Good morning! The chapel, come on, can we stand to our feet this morning? We're going to continue and learn this song together as a student body.
This is an original song, and this is just declaring that the old is passed away, the new is here. The Lord has made us new, so we sing. When I was broken, ashamed of where I'd been, I looked to you, you made me new. When I was hurting, thought it would never end, I looked to you, you made me new. within your love so i will tell the world of what the lord has done because i know you give me freedom from living life of prayer i look to you you make me new so when i'm doubting i'll keep my eyes on you I look to you said you make me new and old when I'm standing the oldest passed away behold the new has come no longer lost in sin I'm found within your love so I will tell the world of what the Lord has done cause I know the oldest passed away Behold the new has come, no longer lost is he.
I'm found within your love, so I will tell the world. For what the Lord has done, is unknown. Come on this morning.
of heart change and he's calling you out he's calling you out whatever has been chaining you whatever season you're in he has made you new this morning so come on let's believe him when we say say and he has made me new he has He has made me new. He has made me new. He has made me new. He has made me new.
He has made me new. He has made me new. Past away, behold the new has come, no longer lost in sin, I'm found within your love, so I will tell the world of what the Lord has done, cause I know, say, the old is past away. The new has come, no longer lost his head, I'm found within your love, so I will tell you what, of what the Lord has done, cause I know, he made me new, he has made me new, he's made you new, no longer found Take it all away, behold the new has come, your only lost is in, I'm bound within your love, so I will tell the world, I want the more, cause I know, the all is passed away.
He always passed away Behold the new has come No longer lost his hand I'm found within your love So I will tell the world Of what the Lord has done Cause I know He made me new He has made me new He has made me new He has made me new This morning, He has made me new. He has made me new. This morning, He's made me new. How many of you, that's your story?
He's made you new. You were lost in sin. He's made you new.
Come on, let's just bless Him this morning. Sing this out, bless for those. And blessed are those who run to him, who place their hope and confidence in Jesus. He won't forsake them.
And blessed are those who seek his face, who bend their knee and fix their gaze on Jesus. They won't be shaken. Come on and praise the Lord.
Lord, with me, sing if you love His name. Come on, sing. Come on and lift your voice with me, cause He's worthy of... all our praise. He's worthy.
Yes, He is. And blessed are those who walk with Him. His heart's a set on pilgrimage.
We attune to us They'll see His glory And bless the host who died and lived Whose joy it is to give it all for Jesus And for Him only Oh Jesus All for Your glory Come on and praise So Lord with me Sing if you love His name So come on and lift Your voice with me Because He's worthy of all our praise. So come on and bring your offering. Sing if you've known His grace.
Yes, I've known His grace. Come and lift up your praise. He's worthy of all our praise.
Yes, He's worthy. Bless God in the sanctuary. Bless God in the fields of plenty.
And bless God in the darkest valley. Every chance I get, I'll bless Your name. I'll bless God when I hear.
are empty. Oh, bless God with the praise that cost me. Oh, bless God when nobody's watching.
Every chance I get. Come on, bless God. Bless God with the weapons for me. And when the walls are falling. Bless God, the walls are falling.
Bless God, because He goes before me. Every chance I get, I'll bless Your name. Bless God, for He holds the victory. Bless God, for He's always with me. Bless God, for He's always worthy.
Every chance I get, I'll bless Your name. Every chance. Every chance I get, I'll bless Your name. Every chance I get, I'll bless your name Every chance I get, I'll bless your name.
Every chance I get, I'm going to praise you. Sing if you love His name. Come on and lift, come on and lift your voice with me. He's worthy of all our praise.
We're going to bring our own praise. Come on and bring your voice. Sing if you know His grace So come on and lift up your holy hands He's worthy of all our praise Come on and praise, come on and praise the Lord Sing it out See if you love His name, His beautiful name Come on and lift your voice with me Cause He's worthy of all our praise He's worthy, He's worthy of all Doesn't matter what it looks like right now Yes, he's worthy of all our praise.
Just sing it out to him. Yes, he's worthy of all our praise. Yes, he is. Oh, he's worthy.
He's worthy of all our praise. Tell Him He's worthy. Yes, He's worthy of all our praise. Forever and ever.
Yes, He's worthy of all our praise. He's worthy of all our praise. Of all praises, you deserve it. And how great is our God.
Sing with me. How great is our God. And all will see how great, yes, how great. is our God You're great, You're great And how great is our God Sing with me, how great is our God. And all will see how great, oh how great is our God.
You're great, you're great. Sing how great, how great is our God. Oh sing with me, how great. is our God.
And all will see how great, how great is our God. You're great. You're the name. Oh, See how great is our God. You're the name, you're the name.
You're the name above all names. You're worthy, you are all my heart. I'll sing, how great is our God.
You're the name, you're the name above all names. You are all in my heart, in my heart I'll sing. Thank Praise the Lord. He is a great God.
What an honor and privilege to worship with you guys. As you come at a young age to give your worship and your praise to the Most High God, He is worthy to be a great God. adored. He is worthy. He's the first and the last.
He's the Elohim, creator of heaven and earth. He's the one that sees you and sees your needs and provides for them. God is worthy to be.
be praised in this place. He is worthy. It's an honor to pray with you today. And our country of the day is Nepal. I don't know about you.
I just think of Bengal tigers when I think of Nepal, right? Right there by China. But there are people there who need Jesus.
And we have to really pray for the Holy Spirit to draw them into the kingdom more than any place like in America, because they have a restriction. You can't just go to McDonald's like we might and feel the prompting. of the Holy Spirit to speak to somebody? Has that ever happened to you?
What a joy to be used by God when the Spirit touches us and moves on us and we know that we've ministered to somebody under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But there is a law against conversion. So Christians are breaking the law if they follow that prompting of the Holy Spirit. So we want to pray together that the Holy Spirit would draw people into the kingdom in Nepal.
Would you pray with me? Father, Father, we thank you right now for your Holy Spirit and that we can lean on your guidance, that you are with us, that greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. We praise you for the gift of your Holy Spirit.
And we ask, Holy Spirit, that you would draw people into the kingdom in Nepal. Lord, do your work there in mighty ways. Give them dreams and visions and connections and give your people their wisdom and guidance and discernment to know how and when to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit, to speak to someone and give them the good news of the gospel. We ask that you would bless our day-to-day, Lord, as we are lifting up others, that you would be with us in turn, that your Holy Spirit would guide us, that you would bless our speaker today, that we would have ears to hear what you are saying through him.
And we give you all the praise in Jesus'name. Amen. You may be seated. As you're going back, let me read the announcements. Voters registration.
On National Voter Registration Day, Tuesday, September 17th, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., representatives from the Ellis County Elections Office will be at the Barnes Student Center. If you're interested in registering to vote, if you've done your homework and your research, in the upcoming election, be sure to stop by.
For any questions, feel free to email studentdevelopment at nelson.edu. Athletics. Get ready for an exciting night tomorrow night at 7 p.m.
in the Shaper Center as the Nelson University Lady Lions volleyball team takes on the College of the Ozarks. Before the game, we invite you to arrive early and be part of a special moment. We'll be holding a pre-game ring ceremony to celebrate our Lady Lions'incredible victory in the 2023 Sooner Athletic Conference Championship.
Don't miss it. Yeah. And now, here is Dr. Peter Reynolds to introduce our speaker for today. All right, well, I get to introduce my pastor to you today, Pastor Lennon Nolan.
So lots of you already know him because he pastors here in town at Trinity Waxahachie. But for those of you who don't know him, let me say just a couple things by way of introduction. First of all, Pastor Lennon is committed to really careful and thoughtfully handling scripture in the pulpit.
Those of you who know me know I don't say that lightly. But also, as importantly, and maybe more importantly, he has a real genuine love for his congregation and for his community. So, for those of you who are considering pastoral leadership, I commend Pastor Lennon to you as an example of humble service.
And for everybody else, as a good guy and a good pastor. So, give your attention to my pastor and my friend, Lennon Nolan. Buenos dias. Peter almost made me cry. I've never heard him gush.
So, he has been a good friend to me for several years now. Dr. Reynolds and I met whenever we were leading a life group at our house, and he and his bride Melinda and boys came over, and we got to know each other, unbeknownst to me, whenever I was going into probably the hardest season in our life, and he has been a faithful friend. We pastor Trinity Church right down the road. One of the things that I'm asked by a lot of my pastor friends frequently is, is it stressful to preach in the shadow of Nelson, knowing that you have all of these Nelson faculty and professors in your congregation? I'm like, dude, yeah, sometimes it is.
It's true. I've got all these men and women that know the Bible so well, but can I just say this in honor of your professors and your faculty? I benefit as much from them as you guys do. It is nothing at all for me to chop up a passage of scripture with Dr. Reynolds or with Rob Price and just to benefit from all the stuff they have to say.
And those are just the two faces I've listed. I don't even want to try to list all the students and faculty that I get to worship Jesus with regularly, and I love it. So if you're looking for a church, come to mine. It's great.
I mentioned getting to know Dr. Reynolds in a really difficult time of my life, going into the hardest time of my life. That's actually kind of what I want to talk to you about today. Have you ever had one of those moments that shouldn't have been a moment that made you lose it, but it did?
It was the thing, it was the last thing on top of a dozen other things. And so this period of time that I was in, years ago, we were in... One of the reasons I love students so much is we were in campus ministry for years. So much of our life of Crystal and I in ministry has revolved around just young adults, and we love them so much. And so God had called us incredibly clearly and dramatically to start a ministry at Duke University in North Carolina.
And so, yeah, all right. And so we had moved across the country. on God's leading, really dramatically confirmed.
And we went out there with no friends, no family, with a three-year-old and a newborn. And within a few weeks of being out there, we had a surprise adoption. And so within the first year, we had all of those things happen. Can I be honest? We were broke.
How many of you know being broke just brings a simmering amount of stress to your life? Y'all are like, yeah, get that, get that. You don't connect with anything else today, you get that. And so suffice it to say, by the end of the year, I was done.
And I was done in a bit of a clinically so. I ended up in a long season of counseling. I was deeply burnt out.
But the moment that showed me just how bad it was and how bad it needed help, I was in the bank drive-thru. And so while I was there doing some sort of transaction, I don't even remember what it was, but I do remember that they had asked me, do you have your driver's license for this, sir? They needed ID, which is no big deal.
So I start feeling around in my pocket, looking around. I didn't have my driver's license on me. Now, I lived less than a mile from the bank.
Can you agree with me that this is not that big of a deal? But to me, it was the end of the road. I pulled out in traffic, and I'm thinking, man, this is just another thing you can't do right. You're so ridiculous.
You're an idiot. And bro, this is always you. And I punched the steering wheel.
I broke the airbag. And I locked the horn in an on position. And it just kept going and kept going.
And I'm at a stoplight, and people all around me are looking at me, and I'm trying to look incredibly innocent. I'm pointing at the wheel going, I don't know. You know, this car has problems.
I'm not sure what's happening here. But it wasn't just the car that had problems. It was this guy that had problems. And later that week, I was actually supposed to go to a student ministry conference on the East Coast to speak on leadership. And so I'm talking to my pastor, and he goes, He goes, Lennon, what would you tell me if I told you that today I had had a meltdown and broke an airbag and freaked out in my car, but later on I'm going to go speak across the state to leaders everywhere?
I'd say, I don't know, man, I'd probably say that you shouldn't do it. He goes, yeah, bro. And then he said the truest thing, faithful are the wounds of a friend.
He goes, you need help. And the truth is, I did need help. And now I mentioned that I got to know Dr. Reynolds in the hardest time of my life. And so what I'm telling you about today was the hardest time in my life up to that point. But it's the season where I learned about the faithfulness of God so that I could face even harder things later.
And here's the thing, that's what I wanna talk to you about today. That God can use hard times. Because let me prophesy over your life and you're not gonna like it, but here's the word for you.
If you were in this room, you were either going through a hard time, you have recently come out of a hard time, or in the future, you're going to go through a hard time. And now you may not like that. You may, don't you speak that over me.
I want you to speak life. Listen, if you can't take the knowledge that you're going to go through some hard stuff, that it's all going to hit the fan at some point in your life, then you're going to believe the lie that God has abandoned you whenever things get tough. But God never. leaves you. And so what I know is that today, even in the second week of school, right, mostly so far, it's been syllabus, welcome parties, and Instagram posts, but some of you in this moment are going through it.
And all of you at some moment will. I don't know what it is, but I know that it is there or it will be there. And so the book of James, the brother of Jesus, was writing to a group of people that were also going through it. I don't know exactly what it was, and that's fine with me because what he tells us about how to get through it is something that we can take into anything we deal with.
And so Jesus's brother James said this, consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials. Now before you just roll your eyes at that, I just want you to put that on a shelf and know that we're going to come back to it later, but you're going to experience various trials because the testing... of your faith produces endurance. Now, what is a trial?
The biblical definition of a trial, I just think, would be any sort of hard time that you go through in life that tests your faith. It may not be hard for everyone, but it's hard for you. It may not even be hard whenever you look back on it years from now, but right now, or at the moment you face it, it's shaking you up. It could be financial, it could be relationship. It could be academic pressure, it could be spiritual warfare, but it's good to know when you're going through a trial because it's preparation for a future trial.
And if you will let God deal with you, he will make you who you need to be now, both to do what you should do later and to endure what you will endure later. This isn't sexy, it's just true. And so one of the things that James is saying here when he talks about the testing of your faith, I want you to picture here like the melting down of metal.
The idea here is kind of like that of a crucible, that whenever metal is melted down, that's whenever it can be purified. That's whenever the bad stuff can be taken out. And one of the things that a trial will do, any sort of hard time, whatever bad stuff is in here, it will bring to the surface, right? Isn't that what they do?
So that if you're going through it, you will be surprised at how you react. A generally chill person in your dorm bites your head off when you're like, did you eat the last ramen? Yeah, I ate the last ramen, man. Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm just really going through it right now.
But the truth is, only what is in here can come out whenever we're under pressure or whenever we're going through pain. And so the thing is that going through a hard time, what it does, is it will confirm your character and reveal it before it transforms it. And whether or not you get transformed through, I mean, hard times are going to change everybody, but you get to choose how it's going to change you. If you lean into God, going through a hard time can change you for the better.
If you run from God or ignore him when you're going through it, you will just become a worse version of what you currently are in the mess that you're in. And so here's what you have to know about going through hard times. First thing is this, God uses hard times to remove what hinders our relationships and our purpose. He uses hard times to, he will if you'll let him, to remove what will hinder your relationships and what will hinder your purpose in life.
Let's think of your relationships. If you have an ambition to love somebody well, to be married, to raise kids or just to have great friends. The things that come out in you when you're going through a hard time will be felt and experienced by those you love.
So you want to deal with them early, because when you're in pain, the people that love you will be in pain as well because they love you. But if you let this negative stuff come out on them, you will hurt them while you are being hurt. And so you've got to look at this stuff in you, the way that, I don't know, that maybe you get way too easily stressed, or the way that you turn to rage, you go from like 1 to 12, like way too simply.
Or the you that tends to fall off the map and ignore everybody whenever life gets tough. Or the you that's just so easily discouraged that, you know what, why am I even trying, man? This is what's always going to happen anyway. That stuff has to come out of you in a hard time or else it will sabotage you in the future.
And a lot of us, we've been through this. And so Proverbs says sort of what Jesus'brother James says. He says, remove the dross from silver, and the silversmith can produce a vessel.
In other words, a metal worker that has in mind to produce a vessel, a cup, a bowl, or a vase, he cannot get to the end product until he gets the bad stuff out. And so if you will let God work in you to remove the trash whenever you're going through hardship and pain, that will actually be a really good use of pain. Now, who in here likes pain?
None of us? I don't. But have you ever seen somebody that's never suffered at all? I mean, maybe you don't know they're suffering, or maybe you've seen a child that's always gotten everything they ever wanted. They're not overly pleasant to be around.
You might wish you could take them home with you for a weekend and institute a little discipline. That's too much dad honesty here. I'm really sorry. But pain has a use.
I heard about a girl several years ago. Her name is Ashlyn Blocker. We have a picture of her from a New York Times article that came out.
Ashlyn Blocker has a condition called congenital insensitivity to pain. Have you ever heard of that? This is literally the inability to feel pain. Stick her hand in boiling water like she did when she was a child, got excited about the hot dogs, pulled it out.
didn't feel it at all. Run into the coffee table, chew on her hand and pull out a chunk of flesh, zero pain, actually happened. And one of the things that you obviously know, even not being her parent, is that just because she didn't feel pain didn't mean she wasn't hurting. And so one of the things that her mother has said is that I go to bed at night praying that my daughter will gain the ability to feel.
pain. In fact, she said, I would do anything if I could give her my pain mechanism so that she wouldn't do things that hurt herself. C.S. Lewis says that pain is God's megaphone to wake up a deaf world. That sometimes God will use pain in our lives to say, hey, Lennon, you've got to pay attention right here, man.
Because if you don't learn to handle stress better without beating up a car, if you don't learn how to fail in your calling for a season without feeling like a failure, you are going to make your life so difficult on everybody else, on everybody else. And some of us know this, right? Some of us have had the experience of people in our life being overwhelmed with addiction.
And because they could never learn the lessons of the pain that it was doing and causing on them, they inflicted pain repeatedly on you. And so pain does have some use. And so don't ask the wrong questions whenever you're going through pain.
There are very few wrong questions, just there are some more helpful than others. So one question we can ask God is, God, when will this end? And you can ask Him that.
I'm not sure if the answer will come or not, but don't forget to ask an even better question, and that is, God, what should I learn? What should I learn? Because if we don't learn from the difficult seasons we go through, you've heard the saying, right? If you don't learn from history, you're destined to what?
Repeat it. That's not true for like calendar centuries history. That's also true for yours.
You will sign up to learn the same lessons over and over until you really learn the lessons. It is so much wasted energy, guys, to spend all of your time in difficulty being mad at God. And I can remember in that season when we were in across the country feeling like my prayers were bricks that I was throwing up that were just coming right back down. And I wouldn't do it while my family was around, but whenever they were gone, I would have a prayer meeting.
And this is what my prayer meeting looked like. Me pacing the floor, talking to God, telling him, we are out here across the country with no family, all these babies and no money because of you. Because you called us here.
And people prophesied and said it was going to be dramatic and it was going to change the course of this or that. And we're not changing anything. And you're not doing anything. And I was so, I mean, that was honest, but I was also a little bit petulant. I was a little bit spoiled.
You know one of the verses that came to mean so much to me later that didn't mean anything to me then? I had read it, but it had never registered. In the book of Hebrews, it says that Jesus learned obedience through suffering. Jesus learned obedience through suffering. But I thought that the same Heavenly Father that taught him obedience through suffering owed me nothing but success because I was trying to be a good kid and because I was trying to fulfill his will.
Here's the thing about hard times. God uses hard times to build our character. We just want him to use good times to build our career. or to build our ministry. Lord, how about you use my gifts to build your kingdom?
God would love to do that, but he also wants to use hard times to build your character. Why? Because of this, the testing of your faith produces endurance, and endurance must have its full effect so that you can be mature and complete, lacking nothing. Now, what is endurance?
Is there a cross-country team here at Nelson? I don't know, yeah, some long distance. You know that endurance is the ability to maintain a pace for a long period of time, or it can be to bear up under a load for a long period of time.
Here's the truth about me at that phase in my life. I learned that I didn't have much endurance. Why? Because can I be honest?
Up to that point, everything had been up and to the right. Everything I did for Jesus up to that point just worked. I preached the gospel. People got saved. I started a college ministry, it took off.
Asked to lead a Sunday school class, it blows up. Move across the country, get ready for something big, plant the flag on the campus, go out and meet students, invite, some nights show up, nobody comes. At the end of our first year of ministry, whenever I was a college student myself and I started a ministry at Angelo State University, first meeting we had five, at the end of the school year we had 70. At Duke, first meeting of the year, I don't know, we had like 13. At the end of the year, we had seven.
Seven! We're missionaries across the country. And I'm taking this so incredibly hard.
What I had no idea about was that, sure, God wanted to build the kingdom at Duke, but he also needed to build some character in me. Can I tell you something that happened to me during that season? This is the same season of time, same pastor that I told you earlier that told me. He was pastoring a church in Raleigh.
And he had told me I needed help. He was actually a Nelson graduate. So, during that period of time, I'm sitting in his office after church one Sunday morning, and we're talking, and I'm just going through such a difficult time. Man, I'm a dad.
I'm like 30 years old. I'm just sitting in his office, just crying. Just crying.
And he goes, Lennon, has God given you a lifeline just to show you that he's there during this time? And I started to tell him a story. But I didn't get to finish the story.
Let me finish it with you. A few days before, my wife and I and a couple of close friends had been in our living room, and we're just having prayer. We're praying together.
We're praying for the ministry. And like I said, most of my prayers are yelling at God during this time, so I'm just sitting quietly with my eyes closed. And God gave me a vision.
And in this vision, he showed me a heart. And I knew right away it was my heart, and like from the side of my view, these diamonds were coming in and being inlaid into my heart. Now a friend of mine goes, when I told him this, he goes, you mean Jesus bedazzled your heart?
I guess so. I guess that's what he was doing. But I did understand it, and it was, that kind of thing hasn't happened to me often, but it was so clear, God saying, hey man, you may feel alone, I'm not not doing anything.
I am not not doing things, and I just knew that God was speaking to me. So when my friend Nathan, my pastor, goes, has God given you a lifeline here at all? I said, yeah.
I said, so we were praying the other night, and I started to tell this story. And I said, and in... In this vision, I was praying, my eyes were closed, and I saw my heart, and then like from the side of my view there comes, and he cuts me off, he leans forward, and he goes, diamonds? And I said, yes.
How did you know? It's called a word of knowledge, my friends. He goes, I don't know. The Lord just showed me that when you started talking.
And he goes, Lennon, do you understand how diamonds are made? I said, yeah, man, it takes a really long time. And he goes, well, yeah, it does take a really long time. And he goes, and diamonds are also made under intense pressure. That's how they're made.
And so there are things in you that... that are going to be formed under pressure and pain that I wish you could shortcut, but you just can't. It's how they're done.
I would have thought at that point that I had humility, but truth, but I had never failed. I thought that I had grace toward hurting people. You know when you gain grace toward hurting people, when you realize that you can't just snap out of it.
There were a lot of things I thought I knew up here that God did in my heart back then. I don't know if I've reached diamond status yet, but I can tell you that I am not who I was, and that is the best thing. And what you've got to know is that you will not be at your best until you learn to trust God through your worst.
You will not be at your best until you learn to walk with him through the worst. And that's ultimately what God is after. God will use hard times to bring us closer to him. here's why we miss that lesson so often, because like me, we get upset, we fall off the map, I feel far from God today, I don't want to go to chapel.
I'm angry at God, I don't want to worship. He's not doing his job, I'm not going to read the Bible. And we feel that way, and we short-circuit our ability to experience just how faithful God is.
And sometimes we figure, like, I'm going through this hard time, he must be mad at me. He must not love me. And somehow I must deserve this. Because this wouldn't be happening to me unless somehow it was my fault. And in those hard times, you can be confused.
And when you're confused, there's only one thing to do. And it is not eat an entire bag of Takis and stop responding to your friends. What you should do, by default, is turn to God for wisdom.
And so James says, if any of you lacks wisdom, I should have brought like a T.D. Jakes towel up here today, I'm like sweating, sorry. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly. and it will be given to him. What this means, and if your faculty or students at our church, I know you know what's coming.
What this means is that when you need wisdom and you turn to God, even if you believe you should know better, here's what he doesn't say. Samantha, haven't we been here before? Like, don't you get this by now?
We talked about this before, right? David. My man, frankly, you shouldn't be in this mess because you've caused it by the decisions you've made. No, what does he say? He doesn't say, aren't you, like, aren't you on student council?
Allison, aren't you the president of this? whole thing? Shouldn't you have it all figured out yet?
God doesn't say that. James says he gives generously and ungrudgingly. God doesn't grudge you for needing his help.
you always will. I don't care how well you are adulting, you are still a child of God. I don't care how old you are, you still need your father. This is what David said.
He said, as a father pities his children, so does the Lord those who fear him. And it says that the Lord knows that you are dust. In him you can do all things. Maybe someday there's greatness in you, but God knows that you're not always that great.
But you need the one who is. And so James goes on and says, But let him ask and... faith without doubting. When you ask for God's wisdom, ask in faith without doubting.
For the doubter is like the surging sea driven and tossed by the wind. The idea of doubting right here is not doubting if you'll hear from God, it's doubting what wisdom he gives to you. And I don't know what kind of wisdom or the root of wisdom that he will give. It could be through a wise professor.
I mean, these guys know more than just their curriculum. They do. Like, if you're stuck, you need counsel.
Go to them for it. And if they give you godly counsel, accept it. Don't be like, yeah, but what does Joe Rogan say? I don't know.
If God gives you wisdom, follow that wisdom. wisdom if you're here in chapel and somebody gives you a word of wisdom and you know it's the Lord obey that man but here's what needs to be the case you've got to settle in your heart that if God reveals a path for you you will take it. Because if you still got one foot in or one foot out, God will not throw his pearls before pigs. That sounds overly mean, but what I'm saying is, okay, let's look right here. The doubter is like the surging sea driven and tossed by the wind.
You ever been out in the ocean and it's just, dude, it's just back and forth everywhere, everywhere. And God is saying the doubter is like that. That person should not expect to receive any.
anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways. If you get nothing out of a hard time, let it teach you the lesson just that you've got to stay at the feet of Jesus, and he's going to stay right there with you. God is not surprised or overwhelmed by what you're going through, and here's the thing. He has a plan for your deliverance. And obedience is the safest way to get wherever he wants you to go, even if it is, as Paul said, safely arriving into his kingdom.
God will get you where he wants you to go. And so let's finish. Let's go back to that first sentence.
Consider it great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience hard trials. How do you consider it great joy? You can only consider it great joy Only consider a trial a hard time joy if you trust God with the outcome. That's the only way you can consider a hard time joy, if you trust him with the outcome. Has anybody ever heard of the Japanese art form, like pottery stuff, kintsugi?
I believe that's the proper pronunciation, kintsugi. I think I've got a picture here. Like how this art form is done is they take...
a broken vessel and they put it back together and they don't just put it back together with glue they put it back together with precious metals so like a mixture of some sort of ointment and gold or silver So that you take something made of clay, but maybe that mattered a whole lot to you. You know, it was your grandmother's dish or just whatever. And you loved it, but then it got broken.
But in the hands of a skilled artist, they can take that hard time inflicted upon that vessel, put it back together, and you end up with something more beautiful and more valuable than it was before it was broken. How many of you have done that? any of you could preach the rest of this for me right now?
This is what God does with us. We may feel shattered to pieces by what we are going through, but this is what God can do with you if you will stay in his hands no matter what you're facing, no matter what you're going through. What he has in mind with the you that comes out of what you are going through right now is better than who you think you are if ever Everything goes to plan, and everything goes wonderfully. And there's a scripture for this, the last thing. For you know, Peter says, that you were redeemed from your empty way of life, not with perishable things like silver or gold.
Silver or gold, incredibly valuable to us. bringing such value on these broken vessels, but perishable. It'll pass away. You weren't redeemed with perishable stuff like silver or gold.
You were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. And so whenever God gave his son to secure your well-being and your relationship with him forever, there's nothing else he could do to validate his love or care for you. There's nothing more valuable. than he can give. And so what I can tell you is what scripture says.
How will he not also, along with his son, give you every good thing? So you're going through a hard time right now. You can trust him. You're coming out of a hard time right now. Either you have found you can trust him, or you have learned how not to handle a hard time.
But one day, my friends, you're going to face something. God has already seen it. He has good things in store for you on the other side. Stay with him. Amen.
Amen. Can I pray for you? Lord, I thank you for every man and woman in here, Lord, students, faculty as well.
And God, I know, like you've taught me, like you've taught all of us, that life doesn't spare any of us difficulty. It doesn't spare any of us... of us hard times.
And so, Lord, I pray that you would do for them what you did for me, which is you would show them just how faithful you are. And Lord, like you did for me with that picture of diamonds in my heart, would you just give them a glimpse of something, even if it's just hope that you're at work, that you're not confused? and you've got something good on the other side. God, help us be men and women of endurance who can bear up under the load of anything that you allow to come through your hands.
Take care of us, God. where encouragement is needed today, I pray that you would give it, just through your Holy Spirit-infused life, encouragement, and a fresh sense of your love. And God, while we have the blessing in this season to be surrounded with with other people. Lord, even, gosh, even if we're not honestly and with our heart following you, we have a lot more people in our life right now who are than maybe we will in the future.
Would you show your goodness to us? And would you reveal your purpose for us? In Jesus'name, amen.
Amen. I want to leave you with two things. Number one, if you need a church, we couldn't get across the street, but we got as close as we could. We're about half a mile away. We have a multi-generational, multi-ethnic church.
If you're looking for a place, we'd love you to land with us. And then lastly... If you need internship hours, guess what we have? We have an internship program, baby.
Yeah. So I've got my young adult pastor over here. This is Brian Cavazos.
I don't know if Chloe Clayton is here. She holds it down and helps manage our internship. Talk to these guys. Hey, it's good to be with you today. Love you, friends.
Thank you, Pastor Lennon. What a great word for each of us. We're all going to have discomfort, right?
And I promised I wouldn't re-preach his sermon, but it is key to embrace that discomfort if we want to live without discomfort in the future. So what a powerful word. Thank you guys for being here.
Thank you again, Pastor Lennon. If you guys would give him one more hand. And you are dismissed. Thank you