When I Feel Stuck

Did you hear me?

That's bad, huh?

What?

You would you?

Ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan?

And a woman?

I'm sorry.

I should have said please.

You know it's not safe for you to be alone out here.

Nor you.

Why haven't you come with others?

Why so late in the day?

Don't women come to the wells in the cool of the morning?

Yeah, well.

None of them will be seen with me, so I have to come out live in the heat.

You have so kindly reminded me.

Why won't they be seen with you?

Long story.

I'd still like a drink of water if you can spare it.

Amazing what a parched throat will do.

Aren't I unclean to you?

Won't you be defiled by this vessel?

Maybe some of my people say that about your women, but I don't.

Yeah?

And what do you say?

I say if you knew who I am, you'd be asking me for a drink.

Really?

And I would give you living water.

Would.

Except that you have nothing to draw water with, and this is a deep well.

Besides, what do you need from me if you have your own supply of living water?

Long story.

But Jewish water is better than Samaritan water.

That's not what I say.

Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob?

Who dug this well?

Your water is better than his?

I know, Jacob.

And everyone who drinks this water will thirst again.

But whoever drinks the water that I give him will never be thirsty again.

Wouldn't that be nice?

The water I give will become in a person a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

Really?

Yes, really.

Prove it.

First, go and call your husband and come back.

I will show you both.

I don't have a husband.

You are right.

You've had five husbands.

And the man you're living with now is not your husband.

I see.

You're a prophet.

You're here to preach at me.

No.

Usually the one good thing about coming here alone is I can escape being condemned.

I'm not here to condemn you.

I've made mistakes.

Too many.

But it's men like you who have made it impossible for me to do anything about it.

How?

Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain.

But you Jews insist Jerusalem is the only place for true worship.

They say that because the temple is there.

Exactly where we're not allowed.

I'm here to break those barriers.

And the time is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

So where am I supposed to go when I need God?

I've never received anything from God, but I couldn't thank him even if I did.

Anywhere.

God is spirit.

And the time is coming and is now here.

That it won't matter where you worship, but only that you do it in spirit and truth.

Heart and mind.

That is the kind of worshiper he's looking for.

It won't matter where you're from or what you've done.

Do you believe what I'm telling you?

Until the messiah comes and explains everything and sorts this mess out, including me.

I don't trust in anyone.

You're wrong.

When you say that you've never received anything from God.

This Messiah you speak of.

I am he.

The first one was named Ramin.

You were a woman of purity, who was excited to be married.

But he wasn't a good man.

He hurt you.

And it made you question marriage.

And even the practice of your faith.

The second was Farzal.

On your wedding night, his skin smelled like oranges.

And to this day, every time you pass by the oranges in the market, you feel guilty for leaving him.

Because he was the only truly godly man you've been with.

But you felt unworthy.

Why are you doing this?

I have not revealed myself to the public as the messiah.

You are the first.

It would be good if you believed me.

You picked the wrong person.

I came to Samaria just to meet you.

Do you think it's an accident that I'm I'm here in the middle of the day?

I am rejected by others.

I know.

Not by the Messiah does you know these things?

Because you are the Christ I'm going to tell everyone.

I was gonna take one spirit of the truth spirit of the truth.

You forgot your food.

What would you like?

Ah.

I have food to eat that you do not know about.

Who got you food?

So that clip is from uh a show called The Chosen.

Some of you are probably familiar with it.

Maybe you've never seen it before.

It's I think it's amazing.

Um so check it out if you haven't.

That specific story of this unnamed Samaritan woman, we often just call her the woman at the well.

It's amazing how of all the things that Jesus did in his life, all the moments that are so iconic, the miracles that he performed, the profound teachings, that story has for centuries stood out and just remained one of the most talked-about uh interactions of Jesus' life.

And in many ways it shouldn't be.

It's not really that big of a moment.

But I think it it's because it's one of those moments, and I think that comes across so well in what we just watched, where you see the divinity of Jesus, his power mix so perfectly with his humanity and his compassion.

And how much he understands us and how much he relates to us.

It just comes through in that story so well.

It's amazing what one encounter with Jesus can do in your life.

That woman, when she met Jesus, she was stuck.

She was stuck in this cycle that just repeated itself over and over again, some combination of loneliness and heartbreak, and then maybe a little bit of hope and excitement, poor decisions, hoping that this would turn out better than it did the last time, and ultimately disappointment, feelings of failure and shame, and then just rinse and repeat.

And she was so stuck before she encountered Jesus.

Have you ever been so stuck?

If this is your first Sunday, or maybe you haven't been here in a few weeks, we're having a conversation, a discussion about uh really deep emotions.

We're calling this conversation when I feel.

When I I feel.

A lot of times in life we find ourselves fighting negative feelings.

And most of the time they're very surface level.

In fact, one of the biggest problems we might have as a culture today is that we have a tendency to elevate very minor feelings and make them like a big deal and freak out and make other people try to think they're a big deal.

When in reality, we're just we're just frustrated.

We're just annoyed.

We're just offended.

We're bothered.

We're inconvenienced.

And if those are the emotions that you're you're fighting on a given day, a given moment, I'm bothered, I'm annoyed, I'm frustrated, I'm inconvenienced, then typically the answer really is just get over it.

Like just, you're not that important, just move on.

Be harder to offend, be less easily bothered, and you'll enjoy life a lot more.

That's usually kind of the solution to most of those things.

Just deal with it.

But then there are these deeper emotions, these deeper feelings.

And they're a whole other ball game.

They're sometimes so deep that we don't really even fully know that they're there.

We're not completely aware of them, but they're inescapable.

And they have this way of dictating most of what we experience in life.

And these emotions, these feelings, that are very often tied to deep wounds in our past and deep frustrations and regrets, all kinds of trauma, you name it, these either we deal with, like really deal with, or they deal with us.

And they sort of suck all the joy out of life.

And so a few weeks ago, we talked about emptiness.

And last week we talked about fear.

When I feel empty, when I feel afraid.

And today we're gonna talk about what we do when we feel stuck.

When we feel stuck.

And this will probably be like a conversation that really bleeds into next week because I think this is something that we all struggle with so easily.

And maybe today you're not stuck at all.

And that's awesome.

Maybe you know someone who is, and this is something you need to know so that you can help understand them, have more compassion for them, maybe help them, or maybe it's to prepare you for something else.

But I have a feeling that many of us will easily relate to this concept of just being stuck.

Usually it's some version of how did I get here and how do I get out?

How did things end up like this?

This is not where I thought I would be.

And then how do I move out of this?

I feel stuck.

There's so many different ways to get stuck.

It's easy to get stuck in life.

Sometimes we get stuck because of some deep disappointment, like we're trucking along, life is going in the way we think it ought to go, and boom, something happens, something big, and our expectations are completely and totally shot.

And it's like everything falls apart.

Maybe we didn't even see it coming.

And that massive disappointment, it's like we just get stuck, and we're stuck in regret, and we're stuck in grief.

It's like we're constantly mourning and we can't figure out how to move forward.

We see this happen in scripture.

For example, 1 Samuel chapter 16, Samuel is a prophet.

1 Samuel 16 · chapter mention

He's the prophet who found Saul, who was the first king of Israel, and ultimately he finds David as well.

But he really loves Saul and he had a lot of hopes for Saul.

Saul was his guy, and Saul did not work out, and when Saul did not work out, it devastated Samuel, and so God speaks to Samuel in 1 Samuel 16, 1, and he says, You have mourned long enough for Saul.

I've rejected him as king of Israel.

So go fill your flask with olive oil and go to Bethlehem.

Find a man named Jesse who lives there, for I have selected one of his sons to be my king.

It says that God had to pull Samuel out of mourning.

Sometimes we get so disappointed in life that we just sort of stay in that disappointment.

We're stuck in it.

And our entire experience in life is defined by something that's gone wrong.

We're stuck.

Sometimes it's not some giant disappointment, sometimes it's maybe more like the woman at the well, where it's just a series of frustrations and disappointments and letdowns, and we're stuck.

Can't figure out how to move forward.

Sometimes we get stuck in in pride.

Maybe we're really stubborn and we've decided that we're gonna go about something a certain way, we're gonna do this, and it hasn't worked out, but it's really hard for us to admit that it hasn't worked out, which makes it really hard for us to let it go and move on, and so we're sort of stuck in it because to let it go might mean admitting that we messed up.

Sometimes we get stuck in our sin.

We just get sort of comfortable doing things the way that we do them, and we know it's not the best, we know it's not even right, but it's just what we know.

And we might even say, I want to be done with this, I want to move on with it, but that's a terrifying idea on one hand because we're comfortable with it and we at least understand it, and so it's easier just to sort of sit in it.

We can always get stuck, and we can get stuck in relationships, and we can feel stuck in careers and jobs and situations, you name it.

My point is that as people, we are really good at getting stuck.

And we need help.

Now, I've seen people in this sort of mindset, I don't know a better way to describe it, other than just being being stuck.

I've seen the temptation to be sometimes to sort of stop.

Like you're stuck, you can't move forward, you're struggling, so you just kind of quit.

And you develop this sort of, what's the point?

What does it even matter?

And all the motivation for life just sort of drains away.

That happens sometimes.

Usually for a season, and then you sort of figure it out again.

But very often what happens when we feel stuck is we feel desperate.

Like it's despair.

How do I how do I get out of this?

I don't want to be stuck in this, and and sometimes people do really drastic things, really unwise things, but it's because they're desperate, and so they make a very rash, sudden decision, change everything in a really intense way, because at least they feel like they're free of what they were stuck in.

But in reality, it just creates a lot of collateral damage and it's ultimately self-destructive, and it doesn't help.

Because this is the important thing to understand at the forefront of this idea of being stuck, is that it's not what's happening around us that really makes us stuck, it's what's happening within us.

And so changing all of the external things in our lives, it might feel good for a minute, it might alleve the desperate feeling, but it doesn't actually change things because we're stuck.

It's us.

I have a bunch of children.

I guess it's an accomplishment, but I was at a birthday party yesterday with uh with one of my kids and had to bring the little brother, the youngest, along, and there's all these kids.

And you know, if you've ever been in an environment as a parent, and not all of us are parents, but many of us are, or that was a stage in your life, and and you had young kids, and you go to these events where you don't know anyone, and you just end up having the same conversation like ten times, like a different parent, you're just near them while you're getting your kid a slice of cake or whatever, and you just have the same conversation.

Oh, wait, I'm so-and-so's dad.

Oh, and they always lie to you.

They're like, my kid talks all the time about your kid.

And it's like they probably don't, but then you feel like I get to say, oh yeah, what's your kid's name?

And they say it's like I've never heard that name once in my house.

And so you can't say that, because that's like, yeah, no, my son doesn't even know your child exists.

Um, you just go, oh yeah, I've yeah.

Your kid, he's special.

Um, and so you have these conversations, but for me, there's always like, I don't know what it is, I have four kids.

Is that crazy?

I don't think it is.

It's pretty normal, but some people respond when you tell them that you have four, like it's an unheard of number.

Like I said, 14.

And so what usually happens in these conversations is people will say, now are these your only two?

And I'm like, no, I have two more.

Like, you have four?

I'm like, yeah.

And I have these sort of, I'm kind of a cheesy person, so I have token answers.

And my token answer is always, we wanted three, we just we overshot.

That's like my my token answer.

And it it just happened.

We had four kids.

And they make my life amazing and miserable at the same time, all the time.

It's amazing.

It really is, no, honestly, it's amazing.

But they're they're all like unique and different, and they all have these things that they do that keep us on our toes in different ways.

And so yesterday I'm I'm watching my youngest Eli, who's four, like a hawk, because Eli, he is just, he has no sense of danger at all, which is terrifying as a parent.

He just has no sense.

He does things all the time that are crazy dangerous, like daredevil level dangerous.

And so I think I've told this story once before, but about a year ago, I I come out in our backyard and I hear this very simple phrase, and it's help, I stuck.

Help, I stuck.

And he was three at the time, and I couldn't see him anywhere.

And so I'm I'm listening again.

Help, I stuck.

And finally, I my my brain recognizes oh, that's that's coming from up somewhere.

And I look up, and he is, I'm not exaggerating at all, I promise.

You could come to my house and I'll point to you exactly where he was.

He's about 25 feet high in a pine tree.

And this pine tree is at the top of like this embankment that goes up.

And so, in reality, like he's 35 feet off the ground, and he's just up there and going, help.

I stuck.

Right?

And I mean, it was one of those moments where inside it's just extreme panic, but then also you shift into this sort of adrenaline-fueled, gotta figure this out.

How do we get him down?

I started to climb up the tree, but its branches were way too uh, just they weren't strong enough to hold my weight.

And I realized I can't get very high up this.

And he looked at me and just this is really, he looked at me, he said, Do you want me to jump?

And I'm like, No, like, no.

I applaud the bravery, but he's like, I'll just jump.

No, don't do that.

And so we were able to like talk him down and sort of say, Hey, put this foot here, the whole time we're just praying, and and he got down.

And after the panic and the relief, after all that subsided, I started figuring out how do I keep this from happening again?

Because his response when he all got down was like, I'm a good climber.

That's what he said to us.

Yes, you are.

And I thought to myself, well, maybe if I cut the branches off the bottom of the tree, then he couldn't do that again.

Like if he couldn't reach the first branch, he couldn't get up.

But I start looking around, and we have so many trees in our backyard, there's no way I can cut the branches off all the trees.

And I realized the problem isn't the branches, the problem isn't the yard, the problem is him.

He

He's the issue.

And he's like that.

He gets stuck all the time.

He climbs shelves and he'll just yell, I can't get down because he's climbed to the very top of some shelf in our house.

He once got stuck in a couch.

I'm not lying or exaggerating.

He yelled for help and he had wedged himself.

You know, like when you when you that's I don't know how to describe it, but that like alternate dimension that's in your couch, and if you put your hand in it, you're like, how is it this deep?

And you pull things out of it that seem like a magic trick, you're like, oh, there's that thing.

There's like a shoe in there.

How is that in there?

He had wedged himself in that part of the couch.

His entire bodies were only one of his legs.

And we hear this muffled like scream for help.

That's my kid.

I raised him.

It's my jeans.

It's insane.

He gets stuck in t-shirts because he has a giant head.

His head is massive.

No t-shirt fits him.

Tank tops are awesome.

Summer's great, tank tops, but sweaters, like it's about to be winter in a few months, and it's gonna be a nightmare because he's gonna cry every time we take his sweaters off.

Which is is what it is.

Big head.

Actually, the first thing that the doctor who delivered him said during delivery was that's the biggest head I've ever delivered.

Which is not what you want to hear.

That's fine.

But Eli gets stuck.

And, you know, it's it's funny because I think all of us, it's one of my, all of us are like that in different ways.

I think one of the great things about being a parent is it reminds me a lot about what being a child is like.

And we have a tendency to get stuck all the time.

In fact, Jesus speaks to this.

Matthew chapter 12, Jesus is stirring things up.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

He is he's challenging the deeply held beliefs of the people that he often spoke to, and they're getting really offended.

This is just like a normal day for Jesus.

But it happens to be uh the Sabbath.

And they had this very specific idea of the Sabbath and what was okay and what wasn't, and it had become this very burdensome, rules-based experience, and it wasn't the day off to spend time with your family, to enjoy life, and to honor God that God had envisioned.

And so Matthew chapter 12 begins by saying, at about that time, Jesus was walking through some grain fields on the Sabbath.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

His disciples were hungry.

So they began breaking off some herds of some heads of grain and eating them, but some Pharisees saw them do it and protested, look, your disciples are breaking the law by harvesting grain on the Sabbath.

Like they were literally just picking it off, they're saying you're harvesting.

It's a little extreme.

And so Jesus said to them, Haven't you read in the scriptures what David did when he and his companions were hungry?

He's referencing a very old story.

He went to the house of God and he and his companions broke the law by eating the sacred loaves of bread that only the priests were allowed to eat.

And haven't you read in the law of Moses that the priest on duty in the temple may work on the Sabbath?

I tell you, there is one here who is even greater than the temple.

But you would not have condemned my innocent disciples if you knew the meaning of this scripture.

I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.

For the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath.

And then Jesus went over to their synagogue, like he hasn't offended them enough.

He's like, let me add to this.

Where he noticed a man with a deformed hand.

And the Pharisees asked Jesus, Does the law permit a person to work by healing on the Sabbath?

They were hoping he would say yes, so they could bring charges against him.

And he answered, If you had a sheep that fell into a well on the Sabbath, wouldn't you work to pull it out?

Of course you would.

And how much more valuable is a person than a sheep?

Yes, the law permits a person to do good on the Sabbath.

And then he said to the man, Hold out your hand.

So the man held out his hand and it was restored, just like the other one.

Then the Pharisees called a meeting to plot how to kill Jesus.

Jesus says, Look, if you had a sheep and it got stuck in a well, no matter what day it was, no matter what the circumstances were, wouldn't you do anything you could to get the sheep unstuck?

And I haven't really grown up around sheep.

And so to me that seems like kind of a silly scenario.

Like a sheep getting stuck in a well.

Turns out, extremely plausible.

Sheep get stuck all the time.

In fact, I want to just play a quick video for you guys.

You kind of see this for yourself because it's amazing.

And so here's a here's a shepherd, modern day pulling a sheep that's been stuck in a ditch.

It's not two colors, that's the mud.

Okay?

It had to be incredibly hard work to get it out.

And then that's that's what happens.

Here's another shepherd, and this sheep is stuck in a crevice.

Okay?

It's sad, right?

You're all sad for the sheep.

And so this young shepherd's working really hard to save the sheep, and he's free.

And look at the joy.

He leaps for joy.

Right.

Now here's what I want to know.

How many of us painfully relate to those videos?

Where it's like, Jesus calls us sheep very often.

He does.

We're often referenced in Scripture as sheep.

And I don't like that reference.

But the second of those videos I saw a year ago, and it was like a mini-life crisis for me because I was like, that's me.

How many times in life have I been stuck in some thought process?

I've been stuck in some struggle, and something happens and it's like, yes, freedom, and then right back where I was.

We get stuck.

But Jesus, he has this way of helping every person that he encounters get unstuck.

No matter what the situation is.

We see it over and over again in Scripture.

Luke chapter 5.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

It says, in one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy.

And when the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed.

Lord, he said, if you're willing, you can heal me and make me clean.

And Jesus reached out and touched him.

I am willing, he said, be healed.

And instantly the leprosy was gone.

It disappeared.

This man was stuck for years in a disease.

And one encounter with Jesus, he's not stuck anymore.

In Luke chapter 19, Jesus entered Jericho.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

He made his way through the town.

There was a man there named Zacchaeus.

He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich.

He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd.

I won't ask how many of us can relate to that.

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

And when Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name.

Zacchaeus, he said, Quick, come down, I must be a guest in your home today.

Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy.

But the people were displeased.

He's gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner, they grumbled.

Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord.

If I've cheated people on their taxes, I'll give them back four times as much.

And Jesus responded, Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.

For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.

And we might say, in this context, the Son of Man came for the sheep who are stuck.

Zacchaeus was stuck in his greed.

He was stuck in his corruption until he met Jesus.

And he wasn't stuck anymore.

In Luke chapter 5, verses 18 through 25, it says some men carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat came to Jesus.

Luke 5:18–25

They tried to take him inside to him, but they couldn't reach him because of the crowd.

So they went up to the roof and they took off some of the tiles.

Then they lowered the sick man on his mat down into the crowd, right in front of Jesus.

Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, Young man, your sins are forgiven.

But the Pharisees and teachers of religious law said to themselves, Who does he think he is?

That's blasphemy.

Only God can forgive sins.

Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, Why do you question this in your hearts?

Is it easier to say your sins are forgiven, or stand up and walk?

So I'll prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.

Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, Stand up, pick up your mat and go home.

And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat, and went home praising God.

This man was stuck.

Literally stuck, paralyzed, until he met Jesus.

But notice in this that Jesus doesn't begin with his body, he begins in his heart.

He says, Your sins are forgiven.

He starts internal.

He knows that this man has all kinds of stuff that's wrapped up inside of him.

And he's stuck in more than just a disability.

But after meeting Jesus, he isn't stuck anymore.

We watched that video of the woman at the well, and she was stuck in the consequences of her own decisions and her trauma and her hurt.

But after she met Jesus, she wasn't stuck anymore.

Jesus came to help the sheep who were stuck.

In Matthew chapter 9, it says that when Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

Jesus saw people and he saw them like sheep without a shepherd.

And he had compassion on them.

And he spent his entire time on this earth in his ministry going from person to person, place to place, and whatever people were stuck in, he pulled them out of it, as long as they were willing to let him.

He never forced that.

He doesn't force his way on us.

But if we're willing, and we take him by the hand, he pulls us out of whatever it is that we're stuck in.

So with that in mind, I I just would love for all of us to consider, to think, and reflect internally.

Am I stuck in something?

What am I stuck in?

I've been stuck in so many things I couldn't even begin to describe them.

I've had addictions that I've been stuck in.

I've had just mentalities and thought patterns that I get stuck in, and it's like I keep going over and over again in my mind, and it's affected my closest relationships in life.

I have sort of patterns of behavior that I just feel stuck in.

Like, how have I done this again?

I swore I would never do this again.

And I here I am doing it again.

Like that sheep, like that stupid sheep jumping in the crevice.

That's me.

And sometimes when I realize that's the place I'm in, I'm really hard on myself.

I don't know if you can relate to this or not, but I'm really hard on myself.

And the things that I think about myself and say to myself, they're not kind.

But you know what encourages me is there's not one time that Jesus walked up to someone in Scripture who was stuck where he said to them, Look at you.

How pathetic.

Again, again.

Seriously.

There's not one time that Jesus added a little bit of shame, a little bit of guilt.

There's not one time Jesus walked up to someone and said, It's your fault.

In fact, I think one of the most powerful things about Jesus is how unbothered he seems to be by people's stuckness.

That's not a word, but just go with it.

He's not.

Like we often feel so afraid of what Jesus might say if he walked right up to us in our worst moments.

But we should never feel afraid of that because we actually see Jesus do that all the time to people in Scripture, all the time.

And sometimes people are stuck in religion, sometimes it's really obvious sin that's just bad.

And never once does Jesus pile on, never once does Jesus in any way, shape, or form add shame, guilt, or even blame.

But he always says, I'm willing.

He always says, you're forgiven.

He always says, let me help you.

Because Jesus is a good shepherd.

And he came to help the stuck sheep.

So if you're stuck, good news.

And I mean this, one encounter with Jesus can pull you out of anything.

And if you have someone you love and they are stuck, and you know it, they are stuck in their ways, they are stuck in their mess, they are stuck in whatever they're in, and you don't know what to do, you can try, you can help them, and look, do whatever God puts on your heart.

But know this that what they ultimately need, what all of us ultimately need is one encounter with Jesus.

He's it.

I mean, we can take scripture and we can pull out lots of really practical truths.

And I enjoy doing that.

It's one of my favorite things to do is to notice, oh, look at this.

In fact, next week we're going to talk a little bit about some of the things we can do practically in the meantime.

When we're stuck and we haven't had an experience with Jesus yet that's like gotten us there, we're waiting for that.

We'd love for that to happen.

We maybe even have prayed for that.

But what now, we'll talk about the what now in the meantime.

What do we do?

But I would be a liar if I if I stood up here and told you that if you're truly stuck, there's some simple little tweak that you can make in your life that will completely pull you out of it.

There's certain things that only Jesus can do.

But he's so good at it.

And sometimes our biggest challenge as people is just to have the courage to be like a four-year-old kid on like a 20-foot tall, uh, 25-foot-tall, that was a hard thing to say.

Tree.

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

But to have the courage to say, help, I'm stuck.

And so I'm serious.

Have you cried out to God, help, I'm stuck?

Like, have you just let him know that?

Not that he'd be surprised.

But if you're stuck in anything, if anything is holding you back, disappointment, frustration, fear, addiction, sin, you name it, regret, shame, guilt, whatever you're stuck in, I'm telling you, Jesus loves you.

You know, I love that clip that we watched, the actor who plays Jesus.

I'm just gonna be honest with you.

Um, I get tears in my eyes every time I watch that show.

It's a bit of a problem.

Like I have to be in a certain mindset to watch it.

Anytime Jesus is on screen, I think the guy does a really good job portraying Jesus.

As someone who loves Jesus, that's how I feel.

And in that scene, isn't it cool how like compassionate he came across?

How tender.

Like, you think that actor even compares to how loving and kind and merciful and compassionate the real Jesus is?

I mean, he's a guy who's just trying his best to act like that.

I have a firm belief that if we could look Jesus in the eyes, what we would see looking back at us would be a level of compassion and love that we have never in our lives even come close to experiencing.

That we would see someone look at us and truly see us and truly understand us and love us in a way that we couldn't even put into words.

The only times in my life that I have had what I would call like a genuine encounter with the Lord.

I'm not talking about a thought that popped in my mind.

I'm not talking about something that I read in scripture that was like, oh, that's so cool.

I mean moments where he has spoken to me in a way that is so personal that I wouldn't care how many people laughed at me and told me I'm crazy.

I know, I know, I know that it was my God speaking to me every time that's ever happened.

He has said something to me that has lifted me out, that has lifted me up.

And I have experienced a kind of love that there's just no comparison for on this earth.

I'm trying to just drill this in.

Even in our church where we talk so much about the love of God, that none of us have experienced the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his love.

I'm just saying that if you're stuck in anything, he's the one who can get you unstuck.

But have you cried out and said, Help, I'm stuck?

Help.

If you need him, he's there.

I mean, like, on one hand, this is kind of easy for me because I'm trying to like write a check that he has to cash.

Because I can't get you unstuck.

Please don't.

Like, like, come to me.

You look, I love you guys.

Any person that walks up to me any Sunday, I will do my best to help you out.

But ultimately, ultimately, my job is just like Jesus.

And I'll I'll do everything I can to help walk you to him.

But I'm not, I can't fix your problems.

Oh my goodness.

If you saw my life, the problems I have, there's a reason that I moved 45 minutes north.

It's just better for me as a pastor to not bump into people if they go to me, I'm just joking, not really.

Um, I just I'm stuck in stuff all the time.

All the time.

But I'm okay with it.

I mean that.

We'll wrap up.

I'm I'm getting to a point in life where I'm just like, I'm okay with the fact that I'm like that sheep that falls in the in the crevice.

Because I have a good shepherd.

And I'm I'm hopefully like getting stuck in different crevices now, right?

Like I used to get stuck in that one over there, now I'm playing around over here.

Just different crevice, same sheep.

No matter where you are or who you are, no matter what you do, no matter how you mess up, we have a good shepherd.

And I just want to encourage you to cry out to him.

Like that's the whole of this message.

To become a master at yelling for help.

Not to do something drastic to try to create the change externally, not to not to quit, not to stop because you're stuck and discouraged and just give up, but to just become really good at yelling for help.

And yelling to him for help.

Like, Jesus, help, I'm stuck.

And I believe in my heart that He will answer you.

That He will give you what you need, that He will give you an encounter with Him that changes things, or He will remind you of an encounter maybe you've already had that will do the same.

Does this make sense?

Okay.

Sometimes it's hard to read a room.

But I'm I'm I'm just saying that maybe life would be really, really good if all of us had the courage and humility to be like, I'm that sheep.

But he's that shepherd.

Alright, let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for everything you do for us.

I thank you, Lord, that when we get stuck, you don't you don't shame us, you don't pile on with guilt, you don't even judge us or condemn us when everyone else does.

Even if the things they say are true, you don't.

You love us, you help us, and you gently pull us out of whatever hole we're stuck in.

And Lord, I'm asking right now that for all of us in this room, for everyone watching, that we would be people who have the courage to admit that we are sheep in need of a shepherd, that we don't have it all figured out, we don't have all the answers, we don't know often what's even going on in our own heart, in our own mind, but we really, really need your help.

I know for some of us, Lord, this is hitting home, maybe even a little bit too on the nose.

And I pray that if there's anyone in this room that is so stuck right now that they're desperate, that they would recognize that all we ultimately need to do is come to you, is cry out to you and trust that you will help us.

And for those of us, God, who are here today and who are like, yeah, you know what, I've been there, but not right now.

But Lord, I pray that you would bring to our minds right now someone we love who is stuck, that you would help us be aware of someone in our lives who is stuck, Lord, that we could be people who can help them just see Jesus, that we could be people, Lord, who could help them know that there is a good shepherd.

You call us sheep so often in scripture, but you never tell us that we're not supposed to be sheep.

You never tell us that we won't need a shepherd.

So, Lord, give us the courage to just say help.

Help, I stuck.

And we trust you to answer that.

We pray all this in your name of Jesus, amen.