Have you ever had a time in your life
when you're saying, "God, like really?
"Right now?"
When I first got out of the seminary,
I was assigned to start a church
outside of Seattle.
And I was really excited about it.
And one of the ways you do that is,
you make all these contacts and
the people in the neighborhood.
And you knock on doors.
And you just meet people.
And you invite them –
at the time we called it "Bible Basics."
We wanted to teach them the truths of God
so they could know the peace that I know.
Super excited about it.
My first class, I heard about all
my friends around the country
who started churches.
And they had all kinds of people
going to their classes, so I was really excited.
So I scheduled the first one, and,
uh, nobody shows up.
I'm like, "OK, OK, that's, that's all right."
You know, it could have been a bad day.
And then, a couple of months later, I,
you know, talked to a bunch of people.
They made me promises.
And then,
no one shows up again.
Third time, I'm getting a little nervous.
And I'm thinking, "I'm supposed to be
"a guy who starts churches.
"What's going on in my life?"
So
I schedule the third one.
I get all these promises.
I was sure people were going to show up.
And then,
you know, 7 o'clock or whatever time it was
rolls around and nobody,
nobody's there.
And I'm kind of waiting and
I'm saying a prayer.
And I'm kind of – all kinds of questions
in my life and then
there's this knock at the door.
And it's Darren and Susan.
And then Nick and Jenny.
And Alexander comes through the door.
And I couldn't be more excited
about finally doing like what I was actually called to do
to start this church and share God's word
with these people.
You know, I think that'd be
an awesome story and an inspiring story.
But that didn't actually happen that way,.
The third time, no one, no one showed up either.
And I remember sitting down in my basement
and – I had the class in my basement.
How weird is that?
But I had, in my basement,
it was a walkout basement,
and my wife came down
and I just said, "I need a minute."
And I started thinking about a Charles Spurgeon quote.
And he's a Baptist preacher that
was around a long time ago.
But he had a quote that said,
"I learned to kiss the waves
that throw me up against the rock of ages."
I don't know what kind of trials you're facing
in your life right now.
I don't know what kind of struggles
you're facing right now.
But I think back to those years.
And this is 16 years ago.
And it still kind of gives me chills
thinking about it.
Where would my faith have been
from a human perspective
if everything I did had a human success?
And where would my church be
if in my mind I thought it was
Jared's effort
and it was my hard work
and my intuition
that grew this church to where it was at?
Sometimes God,
even though you have amazing ability,
uses
what's happening in your life
to humble you.
Sometimes God uses your very best skills
to humble you.
Sometimes God just brings you low.
And sometimes he just uses things to push you up
against the rock of ages.
When we went to start a church again,
just outside of Denver, south of Denver,
we used a different passage to name that church.
And this is the one from Isaiah.
It says,
I don't know that kind of trials you're facing
right now but I know that Christ faced
even more trials.
I know that God went all the way to a cross
to assure your salvation.
And whatever he is throwing at you,
I guarantee it's for your eternal purpose
to move you from here
to where God wants you to be.
So let's pray.
God, it's hard to trust.
And it's hard to trust when we're so scared.
But you are the eternal rock.
You became flesh and blood for our sake.
You bring storms.
You allow storms.
But we know it's all part of your plan.
So we pray with what's on us,
do whatever's necessary
to bring us close to you,
our rock eternal.
Amen.