God is in Control

Good morning. Before we get into the message this morning, I just want to give you a great developing story here at Twin Lakes Church, and I want to give you the latest chapter in this. About a month ago, I told you about little six-year-old Travis Busey, and if you'll remember, he heard me challenge the whole church several weeks ago to set aside a buck and a half a day for ten weeks, because that adds up to $100. And if all of us, every man, woman, and child give $100, and I said this in a sermon about eight weeks ago about how God has a heart for the poor, I said, "We as a church, if every one of us did that, we would come up with over $300,000, which would be enough to buy one million pounds of food for the Second Harvest food bank, and to completely feed an African village on the border of Somalia, where there's a horrible famine right now, they don't have any food up there, we could feed a whole village for a year if we did that.

Feed a village for a year in Africa, raise a million pounds of food for the food bank. Nobody has ever done anything like that before, and I got passionate about it and into it and challenged the whole church, and it was one of those sermons that I went home and I thought, "Did I just step over the line? Have I said too much? Is that crazy to challenge everybody like that?" And then the next week, Travis's mom comes up and says, "I just want you to know that Travis went home that day and decided, 'I'm going to raise my $100.'" He's six years old, he has no money. And he decides he's going to start making kites and selling them door to door for $2 each. And here he is at one of the neighbors' houses with one of these very simple paper kites, they all have Bible verses on them that he made, he's selling them for $2.

Well, he did this, he goes door to door, and he makes over $200 selling these kites door to door. But the story gets better. Because this past Wednesday, I was very privileged to be invited to speak at a luncheon downtown at the Coconut Grove down there on the boardwalk. And kind of it's one of those luncheons where everybody who's everybody in Santa Cruz County is there, and then they invited me to represent the other side of the crack tracks, I don't know. But they had the new publisher, the Sentinel was there, the general manager of KION, Channel 46 was there, the mayors of the cities were there, and CEO types from places like Plantronics, there's over 300 people there, hundreds of people packing out the ballroom there at the Coconut Grove.

And I kind of got to speak, and I told them all about you. And I told them how you guys are getting passionate. I told them about our goal to raise a million pounds for Second Harvest, and I challenged them in their city governments and in their businesses to try to just get their employees going and raise money to. And I said, how are we going to reach that goal as a church? Not because we're a church of millionaires, it's because of people like Travis. And I told them his story, and I brought little six-year-old Travis up on stage with me, and I interviewed him in front of all these folks. And then I said, hey, by the way, Travis brought some kites with him here to the luncheon. And I said, he'll be in the back just standing there if you want some after lunch. Each kite had a little Bible verse about helping to pour on it, and God's love for us, it was good stuff.

Well, after the lunch, I look over and I see this, a long line of all these VIPs standing there waiting for their own personal Travis Busey kite. And I thought of that verse, and a little child shall lead them. And 15 minutes later, six-year-old Travis has made another $365 for the food drive. Isn't that amazing? It's amazing. He's been saving all of this in his little food drive envelope, and he presents it here to me and Second Harvest's director of development. But I want you to notice that we put these food drive envelopes in your bulletins again this week. And I hope you're inspired by Travis's example because guess how many weeks we have left in this food drive? Two. Two weeks left. And so I want you to pray about how God can do a miracle in your life so that you can give, and we're going to do something as a church that we will never forget.

And we're going to do something that's going to be a testimony to the whole community about how Christians, because we are loved, we love others. I'm very excited about this, and I'm stoked about the fact that the weekend after Thanksgiving we are going to reveal our totals. And I just am excited. I think God is going to do a miracle. Now grab your message notes. They look like this. Let's continue our God Is series. If you are joining us for the first week today, this is a series on the attributes of God that we are tying into a devotional book that we published as a church. You can pick up your copy at the info desk in the lobby. It is a book designed to help you dig deeper into all the topics that we address. I encourage you to go through it. We have small groups based on this material as well.

And today let's talk about how God is in control. And we need to hear this because so many people are losing hope today. They are giving in to despair. They're convinced that everything is going to hell in a handbasket in this country, in the economy, in their lives and they're full of anxiety. Would you agree with that? And that's why we need to know that God is sovereign. That's what theologians call this. God's sovereignty, which means God is ultimately in control. Life is not absurd. God has a plan. There's a purpose behind it all. And let's just look at some of the verses where the Bible teaches this. Psalm 103 says, "The Lord rules over everything." Everything. The Bible says about God, "You rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand and at your discretion, people are made great and given strength." In Isaiah 14, "The Lord Almighty has sworn, 'Surely as I have planned, so it will be. And as I have purposed, so it will happen.'" In other words, everything is moving toward a focus. There is a plan. There is a purpose. There is a climax that history is moving toward.

From Job 42, "I know that you can do all things and no plan of yours can be thwarted." From Psalm 33, "The plans of the Lord stand firm forever." The purposes of his heart through all generations. And finally, look at the title given to God in the book of Revelation 19. He is King of all kings and Lord of all lords. God is sovereign. God is in control. And I love this truth. Because as I dwell on it, it makes me secure. It helps to dispel my anxieties. It makes me remember that no matter what happens, there is ultimately a greater reason it is all moving toward.

However, two very good questions always come up whenever I talk about the sovereignty of God. I've had these questions. You might have these questions today. These aren't in your notes but I want to take a couple of minutes to address these. And the first question is usually expressed something like this. If God is sovereign, why are there starving people? If God is so in control, if God has a plan, then what's his plan for the hungry people? That's a great question. I was reading the new Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and it says when he was a very young man in July 1968, Steve Jobs saw this, the cover of Life magazine July 1968 which had starving children on the cover. And it says that he went to his church as a young man. He went to a church over the hill in Sunnyvale and he had this Life magazine in his hands and he asked his pastor, "Does God know about this?" And his pastor said, "Well, it's complicated but yes." And then Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer said, "Then I don't want to know that kind of a God." And he walked out of that church never to return.

Now, as he got older, his views softened and became a little more sophisticated than that but it's still a great question that a lot of people have. How do you answer this question? Well, what if God does have a plan and his plan involves you because that's what the Bible teaches. Did you know that even the United Nations says that there's actually more than enough food and more than enough money to feed everyone on the planet and to get that food distributed to everyone on the planet with more than enough food to spare? It's like we're all sitting around a giant table and God has put the food, poom, on the table and the only thing left to us is to pass it around to the people who need food. That's his plan and we're part of the plan. And I have to tell you, this is why I am so passionate about our food drive. You might wonder, "What is it with Rene and this food drive?" Because hunger is such an essential need. You know, you can survive even without shelter. You can survive even without education. You cannot survive without food.

And God's plan, the Bible says, is for us to dig in there and to help out. You know, the Bible says we live in a broken world, a world marred by sin and part of God's plan to fix that is what we do as Christians now, bringing the values of the kingdom of God to earth now. And of course the final part of God's plan to fix that is what he will do one day to redeem the whole world. But there's another question that comes up and it goes something like this. If God is sovereign, what about free will? Right? Does God's sovereignty mean every single thing that happens on earth is in God's perfect will? And if so, does that mean that I don't have free will? And if I don't have any free will, if I'm just like a robot doing whatever God kind of wills me to do, then how is it that God holds me accountable for any of my choices? And if I am not a robot, if I do have free will, if I can't choose to do whatever I want to do, if I can choose that, then how can I say that God is sovereign because I have a free will and I could mess up God's plans? Sovereignty, human free will, they don't go together.

Well, that's a great, great question too. And we could talk about this for a whole sermon, for a whole series, but let me give you a couple of analogies that help me. God is like the captain of a cruise ship. He is piloting that big ship and it's going to get to wherever he wants it to go, when he wants it to go there. We are like the passengers. And while we're on that ship, we can choose to do all kinds of stuff. We can choose to help or hurt our fellow passengers. We can choose to enjoy the cruise or complain about the cruise, to commit crimes on the cruise or behave ourselves on the cruise, to swim or play bingo or whatever. We've got a lot of choices and the captain permits that freedom. But ultimately, my choice is not going to change what the captain will do with all of us on that boat. He has our destiny in his hands.

Another metaphor, you're playing chess, imagine it. You're on a chess board, you're playing chess with God. And you are totally free to make all kinds of moves, to try all kinds of strategies. But since you're playing God, he will ultimately win the game. You have real freedom to make whatever moves you want, but God wins. Saying God is sovereign is really saying God wins. Ultimately, God wins. Now, of course, these are both imperfect analogies, but they help me work out the problem a little bit and they seem to match what the Bible says and we go into more depth on this in the God is book. But some of you may be going, but so what? That's kind of an interesting study for like a philosophy class at college or something, but what difference does God's sovereignty make to my daily life?

I want to give credit where credit is due here and so many people way smarter than me have done a lot of thinking on this. I read some great thoughts in books and sermons from people like Chip Ingram, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, John Piper, and others that I draw heavily on in this next section especially. But I want you to think about how God's sovereignty affects three areas of your life that you encounter daily. Jot this down in your notes. Number one, God is sovereign over the plans I make. The plans I make. Understanding this is really key to peace of mind and I'd like us to read the next couple of verses out loud together starting with Proverbs 19:21. Let me hear you. Many are the plans in a person's heart but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails and Proverbs 16:1. We may make our plans but God has the last word. Circle that phrase. God has the last word. How many of you know this? Quick show of hands. How many of you, give you a little quiz here. How many of you are not married to the first person that you started having thoughts about getting married to? How many of you are not married to that person? I'm raising my hand because that's the case for me. Okay.

Now, let me ask you another question. How many, by the way, I hope that you were smiling when you raised your hand there but how many of you are not currently working in the first field that you went into as an adult? You're working in a different field. All right. Interesting. More people there. How many of you are not living in the first city that you moved to as an adult? You're living in a different city. Even more hands going up. All right. See, you made your plans but God changed your plans. Now, how many of you are glad God changed your plans? Can I see a show of hands there? Everybody who raised their hand on the marriage thing better be having their hand up right now is all I got to say but God changed your plans. So the unhealthy attitude about plans is presumption, right? Presumption is I know exactly what to do. I don't need to pray. Everything's going to go the way I want it to go. That's presumption.

James says in the Bible, now listen, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carrying on business, make money, why you don't even know what will happen tomorrow. Instead you ought to say if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that. That's the healthy attitude. Stay flexible. Stay flexible. Listen, a sign of maturity is to be flexible in your plans. A sign of immaturity is to be inflexible in your plans. Some people make plans and if anything varies in the plan, they just blow a gasket, right? Just pop a cork. But maturity says, hey, I'm going to make my plans but I realize ultimately God calls the shots in my life, plans change.

I want you to write something down on the first page of your notes here before you turn it over. People used to write something in their letters back in the days when people wrote letters and sending emails and they would say things like, hey, I'm planning on coming to visit you and then this was around the 1700s, early 1800s, they put two little letters DV, D period V period and that was an abbreviation for the Latin phrase, Deo Volente. Anybody want to take a guess what that means? Shout it out. God willing. That's right. God willing, I'm going to do this. I'm going to come and visit you next weekend. DV, God willing. I like that because that's saying, hey, I may make my plans but God is the one who eventually has the last word. Like Proverbs 16:9 says, in their hearts, humans plan their course but the Lord establishes their steps.

Now, what's that mean? I think all of us could give an example of how we established our course but the Lord directs our steps but let me tell you a story from my own life. We used to live up in South Lake Tahoe and I worked as a pastor at a church up there and I also worked at a radio station that was down in the Carson Valley, the Reno direction, and usually I got off in the afternoons and I had to drive back up to Tahoe and this particular instance happened in the winter time and it was getting dark, there were already snow flurries starting and so I'm driving up Highway 50. How many of you have driven up Highway 50 from the Carson Valley side up to Tahoe? Okay, so you can imagine this, right? It's kind of a lonely, desolate stretch of road. So I'm driving up and all of a sudden right around Spooner Summit, the car goes and it just stops. I'm thinking, oh no. Here, I'd been racing from the radio station. I had to go to a board meeting or something at the church. I was looking at my clock thinking what am I going to do? It was the days before cell phones. How am I even going to call my wife, call the church board to let them know where I am, why I'm late and I'm already fuming. I'm getting out of my car going, God, why did you let this happen? Do you ever get that way? Something small goes wrong in your life and you're like, I'm just like Job. Everything's going wrong. No, that was me.

So I decide what am I going to do now? I just start walking and then I remember there's a couple in our church that lives in a little neighborhood just past Edgewood there at the golf course past Spooner Summit. So I thought maybe I can go there and use their phones. So I start to run. I run probably two miles all the way to their neighborhood and I go up and down the streets trying to find their house and I finally find their house and I go, good, at last I knock on the door, no one home. I look inside, all the lights are off. I knock again. Maybe they went to sleep. They got to wake up. This is urgent. No answer. They're gone for the night. And so you know what I did? What do you think? Yeah, I tried to break in. That's what I did. I figured is it really like burglary if they're friends of yours? I don't think so. So I go around all the windows and all the doors for 20 minutes at least. I'm just working on jimmying them up. I couldn't do it. It was just shut tight, locked tight. So I said, oh, darn it. And I was just getting all mad. You could see probably heat distortion above my head and now I'm stomping as I'm going further down the road. God, why, Lord, why are you allowing this?

And then I remember there's a diner down near Zephyr Cove and I've never been to it before because it looks kind of sketchy. I've never stopped there, but I'm going to go there. So I start running again, running toward it and I see the lights are on. I'm thinking, okay, good, at last something's going right. And I step onto the porch of the diner and just as I do, I kid you not, a little hand reaches up and takes the little sign that said open and turns it to closed. Just as I step up, I go, you're kidding me, Lord, why? And I bang on the door. Cook says, can I help you? And I said, listen, my car broke down miles back there. Can I just have a cup of coffee while I call a tow truck? Well, all right, come in. And I sit down and I'm angry and I'm upset. And the waitress comes over to take my order and she goes, hey, aren't you a pastor, that church back in town? And it is so hard in those moments when you're a pastor and you're steamed and you're mad and you have to swallow the anger and go, yes, sister, how can I help you? Right?

And she goes, well, you wouldn't believe it, but I was at a funeral at your church last month and I've been thinking about what you said about life after death and how we have to be prepared for that because it's going to happen to all of us. And you said Jesus was the way and it's so weird that you would show up right when I'm closing so I can talk to you about this because I've been meaning to give you a call. And we talked for about 45 minutes about the claims of Christ. She just sat down in the booth across from me and basically said, tell me how I can receive Jesus Christ and what that means to me. Now, I got a question for you. Do you think that was a coincidence? No way. And let me just give you final proof for that. You remember my friends whose house I tried to find and they weren't at home and I tried to unsuccessfully break in? Well, they told me the next day they'd been home all along. Apparently I'd gone to the wrong house. And for 20 minutes I was trying to break into somebody else's home. The moral of the story here is I'm an idiot and the sovereign God uses even that to his glory, right? Can you rejoice in that in your own life? God is sovereign over the plans I make.

And there's lots more stories in the God is book this week. I have story after story about how that is true and the number two, secondly, God is sovereign over the problems I have. God is sovereign over the problems that I have. One of the best loved verses in the Bible, right, is Romans 8:28. Let's read this out loud together. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Circle everything. Everything. Everything. Now I'm not saying that everything that happens in your life is God's perfect will for you. It isn't. Sin isn't. But I am saying that God is a pro at turning bad things into good things. And if that's true, then the unhealthy attitude is to lose perspective, right? Lose perspective and say nothing will ever go right in my life again. That's it. All my good days are done. All my good luck is run out. I'm on a downward slide permanently.

When things go wrong in our lives, human beings are expert at this, totally losing perspective. Somebody said when we're down, we think we'll never be up again. And when we're up, we think we'll never be down again. But the healthy attitude is to remember there's a bigger picture. There's always a bigger picture. Three quick examples of this from the Bible. First Joseph, his father's favorite son. All of his brothers get very jealous and they decide to sell him into slavery. And he's taken to Egypt and he's sold as a slave into a man's house, a man named Potiphar. And this man tries to seduce him but he won't give in so he's accused of rape. And he's put into prison. He spends years there. Now, if I were Joseph, I'd be saying, "God, why me?" But God was working through those horrible circumstances. And later on, because of connections made in the prison, Joseph rises to prominence in Egypt and there's a great famine and because of his wisdom, both Egypt and Israel are saved. And he comes face to face with the very brothers that hurt him. And in Genesis 50:20, one of the great kind of verses in the Bible that are a wonderful pithy climax to an amazing story, Joseph says to his brothers, "You intended to harm me but God intended it for good, for the saving of many lives." He could have been very bitter but he had a bigger perspective.

Some of you are being hurt right now by bosses or brothers or sisters or spouses or ex-spouses or even children or other people. There are people who for some of you are out to destroy you. And they mean it for bad. But God is in control and he will ultimately turn it around and bring good out of it. Now, here's the thing. Sometimes we can see very soon why God allowed something, right? But sometimes we can't see it here on earth. And in those cases, I think of Paul's example, beaten, imprisoned, left for dead but he says, "Therefore, we do not lose heart." Why? Because we see how everything is working out for good here on earth? No. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. His perspective, his bigger picture perspective is not, "Oh, I can see how God's using this right now here on earth." It's not the bigger eternity. I can't see how God's bringing good on earth out of this but I can see the bigger eternal picture.

Mark and Laura Sverlok, when their baby Joseph died, Louise Palau, the famous preacher, phoned them and left a message on their machine that Mark just told me this week meant the world to them. They never forgot it. You know what he said? Very simple. He said, "Mark, Laura, I want you to know that right now, Joseph is resting in the arms of Jesus where you too will one day be." And Mark and Laura said that's what gave them the big picture. We were even talking about this last night. Laura, Mark's wife, was here at the service yesterday evening and she said, "In that one little sentence, Louise Palau summarized what they'd been needing." They couldn't see. They'll probably never see here on earth why God would allow something like that. But they can choose to see the bigger eternity that one day they will rest in the arms of Jesus along with their baby Joseph.

But what about the times that not only you can't see what God's going to bring good out of it here on earth but you don't even sort of have the spiritual energy to even think of eternity. You just can't see anything but darkness. Times like that I think of Job. Job loses his fortune overnight. All of his family is killed except for his wife because frankly it would have been a blessing for her to go but instead she just stays there and just read the story. That's in the story in the Bible. And then he gets a disease and he's absolutely miserable and he cannot see why this is going on. He can't see the greater good a la Joseph. He can't see the greater eternal good a la Paul. He's so down in the dumps he doesn't have the energy to even have those things in his thoughts. So Job says, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." How does he see the bigger picture? He just sees there's a bigger God. Basically he's saying, "He's God and I'm not. So what can I say?" That's a kind of perspective too. I trust him period.

Sometimes you just cannot see the bigger picture at all and that's when you have to remember there's a bigger God. Now you might be thinking, "Wait a minute, René. Go back to Romans 8:28 here. This verse has always bugged me because you might say, "This verse isn't true. I see people all around me with problems all the time, good people and I actually don't see how God is working it out together for good. In fact, they just seem to have the life of Job where things go from bad to worse in their lives." Right. Romans 8:28 is quoted a lot but Romans 8:28 only makes sense in light of Romans 8:29 which tells you what God's purpose is. Listen, God's purpose is not primarily to improve my behavior or my happiness. It's to transform my character, to make me more like Christ. That is how he works together everything for good. God's purpose is to make you like Christ. His goal is not primarily your happiness, although that's often a nice side effect, or your comfort. His purpose in your life is to grow Christ-like character, love and peace and patience because as I grow in that character, I bring a little bit of the kingdom of God into this world and there's a lot more about that in the book this week too.

So God is sovereign in the plans I make, in the problems I have and finally in the people I know. And this may actually be the hardest one to believe. People, God can work in the life of that person I know who is such a jerk, right? God can work in the lives of people who don't even believe in him. God is sovereign even over people, even over the bad guys. King Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible learns this lesson and he finally says, "God does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand." Now if this is true, then the unhealthy attitude is to try to play God over other people in my life, right? To try to manipulate people or to try to hurt people back. Many people in my observation become vigilantes or at least they have vigilante fantasies. There are people who've treated you wrong and you try to play God and get back at them or at least fantasize about it. Or there are people who drive you crazy and so you try to play God to change them and control them.

Somebody had a great line for that this week. They told me, "That's practicing sovereignty without a license." Don't you love that? The healthy attitude is to give it to God. You give it to God and say the Holy Spirit can work in their lives. I will pray for them and I'll pray that they respond to God's leading in their life. Let me give you an example of this. Do you remember the story of Joel Sonnenberg? Joel Sonnenberg was a toddler trapped in a car seat in the family minivan when a drunk driver named Reginald Dort drove a car into it and Joel was nearly burned to death. Reginald Dort fled the scene, fled the country, was only apprehended many years later. Meanwhile, 80% of Joel's skin was melted. His fingers were burned off. He is never without pain. But Romans 8:28 and 29 is constantly being proven true in his life.

Look at this news report about Joel's life. By the time Joel was eight, the Sonnenbergs were living outside Detroit and Joel was attending public school. He had no memory of the New Hampshire crash, no memory and no knowledge of the truck driver, Reginald Dort. When his friends asked if there was pain from his continuing surgeries, Joel lied and told them no. They always ask me questions like, "Does it hurt?" and I say, "No, it doesn't." But in fact, it is painful, isn't it? Yeah. By the time Joel was in high school in North Carolina, he was captain of the soccer team, president of the student council and prince of the junior prom. And at Taylor University in Indiana, he was president of the sophomore class. The fact is that the truck that crashed into Joel's car nearly 20 years ago robbed him of many of life's simple pleasures. It was faith, Joel says, not faith that brought him so far.

This is my prayer for you, Mr. Reginald Dort, that you may know that grace has no limits. We will not consume our lives with hatred because hatred only brings misery. What is justice in this case? It's to give it to God. I think that's justice. That's what we've always known our family is to give it to God. Give it to God. That's what Joel knows. Do you know that too? Listen, I don't want to minimize your scars. We've all got scars here, emotional scars and maybe even physical scars. But my guess is that probably the vast majority of us don't have scars that can match the scars of Joel Sonnenberg. And yet he's able to look at the person who gave him those scars and say, I hope you know that God's grace extends to you. And I hope you know that our answer is not hatred, but it's to give this, including to give you, Mr. Reginald Dort, to God. Can you start living like that? Because how's the bitterness thing been working out for you? Or maybe if you say, I can't imagine having that kind of an attitude, at least can you say, God, sovereign God, work in my life so that I can be more like that. Develop that kind of Christ-like character in me and then trust the sovereign God to work it all out.

See, look back over your notes. The fact that God is sovereign over your plans means this week when your plans go awry, you don't have to go, oh, God, why? You can think maybe, maybe God's got something else in mind here. This week when you're facing problems, you can be a little less stressed out knowing that God promises even this problem, he will work it together for good. This week when you face people that are annoying or irritating or maybe even are trying to harm you, you can say, but God is ultimately sovereign even over this person. I'm not going to play God. The role of the Holy Spirit is not my role. Do you see how believing the sovereignty of God can dispel your anxieties? But I want to close with one thing.

Some of you, I think, here are thinking, well, that's great for kind of the normal person or maybe somebody like Joel Sonnenberg who was victimized. But Renee, you don't understand. My situation is a mess, totally falling apart, hopeless, and it's because of stupid choices I made. I made my bed, now I've got to lie into it, right? But God, listen, I want to affirm to you, God has a plan for your life. God has a purpose for your life that has not changed even your past mess ups. He can take those and weave them all together and create a beautiful life where your ministry comes out of your pain, your ministry can come out of your past sin because of the truth of the sovereignty of God. And today I want you to meet the woman who has seen that truth in her life. She's seen the sovereign God powerfully turn around a life that she says herself was out of control.

It's a little nerve-wracking to address you guys, so I know that you will give her your full attention and support and please welcome Maria Bravo as she comes up to share with us right now. Maria, come on up.

It's okay. There we go. Can you hear me now? Good morning. My name is Maria and I'm 42 years old. I'm a daughter of God and I'm a recovering alcoholic, heroin addict and extreme sinner. From birth I have endured pain and abuse from both of my parents. Pain had a way of branding itself on my mind, heart and soul. Both of my parents were addicted to opiates, so that's what my childhood consisted of. Physically there, but emotionally and spiritually absent parents. By the age of 11 and 12, my little sister Lydia and I have begun a daily life consisting of smoking, drug abuse and absolute dysfunction. I had no idea that premarital sex at such an early age and heavy drug use were wrong. It was simply my daily life, what I was raised to do.

Prostitution, multiple abortions and giving up my children for adoption would only be the beginning of the hopelessness I would have to endure throughout my life. I never for one second thought that God would ever want me in my lowly sinful state. Years that passed did not change the stance of my life. The pain, the suffering only grew with age. The regrets and hard situations became many instead of few. I became completely destitute, living under a bridge, in a tent, cold, wet, hungry, utterly hopeless and lost. But even then God hadn't given up on me. Even after I had left the past, God had for me to follow like a lost sheep I strayed and strayed from him. I wasted so much time and fear and desperation. I thought I would die on the wayward path but I was not prepared for what was to come next.

I believe Jesus literally came to me in the form of my Aunt Peggy. He used her in such a mighty way when I was strung out in a tent, dirty, smelly and full of shame. She came to me and did the strangest thing. She washed my dirty feet. I didn't understand what she was doing at the time. I was so full of anger and cruelty I really remarked, "What are you trying to do? Win a ticket to heaven?" She just smiled and continued to wash my feet. She never gave up on me, pursuing me, searching the dark streets of Stockton in the most poor and scary places for Jesus' lost sheep, me.

One Sunday she and my Uncle Randy showed up again looking for me so I asked them why they weren't in church to which he replied, "This is our church, Maria." On Valentine's Day this year my baby sister Lydia died in her addiction and exactly one month later my mother died because of her addiction and she was my last living immediate family member. At this point my life just felt meaningless. I just knew that in one more month I too would be killed in the snares of my addiction. On the day we buried my mother I finally surrendered and asked for help so that I could live. I made the decision to show God, my sons and especially myself, that I did not have to die in my addiction, that with the help of the Lord I could break the cycle in my family.

My aunt took me into her home and helped me to detox. We started this search for a place where we believed God would help me to grow into the godly righteous woman He originally intended me to be. The day Melissa, the Teen Challenge Monterey Bay Program Director, called and said that there was a bed available for me we just knew our prayers had been answered. Bad choices have bad consequences. Good choices have good consequences. I truly feel I made the right choice the day I chose to live over death. Today the woman who stands before you doesn't even resemble who I used to be. I have become a completely different woman in Christ. I am helpful, joyful and positive sister to all the women in my Teen Challenge.

When I'm around they never stop laughing and smiling. Yes, I call it mine because I get what I'm willing to put into it and I pour my entire heart and soul into this program because I know this is where Christ has called me to be and I know that in Him all things are possible. Christ has taken me out of the dark and brought me into His perfect plan. He has showed me that no matter how bad my choices were I could see that God's love and plan for me working through others, other people. As Jesus said in John, "I am the light of the world. If you follow me you won't have to go into darkness because you will have the light that leads to my life." Thank you.

Thank you so much Maria. By the way, one of Maria's aunts is here with her today. A powerful moment for her I'm sure. Powerful stuff. I got to know Maria and some of the other ladies from the Freedom Women's Center a couple of months ago when I was down there and they served me and some other pastors a delicious lunch of spaghetti and meatballs and salad and incidentally I want to mention this to you. They said, "Pastor Renee, guess where we get all our food from?" I said, "Where?" They said, "The Second Harvest Food Bank." So I want you to put Maria's face on it when you give some of that food or gosh, Maria, I kept it together for three services and now it's coming out like waterworks but you get to know these women and you see the truth of the fact that God can work through you and I wanted her to give this message because I wanted you to hear not from me but from somebody who has lived this that you are not completely out of God's plan and purpose for your life.

You haven't blown it. You haven't been gone so long that how could God ever weave together all the weird strands of my life? How could God ever use me with all the mistakes I made? How could God use somebody like me? I don't know anything about the Bible. That's all an illusion. God can work through anybody and say, "Great, I have a beautiful plan and a purpose for your life and I'm going to weave together even the darkest moments and turn them into powerful ministry that gives glory to me forever and ever and ever." He's doing it in Maria's life and he can do it in your life too. And so here's kind of a little homework assignment. Here's what I want you to do all throughout this week is to reaffirm as you go through this week and have all kinds of different experiences that God is in control, right?

You go through this week and your plans go right. God's in control. You go through this week, you see something on the international headlines that makes you worry but God's ultimately in control. You go through this week and you encounter that problem or that person in your life who makes you crazy but God is sovereign. God is on his throne. And maybe for the first time this week, you take the step that Maria took, the step she took on the day that she buried her mother where she finally said to God, "Lord, I know you're Lord of the universe but now I want you to be Lord of me." And maybe you'd like to take that step even now. Let's pray to our sovereign God. Would you bow your heads in a word of prayer with me?

With everybody's head bowed, gosh, it just brings so much peace to your heart. When you say to God, "I acknowledge you are Lord not just of the vast universe but of me and my life. And even though there are problems, there's pain, there's suffering in all of our lives that is because of sin and bad human choices, we believe today, God, that you are able to work together even those things for the ultimate good making us more like Jesus." And maybe for the first time say to him today, "You are God. You can do whatever you want in my life and you prove that by raising Christ from the dead. So God raised me from the dead. Thank you for your sovereign love. In Jesus' name, amen.