My Trauma Is Not My Template

Welcome to Gateway Church's podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Alright, Gateway Church, how are we doing this weekend?

Well, that's wonderful.

Now let's make some noise for King Jesus, who's in the building.

Come on.

And every time he's in the building, everyone's hands go up and they stay there in Jesus' name.

It is such an honor to get to open up scripture with you.

My wife, Jenny, and I had such a joy being a part of the Love Always Marriage Conference and thrilled to be a part of this weekend as well.

If you have a way to get on to the scriptures, we're going to be in Haggai chapter two.

Someone's like, that's a book of the Bible?

Yes, it is.

It's actually the third to the last book of the Old Testament.

So if you just find Matthew Pro tip and just go three books to the left, that's probably the easiest way to get there.

Haggai chapter two in just a moment.

The title of the message this weekend is My Trauma Is Not My Template.

Come on, do you receive it in Jesus' name?

My trauma is not my template.

We do want to greet you at every location, those of you watching online.

Come on, let's show some love to those in all the different places.

Amazing.

Have you noticed how much easier it is to see someone else's dysfunction?

And there's a reason for that, and it's simple.

The longer you tolerate dysfunction in your life, the more it begins to feel normal to you.

One quick cheesy example from my life.

And it was around the holidays, and so I thought, man, I don't want to have to lean down, uh, because I'm you know in my 40s now, so leaning down.

I don't want to lean down every morning and plug in the Christmas tree.

So I'll just plug this little thing into the Christmas tree, and I'll just in the morning when I come down to make my coffee, and there's nothing like Christmas quiet time with the tree on.

Anybody with me?

Right?

Just the best.

And and so uh I'll just be able to say, Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree while I'm uh making my coffee.

And it worked, man.

It was amazing.

Best holiday uh advent advice I could give you is plug your Christmas tree into Alexa, get her involved into the 12 days of Christmas, it'll be amazing.

Um, but Christmas came and went, and the Christmas tree uh had to come down.

What goes up's gotta come down, so we put the Christmas tree away, and somehow or another, this little particular Alexa plug got plugged into a lamp.

But no one went into the Alexa app and changed the setting for it to be living room lamp and not Christmas tree.

And we realized that had happened, and we just that day said, Oh, Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree and the lamp turned on, and we laughed, like that's silly, we need to get around to changing that, but didn't.

And it just became normal for us to use that prompt anytime we needed that lamp on, as opposed to going and fiddling with the it would probably have taken like 11 seconds, is the worst part of it all.

I probably could have told Alexa to change the prompt and she would have she would have done it, uh, but I didn't.

And so we we stopped even noticing we did that because it was just normal for us to do that, and then one day it was like summertime, you know, it's like 4th of July, and and somebody in the living room said, Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree.

And there was someone in the house who who wasn't aware of how crazy we were.

And she looked around like, Where's the Christmas tree?

And then she was even more confused with none of us.

Uh we're we're weirded out by it.

Nobody was fazed because we were used to that.

Well, that's how you turn on the living room lamp, right?

Of course, it makes perfect sense when you're when you're numb to the dysfunctional behavior.

And of course, that's that's that's a joke and a silly little example, but it became, it can become in our lives far more serious and far more problematic the deeper it goes.

And that's what we find going on in Haggai chapter 2.

Haggai 2 · chapter mention

We're gonna jump in in verse 3 where it says, Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory?

And how do you see it now?

In comparison with it, is this not in your eyes as nothing?

Yet now be strong, the rubbable, says the Lord.

And be strong, Joshua, the son of Jehosadak, the high priest, and be strong, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work, for I, look at this, am with you, says the Lord of hosts.

According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remains among you.

Do not fear.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, once more, it is a little while, I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land, and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the desire of all nations, and I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts.

The silver is mine and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.

The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts.

And in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts.

Does anybody feel thankful for Scripture?

Anybody feel thankful for God's word?

It's living, it's powerful, it's active, it's sharper than the division of than a than a two-edged sword, pierces to the division of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

And so, Lord, we pray you would have your way with your word in our hearts, in our lives.

You know what we need.

You see what we lack.

And whether it's comfort, God, that we need for our affliction or affliction we need for the areas of our life where we are comfortable, we ask for you, the great physician, to see our need.

We're not gonna argue with you like a child that says, I don't want shots, or I don't want this procedure.

We we just say, God, have your way.

If you need to, Lord, feel free to put us to sleep like you did to Abram or to Adam and do exactly what you need.

We're not gonna argue, God, do what you want to do in our hearts and lives, God.

We say, not our will be done, but yours.

For you know better.

You are better.

And we ask that if even one of us today, coming into this moment, does not have a saving relationship with you through your son Jesus, that by your spirit you would draw them to yourself as salvation rises in the mighty name of Jesus.

And we said together, all they had was an altar.

They had been in the land for 16 years.

The year is 520 BC.

Of course, the context for the book of Haggai is the Babylonian captivity, this period where the Jews were forced to live outside of their promised land, outside of the land of Israel.

They lived in Babylon, they lived in Assyria.

This period of time was going to be in all from when they left Jerusalem, 70 years.

They would have to live outside of the promised land because they had turned their hearts from God.

They had failed to keep the covenant, and he had warned them that this would happen, that they would be driven out of the land that is theirs perpetually, everlasting is the covenant, but their occupation of this land was conditioned upon their behavior and the failure to keep the Sabbath and the failure to keep God as their only God and the way they abused marriage and all of these different things that they, Jeremiah says, had committed two evils, that they had turned from him the fountain of living water, but hewn for themselves also broken cisterns that could hold no water.

They had, you know, Fiji in the bottle, but they were drinking from the toilet, baby.

That's exactly what was going on.

And and so to wake them up, it would have been unloving for God to allow them to live any, any, any, any more than a parent would see their child, the two or three-year-old, holding a knife and go, yay, he likes that toy.

Like, no, no, no.

You you would need to do something that even would feel scary for the child to take it away in a way that would actually be in their best interest.

And so God drove them from the promised land and off they went to Babylon, and that 70 years was going to tick away.

And then, of course, we know that all through the captivity they had prophets prophesying to them, they had prophets prophesying to them before they went to the captivity.

Those are the pre-exilic prophets, and there were prophets who who ministered to them during the midst of the captivity, and there was also post-exilic prophets.

Once the return to the land had begun, there were prophets who were going to minister to them during this period.

And there were three of them.

One of them is Haggai, the other is Zechariah, and then the final one is the prophet Malachi, who's the second to the last Old Testament prophet.

The last Old Testament prophet is, of course, John the Baptist.

Even though he shows up chronologically in the New Testament, according to Jesus, he is the final of the Old Testament voices before the New Testament age of grace, the age of the Gentiles, is ushered in.

Are you tracking with me?

And all that we're reading in the book of Haggai, this uh this post-exilic prophet, timeline-wise, it lines up to the events that take place in the book of Esther, in the book of Ezra, and in the book of Nehemiah.

There's a man named Zerubbabel, and this isn't gonna be on the test, but Zerubbabel was appointed to be the governor and the leader of a group of 50,000 Jews who were gonna leave Persia.

You're like, wait a minute, I thought they went into Babylon.

Regimes change all the time, right?

And of course, in Daniel chapter 5, Belshazzar drunkenly toasts to the God of the Bible and says, Look at these cups that were stolen from the Holy of Holies.

Daniel 5 · chapter mention

I'm drinking and toasting to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I'm I'm worshiping the gods of silver and gold and sex.

Bad move, bro.

As the finger of a man's hand began to write on the wall.

Meeny, meeny, tuckle you, farcin.

You have been weighed, you have been counted, you have been found wanting.

Belshazzar, when he saw it, his knees began knocking.

In the King James it says, his knees smote one against the other, right?

His bowels were loosened, and that very day his life was taken from him, his kingdom that was his kingdom was given to another.

Because newsflash, uh, the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he wishes, right?

And so that's why we we pray for our country, we vote according to scripture, but we always know that our allegiance is to God's kingdom that supersedes every kingdom of man on the earth.

And so the Babylon Empire, that Babylonian Empire is no more, and Cyrus comes into power, the king of Persia.

Now, the crazy thing about all this, someone says, What's the crazy thing?

Is that Isaiah chapter 45, written 100 years before Cyrus, king of Persia, is ruler of the known world, Isaiah prophesied that one day that there was gonna be a guy in charge of the world named Cyrus.

Isaiah 45 · chapter mention

And when he came to power, one of the first orders of business on his to-do list was gonna be to allow the Jewish people to leave an exile they hadn't even fully gone into yet.

And this guy named, look at Isaiah 45, named as Cyrus, God's servant.

He's gonna order Jewish people to go back to Jerusalem and begin the work of rebuilding the temple that had been torn down under Nebuchadnezzar.

So Cyrus comes into power, all of a sudden, now there's a guy ruling the known world named Cyrus.

And you know what the Jewish people do?

They're like, bro, you gotta read this.

And they hand the buttons, they do exactly what you and I should do to everybody in our lives.

You gotta read this.

They turn their attention to scripture.

They're bro, you're gonna want to check out Isaiah 45.

Sucker is cray, cray, right?

This chapter is wild.

And he's reading this about Cyrus.

He's reading this about himself, and he says, When was this written?

And they go, Oh, about a hundred years ago.

He fell to his knees and lifted up a worship, a voice of worship to the God of the Bible.

And he, of course, said, Y'all can go build whatever you want to build.

So he authorized Zerubbabel to lead the charge with 50,000 uh other Jewish people and to head to Jerusalem.

And do you think they were excited?

Oh my gosh, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

It was like the seven dwarves heading into the mine.

Hi ho, hi-ho, it's off to the temple we go, and off they went to go rebuild this temple.

They were so excited, and they got started.

They started with the altar.

And after they had finished the altar, they started marking out where the foundation was, because it was it was just rubble, it was just stones, it was all burned, it was all a mess, it was all loss.

It was ground zero the morning after September 11th.

And so they're marking out where the temple's gonna be, and this is gonna be so exciting, can't you imagine?

And no sooner had they finished the altar than Cyrus had died.

And while they had his protection and operated under the cloak, the hem of his garment was over them, they were safe, no one could really touch him.

All the neighbors, specifically the Samaritans who hate the Jews, they kind of wanted to do something, but they knew they couldn't because Cyrus would knock their heads together.

Now all of a sudden, with Cyrus said, they start raising a fuss, they start telling lies about the Jewish people to the to the new leader in Persia, and the work comes grinding to a stop.

And for 16 years, zero progress has been made.

Like I said a moment ago, an altar was all they had, which is pretty dysfunctional when they had one job, literally, one job.

Guys, go build the temple, go rebuild the temple.

And after having marked out like the little surveyors' lines and chalk line on the ground, this is where it's gonna go, the court of the Gentiles, the court of the women, this is where the Holy Holies is gonna be.

This is all, this is gonna be, can you imagine what it's gonna be like?

A light to the world, right?

Blessing to all nations.

And they just have this crude altar and a bunch of like markings of where it's gonna be one day, and 16 years, nothing's been done.

Well, not nothing.

They all read Haggai sometimes built really nice houses for themselves.

And when that was done, they added a hot tub.

And that was that was done, they repaneled with cedar.

When that was done, oh man, everything, but nothing had been done to move the ball down the field in the very purpose they were back in the promised land for.

Can we agree that that is the height of dysfunction?

Because something operating outside of its intended purpose is by definition dysfunction.

They had oh go, so what question, question, question.

Why weren't they building the temple?

Because they were traumatized.

They were traumatized.

They were traumatized by all the excitement, and then all of a sudden everything comes screeching to a halt because someone they trusted was gone.

Everything came screeching to a halt, and they were no longer doing what their intended purpose from God to do was because they had hit some bumps and it was difficult and it was hard.

And I don't want to make light of that, that's real.

And in their head, they're thinking, oh my gosh, it's happening all over again.

And now all the Babylonian captivity and being being by the river Kibar and hanging their harps up and not worshiping God in a foreign land, and all they're thinking, oh my gosh, it's gonna happen again.

We're gonna be out of here.

The Samaritans are gonna drive us out.

It's we we we this was probably a mistake.

We never should have tried this.

So now they're they're sort of like just just sort of living kind of between.

They're not in Babylon, but they're not really back in the land of peace.

Their trauma had become their template.

And every time we face something that's traumatic, something that's difficult, something that that that scars us, something that scares us, we then moving forward have a similar choice.

For every wound inflicted upon us, we have to choose to do something about it.

See, as Lewis said, when you go through grief, crying's fine in its own way while the tears last, but eventually you're gonna have to decide what you're gonna do.

So our trauma then provides for us a crossroads, a choice.

And it's easy to be so paralyzed by what was inflicted upon us that we are neutralized in the forward progress that God has for us.

You can end up once stung and twice shy.

My daughter Clover and I, along with my son Lennox, had taken the ship to California and we had gone to Disneyland uh to while I was preaching there to just have a couple hours and get to enjoy a little bit of the happiest place on earth, most expensive place on earth, I mean, and and off we went.

And and I said, Oh, that's that Uptopia ride.

I have great nostalgia for that ride.

Let's go do the Autopia ride.

It's like look, you gotta pretend like you're driving, the whole deal.

And Clover, Clover goes, she's she's 11 at the time.

She goes, Oh, no, no, no, I'm not going on, I'm not going on that ride.

And she, I could see like there was a strong reaction.

She was triggered by it.

I said, honey, why?

She goes, I went on that ride one time and I got stung by a bee.

I go, you did?

I could hardly even remember that had happened.

She goes, apparently a couple years back, we had been on Utopia.

A bee smack flew right into her forehead and stung her.

And like it was almost like it was fresh.

She was taken straight back to the initial trauma.

She's like, I'm not going on that ride.

That's where the bee stings live.

The bee stings.

And then I said, Okay, are you sure?

She goes, it's time I conquered that fear.

And we got on that ride.

And she she was so wary.

You've never seen someone driving down the road so vigilant, right?

And of course, a bee did not come out, because what a fluke thing.

I mean, you'd have to ride that ride every day for the rest of your life to even ever get stung by a bee again.

You know, it's just, it's, it's, it's preposterous.

And yet, we can do the same thing.

We can end up in a shame spiral because the longer we're living away from purpose, the more we believe the lies that shame speaks, which doesn't just say you have done bad, but it says you are bad.

And so we can end up once stung, twice, shy.

We can end up, you know, reticent to get into a relationship because of what happened over here.

We can end up reticent to move into this new season of life because of some injury that's happened back here, some abuse that took place back here.

And again, we're not belittling any of the hard things we faced.

But we can end up like Clover, we might not know to verbalize it, but when we sense the Holy Spirit calling us to move back into that purpose and to use those gifts and to take some ground and to advance and and and charge, we we think to ourselves, oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

We'll just go and and just sort of do a little home upgrade thing over here.

We can we can end up in a place where we're living outside of the purpose of God on our lives.

If you're taking notes, here's the choices that we must choose to do with when we ever have whenever we have a wound that we're dealing with.

I made a little list.

Number one, every time we have a wound in our life moving forward, we can choose to be defined by our wounds.

To be defined by our wounds.

This to me is the mistake that Gideon made when God came to him and said, Mighty man of valor, come on, let's go, let's go drive the Midianites out.

What did he say?

I'm the weakest in my family tree.

He started just making all the reasons why he couldn't, because of what he wasn't.

His trauma, the difficult things he had gone through, had become his identity.

God said, Are you kidding me?

I'm the angel of the Lord, I'm here with you right now.

Let's go.

And he said, How can I really know?

And if God really is good, then why has this happened and why has that?

He had so internalized, he had identified now, he had become his wounds.

And we can do the same thing.

I think about Naomi in the book of Ruth.

She had lost a husband, she had lost two sons, and then she changed her name.

Naomi means pleasant or sweet.

Think about what a beautiful name.

And when she came back to Bethlehem, she said, Don't call me pleasant, because life has not been pleasant.

Call me Mara, for I am bitter.

Mara means bitter.

So here's what happened.

Life was bitter, so she said, I have to choose to be bitter.

But here's a revelation: life can be bitter, but you can still choose to be sweet, powered by the Holy Spirit, walking in your destiny.

So cancel the name change.

You don't have to be defined by your wounds.

Secondly, we can choose to run from our wounds.

We can choose to run from our wounds.

This is what Jonah did when he ran away from Nineveh.

No doubt he had had friends and family die at the hands of Ninevehes.

So he ran from his wounds.

We can do that when in our life we're trying to avoid triggers.

I can't do that.

My anxiety would kick up, or this PTSD would kick up.

We can end up avoiding life, uh, decisions that God's calling us into because we're afraid of what it would stir up, what connotations, what associations.

I can't ever go to this sort of a situation again because you know that there was there was this experience for me and and and and real talk and and where there's hurt that has happened in church, it can be difficult for us to not so completely wrap that up in our experience with church.

And we can feel I how can I move forward with a whole heart into what God has for me when it is going to bring this up as well?

We can choose to run from our wounds and try and live a life where we don't ever access those painful things, which of course doesn't deal with any of those things.

They're still just going to be there waiting to be dealt with.

Try as you might, to run as you might.

Number three, we can of course choose to numb them.

We can numb our wounds with a variety of substances.

I think we're seeing a bit of numbing in the book of Haggai, where they're trying to distract themselves with consumption and with the materialism.

And if this house feels this way, then I'll be deflected away from the fact that I know deep down on the inside I'm running from my purpose, but I just get to keep buying stuff on Amazon because it sure does feel good to know there's a package waiting for me when I get home.

Why would I have to feel my feelings?

I can just shove the calories down, have a few extra drinks, and and and I won't even at least notice.

Number four, we can choose to pass the blame for our wounds.

This is where we creep into a victim mentality.

And this is conflated and conflicting because at times there are very real blames to be pointed, right?

I think about the man in John 5, though, and I think about how easily we can miss out on the miracle that's in front of us because of our focusing on who's at fault.

And Jesus said to the man who has been lying 38 years paralyzed, he said, Do you want to be made well?

What did the guy say?

Thank you, Jesus.

Yes, I do.

Matter of fact, no, he said, I don't have anybody to help me.

Other people are faster than me.

Other people are quicker down here.

Someone else stole my miracle last Thursday, right?

But here's the deal: whenever you focus on passing the blame, you remain the same.

You can be right and end up wrong.

This man missed the chance, almost missed the chance to get up into his destiny because he was so fixated and becoming poisoned and polluted by that root of bitterness that can spring up and defile many.

That victim mentality will cause you to develop a victim community, by the way.

That's why Jesus said, pick up your mat.

You're not coming back here.

You can't be surrounded by people who think the way you're thinking.

If you get to victim community, you're gonna end up with more and more of a victim destiny on your life.

Because if you show me your friends, Pastor Craig Groschot likes to say, I'll show you your future.

So you surround yourself with critical and jaded and gossipy type people, that's where you're heading.

So Jesus said, pick up that mat.

You're not coming back here.

You can't be around this crew.

You need to get a new crew.

And then, of course, Jesus did say, sin no more, lest a worse thing had come upon you.

Insinuating that some part of what he was experiencing had come as a direct result of his choices.

And so the man was focused on who else in his life was keeping him from his miracle.

And Jesus says, Some of the blame, at least, does need to rest with you.

Number five, what when we have a wound in our life, we can choose to then perpetuate them.

We can perpetuate our wounds.

What does this mean?

This means if we don't heal the things in our life that are dysfunctional, we run the risk of passing them on to those who are coming in the successive generations after us.

Abraham lied about his wife.

Isaac lies about his wife.

Jacob lies about everything.

You see this in the patriarchs, and God did in fact warn that the sin of the fathers will be visited on the third and the fourth generation, but he visits righteous on thousands.

Okay?

So what does that mean?

His goodness is for is unconditional.

That can run roughshaw.

What we can do for Jesus' name, we believe will run into eternity, that God is faithful to keep his covenant to a thousand generations, but God has put some sort of a built-in limiter on how sin can transmit.

But it will generationally pass on unless it's stopped, either by a bloodline in the sand, or it will time out at that third and fourth generation, because God, otherwise, wickedness would just perpetuate forever.

And that's why at the fourth generation, what do we see?

Bing, Joseph.

And he just out of nowhere, he's just like, uh, yeah, I'm not gonna do what my forefathers had done.

I'm not gonna choose to lie.

I'm not gonna, when Potiphar's wife says, Hey, bro, let's let's get let's get it on, he says, God would see.

How are you talking about God would see?

Your brothers have turned on you, God's clearly not got your back, dude.

And yet he says, Yeah, God's with me.

And she says, dude, be my side piece.

And he goes, I'm actually about inside peace.

Not side piece.

So God would see.

And so he says, No, this is a bloodline in the sand.

It cancels out after that fourth generation, and God begins to do something new, and he'll do it through you if you don't perpetuate these things on.

And you go, well, no, I'm not gonna become like my parents.

I'm gonna exact opposite of my parents.

They heard me.

Yeah, yeah.

So you're gonna create your kids that are basically your parents by you trying to be the exact opposite of your parents.

And then your kids are gonna try and be the exact opposite of you, right?

And uh that's why Pete Schazero was so wise when he said, Jesus might be in your heart, but grandpa's in your bones.

And if we don't let God heal these deep down parts of us, we're gonna see it continue to ripple out.

So, of course, all of these things, let's see our list on the screen, are things we do not want to do, but what do we want to do?

Hello, somebody.

We want to let God heal them so that they can be used to help other people.

This is what we want to be the outcome of our woundedness.

This is the choice that we all must make.

I've got a wound, I've got pain, I've got trauma.

It was traumatic, it was traumatizing, it was hard, it was difficult.

So, am I gonna do these things up here, run from them and numb them and pass the blame and have a victim mentality and pass them on one way or another, or am I gonna choose to let God heal the wounded parts of my heart so that those clean and healed wounds can help other people in Jesus' name?

This is the power of the gospel, this is the power of the cross.

This is what Isaiah 53, verse 5 says.

Isaiah 53:5

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are, say it with me, healed.

Jesus chose to see his wounds inflicted, no, no excusing the evil as having a higher purpose.

His wounds were used to do great things, and so can yours.

And when you allow him to do that, and I believe that's part of the reason he chose to keep them on his resurrected body.

For in heaven, Revelation 5, verse 6, though he's introduced as the lion of the tribe of Judah, when we see him, he will be seen as the lamb slain from before the foundations of the earth.

Revelation 5:6

Translation, he will still bear the wounds of the cross.

And you go, Jesus, you could do anything.

You could have a body that doesn't have them.

Why would you still want to have the wounds?

Why would you still want to have the hole in your side and the hole in your feet?

I don't know.

He I think he might look down and go, I kind of like them.

Because they're your ticket to ride.

You couldn't be here without them.

If I ended up with a wound in my body that I got on me from saving my son's life or my daughter's, one of my daughter's life, or helping my wife, that I would wear that wound as a badge of honor.

So, what I'm trying to get you to see is that the devil's trying to take your pain, and something needs to stiffen in your spirit where you say, devil, you can't have my pain.

It belongs to Jesus.

It's not going to accomplish what you want through it, it's going to accomplish heaven's will.

Come on, it's going to accomplish heaven's will.

You can't have my trauma.

God's going to heal it.

My trauma's not my template.

God's truth is my template.

And if his wounds could do great things, then that means my wounds can be used in his wounded hands to do great things too.

That's how Paul in the book of Philippians could say, guys, I want you to know that the things that have happened to me have happened for the furtherance of the gospel, for my chains are in Christ.

You're coming for me, praying for me.

I'm actually rejoicing because there are people coming to know Christ in Caesar's household.

Why?

Because I got incarcerated.

Come on, somebody, his trauma wasn't his template.

God's truth was his template, and God's truth can't be changed.

So Paul knew if I'm having it, I'm having it in the will of God.

If I'm a prisoner, I'm a prisoner in the will of God.

If I've been through abuse, if I've been through neglect, if I've been through a divorce, if I've been aligned about it, if I've if I've experienced hurt, I'm doing I've done so in the will of God, and I can choose to believe what the devil meant for evil, God's gonna use for good.

Devil, you can't have my pain.

You can't have my hurt, you can't have my will.

They're not gonna fester, they're not gonna be pussy, they're not gonna be infected, they're gonna be cleansed by fire, they're gonna be washed with the hands that that died on the cross for me.

I remember when our daughter passed away, she went home to be with Jesus five days before Christmas in 2012.

On a date night.

It was a night where Jenny and I would go on dates every Thursday night since we've been married 20 years also or so.

We've we've had a Thursday night date night just about every week.

And she went home to be with Jesus on a Thursday night.

Flash forward to after the funeral, flash forward to after all the cards and kind things stopped coming, and now it's C.S.

Lewis time, the tears have come and they've gone.

Now what are we gonna do about it?

Because this little girl, by the way, this is our little lineal line waiting for us in heaven, and we brought a photo.

She was five years old, she was in kindergarten, and and and she's with Jesus now.

And when the next date night came, it was like, what are we gonna do?

The pull was there to do what the people in the book of Haggai did.

Roll up the construction equipment.

We can't do it.

That's too traumatized.

The trauma then can become the template.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna just no, we can't, we can't face a date night, right?

Like some of you feel, I can't, like, how can I still be part of this church?

What it's gonna trigger, some of you are on the fence about all that.

I don't know, how can I?

And so you you you might even quiet quit, still be here, but but not give your heart to what God's doing.

And you won't do so because you're bad, you'll do so because you're conflicted.

Of what it's gonna pull on and what it's gonna mean, and what it's gonna bring up from your past, it's hard.

And I get it, I've I have lived that.

The next year, the dilemma of do we put up a Christmas decoration?

When it's gonna always for us trigger all these hard things.

We felt the Holy Ghost tell us, run toward the roar.

Run toward the roar.

What you're scared of, it's because the devil's trying to talk you away from your calling.

So run toward what you're afraid of.

I told that to my counselor, Deborah Fileda has for many years counseled Jenny Night.

She's a prolific author as well as a counselor, and she said, It sounds to me when you say run toward the roar, what you're trying to say is that your trauma is not gonna become your template.

And I go, that's not what I was saying, that's better than what I was saying, but I sure as heck I'm gonna steal that and preach that, and I have by giving her credit.

And I believe the Holy Spirit of God is today in this moment seeking for some of us to be brought to the crossroads of choosing to not let the trauma be the template, but to let God's truth be our template.

And God's truth and our trauma, how these things can reconcile, we're just gonna submit them to the hands of Jesus, the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, who today in this very moment is standing here with his nail-scarred hands, like he did in John 20, 20, and he's showing you his nail-scarred hands, and he is saying, peace.

He spoke peace to you, to the disciples, who were rattled, and they were traumatized, and he showed up walking through walls to say to them what he says to his church as we gather in his name right now in this moment.

I speak to you peace.

I speak to you peace.

For the people in the book of Haggai, an altar was all they had.

Turns out, an altar is all we need.

An altar is all we need.

Because the king's among us.

I close, and my wife Jenny's gonna join me on stage here as we pray.

Remember Jurassic Park in 1993?

Not the new ones with Chris Pratt.

I'm talking about the old school Jurassic Park.

Remember that scene where they're on that tour, it's like right at the beginning, they're on that tour of the park.

The little kids, the little boy, little girl, are in the car with the lawyer.

And when the tyrannosaur uh attacks, the lawyer runs off and tries to save his own self, and he ends up sitting where?

Where?

Where does he sit?

In the toilet.

And he gets eaten by tyrannosaurus streaks.

That's what he gets.

Not for being a lawyer, for abandoning the children.

And then the car gets knocked off the cliff and it's in the tree, and Alan Grant comes down to save him real quickly.

He's trying to get him out of the car before the car falls, they're gonna die.

And the little girl's hyperventilating.

She's she's having a panic attack, right?

You can see the scene.

He's saying, You gotta get out of the car, you gotta trust me.

Come to my arms, come, come to me.

I trust me, I know what I'm doing.

And she just keeps going, He left us, he left us, he left us, he left us.

And he calms her down by saying to her these words that Jesus speaks to you right now.

He says, But that's not what I'm going to do.

Cyrus the king was dead.

Haggai, too, is him saying, Long live the king, the King Jesus.

We welcome you here, Father.

If this message has touched you in a way that you would say, I want to welcome the Lord to come into my trauma so it's not my template, but God's truth can be.

I want him to heal my wounds, and I want to say to God, don't let the devil have my pain.

You use it, Jesus.

If that's you, I'm describing it.

If that's the cry of your heart, every location, every single person under the sound of my voice, I want you to raise up your hand.

If that's you, I'm describing.

The trauma that you have faced when you were a child, the trauma you're facing currently in this season, and you're saying, I want to give it to you.

With your hands raised, Jenny, would you pray for the people?

Yes, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, for your words.

That you tell us that that's not what you're gonna do.

That you're with us.

And even when you were on this earth and you said, My peace, I give to you.

And I pray for those raising their hands right now.

That you would overwhelm them with your peace.

Overwhelm them with your love.

And as their hands are even open to you, like a little kid that's just saying, Hold me, hold me, dad, hold me.

A heart of love.

Because you designed them, you created them, and you desire for them to run to you.

So I pray that as they look to you, their eyes fixed on you, that the trauma, that the pain, yes, it's there, yes, it's real, but that it would melt away in your presence, and that you would heal, that you would strengthen the weak arms that hang down, that you would lift up, that you would lift up their chin, and that they would see you, and that they would know that they are loved by you and known by you, and that they are not alone.

Thank you, Jesus, for what you're doing in this place.

Thank you, God, for your healing touch.

Thank you, Lord, that you are our good shepherd who leads us and who loves us and who guides us and we rest in you.

Yes, God, we trust you for the not the latter glory, not the former glory, but the latter glory.

God, not what's behind us, but what's in front of us.

We focus on you, Prince of Peace.

You can put your hands down, and I want to now invite anybody who's not trusted Christ for salvation.

Jesus died on the cross for you, he rose from the dead, and if you trust him, you'll receive new life in his name.

There's no way to God except through Jesus.

There's no way to wholeness, there's no way to heaven but through Jesus.

If you're here and you've not trusted him or you have wandered from him, today could be your day of rededication.

I'm gonna pray a prayer and I'm gonna ask you to pray it with me.

Church family, pray it with us.

No one praying alone.

If you're ready to surrender your life to Christ, say these words.

Dear God, I'm a sinner.

I can't fix myself.

I ask for you to fix me.

Be my Lord, be my Savior.

Thank you for a new life.

I give you mine.

In Jesus' name.

With heads still bowed and eyes still closed, if you trusted Christ at every location, church online, I'm gonna count to three.

And when I get to three, as a symbol of your soul being surrendered, I want you to raise your hand up in the air.

One, two, three.

Shoot your hands up, shoot your hands up.

Praise God.

Come on, church, celebrate with me.

Hands going up all across the room.

Every location.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you'd like to connect with us, text Connect to 71010 or visit gatewaypeople.com.

We hope you have a great week.