Through The Fire (Josh Fullmer) | 6/7/2026

All right, good morning, Church. This morning we have a guest

speaker and he weighs in at 165 lbs.

He hails from Big Rapids, MI. If any of you don't know where

that is, I don't think I can help you.

I don't know where to point to right in.

The middle. But he is, he is a pastor, one

of the pastors, Not necessarily. He's a pastor in training at Res

Life in Big Rapids. He's the head of youth and he

overseas young adults. I got it right.

Young at all? Say what?

Just young adult. Just young adults, OK.

And he's in his second year of training at their school there.

Global. What is it called?

Global. Global University.

So this morning as he comes forward, I want to pray with

him. I'd like for you to give him a

round of applause and let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for Josh. We thank you so much for his

heart. And we just pray that you

surround him with your presence. And Lord, help us to hear from

you. Help us to hear from you

clearly. Speak to us in Jesus name, we

pray and all God's people said Amen, Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Bob.

Let's give it up for Bob. So Bob, the first probably 3

minutes that I walked through the doors this morning, let me

drive his Mustang. So I was saying to the first

service, I think that almost guarantees he gets a Mustang in

heaven. Like I think that's just how it

works. Well, hey guys, my name is Josh

Fulmer. And like we said earlier, I am a

youth leader at Res Life Big Rapids and I lead our young

adult ministry over there called the Bridge.

It's just such an honor to be here.

I, I, I don't take it lightly. The opportunity to get to

minister God's word today and what he shared on my heart and

you guys have been so welcoming. And so I just, I thank you for

the opportunity to be here and get to hang out with you guys

today. I heard you guys had Pastor

Steve here last week. Let's give it up for Pastor

Steve now. Pastor Steve has been like

everywhere, like I feel like every revival or anything that's

really happened in a church, he's been a part of it.

Like we've got to know each other pretty well this past

year. And just hearing the stories

that he has is just, it's, it's, it's incredible.

What, what, what he's been through.

But I love Pastor Steve. He's awesome.

And I'm just excited to get to minister God's word today.

I pray that this word today just encourages you and that you can

get some newness of what God, God has for you.

In my daytime job, I actually am a kindergarten teacher.

I keep. Yeah.

Come on back there. Let's go.

So I'm a parapro at a kindergarten.

Where? Get this.

The entire school is kindergarten.

It's one grade where it is 205 and 6 year olds run around the

building at all times. No, I do not need prayer.

Maybe we need to pray together after the service.

Amen, Amen. Summer vacation.

So no, I, I love what I do and it gives me a lot of awesome

stories and just what they do, just the, the, the good and the

bad. It's, it's, it's something, but

I just love getting to see that child like faith and, and, and

seeing how passionate our kids, even at that age are for the

Lord and it's just, it's amazing.

So hopefully today God has something in store for all of us

today. And I just pray that we can just

walk together through whatever we're going through.

And that got me to where you're at.

He meets you exactly in the place that you are today during

this message. We had a student of mine at our

youth group. And one day, like about a year

ago, he started every single week raising his hand for the

salvation prayer every single week.

And week after week I'm like, awesome.

Like, you know, he's picking up his cross daily.

He's, he's got this thing figured out.

I did it once. I'm so many times like this kid.

And I thought it was awesome. But really quickly, probably 6

months in to this, I heard other leaders saying, you know, does

he know what he's raising his hand for?

Is he doing it because other people are doing it?

Is, you know, is he just doing it to, to say he's raising his

hand? And, and, and so I was like, you

know, he's one of my kids. So I'll go and talk to him and

just just see where his heart's at.

And so I went up to him one day and I was like, hey, bud, what

does that mean to you? I see you raising your hand.

I think it's awesome. I just want to know what that

means to you. And he looks at me and he says

something. I never would have expected a 13

year old to look me in the eyes and say this.

But he looks, he looks at me dead in the eyes.

And he goes, I just, I just want to make all of heaven rejoice.

And I was like, all right, buddy, you raise your hand every

single day. You know what, I'm going to

raise my hand with you. And we're going to do this

together. We're going to sharpen iron

together, you and me. All right?

So today I just just, shouldn't that be how we all live our

lives? Waking up and saying, God, thank

you for today. I want everything that I do

today to honor you. And I know I'm going to stumble.

I know I'm going to fail, but I just want to make all of heaven

rejoice because you are leading my steps by faith.

And I lived a lot of my life not in that position.

I lived a lot of my life leading my own path, leading my own

direction, and really lost for a long time.

And through that God was with me and I didn't really know He was

with me, but He was with me. And I remember the times that I

would pray because I started my life in church.

For the 1st 10 years of my life I was in church.

And so I knew Jesus as Savior, but I didn't know him as Lord.

And so I remember the times where I would be struggling with

something and just just just hurting about something.

Just the pain was filling me. The shame was filling me and,

and, and I was never praying that God would help me.

I was praying that God would just remove me from the

situation, pluck me out like a little flower and put me down in

some great beautiful garden. I was.

But I want you to know that wherever, wherever you're at, I

don't know where what you guys stories are.

I've met some of you, but I don't know where you're

struggling in. I don't know what you're going

through. I don't know what you're praying

about. I don't know what circumstances

are going on in your life. But I want you to know that if

we just start to put ourselves in a posture of receiving from

the Father and understanding that there are times in our

lives where we're going to struggle.

There are times in our lives when things around us are going

to start burning up and the smoke's going to be heavy and

the flames are going to be hot and they're going to be all

around us. And instead of asking God to

take us from the situation and just put us somewhere safe, we

need to open our eyes and see that God is with us.

And this is the title of my message today.

God is with us through the fire. Everybody say through the

through the fire. Father God, I thank you for

today. And I just thank you for your

just amazing opportunity to just get to, to minister your word

and, and share what you've laid on my heart.

God, I pray that today would be a moment of us opening up our

hands to you and seeing you next to us in every circumstance.

God, I pray that you would specifically meet the needs of

this congregation, this body, Father.

And I pray that there would be new transformation, that there

would be new revelation today and that there would be new

blessings on the other side of whatever we're going through.

Father, I thank you for the opportunity and we just thank

you for North Life Church. We thank you in Jesus name,

Amen. Amen.

So being in the elementary, this is going to be my corner back

here. I'm going to be talking to you

guys a lot. So being in school, one of my

very first days, I didn't go to school to be a teacher or

anything or to work in the element.

I never thought I'd be working there.

But one of the very first tools that one of the people that was

training me told me was, hey, you need to use this statement.

And the statement is, if then everyone say if then so with if

then a lot of our kids will come up to me and say, I think they

think that I'm just like a walking vending machine or

something because they'll come up to, Hey, Mr. Josh, you got

any chips? Hey, Mr. Josh, you got candy.

I know you got candy in there. I'm like, dude, where do you

guys think I'm hiding these things in my pants?

Like I, I don't know what you're talking about.

And my goal, like my heart is I want to give them the thing that

they're asking. And most of the time I do, but

and they know that they take advantage of that.

But a lot of times the kids that are asking me for something,

I've just watched them slap another kid in the face, RIP

their paper that they're supposed to be doing and doing

absolutely everything but the thing that we asked them to do.

So the Amen this tool if then helps me in that whole

circumstance because it puts the ball in their court.

Because I see, Jimmy, that you want some chips.

Now, if you want chips, if you do your work first, then you'll

get some chips. If you stop slapping your buddy

in the face over there, then I might want to take you outside

for some extra recess. If then if I sit here and say

God, I want you to use me. I want to be a blank canvas for

you and I want you to use every part of me, and it's your will,

not my will, then you'll know that God is with you through the

fire. If then, and we see so many if

then statements and stories in the Bible, from Abraham to Jonah

to Moses, Joshua, Peter, all the disciples, everybody, we see so

many if then statements in the Bible.

But the one that we're going to talk about today is in Daniel 3.

So we're going to hang out in Daniel three a little bit today.

And this is probably a story you might have heard before, but any

walk of life, I preach a lot to our youth ministry and our young

adult ministry. But I want to talk to everybody

in this room today. I want to meet everybody where

they're at. I want the Holy Spirit to

minister to your guys's hearts today.

And this is second service. This is these are my people.

I'm going to be honest, I've never actually been to our first

service at our church ever. I am a second service kind of

guy. So let's let's let's get into

this today. So in this story, we see a king

of Babylon, an evil king. He's prideful.

He's he's he's angry. He lashes out.

And what he does is he goes, I'm such an amazing king.

I'm such an amazing guy. Everybody in the nation of

Babylon is clearly going to want to see a little bit more of this

guy. So I'm going to build a golden

statue and I'm going to put this up.

And anytime anybody hears music that we play, you are to bow

down and worship this golden statue.

So what does everybody in the nation of Babylon do?

They do it every time they hear this music.

They bow down and they worship well, the king, King

Nebuchadnezzar, he appoints three men, Shadrach, Meshach and

Abednego. A lot of us have heard those,

those names and music and, and, and, or in the word, and

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are strong men of faith.

Today we're going to be talking all about trusting God in

trials, trusting God through whatever circumstance you're

going through, wherever you're at.

Everybody in here needs to trust in God that he is with us

through the fire. So, so we see Shatter Agneshach

and Abednego standing there. They're not worshipping this

idol because the word of God says so.

So we see some men called the Chaldeans or the Chaldeans or

whatever. I'm calling on the Chaldeans.

So the Chaldeans are what we like to call in the elementary

world some tattle tales. OK, yeah, we I don't know what

it is about title. I don't care if I physically saw

everything that little John is telling me that that kid saw.

I don't care if I physically saw him winding up and go to.

I don't I don't know why I'm not saying it's right, but I don't

know why I want to get this kid in trouble that told on that

kid. I don't know why I'm not saying

it's right. Maybe we need maybe we do need

to have a prayer circle later. Amen.

So, so, So what I'm saying is, is these men they go up to, and

This is why I know King Nebuchadnezzar was not a teacher

or has probably ever seen a child, because I know the

parents in here understand as well that he comes up and hears

this. He gets so angry, not at these

little tattle tales. He gets angry at Shadrach,

Meshach and Abednego. And he's like, dude, why would

somebody not worship this beautiful statue?

So he goes, bring them in. So they bring in Shadrach,

Meshach and Abednego and, and they're fine.

They're they're walking in fine. They God's got us and and the

king he goes all right so there clearly is a misunderstanding

here Clearly you didn't hear when I told you guys you're

going to worship the statue the Sound of Music.

So what we're going to do is we're going to play some music.

You guys are going to worship the statue.

If not, there's a fire. You're going to, you're going to

burn to death, but clearly you're going to worship the

statue. It's beautiful, it's amazing.

So we'll just get this figured out.

You guys can get on your way because he says the Shadrach,

Meshach and Abednego. Because what God could save you

from the fire in the blazing heat of this furnace?

Maybe that's what the enemy is saying to you today.

Wherever you're, wherever you're at in your walk right now,

whatever you're struggling with, the enemy wants to tell you,

nothing could save you. Nothing could get you out of

this situation. You're way too far gone.

And we want to speak against that today in the name of Jesus.

We want to break down those lies in the name of Jesus.

And I want to show you guys how to respond to this because

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego know the if then statement

because they say Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an

answer to this question and watch this.

If the God we serve exists, everybody say if, if the God we

serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing

fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king.

If then I know I should have put it up, up on the screen, but I

know you guys got your Bibles anyway.

If then, Nebuchadnezzar, we know.

We know what's over there, but we know that our faith and trust

is in Jesus. We know that our faith is in

trust is in the Father. We know that whatever situation

we're going through, God's got us.

Because I should have put this verse on the screen because this

is the punch. Because that statement in itself

of itself is very strong. It's very bold.

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I've been pressed a

little bit for a lot less of an outcome than what Shadrach,

Meshach, and Abednego are about to face.

And I've backed up and go, whoa, OK, I'm this is a little bit

over my head a little bit. But they stand firm in their

faith. We see the nation of Babylon is

doing this, but we're not going to because our God tells us not

to make any other gods or idols above him.

So we're going to stand firm in our faith.

And that's the bold statement. But this is the mark on the

stamp. They say.

But even if he doesn't, everyone say, but even if he doesn't, but

even if he doesn't, we still will not serve your gods or

worship the gold statue that you have set up.

But even if I don't get the, the relationship I think I should

have, but even if I don't get the opportunity to that I think

that I should have. But even if I don't get the

opportunities in in my work and in my my jobs, even if I don't

get that promotion, I think that I'm supposed to, even if the

situation and the circumstances that I'm going through right now

are nothing that I ever thought that I would be going through.

But even if it doesn't, I know that God is for me and not

against me. I know that God is going to grow

me and lead me. He's going to put me in a

position to receive from him the love that he's been trying to

give me. But even if he doesn't, I still

will not serve your gods. We need to look at the world and

say, I know that the world looks kind of crazy right now, and I

know that the Lord can save me from my situation.

But even if he doesn't, it won't make me falter.

It won't make me fail. It won't make me stumble because

my feet are on solid ground. Amen.

Amen. OK, so you would think King

Nebuchadnezzar is like, OK, these guys mean business.

No, he doesn't. Because what he does is he picks

them, he grabs some of the best guards and, and, and they tie

them and bind them and throw them into the fire.

King Nebuchadnezzar is like, I, I told you guys, this is what

was going to happen. Throws them into the fire.

That's it. He's probably looking around

like, yeah, look what I did. Look at me.

Nobody's going to go against me. Everybody's going to be, we

should make an even bigger statue because nobody is going

to go against me. My, my, what I'm going through,

it doesn't matter because everybody's going to look at me.

Everybody's going to look at what I did to Shadrach, Meshach

and Abednego. Look at this golden statue and

bow down in fear. That's what the enemy wants to

say to us. That's what the enemy tries to

speak through us. That's what the enemy tries to

say to us. But even if he doesn't, because

as King Nebuchadnezzar sitting there, he looks and he goes,

didn't we put three men in the fire?

Because I see a fourth man in the fire, and it looks like the

Son of God is with them through the situation.

And I want you to know that wherever you're at, whatever

circumstance you're going through, God is with you.

Through the fire, God is with you, refining you.

Whatever you're getting pressed about, whatever you're getting

pushed about, God is with you. Through the fire, God has always

been with you. But but it's kind of like when

you're on a roller coaster and, and when you go down, if you're

anything like me, I'm Scrouch, I'm I'm, I'm, I'm in a little

ball and I don't know why, but if you look and I wish I put

these pictures up on the screen, but I didn't.

If that camera always catches me in the worst time, like I look

like a weirdo going down those going down those hills and I'm

every single one of them is it is like this.

And I'm scared and I'm in fear and fear.

I'm closing my eyes and I'm scrunching up and I feel like

maybe you're like that today. Maybe you're scrunched up and

you're, you're closing your eyes and you're saying, Josh, I've

heard messages like this. I've heard, I've read the

scriptures, I've heard this. I've been going to church

faithfully and trying to get through the circumstances that

I'm going through. I've been working and trying and

and trying, but I just don't see God in this situation.

I don't see God where I'm at because I'm too far gone.

I'm too, I, I, I'm in too deep. I don't know how to let go.

I don't, I don't, I don't know how to let go of the addictions

that I'm, that I'm going through.

I've heard this, but I'm not. But I believe that God sent me

here today and sent you here today to say, open your eyes and

see that Jesus is with you through the fire.

Jesus is with you in your circumstance.

He's with you in your pain. He's with you in your struggles,

he's with you in your family situations.

He's with you in your marriages. He's with you in the fire.

It would have been really easy for Shadrack, Meshach and

Abednego to say, God, just don't let the flames ignite.

Just just just don't let us be in a situation where we would be

compromised. Or just don't.

But they don't. They say guys got it because the

if then statement, the if is the only part of the conversation we

get to be a part of. The if is OK.

God, I'm going to do this. The then is God's response.

So if then doesn't say I'm going to get rid of the flames, says

I'm going to be with you through it.

God is going to be with you through whatever you're going

through. But we need to be able to ask

ourselves, do we actually trust? I believe that there are people

in here that are looking for answers.

And maybe you've been praying for a sign, maybe you've been

praying that God would show you where you're supposed to go in

an opportunity that you're, that you're praying about.

Maybe you're praying about God. I want you to lead me in this

situation because my, my marriage is so broken or my, my

relationships are so broken or, or, or my job is really, really

testing me or the people that I'm around or, or my family

situation is really rough right now.

And, and, and, and I'm going to, I'm going to see some at

reunions this summer. And, and I don't, I'm going to

be, I don't know how to have these conversations.

It's been a while. And, and wherever you're at,

wherever you're at, or maybe you're struggling with, with,

with church hurt, God's not going to hurt you.

Hurt people are going to hurt you.

Jesus is going to be with you through the unknown

circumstances. He's going to be with you

through the pain and he's going to be with you through the fire.

So that's what we see. That's what we see here is we

need to ask ourselves, do we actually trust, do we actually

trust him when we're getting tested?

Do we actually trust him when things are pressing in on us?

And I want to do a little bit of a self reflection here for every

single person in the room. I want us to all do a, a, a self

reflection into actually seeing where our hearts are at and to

actually respond to this word. I want us to be in a spot where

even from the seasoned believers to the first timers and

everywhere in between, every single one of us can grow with

the father. So I want us to take us through

a little bit of a walk through this story.

And I believe that there are really 4 attributes of this

story and or four seats. And what I want to ask you is

what seat are you sitting in? And I had an idea, bringing up

some chairs and sitting in each one of them and illustrating,

you know what? See, but you don't want me to

sit down and start preaching because you might have to cancel

your lunch plans because I'd be here for a little while.

And, and, but we're OK. So what we're going to do is I

want you to just imagine each attributes of this story, each

characteristics of this story. And I want to see where you're

at in this story. Who are you in the story?

And it's OK if one of them is identifying you.

Like man, I thought I was doing little bit better than that, but

I feel like I'm sitting in that seat.

Let's get freedom in that. Let's get prayer.

Let's whatever that is, we need to respond to the word to

actually begin to trust him more.

Everybody say trust. All right, so the very first

seat that we're going to pull up is the conforming seat.

So the conforming seat was where all of the people in the nation

of Babylon were sitting. So they're sitting and they're

going on about this worship in in this golden statue.

And so they're bowing down. They're conforming to the

patterns of the world. So what is going on is you might

be saying, Josh, you know, I'm not going to bow down to a

statue of a golden idol and bow down and worship it.

And I would hope that that is true.

But what I want to ask you is what about these things?

What about Facebook and Instagram and the likes and,

and, and how much time we spend scrolling on this thing?

And and don't make me ask you guys how much your screen time

says, because I just got my screen time.

And we're not going to talk about it, but how much time we

spend holding that phone with our eyes down when our eyes

should be locked on Jesus. Because what we should be doing

is, is getting into this, not caring about what the world

says, not caring about what the Instagram and the Facebook and

the news feeds are saying, but caring about what the word of

God is saying about us. Because if you spend time in

this, you're going to see that this says do not conform to the

patterns of this world, but be transformed, say transformed,

transformed by the renewing of your mind, not conforming, not

putting idols above God, not putting anything that's going to

compromise your relationship with the Father.

And if you've been sitting there, it's OK because we're

going to get healing from that today.

The next seat is the condemning seat.

So with the condemning seat, we have the Chaldeans.

These are our tattle tales, OK? They're looking around and and

they don't see shattering Meshach and Abednego bowing

down. And so they want some justice to

be done, which is the furnace in the blazing fire.

And you might be saying, Josh, I'm not going to condemn

somebody to a blazing furnace of fire.

And I would say, praise the Lord that you're not going to do

that. I would hope so.

But what about those people at work that we're judging and

saying, man, those are not great people or the family members

that we struggle with, or the coworkers or the people on the

street that we see like, man, they should just get a job.

Why don't why they dress like that?

Why do they act like that? Don't even start me on what June

is all about. We can't be judging people

because if we were spending time and this this would tell us to

love God and love people to love your neighbor as yourself to to

to love people in the way that God would love us to love others

in a way that Jesus has poured into us.

Because as much time as we spend judging other people where this

this says that we're actually judging ourselves because we too

are sinners. So if you've been sitting in the

condemning chair with the Chaldeans, it's OK because we're

going to get healing from that. Because these two, the

conforming and the condemning chair, really bottle up to get

us to our third chair, which is the convicting chair.

And the convicting chair is where King Nebuchadnezzar SAT.

So much rage, so much anger, so much pain and pride is stepping

in, taking over until he makes a statue of himself, tells

everybody to worship it or else. And if you've been sitting in

that seat, this is where you start lashing out, where you

start acting, building up walls, compromising your faith.

And trust me, you're not alone if you've been sitting in this

seat, because I sat in these seats a lot.

I actually pretty much stacked each chair on one and sat at the

top and kind of hung out there for a while because I, like I

said, I grew up in church for 10 years.

Within 10, we had some church hurt in our family and we left

the church. So from 10 to 20, I spent

outside the church, which is a really tough transitional part

of our lives, OK, teenage years. And I'm leading it on my own

strength. Let me tell you, when I was out

there seeking the world, it was nothing fun.

I had open wounds and I was just putting little band aids on it

or or even just putting some paper towel on it.

And what is that going to do? But it's going to seep through

and burst out. I spent a lot of time where my

identity was drinking and women and, and partying and putting

people down. And this is just three years

ago. If you would have told me three

years ago, I'm at I, I, I'd be where I'm at now, I would have

said, no, you're crazy. But how I got there was I had to

look at these seats. I had to see where am I at?

I'm looking at myself in the mirror and I, I hate what I see.

I don't like what I see anymore. I don't like how I'm hurting

people. I don't like the walls that are

up. There's nobody around me that

cares about me anymore. And I start listening to the

lies of the enemy as he pours in.

You're worthless. Nobody cares about you.

What could you do to better the Kingdom?

Who are you to even tell anybody how to act or to judge anybody

if you're there? I believe that the Father wants

to minister to your heart and he wants to heal you.

Because it wasn't until I hit my very rock bottom and I dropped

down on my knees and I say, father, I I've tried everything

else. I've done everything else and I

and nowhere was I satisfied. Nowhere was I going to find any

fruit in my life of anything good.

And everyone is left to me. Every wall is up.

Every person has left me. But father, I just, I don't know

what a relationship with you looks like.

I don't know if if I'm even worthy of being saved, but I

need you. I, I think I want a relationship

with you. I made Jesus my savior when I

was a kid, but I never truly made him the Lord of my life.

And Jesus, I need you to fill my life.

I need you to lead my path. I can't lead it anymore.

I can't choose my own way. I can't choose my own decisions

anymore. I need you to be the Lord of my

life because when I made him savior, my life did not produce

any evidence or fruit that Jesus was actually the Lord of my

life. So Jesus, I make you Lord of my

life. And the second that I did that,

he told me, I want you to stand, Josh.

I want you to plant your feet on that solid ground that I've

given to you because you are home.

My boy has come home. The prodigal son has returned.

And maybe you're in that situation right now that you're

returning home. God put you here.

You could have been out on the boat.

You could have been out hunting or not hunt.

It's not season, but you could be out anywhere else that you

want. But you chose to be here.

And I believe that God is saying my child is back.

He's back. There's no, there's no need to,

to hold on to the shame and to the guilt and to the pain, the

depression, the anxiety, the, the worry, the, the, the, the

sin that's in your life. There's no need.

I don't see any of that. I just see my child that I

created and I put you here for a plan for a purpose.

And I just want to grow you. I want to move in your life.

I want you to accept the love that I've given to you.

I want you to accept the blessings that I've been trying

to give you. I have so much over here.

If you would only step into the places that I have for you,

receive the love that I have for you, be still on that solid

rock, then I would move in your life.

Then you would see that I've always been there.

Then you would stop opening or closing your eyes and saying, I

I just need I, I need something to stop what I'm feeling.

You would say, father, I know that you are with me through the

fire. I know that you are with me

through the challenges. I know that you are with me

through the struggle. And I know that there are people

in here that are hurting. I know that there are people in

here that have been really been getting pressed on and really

the enemy's been doing overtime, but I want to know what the

enemy wants. I want to know what he sees in

you that's so amazing and worthy of him spending his time trying

to RIP you from the desire that God has for you.

What does the enemy want? What does he want?

Because as long as we spend in all of these three chairs, we're

just being distracted by, hey, there's another chair.

We're going to throw that out because the second you make

Jesus Lord of your life, you can sit with Shadrach, Meshach and

Abednego in the Christ like chair.

And no, this does not mean that you're going to have it all

figured out. This does not mean that it's

going to be a great, amazing opportunity of, of joy and

skipping and rainbows and and you're going to be having

salvations every day of every person that you ever see.

Praise God. I wish that was how it worked,

but God himself, Jesus himself leaves the disciples and says,

if you follow me, then you will face persecution.

You will face people that oppose you.

It will be hard, but I promise you.

But just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the if then and

the but, but I have something so much greater.

I've something so much better. We're in a race.

Do you want to get there first or do you want to show up

smiling a little bit like smoke? And trust me, I spent a lot of

time in in in that position. But as long as we can sit in the

Christ like chair, this the word of God gives us a, a guide on

how we should live our life. It gives us a rule book and A

and a place to to follow. I don't even want to say rule

book, a guide book so that we can see an instruction manual on

how we should live our lives. But the Lord gives us the FN

statement. He doesn't say you have to do

this. He says if you want to

experience the fullness of the life that I have for you, then

follow me because it's time. And he's put you here because I

believe that it's time. I believe that you're ready and

I believe whatever you're going through, Jesus is there and he

wants to move in your life. But as I close up, you might be

saying, Josh, I've, I've tried, I've been in the church for a

long time. I've been there, I've done it,

I've given it to God and it's come right back.

I've tried to trust him, but I just don't see it.

I don't see it work. I can see that for you and

that's great for you, but it's not working for me.

So I'm just going to put on my happy face, I'm going to go to

church and I'll see you next week.

God, I say to her, I say to our youth kids all the time.

If you texted your girlfriend one day a week, would you be

have? Would you have a girlfriend?

No, clearly they're like, no, obviously.

Why are we praying one time a week?

Then? Why are we spending time with

God one day a week? Makes me think of our first day

of school. This kid, and this is a true

story. This kid, he comes up to me

first cut like maybe 30 minutes and he needed a break.

So I took him to the gym and we're playing basketball and,

and he's shooting and he misses every single shot over and over

and over again. And every time he's getting more

and more worked up, more mad and upset with himself to the point

where he throws himself on the ground.

He goes, I'm done. I'm let's go back to class.

And you know, if a kid wants to go back to class, there's a

problem. There is, there's, there's

something going on. So he goes, let's go back to

class. I go, I go, buddy, if you fail,

don't just give up. You need to try again.

So I looked him. I go, you know, actually stand

up. You need to say that to me.

I'm going to try again. And I go, I I I go, buddy, What,

what do you do when you fail? He goes, I'm going to try again,

Mr. Josh. I go, OK, So he shoots it and he

makes it. And I'm like, thank you, Lord.

Like, I don't know what I would have done if he missed.

So, so he's sitting there and that changed everything for him.

His face is like, why is it like, are you serious?

Like, and that changed his whole year.

That became our thing. All year long.

I go up to him and I was like, hey, what do you do when you

fail? He goes, I try again, I try

again, Mr. Josh. And, and that just became our

thing. He grew so much over the year.

And like I said, we only get him for one year.

So it was really hard for me to say goodbye to him.

And last Tuesday was our last day of school and I'm crying

like a baby all day long. I had to say goodbye to like

every kid in the school. It was it was, it was a lot.

But I go up to him, I give him a hug and I set by and he was sad

and I'm sad and and I say something to him and he walks

out the doors and I go, hey, what do you do when you fail?

He goes. I try again.

And he left, and I. I believe that the Father is

telling some of you guys in here it's time to try again.

I believe that the Lord wants you to try again.

Or maybe for some of you, it's try for the first time.

But God sent a kid from Big Rapids to tell you that you, you

need to try again. Doesn't matter where you're at,

doesn't matter where you've been.

Doesn't matter if the sirens are coming to chase you.

It's it's loud and it's, it's obnoxious.

It's time to try again. It's time to fully trust him and

rely on him through the fire. So if you want to do that today,

I want to give you a tool. And then I'm going to wrap this

up. I want to give you guys a tool.

And this tool is how to better trust and rely on him because

it's so easy to raise our hands and sing that song.

How that was so cool that the that God lined up the worship to

be singing trust in God. And and all these like, it's so

easy to put our hands up and sing those words.

But our life does not produce evidence that we fully trust in

him. And when we get tested, we don't

actually prove that we trust him.

We don't actually prove that he's actually the Lord of our

life. Because if he's the Lord of our

life, then we're adopted as a son of the highest king, the

ruler of all things. And I can confidently walk

through any storm and be still in the fact that I know that

he's fighting my battles for me. So I want to give you this tool

and I'm going to wrap it up. I'm running a little bit long

and I want to, you know, maybe come hang out with you guys

again. So I'm going to try to wrap this

up as quick as possible. So Trust God gave me an acronym

for trust. And I believe this is a a really

good representation of how to genuinely trust him and take

this outside of here. So trust T talk to God.

You need to pray to him. You need to have a conversation

with him, not having it just be a one time a week praying

consistently or you need to read his word.

We need to be a, a, a church family that brings this to the

church. I know you have it on your on

your phone, but at res life, we, we, we're very adamant that we

bring a Bible to church. So that have a have, have a

Bible for your car, have a Bible for your work for for home.

Have many different Bible. Have a Bible that you just have

on hand just in case you need to give it to somebody, but make it

be an awkward silence. Pastor Ross knows this back

home, there is an awkward silence because I would say

probably confidently 95% or maybe more bring their Bibles to

church every single day and there are notes all over it.

Pastor Ross does an amazing job at setting that table.

So we need to be a church body that brings these things

everywhere and still have the Bible app just in case you ever

find yourself at work or in line or or somewhere and you're

scrolling on your phone, maybe scroll through Proverbs or

Philippians. OK, I think there's going to be

a little bit more fruit in that than looking at the Facebook

quizzes and all that now. So we need to be a Bible reading

church. So you is understand it's more

than just reading the Proverb of the day and checking off that

list. Understand, meditate it,

meditate on it daily like Joshua commands us.

We need to meditate on it daily. If it's just maybe one word or

or maybe not one word, 1 scripture, maybe sometimes a

word, but one scripture throughout the entire day,

meditating on that, letting it transform our mind.

That's where we begin stepping into that posture.

And St. the last two is stand firm in your faith that when you

ever walk through a storm. Than when you ever get pressed

on by the world, when you ever are struggling or worried or

weary that you could stand firm in your faith and I'd love yes,

I'm seeing fault. Take a picture of that write it

down. I don't care.

I'll step out of the way so I'm not weirdly in your picture, but

I want you to hold on to this so that you know that there is a

tool for you to take outside if you're to genuinely trust in the

Father. And I have one more scripture

for you and then we're going to send this home.

So God gives US1 in Romans. Whoa, God gives us one of the

biggest if then statements the word of God has, and this is

Romans 10/9. Romans 10/9 says if you declare

with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that

God raised him from the dead, I'm going to add a then then you

will be saved. Everybody say I will be saved if

you declare that Jesus is Lord of your life.

There's a difference in in, in, in seeing him as Savior and

Lord. And I hope today that the Father

was ministering to your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Have I really truly made him my Savior?

Have I really made him Lord? So I want to give you guys an

opportunity to respond to that and step into a posture of

receiving. So we're going to pray.

Father, I thank you for today. I thank you for reminding us and

and giving us illustrations and stories of real life occurrences

that that help us to see where we're at and where we're at in

our lives. God, God, I pray that you would

begin impressing on the power of the Holy Spirit.

Everyone in here that needs to take, we all need to take

another step closer to you. We all need to understand and

identify that we can just close our eyes and sit and be led by

faith, not by sight. But Father, I pray that you

would lead us in our decisions, lead us in our in our, in our

families and our communities. Help us to be a light wherever

we're at. And if you're in here today and

you want to make that decision to make Jesus the Lord of your

life, maybe you've been trying, maybe you've made Jesus the Lord

of your life, but you've stumbled and you and you've and

you've fallen and you need to be picked back up.

And you're saying today is my day.

Today is my day that I make Jesus Lord of my life and I

stopped letting the ways of the world, the patterns of this

world distract me from my relationship with you.

If that's you today with nobody looking around, I just want you

to shoot your hand up. It's not for for us to know or

to take tally. This is for you to reach the

hand of God and take his hand and publicly say no more.

Jesus is my Lord. I see hands going up.

So we thank you and praise you and I just want you guys to

repeat this after me. Say Lord, thank you for Jesus,

thank you for your love and your freedom.

I believe that Jesus died and God raised him from the dead so

that I could have new life. Father, use me the way you need

and help me see your victory wherever I go.

Holy Spirit, fill me up from the bottoms of my feet to the tops

of my hair. In Jesus mighty name I pray.

Amen. Let's give it up for everyone

who made that decision today. Well guys, it was an honor to be

here. I hope I see you guys again soon

and I'm excited to meet you guys.

I'd love to meet you guys outside of here, but you guys

have an amazing church family here and we'll see you again.

You guys are dismissed.