Everyday Faith | Week 1 | Daniel Goulding Goulding | Echoes Church

I've often wondered

if God knew that I was gonna have this job as a, you know, adult. So because of that, he made me grow up in the family that I grew up in so that I would have plenty of stories to share with all of you to try to set up where we're going with stuff. And the funny part is is like my my my household growing up was

crazy. Like, chaos is an understatement. K? I'm right in the middle of five siblings. I have two older sisters, and I have two younger brothers. And suffice it to say, me and my younger brothers, we caused, you know, quite a bit of chaos for my parents. And just to kind of typify what like a normal, you know, experience would be in my home, There was a Christmas where my little brother right underneath me, Gregory,

had this moment where he thought it would be hilarious to like pull this prank on our other brother, Dennis, and so he gathers the whole family. Like, it's like this sweet Christmas morning moment. He's like, hey. I got Dennis a present. I want everybody to be there to see us open it, and my mom, you know, is still naively believing that there's something sweet about us. And so she's like all excited like, oh, this is so sweet that you got your little brother a present. And so he, Gregory's smiling ear to ear, like just excited to watch him open this and to see all of our reaction as he opens it. And so Dennis starts to unbox this present.

And as he gets through the bow and then he gets through the wrapping paper, he opens the box. And literally what Gregory had done was walked outside, took two piles of fresh dog poop, put it in a box, wrapped it, gathered the family to experience this incredible moment together,

and that in a nutshell was like my house growing up. Right?

The next Christmas, Dennis decides to get Gregory back and he does the exact same thing. It's like, bro, come on. You gotta get creative. Like, do something new. Right? Except he puts the present wrapped under the tree like three weeks before Christmas. K? Yeah.

I tell you those stories to say those are the only stories that I can even share in church. Like, was asking them for stories that they can remember. I'm like, guys, I can't share any of these in a church setting. Right? And I start there. I tell you that to say, if at some point Gregory or Dennis had come to me and said, Daniel, I gotta tell you something. I'm like, okay, man. What is it? They're like, I'm I'm God. K? You know how the bible talk about how there's a savior who's gonna come one day? Yeah. That's me. I'd be like, bro, you need counseling. Alright? Like, do you remember Christmas morning what you gave your brother for Christmas? Right? Like, I've seen some stuff. There's there is zero chance I would ever ever believe that my brother was the savior of the world. I would venture to guess for those of you who had siblings growing up as well, it would be a far stretch for you to be convinced that your sibling was God as well.

That was the burden of James. K? James is the half brother of Jesus. Obviously, we believe that Jesus had a different dad. Right? He was born from immaculate conception. James's biological father was Joseph, the same guy that rose or that raised Jesus,

but James and Jesus grew up in the same house. Mary was their mom. They grew up in doing the same stuff and James would have watched Jesus. Right? They potentially shared a bathroom. They you know, James had to be the guy that was constantly compared to Jesus. Like, just imagine that for a moment. Right? Mary's like, James, why can't you be more like Jesus? You're like, because he's God. Like, lay off lady, you know?

Like, that was James's existence and the scriptures are really clear. What makes the book of James so interesting is that James lived most of his life not believing that Jesus was God. I think it's in John chapter seven beginning of the book of Mark. There's a couple stories where Jesus is doing ministry

and his brothers show up to Jesus's ministry setting to make fun of him while he's doing ministry. K? Like, that's a typical brother response. If my brother said that he was God, I would show up and make fun of him. K? James does the same thing, but eventually something

something takes James from going, my brother is crazy. There's no chance he's God to eventually in sixty six AD, James will die a brutal martyr's death for the claims that Jesus is the savior of the world. The question we have to ask is what happened?

What would it take for you to become convinced that your brother was actually God? Well, book the scriptures tell us that in first Corinthians that Jesus post resurrection, he showed up to a whole bunch of people. One of them being James.

And at some point, James goes from being a skeptic of Jesus to bending the knee to the lordship of Christ. When eventually, he becomes the leader of the early church and he causes such a revolution in helping people understand who they are in Christ that the political party in power takes him to the top of the temple and they tell him to renounce his faith.

And because he refuses to do it, they throw him off of the temple and he doesn't actually die. So they have to go down and they literally they they beat him to death. The reason that the book of James is so important for us to see is because it's a guy that lived most of his life believing that Jesus was just a

crazy person, and eventually he converted. And then he took all the teachings that he remembered and he helped us figure out how to apply them to our lives. And so that's what our goal is this morning is to go, how do we take this faith that Jesus taught about, that the scriptures recorded, how do we make it practical? That's what the book of James is there for. Now anytime you're approaching the bible, you sit down to read it, which I can't encourage you to do enough. I saw a study the other day that said that only 9% of Christians regularly read their Bibles.

I'm telling you right now, if there are things in your life that you are asking to see breakthrough in, one of the easiest ways to begin to see the power of God move in your life is to make a commitment, to read the scriptures every single day. The data is overwhelmingly

clear that if you will read your bible three to four times a week, it changes everything. It moves mountains in our lives, but when we sit down to read the bible, when we open up the big book and we get into one of the smaller books, right, you gotta remember the book is made up of the Bible is made up of 66

individual books. Each of those, when you're reading them, you've gotta ask the question, k, who who wrote this? Because who wrote it, it begins to give us one of the most important things called context because who wrote it begins to inform

how they write it and who they're writing it to. The danger that we can make as westernized American Christians thinking everything revolves around us is believing that the scriptures were written to us. K? They were not written to us. They were written for us. Yes, they may remember, but they were not written to us. So the first question we're going to ask this morning is who who wrote the book of James? K. Well, survey says

James. K. This one's easy. James wrote the book of James. Sometimes you get to the book of Acts and you're like, okay, who wrote this? Okay. Deduction says it was it was Luke, but the book of James is simple. We know James wrote it. The second question is is who who did he write this to? Because again, he did not write it to us though it's for us. The first question is who wrote it. The second question is who did he write it to because we need the context for it. James, we see was the pastor of the first church in Jerusalem. K. The book of acts records the day that Pentecost came, the holy spirit fell on the church. Peter stands up. He preaches a sermon. 3,000 people are added to the church one day. And people often ask me, hey, is a big church bad? I'm like, I don't know. Go read the book of acts. They seem like there was big churches from the very beginning. Right? At some point, I don't know what the number is. You could say that it's 300 or 3,000, but big churches have been a thing since the beginning of time. We see the early church. You know who was the pastor of that early church?

James. Well, problem was that church started to face massive persecution, so they could not gather like this because it was just too easy of a target, so they began to scatter. And so James writes a letter to those scattered Christians. So who is it written to? It's written to persecuted Christians in the early church

and secondary audience is you and I sitting here today. K? Longest introduction ever, but that gets us to James chapter one verse one. K? Written by James, written to the persecuted Christians that we can learn that we can learn from.

James chapter one verse one starts this way. It says, greetings from James. This letter is from James. If you had any question about who wrote the book of James, you have no more questions. Greetings from James, it was written from James. K? Here's how James now sets up this book. He's going to give us his biography.

Why should you listen to James? Here's his pedigree. Here's his resume. Here's his LinkedIn profile. This is who James is. He says, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to the 12 tribes, the Jewish believers that have been scattered abroad. Greetings.

Again, just for your sake, I didn't do it, but I was tempted to preach this whole message from just this first verse. This is the plague of being a preacher. Right? You read one verse and you're like, oh, there's so much in this, and the truth is is there is a lot in every single verse in the Bible, but James gives us some really powerful kingdom principles that we've got to see if we're going to lay a healthy foundation that we can build upon in the coming weeks as we look at this book. See, what's amazing to me and part of why God didn't have me write a book in the Bible is because if I was James, this is not how I would start the letter.

If I was James, I would want you to know, hey, I'm the only guy that's here that also shared the same womb that Jesus was in.

I'm the guy that when the first church blew up, they're like, who's the obvious leader of this thing? Me. That was me. I read I led the biggest church that was around. You know Paul, the guy that wrote the majority of the New Testament, you know, he records in multiple places that when he needed wisdom, you know who he sought out wisdom from?

Me. That guy is writing a letter to you right now, so pay attention. Right?

That's not what James does. James starts in what he wants you and I sitting here two thousand years removed from this letter's origin. He wants us to remember one thing about who James is. He's a slave of God. Most translations will use the word bondservant. K? Totally different context than the slavery that we've understood in American culture. He's talking about a bondservant, a willing

servant to God, not one that was forced into something, one who's willingly enchained himself to a master understanding that this person holds the keys to life. He says, I am a willing bond servant and he doesn't say to my brother, to my friend, to my homie, he says to the Lord Jesus Christ.

James makes a distinction that's powerful that you've gotta see. If you and I are going to allow the scriptures, the the life of Jesus to change us, we have to come to grips with one central truth. K. James knew a lot about Jesus.

He knew his reading schedule. He knew his sleeping schedule. He knew the things that he, you know, kinda had weaknesses in. Obviously, we believe jays Jesus never sinned, but it doesn't mean that he was he was perfect. Right? He there's things that James knew about Jesus that nobody else knew, but those facts,

the information about Jesus didn't lead to transformation from Jesus. Only when he bent the knee to the lordship of Christ did the transformation begin to happen. All that to say, you and I need to start and reconcile with the fact that knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus, they're not the same thing.

I think my danger, my fear is living in America in 2025, we would say that we live in a Christian nation and there's a lot of people who think that they are good with God because we know some things about Jesus,

but the truth is is that knowing facts about him and knowing him, having a deep intimate relationship with him, bending the knee to the lordship of Christ, they are two separate things and the scriptures are abundantly clear that there are a lot of church people who are going to get to the end of their life. Matthew chapter seven says, and what you will hear instead of well done my good and faithful servant, you're going to hear get away from me for I never knew you.

It doesn't say some, it says many will come to me in the end time saying get away from me for I never knew you. See, it doesn't matter what you know about Jesus, what matters is does Jesus know you? And knowing things about Jesus and knowing Jesus, they're not the same thing.

At some point, you and I have to bend the knee to the lordship of Christ. And the second thing that James introduces us to just one verse in is he begins to tell us and teach us about one of the most important kingdom principles.

So you've got to understand the kingdom of God that Jesus came to introduce was a paradoxical upside down type kingdom. He says, if you wanna be great in my kingdom, you've gotta become the least. If you wanna be first, you've gotta fight to be last. It is why James would start and say, you wanna know my resume?

My resume is that I'm a slave of God.

I have done nothing, achieved nothing, earned nothing, though on paper, James had a resume that we could only dream of. Speaking to a culture that says, you know what you should do in your email signature? You should put every little three letter acronym thing that represents all of your stuff so that when people get an email from you, they'll go, wow. That is an impressive person. Right? There's sometimes I get things from people, and these are pastors. It's like reverend doctor PhD four and I'm just like, bro, I get it, dude. Like, you're super smart. Right?

But part of what we need to understand

as followers of Jesus is that we are called to be the chief servants of all. K? One of the kingdom principles that I hope you can get is that if servanthood is beneath you, leadership is beyond you.

In the kingdom of God, if you do not have a heart to serve, I'm telling you that is not the leader that God will pour his anointing into.

God is not looking for people that have the chief greatest leadership gifting. He's looking for people who are willing to serve the most. God doesn't call the equipped. He equips the called. Right? He's not looking for you that has the greatest markings and natural abilities as much as he is as somebody who's willing to out serve other people. Part of what I love about being a church plan is, man, we have so many servants and volunteers doing things that nobody would ever know about. The part that's amazing is I get to stand up here and I get all the accolades for what God is doing through echoes, and I do believe that we are in the middle of a really spiritual supernatural move of God's spirit that is is changing the East Valley right now. But it's not just because of what I get to do on a stage. It's because of hundreds and hundreds of people that show up every single weekend and do jobs that nobody's patting them on the back for. We have teams of people that show up on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings and stay after church on Sundays to set all this up and to tear all of this stuff down. And I know some of the guys that are on those teams. Some of those guys, Monday through Friday, they are usually the person telling other people what to do.

And I watch them come in and they just they take a ladder and they set up signs.

They put signs up. They put parking cones up. And I look at that and I go, that's somebody that begins to understand what the kingdom of God is like. That this world is going to try to build us up. We have to fight to find positions where we can just serve others that have nothing to do. They they we have they have nothing that we can gain from them. I'm just here to serve because that's who Jesus is. All of this to say, again, if you look around right now, and I would encourage you, look around. Don't make weird eye contact with people, but just look around this room. K? This is our least attended service of the three services that we run every Sunday morning. K?

We know in church world, June and really July are like the calm before the storm. Once school gets back into session beginning of August, families get back into rhythm, and church attendance usually kicks up.

So we know come August, we're in trouble. Right? Our three services don't have enough room to grow right now. So in August in middle of August, we'll give you all the details that are coming up soon. We're actually moving to four Sunday morning services, which is terrifying. You know, it's in one regard, it's exciting.

But I only say that to say you probably won't applaud after this part. I only say that to say we we need your help. We cannot do this without you. K? We need it in every arena. Set up, tear down, parking, ushers, greeters, hospitality,

all of it. We we need you. It takes us over 500 people to pull off a weekend service right now, and the people that serve, we're so thankful for you. You are making a difference.

If you are here and you don't serve yet, I am borderline begging with you to serve somewhere. Just show up to one service and serve at another service. I think all of us can do that. If half our church did that, we'll have enough people to make four services happen. Again, don't focus on when the service times are gonna be. We'll get you all that information.

All that I'm asking you to do is because it's a kingdom principle, it's an echoes church value that we did not come to be served, we came to serve. If you're not serving, help us serve. Get ready for four services. Text the word team to 31707.

Again, I know you're like, what are the service times? We'll get you those coming up soon. Don't worry. And you're like, bro, we're one verse in. Is this really gonna be this long? I'll speed up. Okay? Verse two. Here's how James continues verse two. He says, dear brothers and sisters,

when troubles of any kind come your way, consider an opportunity for great joy. I love James. It's like, hey, here's my bio. I'm a nobody. I'm a slave. When life sucks, get ready for joy. You're like, woah, man. Like, can we ease into this thing? You know, like, let's get to know each other a little bit. This is what's amazing with the book of James is he wastes no time because he understands that life is short. The entire book of James is a 108 verses. 59 of those verses are nothing but commands

to go live out. The theologians refer to the book of James as the New Testament version of Proverbs. K? It's wisdom literature. It's knowledge applied. Take this and live it out. It's something that you can put into your life. James starts, here's my resume,

and here's what I need you to know. When you and I walk through difficult seasons, you need to consider it an opportunity for great joy. He says, want you to consider something. I want you to think about something. I want you to consider something that is not natural to us.

He says that when life gets really hard, consider that maybe it's not God doing this to you and it's God actually bringing a gift to you.

See, because we have a worldview. We have a theological understanding that if God is good, that means that only good things can come. And the problem is is when things happen, I hope you guys have seen the flooding that's happening in Texas right now. Absolutely heartbreaking,

and the logical question to a skeptic that doesn't know God would say, if God was good, why would God allow something like this? And there's something that you and I have to reconcile with. The first thing is it doesn't matter how smart you are, doesn't matter how much you understand the scriptures,

there is a part of God that we will never fully comprehend, and that is something you just have to learn to be okay with. But I also would submit to you that the fact that you can't fully understand who God is proves more that he's God and you're not.

Because if you and I could fully understand why God does everything that he does, does, who God is in every arena, when he does certain things, God would not be God. He would be an intellectual concept that exists within the the confines of our reason and logic, but that's not God.

And there's a part of it that we just won't ever fully understand. Why does God allow certain things? Why does he heal certain people but not others? I don't know. But our responsibility is to lean in and ask God to do it every single time to heal even though there's some aspects of his will that we can't completely

control. And secondly secondly, we've got to understand that this idea that a good God doesn't ever allow bad things, it it completely forgets that we live in a fallen and broken world.

See, we live in a world that is decaying and falling apart in sin. Sin's impacts are felt all over this place, and there is a day that's coming where all pain and tears are wiped away, but until then, we have to reconcile with the fact that hard seasons are going to come. Difficulty is going to be a part of our life. Jesus himself said that in this life, you will know suffering,

but take heart because I've overcome this world. That's why James just jumps right in and he says, guys, when life throws you trials

and troubles, I want you to consider something other than what your natural knee jerk reaction is, which is that God's left me. God has abandoned me. There's no way God could be good and this would be part of my life as well. He says, consider it an opportunity for for joy, but he uses a really interesting word there for trials and troubles. The word in the Greek is this word parasmos.

K? Again, all of the the New Testament, most of it is written in Greek, some of it's in Aramaic, but the original language is translated into what we read as English.

That same word that he uses there for trials is all throughout the New Testament and other places, and what's really interesting is that word can be translated to one of two things. It's either translated to trials or it's translated to temptations.

This is what's interesting to me. Think what James is saying is that there are seasons of difficulties that will come into our life. Some some that are there because our temptations that we that we let into our lives led us down a road that we're now living in the consequences of. Some trials we bring into our

and then there's other trials that we have nothing to do with that just happen to be there. But either way,

he says, either way, when you find yourself in a hard season, I want you to consider something that there's an opportunity for God to use this to produce something in you. We'll see what that is here in just a second. But he says, I want you to consider something about these trials. But if we're gonna consider something about these trials, we gotta know what the scriptures say about trials. K. There's a couple things we need to know biblically about what trials and difficulties are. The first one is that trials, if you're taking notes, trials are unavoidable.

I wish that I could tell you, hey, if you follow Jesus, you will have a life free of pain. You'll never have issues, but that's just not a that's not a true gospel.

Why I love the book of James is he's not selling you a bunch of lies. He's telling you the truth of what it's like following Jesus. This is a guy who just watched one of his closest friends, a man named Stephen, get dragged out into the public because of his profession of faith in Jesus

and they were telling him deny Jesus and he says, won't do it. And so a crowd of people, they literally they stone him to death and not the stoning that some of you were thinking about. This is the stoning with rocks. K? They literally murdered this guy for his faith in Jesus. Like they're being really persecuted. There's real trials coming to them and what we need to understand is it doesn't matter who you're talking about in the Bible.

There's not a single hero of our faith that did not have to walk through difficult seasons. Think about Noah. He had to go through the flood. The guy with the greatest name in the Bible, Daniel. Right? What is he known for? For planting Echoes Church. I'm just kidding.

He was known for praying and because he was faithful in prayer, he ended up in the lion's den. Every single one of them had to face trials and difficulties. It tells us that trials, friends, are unavoidable. Secondly, they're also they're also unpredictable.

If you could know when trials were going to come, it would make it a lot easier, would it not? Hey, in two weeks, just know you're going to face some really financial difficulties.

And then on your way to that meeting, you're going have a flat tire and your kids are going to fight in the back seat, so just get ready for that day. But it's not how it happens. They come out of nowhere, and the data is pretty telling. This says about thirty percent of us sitting here this morning,

if I were to ask the question, hey, do you find yourself in a really hard season of life today, whether it's financial health related, if it's marital, if it's work related, whatever it is, would you would you raise your hand and say that I feel like I'm in a trial? Says 30% of us would say yes to that.

That means that maybe

maybe you and I can have grace with each other, understanding that though we look like we have it all together, if you really understood what people were wrestling through, you would you would have some grace with them. So let's let's just treat people with understanding that, hey, these trials, they're unpredictable. They're they're unavoidable. And and lastly, trials are by their very nature, they're they're uncomfortable.

As much as James is saying that this is something that God will use for you to and be something that you can consider for joy, I promise you if we outside after service and said, hey, we have a table out there where you can sign up to get trials.

Nobody's gonna go to that table. Right? It's gonna be like the Southwest Airlines moment when like people walking on the plane, like, don't make eye contact with me. Like, I don't want you to sit in my middle row seat. You know? It's like, though I get that God can use these, we're not necessarily running to have them be handed to us. They are uncomfortable.

That's the whole thing that the scriptures say. There's an element to this life that we've got to understand we're not completely in control. But here's what James is saying. I heard this years ago that I think is true. Though you and I can't control your season, what we can control is our spirit.

I think what James is saying is you won't be able to control the season of life you find yourself in, but you can control who you are in the middle of that difficult season. You can control whether the season of hardship will make you better or bitter,

but it can't do both. You've gotta make a choice, and what James is saying is consider

consider an opportunity that God can use these things to produce something in you other than other than pain. How can he make such an audacious claim? Here's verse three. He says, here's why. Here's why you can consider it an opportunity for joy. For you know, again, if you have a bible, highlight, underline, circle that word know,

that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James says two times, here's what he wants you to know.

He wants you to know that the primary thing that you and I need in this life is we need endurance. We need perseverance. The reason I said to highlight underline circle that word know is he uses again a really important Greek word there for know. It's not an intellectual head knowledge version of knowledge.

He's talking about a knowledge that we only ever see in the book of Genesis when it says that Adam laid with Eve that he he knew her.

See, could tell you everything about my wife. I could tell you her hair color, her birth date, her Instagram handle. I could tell you her favorite foods. It doesn't matter how much information I give you with my wife. You don't know her. You won't know her the way that I know her. Why? Because for fifteen years, our lives have been intertwined together.

I know her at the soul level. What James is saying is that he wants you and I to know not intellectually, not superficially, but he wants you to know at the soul level that God is trying to put something in you that you need in this life. What is it? Endurance. Perseverance.

He says, you and I need this thing called endurance. The biblical definition is it's a it's a God given grit to keep going when it would be easier to give up. This is what god is trying to produce in you. It's the thing that hard seasons will give you that seasons of ease and and luxury just won't do for you. He says, you and I need endurance.

We need some grit. We need a faith that has been battle tested. We need a faith that has some teeth in it. Why? Because there are seasons of life that are going to make you want to throw in the towel and just give up. I don't know if you've been told this, but friends, here's the goal of this life.

The goal of this life is to stand before God whether we were given forty years or ninety years and to hear God one day look at us and say, well done my good and faithful servant.

You endured the race. You finished the race. But we live in a culture that celebrates people starting things, but we serve a God that celebrates people who finish things. Remember Paul told Timothy, he says, Timothy, he writes him his final letter sitting in jail. He says, Timothy,

my cup is being poured out but I finished the race. I've done the thing and we live in a culture that want somebody goes on one run and all of a sudden they've got a podcast about running. You're like, bro, you did it one time.

Try something for more than ten minutes. But we live in a culture that celebrates people starting and James says, what you need is you need staying power. You need endurance. You need perseverance, and it's something that only hardship can give you. So in the middle of life happening,

when things draw you to your knees, James says, consider it an opportunity to go, wait, I've been here before. God's going to use this to grow me and maybe I can have joy in spite of the circumstances that I'm in. You know, the scripture say that you and I can have a joy that is not conditional on circumstances.

Maybe what this is where this is exactly what James is talking about. How do you get it? You have to consider that maybe there's a better way. Maybe there's something that God wants for you that's better than what this world has, but it forces us to reconcile with some really hard realities.

You and I, a lot of times, we have this theology that I'm telling you it is not true, and our theology is that God is only good when my circumstances are good. We need a theology, a belief, a framework of God that says God is good regardless of what's happening out here. All of this is secondary,

but here's what I know about who my God is. Because he's good, and the scriptures say that he will work all things together for my good, that when life is not good and life is difficult, I can hold on because it means that God is still working, that God is still producing something in me. My kids at school, used to go to every single Friday, they would have to go to testing, and every Thursday night was like anxiety driven night in my house. So, like, I don't wanna do the test tomorrow. You're like, bro, what's the worst that's gonna happen? You get a bad grade and you focus next week on that thing because what is the purpose of a test for?

To prove to you and to prove to your instructor what it is that you're struggling with. God uses tests to do the same things for us. He's trying to give us some things, but you gotta understand we've been sold a bill of good as as Americans in our westernized version of church.

I need you to know under this morning, here's what God is primarily concerned with when it comes to you and I. God is primarily concerned with who we are. Again, wrote it down this way that God cares more about who you're becoming than what it is you're achieving.

And you and I live in a world that only cares about what we're achieving. Does God say work hard, all these things? Yes and amen. But what you're achieving is only as important as what you're doing with what it is that you're achieving.

At the end of the day, what God cares about for you and me as a guy feels I I am very driven, want to build things, want to go, wanna work hard. At the end of the day, God cares about who I'm becoming more than it is about what I'm achieving. When everything else is gone, when it's just you,

all the stuff all this all the stuff is silenced, all the accolades are put away. It's just you sitting there at the end of the day. Who are you? That's who God cares about. Who you're becoming is the most important thing that God is trying to produce in you. And he says, you and I, we need endurance.

If we're gonna finish this race well, we need some staying power. I think that there's no more time in our lives that we're more like our savior than when we're walking through something really hard. I'm so thankful that we serve a savior that understands suffering and trials,

who walked through being brutally beaten and tortured for nothing that he did, but he did it for us.

If you remember Hebrews chapter 12, it comes on the other side of the author of Hebrews talking about all the heroes of our faith. It's literally the chapters called the the the heroes of faith, the hall of faith. It's all the guys that did these amazing things and what they did for God. In Hebrews chapter 12 says this, it says, therefore,

since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down,

especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And here it is. He says, because of their faith, let us run with endurance, the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross disregarding

its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne. Think of all the hostility that he endured from sinful people. Then you won't become weary and give up. He's saying, what do you do when you find yourself in a place in life where you just wanna give up? You remember Jesus.

You remember that when he wanted to give up, he endured,

that he walked through suffering. And if you keep your eyes on him, you remember that there's pain and purpose in trials, and I'm telling you, you'll begin to see the plan God in your life. See, the greatest lie of the enemy is that there is no purpose to your pain. The truth of what I know as humans is that we're we're okay with pain as long as we understand the purpose. Heck, a lot of us in this room, we actually pay for pain as long as we understand the purpose. Any of you have tattoos?

I sit there and I'm like, why am I doing this to myself? You're like, well, I like the look of it, so I pay for pain as long as I understand the purpose. And what the lie of the enemy is is that in the middle of your season of difficulty and hardship, there's no purpose at the end of it. In the gospel, the book of James, the book of Hebrews says all of that is a lie from the pit of hell and that God will not waste your season of hardship.

But you gotta understand, pain will do one of two things to you. It will make you better or it will make you bitter. You've gotta choose. And I know, man, some of the most difficult, most bitter people that I know are people who've walked through unbelievable hardship.

And instead of it allowing it to be something that connected them to Jesus, that draw them closer to God, it became the thing that made them angry and mad towards God. What James is saying is consider. Consider that maybe there's a different way. And if you find yourself here today in a season that just feels unbearably,

you go, man, I don't even know how to get up tomorrow and get going.

The beautiful thing is is that even if you don't know where to begin, the last verse that I have for you, James says, here's where to begin. Verse five. He says, if you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.

He says when you find yourself in seasons where you don't even know how to get up and try again and you need some wisdom from God on what to do, he says ask God. He'll say in James chapter two, the reason we don't have wisdom is because we don't ask for it. So if you're here today in a hard season, you have no idea how to get out of this or what next looks like,

ask God for wisdom and watch what he'll do. He has wisdom that he wants to pour out on you. He has a plan for your life that the scriptures say are a thousand times better than the best dream that we could ever dream for our life. So let's trust him. Let's take him at his word and say, okay. I'm going to consider that when I'm in hard seasons that I can sit I can consider an opportunity for joy because, God, I know you're trying to put in me perseverance. You're trying to give me endurance to not give up. If you're here this morning and you go, yes, that's me. And I just feel like there's people here who when I say that you feel like you're ready to give up, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It might be in your marriage. It could be in your finances. It could be in a relationship with a loved one. I don't know what it is. It could be a health related thing, but if you're here and that's you, I wanna just take a moment. I just wanna I wanna pray with you. I wanna ask the the favor and blessing of God to move mightily in your life. So I'm gonna ask everybody if you would just close your eyes, bow your heads. I wanna create a private moment in here,

and I know that there's people who are here. You know exactly what I'm talking about. When I when I'm talking about wanting to give up,

you know that I'm speaking to you. If that's you, just so I can know who I'm praying with, I'm gonna ask you if you would. Just right where you are. Just throw your hand up. Just right where you are. Don't be ashamed. There's hands going up all over this room. Hands going up high.

Just take a moment and say, god, this is me. Saying, God, I desperately need you to move in my finances, in my health, in my marriage, in my relationship with my kids, whatever it is. Father, we thank you for every hand that's going up. You can put your hands down. Thank you for your boldness.

If you would just pray a prayer like this right now in the quietness of your heart, say, Jesus, with all all of the faith, God, I ask that you would move mightily in my life. Father, I'm standing here in agreement asking for you to move mountains,

God, for your people. Lord, we ask that you would do what the scriptures say that you do. When we are broken in spirit, you draw near to us. When we walk through the valley that feels like the shadow of death, God, you walk with us. Us. And so, father, I thank you in advance for breakthroughs.

God, I thank you for financial breakthroughs. God, I thank you for health miracles that are going to happen. God, I thank you for marriages that are going to be restored. God, right now, while we're in the in between,

not knowing what is in the future, God, we praise you in advance because we know that you're good, and there is a day that's coming where all of this will make sense. But for those who find themselves here today wanting to give up, God, I pray that you would give them the gift of courage. Holy Spirit, would you overwhelm them?

God, give us staying power. Lord, we need you more than we ever could possibly imagine, and we are asking for you to do what only you can do in our lives. It is in the mighty name of Jesus, all God's people said. Amen and amen.