What to Do When God's Plan Looks Like Failure | Exodus 4-6 | Blake Jenkins

Make disciples for his glory.

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Spring Valley Baptist Church exists to make disciples for the glory of God.

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Thanks for listening.

This morning, I'm going to give you the secret to be able to navigate one of the most difficult conversations that you will have one day.

One day, someone will come to you, they follow God, and their life is falling apart.

Things are spiraling out of control.

Things are unraveling, it seems.

And they're going to come to you because they know that you follow the Lord.

And they're going to say something like this.

I thought that following Jesus would make this better.

I thought that following Jesus would mean that all of this was going to be easy from here on out.

And in that moment when you are wrestling with what to say, hopefully you'll be able to go back to the truths that we will learn this morning from the book of Exodus.

And you'll be able to share with them from this part of God's word.

You'll be able to share with them what is true, even when it feels like God's plans are a failure.

And so as we turn to Exodus that Trudy read for us just a moment ago, would you join me as we pray?

Gracious Heavenly Father, as we come to your word this morning, I pray that you would give us eyes to see.

God, that you would give us ears to hear.

God, we pray that you would speak.

For we, your servants, are listening.

It's through Christ we pray.

Amen.

You're able to see from your listening outline this morning, we're going to be covering a lot of ground at a high level today.

We had Stephen Splon preach wonderfully for us last week.

The last part of Moses and talking with God at the burning bush.

A little bit of back and forth, a little bit of hesitation, a little bit of reluctance on his part, but Moses has agreed.

He's gone back home to his father-in-law Jethro and said, I need to take my family and we're headed back to Egypt.

The Lord has told me to go.

And Moses, he meets his brother Aaron.

Aaron comes out from Egypt, meets him there.

There's a reunion of sorts, and he gets ready to go and continue his journey on the way to the land of Egypt, where his people, God's people, have been enslaved for over 400 years.

And while he is on the way there, we have a bizarre and difficult situation, okay?

And I don't shy away from the difficult parts in the Bible, all right?

We're not going to spend a lot of time on it, but we're not going to shy away from it.

Moses is on his way back, they're lodging for the night, and God's word in Exodus chapter 4, it says that he, God, was coming to kill Moses.

Exodus 4 · chapter mention

What?

Like so much has been invested in this.

Why is this happening?

What is it that Moses has done?

Look at Exodus 4, 24 through 25.

At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met him and sought to put him to death.

But then his wife Sepporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.

Scholars debate about this passage, right?

That there is a lot of uncertainty about what this all means right here.

But there is a clear point here that Moses had neglected the covenant sign of circumcision.

And God would not let his messenger proceed in disobedience.

And so I need you to see a little bit of what's happening here and then translating it into our situation because y'all, the Bible is awesome, and God's word is wonderful for us.

So this is what you need to see of the picture of what's laid out for us, the pattern.

Moses is disobedient.

You can write this in with regards to circumcision.

God will punish disobedience, but another is obedient and applies the blood to the disobedient, and God forgives.

Does that sound like anything else that you know of in God's word?

Write that in.

We are disobedient to God.

We sin and fall short of the glory of God.

And God will punish disobedience, but another, Jesus is obedient and applies the blood there at the cross to the disobedient.

And God forgives.

Every story points forward and finds its culmination and fullness in God the Son.

And even here in the strange and bizarre passages of the Old Testament, we're able to see how it points forward to our coming redemption in Christ.

And so Moses, he is now covered by the blood.

Aaron joins him, and he is remembering some, probably, of what God has told him in Exodus chapter 4, verse 21.

Exodus 4:21

He's holding on to these words.

Listen to these words of what God told Moses to go and do.

Exodus 4 21.

And the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power.

But look at this.

But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

More on this in coming weeks, but for now, what we're able to see is that God tells Moses to go and do something, but it will have the opposite effect.

Go and tell Pharaoh to let my people go, and I'm going to harden his heart.

And he is not going to let the people go.

And so Moses, he goes, and the road has been a little bumpy on the way back to Egypt, but he finally gets back to Egypt.

And he sees the elders, he sees the people gathered together, and they go and they share what God has told to them.

And God's word says that they believe.

They believe.

Look at Exodus 4.31.

And the people believed.

And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.

Finally.

Finally, God has heard us.

God has seen our affliction and he has come and he is visiting us.

He is going to act on our behalf.

And so they are falling to their faces and they are worshiping God.

This is the end of Exodus 4.

Then we get to Exodus 5.

And there we're going to see Moses and Aaron, they come before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

And Pharaoh, he has propped himself up as a little g God.

Moses, in coming back, you know, it's a homecoming of sorts.

He's going back to a place that he hasn't been to in 40 years.

He is coming back to a place that he was on the run from because he had murdered a man.

And that had reached the ears of Pharaoh, the Pharaoh before this one.

Because we know that Pharaoh from 40 years ago, God's word tells us in Exodus 2, has now died and another has come.

And it's ironic when you have these gods that dying don't come back.

But Pharaoh, a different Pharaoh, he props himself up.

He is the ruler, he is the king.

And he sees Moses and Aaron come before him.

And Pharaoh has got a God complex.

This was their society, this was their religion.

There's a historian, Henry Frankfurt, in his book Ancient Egyptian Religion, he writes that the Egyptians believed Pharaoh wasn't just a king, he was a god, the creator's own descendant.

And so he's thinking a little bit more highly of himself than he ought.

And so there are these two ragtag shepherd-looking guys coming before him, and Moses and Aaron come and say, Let my people go.

And Pharaoh, he replies in chapter 5, verse 2, with ignorance, condescension, and rebellion.

Verse 2, but Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord?

And remember, whenever you see all caps, Lord, that's the covenant name of God, Yahweh.

Who is Yahweh?

That I should obey his voice and let Israel go.

I do not know Yahweh, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.

So Moses and Aaron, they reiterate the mandate, but Pharaoh thinks, okay, they're coming and asking to be able to go on a little spiritual retreat.

They've got too much time.

Idleness, twiddling their thumbs.

Okay, all right.

You have some extra time and you want to go away to be able to worship?

All right.

That means you have more to do.

You can do more than you're doing right now.

Okay, so you all make bricks for the nation of Egypt.

You're the brickmakers.

That's what you do in your slave labor.

And you need mud and straw to be able to make these bricks.

And we have provided the mud and we have provided the straw up until this point so that you can make the bricks.

Well, you know what?

We're gonna cut off the straw supply.

You're now gonna go and gather your own straw so that you can make the bricks for us, and there's gonna be no drop-off in the expectation of the number of bricks you are to produce.

All right, we need you to make bricks without us giving you any straw.

And it's at this point that the Israelite foremen, so the people that were in charge of this brick-making work, they start to see and they start to we're not meeting quota.

We're not keeping up with the expectations and the demands of those who are over us.

They start getting beaten, and then in the face of that persecution, in the face of that difficulty, we see some different responses to persecution, okay?

The first response that we see is that of the Hebrew foreman, and their response is they're gonna cry out to Pharaoh.

They're gonna cry out to Pharaoh.

Look at chapter 5, verse 15.

Then the foreman of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, why do you treat your servants like this?

It's interesting right here.

Their first reaction is not to cry out to the Lord, but to cry out to the earthly leader, the fake God.

And what did they go after?

And what do they do after the fake God doesn't care about them and doesn't acquiesce to their request?

Well, then they go to Moses and Aaron, the leaders that God has put in place, and they grumble against them in contempt.

Look at verse 21 of chapter 5.

And they said to Moses and Aaron, the Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.

They think Moses and Aaron are the enemy.

When Pharaoh is the enemy, they think it's because of Moses and Aaron that they are in the plight that they're in.

Rather, when it is Pharaoh, the anti-God, who is doing this to them.

But we can become so blinded by pain or by difficulty that up can appear down, that right can appear wrong, and that foolish can appear wise, and that enemies can appear to be allies.

And so this is a fall, a great fall from Exodus 431, where they received God's word and they bowed and worshiped, and now they are grumbling and cursing the leaders of God.

And here, when the difficulty came, they went to the enemy and they forgot God's word.

They could not fathom that difficulty, persecution, suffering could be a part of God's plan for their life.

That's the first response that we see to this suffering, to this persecution.

The second one we see is in Moses.

We see Moses' response.

And Moses, he's he's stepping in the right direction, but but he's not all the way there.

You see, whereas the Hebrew foreman, they didn't go to God, they went to Pharaoh.

Moses, he's gonna go to God, but he's gonna forget his word.

Look at verse 22 and 23.

Then Moses turned to the Lord, okay, good start, and said, Oh Lord, why have you done evil to this people?

Okay, not so good.

Why did you ever send me?

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.

So the Hebrew foreman, they ran to the enemy and forgot God's word.

But Moses, he at least runs to God, but he forgets God's word.

He asks, God, why did you even send me?

Ever since I've gotten here and started speaking your name, he's just Pharaoh's been doing evil to your people.

Nothing is working, nothing is happening.

And if the Hebrew foreman had fallen from bowing and worshiping God to cursing the leaders, Moses, he is failing to remember what God had said in chapter 4, verse 21.

That there God had told Moses that Pharaoh would not listen and that he would become hardened.

You see, Moses had gotten carried, he had forgotten and gotten carried away in the complaints and the pain of other people.

He had bypassed what God had revealed through his word, and God had said Pharaoh would not initially let his people go.

But Moses, he was having difficulty fathoming how suffering, persecution, difficulty, perceived failure could be a part of God's plan.

And so we see these two responses to persecution.

They don't get us all the way there, but they lead us to a third response that we are called to.

And you can write this response in.

When suffering comes, endure.

Run to the Lord and remember his word.

Endure.

Bear up underneath it.

Run to the Lord.

And don't just run to him, but remember his word.

Don't run to the enemy.

Don't run to the godless.

Don't run to your favorite celebrity, podcaster, political pundit, news anchor, social media influencer.

Don't run to any of these other places, but run to the Lord.

And what does running to the Lord look like?

Running to the Lord looks like when you lose your job, the first place that you go is to prayer and not LinkedIn.

When your marriage is on the rocks, the the first place is that you go is not to call your mom on the phone, but to pray together with your spouse.

That when the financial hardship hits, the first response isn't to go and start checking the portfolio balances and all the different places, but to drop to your knees and seek his face.

That when you are worried and concerned over this diagnosis, the first place that you turn is to God's face and not the endless Google searches.

When those times of difficulty, of suffering come, don't run anywhere else.

Run to the Lord, the one who knows and the one who can actually do something about it.

But in his doing, it might not be in our initial request to remove immediately all of the pain and the difficulty and the trial, but he has promised that he would be with us in the midst of it.

He will not immediately answer all of these requests in the way that we would.

But aren't you glad God doesn't always answer our prayer requests?

It's like in the song that we were singing earlier.

I sought the Lord and he heard and he answered.

I am recounting all of the ways and times in which I have cried out to God.

I sought the Lord in all of these ways and he heard and he answered.

And guess what?

Sometimes the answer was no.

Not right now.

Yes.

But he answered.

And God is not so concerned at bringing you through whatever it is that you are immediately facing at that point so that your life can be easy.

God is looking to shape you into the image of his son through whatever it is that you're walking through.

He is not so concerned with where you are going to be in a few months or a few years, but who you are becoming and how he is going to shape you through these trials and tribulations.

God can work all these things together for our good and for his glory.

Because here's the thing God can and will work all things together for your good and for his glory.

But that can and will include suffering.

You need to get here this morning together.

We need to fathom that difficulty that suffering will be a part of God's plan for you.

And I'm going to give you three passages that illustrate this so that you don't just think it's Blake up here talking.

We're going to look at three of the New Testament writers.

We're going to look at Paul, we're going to look at James, and we're going to look at Peter.

We're going to look at what each of these men of God wrote about this, and I want you to see the overlapping similarities, and that it is just washing over you with how this can root your life through whatever may come.

We see first in Romans chapter 5, verses 3 through 5.

Romans 5:3–5

Here the Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Rome, and this is what he says.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that, okay, so there's something that we can know that helps us to better rejoice in our sufferings.

What is it that we can know?

That suffering produces something.

That suffering produces endurance.

And endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

So Paul here is saying, rejoice.

Not because sufferings are good in and of themselves, but because God can and will redeem.

He will use these sufferings for his glory and for our good.

Suffering produces something.

Suffering produces endurance.

Endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame.

And we know this because we have his Holy Spirit, the very presence of God in our lives.

We are not alone.

We're not alone in this.

I remember years ago when my mom was just very soon after her initial diagnosis with ovarian cancer.

And I was talking about it with my team, my college ministry team that I was leading at the time.

And I was confessing to them like my impulse to always go for worst-case scenario.

To instantly take everything to the nth degree.

And I remember my associate looking across the table at me, and she's like, Yeah, I've I've been prone to go worst-case scenario as well.

But you know who's never near there in the worst case scenario?

The Holy Spirit.

And we have his promise that the Holy Spirit is with us.

And from that day forward, when I still have the impulse to go worst case scenario, but I have to fight and finish.

Think until I feel that even if I were to play out the worst, the Holy Spirit is still there with me.

God's presence still abides with me.

And that suffering, whatever it might be, can produce endurance.

And then endurance can produce character, and that character can produce hope, and that hope will not put us to shame.

So run to the Lord and remember his word.

So that's Paul in Romans 5.

Well, what about James?

James, in chapter 1, verses 2 through 4 of his letter, where he says, Count it all joy, brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds.

For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Do you start to see the overlapping themes and shape of what's coming out?

Rejoice.

Romans 5, count it all joy.

James 1.

Knowing that your sufferings or knowing that your trials, it's producing something.

It's not purposeless.

There is a reason God can use this.

And here James is talking about we count it all joy, not because the trials are good, but because God will redeem the trials for his glory and are good.

And you are not responsible for knowing or feeling that right out the gate.

That loved one can die.

My loved one has died.

And there are questions that I still have.

There are things that I still wonder about.

God, it could have been different.

It could have been so much better this way.

And I'm not going to fully understand why God chose to do certain things in these ways on this side of the resurrection.

But I can call to mind that quote from Charles Spurgeon.

When I can't trace his hand, when I can't trace God's hand, when I can't start to work around the contours of his actions or his leading, when I can't trace God's hand, I can trust his heart.

I trust that he is wise, that he is loving, that he is good.

And even when I don't understand, he is still faithful.

His faithfulness is still great.

Great towards you and great towards me.

Through what James says, various kinds of trials.

It's various.

So it could be economic stress, it could be disappointments, it could be unfair criticisms, it could be domestic pressures, it could be persecution for faithfulness, it could be different illnesses or waves of grief.

But these trials that God brings us through, the purpose here is to cultivate steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect so that you may be perfect and complete with no lack.

So for us, when we go through these sufferings, when we go through these trials, these various trials, let us run to the Lord and let us remember his word.

So that's Paul and that's James.

Well, now let's look at Peter.

1 Peter chapter 1.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

There Peter writes, In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, that it may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Again, these similarities, that in these trials, various trials, these tests, we rejoice.

Not because suffering and trials are good, but because God will use these in some way, in his way, for his glory and for our good.

That Peter would say that these various trials they can be used to strengthen our faith, and that faith is more precious than gold.

So for us, seeing the life and example of Moses and seeing the testimony of Paul, seeing the testimony of James and of Peter, when suffering comes, endure.

Run to the Lord, remember his word.

And you need to be reminded, you can be in the very center of God's will and suffer.

Sometimes we have the faulty notion that for us to be in the center of God's will means everything is perfect and awesome and happy all the time.

And it's only when we step aside from the center of God's will that things start to go haywire.

Faulty assumption.

Because what we're able to see is that all of these were in the very center of God's will, and that included suffering.

Following God and being in the center of his will doesn't exempt us from trouble in this life.

But we need to have a category for that suffering can be a part of God's plan for us, to test us, to strengthen us, to shape us, to make us look more like Jesus, to help us keep running toward the Lord, to remember his word and to know we're not doing this alone.

We're not doing this alone.

So I played baseball growing up, uh, and this was before travel ball really became like a popular thing, praise God.

And I just did rec league growing up, right?

I played rec league baseball until I got to middle school, and that was just a little bit tougher.

And then I got into high school, and that was a different ball game entirely.

Okay I got there, there was a lot, I mean, for the first time there was like weightlifting involved with the training that we were doing.

So I was lifting and I was running.

I only ran when somebody was chasing me.

Like I that was it.

I was lifting, I was running, and there was a lot of yelling, a lot of yelling, a lot of cussing.

I mean, it was just everywhere.

And so it was a hardening environment, and it was it was very difficult to be in for a while, let me tell you.

But it was made easier because one of my heroes was on the baseball team.

His name was Tyler.

Tyler was a senior, and I was a lowly freshman.

And Tyler was in my youth group at church.

And Tyler, in watching him play, I mean, he was very excellent.

He was a pitcher, I was a catcher, and I caught him in the bullpen sometimes, but like he was showing me like it's possible to follow Jesus, to be a light in a dark place.

And I just really looked up to Tyler.

And so, I mean, there, I mean, I mean, they're on the baseball team, and we're in the midst of our training, we're still in kind of preseason form, and the coach had said, All right, we're getting closer to time.

Everybody on my team is going to run a mile in eight minutes or less.

And I said, Excuse me.

Because, I mean, I was a catcher, right?

I was a little on the chubbier side, and I mean, I had done the presidential fitness test in elementary and middle school growing up, and I had never come in under nine minutes on running the mile ever.

And I was like, Oh goodness, this is not gonna be good for me.

And I'm gonna, if I don't do this, I'm gonna have to do it again the next week, and I'm gonna have to do it again until I can do it, and this is gonna be awful.

And so we finally get there, the day comes, I'm just agonizing the whole day at school.

Like my stomach is in knots, I know what's coming, and I'm not gonna be able to avoid it.

And so we finally show up, we meet our coach there at the top of the parking lot, and he starts to map out the route for us to snake through the school parking lot, and I'm just like, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.

He says, go, and I go.

And I start running and I start falling behind, I start sucking wind, and I'm just like, I this is this is going as bad as it possibly could.

And so I'm going down one part, snaking through the parking lot.

I'm going this direction, and Tyler, my hero, is coming the opposite direction.

And he sees me struggling.

And he sees me, I'm not gonna make it.

And so Tyler, who's like leading the pack, cuts across one of the little medians there in the parking lot back over to where I am, and he comes and he puts his hand squarely between my shoulder blades.

He's like, we're gonna do this.

And he runs alongside me.

He's pushing me, he's encouraging me, he's challenging me, he's running with me.

And so I'm wanting the pain to stop, I'm wanting to take a seat, I'm wanting to do anything else other than what I'm doing right then and there, but because his hand is on me, I'm able to keep moving forward.

And we catch up to the pack.

We start to move our way through.

We start to get up closer to the front until finally we cross where we began, and I hear the time call out 558.

Oh, I wouldn't clap.

It had never happened before, and it surely has never happened again.

But I could not believe what had happened.

I would not have been able to do that by myself, and I take no credit for it.

I know where I would be if I had done it on my own.

But I was not doing it alone.

I had another there.

It makes me think of Hebrews chapter 12, there where the writer in chapter 2, uh chapter 12, verse 2 says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every weight and the sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look to Jesus in his wonderful face, and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and his grace.

And we see him, the founder and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, that joy that's mingled with suffering, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and he is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Let's throw off this sin.

Let's run with endurance.

And how is that endurance cultivated?

Romans 5, through persevering, through suffering.

And let us look to Jesus, the one who also was able to take great joy, even in the midst of suffering, there at the cross, and we can see from his example and in our place, when suffering comes, endure.

Run to the Lord and remember his word.

And Moses, he goes to the God, and God hears his complaint, and then he spends chapter six, God does, reminding Moses of what he's already shared with him.

Because I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I heard it many years ago.

A lot of times we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed.

And Moses need to be reminded.

I'm thankful from this from God.

He doesn't smite Moses, he doesn't scold Moses, he reminds Moses.

You can read all of Exodus 6 and how many times God says, I am and I will.

I, I, I, I, I.

The people of Israel, Moses, and we here today need to be reminded of this truth.

God is who he says he is.

He will do what he has said he will do, and he is in control.

And this is a little longer than I usually read over for you as a supporting passage of our sermon.

But I'm going to read to you from Exodus chapter 6, and I want you to hear all of what God is reminding Moses.

Exodus 6 · chapter mention

Verse 2.

God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord.

I am Yahweh.

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord, I did not make myself known to them.

I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.

Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

Say therefore to the people of Israel, I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

I will give it to you for a possession.

I am Yahweh.

God was patient.

He didn't rebuke Moses, but reminded him.

He recounted his covenant faithfulness.

Moses needed these truths to settle into his soul and to sustain him through suffering.

These were blessed reminders.

I don't know if you know this, but Facebook is largely an awful place.

That's an awful place.

But there are some good things with it.

I've been able to keep up with people through the years, and last August, I saw an update from Tyler, my hero on the baseball team from all those years ago.

Tyler had been long married, five kids, a blessed man.

But Tyler at that time was 37 years old and had a large cancerous mass.

And his wife had posted on Facebook and asking for prayers, and he was having to undergo surgery to be able to remove this.

And I took a screenshot of what he wrote two weeks after his surgery.

He said this the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of ups and downs.

When I found a mass that was definitely not normal, I had flashbacks to being 10 and 11 years old and finding out that my dad had cancer.

At that time I was terrified because I knew I needed my dad, and in my young mind, cancer meant death.

I remember almost passing out the first time that I saw my dad in the hospital with all the IVs and tubes going in all different directions.

I still get queasy when I walk into a hospital and certain smells hit me.

So naturally, my fear now is for my wife and for my kids.

And I never want them to experience the trauma that's burnt into my memories.

So I had the mask removed, and a week later they confirmed that it was cancer.

The good news was that they had clean margins on all that was removed.

Another tough conversation with the kids.

CT scans were scheduled to be determined whether the cancer had spread.

Yesterday afternoon the phone rang and it was my doctor.

I almost didn't answer it because I was terrified of what they might say.

I took a deep breath and answered.

Finally, some good news.

I'll meet with the doctor next week to determine our next steps, but this was the best possible outcome, and for that I'm thankful.

There's no way I can respond to everyone that has commented on my wife's posts.

But I can say that I saw all of your messages and your support and prayers meant more than you know.

Thank you.

I want to share this song with you.

This song has helped me through a lot of difficult times.

It's the song It Is Well.

Sometimes I can sing it and mean every word.

Other times I have to play it on repeat and sing it until my soul actually believes it.

One thing I can say is that even though I have many ups and downs, my God never fails.

His promises are true yesterday, today, and forever.

And no matter the outcome, no matter what the future holds, I can say it is well.

No matter the outcome, whether he answers yes, no, not right now, I can say he never fails.

It is well.

And no matter the outcome, it is well.

We need these blessed reminders.

And we have this blessed reminder here this morning.

We're reminded that Jesus is the I am, that Jesus is God, that Jesus heard us in our groaning, in our sin, and in our slavery.

That Jesus came to us.

That Jesus delivered us by becoming a sacrifice for us.

And that Jesus' obedience there at the cross looked like failure.

But it was the greatest success we could have ever dreamed.

And that Jesus was victorious over his enemies by rising from the dead.

And that here and now Jesus has said through his word, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

And Jesus has said that I go to prepare a place for you and I will bring you to my side.

When suffering comes, endure.

Run to God.

Remember his word.

That's what we're to do when God's plans look like failure.

Let us pray.

So, Heavenly Father, as we come to your word this morning, God, I pray that you would continue speaking to us long after our gathering.

And as we come to your supper this morning, I pray that we'd be reminded and assured of your abiding presence with us.

We look to you, God.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.