Distorted | Week 5 | Full Service

and we were headed to Forest Home in Forest Falls, California. This is a beautiful camp. I knew this was the last year that we were gonna be taking our middle schoolers to this particular camp, and then we were gonna change locations and

go elsewhere. And this camp is very near and dear to my heart, and so I was just praying, man, God, let this be an amazing last year at this particular camp.

Would you just keep doing what you're doing and change middle schoolers' lives? Would they come to know you? And so our team is praying that. We're praying for our leaders and all that God's gonna do at this camp. And so we get to camp, and the first day is always kinda chaotic. Like, there's no way around it. No matter how much you prepare, no matter how much you prep, the first days was wild because you're getting off the bus, all the middle schoolers gotta get their bags over to where they're staying, so they're dragging them through dirt and they don't know how to carry suitcases.

And if you've ever had a middle schooler come home with a broken suitcase, that's why. It's just wild. So the first day is chaotic that you get there, but the first full day is what we we call it. We're like, yes. It's the first full day. We get through morning session, breakfast,

all of that, the after or the evening session, and then we're at free time. So we get to the first free time. And as a youth pastor taking almost 200 middle schoolers to camp, when we get to the first free time that's like my big breath of just fresh air. Just we made it. Yes. God you are so good. I'm standing at the lake, I got my feet in the sand and I'm just looking at all the lake activities and it's just everybody's

having a blast, everybody's glad to be there. I'm smiling, just enjoying it. And one particular activity that is fun to watch is called the blob. I'm gonna show you a picture of the blob so that you can get a good picture of what it is. So it's this thing on the lake that looks like a blob.

And how it works is two people you need two people for it. One jumps onto the blob, scoots all the way to the other end where it's right by the water, and then you got another person on the higher up part that's going to jump on the blob butt first as hard as they can to thrust the air to the other side and launch the person into the lake. It's a spectacle. It's amazing to watch. And so I'm standing there, I'm watching the blob just like enjoying

that we made it to camp and everybody's having a blast. As I'm watching, I start to see a lot of people starting to head over to the blob.

I was like, okay, that's not normal. Usually it's not like that popular and so I'm just kinda standing there, I kinda forget about it for a second, looking a little, looking around a little more. I get back to the blob and there's more people and it's looking a little like panicked,

like people are running over there. It's like, alright, well we're not supposed to be running at the lake, so why are people running? So then it hits me, oh, I'm a youth pastor here with 200 middle schoolers, I should probably go check that out. So I'm like, alright, here I go, I'm walking over there. As I get closer to the I start hearing, is there a rock point leader around here? Is there a rock point leader? And I'm like, nope, I'm out.

Just kidding. I jump I jump in and I'm working my way into the middle and it just gets more and more chaotic the closer I get to the center of whatever is happening. And if there's anything I know about wild chaotic situations,

the calmest person kinda wins. And so take a deep breath and Caleb stay calm and I get to the center and I see

a young boy who is one of our middle schoolers and he's on a stretcher. He's got two lifeguards on top of him with those thermal blankets and he's shivering like crazy. He's crying. He's screaming that he can't feel his legs. And I'm going, this is bad.

And so I tried to get a full picture of what happened and what ended up happening is when he got launched and he's a tiny young man, like sixth grade boy, no body fat whatsoever, and he just gets thrusted way higher than he should have the air, and he landed on the water right on his neck.

So he was like kinda balled up, and so when he came out of the water, he's screaming, he's like, I can't feel my legs. So the lifeguards dive in, they grab him, they're pulling him out. Paramedics end up showing up, and they start kinda evaluating him.

He he ends up moving his legs and everything, so we're good there, but they're like, man, we should probably take them. And so I hop in the ambulance with them, and we go to the hospital. And while we're in the ambulance, the young man starts to calm down. He's taking some deep breaths, the chaos around him is gone,

and the paramedics kinda go, okay, I think he's doing good, vitals are good, the doctor's still gonna wanna see him. But they had deemed it no longer an emergency. And when a hospital deems something not an emergency, you get put in a waiting room.

So we got put in this waiting room, he's got his towel on, he's doing a lot better now, he's sitting next to me and he kinda looks up at me and he's like, so when do I get to go back to camp? I was like, yeah. That's a good question.

So we wait a little longer and he finally gets checked out. All is good and we head back to camp. And so I drop him off and I'm walking around camps like, man, that was crazy, God. Like, what was that about?

And then I get the phone call and someone hits me up and they're hey, Caleb, you gotta you gotta get to the nurse's office. I was like, oh, okay. So I get to the nurse's office and there's another one of our middle school boys and he had decided that it was a good idea to walk through a riverbed with no shoes on.

And he had stepped on a piece of glass and put a a gouge in his foot, something about that big and it went really deep and the nurse is looking at me like, I'm not prepared for this. You gotta like take them. And so I hop on the phone and and I call mom and I'm telling her, I called mom on the last one too. Sorry.

Parents were in the loop. We always call the parents.

So I call mom. She's a nurse. She totally understands. She talks to her son. He's doing good. I'm like, hey. We're gonna take him to urgent care. And she's like, okay. That'll be great. So I take them to urgent care and the nurse there tells me, hey, we're gonna have to numb the area and we have to get every grain of sand out of this wound,

which is a problem because riverbeds are notorious for grains of sand. So there were a lot in there. So she gets water and she just starts squirting it into the wound as hard as she can to get every grain of sand out. And she just kept going and they numbed it as best they can and those like numbing

things, they only work as good as they can. They they do a decent job but he is still in so much pain. He is screaming and I'm just sitting there like, I don't know, what can I do? I'm like, God, make this happen fast.

And so she finally gets it all out, wraps it up. They're we're kinda in this waiting period to be discharged. He looks at me and he's like, so when do I get to go back to camp? I was like, yeah. I'm glad you wanna go back.

So we had missed dinner at this point. I was like, hey. Are you cool if we grab dinner on the way back? And he's like, yeah. That'd be great. I'm really hungry. And so we go to Wingstop. We get them Wingstop. We eat together. We have a good time. We're talking about how camp's going despite the whole foot thing. I tell him, dude just don't worry it's gonna be a great story one day.

And so we eat and then we get back in the car and we're like three minutes from camp and he hits me with the, I don't feel so good. And immediately vomits

all over the car, just everywhere. I think the adrenaline of his body and just being in so much pain for so long, like his he just couldn't stomach what he ate and just everywhere. By the time I pull over, all that was left was that final like, this taste is gross in my mouth spit, just like a puh.

The rest was in the car. All the while, he's crying, I feel so bad again. Stay calm, Caleb.

And he's crying. I'm like, dude, don't worry about it. It's gonna be okay. We're gonna get you back to your cabin. You can take a shower. Like, your leader's gonna help you. Make sure none of the other guys know what happened. Like, you're okay. He's like, okay. Just I'm so embarrassed. I'm like, it's okay.

So we get him back. He's all taken care of, and I've got a bunch of vomit in my rental car. And I'm like, I clearly need this car this week, so I don't wanna leave it in there. And so I start cleaning it, and I get some paper towels and Clorox wipes. That's all the camp had for me and

my youth pastor friend, a super great guy decided instead of helping me he wanted to take a picture of me and so here's here's a picture of me cleaning out the car. Here's what's great about this car. The seats were perforated

And that's great when you want your seats to breathe. It's horrible for when someone throws up in your car because it just soaked into the seat. It was awful. And you know the you know the seat belt buckle

like when you click it in? That right there, you know how you can like hide it into this little like space where you can push it down? That became just a bowl. Just a bowl of

throw up. And it so I had to clean this whole thing out. I'm spending hours doing it, and then it hits me like, man, I've gotta get a different car tomorrow. And so I clean it as best I can, spend hours doing it. I park the car, roll the windows down. I don't want the smell to like build up. I also know that it's gonna get relatively hot and I don't want any of that to really affect us as much as possible and so the next morning I get up, I get in the car, it smells awful. I look in the back seat and there's paw prints

in the back seat. So I left the windows down. Some animal like the smell decided to go in. I freak out, jump out of the car. I'm looking through the window making sure there's no animal in this car and so I go to Redlands. I swap out the car. As I'm on my way back, I get a phone call.

Hey, Caleb. Where are you? I'm on my way back. I just swapped out the rental car. Okay. When you get here, gotta get to the nurse's office. Oh my god. No way. What did I do? What did I do to deserve this? Like, did I forget to pray for camp or something?

And so I get back to camp and there's there's two guys in the nurse's office. One of them holding just some gauze to his face and he's sitting there and I'm like, alright, tell me what happened. I'm a pro at this point. And so they were at the mini golf course. And

middle schoolers mini golfing don't actually mini golf. They just hit it like a driver. And his buddy was like, dude, this is gonna be so awesome. You're gonna hit it so far. I'm gonna stand right behind you and watch. So on the back swing, he clocks his friend right in the face and what had happened was his canine

had went right through his lip. So a literal hole. I could like there was was a hole in his lip. I've never seen a hole in a lip before. It was crazy. And so I'm like, alright. So call mom. You know what? She's like, oh, thank you for letting me know.

We've done lots of dental work and stuff with my other son, so like we're used to this. Like thanks for letting me know. Okay. Cool.

So I take him to the urge to the hospital because we thought maybe they'd have to do some emergency dental stuff and we're sitting there and they're they don't deem this one an emergency either. So we're sitting in the waiting room again and this young man looks at me and he goes, hey, when when can I get back to camp?

I'm like, never. We're going home after this. Yeah.

So we end up getting checked out and at this point I we're at like the last night of camp and the last night of camp is like the crescendo of camp, like just amazing. Everybody's so sad that they go home tomorrow and God's everybody's talking about all the amazing things God's done in their life and all I'm thinking is I don't know what God's done this week. I've been I've been at the hospital more than I've been at camp. All I know is God is hurting children.

And so we finally get out of the hospital and it it was almost like a movie where I know I drop him off. It's late at night. We're going to final moment. It's our church time. I'm supposed to lead this thing. I'm driving my car directly to the venue where our church is gathered,

and I parked the car and I'm like weeping trying to pull myself together because I'm so exhausted and just like wondering, God, what did I do deserve this week of camp? Like, just So I get out, I I do the church time, it was great, everybody talks about how great camp was. And then

I go back to my room and my body just falls apart. Like I get so sick. My body is aching, I wanna throw up, like it's just That camp, I look back and I'm like, man God, what did I do to deserve that? And I think when problem after problem after problem hits us, we start to ask ourselves the question, God,

what did I do to deserve this? When problems enter our lives and they just seem to be terrible and you don't know why that you start to go, God, what did I do to deserve this? Are you punishing me for something? And that's the myth, the distortion

we're gonna look at today is that our problems equal punishment. And if you've ever seen the show Mythbusters, whenever you've got like a myth that you wanna figure out, you gotta test it. You gotta test it to find out if it's true. And the best way for us to test something like this is with scripture.

With God's word. By opening it up and reading the pages of scripture and what God has given us on these pages and start to find out, is this true? God, are are my problems a result of your punishment in my life? Because it's easy for us to get there. It's easy as easy for us to take that and simplify life down to

I do good things, I'm rewarded, God rewards me. I do something bad even if I don't know I did something bad, God punishes me and so we start to get this relationship where we think our relationship with God is predicated on

do good get good, do bad get bad. And so if I'm experiencing the bad, the problems of life, then I must have done something. And I want you to draw your attention to the book of John.

John is in the New Testament. I'm gonna give you a chance to get there. I want you to get your Bibles out. I want you to use the bible app or go to rockpoint.io. The scripture will be there. Have the word of God in front of you. The book of John is in the New Testament.

If you don't know much about your bible, that's okay. The bible's split up into kinda two major sections. You've got an Old Testament, which is all about how God establishes

his relationship with his people. He's paving the way for Jesus to come on to the scene, be the savior, the messiah. And then the New Testament is when Jesus shows up. And Jesus does his ministry and he sacrifices life on the cross and the establishment of the church is is made and here we are today.

And so we're in the story where Jesus is on the scene. Teaching. He's leading. He's bringing people closer to God. He's telling them about the kingdom of God and how it's different than the kingdoms they live in. And Jesus is in this moment chapter nine verse one, it says this, as Jesus was walking along,

he saw a man who had been blind from birth. Rabbi, his disciples asked him, why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents' sins? So this idea that that the problems in our life are a result

of some sort of punishment or some sort of sin in our life that God is punishing us for has been around since Jesus' time. The disciples, the one who walked closely with Jesus asked him the exact question. Hey, this guy has a problem. He's blind. Is he blind? Is this punishment because of his sin or his parents' sin?

And so the disciples are expecting one of two answers. They're either expecting Jesus to say, oh, it's his sin. Or he's expecting him to say, oh, it was his parents. But listen to what Jesus says in verse three. It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins.

Jesus just ends it right there. Hey, you think this guy's blind because of something he did. You think his problem of blindness is a punishment for something that he did or his parents did and Jesus goes, nope. Neither.

He continues. He said, this happened so the power of God could be seen in him. We must quickly carry out the task assigned to us by the one who sent us. The night is coming and then no one can work but while I am here in the world, I am the light of the world. Jesus debunks this myth right away. He says it's not true.

Problems do not equal punishment. And I think we get to that point where we're wondering, hey, is this how it works because we want an oversimplification of life. We really like the simple things. We like when we have things that we can wrap our mind around. Even if we don't necessarily like

what it is, we like that we can conceptualize it and we can understand it. But here's the reality we all sit with. Life is complex. The life you live is very complex. The life I live, the life we live as a community is very complex. And what the bible does, it does not try to oversimplify

life. It does not try to take the complexities of life and boil it down to really easy fun memorable statements. The bible understands. The the story arc of scripture understands that life is complex. And so what I wanna do is I'm gonna change language for us.

I'm gonna stop using the word problems and I'm gonna use the word valley. Valley is a more biblical term. It's often used in the bible to depict trials and difficulties and problems. And so I'm gonna use the word valley to start talking about, hey, these are the things we go through. We go through valleys in life

and as we get into that, if you're in this room and you're thinking okay, valleys, trials, difficulties,

I'm not really in one. I'm not in a valley. You might be on a mountaintop and you might be really enjoying things and it's going super well and things seem to always go your way right now. I don't want you to check out. I don't want you to go, oh, this doesn't apply to me.

Because it's not a matter of if you will experience a valley, it's a matter of when. If you've lived life long enough, you know that you will walk through valleys. Other people will walk through valleys of life because life is difficult. Life is uncomplex.

We have trials and we have troubles and we have problems and we have difficulties. It will come.

And so don't check out if you're in a mountaintop. Praise God for it. Ask him to to teach you things and show you things even in the midst of the mountaintop. If you're in a valley in this room, I I believe this is gonna be great for you. I believe it's gonna be powerful. It's gonna help frame your mind around, man, God, what are you what are you doing

in this moment of difficulty? Or maybe it's been a year or two years or a decade and you're just wondering, God what are you doing? And so we're gonna use the word valley. Are we okay with that? Wonderful.

So the first valley is where I think the myth comes from. And it's the valley of disobedience is what I'm gonna call it.

The valley of disobedience. This is when you are actively going against what God has asked you to do. He's made it clear to you that you're supposed to do something.

You know what that is but you're going totally against it. And what's great about scripture is we have story after story after story that actually shows us that there are literal

valleys and difficulties and trials that people go through as a result of direct disobedience to God. One great example would be the book of Jonah. Jonah is this wild story where God tells Jonah, hey, I need you to go to this city and preach the gospel.

Jonah's like, absolutely not. And he hops on a boat and he heads in the complete opposite direction. A storm hits. The sailors blame it on Jonah, so they throw him overboard in the middle of the water and then he gets eaten by a fish. If that's not a valley, I don't know what is. And then he finds himself ending up

where God ultimately wanted him in the first place. But that valley that Jonah finds himself was in direct result of the disobedience. But God eventually got him to where he was supposed to be. And we'll come back to that. Another one, King David. King David, was

a man who made some poor decisions. He was foolish. He made some promiscuous. I had some promiscuous activities with a woman named Bathsheba.

Got her pregnant. She was married. He ended up putting her husband on the front lines of a battle and he ended up dying, so he's a murderer. And so he he does all this thing totally against God, Knows what he's doing is wrong. Knows that he is actively sinning against the God he's he so says he serves and desires to serve.

And he finds himself in valleys throughout his life. A lot of the Psalm is written by David and it's his lament and his struggle in just calling out to God as he wrestles through the valleys of life. And in his disobedience he finds himself in them. There's also

Moses. Moses in the book of Numbers, God tells him, hey I want you to speak to a rock and the rock is gonna produce water for all the Israelites and so Moses like, okay. He gets all the people together and he hits the rock twice instead of speaks to it. He disobeys the direct command of God and as a result, his consequences, he is not allowed to enter into the promised land. He finds himself in this valley where everybody else gets to go but he does not

because of his direct disobedience. Now one caveat to this is I don't want you to hear that this myth is true in this moment. We're gonna expand on it a little bit, but there is this way that God has with us to bring us back to him. Or we're gonna come back to that. Then we got the the valley of obedience.

The valley of obedience. This is when you do exactly what God has asked you to do. You know you've done it. You know you've actively obeyed God's command, whether it's a command in scripture, a conviction in your own life to do what is right and honorable and holy. And afterwards, things start falling apart.

You're like, what is going on? God, I I did what you asked me to do. In

in with my spouse, before we got married, we did all the right things. We lived separately, we didn't sleep together, we went through paranormal counseling, we did all the things, we prayed together, we went to church together, we served and all that. God, we did all this, and then we got married, we did the ceremony, we honored God in all of it. Then we got married and then like she hurt me, he hurt me, he did this, she did this, and now my marriage feels like it's falling apart. God, why?

Or maybe you you you got to a point where you're like, man, I think I am gonna start giving in some fashion and I feel like this is what God's asking me to do and you've accepted that invitation and it is an invitation, it is not an obligation.

And you go, man, I'm gonna do this. It's gonna be hard, it's gonna be difficult, but I'm gonna do it. And then all of a sudden, a pipe bursts or you need a new roof or you get a hospital bill because you sent your kid camp, you ended up on the blob and you went to the hospital.

And you're like, God, what? I I did. I'm doing the things you've asked me to do. Why is life hard? And this would be where you find yourself in the valley Of Obedience. And the last one would be the valley of what I call the no clear reason. Yeah. Really cleverly named.

But you can't wrap your head around it. You know, like you can't pinpoint it on any kind of sin in your life or disobedience of God. The community around you can't really pinpoint that with you. It's not really after an act of obedience either. It's just like life hit you.

Life just came at you. The best story we have of this is in the book of Job. There's this book in the bible called Job. It's about 42 chapters long and it's it's the story of this man who is just regarded as generally a man who follows the Lord.

And that's that's kinda his description. He loves the Lord. He loves his family. He works hard and that's that. No no particular moment of specific obedience. No particular moment of specific sin and his life just starts to crumble.

He loses his kids. He loses all of his wealth. He loses all of his animals. He loses everything. And there seems to be absolutely no reason.

And so when there is no reason what tends to happen is people try to fill in the reason and so in the story you got all his friends who are literally telling him like, Job, you are lying to yourself and everybody else. You have sinned that you are hiding and you need to repent and you need to go to God with it. And Job's like, no I don't. Like guys you don't get it. His wife tells him, dude you need to turn from God, curse him, get away because he's clearly punishing you for something. So even in Job's time, we get this idea that,

well, problems are God's punishment in your life. But what's fascinating about that is is Joe never gets to a point where he's like, oh yeah, you guys are right. And there's so much that happens in there.

It's an amazing story. But maybe that's you and you're like, man, can't pinpoint it. Maybe it's through the loss of a dear loved one and you're really trying to wrap your head around, man, what what happened here?

And so it's one thing to know what kind of valley you're in. Even as we're sitting here and talking, you might be thinking, oh, I think think I can start to pinpoint maybe where where I fall into that. It's another thing to know, okay, what do I do?

What could this mean for me? Maybe you've identified it and you're like, oh, no, like, I I'm I'm one of those and I know which one. The valley I live in right now, the struggle, the difficulty, the trial I am in is one of these and you kinda know it. And it's like, what do I do?

And so what I wanna go through is is kind of in general a best practice. This is not This isn't like prescriptive like exactly do this but it's a good start. So the first one, the valley of disobedience. Repent. This is

what we would we we should do. When we find ourselves in a valley and we can very clearly go, man, this is my own sin, my own foolishness. I've made choices that are poor and it's actually gotten me here. Turn. Turn to God. Run to him. Like, just go. Get away from whatever it is and get out of there.

The bible calls us to repent and run to God. If you find yourself in this kind of moment, this kind of valley, you're just struggling through it, repent. Now here's what's interesting about this one. This is where I think we get really close to believing that the valley is a punishment.

And the best way I can describe this is punishment is more about the past. And then there's this word discipline. Discipline is more about the future. I have two daughters. They're amazing. I love them dearly. Me and my wife just absolutely love having our girls. Our oldest is Nora. Our youngest is Gemma. Nora,

being the older sister, sometimes gets really mad at her little sister. She's had to adjust to not being the only kid in the house and not the only one getting all the attention. And so sometimes she can get really mean and most of the time she does it in that like girl mean kind of way like it's more psychological than it is physical.

So you know what I'm talking about like there's a difference. There's girl mean and then there's like boy mean. And so like she'll she'll run from her sister knowing that she's faster, that her sister really wants to play with her and she'll like slam the door shut behind her and be like, Gemma can't come in. And Gemma's all feeling left out and really sad.

And then sometimes she can be aggressive and she can push or hit. But what my wife and I have started to figure out is we've got to help course correct. Right? We can't just have this be normal behavior. We want to help our daughter grow

and become a loving young woman who loves her sister, loves the people around her and does that well. And so we have to take action.

And so punishment to me would be my daughter does something that she's not supposed to do. We take her, we throw her in her room, we shut the door, we lock it, and we just like enjoy the rest of our day until we deem it worthy to come out. Sometimes you want to.

But that's all about the action in the past of what she did and we just want her to be sad because of it. The other is discipline.

Discipline is something we've really tried to work on with our daughter and we're getting better at better at it every day. We're not perfect by any means, but we've gotten to the point where if she hits her sister, pushes her sister, we can take her and we're gonna say, hey, Nora, what you did, you should not have hit your sister. We're gonna take you and we're gonna put you in time out. So we'll take her to her room, we'll close the door and we'll say, you're gonna be in here for two minutes. So she'll be in there for two minutes. We'll go into her room, we'll sit down with her and we'll go, Nora, do you know why you're in your room? And usually, she's screaming and crying still and we're trying to help her calm down to regather her emotions.

And But we've gotten to the point where she can look at us and say, because I hit my sister. She knows the reason as to why that happened. And so

she tells us and we're like, yes. Do we hit our sister? And she knows the answer is no. So she'll tell us, no. I don't hit my sister. Like, okay. What do you need to do next? And a lot of this has been trial and error. We've been working on it. But we've gotten to the point where she can look at us and say, I need to say I'm sorry.

And say, yes. What else? And ask for forgiveness. Say, yes. Are you ready to go do that? She's like, yes. Will you come with me? Absolutely. I'll come with you. So go with her. Take her to her sister Gemma, who's only one and a half. And she looks at her sister. Her sister's very confused. She's like, why is she here? But we have her do it anyways.

She looks at her and she says, Gemma, I'm sorry for hitting you. If she misses any part of that, we start over. So if she just says, I'm sorry, will you forgive me? We start over. Gemma, I'm sorry for hitting you.

Will you forgive me? And then we look at her sister and we try to get her to nod yes because I don't wanna know what happens when she starts saying no. We'll cross that bridge when it comes. And so then we walk our daughter through this process and it's all about the future. It's all about reconciliation.

It's all about coming back to a loving relationship with her sister. And then as she gets older and she learns this and she keeps doing this, she'll be an adult who can do that, who can recognize

her own wrongs and her own sins and her own brokenness and recognize that there's a reconciliation process. So I look at discipline as that future. It gets us to that future. And so in this particular one, when we look at disobedience and we find ourselves in a valley because of it, Maybe, just maybe,

God has allowed some of this to happen. And I wanna be very careful with our language that God isn't making this happen to you. This often times it's our own doing, our own foolishness, our own decisions, but God allows some of these moments, these valleys in our life, and it draws us back to him

for a future where we are closer to Jesus. For a future where we are closer to becoming more like Jesus. That we are closer to being loving and filled with the fruit of the spirit to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self control. That that that is who we are.

And so that's that one. That's the big one. That's the one that we have to be careful with because we will convince other people and ourselves that God's doing this to us rather than using it to change us. So be careful with that one even when you're walking with other people through a valley.

The the next one, obedience. If you're walking through a valley and and it's after an act of obedience, here's what you do. You stay.

Stay the course. You know you are doing what God's asked you to do. You know it is the right thing to do. You know from the pages of scripture that you are living out God's call on your life. You're doing exactly what he's asked you to do, but yet it seems like life just keeps hitting you. You know, if you're like the apostles in the scriptures,

they're doing what God asked them to do, to preach the word of God, but they're finding themselves imprisoned. They're being beaten. They're being discarded. They're being persecuted. You look at Jesus, he finds himself on the cross. He's on the the valley of the cross.

He is in that valley as a direct result of obedience to the father. Imagine if he didn't stay the course. Where would we be? Jesus stayed the course. The apostles stayed the course. Stay the course. You've committed to your spouse. You're for one another.

Stay the course. It's getting hard, it's getting difficult, but you know you've made a commitment. Stay the course. Begin to see what God does in and through that valley. Maybe you know you're supposed to stay in the job that you're in even though it's not the most fun job.

But for some reason, God's made it clear to you that like, man, gotta keep doing this. Stay the course. Don't look for the easy out. There's this belief system called moralistic therapeutic deism. Really big words for just saying that God's priority is our happiness.

A lot of us can get into that belief system. There are a lot of people out in the world that believe that God's priority is our happiness. That is not the case.

That is not the case. He he never says on the pages of scripture that your happiness, just life going well all the time is his priority. His priority is to transform you into the person of Jesus by any means necessary. He will use all of life to transform you into the person of Jesus. That's that's what he's going to do. In the midst of all the difficulty, in the midst of all the pain, in the midst of all the struggle,

don't don't try to just get out of the pain as fast as possible. Maybe, maybe, just maybe, God's using this valley as part of your transformation process. Some of the most godly people I know

are people who have walked through some of the toughest valleys that life has to offer, and they've stayed the course. They've walked with God through it all. I believe he can do amazing and powerful things in the midst of it. So stay the course.

The last one, no clear reason. This is kind of the hardest pill to swallow because the no clear reason

lends us to the place where we just gotta trust. We've gotta trust that God is God and I am human. It's the one with the biggest gap that we try to fill in. That we wanna get answers. We wanna know why am I experiencing this? God, why am I walking through this? Why is this so hard?

And there just doesn't seem to be a reason. It didn't come after an act of obedience. It didn't come after sin and brokenness coming to light. It didn't come after anything. It's just like it happened. And in that story of Job, the very end, there's like it's 42 chapters long. And the last like six verses

is Job finally going, God, I don't know why I even questioned you. You are so much greater and so much better and so much bigger than I ever will be. Forgive me for even thinking that I knew better than you. That that is essentially the six verses that Job ends with. In 42 chapters of turmoil and pain and difficulty,

Job just goes, I trust you, God. That's all I got. All I got is to just trust you. And so if you're in this valley of no clear reason, God's with you. God's got you. He's walking through this with you. There's there's a quote from Timothy Keller in his book, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering.

It says this. He says, while other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life's joys for seeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of the of this world's sorrows tasting the coming joy. The Christian worldview is the only belief system that gives purpose to your pain.

That gives purpose to your problems. That gives purpose to your valleys. Every other worldview describes problems, valleys, difficulties, trials as get out of them as fast as you can. It's an interruption to your happiness or they're meaningless altogether. But it is Jesus who takes

the pain of our life, the difficulties, the valleys we walk through, and he redeems them for purpose and joy. There's a a passage, Romans chapter five starting in verse three.

This is this is where you ask yourself when you're in these moments, you go, God, what can I learn? I don't care what valley you're in. Whatever you're in, you you want to be asking the question, God, what do you have for me? Because listen to this, we can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials. For we know that they help us develop endurance.

We know it. And endurance develops the strength of character and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment for we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. Whatever valley you're in,

ask God, man, what are you trying to show me God? In Psalm I believe one thirty nine it says, search me oh God, search my heart. Whatever valley you're in, would you ask that question? Would you pray that prayer, God search me? What are you showing me? What do I need to learn? Have you ever met someone who doesn't learn

from what they're going through? That it's just kinda a blame fest that it's everybody else's problem and they're they're they're good. Nobody else wants to fit. Nobody it's all their problem. It's a pretty dismal way to live.

It's a pretty like just you don't enjoy being around that kind of person because there's so much arrogance spewing out of them that everything about life is just out to get them. There's a lot of selfishness that comes out when we start to think that like the world's against me as if we're really that important.

But to the person who says, this is really hard but God is teaching me blank. Fill it in. Those are people you wanna listen to. Those are people you wanna be. That whether it's your own doing or someone else's doing or you don't know why, you're going, God, what are you trying to show me?

Early on in in my marriage and within the first year and a half or two, I entered into one of the darkest valleys of my own life and my marriage. When I was a teen, I developed a pornography addiction and it was something I never dealt with and I thought when I got married, it'd be like snap of a finger, it's gone.

Turns out it wasn't gone and it's something I wrestled with and hid and it it affected my marriage, it affected my relationships, but there was a fateful day where my wife caught me looking at pornography and it wrecked my world. It wrecked our world.

I I thought my life is over, my wife's gonna leave me as she should. Like, literally, I'm thinking these things, she should do that because of my own foolishness, my own unfaithfulness.

I'm thinking I'm gonna lose my job. I was on staff here that Saturday. I was supposed to be at our middle school service preaching God's word, like who am I? And everything fell apart. The first person she called was my boss's wife and the first person I called was my boss. And what that could have been,

it could have been the end of it all. I could have blamed my wife and been like the only reason I did it was because of you. I could have blamed other people and been like I was exposed to it as a kid. It was their fault. It's could have I could have blame shifted everywhere.

But I had really good people in my life who were like, hey, you've got something in you that I think God's trying to work out of you. And it was through that valley that we got into counseling,

that we started having deeper conversations. We started to get to know each other more. I started to get to know myself more, get into the depths of why,

that that was a struggle for me in my life. And we were able to work a lot of things out. We are stronger because of it. And by God's grace, he walked with us through every bit of it. Amen.

There is a God who loves you dearly, And he will not let you walk through the valley alone. Psalm 23 says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.

Hebrews thirteen five says, I will never fail you. I will never abandon you. Matthew 28 says, I am with you always even to the end of the age. No matter what valley you find yourself in, the valley of disobedience,

obedience, you don't have a clear reason why. You know you are to repent or you know you need to stay or you know you need to just trust God. His promise on scripture is he's hand in hand with you through that valley all the way through. He does not leave you, he does not forsake you. Lean in. Lean into the valley.

Trust God. Ask him. Search me, oh God. Teach me. Show me. May I become more like you through this. That's my hope. That's my prayer. That even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Will you bow your heads and pray with me? Dear heavenly father, thank you so much that we get to be here. Thank you for this church. Thank you that we we can worship together. We can praise you that no matter where we're at in life, there there are those in this room that are really walking through a valley. And God, you know exactly what it is. You know why it is. And at the end of the day, you are right there with them. And so I pray that they know your presence in a supernatural,

powerful way. They know your presence. That they know that you're right there with them. And so I pray that we have a great rest of our week that even in our trials,

we can consider it joy because we know we are becoming more and more like you. God, if there's someone in this room who doesn't know you and they're wondering, man, what do I do with all of my pain? Would you show up in it? Would you show them you? May they come to know you because of it. We love you. You're amazing. In your heavenly name, amen. Amen. Hey. Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on our Rock Point social media to stay connected.