Pastors Brian and Jacque Lother
Brian: I don't know if you are aware of this, but in the last decade, 40 million people in America have stopped attending church on a regular basis, 40 million people in the last decade. That's a lot of people. The average person, particularly the Gen Zs, and a lot of millennials are just saying no to the organized church, the structured church any longer. I recently read an article and I'd like to read a paragraph out of it. And this says this: This change is bad news for America. By the way, this is not written by a minister. It's written by a media guy. He said, this change is bad news for America as a whole. Participation in a religious community generally correlates with better health outcomes and longer life, higher financial generosity, and more stable families, all of which are desperately needed in a nation with rising rates of loneliness, mental illness, and alcohol and drug dependency. So my message today, actually, I gave two titles to it. The first title was Here Today, gone Tomorrow. You'll understand why I gave it that title in a moment. But as I began to think about this message, I think another title that I would like to give to this message is, This Too Shall Pass. This Too Shall Pass.
I'd like to talk to you about the fact that you can spend a long time, maybe your whole life building something and lose it overnight or what appears to be overnight. And the word of the Lord to us today is this: build anyways. Amen. Keep building. Most of us spend years building up our resources, don't we? Our possessions, our homes, our businesses, our bank accounts, our retirement accounts. Many of us spend a life developing our talents. I'm still practicing the piano to try and get better. I started when I was five and I'm still practicing. I don't like how I play that. I've been practicing one classical piece for about seven years and I'm still not, not really ready to play it for anybody because every time I play it, there are more things I want to fix in it. I'm trying to get better. I'm trying to keep building that.
We nurture our families and we try to take care of our health at least that hopefully most of us try to take care of our health, be good stewards of this temple that God has given to us, where his spirit dwells. And even though we do all of this, we do know, intellectually, that at any moment, all of it could be taken away in a moment. We know that. We don't really believe it, but we know it. You know what I mean by that?
You could have a wonderful, beautiful home and have put a good portion of your life's earnings into that home and a moment of fire can destroy it or a flood can come along. Then the insurance agency says, do you have flood insurance? No, I live in the Sahara Desert. Maybe a major change in the stock market happens and everything went upside down for you. I had a good friend; he hired me years ago to do some music advertisements, little jingles. He was driving down Winnetka Avenue one day car pulled in front of him, and T-boned him. He was paralyzed from his neck down. His whole life changed in an instant. As I was visiting him in the hospital after his accident, I also saw in the room next door, a girl who was 18 and she thought it would be fun to try and walk across 694 at night. She got hit by a car. She survived, but was paralyzed from her neck down. Her life changed in a moment.
Sometimes our life changes because of the choices of other people. Sometimes our life changes because of maybe a bad choice we made. We have a tendency to kind of judge those kinds of situations, which I think is not always very helpful. Sometimes you are going along well in life and all of a sudden you get a diagnosis that you have a major health issue and all of a sudden, all that future that was in front of you seems to be very short. Life can change in a moment. There are a couple scriptures I want to kind of weigh together today. One is found in Matthew chapter six verses 19 through 21. We've heard this many times, but Jack, let's read it.
Jacque: Don't keep hoarding for yourselves earthly treasures that can be stolen by thieves. Material wealth eventually rusts, decays and loses its value. Instead, stockpile heavenly treasures for yourselves that cannot be stolen and will never rust, decay or lose their value for your heart will always pursue what you esteem as your treasure.
Brian: I've known people who have taken this verse and taken it to an extreme and not gotten any training in their life to become skilled at a job that would make a decent amount of money because we are not supposed to lay up earthly treasures. Well, let me tell you something. Anytime you take anything to an extreme, including the scriptures, you are going to find yourself having a major accident. That's right. Okay. So the balance to this portion of scripture is found in Proverbs 1322, which we read.
Jacque: The benevolent man leaves an inheritance that endures to his children's children, but the wealth of the wicked is treasured up for the righteous.
The scripture teaches us, for us not to store up treasures. In other words, that's where our heart is. That's what we are living for, to store up these earthly treasures. But the scriptures also teach us that a wise man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. The bottom line is this: if we are all beggars to be spiritual, who is going to take care of the poor? The scriptures tell me that if I'm wise, that I will leave a financial inheritance to my grandchildren, not just my children, my grandchildren. And I have to be wise in the ways of finances to do that.
Let me give you a clue here. Tithing is not a cure all for financial irresponsibility. You have to be wise in money to make money. And God wants you to be wise in money so that you can make money so that we as the church, can take care of people with needs who may not be as wise with the things of finances. But he doesn't want our treasures to be there. He doesn't want that. We see that the balance in scripture is to not let this world's treasures become the purpose for which we live, yet be wise in our stewardship in what God has placed in our hands to do. We need to bless our grandchildren. I'll go out on a limb and tell you I actually have a higher goal. I personally want to be wise financially so that my grandchildren's grandchildren will be blessed by me.
And that this church, when I think generationally, I don't think, well, who is the next 40 year old that's going to come along and become the next pastor of this church? I think way beyond that, I think, what is this church going to look like a hundred years from now? know that some of you think that Jesus is going to come back before then, but let me tell you something. People in 1900 was saying Jesus was going to come back in just a year or two and now it's 2023 a hundred twenty three years from 1900. And if those people in 1900 would've been thinking a hundred years down the road, maybe just maybe the church would be in a better place than it is today. Just maybe. We have to keep thinking generationally.
Have you ever given much thought to what it would be like to give your life to being a good steward, really being faithful, walking in faith, being a generous person, building wealth, being a good steward over what God has put in your hands to do and then all of a sudden lose everything all at once? Have you ever given any thought to that? That happened to one of my favorite Bible characters. His name is Job. That happened to Job. Let's read a little bit about him. Let's start with the first verse in the first chapter.
Jacque: There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of us. He was blameless, a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. He had seven sons and three daughters. He owned 7,000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 teams of oxen and 500 female donkeys.
Brian: I was thinking about that. It's probably because the male donkeys were too stubborn.
Jacque: Well, maybe so.
Brian: Way too stubborn. Well, you didn't say that. I said that.
Jacque: You said it. He also had many servants. He was in fact the richest person in that entire area.
Brian: He was blessed. He was very blessed by the Lord. But then we read verses 6 through 12. It would be nice for job if the story ended there, wouldn't it? But then there is the rest of the story, which begins at verse six of chapter one. Let's read that.
Jacque: One day when the angels came to report to God, Satan, who was the designated accuser--
Brian: Listen to that. That's his title. Designated accuser. Wow.
Jacque: He came along with them. God singled out Satan and said, what have you been up to? Satan answered, God, going here and there checking things out on earth.
Brian: You know, he is basically, I'm just hanging out. No, he wasn't. He is up to no good. That's what he was up to.
Jacque: God said to Satan, have you noticed my friend job? There is no one quite like him, honest and true to his word totally devoted to God and hating evil. Satan retorted, so do you think Job does all this out of the sheer goodness of his heart? Why no one had ever had it so good you pamper him like a pet. Make sure nothing bad ever happens to him or his family or his possessions. Bless everything he does. He can't lose.
Brian: What is Satan doing here?
Jacque: He is accusing God.
Brian: He is the accuser. So let me ask you a quick question. If Satan has the-- never mind the word I was going to say. The courage to accuse God, do you think he minds accusing you? If he comes into God's presence and brings an accusation against God face-to-face, you think he is going to have any trouble accusing you? Not at all. We need to be aware that that's what he does. That's what he does. He is an accuser. He is what was defined or called as the designated accuser.
Jacque: We have to keep that in our minds, so we don't fall for his accusations. They only set us back.
Brian: Let me ask you another quick question. If Satan visibly came into your home and told you to do something, would you do it?
Jacque: No.
Brian: I would hope you'd say no. I would hope you'd say no. He comes into our homes not wearing a costume or not dressed in some kind of clothes. He comes in your mind. That's how he comes in. And when he comes in, you have to say the same thing to when he comes into your mind as if he were to walk into your home. And that is, you are not welcome here. Or like Gandalf said, you shall not pass. Get that staff of the truth of God. Pound it down. Say you cannot pass here. This is my home. You are not welcome here. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, so you are not welcome here.
Jacque: And I am loved by God and he is for me.
Brian: That's right. That's the best thing. That's so good. So good. Let's go on.
Jacque: Where we were is the enemy is still accusing God?
Brian: Yes.
Jacque: Okay. But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away everything that is His? He would curse you right to your face. That's what, God replied. We'll see.
Brian: We'll see. I can just see him sitting back. We'll see.
Jacque: Go ahead. Do what you want with all that is his. Just don't hurt him. Then Satan left the presence of God.
Brian: The next day was kind of a bad day for Job. You ever have a bad day? Your bad day is a walk in the park compared to Job's bad day. Okay. Job's bad day went like this. He is worshiping the Lord, praising the Lord, offering sacrifices, thanking God for all the blessings, and a messenger came to him informing that some enemies had come in and carried off all of his oxen, all of his donkeys, and killed a lot of his hired hands. No sooner had that messenger 1:01:00come and another one shows up. That messenger brings this bit of news that fire had fallen from the sky and burned all of his sheep and also the people who were taking care of those sheep. Then another messenger shows up on the heels of that second one saying that enemy raiders had taken his camels and his servants.
And I can imagine when the fourth one arrived, Job just saying, don't say anything. Because this fourth one had maybe the worst message of them all. And that is that his sons and daughters had been killed when a mighty wind came and collapsed the house in which they were staying. This is when Job made this statement that is quoted at so many funerals that we probably attended in our lives. And it's found in Job chapter 1, verse 21, where he said this:
Jacque: I came naked from my mother's womb and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord.
Brian: Now, although that's a courageous thing for Job to say, let me tell you something. I've been to a lot of funerals where this word has been spoken and it didn't bring any comfort to anybody. Do you agree with me? It's no comfort. As a matter of fact, job, job was mistaken. Job had a narrow view of God because it wasn't God that took it away. It was actually Satan that took it away. Now, yes, you can argue that God had given him permission, but the direct hand of the violence that had befallen job and the catastrophes that had fallen befallen Job was not coming out of the heart of God. It was coming out of the heart of Satan. We find Job now in this terrible condition, but one thing he still had was his health. At least I have my health. I can rebuild. I can do this over. It's going to be hard, but at least I have my health. Then we come to chapter two. Let's read that, the first 10 verses.
Jacque: One day the members of the heavenly courts came again to present themselves before the Lord and the accuser. Satan came with them. Where have you come from? The Lord asked Satan. Satan answered the Lord, I have been controlling the earth watching everything that's going on. Then the Lord asked Satan, have you noticed my servant job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil. He has maintained his integrity, even though you urged me to harm him without cause. Satan replied to the Lord, skin for skin. A man will give up everything he has to save his life, but reach out and take away his health and he will surely curse you to your face.
Brian: Lemme stop you there for a second. We had a wonderful, wonderful example of someone who did not do that in this church with Deb Thompson. Deb went through some of the most horrific treatments fighting her leukemia two times. I can honestly say in all my years of ministry, I have never seen a sick person with the faith that she had. She did not die because she had no faith or she lacked faith. Most of the time, her faith was greater than ours.
Jacque: She encouraged our faith.
Brian: She encouraged our faith. She encouraged our faith. This was another lie that Satan was throwing into the face of God where he says, but take away his health. And he/ she will surely curse you to your face. What a wonderful example. And we are forever blessed to have experienced that with Deb. It's not too often, but I did think this of Deb, where in the book of Hebrews chapter 11, it describes some people in this manner. It says, of whom the world was not worthy of. That was Deb. Her 1:06:00faithfulness, her tenacity to hold on to the very end was something wonderful to behold.
I know that some of you might ask the question, then why didn't she get healed? Well, if I was God, I'm not sure I would even answer that, but I'm not God, so certainly I'm not going to attempt to answer that. Because God doesn't always answer the why questions from us as human beings, does he? What God does, he answers this question instead, what do I do now? What do I do now that this has happened? And God will give us answers to that question. But why? There is going to oftentimes be silence from heaven when we want to know the why's behind the hardships that we might face and the difficulties Satan God. He said, "Job's going to curse you right to your face." And then---
Jacque: Brian, one thing.
Brian: Go ahead.
Jacque: One thing that you often say when people talk about why, that even if God told us why that's right, it wouldn't bring comfort to us.
Brian: It wouldn't take away our pain.
Jacque: No, it wouldn't take our pain.
Brian: Our pain is there because of the loss, isn't it? It's not there because we don't have an understanding of why. So anyways, the Lord said this to Satan then.
Jacque: He said, but reach out and take away his health and he will surely curse you to your face. All right, do with him as you please. The Lord said to Satan, but spare his life. So Satan left the Lord's presence and he struck job with terrible boils from head to foot. Job scraped his skin with a piece of broken pottery as he sat among the ashes. His wife said to him, are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die, but Job replied, you talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad. So in all this Job said nothing wrong.
Brian: That's quite a testimony, isn't it? This is chapter two. If you begin in chapter three, job has some comforters. Come to him. And the best thing they did was they sat, sat quietly, didn't open their mouths for the first seven days, and then they ruined everything. They began to give him advice. How many people here have lost loved ones lost, had a great loss in your life, and some Christian has come up to you and explain how everything is, is good. Sometimes, the best thing that we can do as Christians is not explain anything. Just walk with the people who are suffering. Just be there for them. We don't need to give an explanation for God and why he does what he does.
Shall not the judge of all the earth do right, the scripture says. So let's not try to explain in our human frailty why this is a good thing to someone who is going through a huge loss in pain and suffering that has no answers to their questions. Let's not do that. Let's be a comforting people. The scriptures say comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. Isaiah prophesied that. Bring comfort to the wounded. Bring comfort to the lonely. Bring comfort, not explain why they might be lonely, not explain why they might be uncomfortable, not explain why they might be alone. Just bring comfort to them. That's what we are to be.
Jacque: The scriptures say weep with those who weep.
Brian: That's right. We know the story. In the end, Joe passed his test. We'll look about that in a moment. But he passed his test. Unlike the children of Israel who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. I could just see God now, "Go around that mountain again." They come grumbled and complain. Okay, go around that mountain again. And they went around the third time and they are grumbling and complaining. Okay, go around that mountain again. You get the pattern here.
God's school is a lot different than many schools here in America. In God's school, if you don't pass the test, you get more training to pass the test. You don't just get passed. You don't just pass. We don't pass the test. You'll have to go through more training until we pass the test. Job passed a test even though he was frustrated. That is very plainly clear in this book. He was very frustrated with what he was going through. He was frustrated about his own suffering. But you know what? He never did. He actually never turned against the Lord. He never turned against the Lord. Let's jump all the way forward to chapter 42, the end of the story. And we see this.
Jacque: When Joe prayed for his friends--
Brian: Wow, what a wonderful verse for us to take to our hearts, right? Because these comforters were no comfort at all. These three older gentlemen, one whose name was Bilad, the shoe height. I was in eighth grade before I realized that he wasn't the shortest guy in the Bible. That was a joke, by the way. But these three men were, shall we say, long-time, older friends, and then this younger guy come along and he actually gave some pretty good advice. Not completely all good, but a lot better than the comforters. And when all of this was done, God said to Job, "I want you to pray for those people who brought you such miserable advice, who were no help to you at all. I want you to pray for them."
Jacque: They blamed him.
Brian: Yeah. Well, they blamed him. Absolutely. I'll talk about that in a moment.
Jacque: When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before. Then all his brothers, sisters, and former friends came and feasted with him in his home.
Brian: Let me just stop you for a second. Now we have to understand something like 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and a thousand teams of oxen didn't just land out of the sky. Job put his hands to the task again, and he began to build again. In spite of the fact that he'd lost everything. He began to trust again, build again, do all the things that he knew what to do. And he prayed. He followed the instructions of the Lord. He even invited people who had turned their back on him to come to his home. When they did, they consoled him and comforted him.
Jacque: They consoled him and comforted him because of all the trials the Lord had brought against him,
Brian: Which is really an unfair accusation against the Lord because it wasn't the Lord that brought the trials against him. It was the enemy.
Jacque: And each of them brought him a gift of money and a gold ring. So the Lord blessed job in the second half of his life, even more than in the beginning for now, he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1000 teams of oxen and 1000 female donkeys
Brian: And no male donkeys. I'm sorry guys. I mean, we are just too stubborn, I think. I don't know.
Jacque: He also gave Job seven more sons. That's so beautiful. And three more daughters. He named his first daughter Jemima, the second Keziah, and the third, Keren-happuch. In all the land, no women were as lovely as the daughters of Job.
Brian: Now here's something incredible that Job did that had never been done before. This flew in the face of their culture. It completely violated the norm of that society.
Jacque: And their father put them, the beautiful daughters into his will along with their brothers. Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children and grandchildren. Then he died, an old man who had lived a long, full life.
Brian: The Lord made job prosperous again, doubling what he had before. He lived to be 140, saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. What we can learn from all of this is this truth: calamities are tests. They are tests. They force us to think about who we are. They force us to think about who we are. Who are we going to be? How are we going to be? What is really important to us? They force us to do that. They also force us to consider what kind of relationship do we have with God. It forces us to do that.
What kind of relationship do I have with God? Do I have a relationship with God that I'm willing to praise him and serve him and do the things that He calls me to do when everything is going good? But when everything starts to fall apart, what do I do then? Where is my worship then? Where is my faithfulness then? Where is my giving then? Where is my obedience then?
Jacque: Where's my love for him then?
Brian: That's right. Where's my love? Like Job, we too may have to suffer. Even the Apostle Paul experienced loss. Most of us know how hard he worked to build a Corinthian church, a church up at Corinth. It was a vibrant church, a Christ following church, a wonderful church. And then he wanted to go see some of the other churches and visit some of the other churches that he had started and other people and how they were growing. After he left, it was just a few months later, immorality had come into the Church of Corinth. False doctrine had come into the church of Corinth. Bad leadership had come into the church of Corinth, and now they were teaching that there wasn't even no such thing as a resurrection.
How do you think the Apostle Paul felt when he got that news? Throw up his hands. Que sera sera. Give up; let them burn in hell? No. You know what he did? He wrote two letters of which we still read today, some 2000 years later and get encouragement and instruction from whatever may happen to us. Here's what we have control over. We can still love God. We can still love God. No matter what happens to us. We can still love God. We can still be who God made us to be. God has made you to be a specific person with specific purposes and giftings and a wonderful place in his overall kingdom. God has made you for purposes beyond what any of us can realize.
When we suffer loss and then we build again after that loss, we demonstrate that our spirit and our relationship with God are stronger than any calamity or disaster. I'm not just talking about building a business here. Some of you have given up on relationships because you've had broken relationships in your life and you are afraid to enter another one. Maybe some of you have had gone through divorce. Some of you have gone through the loss of a child. God is saying to you today, don't ever give up on building. Don't ever give up on nurturing. Tragedy is temporary. It's not permanent. Our faith is eternal. That's what's eternal, not tragedy.
Even Jesus said these words that I'm sure all of us wish he hadn't said in this world, you will what? Have tribulation. You will have it. You will have it. That makes our concept at times of how God governs in this moral universe, that makes it upside down. It knocks it over sometimes, doesn't it? The Book of Job really does that. But we go on even though we have tribulation. We go on even though we have heartache. We go on even though we've suffered loss. We will give him praise and then we will build again. That's what we do.
We've had setbacks here at Hope Community Church. I'm thankful for the people who have stuck with a vision. We are right on the precipice of walking into some unbelievably wonderful things. I feel bad for the people who walked away from that vision and they might come back later and celebrate with us, but they won't have the same joy as we who stayed the course. Stay the course. Stay the course in your life. Even though what you spent years in building might be destroyed overnight, build anyways. Build anyways. God made you to build.
One of the things we learned from the Book of Job is that if goodness is always rewarded, and if I can use the word badness, and badness is always punished, how can we know if our good deeds are born from love for God or just a desire for gain? If every good deeded you did resulted in some kind of financial blessing into your life or some kind of thing on the positive side of the ledger, and every bad deeded you did took some of that financial blessing away and you suffered from it, the fact of the matter is you would never know your heart as to why you are doing your good deeds.
Jacque: We see our motives.
Brian: Our motives. And God doesn't govern by formulas. We wish he did. If we pray this much, say these words, do this, then this result will happen. But that's not relationship. That's not how God works. We need to revisit our whole concept of faith and healing and all these things. Every time a dear friend of mine dies, the Lord asks me a question and that question is this: are you still going to pray for the sick? It was the year of 2000 I lost a dear friend, 23 years ago. I sat in the hospital floor crying and God said to me, "Are you going to stop praying for the sick?" No, no. God said, good. That's all he said. He didn't say, oh, now you are going to have a great healing ministry. None of that, just good, good.
Job's comforters had a very narrow, rigid view of the moral universe and that view convinced them that Job's suffering was a result of his own wrongdoing. How often we fall into that category, don't we? Someone has served the Lord, they've given, they've tithe, they've worked, they've been good moms, they've been good dads, they've been servants, and then they get a diagnosis, you've got three months to live and they are 40 years old. The first thing that we do is we begin to say, wonder what they did wrong. I wonder what was really going on in their life. We should be slapped. I'm serious. You know, bring us back to reality.
Job didn't suffer what He suffered because of all the wrongdoing in his life. That's not why it happened. It didn't matter that there were some issues that he had to deal with. When Job humbly admitted in his own limited understanding of how God's power and wisdom are used in giving oversight to the creation, then everything changed for Job. Let me say that again. When Job came to the point where he humbly admitted to God that his view of how God's power and wisdom are to be used in creation, when he admitted that that view was limited, that's when God was able to bless him. That's when God was able to come through and say, my ways are higher than your ways like Pastor Jeff said earlier today. My ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts. Are you still going to trust me when you don't understand? Are you still going to build when you've lost everything? Are you going to do that?
Let's avoid reducing God's moral rule to some easy formula. Let's avoid doing that because that generally creates judgments in our hearts against other people who have somehow fallen on a negative side of the ledger and especially towards other people. Let's just be willing to live by faith that God is good all the time, and that when the catastrophe of catastrophes happens in your life and you lose your business, you lose your finances, you lose your retirement savings, you lose your house, you lose even your health. Let us still say to the Lord, in you, I place my trust. Yep. In you I place my trust and I will worship you and I will serve you. Do with me what seemth right to you. If we can pray that prayer, we will avoid a lot of darkness in our faith. God will be with us.
So here today, gone tomorrow, or this too shall pass, whatever perspective you want to take on this sermon today, what I want to leave you with today is this. In every loss that you incur, let faith rise up to say, I will build again. I will build again.
Jacque: Brian, I heard about a book and the title of it is Everything is Fixable. Everything is fixable. Well, with God everything is fixable.
Brian: All things are possible. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I just pray for our dreamers that have been broken to be rebuilt. The future that might seem dark can become filled with light of your hope. 1:28:00And I pray that this incredible story of the abundant wealth and loss of everything that mattered, how if we will simply stay faithful to you, you are the restorer. Whatever the canker worm, as the scriptures has said, has devoured that the latter days can be greater than the former days. Let us be thankful for the past, but look forward to the future that you have for us all. Pastor Robert,
Pastor Robert: Great sermon. I have several prayers that I can pray. It hits home a lot. My first prayer is for all of us is that this message is more profound than just for the casual ear. I want you to go home, pray, meditate, maybe even watch it again. Because the core of this message really hits to the foundation of what faith in God is about. It is at the heart of true relationship, true faith in God. You know, I'm a living testimony of that this message is because I trust God no matter what.
If you allow me just to be transparent for one second. I preached my first sermon on faith on the same night that my first wife filed for divorce. I was served with divorce papers on the same day that I started a faith series. Pastor Jeff, that faith series have three parts. So I had to do the first one. I lost my home, the first house I bought. I would stand there as I was going through that. Every day when I had to clean up, I would stop and look at this house and I said, "I'm about to lose this house." But what it showed me-- and I used to tell my first wife this all the time, I don't care what happens between you and I, the one thing that would never change is my love and trust in God.
You see things, relationships are temporary. But for us to navigate through this life, we have to 100% without a shadow of a doubt, believe God is who he is and trust in him. He is good all the time. He is good all the time, and he always has his best outlook for us. Always. He always wants the best for us. We may not understand the trials, the tribulations we go through, but God always has the best for us.
Father, we just come to you trusting you. Lord, in our human frailty, we get weak. I pray in that weakness, Lord, that you will show up strong for us. I pray for the congregation and everyone listening to the service. I pray when the enemy, the accuser comes in and to bring all kinds of lies and accusations, even those accusations against Almighty God, that you would cast them down immediately and that your heart and your faith would turn towards God. God doesn't produce evil in your life. That's a lie. God doesn't desire calamity in your life. That's a lie. But as God allows those things, and God is sovereign, we can never question God's sovereignty. But one thing we have to know for sure is that God loves us. And if we, but hold on, he will reveal that love. Even in loss, he will reveal that love to you in a mighty way.
My final request for us, our petition before Heaven, is that we open up ourselves to be totally vulnerable with God and he will never fail us, and his love towards us will never fail. Father, help us to receive that. Help us to walk in it. Thank you for the hope that we have through Jesus Christ and for His Holy Spirit that fills us and that directs us to you, and that will dispel darkness with light and that will overcome lies with truth and that will heal sorrow with comfort. I pray this prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
Brian: Amen. Thank you, Pastor Robert. You know, even though there is a possibility of losing everything we've ever invested in build anyways. And if you happen to be like Job and you do lose everything that you invested in, then build again. Build again. My father died when he was 88. It was just a few months before he passed, his health was not bad. He died of a stroke. It was sudden. He and I had a conversation and he said to me, "I think the Lord's given me an idea on how to build a car that will run on water." I said, "Go for it, dad." You know, I didn't say to him, you are 88. Just-- He was always thinking.
Jacque: He inspired BJ to do it.
Brian: He inspired BJ to do all sorts of things. I'm just saying today, God has put within us a desire to build. Build your relationships, build your businesses, build your relationships, build your marriages, build your families, build your communities. And even if it gets all wiped out, build again because God is a builder. Let's pray. Let's raise our hands together.
Now, may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his faces shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may you be energized to build what God has placed in your hands to do. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.
We will have communion served over here for those of you who would like communion. We will have also people to pray for you at the altar if you need prayer for anything. God bless you. Thank you especially to our visitors who are here today. God bless you guys. Great to have you here. Love you guys. Bye-bye.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 7-30-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.