Youth Sunday 2026

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

You guys can grab your seats.

If we haven't met, my name is Molly, and I get to oh hey Nathan.

What's up?

You're late, bud.

I get to serve here at Awakening as a youth leader.

In just a few moments, uh, you are going to hear from two of our students sharing their stories of what God has done in them and through them this year.

And then I'll be back up to point out God's hand and I'll close us with just a few thoughts.

But before all that, I want to open us up with a challenge.

When Ryan and I were talking through what this morning would look like, he pulled out one thread that really beautifully sums up how God has moved in our youth ministry this year.

God's movement being unexpected.

Our team runs winter camps for junior high and high school in the beginning of the year.

And funny enough, that actually was our weekend theme, was unexpected.

And our anchor verse for the weekend was from Ephesians, and it felt fitting for it to also anchor our time this morning.

These are the words of Paul from Ephesians.

For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

This is Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus, and may it be true of us awakening, that God's Spirit might move in us and through us, that we are continually growing as the Lord's holy people.

And my understanding in new ways the love and unexpected riches that are ours in Christ Jesus.

That we pray and move with the kind of faith this is.

He can do more than I think he can do.

And do you guys know who leads the way with that kind of bold faith?

It's actually our teenagers.

So again, here's the invitation.

Our teenagers are gonna lead us through this this morning.

But the invitation is to raise your expectations.

Raise your expectations for what God is going to do in and with your life.

We opened our weekend at camp by all writing down our expectations of how God would move that weekend.

We asked them, what do you need that only the Lord can do?

And here are some from our students at camp.

I'll read a few.

God, bring revival.

God, say my name.

God, forgive me.

God, give me hope.

God, show me my path.

God, help me love others how you love me.

God, relieve me of my stress.

Give me words of encouragement so I can keep going.

And so for us today, follow their lead and stepping out in faith.

What are you afraid to ask of God?

What are you tired of asking?

Where are you weary?

There's a spot in your bulletin to write that down.

And remember Paul's boldness that we're talking about a God who's able and willing to do more than we can ask or imagine.

And I'll tell you what I told the students at camp that this is a true act of faith.

You write down your expectations of God and then you lay them down.

You don't hold on to it, you leave it in his hands.

And you let him do what he will do with it, which is a scary thing.

Faith is a scary thing.

You step out into what you cannot see, and you trust God with something that he might not do.

But here's the thing is that the Lord is trustworthy.

He is trustworthy in character and he is trustworthy indeed.

The Lord is good to those who wait on him, and his love for you surpasses understanding.

So, what safer place could there be for you to lay down tender needs and tender confessions?

And so as Hannah and Ani come up to preach, be led by them in a boldness of faith and raise your expectations for what the Spirit of God wants to say to you this morning.

He can do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

So the expectations that we do have are already too small.

I'll speak for myself.

I think too small about what God can and will do.

We think too small.

He's way bigger than we think he is.

So, church, raise your expectations this morning.

Pray with me.

Jesus, you are good.

Father in heaven, you are good.

Holy Spirit, you are good.

Jesus, in a room this big, I can only imagine the things that people are carrying.

Jesus, in the things that feel heavy and dark and hard or confusing.

Jesus, would your spirit meet us exactly in that place?

God, would you speak a better word over our church this morning?

God, would you do more than we could ask or imagine?

Surprise us this morning, Jesus.

We love you and we trust you in all things.

And all God's kids said.

Amen.

Hi, my name is Hannah Sudert.

You might recognize me.

I do keys on the worship team sometimes, and my family's been going here for over 10 years.

I'm a senior at Branham High School, graduating in four days.

And I'm committed to swim Division I at University of Nebraska, Omaha.

I was preparing this sermon.

I didn't really know how to start this, so since it's Youth Sunday, I thought I'd try to relate this sermon to teenagers.

What's bigger to a teenager than their problems?

We have a lot of them.

What do I wear to school to look cool?

How am I gonna make it through the week with only$16?

That's me.

I need a girlfriend, I need a boyfriend, I have to pay for gas in this economy.

My teacher gives me so much homework.

I'm always anxious, I'm always stressed, I can't find a job, my friends didn't invite me to their hangout, my parents are too strict, my curfew is too early, I can't get fast food every meal, I need to get a car, I have to foul my taxes.

What are taxes?

You guys get the picture.

I mentioned I'm committed to swim at UNO, and I wanted to share a little bit on how I was recruited because I think it really applies to what I'll be teaching on.

By NCAA rules, colleges and athletes can legally start talking with each other on June 15th of the athlete's sophomore year in high school, so between sophomore and junior year of high school.

I've always dreamed of swimming division one in college, so I knew this, and as soon as that date passed, I had a huge weight plop on my shoulders.

In the back of my mind, until the day I committed, I knew the clock was ticking.

Over that summer, I made an email outline that I pretty much copy and pasted every single college I could, informing them who I was, why I swam, or what I swam, and why I was interested.

The worst part about the recruiting process is how the relationship between a coach and an athlete is having a crush.

You're both trying to gauge how much you like each other.

There can be some ghosting, and the best case scenario would be scoring a phone call with the coach or getting an official visit to the school.

To be quite frank, I got little to no interest right off the bat, and talking to schools was a really slow, dragged-out process for a lot of my junior year.

Another thing I want to point out is that we live in the Bay Area, which I would argue is one of the most competitive areas in the country for literally anything.

The Bay Area is a magnet for talent of all kinds, especially swimming.

I can name people who are committed to Princeton, Yale, Alabama, Stanford, and even Cal.

I would like to point out that it is equally hard academics and athletics are equally as hard.

These are the best schools that you could think of.

It got hard because I'd compare myself to kids who'd gone to the Olympic trials or have gone to better meets than me, and comparison is hard because you can spiral really fast.

By the spring of my junior year, I finally got some faster times and was starting to pick up a little more interest from some colleges.

I was starting to broaden my search to schools that maybe I didn't have in mind going to, but I realized I needed to keep a huge open mind.

By this time, I had started to do a lot of internal panicking.

What if I wasn't fast enough to swim in college?

What would people think of me if I failed to achieve this dream?

I was always the athletic one.

Would people's perception of me alter when they realized I wasn't as good as they thought?

Why was everyone else moving forward but I was moving backwards?

Every day for two years I've been working my butt off, two a days, weights, nutrition, morning practice, etc.

And I looked around and I felt like I was stuck.

It was like that common dream that everyone has when you're in the Olympics and you're in the hundred-meter dash finals and you start running, but then you start going backwards.

Or for me, I start like going up.

I don't know how that's possible.

Um, but yeah, you feel like you're helpless.

And so finally, by last summer, I started calling with so many colleges.

Praise God, we reached the dating stage.

Looking back on the timeline of my recruiting experience, I realized people were recruited in waves, and I was just a later wave.

I had to wait my turn.

This last fall, I was able to schedule three official visits to Division I colleges, where I'd be hosted by the team and can get a feel for what being a student athlete at the college would be like.

My first of the three visits was Omaha, and I was hooked as soon as I got to Omaha.

The team felt so much like a family, and many of them were Christian.

God really showed up here unexpectedly because who knew I would like a random city in the middle of Nebraska so much.

Now, Omaha was my first visit in September, but I still had two others in the late fall, and I was really worried that the Omaha coach would not have the patience to wait for me to make a decision after my visits.

The ticking bomb was starting to get a little faster.

I watched so many other recruits commit to Omaha within that early October window that I really didn't know if I was going to be able to make it on the team.

By God's grace, the Omaha coaches are amazing, and they went about letting me commit on my timeline.

On October 30th, I verbally committed and I officially signed my contract on November 14th.

I have finally, for the most part, been stress-free ever since.

The ticking clock was finally diffused.

This whole process screams, God's timeline is not your timeline to me, and I hope that inspires you all that even through extremely big decisions, like choosing a place to go to college, God can show up.

You just have to be patient.

This is why so many people struggle with anxiety and lack of faith, because we have to trust God with our lives.

We want control over this timeline, but realistically, usually the reason God doesn't reveal everything right away is because it's different than what we had in mind.

God will always show up in unexpected ways.

Ultimately, God knows better, and we just have to remember that.

I find that looking at places where God has shown up previously in my life helps me get through a rough season.

Rough seasons for me feel like uncontrollable storms, and the Bible talks a lot about storms.

In biblical times, the sea was often viewed as this monster that could not be tamed.

It was extremely unpredictable and wild and vast.

Like it was so big, sailors used to think at some point the earth just ended, because all you could see was ocean.

This sounds like a lot like our life.

It's unpredictable.

You can't control a lot of variables.

What you can do is you can call on God, who does have some effect on your life.

That storm that you're thinking about right now, Jesus can say, be still to that if you call on him.

If he's always there, but you need faith that he will come through, even if it's in a way you wouldn't think.

Matthew 11, 28 says, Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

This proves that Jesus can help us.

We just have to go to him.

He can say, Be still, he can give us rest.

And I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but when I was making this sermon, this verse popped in my head, but I thought it was Psalm 119.

It's not.

It's Matthew 11.28.

I think that's my sign to read my Bible more.

Um sometimes God calms a storm immediately, and sometimes he doesn't, and I think that's why it's really difficult.

What's that I think well, I think that's why I think that's what is so difficult about our faith.

And um, it's you have to deal with hard things and you feel like God doesn't care sometimes.

Like he wasn't there, like he's not listening to you, and like he doesn't care about our feelings.

This is not true.

He sees you and he loves you.

In John 11, Jesus hears about his friend Lazarus, who's super sick, but he doesn't go save him before he dies.

Instead, he uses his friend's death as a way to glorify himself and God the Father.

In John 11, 14, Jesus essentially admits that he knew Lazarus died and purposely didn't go to save him, so that people would believe in him through his miracle later on, raising him from the dead.

This was Jesus' purpose on earth, besides dying for our sins.

That same purpose he had of spreading the gospel so that more believe in him, we have too as followers of Christ.

Mark 16, 15 said, and he said to them, Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

John 20, verse 21 says, Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

John 20:21

Our problems become our testimonies when God shows up.

Romans 10, verse 13 through 14 says, For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Romans 10:13–14

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

For anyone in school, it's like when the teacher doesn't teach you what's on the test.

It's so annoying, and it makes no sense, and there's no way to prepare for the test.

It's the same way thing with spraying the gospel.

If we know that there is a day coming where we will all stand before God, and God will either welcome us or say to us, Department from me, for I never knew you, we should be actively trying to tell all our friends and family, even strangers, about Jesus.

Eternity is more important than how awkward it feels talking about Jesus to a non-believer or atheist.

There's this Christian evangelist named by the name of Bryce Crawford, who is gaining a huge following on social media, for going around in the streets of the US and trying to reach people that would that most would walk past or try to ignore.

He's a very passionate man whose life was completely changed when God saved him from suicide.

His work has reached millions, and he's very popular among the youth of the Christian church.

He preaches a lot of sermons all over, and I remember seeing one when he talked about Revelation 21.

He said, Have you ever read that verse?

It's in Revelation 21, and it says, And God will wipe away every tear.

Five verses before that, God just threw every non-believer into hell.

The reason why I believe he's lastly wiping away every tear is because every person that sincerely has faith in Jesus is going to watch every one of their friends, family members, and loved ones be cast into the pit of hell.

And God's going to have to wipe away every tear.

It's the last time we'll cry.

Hell is real.

This is scary, but it is true.

People can only come to know God when we share our testimonies and are vocal about his work in our lives.

Even with the small things, God is able to produce amazing fruit and it can spiral into something incredible.

As I'm talking about this, I think about Annie.

Me and Oni have been friends since middle school, and we met through swimming on the same club team.

Back then, me and Annie weren't nearly as close as we are right now, but we saw each other at practice, and that was about it.

I remember one Sunday at youth group before Ani had become a Christian, Molly was giving a little message.

At the end, she was like, I want everyone to pray this prayer.

And I can't lie, I'm sleepy on Sunday nights and a little bit depressed about school the next morning.

And so I ended up praying the prayer, but I definitely forgot about it like 30 minutes later.

Now, all I could remember was this prayer was an opportunity to share my faith with someone.

I don't remember the sermon, and if you asked Molly about this, she couldn't tell you either.

The important thing is that I prayed the prayer.

I forgot about this prayer, but God didn't.

God doesn't forget anything we say to him, and he certainly doesn't think it's less valuable if we forget about it.

Now, by around Thursday or Friday of that week, I'm finishing up swim practice and getting out of the pool and drying off.

And I remember this soap, I remember this part so vividly.

Ani's next to me, also drying off, and she's like, You go to church, right?

And I'm like, Yeah, I do.

And she was like, Oh, well, I've been to my boyfriend's Catholic church, but I really want to try coming to a more modern Christian church.

And at that point in my head, I'm like whooping for joy because I realized God answered my prayer in the most tangible way possible.

I ended up sending Ani the details about awakening, and she didn't come for about two years.

This was this happened two years ago, and or actually three years.

This happened three years ago, and um once again, I forgot about this.

Now, huge fast forward to this December of 2025, three years later, um, Ani finally came.

And it's funny because I was doing piano that night, and like I I looked at Serena and I was like, Serena, I think I see Ani in the back.

And I couldn't see because like the lights are really bright, but I saw the silhouette, so I like went up to her and I was really glad it wasn't awkward because it was Ani.

And um you'll get to hear more about that side of the story in a little bit, but um, since Ani has come, I've learned how important community is in growing as a follower of Christ.

First Corinthians 12, 25 through 29 says, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Ani has truly altered the way our youth group goes about our faith and has helped me grow so much as a person.

I also had the privilege to baptize Ani with Molly after Easter.

All this to say, our testimonies are important because everyone is unique and every story is unique, and you never know how much of an impact one little prayer that you forget about later can be.

God's greatest achievement is allowing seeds to grow into amazing trees that spread even more seeds all for his glory.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna open up with kind of a personal question.

So you can raise your hand or maybe raise your hand inside your head.

But how many of you have ever struggled or gone through a hard time that maybe you thought would never end?

Yeah, could be a sin struggle or just a hard time.

And I know I have it for sure.

I was diagnosed and put in therapy for depression in 2020, and I've probably had anxiety my entire life.

And I've been struggling pretty consistently with both of these things ever since.

Fast forward to the middle of 2025, and I'm going through the worst depressive episode of my life that lasted about six months.

And the funny thing about anxiety and depression is that it kind of takes over your entire life, along with my mental health, my self-esteem, my relationships, and my body image suffered a lot.

And so I believed so many lies that I was told that I wasn't good enough or that my life didn't amount to anything, up to the point where I had no desire to keep living.

And I've always believed in God, even though it isn't something that my family believes in.

But no matter how much I tried to pursue him in a time where I felt like I needed him, I just couldn't reach him.

And so in that season of my life where I was so physically and spiritually far away from God, he picked me up and he changed my life when I least expected it.

It was Christmas Eve of this past year, and I was sitting in my room reading my Bible, something I did to try everything I could physically could to get closer to God, and I started reminiscing on the past few months and how much I'd gone through, but how much I'd survived.

And I thought about the nights spent crying out to God on the bathroom floor, or the days begging my moms to call me out of school because all I wanted to do was lay in bed.

And so through all of that thinking, I heard God's voice for the first time.

He prompted me, asking me why I thought that I was still alive and why I thought I made it to almost the end of the year, especially when I thought that I wouldn't make it out of October.

And I immediately knew that God was the one.

He was the only one that kept me going, and I broke down crying.

I finally felt at peace with my life and what I was going through, knowing that there was a reason that God kept me, and that means that he has a plan for me.

And no matter how hard I try or how much I stray, God knows his plan for me, and there's nothing I can do about it.

And so, in telling my story, no matter how many times I tell it or how much detail I go into, I always get the same responses from people.

They always say something like, Oh, Ani, I'm so sorry.

Or the two most common, one being, I didn't know that was happening to you.

Which is always interesting to me because at a time I was so low, I guess the way that I presented myself to others was positive and happy.

A lot of the ways that people saw me during this time, or things that I posted on social media looked a lot like these pictures.

And it's completely deceiving to what I was truly going through.

But it's such an example of how God works in the little moments to bring joy or even strength to just leave the house and put on a smile and a laugh.

And the other reaction I get, which is arguably the most important, is that should have never happened.

To you, but I'll get back to that one in a little bit.

And so this reaction's prompted me to question why me?

Did I really have to go through all of that to get to where I am today?

And the spoiler alert is yes, I did, but I'll get back to that one in a little bit also.

And even Jesus asked questions like these.

In Luke chapter 22, Jesus is on the Mount of Olives and he's going to get crucified soon.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

And he's with his disciples, and starting in verse 41, he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed.

Verse 42, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says, Father, if you're willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done.

And we know that Jesus was God, but he was still a human.

And because of that, he didn't want to go through the suffering that he knew he was going to endure on the cross.

He knew how much physical and spiritual pain he would endure in the coming days, so he prayed out to his father.

If there's possible, if it's possible, if there's any way, take this cup from me, let this suffering pass from me.

And just like Jesus did in hard times, I pray out to God and I say, God, will you please take these struggles away?

I'm scared, I don't know what to do, I can't handle this.

And I'm sure a lot of other people do the same.

And when God responds, a lot of times He doesn't take away the struggles.

I realize that sometimes the hard times are necessary to get to the place that God has for you to be.

I had to go through depression, anxiety, changes in friendships and relationships, grief, and so many other things to be able to stand here today.

But it's certainly not easy.

While I was traveling recently, I wrote most of this little sermon on a plane.

And while I was writing, the plane started to shake a little bit.

You know, there's a little bit of turbulence.

And God's voice popped into the back of my head and just very quietly reminded me just because there is turbulence does not mean you will not get to where you're going.

Nowhere in the Bible does God promise that you will live a life without hardship when you accept Christ, but it does give your hardship a purpose.

Going back to the end of that verse, Jesus says, Yet not my will, but yours be done.

He did not let his loudest desire, the desire of his flesh to avoid the cross and avoid the inevitable pain, overwhelm the one of his heart that was to follow the will of his father.

Jesus knew in that exact moment that he's praying for any way to avoid the cross, how separated the world was from God.

And that's why he endured the cross.

That was his purpose.

He had to go through all the physical and spiritual suffering, not only to follow God's will, but also because he had such a desire and a love in his heart to reconnect you and me to our Creator.

But in the moment that Jesus is praying, in verse 44, it says, Being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

At the time when Jesus is praying, it seems like God isn't answering him.

He prays so hard and so many times, yet God's plan is unchanging.

It is so hard to see what God has for you in the future.

So in those times when you're praying out to God and he feels silent, remember that he is working.

There is a reason and there is purpose.

So after my encounter with the Lord in December, I finally felt at peace.

I could feel happy and on fire for God because I can say that He is truly my Savior.

I started reading my Bible more and looking for the Lord like there was no tomorrow.

And within all of that, a few days after Christmas Eve, I desperately wanted to go to church and find somewhere that felt like home.

So I felt a tug to reach out to Hannah, who just spoke.

And as she said, Hannah and I met through swimming many years ago.

And about three years ago, I'm gonna tell the same story.

We were coming out of practice one night, and we got into a conversation about faith, and she invited me to come here to awakening.

And I really, really, really wanted to, but I didn't.

So I reached out to her in December again, and I asked if her church was still here, and she said yes, and she invited me to come again, and this time I did.

Coming to Awakening is one of the most life-changing things that has ever happened to me.

I've met so many people that have challenged and supported me and helped me lean into the Lord more than I ever have.

This group of people, even in my short time and awakening so far, have loved me like no other.

Only three short months after coming here for the first time, I made one of the best decisions of my life to get baptized by both Molly and Hannah, who have influenced me in so many positive ways in the direction of God.

But life can still be hard.

I still struggle with anxiety and depression, but this time it's different.

This time I have something to hold on to.

Something that is so unchanging and so strong that I can hold on to in those times that I have no strength of my own.

So circling back, when people tell me that that should have never happened to you.

I appreciate the sentiment, I really do.

But I know it's not true.

All of that hardship was for the purpose of getting me here today.

The most perfect of reasons that I still don't understand fully, and I don't think I ever will.

It took me six whole years of hardship to get to where I am today, and I can so easily say that I am not the same person when it all started.

The amount that the Lord has changed me, changed my heart and changed my mind is truly fascinating to me.

He has brought me so much joy, peace surpassing all understanding, and so many amazing new friendships that help me see his heart and draw me closer to him every single day.

So cling on to him as hard as you can during those hard times.

Dedicate your life to him, and he will help you.

Just like it says in Colossians 2, 6 through 7.

So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and build up in him, strengthen in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Thank you.

God can do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

I think about Hannah.

What can God do with a prayer?

He does not forget them even when we do.

Won't he do it for you too?

I think about Ani, when you are vulnerable, when you are suffering, when you are waiting on the hand of God, what is he up to?

And I would suggest that he's drawing near to you wherever you are.

In the very places that fear tells us God is limited, that he can't or won't change a heart, won't change a circumstance.

We as the Lord's holy people must plant our feet ten toes down on the truth of who he is.

He is the unlimited one.

He is the powerful one, he is the sovereign one, and Jesus is the resurrected one.

In this world we will have trouble, but it is exactly there where you can take heart because he has overcome the world.

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

So, what can the Lord do with your surrender?

After Pentecost, Peter's preaching, and he quotes King David about the God that we worship.

David said about him, I saw the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices, my body also will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead.

You will not let your holy one see decay.

You have made known to me the paths of life.

You will fill me with joy in your presence.

In the very circumstances of death, and that which should shake us to our core, there is an unexpected and resurrected hope.

There is joy in life to be had in his presence that does not bend to circumstances, that does not yield to the schemes of the enemy.

So take courage, church.

Greater is he.

When all the things of this world fade away, what will remain?

It is him, it is his word.

This is why I have structured my whole life in being to serving in God's church and ministering to his teenagers.

And this is why our adult leaders who serve twice a week, every single week of the year, do so.

Because we know that Jesus Christ is the only thing we can give our students that cannot ever be taken away.

Life and joy and hope are found in him, and everything else is just a taste.

Our expectations of God are too small.

I tell students all the time that so often the Lord is having an entirely different conversation than we are.

We assume that we see clearly, we assume that we have control, we assume that it's all in us.

But what if he has more for you than you think he does?

And not in the temporal, but in the eternal.

But he says, Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

And so where is Jesus when he feels far?

Where is Jesus when we thought he was going to provide in a certain way and he doesn't?

Where is Jesus when nothing is as it should be?

He's present with you.

And he's doing more than you think he is.

The God that we worship is one of unexpected, undeserved, and radical grace.

He hears your prayers, the ones that you don't have words for.

He remembers every single one, and he moves on your behalf.

He's more devoted to your good and flourishing than even you are.

And I don't know about you, but I do wrestle in wondering how true this is in the day-to-day.

I take one look around at the world and then I laugh at where it's like flourishing.

Most days I'm not flourishing.

I feel like I'm just getting by.

But here's the thing: we assume we see clearly, but you and I have tunnel vision.

We lose periphery, we lose perspective.

We live in this world of sin and brokenness, and then more brokenness, and then more, and that becomes what we see, what we feel, what we experience.

Like heavy chains that like dig at your wrists and clang at your feet and make you move slowly and make you move in fear.

Chains from the sin of others done to us, chains from expectations not met, or anxiety that never leaves, or bad news that comes, or loss.

They're like chains that weigh down our feet and blinders that obscure our vision of what we have come to expect about the world, about ourselves, about how others will treat us.

Like every experience we have of suffering adds to the chains, adds to the weight, adds to the clanging you hear everywhere you go.

And we carry these with us everywhere we go.

Even in a church, even before the throne.

Everything's gonna fall apart.

I'm gonna get hurt again.

God doesn't hear me.

He doesn't care.

I can't trust his plan.

Everything's gonna fall apart.

I'm not good enough.

If people saw the real me, what would they think?

When we walk, we can feel it weighing us down, we can hear it clanging behind us, our shackled expectations and fears, and walk with them long enough, you forget that you can run unencumbered.

We shackle the character of God to the circumstances around us, and it is not so.

Even death itself is flipped upside down by Christ Jesus.

And he laid down his life doing the will of the Father that you might have eternal life, life secured now.

He is more devoted to your good and flourishing than even you are.

So, where is their bondage in your life?

Where is their darkness?

What if it is right there where Jesus wants to show up and bring purpose and life and hope?

And what is the unexpected thing that he might do?

What if he were to not condemn, not blame, or not forsake?

But what if he were to go low to the ground right where you are and break the shackles off of you himself with the power of the God of the universe, because that is who he is.

Paul in Galatians says that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

He has called us to be free for the sake of freedom.

And if the spirit of the Lord who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is living in you, imagine what he can do in every area of your life that feels dark or dead.

If the spirit of the Lord who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, won't he bring life where there is death?

And that is the God that we worship.

The God that blows our expectations out of the water.

At your lowest and darkest and loneliest, even dark is not dark to him.

And so, where have you lost hope that he will do that for you?

Where have you lost hope that he sees you?

Raise your expectations.

He loves you.

You think that he won't show up when you call on him.

When turbulence hits us, we wonder if our pilot has left us or a storm rages and we start panicking.

We forget that he is unmoved and unfazed.

We don't see what he sees, that the Lord will be faithful to finish what he has started.

We forget the expertise of his hands, that he will bring us safely home and safely into his presence.

So in whatever strife or pain or anxiety plagues you today, his faithfulness to you remains in control.

When we are faithless, he remains faithful.

He's bigger than our circumstances.

This is the God who takes what was meant for evil and he turns it for good.

Imagine how you could walk every single day if you knew the radical, reckless, and unfathomable love that God has for you.

Imagine the peace that He wants to give you, the kind that surpasses all understanding, even in the middle of chaos and fear.

Imagine what the God who created the universe wants to do in you and through you, because you bear his image, and he has given you gifts and good works to walk in.

And imagine what God could do through a church full of people who are as bold as Hannah and Ani, willing to show up and trusting that Jesus will do.

These do not require a change in circumstances, but a boldness of faith.

It is not something that you acquire or conjure up or do, but it is someone that you trust.

Faith in the living one, the one who has overcome.

And so, are you willing to show up, to step out in faith?

Are you willing to take him at his word?

Our expectations of God are too low.

The Bible is right when it says that we cannot fathom the goodness of God, that we cannot fathom how much he could do.

And that is the God that we worship.

Good and kind and sovereign and in control, the very source of wisdom itself.

And the object of his affections is you.

Pray with me.

Jesus, you are the author and perfecter of our faith.

God, you are hope.

You are life, you are goodness.

God, it is for the joy set before you that you endured the cross, God.

Somehow.

Some way, you are so loving that we would be your joy.

That makes no sense, God.

You are so much bigger and better than we think you are.

Jesus, so for awakening, I pray that we would be rooted and established in love.

That we would have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that this love surpasses knowledge.

God, would you fill us to the measure of all the fullness of God?

Jesus, and to you who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, God, according to your power that is at work within us, to you be glory, Jesus, and the church throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

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