With Jesus Through the Seasons of Life

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

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

Whether you're in this room in any of our campuses or um following online, whether you are a planted part of our Gateway family or you're a guest, we're so excited to celebrate Jesus with you today.

And Gateway, let me tell you, I've been missing you so much.

Honestly, it's been a few weeks now since I've been here speaking a weekend.

And after that last service of the last time I spoke, Maria and I got in the car.

We headed out to the airport.

I was going to Europe for a ministry trip.

And I looked at her and I teared up and I said, baby, if I could cancel this trip, I would do it in a second.

I don't know what God has done to my heart, but He's just attached it to this place and to this house.

This is my church.

You are my people, and I'm so honored to be with you for this season for sure.

Um, before we get into the Word of God, can I just testify to the goodness of a great Lord?

Can I just share a testimony that shook our world just last week?

You see, apart from being here a certain amount of a certain number of weekends throughout this fall, I'm also working with the gateway staff to provide pastoral care and support.

So I'm here quite a lot in the midweeks as well.

And last week I was for a few days and then headed out to the airport to DFW again uh to go back home.

And um all of a sudden I was sitting there waiting for my flight.

All of a sudden, all my devices just kind of exploded and started acting crazy.

They started making amber alert sound sounds and and emergency texts popped up saying that Maria's iPhone and Apple Watch had indicated that she had been in a car crash.

And if you ever heard like received uh an information like that, message like that, you know what it feels like when your heart stops.

And I called Maria instantly to try to find out what has happened, and she didn't pick up, and I called again, she didn't reply.

I I called again and finally she picked up and I could hear like traffic commotion just all around her.

It turned out that another car had hit her at high speed, and um and now she was stuck in the car, and the fire brigade was there to cut her out.

And I asked, How are you doing?

And she said, I'm basically okay, but I've broken my arm, Joachim, and it hurt so much, it hurt so much.

And she said how her arm had turned black and blue, indicating fractures, and uh how he was also like dislocated.

You could see from the shape of the arm that it was broken, and the ambulance staff that brought her into the ambulance was telling her uh the same the same thing.

So we could only speak for a number of seconds, and and once I hung up, I felt so small and so insignificant not to be able to be there with her at that time.

But I knew one thing that I could do, I could mobilize prayer.

So I started calling my friends, fellow pastors, and churches, and also the gateway staff, and they met at the offices and they prayed in Jesus' name for Maria.

They video recorded the prayer, they sent the video to me.

I sent the video to Maria.

She was now in the hospital, and as she was lying there, she was playing the prayer on repeat, just you know, soaking in that presence of God and the prayer of the saints.

And she said that in the course of about two hours, all of a sudden the pain started to disappear.

And then the black and the blue colors of her arms started of her arms started to disappear, and then the she saw physically the arm go from this bent state slowly back to its original shape.

And when I finally got to the hospital, it was exactly when the doctor came in to bring the x-ray results that said no bone was broken in her body.

Can I just testify to the healing power of God and to the name of Jesus that has all power?

Praise God.

And here she is, more beautiful than ever.

Praise God.

Thank you, Lord.

And you know what gateway?

The God that healed Maria's arm, He can heal your body, and He can heal your heart, and He can heal your soul.

Amen.

I'm so ever grateful for the faithfulness and the power and the healing of the Lord.

Okay, are we ready for the Word of God now?

Greg, could you turn to your neighbor and ask them, Are you ready for the Word of God?

Then you can turn to your other neighbor and ask them, Are you ready for some Swedish accent?

I want to share a word with you that God really placed on my heart for this day and for this season.

And um, I call this message walking with Jesus through the seasons of life.

With Jesus through the seasons of life.

Walking through the changes of life and still holding on to the hand of Jesus when life changes on the outside, when life changes on the inside, whatever change you will be walking through, you can walk through it with Jesus.

Now, when we speak about change, we need to define what kind of change we're talking about because there are a number of different changes.

There are some changes that we initiate ourselves.

Like when you wake up one morning and say, Man, I need to lose some weight, I need to get in shape, I need to get my Bible reading in order, I need to get some new positive routines, godly habits in my life.

You identify an area of need, you identify the need for change, and then you decide to make that change, and hopefully you push through with that change.

But that kind of change is a change that we initiate.

It's a change that we own and that we control.

And that is actually not the kind of change I want to talk about today.

The change I want to talk about is organic change, the kind of change that we do not initiate ourselves, but the changes that are happening all around us, even though we don't own them or we don't control them.

How do we deal with these changes?

Now, Genesis chapter 8 and verse 22 is one of the verses where God speaks about those organic changes that will constantly be going on around us.

Genesis 8 · chapter mention

And he says, As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.

Basically, what God, the Creator, is saying is that the only thing that is constant in creation is the fact that everything is changing.

That's the one thing we can rely on.

Everything is changing, and not for accident and not in a negative way, but this is the way God created everything, and this is also the way He created us.

We are ever-changing beings, and not only do we change just in one uh in one way, but we change on multiple levels all the time.

And let me just ask uh try to explain what I mean by this.

We live in different times at the same time.

First of all, there is what I call general time that keeps changing.

General time is the same for all of us.

General time would be, for example, that right now it's September of 2024, it's the end of summer, and uh and we're at a certain point of the year.

That will change in a few months' time, it will be a different general time.

But the thing that that is about general time is that we all have it in common, it's the same for all of us.

But then on top of that, we have personal time or individual time.

Now, personal time would be, for example, the fact that you are 41 years old or 14 years old or 99 years old.

Personal time might be the fact that you are a child or a teenager or a young adult or a grown-up or a senior or a super senior.

You are at some point of life.

You might be single, you might be married, you might be a parent, you might be a grandparent.

That's your personal individual time, which is also changing all the time.

And then on top of that, we had what I call God time, which is the changes we walk through in our relationship with the Lord.

Now, regarding God time, I want to come back in a little bit and define that a little bit better, but for now I just want to kind of suggest to you that yes, we live in all these different times at the same time, and they all change.

And the author of this change is actually the Lord Himself.

Daniel chapter 2, verse 21 says, He changes times and seasons.

Daniel 2:21

And I struggled a bit with this, honestly, Gateway, because I was thinking, how does this connect?

I mean, God is never changing, we know that, amen.

He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that how come a never-changing God creates ever-changing human beings and then still calls us his image.

How can we as ever-changing humans be created in the image and in the likeness of a never-changing God?

I struggled a bit with that, so I I asked him, God, you know, help me explain this to me.

And and he says, Well, Joachim, because he can pronounce my name, y'all.

Well, Joachim, you see, you could never fully reflect me if you were only at one stage and in one season of your life.

But because you constantly change, you can reflect me in every stage and in every season.

I can be reflected in the innocence of a baby, I can be reflected in the joy of a child, I can be reflected in the energy of the teenager, I can be reflected in the passion of the young adult, I can be reflected in the maturity of a grown-up, I can be reflected in the wisdom of a senior.

Throughout the changes of your life, you're actually able to reflect even more of my being, even more of my nature.

And I said, Yes, sir, makes sense.

So as we move through these changes, it's so important that we learn how to handle them.

Because individuals, families, churches, businesses have failed or flourished based on their ability or inability to change with the seasons.

Let me just give you a few examples from the business world.

Um, anyone old enough to remember this logo?

Oh, you know what I'm saying now.

Kodak, remember?

In the 20th century, Kodak absolutely owned the photography industry.

They had 90% of it.

My friends, that's a success level that is so good it's almost boring.

Like, where's the competition?

It's complete domination.

They owned it all, but still, when the digital revolution started coming at the end of the 90s, Kodak saw it coming.

And Kodak had the technology to kind of change and develop and follow along with this change, but they chose not to.

Why?

Because their mindset was that what made us all these billions of dollars have been developing film on photo photo paper.

That's what we've always done, and that's what we're gonna continue doing.

And in 2012, Kodak went bankrupt, only due to its unwillingness to change when the world around them changed.

Let me give you another example.

Maybe this is even closer to home.

Remember this one?

Oh, some of you went nostalgic.

Husband and wife's going, oh, remember that, honey, that was our first date.

Blockbuster.

I remember coming to the US 25, 30 years ago, and you guys had blockbusters everywhere.

That's where you went to rent video cassette tapes.

Anyone old enough?

DVDs, Blu-rays, and and in the 80s and 90s, Blockbuster did amazing.

But let me tell you a true story.

In the year 2000, a young man came and asked to see the CEO of Blockbuster.

And he sat down with him and he said, Sir, I think that the future of how people will consume movies and entertainment will not be through renting physical copies, but through streaming.

So I've started this little business called Netflix.

And I would like to suggest that we merge Netflix and Blockbuster together, we will own it.

Together, we can make magic.

And he was laughed out of the boardroom because Blockbuster knew what they were doing.

And 10 years later, in 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy, and Netflix went on to do pretty well.

Now, of course, I can't just leave you with two negative examples.

We have to end on a positive note, right?

So let me introduce being a Scandinavian myself, the choice is obvious.

I give you Lego.

Praise the name of the Lord.

If you think about it, Lego faced the exact same challenge that ended up breaking Kodak and breaking Blockbuster, the digital revolution.

Of course, if kids are now gonna just play video games and watch movies on their iPads, they will be less likely to build with these multicolored plastic building blocks.

That was Lego's whole thing.

But instead of seeing this change as a problem, Lego saw the potential inside the problem.

And they said, Hey, let's make Lego video games.

Let's make Lego animated movies.

Let's stick to our basic vision, but let's package it differently as the world turns.

They did, and they have been flourishing the past 20 years.

Lego is doing amazing.

They're the second biggest toy company in the world, second only to Barbie, and they're coming for her.

Now they're starting Lego stores all over the world.

They've introduced things that were not around when I was a kid, like grown-up Lego, Lego for grown-ups.

And I know about this because Maria can tell you that for the past few years, all that has been on my wish list for the past few Christmases and birthdays has been one thing and one thing alone: Lego.

Oh, I've been working on my Ferrari 458.

I've been building the Lamborghini.

Currently working on the Bugatti Chevron.

Because I do believe that as a pastor, you need to have a hobby that reminds you that not everything in life is super serious.

So the way I do it is that I praise God and I prepare messages, then I take a 20-minute Lego break.

And I'm telling you this story just to remind you that sometimes we need to change when the world changes.

That doesn't mean that you become something different, it doesn't mean that we as a church become something completely different, just that we have to adapt to the changes around us.

And the word of God gives us the ABCs and the one, two, threes of doing this.

But still, we need to talk about it because our track record historically as a church is not too great when it comes to change.

I guess many of you did what Maria and I did last year.

We went to see the movie Jesus Revolution.

Anyone saw that movie?

It's incredible, a beautiful movie, but also a very tragic movie about the amazing outpouring of the of the spirit in the early 1970s, primarily in California, where tens of thousands of hippies that were involved in drugs and free sex and Eastern religion all of a sudden became saved and fell in passionate love with Jesus.

That was the beautiful part of it, the most unexpected thing in the world, the glorious movement of the spirit, and all of a sudden, all these thousands of people are passionate about following Jesus.

The tragedy of it was that the churches as a whole shut their doors to this revival.

Why?

Because these young people wore jeans and they played the guitar and they wore their hair long.

And the church as a whole would say, We're not doing that.

So instead of embracing these young people, even though they looked a bit differently, even though they they praised God a little differently, instead of embracing that and adapting to that, the church shut their door and kept praying for revival.

How stupid can we get?

And I saw that movie and it stuck with me for months.

And it was like God spoke to me and said, Don't ever do that again, church.

And this is so important for us.

Why?

Because God has spoken to our church prophetically about 10,000 young people coming into this church.

The beautiful thing is the way I know Gateway is that we're all about people.

We're not necessarily all about our holy traditions, we're all about people.

And whatever we can do to accommodate 10,000 young people, we're gonna do it because nothing is more precious than this next generation encountering the presence of God and being washed in the holy blood of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

But we need change and we need to know how to maneuver change.

Let me go back to that element of God time, how our walk with the Lord actually also is going through different changes.

And when I prayed over this and when I studied the Word of God and the life of Jesus in regards to the changes of God time and how God relates to us in different ways through different seasons, I actually realized that the God time changes of our lives actually correspond to the seasons of nature, the four seasons.

Now I know that over here in Texas, y'all, uh the seasons changes are not that dramatic.

Right?

Somebody told me last week I love the fall in Texas.

It's the best day of the year.

So let me approach this more from a Scandinavian perspective.

Because back where I come from, the seasons are radically different, okay?

First of all, we have the summer, and summer is easygoing.

Summer is the season where you don't have to put on three layers of clothes just to survive.

Summer is all about energy, it's about activity, it's about joy, it's about excitement.

And there are spiritual summers as well, and I'm sure you've experienced those seasons maybe many times in your life.

It's like you're living under a constantly open heaven.

You don't have to fight, you don't have to push through.

The excitement is there, the spirit is there.

Every time you open the Bible, revelation just pops out.

Every time you worship, you experience the presence of God.

Every time you pray, your prayers are like answered, even before you get to say amen.

It's like it's a spiritual summer season full of energy, excitement, uh, activity.

But then there is also the fall season, and in the fall, the trees that used to be so beautiful with all their thousands of green leaves, all of a sudden those green leaves fall to the ground.

Ground and what used to be so beautiful and green all of a sudden feels a bit more barren and naked.

And there are seasons of spiritual falls as well.

The seasons of our lives when we experience uh God calls us to sanctification and holiness and repentance.

The spiritual fall seasons might be where he points his finger to an attitude in our lives that we need to change.

And spiritual fall might be where he points at that secret sin that we need to deal with.

The spiritual fall season might be a season where he might not necessarily give you a whole lot of stuff, but actually sometimes take some stuff away to teach us to trust in him and only in him.

It's a bit more uncomfortable than the summer season, but that does not mean it's not as important and not as precious.

And then we go from the fall into the winter.

Let me tell you people in Texas about winter.

Because I don't really think you know winter.

I mean, you have like, what do you have, like half an inch of snow every five years?

And when you do, you call a national emergency.

You close your schools.

I tell you, if we did that in Sweden, our kids will receive no education whatsoever.

The winter season is a snowy season.

And many of us associate snow with cold, and of course, there's that connection.

But let me tell you something else, coming from a guy who has been surrounded by snow for a large portion of my life.

One thing that the snow does is that the snow absorbs sounds, the snow makes everything quiet.

And on top of that, you know, the animals of the nature, they're asleep throughout winter because they're smart.

And the birds have all gone to Africa because they're even smarter.

And all that remains is that snow coverage that absorbs the sound.

I'll tell you, if you cross a field that is covered with a thick layer of snow and you stop in the middle of it, all you can hear is your own heart beating.

It's a very special experience.

And you know there are spiritual winters as well, and I'm sure you experience those.

Where we go a little bit like hello, hello, you used to speak to me clearly on a daily basis.

I used to experience your radiant, transcendent power in my life, and now I don't in the same way.

And if your only point of reference of experiencing the presence of God is the summer season, then you might freak out in the winter season, and you might think something is wrong, or even worse, God has left me.

Let me tell you, He hasn't left you, it's just a different season.

We actually see Jesus Himself going through these various seasons.

We see him in the summer season a lot when he's preaching to thousands, he's healing the sick, he's casting out demons, he's raising the dead.

But we also see him in the winter seasons, where he goes up to a mountain all alone.

When he tells his disciples, let's avoid the crowds for a while, let's go out to a deserted area, because he knew this season is not primarily there for active ministry, but for the preparation of the heart.

Now, when you're in the winter season, you look at the snow and you can panic a little bit because it seems like nothing is happening.

Let me tell you, underneath the snow, the ground is being prepared for a new spring.

Underneath the snow, the ground is being prepared for a new spring.

And then spring comes and the snow melts away and the birds start to sing again, and the warm winds are back.

The spiritual spring is about new hope, new dreams, new visions, new flowers coming up on the ground, new colors, new inspiration, and how we love the spiritual springs.

But let me tell you, as we walk through life, we will experience all of these seasons in our God time.

And I just want to give you finally a few tools.

And by using these tools, I do believe that you can actually find peace in whatever season you are in.

So let me just give you really quickly three things that you can always say and always rely on.

Number one, God is the author of my present season.

God is the author of my present season.

You will always be able to say, whatever season you're in, God is the author of this season.

I'm not saying he's the author of everything that happens to you in a certain season, because we live in a broken world and we are broken ourselves as well.

And we will experience the consequences of that broken world: grief, heartbreak, tragedy.

But we can always be confident in the fact that God is the author of my overall season.

That means, gateway, every single day of your life you can wake up and say, This is the day that the Lord has made.

And I will rejoice and I will be glad in it.

He is the author of this season.

Be it summer, be it winter, be it fall, be it spring.

He is the author of this season, and because he is, I can rejoice in whatever season of life that I'm in right now.

The second thing that we can always hold on to and rely on is the fact that God has a plan for my present season.

God has a plan for this present season.

I'm not in this season by mistake.

God has a plan and God has a purpose for this season that I'm in.

And I love the verse from Ecclesiastes chapter 3 so much.

Ecclesiastes 3 · chapter mention

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

You see, there is a beauty to every season if we accept and if we embrace it.

I heard something good come out of my mouth.

I'm gonna say it again.

There is a beauty to every season if we accept and if we embrace it.

Now the devil will have you want to, he will want you to go through life constantly frustrated and constantly wishing you were somewhere else than where you are right now.

Like when you're young, you want to be older, I want to be older because I can do more stuff if I'm older, I want to be older, I don't want to be a kid, I want to be older.

And then we pass some kind of invisible line, and then oh no, I want to be younger, I want to be younger.

If you're single, I want to get married, I want to get married, I don't want I want to get married, and then your married, I don't want to be married anymore.

You know, it's like we always end up like feeling that frustration about wanting to be somewhere else.

And now in the season of social media, we look at others' lives and say, I want to be in her season, I want to be in his season, and we just wish we were anywhere else.

When we live with that frustration, we will never experience the beauty of our present season.

But when we accept and when we embrace it, this is the season that the Lord has made.

In this season, I He has a plan, and I'm gonna live in that plan and I'm gonna live in the joy and the beauty of this present season.

So if you're single, don't spend that season just desperately wanting to get out of it and get married as soon as possible with whomever.

There's a plan for that season.

Yeah, I know that plan is called torture, agony, pain.

No, my friend, if you embrace and accept the season as given to you by the Lord, you will experience the beauty of it for as long as you're in it.

Amen.

Same thing with when the gray hairs start to come up.

You know what?

You don't have to dye your gray hairs.

You can dye them if you want to.

If you think it looks better, please go ahead and dye them.

What I'm saying is this don't be ashamed of the season you're in.

Don't try to pretend you're somewhere else.

God has given you the your present season as a gift.

Embrace it and enjoy it.

Can we say amen, gateway?

And even, church, this season that we're in right now, even though we were launched into this season dramatically and unexpectedly, there's a plan for this season, gateway.

There's a plan of God positioning us, God pruning us, God preparing us for everything that lies ahead of us.

So let's make the most out of the plan He has for this season.

Can I hear an amen in all of the campuses?

Praise God.

Finally, third and final thing that I want to share with you before we pray.

The third thing you can always hold on to and proclaim over whatever season you're in, God is with me in this present season.

Not only is he the author of your season, not only does he have a plan for this season, he is with me in this present season.

Regardless of whether it's a summer season, a fall season, winter season, or a spring season, he has promised to be with you.

Now his presence will be perceived differently, but the promises he will never ever leave you nor forsake you.

Matthew chapter 28, one of the final words of Jesus before he was taken up into heaven.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Surely I am with you always.

Now, always is a bit of a general term, but if you look at the Greek words that are translated into always, it's actually not one word, but three Greek words.

So literally, what Jesus is saying is, I am with you every single one of the different days.

I am with you every single one of the different days.

As you move through life, I am with you at every stage.

You might perceive my presence in a different way, but I am with you.

I am with you in the energy of the summer, I am with you in the pruning of the fall, I am with you in the silence of the winter, and I am with you in the new hope of spring.

I am with you every single day of your life, and that's the promise of the gospel.

Can I ask you to stand up in the presence of God at all campuses?

And I just want to lead you in a in a simple prayer of dedication.

And what I would like for you to do is just to surrender your life again and your present season again into the hands of the Lord.

Because he might have called you initially when you were 16 or 21 or 32, and maybe that was years and years and years ago, but today he passes you by again and he says, Follow me, follow me at this stage of your life, follow me in this season of your life, and he gives you an opportunity to recommit your life, and also for us to recommit our church to into his hands in this special season.

Would you take your hands and just hold them out in front of you like this?

Take a look at your hands.

These hands have already been through uh some seasons, and there are more to come.

But let's just give our present season into the hands of God.

Would you close your eyes?

And just think about Jesus standing right before you right now, with his arms stretched out, ready to receive your life again, ready to receive this present season of you individually and us as a church.

Let's pray together this prayer.

Let's pray, dear Jesus.

I give you my life again, I give you my present season, and I acknowledge that you are the author of this season, and I will rejoice and be glad in it.

I acknowledge that you have a plan for this season, and I will see that plan fulfilled, and I acknowledge that you are with me in this season, and as a church, Lord, we give you our present season.

Have your way, let your kingdom come, let your will be done, prepare us, prune us, position us where we need to stand so that we can step into the next season.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's lift up those hands to heaven right now as a sign of our surrender.

Here we are.

We are in so many different places, but he's with you right where you are, and there's a plan for your present season.

So let's just worship him for a few minutes, Gateway.

Let's just let's just give him honor and glory for the fact that he will never ever leave you nor forsake you throughout the seasons of life, throughout the stages of life.

He will always be with you and he will never ever leave you.

Let's worship him for that.

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.