Faithfulness Crucifies Fickleness

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

 It’s easy to crush it at the Christian life when life isn’t crushing you. Since March 5th, which was Ash Wednesday, our church has joined saints all around the world to talk about lint.

We’re fasting or abstaining, and I love to hear your guys’ ideas, what you’ve been doing these last 40 days. Some is from food, some is from things like social media. But during this fast, every Sunday we’ve been addressing specific sins that throughout the history of the church, we have labeled as deadly.

But this isn’t just a negative series. We’re ending always on a positive note. So while we talk about these deadly sins, we’re saying, but there is this thing called the fruit of the spirit. And here’s the good news, love, greed, joy, crucify, gluttony, peace, crucify envy, patience, crucify, sloth, and kindness, and goodness, crucifies, anger.

And on my best days, I do see the spirit of God crucifying these sins in my life, even within these last 40 days. But to quote the great theologian. Mike Tyson. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. I’m really good at saying no to gluttony. As long as I don’t have a day filled with disappointment, I can easily resist greed as long as the stock market isn’t plummeting.

I’m really, really kind. As long as you don’t cut me off on the road. It’s easy to crush it at the Christian life when life isn’t crushing you. But what if life is crushing you? What do we do when life doesn’t just test our morals but our limits? When we began to dream up the series for Lent at the beginning of the year, we knew we’d have a problem ’cause there are seven deadly sins and there are nine fruit of the spirit.

So some of this wasn’t going to work out for us. We decided because we’re Protestant, we’re just adding to the list. We said, Hey, we’ll be cool. Let’s come up with an eighth sin, one that specifically plagues our area of the world. And as I reflected on the East Valley, we can’t just say Queen Creek anymore.

Many of you are not from Queen Creek. I love how our influence is spreading, but one word kept coming to mind, so you should feel convicted today just as I have, because this is so prevalent in our world and it is fickleness. This isn’t a classic deadly sin in church history. Some would say though, there’s cousins to it, that many were arguing could be added to the list such as duplicity.

But fickleness is deadly to our souls and deadly to our community. What is Fickleness? Fickleness is when your yes isn’t always. Yes, and your no isn’t always. No. Fickleness is wanting to defeat sin unless there is a defeating circumstance. Fickleness is obedience without endurance. Fickleness is what Jesus warned against in his parable of the four soils, the first three soils of which we’ve been warning about all year because our whole idea is to become a fourth soil people.

What was the biggest common denominator between those three soils? They all eventually bailed out. They didn’t plant roots and they were slowly choked out from producing fruit. 30, 60 and a hundred fold. Fickleness is pervasive in our cultural moment because we fall for the lie that loosening our commitments will lessen the crushing.

I’m really convinced. In the East Valley, our least favorite four letters are RSVP. Feels pointless. Anytime we do an event, should we RSVP? I’m like, why does it even matter? Like five minutes before? Many of us will say, well, maybe I don’t need to actually go. David Brooks in his book Second Mountain, that’s such a recommended read if you’re struggling with the mid-age crisis.

He argues that since the 1960s our culture in America has embarked on what he calls quote, the great dis embedding, and it’s this idea if we just detach ourselves from any covenant, which is why a lot of people think what we just did with membership is weird. If we detach ourselves from any traditions, which is why some of us thought it was weird that we pray to prayer together.

If we detach ourselves from institutions altogether, which is why some people refuse to even come to church at all, we are doing all of this. The great dis embedding is this thought that if we get rid of these commitments, we will finally attain happiness. How’s that going? It feels like it would work.

But all we’ve gotten in return is loneliness, identity, confusion, and a meaning crisis. But this lie that we can be fickle, that we don’t have to stay committed to anything is so embedded in our psyche that we keep trying it time and time again hoping for different results. This temptation isn’t just unique to us.

Our anchored text for lint has been Galatians. Galatians, chapter five, Paul dealt with the fickleness of Galatia throughout his letter. There will be a few examples on the screen. Chapter one, verse six. Paul says, I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Chapter four, verse nine. But now, since you know God or rather have become known by God, here’s the line. How can you turn back? To the weak and worthless elements. Do you wanna be enslaved to them all over again? Chapter five verse seven. You were running well. Who prevented you from obeying the truth?

Galatians is a wonderful book about doctrine, but it’s also for people who are wavering in their devotion. We don’t see this struggle just in the Church of Galatia. We also see it in the garden of Gethsemane, which is why I hope if you haven’t already, turn to Matthew Chapter 26. Matthew 26. As you’re turning, there is a classic text to read during Holy Week.

The big picture here that I want you to see before we even begin is Adam and Eve, they were told in a garden, the Garden of Eden, to obey me about the tree and live. And they did. They disobeyed, and as they disobeyed, they ushered in sin and death. Jesus also was in a garden, this one called Gethsemane. The father told the son, obey me about the tree and die, and yet he obeyed becoming the second Adam, ushering in forgiveness and new life to all who trust him.

For our purposes today, I want us to see just how fickle we can be under pressure. Matthew chapter 26, starting in verse 36 says the following, then Jesus came with them to a place called. Gethsemane. By the way, Gethsemane literally means olive press. It’s where you are Cru, where you crush olives in order to get oil.

So here’s what we need to right away. I’m already inserting a note here. This passage should obviously be read. Literally, Jesus is actually in a garden of crushing olives at the same time. This should also be read metaphorically. So literally, he’s literally in the garden metaphorically. The question we should now start asking is, what will Jesus and his disciples do when they get crushed?

Let’s see, and he told the disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray. So he is with his 12. But notice verse 37, taking along Peter and the two sons of Zee, which are James and John. So now there’s just three of them with Jesus. He began to be sorrowful and troubled, and he said to them, I am deeply grieved to the point of death.

Remain here and stay awake with me. Going a little farther, he fell face down and prayed. My father. If it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will. Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. He asked Peter so you couldn’t stay awake with me one hour. Stay awake and pray so that you won’t enter into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak again. A second time he went away and prayed, my father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And he came again and found them sleeping because they could not keep their eyes open after leaving them, he went again and prayed a third time saying the same thing once more.

Then he came to the disciples and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting? See, the time is near. Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let’s go. See. My betrayer is near. There’s a few things to note of this passage as we begin. First is where the crushing comes from. Secondly is how the disciples responded to the crushing, and then we’ll actually see how Jesus responded faithfully.

But first, the crushing. Where does the crushing come from? The crushing comes from our capacity, our community, and our cross. A quick word on each our capacity, verse 38, that shows Jesus, remember he is fully God, but he’s also fully man enduring temptations and weaknesses that you and I go through. Uh, the NIV in verse 38 says, quote, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.

Jesus has a capacity and it’s taking on the whole sins of mankind to reunite us with God, but this, his humanity felt the weight. Luke details the same account in chapter 22 of his gospel, and in verse 44, it says that he is so at his capacity that he begins sweating blood from agony. Pretty incredible.

He is getting crushed, knowing what’s to come in the same way, yes, that’s the life of Jesus. But also we experience crushing as well. And our crushing comes when we are overwhelming our capacity. I teach junior high Bible, uh, once a week. I do this to stay sharp and to stay humble ’cause they will pick you apart.

But as they were talking to me just last week, they were talking about how they were complaining about their English teacher. And I said, you complain about me when I’m not around too. You better knock it off. I don’t trust you. But they were some complaining about this essay they’re having to make and they were like, oh, this five paragraph essay, it’s the worst thing in the world.

And I was sympathizing with them because I kept thinking they were saying five page essay. I said, wait a minute, you’re complaining about a five paragraph essay. I write an eight page essay every single week, and it’s called a sermon. I don’t feel bad for you at all, but it’s a reminder. We’re all at different levels of capacity, sometimes according to age, but definitely according to maturity.

It’s helpful to know, first of all, what crushed you now isn’t gonna crush you later. You do build up a tolerance in the same way within our communities. We need to be really gentle with those around us. We all have different levels of capacity, so we often compare our levels and wonder why they’re crying about their situation.

We’re all at different places, so we get crushed when our capacity is reached, but also we get crushed from our community. Jesus here. Part of the crushing is the sting of community. How many times Jesus says, are you still sleeping? At the moment, Jesus needed the most. They were dozing off the same way. We get crushed by our community.

How many among us have felt the sting of betrayal, or you were just ghosted? I ran into somebody the other day and I was telling Jordan how excited I was. I ran into this person. She reminded me, you remember five years ago when they ghosted us, never talked to us again? Oh, yeah. I totally forgot. That happens gossip.

When people gossip about you, when you feel like there’s one-sided relationships of all the highs and lows we have had in our family for church planting, I think relational hurt has been the hardest to overcome that kind of crushing when your community lets you down, which by the way, I let my community down as well, is really hard to recover from.

But that is a part of the crushing. But crushing also comes from our cross. Jesus here. This is the ultimate crushing. This is what he feels pressed in, and it’s why he’s offering these prayers to God. Is there another way, and he’s asking quote for this cup to pass. Cup. Here is a first century idiom. It’s to describe your allotment of pain and suffering.

Jesus’ cup is literally the cross. It is the wrath of God that God righteously must put upon sin. What Jesus is about to do as he looks at his cup is that he will on the cross drink the wrath of sin so that you and I can partake in his righteousness if we trust and believe in his sacrifice. So that’s Jesus.

He’s feeling the crushing. Because of literally the cross that’s about to come. We are not Jesus, but we are called to be like Jesus. And Jesus himself, ta tells us to take up our own cross. So what this means is sometimes we’re being crushed just because we’re human. We’ve hit our limitations. We have a low capacity.

Sometimes we’re crushed because people around us fail us. But there’s also times where the crushing seems to be just from God. God is the one who told you to do this righteous act. God is the one who called, told, called you to this season. And because you did something right, you feel the pressure, you feel the persecution to which Jesus encourages rejoice for great is your reward in heaven.

So Matthew 26, we have to remember this crushing wasn’t just with Jesus. The disciples are dealing with the crushing as well. So Matthew 26 confronts us, the reader with the following question, when your capacity is maxed out. Your community has disappeared and your cross is more than you can bear. Has Jesus formed you enough to still crush it at the Christian life, or is it crushing you?

Is your plan to faithfully follow Jesus thrown out the window the moment you get punched in the mouth before you feel too down on yourself. The disciples weren’t crushing it either, at least not in the garden. Matthew 26, if we take an even wider scope of this chapter, we see three fickle responses that probably sound familiar to you and to me.

The first one says, temptation for all of us when pressure comes is that we easily get bought out. This is what happens to Judas. Matthew chapter 26, starting in verse 14. Then one of the 12, the man called Judas Ariat went to the chief priest and said, what are you willing to give me if I hand him being Jesus over to you?

So they weighed out 30 pieces of silver for him, and from that time he started to look for a good opportunity to betray him. Now, Judas was willing to betray Jesus for the right amount of money, and I think it’s really easy for us to assume we’d never fall into the category of Judas. He’s like the ultimate villain.

But remember, the disciples had no idea. When Jesus says, one of you will betray me. They weren’t like, oh, of course. Look at Judas. He is been crazy this whole time. They were saying, is it me? Is it you? Is it him? Who is the one? So we need to, before we just gloss over, Judas, recognize this is temptation for you and for me.

This just shows how subtle and poisonous greed can be in our hearts. Again, back to Mark four, the parable of the four soils. Jesus warns about fickleness and he says, some of you will quote, be choked out by the worries of the sage, but what’s the next line? And the deceitfulness of wealth. One reason we are fickle is because we fall for the deceitfulness of wealth, and it often starts innocently picking up a Sunday shift to pay the bills, which I understand some of us have to do.

Deciding not to give until you’re debt free, staying silent at work about your faith because you want that promotion. There’s many reasons we are fickle. One of them is that we get bought out by the deceitfulness of wealth, but the second temptation is that we bail out. In Jesus here, he gets arrested in Matthew 26.

After he has this prayer and the disciples, they, uh, respond in the most disappointing way because they’re human like you and me. In verse 56, it says, then all the disciples deserted him and ran away mirroring yet again, Jesus’s warning of the four soils, one of the soils, Jesus says the following, when distress or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately fall away.

There’s that same line. In my years as pastor, I’ve noticed people usually bail right before transformation happens. It’s usually because our sin is exposed or a wound is opened, or our pride is offended and it’s at this moment we should lean in, but the flesh tells us to bail out. Leading to one of my favorite lines, Joseph Hellerman and encouraging people to follow the way of Jesus.

He says the following, long-term relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life, and I love this line, people who stay grow, but it’s hard to stay, isn’t it? It’s much easier to move on. It’s tempting to be fickle. It’s really easy to be bought out or to bail out or lastly from this Texan, Matthew 26, it’s easy to get burned out.

Peter. I love Peter, but he does not do good here in the garden. He fails the test as well. Matthew chapter 26, starting in verse 33. I love his audacity because let’s just read it. Peter told him, even if everyone falls away because of you, I will never fall away. Can you imagine that group, the other 11, like, wait a, sell us out, bro.

You’re saying we’re bad, but you’re the, you are not our favorite person right now. Verse 34. Truly, I tell you, Jesus said to him, so he is probably expecting this wonderful reply like, that’s right. Look how faithful I am tonight. Within 12 hours before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter is Peter.

He says, even if I have to die with you, Peter told him, I will never deny you, and all the disciples said the same thing. That’s so inspiring, but jump over to verse 74. Then Peter started to curse and swear with an oath. I don’t know the man. Immediately, a rooster crowed and Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken before the rooster crows.

He will deny me three times, and he went outside and wept bitterly. The quickest way to burn out is to think the Christian life is about your power and your abilities. Peter was confident he would never deny Jesus. He had zero desire to be fickle, and yet he had no idea how fragile he was at the site of pressure and persecution.

He denied Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times. So here’s the hard question. If Peter and the disciples who walked with Jesus for three years were fickle, what hope is there for you and I? How could we possibly remain faithful when we’re so easily bought out, or we bail out or we burn out? And the reality is, it’s impossible in our human spirit, but that’s why God gave us his Holy Spirit again.

Galatians chapter five says, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness. Faithfulness is a gift from God, a fruit from life with God that is not from us, but is gifted toward us. Lemme tell you a little bit about faithfulness. Faithfulness quickly is essentially obedience with endurance.

Fickleness is they wanna obey, but they will not endure. Faithfulness is defeating sin in defeating circumstances. So it’s one thing to say no to anger when things are going well. Faithfulness is saying no to anger when everything is going wrong. Here’s the most encouraging part, though, faithfulness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, not your human spirit.

It cannot come from within you. Peter will tell you that to your face. So Jesus, his death, burial, and resurrection hear me secures our forgiveness. And here’s the other beautiful thing about the cross on the resurrection. It slowly begins as we trust him, the process of bearing fruit in our lives such as faithfulness.

And here in Matthew 26, I wanna go over it one more time. ’cause Jesus gives us a prayer to stay faithful. When we are tempted to be fickle. He models what I wanna call a prayer of faith. And it’s this prayer that we are called to pray when we’re getting crushed. And in our groups this week, you’re gonna look at it.

How can we begin to pray it? This, I actually found a lot of opportunities to pray this prayer. And so here we’re gonna mark out what Jesus practice as a model for you and me to practice as well. First of all, in a prayer of faith, number one is to feel your feelings. To feel your feelings. Chapter 26, verse 37.

I know we’re jumping all over this chapter, but verse 37, taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled, and he said to them, I am deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me. What Jesus is doing is he has a really good understanding of his emotions.

Emotions are like signals on a dashboard. Uh, Whitney did a great job kind of talking about this last week. Remember thinking smoke is the problem, but really it’s the fire. Emotions are that smoke where it’s, Hey, something’s going off, something’s going wrong. That’s why I’m experiencing this emotion. And so what we’re supposed to do is not just to numb that emotion, we’re supposed to dive into it and recognize what is actually the problem underneath the surface.

When you read the book of Psalms, I’m so excited for our church in May to go through the practice of prayer. Psalms will make you blush because they’re so honest in your, in their prayers, they’re talking to God about all sorts of temptations and feelings and anger. God wants your honesty. It’s a safe place to bring God all that we are.

And we know that to be true because even Jesus himself is deeply honest saying, I am grieved. I am overwhelmed. I am feeling deep sorrow. And so number one is to feel your feelings, because the reality is God will not heal what we choose to conceal. So we are often fickle because we ignore our feelings.

Now, don’t be owned by your feelings, but own them. Know what they are and give your feelings to God, which leads to number two. What Jesus does is to ask boldly and humbly for another way. So maybe you’re in a situation in a crushing and you don’t like the circumstance, you’re trying to figure out how to get out.

Number two is just to ask God boldly and humbly for another way. We see Jesus do this in verse 39, going a little farther, I think in Luke’s gospel. It says The stones throw away. And when I was in junior high, I was like, well, who’s throwing the stone? ’cause I’m like, uncle Rico. So that’s pretty stinking far away.

All right, going a little farther, he fell, face down and prayed. My father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will. But as you will notice, if I’m understanding this correctly, Jesus is asking the Father permission to maybe not go to the cross if there’s another way we can save all of mankind.

I’m in. Jesus says, so He is telling the Father Jesus himself is not editing his desires. He’s not filtering it before coming to God. Don’t you think that’s silly how we do that? We want to talk to God, but we first like try to get right. He knows what you’re thinking. He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake, right?

There’s no fooling him. So just be honest and then say, God, like I understand this is your will, so I surrender to it, but here’s what I’m hoping your will is. God is so honored with that. And honestly pastorally as I was praying through this text all week, many in our church are struggling and are being crushed because of pain and fear and illness and our instinct because we don’t have an understanding of the grace of God.

Our instinct is just to pretend to God like everything’s fine. And that obviously doesn’t work very well. So most of us, we just stop praying altogether. ’cause we’re terrified to tell God what we really want. ’cause we think that God is a killjoy. So if we tell him what we want, he’s like, well now I’m not gonna give that to you.

That’s why I always say like, nevermind. Um. Sure. That’s me believing that. I’d always say, you know, like back in the day I was like, Lord, I wanna be a missionary anywhere but San Diego thinking I was like fooling God, so I can go to San Diego anyways. All right. It’s much better to be honest with God and tell ’em what your heart desires, which leads to number three.

Notice what Jesus does next. Invite trusted friends to watch and pray. Even Jesus himself, the God man decides to use this moment of crushing to invite other people in this journey. Sure, some of it to help them, but it seems as if it’s also to help Jesus. Look at verse 41. Stay awake and pray so that you won’t enter into temptation.

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Stay awake and pray. Other translations, just simply say, watch and pray. This is an exhortation to be on alert. For the world of flesh and the devil. The devil, as Peter will later say, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour in a moment or a season of crushing if that’s where you’re in.

We’re especially vulnerable to the traps of the evil one, and so we watch and pray, but we also invite others to watch and pray with us. Robert Mulholland, one of my favorite authors in his book, the Deeper Journey, he details what you and I should probably watch for the quote is on the screen. It may be a habit that holds us in its destructive bondage, an attitude that deforms our way of living, a perception that warps our view of others, a pattern of relationships with others that is destructive both to them and to us.

A way of reacting to circumstances that hinders us, a cancerous resentment whose poison is eating away the vitals of our being. In other words, when we are going through a crushing, these temptations are very prevalent, and what we’re supposed to do as a community is to know each other enough and to pray with each other and to watch and notice how the enemy is trying to build up resentment and we speak truth against it, and we keep anchoring our hope in God, which leads to number four, trust in God’s will.

Has anybody noticed yet? I’m doing an acronym this Sunday. If you didn’t notice, you just noticed, this is why I called a prayer of faith. I’m not above that. I can do those things. I know it’s cringey, but welcome to Passion Creek Church. Okay, so trust in God’s will. We see him say that over and over. He says it yet again in verse 42.

Again, a second time he went away and prayed. My father. If this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done. If we always understood God’s will, there would be no call to trust him. To trust God’s will means I don’t know how this is going to turn out. That’s why it’s called trust and obey. I’ve had so many friends, I’ll do it as long as it makes sense.

That’s not called trust. Typically, what I have found personally, God’s will always makes sense in the rear view mirror. Sometimes it takes years, maybe even decades, to understand what God was doing in a certain season of your life. Just a few years ago, my wife and I, we went through a crushing, and I think it was because we were trying to follow God’s voice and why.

When we went through the crushing, I thought maybe I heard God wrong because of my understanding. There’s no way God would bring me into a crushing. Now I’m like, it totally makes sense. Garden of Gethsemane, you need to be crushed in order to have that anointing and that oil in your life. But it was only until recently that I honestly have some time alone with God and I thanked him for that crushing just a few years ago.

I. What I used to say to God, why did you gimme that detour? Why did you gimme that pain? Now I say, God, you are so good to trust me with that detour to gift me that pain. And reality is, is sometimes God will, God’s will, doesn’t even make sense in the rear view mirror. It only makes sense in heaven, yet all the more we’re called to trust him.

Remember last Sunday, if you were here, Whitney was talking about San Ignatius of Lo Loyola. What’s the quote he said? Loyola wrong. I forgive him. Um, but here’s actually the quote. It actually does fit with my servant this week. Here’s what we’re called to do. What if sin? Sin is unwillingness to trust that what God wants for me is only my deepest happiness?

We can trust God’s will when we realize what he wants for us, truly is our deepest happiness. And you think no, isn’t it for the glory of God? Of course we are most happy. When we are living out our purpose and giving him all the glory and all the credit and all the praise. So what are we called to do?

We’re called to feel our feelings before God. We’re supposed to ask boldly and humbly for another way. We invite trusted friends to watch and pray. We trust in God’s will. And number five, we hope in God’s faithfulness. Here’s the reality. Even when we are fickle, God is still faithful. We serve a God who keeps his word.

He’s abounding in steadfast love the Hebrews. And in the Old Testament, time and time again, one of the most repeated Hebrew phrases to talk about God as Emmett, which means God is faithful. He’s true to himself. He cannot deny his goodness, and he loves to love, and that’s the good news. Jesus left the garden and made his way to the cross, and Jesus was crushed.

And yet even on the cross, he remained faithful. One of my favorite verses is Hebrews 12, two. For the joy that laid before Jesus, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hear me? The gospel is not be faithful like Jesus. The gospel is that Jesus was faithful for you when you weren’t, and now by His Holy Spirit you can become faithful too.

The good news, a lazy reading of this text is to say, Jesus is faithful. We are never faithful. Look, we are like the disciples. We’re like Peter, James, and John. We’re always be fickle. We will always remain faithless. And yet this wasn’t the end of their story, was it? It was the end for Judas, but for the rest, these fickle disciples.

He kept coming back to the grace of God, kept coming back to the one who is faithful and they are described as faithful to the end. John, he becomes a pillar in the early church. You read his story. He has a gospel plus first, second, third John. Plus. He wrote an amazing book that’s so easy to understand called Revelation.

He was a faithful follower to the end. He died of an old age. You have James who was also there in the garden with Jesus. He was actually the first a possible possible to be martyr for the faith In Acts chapter 12, you have Peter, of course. Just a few days later, he approaches Jesus. Jesus reaffirms him.

And again, 40 days later after that, je uh, Peter goes on to preach the gospel. In Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit comes down and revival begins. He is then threatened by religious elites saying, you need to shut up or else we’ll throw you in prison. And he says, I can’t help but speak of what I have seen and heard.

I denied him at that in the garden, but I will never deny him again. The Holy Spirit within me, I am pressing forward. What happens to Peter? He gets crucified. Church history says upside down. Each of their stories reminds you and me. These were normal people like you and me. We aren’t faithful by trying harder, but by trusting deeper.

And I believe it’s through series of prayers of faith. So I invite you. We’re gonna stand as we respond. I’m gonna leave room for the Holy Spirit.

I want you to ask God. Even just meditate together. What is crushing you? Are you in a season of crushing? Are you at your capacity? Is your community been crushing you? Is it a cross that he’s called you to bear?

How has God calling you to lay it at his feet?

Is your temptation to loosen your commitments, to believe the lie that somehow it will lessen the crushing.

My prayer for you this week is that you pray the prayer of faith. Maybe this week you need to really focus on feeling your feelings before God. Maybe this week the invitation for you is to begin to ask boldly and humbly for another miracle. Another way, maybe it’s to begin to invite people in. Tell people around our community what you’re struggling with and asking them to watch ’em pray.

Maybe it’s a declaration today. Maybe it’s even coming forward and saying, God, I just trust your will. I’m tired of trying to control outcomes. I’m, I’m tired of trying to run away from my problems. God will, your will be done. And as we sing, I hope that we respond by just hoping in God’s faithfulness, he is good.

It’s His love that endures forever. Let’s pray.