MAY 20 2018 | UberWhale: A Deep Dive Into The Life Of Jonah S1E1 | Jonah Flees from the Lord

Sea Change Church · UberWhale: A Deep Dive Into The Life Of Jonah · "Jonah Flees from the Lord" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · May 20, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning. I'm Michelle. I am Spencer's wife, the one who always does loud cheers with the long blonde hair. And we love coming here. I love seeing all the different age groups and the older marriages and different skin colors that are a part of our congregation. It just really inspires me being a part of this church. And I'm so, so grateful that God brought us here. So today I'll be reading from Jonah chapter one, when Jonah flees the Lord.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai, go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me. But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own God.

And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, how can you sleep? Get up and call on your God. Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish. Then the sailors said to each other, come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity. They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. So they asked him, tell us who is responsible for making all this trouble for us?

What kind of work do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you? He answered, I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. This terrified them and they asked, what have you done? They knew he was running away from the Lord because he had already told them so. The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, what should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?

Pick me up and throw me into the sea, he replied, and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you. Instead, the men did their best to row back to land, but they could not for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the Lord, please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.

Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard and the raging sea grew calm. At this, the men greatly feared the Lord and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him. Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of a fish three days and three nights. The word of the Lord. Great. Well, great to be here as we move into this new series of Jonah. It's a four-week series. It's a quick one.

A lot to learn from the life of Jonah. And I want to start the series with probably what I feel is maturing, because the sermons as I preach them mature in my own mind and my own heart. I do have a lot of fresh revelations from my trip, but I tend not to teach fresh revelation. I tend to try to let it age. We find that a lot of things in life are aged and they do a little bit better. A 28-day-age steak might be a little bit better than one fresh off the bone.

And so I'm going to wait on those and let those sit in my heart and see what's truth and what comes up. And so this will mature, but I'm seeing a theme, at least for my life, and something that I've understood that I think is going to permeate the entire teaching in the four-week series. And it's this. God is not afraid to send storms into your life for his purposes. He's not afraid to send storms into your life for his purposes.

But not all storms in your life are from God. Let me just say that again. God is not afraid. He's not fearful that you might get upset with him. He's not worried about what will happen because we know that if God sends a storm, it's the storm that you want. Even David said when God gave him three choices because of his disobedience, he said, you know, I could send a plague. I could send an army to chase you. And he basically said, don't let me fall into the hands of men because there's no grace.

It's basically, God, I will allow you to send your angel into the tribe because I'd rather you relent for those that you love. And so if God sends a storm, and if you're in a storm in your life, you're living in obedience, and a storm comes for God's purposes, and God did send storms, we know, into the lives of the disciples for his purposes, that's the storm you want to be in. And what I often see is storms of our own conjuring that in the end we blame God for.

Or wonder, why, God, did you allow this to happen? It's 25 years of addiction, and then things go wrong. And God, why are you allowing me to get fired from my job? Why are you allowing all this? Why are you not protecting me when the storm was of your own conjuring? I was watching The Simpsons recently, and great wisdom in The Simpsons. And Marge comes up to Homer, and Homer is drinking his new favorite drink, vodka and mayonnaise.

Yeah, right? Horrible. That's horrible for you, Homer. That can kill you in multiple ways. My bad voice from the men's retreat at the moment, that's why I'm drinking the tea up here. By the way, did you see I upgraded to a ceramic mug? Nonetheless. I'm not saying I'm better from you, because you have paper mugs. I just had to have a ceramic mug today. And she says to Homer, that's going to kill you in multiple ways, and look at these children.

And she says, you know, one day you are going to miss, you're going to look back with regret, and say that, you know, you should have spent more time with your children. And there's, you know, Bart and Lisa looking up at him, and he goes, that's a problem for future Homer. Sure glad I'm not him. That's awesome. That is so often, I just love that. That's a problem for future Homer. And you know, many times in my life, because of the lack of desire for delayed gratification, or not willing to be obedient, I live under the pretense that I am not future Homer.

I am not future Adam. And I am willing to create storms, and to conjure, or have been willing to conjure things up, because it's just a slight wind at first. It's a little breeze, but nothing you can't handle. And as you look at your own life, one of the things we want to do is use the scripture as this beautiful mirror to ask ourselves really tough questions. To ask ourselves, where have I been conjuring storms in my relationship with my spouse?

Where have I been conjuring storms in my relationship with my neighbors? In my own mental and emotional life, much of the anxiety and stress that we see today is caused by the way in which we live our lives. That we are choosing not to go towards peace, not to go towards joy, but to go to the things that destroy us. And so, the question is, if you are in a storm in your life, and God is very concerned, and the awesome thing about God is He is a rescuer from any storm.

Even if it is a self-created storm, and that's not meant to give guilt. But whatever storm it is, God often will send the storm as a grace. And we know that this storm in Jonah's life was a storm of his own conjuring. But it was also sent by God as an act of grace, and God used Jonah's failures to send a storm in his life that he might be saved. As we'll see, He also provided a whale for Jonah. If you look in your scripture, you're going to see this.

God sent a storm. He sent a great wind to get Jonah back on course. But God did not throw Jonah into the sea. As a matter of fact, it was Jonah's own idea to be thrown into the sea. And then it said that, and if you haven't thought about it before, they knew, they were far enough away from land, that by being thrown into the sea was actually a suicidal request by Jonah. As you'll see a little bit later in the notes, Jonah had a death wish.

Twice he asked God, I think once he wishes he was dead, the second time he asked God to kill him, and then this time he throws himself, or asked to be thrown, into the sea. But the men that were with him, they were God-fearing. Now, they were fearing the wrong gods, because they all went to worship their gods. But they were people of faith, let's say. And they did not want to throw him into the sea, because they knew that it was his death.

And when they threw him into the sea, they said, God, forgive us that we would be throwing an innocent man into the sea, although he was not innocent, because he was being disobedient to God. The interesting thing you'll see is God did not send the whale like he sent the storm. Anybody know what the word is that it says? Can you get the scripture online? What did God do? Provided a whale. That's really interesting. When we think about the tribulations, the whales that come up in our lives, and we feel like we're in the belly of the whale, and in chapter 2 next week, we'll look at the prayer of repentance, and from within the belly of the whale, and you might feel that you were in the belly of the whale.

Wonder why God has put you there. So upset that God has put you there. You want to get out of the belly of the whale, but not realizing that perhaps the whale's belly that you are in, whether it be of your own conjuring or from God, is actually a grace to save your life. Oh, wow. There you go. One person applauding whoever you are. Props. I know that my congestive heart failure, heart attack I had back in the day from the use of drugs was a whale that God provided in order to save me.

And that actually, that event, thank God that he saved me at that event, that I didn't die, saved my life. And I knew at that point that I didn't want to go back. So let me just ask and try to reframe the storms in your life. Let's reframe it. Let's look at it differently. Because it's so easy to look at the thing with Jonah, that he had this disobedience, and then to immediately just say, well, God did this. God sent this storm.

God put him in the belly of the whale. God didn't put him in the belly of the whale. Jonah was going to die. And God provided a rescue for Jonah. Although our rescues can sometimes be seen as a discouragement, and they can be seen as perhaps a living hell. I can imagine it wouldn't have been a great place to be as we look into that. Here's another thing we want to look at as we reframe our difficulties. The difficulties are part of life.

One thing we know is that maybe God didn't send it. Maybe you didn't create it. But we live in a world where rain falls upon the evil and the good. There are just difficult times with living. And the key is, what do we do in those times? You know, Jonah was a petulant, arrogant, unforgiving. He is everything you don't want to be. You know, the reason he was running from God. This is why he was fleeing from God. Have you thought about that?

Like, we flee from God for different reasons. But so many people, and this is a guy who knew the Lord. He was a prophet of God. Most of us want God's presence in our life. We want to hear from God. We would love his presence. God actually comes and speaks to him, and he actually runs from the presence of the Lord. I think we do that in a bunch of different ways. But he runs. But why does he run? He didn't run because of his own sin.

He was pretty self-righteous, for what I can understand. He ran because, and we'll find out, I think, in chapter 3 of this book, he ran because he didn't want the Ninevites to be saved. He ran because he hated a people group. And he said, God, I knew, this is what he says, I think, in chapter 3 or 4, I knew that if I went and preached repentance to them, they would turn and follow you because you are a great and compassionate God or something to that nature, he says.

He was running because he wanted them to be destroyed. As you will see, he preaches the worst sermon in all of history. The worst repentance sermon. He basically doesn't even come in and talk about God. He says, in 40 days, this city will be destroyed. It's a horrible sermon. He gives no hope, no invitation to grace, nothing to move forward, and yet God's compassion comes and a city is completely converted. Did you notice also that because of the storm that happened, because of God's grace, that even the men on the ship were converted.

They began serving the living God. And so there is this compassion of God to go and to want to reach out. For God so loved the world. God doesn't hate the world. He hates the sin of the world. But God would die for anybody. God's love is unlimited. There is not a sin that God will not forgive. His love is unlimited. But I would say that God's love, and you can challenge me on this, we challenged on the men's weekend, as I was with men this weekend, I do not believe that God's love is unconditional.

You have to receive it. There is a condition to the love of God. You need to receive the love of God. If you do this, if you just look up the if statements in the Bible, over and over again, God says, my love is unlimited. It is an unlimited riches. I will forgive anyone who wishes to be received, to be revived, to be refreshed, to be renewed, that would repent. But you must repent. If you confess with your heart, if you believe in your heart, and if you confess what?

With your mouth, that Jesus Christ is Lord, then you will be saved, and you will step into God's love. I will challenge you to find in the Bible, where it says God's love is unconditional. God's love is not unconditional. You must receive it. But God's love is unlimited. There's a big difference. Because when God's love is unconditional, it means you can do whatever you want, and God's just gonna, just keep letting you do it, because He loves you.

And that's one of the messages we see today. That love wins. No matter what you do, love wins. Matter of fact, after you die, you'll continue to have opportunities. Well, God will bring you into salvation. It doesn't matter what you do, because God's love is so eternal. No. God's love is conditional. You have to receive it. But it's not unlimited. And so we see that God's love, that He reaches out to a very wicked city.

He reaches out to perhaps some wicked men, but men that were willing to turn and follow Him. And we see that in God. And also, this is phenomenal, because there seems to be so many archetypal stories where you have in the Old Testament images of Jesus. You will see the gospel in the story of Jonah. He is in a boat. Jesus gets in a boat. Matter of fact, when the storm comes, where is Jonah found? He's asleep down in the bottom of the boat.

Also, we see that He goes into the belly of the whale for three days. Jesus was crucified. And for three days, before He was resurrected, it says He descended down into hell, you know, preaching to the captives. You see this story. You see a very wicked city that God has a heart for. Christians, do not, you know, when we start forgetting that God has a heart for the most wicked people, then we are forgetting the essence of the gospel.

See, before we knew Him, Christ died for us. Christ reached out to Him. While we were yet sinners, what? Christ reached out to us. There is no one that is righteous, not even one, and all sin separates from God. And it is very easy to find the people group that you don't like and to say God is against them and actually enjoy when you see negative things happen to them. That is not the gospel. That is not why Jesus died on the cross.

And we have to get our act together and begin to pray and weep for the lost as opposed to see them as the enemy. God does not want us to see people as the enemy, but He wants us to have a heart for them. I want to say there is nothing that you can add to God's judgment. There is nothing you can add to God's anger against sin. You being angry does absolutely nothing. It has an eternal ability. It has an eternal damnation over it that you being upset with the way people live their lives or the way a city is or the way some political view is or whatever it is adds nothing to that.

But what we want is people whose hearts break for the lost. I was at a conference once. I was really, really convicted. And somebody said to me, and the guy from the front said, when was the last time you wept over someone besides yourself? And I thought that was a really powerful statement. When was the last time you cried over someone beside yourself? And I'm not saying because the person that you know that you want to date no longer wants to date you.

I'm saying when you look at a people group that you can tend to despise. I want to say our culture right now is meant to separate, divide, and cause people to despise each other. And we have got to fight that with everything within us. We know that Jonah preached the worst sermon because he did not want them to be saved. And then he went and got a view, the best view he could get up on a hill to watch God's damnation come and destroy the people he hated.

We've got to stop doing that. We have got to be a church of love and pray for repentance for all people. So we look at that, we see Jesus in the story. The major themes as you're going to see, and can Tony or somebody open some of those windows on the side? Because it's cooking. It's hotter than a witch's kettle up here. So, I've been reading Shakespeare, sorry. Here's the major themes in the story of Jonah. Revival.

God leverages revival. Leverages, excuse me, tribulation for the revival of an entire city. Even the sailors were converted. One of my pastors, John McClure, who I work for, he said, you know, if you are in a relationship with someone that you are trying to share the love of Jesus with, he says, just wait till tribulation comes into their life. He says, just wait for tribulation and then show up and love them. He says, that's how the gospel goes forward.

Wait for tribulation. Not what we're hoping for tribulation, but tribulation always comes. And basically, he said that small talk is a ministry. You know how we all hate small talk, right? You go to church, all we ever do is small talk, small talk. He's told me that small talk is a ministry that builds bridges to when people have crisis in their life. so that when the moment comes, you have built a big enough bridge towards them relationally that they call and say, hey, I know that guy.

He prays for me. Or I know that woman. She's come. Some people have nobody to call. You know, there's a lot of people in this world that have nobody to call. And perhaps you being in their life, you will become that anchor. You will become that stability, the person that they can reach out to. So when tribulation comes, that you're available, I want to say never waste a crisis. Never waste a crisis. Never waste a crisis in someone else's life.

Never waste a crisis in your own life because from David we learn that crisis can be used strategically to move into the power of God. And the scripture says in one of my corpus of probably 15 verses that I use to compass my life by, Romans 8, 28, 29, that some things work out for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose. Did I get that right? No. That all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose.

You know, you can't cheat a Christian. You can't steal from a believer, a follower of God. Why? Because God will always work it out in your favor. I want to say that will give you peace from striving. to think that you have to be in control. That you have to create and manipulate. Never waste a crisis. The second theme we're going to see through this four-week series is repentance. God loves repentance. He sent his son that we might repent.

You know, repentance is something we don't gravitate towards quickly. I was in the midst, in the throes of a jet lag induced sleep. And so, they had two bedrooms at the place we were staying and it's really hard to sleep. And so, I went and I want to wake my wife up because I'm up and down and you know how it is if any of you travel and business people or you go on vacation. Eight, nine hour time zone. And it's like three in the morning and it's still not quite dark in Scotland.

I love that. It was like only four hours of dark and I'm sitting there looking out the window and it's kind of eerie but kind of cool, you know. And I'm listening to see if I can hear some bagpipes or Braveheart yelling out the door or whatever. And I'm sitting there and I thought, you know what, I just want, I just, I was studying the revivals and Duncan Campbell and the different people and they had a massive revival in the Inner Hebrides.

Like this small little area. Like, why would God have a revival in the Inner Hebrides? Like, you know, there's like 100,000 people that live in all the area and they live in small little crofts and towns but yet there's this massive revival that happened in 1949. You can Google it and study it that happened. And one of the things that Duncan Campbell said as he spoke about it, I was listening to an old tape as he was preaching and there, it's fire and brimstone and every once in a while you need a little fire and brimstone, right?

Like, I don't want fire and brimstone every week, you know. Although you can build a church really big with fire and brimstone because there's a lot of Christians who just want a paternal father to tell them what to do and we try not to do that here. We want to give you freedom to actually hear the Holy Spirit. But, every once in a while I like it. And so he's preaching, you know, and going after it. And he said, one of the keys to revival was clean hands.

And he also said, you can't make revival happen. Revival happens because God decides to have a revival and you can't, there's no formula for revival. Now, prayer and repentance helps. But what I would say to this, because I believe that we have a spirit of revival happening here in our congregation and in La Jolla. And a lot of words that I've heard over that. One thing I do know about revival, you might not be able to create it, but you can hinder it.

You can hinder it in your own life. And God might still move, but I thought to myself, and he said, do we have clean hands? And I just sat there and I spent probably an hour in that really weird, you're kind of tired but you're not, you can't sleep, your heart's racing, you're like, it's four in the morning. And I just said, Lord, let's just have a conversation. Show me every nook and cranny. And I just want to give it all to you.

I just want to give everything to you. And I want to tell you what, as you do that, it tends to be intimidating at first, but freeing in the end. To sit before the Lord and say, and just write down, just say, Lord, every little thing. And to get to a place, even if it's for 24 hours or in the next morning, you wake up where you can say before the Lord, there is nothing in my life at this moment. Not that we don't have new things come in and new challenges, but at this moment in my life, there is nothing that I am aware of that is not submitted to the Lord.

I got to say, it had been a long time since I had been there. You know, you have your little pet thing. It's not that big of a deal. But it's the first winds that are blowing in the storm of your own conjuring. And some of you know it. I'm not preaching at you. I'm not being your dad. I'm not slapping you with a splintered ruler. You know. You know what I'm telling you. You know that you are allowing a light breeze of disobedience in your life.

But you know, that's a problem for future Homer. And thank God I'm not him. But I say, maybe it's time to look and to see what it feels like. I just got to ask, when was the last time that you could stand before God and say, God, because of your blood, I submit everything to you. And I give it to you. God responds to repentance. He loves it. He sent his son that we might repent. He loves repentance. And you know what?

The more of us that repent in this church, I believe the more we're going to see the Holy Spirit just begin to bless us as a community. You know, we're not living alone anymore. I feel every time you have a victory, I have a victory. When I see people move forward, repent, move forward, I see, there's so many faces out here I've had lunches with that have told me this is where I was and I know they're not there today.

They've made a difference in their lives. But I got to tell you, I get filled up I become stronger. I grow in my spirit because of your victory because we are locking shields here. I just want to encourage a few more, if just a few more of you will say, I'm willing to give it all up. I'm willing to quit, you know, sleeping with my girlfriend or my boyfriend that I'm not married to. I want to have this purity in my life.

Or I'm going to get honest. Or I'm going to, you know, get a hold of the IRS and let them know that I cheated on my taxes. And I'm willing, God, because you are willing to say that all things will work together for good. To call yourself out. And if just a few more will do that, maybe God will give us another two feet in all directions of his providence upon this congregation, upon this city. Because I feel like we got a word recently in prayer where God says, La Jolla is meant to be a jewel in God's crown.

La Jolla means jewel. And we want it to be a jewel in God's crown. We want PB and Claremont and we will not relent. And we want to be jealous for this city. I want to be jealous for La Mesa where I grew up. El Cajon, Santee, all of California. I want to see the whole, all the strongholds be demolished and fall and see repentance. He preached the worst sermon ever to a great city. One of the largest cities of all time.

We'll talk about that in just a second. And it says that they repented. Imagine if a city repents. It's happened in the past. We see obedience. God blesses obedience. We'll just run through that. And then God's compassion. Jonah 3, 9. This is the king who hears the worst repentant sermon of all time. So if you think you're a horrible preacher and you're a bad evangelist, just preach the worst sermon of all time. Try to beat this sermon and see what happens.

He says, Who knows? God may yet relent and with his compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish. And you know what God did? God relented because they repented. And you know what? Maybe there's a storm in your life that's just waiting for repentance for the wind to stop. Maybe. Maybe there's a whole bunch of storms and you're in the belly of the whale but you know what? You're the one that threw yourself into the sea.

And maybe it's time to quit blaming God and move into the next level. Nineveh. Who were the Ninevites? We're going to go quickly through this and finish up. Going to circle the tower. This is interesting. I didn't know that Nineveh was mentioned in Genesis chapter 10. One of the oldest cities in the world. Mentioned. Matter of fact, Nineveh was settled by one of Noah's sons. One of the oldest cities in the world. Here it is in Genesis 10, 8 and 9, A, and then 11 and 12.

Cush was the father of Nimrod who became a mighty warrior on the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. From that land he went to Assyria where he built Nineveh. Rehoboath. Kela. And I wish I had my glasses today. And all those other cities that are named there. Between Nineveh and Kela which is a great city. This became one of the biggest, greatest cities of the world. When Nineveh repented the whole city repented.

Think of Tokyo. Think of Sydney. Think of New York. Think of San Francisco. Think of Paris. Think of Los Angeles. Imagine Los Angeles. The entire city repenting to God. That's what happened. And we tend to think that that's too big. That that can never happen again. God has a bigger view. Perhaps we need to expand our prayers. Expand our vision. Perhaps your biggest prayers are too small. And if we're not praying for the lost we need to reboot our prayer life.

Who are you praying for? Who are you caring for? And are you praying bigger prayers? You know I can always look at my prayer life. Look at my list of the things I pray for and realize they're not big enough. Because God in Ephesians 3.20 says he will give you more than you can hope, dream, or imagine. This is why I have a problem with dreams. And this is why I don't set goals or dreams. dreams. Because I believe they're self-limiting.

I can't think of a dream the Bible says as big as God has. So what I try to just do is live according to biblical values and see what happens. And I find that God keeps doing more than I could have ever dreamed for. Your dreams are too small the Bible says it. Quit dreaming and start living for God. And it says that God will come and he will if we put him first seek ye first the kingdom of God. And what? All these things.

Some of these things all of these things will be added unto you. It was a great city but it was a wicked city. Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it because its wickedness has come up before me. I was listening to a person recently who had come out of a really deep dark sexual lifestyle was just really dark and he said it was in a documentary that I want to make you aware of at the church and it's about all different types of sexuality and things that are happening in the world but he said thank God that my church did not affirm what was going on in my sexual life because I never would have repented.

I thought that was so powerful. You know we need to speak in love but we need to speak truth. And I gotta say God is love but love is not God. And the world now listen to that shift. God is love but love is not God. You see in the Old Testament they worshiped the God of love and it was a God that allows anything in the name of love but God also has justice and God preached against this city because justice as Harry said last week and it was a beautiful point I've never heard it before justice must eradicate evil.

That is the nature of justice. It must eradicate inequality and these different things. It must. It is just. But love is not God. Because then we worship love and you can do all things anything you want as long as you label it love. But God is love. And God reaches out to these cities and he reaches out and he says repent. And I say we need to get that word back into our our vocabulary. And too many churches are affirming things of all kind and all of nature.

Look at Leviticus 18. Look at the scripture at what God says and right and what is wrong and that's as far as we'll go in that conversation today. But is there anywhere in your life where you're having hard conversations with people and to say because I want you to experience the love of the Father. We see that here in the scripture. It was a great and wicked city. It says also that do not defile yourselves and we do these things that what happens is when we walk into these things that this city was actually defiling and to defile means to take something's original purpose and to strip away its to make it less than its original purpose.

And so we all it was a city that was walking in defilement and it also says that the land actually will rebel that creation will rebel against sin. You see that over and over again in the scripture and this is a city that was replicating that coming in for the end at the final part of this scripture. God loves you enough to send a whale into your life. God did not send a whale God provided a whale. And maybe take a look at the situation you're in and say maybe this is saving me from a much worse calamity.

Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. Crisis can change the trajectory of our life. And some people move into crisis and they abandon God and others cling to God. I don't know why in my crisis I've clung to God while others I've seen have run away from it. I don't know why. Maybe it's just grace. I can't answer that question. But crisis is often grace.

Let me just reframe that. The final point. Crisis is grace because God wants to use crisis and to redeem crisis. And if you are in a very difficult season and many of you are in very very difficult seasons. I've been in seasons I will be in difficult seasons again. I know that. And what I want to do is prepare for those seasons because when your moment of crisis comes it's too late to prepare. And I want to say that if you're in a difficult season I love what Harry said.

Harry last week preached a beautiful sermon. And when he spoke he said I understand that he was talking about how great his mom was. But he says I understand that not all of you have had that experience. And this was beautiful. He said I'm sorry. That showed a heart for caring about people that have had brokenness in their life. I don't want to be a pastor that's rah, rah, rah give you bumper sticker answers and rev you up with emotional hype.

And forget about those that are broken. Because some people walk out and think I just can't do that. I want to say that we want to be here for you and do whatever we can to lock shield with them. If you are in a very difficult time we want to come around with you but don't don't suffer your crisis alone. The enemy loves to pick off solo sheep. He loves lone rangers. Find someone that you can trust in this congregation that's gone ahead of you and say hey I'm in a crisis I need help.

Cry out to God don't waste your crisis because there's victory beyond the valley of the shadow of death. Amen. Let's stand. We'll have Chris come sing a song. You