This sermon-only transcript omits timestamps, worship music, announcements, and session logistics. YouTube’s automatic captions may contain errors.

Wow, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing, Kian. Um, I love that scene where they're digging that hole. You know, digging a hole is hard. It's hard work. Always concrete. Yeah. Um I remember any are any of you familiar with the comedian Nate Baretti? So he talks about how um digging a hole he was building a koi koi pon for his mom and he realized that digging a hole is one of the hardest things he's ever done in his life. Right? He used to wonder why um people would get caught committing murder because people are in a shallow grave. Right? But now he knows why. Because even when it's the most important hole of your life, it's so hard you're just like, "Okay, that's good enough."

Has anybody here ever run a race before? Talking about hard things. Oh, wow. Lots of you. So, the very first official race I ran was the Beta Breakers here in San Francisco, right? is a 12K. And when I say run, I'm using that word very loosely because if you're familiar with the Beta Breakers, you know that it's not really a race for serious runners. Um, most people walk it. Some people wear costumes. At one point, we saw uh 10 men in a caterpillar costume running in perfect synchronization with each other. That's something to behold. So, uh, you know, when when you're preparing for a race, the the responsible thing is to go to bed early, you know, wake up on time, get to the the start start place early. But I didn't do any of that, you know. I didn't think it was that serious of a race. So, I think we stayed up late at night playing rook the night before. I

went to bed late and I slept through my alarm. just didn't hear that at all. And I wouldn't have woken up except for my running partner who was calling me repeatedly because I was supposed to give her a ride. Now, I haven't gotten her permission to share her name with you, but she's here. So, Irene, is it okay if I share that you were my running part? I I'll just say uh my running partner was a random no uh just a wonderful kind super athletic girl that we used to run together and uh she actually prepared for this race. She got up early you know and but she needed me to drive her down so she couldn't get down there. Um and so um she called me repeatedly. We got to the to the race late. By the time we finally found parking, the race had already begun, right? Yeah, I can tell some of you are serious. That's like a major football, right?

And so there I was. I'm I'm starting to panic. I feel so terrible. You know, Irene's so nice. She I mean, my my partner was so nice that she's she's not complaining at all. She's like, "It's okay. It's okay." But I can tell it's not okay. And so I I'm I'm I'm starting to panic a bit. And so I, you know, I start to put on my contacts because back then I was using this special solution. I don't know if any of you used this before where you pour disinfectant into it and then there's a catalyst and it slowly transforms into saline overnight. But the operative word is overnight. And I went to bed so late that it only had been in there for like four hours. So then I took the contact out and I put it in my eye and I want to be very specific about what this felt like. It was like pouring battery acid straight into my

eyeball. My eye slams shut and I'm trying to get it out, but you know when your eye is burning, it doesn't want to open. Right? So I'm trying to pry this this eyelid open. Finally, after about I don't know how long it was, 10 minutes, I get this out and it slips and I lose it. It's like somewhere in my car. I cannot find it. Right. And and so I decided the next best thing would be just to put the remaining contact in its case in my pocket and just run because my eye was burning. It was burning so much it was tearing up. I had to constantly be wiping my eye. So I couldn't put on my glasses. So here I was, one eye is burning, the other eye is blurry because I can't see out of it because I don't have my contacts in. And so I held on to my partner's arm and she led me to the start of this race.

And then somewhere in the crowd, cuz it's so crowded, there's so many people there, my hand slipped. And in my panic, I just reached out and grabbed the only the first arm that I could find. And um immediately I knew something was wrong because this arm was much more bountiful than my partner's arm. And so I looked up and there smiling down at me was a very cheerful, very naked white man. I was so shocked. I let it go. I slipped, fell on my my behind, and that's how I started my race. Now, I share this with you because following Jesus is a lot like that. It's a lot like running a race. That's that's why Paul actually uses this metaphor constantly, right? He says, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training, which I did not do. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get

a crown that will last forever. He also says in Philippians, not that I have already obtained all this, or I have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take a hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. And finally in 2 Timothy 4:7 he he says,"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith." He's now at the finish line. Notice that the theme that's running through all these verses is that following Jesus takes a lifetime of remaining, a lifetime of abiding, a lifetime of perseverance. A lifetime. So, it's less about the pace of the race and more about our perseverance through the race. Being willing to keep running when we're confused, disoriented.

Being willing to keep running even when you grab the arm of a bountiful naked man to get back up, dust ourselves off, and to keep running. See, our journey with God is long and at times exhausting, but if we stick with it, it changes us. I love how Fedri Nichi describes this. He says, "The essential thing in heaven and earth is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction. there thereby results and has always resulted in the long run something which has made life worth living. It's a long obedience in the same direction. So this pathway that we talked about, this pathway that we talked about yesterday from birth to maturity, it takes a lifetime because that journey to become like Christ takes a long time. There is sin hidden deep within us that takes a long time to resolve. See, sin isn't just something that we do. It's a part of who we are.

See, a lot of times we picture sin as habits, bad habits that we have to break. But it's more than that. Sin sin is is is like a parasite that resides deep within us that causes us to do destructive things. Things that hurt ourselves and hurt the people we love around us. It drives us. It's a It's a brokenness inside us that drives us to do things that we don't even want to do. And that's why Paul writes, "For I know the good itself, for I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do. This I keep on doing." Have you ever felt this way before? Do you resonate with Paul?

like I know I I know this is wrong for me. I know this is hurtful, but I I just can't stop. Right? He says, "Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." Again, he pictures sin like this parasite that is in the deepest part of us that is destroying us from the inside out. So yesterday we we talked about this iceberg, right? That like an iceberg only a portion only 10% of who we are appears above the surface. So that is what most people see and that is what we're comfortable with most people seeing. This is the curated image that we present to the world.

But we also know that many times what we show the world on the outside is different from what we are on the inside. And we let very few people see what's below the surface, see what we see, right? And then there are the deepest parts of us that we don't even recognize that only God sees. And sin, it roots itself all the way down. And the challenge is many times we're comfortable with God working above the surface of our lives. In fact, we want him to change what's above the surface of our lives. We want him to make us kind and patient and loving or at least appear that way. But we're uncomfortable with God diving deeper. And yet, that is what it takes. The long obedience in the same direction is what it takes for God to dig down deep and uproot sin from deep inside us. Have you ever pulled out weeds before? Yeah. You know, sometimes when you're pulling out weeds, um I do them by hand. I used to use like Roundup

and then I found out maybe it's cancerous. Some of you doctors can can tell me if that's true or not. Feel terrible about that because I always wore shorts when I was doing it. And then I read the label later and it says do not wear shorts, you know, wear longer pants. But um you know, pulling out weeds, it's it's hard work. Some weeds, especially after the rain, they come out easy. But some weeds, you pull them out and the root stays in, right? They're so embedded and then you're like, "Oh man, do I get out a spade and dig down there or do I just let them stay there and then try the next time, you know, it sprouts up again?" It's hard to get those roots out. And sin is like that. It's something that has deeply embedded itself in our souls and started to change who we are.

And so sometimes it takes confronting a wall like we talked about yesterday, facing suffering and loss and pain to finally get us to allow God to uproot what is deep inside of us. It takes it takes hitting that wall to to allow God to cause us or to perform that soul surgery that will uproot sin from our lives. So what does it look like to abide in Jesus in the midst of the wall? That's what we want to look at today. How do we cross over the Rockies? How do we wander through the wilderness in a way that builds our faith instead of destroys it? What does that look like? So, we could spend a week on just this topic alone, but we have um 30 minutes. And so, I'll be doing just kind of a brief overview of what of some of the things that I've found helpful, but it's in no way complete. And my uh my senior pastor Randy, he likes to say that every sermon is a heresy because it's impossible to

be complete. Um so here's my semiheretical um take on how to navigate the wall. All right. All right. So that journey inward, it would starts with paying attention. Start to pay attention to what you're feeling. You know, in the church, we we don't have an an indepth theology of loss, grief, and depression. And so many times we think that we have to get over our pain quickly. Like it's a lack of faith if we're too depressed for too long. We we we remember verses like and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose. If God is working for the good, why am I sad about this?

Or or what Paul writes, "Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope." So we think, man, we can't grieve. But if we look carefully at this passage, notice that Paul doesn't say, "Do not grieve." He says, "Grieve," but we grieve a little bit differently because we know this grief doesn't last forever. It's different, but it's still grief. So we start this process of going through the wall by naming naming the pain saying this is what I'm experiencing seeking to understand why what this loss this pain this suffering is so painful to us to name it to lament that loss to yell at God the doubts that we feel about him in that moment see the worst thing that we can do like we talked about yesterday. The worst thing that we can do is ignore it. Is to deny

it. The best thing we can do is to bring that grief to God even in our pain, even in our anger and our frustration and express that to God. So pay attention. That's the first thing that I found helpful when journeying on this inward journey. Second, examine yourself. Like we said, the person that we display above the surface is always often different from what who we are below the surface. And going through the wall, going through that pain and loss has this unique ability to give us clarity about who we are deep inside. So take advantage of that. See, all of us have this this unique pattern of brokenness inside of us, right? There are certain addictions, certain destructive behaviors that we are more prone to than other people.

Like for me, um there are certain things that have like have no interest for me, but there are other things that are just hard to pull myself away from. And we are all different because our pattern of brokenness is different. And those those behaviors are driven by a deeper desire within us. Here are a few desires that drive us. The desire for perfection to always do what is right, to always get it right. The need or desire for approval, to have people affirm us and let us know that we're we're we're doing things the right way. To feel successful, to be unique or special, to be self-sufficient, to be to have security, to be excited, right? To have thrill and adventure in our lives, the need to control, the need to avoid conflict and experience peace.

None of these things are bad. These are all God-given desires that he has placed in our heart. The challenge comes when we desire these things more than we desire God. Or to put it another way, we desire to receive these things apart from God. We look for other sources to give us security, to give us safety, to give us excitement, to give us to give us success. So this is what I'd love you to do. I want you to turn to the person next to you and share of this list. Which of these are you most tempted to want more than you want God? Right? Which of these are you most tempted? Not saying that you do want this more than you want God, but which are you most tempted to want more than you want God? All right, take a moment and discuss.

Final All right. Lots of discussion. So, I was going to take a poll, but maybe that's a little bit too self-revealing to ask you to raise your hands. Just do it. Ed wants to know. Yeah. Now, isn't it interesting how there's this draw within us? And again, none of these things are bad. They are God-given desires. But it is when we want them more than God. We're willing to go outside of God's will to get them that they become a challenge. It's the same thing with with Adam and Eve. the very first sin. We've we talked about this last year. Um I'm sure all of you remember all the presentations from last year in in Genesis 3 when Eve ate of the fruit. Um the temptation she was offered was to be like God.

I mean to be like God that's not a bad thing. We should we were made in the image of God, right? So that's a good desire. The problem wasn't the desire. The problem was the source. She went to this fruit to be like God instead of going to God to be like God. See, that's the challenge. And sometimes we want these things so badly that we're willing to go to counterfeit sources. We're willing to graft our branches to counterfeit vines in order to get them. That's where the trouble comes. And another way to think about the brokenness inside of us is to also look at our family. Because what we found is that brokenness repeats itself over generations.

You know, David last night he talked about generational blessings, right? That when we choose God and follow God, there is a blessing that flows from us down to our children and our children's children, our children's children's children, all the way down. But we also pass along generational curses as well. That brokenness that we have inside us, we impart to our children and we receive from our parents. And this is not to give guilt or blame. But it is to encourage us to examine that brokenness because unless we take the time to understand that pattern of brokenness, we are doomed to repeat it and pass it along to the next generation. Any of you ever take a um perform a genog before?

Did a genog? Okay. Um I the first time I did a genog, it was eye opening. So a genog is basically like a very in-depth family tree, right? And you look at um the different types of relationships, the different types of addictions and all of these things um that repeat itself throughout the history of your family. And so there's different lines and symbols that represent all of these things. And when you when you do it, it's shocking because you start to see, oh my goodness, I do that. That's where I got, you know, it repeats itself throughout generations. So taking the time to understand that and then asking God to heal that over time, that's that that's a part of walking through this long obedience in the same direction.

All right. Third, third thing that I've discovered that's helpful is waiting on the Lord. Waiting in that confusing in between time. Now, I hate to wait. Anybody here hate waiting? Yeah. I hate to wait so much that when I go to a supermarket and I it's time to check out, I will perform an analysis of which line is going to move faster. I see somebody nodding, some of you nodding your heads. Yeah. And it's not always the shortest line, right? It depends on how many items are in in the basket, right? And also like are they more likely to use a credit card or cash, right? Are they a person that wants to chat with a cash register person or are they like in and out, right? You can tell what type of person they are. Am I the only one who does this? No. No. Yeah. So, I hate to wait.

I hate I hate waiting. And so one of my greatest challenges in following Jesus is doing this, waiting in that in between time where I don't understand and I'm confused and I'm uh disoriented and my my picture of God has been shaken and not immediately jumping to the lesson and finding a solution and moving on because that's my instinct. My instinct is is to say, "Okay, God, I've learned the lesson. Now it's time for me to move on. I just want to move forward. I want to rush the process. So I understand Abraham. Abraham after waiting 11 years for the son that God promised him taking matters into his own hand or into his own bed actually. Right? I don't know if I would have waited 11 years if I was Abraham because he he he thought maybe God wasn't perfectly clear, right? He said it was my son. He didn't say it was Sarah's son.

And so he started to rationalize and try to figure out a solution to move his life in the direction that God had promised him already. We It was a good desire. Again, wrong source. See, the reason why I mean, we see this repeated throughout the Old Testament. Israel flocks to foreign powers to give them the safety and security that only God can. Over and over, they turn to Egypt, right? They go to Egypt and ask for help. They go to Assyria and ask it always back backfires. But they do it again and again. Abraham does it repeatedly and he never learns that lesson. Are we any better? How many times do we go to the wrong source because we're not patient waiting for God to give what he has promised?

And I don't know why God made Abraham wait so long. It's a long time to wait. By the time he had Ishmael, he was 87 years old. It's a long time to wait for our child. And yet, and yet in that waiting, he learned and he grew. Now, Ellen White, she describes it this way in Patriarchs and Prophets. Abraham had accepted without question the promise of a son, but he did not wait for God to fulfill his word in his own time. and wait. A delay was permitted to test his faith in the power of God, but he failed to endure the trial. You know, when Ellen White, she talks about testing of faith. She's not talking about him trying to succeed some kind of like written test.

She describes testing as a way to grow faith. So this waiting she's saying is intended to grow Abraham's faith in God. And many times we go through these trials and we do fail like Abraham. But we also grow and over repeated failures and repeated growth we slowly progress on that long obedience in the same direction. So fourth thing that I found helpful is embracing the gift of limits. We live in a world that encourages us to live without limits, to buy as much as we want, to consume as what much as we want, to go everywhere we want to go. So, one of our greatest losses is when we when we hit the wall of our limits and we realize, oh, I can't do this thing that I hoped and wished that I could do because I am limited. I mean, think about the limits that we have as humans.

You know, our bodies are limited. One thing I love about camp meeting is all the things that I get to do here, right? I'm like a kid at a candy store. I want to do everything. I want to stay for two hours at lunch and chat with people and I I want to eat late at Garden Cafe and I I want to play tennis at six o'clock in the morning and and I want to play pickle ball and and so what ends up happening is I don't sleep, right? Because that's the one thing I'm oh yeah, I don't really have to sleep. But the reason why God gives us sleep is actually to teach us about our limits, right? We are limited people. We have physical limitations.

Uh yesterday I hit my limit. I I played, you know, tennis at six and then I decided to check out that thing that so many of you like called pickle ball down at the gym and I played for three hours. Yeah. I surprised even myself. I was like, man, and I was already tired, but then I had to go back and prepare for what I'm sharing with you today. So, I couldn't take a nap. And I stayed up late again. And then I woke up this morning and went to to tennis at six o'clock. I I finally at hitting a wall, right? Because physically we have limits. We also have limits intellectually, right? We can't know everything. Some of us are more limited in this area than others. We have limits in our our gifts and our talents. You know, there is no one person who is talented at at at playing piano and is also a great singer and is great at carpentry and um can

program um program, you know, apps on on on a computer. You can see that I don't do that. The lingo for it and is a great public like we aren't gifted at everything. G God Paul tells us that God distributes gifts to us. We have limits. And so we can't look at somebody and say, "Man, I I wish I had his gifts or her gifts, right? Because we are limited." So I want you to take a moment and turn to the person next to you. Share what are some limits that we as humans have. You don't have to share your own limits if you don't want to, but what are some some areas where we are limited? Okay, do that for a minute.

All right. So, what are some limits that we have as humans? And you can share your own. You can share your neighbors limits if you'd like. What are some li some ways that we as humans are limited? There was a lot of discussion so I know you you have some answers here. Longevity. Yeah, that becomes more and more evident the older we get. Right? When we're young, we think we're gonna live forever and then we start having, you know, having to do colonoscopies and things and we realize, wow, things are falling apart a lot faster than we expected. Yeah. Other limits that we face, patience. Yeah. Limited in our ability to be patient when our kids are crying and tired.

our adaptability, adaptive being adapted to change. Yeah, we're we're limited there as well. Our limits, intellectual limits. Yeah. Yeah. Physical. A lot of physical limits. Height. Yeah. I mean, I wish I was six foot three, but I'm not. So, that's a limit that I have to live with. See? Huh? Willpower. Yeah. Yeah. Our willpower. So, all these limits and part of maturity is accepting our limits. Accepting that this is who we are and this is who God made us to be. And there is beauty in that. There is beauty and there is tremendous freedom and joy in learning to accept our limits. Marvadon she she writes, "We don't know how to feast because we don't know how to fast."

Her point is that the feast is enjoyable because of the fast. The limits actually bring joy. I mean, think about this. I love going to Disneyland. Any Disney fans here? A few of you? Yeah, I love going to Disneyland. But a one one year we decided to get this pass, SoCal Pass, where you get to go for three days. By the third day there, we were sick of it. I mean, there's only so many roller coasters you can ride, only so many churros you can eat, only so many parades you can watch before it starts to lose its draw. Right? So actually it's the fact that these things are limited that make them more attractive to us. And if we are feasting all the time, we won't enjoy it. We only enjoy the feast because we have the fast. It's an embracing those limits that gives us joy. And that's why I love the biblical practice of the Sabbath.

Because the Sabbath is a weekly reminder of our limits, that God is God and we are not. There's only one being that lives without limits and that is God. And we are not him. And so it brings us tremendous freedom because we realize we don't have to be God. We don't have to be the one that keeps all the balls in the air and all the all the things spinning, all the dishes spinning. We don't have to be God because God is God and he's taking care of that even when we are resting. That's the beauty of the Sabbath. It's a reminder that we are limited human beings. God created us that way. And embracing those limits, we find joy.

And so when we encounter the wilderness experience, the wall, that's a moment where we get to learn to embrace a limit that we weren't all that excited about, but God is saying, you can learn and find joy here. Last last item that I found is helpful when moving through the wall is moving toward humility. If I were to pick one word to define the journey, what the inward journey moves us towards, it would be this one. It would be humility. What God is leading us towards is humility. And I like how St. Benedict defines humility as a ladder because often we think of it as a single characteristic, but he defines it as a growing journey that we take. And so I'm going to show you his a summary of the steps he describes in this ladder.

Here's his um benedicting ladder of humility. He says step one starts with fear of God and mindfulness of him. Fear of God and mindfulness of him. You know, we often forget the presence of God. We're distracted by all the things all the voices and all the things that are shouting for our attention that we don't we are not mindful of him. So this ladder towards humility starts when we intentionally insert God listening to God's voice into our lives. That's where humility begins. It doesn't start with us trying to be more humble people. It starts with being more aware of God. One person said, "Humility is not an unawareness of ourselves. It's an awareness of God. It's in focusing with God that we fade." Right? So that's step one. Step two, doing God's will. Doing God's will, not our will or other people's will. We recognize that surrendering our self-will to God is what is what touches on the very heart of this transformation. So the step one is to be aware of God. Step two is to

start listening to God and following what God is sharing with us more than following our own will for our lives. And this is a broken process, right? We sometimes do it and sometimes don't. Step three, willing to subject ourselves to the direction of our others. And I would say he puts it higher because it's actually harder. It's one thing to say, okay, I'll listen to God who is all knowing and all powerful. I'll give him that. Right? But to listen to another human being, that's hard. But God often speaks through other humans to us. And we have to have the humility to listen to them, right? Even when we think we know better. Even when, you know, my cousin Andy, who's been playing tennis for a shorter time than I have, tells me how to fix my tennis stroke, I have to listen to that, right?

And it's hard. It is hard, right? It's hard to listen to other people and say, you know, this may be God speaking to through them. But our humility comes from being willing to listen. Sorry, I just I saw your face and I I thought of that. God is trying to teach me something today. All right. Step four. Step four. Patience to accept the difficulty of others. You see how this is getting harder and harder, right? You know, we're all broken. So when we get close to each other, our bro broken pieces poke one another, right? We're like porcupines who are trying to huddle up together and our quills get in the way.

So part of humility is allowing God allowing God to work on other people in his own time, not in our own time. One of the greatest lessons that I have tried to I have had to learn as a pay parent is not to be the Holy Spirit in my children's lives, right? Because I want to be I want to correct every little thing. I'm like, man, if you would just But part of allow part of humility is trusting that God can work in ways that I cannot and trusting him and giving others the grace that God gives to us and hopefully other others give to us as well. Step five, radical honesty to others about our weakness.

This is revealing the areas that are below the surface and not having to always be the person that has everything together. And this is very, very hard. And it may not be to everyone, but it needs to be to someone. When we were younger, we had a group um of guys that met together and we would try to practice this. I miss that now that I'm older. And so, actually, I recently met a a pastor, random person from um from Texas um at a conference and we started talking, made a connection and so now we meet um every other week to do this to open up to each other because it's as a pastor it's sometimes hard to find someone that I I can do this with.

But um there is tremendous healing and freedom from being known by someone, being accepted and being prayed over. And so what happens in our conversations, it's not a therapy conversation. He doesn't give me advice. I don't give him advice. We just listen to each other and then pray for one another. But practice being known. Step six, deeply aware of being the chief of all sinners. As we journey through this inward journey, we discover our pattern of brokenness and start to understand that we are at least as broken as the people around us, right? It's a it's a deeper aware. Ellen White in steps to Christ, she talks about this that the closer we get to Jesus, the more aware we are that we are not like him. It's a part of this journey.

Step seven, speaking less. This is a challenge for some of us more than others. You know, we stop feeling the need to constantly manage other people's impressions of who we are with our words. We stop feeling the need to make sure that that we've curated their thoughts about us. The reality is we never can. We can't control what other people think, but we like to think we can. And so we use our words to do that. And so we stop, start speaking less. And that flows out of this awareness of who we are and comfort in who we are. And step eight is finally being transformed into the love of God. There's no sarcasm, no more cynicism.

No more doubt about other people. We just accept people as they are. We accept ourselves as we are. We become comfortable in who God made us to be. and we begin to see others the way that God sees them. This transforming into the love of God, I want you to think for a moment. Where would you find yourself on this journey, this ladder? Like we talked about before, hitting the wall is not a one-time event. It happens repeatedly throughout our lives. And each time we do, hopefully what it does is it progresses us a little bit further up this this ladder towards humility. We start to learn and accept things about ourselves.

So I want to end with sharing a bit about my journey through the wall. The first time I hit the wall was when I was a youth pastor at LA Central. It was my second year and I got a very angry phone call from a parent. his child was being bullied by other children and he was furious. And I understand, you know, if my child was being bullied, I'd be furious, too. And in the process of that conversation, he started to list all my failures as a as a pastor. And then he ended by saying, you know, you should just quit. You're not cut out for this. And it was it was I mean completely disorienting for me. And I'll tell you why it was it was so disorienting for me. It was the first time that I experienced failure in something that I cared deeply about. I mean, I I experienced failure all the time, like basketball, right? Piano. Torbully bad

at piano. Took piano lessons for like 10 years. And yeah, I I won't even say how bad I am at piano. People see me play and they're like, "You took lessons for 10 years? How did you not learn anything? I feel bad now thinking about all the money that my parents wasted on piano lessons for me. Yeah. So, I I've failed at a lot of things, but this is the first time that I failed at something that I that I thought I was really good at. And so, it it unsettled me. It shook me to my core because how how could I be a pastor when I'm so bad with people, right?

And it took me a while. It wasn't in that moment. It wasn't until much later that I finally started to have language for this, to understand that I had this brokenness inside me, this deep need to be successful or to at least appear successful, to have things all together. And it was driving me that to believe that that's actually where my success as a pastor came from. that if I could preach the perfect sermon, you know, if I could plan the perfect most engaging program, if if youth came to youth youth group and and wanted to participate, then there would be success in what I was doing. And it took a long time for me to realize that God was trying to teach me it's not about you, it's about me.

And the power for change doesn't come from a perfectly eloquent message. It comes from the Holy Spirit working in my life, as broken as it is, and working in the lives of the people around me. Now, this isn't a therapy session, so I'm not going to go into depth about this, but my prayer is that all of you will experience and continue to experience some of that healing that I've received from journeying with God through brokenness, through the wall. So keep running even when you accidentally grab the wrong arm. Get back up and keep running. And it'll be incredible what we'll see at the end of the journey. Let's pray.

Oh God, I am in awe of you. We are in awe of you being willing to take these broken vessels, patch them up, and make us whole. But it's painful and it's long. So stick with us. and help us to stick with you. Amen.