Mystery Guest

Well I know you're not doing that well because I got news that the coffee was not provided this morning. Anybody cranky this morning? I see people brought their own. Those are the smart people. Well good for you. Hopefully I can provide you with some spiritual caffeine to shrink you out of that stupor here in this morning. My name is Paul, brother to Mark. Very excited to be here. I'm also one of your pastors, pastor of Outreach here at Twin Lake Church. And I was just with René, so we're glad to be back in the country. We were with the TLC team that was so privileged to be able to go to visit the seven churches of Revelation in Turkey and Greece.

Here's a shot of us at one of the ancient theaters. I believe that's Pergamum. And then as I like to do with the tour guides, I like to show my appreciation for the ruins and the artifacts that they worked so hard to put into place. And so here I am trying to show my appreciation for all things historical. But René couldn't be here today because he was my roommate on the trip. And we had an interesting room that caused a bit of trauma for him, and that's why he's taking care of that this morning. Here's a picture of our room, one of our hotels in Turkey.

You notice something a little odd about this? Yeah, that's my bed right there. And then right next to the bed is a window to the bathroom. So in Turkey, I'm wondering when I saw this, is there a shortage of wallboard and a surplus of glass? So let's just make all walls out of glass? Or was there a mistake at registration? Did they put René and me in the honeymooner suite? Because apparently in Turkey, young couples just cannot bear to be apart even when using the facilities. I don't know. It's a bizarre thing, but René was traumatized by it. It was fun to watch him try to be subtle.

I grew up with Mark. I've got no sense of shame or privacy, but poor René. So pray for him. He's seeing his therapist as we speak. Well, anyway, I'm just having fun with you. But if you are just joining us or visiting from wherever you came to for this summer, we are in a series called Meals with Jesus. And to kick things off, I have a question for you. Have you ever been really, really disappointed? I mean deeply, greatly disappointed. Anybody? Yeah. Well, any Sharks fans here today? I'm a hockey player. I'm still grieving that. But let's admit it. That was not as big a disappointment.

And we're going to get this out of our system. On the count of three, you're going to give a big "Ahh!" for the loss of the Warriors in their debacle. One, two, three. Okay. Yeah, that was just terrible, terrible, terrible. Well, you know, your misery isn't over, ladies and gentlemen, because guess what? We're just weeks away from your last place San Francisco 49ers getting back together. And the misery and disappointment is going to continue for another season. And speaking of the 49ers, does anybody remember the last successful coach we had? Jim Harbaugh, right? Well, he left us, of course, in a flurry and went to Michigan.

Now, if you know about the Michigan University Wolverines, this is a proud, storied program. They're called Big Blue. They play in the big house. And they're always national contenders, but not for like a decade. They were in the dumps. So they bring in Harbaugh. And he turns them around really, really quickly. In fact, last year he had them out of the gate at five and one. They are on the national title radar. And in comes in state rival Michigan State Spartans. Whoever wins this game is still in the national championship discussion. Whoever loses is not.

Well, Michigan and Michigan State go back and forth. It's a great game. But now with only seconds remaining, the Wolverines of Michigan have it in control. They're at the 50. Their defense is dominant. They're just going to punt the ball away, celebrate the victory. In fact, the local news has already announced the victory. So here's how they played out that last play to win the game. Check out the screen. One step in. Don't take your normal steps. One step in. Get it out. Well, he has trouble with the snap. And the ball is down. Well, he has trouble with the snap and the ball is free. It's picked up by Michigan State's Jalen Watts Jackson and he scores on the last play of the game. Unbelievable.

Yes, our good friend Jim is always they say, right, they snatched, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Too bad. Too much. So that was it. They didn't get to go to the national championship. But seriously now, how about you? Other than your team letting you're down or your church letting your dad with no coffee, have you ever experienced a serious disappointment? Like you feel like I just chose the wrong career and it's been one disappointing year after the next. Or maybe you feel like you're in a disappointing long term marriage where you go, I don't know if I made the right choice.

Or maybe just the thought of family makes you think another gathering where we'll just be disappointed again. Or maybe you have a way where child has always been a disappointment to you or loss of health or lost of a loved one. And you think, God, you took that loved one before their time by my reckoning and you just have a colossal sense of disappointment in your heart right now. Well, if that's you, you've come to the right place today. If that's not you, it will be you. All of us will go through great disappointments. And so if that's your story and it is for all of us, I think God has something for us today to help us in the midst of great, great disappointment.

So in those bulletins you got, grab those message notes, pull those out, follow along. If you have your Bible, we're looking at Luke 24. In your pew Bibles, that's on page 749. So let me set the scene here. This is Luke 24. Jesus has just been crucified. People are fleeing Jerusalem. It's not what they expected. And to make matters worse, now there's a rumor that the tomb is empty. So now his followers can't even grieve normally. And then from grieving and being distraught to now X-file-like bizarro, there's a report now circulating amongst the women followers that they've actually seen Jesus alive.

Now you and I, moderns might think, well, that was back then. Didn't they believe myths and other stories like that? So this wasn't a big surprise. Really now. Look at Luke 24 starting at verse 11 to see just how they understood this story. But they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Are you kidding me? People don't come back to live after they're dead. And remember the disciples at this time are not a band of giants of the faith. They're hiding. They're being pursued. They're frightened. They want to just give this up. Jesus is dead.

So this is not a group of giants here. And now think about how colossal the fall has been from high expectations to utter disappointment. Picture yourself in their day. If you were alive in Jesus' time, you would never have known anything else but living under the thumb of the mighty empire of Rome. You're in a country that has been conquered. You're under military rule. You've known nothing else. But finally, Jesus comes on the scene and he's able to affect miracles and he speaks with authority and things are changing and everybody loves this guy. He could be the one.

But then there's this one problem, the very ones who should have recognized him. The teachers of the scriptures that predicted the coming of the one. They should have recognized them, shouldn't they? But instead they work with the Romans to instigate his crucifixion. What? You can see they're just sky high expectations and now he's dead. The movement is dead. The dream is dead. Little disappointment. Now you and I know the rest of the story. But think about their time and place. They didn't know the rest of the story yet.

So that's where you and I enter. Why is this relevant to us? You may be here today in the midst of a story. Things have gone really bad and you don't know the end of the story. No clue, no apparent light at the end of the tunnel. Is that where you're at today? That's where they were at. Great uncertainty, great unknown. So let's pick up the story and see how it unfolds. I'm going now to verse 13 which says, "Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus." That's getting out of Jerusalem. About seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.

As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along them. But they were kept from recognizing him. What kept from recognizing him? Now what's going on here? Well if you read that in the Greek it means they were kept from recognizing him. It's really no big thing here. And we're not told why, which means we don't have to know so we can go on and just trust Jesus he's got this under control. So back to the verses we read, Jesus asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them named Cleopas asked, "Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem but does not know the things that have happened there in these days?"

Really? I mean this is the massive hello McFly moment. Where have you been? Everybody in the world has gone through this incredible historic event that's ended awfully. Where have you been? What's the truth to traveler here? I mean really Mr. Stranger, back to verse 19, "This is about Jesus of Nazareth." They replied, "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests in our ruler's head that him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him. But we had hoped that he was going to be the one to redeem Israel." And the women amazed us, they went to the tomb early this morning, didn't find the body, came and told us they'd seen visions of angels of all things and said he was alive.

And some of our followers went there to see and it was like the women said, and then Jesus interrupts and says, "How foolish you are, how slow to believe all the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things before entering His glory? In beginning with Moses and all the prophets," in other words, all the Old Testament, "He explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning Himself." Men and women, this is the money verse right here. If you get this, if I get this, this is life changing.

Jesus is going to show them that because He is the point of the whole scriptures and how it unfolds and reveals Him again and again and again that there now can be a place in that unfolding to make sense of this disappointment. And He has the authority to do this. I mean, this is the context of the apparently the greatest colossal failure in the history of this people of God movement. The Son of God's been killed. Talk about ultimate disappointment. And yet Jesus is about to do something. He's going to unveil His presence in the Old Testament scriptures and how that will make sense of everything.

If we get this, we'll get the whole point today. Now to help us, I brought up a cake mold. Help us understand what Jesus does here. And last night I was rebuked by the church because I said, "Hey, look, it's a poundcake mold." And all of a sudden all the baker's in the crowd, "No, it's a bundt cake. It's a bundt cake, you idiot." And so I said, "Gee, thanks, Mom, but you never taught me how to bake." So I learned this is a bundt cake mold. Thank you for the emails too about that. Here's the point of the cake mold. It is to set the pattern for the ultimate reality of the main thing, the cake.

So molds or patterns help us determine what the real deal is going to be like. So to help us as we go along, think Old Testament is like the pattern. Real people, historical accounts, nations, stories, all did their thing in their day, but they also, and here's the point, in a much bigger way, they point to a bigger reality that goes beyond the pattern, and that's Jesus. So watch for that as we begin to unfold this. In fact, I saw a couple of cake molds online. Here is a real popular one, I guess, with kids, a horse. You can make that with your cake mold, yeah? Okay. So a cat, popular with dogs, I understand. And then one that I think would scare children, the squid. This is really, it's really elaborate, yeah.

We did this too, because my mom said that I was rather stuck in a rut. She said, "I just wanted a big fat chocolate cake every time, so here's my annual birthday cake I loved." Mark don't like to branch out. He had here a cake that I'm not sure what this is. My mom was a great woman, but man, not strong in the sculpting thing. I think that it's supposed to be a whale. My sister's rebuking him for not being appreciative. But finally, then one more. This one's a little weird though, because here's Mark with his favorite. You can see he's pretty happy, but I have a question for you, honestly. What kind of kid gets this excited over a cake of a boy with no arms? I think Mark needs to go see René's counselor as well. That's a little strange.

But you get the point, we use the mold to form a pattern that gives us the intended effect. And so if we can see that the point of the Old Testament was to direct us to the ultimate big point of the Bible, Jesus, that's the pattern, he's the real deal, we'll begin to see how all this makes sense, how your disappointments can fit into the grand scheme of what Jesus is going to do, even our disappointments. And so in your bulletins, we won't go into them, I can only go over a few right now. You'll see I've listed a bunch of patterns and then fulfillment. Old Testament pattern, fulfillment in Jesus and the church. That should help you this week, just to give you an idea of how many of these are in the Bible.

All right, so now though, let's go back to the two travelers. Jesus is explaining, and he's going to probably, I'm going to start with maybe Abraham and say, he probably says, "Listen, you two, do you remember Abraham? See if you see a pattern here. He was told by God to go and sacrifice his one and only son, or for you who grew up with the King James, his only begotten son." Where have we heard that before? John 3, 16, but it started back in Genesis. And this is a bizarre story to our ears because it involves human sacrifice. It was something common in Abraham's day, and it's as if God intervenes into that culture and says, "Okay, Abraham, you crazy human sacrifice your own kids, you go up and do that with Isaac." So he's the sacrifice's one and only son, but he gets up there and God breaks in and says, "No, I have a new tradition. Instead of human sacrificing their own, I will be the provision."

And a ram is caught in the thicket, and that ram is allowed to be the sacrifice for their needs in that moment, and so we see a picture of the ultimate sacrificial lamb, don't we? See the pattern there? Take Moses, for example. Moses was our...he went up the mountain, didn't he? And he was our intercessor for the people with God. Now watch the pattern. Jesus comes down to us to be our intercessor with God. And here's just a couple more. There's a...water is a common thing here. Think about how in Genesis God divides the land from the sea so people have a place to live and be saved. And then we have salvation through the waters of judgment in the ark. And then Moses splits the Red Sea and they go on dry land and they are saved from the Egyptians. And we today commemorate our inner spiritual salvation through what? The waters of baptism. Are you seeing the patterns here?

Just a couple more. How about manna? Remember Old Testament? God fed them in the wilderness with this miracle bread that He provided for them. But that was only good for then and there. We now feast on spiritual manna because Jesus is called the bread of...yes. Are you seeing the pattern? Here's one more. In the Old Testament you had the temple. And this was of course the place where God made His presence known amongst the people. But now that's not needed anymore. It's obsolete. Why? Because Jesus doesn't dwell in buildings made by human hands. He is in you. If you are in Christ, you are one of the bricks in the wall of the spiritual temple. We call that the body of Christ. The temple of God.

So the Old Testament is just chock full of these real things that were patterns that then are fulfilled in Christ. Well right now I want to share with you a brief story of a man who is part of our family right here at TLC. He went through a similar experience of discovering Jesus in the Old Testament. So before we go back to the men and the travelers then, I want you to see how today one of your own made the connection of Old Testament patterns to Jesus and how that transformed his life. Watch the screen.

My background is I was raised in a Jewish home. Kind of a social, traditional, peer group oriented Jewish home. We always went to Sunday school. I took four years of Hebrew school by Mitzvah, the whole works. And so could read Hebrew very fluently but really didn't have a great understanding of the Old Testament scriptures. When I first got married, we had a couple that had really, we loved. They had invested a lot of time in us. And ultimately they invited us to a Bible study and frankly we didn't have any idea what to expect nor did we know what really a Bible study was but out of respect to the relationship we said yes and we went.

In the course of that Bible study there was a pastor who understood my background. And it was interesting because he was teaching through the book of John and when it came to what we know as the upper room discourse at Passover, he carefully unfolded for me prophetic passages of who the Messiah was, what he would have to go through and ultimately showed me Christ in the Passover. And I saw stuff that I had just never seen before. So it caused me to really investigate the scriptures and ultimately as Paul talks about even to this day the veil, you know, the veil was lifted for me and I fully gave my life to Christ and considered myself basically not so much as Christian as a Christ follower and ultimately a completed Jew, someone who recognized that the Messiah is Jesus, Yeshua.

The idea of Father, Son and Holy Spirit came to fruition and the light just went on for me and so it just led me to all the other scriptures that made the reality that Jesus was the Messiah. Jews have always lived under the law, the Ten Commandments and we realize that you can't live up to the Ten Commandments. We all sin, we all fall short of the glory of God. But the beauty of what was instituted and Jeremiah prophesied in Jeremiah 31 is that ultimately God would make a new covenant in our minds, no longer written on tablets but written on our hearts. And so that becomes an incredible promise and hope that leads to eternal life through Jesus.

Once I had committed myself to Jesus, it was a radical change for me. I was not the man I used to be. I would suggest that anybody that's questioning their faith, whether you're agnostic, whether you're Jewish, but bury yourself in the Word of God. Because it's right there, it's like God's given us His Word, His washing machine manual for life and so many of us are hesitant just to investigate that. Wow, again another pattern. He mentioned that tablets of God's Word were written on stone originally but now God writes His Word on our hearts. And when that happens, it opens up the entirety of the scriptures which gets us to the point, the point of the scriptures which is Jesus.

But you say, "Well how does that help my disappointment? How did it help the traveler's disappointment?" I'm glad you asked. Let's go back to the text and see how Jesus met their need and answered that question of disappointment. Now at verse 28, it says, "As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if He were going farther. But they urged Him strongly, 'Stay with us for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over.' So they went to stay with Him, and when they were at the table, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to Him." Just a common meal with Jesus. This is not even communion here.

31, "Their eyes were opened and they recognized Him, and then He disappeared from their sight." We just got you and then He's gone. Why did He do that? Again, I just trust that Jesus knew the need of the men in the moment or the couple, I'm not sure, and He's going to have more appearances to come. But for right now, this is what they need, and we can see it by their response. Look at verse 32, which says, "They asked each other, 'Were not our hearts burning as He talked to us?' On the road and opened the Scriptures to us, the travelers are changed." They've gone from being distraught in their disappointment to now urging Christ to stay with them.

They've gone from feeling just down and out to the exhilaration of having the whole of Scriptures opened up to them. Why is this important? How does it address our question today? It's because it takes their colossal disappointment, the dead dream. It can take your dead dream, and it puts it in a place. It gives it a context. If we can imagine history starting from here and ending to here, now I look back and I go, "Oh my gosh, I see how my pain had a point in its time. I see how it fits." Because if you just look at it, you never see the whole thing, but if you look at the big picture, it becomes into view.

For example, let's imagine that you were told you're given a place, a free land, but you had to be blindfolded and you're going to wake up in the middle of that land. And so you wake up and this is what you see. You see, "Well, I'm not excited. This looks like just dead earth." And you'd be right, "I don't see one living thing on here. It's a trick." But then you go, "Well, maybe I'll walk around. Maybe there's more." You walk onto a hillside, you look down, still looks pretty bad. But then you begin to back out even further and you go, "Well, there's at least some green around the edges here. Maybe there's something ... I don't know. This is very depressing." And there's just this canyon that looks dead. I don't even see a tree yet. Then you back up further and then you get into a helicopter and you go up higher and higher and higher and then you begin to realize there's more to this place than I first thought.

In fact, as you back up even higher, you realize this is a place we actually call a paradise. The Hawaiian Islands. Men and women, that's what Jesus can do with our disappointment. It seems like dead, useless earth. But when he opens up the whole of the scriptures, which reveal that he's the point of the scriptures, it gives you a place to put that disappointment where Jesus can make sense of it. Totally in this lifetime, not for everyone. Sometimes yes. But from an eternal perspective, can he say, "I have a way to make sense of this. I can redeem this hurt." He can do this when we see it from his perspective.

So this gives you just three radical life-changing truths in your notes if you're going to write these in. First is this. Jesus is with you and me. Jesus is with me. Now just like the travelers, he's with us but we don't hardly see him, do we? Where is he? He's going to grow up once. Why can't I see him? But men and women, this shows us that he's there even when we don't know it. Even when we want to give him a lecture for letting us down. He's there and he's going to do what he needs to do in his time. Secondly, Jesus has a plan. Now this doesn't mean that he causes every great wound and disappointment in your life. No way. We're in a sin-fallen world. Jesus does not cause all your troubles.

But if you give your troubles to him, sometimes now but for sure in eternity he can fit it into the grand story of the Bible which is him and he can say, "I make this a trophy. I redeem this and make it something that actually makes you better in an eternal view." And thirdly, Jesus redeems my disappointments. I don't know about you but I would go, I think, insane or I'd be given to drinking or I would be an angry person if in light of the hurts and things that I've observed in others or experience if I didn't have an eternal God to make it right. I think I'd go insane, honestly. But when I can look at the grand pamorana of the point of the Bible, Old Testament to knew that Jesus is the point and he has a place to put my hurt, my disappointment, I may not understand it all but he gives me hope that he will make sense of it all.

Perhaps the best story I've ever read that makes this point, it's my favorite as your missions pastor, started back in 1921 with David and Svia Flood, a young Swedish couple journeying off to the heart of Africa then known as the Belgian Congo. There would be no creature comforts there, they knew this, but they felt called to go to a tribe they'd heard about that was big, influential, but had no Christian witness. And the disappointment started right from the get-go. They arrive and the chief tells them the first day, "You cannot stay. Your Jesus will offend our local gods. We can't have that, you have to go."

And so David and Svia Flood trek up through the jungle, up to a hill, way outside the village and there they build their own mud huts. David continues the work trying to do anything he can on the periphery. Svia is stuck in the mud hut. The chief kind of softening allows a little boy to go sell Svia, chickens and eggs twice a week. So Svia thinks, "If this is the only African after all my preparation that I get to talk to, I'm going to share Jesus with him." And so she does. And over time the boy embraces Christ. But soon after that little four-foot eights via flood, already weakened by malaria and other bugs, finds herself pregnant in this primitive wilderness.

Well the time comes for the baby to be born in their mud hut and a healthy little girl, Ina Flood is born to much celebration. But Svia is not doing so well. All of these events have destroyed her stamina and 17 days later Svia perishes and goes to be with Jesus. At that moment something in her husband, David Flood, snapped. He grabs this little baby girl, he rushes back to the village passing through it, gets to the mission station and actually puts little Ina in the hands of another Swedish missionary couple and says, "You take her. What am I going to do with a newborn in this jungle? God has ruined our lives. I just spent my last two days burying my 27-year-old bride up on that hill that we came to share Jesus about and God let her die. It's over. I've had it with him." And he left for Sweden, never to come back.

Well, not long after that, the couple that took baby Ina also died mysteriously. They suspected poisoning, who knows what. So she was now given to an American missionary couple, the Bergs. And the American couple wanting to stay but realizing that there was so much tragedy and disappointment in this setting, they thought for her, for baby Ina's sake, we don't even know if we can keep her. They might take her from us. So they left. They went back to America, to their home in South Dakota. There they altered her Swedish name Ina to Eggy. And there she became Eggy Berg. And Eggy Berg grew up healthy, strong, in a Christian-loving home. Parents never got to go back to the mission field.

And when she grew up, she met a really nice man named Dewey Hurst and they got married and they started their own family. And not long after this picture was taken, a magazine mysteriously appears in now Eggy Hurst's mailbox. And she recognizes that it's in Swedish, but she can't read Swedish. But she knows there's a college professor in town that can't. So she rushes down, puts this thing in his hands and says, "Well, tell me what it says. Tell me what it says." Because she saw a photograph in the article that had a picture with a little name that said "Sphia Flood" on it, on a makeshift grave. And she says, "Tell me what this means. What does it mean?"

And so the professor grabs the magazine and he says, "Well, it talks about missionaries. They went to Africa and they met a boy. There was the death of a mother. The boy had grown up and finally persuaded the chief to let him build a school in the village." And then the article goes on to say, "Once the school was built, the boy began to work with his other friends and he led all the kids in the school to Christ. And in turn, all the kids in the school led their parents to Christ. And miracle of miracles, even the chief embraced Jesus eventually." And the article went on to say that there were now 600 plus Christ followers who had their lives changed because of that one little boy.

So Ege realized, "Oh my gosh, I have got to find my papa if he's still alive." So she takes off for Sweden. She has her homework. She figures out where he is. In the process of all of this, she meets four half siblings and they say, and it's a great reunion. It's very loving in Stockholm, but they say, "You really want to see papa?" "Yes, I have to tell papa what happened." They say, "Okay, but you got to know there's just one condition. Papa will fly into a rage if you bring up the name of God. Don't do it." She says, "I've got to go." So here goes Ege. She musters the courage to go to this place. It's a dump of a place. She finds his room. As she's let in, she sees there are bottles of whatever all over. The man's been an alcoholic for years. He looks just emaciated. He's had a stroke recently.

She comes in and the emotion just builds up. She says, "Papa, papa." He turns and David turns back to his little girl and says, "I never meant to give you away." Ege says, "Papa, papa, God took care of me. He gave me a loving family. I have a husband now and my own child. He took care of us. Yeah, but what about your mother? God let her die. He ruined our lives." "No, papa, no. I got to tell you a story. That little boy that Mama got to talk to, he became a Christian and he led the whole village to Christ. Now there are over 600 believers in that village. Mama didn't die in vain." Well, not long after that, a few weeks went by and Ege was able to enjoy great times of fellowship and reunion with her father whose heart slowly gave up the death of disappointment and let the love of Christ come back in.

What a reunion that was for that father and daughter. And not long after that, David went to be with Jesus in eternity, but he had come back to Christ. Ege then, of all things, is in a conference for Christians in London and there's a speaker talking about missions. And in this conference, the speaker gets up and says that he's from West Africa and that he's sharing about what's gone on in the Congo and then it was called Zaire and then back to the Congo. And he says that there are now 110,000 followers of Christ dedicated in this area. Well, Ege thinks, who knows, this is close to where Papa was and Mama.

So she runs down to the end of the talk and says, "Sir, tell me, did you ever hear of David and Svia Flood? They were my birth parents. Have you ever heard of them?" And the man steps back and he's astonished and his eyes grow wide and he says, "Why, yes. I was the boy who brought them chickens and eggs. And they just burst out in tears. It was a grand reunion that only Christians can know." And he said, "You must come, you must come and meet the people that your mother has influenced in father and see what's happened and even see her grave." So they go back to the Congo and they're met by throngs of cheers and believers welcoming her and they go to a little place and there it is, her mom, Svia's little primitive grave.

And then the grave, that boy, now a man, gives this brief talk and he says, you know, John 12, 24 says, "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a seed, but if it dies it produces many seeds." And then he closed with this. Psalm 126, 5 says, "Those who sow in tears will reap songs of joy." You can imagine the scene that that was. So church, I invite you, no, I urge you, I urge you to realize that the God of all history who's not caught off guard by your disappointment says, "I have a place to slide that in here and it's not going to be unnoticed, it's going to be significant. I'll make that a trophy."

Now for some that means like Svia Flood, we don't see the trophy till we're with Jesus. For some maybe you're like David, you will see it maybe at the end, turn back before it's too late. But for others you see it as Christ allows it to unfold. But whatever your hurt is, take it to the throne and say, Jesus, I never wanted this. But you're still doing it, you're still taking these things and making trophies out of them. Please put it in its place and help me to even thank you for it one day, even if that one day is eternity. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, in a room this size there's no doubt many, many disappointments. And so my prayer, my simple prayer is that you would just by your spirit work in each individual life and heart. Help us all to muster the courage to in your time take those disappointments to the throne and say, Jesus, please heal, redeem and make sense of this. And give us the faith and the rich church body life to help see that day come to pass. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.