I Am With You (Philippians 4:4-7)

We're gonna be in Philippians this morning, chapter 4, verses 4 through 7.

We'd love it if you could uh could follow along here.

Um we're gonna be jumping around a bit today, uh which is a deviation from our normal pattern if this is your first time here.

You know, typically we go verse by verse through whole books of the Bible at a time.

Currently we're in 1 Corinthians 10, but today we're gonna be deviating from that pattern a bit.

As I'm gonna share my, or maybe I should, you know, say our testimony of what God has done in the last month and a half with this brain tumor diagnosis, the surgery, uh, and then also uh the recovery that we've been going through over the last handful of weeks.

So we'll be putting various verses up on the screen.

By all means, if you want to turn to those passages, uh please do so, but don't feel like you have to.

Uh, for the sake of time, we're not gonna be waiting for people to turn to those verses.

So, with all that said, let's all stand for the reading of God's word.

Philippians 4, 4 through 7.

It says, Rejoice in the Lord always.

I will say it again, rejoice.

Let your graciousness be known to everyone.

The Lord is near.

Don't worry about every anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for this morning.

Lord, we we thank you for this church body that we get to gather with uh week after week.

We thank you for all of your blessings, for all that you do, for the love that you shower on each one of us.

Lord, for your grace, for your mercy, for your long suffering, Lord, that you've shown for each one of us as well.

Lord, we pray here today that you would be glorified in you only, uh, and that as we go through this testimony, as we go through these verses, Lord, that um we would all be able to recognize what a good and wonderful and gracious God that you are.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So I want to start off with giving you kind of a timeline of the events leading up to the surgery and how God gave us this verse here in Philippians, um, right when we got the diagnosis of the brain tumor back at the end of January.

So this all actually goes all the way back to the summer of 2021.

So about 19 months before the diagnosis of the tumor.

I was actually having coffee with Ben at Malibu Brew, and we were sitting on those really hard chairs outside, and I moved my foot and my left leg was asleep.

And I was like, ah, my left leg's asleep.

You know, no big deal.

It's gonna tingle a little bit, it'll come back.

But as it was waking up, as it was coming out of being asleep, that I got this really bad cramp down the back of my leg, down my hamstring, uh, kind of right where the sciatic is.

And instead of it just being a cramp, I came to learn what a muscle spasm is.

Uh, and it's where the muscle basically cramps and lets go, and then cramps and lets go, and then cramps and lets go.

And it's excruciatingly painful.

Um and Ben is sitting across the table while this is happening to my left leg, kind of like, do I need to call an ambulance?

Are you doing okay?

What the heck is going on?

But it was the first episode that I had of these muscle spasms, and I didn't know you know what was going on, but it lasted a minute or two and then it went away.

And I'm like, okay, let's continue on with our coffee and we'll we'll just keep talking.

But after that, it started happening maybe once or twice a week.

You know, I and usually it was after I'd hit on, I would sit on a hard surface, my leg would fall asleep, I would have this episode of a muscle spasm for maybe about two minutes was probably the average or so.

And then it would feel completely normal after that.

My leg would wake up and I would just go about my everyday life and and felt fine.

But as this went on, it didn't just stay in my leg.

Eventually, it went from just being in my leg to coming up into my left abdomen.

And if you've had a baby, you've had abdominal contractions before.

So you kind of know what I'm talking about when the muscle spasms would hit the abdominal area.

It was extremely painful.

And then the fall of 2021, also, I turned 40.

And everybody was telling me, yeah, when you turn 40, things start changing in your body.

And I'm just thinking, okay, I'm 40, I'm having some sciatic issues down my left leg, you know, it's giving me trouble.

It'll work itself out.

Maybe I'll see the chiropractor or something like that.

You know, I just really wasn't concerned about it, and I figured it was something my body would work out over time.

So that that went on for 19 months of just a couple times a week, I would have these episodes and these muscle spasms.

And as it progressed, sometimes you know, I would have a few episodes a day, and then sometimes I'd go a whole week with no problems and without any of those episodes.

But the problem was there was no identifiable pattern.

It wasn't like, well, after I do this, then this happens.

It would just, there's random episodes that would take place.

Um, and then uh the you know, really the problem was that my body felt completely fine in between those episodes.

So I didn't pursue any medical help.

Partly because I typically don't go to the doctor unless I absolutely have to, and for the most part, have been pretty healthy over the last couple years and hadn't seen the doctor in a lot of a really long time.

Um I did eventually start going to the chiropractor, which helped make the episodes fewer and farther between and less intense when they would take place, but they kept happening over and over and over.

And then on New Year's Day of this year, so 2023, which if you remember, that was actually a Sunday, I got home after church and was trying to finish up a little project that we were doing in our bathroom, and my left leg fell asleep while I was down on my hands and knees painting the baseboards.

So I got up to try and walk it off, get the blood flowing, you know, and the muscle spasms went from my leg up into my abdomen, and I'm thinking, okay, this is normal.

But then it went up into my left chest, and then it went down my left arm, and I lost the feeling in my hand and in my fingers.

And this time the spasms wouldn't stop.

It went on for probably like eight minutes or something like that.

And I thought I'm having a heart attack.

And Michelle and the kids uh were out, they weren't home at the moment, so I called 911 while I'm laying on the floor of my living room in excruciating pain as my whole left side of my body is just going through this muscle spasm.

And I remember praying as I was waiting for the paramedics.

You know, I remember praying for the sake of my wife and kids.

Lord, please don't take me now.

Like, just don't let this be that moment.

You know, right before the paramedics showed up, the muscle spasm stopped, thankfully.

And I was able to catch my breath a little bit.

Uh, but my left arm and my left fingers were still numb, couldn't really use them.

And my chest hurt really, really bad at that point just because it was going through that muscle spasm for almost eight minutes.

So the paramedic the paramedics get there, they you know come flying in the door, and this is New Year's Day.

So first thing they asked me is, sir, have you been drinking?

Like, no, I just got home from church.

But I was like, oh, that kind of shows you what all the calls before that probably were for.

But immediately they did an AKG on me, um, and then they said, it doesn't look like you had a heart attack, but you got to get to the ER immediately.

So uh Michelle and the kids showed up right about that time.

Michelle took me straight to the ER because we didn't want to pay for the ambulance.

Um, but she took me straight up to uh Twin Cities, and I don't recommend going to the ER on New Year's Day.

I'll just let your imagination take it from there.

But we were there for seven and a half hours running every test you could possibly imagine, including three more EKGs, a chest x-ray, a CT scan to check my aorta valve, three different blood panels, and just on and on.

They ran me through everything you could imagine.

Only for them to say, we can't find a single thing wrong with you.

Your tests look good, you're in good shape, you're too young and not a candidate for a heart attack.

So they said we're gonna release you, go see your primary doctor within the next day or two, and then have him start ordering some tests to just check on things and figure out what actually is happening with you.

And the reason that most of you are hearing about most of this for the first time is because they kept telling me, like, you're fine, there's nothing wrong with you.

We can't find a single thing wrong with you.

And like I said, in my mind, I'm still thinking, you know, this is somehow just sciatic related.

You know, so many people have sciatic problems all the time.

I turn 40, this is just normal of what's going on.

So, anyway, a few days later, I go to see my primary doctor for the first time ever.

It's a long story, that's not really pertinent.

But my other primary had moved away, and I hadn't bothered to find a new one for a couple years.

Um, and uh so anyway, I go in, I meet this guy for the first time, tell him what's going on.

He looks at all the results from Twin Cities that had come in, um, and he basically said all the same things they said at Twin Cities.

Like, this doesn't make sense.

You know, you're having nerve issues on both the lower half of your body and the upper half of your body.

You know, it's usually just one or the other.

And then he also agreed that it was not a heart attack, looking at all the tests that they run, and also that my case just didn't make any sense, especially because of my age.

So, right then he ordered an MRI on my lower back, but he also wanted to order an MRI on my brain as well, since this was nerve-related and in both regions of my body.

You know, at the time I thought it was kind of weird that he wanted to do a brain scan, but praise God that he gave my doctor the foresight to order that MRI in addition to what I thought was the issue, you know, doing the MRI around the sciatic.

He also said, you know, until we get the MRI, until we figure out what's going on, he said, I don't want you to do anything beyond walking.

No lifting, no straining, zero physical exertion until we know exactly what's going on with you.

And it took a month to get insurance approval for the MRI to take place.

So the whole month of January, I couldn't do anything other than walk around, basically.

That was like what I was limited to.

Uh I couldn't do anything around the house, I couldn't bring in firewood, you know, for the evenings, couldn't really help my wife or my kids with anything around the house or with their sheep or anything like that.

Um, and we've had to call some of you guys over to help with a few of those things, so thank you very much.

But it about the middle of January, Michelle told me, you know, and it was right when that big flood hit, you know, she said, Oh, and when that big flood hit, two of our bedrooms took on some water, came in under the carpet, all that kind of stuff.

I'm not allowed to do anything physically.

Um, and so she said she told me, she said, I feel like we need to learn how to ask in this season for help.

Because that's that's hard.

I think all of you, you know, are probably in that same place of sometimes it's just really hard to ask for help, especially when you're used to doing those things on your own.

And she said, Well, I think we just need to ask people for help in this season right now and to do it unashamedly, because we need help right now.

And little did we know how insightful those words were gonna be for the next couple months.

You know, as a little random side note, when the water was coming into our house, I hadn't had an episode since seeing the doctor because I wasn't doing anything.

I hadn't had any muscle spasms whatsoever.

But when the water was coming in and the carpet was actually pulling it in a little bit, I said, forget what the doctor says.

I ran outside, I got a shovel, started digging ditches and diverting water and pulling carpet back and getting fans and heaters going and all that stuff.

And that night I had three more muscle spasm episodes after doing all of that physical labor.

So after that, I really did heed the doctor's advice because I did not want those anymore.

So, anyway, that leads us to Monday, January 30th.

So almost a complete month later, I finally had my MRI at 10 a.m.

in Templeton.

And then I had a follow-up appointment scheduled for two days later, so Wednesday of that week with my primary doctor.

So, however, Monday evening, after hours, the doctor, the primary doctor calls me, it was his assistant, and basically the conversation went like this uh we need to see you first thing in the morning.

Would you like to be here at 7:30 or 8?

I was like, wait, hold on.

I already have an appointment for Wednesday, and she's like, Yes, but we need to see you first thing in the morning.

Would you like 7:30 or 8?

I'll take 8.

Because this is down and slow.

And she says, and you're gonna want to bring your wife with you.

It's like, oh, okay, this is serious.

It's like, okay, we'll see you at 8 in the morning.

So now, in all of this that we've gone through and experienced from New Year's Day until present day, the 15 hours from that phone call to that appointment the next morning at 8 a.m.

were probably the hardest part of this whole thing.

You know, I had to tell Michelle, hey, doctor called, uh, they want to see us first thing in the morning and said, you need to be there.

That is not the conversation that you want to be having with your wife.

And then not knowing what we were about to hear, because we had no clue what the results were or what that was gonna be at that time.

So let me tell you, taking thoughts captive and not getting caught up in the what-ifs was really hard to do that that night.

Now, I want you to look back at Philippians 4, 6.

It says, Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

So that is what we started doing.

We started praying.

We started to try and encourage each other to take every thought captive into obedience to Christ, as 2 Corinthians 10, 5 tells us.

But at first, I'll admit, we didn't do a very good job of that.

Our emotions and our thoughts were just all over the place, you know, getting that news and not knowing what we were walking into that next morning.

But as we went to bed that night, as my mind started to calm down a bit, this was my prayer, this was my petition to the Lord.

I remember telling him, Lord, whatever it is, just please let it be something we can fight.

You know, as excited as I am to see Jesus face to face, I asked God if I could finish raising my kids.

That was my petition.

Because I'm not done with them yet.

I see them as my most important disciples.

And um, so that was my prayer to the Lord.

And I actually slept so good that night, like remarkably well that night.

And before we knew it, we're sitting in the primary doctor's office on Tuesday morning at 8 a.m.

with no clue what was coming.

So he walked in and he asked, Hey, how are you doing?

I'm just sitting there like, let's skip the small time.

Just tell us what's going on, doc.

And it went something like this.

He said, Well, it's not good.

He said, He hadn't seen the MRI yet himself, but the radiologist that read it the day before, the afternoon before, discovered that I had a brain tumor.

There was a lot of swelling of the brain around the tumor, and I needed immediate attention.

And it was at this moment that Philippians 4.7 became more real to me than it ever has in my life before.

Look at Philippians 4.7.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Look in the middle of that verse again, which surpasses all understanding.

A peace that won't even make sense to you, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

That word guard, we have a slide for it up here.

If you look at the definition in the original Greek language, it says to guard, protect by military guard, either to prevent hostile invasion or to keep the inhabitants of a besieged city from flight.

So when we look at verse 7, the peace of God that you don't even understand will guard like a soldier, basically, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So the doctor says it's a brain tumor, they're swelling, it needs immediate attention, and I felt the peace of God wash over me like I've never experienced in my life before.

And I didn't freak out.

And I didn't lose it.

I just remember telling the doctor, I said, okay, what's next?

What do we do next?

And and and that's just I had complete peace about it.

I was like, all right, tell us what to do next.

He said, I took the liberty of calling a neurosurgeon last night.

Again, all of this being after hours.

And the neurosurgeon said, He doesn't need an appointment, just send him over as soon as you're done with him, and then I'll meet with him.

So my primary says, just drive over, it's only a couple blocks away from here, and he's gonna take you right in.

And we basically said, We're we're done with you here.

Go see the neurosurgeon.

So we drove over to the neurosurgeon who wasn't even open yet because that appointment was at eight.

They didn't open until nine, so we had to wait there for a little bit for them to open.

But as soon as they were open, they took us right in.

They took us in to see the neurosurgeon almost immediately, and he had just seen the MRI for the first time.

And so he said the radiologist thought that it was glioblastoma, which we had never heard that word before until that morning, so we didn't even really know what he was talking about.

But we've since learned that in the brain tumor world, that is worst-case scenario.

That's the fast-growing grade four, there's tentacles protruding into your brain, get your affairs in order type of tumor.

But next, the neurosurgeon says, but I don't completely agree with his findings.

He said, Due to how long you've been dealing with a tumor and your age, he said, I think it's a 50-50 chance, whether it's glioblastoma or a low-grade, slow-growing tumor, which is I had all of you praying for, um, that it was the that second option.

But he said, But I think it's probably a 50-50 chance, but we're not gonna know until we get in there.

But um he said, due to the swelling, regardless of what kind of tumor it is, he said it needs to come out and quickly.

And the biopsy would be run post-surgery once they already took it out.

So this is Tuesday morning, January 31st, around 9.30.

And he says, I'd like to operate on you on Friday or Monday.

And I was kind of like, wait, we just found out that I have a brain tumor, and he's talking about surgery, you know, on Friday, uh, three days later.

Um, and I'm kind of looking at him kind of like, I don't even remember this doctor's name at this point.

And he wants to take the top of my head off in a couple days.

And it's just kind of like so.

We asked the surgeon, we said, can we just have a couple moments to talk about this?

Because, you know, this is all just a whirlwind for us this morning.

He says, Absolutely.

He said, Well, I want to tell you uh before I go, he said, if you want a second opinion, if you want to be sent to UCSF, which is like the brain tumor capital of the world, we've found out over the last couple weeks.

He said, I have no problem.

I'll give you recommendations to other doctors in town as well if you want to get second opinions on all of these things.

And so we just basically told him that, you know, he was so gracious and all of it.

We said, you know what, we're gonna need to make some phone calls, or we'll get back to you by the end of the day and let you know what we decide.

So um it was amazing because God confirmed through three different people that we know in the medical field that same day that this surgeon is the best of the best uh in this area, and that we were in really good hands.

And while we were talking with them, we just had real peace.

Um, you know, it was the peace of God we feel that this guy was gonna do a good job and we can trust them.

And I asked him, yeah, how many of these have you done?

And he said, I I lost count.

I said, So you're confident in this.

He said, I'm very confident uh in doing this uh surgery.

And like I said, we just really had peace about it.

So we called that afternoon and said, we want to schedule it for Friday or Monday, and they got back to us later that day and said, You're scheduled for Friday, so you're going in for brain surgery on Friday.

This was Tuesday afternoon.

Um, and the next two days were such a whirlwind between doctors' appointments and labs and meeting with an oncologist and doing all the paperwork for Sierra Vista that they required, you know, and feeling all of the medical calls that, you know, and all the calls that we needed to make.

And we just had two days, you know, for all of this.

But probably the hardest part of those couple days was calling family and friends and just saying, hey, I have a brain tumor, not really sure how serious it is, uh, but I'm going in for surgery on Friday.

Because so many people were a lot more upset than Michelle and I were, because we had that peace of God that surpasses all understanding.

Um, and uh, you know, other people hadn't had that opportunity.

Opportunity to make those requests known to the Lord and trust them in that way.

But a whirlwind doesn't even describe those next uh two days.

But through the whirlwind, for Michelle and I both, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, was guarding our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

And we were in perfect peace through all of it.

Even though other things were stressful and trying to manage the phone calls and all that stuff, the whole thing about the brain tumor and uh the diagnosis and all that stuff, God had just given us a supernatural peace that we still can't understand completely.

And from the diagnosis until today, I don't know if I've had an ounce of uh anxiety regarding the diagnosis uh of what might be found once they did the biopsy on the tumor.

You know, I knew God knew about this tumor way before I did.

I knew I would go, God knew that I would go through this, and I knew that he had a purpose, that he was going to work together all things for good throughout this whole process.

And I knew that he wasn't surprised by this tumor.

And he gave us peace that we couldn't even explain.

So we showed up Friday for surgery in the morning.

They started doing all the pre-op uh preparations, which included a COVID test.

And guess what?

I had asymptomatic COVID that morning of surgery and talk about anticlimactic, you know, thinking I'm only a couple hours out of brain surgery, and then they said we need to postpone it until Wednesday.

Which makes sense.

You know, if I was to develop COVID symptoms after the surgery, it could have been very dangerous for me in the state that I was in.

And the doctors needed to know what was a post-surgery symptom and what was a COVID symptom.

So they decided that it was going to be best to postpone things until Wednesday of the next week.

But as anticlimactic as that was, I it ended up being a huge blessing to our family.

You know, we had to quarantine that weekend, and up until the surgery, you know, of Wednesday, but we had to quarantine together as a family, and as crazy as the couple days had been leading up to what we thought was going to be the day of surgery, um, we didn't really have time to process things.

We didn't really have time to process things with our kids either.

So it actually gave us a chance to sit down with our kids and to talk with them and allow them to ask questions.

Also gave us the opportunity to start asking questions to the doctors and and the oncologists and all of that because it was such a quick diagnosis and you need surgery.

And Michelle and I just didn't even know what question to ask at that point because you know we didn't understand all of the cancer and tumor lingo at that point.

So it gave us a chance to ask all of those questions, do a little research on our own, fully understand what's going on, fully understand how serious glioblastoma was, which they were saying was a 50-50 chance it was, um, because there's a big difference in the grades of tumor as we found out.

There's grade one, two, three, and four.

One is best case scenario, four is worst case scenario.

So we had five days to process all of that to understand exactly what was going on and to catch our breath as a family.

So that puts us on Wednesday of the following week, February 8th at this point, and it's the day of the surgery.

Went in again, tested negative for COVID, praise the Lord.

Um never had an ounce of symptoms, uh, but tested positive somehow.

They sent me in for an MRI, and they do the MRI right before surgery because they want to know exactly where that tumor is in relation to my brain before they go in, and then they take a bunch of memor uh measurements from the uh from the skull basically, you know, into the brain just to see exactly where it's sitting so it helps them to know where to make all of the cuts.

Um then I met the surgical team, went into the operating room, was talking with the anesthesiologist, and the next thing I knew I was waking up from surgery.

And they said the whole procedure took roughly about three hours.

And I remember going into the surgery, knowing how loopy I was gonna be coming out of anesthesia, just thinking, okay, we did not want to hear the word glioblastoma, and we did want to hear the word low grade, slow growing.

So I remember waking up, Michelle was there and said, as far as the surgeon can tell, just by looking at it as he was removing it, um, he thinks he got it all out, and it appeared to be a low-grade, slow growing tumor.

Praise the Lord.

But that was just his visual inspection from his experience.

And even if he was right by the visual inspection, there's still a big difference between a grade one and a grade two tumor and how those are treated uh after the surgery.

So we still didn't know if it was a one or a two, but that was his best guess.

It was one of those by his visual inspection of it.

And one of the questions my son wanted to know from the brain surgeon is what color was it?

And so I asked him that question, and he said it was a whitish-gray color.

So we got we got that answer.

But even still, we had so much peace in that time of waiting to get the results back from UCSF of the pathology report, you know, that that was gonna tell us exactly what it was.

And there was really no anxiety on my part or on Michelle's part on getting those results back, whether it was a grade one or a grade two or even a grade three.

We knew four was ruled out, praise the Lord, at that point.

But there was peace that it was in God's hands, and he had a purpose behind this in one way or another.

There was peace that he already knew about this, and this was just a part of his plan.

Um, because one of the doctors said it could have been there for 10 years, and I just didn't know it.

You know, it was so slow growing.

But I had so many friends and family that were like, why is this taking so long to get the results back?

Like, you must be so stressed out.

And Michelle and I were just kind of sitting there, like, no, we're good.

God's given us peace about this, and we're in no hurry, and yeah, two weeks seems like a really long time.

But our surgeon told us these are things you don't want to rush.

You don't want to rush those labs, and and you really want them to take their time and figure out exactly what's going on within that tumor.

And I know it's because so many of you were praying for us, and God listened to your prayers and he gave us peace.

And I want to thank you for that because it was unbelievable to experience the peace of God in that way.

And I know it's because so many of you were praying so diligently for us.

We knew at different points we should probably be freaking out a little bit, and we didn't understand the peace that we were experiencing, just like it says here in Philippians.

We were experiencing the peace that surpasses our understanding, that doesn't make sense to our human brain, and it was guarding our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

You know, from the moment of the diagnosis until the results came back from UCSF, we experienced that in a more tangible way than we ever have before in our life.

And I'll be honest, I've probably had that verse memorized in Philippians 4 7, probably since I was a kid.

You know, I've used it multiple times to encourage other people and in counseling and stuff like that.

But I think sometimes we can become so familiar with verses that we get a little callous to them.

And it was like God was just like, I'm gonna rip all those calluses off, and I'm gonna make this verse more real to you now than you've ever experienced in your life.

And he did just that.

Because there is no way that me or Michelle could muster that strength and mental fortitude on our own for three weeks.

There was just absolutely no way.

It had to be the supernatural power of God, and it was.

God gave us favor and he listened to your prayers.

So we want to thank you, thank you, thank you for holding us up in that way.

You know, there are people from different states telling us, hey, our home group's praying for you, or our church is praying for you.

You know, there may have been over a thousand people praying in those weeks leading up to that surgery and after that surgery.

So I want to thank you, and if you're listening on the audio, I want to thank you for all of the prayers uh that were lifted up for us in that time.

You know, I told the elders at the beginning of the year that I had been praying about what God had for our church in 2023.

I'd been praying about the vision that God had for us and the things that He wanted us to focus on.

And I told him I felt like God kept answering me that prayer would be the theme of this year.

And I told him, you know, I don't know what this is gonna look like or how this is gonna come about, but I asked them to please be praying about it and what that might look like and how we might be able to encourage prayer in our church this year.

And I don't know about you, but my prayer life increased exponentially since January.

And talking to a lot of you, it sounds like a lot of your prayer lives have too.

James 5.16 says the prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.

And that's you all.

Your prayers were powerful in their effect.

So please don't stop praying.

In fact, starting this Tuesday morning at 6.30, we're gonna start gathering to pray for our city and for our Easter outreach that Pete was just talking about at Lake Park on April 9th.

So, right here, 6.30 to 7 a.m.

in this building, uh, we're gonna gather together to just start praying for those two things.

We'll have some prayer points for us to pray about.

Uh we're not gonna be chatting, we're not gonna be doing prayer requests, we're just gonna get here at 6.30, we're gonna start praying, we're gonna pray for 30 minutes straight.

And then afterwards, if you want to stay and talk and fellowship and all those things, or if you need to head out to work, we totally get it.

Uh, you can do all those things after 7.

Uh, but right here, 6.30 to 7, Tuesday morning, if you can join us, we would love uh to have you here.

And we're gonna do this up until the Tuesday right before Easter, just praying for our city and praying for that outreach that day at Lake Park.

So, back to the testimony post-surgery.

We're getting close.

Stay with me here.

All I remember is coming out of that surgery, my head feeling like an over-inflated balloon for about 10 days post-surgery.

There was swelling on the brain, there it was newly installed titanium plates and screws where they reattached the cranium to the top of my head.

My scalp was really swollen where they had stapled things back together to keep it all together.

And that's why I had to be on such a high dosage of steroid, which, if you're getting any of my updates, um that was the steroid was really messing with me.

But they had to keep it on, uh, I had to keep taking it in order to get all of the swelling down off of everything up here, really.

And the steroid made it to where I couldn't sleep for more than two, if I was lucky, three hours a night at a time.

And then my naps during the day were no longer than five minutes.

Like I just was not able to sleep.

My heart rate was through the roof, my blood pressure was through the roof.

I could literally feel every heart beat.

I was trying to sleep, and all I could feel was like the heart like beating through my chest.

My metabolism felt like I was running a marathon every day.

I was just all messed up.

So those first two weeks out of surgery, they were really rough.

They were really rough between the swelling and the lack of sleep.

But getting the swelling down was the first priority, and the doctor kept looking at me like, you can sleep later.

But right now we just gotta get that swelling down.

And as they tapered me off of the steroid, um, then I started to sleep a little bit better, heart rate came down, blood pressure came down each time that they tapered me off, and then I've been off it for about a week and a half now, praise the Lord, and sleeping much better, getting naps during the day, and all that all that good stuff.

But in that time, God kept reminding me of something.

Those sleepless nights.

And that is the last thing that I said to all of you before the diagnosis.

So I want to read you a transcript from the very end of the sermon, Sunday, January 29th, the next day being when I had the MRI, the day after that being the diagnosis of having a brain tumor.

This is the last thing that I said to you guys.

I said, we need to find contentment with where we are, with where God has us and has placed us right now.

Like I said two weeks ago, if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it just means it's time to water your own lawn.

God can and will use you in the exact place you are in.

No marriage or singleness, that was the topic of the day, or life circumstance, I said, is going to all of a sudden fix everything for you, and bam, now God can use you.

We need to find contentment in our current place and in our current circumstance and ask God, how do you want to use me today?

How can I worship you and bless you and serve your kingdom right where I am?

If we're walking by the voice of the Holy Spirit, he will show us how to serve Him in our current circumstance.

So let's pray for that.

And that is the last thing that I said before all of this went down.

And believe me, God reminded me of those words over and over and over in the weeks to come.

It was like he was saying, You preached it, Chris.

You ready to live it?

And all I could do for those weeks after surgery was pray.

That was really the only capabilities I had at that time.

And if you remember, I asked for you during that update video, I asked for your specific prayer request because I wanted to pray for you.

I had a lot of time on my hands to pray, and it was the only way that I could help shepherd that this flock here during that time.

It was like God was reminding me of that sermon over and over again.

In your current circumstance, Chris, are you going to worship me?

Are you going to bless me?

Are you going to serve my kingdom right where you are, as I had said in that sermon, in the middle of your sleepless night, where you can feel every heartbeat.

Are you going to worship me and are you going to serve me?

And to the best of my ability, I think I can honestly say, yes.

I think I did.

I hope I did.

And through it, God revived my prayer life.

And he reminded me that the best way that I can serve you all is to pray for you, even when I am feeling a hundred percent.

So I hope that you'll continue to make your requests known before the Lord, but also that you would make those requests known to the prayer team, to the elders of this church as well, so that we can continue to faithfully pray for you.

And I hope you know that if you ever need prayer, that you can always come up after service.

Any of the elders, anybody that you see up here on the worship team, we would love to pray for you.

And there's nothing too small.

Don't feel weird about it.

Just come and say, hey, this is going on.

Will you please pray for me?

Now, that's our testimony.

But also I want to share real quick with you the biggest thing that I learned through all of this.

You know, so many of you sent us encouraging verses and cards and text messages and emails and social media snippets from sermons and pictures from your own devotionals that you were reading that morning.

And there was definitely a theme of verses that kept coming back to us.

Now, there's a long section in John's Gospel where Jesus is warning his disciples about hardships ahead.

From John chapter 14 through John chapter 16, that's really what he's doing.

John 14 · chapter mention John 16 · chapter mention

And this is the section where we got our church's name out of chapter 15.

We got our church's theme verse about abiding in Christ Jesus.

And he's, as he's going through this section, he says in John 14, 27, we have a slide for this one, and it says, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

I do not give to you as the world gives.

Don't let your heart be troubled or fearful.

But he ends this section in chapter 16, verse 33, and we have that verse as well.

He says, I have told you these things.

So about the hardships, the trials that await his disciples, so that in me you may have peace.

You will, look at that word, will have suffering in this world.

Be courageous.

I have conquered the world.

You see, we can easily start to believe in this brand of Christianity that is so unbiblical.

That says if we're being obedient to the Lord, if we're doing all the right things, that bad things aren't going to happen to us.

And we can live this comfortable life with little stress and little problems, and in reality, with little need to depend on Jesus for anything.

And that is so far away from what Jesus teaches.

He outright says, You will have suffering.

You know, I had quite a few people reach out to us saying, I'm praying that you don't have bitterness toward God for allowing this tumor in your life.

But this tumor is a result of original sin.

The first sin committed by Adam and Eve.

Sin that each one of us contributed, we would have done the same thing that they did.

We can't blame them.

But when Adam and Eve sinned, death and decay were introduced into this world for the first time.

Because of the choice that they made.

And we've been dealing with it ever since the death and the decay, through tumors and cancer and injuries and dementia and hard life circumstances.

These were never God's intent.

They were a result of us telling God that we want to do things our way and we think that we know better.

Starting with Adam and Eve eating of that tree of good and evil, basically telling God, yeah, we think we know better than you.

We have a better plan than you do, God.

And then bam, death and decay were introduced to this world.

You know, through this whole process, I've not been bitter at God for a moment.

This is sin's fault.

Not punishment for some sin in my own life, but the result of sin in the world, which I've definitely participated in as well, which brought upon this death and decay that we live in and experience on a daily basis.

But Jesus said, In this world you will have trouble.

But then he says, Be courageous.

I have overcome the world.

There's two other verses that you guys kept uh throwing at us as well.

The first one is Isaiah 41, 10.

It says, Do not fear, for I am with you.

Do not be afraid, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand.

Notice God doesn't say that he's gonna pluck you from your circumstance and just get you out of it.

Where's God's position in relation to Israel in this verse?

He is beside them, and then it says he is holding them up with his righteous right hand.

He's not removing them from the circumstance.

He's right beside them the whole time.

The other verse was Isaiah 43, verses 2 through 3B.

Isaiah 43:2

It says, When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers will not overwhelm you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, and the flame will not burn you.

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, and your Savior.

Again, where is God in this verse?

He's with them.

Just like Psalm 23 says, verse 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

So, what's the biggest thing I learned?

You know, so often God puts us in these situations, He allows us to be in difficult circumstances, and oftentimes we just pray, God, change the circumstance.

But in reality, God allowed the situation.

He allowed the circumstance because he wants to change us.

And in that season, he wants to be next to us, he wants to be with us, he wants to be upholding us with his righteous right hand, as we just saw in Isaiah.

He wants to be with us, helping us walk through those valleys, as we saw in Psalm 23.

He tells us in scripture that he will never leave us or forsake us.

That is not a promise of smooth sailing.

That's a promise to be by our side through the valley of the shadow of death.

He wants to be next to us in those seasons.

And I can attest firsthand that he has been next to us through this whole process that we've gone through as a family.

And we've known his presence in ways that we've never experienced before.

We have known his love in ways we have never experienced before.

And though I would never want to go through brain surgery again, I'm so thankful and grateful for the way he has been with us, the way that he's been by us.

Our side, the way that He's provided for us, that He's been holding us with His righteous right hand.

And I want to end with this.

I hope that our testimony will be an encouragement to you wherever you are and in whatever circumstance that you're in.

God wants to hold your hand and walk you through whatever it is that you're going through right now.

And He wants to be right beside you in that circumstance.

He wants to use those circumstances to change us so that we will be more like Jesus.

So we can abide closer with Jesus.

And if you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, I'm sorry.

I really am.

Because I couldn't imagine going through something like this without God right beside us.

I can't imagine going through any life circumstance without God right beside us.

And you don't have to go through these things alone anymore.

Scripture tells us that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, that you will be saved.

You will be sealed with the presence of the Holy Spirit indwelling you, indwelling your life.

God inside of you as your counselor.

And you can claim the promise of Philippians 4 7 as your own.

The peace of God that surpasses all understanding.

And you can worship the same God that promised Israel that He would be with them, that He would be beside them, and He would uphold them with His righteous right hand.

Will it be easy?

Not a chance.

God does not promise us that.

In this world, Jesus said, You will have trouble.

But Jesus has conquered the world.

We brought about death and decay on ourselves through sin.

But Jesus died that death for us in our place that we brought upon ourselves so that we wouldn't have to pay for that sin for eternity.

And he has given us a promise of eternity in paradise with him through Jesus Christ.

Where the trouble and the struggle will finally be gone when we're in heaven with him.

And until then, you will have a guide to walk you through every circumstance while we're still on this earth.

If you believe and if you follow Jesus Christ.

So I want to encourage you, if that's you, that today would be the day that you would accept him into your life.

Allow him to cleanse you from your sin with the life that Jesus sacrificed on the cross for each one of us.

Where you surrender everything before God and where you ask him to sit on the throne of your life.

And if that is you today, I'm going to pray a prayer and I just say that you pray it with me here this morning.

There's nothing special about the words, but this is just going to be a prayer of surrendering your life to Jesus Christ.

Lord, I give you everything in this moment.

I recognize that Jesus Christ is my Lord, that Jesus Christ is my Savior, that He died the death that I deserved on the cross for me, that His blood was spilled for the cleansing of my sin.

And I ask that you would wash me and cleanse me with that blood here this morning.

Lord, that's the symbolism of that blood.

Lord, we pray from this moment forward that you would sit on the throne of my life.

Lord, would you have your perfect will and your perfect way in my life?

I ask that the Holy Spirit would indwell me and be my counselor and be my guide.

Lord, I thank you that you will be next to me, that you will be upholding me through every circumstance, and I no longer have to walk alone through all of this.

And Lord, for all of us that have been walking with you for however long it's been, God, I pray that you would remind us that you are with us, that you are beside us.

Lord, and rather than plucking us out of life circumstances, Lord, you want to walk through those valleys of the shadow of death with us.

And you want to allow those things to mold us and to shape us to become more and more like Jesus Christ.

So Lord, I pray that your perfect will would be done in all of this.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.