the faith.

Welcome to the faith.

And this is where I get to say, God, you are still Lord.

You are still sovereign.

You are still glorified, God.

I thank you that even though I stand opposed, you fight for me, and that's why I can stand with two feet planted on my decision.

Maybe the harvest isn't something that helps us see that everything is just gonna become easier, but maybe the harvest is that our yes to God gets stronger.

As we close, I want to come back to the beatitudes one more time.

Because I want you to see, church, that these beatitudes are not multiple choice.

It's not choose your flavor.

Choose the ones that show up on your spiritual gifting test as your most, you know, highlighted, represented, natural giftings.

Jesus isn't saying, please choose the one that fits your personality best.

He says beatitudes are not a menu of Christian qualities, but they're a portrait of a mature follower of Jesus Christ.

And this is what Christ is producing in us.

This is what a life surrendered to Jesus begins to look like.

And the longer I walk with the Lord, the more this poor this portrait should become visible in me.

That I become poor in spirit, not worthless, not insecure church, but deeply aware that I am spiritually bankrupt without God.

There's a version that uses the terminology here that you would even be um poverty in spirit.

You say that sounds totally backwards.

God doesn't want me to live in poverty.

Well, he's not talking about your bank account, he's talking about in your understanding of your your need for God that in this you're insecure.

Because the only one who can secure your eternity is God Almighty.

So in this area of your life, you are insecure, you are a dependent.

That new believers are bought in on the lie that a following Jesus is much more aesthetically pleasing than it's ever been.

Get the right Bible and find the right crew and just you know go to the Christian concerts and start posting on social media, and this is the easy stuff to prove you have depth in Christ.

I'll tell you what proves that you have depth in Christ.

Sitting at church on a Wednesday evening when someone calls me and says, Your house is burning to the ground.

Showing up to the property where my husband stands on the phone with insurance and looks at me with as wild eyes as I've ever seen it, unable to disassociate himself from me and what's happening in the room or what's happening on the property.

Instantly goes into let's fix this, let's worry about this, and I just stand watching the curtains in my daughter's room flying out the window.

That's depth.

Going back to the church that night to go back into rehearsals for an outreach program that my husband and I were going to minister through for the entire weekend.

Taking my daughter to kindergarten the next morning and getting the donated backpack, talking to the counselor and sending her off to class, weeping with so much depth that I didn't understand before.

I couldn't possibly understand the tears up to that point that I would experience, except if I were in that situation again.

Going back to work, sitting at a desk and organizing volunteers and writing scripts and piecing together videos and audio and all the different things, and then going to the restroom and sitting in the bathroom floor and crying and weeping for things that I felt guilty for losing.

I had two babies and they were safe.

My husband was safe.

Stricken me, twisted my stomach, twisted me to the point that I didn't understand, God, what's happening?

How do I trust you with this?

People asking me over and over and over out of the goodness of their hearts, how can I help you?

How can I help you?

How can I help you?

I had absolutely no way to tell them anything.

I just stood there with my mouth open, looking like an idiot, because I don't know how you can help me.

I don't even know what I need outside of the fact that my entire world has flipped up.

I need somebody to know that when you are in a season where your life is twisted inside out, he is Lord.

My yes never depended on whether or not God was gonna let me live in a house that never burned.

My nest never depended on whether or not I was ever gonna be in a season where I didn't know if he was gonna be with me or not.

Where if the thing that's inside of his head, his tumor this year, terrified me to the depths of my soul.

I never knew that my yes was gonna bring me to a season like that, but I understood that my yes meant that God Almighty was fighting in a way that I could not.

That the Lord of hosts of the angel armies was ahead of me, that I left our house five minutes before the fire began to consume the walls of my house.

Five minutes between the time that our van left the property and the first phone call came in, that there was smoke in our house.

I'm telling you, God can do things that you cannot do, church, and your yes has gotta be rooted.

Your yes has gotta be founded on the fact that you know who he is, that you understand who he is.

If I'm waiting for this, I'm gonna give up.

If I look at this, God, you you saved me, and and this life that I thought I was living for you, this up and to the right, everything up and to the right, up and to the right.

Well, I don't understand, Lord, because this is not up and to the right.

This is not up and to the right.

I uh I felt good, and then and then Wednesday came and and now I'm down here, and well, what happened?

Friday came and we opened the doors to the church, people started flooding in.

We told a dramatic setting and story of how God wants to save, how God came to deliver people from bondage and sin and entrapment of the enemy.

And scene after scene after scene, we showed people what it looks like when God finds you in a dark place, and at the end of the service, people flooded the altars, and and we're just down here praying and leading people through the sinner's prayer, and all of this is happening.

And I'm standing on a stage without an address and without a second pair of clothes, and without any makeup, and without all the comforts of my life, and my babies are back in their classes, and my husband's in the sound booth, and we just look at each other and he is Lord, he is Lord, he is Lord, Father.

With my dying last breath, may you be glorified through my life.

If it's an easy season, I'll give you praise.

If it's a hard season, I'll give you praise because my yes cannot depend on my season, but he's Lord of my life in every single season when you stand to your feet all over the house.

Jesus wants to teach you this morning how to mourn.

He wants to teach you how to be meek, how to be humble, he wants to teach you how to be righteous, how to be secure in him, how to provide mercy, how to be pure.

He wants to teach you this morning how to make peace, how to create peace in your life.

And this morning, I just have to give this opportunity.

If you will, all over the room, can we just bow our heads and close our eyes?

As you do that this morning, I just want to ask you a couple of questions.

I want you to think to yourself, do I look more like Jesus because of this season?

Come on, did this season make me more dependent on the Lord?

Did it change what I hunger for?

Did it soften my heart or did it purify something within me?

Did it make me exude more mercy or peace?

Did it make my yes stronger?

Because we can come through a season with more money, church, and still be immature.

And we can come through a season with another opportunity and still be immature.

But if I walk through something hard and I came out more humble, wasn't it worth it?

If I walk through something hard and I came out more surrendered to God, wasn't it worth it?

If I walk through something hard, And God made me more passionate and more compassionate and more faithful to his word, faithful to my time with him.

Isn't it a harvest?

So, all over this room this morning, if if you don't know the Lord, if you sit in this room today and you hear me talk and you hear me share my testimonies, and you say, I've been going through hard stuff too, but I I don't know what to do with it.

I don't know what the answers are.

I just I feel like there's something in this room that I haven't figured out yet.

He it is the Lord, He is good, everything good comes from Him.

Everything we face that is challenging is through His strength.

It is the Lord.

So if you're in this room this morning and you say, I need to know the Lord, I can't live another day without knowing the Lord, will you just raise your hand in this room if that's you?

I need to know the Lord, I need to know him.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jesus.

I know we haven't done this in a couple of Sundays, church, but we gotta be reminded.

He is Lord.

All together, let's say this prayer to the Lord, Father, I give you my life.

I choose to trust you.

My life is full of things I don't understand.

But I believe this morning that all my answers are found in your name.

So I confess you as Savior, Lord of my life, teach me how to live for you every single day.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Can we give Lord thanks for that right now?

And I just want to pray collectively over each one of you.

If you'll just raise your hand to the Lord here.

This is how we will end this morning.

Let's just do this.

If you're here in the room and you're with family at all, whether it be a spouse, children, whatever, will you just reach over and grab them, put an arm around them, hold their hand?

Because we don't go through seasons by ourselves, do we, church?

Come on, if you're a if you're a dad, if you're a father, your season is affecting the people around you.

If you're a mom, if you're a sister, your season is affecting people around you.

So Lord, in Jesus' name, we give you our season.

We submit to you our season.

We submit the stuff that we understand and the things that we don't.

We submit to you, Father, the ways that we have glorified you in this season and the ways that we acknowledge that we have not.

We submit our questions, we submit our our our understandings, Lord.

We we submit to you, Father, our our our struggles with this season.

We submit to you our complaints with this season, Father.

We submit to you, God, and we ask, Lord Jesus, that you would not leave us unchanged.

But Lord, this season would accomplish every single thing that you have desired it to, Lord, that you would grow us up, Lord, that you would mature us to be reflectors of you, Lord.

That just as we've read through the Beatitudes this morning, these would not be suggestions any longer for our lives.

But Lord, help us to walk out what you desire.

Let these traits not just become from you, but in us, God.

We pray, Lord, that you would develop everything in us through this season that you desire, God.

Let nothing be wasted, nothing missing, nothing lacking where there is healing still needing to be done.

Almighty God, I pray that you would heal in this room right now.

Father, those that are in mourning, I pray in the name of Jesus they would be comforted, Father.

Those who desire mercy, God, I pray, mercy be shown, mercy be produced, Father.

Those Lord that desire purity in their hearts, Lord, fill them full with understanding, Lord.

We thank you, God, that you are working and that you are moving, God, and in everything and every season, you are Lord.

Now give them thanks.

You are Lord, you are Lord, you are Lord, you are Lord, exalted above the heavens and the earth.

You are Lord! Hallelujah!

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