Remember

It is a great privilege for me to stand up here and looking at a card with my name on it on a list of speakers this summer that include Craig Barnes, who is the president of Princeton Seminary, and then Albert Tate. It's not hyperbole to say that he is a great speaker; he's one of my favorite speakers, and I love when he comes. Thank you for scheduling him after me because I'm seriously, I'm not being humble, I'm being honest. Don't miss it and bring somebody; it's gonna be great.

We've been here for about six years now, and I thought, you know, in the six years you've heard me, if you've ever heard me speak for two minutes in between a song maybe, and so you don't really know me. I thought I'd share my story, if that's okay. I was born in Las Vegas to a Korean mom and a Colombian father, and that is me. I'm wearing a blouse, and they named me Adrian. So, great start. My parents, God love them, my mom speaks Korean and English, not really. My dad speaks Spanish and not really good English. So how do they communicate? Who knows? How do they meet? I really don't know. I mean, the language of love, I guess.

But in our house, you know, it was interesting growing up. I don't know how I speak English today because I don't know. There's the hybrid language that was spoken at my house; it's crazy. I'd come, you know, I'd be in the house, and for an example, my mom would walk in the room; my dad would be watching TV or something. My mom would say, "yo boy," which in Korean means honey. "Yo boy, why you know take a shower, huh?" which means honey, why don't you take a shower, huh? It means you smell bad. And my dad's response, it's not in Korean, and he says other things I can't say. So that's what I grew up with—this weird thing, the weird language.

My mom is funny; any humor that I have is from my mom, and she's Korean, so she's also crazy. My Korean mom uses guilt very effectively. I don't know, your parents probably have something, you know, like some story where they saved your life or whatever. My mom has this one thing that she pulls out every single time I upset her or I have a bad attitude. She looks at me and sometimes crying, and she'll say, "Why? Why you know nice?" I'm like, whatever. And she goes, "You know, you remember, huh? You born how many pound?" Well, it gets better. So for those of you that don't understand, she said, "Do you remember how much you weighed when you were born?" And so my response is this is like the hundredth time her, "Yes, I know I was a ten-pound baby." "No, no, ten pounds, ten ounces! That what a man baby coming out!" Now that means no, you were not ten pounds; you were ten pounds, eight ounces, a fat watermelon-sized baby that released from here. It's my mom.

So anyways, I used to speak a lot more when I was a youth pastor, and I used my mom, you know, doing that's funny. I know making fun of my mom using the accent, so I do it all the time. My mom's not really ever heard me speak; she's seen me sing a lot. And so recently she was in town; I said, "You know, mom, I'm gonna talk at church, and I'm probably gonna, you know, make fun of the way you talk," and I'm saying this in Korean. And she goes, "What?" You know, like, you know, like when you tell me I'm ten pounds? She goes, "No, ten pound, ten pound!" And I'm like, forget it; she's always on.

So anyway, I was born in Vegas, and we moved around a little bit through New York and then ended up in Miami. So I grew up in Miami, and both my parents worked all the time. I was at home alone; I was what you call a latchkey kid. I had a key around a chain because I'd lose them all, and I fended for myself, like make my own food. I remember like walking to the mall by myself at like seven. For example, where we lived and where the mall was in my town, it's like literally walking from, let's say, Capital A Village to the mall, so it's not close. So I'm walking this way as a seven-year-old kid, walking, and the shortcut is along train tracks. I'm like walking along train tracks; I felt like I was in some sort of TV movie about abduction, like soon some guy was gonna take me away. But that was my life; I fended for myself.

And that played out even how I came to know the Lord. My mom is a Christian, and she has been since I remember, and she always prayed for me. Korean people, at least this Korean person I know, my mom, I love a lot of Korean people, but they pray loud. They like screaming, like in Korean, but like God, maybe because it's, you know, he's really far away; he's like to hear me. And she wakes me up as a kid sometimes, like praying, and she'd pray for me a lot, and I'm like, oh my God, my mom's praying for me, you know? But now I'm so grateful she prayed for me.

So my mom's a Christian; I would go to Sunday school sometimes with her, but now I didn't really believe in God. I believed there's something out there, you know? Literally, I thought this when my mom would pray as a kid. I thought, who's she praying to? Because I didn't believe in God; I didn't really know anything about the Bible. So I thought who she was praying to was this Korean guy, like with kind of balding hair, I don't know why, glasses, sitting behind the desk in a suit listening, "Oh fat baby, oh I'm so sorry." Oh, you know, I didn't know.

When I was about ten, I met a boy named Se-hyung, a Korean guy who came from Korea, fresh from Korea, didn't speak any English. Our families became close; we lived in the same apartment complex, and so it was my job to assimilate him into American culture for some reason. I would take him to my friends like, "Hey, let's play football; here's my friend Se-hyung," and they're like, whatever, and he couldn't do anything. But somehow we became friends, so we're really good friends, and he plays a part of the story later. But he kind of went to the same church for a little bit; he went to my mom's church that was Korean that would rent out space at an American church. I went to the American Sunday school, and then he went to a different church and kind of lost touch a little bit.

I stopped going to church when I was 11. I went on a camping trip, and you know, we're in these groups, and we're supposed to do everything for ourselves and make our own tents and all this stuff and bring our own food. And so I thought that meant I bring chips like as a potluck or something like I brought chips. They're like, "That's all you're eating? Can I have some of your hot dogs?" Like, "I have one hot dog; well, I'll give you some chips." So I had to eat my chips like very slowly and like let make them last two nights. And I get home Saturday morning hungry, and I get hungry. So I get home hungry; I tell my dad, "Dad, we need to go to Wendy's now." Okay, he goes, "Okay." And so he gets ready, and as he's getting ready, I knock comes at the door. I open the door, and it's this guy's hand I haven't seen in a while, and he goes, "Hey, it's a random Saturday morning. He says you want to go to this Bible study with me?"

I don't know what that means really; I'm like, is there food at this Bible study? Remember, I'm hungry and I'm tired, really hungry. And so he says, "Actually, yes, there's good food; it's a Korean church; the pastor's mom makes the food, and it's good." And I thought, okay, hey, I'm going to this guy to this Bible study restaurant thing. And so we go to church, and the youth pastor is talking and doing some Bible study; I don't care; he looks like a piece of turkey, and I'm like, I just want to eat. And so whatever happened, you know, with Bible study, and then we go into this room with bowls of like this Korean dish called chaapche, no called chaapjangmyeon. Okay, so I'm hungry right now, and so I sit down and I start eating this food, and I'm like, this is incredible; this is the church for me. I'm not joking; after that Sunday or Saturday, I did not miss a Sunday. You know why? They serve food after every single service; that's how they get you. You want this food, Jesus Christ!

Anyways, I started going to that church for the food, and like I made friends. Later that year, I went to a summer camp when I was 12, and I remember the first night I'm sitting there, and the youth pastor is talking about God and his love for me and what Jesus did on the cross. This literally is the first time I'm really hearing about this. I've seen, you know, those movies they show on TV back in the day, but I never paid attention. The first time I'm hearing about God loves me so much that Jesus died for my sins and rose, I'm just blowing my mind. One, because God's not Korean, okay? And then two, that he loves me that much. I mean, being a kid that kind of grew up on myself, ending, you know, on my own and just being on my own, I was always sort of, you know, wanting companionship and love, and I, you know, like to please people. And so to sit here and think about the God of the universe loves me, it was very compelling. So that night I gave my heart to the Lord, and it changed my life forever.

You know, later on that year, not here, that later on a few years later in high school, I decided to go into the ministry. I was a youth pastor for six years at a church in South Florida, and this is the church I met my wife. Six years ago, we moved here, and since then we have a two-and-a-half-year-old little girl, Ella, and this is us. It's my wife, Jamie; she's actually here today. Ella, who's in Sunday School, she smiles usually, but that's—we're at Disney, and she's like, I can't believe this is real, you know? And we have she who has not yet been named in my wife's tummy, her little sister due in September. So we're really excited for that, and we love it here.

But I look back at my story; I look back at that, and since then my life since then, and I can see God using every up, every down, every high and low to get me where I am today. At times I really felt like God intervened, like say I'm coming to my door was God's intervention, you know, giving him a little, "Hey, why don't you stop at his house?" where he intervened in my life to move and to show his power. But even in those times, and even times today, you know, we go through hard times, and we start to doubt. Even though I look back, I can see that there are times where I go through hard times, and I'm sitting in the shower—or not sitting, I'm standing in the shower—and I'm literally thinking, "God, life is tougher now; are you real? Do you really exist? Because I work for you, and this is gonna be awkward, you know? What am I gonna do? I had this is all I do." I mean, I have those really honest times.

There was a guy like that in the Bible, Asaph, and I know all of us go through those times. We all go through those times where there were times a little tough, and you're like, is this real? Asaph was a musician and a songwriter, and when David was king in Israel, he appointed Asaph as the worship leader for all of Israel. The worship leader! I mean, I lead worship here; this is a pretty big church; a lot of people here today. This is Israel; it's like millions of people. I'm gonna see it's a big deal. So he's this songwriter; he's this worship leader; he's the worship leader during Israel's golden age when David was king. It's like the best time Israel's ever had, ever seen; their kingdom was established and was thriving. Soon after that, Solomon, his son, becomes king, and it's still doing well; he builds this beautiful temple, and Asaph is the worship leader through that.

But then Solomon falls away; the kingdom starts to fall apart, splits in two, and then it's sort of the beginning of a really dark time in Israel's history. Asaph is there for all of it; he is helping lead worship for this nation that he loves, that he's a part of, and sees, "Man, God is so good; he's blessing us. What is going on?" And it's in this time that he writes the scripture we're gonna read today. If you have your Bible, you can open to Psalm chapter 77, basically in the middle. If you don't have your Bible, you can look up on the screen, or it's in your notes right there; no reason not to look at it, okay? It's everywhere. If you look up or down or wherever, you'll see it. I'm gonna read the whole thing. Psalm 77 says, "I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord at night; I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted. I remember you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. Salah." Or breath or pause or instrumental interlude, harp solo or something.

Verse 4: "You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. I thought about the former days, the years of long ago. I remembered my songs in the night; my heart meditated, and my spirit asked, 'Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he, in anger, withheld his compassion?'" Flute solo, sad flute solo.

Verse 10: "Then I thought, to this I will appeal, the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds. Your ways, God, are holy. What God is as great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm, you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Salah." The water saw you, God; the water saw you and writhed; the very depths were convulsed. The clouds poured down water; the heavens resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind; your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. Your path led through the sea; your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

We look at Psalm 77, interesting Psalm; it's basically split up into three sections: verses 1 through 9, verses 10 through 12, and verses 13 through 20. Verses 1 through 9 are a lament; Asaph is seeing his kingdom fall and crumble, and he's like, "God, what is going on?" Verse 2: "When I was in distress, I sought the Lord at night; I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted." He is wondering where God is. "I'm crying out to you, God; where are you?" I mean, you know, we all go through that when it's really tough; we're like, "God, I'm praying, but nothing is happening. What is going on?" And it's why I love Asaph; I mean, he is the worship leader for all of Israel, and as a worship leader myself, it's so comforting because I stand up here and sing songs and lead songs, and I feel like I'm supposed to be this incredible Christian, you know, always that I have to be perfect. But Asaph, the worship leader, not for a church in a city, the worship leader for the nation, had doubts, and he was honest about it.

I mean, not just honest, but he let everybody know by writing a song for us to sing. I imagine him like walking up to the stage or whatever and stepping up to the micro—or the horn, I don't know, the thing that—or he just sung really loud, I guess—and he says, "Okay, everybody, I got this song to sing; I wrote it last night; it's from the bottom of my heart; here we go. Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time?" Saddest harp solo ever, you know? It's like, what are we singing? I love it; he's so honest. And when you're going through times of doubt, sometimes you feel like I feel crazy, and I don't want to let anybody know. But no, be assured that everybody goes through that.

But what does Asaph do? He moves from this time of doubt, and he moves to what we see in verse 13: "Your ways, God, are holy. What God is as great as our God?" And from then to the end, he is worshiping God for who he is—a powerful and mighty God who's done so much. What happened? What happened from that sad verse and that sad solo to now this incredible chorus of praise and worship? Verses 10 through 12 have to be a big deal, right? Let's look at it. How does he move from doubt to praise? Verse 10 through 12: "Then I thought, to this I will appeal, the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds." If you turn to the next page in your outline, the first thing that Asaph does is number one is decide.

When we look at this, he makes a conscious decision to do something. I mean, note all the wills! I'll read it: it says, "To this I will appeal; I will remember; I will remember; I will consider." Not "I remembered," "I will remember." You know why? Because when you're going through tough times and you're struggling with doubt, the first thing you think as a human is this is terrible, not God, you were great. He had to make a decision, and this is Asaph, again, this leader for God, has to stop and say, "Okay, I need to step away from this and think about God." I mean, you could be a super Christian; you could come to every single service we have, and you could serve at every single ministry somehow, and you could listen to Christian music and watch Christian movies and watch Christian TV and wear Christian clothes and wear Christian shoes and drive a Christian car, eat Christian food, use Christian breath mints that exist. You could do all that; I'm not joking; you could do all that and still in the middle of your pain and the middle of trial, that's all you think about—your pain and your trials.

I don't know about you, but when I have a cold, get away because I'm miserable. My head, I have a headache; my whole head is full of whatever is stuffed; I can't hear; my eyes are scratchy; my nose is stuffed; I wake up in the morning; my lips are cracked and dry; my throat is all sore; I have bruises on my ribs because my wife has been elbowing me because I'm snoring so loud because I can't breathe through my nose. I hate it! And like five days into a cold, I'm like, this is my life; I'm never gonna breathe again! Have you ever felt that? It's like I'm never gonna see, never gonna breathe in normally or think about the day you can breathe, you know? Like it opens up, you're like, oh my goodness, this is the most beautiful oxygen I've ever smelled, you know? It's like the greatest day!

You get so focused in, or recently our precious daughter, I love my daughter most. Listen, if you're here and you're like married or you're thinking about having kids, you should have them. But just know we moved her from crib to toddler bed. Whoo! That kid, man! The transition to crib went okay; it took a couple days of crying. Then for whatever reason, she's like, I'm done with this crib; here I go! And she just leaped out of the crib like onto her face, and I'm like, well, that's not okay. So let's move the crib away; we had this toddler bed, and she's super into Minnie Mouse. I bought Minnie Mouse sheets and pillows and a pillow pal and a nightlight, and everything is brand new—new pajamas with Rapunzel on. I mean, we did everything, and she loved it. She's like, oh, I love this; this is incredible! And I'm like, okay, it's gonna go great; here, ready? Let's go to sleep; I love you. I walk away. Why? She's freaking out! Like, what happened? Minnie Mouse? I hate Minnie Mouse!

She's not using words; she's just screaming. I mean, literally, I thought the cops were gonna come because our neighbors, we share a wall. They must be thinking we're torturing this kid for hours every single night. This took a week and a half, and so day five, six, again, this is our life; she's gonna cry every night to go to bed for the rest of her life. I mean, the day before college, I'm gonna be sleeping on the floor next to her bed because she won't go to sleep by herself. You get so focused on what is going on; you can't see out of it, and you can't see life before it. And when that stuff happens, when you're going through a hard time, doubt starts to creep in like Asaph. So what does he do? He makes a decision to do what? Number two, to remember and to remember my story.

Remember verses 11 through 12: "I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds." So Asaph decides; he wills himself to remember, to look back, and all of us need to do that. You know, like I told that story, my testimony earlier, and all the different things that have happened in my life. When I look back, I can see God using all that experience to bring me where I am today, and I can see him intervening powerfully, directly, personally in my life. But you know, even in those times, you know when times are bad, you only think about your problems and don't think about God. When times are good, we do the same thing. When times are good, we think, oh, I made a great decision; I'm so smart; look how great my life is, and we forget that God has anything to do with our lives.

And Israel had the same problem. Look at verse 19: "Your path led through the sea; your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen." So what's happening here? Asaph and a lot of the end of this chapter talks about waters and stuff, and he's talking about Israel being released from Egypt. You remember that story? Israel stuck in Egypt; they're slaves. Charlton Heston comes and like rescues them from—arrow, but he rescues them. Some kids are like, Charlton? What? Anyways, it's an old movie. So he rescues them out of here, and they're walking away, and they're free now. They get up to the Red Sea. You know, Moses puts a stick in the water, parts; they walk through. And I look back; we look back, and we look how incredible God is. And maybe some people—Moses thought this is God. But what I think about is the guy at the back of the line. There's a guy who's all the way in the back; there's a million people, and he's in the back. And I don't know if you know the story, but then Pharaoh was like, nope, let's go kill him. And so he's coming after them, and I see this guy looking back like, "Whoa, yo, he's coming! Let's go! What's going on? Is there a boat coming? Why are we at the water?" And Moses is like, "Don't worry, guys; I have this stick, and I'm gonna put it in the water; we're gonna walk through." Whatever! Put it in there, because I'm Asian, I take everything as like martial arts, so I imagine Moses like, "And then it splits!" I don't know why I always think that.

And so maybe some of the people in the front, wow, this is incredible; God is good! The guy in the back, "Hurry up! He's on a horse, dude! Move! Whoa!" So finally, this last guy is walking and seeing the water still. "Can you go? There's a whale! I don't know, whatever!" He doesn't see God; he sees Pharaoh, and he sees this problem, and let's get out of here. And so Asaph now is recalling that, and now when they look back, they're like, obviously God opened the sea, right? And so for us, we have to do the same thing. We gotta look back, and when we look back is when we see God's footprints and fingerprints in the midst of it. It's hard sometimes, but you look back at all the different things that happened to get you here, and like obviously that was God.

And for me, there is no clearer case of that in my family's life than when we moved to California. Our move to California started when I was 15. I was 15, and I took a trip to San Diego, and I fell in love. I don't know if any of you have been to Florida, but the weather is hot and muggy and disgusting and miserable and sweat-inducing. And some people like that; not me. And a person like me does not do well there; it is hot. And so I get to San Diego, and it's sunny, but it's kind of cool. And at night, I'm like, it's cool; I can put a jacket on. It's like in the 60s. In Florida, if it gets like 67, 68, we put on jackets and sweaters because it never gets cold, and we're like, I want to look like it's fall, and it's—I'm—dying. So I go to San Diego; this is paradise. And I thought one day I'm gonna move to this place of cool weather, good food, and laid-back people.

So I was a youth pastor for six years in South Florida, and one night I'm praying, and I really felt like God said, it's time to move on, move. And for me, that meant move to California. And so Jamie and I talked, and she was open, and she's always been so supportive. And so we start—I started a search for jobs, and I was interviewing for a job in Irvine, which is not San Diego, but it's down there somewhere. And so I'm interviewing with this church at Irvine; it's called New Song, and it's this cool sort of hip church down there, and a lot of Asian people go there, so I'm like, oh, I have an affinity, and the pastor's Korean; I'm like, cool. And so I thought we were going there, and like, this is our church, you know? But for some reason, God—I felt like God was like, you need to look for—look again. Just look again, okay?

So I go to this church staffing site; it's like a—it's like a Christian Monster.com, but it's not called Christian Monster.com. It's like Monster.com, but Christian, okay? So it's called Church Staffing, whatever. So I go on this website, and I see this position; it's part-time worship leader for next-gen service called Genesis in a church called Twin Lakes Church in Santa Cruz, California. Two things they didn't have going forward: one, it was part-time; it's not good. And then two, Santa Cruz—I looked on the map; I'm like, that isn't—there's nowhere near San Diego! At least Irvine is like down there. But for whatever reason, God is like, you need to email this pastor. So I didn't want to; I didn't care. And you know, usually when you email a prospective employer, it goes something like, "To whom it may concern, my name is Adrian Moreno; attached is my resume. I look forward to conversing with you about my future at your company or a church or something like that," or something better than that, actually. This is my email to Charlie Broxton, who was the pastor at the time; he's up at Mount Hermon now: "Hey, comma, is this available? Period. Sent!" I kind of felt like God; I sent the email.

Okay, so then I get an email back soon. "Yes, call me!" You know, phone number. And so Charlie and I talk and hit it off, talk for a couple hours. A few weeks later, it's February 2007; Jamie and I were flying to San Jose to check out the church God and he. And so we're flying to check out the area. And a little bit about my wife: she's a fan of stability, and change is a little harder for her; she doesn't like change. And she was born and raised right near where we lived; her parents owned the house that they lived in for like 30 years or something, and they were going to the same hairdresser for 35 years. That's crazy! Before she was born, and every day of her—every haircut of her life was at the same guy. We—I had a good job, and we owned—we still own a condo in Florida. Anyways, and we—she just finished graduate school; she had got her master's in physical therapy, and she had a job lined up at a hospital in town. And so this very stable place, and a lot of our families in Florida, and I'm like, let me rip her out of there and go all the way across the map to California.

And so for me, priority number one was, is Jamie okay? Is she comfortable? We get off the plane, and she likes Florida weather. We got off the plane in February of 2007 in San Jose, and it's raining, and it's freezing. I'm like, strike one! Okay? And so during our trip, we come on Sunday to check out the church; we like Genesis; we connected with the people. I actually came over here, and Val and Mark were speaking that week; René was out of town. I met them; they were nice. And after church, we went to lunch with a family that was really involved in Genesis, Brian and Layla Dawson. They took us out to lunch, and they took us out to Shadowbrook. And so I'm sitting in Shadowbrook thinking, people in Santa Cruz eat good! You must eat like this every day, right? No, we've been there like once since; we have a gift card because it's expensive! That was good!

We had lunch; we connected with them. Later that night, we went to dinner with the Stubblefields, which are good friends of ours now, but Craig was the worship leader at the time; he was moving on, and I was replacing him, and so we were gonna meet. So we go to their house, and look in their house, and it's a cool, quaint house, and so Kel, and it looked cool. And I thought, man, Jamie and I talked later, man, we'd love to live in a place like that if we could find a place like that. And we went out to dinner. The next day, we decided to drive around Santa Cruz and just check it out, and somehow we ended up—I mean, I don't know where I'm going; I'm just driving. We end up at Natural Bridges, at that round parking thing, and we get out. We stand, and of course, we have our hoodies on because it's like—it's not rain here; it's some sort of misting thing that happens—freezing particles of water touching me, and I'm like, it's so cool! We're looking at this bridge from half a bridge thing with birds on it, and I'm like, I don't know; I mean, I think it's kind of cool here. And I look over, and Jamie looks at me, and she says, "We should move here!" It's like God himself spoke through her mouth!

I mean, for me, if she was happy, I could move at the drop of a hat. Like, well, let's go; I don't care! Like, I love adventure. I grew up by myself, kind of, and so whatever; I moved out when I was 18; I just—it was easy. But for her to say that, knowing all that she was gonna be leaving, I thought, obviously, we were supposed to move here. Before we left, I thought, let's—another piece of the puzzle was her job. She, you know, she was a physical therapist, got her master's, and now had never worked. And so I wanted that experience to be good because she loved, you know, she had a passion for that. In Florida, the job that she had lined up was at this church, Memorial West. Memorial West, it was a church by our church; it was a hospital by our church, and 15 floors, multiple buildings like that huge campus, and a hospital like that, there's like 10 of them in our county.

So I said to her, like, well, let's try to go to as many hospitals as we can in Santa Cruz County. There are two. So we go to Watsonville; they don't really have a lot of stuff going on there, physical therapy; they had like some part-time positions, and that didn't work because I was gonna be part-time, so she needed to make the money. And so we go to Dominican, and we meet a guy, Roger, and he says, you know what? Basically, we want to go; I want to just go and take a tour and just kind of see the place, and then she could look for jobs when we got here. But he's like, "Hey, do you want to meet the director? She'll be here tomorrow morning." And I thought, okay. So we come the next morning; we sit in this lady, Karen, who was the director at the time's office. I'm sitting next to her, but they were talking and talking about stuff, and literally, she is persuading my wife to please work here! We just want a tour, you know? And she's off like basically pitching this job to my wife, who's not worked a day as a physical therapist, just graduated. And I remember sitting there, and I got emotional, and I was trying not to cry, but like tears were welling up because, you know, I was really feeling bad for bringing her here, and really I felt like I was ripping her out of Florida, and God was being so gracious to us and basically giving her a job before we left.

Two weeks later, we're in Florida; she has a phone interview; she has the job. It's now March, and I can't move till May because I was leading worship, and I had to do Easter at our church before we left. So both Twin Lakes and Dominican held those jobs for us. Last piece of the puzzle: we—it's about a month out, and we don't have a place to live in Santa Cruz, and it's hard to look for a place to live when you're across the country, right? So we're going to Craigslist, and I'm sending addresses, and I'm like, how about this place? It's like by the beach next to something called a boardwalk; sounds awesome! You're laughing because you know! But he said something like, you know, the traffic gets bad; it could be dangerous, you know? And I'm like, okay. And so then I said, you know, what about this place? That place is like in the middle of the woods and the mountains, and like, hmm, what's a yurt? And there was a yurt available, and I'm like, could we live there? No, no way!

So literally at that time, I started thinking, I mean, look, God did a lot of stuff while we were in California, and I started thinking, God, are you real? Is this real? And then an email from Craig Stubblefield, and he says, "Hey, we're moving; we want to move into our place." And I'm like, I don't remember; we went to one house when we were here—one house—their house! They're moving! And I said, "Yes!" Period. Send! I like short emails. And then he sends me the information for the landlord of that place. Guess who? The Dawsons—the only other family we met! So I had to stop, and I said, okay, I'm sorry; I get it! I get it! Yes, we moved here! The Dawsons were our neighbors; we lived above their garage; they were basically our family for the first year. And I look back at that story, and I cannot help but see God's hand moving powerfully in our lives.

But even then, I mean, even then we look—I look back, and I have that to look back at and see that God is powerful. Even then, doubt still creeps in; that still creeps in, and we need to do the next thing. Number three: remember God is unchanging. God is unchanging. The same God who blessed us, who gave my wife a job, who put us in the Stubblefield house, that same God is alive and working today. Verse 10: "Then I thought, to this I will appeal, the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand." Asaph then begins to remember, "God, you did all this stuff." Verse 13: "Your ways, God, are holy. What God is as great as our God?" Did you catch that? He's using the past tense: "God, you did great things!" And as he's worshiping God, "You are today still God and powerful!" God never changes. Psalm 102:27 says, "But you remain the same, and your years will never end." Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." God's love and his mercy and his grace never change us. We change!

Today, you'll talk to me, and I'll be very nice because I'm happy, and I'm up here, and this is fun. Catch me in a week, and I have a cold; my daughter's been screaming all night; I haven't eaten; maybe I'm in my car, and you like cut me off; grace is gone! My mercy has left the building! My mom—I know my mom loves me; I got one more mom story in there. I know my mom loves me, and she's nice to me, but my Korean mom—and I know some other Korean moms—you know, they use that guilt stuff, and she uses it very well. Recently we had her in town, and I'm picking up from SFO; it's like late, and every time I pick her up, I think, you know, I can't wait to see her; can't wait for her to see her daughter, and I start imagining what the meeting will be like. So I walk down the terminal, and I'll start like running in slow motion, and I'll open my eyes, and we're in a field of daisies, and I'm like, what happened? And then we embrace and hug, and then we're swept up in a world in the flowers, and my wife and daughter come in on a unicorn, and I don't know, just beautiful, like a fairy tale.

But this is what happens: I walk up, and my tired mom, you know, in her 70s now, like on this long plane ride, is walking up, and I say, "Hey, mom!" She goes, "What happened? Why are you so ugly?" Obviously, no unicorn is coming! So I'm like, "What happened? Your hair, your face, no nice, ugly! What happened? Your stomach so big?" I'm not joking; she says this! She looks, she says this thing, you know, you know Jamie, she like, "You fat stomach, huh? She too nice; she no say nothing; mind think fat husband!" Hi mom, let's go! And this our car ride back home. Sheila, I—you know, I give her a bad rap; she's nice most of the time, but she changes. We change. But God doesn't! His love for you never changes! When he sees us at the airport, the unicorn thing happens because he loves us!

But you know, maybe you're here today, and you look back at your life, and there are not a lot of highs and ups; you have a lot of down and low, and you say, I don't see God moving in my life. You know, when we decide to remember and remember our stories and remember that God is unchanging, but some of us can't, you know? It's hard for us to do that. But all of us, number four, we have to remember his story. Remember his story! You know, we don't see Jesus explicitly talked about in the Old Testament or in the Psalm, but when you step back and look at the Bible, you look at the whole Old Testament; it is the story of God's love and grace and power and mercy and salvation for the world—for us.

You know, when Asaph mentions Israel's Exodus, the waters thing, you know, to the Israelite at the time, they're like, I remember that! You know, that's my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's story! He was the guy in the back of the line screaming, "Get us out of here!" That's their national history, and so that means something to them. But we read it, and we're like, oh, it's just some story in the Bible; it's cool; God is powerful. But for us today, because of Jesus Christ, we look back, and we see this now applies to us. You know why? Because Israel had to come out of Egypt; they had to survive the wilderness; they had to survive multiple attacks from different nations; David had to become king so Jesus could come through his line; they had to survive that period of captivity in a real dark place, and then Jesus comes, dies on a cross, rises from the dead, and now that whole story applies to you, and it applies to me.

In those times where you feel like you say, I have nothing in my life to look back at and see that God is moving, you look back at the cross. Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Israel's story now becomes our story, and all that happened to them now is relatable to us because of Jesus. And you know the cool thing is God didn't do all that, and Jesus didn't die on the cross just to show that he is a powerful God. All that happened to change my life and to change your life.

So how do we move from doubt? How do we move from times of trials where we're doubting that God exists to praise and worship of who God is? We remember! We remember his goodness; we remember that he doesn't change, and ultimately we remember what he did. It's important to look back. You know, I've had the privilege to tell my story different times that I've spoken as a youth pastor in Bible studies and stuff, so I remember I have that like to hold on to and look back. But it's important to write that stuff down in your notes. There are daily devotionals, and you'll have a chance this week if you follow them to write some stories down. But I encourage you, write, look back at your life, and start to write the stories, and you'll see—I promise you—God working in your life.

But for some of you, say, I don't have that stuff; I don't have those good and—or I don't have those good times and ups and downs; it's all down. Today, all of us, we're gonna actively remember his story. We're gonna remember what Jesus did through communion. In a moment, we're gonna get a piece of bread and a little cup of juice, and in that, we can remember God's incredible story of grace and love and power and salvation for us. Let's pray to prepare our hearts and minds to remember. With your eyes closed, you know, when I was 12 in a camp in Orlando, Florida, I accepted Jesus as my Savior, as my friends, and my life changed forever.

If you're here today and you're a Christian, I encourage you, as we pray and as we get ready to take communion, I encourage you to meditate on his goodness in your life and his goodness on the cross. But if you're here today and you don't know Christ, you've never made that decision, there's no better time than right now. I guarantee you it'll change your life, and your life will never be the same. If you want to do that, I'm gonna just pray a quick little prayer, and you can pray along with me and repeat these words or pray something like this in your heart. The Bible says that if we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord, you'll be saved. So I want to encourage you, if you don't know Christ, you want to do that today, pray a prayer like this: "God, thank you for your love for me, all that you did through history to change my life. So I believe in Jesus Christ, that he died on the cross for my sins; he rose from the dead. God, forgive me, cleanse me, make me new." If you pray that prayer today, take communion—maybe your first communion in relationship with God. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your love and for your grace. God, as we look back at Israel's history and how it applies to us today, thank you so much for the work you did in humanity, how you directly intervened in the world to bring about salvation. We're so grateful to you for that. We're grateful to you that, Lord, you work in our lives. We're grateful to you that you don't change. I'm grateful, Lord, that we can look back and move from the times of doubt to praise. It's in your name we pray. Amen.