My Personal God Stories

Last Sunday, we finished a series that we had actually been in for about six, seven weeks called Lessons from the Garden.

We were going through the entirety of that first story that we have in Scripture, the story of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden.

Even if you haven't grown up in church, you know that story.

And that's what we usually do.

Our typical approach in a series that we're doing as a church is to open up scripture and read it and say, what is it saying?

What is this teaching?

That's the normal approach.

And so we've gone through several entire books of Scripture.

I like to teach not just with the Bible, but but from the Bible, not because I worship a book.

I don't.

I worship God.

But as best as I can observe what's happening in the world around me and even see God's hand in it, observation is often the best I can do apart from the revelation that is scripture.

And so I don't just want to, I don't want to settle for observation when I can have revelation.

And so we love to open up scripture and dive into it.

We're going to do that.

We're going to look at a lot of scripture over the next few weeks as well, but we're actually doing something a little different.

We're starting a series today called Stories.

And I'm so excited about this.

It's something we've actually put a lot of work and time into.

We're going to spend the next few weeks learning some of the stories of people here at His hands.

And the way that God has acted in their lives, the way that God has shown up in their lives and made himself known.

We say a lot that God loves you.

That's something you'll hear us say over and over again.

And the truth is, he does.

There is no love in this world like the love of God.

There just isn't.

You can search for the closest kind of like friendship love you can find.

I've got some friends that I truly love.

I love them, but my love for them, their love for me, it's nothing like the love that God has for us.

You know, you can find romantic love and you can look someone in the eyes.

And you know, music can play in the back of your mind, and you can say, I love you, and they can say I love you back, and it feels so good when that happens.

And that love is awesome, but it is not the love that God has for us.

There's nothing like that love.

And we know that because something we talk about again, most of the time, the people in this world who love us tend to love us out of ignorance.

They love us because of how little they actually know about us, right?

You know, obviously some love us because they know us really well, but you know, a lot of times in life, we love things we know very little about, and then we learn more about it.

We're like, I don't love it as much anymore.

That's why we work really hard when we're in a new romantic relationship to like, you know, only let the person know what we want them to know.

But just think about the fact that God knows everything about you.

Everything.

You can hide nothing from him.

And he loves you completely and totally.

There's no ignorance in him, he sees it all.

And looking at you exactly as you are, he says, I love you.

We talk about that a lot.

But but how do we how do we know he loves us?

How do we experience the proof of that?

Because if someone really loves you, then they prove it, right?

They they do things, they back that up.

It's not just a sentiment that's communicated, it's it's something that you feel.

I heard a pastor talking about this a while back and asking the question how does God prove his love to us?

It's a question I'd never really thought about before.

One of the ways that we often feel like God proves his love for us is by helping us avoid difficult situations, right?

Maybe we're going through something hard or someone that we love is going through something difficult, and we pray, Lord, like rescue me.

Please help me not experience this.

And if God gets us out of it, he loves us.

And that happens.

Sometimes God rescues us and just saves us from a situation.

But even if he saves us from a situation, we all know that there's another situation that we're gonna be in one day.

It's unavoidable.

So God intervening and keeping you from experiencing discomfort is not the primary way that he proves his love for you.

The primary way that God proves his love for you is to give you a greater, fuller understanding of who he is.

What I mean by it's when God shows himself to you and he reveals himself to you, which oftentimes happens in trials and in struggles, when God reveals himself to you in a way that he never has before, and you see him more clearly than you've ever seen him before, and you know him more intimately than you've ever known him before, those are the moments where God proves his love for you.

Because there's nothing that changes your life.

There is nothing that will change your life, like a more clear understanding of the God who made you.

And so these things happen to us in life.

We have these experiences.

They become stories.

Stories that we can tell.

And they're the stories of the times that God showed up and showed us who he really is and proved to us that he really loves us.

And in this room right now, there's there's a lot of stories.

And so we're gonna spend the next few weeks looking at some of these stories because stories are powerful.

I love uh Luke chapter 9, or rather John chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention John 9 · chapter mention

There's this man who was healed by Jesus, he's blind, and it creates this huge commotion.

Because the people who you think would be the most excited about someone being healed, the people who are the most passionate about God, were actually angry because the way this healing went down wasn't the way that they thought it should go.

It's pretty natural though to criticize God and how he does things.

That's that's something all of us have done at some point in time, right?

Like, hey God, yeah, cool that you did that, but I really would have rather you had done it like earlier or you know in a different way.

That's basically what they're doing to Jesus all the time, the Pharisees, the religious leaders.

So he heals this man, and they bring him in for questioning a couple of times.

They bring in his parents, and they're asking him all these theological questions, like trying to get him to explain how all this happened because it sort of fried their brains.

And eventually it gets to this point in John chapter 9, verse 24, it says, For the second time they called in the man who had been blind, and they told him, God should get the glory for this, because we know this man Jesus is a sinner.

John 9:24

And he says, in response, I don't know whether he's a sinner.

And basically he's saying, I really can't answer all these questions that you keep throwing at me.

I don't have the answers.

But I know this.

I was blind, and now I see.

I've heard it said that a person with a story, a person with an experience is not at the mercy of a person with an argument.

Because when you experience God, and your story and God become intertwined in a way that is truly inseparable, your faith is just strong.

It holds up to all kinds of scrutiny.

Our stories are powerful.

Revelation chapter 12 says, Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, it has come at last, salvation and power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown to the earth.

The one who accuses them before our God day and night, and they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and the power of their testimony.

We defeat our accuser, our enemy, Satan, by the blood of Jesus, his sacrifice for us, and the covering that it gives us.

Every single mistake, every single thought, every single failure, past, present, future, completely and totally forgiven by that one act of Jesus on the cross.

But it's not just Jesus on the cross.

I mean, it should stop there, right?

Like, hey, how is Satan defeated by the power of the cross?

And we would all, those of us who have followed Jesus for a long time and maybe grown up in church and know the right cues, we would go, Amen.

Like Herb would say, Amen for sure.

Right?

Those of you who've been here a while, you know Herb, he's my amen guy.

Like we would say amen.

But it doesn't stop there.

It doesn't say it's just the power of Jesus and what he did.

It says that our enemy is defeated by a combination of things: the power of the blood of Jesus on the cross and the power of our stories.

And so that was not Herb.

I love it.

So we're gonna spend a few weeks examining some stories, and I actually want to give you a quick 20-second preview of a story that we're gonna share next week.

Um, and actually, I didn't mean to incorporate this, but it is actually Herb's story.

Herb's on our worship team.

If you don't know Herb, he's awesome.

Here's a little quick preview of Herb's story.

It's the thing, it's something about suffering that that changes us.

Something about suffering that makes us understand God better sometimes.

So I'm I'm just gonna be my own, I'm gonna be.

So next week you're gonna get to see Herb tell Herb's story, and if you know Herb, he has a lot of stories.

And sometimes you, if you have a chance to sit down with Herb, you'll hear him tell a story about something God's done in his life, and you kind of go, like, really?

That happened?

And Herb will look in the eye like, yes, that happened to me.

And he's a gift and a blessing, and so we're gonna get to hear Herb's story next week, so be here for that.

Today, though, is like a crisis for me.

Because when we decided to do this series and tell stories, someone on our team said, Well, then you need to tell yours the first Sunday.

And I was like, Well, no, I don't I don't want to do that.

You know?

And it's not because it's I'm afraid to share.

Those of you who know me well, know I'm not afraid to share anything.

I am an open book to a degree that I shouldn't be.

I went to bed every night until I was in the eighth grade, and I don't care if all of you know that.

I just did.

Okay?

One day it stopped.

I don't know why.

My self-confidence has not taken a hit at all after telling you that.

I'm fine.

I am an open book to the point where my wife, I've actually learned, thank God I've learned this, but sometimes I'll want to tell a story on a Sunday and I'll go, maybe I should ask Megan first.

And just so you know, she has kept you from hearing some great stories.

I want you guys to know that.

So, you know, you know, hey, I mean, clap, I guess, but she's like, I'd rather you not.

She's a good filter for me.

I'm not afraid of sharing anything.

It's just that I don't think I have a great story.

Can anyone relate to that, by the way?

You're like, my story, it's just not video worthy.

Only a few of us.

How about you like, no, no, you guys need to film my story.

You need to know my story.

How many of you are in that boat?

How many of you hate raising your hands prompted in a large audience, and you just don't want to?

Okay.

And if you really hate it, you're not raising your hand now.

So I just, I don't, I don't feel like I have that good of a story.

Is my story actually worth telling?

And so I I kind of process that for a little bit.

And then, in processing it, praying about it, which is always kind of a simultaneous thing for me, I kind of pray and think at the same time and say, God, just share whatever you want to share with me.

God started to remind me of all these stories, these moments in my life where he has shown up and it's undeniable.

And I after thinking about all of those, I was sort of like, God, I'm sorry.

Because for me to say I don't really have a story worth sharing is basically to say, God, all these times you've shown up in my life, they're just not good enough.

And that's not true at all.

And I wasn't really thinking that, I just didn't have that perspective.

And I believe that all of us have these kinds of stories.

And those of you who are young, if if you continue to follow Jesus in your life and you trust him, and more often than not, when in a tough situation, no matter how difficult it is, you just choose to do what you know God would call you to do, you will have so many stories.

And so while I don't have necessarily like a gigantic story that's gonna make anybody go, what?

That's crazy.

I I do have a life filled with God's stories, with moments.

And so I'm gonna share those with you today.

And I've never done this before, it's very different.

So if you're here for the first time, you're like a guinea pig.

I've never done a message like this.

Um I I love watching like ESPN and Sports Center and things like that, and they very often do this thing where they'll have like all the topics on the side of the screen so that you can like know what's coming up.

So we're gonna try that.

So I've got eight stories that I wanna share.

Short, don't look at the clock.

It's we're fine.

We're all gonna be fine.

We'll be out by lunch, I promise.

I was gonna be 10 stories.

And then Megan, my amazing wife, on the way here this morning, was like, ten?

Really?

And I was like, yeah.

And she's like, you should take a couple of those away.

So I did.

I did, because I've learned, I've grown.

So here's the ten stories: The Criminal, the Surrender, The Month, The Gig, The Dream, The Healing, The Daughter, and the Mortgage.

These are the eight stories, and these are eight moments in my life.

Everything I'm gonna say is true, you're just gonna have to trust me.

Nothing is embellished, but these are eight moments in my life where God showed up.

And these are stories that for me, they're the power of my testimony.

That God is real, that he is active, that he is alive, that he is powerful, that he provides for us, that he gives us everything we need, and he loves us deeply.

And here's the thing: he is no respecter of persons.

He loves every single one of us the same.

And there is nothing that he has done in my life that he would not do for you a thousand times over.

So let's start with the criminal.

When I was in the third, fourth grade, it was the summer between those two, we moved to a new house.

And we hadn't gone to church growing up.

We never really went.

My mom grew up as the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher in really small town Missouri, and it was the kind of experience where Sunday didn't match Monday through Saturday.

And so by the time she graduated high school, she left and said, I don't want to have anything to do with that anymore.

I know my mom truly loved God.

She's always loved God, but she just didn't have a desire for church.

And so I grew up as a kid and never really went to church.

I remember a few times when I was young, I remember having to wear dress pants.

That's my memory.

Like, I hated the pants.

That's the only thing I thought about church was church equals stupid pants.

And so a few times I put on stupid pants and I went to church, and I hated it.

It was boring and just it was it was awful.

And so we go to this new house in between the summer of third and fourth grade, and it was crazy because growing up we were really poor.

We lived in a duplex, and then we had a double wide trailer, and then a rental house, and then this really, really small house, but my dad got this huge promotion.

And so we moved to a house, and it had five acres, and it had a swimming pool.

Because my dad had just been blessed tremendously, big, big, big promotion with his company, and our lives changed.

And so that summer was the summer that I was gonna swim and I was gonna run and explore all this land that we had, and it was five acres surrounded by hundreds of acres of nothing, and it was just gonna be amazing.

And then our dumb neighbor invited us to church.

And my parents said yes.

That's how I felt.

My parents said yes.

And so, all my like, no, Sunday mornings, that's like sleep in.

And I put the pants on, and I hated the pants.

And it was a church that you had to wear the pants.

And so we started going to church.

And after two or three weeks, I found that I just really loved it.

And all these stories that I heard about Jesus, I think I was the perfect age to just believe them without question.

Like I kind of believed in superheroes, right?

So hearing these stories about Jesus healing people and walking on water, nothing in me went like what?

I was like, what?

He yeah, and he I can know him, and so I I gave my life to Jesus really fast because this neighbor invited us to church.

But here's the crazy part a short time after this, this neighbor got arrested for some pretty serious crimes and spent 20 years in prison.

20 years.

And so I I can't tell you what he looks like because I never really saw him.

But he's the one I owe my salvation to.

If a criminal had not invited me to church, if a criminal had not invited my family to church, I wouldn't know Jesus.

And so I have like literally an eternal debt to this person who obviously had some major stuff wrong in their life.

That story always reminds me that none of us are disqualified from being used by God.

None of us.

Sometimes our enemy likes to tell us that, hey, because of this in your life, because of this issue, because of this struggle, because of this in your past, you're just not useful.

You you don't get to be one of the ones that God uses.

That is a lie.

Because I am not just a pastor today, I am a follower of Jesus today because a criminal invited me to church.

I love that story.

That's the criminal.

See, these are gonna be quick.

The surrender.

This one, this one's super personal, and it's amazing because the worship team focused so much on surrender today, and you'd think that we planned all this out.

We we did not, we do not, I promise you.

I had no idea Heidi was gonna talk about that.

They had no idea I was gonna talk about this.

It's just cool how the Holy Spirit weaves things together.

When I was in high school, my parents sent me to a Christian school halfway through my sophomore year because they did not like the group of kids that I was friends with, and they had every right to be concerned.

You know, sometimes there's those moments in life where your parents do something, and years later you look back and go, like, what were you guys doing?

You were so silly, and then there's other moments, and these actually happen more often than I'd like them to, where you look back and you're like, Oh, my parents knew exactly what they were doing.

Because I was I was friends with a group of people, and it was not the kind of group that you would want your teenage son to be around.

Bad things were happening, most of which they didn't know about.

And so the little they did, they were like, we're gonna change things up.

And they sent me to this Christian school, and I loved Jesus and I was excited about it, that was fine.

What I wasn't prepared for was God messing with me.

Because I was kind of at this point in life where I loved Jesus, but I also loved other things that did not fit my love for Jesus.

There were things in my life, specifically the way I conducted romantic relationships.

It just wasn't, it wasn't godly, it wasn't good.

But I enjoyed it.

And so, you know, I was good at that point as a 16-year-old boy.

I was pretty good at like, I love Jesus on Sundays, and I love him a lot.

And then I have my my time to do my thing, and then on Sundays I feel guilty and I pray, and then I do the whole thing over again.

Right?

That's that's just what I did.

But I go to this Christian school, and now I don't just get to wait till Sunday, because they would have a mid-week kind of gathering, and now on Wednesday I have to confront these things.

And we had Bible class, and now like Monday's too, it's like too much.

It was just all week long.

I'm being facetious, but but honestly, there was this one specific Wednesday, our school called it chapel, and it was about surrender.

And God showed me in that moment at 16 years old that I had not given all of my life to him.

He loved me, and and I was I was in a relationship with him, like he'd say, Me, I kind of look at it this way, like, I think about my life like a house sometimes.

You know, when you invite people to your house, they don't always have access to all of the house.

Like you clean up part of the house and they're fine to be here, but if they start walking down a hallway, you're like, oh no, no, no, no.

No, let's come come back this way.

Don't open that door.

That's how I was with Jesus.

I had invited Jesus in, he was in the living room, I'd said, hey, make yourself comfortable here, don't go in that door.

And specifically, that door was it was dating, it was girls.

I did it my way and I liked it.

And I didn't want Jesus to mess with it, but that day he did.

And he called me that day to surrender everything, to open every door, to let him in, to not be ashamed or embarrassed by how messy or how messed up it might be.

And I opened that door for the very first time, and I surrendered all of myself to him.

And I felt like in that moment I was giving up so much.

I did, I felt like in that moment I'm giving up this part of my life that I enjoy.

And here's what's crazy is in that same room, at that same moment, unbeknownst to me, it was my wife.

So here I am, surrendering my relationships to God, thinking I'm I'm losing something.

But trusting God with it.

And a few rows behind me is this girl that I didn't really know, and she was praying to.

But in the very room that I'm giving something up for God is the person He's gonna give me that gets to me my best friend and my partner for life.

When you surrender to God, you don't give up anything.

If God ever calls you to let something go, you are not losing anything.

We have to be people who live open-handed.

Because if we live like this, grabbing a hold of everything, where's God gonna put more?

It's like you're not ready to receive anything.

But when we surrender and we open up our lives to God, we are at a place where we can receive.

And God gave me more that day than I surrendered a thousandfold.

So surrender to God.

The month.

September 2005 was the worst slash best month of my life.

Megan and I had had recently gotten married.

We've been married about four or five months at this point in time.

We were we were both full time college students.

I had convinced Megan's dad to let me marry her, even though I was not done with college, she was not done with college.

I worked at Chili's, and I convinced him that I could make it work.

I even gave him a budget.

That I have no idea how he didn't just wad it up, laugh, and throw it in my face.

But I even wrote as like, here, look at my budget.

I I can provide.

I wanted to be married to Megan so bad.

And so he said, sure, go for it.

He didn't really say that.

That'd be really uh he was he was more it was weightier than that.

He didn't go, I don't care, marry her.

He didn't say that.

But he said, okay.

I think he was just happy that I had a plan.

And so we get married and we we worked at this restaurant.

We're full-time college students, but our passion was actually our church.

We had been serving as the volunteer youth people for like two years at this point in time.

We loved it.

We were with the junior high students every single Sunday, and I really thought that's where I was gonna be.

And to be honest, the the leaders at the church had given us some pretty strong hints.

They hadn't given us a contract, but they had said over and over again, man, we we really think this is where you guys are gonna be.

They didn't have a full-time youth pastor, and I wanted to do that, and they had made it very clear that they really saw us as that.

And so I was still in college, but I really wasn't even paying attention to anything other than like clearly I'm going to be the youth pastor here and get to do what I love to do, which is just tell people about Jesus and invest in people for Jesus.

I'm gonna get to do that here.

And then September of 2005, Kansas City, Missouri, is where we lived, it all fell apart.

And literally, in like a weekend, that opportunity was gone.

And it became clear that it really was never an opportunity in the first place, and I kind of felt lied to, and I felt like I had sort of had this carrot dangled in front of me that didn't exist to kind of keep me motivated, and it just, it just the whole thing was it was devastating.

It was so disappointing.

To the point that I, for about a year, gave up on the idea of working at a church ever.

I was like, I just don't want to do that because it was a really negative experience.

And then a year and a half later, a guy calls me on the phone, and he's the one who had invested me in college and helped me see Jesus in a way I hadn't before, and he's like, Hey, what are you doing?

I said I was working at this business, and he said, What happened to ministry?

And I was like, Yeah, I kind of had this negative experience.

And he hit me between the eyes.

He actually spoke here a few months ago.

His name's Will Goodwin, awesome guy.

And Will hit me between the eyes and he said, Man, so what?

You had a bad experience.

That happens, that's life.

Did God tell you to do this with your life or not?

And I was like, Yeah.

He's like, Well, then you have to do it.

In fact, I know a church, he said, that is actually looking for someone to work with their youth right now.

It's in Atlanta, Georgia.

You need to call them.

And he gave me the number here.

And Doug Bennell, I called you, and we had a conversation.

I was so nervous.

And then I came down, interviewed all that.

Here's what here's the crazy thing.

I call this story the month.

It wasn't until after I moved down here, this was 2007, and I kind of started to learn the history of the church, and I found out that this church had started in September of 2005.

The exact same month that everything for me up in Kansas City with the church I was at and thought I was gonna be at forever fell apart.

So while I'm up in Kansas City thinking that everything's crashing down, unbeknownst to me, actually everything's just getting started.

Because this church has changed my life.

And I don't just mean because I work here.

This is the place where God really showed his love to me in a way I'd never experienced before.

Those of you who know me well know that I carried an addiction into my life when I first started working here.

It was an addiction, I it was an addiction to pornography, and I kept it secret for my whole life because that's what church taught me to do keep everything secret.

And this place gave me the courage to actually say, hey, I need help.

And through that process and the courage and the counseling, I got help.

And I know that's that's awkward to share, but I'm again, I share anything unless my wife tells me not to.

Um that happened in this one month.

I thought the worst thing in my life had happened, and actually the best thing in my life was just getting started.

That's a reminder, guys, that when it seems like everything is at the lowest point it can be, you have no idea what God is doing.

You have no idea what he's up to.

And behind the scenes, he might be preparing the greatest blessing that you have ever experienced in your life.

Just stick with him, keep your faith in him, and watch what he does.

So that's the month.

There you go.

Oh, okay.

The gig.

This is like one of my favorites, and if you know me well, you've heard this story so many times.

I actually know a lot of you are gonna have have heard some of these stories too many times, but I don't think anyone's heard all of them, so I'm excited about that.

So uh fast forward 2009.

Megan and I don't have children yet, so we have free time, which we haven't had since 2009.

But at the time, I was working here, I was the youth pastor, but I had this like side thing going on that I really enjoyed.

I had started to write just sports articles online.

I love basketball, you probably didn't know that about me, and specifically I loved college basketball.

More specifically, huge Duke basketball fan.

And so, those of you in the room who hate Duke, go ahead, boo at me now, get it out of the way, go for it.

Oh, a couple of you.

That's fine.

Um so I'm writing, I'm doing this sports journalism thing, and I find out that that year, 2009, the ACC tournament, which is the conference that Duke is in, is in Atlanta, Georgia.

Almost always it's in North Carolina.

That year it was in Atlanta, and I was like, I'm gonna go.

And so I look at ticket prices and instantly go, I'm not going.

Because it was just way more expensive than I can afford.

And I was actually really bummed about it, like for a minute.

You know, it's one of those moments where you're like, ah, but then you get over it because who cares?

But that moment where I was down happened here at the building.

And Susan, who was one of our founding pastors, Susan and Steve, who started our church, she just happened me walking by and she's like, You okay?

I was like, Yeah, I'm fine.

I was like, I just got really excited about something, and then it kind of fell apart fast.

She's like, Well, what is it?

I was like, ah, well, the ACC tournament is here in Atlanta this year, and I was like, oh, maybe I could go.

I've never done that.

That would be a great experience, and it's just super expensive, and I I would have to pay hundreds of dollars just to go to one game, and I kind of wanted to see the whole thing, and that would just be insane.

And she's like, Well, why don't you pray about it?

And you know how you hate it when people tell you that sometimes?

Right?

Because like Susan was really wealthy, and she could have just been like, I'll pay for it.

And she didn't do that.

Instead, she's like, pray for it.

You know, I would have that would have made me excited.

So I did.

And I and it was one of those moments I thought it for a second, and she looked at me, and and again, this church changed my life because it taught me things about God.

I never really believed.

I understood it, I knew it intellectually, never hit my heart.

But she's like, God is your father and he loves you.

Ask him for tickets.

And so I prayed about it once, and it was like done over with.

Right?

It wasn't like I was on my knees day in and day out.

Like, Lord, please, if it's your will, give me tickets to this.

I just said, okay, fine, to appease Susan.

I was like, God, hook me up if you, you know, if you can.

Uh one of those prayers.

Maybe we should pray that more often, like kind of dare him, you know, like, hey, I don't know if you can or not.

He's like, What do you mean?

Jesus actually did that once with a guy, so that's that's a story.

Jesus heals this guy's son, and the guy says, you know, if you can.

And he's like, What do you mean if I can?

I'll heal him seven times.

Like, I should have done it.

So I pray that.

Okay, a month later, I get a phone call.

I got an email asking for my phone number, and I get this phone call, and it's from this guy who's really high up at a company called Bleach Report, and it's a it's a sports company that I was I was doing writing for at the time.

He said, Hey Justin, uh, we've never talked in person, but he said, I don't know if you know this, but you're actually our our most read ACC basketball writer.

And I was like, Oh, that's cool.

And he said, and CBS wants to contract our riders to cover the conference tournaments this year, and we want to know if you would do the ACC tournament.

And I was like, Well, what do you mean?

You know, and he's like, Well, you would have pressed passes, you would be CBS, and you'd be sitting press row at every game, and you would be able to interview all the players and coaches after the games, and you're there for the whole thing.

And, you know, he said that we it pays a little bit, not a lot, but it is in Atlanta, Georgia, and so we can't cover any travel expenses.

And I'm like, I I live here.

And so I had just like a few months before prayed, God, if you could, like, hook me up with a ticket.

A month and a half later, I am sitting press row with a badge on.

And I felt the whole time like I was gonna get kicked out.

Like, I felt like at any minute, someone's gonna walk up and be like, you don't belong here, and I'm like, yeah, it's true, and I just leave, you know.

But like, I'm sitting here like, it was crazy.

I I'm not just at the games, I'm I'm press row.

I don't any basketball fans here, like any college basketball fans at all?

You guys know who Dick Vital is?

Anyone know Dick Vital?

Anyone not care about this at all?

Indulge me anyway?

Okay.

So Dick Vital is an announcer, and he's famous.

He's like 185 years old, and he's been covering basketball since it was invented, and he just he's known for just these like really bombastic things.

He's like, it's awesome, baby.

He says things like that.

And so I'm walking, because I'm I'm the press, I'm CBS.

And Dick Vital's like a few feet away from me covering the game.

And so I just happen to have this moment where I'm on the phone with my little brother, and Dick Vitel's walking by, and because I'm someone who's not afraid to talk to anybody, I was like, hey, Mr.

Vitel, I'm so sorry.

My brother's a huge fan.

Could you say hi to him on the phone?

And he just goes, Give me the phone.

And he grabs it and he goes, You're awesome with a capital A and hands me the phone back.

And my brother is like, Was that Dick Vitel?

And I was like, Yeah, he's like, I hate you.

Um was awesome.

Here's the craziest part.

My team, Duke, was not the best team in the conference that year, but they ended up winning the whole tournament.

And I'm in their locker room.

As they're celebrating this championship, I'm in the locker room.

And I'm talking to the players.

And a month and a half before that, I was disappointed that I couldn't afford a ticket to the game.

So that's the gig.

And here's what that shows me.

You should pray a lot.

Okay?

And you should pray for all the stuff you want.

And you should, I'm just joking.

More importantly than that, not long after that, and I'll get to this story in a little bit, my firstborn son was born, and it was that same year, within a year of that.

And Liam had a lot of medical problems when he was born, and I was really scared.

And there was a moment where I was driving home from the hospital, leaving him there in the NICU, and I just didn't know if God was gonna come through.

And I had this moment because of that experience where God said, You don't think I care about your son?

If I care about a basketball game, how much more do I care about your son?

And it gave me a ton of peace.

So, you know what, guys?

Pray about everything in your life and be open to God blessing you in all the ways that he wants to.

Sometimes it's gonna be cool experiences like that, sometimes not, but always when God does something in your life, it's not just to bless you, it's also to teach you who he is.

He is your father and he loves you.

All right, that's the gig.

The dream.

Oh, this one was crazy.

I grew up in a church culture that wasn't like big on the whole like God spoke to me thing.

Like if someone ever said, Hey, God spoke to me last night, our church was like, you should never come back here.

That was kind of the church we weren't.

I'm just being honest, okay?

I'm being half facetious.

It probably wasn't really true, but it sort of felt that way.

And and I and I grew up in this culture, in this area, where there were a lot of churches that were big, they're kind of call it charismatic churches, that they were big on like the Holy Spirit speaking, and I'll just be honest, I had some experiences with some very odd people who would talk about how God had told them things, and it just felt weird and odd and like, I don't know, it just put this weird taste in my mouth.

And so I was kind of this person in my 20s, especially, who was like anyone who would come up to me and like, God spoke to me, or I had a dream, and God, and I would just instantly be like, weirdo, do not want to talk to you.

And then I had a dream.

And I I came to I came to the office, and to me, it was just a weird dream.

And I started sharing it with people in the office, with Susan and Steve and some other people.

We had a meeting that day, and I was like, I had the weirdest dream last night.

I was like, I was I came to the church, and Susan, you grabbed me and you pulled me on stage and said, You're playing guitar for us this morning.

And I was like, I don't know how to play guitar.

I can't.

And she's like, You're fine.

And so she hands me this guitar and says, just play, just start playing.

And I was like, Susan, you don't understand.

Like in the dream, I'm panicking.

I don't know how to do this.

I don't know music, I don't play, I don't, and she the whole time was like, You've got it, you're fine.

I remember being visibly frustrated in the dream that she was just like, it's fine.

I'm like, no, it's not, because all these people are gonna be here and I can't play guitar.

And I was like, isn't that a funny dream?

And Susan looked at me and said, What color was the guitar?

And I was like, it was blue.

She's like, huh.

Okay, move on.

She said, uh, just think about that dream for a little bit.

Remember that dream.

I said, okay, it's kind of an odd experience.

About three months later, I'm brought into the office to be told that I am now not just the youth pastor, I will be the children's pastor from here.

It was like great, because I had that assigned to me.

It was like, you're now also the children's pastor.

And I was like, I don't do children, like I do teens.

The little kids terrify me.

I didn't have kids yet.

I didn't know how to, there's these small humans who have all this energy and no filters, and I didn't know what to do with that.

And so I was like, no, no, no, no, no, hold on.

I don't we'd had a guy that was doing the kids' thing, but he was moving on, and they wanted me to take his place.

And and I'm sitting there fighting Susan, like, you don't know, you don't understand.

I don't know how to do this.

And she said, Does the guitar make more sense to you now?

Here's what was crazy.

The guy who had previously done our kids stuff, his name was Pendleton Brown, really great guy, love Pendleton, and he was known for playing a blue guitar.

He was known.

Like he actually played music and he had a blue guitar and it was literally like his thing.

And I hadn't connected the dots at all, but little did I know that when I told them that dream, they were already aware that he was gonna be moving on and trying to figure out who was gonna fill his spot, who was gonna do that.

And I come in being like, I had the weirdest dream, where I was playing a blue guitar and I didn't want to, and you were like, It's you good?

And that they literally that day they're like, Thank you, God, it's Justin.

And that was very inconvenient for me because now I was one of the weirdos who had had a God dream, right?

But honestly, God started to use that experience to chisel away at this hardness I had in my heart toward experiencing God doing supernatural things.

And I've had to get to this place in life where I have a comfort level with God doing supernatural things because he's a supernatural God.

And yes, there are people who take that stuff and and do it in weird, wacky ways that's off-putting, and it's it's be it's because it's because they're trying to use it to feel more important.

And that's never how God's gifts work.

If God gives you a gift to use, it's always to bless other people, it's never so you feel important.

But I had to I had to experience that for God to open my heart to experiencing more.

So I love the fact that I had that dream.

The healing.

Okay, here we go.

Now we're getting you're like, it's going from dreams to healings, what's going on?

God is amazing.

I mentioned to you my son.

When Liam was born, he was in the NICU for his first 10 days.

He had seizures, he couldn't breathe on his own.

It was really scary.

And I prayed like I had never prayed before in my life.

And the thing is, I had this moment with God in the hospital where I talk about surrendering.

I had, it's my firstborn child, and it's a boy, and I just had all these dreams of like, we're gonna play basketball in the front yard, in the driveway, we're gonna play baseball, we're gonna do all these things that I did as a kid, I'm gonna get to do it with this son, and because of the issues he was having, they were all central nervous system-related stuff, um, you know, the breathing, the brain stuff.

As time went on, they began to prepare us for the fact that he just may not have a normal life.

And I got to this really cool point with God where I said, Lord, I'm grateful that I have a son.

And if if he can't do those things, I'm fine with it.

But then this other part of me was still just hoping, right?

And so they ended up coming in and saying they wanted to run some tests on him because everything they kept ruling out, you know, little stuff, and it became more and more severe.

And finally they said, We're, and this was a super intense moment because even the countenance on the doctor's faces was different than it was before.

They were so convinced, they said, it's become clear to us that Liam probably has pretty major brain damage.

Because that would explain everything going on with his breathing and his seizures and all central nervous stuff.

And so we're gonna take him to do some tests, we're gonna have some brain scans done and that sort of thing.

And then we'll bring him back in a couple of hours and tell you the results.

And so they they wheeled him off in this cart.

And I broke down and I cried like I just because you know I'm a man, so we don't really cry ever.

Um, well, a lot of men do, I don't.

I fight it.

I didn't I wasn't allowed to cry as a kid, and eventually my tear ducts just dried up, and now I can't.

But that day they opened, and I cried and I cried out to God, and I just prayed with a level of desperation that I've never prayed with before or since.

And they brought him back, and they said, Hey, brain scans turned out fine.

So they were kind of frustrated because they want to figure out what's going on.

And I'm like, Thank you, Lord.

But here's the crazy thing.

Before that test, they didn't give him any medicine, there was no procedure done, it was just a scan.

Before that scan, he couldn't breathe on his own without having help.

His oxygen levels were super low, he was having seizures multiple times a day.

When they brought him back, he never had another seizure.

He never had another breathing episode.

Two days later, we were leaving the hospital because he was totally normal.

And they and they even then were like, hey, look, they gave us all this equipment he had to be hooked up to for the first six months of his life.

We had to basically carry a car battery everywhere we went, because we did, because it was hooked up to all kinds of stuff that were hooked up to him.

And they told us, you know, this kind of doing what doctors do, right?

Cautious optimism.

Like, hey, he seems to be better, but but look, we just want you guys to understand because of what he's experienced, because of how this has all happened, don't be surprised if he just he's not super coordinated, if he really struggles, you know, just even walking and some other things may be hard for him.

Like he may not be able to do a lot of the things other kids can do, and just be prepared for that, you know.

And I don't know if you've ever seen Lean play basketball, but he's fine.

Like he's fine.

And God did that.

Like God did that.

That was just a God thing.

It was amazing.

Two more super fast, super fast.

I'm glad Megan cut it to eight, not ten.

All right, we're good.

The daughter and the mortgage.

I was in uh the gym.

I don't look like a guy who goes to a gym, but I've been to it a few times.

And uh about five years ago, I was going to this gym across the street pretty regularly, and I happened to be listening to this audiobook about just hearing from the Lord.

And a friend of mine had recommended it to me, and it was definitely in that sort of like the weirdo camp, you know, where it's like, ah, this, all this stuff, I'm being facetious.

I really God speaks and he hears, but I grew up kind of resistant to that, so it was hard for me.

And I'm listening to this book about hearing from God, and I just said to him, as I'm working out, Lord, okay, you speak to people.

I believe that.

I read it in scripture all the time.

I've even heard you speak to me before, but it was talking about like God giving you something for someone else.

And I was like, hey God, okay, just you know, if you want to do that, do it.

And this guy walks by, and I hear the word as clear as day, daughter.

And then he goes into the locker room, and I was like, I do not want to go into the locker room and talk to this strange man who's about six foot four.

I don't think he's maybe that, so he's like six two, but he's a big dude.

I just like, mm-mm, got nope, I don't want to.

And I prayed, like, give me a word, and then I got a word, and I was like, I don't want to.

I didn't really mean it, Lord.

I was sort of just testing you, you passed, congratulations, move on, you know, cool.

But then it was really weird because all I heard was the word daughter, and then as clear, I'm guys, as clear as day, it was this single phrase.

He needs to know that his daughter loves him.

And I was like, crap.

I really don't want to talk to this guy.

But sometimes you're in a moment where you're like, if I don't do this, I will forever know that I didn't do something that I'm even if I'm wrong, I would rather stand before the Lord and be like, God, I'm sorry that I did that.

I thought you wanted me to.

I would rather say that to the Lord than say, I know you were telling me to, I just didn't want to.

And so I went into the locker room and I walk up to this man and I'm like, hey.

And he just looks at me like kind of oddly, and I'm just like, this is gonna be horrible.

And I was like, hey, I uh this is gonna sound weird, but you walked by me while we were working out, and I was I was praying, I believe in God, and I was praying, and he kind of nodded his head like what is about to happen, you know?

And I said, This may sound strange, I don't know if this means anything to you, but I think that God just wants you to know that your daughter loves you.

And he stops and tears well up in his eyes, and he said, I haven't talked to my daughter in six years.

And I just was like, Well, cool.

Uh so we we kind of prayed, and I was like, See you later.

And uh and here's the crazy thing.

He he actually comes to church here now, his name's Neil, he's awesome.

But that's Neil, I guess.

I don't know, Clap for Neil.

I don't know if it's Neil, I don't know if he's here today or not.

But you know what's amazing?

Is it's never happened to me since then.

Not one time.

It's like that's not a there's a phrase called word of knowledge that's actually talked about as like a spiritual gift where God will give that to people.

It's not something that I have because it's not about me having something.

It's just that in that moment, God loved Neil so much, and I was just there, and I just prayed, and God gave me something for Neil, and it really affected Neil in his life, and he's an awesome man, and that's how much God loves Neil.

That's how much.

He loves all of us.

It's never happened to it never happened to me before, then it's never happened to me since.

So you don't have to worry.

I'm not going to walk up to you after church today and be like, hey, God told me something to tell you.

Alright, it's not going to happen.

But it did happen that once, because God is supernatural.

He does amazing things, and it's all out of love for people.

Alright, last one, this is a cool one.

And we're done.

You guys have been super patient.

So we're in a really cool place as a church that our mortgage is paid off.

We we don't have a mortgage on our building, we own our building, and that's really cool, and that's an amazing story that would take a long time to tell.

But that wasn't the case several years ago.

And when I first started uh in this role, the lead role here, it took me about three, four months to kind of figure out how the finances worked, because I was never in charge of that before.

And it was all kind of different the way that Steve and Susan had purchased this building and set it up.

It was just, it was weird.

Well, about three months in, we were kind of turning some corners financially because that had been a struggle for us for a really long time.

And part of that, guys, is you know that if you're new here, we don't push people to give money.

Like, we have financial needs, we have to pay bills, but we've never been a church that just like hammers that, and we never will be.

And one of the results of being a church that doesn't hammer people to give is that some people just don't give, right?

Because they're not asked to and hammered to.

So that's okay though.

Because I would rather every person who gives here financially to give because you feel led to, compelled to by God.

It's between you and Him, not ever because you're pressured.

And we just figure out how to do things and make it work.

And so we were in that place, and things were starting to kind of get a little bit better.

And then I found out, with a month's notice, that our mortgage was going to increase by$16,000 a month.

And I had the conversation, like, well, can it be delayed?

Can that can we wait a few months so we can get kind of that figure out a budget for that?

Because we didn't have a spare 16 grand.

Does anyone here have a spare$16,000 a month?

If so, I'd like to know you and be your friend.

Um okay.

So, teasing.

So they were like, no, it has to start next month.

And I was like, what are we gonna do?

And I it was a crisis, an emergency, and our mortgage at the time was$4,000 a month, which is crazy low for a building like this, because again, the way that Steve and Susan had set it up, it was just unique.

But it was about to that was gonna go away and it was gonna be what it should have been.

And so$20,000 a month.

Exactly, not$19,937.

It's not like my mortgage payment at home that has like a weird number.

It was literally$20,000 to the penny.

And we didn't have it in the budget, and we didn't have a lot in savings, and I'm like, God, I don't know what we're gonna do.

So, month one of our$20,000 mortgage, I didn't announce this, didn't tell anyone about it.

I mean, a few very small number of people asked to pray about it, but we didn't, we were kind of formulating the plan, and it was actually kind of like a disaster plan.

It wasn't like how we're gonna do this, it's like how are we gonna survive?

And in month one, and this this doesn't happen here very often, but a person came to us and said, Hey, I just wanted to give an extra donation.

Um, had some really cool things happen, some things broke my way.

It was a business I think that had sold, and they hand us this check, and it's for$20,000.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Oh, wait, oh don't clap yet.

No, no, no, you're clapping way too early in this story.

Okay?

Month two.

We're like, thank you, Lord, that was awesome.

All right, let's still figure out how we're gonna make this work.

We get another check from someone, and we've not said a word of this to anybody.

$20,000, exactly.

Okay, so two first two months of our mortgage going to$20,000, we get$20,000 checks each month.

Month three, nothing.

It's like, thanks God.

Two months, that's all you could do.

Two, God of the universe, you know, come on.

Now I wasn't like that at all.

I was like grateful that we'd had two months, like, come on.

Month four, we get a check.

For$40,000.

Exactly.

It was almost like God was like, sorry I forgot last month.

Month five, guess what happened?

We got a check.

For how much do you think?

$20,000 to the penny.

Month six, our person that was in our office that kind of got all the mail and said, Hey Justin, we got a check in the mail.

And I said, Is it for$20,000?

And she's like, Yeah.

For the first six months that this crisis happened and our our mortgage jumped by$16,000, to the penny, every bit of it came in from people completely disconnected, that had no idea of the need.

God is real, he is powerful, he can do anything.

Right?

It's awesome, right?

Isn't that cool?

Some of us are like, why hasn't he done that for my mortgage?

And if it makes you feel better, he has not done that for mine.

So, but he got us through.

These are just eight stories from my life.

And I want you to hear this like, I'm a nobody.

I'm just like everybody, I'm I love Jesus.

I'm not, I'm not even that good at loving Jesus a lot of the time.

I've got all kinds of issues and struggles, all kinds of areas where I know God is like.

I mean, even my son's middle school basketball coach came today.

What's up, Dan?

And you remember when I got thrown out of that basketball game a few months back?

Sorry again.

I'm really sorry about that.

That ref was ridiculous, though.

I will tell you that story.

He was insane, it was crazy.

But, like, I'm not.

God is no respecter of persons.

But I will say this Psalm chapter 9, verse 1.

Psalms 9:1

I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart.

I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.

I will never stop talking about the things that God has done.

Because He is real, He is alive, He is powerful, there is nothing He can't do, and He loves us like crazy, so much so that He steps into our lives, and these stories, some of them are huge.

It's healings and it's it's you know thousands of dollars that we're needed.

And some of these might seem small, it's tickets to a game or it's the reconciliation between a daughter and a father in a moment at a gym.

But all of them are just God putting his fingerprints over people's lives because he loves them.

And so here's what we're gonna do for the next few weeks.

Yeah.

We're gonna celebrate all the cool things God does.

And each week we're gonna have a different God story, kind of a deep dive.

Next week we start with her, but we have different people, different families that were gonna show their stories.

Madison, by the way, our youth pastors done an amazing job of like digging all this up and doing the interviews.

It actually finishes with this is really cool, uh, a story where we got to interview the person who actually made the statues in the front of our building.

And so I there were elements of that story that I didn't even know because it was before me, and it's crazy.

And so we're gonna experience all these stories and all the things that God has done.

But here's the takeaway: your life is meant to be a story that is told to show people who God is.

And so as we go about this this month, I want to ask you to be aware and mindful of your story.

And we'll have some opportunities for you to share your stories.

But I want you to be aware and mindful that maybe, like maybe like me, you don't have a story that's like, whoa, this incredible this would make for a movie, but maybe like me, you have a lot of little moments where God has shown up.

And those moments are for you, but they're meant to be shared.

So be mindful of that and maybe be ready to think in a new way where God shows you, hey, I didn't just give you that story for you, I gave that story for you to share and help other people know Jesus.

Sound good?

I'm gonna pray.

We're gonna wrap up with a baptism.

Father, thank you for this day.

Lord, I talked longer than I probably should have.

But I'm so grateful that Megan cut the other two stories out.

Honestly, Lord, though, all jokes aside, I'm so grateful for you.

We love you so much.

And you are a God who is alive and real.

And I pray, Lord, that you use some of the stories I shared this morning to encourage everyone in this room.

Maybe, maybe it was only one story that really stuck out, but whatever it is, Lord, use it to inspire everybody here to know that you are alive, real, powerful, active, and you love us.

And you do, you do enter our stories.

You interact with us, you change things, you change our hearts, you heal us in all the ways we need it most.

You give us what we need.

You are our provider, you're our healer, you're our protector, you restore.

Most of all, Lord, you're our you're a lover.

You love us.

We thank you for that.

Lord, I just pray that you be with everybody here today.

Encourage them as they go about their week, help them be excited about what you're gonna do and excited about the stories that haven't even happened yet in their lives.

And I pray this in your name.

Amen.