Words of Faith from a Crying Woman

Greetings to each one of you. God bless you. I'm grateful for the opportunity to, to be with you.

And yes, very happy to be promoted to being a grandpa. It's it's, it's pretty exciting. It really feels like it can hardly be that we're in the next generation.

I hold this little one and it feels so like my own, and I can't believe it's been 16 years since we held a Ruthie and now we're holding the next generation. So it's, it's pretty exciting. And I'm delighted to be here with Anna and our little agenda today.

And with all of you, I've been here a couple of times, I had started thinking that maybe brother Jerry wanted me to preach when he was not here, because believe it or not, I've preached here twice and brother Jerry was not present. I just happened to miss him. So I'm glad that you're here today, brother.

And yes, we do go way back to my childhood. And I'm grateful for the chance to keep up some friendships that my father had. The Bible speaks about not forsaking your father's friend.

So it's a special opportunity to maintain those relationships. I do want to just give a word of, of appreciation and thanks to the fellowship here for opening their hearts and hands in multiple different ways to Anna and to Christie and Ruth as they've been here. So in Africa, we have a really strong culture of gift giving and appreciation and visits.

So the other day I got in the car and drove around to have tea, um, with brother Yasin and his wife and brother Jerry and sister Eva, and I've had time with Dr. Wolfgang and sister Lori. That's kind of African tradition. It's called like a return visit.

So I'm actually here this morning just to express appreciation for you all welcoming Anna. Um, I remember when Joshua, her husband said, I have folks in Ohio and that's where I would like Anna to go and give birth. And I said, okay, where in Ohio? And you know, it's like, Joshua doesn't know the places that I know.

And so I was a little surprised when he said Millersburg, I said, well, I know a lot of people in Millersburg. I said, ask these people, your friends, ask them what the name of their pastor is. And he said, it's pastor Jerry.

I said, Joshua, I know these people. So it's, uh, um, it was a big leap of faith for Anna to come to a place where she did not know anyone, uh, without her husband to give birth, but thankfully we knew some of you and thank you for opening your hearts to her. We're grateful for, uh, Dr. And Lori for your welcome.

Uh, uh, her midwife, Arva, thank you. And, uh, all of you have been a blessing. And we want to thank you for that.

We are delighted to have a little Ijanoda here today. Um, in Africa, the first time that you bring a baby out, they call it out dooring because the baby is coming out of doors. So, uh, this is the out dooring for Ijanoda to come out and see a bunch of people.

So, um, we're all privileged. Y'all are lucky. Okay.

Uh, my mother is in Western Pennsylvania today at a, um, like a widow widowers retreat that she and, um, my step dad are involved in and she's coming through this evening. So you're seeing baby before great grandma does. Okay.

Um, so I think that's, uh, enough preamble. Thank you for the opportunity to share, uh, this morning. I do consider it a privilege.

I love sharing the word of God. And I've been praying. I was actually praying for a couple of weeks, even before I was invited to preach because I thought I would preach here probably.

And I was asking the Lord what he wanted me to share. And, um, I'm just trusting the Lord that what is on my heart will minister to your needs. Um, when you come into a new church that you don't really know the people, well, as a pastor or preacher, I'm, I'm trying to be real sensitive and asking the Lord what is fitting for where these people are at? Because I don't know exactly all the situations I've heard a little bit about.

You just had an ordination. I wish I could have been here for that. Um, I've heard a little bit about the stories of your lives as, as church families, some of the things you've walked through some of your history and praying about those things and asking the Lord, um, how can I be a blessing? How can I be, um, the mouth of God using God's word, sharing from what the Lord lays on my heart to be a blessing to all of you.

And I'm trusting that we can do that this morning. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer before we open the word. Father, thank you for the opportunity today to be in your presence with your word, father.

Thank you that you've allowed, um, our lives to cross again with remnant Christian fellowship, and we just acknowledge father that you're a good God and you have prepared the way, uh, for these relationships, incredibly for, uh, Joshua and Anna to be able to walk into a place where we at least know people and it's your family. Lord want to thank you for your family. The family of Jesus Christ all around the world bears a resemblance to each other because we're your family father.

Thank you for these dear people. We pray father that as we study your word together, you would speak to us and open our hearts. Lord, there are people here today that need to receive this word.

I know that's why you've laid it on my heart. I pray that you will open each one of our hearts to receive your word. And father, we thank you in Jesus name.

Amen. We are, um, we live in a continent that does not practice daylight savings. So there was a considerable amount of trepidation in our hearts last night to make sure we don't mess this up because I've lived my entire married life outside of daylight savings.

But the first Sunday that I was present in my home church, charity Christian fellowship was the Sunday that I arrived back in Pennsylvania from my honeymoon. I married my wife in Colorado and we were still on our honeymoon at a cabin in Pennsylvania and it happened to be this Sunday morning, daylight savings, Sunday morning, and my wife and I had watched dating couples, you know, and courting couples and then newlyweds usually show up late and it was like, we are not going to be that couple. I am a pastor's son.

I am committed to the work, to the church, and I will not be late. But it was daylight savings and we got a call. Yes, we were still holding hands in bed.

Got a call from my mom. This is before cell phones got a call from my mom. We're at church.

Where are you? You forgot it was daylight savings. So we did walk in the long walk of shame as the newlywed couple walking into church 30 minutes into the service, a bit flustered. So we didn't want to do that this morning because I'm the preacher.

So we were all really careful about this last night. Will our phones automatically update? So of course we've got a baby, so we're up in the night and Anna texts me at 1 30, she says, pop up. My phone did not update.

What about yours? I said, mine didn't either. She said, wow, it's so good that we set our alarms early. Otherwise it's the first Sunday for the baby and you're the preacher and we would be late.

Phones do update by themselves. So a couple of hours later at, was it 4 AM? We were up and Anna and Ruth were having breakfast and getting ready. It's like, well, it's dark.

It's because of daylight savings. It's going to be dark. I woke up and checked the wall clock and texted Anna and said, Anna, the phones did update.

So I looked it up this morning, just for all of you who might not have known. Daylight savings starts at 2 AM. So when you wake up at 1 30, you will think your phones didn't update.

2 AM starts daylight savings. So we were up nice and early this morning. All right.

I would like to start with a quote this morning. Um, I quote CS Lewis advisedly don't agree with every single element of his theology, but. This is a good opening line.

This is from, um, the screw tape letters. How many of you have read the screw tape letters? Okay. Um, screw tape letters is a discussion between, um, supposedly it's obviously, um, just CS Lewis's idea of a discussion between a senior demon, I guess, and a junior demon who are being trained in how to take down, um, Christians.

And so this is part of the letter. This is our quote. Do not be deceived.

Wormwood, our cause is never more in danger than when a human no longer desiring, but still intending to do our enemy's will Satan's enemy would be the Lord looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken and still obeys. Let me read that again. Do not be deceived.

Wormwood, our cause is never more in danger than when a human no longer desiring, but still intending to do our enemy's will looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished and asks why he has been forsaken and still obeys. If you knew me well, you would know that I lean towards the inspirational and the positive prophetic. I love the word of God.

I get excited about the word of God. Um, I sat in on a, a session at, um, Zolokon Institute and is it Millersburg, wherever that is? Um, a day or two ago and sat through a Bible teaching. I literally put my hands underneath of me because the thing was being filmed and the word of God gets me so excited.

I can hardly sit still. So that's kind of where I am. Naturally.

I love to share inspiration from the word of God. Um, but I, I feel this morning that God wants me to minister maybe to a subset of this church, but God wants me to minister along the lines of those who have faced. Disappointment or discouragement or devastating circumstances and how God wants us to relate to that.

So if you will allow me, I believe we will get to a place of inspiration, but we're doing it, um, through possibly might say through our tears. Um, personally, I prefer to live my life, thanking God for his goodness, excited about what he's doing in my life. One of my favorite songs is, um, Oh Jesus, my savior with the, I am blessed.

Thy name be my theme and thy love be my song. I enjoy praising him from an attitude or from a perspective of how good he has been to me. And I recognize that that praise is powerful.

Praise is a very powerful spiritual tool. We all need to use it. I have said to many, uh, young people that have, have sat under our teaching there in Ghana.

I've said a good song sung from your heart is easily worth two cups of coffee in terms of getting you up and getting you moving in the morning. And I mean that, however, there are times in our lives where we may not feel that there is a song to sing. We may not feel conscious of God's blessing in our life.

We may, as CS Lewis just said, we may look out upon the landscape of our lives and feel like we see no visible proof that our God is working or orchestrating events in a way which will help or bless us. There are times in our lives where we are so overwhelmed by the emotion of what we are facing that we are blinded to see the goodness of God in our lives. I think it's an amazing thing when you can wake up in the morning, look around, maybe at the daffodils that are coming up.

I see flowers coming up everywhere here, maybe at the green grass, maybe at some special blessing in your life. It's a wonderful thing when you can wake up in the morning and say, I love you, Lord, for your mercy never fails me all my life. You have been faithful.

Yes. All my life. You have been so, so good with every breath in my body.

I am going to lift up your name. I'm going to praise you. I'm going to thank you.

Well, what about the times when things that we have prayed for things that we have hoped for things that we thought were in God's good plan for our lives. Don't come to pass the way we thought they were going to come to pass. What about when it doesn't work out? I have written here in my notes.

What if God doesn't? You know, when we're praying in faith for God to do a miracle in a relationship in our lives, in the lives of a child, in the lives of a person that is sick. Um, one of my pastors in Pennsylvania, uh, pastor Paul Lloyd, his daughter, Elizabeth appears to be in the final weeks of a brain cancer, which was just discovered and every day I'm reading the updates and we're praying for this family. It's a lovely family, big family, three children on the mission field in various countries.

Um, I think one of the frost was there working of less you, not sure which one of you with Elijah and Verna. Now the family is together and they're praying, you know, Lord heal our sister, our daughter. But what if God doesn't? And I don't mean that question from a perspective of doubt, but rather from a perspective of reality, as we studied the word of God.

And as we study history of God's interactions with our lives and the lives of others, sometimes God doesn't. Sometimes we reach out, we pray, we cry out to him. We fast and pray.

We anoint with oil. We ask God for protection for our families. We ask God for a miracle.

And from our perspective, God doesn't. Now, please don't catch me theologically here. I recognize that God's ultimate plan is for our good and he's working out his plans and purposes and all things work together for good.

I understand and believe all of that theology, but that doesn't change that in the moment of my grief, in the moment of my tragedy, it can appear for all intents and purposes like God didn't. God doesn't. I think all of us naturally believe that a praise testimony that comes bubbling up out of a grateful heart is a powerful testimony to the world around us.

It's a wonderful thing to live around someone who is living a grateful life and filled with praise. I think we may overestimate the power of that kind of praise and thanksgiving. And we naturally underestimate the kind of praise and trust and obedience that is done through tears.

I told you, I naturally lean towards the positive and the motivational and the exciting. But there have been moments in my life where there was no way physically for me to feel excited for there to be just a natural outflow of praise in my life, because I was so overwhelmed by the disappointment or the tragedy or the difficulty that I was walking through. What then if praise is only something that can bubble out of my heart in happy moments where I'm overwhelmed with God's goodness, then what about the times when I'm overwhelmed by tragedy? And I would like to suggest to you and I this morning that just as CS Lewis says in the screw tape letters, these two demons having a discussion, he says to Wormwood, our cause is at great risk, which cause Satan's cause our cause is that great risk when an individual no longer feeling a desire to worship God, no longer feeling a desire to be obedient, but absolutely intending to be obedient.

That individual looks out upon a landscape of their life that appears to be void of God's touch and says with Job, though he slay me yet, I will trust in him. That testimony might not be given lots of space in the church. It may be that it won't necessarily energize the, the people who are living in happy moments of their lives.

But I believe in the spirit world, that testimony that says everything is going wrong. I am walking through a tragedy, but I remain committed. I will still maintain my trust in God.

That is a testimony which shakes the negative spirit world. That is a testimony which God uses. We get a little view.

We get a little glimpse of this interaction between God and Satan in the story of Job. I am so grateful for the book of Joe, because that's really the only place where we get this understanding that our lives are being discussed and our testimony is being discussed. And Job lived a life of great praise to God.

Who wouldn't servant shows up another a hundred donkeys born this week. Servant shows up. We got 300 new baby lambs born this week.

Servant shows up. Would you like to see the tally of the, the, the grain that we stored this last month? It's pretty easy to wake up when everything as Job says, I used to polish my steps with butter. It's pretty easy to get up and praise the Lord.

And if you have a hundred new baby lambs this week, if that's the stage of life you're living in, absolutely praise him. He deserves that. But it cannot be that when things are going wrong, we have no way to interact with God and no, and if we don't recognize that in those hard moments, our commitment to him, the trust that we give him through our tears is probably a more potent tool than the praise we give him in the, in, in our moments of joy and delight.

Job says in the middle of great suffering, having lost everything, having lost his family and his property. And he's sitting there scraping sores on his body. And he says, I know that my redeemer lives those words.

If you didn't know the background, you would probably think that he's they come from the mouth of someone who's experiencing great delight in God's presence. And he's an old Testament saint. He says, I know that my redeemer lives, but how much more value is added to that confession? When you recognize that those are words, which are moaned out by a man in the greatest tragedy and suffering of his life, who, who gives us this phenomenal faith testimony, which resonates.

It doesn't even sound old Testament. It resonates all the way through the new Testament to where we are today. And he says, I know that my redeemer lives.

And even though this flesh is rotting away, I know that I will see God. Not somebody else is going to see God. He says, not somebody else will see God and tell me about him.

I know that I am going to see God. One of the most phenomenal prophecies of resurrection that you could get. And it comes from a man who is scraping sores, living through the greatest personal tragedy.

You could imagine, imagine the next meeting that God and Satan had. We only get the glimpses at the beginning when the devil says, you know what? Of course he worships you. Who wouldn't you make him the richest man in the country who wouldn't worship you? And God says, well, I, I actually think there's more to Job than he thanks me because there's more sheep this week and more camels.

I actually think there's more. Devil's like, I don't think so. God said, I think so.

Go ahead. I will allow you to touch elements of his life. And one by one, Job continues to pass the test.

Can you imagine we're, we're in Job chapter, I think 19, when Job says, I know that my redeemer lives. Can you imagine the next meeting when God said to Satan, Hey, Hey, where, where, where, where you been? Where you been moving around? Come over here. I want to just play a little clip for you.

This happened about five o'clock last evening. I want to play a little clip for you of something that Job said, and that heavenly camera zooms in on the tragic image of Job scraping his sores, trying to keep the flies off of him. And Job opens up his mouth and says, I believe God said to the devil, have you seen my servant Job? Have you seen that he still believes in me? You've taken everything away from him.

He looks, he looks like just a tragic vestige of what he was. And yet Job opens his mouth and says, I still believe. What if God doesn't, can you imagine being Jesus cousin, John the Baptist.

You faithfully served, you baptized Jesus, you prepared the way you preached, you baptized, and then Jesus is on the ascendancy. And John the Baptist said, I'm going to decrease. He knew he was going to decrease.

He knew Jesus was going to increase. I don't think John the Baptist thought that decrease was going to put him in prison while Jesus goes around doing miracles. And I'm quite certain John the Baptist did not expect to die by having his head removed while Jesus is walking around the world, healing people.

What if God doesn't? Yes. I'm preaching to people today who've walked through personal tragedy, but there's probably some young people here who haven't yet experienced that kind of tragedy. This kind of teaching can build our faith for the future because you will walk through hard things in your life.

That absolutely will happen. What if God doesn't? And there's John the Baptist in prison. He's hearing stories, keeps hearing stories.

My cousin, Jesus, I think he's the Messiah. He's healing people here and he's miraculously feeding people there and blind people are seeing, and he's got people following him and great crowds are listening to him, but John's in prison. And from the perspective of John the Baptist, Jesus doesn't, he doesn't come through for him.

He's like, Hey, you're God. You know, everything you're ticking all the boxes. Like you are the son of God.

You are everything that we hope for. You are the Messiah. The healing lines up.

Your words line up. Your power lines up. But I'm in prison.

Like, Hey, remember, remember your cousin? Remember the one who prepared the way? Hey, Hey, Hey, I'm in prison and tomorrow I'm still in prison and tomorrow. Next I'm still in prison and two weeks from now, I'm still in prison. And I'm hearing you're doing all kinds of wonderful acts.

You're the son of God. You could literally snap your fingers and I would be out of prison. What if God does it? Finally, John says, you know what? Maybe we missed things, a moment of doubt.

Maybe we missed something. Like maybe I got it wrong. Maybe, maybe it wasn't quite the prophetic mountain I thought it was.

I, maybe I prepared the way for the preparer of the way. And so John the Baptist sends disciples to Jesus and he says, I just need to know. Are you the one we were waiting for, or we should keep waiting for someone else? And Jesus responds.

And I'm not reading this cause I know, you know, these verses, you could go to Luke if you wanted to Luke chapter seven, Jesus responds and says, please go and tell John the Baptist this, and this, and this, and this, like basically a prophetic ticking the boxes, all these things that would be a sign that I am the, the one you've been waiting for. They're all happening. And then Jesus says, John personal message for John, blessed is he that is not offended in me.

Now, Jesus wouldn't have said that to John. If it wasn't possible for John to be offended in Jesus, the scripture doesn't say things that are not possible. Okay.

There would be no purpose in warning John. If it wasn't that Jesus recognized that John, the Baptist could be the preparer of the way, the one who baptized the son of God, the one who stood for truth, the one who went to prison for truth. And that John could have ended his life being offended because God didn't because Jesus wasn't fair to me.

Why would he give sight to the blind and leave me in prison? I don't understand. And some of you here have walked through deep personal tragedy that doesn't make any sense to you at all. It's like, how, how can God be everything that I believe him to be everything that I've preached him to be everything that I've testified to others that he is.

And yet there's this part of my life that just doesn't line up. What if God doesn't blessed is he that is not offended in me. And I don't think scripture gives us any reason to believe that John, the Baptist died, offended.

I believe John, the Baptist took those words and was encouraged that yes, I did lay down my life to prepare the way for the Messiah. And you know what? If I have to die in the process of preparing the way for the Messiah, so be it. I just want to know that I fulfilled my purpose.

My life was lived according to God's command and purpose for my life. Blessed is he that is not offended. But if God says that to John, the Baptist, God, if Jesus says this to John, the Baptist, Jesus says it to you and I today in this process of following the Lord Jesus, there are going to be moments that you're going to understand.

You would say, this is beautiful. God, you're just so good to me. I'm so excited by all the blessings you're putting into my life.

But there will also be times where as you follow the Lord Jesus, there will be things that will not make sense to our finite minds. We live in a time bound world. Our God is infinite and not time bound.

There are so many things that we could not possibly understand in our tiny finite minds that would make sense if we were infinite or infinite like God is. But there will be moments in our lives where we like John, the Baptist face the temptation of being offended in Christ. I'm not just talking.

I understand this pain in my own heart. There have been nights where I've laid awake at night and. Felt that I could hear Satan laughing at me.

I understand the pain of that. I understand what it is to walk through something that makes just no sense to you and your walk with the Lord Jesus. And it is to that type of situation that Jesus says, please tell my cousin John.

Blessed is the person that can sit in prison and not be offended. Blessed is the person that can walk through tragedy and still hold on. Blessed is the person who can walk through something that does not make sense.

And not turn their back on God. Thank you. Jesus was preaching hard words.

In John chapter six, Jesus is preaching hard words. Most of the time, Jesus uses proverbs and stories and parables to make spiritual truths accessible, but every now and then Jesus just lays out the truth in such a way that like people were offended. Jesus says, oh, you're going to have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.

The Bible says. In that day, many of his disciples went away and no longer walked with him. What Jesus just said to us is too hard to understand, too hard to live.

We can't do this. And so the disciples that not, not just the common crowd. Yes, Jesus was thinning out the ranks of the common crowd because Jesus said, Jesus said in other places, he knew the people that were following him and he knew that it was basically loaves and fishes.

This is incredible. You follow him, you get hungry. He's likely to do a miracle.

Lots of people follow Jesus for wrong motives, but Jesus is even thinning the ranks of his disciples at that time. Many of his disciples went away and no longer walked with him. And then Jesus turns to the disciples and says, are you also going to go? What a loaded moment.

But I think the Lord Jesus would like to say that to each of us in the personal tragedies that we walk through, are you going to leave? Are you going to walk away? Are you going to give up? Peter's response is not the boldness that he has. Like when Jesus is ready to be crucified, there's Peter opens his mouth and says, if everybody denies you, I would never deny you. I'm ready to die with you.

It was none of that boldness. In fact, Peter basically confesses we would like to go, but we can't go. Where would we go? That doesn't sound like the ultimate statement of faith, but I would like to suggest to you that that is a statement of faith because of its circumstances that surround it.

That is a statement of faith, which strengthens the soul and defeats the devil. I'm going to repeat that. That statement of faith, while not being a joyful sound, which not coming out in great songs of victory, that statement of faith from Peter, we would like to go, but we don't know where to go because you have the words of eternal life.

That is a statement of faith, which strengthens the soul and defeat Satan. Absolutely. It may not sound like a overwhelmingly positive statement of faith, like we're with you, Jesus.

But I believe this was much truer to where Peter really was than his. Even if everybody denies you, I wouldn't because that turned out to be what I think we call bravado in the English language. That wasn't real.

Peter ran. Everybody ran. Peter was the one who denies Christ.

That was bravado. But this moment, Peter is being honest. He says, you know what? We are just as overwhelmed as everybody else is.

This whole drink your blood, eat your flesh thing. This is way beyond our ability to understand. But we are convinced that you are the source of eternal life.

So as much as we would like to go, where would we go? And I'd like to suggest that you and I need to have behind us a solid wall in our lives that in moments of tragedy and difficulty, we can lean up against a rock in a sure place, a wall that is deeply rooted in the word of God and in our concept of God where we may wish to go. And it's not wrong to be honest. Say, God, I don't understand what you are doing.

I don't feel this is fair. This is breaking everything that I thought I knew about you. But I am not going away because I'm still convinced that you are the one who has the way to eternal life.

Tell you a little story of Africa. I think that's partially my responsibility because nobody else can tell you stories of Africa when they preach here. Ghana is a fairly flat country for the most part, but the trucks are extremely overloaded, like extremely overloaded.

Ghana has a law, an axle load limit, kind of similar to what they have here in the States. But what's different is that they just let them add more and more axles. I have seen straight trucks.

I think that's what you call it, not a tractor trailer, a straight truck with 10 axles. So if you add 10 axles, it's 10,000 pounds per axle. Now we have a straight truck with a 100,000 pound load limit.

And if you do the same thing to a tractor trailer, which we call an articulated truck because we're in a British country, you can just load a ridiculous amount of weight on these trucks. Well, you can add axles. That doesn't change the gearbox.

That doesn't change the braking system. It doesn't change all the things that keep a truck safe. So we have one particular area in Ghana which is very mountainous, probably hilly.

It's not really mountains, you know, maybe 2,000 feet. That's not really a mountain. But the roads are very curvy and very hilly.

And these trucks that barely keep up their speed on the flat roads have a difficult time climbing those mountains. And in Ghana, if you want to become a truck driver, you don't study a book and go get a CDL. You become what's called a mate or you become an apprentice.

And so a 16-year-old guy will find a truck driver and say, I want to be your mate, which means I'm going to be your assistant. And most truck drivers have a couple of assistants. And those assistants, you know, ride beside the driver, sit in what was the bunks, the trucks that come out of Europe have bunks.

We don't use them in Africa. It's too hot. But they sit back there.

And they are the ones who strap down the load. They're the ones who change the tires. They learn what it is to be a truck driver, how to run a truck, how to fix tires on the road.

They rebuild engines on the side of the road. Truck drivers learn all of that and pass it down to their apprentices, their mates, their boys. When they get to these hilly parts of the road, those assistants or mates will sometimes climb out of the truck and hang on the running board on the outside of the tractor trailer.

I've also seen times where the truck was moving so slowly that those boys are walking along beside the truck. It's climbing the mountain that slowly, two miles an hour up the hill. And the mate is holding a big chunk of wood called a chalk, which is probably something similar we have in the States here.

They're probably made out of metal or plastic. But what you put behind a wheel to make sure that the truck doesn't roll. We call them chalk blocks.

So I want you to have this mental image. I'm painting this on purpose because it fits with what we're teaching. So you have a truck which is climbing a hill.

This truck is in second gear. It's slowly climbing up this mountain, blowing smoke, you know, like you can hardly imagine. And you have a truck driver in there who needs to go from second into first.

This is an old truck with an old transmission and we're overloaded. Any truck drivers here, anybody here drive truck? Okay. If you're pulling a really heavy load, climbing a mountain, you know, you got to get that gear switch, right? These trucks are so overloaded that if they miss the gear and mash the brakes, the truck will roll down.

The brakes are not capable. Remember that it only came with two braking axles and we've added eight axles behind it. You can't hold that load.

And so that's why the mate is running along beside of the truck, literally holding a chunk of wood right behind the tire. Because when that truck driver goes from second to first, if he misses it, if he grinds it, if it's not perfectly synchronized, and these are old trucks, you've got seconds in which to put that chalk block behind that truck or that truck will roll backwards down the mountain. And I see it like every time.

I just, when I just came, I just got here, I drove all the way from the north, all the way to the south. I drove through those mountains. There were trucks that had obviously gone backwards down the hill.

They try to control them. And then eventually, sometimes the drivers jump and the truck just down into the hills. You have got seconds in which to talk that truck.

Otherwise, the momentum of that 120,000 pound load is going to start going backwards real fast. When you're climbing a hill at three miles an hour from three to nothing to backwards is a matter of seconds. All y'all, is this making sense? Are we with me on this story? That chalk block is super important.

I believe that you and I need spiritual chalk blocks in our life. That when we're pulling a heavy load, we're walking through difficult things. God is disappointing us.

I use that word advisedly because I mean, God is God, but we're humans and we do. We do judge God and we do in our emotions, look at what he's doing and say, why are you doing this? And spiritually, when we're pulling those hills and we're slipping the gears and we're not sure if we've got enough spiritual momentum to make it to the top. And we're not sure even if we mashed the brakes on our soul, whether we would be able to hold ourselves in this position.

You and I need chalk blocks. We need something that we can just, and I've seen it. I mean, I've watched this scenario unfold.

You're climbing a hill behind one of these trucks and they're just crawling and suddenly the truck stops. And if you're the behind them, you know, they could start rolling down towards you. So it's a, it's a moment, you know, where of crisis and you see that truck stop on the chalk block and it sits there rocking.

Okay. Now the driver has the opportunity, rev up the engine, build up the air pressure. The, again, these are very old trucks, the gear shift, the brakes, everything is used as uses air pressure.

The air pressure is worn down. They sit there, revving the engine, get it all down, get back into first and then take off again. And that's what I want for us in a walk with Christ.

Okay. I want us to have a way to block our souls from going down into like unholy despair, take going from discouragement to despair, going from questions to doubt, going from a place of God, I don't understand, but I'm holding onto you to a place where we reject God in the middle of our difficulties. That's what I want for us.

I want us to understand that the Bible lays out for us in the story that we're going to spend the rest of our time in this morning. The Bible lays out for us, chalk blocks, commitments that we can have in our heart that we say, I may be crying. I may not understand, but I'm going to keep my soul right here.

I'm going to breathe for a minute or two spiritually. I'm going to rev the engine a bit, and then I'm going to take off in first gear again. And I believe that's what God wants for us.

We've already demonstrated these, these blocks. Peter was absolutely up against one of those chalk blocks. When he said to Jesus, where would we go? He, I mean, there's no bravado there.

There's no, we're not going. We wouldn't walk out on you. Basically his words confess.

We want to leave as well as everybody else. It's just that we're so convinced that eternal life is in you. We can't walk away.

So we don't really want to be here, but we are here. Remember what the senior demon said to Wormwood, our cause is at a great risk when an individual not wanting to, but still intending to obey God. Not wanting to no emotional desire to obey, but I'm still intending to obey.

Looks out upon a landscape of my life, which looks like God is not there. And says, though he slay me yet. Will I trust in him? Where would we go? You are the one who has eternal life.

Please turn with me to John chapter 11. If you like titles. Words of faith from a crying woman is our title words of faith from a crying woman.

This is the familiar story of Jesus and his friend, Lazarus and his friend, Mary and his friend, Martha. I'm going to assume that we all know the story quite well. Martha and Mary and Lazarus believed in the Lord Jesus.

They were his friends. Jesus had been in their home. There was an unusually close relationship there.

So when Lazarus falls sick with what appears what appeared to be a very serious sickness, it is the most natural thing in the world for a person to fall sick. For Mary and Martha to send news to Jesus, Jesus, our friend, Jesus, the Messiah, Jesus, the one we believe in Jesus, the miracle worker, send news to Jesus and tell him his friend. Lazarus is sick.

And a day goes by. I wonder if he got the news. Maybe they got had a problem on the way.

Two days goes by. I don't know how many days went by, but days went by because there's not cell phones. You know, sending news to Jesus takes a long time.

Jesus traveling would have taken a long time. But a number of days goes by and Lazarus gets sicker and sicker and eventually Lazarus dies. They bury him and still days go by.

All the while, Mary and Martha are aware of the fact that Jesus is our friend and Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus is the miracle worker. But here's Lazarus getting sicker and sicker and finally dying. It is this incongruence.

It is so hard for us when we're walking through something tragic to to try to bring some semblance of order between what we know about God and by our own experience. And you're a miracle working God, but you're not working a miracle in my life. And I know that you're my friend, but you won't show up when I'm sick.

And you're healing absolute strangers, but your own friend is sick and you're not showing up. And that's where you and I walk into spiritual crises in our lives because we thought we knew. We thought we understood.

Yes, we believe you, Lord, but we also thought there were certain benefits and blessings that would come back to us. I have actually said to the Lord in prayer and I've repented of saying it. And yet I think it's right for me to be honest.

I've actually said to the Lord in prayer. I thought we had an agreement. It's that's a dangerous thing to say to God, you and I don't make agreements with God.

We don't negotiate with God. We don't work out the terms of our following Jesus. But maybe you understand that feeling.

Maybe you've had that feeling. God, I thought I thought X, Y, Z. I thought we had an agreement. I thought you were going to do it this way.

I thought there was this promise. God, what about that promise? I thought we had an agreement. I don't know what to do.

Lazarus gets sicker and sicker and finally dies. Not just he dies. They do the whole funeral and people come and they weep and they wrap up the body and they bury.

And you know that every single moment of those last six days of Lazarus sickness, please just let me make it six days. I don't know how many days it was. Those last six days of Lazarus sickness and those four days after they buried him.

You know that through that entire period, Martha and Mary are going. I really thought he would come. I really thought he would come.

Have you ever felt that in your heart? I really thought he would come. Now we finished the burial. Put the stone there.

Now we're just going through the formalities of the long funeral process in Jewish culture, surrounded by people weeping and feeding them and people coming to greet from all over. And our friend Jesus is not here. Words of faith from a crying woman.

That's the background. Please let's turn in chapter 11. We'll go to verse 17 and read together.

So when Jesus came. He found that he had already been in the tomb for days. Now, Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away, and many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.

Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him. But Mary was sitting in the house. Now, Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

But even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection of the last day.

Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this? Verse 27, she said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who is come into the world. Martha gets a little bit of a negative take because she's the one who's cooking when Mary is sitting at Jesus' feet. I'll have to be honest, as I've studied this portion and meditated on it, Martha presents for us an incredible example of an individual walking through personal tragedy, back up against the wall, but making statements of faith from a position of faith.

But she's also in a position of tears. God first opened my eyes to this portion of scripture when I recognized that verse 27 is the most definitive, clear cut confession of who Jesus was. You know, the greatest confession of faith, the greatest profession of faith, the greatest witness of who Jesus was doesn't come from one of the disciples coming off of the mountain of transfiguration.

It doesn't come from someone who just had their child healed. I mean, if you walked up to Jesus with a child that had been blind for 20 years and that child immediately got their eyesight restored, it would be entirely understandable for that happy parent to say, you must be the Messiah. But people would say, well, that's just the euphoria of the moment.

You got a little overheated, a little overexcited. It's pretty exciting to see your child. But nobody discounts the profession or confession of faith that comes from the mouth of Martha with tears running down her face when Jesus just monumentally disappointed her.

So I look at that. I thought, now, how is it possible that that we get the clearest, most definite profession of who Christ is from Martha in this moment? I started looking at the faith of Martha theology from a crying woman or words of faith from a crying woman. I want to highlight to you that even after all of the disappointment, as soon as Martha hears that Jesus is coming, Martha runs to Jesus.

Some say went to, some say she returned to, some say ran. I'm just using the word run for my notes. Number one, Martha ran to Jesus.

Number two, Martha ran to Jesus. I want to encourage all of us to have that chalk block, that wooden block in our lives that no matter what personal tragedy we have walked through, no matter how we may have been disappointed, no matter how we may have expected Christ to come through for us in a particular way, and he didn't come through at the time we thought or in the way that we thought, I would like to encourage you to have that block in your life. When Jesus comes, I will still run to Jesus.

I'm not going to sit here pouting and say, you didn't come through the way I wanted you to come through, so I'm not there. And again, in my own life, in moments of personal disappointment and tragedy, the exercise of saying, Lord Jesus, I'm still here. Obviously, I don't get to physically run to a physical Christ, but the exercise of saying I'm still going to get up tomorrow morning and read my Bible.

I'm still going to get up tomorrow morning and sing a song of praise. I'm still going to get on my knees and acknowledge God in my life. That is the personal choice that you and I make in the midst of our tragedy to say when Jesus shows up, I'm still going to run to Jesus.

Would it make sense to us from a kind of fickle human perspective that that Martha would say, oh, not now you come now you're showing up. We're almost done with the funeral part, Jesus. It would have none of us would have blamed Martha if she would have sat in the house and Jesus would have had to come in, do the explanation, do the begging before Martha finally says, OK.

She didn't. It's Martha who got up and said, I hear that Jesus is coming. I'm going to meet him.

I would like to encourage you in your life. Make it part of who you are, that no matter how disappointed you are, you get up and go to Jesus. This is really basic, but it's this is Martha.

And if you've walked through deep personal tragedy in your life, you know, it's not an easy step to get up and say, I'm still going to go to Jesus. The healing that needs to occur in our lives after we've walked through deep disappointments and tragedies, it happens when we go to Jesus. It doesn't happen when we sit like a petulant child in the house saying, I called you.

You didn't come. Now you show up. You come into where I am.

That's not healthy. It's not healthy from an emotional perspective is not healthy from a spiritual perspective. It doesn't build faith.

And Christ doesn't deserve that. You understand what I mean by the chalk block, I'd like you to have these four chalk blocks in your life. And when you're climbing a hill, how about you have somebody stand out there on the running gear? My wife and I actually stand on the running gear for each other.

And block each of us when we walk through tragedies, block each other from going down into despair. When you're walking into something hard, have these four handy, you know, I've noticed that in Ghana, the truck drivers, all the mates, all the chalk blocks are sitting on the floor where the mate are supposed to put their feet. You think that's awkward sometimes to sit there with these massive chunks of wood at your feet, but you know, they want those chunks of wood where they can grab them.

Okay. This is not, let me untie it. Let me, no, no, no, no, no, no.

If I need that chalk block, I need it now. So the mates sit there on those seats with those blocks around their feet. So that if we miss a gear, when we're climbing this hill, I am out of that seat and blocking that wheel.

We're not letting this truck roll downhill. And you and I have a faith commitment to walk with the Lord Jesus. And we need to have these blocks ready in our lives that when we walk through times of tragedy and disappointment, we don't lose the rig at the bottom of the hill.

Stop it. Not going to let my heart go down into despair. I can cry.

I can tell God I don't understand, but I make a commitment that when Jesus shows up, I show up for Jesus. I will still continue to seek after God. I will get up.

I will go to pray. I will read my Bible. Through that, the healing of this great pain that I'm walking through will come.

I'm not going to sit in the house and say, you didn't show up for me when I asked you to come. Does that make sense? So that's one chalk block. That's one, if you will, theology from a crying woman.

Mary's first words to Jesus, Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died. Now that's a little painful. That's a little... It's also a statement of faith.

We called you, Lord Jesus, because we knew that if you were here, our brother wouldn't have died and you didn't come. And just like we said, if you would have been here, he wouldn't have died. You weren't here and he's dead.

Lord, if you would have been here. But she follows it up, just in case you think I'm reading faith into the hat. She follows it up and says, but even now, even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give it to you.

Wow, Martha. I'm just stunned by the level of committed faith testimony that we are getting from a woman who has just walked through an incredible disappointment with her Jesus and walked through a tragedy in her life. If you would have been here, he wouldn't have died.

But even now, I believe whatever you ask of God, he'll give it to you. Wow, maybe our theology needs to not be written on mountains of transfiguration. You know, I'll be honest.

I like the mountains of transfiguration. I like the high moments. I like the rejoicing moments.

I like the moments, you know, as the song says, life is easy when we're up on the mountain and we've got peace of mind. It's like, I love this. Could we build a tabernacle up here? And Jesus effectively says, no, there's demon-possessed people that need us down in the valley.

I'd love to stay up here on the mountain. But maybe our theology shouldn't be written up there. Our theology, if it's written up there, tends to be filled with, you know, lots of glory and glitz and glamour and shining lights and maybe bravado, I will die with you.

But here's Martha giving us a real rubber meets the road, tears running down my face theology, and I'm staggered by the quality of her theology. If you would have been here, Lord Jesus, my brother would not have died. But even now, I believe that whatever you ask of the Father, he will give it to you.

So number one, I still run to you. Martha says, Jesus, I still run to you. Number two, I still believe in your power.

Chalk blocks to hold us steady in moments of tragedy. Number three, I still believe in the resurrection. Jesus responded to her and said, your brother will rise again.

She said, I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Now, Jesus was talking about an immediate resurrection. Martha was talking about an end of the age resurrection.

But either one, I would like to encourage you that a firm belief in the resurrection is an incredible chalk block that has stopped many a tractor trailer from rolling downhill and wrecking at the bottom of the mountain. Belief in the resurrection is a, it's a sure place. It's something you can be back up against the wall and lots of pressure on you.

And that will not give if you can hold on to that. I believe in the resurrection. Do you know how many parts of our life as Christians make absolutely no sense when viewed only in a finite lifespan of 50, 60, 70, 80 or 90 years? It'll make any sense.

But as soon as you add in the resurrection, you've added in eternity. And when you add eternity to this finite life, we're now in the infinite. And now so many things make sense.

So when Martha says, I believe in the resurrection, that's not just a glib comment. That is wrung out of a soul walking through tragedy. And she says, I believe in the resurrection.

So number one, when you're in tragedy, make a commitment that I will run to Jesus. Number two, Lord Jesus, I still believe in your power. I don't understand why your power wasn't used four days ago.

I cannot line that up. I don't have to line that up. My faith is not dependent on God making sense to me.

That's dangerous. Okay. If it has to make sense to you, then that what you're basically saying is I want to be God.

It must make sense to me. You must make sense to me. God can't make sense to us.

He calls us to trust. I still believe in your power. And thirdly, I still believe in the resurrection.

Belief in the resurrection and belief in eternity is a healing balm to you and I in moments of crisis and sadness and disappointment. I still believe in the resurrection. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? I wonder how many of Jesus disciples would have answered that question as Martha answers the question.

That's why it's so stunning to me, because I feel like if Jesus would have said to the who spent years walking with him, listening to his stories, watching far more miracles than Martha had ever observed. I feel like if Jesus would have asked them these questions, they would have stuttered around with some kind of a blase answer. And Martha says, yes, Lord.

I believe that those who believe in you will never die. I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God who has come into the world. Martha, how did you arrive at this lofty theological understanding and confession of who Christ is and how are you maintaining it in the middle of this crisis? But this is a chalk block that you need on the floorboard of your truck.

I'm sorry, ladies, I'm using really male examples here. I am a guy, but I think you can make sense out of it, even though it's a guy example. You need these blocks on the floorboard of your truck, the truck of your life.

The fourth one. I still believe and declare that you are the Messiah, I still believe and declare you are the Messiah. A song of praise on the mountain of transfiguration, a song of praise when things are going well in your life is a powerful tool.

But I'm telling you, the confessions of Martha in these moments shook the spirit world and they shake the spirit world in your life and mine. These kind of confessions are a phenomenal witness to the to the angels, to God. It's a phenomenal testimony back to the Lord Jesus.

And it's a phenomenal testimony to testify against the evil spirits and all that they seek to do in our lives as they fight against our walk with Christ and our faith in him. When you and I can say with tears running out of our eyes, I still believe. When Christie and I got married, we wrote our own vows.

That was kind of in vogue. I don't know if that is anymore, but we wrote our own vows. But we still included the normal American lines about loving you in sickness and in health.

That's somehow become like that's part of America. That's how you get married. You say that.

I hope you know that isn't a quote from the Bible. That's like an American cultural promise. But the concepts are biblical.

I remember saying that. I remember meaning it. Okay, I meant it when I said it to my wife.

But roll forward three years and I will never forget this night. Roll forward three years, four years. We're living in Africa.

We faced an incredible amount of sickness in our first years. We didn't know how to cope with African sicknesses. We were living in a village.

There was no communication. We didn't know what was going on. We were sick a lot.

And I remember Christie waking up in the middle of the night, very nauseous and not making it out of our bedroom, not making it to the bucket. And she was too weak. She was passing out.

So she laid back down in the bed and I'm kneeling beside her. She's in bed. I'm kneeling beside her and I'm cleaning up the vomit.

And she's watching me, just one eye open. She's like, honey, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

And I looked over at her and smiled. I said, dear, please don't be sorry. Do you remember I promised? Yeah, honey, but I just feel bad.

I said, please don't feel bad. And we looked into each other's eyes in that moment. It's like in that moment, we added another whatever peg rock foundation in our marriage because we had gone from a statement of sickness and in health to I meant that.

And now I'm having the opportunity to prove that those things that I said on that lovely day, all dressed in white, everybody looking at us, everything beautiful, I meant that. Now we're in Africa in a mud house and you're sick with malaria and there's vomit on the floor and it's two o'clock in the morning and I'm cleaning it up. But you know what? To this day, I look back at that with nothing but thankfulness that I got to prove that I meant it.

Okay, well, spiritually, you and I make similar promises to the Lord Jesus, whether we verbalize them at our baptism or not, they're implied. We make a commitment. I will walk with you.

I will follow you. I'm willing to die for you. Lord Jesus, I'm yours.

Might sound strange to say that that is one of the greatest moments of our marriage. You might say, what a terrible setting, greatest moment of your marriage. Why isn't it candlelight and olive garden? And it's a great moment because in that moment, we both knew that we were fulfilling something that we had promised to do for each other.

And in that moment, that confession of me being on my knees, cleaning up around the bed was a stronger, I love you than a dozen roses and a candlelight dinner could ever be. Does that make sense? Because it was commitment and it was commitment that was being lived out. And I know that Christy looks back at that moment as a special moment in our marriage.

How strange is that? I am believing God that you and I can have the same experience as we walk through tragedies in our lives. If we will keep these commitments, these faith commitments, these testimonies that came from the mouth of Martha, I believe in time, we will look back on those tragedies that we walked through and we will say, it was not easy. But strength came into my walk with God through the crisis that I walked through.

Sometimes it's not immediately obvious, okay? There have been crises that Christy and I walked through and within three months we were like, that's what God was doing. There are other things that it's years later and we're still not quite sure what God's purposes were. We don't really understand.

But we don't need to understand when we understand who He is and we're committed to running to Him when He comes to us. When we're committed to acknowledging that He is the Messiah and He's the Son of God and we're going to stay put, you and I are building a solid foundation under our lives. So today I'd like to just elevate.

I'm closing. I'd like to elevate in each of our hearts. Maybe we haven't seen the value quite rightly.

Every one of us would love to praise God on the mountain. It's just, it just feels better and maybe we think we sing better on the mountain and when things are going well and there's, you know. I think it's 20 years ago the Prayer of Jabez kind of went across American Christianity.

You familiar with that? Bruce Wilkinson, Prayer of Jabez. At that time, that book from my perspective in Africa felt like just one more American, I'm going to pray for God to give me more. God, you know, give me more, double everything I have.

And maybe that wasn't his intention. I don't know, Bruce Wilkinson, but that seemed to be the way a lot of American Christians took it. God expand me, double everything in my life.

At the time I told my wife, I am going to write the Prayer of Habakkuk as a counter to the Prayer of Jabez. Prayer of Habakkuk is the year that all the fruit falls off of my trees and all the baby sheep are born dead and everything is not going well. I will still believe, pray, praise.

I'd like to elevate that testimony in your hearts because I think your business grew last year and you're like, thank you, Jesus. Okay. I mean, do say thank you, Jesus.

Do praise him. But just recognize that like even unbelievers could praise Jesus in that environment. But real committed faith with a theology that is wrong out of your heart with tears.

Is more meaningful to God, probably more meaningful to your own spiritual growth and shakes the spirit world. There are people in this room that I believe God and Satan have had conversations over like he did with Job. May God be able to mention your name as a testimony of someone who has stayed committed, not because my sheep doubled this year, but because I know who he is.

My back might be up against the wall. I might be scraping my sores, but I know, I know I'm going to see him. I know who he is and I'm not going anywhere.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. I pray Lord for every hurting person here.

I pray that you would minister to their needs through the word that you asked me to share. Lord, I pray for maybe young people. Some of the young people here have walked through pain.

Maybe there are families for whom life has been pretty good lately. I pray Lord that even if we are not currently walking through or haven't recently walked through hard things, that you will help us to add these chalk blocks to our life. This theology from a crying woman, let it become part of the bedrock of our lives.

And yes, Lord, make us deeply committed. Even if we look out on a world in which there are no feelings, we look out upon a landscape in which it appears that you're not active. We don't feel like obeying, but we're still intending to obey.

You deserve that, Lord. We believe in you. Father, thank you for your word today.

Bless these dear people. In Jesus' name. Amen.