Home-Field Advantage | Week 5 | Bill Bush

last, message in this, home field advantage.

And and what we're gonna be talking about today is, how to keep up hope during a tough season. Because just like in sports, no matter how hard you try, you could be trying to apply everything we've been talking about in this series, and there's just times when it seems like I'm still in a tough season. It's still hard. It's still it's not working.

For example, when I was, in college and playing baseball, I got into a little bit of hitting slump. And on a break, I I I came home, and I went to the batting cages with my dad because he was gonna help me sort it out. And it was a great old school batting cages, the type with the arm that goes.

And and and it'll throw it hard, but if it catches the seam because they actually used real baseballs then too. So if it caught a seam just right, you might get an 85, 90 mile an hour pitch right at your head. So it was it was it was kinda real life.

And and so we go, and then we take it, and then, you know, the other thing is my dad would make me use a wooden bat when we're doing the practice because there's something about the crack of a wooden bat, you know if you hit it right or not. And so we would do that. So we go and this this this this place was at, there was a dump right on the other side of it, and they had a net set up pretty far out. So that's the other nice thing is you can hit a real baseball and see how well you actually hit it. And if you really got a hold of it, had some power, you could put a ball in the dump, hit an old abandoned car or something. It just made an awesome sound. So we go there, but the problem is I wasn't hitting anything to the dump. My swing was in the dumps. And so as I'm trying to work on it, my dad's telling me all the stuff. He's like, hey. Here's what you need to do. Here's the principles. Here's what's happening, and here's and he's telling me it, but I'm still hitting bad. And, you know, and being a typical father son relationship at this moment, I'm the one that can't figure out how to apply the principle, but somehow I'm blaming my dad.

And so I'm like, it's not working. And he goes, it does work. It's you that's not working. You're

not doing it right. And so they were in this, and so under my breath, I just say, I'd like to see you do it, because, you know, he's he's 63, he has one eye, and he looks like fat Elvis. So I'm I'm, like, giving him a hard time. Well, then I I I knew that was gonna come back to haunt me. Because when I go to get out of the cage, he's standing there with a helmet on and says, give me the bat.

And he goes in and he starts hitting. And his first two swings looked pathetic, and I laughed. And he goes, just keep laughing, son, as he squints at me with his one eye. And then I say, you know, crack. Crack. There is something about the sound of a baseball hitting a wood bat that when you hit it right,

it makes a very distinct sound. And that distinct sound got the attention of the Major League Baseball player down at the other end that had a group of 12 to 14 year olds. He was doing a little hitting clinic, had about 15 of these 12 to 14 year olds showing him how to hit. He heard that crack, and it got his attention.

You might have heard of him, his name was Tony Gwen. And so Tony Gwen

walks all the way down and brings his group of 12 to 14 year olds, and now I'm standing there watching my dad school me on how to hit as a one eyed he is putting balls into the every shot. He's hitting it into the dump left and right. I mean, it's just like and a matter of fact, he got done with his first 15 pitches, he walked over and he stuck another one in there, and he just kept going. And and like almost approved to me that it's not the principal that's the problem, it's it's the person. And and as he's doing it, Tony Gwyn walks right up next to me, he's like, that your dad? Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Tony Gwyn, that's my dad. And then he's like, your dad can rake. Apparently so, Tony Gwen.

And then he turns to all these kids. He's like, hey, kids. Remember what we were talking about? About how you hit and how you do this, and it was everything my dad was trying to tell me. He goes, that old man does it perfectly.

And I go, look at the power and and how he generates power without even, you know, and it's like he's describing it to him, and they'd start cheering my dad every time he's hitting the ball and here's me.

He walks out of the cage, and the guy's like, hey, introduce himself, and he's like, I know who you are, Tony Gwynn.

And he goes, you've played some ball. He goes, yeah. And they had this cool conversation. My my dad goes he goes, man, you still generate. You get power. You have power for an old guy. He's like, yes. It's you know you know, it's like and you know what? If you would just do this, Tony Gwen, you could hit more home runs too. My dad's now coaching Tony Gwen. That

next season, he had the most home runs in his career. I kinda think maybe he goes, maybe I should do what that old man said. I don't know. But then he walks away and he turns to me and he's like, hey, listen to your father, he knows what he's talking about. I'm like, thanks, Tony Gwen.

So now I don't like Tony Gwen because, you know, I look at my daddy smiling, that stupid I told you so smile, that proud like I just showed you up, you know, the the young ram just got knocked off the hill again, and and I just said, that's not helping. That's not helping.

And maybe that's where you're at in your life right now, especially when it comes to your home, your relationships in your home. Is you're like, hey, I'm trying. I'm trying to listen to you father in heaven. I'm trying to listen to your word. But for some reason it's still not working.

What do you do when you're in that tough moment? What do you do when you're in those tough seasons? How do you keep hope and how do you see that there's a purpose in that And God can do something with that. And what we're gonna see here today, what we're gonna see here today is simply this big idea.

In order to face it all, embrace the all.

In order to face it all. We're sitting here going, hey, get it. I hit it. But there I've got all this out there. I got this struggle in my marriage. I got struggle at work. Got struggle with my kids. I got struggle. And you're facing all this stuff. You're like, how do I face it all? And and and you're trying to use all the principles we talk about. But the truth is, at the end, if you don't connect the dots of what we're gonna talk about today, you could try to do everything we've talked about, and you're still not gonna get there. Because what we need to do is not try to face it all. We need to embrace the all, and that is who God is. God is the the all. He's all that. And what we're gonna see is a very theological

kind of a sermon here out of a Hebrew poetry passage in Psalms one thirty nine that has deep theology. And the issue is we're gonna see some attributes of who God is that I think we can say it with our head, and it sounds very technical when you hear it. That's what the all is. God has these attributes. It's omni.

He is omniscient, which means all knowing. He is omnipresent, which means always present everywhere. And and those sound like these big, dry technical words that we try to explain who God is,

but King David in Psalms one thirty nine is describing the omniscience and omnipresence of God in a way that how it applies to his life in a way that he's in a dark time. He's in a tough season, and he's able to embrace this and see the victory and able to get through that tough season. And I think sometimes we don't connect the dots of who God is

with how we actually live. We can come to church and say, I believe this about God. But do you believe that that aspect of God actually has something to do with you personally? And how do we do that? How we do? We're gonna see that. Psalm one thirty nine,

and what we're gonna see is just the two things. We're gonna look at the omniscience and omnipresence of God. And that's what he's talking about in these verses.

And so there's two points I wanna make with that and a little bit of sub points. And the first one we find right here in verse one. Oh Lord, you have examined my heart and you know everything about me.

He says, oh Lord, you've examined my heart and you know everything about me. What he's saying is he knows everything. God is omniscient, but now he's applying to what does omniscient all knowing mean to me? What does it mean to us as a person? It means God knows me.

God knows me. And he doesn't know me like you know a friend, he knows of you, he knows a lot about you. It means he absolutely knows me. He knows you better than you know you. I'll say, he knows you better than you know you.

How would my life change and my decision making change and my attitude change if I could truly embrace that? Embrace the idea that God knows me better than me.

How could that change my faith in him and my trust of him? Because then the next, you know, the next few verses actually give us some sub points of what does that look like? What does it mean for God to be all knowing and and to actually know me even better than I know me? Well, first look at the next two verses.

You know when I sit down or when I stand up. He knew that. He knew that again. Oh, I faked him out. Nope. He knew I was gonna fake him out.

You know when I sit down or stand up, you know all my thoughts even when I'm far away. You can see me when I travel, and when I rest at home, you know everything I do. So right there it's saying, so what does it mean for him to know all when it comes to knowing me? And and the two things there is first, that's saying, God knows everything I do

because God knows everything I think. He knows what I do and he knows what I think. He knows what I do before I'm gonna do it. He even knows what I'm thinking before I think it. Ain't that crazy? Now think about what that means. When it says he see me when I travel. The word there for see me,

this is the cool I hope you guys just have a love for reading God's word and jumping in more. Because when you read it on the surface, this is gonna sound like Jesus he's describing God as like Jesus Claus or something. You know, it's like he knows when you've been naughty, he's known when you've nice, and better watch out because Jesus Claus is coming to town.

And that's not what he's saying. This is encouraging.

He's not saying watch out. He's saying, you can trust him, and if you trust him, you gotta understand he will help you sort you out. Because that word for see me is the word winnow. And and to to winnow is what they would do when they would take the the grain, and you the seed was the part you wanted, the chaff was the the crud that you didn't want, the bad part, and how they would separate is you throw it up in the wind when the wind was blowing, and it would actually separate the chaff. So really that word for seeming means he sorts you.

And what it's saying is he can sort you out even in the midst of all of the issues going around, even when you can't sort yourself out. See how encouraging that is? When life seems all out of sorts,

since God already knows what you're gonna do, he knows why you're gonna do it, because he even knows what you're thinking before you even think it, he can sort you out. He can help sort you out.

Especially when it says he knows what you think. When it says in in the second part of verse two, you know my thoughts even when I'm far away. Here's what we mainly think about when you first read that. He's like this incredible mind reader. And and and all the way from heaven, he already knows what I'm thinking.

But he's about to go on into the next point and say, God is omnipresent, which means he is everywhere present in space and time at all times. So why would he say it's impressive that God can read my mind all the way from heaven? God's not all the way from heaven. God's not far away. Here's the cool part.

The deaf part. It's not talking about he can knows what you're thinking even when he's so far away. It's really saying, God knows what you're thinking when your thoughts are afar from you. You get that? He knows

why you're thinking what you're thinking. He knows that when you're confused and your thoughts are afar from you, you're confused by your thoughts, you're you're lost, you're you you feel bad, and he already knows why. He understands you when you don't understand you.

When you're just why am I angry all the time? Why am I so frustrated all the time? Why do I feel defeat all the time? Why do I say I believe in Jesus when I just have such a hard time putting my faith in him? Why am I struggling with this addiction? Why do I always all those things that you can't figure out, you just know you feel something and you know you're reacting to something, and you know that why do I keep getting into the same argument? Why do I keep doing that? Why am I it's saying, God knows why.

When I don't understand my own thoughts, he does. Isn't that encouraging? Shouldn't that encourage you to then go, well, then I wanna know God more. I wanna understand him more because that's the way to know myself.

That's the way to to really know. Matter of fact, Socrates, four hundred years before Christ said, know thyself. And ever since, everyone's been trying to know themselves.

But here's the thing. When you understand that God knows you more and God's already declared who you are if you know Jesus, we make a mistake that even as Christians, many of us in the room, though a lot of your thoughts that you don't understand, they're far from you, is you're struggling with with with with with feeling like a failure or or or being upset or feeling like you're stymied in your life or wondering about your thoughts. And a lot of it is because we're trying to figure out who we are.

And even Christians will do that. I just gotta know who I am. You realize God already knows who you are. God created us. And if you put your faith in Christ, he's already told us who we are. Where you find out who you are is in here. The best way to know thyself is to know God.

But we struggle we think, oh, yeah. I know God. I go to church,

but I gotta go out there like everyone else and figure out who I am. And that's one of the biggest lies. We think our identity is found in something else other than who God declared us to have our identity in. And so you think, I find my identity in my sexuality. I find my identity in my job. I find my identity in being a husband or wife or a parent, and that's what affects a lot of our homes. You're trying to find who you are in being a spouse or who you are in being a parent. That's not who you are. That's just a blessing of something you get to do.

And a lot of the fights you're having where your thoughts are afar from you, you can't figure out why your marriage won't work, you're always disappointed, or you feel like a disappointment, is because a lot of it is you are trying to find an identity

of who you are in that relationship, and you're trying to get something from a spouse that you can only get from God. And so the reason you think they're a failure, the reason you're fighting is you are actually aiming at the wrong thing. Because you don't know thyself because you think you gotta find yourself out there

in something else or someone else. And that's the power of what he's saying is, you know yourself by knowing God. You know who you are by who God's declared you to be. Everything else

is just this is I just gotta figure out what I'm gonna do with my life. What job do I feel drawn to? I'm gonna get married. Okay. This is the person I married. How do we make this work? How do we how do we make each other more holy in this process? How do we become more like Christ? How it's not about who you are.

Let's just take a breath.

Be honest. How many of your fears, your worries, your struggles, your battles, your fights, if you're honest,

is the reason you're disappointed or upset because whatever is going on is making you doubt who you are or doubt who they are.

What if you trusted the God who's omniscient, who knows all, and in knowing all that means He knows you better than you can know you. That's really the heart of where sin happens, is we get mad at God or we don't trust God because we think we know the answer.

And we get frustrated. So as Christians, we pray to God because we think we know the answer. Because we think we know more than God. And so we pray to him about something that we don't even understand, and we think we have the right answer. And then we feel like God never answers us.

And when we do that, we're being just like our kids are. Because you do understand no and wait are also answers. But when your kid wants something and you say, wait or no, what do they say? You're not listening to me.

What does that mean? When you already gave your kid, you gotta wait. It's not the time. Or no. Not now. What does your kid do? They start arguing like and they keep arguing. Hey. I already gave you no. You're not listening to me. What does not listening to you mean? It means you're not giving me the answer I want, so therefore, you're not listening to me. Think about your prayers of late, especially when you're in a tough season. How many are praying and God has either said no or wait? And you're like, why won't God listen to me? He did. He already answered you.

And it's not the answer you wanted because you think that that thing is gonna change everything because you think you know better than God. And the truth is, you know when you said no or wait to your kids, sometimes you gave them the greatest blessing in the world. You protected them. You absolutely protected them. There's no way they should have that.

Well, we do that to God. No and wait is most often the greatest gift of love that God has ever given us. But if I don't understand the omniscience of God,

that means he knows everything. And not just because he's been around a long time and he's a good odds maker. He literally knows. We're gonna see that because it goes hand in hand with his omnipresence. What that means? That means he knows because he's already been there.

Past, present, and future. He's there all the time. It's not just he's been around a lot. He is already he's outside of space and time. We'll get to that in a minute, which is crazy. So he knows everything I do. He knows what I think. Look at verse four. You know what I'm gonna say even before I say it. Oh.

Not only what I do before I do it, what I think before I do it, he knows every word that's gonna come out of my mouth before it even came out of my mouth. And you know what I think in that moment? Couldn't you have tapped me on the shoulder a couple times and just or put your finger right here and just went,

because I'm the type that speaks first, thinks later.

Think of all the things you regret saying. Think of those times that you just blew up on your kids, and then you realize, oh, man. That's another one for the counselor's couch they're gonna be talking about someday.

Or those times when your spouse, you're gonna find, you realize, I really wish. I mean, have you ever just said something and as you're saying it, you're like, no, in your soul, like, you wanna pull it back? Yeah. God already knew. And I think sometimes he does kinda give us a signal not to say it. We just ignore it. And

but here's the point. Think about how your relationship towards God can be different. If you understood that he already knows everything you're gonna do, not did, everything you're gonna do. He knows everything not that you already thought, but everything you will ever think. And he not only knows everything you said,

he knows everything you will ever say already. And yet he still loves you.

And yet he still loves you.

Wouldn't that make you wanna run back towards him when it gets really tough? When we make mistakes? When we blow it? We think God is on the same linear space time continuum as us. So we think like we do with other people.

He may be the most patient loving God, but at some point, I'm gonna do something that's too far, think something that's too far, say something that's too far, and he's gonna be done with me. It's not true. It's not true.

Just think about that. Because look what verse five. Five is a transition.

It's kinda tying God's omniscience to his omnipresence and telling you something else he knows about us. And then he goes on to describe this this what does being omnipresent mean? And look what it says in verse five. You go before me and you follow me. It's one of my favorite verses in all of scripture.

You place your hand of blessing on my head. What does this say? It's saying not only does God know me, he knows everything I do, everything I think, he knows what I say, but it also means God knows what I need.

When it says he puts his hand of blessing on my head, that was in their culture. If you came into the home of someone, they would actually put their hands on you and bless you. And what they're saying is, I will make sure your needs are taken care of and you are under my protection.

So when it says he does that, what it says is knowing God means he knows what we need and he will protect us. He will always take care of our needs. When we think he's not helping us, it's because it's our greeds. It's we want something that he says you don't need that. But you can trust that. Why?

Why does he know it and why does he have the ability to promise that? Is because that first phrase, you go before me and you follow me. You know what that that means?

It doesn't mean like in a military term. It means kinda that, which is kind of a cool thought, but it's even deeper than that. We think it means, oh, it's like if you're gonna go into jungle warfare and you got a group of guys, the two most dangerous positions to be is walking point and bringing up the rear. Because if you're gonna get attacked, it's either in the front or they're gonna wait till you get behind them, and then you're gonna get attacked from the rear. So whoever's walking point and back is that's the two most dangerous place to be. And it's nice to say, oh, he's gonna protect us because God's basically as we're walking through life, he's walking point and he's bringing up the rear. Yeah. It means that too, but it means something way deeper.

It means God was already there in the past. God's already in the future, and God chooses that he's always with us in the present. It means he's already in front of us. He's already come behind us. He already knows everything because he's already everywhere.

That's the omnipresence. Omnipresence of God is not like, wow, he'll just know wherever you're at. It's like, it means more than that. What does it mean to be everywhere present at once? It it doesn't mean like the old, pantheistic idea that God's in everything like the force.

You know, may the force be with you? He's not like a little piece of him is stretched really thin. It means that he is 100% present as fully 100% God at every place at once. But what this passage is saying too is not just everywhere, but every time at once.

So it's not this pantheism like in our world, like, God's everywhere. God's there. God's in that chair. You know? God is even in David's head. Hard to believe. Just giving him a hard time.

Or like, you know, that's that's the wrong view. It's like the little kid that told his mom, mom, God's everywhere. Right? Yeah. Does that mean he's in this room? Mhmm. Does that mean he's in my tummy? She goes, I guess so. He goes, okay. Well, God wants a banana.

That's not what it means. It means that God is outside of the space time continuum. I'm gonna try to attempt to this, but I'm not a, you know, a physicist or whoever else figures this stuff out. But it is weird what the bible says, and science is kinda caught up with it.

It's kinda like time is a created thing. Did you know that? God created time. It can't be. Time is time. One to 1,000. That was a second. A second is a second. Right? It's just no. God created. And you know what? Time isn't even consistent in our universe.

Did you know? Einstein kinda proved that with his theory of relativity. And they have this thing, these black holes that they he didn't know they existed, but he theorized it. Time can, space can get warped and bent. And if you bend space, it changes time. It does.

In other words, the best way I understood it was a guy explains, like, if you could sit outside of a black hole, just on the other side of the event horizon. Event horizon means you get any closer, you ain't coming back.

You're gonna get sucked into the thing. It's so dense that you're gonna get first they call it spaghettification. I mean, whoever invented that was a twisted that was a scientist that liked horror movies.

It means you will just because time changes, you will get crushed and you will get stretched out at a molecular level over a period of time into this long, like, it's weird. But anyways, the whole point was if you could actually sit in a ship that was powerful enough to keep you just outside of that,

you could sit there for a month, come back to Earth, and everybody you know is dead.

Because time it's almost like you jumped forward in time, but what you really did is time slowed down for you. And what felt like a second was really an hour or two or a day or two. And so if you're gone for a month, it's been like eighty years back on earth. That's a fact that science has caught up. King David,

thousands of years ago, He's a a a a a farmer, shepherd, warrior, poet king is talking about these things. And what it's saying is God is outside of space time because he created. So when it says he's everywhere present, it's like this bible is all of time. Three-dimensional.

There's probably more they know there's more dimensions than that, which is another thing. You ever thought that the realm of heaven and spiritual beings are just their interdimensional? What science is saying is interdimensional is God says, this is the realm of the heavens. There's dimensions we cannot see.

Think about it. Science is actually catching up with the living word of God. It's not denying it. It's actually catching up to it. And not only do we now know time is not relative.

It's it it moves and changes. It was created. So God spoke this stuff into existence. So this is what it means bound to bread. Here's the timeline. Here's the beginning of time. Here's the end of time. We're like one little atomic particle along this timeline, and here's God.

He not only knows everything, it's because he's been everywhere and he's there already.

How many go? But when you really embrace that,

can't I go through a tough season trusting God?

I mean, can't you?

I mean, look at Romans eight twenty eight and twenty nine with that in mind. Paul's trying to deal with this. Look what Paul says in it. He says, and we know that God causes everything together work together for good. That implies bad. He's talking about bad things. He says he causes

everything to work together for good. It's implying it means not everything's good. You go through tough seasons. There's tough times, but he will make it work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So you gotta trust him. You gotta lean into his plan. If you just run your own way and ignore him, then it's just you're gonna go through bad, and it's just gonna suck to be you. Okay? But if you trust God, he will make there will be a purpose in that pain. There will be a future after that failure. There will be what he's going to work. It'll work in your life. He guarantees

it. And what he says is for God knew his people in advance,

and he chose them to become like his son. Now there's a lot of people that wanna argue theology of how that's played out and what that means, but it obviously says you didn't choose him. He chose you, and he already knew you. He already knew you in advance. That means he knew us. He knew everyone that would know him. He knew everything was gonna happen before it ever happened, and that's why he could make this promise that it will all work out. Because everything that he does and everything that's allowed to happen, good, bad, and in between, he will use it to make us like Jesus.

And some of the decisions he's made, some of the things in our life that are tough, they might not play out till your great great great grandkids. There could be stuff that happened to you that alters the course of your life and your family that now puts your entire

legacy on another course that you don't see it, but it's gonna change something down the road because God is playing some form of three-dimensional chess that we never understand.

And when we get caught up in like, well, why doesn't God just tell me why he did this? You know why God doesn't tell you why he does everything? Because we wouldn't understand. You don't tell your kids why you do everything. Sometimes you gotta go, you just gotta trust me. And someday you'll probably understand.

If you think that you can understand everything God's doing, that's a pride issue. Your God is way too small. Think about it. How many of you back in the VCR days couldn't even figure out how to get the flashing 12 off there?

Yet you're like, well, if God would just tell me what he was doing, I think I would understand. He's like, he could be a thousand years ahead of you on moves because he knows where all of time is going.

In other words, we don't have to figure that out. We don't have to figure that out.

We just have to go, wow. That blows my mind. It's kinda like you can can swim in a pool and enjoy it without truly understanding everything about it. You might not ever get to the bottom if you're like in the ocean or whatever, but if you're in a pool,

when we try to figure out everything God's doing, we wanna take what God's doing and bring it into our life, the all that. Instead of trusting the all, we want to try to take a little bit of God and apply it to all this.

That's not how you do it. See, if that's like trying to go to a pool and say, I wanna enjoy this pool. I wanna understand this pool. So you're just gonna pick up some of the pool. You ever tried to pick up water? God. Stretch.

What are you gonna end up with? Some wet pants, a little bit of drips off your arms, and that's about it. But you know what you can do if you wanna enjoy the pool? Just jump in. I grew up in Arizona.

When I was like seven years old, I did not understand how evaporation on a dry day and hot, I could jump in in a 110 degrees into water. And when I get out, if there was a breeze, I actually got chilly. I don't understand how that works. Before I jumped in, it was oppressive.

After I jumped in, I'm like, oh, I almost need a towel now. I don't understand how that works. I didn't have to. As a matter of fact, I still don't understand how evaporation makes me get cold. But who cares? On a hot day, I'll dive into a pool and enjoy it.

If we could embrace that God is bigger than we are, has a bigger perspective, he knows us more than we know ourselves because he is everywhere and every time at the same time, always present. And I can understand that. I can dive into that. I can dive into that.

But it is mind blowing because look, verse six, that's exactly what David says. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand. He's like, this is incredible. I don't totally get it, but it's incredible. And that's where we need to be. And if we can connect those dots and just dive in,

how different could even the tough seasons turn out? We have to take who God is and connect it to where we are. We have to embrace that. You gotta jump into it. You gotta surrender to it. You can't pick it up and carry it and try to you just gotta dive into it. When you connect those dots, you can get through any season.

I don't know if you've ever heard of a guy named Harrow, Hero of Alexandria. He was a Greek mathematician that was in the basically the years of, like, when Jesus was alive. You know, he died in 8070, so, like, 8030 to 8070, the first century. He invented a lot of things. He invented a basic computer,

basically. It was a mechanical kinda computation thing. And he also invented gearing,

a lot of intricate gearing. It ended up being used in, like, plays. Like, they can move massive sets like we do today. Like, you can have a whole set, and all of sudden it moves, you bring out another one because he had all the gears. The only still the same process of what he invented, the type of gearing. The difference is they had to hand crank everything. Now we just push a button, it's motorized.

He had gearing. He had that. He had computing ability. And another thing he invented turned into a really expensive toy for rich people to impress their friends. It's this copper little round thing that has two little tubes that come out and bend in the same direction. You fill it with water, you put fire to it, steam starts coming out,

and it spins. It's the first steam turbine. He had the gears. He had the mechanics. He had the mechanism. In other words, in his little laboratory, I always imagined he was like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, had this lab, and he had all these things he created that never really took off. In his lab,

he had come up with the mathematical and the physical things, everything you needed to make a steam engine in 8050. If you know anything about history, which most of you probably didn't pay attention because your teacher made it all about dates instead of how insignificance,

and that is the steam engine is what really propelled the industrial revolution, which took us from in the seventeen fifties to eighteen hundreds, a time when things were not very much different for the hundreds and thousands of years to where we are now just a few hundred years later. You went from horse and buggy

to Captain Kirk actually flying into space for $20,000,000 to people going to the moon, to sending stuff to Mars, all in just a couple hundred years. What would have happened if you had put those dots together in 8050? Well, let's do a little sci fi what if.

If you kept the same timeline of what happened in the world of technology, the same timeline, By about the year 01/25, we would have had a train or one one hundred. So the apostle John's still alive and there'd be trains. A few years later, you'd have cars, combustion engines.

About 50 like a little while later, you'd end up with planes. And if you add do the math, we went from that little paper airplane with a with a little engine on it at Kitty Hawk to a man on the moon in about seventy years. So that means if he had put this together in 8050 and everything stayed the same,

about the year March, somebody would have landed on the moon. Think about that. Where would we be now? I think one of two things. Either it'd be actually like Star Trek, galactic peace and incredible brotherhood and everything going great, or Road Warrior. We would have already destroyed ourselves by now.

We'd probably still be wearing masks.

But that's a whole another topic.

What would happen in your life, in your home, if you just connected the dots of who God is to where I'm at? And you just embrace that. You just dive in because he says it's too wonderful.

And then look what he does. So God knows me, but like he already introduced here, he goes on the next few verses just to explain this. God knows everything about me, yet he still chooses to be with me. God is with me. Look what it says.

Verse seven, I can never escape from your spirit.

I can never get away from your presence. If I go up to heaven, you're there. If I go down to the grave, you're here. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light to round me to come night, but even in the darkness, I can't hide from you. To you, the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same. He uses three examples, three illustrations called couplets

in Hebrew Hebrew poetry, these extremes, to describe what it means for God to be everywhere. And really, not just the space time continuum, but what it means to you and me. What it means personally.

So what does it mean for God to know everything? He knows me better than I know me. He can sort me out. What does it mean for him to be everywhere? Is God chooses to be with me no matter where, no matter what, no matter anything, he's already there. That's what it means. And he uses these three specific. He uses the highest and lowest, the fastest and the farthest, and the lightest in the darkness. And I think this is more than just the physical. It's a it's there's a there's a more of a a a an actual application to us in our life. Like this first one, the the the the highest and lowest. He goes, I can up in the heaven. I can go down in the core of the earth.

What he's saying is, in your highest moments, your most your your moments that you feel like life is good, you know God is with you. And most of us already know that. That's why we're tweeting out hashtag blessed, living my best life now. You know God's with you when it's going good because, you know, God's good. So if it's good, God must be with me. But

what about when you're in the pit? He says even in your lowest moments, your toughest season, your moments of failure, the first thing we wanna say is where's God?

You're not alone ever. God's omniscience means if you know Christ, you can never have to think you're alone in anything. You're like, where's God? And God's like, I've literally been here the whole time.

Because he exaggerates, he means even more. He goes, fastest and farthest. This is a great thing. This term here, if I ride the wings in the morning, what he's describing is, even if I could travel at the speed of light, I cannot outrun God. When they said the the the whatever the wings of the morning,

they were impressed with how fast light went everywhere once dawn came. Meaning back then, they knew light was really fast. We now know it's like a 186,000 miles per second.

And they were saying, even that's when they described the wings of the dawn as the light, how fast it goes. So that's a real poetic way of saying, if you could say warp speed now, Scotty, and you go to warp, you come out of warp, God's like, where have you been? I've literally been here the whole time.

Matter of fact, I was even on the ship with you the whole time. And I was actually here before you even existed. I was already here. I was already in this moment before you even got to this moment.

So it means no matter how fast or how far you try to go, God is there. God is with you. And then light and dark. Sometimes we get into those darkest moments, and in the dark, you're like, you get scared and you go, where is God? And darkness isn't a thing. It's only the absence of light. And since God is light,

that's why it says there is no darkness with him. We just have our eyes closed. In other words, no matter where you're at, how frustrating or struggling you are, can you just do let's take another breath. Just go I

am not alone.

You're not alone. And you never will be. No matter how lonely you might feel, the omniscient, all knowing, omnipresent, all present God is there. He's with you. And the truth is, he's for you if you accept his love. In other words, love Saint Augustine said it this way, the only way to flee from God is to flee to him.

The only way to and even that's not accurate. You don't have to flee to him, you just have to surrender. Just stop wherever you're at. Don't even have to run back to him because he was already there. Just stop running and just stop and go, alright, God. I surrender. I'm gonna

fall back into your love, into that pool of your love. That's what Ephesians three eighteen and nineteen is talking about when Paul says this.

He says, and may you have the power to understand as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. Like how incredible God's love. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. We will never truly understand it fully, but we can dive into it.

Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and the power that comes from God. In other words, what it's saying is, think about it. If God is everywhere, he's outside of space time, he is the infinite.

But yet, he not only knows us, not only is with us, but he loves us so much through the love of Christ that the infinite chose to literally step into the finite. He chose to step out of the God the son took on body a took on the nature and and and a man, he became fully man. He wasn't just wearing a Halloween costume.

When Jesus became a man, the God man, he stayed God, but he became a man as well. That's a permanent thing, by the way. He didn't come back from heaven and take it off. I'm like, God, God, God, that was stinky and smelly and gross. He stayed a man. He has a glorified body. He's gonna stay that way for all of eternity.

That's how much he loves us. Is in in his infiniteness, he stepped into the finiteness. Why? So we can step back into the infinite. So we can trip over a table.

You understand what I'm saying? That he wants to be with us so much that he took on being men. And it says in Hebrews, we have a great high priest because he's experienced everything we had. Not only did God already know everything, not only is God everywhere, when Jesus became a man and came in, it says, not only do I get it because I created all this, but you gotta understand, I now know what it's like to be tired.

I know what it's like to be frustrated. I know what it's like to to to to be to be looked down upon, to be thought of as something other than you are, to be spit upon, to be beaten, to be murdered, to be hungry, to be thirsty, to be stressed out. He experienced all of those. That's how much the God of all of that

wanted all of us. And if we can embrace that, you can get through a tough season, and God will work it for something good eventually. And what looks like a defeat ends up a victory. That's why we're gonna take communion here in a sec. You can get it out and get ready.

Because I think that's what communion is. God calling us to do is to embrace this idea of who he is and embrace that even in what looks like failure, what looks like a tough season is actually can be victory.

Because Jesus is the ultimate example of Romans eight twenty eight that he will work all things together for good even if it doesn't look good. Because Jesus came and it looked like what happened when he died, when he went to the cross, That looked like the worst way of losing ever. I mean, how could you win a sports game if you go out on the field and then you die?

It's pretty much game's over, isn't it? You know? And and

and that's why his disciples were so confused the night before he died. He'd already been telling them he's gonna die. They still didn't get it. The reason why that first communion was so solemn is they didn't understand what the victory was. All they saw was on our finite plane. This is not how you win. Jesus, you're supposed to get rid of Rome. You're supposed to solve our political problems, our economic problems, our our our issues. That's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to bless our lives in that way. They were thinking very linear in time and space and in a finite way, and he kept saying, I'm gonna die. They wouldn't even register. That's why they got all solemn and freaked out because also, like, why is he talking about death? Why did he break the bread and say that's my body? Why did he pour cups and say that's my blood and we should celebrate? Remember this moment. And why did Judas just leave? What's going on? He

was trying to say something. He took he took the weapon of the enemy, the Roman Empire. The the weapon of the world that says, this is the most humiliating way to be killed, meaning you are such a loser. We're gonna kill you in this humiliating way.

And the disciples took that as an incredible defeat, but he's saying, what I need to do is remember this day. Because once you understand what I just did, you're gonna remember that this day that freaked you out, this day that looks like dark, this day that is scary is actually the greatest moment of victory ever. Because this is the moment that you guys have been o for eternity,

and you're gonna get the win you need. You're gonna get the one win you need. Doesn't matter how many stuff happens in your life, but we are sinners. We are o for eternity. We are running away for God. But in this moment, we're gonna get the victory of all victories. We're gonna get eternity back.

And so a cross and some nails that represents the all utmost of defeat in this space time continuum, Jesus turned it into the greatest victory. And that's why he says remember this moment.

And I think sometimes it is a moment of reflection. Sometimes you should reflect, but most of us grew up, if you've been in church, we think of communion as this solemn, like this really dread moment, like, I gotta reflect on. Yeah. You should reflect, but I think we get all, oh, poor Jesus.

Poor Jesus, what he did. No. Jesus wants us to remember this moment of what I did was victory, and I'm showing you what victory looks like. And I tell you this before taking me because I wanna tell you one story. When my son was in eighth grade, I coached his middle school baseball team.

And I've coached at the varsity level. I've coached in two state championships. I've had some, you know, good moments in coaching, and I decided I'll coach this team. Short season, eight games, right after school,

it's like, alright, I'll help out. They didn't have anybody. So I go. Kids come out for like basically tryouts. Basically, you'll keep everybody that comes, but the problem is we only had eight kids come out. My son

was the only one that had played more than one or two seasons of baseball ever. All the rest of them, if they had played, they'd only played, I played t ball, I played warmer a year, they haven't really they didn't know what they're doing. I said, alright. Here's here's the tryout.

Go home today and the eight of you need to figure out how to get at least four more people to come out and play or we don't have a team. Well, they did it. They came back with four more guys, five more actually. The problem is the five new ones had never even played baseball at all.

I literally had to say this is a baseball, here's how you throw it. And so and as we were practicing, I am telling you, I went home and my wife says, how does it look? I go, this is the worst team I have ever seen. I mean, not to be too mean to my son, but it's it's bad when he's the best player on the team.

Because the reason he loves baseball is simply because you get to talk more because you're not running as much. So he liked it for the social reasons. And so I go, we're gonna be bad. She goes, you're win it? I go, we're gonna lose every game, and it's gonna be ugly.

And the only problem was we get ready for this first game. These kids worked hard. They they practiced hard. They were happy to be on a team, and then we get to the first game. I go, you know what? It's about to get really unpretty. We're about to enter a tough season. And the problem is when you have all these kids that have never played before, the other teams that these the games are played right after school in the middle late afternoon. So they would have, like, six parents, all moms, you know, and and maybe a dad who was, like, unemployed or something. I don't know.

Martin, everyone showed up. They brought grandmas. One family brought great grandma. So the first game, we had a 100 people there to watch this game, and they're all excited. Every dad was there. They're like, my son is finally playing a sport. I'm taking the day off.

So we had so many fans. I go, this is even gonna be worse. What bitter disappointment for the parents to watch just how ugly this is gonna get. I go, I gotta say something. I got I gotta say something to set them up. I gotta prepare their hearts for what's about to happen. So the only thing I knew how to do

is I brought this with me. This is not a fossilized hairball. This is what's called grape shot. I have a picture of a of a of a it looks like a string of grapes. This is a lead ball. It's basically buckshot, like in a in a shotgun for a cannon.

So you put those in, you shot it, spread out, and it this would go through things and people and all of that. It's it's it's British grapeshot from the American Revolution. I got it from a friend because he used to dive in Lake Champlain and there was a naval battle there

in in the American Revolution, so they'd find things. So he found it and he gave it to me. So this is a weapon of our enemy

from the Revolutionary War. And I told these kids, I go, we know this is British because we didn't have the smelting ability and the the wealth. We didn't have the ability to make this for cannons. We barely had cannons. So what we did is the Pirates of the Caribbean style. Colonial continental army grapeshot was not nails,

forks, you know, stuff like that. And I said, but guys, I wanna tell you something before the season starts. We call this British grapeshot because we won. It's not called our grapeshot. And this represents something. They had the better technology and in the American Revolution you had a bunch of farmers

and some basic militia and they went up against the greatest fighting force the world had ever known at that point. Matter of fact, when they sent over their main force to try to intimidate and they went into New York Harbor right before the battle of Long Island in the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

400 ships came into that harbor with 36,000 soldiers, cannons, horses, guns, everything. That was the largest naval movement of forces until World War II. That is how huge this was. And they came in in force, better trained, better equipped, dominating, and then they went to fight them.

And they did nothing but lose, and they lost ugly, and they kept losing ugly. They were just trying to not get wiped out was all it was. George Washington just said, I just can't lose my whole army. And what was interesting is as it went along and they kept fighting, they did a couple of things. They stuck together.

They believed in the cause. They believed there would be victory. And then the second thing is they got better. They learned. And one of the key things where they learned was the French decided to ally with us and they would send French officers over to train our troops

because we couldn't win until we learned how to truly fight the way they needed to fight and make some major wins. And so these French officers came over and they understood they were training, but they didn't speak English.

So they'd have a translator. But there was one word the French officers would say that they learned pretty quick was a good one. Every time they did something right, these French officers would say this, hoorah. Hoorah. Hoorah was a French word for good job. Victory. You did it. Awesome. Hoorah.

Now anyone that knows anything about military, been in the military, I noticed that you're always surprised to know this. This is where hoorah, hoorah, uah, all of those military chants came from. It came from hoorah.

I think it just got changed because every branch thinks they're better than the other ones, so they had to come up with their own version. But it was a war. And the Continental Army, the reason that became this chant in our military today is because they picked up on hoorah and they made that their battle cry.

And so they would say hoorah and go lose miserably. Hoorah and lose. Hoorah and hoorah, oh, we tied. You can tie in a battle. They both stayed, you know. And then hoorah, hoorah, and all of sudden, hey, we won one. We won here. Hoorah, hoorah, also in the battle of York time, the greatest hoorah of all,

checkmate wore over. They won. So I said this with the parents behind, I lined everybody up by that because I wanted the parents to hear this as much as the kids. And I said, so guys, here's my point. You're a bunch of farmers that are about to face the British and all their forces.

And it's not going to be pretty. I I'm I'm not gonna lie to you. But if we stick together and you keep working hard before this season is over, one of these eight games, I guarantee, I think we'll surprise somebody. I think we'll have hope.

And they really got excited about it. And they said, can we make that our team cheer? Yeah. Cheer whatever want. We wanna cheer hoorah. And can you bring that to every game? So every game, including this first one, I would hold this out. The old team would gather around before we took the field. They put their hands on the the the end of the end and they would yell, hurrah.

And they take the field and then get destroyed. That first game, there's a thing called mercy rule in new sports that it's a seven inning game, but if you're down by over 10 after five innings, they call it mercy.

Well, they told me after that first game, they came out after the fourth game's over. I go, what? It's only the fourth inning. We were losing 19 to nothing. And they said, there's a thing called extreme mercy rule. Like, what is that? They go, if you're down by 15 after four, it's done. I think they made that up because they felt bad for us, because how bad we were.

So our first three games, we got extreme mercy rule. We didn't even get to the fifth inning, but we kept they kept their attitudes. They kept working hard. They kept trying. So by the by the by the by the fourth and fifth game, we finally got to the fifth inning. We'd only lost by 10 or so after after five. So we got to where we're least getting to the fifth inning,

but we kept losing. Mercy rule, Mercy rule, Mercy rule, Mercy Mercy Mercy we we got to game seven. We're o and seven.

And I thought going in this last game, said, good God. I was actually praying to God about a middle school baseball game at this point, because I felt so bad for these kids. They've worked so hard, then they every game, hoorah.

And I was like, man, this is the worst season ever. And I finally said, God, just let us play seven innings. That's all I want, because the last game was the team that killed us the first time, and they had hadn't lost a game. And I said, if we can just get to the seventh inning, that would be victory.

So we got together, and I said, come on guys. Let's do it. They went hoorah. They took the field and then the game, just like always, five to nothing after the first inning, nine to nothing after the second inning, you know, 11 to three after the third, 12 to to four

after the the fourth, so at least we got to the fifth, but then the fifth inning, 16 to four, mercy rule, game over. All eight games ended in a mercy rule. All of them. All eight. There was just one detail different in this last game. We had the 16.

And that's as the other team was just as surprised.

They were like the British Empire. How did this even happen? We're the best team in the league. What just happened? We punched them in the face.

One and seven, all mercy rules. O and seven, but according to our team, that's one and o. They didn't care. The last seven defeats didn't mean anything.

The way they reacted, the parents, everyone, it scared the snot of their teams. It only had seven people in the stands. We had a 100 or so people all still cheering their team. Everyone, parents and kids started going, hoorah. Hoorah. Hoorah. Hoorah.

Hoorah. It was like the greatest moment. I've been in great moments as I go, that was my single favorite, and I think the best job of coaching I've ever done in my life was a one in 17.

Because who cares about the seven losses? All that really mattered was that one win. And who cares about all the losses? All that really matters for us for all eternity is what Jesus did on the cross. That one win, that's the most important one, and that's the one that surprised the world, and it'll surprise you, and if we can embrace that.

And I have to drive right by that field to go to my daughter's house now where my grandson lives, and every time every time I drive by, I look at that field and I say hoorah. And I think that's what a lot of communion's supposed to be. We're supposed to look at the weapon of the enemy that was meant for defeat,

and we're supposed to gather together and put our hands on that moment of the cross, and we're supposed to declare hoorah because of what Jesus did. Hoorah.

And in our toughest season, we say hoorah because it doesn't matter because we know we already won. We know that we will be one in seven. Who cares if we're one in seven in our life? All that matters is that one win. That's all that matters. So here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna have hoorah communion right now. Stand up. And if you grew up Catholic, this is gonna freak you out.

Just warning you. I'm just warning you. Because when Jesus says the confusing thing that looks like defeat, but it's victory, that's what he meant when he took that bread and he broke it. He said, this is my body broken for you, but so we can have victory. So what do we say to that? Hoorah. Take and eat.

He then took the cup, said, this is my blood spilled for you. His death looks like defeat, but it's for our victory. He said this is for the new covenant for the forgiveness of sins. What do we say to that? Hoorah. Take and drink. And now let's close in prayer with one word. Ready? On three. One, two, three. Hoorah. Hoorah.

Hoorah. Hoorah. Hoorah. Hoorah. We're done.

Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on rockpoint.ao for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.