Be Brave

Anyone in here or in any of the campuses watching anyone like movies?

Well, I like movies, and most of the time I will often ask the people who have seen the movie that I think I want to see, how does it end?

Am I going to like it?

I don't mind all of the ups and downs and you know the craziness of the movie as long as the ending makes sense.

Right?

Endings matter.

Did anyone ever see that TV series Lost?

Such an interesting show, right?

Crazy characters, these weird group of people called the Others, Mysterious Smoke, Hidden Buildings, Secret Codes, and the worst last episode ever.

Right?

Well, I uh I heard from someone who actually worked on that show that it was because they never expected it to last that long, so they didn't have a plan.

Well, unlike the writers of Lost, when God starts something, he always has the end in mind.

And it might be different than you had in mind, but I promise you it will be far and above better than you could ever imagine.

And because I like to know the endings, I'm gonna share one with you.

Can you cope?

All right, Jeremiah 29, 11, in a way, is what God would say to us would be the ending of our lives.

He says this, for I know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord.

Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Now, when this was actually spoken by God through the prophet Jeremiah, it was not written in the middle of amazing circumstances.

It was written to Jewish exiles in Babylon who had been forcibly removed from Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar.

And so they were uprooted from everything that was held dear to them.

They were uprooted from their home and they were now hundreds of miles away, living as exiles in the very heart of dark idol worship.

It would appear that all of their hopes and dreams had been smashed.

And I wonder if they weren't asking themselves, how did we end up here?

And maybe they were wondering if God had forgotten them.

So here they were in the midst of a really horrible, trying situation, and God says to them, I know the thoughts I think towards you.

And that's one thing I want to pull out is that God is always thinking about us.

That could be the most important thing you ever hear or understand is that the God of the universe thinks about us.

He keeps us in mind.

He knows where you are and what we're doing.

Not for one second are we ever lost or forgotten.

Now we might have questions, but this much is clear.

God is thinking about us always.

And then he goes on in that verse and he says that his thoughts towards us are of peace.

So God's thoughts towards you are good.

It's not just enough to know that he's thinking about us, but his thoughts toward us are good.

God is not mad at you.

He is not looking at you thinking, oh, what a disappointment you are.

He's not looking at you thinking, I wish you were different.

No, his thoughts towards you are of peace.

And then it goes on to say that he intends to give us a future filled with hope.

Now, some versions actually say to give us an expected end.

And I think that could be a good way to translate that Hebrew.

It's a promised end to this situation or this season.

And then because God is eternal, our promised end also includes heaven.

See, God is not giving us just some random promise that things are gonna be better sometime in some situation.

I mean, that's true.

But this verse has a very specific focus.

God has an appointed end for his people, you and me.

And nothing will hinder us from reaching that appointed end.

Okay, so that is the end, this future filled with hope.

And now let's take a look at how we get there, because you are gonna get there.

And here's the how: it is on the journey, it's on the path, it's on the road between now and our promised end that we need to be brave.

The life that God has given us, the life that God has given you, the life that God has given me will include moments that demand bravery.

And so I'm gonna spend the next few minutes talking about what bravery looks like through my eyes.

Habakku 3.19 says this.

The Lord God is my strength, my personal bravery, my invincible army.

He makes my feet like Heinz feet and will make me to walk, not stand still in terror, but to walk and make spiritual progress upon my high places of trouble, suffering, or responsibility.

So I believe that I have been sent to the planet at this time in history to fulfill a plan that God has.

My life is not my own, it's his.

And this verse reassures me that he is my personal bravery, he is my invincible army.

And because he's both of those, then it says he's gonna cause me to walk, not stand still in terror, but to walk, which means actually I can't allow myself to get overwhelmed with whatever obstacle might be in front of me on the path of my God mission.

And you know what?

I'm very aware that that is much easier said than done.

Because on your journey, on my journey, Tar Promised and we face challenging situations.

Maybe you're in here and you are taking care of aging parents.

Bravery is needed.

Or maybe you have special needs children, bravery is needed.

Some of us are facing a battery of medical tests or dealing with a horrible diagnosis, bravery is needed.

Some of us are handling staggering financial challenges.

Some of us have lost a job, some of us can't find a job, some of us have had our heart broken, some of us have lost a loved one.

I recently had a conversation with a young woman whose young husband just had a stroke and she herself is dealing with a very painful sickness.

Bravery is needed.

And then there's some of us we honestly just don't know the next step to take.

But whatever the challenge, this verse lets us know that he is our personal bravery.

And when he actually is our bravery, then it says he's gonna cause us to walk, not freak out, but to walk.

And not only walk, but make progress in the very area where we might be experiencing trouble and suffering.

So if that's you right now, just breathe.

He is your bravery.

And then that verse also says that he's gonna cause us to make progress in the area of trouble and suffering, those big giant obstacles, but it also says we can make progress in the areas of responsibility.

Now I love that it uses that word responsibility.

It's not a very glamorous word, it'll never make it onto anybody's t-shirt.

You know, king responsibility, it just doesn't work.

But you know what?

Somehow that word is actually reassuring to me.

Because it lets me know that, you know, some of us we get up day after day and we go to the same job and we do the same thing.

And some of us, you know, daily take care of children and we wonder if we'll ever have an adult conversation.

And then some of us go to school day after day, and maybe we're just wondering where it's gonna lead.

And then some of us wake up and we look at that same man or that same woman that we have for 25 years, and we're like, really?

And then some of us, you know, we go to our connect group one more week.

All of these seemingly not grand moments that demand responsibility.

And what this verse is telling me is that as we're living out our mission, as we're walking on our path, as we're living in places that demand consistency, reliability, and dependability, God meets us there too.

He'll be our personal bravery, not only in the big areas of trouble and suffering, the big mountains we climb, but he's our personal bravery in the day in, day out, everyday moments of life.

He is our bravery.

When God says to us in Joshua 1.9, he says, Haven't I commanded you?

Strength, courage, don't be timid, don't get discouraged.

God, your God, is with you every step you take.

It's for a reason.

We're supposed to be brave for a reason.

And you know, brave is more than a feeling, it's a conviction.

And sometimes brave is taking ground.

Sometimes bravery is taking ground, and by taking ground I mean expanding our area of influence.

For the last number of years, I've hosted a conference at that our you know church hosts called God Chicks, which is we similar to Pink Impact here.

And so we host this conference and we've outgrown our own building, and so we've always had to rent other buildings and we've rented other churches.

And but this last year I thought, do you know what?

I want to actually take some ground in our city.

It's so romantic to say taking ground.

The actual process of taking ground is hard work and a lot of tears.

I'm just letting you know.

Right?

But we're gonna take some ground.

So I wanted to have our conference in the Dolby Theater.

Now, for those of you that would be unaware, the Dolby Theater is where they have the Academy Awards.

So it would, it's not the largest venue in our city, it's just the most iconic.

So, in that building that you know broadcast to billions of people around the planet, I thought, you know what, I'm gonna have our conference right there.

Now, in that particular venue, worship has never been sung.

On that stage, the word of God has never been taught.

And so I, you know, I'm gonna do that.

We're gonna do that, we're gonna make a stand in our city, Los Angeles.

More pornography is produced in Los Angeles than any city in the world.

In that city, often women are primarily viewed by how they're what their appearance and how they look.

And so I thought we're gonna host a women's conference in the very heart of that city and declare value to the daughters of the king.

All right, so on that stage, on that stage where those gold statues are honored, we honored Jesus.

On that stage where acceptance speeches are given, we taught the word of God for the first time.

So it was an amazing, an amazing experience that this last week to see thousands of women gathered in that building.

So we took ground.

And it took everything within me to lead that charge.

We took ground.

So sometimes bravery is taking ground, and then sometimes bravery is standing your ground, it's protecting and guarding ground that has been fought for.

But either way, it's being brave for something.

Bravery because it glorifies God.

You know, bravery for the God somethings.

You know, forgiving.

Forgiving.

Sometimes forgiveness takes bravery.

Now, maybe you all are perfect here.

I can tell that already.

And maybe you feel like forgiving all the time, like this forgiveness cloud just descends on you and you go with it.

But me, I never feel like forgiving.

Ever.

Ever.

Ever.

I got a black belt a number of years ago.

I feel like hurting people when they hurt me.

I'm just being honest with you.

And so recently, this last year, I had I was really betrayed by a few people in a certain situation, and it was incredibly hurtful because I'm such a relational person, and so it was very hurtful.

And I knew I needed to forgive them.

It's in the Bible.

So I kept making that choice daily to forgive them.

And then God, you know, He always pushes it.

He says, Holly, actually, not only do I want you to forgive them, but I want you to act toward them as if they already are forgiven.

Oh really?

And I'm telling you, that took bravery.

But that's just the moments, the brave moments for the God, something.

Now, obviously, on the global large scale, we're to be brave to stand up to global injustice, human trafficking, you know, brave to help the millions of refugees around the planet.

We're to be brave to help fight disease and famine, stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves.

And then there is the everyday moments of bravery.

Sticking it out through a rough patch in a marriage.

And come on, if you've been married 10 minutes, you've had a rough patch in your marriage, right?

Brave as you choose to not be addicted anymore.

Bravery as you go through the recovery process, bravery as you keep your mouth shut in certain situations rather than attacking back.

Is that hard for anybody, or would that just be me?

Okay.

Bravery to tell the truth, just the everyday moments of bravery.

We can be brave for a few reasons.

I can be brave because, first of all, I know who I am.

I am the loved beyond measure daughter of the king.

And for you men, you are the son of the most high God.

See, my father is God of the angel armies, creator of the universe, lover of my soul.

And my bravery comes because I know who I am.

And I can be brave, secondly, because heaven is my home.

You know, as followers of Jesus, we are both citizens and ambassadors of another world.

The the this world right here is our assignment.

It's not our home.

Our purpose is eternal.

Philippians, Paul wrote this: he says, Our citizenship is in heaven.

And to the church at Ephesus, he said that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places.

And to the church in Corinth, he refers to us as Christ's ambassadors.

So as ambassadors, we live in one world while representing another.

And so my job here on planet earth is to represent the heart of God and to fulfill his mission.

And as I do, all of God's resources, including his angelic army, are at my disposal to carry out my king's orders.

I am brave not because my name is great, I am brave because I come in his name.

And third, I can be brave because I know that God causes all things to work together for good.

That's what it says in Romans 8.28.

It says, and we can know that God causes everything to work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to his purpose for them.

The thing is, this isn't always easy to know, is it?

Because sometimes life throws us some very hard times and it can just be overwhelming.

And then it says in Ephesians that we are God's masterpiece.

He's created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he actually planned for us to do.

But I don't always feel like a masterpiece.

That word is poema, it actually means boem, a work of art.

I don't always feel like a work of art.

But you are, you are a work of art.

I am a work of art.

We are his tapestry.

The only thing is, God works from the back side of the tapestry.

And if you let him in, he will use all of these threads.

He'll use all of these threads, the the ones that come from maybe good choices you made, the ones that come from life, the ones that come from mistakes that you've made.

He'll use all of them.

And he will form them into this masterpiece that he is creating because he makes all things work together for good.

See, sometimes we think if he's here, if he is sovereign, then we would see a pattern or a purpose in our life.

But often our life seems like the backside of that tapestry.

Does anybody's life ever seem like that?

But what I know is that he will take all of them and form us into his masterpiece because we love him and we're called according to his purpose.

And I know it can be hard to believe because we have flaws.

We see our mistakes.

Oftentimes we have a hard time getting past our mistakes.

So we see the pain, we see the mistakes we've made, and we think, I don't know how he's gonna do this.

But what I know, Romans 8, 28, we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

And right before that verse, in verses 25 and 26, it actually says that in order for things to work together for good, we have to let his Holy Spirit come in.

And it's when his Holy Spirit comes in, he comes alongside us in all the circumstances of our life to help us.

He is helping us, and actually, he's praying for you and me as we're on this journey of being conformed into the image of Jesus.

Last year was probably the hardest year of my life.

It was some really hard moments.

And in 31 years of pastoring a church, there have certainly been challenging times, but last year was the hardest for me.

Some really dark thread moments, if you will.

My father passed away suddenly within moments, and then someone stole basically Phillips and my identity and hacked into accounts and was just very tricky and ended up stealing thousands of dollars from us that we have never gotten back.

And then Philip gets diagnosed with cancer, and then right when we're finishing with some of that treatment, his immune system was so compromised that then he got shingles and a really bad case of shingles that just affected his legs, he couldn't really walk.

And I'm a good nurse for like about 10 days, and then I'm like all done, all done.

So it was really hard for me for months to be, yeah, and for Philip to be so incapacitated, and just it was a really challenging time, and then and then kind of around this time, then a few people lie about me and say things that are absolutely not true that I can't actually, but I'm can't defend myself, and then I this betrayal that I mentioned.

So it's a really hard year.

And you know, in all of those, the dark, you know, the dark thread moments, if you will, of my life, I had to work really hard this last year in particular to not surrender my joy.

In the midst of this very hard year, I had to choose joy.

Joy is not a feeling, joy is a decision.

Joy is the steel rod that runs straight up your back and holds you in place.

I was determined in those really dark thread moments to be grateful for the good.

I had to go, yes, I have two awesome children, yay! And yes, you know, Philip was healed, yay! Now, we might not like the color of the thread that's currently being woven in our life.

You know, maybe this really dark thread is it, you know, comes from when your spouse left you or when you lost your job, or maybe it's just a season of waiting and not seeing an answer.

And then, of course, you're angry and you're hurt, but if you let God, He will make all things work together for good.

And you might ask, how?

I don't know.

I don't know how he puts the stars in the sky, I don't know how he makes my heart beat, I don't know how he makes the seed grow.

I don't know, but I do know he can make all things work together for good to those who love him, who are surrendered to him.

All things can be used in the masterpiece.

And I can be brave because I know that.

Now, because that phrase is you know is often used, it can often be misused.

And if we're not careful, it can become just this religious happy peel.

You know, like someone who's in a hard situation, and then somebody with in good intentions walks up and goes, hey, all things work together for good, and that you know, they want to punch them.

Um, and their words fail miserably because they're just words, they don't actually provide the real relief.

We have to move beyond the words to the knowing.

Knowing and trusting that God can make all things work together for good.

Let me just say this for the record: tragedy is not good.

It's not good when a child dies or a marriage ends or when you lose a job.

Those things aren't good.

And I don't want to do anyone a disservice by attempting to nullify real pain and heartache.

I'm just suggesting that those are the moments when God has to become your personal bravery, when you have to trust that he will make all things work together for good.

You know, in my view of the tapestry, all I can see is through my eyes.

Right?

All I can see is little bits and pieces of it because I'm constrained by time.

But God's view is eternal.

The lens I see with is very temporal.

You know, in the beginning of the church, when Philip and I started Oasis Church, it was so hard.

And I kept thinking we're doing a good thing, we're trying to reach people, but we stayed small for a long time.

We were really stupid with a lot of things, still didn't know what we were doing, but we stayed small for a long time, and Philip had to work three jobs and just to, you know, kind of make ends meet, and I was working, and it was really hard.

One of his jobs actually was.

A limo driver, which cracks me up.

If you know Philip, it would crack you up too because today, for him to find where he's going, it takes Siri, uh, the G the GPS, Waze, and me.

Right?

And so back in the day, he had none of those except me, and I and I wasn't with him in that limo, and uh, so I don't know how he got people where they were going, but he somehow managed.

But so it was really hard in those first few years, and I'm just like, I don't get it, because we're trying to do something for God.

So that was really hard, these threads.

I'm like, did we miss it?

Did we make a mistake?

Are we doing the right thing?

But what I know now is when I with the pulling back, and I can see 31 years down the track, I'm amazed at what he's built.

The thousands and thousands of people made decisions for Jesus Christ because we stayed at our post.

We didn't leave where we were assigned.

We trusted that God would work all things together for good, and he did because we were called.

You know, when his grace comes in, it doesn't just start to change your life from today on, but it moves in every direction.

When you let him in, his grace will come in and take your past, your today, and your future and make all things work together for good.

The apostle Paul wrote many of his magnificent letters while he was in prison.

Now I would imagine that he didn't like the current threads of his tapestry.

I would imagine that he was frustrated and he wanted to be out there doing something for Jesus.

And here he was, chained in a prison.

But now with eternal perspective, his daily teachings, which I'm sure he wanted to get back to right now, on a scale of one to ten, was a one.

And writing those huge chunks of scripture, which has actually changed generations, ten thousand perspective, the eternal perspective makes it all look very different.

You know, Paul suffered many things, and he writes about it in 2 Corinthians, and he refers to what he suffered as light afflictions.

Let me tell you what he calls light afflictions.

Being betrayed, being whipped, being beaten with rods, being shipwrecked, being bitten by a poisonous stake, long imprisonment.

Okay, those are really disgusting threads.

And yet God caused all things to work together for him.

That's why we have to put our faith in God.

You know, maybe you're saying in this room or one of the other campuses, well, I can see how that will be true with Paul's life, but I don't see how it can be true with mine.

Because I've lost my job or my marriage has melted down and my children are just not in a good place.

Well, I don't know either.

But all I do know is that God causes all things to work together for good, and my bravery comes from knowing that.

Because Jesus is our eternal hope.

His story is eternal good.

We only see this perspective, and sometimes we can get stuck in the knots on the back side of the tapestry.

But our story is being written beyond our last breath here.

And living by faith means living by the evidence of things unseen.

So we can't leave the path.

God is positioning us, he's positioning you, and he's positioning me for what he wants to accomplish on planet earth.

He sees you and he knows where you are, so trust him, he can make all things work together for good.

Do you know in the story of Joseph?

If we zoom out and take a look at his tapestry, oh, it looks all beautiful.

But you zoom in on any one of those particular seasons in his life, and you would find a knot of threads.

His story is told in Genesis 37, and I would imagine a number of us know this story.

He was the favored son of Jacob.

And he had 10 older brothers who hated him a lot.

And at one point they hated him so much that they threw him in this pit, and rather than killing him, they sold him into slavery.

Okay, that was pretty bad threads, wouldn't you think?

And then he gets to Egypt as a slave, and then he's falsely accused and put in prison and forgotten about for a long time.

And then he gets out and becomes the second most powerful man in the nation.

But that took a lot of years.

And then his brothers, at one point, the ones who tried to kill him, show up in Egypt to get food because the other the rest of the land was in famine and only Egypt had food.

And when Joseph sees his brothers, they don't even recognize him.

And he sees them and he could have killed them.

He had every right to do that.

But instead, he looks at them and and reveals himself to them and says, Hey, hey, hey, don't worry about it.

What you meant for evil, God turned it around for good.

I just wonder if Joseph had moved immediately from being sold as a slave to being the second most, and probably very angry at his brothers, to being the second most powerful man in the nation, if his brothers had shown up within weeks, if he wouldn't have treated them very differently.

God caused all things to work together for good.

God took dark threads and built a beautiful tapestry.

So are you having trouble seeing the other side of the tapestry?

Does your life just seem to go from one unrelated event to the other, from one dark, bad experience to the other?

Well, the only way to get understanding is actually to keep your faith in God.

Don't walk away from the only one who can help you make sense of it.

Do you know that the same God who has a divine plan for history actually has a divine plan for your life?

For your life.

In Psalm 34, it says this: Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Blessed is the man, blessed is the woman who trusts in him.

And so I'm suggesting that we do the work of trusting when it's hard to understand, being brave, even if it's not going how we want.

You know, the Apostle Paul writes that all of this, in all of this, in 2 Corinthians 3, he says, we're being transformed into his image.

So God is at work in taking all of the knots, every challenge, every situation, and he's doing what only he can do, and he's transforming us into the image of Jesus.

That's his job.

This is what he's doing.

And can I suggest that we live in a culture desperate to see Jesus?

You know, in the Old Testament, in the book of Judges, it was written in a time when the children of Israel kept vacillating in their worship of God.

It was a dark, violent, turbulent time.

And yet, even in the midst of that most darkest time back then, God had a people that he could use.

He raised up Deborah, he raised up Gideon, He has people that He can use.

And I would like to suggest that today on the earth there is much darkness.

And God always has a people.

Let's be those people that He can trust.

We have to trust that He is creating the tapestry of our lives.

He's gonna work everything together for good.

His good and our good.

I know that you might be in the midst of one of the horrible, dark, knotted situations on the back, but can you trust?

Can you trust him that he will work all things together for good?

He is forming you into the image of Jesus so that when you step into your communities, you step into your schools, you go into your neighborhoods which are desperate to see Jesus, that they'll see him, that God is taking all things from your life, the good and the bad and the ugly, and he is transforming you into the image of his son so that you can step into the darkness and actually be the light.

Be the light.

Let's trust that he is doing that.

And so, in the middle of hard situations, and I imagine there are people in here, people at other campuses, and you're in the middle of a hard situation.

And do you know what?

If you're not in the middle of a storm right now, yours is next week.

Because that's how life is.

I wish I could tell you that life was mountaintop, mountaintop, mountaintop, heaven.

But it isn't, it's mountaintop, valley, storm, dark threads, ah, right?

Challenging.

But do you know what?

Fruit only grows in the valleys.

Fruit doesn't grow on the mountaintops.

When we trust him, he will make all things work together for good, for his good and for our good.

Keep trusting him.

You can be brave knowing he's at work, he's at work in you.

Let me pray.

Father, I thank you for the men and women in this room.

And I thank you, God, that we can be brave because we know who we are.

We are sons and daughters of the Most High God.

And I thank you, God, we can be brave because heaven is our home, earth is our assignment.

And I thank you, God, that we can be brave because you are working all things together for good.

Because we are surrendered to you.

And I ask God that you would bring comfort to people in the midst of challenge, who are in the midst of dark, threaded moments, that you would bring comfort and bring your peace.

And God, there are people in here who haven't even surrendered their heart and their life to you.

And I thank you that you are going to draw them in, trusting, trusting you.

And I pray, God, that everyone in here would sense your peace.

Your peace.

That you got this.

I thank you, Father.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

And I know in just a few moments, Pastor Tom's gonna lead us in an altar moment, and there'll be some of you who just need to come connect with someone, and you're in the midst of one of those dark thread moments.

Hey, we're family here.

You don't have to do life by yourself.

We're much better together.

So don't leave here without connecting with someone, or maybe there's someone in here and you've never surrendered your heart in your life to Jesus.

This is the day to do that.

Allow him to come in and take all the parts of your life and build something glorious.

So don't walk away from the time that you have.

God bless you, church.