Sunday Sermon | The Gospel of Mark: Listen to Him

This is the Gospel of the Mark.

Good morning, church family.

My name is Gary McCord and I'm the youth pastor here at FBC Bernie.

Jason was actually supposed to preach this Sunday, but I received word that he's somewhere in sackcloth and ashes morning.

And so just kidding about the first part.

I don't know about the second one, but uh hey, Lane lost.

So we can all cheer for LSU losing.

That's good.

That was Jason.

Well, my last year at college at Dallas Baptist University was crazy.

In a good way, though.

I was working a job, uh, I was serving as a part-time youth pastor in the area, I was an RA, I was involved in a Christian fraternity that God had just really used in an incredible way in my life.

And Christine and I had gotten engaged the fall semester of my senior year, and so we were planning a wedding, and we had the venue, the colors, the flowers, the table chargers, uh and a bunch of other stuff I didn't know existed mattered or cost that much.

And we were going on a cruise for our honeymoon, we were so excited, you know, I got to plan that part, and so we pick out the ports and we plan the excursions, and then after graduation, we were gonna stay in Dallas and I was gonna start seminary and I was gonna find a ministry job somewhere in the area.

We had this whole thing figured out.

And I remember specifically, one specific Wednesday morning, uh, I was all pumped up because after our youth midweek that night, we're gonna hop in a car and we were gonna drive to Houston and we were gonna attend a Cody Johnson concert at the Houston Rodeo.

And so we were super excited, and there was one small problem though, uh, and that was the date.

Because the date of that fateful Wednesday was March 11th, 2020.

And if that date sounds familiar, it's because that's the day the dumpster fire started.

I remember after church, we are in the parking lot, we're about to get in the car, and I look on my phone, and I see that the NBA had officially suspended their season due to this new virus called COVID.

And by the time we got to Houston three hours later, basically the whole world had shut down.

And the craziest thing is that I woke up that morning and I thought that I knew exactly what my life was gonna look like.

We had it planned out, we were excited, and by the time I put my head on the pillow that night, I had no clue what tomorrow was gonna hold.

Now, why am I telling you that story this morning?

Well, uh not to give you 2020 PTSD, but because many of you in this room have had a similar experience.

And look, it might not have been COVID, but maybe it was a phone call in the middle of a night.

Maybe it was a doctor walking in and you expecting to get positive news, but instead he tells you, hey, can you sit down for a minute?

Or maybe it was walking into what you thought was gonna be a normal performance review at your job, uh, and then you leave without a job.

And look, guys, the truth is if you live long enough, life is eventually gonna shatter your expectations.

And it's gonna leave you in the ashes of them to pick up the pieces.

And interestingly enough, that's actually where we find our disciples as we continue our series in the book of Mark this morning.

To get you up to speed with where we are, if you haven't been with us the last few weeks, we're right in the middle of Mark.

Not necessarily word count-wise, but thematically, because if you know about the Gospel of Mark, it's really split into two halves.

The first eight chapters look to answer this question: Who is this man, Jesus?

As soon as he bursts onto the scene, all it's about is who is this guy?

Like what is he, what is he like?

Like, what's going on here?

And then you have this hinge moment at the end of chapter eight.

And this is what we've covered the last two weeks.

Jesus takes his disciples as far away from Jerusalem as he's going to in his entire earthly ministry, and he asks them, Who do you say I am?

And Peter gives the answer, you are the Christ, the promised Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

And that statement then launches us into the back half of the book of Mark, where the question is no longer, who is this man?

Right?

We got the answer.

He's the Messiah.

The question now is, what is his mission?

What kind of Messiah is he going to be?

And after Peter's confession, he actually tells the disciples for the first time plainly, he says, Hey, the Son of Man, talking about himself, must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and after three days rise again.

And in that moment, he shattered every preconceived notion those disciples had about what this whole thing was going to look like.

Because most faithful Jews at that time were familiar with the idea of a Messiah.

And they had the idea that, okay, this Messiah is coming, but a lot of them had all sorts of different ideas about who he was going to be and what he was going to be like and do.

And many thought that he was going to be a political military leader, that he was going to come, he was going to boot out the Romans, and he was going to set up shop with an actual sovereign nation.

And you can tell that the disciples might have been in that camp because they're just taken aback by the statement.

They don't know what to do.

In fact, Peter actually tries to rebuke Jesus.

And in chapter 8, Jesus ends with this discourse telling them, Hey, following me has a cost.

You're going to have to pick up your cross and you're going to follow me.

And then chapter 9, where we're going to be this morning, picks up with the disciples still kind of reeling from the fallout of that whole discussion.

A bomb just went off and their ears are still ringing.

And as we see how God interacts with them in that moment, what we're going to see is how God comforts us when our lives get flipped upside down.

How in our moments of crisis, God calls us to see Jesus clearly, trust him deeply, follow him faithfully, and continue following him, and continue to trust him, even when following hurts.

So if you will, let's pick up Mark chapter 9, verse 1.

Mark 9:1

And he said to them, Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God has come with power.

After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and led them up a high mountain where they were all alone.

And there he was transfigured before them.

His clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.

And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here.

Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

And then verse six, he did not know what to say, for they were so frightened.

Will you pray with me?

Lord, we thank you so much for your word this morning.

And we we humbly come before it, Lord, knowing that we cannot lead ourselves into truth, but rather, Holy Spirit, we ask that you would reveal yourself, you would reveal whatever you have for us this morning, and we believe here change for your glory.

Praise things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Alright.

So the first way that God comforts these discouraged disciples is by allowing them to see Jesus clearly.

Because he knew that what they just heard blew their minds.

And so six days later, he does something about it.

He takes his inner circle, Peter, James, and John, and they go to a field trip up on a mountain.

And it says that on that mountain he was transfigured, which is a word we don't use a whole lot.

That Greek word is metamorphao, and it's where we get the word metamorphosis, that there was a real shift and change.

This wasn't just a superficial appearance, like something happened.

And what we're seeing is that the curtain got peeled back.

Because to this point in his ministry, nobody had seen the full glory of Jesus.

We talk often about Jesus being fully man and fully God, but nobody had seen the fullness of that second part yet.

And they'd seen glimpses.

He performed miracles, he had healed people, he had fed thousands, he commanded authority over darkness and nature and all the things.

But this is different.

This is a glimpse of the full glory that the Son of God has had before the beginning of time and will have beyond the end of time.

It's what Jesus was talking about in verse 1, where some of you will see the kingdom of God coming in power.

But Mark also records that Moses and Elijah are there, which what are Moses and Elijah doing there?

Like that's kind of a weird cameo at this point in the season.

Don't know what's going on.

But here's the thing.

First, both Elijah and Moses had met God on mountains after periods of discouragement.

Moses, after the whole golden calf incident where God reveals his name and character, and then Elijah after Israel's apostasy, and Ahab and Jezebel are chasing him down, trying to take him out.

Second, they would have been seen to symbolize the law and the prophets.

And the idea that Moses received the law and that Elijah was one of the premier prophets in all of Israel's history.

And so their presence was symbolic that all of the law, all of the prophets, everything here is pointing to Jesus.

And then third, Elijah's appearance would have immediately brought Malachi 4 to mind.

Because in Malachi 4, God promises that Elijah would come before the great day of the Lord.

And the great day of the Lord is when God comes back and makes everything right.

It's judgment day in a positive way.

And so when they see Elijah here, they would have had this huge question in their mind: like, is this it?

Is this promise being fulfilled?

Is this the day of the Lord?

And so when you put all of that together, what try to imagine with me for a second what these disciples are experiencing right now.

Like this is the spiritual experience of a lifetime.

The glory of the Son of God is on full display.

They are right next to Moses and Elijah, two of the most significant figures in all of Israel's history.

And so then how does Peter respond?

Well, uh, in classic Peter fashion, the wrong way, he speaks before thinking.

He's like, hey, Rabbi, it's good for us to be here.

Like, hey, you three, come over here.

We're gonna make y'all some tents.

We're gonna get you real comfy, gonna make it all nice up here, and we're gonna hang out.

And even the fact that he suggests three tents is like he's not even elevating Jesus above Moses and Elijah.

He's like, all three of you guys are a merry bunch, and uh he's just completely missed the point.

And it's well intentioned, but what he's missing here, he wants to preserve the moment.

He wants to stay on the mountain, he wants to build the shelters, he wants to keep it going.

And what he is doing, he's so caught up in the experience that he misses what the experience is pointing to.

What it's supposed to reveal, because the whole thing that happened up there on the mountain was not about Moses or Elijah, it was about Jesus.

And that experience was meant to pull back the curtain and show the disciples who he really is.

And look, we can point the finger and laugh at Peter, but if we're honest, we can do the exact same thing with our spiritual experiences.

We can encounter God in a powerful way, maybe at a church camp or through a certain kind of worship or a certain church service or a certain group of people.

And these experiences can be real and good and deeply meaningful.

But if we're not careful, we can become more attached to the setting than to the Savior.

That song can matter, that room can matter, and that season might have changed your life, but the point was never to spend the rest of your life trying to recreate that moment.

That moment was supposed to help you see Jesus more clearly and then give you strength to walk out of it.

One time early on in ministry, I got to lead a group of students to a mission trip in Mexico.

And this mission trip was incredibly special.

Uh, it was just one of those, like God moved in incredible ways.

There was unplanned street evangelism that people got saved, there were needs that were provided that we were able to just like meet, that it couldn't have anything other than God.

It was just one of those things that everybody came back, changed.

And I saw a group of students come back and they were fired up.

Like they were ready to charge the gates of hell with water pistols.

They were fired up, ready to go.

The whole thing you would have thought all the BISD is about to get saved.

And they were very good and passionate, it was a good thing.

But over time, camp goes and comes and goes, D now comes and goes, and there's just this restlessness where they're like trying to grasp something they just can't take hold of.

And I had a student, one of the guys came up to me afterwards and he goes, Man, I just don't know what's wrong.

Like I was so on fire in Mexico.

I just can't recapture that feeling.

Like, like, what's wrong with me?

And I told him, I was like, man, what if the feeling wasn't the point?

Like, look, you felt alive on that trip because you were seeing Jesus clearly.

You were living with him in a tangible way.

You were reading the word, you were serving people in need, you were sharing the gospel, you were praying constantly, you were living close to Jesus.

And so, sure, that the trip was incredible, but the goal was never to try and take the trip and recreate it here.

The goal was to take what you learned on that trip about Jesus and that closeness you experienced, and then learn how that translates to a Tuesday afternoon in Bernie, Texas.

And that's the point of this moment on the mountain.

God in his kindness, he peels back the curtain on Jesus' glory and he gives Peter, James, and John this incredible spiritual experience.

It was good, God ordained, and this was meant to be an encouragement.

That's why this happens where it happens in the story of Mark.

And in the same way, our spiritual experience can be a good and important thing.

And so often we hear stories about emotional manipulation at camp or kind of these smoke and mirrors church services, and we just let ourselves get cynical.

Or if I see anything that involves any modicum of emotion, or if I see anything that has any sort of sense of supernatural anything, I just kind of, mm, I don't know about it.

And look, I'm not saying that you should just buy whatever you see and blindly trust, but God does at time move in moments.

Whether it's maybe a song that you've sung in worship a million times and the light bulb just finally clicks.

Or maybe it's a word from God in a sermon or from a friend that it's just like the Lord is speaking directly to you.

And look, those moments are gifts, they're glimpses of his power, but those moments are not and should not be the substance of your faith.

Don't be the spiritual high chaser bouncing from camp to conference to concert, just trying to get another hit of spiritual dopamine.

Those moments are great, but if you live like that, you're just gonna be tossed on the waves of circumstance and emotion.

There's no foundation.

Because the point of the mountaintop moment is not to try and spend your life getting back to the mountain, it's to see Jesus clearly there so that you can follow him better when you inevitably have to come back down.

And what we're gonna see in these next few verses is that once the disciples get a clear view of Jesus and they see him in his glory, it should change everything.

Because the truth is, when we see Jesus clearly, it should change our trust, and our trust should change how we live.

So we're gonna pick back up in chapter 9, verse 7.

Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud.

This is my son whom I love.

Listen to him.

And suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

And so if this scene sounds familiar, it's because it's very similar imagery to Jesus' baptism in Mark chapter 1.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

Because there he comes out of the water, and you see the Holy Spirit descend on him in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father tells Jesus, You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.

And here, instead of a dove, a cloud descends upon them.

And all throughout Scripture, the cloud was a visible sign of God's presence, such as the cloud that led the Israelites in the wilderness, or the cloud that descended upon the temple when it was dedicated.

And then you hear the voice of the Father again.

It said this time it's not just heard by Jesus, he's speaking to the disciples.

He says, This is my son, but instead of saying I'm pleased in him, he gives a command.

He says, Listen to him.

Which brings us to the second way that God meets the discouraged disciples by encouraging them to trust his character.

Notice how God doesn't reassure the disciples.

Their expectations have been shattered.

He doesn't say, Hey man, I'm gonna give you all the details.

I'm gonna give you the play by play, this is gonna be the next six months, and then this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen.

Like, sure, he gives glimpses of it, but he never gives them the full details.

And he also doesn't sugarcoat it.

He doesn't say, Hey man, it's not gonna be that bad.

Like, he doesn't ground their reassurance in their own strength.

You guys are tough.

I've been with you guys for a couple years, you're gonna figure this out.

No, he grounds their reassurance in who Jesus is.

He shows them his glory, that he is God, that he is in control.

Mark and I didn't plan this, but it's what he said earlier, that we can trust that every word he says is true.

Because if you understand that, you can begin to trust him in the areas where you don't have all the answers yet.

Because confidence in character leads to trust in the face of trouble.

You know, just the other night, if you don't know, we recently had our third child, Benjamin.

He's about three weeks old, and we had some family over to see him, and it had been a long day, you know, we're tired.

Uh Michael is adjusting to now being the middle child, so that's fun.

And I had a weird thing going on with my foot.

Like if you saw me this past week, I was in a boot, like I couldn't walk very well.

I don't I don't know what was going on.

So we get to the end of the day, we finally get all the kids and in-laws put to bed and tucked in, right?

And then we go into our room and we get Benjamin down in the bassinet.

Praise the Lord, he sleeps well in the bassinet.

So we put him down there, and then Christine and I crash.

Here's the thing about our house.

Normally, when a smoke detector's battery is low, it chirps, which is annoying, right?

But it's just a chirp.

It's a little chirp, a little birdie, right?

It's beautiful.

Ours goes off at full volume.

And not only does the one with the low battery go off at full volume, every smoke detector in the house goes off at full volume.

And that decided to happen on this fateful night.

And so now my house, full of a four-year-old, a two-year-old, a two-week-old, my in-laws, and my in-laws 10-month-old are all now wide awake.

And look, I uh I I never went to boot camp or buds, but like I've seen the videos when they wake you up with live gunfire, and I would have preferred that to what happened on this night.

So I I wake up, uh, I'm still like limping, so I'm hobbling into my room as quick as possible.

Christine gets Benjamin, Michael somehow just face plants coming out of his room.

I don't know how that happens.

So he's afraid and hurt.

And so I hop my way into their room.

It's dark, the things are going off.

I'm like, hey guys, guys, it's okay.

Like, daddy's here.

I've got you.

Don't worry.

And they start to come down.

Now, the alarm was still going off very loudly.

The room was still very dark, and Michael's face probably still hurt.

But what changed?

They knew dad was there.

They know me.

They know I love them.

They they trust I'm gonna take care of them.

Do you see it?

Their circumstances hadn't changed, but knowing who was with them changed how they faced their circumstances.

That's the point.

Confidence and character leads to trust in the face of trouble.

And so, in the same way, when we know God's character, when we understand that he is in control of every aspect of the universe, from the gravity that keeps us from hurtling into the sun to how many fibers are on this carpet on this stage, he's in control of all of it.

And so we can trust him even when things don't go the way that we think they should.

When the test comes back with one line instead of two, again.

When you thought you'd be married by now, when your child goes off the rails despite your best efforts, when you get passed over, laid off, when your body breaks down on you.

You don't have to trust in your own strength.

You can try that, but if you do, you're just gonna desperately cling to some mirage of control over your life just for the anxiety to come rushing back at the first sign of uncertainty.

You don't have to trust in your favorite drug of choice when it comes to distraction, whether it be alcohol or pornography or social media or Netflix or Amazon.

You can try that, and you might forget your problems for a little bit, but they'll be waiting for you right next to guilt and shame when you come down off that high.

God wants better for you.

Like I'm not trying to guilt you into that.

I've responded both of those ways.

I just want to come alongside you and say, guys, I love y'all, and I want you to see that there is a better way for you to trust yourself or to trust in something more reliable than yourself.

To place your trust in the God of the universe who holds it all together, to be able to say, hey, I don't know exactly what comes next.

And I might not, but I do know that God is good.

I do know that God loves me, and I do know that He works all things together for my good.

And don't let me oversimplify it.

I'm not saying that the pain and the uncertainty is just gonna vanish, but you'll have an anchor even in the middle of it.

And here's the thing, though there's a beautiful moment of comfort in this text, and it's good.

Trust in God should comfort us, but it shouldn't just comfort us.

Trust in God should actually produce something in us.

And that's the second point being made here, because God, instead of saying, This is my son whom I'm pleased, he says, This is my son, and then he turns to the disciples and then he says, Listen to him.

He grounds them in Jesus' identity, and then the third way that God meets the discouraged disciples is by telling them to trust his authority.

Because remember what happened just shortly ago, six days ago, Jesus told the disciples about his suffering.

Uh, and then Peter's response was to pull Jesus aside and rebuke him.

Because Peter thought he knew better.

He had an idea of who Jesus should be and what Jesus should do.

And when Jesus stepped out of that box Peter put him in, he tried to cram him back in there.

He tried to correct him.

And so here, yes, God is reassuring that Jesus is in control, but he's also reminding Jesus is in control.

He's in charge, and his identity means you can trust him.

Because trust in his character should lead to submission to his authority.

In fact, I'll say that again, trust in his character should lead to submission to his authority.

In fact, I believe that obedience is actually one of the best litmus tests for trust that there is.

I've seen this in my own life as a CrossFit and weightlifting coach.

One time I had a young guy come in and he's all fired up.

He's like, Hey man, like I want to hit a PR.

And if you don't know what that is, it just means you lift more weight than you ever have before.

I was like, Great.

Love helping people hit their goals.

We're gonna get you strong.

That's awesome.

There's just one thing required.

And he goes, What?

And I say, trust.

He's like, oh, great.

Like he probably thought I was gonna say you need to eat like unseasoned chicken like three times a day or like some supplement routine.

It's like, no, no, no, just just trust.

He's like, oh, easy, I trust you.

I was like, all right, we'll see.

And then I watched him lift.

And he was strong, uh, but respectfully, it looked like his limbs had never met each other.

Like I was just real concerned about this guy's back.

He we just had a long way to go.

And it's like, all right, that's fine, everybody starts out at different places, great.

And so I told him, hey, great, first thing, take all the weight off the bar.

And he looked at me like I had lost my ever loving mind.

And then I had the gall to tell him to change his technique and do things differently.

And not only that, but then it started to feel awkward and slow and weaker.

And I could tell by His face, not only was he very upset at me, but he none of it made sense to him.

And that was the first real test.

Because it's easy to say that he trusted me while he was doing everything how he wanted to do it.

But the strength of his trust was revealed when I asked him to do something uncomfortable.

Something that he didn't fully understand.

Something that he didn't want to do, something that might have gone against his natural instincts.

Because trust is revealed by obedience.

And so the question is, guys, it's one thing to say we trust God's character, but do you trust him enough to listen to him?

When you know that you won't get caught in that sin.

When you've already made up in your mind exactly how you're going to justify it to God afterwards.

When God asks you to say no to something that you really, really want.

To forgive somebody that you would rather stay angry at, somebody that doesn't want forgiveness.

To tell the truth even when it's going to cost you, to change how you spend your money, what you watch, how you speak, to confess something that you would rather keep hidden.

Do you trust him enough to listen to him even when his way feels slower, more difficult, and makes less sense?

And guys, we have to wrestle with that question because underneath so much of our sin is a lack of trust.

Saint Ignatius once said, he describes sin as an unwillingness to trust that what God wants for me is only my deepest happiness.

That sin is an unwillingness to trust that what God wants from me is only my deepest happiness.

Simply put, we sin because we think God's holding out on us.

And so my invitation for you this morning is to believe God's word.

That everything he commands of you, it's not arbitrary, it's not just making up rules because he wants to be mean, that it's either for your good or to keep you from harm.

And then step out into that trust.

Don't just say, hey, God, I trust you with my finances.

No, keep giving even when things get tight.

Keep being generous.

I'm not saying that for us.

I'm not about to pass the card.

I'm just saying keep trusting.

Hey, God is your stewardship.

You're stewarding his resources.

Don't just say, hey, God, I trust you with my sexuality.

No, actually step out and say no when every desire in you is pulling you the other direction.

Because the only way to build trust is to test it.

I used to be a fearful flyer.

I didn't like flying.

And so I respond to being afraid of things and not having trust in things by trying to learn everything I can.

Newsflash didn't make me less fearful, didn't make me any more trusting.

The only way for me to build my trust was to get on a plane and fly.

And then get on another plane and fly.

And then get on another plane and fly and get on another plane and fly and realize that they never crashed.

It's not a perfect example, but see what I'm getting at here.

Sometimes the only way to build and trust is to take the first step.

Trust that God's going to take care of me.

Might not make sense, might not be how I would do it.

But I know who He is.

And if I really believe that, then what other choice do I have?

Where else will I go?

But here's the hard part.

God is not a cosmic vending machine.

We're not talking about, hey, if you pull the obedience lever, then results come out.

So what happens when you say, hey, I trust Jesus?

I'm going to obey Jesus.

And you do, and things still don't go the way you hoped.

Well, that's where our story goes next in verse 9.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

And they kept the matter to themselves, discussing what rising from the dead meant.

And they asked him, What did the teachers of the law, why do they say that Elijah must come first?

And Jesus replied, To be sure, Elijah does come first, and he restores all things.

Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?

But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.

And so the fourth and final way that God meets the discouraged disciples is by encouraging them to keep trusting, even when following hurts.

And so this experience ends.

They come off the mountain, and Jesus says, Hey, don't tell anybody about what you just saw.

Probably because the disciples still don't get it.

And we can tell they don't get it because afterwards they ask him, like, hey, uh, you know, why do people keep saying Elijah comes first?

Which sounds random.

But again, remember, in their mind, they went back to Malachi and they're remembering verse 5 that says, See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great day of the Lord comes.

And they'd just seen Elijah.

And so they're trying to put the pieces together.

He's like, All right, you're the Messiah, the kingdom is coming, or just came.

Verse, scriptures say that Elijah's supposed to come first, and he did come, but now he's disappeared.

So, like, what in the world's going on here, Jesus?

And if this is actually happening, then what is with all this rejection and suffering and death talk?

Like, shouldn't things be getting easier?

And Jesus says, You know what?

You're right, it does say that.

But it also says that the Son of Man must suffer and be rejected too.

And then he says, Elijah has already come.

And Matthew's gospel tells us that the disciples understood he was talking about John the Baptist filling the role of Elijah as the front runner for the Messiah.

And Jesus says, Hey, you know what they did to John the Baptist?

They killed him.

Just as it is written.

And essentially what Jesus answers them with is, hey guys, everything is going exactly according to the plan.

The plan's just different than you thought it was.

And John the Baptist's suffering and execution didn't mean failure.

And Jesus says, My coming execution will not mean failure, because God has a way of turning our darkest moments into the brightest dawns.

To go back to my story at the beginning, COVID did wreck our plans a lot.

Like everything looked different.

It was still great, but just everything changed.

Christine is still bitter about that Cody Johnson concert we didn't get to go to.

She told me to state that explicitly in the sermon.

And here's the thing, guys, like my all of my school and church doors, they got slammed shut.

Nobody was looking to hire some kid fresh out of college with a bachelor's degree when all their congregants disappeared overnight.

Like there's just nothing.

And so I'm sitting here and I'm sulking and I'm pouting and I'm feeling bad about myself.

And I'm laying in bed one night and I'm scrolling through job openings, and I see this little Baptist church in Bourne, Texas.

That's looking to hire an associate youth pastor.

And guys, I I I don't have time to tell you all the details of this story, but praise God that my plan for my life didn't work out the way I wanted it to.

That I can't imagine the six years of my life without you, this church, these people, this family.

Like, like it was incredible.

My plans failing did not mean that God's did.

And look, I I really even wrestled with including this sermon illustration in here because I don't want to oversimplify this into some trite spiritual platitude of, oh, if you're suffering, just wait, God's gonna turn it around.

Like that's that's not the point.

I apologize if that's how this is coming across, because I realize a lot of you have been through much more difficult things than not getting to go on your dream honeymoon.

But but but I just think sometimes we can convince ourselves that, hey, if I trust God, if I obey God, if I do everything like right, then life should start working out the way I expect.

And it doesn't.

It doesn't work like that, guys.

If I'm popping the bubble, I'm sorry, but it's just not like that.

And when we experience that, this natural reaction is where are you, God?

Why didn't you show up?

Why'd you leave me out to dry it?

And we feel like we're just been abandoned.

But listen to me, pain, suffering, and difficulty do not mean the absence of God.

Because the disciples are about to abandon Jesus.

They're about to watch him be arrested, beaten, nailed to a cross, and die in the most awful way imaginable.

And they're gonna watch him get put into a grave, and for three days, it's gonna look like everything has gone wrong.

The light's been snuffed out, the plan has failed, darkness has won until Sunday came.

And that stone started to roll, and he got up and walked out.

And by doing that, he declared victory over death and sin and shame and guilt, and he declared that the penalty for your sin had been paid in full.

So the gift of eternal life is available to all, and he holds the keys of death in Hades.

And this is what I want you to see.

Look at me.

If I've lost you, look, come back for this moment.

We serve a God of resurrection.

And so, no matter where you find yourself this morning, if God can take the darkest moment in human history, the unjust murder of his sinless son, and turn that into the moment that eternal life, the kingdom of God, breaks through, then wherever you find yourself this morning, your story is not done.

He is not finished, his plan and his purposes have not failed.

He will make it right.

And look, praise God, sometimes he does that on this side of heaven, but here's the thing I want to point you at the fullness of his restoration will come one day soon.

What Peter, James, and John caught a glimpse of on that mountain, soon everybody will see for eternity.

As the prophet Daniel wrote, the Son of Man will come with the clouds of heaven, and to him will be given dominion, glory, and a kingdom.

Every people, nation, and language will serve him.

His dominion will be everlasting, his kingdom will never pass away, it will never be destroyed.

And then John tells us the old broken world will pass away along with all of its pain, sadness, cancer, exploitation, and God will dwell with his people.

And he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

There will be no mourning, crying, or pain.

And the one seated on the throne will say, Behold, I am making all things new.

And I do have to acknowledge this morning that in a room this size, there's probably many of us who don't have a relationship with the man who will be seated on that throne.

Maybe your parents did, maybe your grandparents did.

But you haven't placed your trust in Jesus.

Maybe you've placed it in your own strength.

Maybe you've placed it in your ability to control your life, to run to a certain form of distraction that you find to be your favorite.

And maybe you're here this morning because you finally realize that well is going to run dry.

And the invitation this morning is the same invitation that was given to Peter, James, and John on that mountain.

Not because we're literally looking at Jesus, staring at him, shining white in front, but because we're looking at Jesus through his word.

And as he is revealing himself in his word this morning, come and examine this man, see who he is.

We're not asking for blind faith here.

Ask questions.

Test this thing out.

Romans 10 9 says that if you believe God, or if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

What's that saying?

If you believe he is who he said he is, that the truth, that we are all sinners, we have all fallen short of the glory of God, that we have all turned away from life and chosen death, that we're all deserving of punishment because of our evil, that God is just, but the problem is not just evil out there, it's the evil in you and me.

But God in his love did not want us to suffer eternal separation from him.

So he sent his son Jesus, lived a perfect 33 years.

And he died of death on that cross, not for his sin, but for our sin, because he didn't have any sin to die for.

Scripture says that on that cross he became our sin, and God put all the wrath that we have earned, dumped it onto him so that we could receive the gift of eternal life that he had learned with his perfect obedience.

This isn't cheap grace, that he looked at our sin and he said, I'm paying for it, I'm forgiving it, it's been punished, it's done, it's finished.

And Scripture says that if you believe that and you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.

And that confess with your mouth piece is not about just saying words in a certain order.

That Lord term is a royal term.

So what it's saying here is if you believe he is who he said he is, and you make him king.

And here's the the point I've been trying to make this whole morning.

If you believe who he says he is, he is who he says he is, then what other choice do you have but to make him king?

To surrender everything to one who surrendered his life for you, to receive eternal life.

This isn't about earning God's love.

This isn't about trying to achieve some level of holiness.

This is about saying, I can't do that on my own, God.

I need you.

And so then when you do that, you become adopted into the family of God.

And when your world gets turned upside down, you can fix your eyes on Jesus.

You can trust who he is, you can listen to what he says, and you can follow him, knowing that the God of resurrection is making all things new.

And if you realize that you need to make that decision for the first time today, there'll be people down here, I'll be down front.

Please come talk to us.

We'd love to guide you through that decision.

Maybe you need prayer.

Maybe you walked in here this morning, and I'd be willing to bet that there's someone in this room just behind how God orchestrated Mark's talk time being on the same topic and this sermon being on this topic.

I would almost promise you that there's somebody in this room who you woke up this morning, your life is currently upside down and everything's fallen out.

And if that's you, don't do it alone.

You have a family here.

Come, let us pray for you.

Let us walk alongside you.

Rest in the God who's making all things new.

Will you pray with me?

Father, we thank you so much for your word this morning and the opportunity to gather here.

God, we confess that we can react in so many various ways when things don't go according to plan.

That God, we can try to control our lives or we can try to just run away from it.

And Lord, I pray that we wouldn't do any of that this morning.

God, I pray that we would see you clearly through your word.

I pray that we would trust you.

And that trust would lead to living a life surrendered to your authority.

Even when it hurts, even when it doesn't make sense, and that we could set our face on the coming glory when you come back, Jesus, when you make all things right.

And it gives us strength to put one foot in front of another today.

Father, I pray for courage and openness to respond, ask for prayer, whatever you might be putting on our hearts, Lord.

We know that we should respond, that we are encouraged, we are commanded to respond when your word is preached.

And so, Father, whatever that looks like, whether it be worshiping, whether it be sharing, whether it be confessing, Lord, I pray that we would all do that in this moment.

Father, we love you, and we praise you, and pray these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Stand together, please.