Refiner's Fire | Week 1 | Bill Bush

Suffering will either define me or refine me. It's gonna do one or the other. It's either gonna define you or refine you. And see, a lot of us, we think that knowing God is a way to avoid all suffering. This is brand new news to you, and you're shocked that we are called as Christians to sacrifice and actually experiencing suffering

because we follow Christ. And if I first of all think that following God is to avoid all suffering, then you're gonna be really confused when it seems like he's not answering the door when you're locked out. And you're not gonna understand what he's gonna do. And a lot of us, when we suffer, we

first of all, do what my daughter did. Look in the bag. Hey, is this something I did myself? Can I find the key? You just gotta understand that sometimes when we suffer and you sit through it, what am I supposed to do? Don't let it define me, let it refine me.

Because a lot of us get stuck and we start to identify with our problems. We start to suffer and we don't do, we don't allow God to do what he's supposed to do through it. And so what happens is we let it define us. We basically sit on the bench like Minard did, but we stay there. We just said this is who I am now.

And then we start to play the martyr, we start to feel sorry for ourselves, and we start to just live and we start to find our identity in the suffering. No, we're supposed to embrace our identity through suffering. Hopefully that makes sense.

And that's what we're gonna see here today. So how does that work? What does that look like? Well we're gonna be in the first 12 verses of First Peter, but let me give you a quick background of this book. Like I said, First Peter is written by a guy named First Peter. He's related to second Peter, but Bad joke.

He's a it's the apostle, the disciple, Peter. He was the leader of the disciples, even though he was kind of I relate to him. He was kind of a guy that would often open mouth and search foot. He would, like, often talk before he thought. He was a a ready fire aim type of guy at times, but but this is written near the end of his life. He had grown through that. God had restored him and groomed, and he had grown into who he was. And and what he's writing is this is written about sixty three AD.

And at that time, he's in Rome at this point. Paul was already in Rome, and there's a guy who's the the the Caesar, the emperor of Rome at this time, a guy named Nero. And and persecution of Christians has started to break out because up until earlier point,

Christianity was considered a subsect of Judaism. In the Roman world, you had to have an authorization to be this is a legal authorized religion, and Judaism was. And they always considered Christianity for those first twenty, twenty five years. They left it alone. But then they realized, oh, this is kinda split off. This isn't the same thing. So it basically became illegal.

And then Nero started blaming Christians for stuff that he probably did that was unpopular because he's looking for a scapegoat. These people are weird. They live for Christ. They say there's only one God. They, you know, they they do all this weird stuff, and they're not even official. They're not even technically supposed to be having this this faith, so they were an easy scapegoat.

A matter of fact, when he writes this in sixty three AD, within a year, he's dead and Paul's dead. They were both martyred under Nero. Paul first, and then not long after Peter. So this is one, two Peter, these are the last things he wrote. This is near the end of his life.

This is twenty five, thirty years like after Jesus had already come. And so what he's writing to is what happens is there was already starting to be some persecution that was dispersing. So he's writing to all these Christians that have spread out and tell them basically to find hope. You're gonna suffer, there's trials.

He also knows later on in the book, you'll see chapter five, he knew that what he was seeing happen in Rome, he knew that this was gonna cost him his life. And he knew that it was gonna spread. And so he's trying to say have hope. But he's saying have hope even if it does cost you your life.

You see, what we have to understand as we go into this, you're gonna be really confused

if you think that following Jesus is the way to never suffer. If you have what they call out there this prosperity gospel, that the more I trust God, the better things is. Like as long as I trust God, I'll always financially be well off. As long as I believe in God, it's always gonna go that way. That's not what the Bible says at all.

The Bible says that if you really, really go all in with what God's called you to do, you might run into a hostile world that doesn't like what you're doing. And there might be persecution, loss of income, loss of this, but at this point, even loss of life. That's hard for us to understand in America.

We haven't had that. But there is lots of the world that have suffered this type of persecution since Jesus was here. And it's never stopped. Here we get a few little hints that start to make us uncomfortable and threaten our rights, and we act like the second coming must be imminent.

And it's like, come on guys. If that's true, that's been going stuff worse than this has been happening in this world for two thousand years. But we've been sheltered. But I do believe we're entering a season in a world that is getting to be harder and harder

in our culture to live as a Christian without it costing you something. And we gotta be prepared for that. Because what we think of as hope, a lot of us, we make the mistake of is to hold onto the hope of Christ is to hold onto I hope so this will end soon. This will end.

What the book of first Peter is about is you can have hope till the end. That means even if you die, you still have this hope, this peace from Christ. Peace. The hope isn't found in everything getting normal. The hope isn't found in not suffering in this world. That's not where the hope is.

And so this is gonna actually challenge us a lot. I'm just gonna be honest. If you've never read the Bible much or whatever, start reading through as we're gonna be going through this book. Start studying it. Start looking at it. Because I think it's gonna open your eyes to what we're called to be if you're gonna follow Christ.

And it might scare you. But here's what I'm gonna say. In this world, we will all have suffering. You need to decide if you want it to be for something. Suffer for the right reason. Suffer for the right things. Otherwise, you're just suffering for the sake of suffering,

and there's no hope on the other side of that. That's basically what he's writing about. So in his first 12 verses, he kinda lays out this overall theme of

what to how to do this, and I just first, I just wanna read it. I just wanna read straight through, then I'm gonna jump back in and make a few points of how do we do that. How do we let suffering refine us, not define me? How do I embrace the right kind of suffering? What am I supposed to do in that? So here we go.

Verse one. This letter's from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I'm writing to God's chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace.

All praise to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation. We have a priceless inheritance, an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled,

beyond reach and change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold,

though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

You love him even though you've never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him, and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward of trusting him will be salvation of your souls.

This salvation was something even the prophets wanted to know more about when they prophesied about the gracious salvation prepared for you. He's talking about the Old Testament.

They knew they were led by Christ. They were preaching Christ back then. They just didn't know what it looked like, And they wanted to see it. They didn't get to see it. They'd see it now, but they didn't. They wondered what time or situation the spirit of Christ within them was talking about when he told them in advance about Christ's suffering and his great glory afterwards.

They were told that their messages were not for themselves, but for you.

And now this good news has been announced to you by those who preached in the power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. It is also wonderful, he's talking about the suffering and this problem, but Jesus having come. It's also wonderful that even the angels are eagerly watching these things happen.

The angels are like, we didn't get to be a part they're like, up there with the popcorn. They're binge watching. There's another episode, right? I don't have to wait every Friday to watch The Mandalorian, do I? Can I just watch them all at once? You know, that kind of thing.

So there it is. Real simple. There's a lot of stuff in there. You're like, that's supposed to help me, hope. That's supposed to help me. You just said he's talking about we will suffer. Where's the hope found? Where's this meaning? What is this talking about? Well what he says in here, I'm gonna take this part. There's three things

in here that I really wanna point out that we need to embrace and really understand in order to have that hope and that peace that comes, no matter what comes our way. If we're gonna embrace what it really means to to to live in the love of Christ.

And what you're gonna see here is they're not these earth shattering ideas. There's no magic meme with the magic fairy dust. This is oh, that phrase changed my life. They're fundamental issues. They're fundamental doctrinal things that he talked about in here that we have to go back to over and over again. And you know what they're like? They're like

sunscreen and jackets. I mean right now it's getting really hot out if you hadn't noticed.

And so you're like, hey I wanna go to the lake. I wanna go here. But you know when you go out to the lake all day, maybe it's good to get a little sun without sunscreen, get the vitamin D. But if you're gonna be in the sun all day, especially if you're melanin challenged or you're top head hair challenged. You

know what it means. You better put some sunblock on or you're gonna look Bob the Tomato from VeggieTales real fast.

And so when you go out and you know you're gonna be out in the sun all day, you do that. Same in the cold. Out here we have like three days a year that way. But if you're gonna go out in the cold, you put a jacket on. Jackets and sunscreens are designed to do what? They're designed to help you go out into the environment.

You don't avoid the environment, you're still gonna experience the heat, you're still gonna experience the cold, you're still gonna be out there, but they give you this hope. They protect you as you walk through it, even though you suffer through the heat. You're not supposed to wear the jacket and sunscreen and stay indoors.

They're meant for you to go out. They're meant for you to go through that environment. God's called us to go through environments that are gonna be hostile, that are gonna cause but if you're not, if you're gonna make it through, we gotta put our jacket or our sunscreen on. We have to put on Christ.

We have to put on that faith. But what I wanna say as we lead into this, that's a choice you have to make every time. Every time you go out in the sun, gotta make that choice. There is no credit for the last forty days that you wore sunscreen.

If you've worn sunscreen your whole life and then you're like, people wanna go to the lake all day tomorrow, you're not gonna go, you know what, I don't need the sunscreen. I've been wearing sunscreen my whole life. I'll be fine. No you're not. You're gonna be fried. You're gonna look like crispy bacon.

And a lot of us do that. We come to church one time, we had that experience at camp. We do that, we're like, oh I've had these moments with Christ. I'm good. And you think you can No. What we're gonna talk about is fundamentals. Sunscreen's not that complicated. Putting on a jacket's not that complicated.

It's just something you have to choose to do every time. And I think that's where a lot of us struggle and we lose hope because we don't do this every time. And you understand that it only takes one time, and then you got a problem.

So what we're gonna read here is I'm gonna reword three very common doctrinal words that if you've been in church very long, went to a bible study, went to bible college, or went to cemetery, I mean seminary like me, you've heard these words. How many have heard this word salvation, sanctification, and glorification?

How many have heard those words before? Kinda, alright. How many of you know really what they mean?

Same thing every service. Now some of you thought I was gonna point out, well what do they mean? So maybe you didn't raise your hand. But way more people have heard the words than raise their hand for now. Every service the same.

And I'm like wow, you must have listened to terrible preaching or teaching. And then you're like we've only come to this church. So like I said, you've listened to terrible preaching. These are three doctrinal words we give to what he's talking about here. Peter's

first example, say if you're gonna get this, if you're gonna understand suffering. In the next few weeks we'll talk about different aspects of stuff to have encouragement, to find hope in. But right off the bat he starts with, you have got to embrace and understand what salvation, sanctification,

and glorification is all about. So what does that mean? Well, it means this. The first thing I gotta embrace to let suffering refine me is number one, God has redeemed me.

When it talks about salvation, to be saved in the Bible, it means it's God that did the redemptive work. Why? Why? Why is it it's God that's redeemed me? It's not that I just figured out I'm wrong and went to him. No. What Jesus did on the cross, he chose me. I didn't choose him. I had to agree,

but he came to me first. That's really what it says. Look at verse two again. The first part of verse two. God the Father knew you, and he knew what a terrible wretch you were. So he said, get your act together or else. That's not what it says. It says God knew you, the Father knew you, and he chose you long ago,

and his spirit has made you holy. His spirit has made you how? As a result, you've obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Christ. Obeying is, yeah, we follow him, But he's really talking about what made us holy was the first act of obedience is we accepted

him as Lord and Savior. You accepted that Christ is the way to being right with God. That I can't solve my own sin problem. I can't fix it. I can only trust him, and then that's what's made me holy in his eyes. And he says, but then you've chose to obey after that.

In other words, what salvation is is is is we confuse salvation and sanctification. We'll get to sanctification in a moment. Sanctification is more about how God starts to use this life and the world and everything in your life to grow you to be more like Christ.

Well we get confused. A lot of us come to church, think those are the same thing. Doing what God wants me to do is what saves me. The Bible calls that legalism.

And so then you have a problem with that. Because when you live that way, you think it's all on you. You think God loves you because you're lovable or God rejects you because you're a Seahawks fan. Know, it's plain and simple. He loves you because you're lovable. He hates you when you're stupid. You know, basically. And

Seahawks fan hates me now. But that's not what he's saying to do. He's saying you realize it says he chose you. Now some of you that know your theology think this can get into debate about this thing called Calvinism versus Arminianism. Yeah, know those words. But it's like, it's like, I do know this.

I'm not here to debate how this works. I just know that I wouldn't choose God if he hadn't chose me first. Now, what happens after? There's a lot of debate.

Can I refuse him, or am I forced to? I don't know. All I know is I'm called to preach the gospel, and I know that he chooses us before we'll choose him, and people choose to choose him back. And I pretty much figure if you're sitting in this room, somehow you got drawn to a church, or you're watching online, you're in this room, so somehow I think that God's already saying I choose you.

And what you well, here's what you remember. The important part about this to help you in hope when you're struggling is if my attempts at righteousness doesn't save me, then my sin won't disqualify me. Because God didn't choose us. He doesn't love us because we're lovable. He loves us because he is love.

And that should give you great hope.

And that should actually encourage us to then obey him. Because somebody's so, it's easy, I just believe his love, and then I walk away. No, because that wouldn't be, if you realize what he did for you, you would want to follow him, but you wanna follow him from his love. We don't follow him for his love.

If you follow him for his love, you're always paranoid,

and then you're really mad. If you do the right things and you still struggle yourself, you're like, wait. This was a business contract, man. I trusted you, now you need to give me what you need to give me your end of the bargain. Or you feel like, I guess I'm blowing it. I'm hopeless. I can never come back. You don't have to think that way. He chose you.

And you can rest in that and be confident in that. And know that when you do suffer for the right reasons, it's okay. He still loves you. He didn't do this to you because he doesn't love you anymore.

Now there are moments that we'll see later on in this book. He does talk about when I do stupid things, sometimes I suffer for that. That's God's way of trying to get your attention.

But I'm talking about when if you're gonna really go all in and trust him, you're still gonna suffer, you don't have to worry about it. You can embrace that he chose you. Let me put it this way. Some of you are old enough to remember when PE teachers were the most sadistic people on the planet.

Because what they do is they get all together, and it doesn't matter what your athletic background or anything, he's like, we're gonna play kickball. And then what does he do? Grabs the two obviously best athletes, you're captain one, you're captain two, and then lets them pick teams.

Well, if you were like, no problem. If you're a great athlete, you're like, that was awesome. But then there's the rest of us. See, don't be confused by the the chiseled specimen of athletic prowessness in front of you right now. Twenty years ago, no one would laugh at that joke.

Thirty years ago. Thanks. That was Dave. Alright. You're right. Thirty years ago. But

when I grew up, was sick a lot as a kid. I've talked about it. And you know, even though I like sports, I wasn't even there alive. So when we would do this, they weren't even sure what I could do. So it's like when we'd split up our teams, that was a very traumatic moment for me. I don't know if some of you are like that because you're sitting there, and I know that, you know what? I'm just waiting to be the player to be named later.

That, you know, you're gonna be the you get to the last two, and and and and and then neither team wants you

because they figure you go so bad, you're gonna limit us. I'd be better off short man, and the other team having both of you will help us. I actually literally had one time we were splitting up for kickball and it was me and the kid in a wheelchair.

And they were fighting over who had to take us. That's horrible. But then I remembered one day, few years later, it's still happening. I'm like in middle school, alright, you're the captain. You're like, we're still doing this. I went to middle school, I'm like, they're still doing this. This is horrible.

And all of sudden I'm standing there, and all of sudden, the first pick was Billy, who I went by back then. I'm like, wait, what? I'm the only Billy in the class. I'm like, you say Holly?

No. I said you. Billy, come on. I'll pick you. I had done nothing to merit being picked first. It was just this person said, you know, I'm gonna pick you.

You know how that felt?

It felt awesome. Well, it almost wanted to make me act arrogant. Suckers. Which a lot of us Christians do, we think we're better than everyone else. Just because God chose you. That's a wonderful thing to embrace when life seems to bring suffering, especially if you're suffering for doing the right thing.

It's really easy to wonder if God loves you. You need to understand what he did. Long ago. He knew you. When it says He knew you, what it is, He knew your sin. He knows your brokenness. He knows every dark thought. It doesn't matter how you act at church.

He knows those worst things that you know about yourself. There's probably even some dark, dark little areas that the person you say that you love the most on this planet, you won't even talk to them about this because you don't even try to think about those things. He knows that. And He still says, I choose you.

You can trust him. And you can trust that he loves you. Even if we do mess up, we can always come back.

So what's the second thing then? This sanctification idea. The second thing is not only God has redeemed me, God is refining me. Like I said in the big idea. In other words, God is always working in me

whether I know it or not. And the New Testament says, he is faithful to complete the good work he has begun in you. And that good work is to make us like Christ. And he says he won't stop doing that. And suffering is an opportunity for that to happen.

Especially if you're doing the right thing. When you trust him, it's an opportunity is what it's saying. Because look what it says in the second part of verse two. It says, may God give you more and more grace and peace. That's what he's talking about. He goes, you need more grace and you need more peace. And he goes, but he's saying more grace and peace even through

the suffering. What he's talking about is first grace is God's power, God's understanding. The fact that I know that I need God's grace, but he'll help me through it. And then that peace is like, he'll give you this freedom from anxiety and fear, even when it's tough.

And I think that the more you understand God's grace, the more you can experience his peace. Because the more you understand his grace, the more you'll lean in and trust him, and even when you suffer, you'll suffer for the right reasons. You'll understand what he's doing, and you won't understand exactly why he's doing it or what, but you'll understand he has a plan, and you'll start to experience peace. Because it's weird, so many of us Christians, we struggle with not having peace. But the Bible over and over says if you know Christ, you should have a peace that surpasses

all understanding. We should have this peace that doesn't make any sense. Well, if we define peace the same way the world does, which is the absence of problems, how does that defy understanding?

If someone sees you having no problems, you're like, oh man, got this peace that defies all understanding because of Christ. They're like, really?

Sure looks like you have peace just because you don't have any problems. That's exactly the story of Job. Satan goes, oh, you say he's trust you. He peace. It's just because everything has no problems. He said, give him problems.

A peace that defies understanding means everything about life says, this shouldn't be peaceful. But by the power of the Holy Spirit,

somehow you don't have the fear. You don't have the anxiety. It's the the it's what Peter understood. He kept moving forward even though he saw the handwriting on the wall. He watched Paul die. He kept moving forward, and he knew he was gonna be taken into arena and murdered in some horrible way.

And he was okay with that.

Is your faith anywhere near that?

As long as you hold on to the fear, it's really saying, I don't really believe God.

If I lean in and truly embrace what God's asked me to do, if I really do, he is gonna sanctify you in this process. It means he's gonna he he's gonna refine you. He's gonna work in your life whether you realize it or not. And that's why Paul was able to say, the apostle Paul was able to say, before he died,

to live is Christ, to die is gain. What he was saying is, if I go on living, bonus, I get to still fulfill the mission. I get to be a part of this thing that makes the angels jealous even if I'm suffering. But yet, if I die in this moment, bonus. I get what's that's the third point. I'm going to glory.

So I don't have to worry either way. But that's what we should aspire for because if I don't go all in, if I don't go all in and trust God, you will not get the peace of God. You'll confuse those moments where you don't have any problems, and that's you'll you'll confuse God's grace and mercy in a moment for peace.

And you think, oh, see, I got this peace of God. No. He's just being nice. You're just you're just in one of those moments. But what real peace comes from is even when it's not going well, you still have a peace. And that's what we should have as Christians, but we have to be fully trusting the Holy Spirit. So most of us

aren't there, but it's just like the sunscreen. I could have it for four hundred days, and then decide to go out with my sunscreen, Boom. I'm right back to the struggle. You're like, but what about the problem I'm going through? It doesn't make sense. It's so hard. It's it's such a trial. Well, look at verse seven.

He says, first of all, there you should be truly glad in verse six. There's a joy ahead. But in verse seven, he says, these trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire test and purifies gold. What he's saying is an untested faith is an untrusted faith.

He he's saying that these problems are a chance to refine you like gold. Well, how they refined gold back then is you heated it up till it was melting and bubbly. So it went through a lot of heat, and then impurities was right to the surface, and they can clean them off.

God is always trying to make us more like him. He's always trying to to to to to make us be more like Jesus, to refine us into what he built us to be. And he will use these trials to do that if you let him. If you let him. Because God is always working in you.

Because God has already chose you. He's redeemed you. He's picked you. And then that leads to the third thing then, this glorification idea. God will always hold on to me is what I think that's saying. You don't have to worry. There's a future. There's inheritance. He's not gonna kick it. You're you're safe.

Because look what he says starting in verse four.

Go back through there again. He goes, where am I? Verse four. Where's verse four start?

There's verse three. There's verse four. And we have a priceless inheritance, an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled. There's this inheritance waiting for. There's something worse that's better for than anything we'll ever experience in this world, in this life.

What we have to understand, we're saying there's this this pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay, it says. It says that, you know what? There the for for for those of us that know Christ, this world is the closest thing to hell you're ever gonna experience.

But for those that don't know Christ, this world's the closest thing to heaven they're ever gonna experience. So why do we as believers embrace that everything in this world has to be we think of this as supposed to be heaven. It's not.

There's an eternity that's filled with an inheritance that cannot be destroyed. It can't be changed. There'll be no death. There'll be no crying. There'll be no more tears. And even those sins that we still struggle with will be glorified at that moment. That's what the doctrine of glorification is. We will be made like Christ. We won't struggle with those things anymore.

We'll be able to to to to handle it for all of eternity. And he says, through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation,

which is ready to be revealed on last day. See, we we we as Christians, we we we let the pendulum go too far. The church got so heavenly minded, it was no earthly good for a while. Now we've gotten so earthly minded, we've forgotten about heaven. We've forgotten about eternity. We've forgotten about the end game. So we're spending all of our time trying to make this world be like heaven. They are supposed to bring heaven to the world. We're supposed to be in this world, but we're never gonna perfect this place. And

we forget this incredible inheritance we have. So we're all afraid of what's next. Now, I don't wanna die young. I wanna be like Paul to live Christ, but to die his game. But I don't wanna be someone that's just clinging to life just so I can keep breathing.

That's meaningless.

And that's why he's saying so true be truly glad. You should be glad when you suffer for the right reason because there's wonderful joy ahead even though you must endure many trials for a little while. You know, in in the Greek, that verse six where it says these trials, though they're tough trials,

the the actual words and then the tense they're written in, it literally means that they are tough and necessary. You know, it says they're tough and necessary. What god's saying is you have to go through these. They are plan a.

And there is this this idea that there's certain trials and suffering and things we gotta choose to go through if I'm gonna follow Christ, and it's necessary for the greater thing. There's something better on the other side of it. You know, today's June 6. Right? That's kind of an important day in history.

You know what it is? It's my my twenty ninth wedding anniversary. So it's really important. Actually, it is my twenty ninth wedding anniversary today, but

but that's not the thing I'm saying you gotta go through suffering to get to the other side of. It's what you really knew June 6 was about. It's the it's the it's the anniversary of d day,

the the invasion of of Normandy beaches. It's the it was the beginning of the end of World War two. Say the beginning of the end because, Germany was losing. Hitler was gonna lose, but there was a lot of more fighting, a lot of more dying that happened. Matter of fact, d day was one of the bloodiest, brutalist,

biggest days of of suffering and pain that there's ever experienced. It's the largest mass of troops that were ever moved by water and landed in this one place in the history of mankind. There was more explosions and shells and fire and rocks, and and there was a lot of suffering, a lot of death and even maiming and suffering, and there's a lot of a lot of those grave sites over there where guys never returned. It was it was a brutal thing. And the reason it was brutal is when Hitler took over all of Europe, except for little England, they held out. And and and and yet, there's they're sitting there. He built up what's called Fortress Europa. He built a a line of defense all along the borders there to say, come and get it. You're not getting in here. And so as they beat him back and they beat him back, they knew that we can never bring the freedom. We can never release the people from the suffering and the misery. We're never gonna we're never gonna actually help all those people and stop him if we just leave him back there. We gotta crash his gates. We gotta go through that, and we gotta do that. And they knew this would be an enormous cost of suffering, an enormous cost of money, an enormous cost of time, an enormous cost, but they did it, and those soldiers did it.

And it changed the world. It literally saved the world for that season, but it was still a massive sacrifice. And everyone that went and did it, they knew they were gonna suffer. They knew they were gonna sacrifice, But they knew they needed to crash through those walls to get to the other side.

Do you realize as Christians, when he says to trust him, it's not just to sit in church. I think the thing that we do too often, especially in The United States here as Christians, is

we put fences up. We put the walls up. We circle the wagons, and we think church is all about, let's all get behind the wall, fortress church opa,

and and we sit here, and we're like, keep my kids safe. I don't want them to be tainted by those other kids out there. I don't wanna be them, you know, I don't want and we hide here and then we yell at the rest of the world, y'all suck, you know. Y'all suck, you know. You mean Jesus, but you still, you know, you're terrible. And some of you are mad that I said suck because you've already circled the wagons. You're like, you can't say that. What if my kid heard that word? Sorry.

But that's our mentality. We think we're the fortress. You know, it's interesting. The guy that wrote this that said we need to lean all in and we need to go all in even if it's gonna cost us hope till the end.

Trust Christ even if it costs you your life. Sacrifice that time, sacrifice that finance, whatever he's asking you to trust him because he's chose you, he's redeemed, he's refining you. And in the end, he will always hold on to you and there's something greater on the other side and he's given us an opportunity to think the angels are jealous so they could see we get to be a part of what God's doing in this earth And and it happened. The guy who wrote this when he was younger was Peter was the first one that he was talking to Jesus and they were had this moment before where they're like, all these people were leaving Jesus because he said, hey, this is gonna be hard to follow me. What? Hard? I thought it was you're gonna get rid of all of our problems. And so then everyone leaves and Jesus goes, are you gonna leave too? And they're like, why? We have nowhere else to go.

You're the ones with truth. And then Peter was the first one a little bit later on and says, you are the Christ, meaning he's the first one to realize, you're the Messiah, you're the savior, you're the only way.

You're the only way. You have to rescue us. And Jesus goes, you're right, Peter. And then he said something that has been so mistranslated throughout history. He says, you're Peter, and upon this rock, Peter means rock,

I will build my church. And people thought he's saying, yeah, right, Peter, and I'm gonna build the church on you. That's not what he said. He said, you are Peter, and he used the Greek version of rock for Peter that means pebble. He basically, you're right. You're the pebble. But upon the rock of what you just said,

meaning me, upon the rock, Jesus was referring to himself. He says, upon this rock, I will build my church, which is us. And then he said, and the attacks of Satan will never get within our walls.

Wait, that's not right. What does he say? I will build my church and the gates of hell will never prevail. Are gates an offensive or a defensive weapon? Defensive. Why do we freak out?

Circle the wagons, complain when we lose a freedom, get all mad, and act like the job is to keep our fences up and our borders and keep the the wall that we built around ourselves so strong. When when the truth is, it's the enemy that's put a wall around what he's distorted and meant, and he's afraid of us. We get attacked when we're actually moving towards the enemy because guess what? We are called to be the ones that are gate crashers. We're not gate builders. We're gate crashers.

We are supposed to go out in this world with the love of Christ, with our time, our talent, our testimony, our treasure, and we are supposed to bring that to the world in a loving way. And we're supposed to knock the gates down, not put the gates up. And there's too many of us that wanna circle the wagons.

And I know this is a horribly unpopular thing to preach, but man, if you wanna be a Christian, be a Christian and and and and join. And you know what? It's gonna cost you your time. I'm gonna ask you to serve because the bible says we're the body and we need each other's gifts. I'm gonna ask you to step in and serve.

I mean, you know what? We've grown most churches have not even got back to pre COVID numbers. We are 39% larger than we were before. We've had hundreds of people baptized, hundreds of people come to Christ. The amount of people willing to serve, not as much.

I'm telling you, if this is your church and you are a Christian, you need to serve. It's not an option. It's not if I have time. It's what you're called to do. And some of you need to sacrifice more than others. Children's ministry needs help. That's right up there next to getting on the cross with Jesus. But

for someone like me, some of you are gifted. There's so many areas. And you're like, but I don't have time. I'm like, yes. It's going to hurt. But you know what? On the other side, when you feel realize that you got to help change the world, you got to help change eternity, you got to be I'm telling you, in the end,

when we do that, when we find sacrifice financially and we move the thing forward, when when we get in that, we crash the gates and the enemy runs, and we don't have to argue with the world. We just have to show them the love of Christ and send the enemy fleeing.

And, yeah, they all attack back. We might get persecuted. It might get harder. We might get knocked, and then go, we might enter a season like Peter knew was happening back then. It's gonna happen again. We might enter a season where it gets dangerous for us to stay committed to Christ. And what's gonna happen to you in this room? How many of you are willing to let it risk your life

to follow Jesus? Because that is where we need to be. Because guess here's the weird twist. It's only when you're in that moment that you get the peace that surpasses all understanding. So I am a bad leader and a poor shepherd who hates you

if I don't challenge you to step up to this because you're missing out and we're all missing out. But he's saying, the end, there is something greater on the other side. Let's go for it. Let's do it. Let's get involved. I mean, man, if if twelve, eleven guys

that went all in when Jesus could have the impact they did in those first twenty years, What would the 900 people sitting in this room right now do?

Quit hiding behind our we we we've turned churches into gate guarded communities.

It's not our job. It's not our mission. It's not what God chose you for. He chose you for a team that's supposed to do something else. And most of your lack of hope and your fears and your pains, yeah, you're suffering. But there's no peace and it's not because of the problem. It's because what you think the answer is.

And that's where we need to go.

Will you go let me me close with this. Gotta get out of here. I'll preach all day, and it is my anniversary. So she probably thought of getting her something before now.

Pray for me. I'm about to enter an intense fiery trial.

Kinda joking.

Let me let me lay it out with something in my life. I mean, I could have used the last year, COVID, like, are so many things that I didn't understand what God was doing, and I was faithful, and I got confused, and it was hard, but I've used that

to death. But there's something that happened to me that was really a pivotal moment in my life that if you've been in this church long enough, you've heard me share this story before because it's such a pivotal moment, but I just recently

figured out more of the answer that it was God had already told done it. I just didn't see it. So this is a it's it's an update

of how God works. And it happened when I was in high school. I was I was actually I was a pretty good baseball player. I had full ride scholarships to college. I had scouts talking to me. I was probably gonna get drafted. I'm not saying I would've went on to the major leagues, but I I would've played professional. And I

loved Jesus, became a Christian in high school, got challenged with a similar message to this. Instead of just showing up at youth group to try to flirt with girls, I decided to take it serious. And I got really serious. I felt God had called me into ministry, but he also gave me this love for baseball.

And so I kind of blended the two as I went, and I just I was always sharing my faith. I got laughed at. I got this. I led a few kids on the team to the Lord, a few of my friends. And and and and I had this impact and I just I just felt like, hey, I'm gonna love you God. I'm gonna be honest. I'm gonna be open. I'm gonna go all in with my time. I was tired. I would go from baseball. I'd go straight to church to serve in my baseball uniform. I'll scrub because I was like, I was gonna help in this kids club. We'd have a tournament. I'd go play. I'd show up. It was it was hard, but I did it. I stayed committed. And I was convinced that God had told me, not told me like he's audibles, more like I just knew the way he wired me and wore my passions and how I trust him that he was gonna use baseball in my life to further the kingdom, to further the gospel.

I just knew it. And then two thirds of the way through my senior year, I'm running after a line drive. It bounced a funny hop. I tried to turn. Next thing I remember seeing the ground hit me in the face in the most searing pain in my knee I've ever felt in my life, and it turned out I blew my knee out.

I didn't know how bad. Go to the doctor. It swelled up. They tried to do an MRI inconclusive. They knew some things was wrong with it, they said, just gotta operate.

I said, hurry up. Let's operate because I need to get back on the field. I need to get you know, I'm gonna go off to college or maybe minor leagues. I don't know. One of these, I'm gonna go back to play, and I'm gonna, know, preach the gospel and play. That's my plan. That's how that's how I'm gonna you know, that's how God's gonna use

And I was so

into the faith that I I brought my bible with me to the hospital when they they decided to go into surgery. And I was carrying it. I was telling everyone about was telling the nurses, hey, Jesus loves you. Wouldn't matter of fact, when they went in to put me under, I was like saying to the dogs, I hope you do you love Jesus? Because, you know, I and actually, are you good at your job? Because I don't wanna meet him yet. But still,

they're like, do you love like, they just said, shut this kid up. And next thing you know, wake up and I was extra groggy. I couldn't even know where it was, and I was shaking. It was and it turned out I was like, it's because I I it was nine hours later. Eight and a half hours of surgery for a knee.

My dad had quadruple bypass surgery and it was four hours and forty five minutes, five hours. And so I was like real groggy. And I remember the first time I got coherent enough to even say any words, I was like,

how long will I be in here? When can I rehab? When can I play again? I wanted to know what happened in the surgery. And my mom was sitting there, my dad, and the doctor goes and and my the doctor looks at my parents, I goes, just tell him, man. He can take it. And he goes, yeah, we were in there for almost nine hours.

If it was ripped, torn, blown out, or tweaked, if it could be, it was. Basically, you had to put your whole knee back together. I go, okay. So how long is the rehab? When can I play? He goes, you probably should never play baseball again.

And even if you were lucky enough to, you'd probably have to be really careful. You're gonna rehurt yourself, and you're probably not gonna be as good as you were. You're gonna lose range of motion. You're gonna limp. I still have a little bit of limp. It doesn't show as much. I I hide it as like a cool walk. So it

was like, why does he walk so cool? Because I I know that's what you all say. And that's the first thing I heard. I was like,

what? If I have those moments, not talking about when you do something like, I guess I probably deserve this moment. I was kind of a knucklehead. But you have those moments that you're actually all in trusting God and it all falls apart. Anyways, I was like, what? You you gotta be wrong here. You gotta he's like, nope.

I did end up getting to play two years of college. But I guarantee the way I played in college, it did not move the gospel forward. It didn't even move our team record forward. I wasn't the same. So that was a little blessing there to get to say goodbye to it. But in this moment,

man, I was like, I don't understand. And then on top of that, because I was under surgery so long under the anesthesia,

I had this asthma medication that I had to take at the time, but it depressed my my my my metabolism was so high. I was taking so much. They didn't catch that, so I was getting OD'd on this. And it's it's the one they hardly even give anymore because it can it can it basically, if you take too much, it becomes toxic in your brain actually.

You get brain damage and you die. And it makes you violent. And they didn't understand I was getting violently ill.

I was throwing up and when there was nothing on my stomach, I was dry heaving. Now if you've ever had any kind of surgery, especially a knee, the way it hurts, you don't want to move at all. And if you are constantly vomiting at the same time as your knee hurts,

and then found out I did almost die, they caught it. Where they go, hey, another day of toxicity on this and you probably would have went into a a coma. So by the time they caught it and took me back off, it still took like a week and a half. So I was doing that for two weeks,

constantly vomiting. They had to give me IVs. I couldn't leave the hospital as fast because I was gonna dehydrate because I couldn't keep anything down. And so now I get told, God said he would use baseball to further the gospel, and I've went all in. I've trusted you, and now there's no and now I am, like, basically

heaving myself to death. And I was in so much pain and so much agony and so much confusion. Some of you might be there right now.

And I looked over at this Bible I brought because I was like, I'm gonna read it and pray for these few days. I hadn't even looked at it. It's like four days, three days, four days into this thing. And I just grabbed my Bible.

And I went, why? Why? And then it went from internal to external in the middle of the night. I was sitting there in pain. I couldn't sleep. And I was like, why? And I remember I just yelled out, why? And I threw my bible. My knee was bad. My arm was still good.

And I chucked this thing. It flew out and it wasn't a little it was it was a study bible. It had some girth and some weight to it. And I threw this thing, and I even got a little slider. It curved around the door and went out the door, and and all I heard was this massive crash, glass breaking, and a nurse go, ah.

And I'm like, oh, great. Now I did that. And then I hear them brustling around. I go, I'm gonna get in trouble. I don't even wanna deal with this. I'm so frustrated. I don't even care. I don't wanna deal with it. So I just sat there and all of sudden a few minutes later, a nurse started to walk in. I was like,

I don't wanna deal with this.

I tried to act like I was asleep because I saw her. She walked in. She didn't see that I she had my bible. So I'm like, oh, this is the one I hit. She can come back and finish me.

I know that's what some of you nurses wanna do sometimes. God bless you for not. She walks up, leans over, sets the bible on my chest, and then leans over to whisper in my ear so she knew I wasn't asleep.

And she said, you're gonna need this for what's next in your life.

It'll be alright.

I'm praying for you. Are you kidding me? Of all the nurses I could have hit with my study bible, It was one that loved Jesus. And any of you that are nurses that have just said one little moment, one little just side note, you have no idea the lasting impact it could have. Because I sat there. I was still frustrated.

She walked out and was like my daughter on that bench. I gotta decide which way I'm gonna go with this. Am I gonna let this define the rest of my life? Am I gonna be bitter and talk about the the career I could have had?

Or am I gonna embrace that God chose me? He redeemed me. He's refining me. He will always hold on to me. And I don't get it, but this is something necessary.

I chose to trust God. I went on with my life. Got into ministry. And then in 2001, I felt like God opened the door and lead me to come start Rock Point Church. And and That's not even the kicker. I

didn't realize this till I was asked this in interview question, but like, what made it work to be in a high school for be in a school for eleven years as a church because a lot of churches have a problem with their schools they meet in. And I said, well, I think a lot of guys treat them act like tenants.

I think we need to you need to love the place that you're meeting at more than give them more than they give you. Lean into it. That's why we were so open when these guys came and said, we wanna do something here at Castile. I said, I'm all in. I've experienced that already.

But why that happened was what started to open the door is when we started to meet over at Higley High, which we had a great great they were awesome with us.

And part of it is because we did so many things. We just lean in. And one of the first things that opened that door was as I was over there meeting, I met the new baseball coach, and he was a Christian that had come from California, got to know me, started coming to the church. He goes, hey.

I told a baseball story. He goes, you used to play baseball. Yeah. He goes, I need an assistant varsity coach. I go, you don't even know if I've never coached before. I might have been good at baseball, but I was like, I don't care. I choose you. I need someone with your attitude. I'm like, oh, okay.

I felt like, alright, maybe this is an opportunity to to know him. Maybe, you know, whatever. But I'd never been willing to coach before because every other time I didn't want to coach because coaching just reminded me that I couldn't play anymore.

I didn't want to do that. So I said yes, and I became the first assistant varsity based coach. I did it for three years. And you know what it did? It opened us. We have families in the church because of that. One of our staff people, I actually coached her husband. He wasn't married then. He was in high school.

We had a moment where where where one of the softball coaches, she came over. Hey, I heard you're a pastor.

Can I ask you a question? You know, I've I've come to Christ, but I had a marriage that fell apart. My husband's really he's actually not really a Christian, but all of sudden, he started calling me recently, and he's

owning it and saying he's so sorry, and and and and he's saying, hey. I don't I'm not saying I need to put this all back together, but I have an opportunity to transfer my job and live down there. Would you mind if I just come in? Can we could just have a relationship and get to know each other again and give me a chance? She goes, what should I do?

Well, do you believe them?

Well, yeah.

So she said, come on down. Came down. We met with him. Got to lead him to Jesus. They got kids now. Growing kids. She's a children's director in a big church in Colorado. I'm like, man, if I didn't coach, I wouldn't have that opportunity.

And then the greatest thing was I got known in this community because people don't understand what a pastor does, especially a pastor that doesn't even have a building. So like, what? Your pastor? Well, where's your church? Oh, we meet here at the high school. So you just mysteriously roll in, use it, and then roll out into the darkness of the night.

But I got known as, oh, that's coach Bill. He's also a pastor.

And you know what? I never understood what God had done with the knee. I just understood one one moment in time. I go, when I was youth pastor and a kid got hurt, I was like, okay. I get it. I I get it. I I I can cry with you and all that. But I I I'd never I thought God well, he said he would use baseball,

and I never put two and two together until the last few years. And I finally realized baseball is what opened the doors to have that great relationship. It opened the doors that this church would not have been established the way it was if I didn't get an opportunity to coach baseball.

And I realized that God was telling me, dummy, hey, I used baseball for the cause of Christ in your life. The problem is you thought it meant $14,200,000

a year and giving really great interviews where you give praise to me. That's what you thought, but that's not what I wanted to do. And guess what? I don't care. I would never take that money. I don't care about it anymore because I'm looking out at you and I am so thankful to God that I went through that suffering. I'm thankful to God that I had to give that up, and I'm thankful to God I got to do it this way, and I'm thankful to God for every one of you that I get the blessing

to be here with you. And that is what I'm talking about.

What are you going through? That God is gonna use it, but you gotta trust him. Amen.

Father God, thank you, Lord. I just pray that you would continue to lead me, everyone in this room to understand what it means to just fully trust you. Lord, I pray for those in this room that maybe have never just embraced the point one. They've never answered your call to them to put their faith in you.

I pray that no one this room that's struggling with that could just reach out to you say, Jesus, I'm sorry. I trust you. Forgive me. I know you died for me. Help me to understand what that means. But Lord, I pray for the rest of us that we could just suffer for the right thing and then suffer the right way.

That we would have your grace, mercy, and your peace that surpasses all understanding as we get to be a part of what you're doing. As we get to do the thing that the angels look down on and go, wow. Wow. And Lord, I just pray lastly for anyone in this room that maybe is right in the heart.

There were I was at in that hospital bed that the pain is so great. The confusion is so cloudy that they don't even know what to do with what we just said here. But I pray that you will wrap your arms around them and that you will just give them the want to want to at least, and they can take that first baby step.

I pray it in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you for joining us online today. If you need prayer, connect with us on rockpoint.io under the need to talk tab. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay up to date with what's happening here at Rock Point.