The Way Of Growth | James | Pastor Cal Jernigan

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Transcript

Darrell. And I tried to, um, have a baby for about 13 years. Um, during those 13 years I felt very, um, Alone. And even though Darrell was there, like, I felt like something was maybe wrong with me. Yeah. It was, uh, very heartbreaking. Um, we were just thinking, is this gonna be it for us? So then we started seeing fertility doctors all over the city, um, found a doctor and started the pros.

Us and found out we were already pregnant. And so we were excited and started to buy everything cuz we were, it's been so long. And um, then we had a miscarriage, honestly, if I'm gonna be honest with you, I was questioning God at that point. I was like, God, where are you? What's your plan? And all this, um, we cried for a week straight and it was, it was heartbreaking.

So after a couple of months I was pregnant again. And that's when we had our first daughter, um, Isabella was born in 2008 and we thought, this is it. We're gonna have one. She's gonna be spoiled rotten. And that was okay with us.  um, two years later I got pregnant again. She was a surprise. And then found out I was pregnant again.

So now we have three kids at 13, 11, and eight years old, and they are the joy of our lives. Dar. And I went through a lot difficult times to have our own kids. Um, so anytime I hear when somebody's having a difficult time, um, it makes me want to. Something to help them. Um, and I was given the opportunity to do that.

So it was a surrogate for our best friends. It's been an amazing process, a long process, uh, filled with its own struggles and, and heartaches itself, but a result in a beautiful baby girl named Olivia. And she's the joy of her parents' lives and, and the joy, one of the, the joys of ours, they say that time heals all wounds, which is only a small portion of the true story.

Um, God heals all wounds. And he brings things to completion. Um, looking back, I mean, I still get emotional thinking of everything we went through with the miscarriage after trying to have kids for 13 years, but to see it come full circle in the beautiful blessing of Olivia, um, it's, God works in mysterious ways is the understatement of the century.

My name is Reyes and my name is Darrell. And this is, and this is our story. All right. Let's give it up to Dar and res for their willingness to, uh, shoot that video. And, you know, it's fascinating when you pray and God answers the way that you wish he would. And you know, there's a time to rejoice. There's also times when you feel like you're going through a really difficult thing and you're praying and you feel like I don't hear from God.

And, uh, we're gonna talk about both of those, uh, realities. So I'm very, very glad that you're here today. And again, I know you've been told in this room, man, we're really glad that you're. And I've said that to as many of you at the door as I could, but I also wanna say to all of you who are on any of our campuses, we are very mindful that you're there and it really matters to us.

And also if you're watching this online, uh, we want you to know that we are, uh, we're, uh, very aware as well. Uh, also I wanna say this, if you're a student in, uh, any of the worship, uh, centers around the. Uh, that we're gathering, uh, if you're a junior high or a senior high student, you are incredibly welcome here and the church, would you give it up for them?

Uh, being a part of us. So I wanna make sure you never forget that. Cuz we will not forget that. Hey, and one last thing before I get going. Um, I, I gotta say this. We started a couple weeks ago. We restarted after COVID our Thursday night service, six o'clock on the Gilbert campus and the last, uh, two weeks we've had it been fantastic.

Uh, I just wanna let you know that that's happening for a couple of reasons. Number one, if you're gone any weekend and you want to catch church, it's the first service of the weekend? Thursday night, uh, six to seven ish. And we have, uh, the children's ministries up and run. And so anyway, it's also the one service that I think more, more people than it, any other hangout.

And if you're looking for community, a fantastic place to find community, and, uh, we've been serving hot dogs, I'm just saying, but, uh, I, I just gotta tell you, this is kind of weird. Uh, we, we used to do Saturday night services before COVID did a Thursday night. This was the first evening service we've re added, uh, in and I spent all day Thursday, literally chomping at the bit for six o'clock to come.

I was so excited to be there and I'm telling you, uh, cool things are happening. So I just wanna make you aware of that. Okay. So some of you will remember, um, this thing, this is. Um, this is the easy button. This was used in a series of ads by staples, uh, office supply, and the premise behind this, they shot all these videos where they would have like a problem you'd encounter a problem.

And then they would go, well, just hit the easy button and they would hit the easy button. And I'm gonna put this up to the mic so you can hear what it says, cuz you would say, well hit the button and you hit the button. That was easy. And that was a punchline. That was easy. And, and so what I want to ask you to think about is, would it be wonderful in.

If you had actually a button that whenever you face difficulty, whenever it was overwhelming, whenever you felt like, man, I just am in over my head. You could literally just hit a button. So lemme give you a couple examples. You're having trouble in your marriage and you're not sure it's gonna work out and you just go, okay, we gotta fix this.

You hit the button. That was easy. And it solved. Wouldn't that be awesome. Parents, if you're having issues with your kids, this kid just never happens. Right. And it never happens. Young people. We never give our parents grief, but let's just hypothetically say that you're a parent and you're concerned about the welfare of your kids and you go, Hey, I gotta fix this and you hit the button, but that was easy.

And it solved. Wouldn't it be students. Wouldn't it be incredible if that test on Friday that you're sweating, that you realize everything's, uh, you know, writing on that test, you, you didn't study, but you didn't have to because you just pressed the button that was easy and it was solved or graduation that could feel like I, I don't know that I'm gonna make it.

You just hit the button. I would see, we can keep going. What about in your career? If you feel like your career's going nowhere, you could hit a button and all the, that was easy. The problem solved. If you're having, uh, financial trouble in your family and you're like, I don't know where we're gonna get the money.

You just pull out the button, you hit it. If, if you're having health issues, you just pull out the button and you hit it. And all of a sudden the problems go away. Wouldn't that be? Here's what I wanna suggest that most of us, if we had an easy button, we would overuse the easy button. Can anybody give me an amen?

Can I get a witness? Do you remember the movie click, uh, with Adam Sandler and every time there was a, you know, a difficult situation you'd just fast forward through it. It was like it was on a video. Uh, most of us, whenever we come to difficulty would go, just skip it, man. I don't want to go through that.

And whether it was a button on, on this or a button on a video, uh, remote control, we'd hit it. Now I wanna read to you something that I've read to you years ago, but it's a writing by John ort. That I think it's such a profound thought provoking premise. So here, let me just read this one paragraph. Uh, he wrote this, uh, it, it was titled don't waste a crisis and it was in the leadership journal.

He, he said this, imagine that you're handed a script of your newborn child's entire life, but better yet. You're given an eraser and five minutes to edit out whatever, uh, you want. You you read that she will have a learning disability in grade school reading, which comes easily for some kids will be laborious for her in high school, she will make a great circle of friends.

Then one of them will die of cancer. After high school, she will get into her preferred college, but while there she will lose a leg in a car accident, following that she will go through a difficult depression. A few years later, she'll get a great job and then lose that job in an economic down. She'll get married, but then go through the grief of separation.

So with that script in hand, you got an eraser. What are you gonna erase? And most of us, if we're honest, it would all go. I don't want any of that. Any difficulty whatsoever, take it all out. Uh, I want to cause us to pause today and just think about what does your perception of difficulties in your life have to do with your perception of God in your.

because I wanna suggest that God and difficulties in our minds sometimes clash terribly. Let me, so let me, let me fire off some questions that should get us thinking down this, uh, certain path. So let me just ask you this question. All right. When you chose to believe in God, if, if you did, I don't know, but if you did you imagine you were signing up for an easier life than you otherwise would've.

Most people go. Of course I did. Of course I did. Uh, second question. Doesn't being blessed by God. Equate to life being easy. I mean, if I'm blessed by God, surely that means it will be easier. Uh, third question, if I'm experiencing difficulties in life or just a difficult life, does it imply that God is not with me?

And the fourth and the hardest question could God prefer my life. Be tougher rather than easier. See, see, most of us associate difficulties with a lack of the presence of God, the presence of difficulties equates to the lack of the presence of God. And, uh, we we're talking right now. We're going through the book of James.

And so I'd invite you right now to open up your Bible through the book of James.  and we're talking about living a genuine life, which is a challenge for all of us, me and you. And you might be wondering what does any of this have to do with living a genuine life? And here's what I want to ask you to think about.

Can faith in God, your faith in God, if never tested, ever really be considered genuine. If your test, if, if your faith is never test. It can you truly say you have faith in God. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna be in James chapter one, and we're gonna begin with verse two and work our way down to verse eight.

Now I'm gonna do this right now. I'm just gonna read the whole thing. We'll just kind of hear it. And then I'm gonna back us up. I'm gonna show you there's two parts to this and we'll take a little bit closer. Look at each of these two parts. Here's what it says. Okay. Just let this wash over you. All right, James, 1, 2, 3, 8, consider it pure joy in my brothers and sisters.

Whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, that perseverance finishes work so that you may be that you may be mature and complete, not lacking. Now, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask of God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. Now that person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Uh, such person is double minded and unstable in all that they do. Okay. There's a lot in there, but let me just, let me sum it up by saying there's really two thoughts.

Uh, two, uh, subjects that we want to talk about subject number one is gonna be on trials and difficulties and, and subject number two is gonna be on wisdom and asking for help. Okay. So there're gonna be the two subjects, trials, and difficulties and wisdom and asking for help. Now back let's back up and let's go all the way back up.

Cause I wanted to just take these in order. Let's go back to James one where we just were let's look at the first on trials and difficulties. I want you to see carefully what he says here. This is mind blowing. Consider it pure joy. My brothers. Oh, oh, oh, we're gonna talk about something so cool. We're gonna talk about something that's gonna make us feel.

We're gonna talk about something that's gonna be awesome. Okay. So consider it pure joy in my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance and let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything does open any words, consider it pure joy.

Oh man. We're it's a setup. We're this is gonna be awesome. The subject's gonna be incredible. Consider it pure joy. When you think of joy, what do you think? How would you define joy in your life? My guess would be it's beyond happiness. Happiness has to do with happenings, joy abides underneath all the, I mean, joy is just that sense of wellness and wellbeing.

And man, I love life and I feel like, uh, it's all good. That's joy. What is pure joy? He doesn't say consider it joy. He says consider it pure joy. So what's the best moments of joy in your life. And I don't know what comes to. Maybe you feel the most joy, the purest joy is when you're, you're headed off for vacation and you're taking that cruise, you're taking that flight.

You're going to that country. You're doing that thing that might be when you're a kid, pure joy would be Christmas, right? Just Christmas. That's the that's it might be no, no pure joy for me these days is when I get to do that thing, I'd love to do whatever that thing is. You love to do that hobby, that sport, that thing, man, when I'm doing that time, just flies I'm in the flow of the moment.

It's. It, it, it, it could be that it could be something like that. Um, you, you might think about man, pure joy for me is when we get together and whoever the we is in your life, when, when you're all together, it's the best could be your family. It could, you know, maybe not so much anymore these days, but you get the point.

It could be your friends. It could be that group. Then when we're together, it's the best of the. So consider it pure joy, but what's the subject that he tags on there. The least likely thing most of us would choose when you consider very, when you, you know, consider pure joy. When you experience various trials, what trials of many kinds trials I'm supposed to get overjoyed by trials, you might it's as, as counterintuitive as it get.

Now, if you're struggling with what, what are trials mean? Let's get more specific trials of many kind. So all the difficulties in your life, all the hardships in your life, all the setbacks, the failures, the hassles, the irritations of your life. Those are the best at times is what James is saying. Let me sum all that up with a different word.

Consider pure joy. My friends, when you experience adversity in your life and immediately we go, the Bible has no idea what it's talking. The last time I would be over joy would be when I'm facing adversity, the word is literally testing. Okay. Um, that trials, the testings of your life, the testings, the testings that push you to the limit.

So we would talk about a bird testing, its wings, or we would talk about an athlete. Who's pushing themselves to the limit on how much weight can they lift or, or an athlete who's running. Who's trying to see how fast can I break my personal. The testing is when you go beyond what you thought you were capable of.

That's the concept. When you go there, there's absolutely no way I could handle this. It's more than I'm made of the thing that scares you to death. You go, there's no possible way. If that thing were to happen to me, I would crumble and be crushed. I would be overwhelmed. And James says, Hey, you know what, seriously, when that happens, man, great days.

in your life. It, it it's the image testing is image of metal being, uh, overheated in fire with intense heat to drain off the draws. Considerate. These are opportunities to be purified in ways you've never imagined before considerate man, just as greatest of.  he, he says there's three outcomes. I wanna make sure you see the three outcomes.

Why is it so good? Because number one, you will develop perseverance. Perseverance is grit. Perseverance is the ability to not crush and be crumbled under the, the weight of a difficulty that is in your life. It it's stick to itness. It's that I'm not giving up. I'm hanging on with everything you'll develop perseverance you'll, um, be, become complete.

That's the word teleos, which is like lacking nothing. Like you'll be fulfill. And then he says, you'll be mature. What does that mean? It means you won't be like, you used to be, you won't handle this problem. Like you used to handle this problem. You won't be overwhelmed. Like you used to be overwhelmed.

You'll see a greater purpose. Now let me state simplest of questions. Can we ever really be tested in our faith without adversity? Can you ever really know what you're about until you go through something that's bigger than you? Uh, how did you handle the pandemic of two and a half years ago? I, I wanna suggest that what trials do is they flush us out from behind the cover that we're hiding behind pandemics, uh, which I've only really experienced one pandemics really kind of make you see who you really are, pandemics.

Uh, like there's no way to hide. See, I would suggest. The pandemics, the pandemic that we've gone through has brought out the best of us and the worst of us. You, I'm not accusing you, I'm not charging you. I'm not making any assumptions about you, but I do wanna suggest that it would be incredibly valuable for all of us to ask ourselves, how did we do, how did we do and what did it flush out of me?

I mean, literally bad connection of words, but what was the whole deal with toilet? I mean seriously, what was, why did we become so greedy with toilet paper? We know that if we have our garage is full of toilet paper, somebody else's garage is empty. What, what does it say about us when fear just took over and, and we were scared and it's like, keep apart from everybody, everybody.

And I please, and do not in the comments I'm making right now, politicize this. I'm not politicizing. You. What does it say about how we handled the issue of masks or the issue of vaccines? I'm not making a claim on what we should have done. I'm just simply going, what did it say about how we as a people and about how it was so easy to care for ourselves and so hard to care for others, or maybe you came out of that thing unscathed, maybe it was the highlight.

I would suggest that as Christians, we did not come out looking good. We didn't, what does it say? The difficulty.  um, adversity will really reveal who you are. I, I was thinking about this and I was thinking about like in the world that we live in and just historical people, and I've got a list, a mile long of these.

I just thought that I'd pop a couple out. And I would say like this, like just a couple of examples.  Albert Einstein. Most all of us know. Okay. I know who he is. All right. He did not talk. He did not speak until he was three years old. His teachers thought of him as incredibly dumb mean literally dumb, and that he, he, they couldn't keep his attention during class.

This kid cannot learn, um, until, um, he won the Nobel prize in physics. Okay. It's just, it is like what a bad start, but what a fantastic finish. I was thinking about Vincent Vango. I don't know if you know this, but Vincent Vango is credited with about 900 paintings in his lifetime. You wanna hear something shocking?

Vincent Vango sold one painting in his lifetime. You talk about a starving artist. All of these paintings, nobody wanted, what did it do to him? Why did he keep going Beethoven? You know, uh, with death, he had a fantastic career, you know, as a composer, then he lost his hearing and everyone it's over, man, it's over.

He learned a different way to hear music and people who know these things say his best compositions were after he went death. Hows that even happened while Disney well Disney as an animator was fired. From, uh, a newspaper job for being an animator, the, the paper fired him and said, this guy has absolutely no creative ability whatsoever.

That sounds like me, not Walt Disney. Uh, and one last one. Uh, babe Ruth hit 714 career home runs, incredible crush the ball. Oh. And by the way, he also had 1,330 strikeout. That's a lot of Mrs. Folks. That's a lot of failure. What's your failure rate in your life? I, I think about those people in the world, but then I think about these people in the Bible, what, you know, just, just quickly, how about the difficulty in Abraham's life, the difficult in Jacob's life, and you may not know the story, but trust me, these lives were not easy to live the life of David, the life of Moses, the life of the apostle Paul.

The life of Jesus. Hey man, if God's on your side, everything's gonna go. Awesome. Hmm. Here's what I need you to understand. None of the examples I just listed ever, ever, ever hit the easy button. They never opted to that. So one of I'm I'm gonna throw in an idea out and I'm gonna throw a concept out and then I'm gonna throw the idea out that I, I really do hope you'll chew on today.

As you go from here, testing. In our lives causes us to experience discomfort. That's that's a no brainer. We get it. Testing causes us to experience discomfort here. Here's the big idea. All right. All growth. All growth comes from discomfort, all growth, never easy. You hit the easy button. You forfeit growth.

Now that was the first one let's just quickly hit the second one. The second block is about wisdom and asking for God's help. So let me read to you, James one, uh, verse five on down to eight. It says this. If any of you lacks wisdom, let me just stop right there. If any of you are having a hard time figuring out where is God in my difficulties and my adversities.

If any of you. Lacks wisdom. You should ask God who gives generously and to all without finding fault. And it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like the wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind, that person should not expect or should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Such a person is double minded and unstable in all that they do. Now. I don't know how you hear that, but let me. Let me just say it this way. Are you having a difficult time in your life right now? Are you facing adversity? You got questions. Are you asking God? That's the point? You got questions. You got concerns.

Got doubts. Are you talking to God? I, I, I want to just kind of probe this a, a little bit. Many of us are afraid to talk to God about the struggles in our life. Many of us, I told you a couple weeks ago. When I was growing up, there was a guy across the street. His name was Mr. Williams. And I, he, uh, always answered questions.

I peppered him with questions and I paralleled Mr. Wilson and Dennis, the minutes with Mr. Williams and Calvin Minnace. Um, we tend to think of God like that. Like, I, I don't wanna, like, it's really wrong for me to question it's really wrong for me to bring any of these things up. And, and so be because we don't ask, we don't have an.

uh, God, we, we didn't turn to God in the midst of the difficulty. And so we don't know why are we going through this and God, what do you want me to learn from this? I I'm gonna put a statement out that I've put out before, but I wanna say, and then I'm gonna say it again a little bit differently. The greatest cause of unanswered prayer is unpaid prayer.

God, I don't know where you are. I don't know what's happening here. I don't know why this, I don't know. You got questions. Did you ask God? Did you ask God, we don't have, because we don't ask scripture tells us now there's a story in the Bible. I, I, I don't, I wish I had so much more time than I actually have it.

It it's, it's a story that there's one verse in this story. I can never get out of my mind. It guides me. It reminds me, it kind of sets a, a moral compass for me whenever I'm like, confused about what's happening. All right. So this is the story. I don't have time to read it. I mean, it. It's Joshua, uh, chapter nine, the verse 15 verses here, here's basically what's happening.

Joshua is leading the people across the Jordan river, uh, that Moses has died. Joshua's taken charge and they're gonna take the promise land that God gave them. But God said, I want you to drive out the people. And, and so they, they get across. So they, that the Jericho, you know, Joshua had the battle of Jericho and then there's another city AI, right after that.

And all the people started melting in fear because God was with these people, these Israelis that were coming. And, and, and everyone was starting to panic because of what the evidence was that God was doing incredible things. But here, here, there was one group. There was one group that was going, you know, what, if we don't do anything, we're just gonna fall.

So it says they resorted to a ruse. That's what it says, resorted to a ruse. What's that mean? They thought we're gonna do this differently rather than just flee or live in fear or die at the hand of the Israelites. We're. Resort to a Rouse and here here's what the Rouse was. And again, you could read all this, but lemme just tell you real fast.

They, their, their leaders said, you know, what we gotta do is we gotta get a delegation. We need to go to them and we need to fool them into thinking we've traveled a long distance and we need to make a treaty with them, even though we're next door neighbors. Because if they make a treaty and they, they swear an oath to it, they won't be able to violate it.

We'll be able to live right next to 'em. They can't hurt us. So this is how it says that it went, um, Let me just find where I wanna pick this up. Um, and our elders and all those just verse 11 and, and our elders and all those living in our country said to us, take provisions for your journey, go and meet them and say to them, we are your servants.

Make a treaty with us. This bread of ours was warm when we packed it at home on the day we left to come to you, but now see how dry and moldy it is. And, and, and these wineskins, uh, that we filled were new, but see how crack they are. And our clothes and sands are worn out by the very long.  and then it says it's the Israelite sampled their provisions, but did not inquire of the Lord.

Then Joshua made a treaty a piece with them and let them live. And the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath here. Here's what you need to realize is, um, These people are gonna be tremendously problematic to the Israelites because they couldn't drive them out. Cuz they made an oath that they wouldn't.

And I want you to see that verse verse 14, cuz I think this is so profound. This is the one worth remembering the Israelite sampled their provisions, but did not inquire of the Lord. If you're confused as to what that's saying, they're going, oh God, we don't need you on this. We got it. Yeah, we, we we're good.

We'll just figure this thing out. It did not inquire of the Lord. If you read often in the Bible, you'll find phrases like David inquired of the Lord and the Lord revealed to him. Now, again, if you're having a hard time, I wanna say it this way. The biggest reason prayers don't get answered is because prayers don't get prayed, but he pleads with us.

When you pray, believe in God, don't just throw prayers to the wind. Don't just wish for the universe. If some spirit out there somewhere could. That's why it says this in Hebrews 11, six without faith. It is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

And then we get into that whole thing about, yeah, but he can't doubt. Is it a sin to doubt? It would depends what you're doing with your doubt. Hey, I don't know if you know this, but John, the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, the 4runner of Jesus.  at the end of his life. It says he sent his disciples to Jesus to inquire as to if he really was the Messiah.

Just like that soak in for just a minute. John, the Baptist sent disciples. Yeah. You know why? Cuz he was in prison and tomorrow he's gonna lose his head. They're gonna cut his head off and he goes, just make sure is it a sin? Just make sure if it's a sin, help me to understand why was Jesus sweating drops of blood in the garden of GSEM on the night before he died?

What was his prayer? God. Is there any other way, take this cup? Is there any other way,

uh, let me tell you, when I think it's a sin to doubt, it's a sin to doubt when you've written God off as none.  that's when you're just throwing the prayers up to the wind. I don't know anyone out there. Anyone, anything, any spirit of any kind? Is it a sin to ask God hard questions? No, your marriage in trouble, you should be asking hard questions.

Your career in trouble. Your finance is in trouble. Your family's in trouble. Somebody you love dies in an untimely or in, in a way that you can't fathom how. Is it a sin to ask God, why? Let me throw this idea. Wouldn't it be disingenuous, which is like, you know, extreme, um, extremely, not genuine. Wouldn't it be disingenuous.

Pretend like you don't have questions that are haunting you when you do see if you equate the presence of a problem with a lack of presence of a God in your.  that's a really bad place to be. And what James is trying to tell you is don't believe God's not there because problems are there. Turn to God, turn to God.

Nope. Let me close these two sections back to back. What do they have to do? There's one thing that ties them together. There's the issue of faith, faith. When trials come into your life and adversities come into your life and faith, when you're trying to figure out why did this come into my life, faith to believe that God is good and that cares for you.

And he's for.  and that he could have prevented this, but he thought in his wisdom, it better not to prevent it for you. You know, most of us, the last thing we would say was when it's tough that I don't have pure joy. I have pure misery can't we just avoid the problems. Can't we just skip this can't we just hit the easy button in life.

Easy. The guy goes, no, you can. So I wanna close with an anecdotal story. I I've heard this various ways. It doesn't matter. Uh, there's a story of a, a man who saw something outside his window sill and he observed it. What it was was, it was a cocoon that had been put right next to the window. And if you know the story, which most of us get it.

All right. So caterpillars become butterflies, but they have to go through this stage. . And so he watched this cocoon, you know, waiting for the day that a butterfly was gonna emerge. And then one day he saw it happening. What he saw was the, the, the butterfly was having a horribly difficult time getting out of the cocoon.

And so he sat there and he thought, can I do something? I gotta do something. So he took a pair of scissors and he sniffed the cocoon and, uh, the thing just popped out and he goes there. And then he watched for days as that deformed, a butterfly literally dragged this little carcass around the window.

because it couldn't do anything more. And then it died. See, apparently if you want to be a butterfly, you have to struggle coming out of a cocoon to push the fluid into the wings that you are ultimately gonna use to give you the lift of your life. No struggle, no lift. All growth comes from discomfort.

Don't doubt God, when it's tough, look for him. Well, last thing I wanna say is this, you. Those have a rooted shirt on. I don't normally wear the shirt, but it just seemed appropriate on a day that we're talking about. You want to go through something tough, go through rooted. It's 11 weeks. It's got homework.

It's got Bible study. Here's the deal you want to grow? There's no easy. There's no easy button rooted is in our church and in our lives because we believe it is absolutely the best thing that will give you the found.  that's gonna help you to succeed at this Christian life. It's gonna teach you things that we don't know of.

Anything else that will teach you, that we have a session beginning on September 11th, 11 week session. If you've not gone through it, it's hard. I'm not gonna tell you it's easy. It's worth it beyond measure, but it could be the next thing that you need to do to grow beyond where you are. It's uncomfortable.

That's why it's power. Encourage you to check it out. All campuses we'll be doing it. So September 11th, let me pray. God, thanks for our time. Thanks for these folks. God, here with me, those who are on one of our sites, God, those who are watching this online, wherever they are. Thank you for everyone. God, thanks for the students among us.

And, uh, their lives are so valuable, precious to. So God, we pray that you cause us to think deeply about these issues. When, whenever we have the presence of a problem, we quickly assume the lack of you, your presence, help us to figure this thing out. What we can't understand, we need to turn to, we need to ask, but God, when we ask, we need to believe you will listen and you will answer.

So we turn our eyes to you. Help us to live a genuine Christian life. We pray for this in Jesus name a amen. Thank you guys.