August, 30th 2026

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor Young, for always bringing your strength in those songs.

Man, that's just beautiful.

I love that song too.

And it's such a great story, which fits into what we're doing today because we have a new series called This Is the Day.

And it I don't know if you like me had a storm come through your house recently.

I don't know if it just hit around Calumet.

Maybe it hit around you as well.

But I spent uh yesterday morning cutting up branches.

Um big, big branch, cut my finger too.

Um big branches, load them up and uh to get rid of them.

Came up here because you know we have trees here uh as well.

Uh and and saw the saw poor Bobby who's right there.

Everybody turn and go, hey Bobby, everybody say hi Bobby, and say thank you, Bobby.

Bobby was getting it after getting after it.

He had a Ryobi uh sawzaw, little bitty like hand, like it's not meant for this.

Um but he's cutting stuff up like that.

And so I'm like, all right, let's go.

And I grabbed the blower and I start like the mulch.

We had rivers of mulch that we had just laid down that were just oh yeah, it was aw, that's right.

Um, and it was just everywhere trying to clean up everything, trying to gather stuff, and and it was just can I tell you how much I hate yard work?

I hate it, thank you, Ralph.

I hate it so much uh that I hire someone to do it, and her name is Jenna.

Um you can't afford my yard person.

Um she loves it.

I don't, I hate it.

We we have this deal.

Like I'll do dishes all day long.

Don't put me in the yard.

Um, and so I'm up here for you people cleaning up stuff, um, picking up branches, and then I get a call from my neighbor who says, uh, I don't know if you know this, but there's water gushing out of the back of your house.

Yay! And I turn to Bobby, I'm walking her to Bobby, like, hey, uh, I'd like to stay and help.

I don't really want to stay and help, but I feel like I have to stay and help with you.

But now there's water gushing out of the back of my house.

And Bobby is like, just go take care of it.

I got this, I got this.

And he did.

If you look out there, it's clean.

I sent a text to some guys, I'm like, hey, could you come and help?

Not a single one of them showed up to help.

Only Bobby uh was here.

But I go home, there's water, we have an alley, there's just you could surf down our alley.

Um, it was just great and glorious, and I'm just seeing money just going, oh my gosh, please don't be on our side.

Please don't be on our side.

Um, and praise God it wasn't.

Come on, yeah, that's right.

Yes, do something now.

Um they of course come.

The guy goes, Yeah, it's like this all over the city.

This is an emergency, but there's emergencies everywhere.

I'm like, you're gonna shut the water off, aren't you?

Yes, I am gonna shut the water off.

And you don't know when it's gonna be back on, do you?

No, I don't.

You're just full of good news today, aren't you?

Yes, I am.

And then he proceeded to get out of his truck and turn off our water in the joyful spirit that he did.

I don't know if that happened at your house.

Some of you, how many of you don't have power?

Still don't have power?

Yeah, you're welcome for the AC.

That's why we have it so cold in here for you this morning.

It is, it was tough.

And some days are just like that, aren't they?

Some days it's just out of nowhere the storm comes.

Like, who knew that was coming?

We were throwing a wedding shower for um a wonderful young couple.

And we're it's an outdoor thing, which by the way was a horrible idea because it was so humid and wonderful.

But um, they're all young kids, right?

We're the only people throwing the shower, and like, it's gonna be great and everything.

And then I'm standing with the guy whose house we're at, and I'm looking over, I'm like, that's a lot of lightning.

Like, we should tell people to get like the party's over.

Everybody go home.

And all of a sudden the world just went nuts.

I think that happens a lot of times in our life.

It's not just a literal storm, it could be any kind of storm that blows in unexpectedly and things change.

Maybe it's a Chicago fire or a shipwreck.

Or maybe it's just some branches falling on your yard, or maybe even your house.

Whatever it is, we have these moments.

What I love about this and what this series is, and what we're gonna talk about is that's okay.

This is the day.

Right?

We're gonna be looking at Psalm 118 for the next four weeks, and we're gonna be breaking it down.

In Psalm 118, if you don't know, it's the final of the Egyptian Hallel Psalms.

And they were to be sung, Psalm 113 through 118, are sung every Passover in remembrance and celebration of when God reached into Egypt and brought the people of Israel out of slavery and into freedom.

And so every Passover, the Jews would sing these songs, Psalm 113, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18, 118 being the final praise song.

And if you look at Psalm 118, it goes through just kind of a progression of things.

There's some informal language in there, there's some personal language, there's some liturgical language, there's some really formal like aggressive demands in there.

There's you see this procession of someone, of a person, of a group who are entering into the presence of God, demanding entrance in and finishing at the altar.

And one of the two, there's two lines that make this psalm really rememorable.

The first one is in verse 1, where it says, Give thanks to the Lord for he is good.

Right?

And many, there's a song, every time I hear that, I go into that song, give thanks to the Lord for he is good.

His love endures forever.

Right?

Give thanks to the Lord, right?

But then there's the other one, verse 24.

And verse 24 says this This is the day the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

It doesn't describe the day, it doesn't say what's happening or what's surrounding it, it says, This is the day the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

That's easier said than done at times, isn't it?

Because if you if you go back a little bit in this, and I want to describe what the day is that the people are rejoicing and being glad in.

Verse 12 says this.

They swarmed around me like bees.

Is anybody anybody afraid of bees?

My sister was deathly afraid.

Remember the killer bees?

They were moving up from Mexico, and remember those little blue boxes they used to hang out?

Some of you are too young to remember that, the little blue boxes to trap the killer bees, all this stuff.

My sister used to wake up with nightmares, dreaming or believing that the killer bees were in her room.

Now it could have been that my brother and I were making bee sounds.

I don't know.

There could have been something like that.

But it was just this great fear that she had.

And we used to laugh about it all the time.

I I think you all know this.

Um, there was a Sunday um a few months ago, it was in the gym, um, where I had been stung.

I was doing yard work again, and this is why God tells me not to do yard work.

Um, I was stung by a bee.

I was I was bending over, and there we have this beautiful queen's breath vine in the back, and and I put my hand down on a bee.

Um so it's really my fault, not the bee's fault.

Um it but it stung me right here, and it my arm swelled up to my shoulder.

And by the end of the 11 o'clock service, I didn't even tell anybody this.

I was having trouble breathing.

I go to the Dr.

McGoon and McGoon goes, he goes, Are you allergic?

Are you allergic to bees?

I'm like, no, I'm not.

He goes, Yes, you are.

Like, I've never been allergic to bees before.

He goes, Well, welcome to the club, right?

Swarming around me like bees.

They blazed against me like a crackling fire, but I destroyed them all with the authority of the Lord.

There's there's words in here, the Hebrew words in here are pulling out one, uh Psalm 116 also.

Death wrapped its ropes around me.

It's just, I love this verse.

Death wrapped its ropes around me.

The terrors of the grave overtook me.

I saw only trouble and sorrow.

Man, I felt that sometimes.

I have felt that way sometimes.

Swarming around me like bees, death has wrapped its ropes around me.

Verse 13 my enemies did their best to kill me.

But the Lord rescued me.

And then listen to verse 14.

And this is a direct quote from an Exodus verse.

The Lord is my strength and my song.

He has given me victory.

Other translations will say, He is my salvation.

Right?

That's a direct quote from when the people of Israel cross the Red Sea, they get over on the other side, and do you remember this Pharaoh and the Egyptian army is traveling, they're chasing them, and God just swarms them and destroys them.

And then Mary and Moses' sister break out her tambourine and she sings this song of victory.

And this is one of the lines.

The Lord has is my victory, my salvation.

See, things didn't always go well for the people of Israel.

But this is the day the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Because joy isn't dependent upon our circumstances.

It's a choice that we make to believe and trust in the faithfulness of God.

Happiness is based on our circumstances.

Happiness is based on when things are going well and things are smooth and everything.

Okay, I'm happy.

But joy is different.

Joy is a choice that we make.

And I believe it is something that we can make even in the darkest of nights.

When death wraps its ropes around us, when those storms of life come upon us, all of a sudden we can choose joy.

But it's a muscle.

And it's one that we have to exercise.

It's one that we have to practice.

Because sometimes your team doesn't win.

Thank you for everyone who sent me texts and your condolences.

Football season has already ended.

But in those moments when those things don't go our way and we can choose to step into joy, because here's the thing, and this is what the uh David will say in Psalm 56 I trust in God.

So why would I be afraid?

What can mere morals do to me?

The writer of Hebrews is going to pick that up and say exactly, the Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear.

What can anyone do to me?

When you have that belief, when you trust in the faithfulness of God, the world can't touch you.

It can hit you, it can take some swings, storms are going to come, but when you have this faithfulness, trust in the faithfulness of God, you can sit back like David.

What can you do to me?

I have God.

Paul was excellent at this.

Paul was a guy who went through the worst of the worst.

He was a guy who he was, admittedly so, the best at what he did.

He was the Pharisees of Pharisees, and then when he had that moment with Jesus, he became probably the best apostle ever, the best follower of Jesus, proclaiming his name in places that no one else would go.

But through that, he was shipwrecked multiple times.

He was bitten by a poisonous snake.

He was stoned multiple times where they were trying to kill him.

He was thrown in prison and out of prison.

They threatened execution or freedom, all those different things.

And all along, Paul was just going, okay.

No problem.

I have the joy of the Lord.

You're going to you're going to throw me in prison?

Great.

I have some letters I need to write.

You're going to let me out?

Even better.

I'll visit them in person.

Right?

Remember the scripture where he says, you're going to kill me?

Awesome.

I get to see Jesus face to face again.

Are you going to let me live?

Great.

I get to go talk about him still.

When you have that mentality, when you pick up what Paul's laying down or what or what David says, I trust in God, so why would I be afraid?

The world can't touch you.

But it's a muscle that we have to build.

That choosing joy is something because the storms do come.

Those unexpected things that everything's going well and then bam.

We need the strength to say, but I trust in you, Lord.

I trust in you.

And I love the songs that you chose for today.

I don't even know if you knew what I was going to talk about.

Did you?

Kind of, maybe?

Did we talk about this?

I think we did.

No, we didn't?

You're just that amazing.

It's Lisa, everybody.

She's amazing.

She's little and amazing.

But I love those songs of faithfulness and praise and just I nothing's going to stop me from praising you.

Nothing's going to stop me from rejoicing in your name.

I trust in you, God.

I don't know what storms have entered your life lately.

You know, I've always heard pastors say this, and I've always hated this.

You either have just come out of a storm, you're in a storm, or you're about to go into a storm.

I've always hated that.

Because I feel like, well, I'm not in a storm right now.

Oh no, something's coming.

It's just like I'm turning around, looking over every shoulder, right?

And then when I step back and I'm like, I kind of live my life in a storm.

Anybody else feel like that?

My life is a storm?

You're like, yes, we think your life is a storm too.

Thank you for that commentary.

But I feel like they always, there's something, right?

There's something.

Maybe it's a physical storm in the texts and the pictures of the fences that were down at the construction site.

Thank goodness there weren't any little kids under there because it fell into where the kids have been playing.

Like we would have lost a kid.

That would have been a storm.

I think the board would have had to mention that somewhere.

Maybe it's a diagnosis that you weren't expecting.

Maybe it's something at your job or a relationship issue, whatever it is, there's storms that come in our life.

But when we trust in the faithfulness and the goodness of God, we can stand with the writer of the psalm and say, this is the day that God has created for me.

I will not waste it by sitting in the storm.

I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Let us pray.

And Heavenly Father, I don't know where everyone sits in the midst of storms today.

I know we all physically went through one the other night.

And some of us are still dealing with the results of that storm.

Maybe it's a storm that's brought fear into our lives.

A personal storm, a family storm, a community.

Whatever it is, God, help us to realize that you are in there with us.

That while we may feel like bees are swarming around us, there's a crackling fire waiting to destroy us.

That you are a God who rescues us.

That our strength comes from you.

You are our victory and salvation.

As we stare into the darkness of the storm, Lord, let us remember to trust in you and to find the strength to say, when you are with us, who can stand against us?

We thank you, Lord, for the ways that you move.

We rejoice because this is the day that you have made.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.