No Unsolvable Problems

Before we jump into the meat of the message this morning, I just want to ask you to sort of go somewhere mentally with me.

And this might take you to a kind of heavy place, but what we're dealing with today is a heavy subject.

Have you ever been in a situation that you would describe as hopeless?

An absolutely hopeless situation where, from your perspective, there is no way out of this.

This is an unsolvable problem.

Now I'll share a light-hearted one as you're thinking about that, because you know, add some levity to it, because again, what we're talking about today is pretty heavy, but it's really good.

I'm gonna show you guys a picture of Megan and I when we got married, and the reason I'm showing you this is because we were children, and I want you to see this.

This is Megan and I on our wedding day.

Uh yes, 21 and 20 years old.

We were we were children, but we were even more children uh or more like children when we actually started dating.

So here's a couple pictures of that, and you're just gonna have to laugh at me here.

That's Megan and I when we started dating.

I know, I know.

Way out of my league.

I get it.

And here's one more.

This is us.

We were we were kids.

Okay?

Now, in that picture, I'm a senior in high school, Megan's a junior, and we were in love.

And it happened fast.

Like I was a senior, I had already decided where I was going to college, and I went to high school down here, but I decided to go to college in Kansas City, Missouri, and then I wanted a prom date, and Megan and I were friends, and I thought she was beautiful, and I had flirted heavy with her, and she had shut me down, and so I'd kind of like said, nah, don't have a chance, but we'd we'd become friends, and so I wanted to go to prom with someone, you know, going off to college, and I was like, I want to go with Megan.

And so I asked her as friends, and I'm just telling you guys, like it went from just friends to I've never been more in love with a human being in my whole life, and you're the one we're gonna get married, and no one can stop us.

It was like that in a matter of weeks.

And so we found ourselves in kind of a tough situation, is that we were very much in love and we were very focused early on, like we're we're gonna get married, like this is it.

But she was a year behind me in school, I was going to college a thousand miles away.

And now, as a father with a daughter, I'm able to stand in the shoes of my father-in-law a little bit better.

But at the time, he was, in my perspective, a six foot-five unsolvable problem.

Okay?

Lewis is a big dude.

Many of you know Lewis, he's a big part of his hands too.

Uh, but you know, as you can imagine, having your oldest daughter uh fall in love very quickly with a boy who's a year older and happens to be moving a thousand miles away and is talking with your daughter about you know, bringing her with him.

Not exactly your dream scenario as a dad.

And so Lewis was really supportive of us, very much so.

But also, you know, pretty quick to put the brakes on us a little bit, which I think was was necessary, but it kind of hit this head where I was already up in school, I'd had scholarships, I had college, a lot of it paid for, and so I needed to be there.

And Megan was applying to my college, and it was like, We're gonna we're gonna do this, we're gonna be apart for a year, but then we're gonna be together forever.

You know, it was like that.

And she calls me one day, and she's like, I she was kind of distraught, she was in tears, and she said, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to go to college with you.

And I'm like, Well, what?

Like, you're my love.

Like, what do you know we're in that mode?

And she's like, My dad told me today that unless God gives him undeniable proof that I'm supposed to go to college with you in Kansas City, Missouri, it's not happening.

And in the moment, in the moment, it felt like, well, that's it.

That's it.

Like in the moment, it felt like there's nothing we can do, this is an unsolvable problem.

Uh how are we gonna make this?

It was it was like devastating.

Now, you know how the story ends.

And we get married, and she got off.

I'll tell you the details of how that worked out a little bit later, but I just want us to understand that, like, in that moment, for me, even though it's not a big deal in retrospect, in the in the moment it was, it was like everything within me sort of came crashing down, and I felt like I'm in a hopeless situation.

This is an unsolvable problem.

And I know that many of us have been there, or you are there, or you know someone who is there, they're going through something right now that to them is it is as hopeless as it can be.

Maybe it's not you, and maybe no one in your orbit has that, and if that's the case, that's wonderful.

But I know that most of us are at least connected to someone right now.

If it's not us, it's someone close to us who is in a very difficult spot.

In fact, just in the last 24 hours, I've had a phone call with a dad whose son is in the hospital, a young son who's a third grader, had an emergency surgery yesterday, had a texting conversation with the gentleman this morning who's going through cancer.

I had another phone call this morning with a gentleman who's like, please pray for my dad.

He's he's looking like it's gonna be hospice soon.

And it's just everywhere around us are people going through really hard things.

Or maybe it's not even you and your personal circumstance, just the world.

Sometimes you look at the world and it's like this world is nuts, and there's there's apparently drones everywhere.

And you're like, you know, I don't know if you follow the news, but they're they're right now, probably.

You look at the world and the world just seems crazy and nuts, and the world maybe seems hopeless.

What we're gonna discover today as we explore scripture and we we open up God's word is that when it comes to God, there is no such thing as an unsolvable problem.

And there's no such thing as a hopeless situation.

From our perspective, they're everywhere, but from his perspective, they don't exist.

But he deals with them in interesting ways.

So, with that said, uh, a little context, we started a study back in February called Following Jesus.

We are going through the entire book of Matthew.

And we started that in February, and our plan and goal and commitment was to finish it before Christmas, and here we are.

We are uh today and next week away from being done with the entire book of Matthew.

And if you haven't been here, if you're new, it's okay.

Better late than never, and you can always catch up online if you want to listen to all of it, but every week is designed to stand on its own, so you'll get something out of it no matter what.

Last week we started our final little mini-series within the following Jesus study called Death Defeated.

Death Defeated.

And we're looking at the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus.

Last week was the death, next week would be his resurrection, and today we're focused on the burial, which is kind of odd to park there.

I mean, especially when you know the story of Jesus, you know how it ends, it's you kind of want to skip past the burial really fast because it's like it's a very, very temporary situation where Jesus is in the grave.

But if we could step into the mindset of those who are following Jesus, of his friends, his disciples, in that moment, in those hours between the cross and the resurrection, they found themselves in a place of hopelessness that would be very difficult for us to comprehend.

They don't know what's coming.

They don't know how the story ends, like we do, at least this particular story.

They find themselves facing an unsolvable problem: the loss of their friend, their leader, their messiah, the one that they thought was the Son of God, that they had seen do miracles and even raise the dead, and now he's dead.

And what does that mean with everything that he had promised and everything that they had committed to him?

They are in a hopeless situation.

So we're going to open up Matthew chapter 27 and start in verse 57.

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

It says that as evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea, who had become a follower of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body.

And Pilate issued an order to release it to him.

Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth.

He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock, and then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left.

Both Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting across from the tomb watching.

The next day on the Sabbath, the leading priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate.

They told him, Sir, we remember what the deceiver once said while he was still alive.

After three days I will raise from the dead.

So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day.

This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body, and then telling everyone that he was raised from the dead.

If that happens, we'll be worse off than we were at first.

And Pilate replied, Take guards and secure it the best you can.

So they sealed the tomb and posted guards to protect it.

John's gospel, I want to go here, it gives us just a few more details.

In chapter 19, verse 38, it says, Afterward, Joseph of Arimathea, who had been a secret disciple of Jesus because he feared the Jewish leaders, asked Pilate for permission to take down Jesus' body.

And when Pilate gave permission, Joseph came and took the body.

And with him came Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus at night.

If you know that story, John chapter 3, Nicodemus is a Pharisee.

John 3 · chapter mention

He meets with Jesus at night.

That's where we get the whole John 3.17, like or 3.3.16, all the classic chapters and verses in that conversation.

It's amazing.

So it says that Nicodemus was there too.

He brought about 75 pounds of perfume, of perfumed ointment made from myrrh and aloes.

Following Jewish burial custom, they wrapped Jesus' body with the spices in long sheets of linen cloth.

The place of crucifixion was near a garden where there was a new tomb never used before.

And so, because it was the day of preparation for the Jewish Passover, and since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

So some interesting details.

You have Nicodemus, this man who, again, John chapter 3, we have this conversation where Jesus says, You must be born again, right?

John 3 · chapter mention

That's where we get the whole God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son.

That's I would view the conversation Jesus has with Nicodemus in John 3 as maybe the most important conversation in human history.

We learn so much about God and who he is and his plan for us in that one conversation.

But Nicodemus, this Jewish leader, not just a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, which was this ruling council of Jewish elders, he apparently was at the very least open to following Jesus.

We don't ever have it clearly defined that he was a Jesus follower, but you get a glimpse here that it seems like he, at the end, at least is bold enough and brave enough to take a stand and support Jesus in this way.

So very likely Nicodemus is a follower of Jesus.

Joseph of Arimathea was another high-ranking official, another member of the Sanhedrin.

And it says that he was a secret follower of Jesus, that he had feared the Jewish leaders, but for whatever reason, seeing Jesus crucified, that fear goes away, and he's now willing to put himself out there and request the body of Jesus.

He puts it in his own tomb.

And they wrap Jesus in cloth with all these spices.

And honestly, the amount that they bring, it's what you would use for royalty.

I mean, Jesus has at least an honored burial.

It would be like someone having a really nice casket and being placed in a really nice cemetery.

And that's nice and comforting to a certain degree, but it doesn't really change the fact that Jesus is dead.

He's dead.

And with his death, in that moment, all the promises that he had made to his disciples, all those statements of hope and God's kingdom coming and what it would mean to be part of God's kingdom, those ideas would have seemed to have died as well.

The result is that his disciples are terrified.

They're terrified.

John chapter 20 says that that Sunday evening, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.

John 20 · chapter mention

This makes sense, right?

Jesus has been captured and he's been crucified and killed, and likely they're next.

You start with the leader, then you go down the line, and they want to try to squash this movement.

They want to crush it.

They don't want it to spread at all.

You can even see that in the fact that the Jewish leaders go to Pilate.

It actually says they go to Pilate on the Sabbath, which would have been against their own laws to do, but they were so against Jesus, they hated him so much, they were willing to break their own laws in order to ensure that his movement would be stopped for good.

And so they have a stone that's rolled there.

That's the way that they would seal tombs very especially nice tombs.

They have like a groove in the ground, and then a large stone would be rolled, and it would be secured in that groove, extremely heavy.

They place guards at the tomb because they want to make sure that like there's no shenanigans, nothing's gonna happen, no one's gonna be walking around saying that Jesus has raised from the dead.

That would be a nightmare situation for them.

So you have this time period where Jesus, he's he's dead.

And we could go into a whole other conversation about what happened while Jesus was dead.

And there's scriptures that give us some interesting ideas of the fact that Jesus was doing something in a spiritual level while he was dead.

That there's like it's a whole different conversation about afterlife and death and Hades and hell and what all these words really mean.

And that, again, that would be a different conversation, but one that we might actually need to film a little follow-up video to show.

We do that from time to time when we post it online.

So maybe we'll do that for this one.

But what I want to focus on for today is just the simple reality that for the disciples, for the followers of Jesus in this moment, everything is over.

He's dead, it's done, this is an unsolvable problem.

They are in a hopeless situation.

But obviously, we know that that's that's not really the case.

Because God just so happens to be like amazing at solving unsolvable problems.

Hopeless situations, if you're in a hopeless situation, you are in God's wheelhouse.

Like if you know someone that's in an absolutely devastating place, that's his specialty.

He's so good at that.

Like, have you ever met someone that has a really unique skill?

Like they're good at something that is like something almost no one is good at.

They just have a knack for something that is very specified.

Well, if God has like a lot of those, obviously he's God, he can do whatever he wants.

But if there's one that you want to say, hey, God is like, he's the guy for this.

Like he's the guy for this.

Oh, I'll give you an example.

There's a guy that goes here named Scott Jameson.

I'm gonna shout out Scott.

I did not ask Scott's permission to talk about him.

I don't know if Scott is here today.

Scott, are you here?

Sweet, he's not.

All right.

Maybe he is.

Scott's awesome.

So I was having this issue.

Scott is like a handyman, like he's awesome.

He can he can fix anything.

If you need something fixed, call Scott.

And maybe this gives him business that he doesn't want, and I'm sorry.

Um, unless he's too busy, and then he'll say no.

So I had this issue, and Scott, unfortunately, because I'm I'm friends with Scott, I will come to Scott very often and be like, hey, this is something going on at my house.

What do you suggest?

And it can be anything.

I had an issue with a toilet.

The toilet in my my boy's bathroom.

All three of my boys live upstairs, they all share a bathroom.

It is a biohazard.

It's it's just a terrible, terrible place.

And I spent an hour cleaning it the other day, just an hour just in that bathroom.

And I told my boys, if this ever happens again, you will be in a hopeless situation, and you will need the Lord.

Right?

That's basically what I told.

Um so a couple months back, we just had this issue with the toilet in my boy's room.

And I mean, it would get clogged, but then unclogged, and I was like, I was doing all the things.

The plunger, the the snakey thing that goes.

I mean, I was, and I think I'd have it fixed, and then all of a sudden it's not again, and it's driving me crazy.

And I don't know what to do.

And so I'm I'm like, all right, I'm calling Scott, because Scott knows his stuff.

So I call Scott and he goes, Oh man, yeah, there's probably some small object that's in there that's just sort of moving around but getting lodged.

It could be anything like a pencil.

And I'm like, a pencil.

Okay.

Uh so he tells me what to do.

I take the toilet off and I take it downstairs, I take it outside, I get a hose, uh, it was a great experience.

I I like wash the entire thing out.

And you know what pops out?

A pencil.

A pencil.

The one object that Scott said it might be.

And when he said that to me, I was like, how does it mean A, I wouldn't even think a pencil could flush, right?

Like just the they can.

Um he could have said anything.

A toy, uh no, he specifically said, Oh, it could be something like a pencil.

Never even heard of a pencil in a toilet.

But that's the thing that pops out of the toilet.

And I'm sitting there like, Scott is anointed.

He is, Scott has the the anointing of toilets.

If you have a toilet and it's a mystery, you go to Scott and he will say, I know exactly what it is.

And he'll tell you.

Blew my mind.

I called Scott, I was like, I sent him a picture of it, you know, holding it.

And then I was like, I should have washed my hands.

All right, it was a whole different thing.

Funniest part of that whole thing is I I showed I called my boys down, and I was like, hey guys, and I'm I'm holding the pencil, it's all washed out, and all it's all fine.

Um, they still use it today.

No, no, they don't, I'm just joking.

But I just want to see their reaction, and dude, my youngest, like, he gave it away.

He never fessed up to it, but you could just tell he was like, and I was like, How did this get in the toilet?

And he goes, I don't know.

Maybe someone accidentally dropped it.

Like he it was obviously, it was Eli.

It was Eli.

But Scott just had this knack for this one random thing.

He got it right, right?

Like some people have giftings to be able to fix all kinds of things in specific situations.

I know that's a silly analogy, but I guess what I'm trying to say is all jokes aside, and if you're in a truly hopeless situation, you need someone who's good at that.

You need someone who goes, hey, hopeless situations, unsolvable problems, that's my thing.

And that is that is God.

And it's all through scripture.

It's just countless stories of people going through unbelievable situations where there's no hope, and then God comes through.

And it's amazing what happens.

You can look at the story of Joseph, for example, in the Old Testament.

If you know the story of Joseph, you'll know what I'm talking about.

If not, it's an incredible story.

Toward the end of Genesis, you've got to read it because Joseph goes through it.

You know, he's he's a young brother in this big family.

He's the second to youngest in this family, and he's his father's favorite.

His father favors him unfairly, to be honest.

And his older brothers hate him, and so uh one day they take him, they kidnap him essentially, they put him in a deep well in the ground, and they sell him as a slave to Egypt and then convince their father that he was killed.

Because they're so over their father's adoration for their little brother.

And you might think that that's the low point of his life, being sold into slavery.

It's not.

He becomes a slave in Egypt to a household run by a man named Potiphar, and Potiphar happens to be a very high-ranking official in the Egyptian, uh, in the Egyptian government.

And God favors Joseph, and just like Joseph's dad favored him, Potiphar favored him, and so Joseph rises up to the rank of like the head of Potiphar's household.

Everything that Potiphar owns is under his care.

But Potiphar's wife develops feelings for Joseph and tries to essentially seduce Joseph, and Joseph resists her, and she doesn't like that.

She's offended and upset by his refusal to go along with what she wants, and so she accuses him of a crime and he's thrown in prison.

And you might think that's the low point of Joseph's life.

It's not.

Being sold as a slave, like completely cut off from his family, that's not the low point.

Getting thrown in prison, I don't even think was the low point.

Because again, in prison, just like what had happened with his father and with Potiphar, he's favored.

The warden of the prison is like, this guy's amazing.

He starts having Joseph essentially run the prison, and one day, these two high-ranking members of the Egyptian government get thrown in jail.

And one of them happens to be innocent, the other happens to be guilty, but Pharaoh doesn't know which one it is, so he just throws them both in jail.

While they're there, they have these dreams.

And Joseph interprets the dreams.

And one of those dreams belongs to a man who is the cup-bearer, basically the assistant to the Pharaoh.

And this is what Joseph says in Genesis chapter 40.

Genesis 40 · chapter mention

He explains the dream, he says, this is what the dream means.

The three branches that this man had dreamed about represent three days, and within three days, Pharaoh will lift you up and restore you to your position as chief cup-bearer.

And please remember me, and do me a favor when things go well for you.

Mention me to Pharaoh so he might let me out of this place, for I was kidnapped from my homeland, the land of the Hebrews, and now I'm here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it.

Joseph knows that what he says is going to come to pass, that this guy is going to hopefully remember him and say, Hey, Pharaoh, there's this guy, he's amazing, he interpreted my dream, he told me exactly what would happen.

We would have use for someone like that, and he can get out of prison.

And then we see in verse 23 Pharaoh's chief cupbearer, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.

And so Joseph stays in prison for two more years.

And that has to be, in my opinion, the low point of his life.

Because, you know, he's already been sold as a slave, and if that's not bad enough, now he's in prison, right?

These are all unsolvable problems, hopeless situations, but now he's in prison.

And what are the odds that this person would come to him in prison?

A person who actually has connections to get him out of prison, and that Joseph would have the ability to interpret this dream and share with this man what the Lord was trying to tell him, and it's accurate and true.

And the guy gets out and completely forgets about him.

And he's there for two full years.

And I can't imagine what those two years must have been like.

And how hopeless he must have felt.

But then, if you know the story, Pharaoh himself has a dream and it really troubles him.

And his cupbearer kind of goes, Oh man, I know a guy.

Probably should have mentioned this earlier.

But two years ago, and so you know the story that Pharaoh brings Joseph out of prison.

Joseph correctly interprets Pharaoh's dream.

It ends up rescuing Egypt and allows Egypt to actually rescue a lot of other people during this time of great famine, that actually ends up bringing his own brothers who sold him to slavery in Egypt to begin with, into Egypt to get supplies, because Egypt is the only place that has supplies, and they come face to face with Joseph.

And this is what he says.

It's amazing.

Genesis chapter 50, verse 19.

Genesis 50:19

Joseph replied, Do not be afraid of me.

Am I God that I can punish you?

Instead, and you intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.

He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.

Joseph says to his own brothers, What you intended for evil, God has used for good.

So Joseph experienced God solving an unsolvable problem and getting him out of a hopeless situation to such a degree that he wasn't even mad about it.

He wasn't even upset.

He didn't want revenge.

He was able to look at all that had happened to him and say, Hey, that was awesome.

That was a good thing.

Look how God used that to put me in this position that I would never have been in before.

That's what God can do.

You might be in the worst situation you can imagine, or you know someone in that situation, or maybe one day you'll find yourself in it.

And it's hard to imagine that not only can you get through it, not only could you survive it, but you actually might, through the power of God, get through it to such a degree that you would actually look back on it with gratitude and say that look what God did, look what God used, look where God has brought me.

I would never be where I am today had I not gone through that.

And what the enemy or what the world or what some person intended for evil or for harm, God has used for good, and I'm better off than before.

That's the kind of stuff that God does, and He can do it for each and every one of us.

But it doesn't take the sting out of going through it.

That's why this series is called Death Defeated.

It's not Death Avoided.

Because very often in life, at least for me, I don't so much want God to solve my problems.

I mean, yeah.

I would rather God just help me skip my problems.

That would be much better to me.

Right?

Like, I don't want to solving problems is great.

Not having problems is better.

Would anyone agree with me?

Yeah, like that'd be awesome.

Not to have anything going wrong.

Maybe one of the most famous scriptures that we have in all of all of God's word is Psalm 23.

It's very short.

It says, The Lord is my shepherd.

I have all that I need.

He lets me rest in green meadows.

He leads me beside peaceful streams.

He renews my strength.

He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you're close beside me.

Your rod and your staff protect me and comfort me.

You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies.

You honor me by anointing my head with oil.

My cup overflows with blessings.

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

There's a reason Psalm 23 is so classic.

It's amazing.

But my favorite part of Psalm 23 is like a perplexing part.

It says that in verse 3, he guides me along the right path.

He guides me.

He's guiding me along the right path.

And the very next verse says, When I'm in the darkest valley, or some translations you may be familiar with say, When I'm in the valley of the shadow of death, and you're like, hold on.

If God is leading my path, why am I in this valley?

We should have skipped the valley, rerouting, like we should have, traffic ahead, go this way.

Like there should have been something.

If God is, if he's the one directing my path, I should never be in the dark valley.

I should never be right in the valley of the shadow of death.

We should skip that.

But yet it says that God, he's guiding our path, and when we find ourselves in the darkest valley, he's right beside us.

There's something to that.

We all find ourselves in dark valleys.

We all find ourselves, or we will, in hopeless situations and in situations that to us seem like unsolvable problems.

And if we're honest, most of us would prefer just to skip those parts, but that's not the way God seems to do it.

He just doesn't do it that way.

He never has.

He didn't do it with Joseph.

Right?

Joseph just didn't go from being like his father's favorite son to Pharaoh's second in command.

He had to go through some really dark valleys.

But he got there.

And he got there, and like we said, looked back and was like, I'm not even mad that I went through that.

I'm not even saying I wish I I had avoided all of that, because look what God has done with it.

That's how God works.

God solves unsolvable problems constantly on grand scales, like in big giant macro levels and all the way down to the smallest details in our lives.

I mentioned earlier that whole story with with Megan and I.

You know, it's funny, I picked that college before we had even started dating.

And one of the first things that her father, and by the way, big disclaimer, I'm not complaining about her dad, and I'm not just saying that because he's probably in the room.

Um, I uh Lewis has been one of the best friends and a mentor in my life.

Lewis is amazing.

I'm grateful for him.

Um, and again, I have a daughter now, and she is absolutely not going a thousand miles away to follow some stupid boy to some stupid college.

I promise you that.

That'll never happen.

No, I understand.

But one of the things Lewis was concerned about is Megan was a really serious student, like very serious student.

And she didn't, and she had goals and she already knew what her career path was.

She wanted to do education, but to do it at a really high level.

And so he was absolutely not gonna let her lessen or or let go of some of her goals and dreams just because there's a boy.

She wasn't gonna let that happen.

So the funny thing is, what I did not know when I picked the college that I went to, because I wasn't interested in education at all, is that it just so happened, and again, this is before Megan and I were even dating, it just so happened to have one of like the top five education departments in the United States.

And so I found this out, and Megan found it out, and she's like, Dad, look, this college just so happens, and he was, you know, like, huh, okay, well, whatever, you know, what still not enough.

The words he used were undeniable proof.

Unless God gives me undeniable proof, it's not happening.

So Megan applied for some scholarships, like three or four of them, and she got one approved, she got another approved, she got another approved, and there was this huge one that they only selected a handful of students for, tons and tons of applicants.

And I remember the day I'll never forget where I was when she called me and she got the letter that she got it, which meant that her college was not only completely paid for, but there was actually like extra where she was essentially getting paid to go to the college.

And this will shock you to a father.

Free college happens to meet the criteria for undeniable proof that God is in something.

And so Lewis, a few months later, drove his oldest daughter to Kansas City, Missouri, and dropped her off with me.

And looked me in the eye, shook my hand, and again, six foot five, just to say, I look a lot taller on the stage.

I'm 5'9 and three-quarters.

I'm not even close to that.

Um he looked me in the eyes, and he he basically, I don't want to divulge that conversation, uh, but it's a conversation I will definitely have with a boy one day.

And it was one of those conversations that essentially lets you know, I love you, I love her more, I'm trusting you, do not make me regret it.

And I was like, yes, sir.

And we got married a few years later.

And so that went from being an unsolvable problem to this amazing thing that God did, and obviously not the same mistakes as Jesus in the grave or as Joseph in prison or anything like that.

But I'm glad that I went through that.

Because if it had just been easy, if it was just like we're in love, and my dad's so excited for us, and he's he's saying, No, go away to college, and here, I'll pay for it.

You know, if it had gone like that, great.

But going through the year apart that we went through and the uncertainty of whether or not we were going to be able to be together and the prayer and the trust, I remember praying on the phone with Megan late at night because back in 2002, night and weekend minutes, right?

You guys remember night and weekend minutes?

You had a cell phone, and for those of you who are younger, uh, when cell phones were new, they were like, hey, you can make phone calls uh during the daytime, but you get eight minutes a month of those phone calls.

And if you call too often, we'll charge you a thousand dollars.

Uh but past 7 p.m., talk as much as you want.

So all of our conversations were late.

And so uh I remember praying on the phone and us praying together, God, your will, not ours.

But please let your will be exactly what ours is.

Like that was the prayer.

But we prayed that, Lord, like we're not in control of this.

We need we recognize that this was out of our hands.

And I'm so glad that we went through that because frankly, like all of us, our marriage has been hard.

Any of us who have gone through a marriage or currently married, marriage is tough.

And we've had seasons in our marriage that weren't fun, that they weren't great, and it wasn't sunshine and rainbows and and all that kind of stuff.

And we had to ask ourselves some hard questions like, is this working?

Are we gonna make it?

And knowing at the forefront that God had done some pretty incredible things to bring us together, that knowledge and the growth that happened through that, I think, gave us a foundation that has allowed us to weather some storms that I don't think we could have weathered otherwise.

And so I'm glad that we went through that looking back because it made us stronger.

We may desire to avoid problems, but it's just not God's nature to do it that way.

I mean, he can, and sometimes he does.

But Joseph didn't get to skip slavery in prison before he became the leader of Egypt.

Jesus did not get to skip the grave before he was given all authority in heaven and on earth, and we'll explore that next Sunday.

He went through it, he didn't go around it.

And so I say all that to say that there are no unsolvable problems with God.

There's no unsolvable problem.

I I feel comfortable standing on this stage and telling you that that whatever you're going through, I don't care how serious, I do care, but I I don't, it doesn't matter how serious, how heavy, how bleak, how hard with God, you can go through anything.

There is no such thing as a hopeless situation, there is no such thing as an unsolvable problem.

But there may also not be a such thing as a skippable problem, right?

Like sometimes you just gotta go through it, but you go through it with him, and he's there beside you in that dark valley.

So cling to him, hold tight to him.

Because hopeless situations come for everybody.

And even if you do skip one, another one will pop up later, right?

Even if you do go, ooh, close call, it'll happen again.

You know, I like I said, I went through this medical thing last week, and so far it's like, oh, just even the doctor said, yeah, 60% of the time when this happens, we have no idea why.

And I'm like, then you guys need to go to school more.

Because, like, that's a high percentage of having no idea what happens 60% of the time.

What are we talking about?

But even like all the appointments that I went to, I'm sitting there with a lot of other people in waiting rooms, and they're probably having some of them having very different conversations with their doctors, and it's a good realization to go, you know, I may have may have skipped a hard thing today, but that doesn't mean that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, eventually, we'll all be in that situation where the doctor's like, yeah, it's not looking great.

That's life.

But with Jesus, even death is not an unsolvable problem.

Even the grave is not a hopeless situation.

And that's one of the reasons that the Apostle Paul, facing death himself, was able to write in 2 Corinthians 4 that we are pressed on every side by troubles, but we're not crushed.

We're perplexed, but we're not driven to despair.

We're hunted down, but we're never abandoned by God.

We get knocked down, but we're not destroyed.

Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in us.

That we go through it, but you know what?

We come out the other side of it.

And we're better and we're stronger and we're okay because we have a God that can solve any problem, and he can give us the strength to go through anything, even including death.

And that gives us reason to celebrate.

And so, with that said, we're gonna take Lord's Supper.

Um, if you miss this coming in, if you're new, by the way, we do this every Sunday.

Everyone's welcome to join with this.

There's cups at the back, um, there's a little bit, a little bit of bread and juice in it, so feel free to grab one if you miss that.

You're not gonna mess anything up by doing that.

Um, you know, this is a prime example of Jesus not skipping the hard stuff.

And I love the fact that we have a God, that we follow a God who tells us to endure even when it's hard, and he himself did the same thing.

Like it'd be hard to follow someone who tells us to do something that he didn't do.

Jesus didn't skip death, he didn't skip the hard stuff.

And this meal represents that.

This piece of bread represents his body, and the juice represents his blood, and this is Jesus giving his life, and as we discussed last week, in the most painful and agonizing way we could even imagine.

Humiliating, horrible.

But he didn't skip it, he didn't avoid death, he defeated death.

He went through it, and he proves to us that there is no such thing as an unsolvable problem in God's eyes, and there is no such thing as a hopeless situation.

So the next time that we're going through something harder, for it's right now, as we take this meal, let's remember that.

That we have a God who has defeated death itself.

He can defeat anything that comes against us.

So let's take the bread.

Jesus, we thank you for this bread.

We thank you for what it represents.

This is your body.

You were you were beaten, you were crucified, and you were killed.

But we know, and we'll get to celebrate next week, how the story ends, that the life that is inside of you, Jesus, is a life that is so powerful, it is so strong, that even death doesn't get the final say.

And we have you in our lives, just as we take this piece of bread into us, Lord, you've put your spirit into us, and that spirit is the same spirit that raised you from the dead.

Thank you for that, Lord.

Let's take the bread.

Lord, we thank you for this juice.

This is your blood poured out as an offering.

Cleanses us from sin.

But a reminder that you gave everything, that you bled for us, that you held nothing back.

And Lord, as we go through situations in life, for maybe we know people close to people who are going through situations in life that require everything, we pray that you would strengthen us and strengthen them to take heart and to not lose hope.

And to remember that with you there are no hopeless situations.

As we drink this and we remember your death, we know that it gives way to life.

And the same is true for all of us.

And we thank you for that, Lord.

Let's take the juice.