Not My Jesus: Distant Jesus

Good morning. We are in a series called Not My Jesus. And I have the wrong table. I have a really tall table today, and I’m not a really tall guy. So, hi everyone. Good to see you today. Oh, does it go down? Okay. My youth pastor has informed me. They give me this for staff chapels, and I can never get on top of this and get it down. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. All right.

Sorry, I feel like I’m very red right now. Anyway, great to have you. My name’s Matt. I’m the pastor here. You’re joining us for a series of messages called Not My Jesus.

And I just want to say something on the front end of today’s message. There’s a lot of people that walk through the doors of this church for the very first time, and they, I’ve had this comment over the years where they walk in and they feel out of place. And they feel out of place because of certain things that they assume to be true when they walk into a church building for the first time, or maybe the first time in a very, very long time.

And a couple false assumptions are that everyone that they see around this lobby is in church, so that means everyone must have their act together if they’re in church. How many of you can disavow that statement? Say, no, not true. And then another thing that is kind of along those lines is they feel like everyone’s in a different place in life. They look around and there’s a lot of young families, and so they’ll say, well, everyone’s married, has a happy little marriage, a perfect little family. And we have close to as many single adults, single moms, single dads, as we do married families in our church. So, if you come and you’re single, and you’ve gone through divorce, welcome to the family. This is reality. People walk through stuff, and you may struggle with an addiction and say, boy, if anyone knew. Can I tell you how many people in this church have walked through, or are walking through, difficult, challenging things in their lives as well? So, welcome to the family once again. So, don’t make those assumptions.

You’re going to discover at Eagle Creek Church, we are not trying to look like the cultural elite of Lee’s Summit, Missouri. We’re trying to be real children of God. Amen. We really are. And so I want you to feel like it’s safe to grow. It’s safe to be known here. It’s safe to walk through a journey. And we have this target of being Christlike, of following biblical teachings. But the way we reach that target is not through beating you into something, but by encouraging you with God’s grace, God’s love, God’s mercy, that helps you to conform and be shaped to the image of his son, Jesus Christ, which is what we’re all really trying to do. And I’m still in the middle of trying to figure that out myself. Okay?

So, I just want you to know we’re going to be truthful about things, but we’re going to be graceful in a way that helps you to move toward the walk that God has for you. And it leads me to what I’m talking about today. It’s this concept that when we don’t get that right, and when we mess up, and when we’re not perfect, and when we don’t do all the things we should, and when we show up and feel like we’re the out-of-place person who doesn’t have it all together in our mind, we start to assume two distances.

The distance between us and the people in the lobby. If they knew me, if they knew my life, I probably wouldn’t be welcomed here. We assume a distance that’s not there. But we do this also in our relationship with God. We assume that God is not as close to us as he is to those really good people, and that we’re a little bit of a second-class spiritual citizen as well with Christ. And I just want you to know that is equally false. Christ comes near the destitute, near the broken, near the sinful. If you looked at his ministry in the book of Matthew, or Mark and Luke or John, you see he was always connecting with the lowliest, the broken, the sinful, all those kinds of folks in society. He would literally go to their house and have dinner with them and bring grace and forgiveness to those kind of people. And so that assumption of distance is false.

Now, how many of you have ever been to a ball game with a friend and they had a set of binoculars, and they handed you the binoculars, and they’re those little tiny pocket-sized binoculars? Anyone? Anyone ever brought them? I’ve had this where they’ll slip me a pair of binoculars and I’ve literally put them up the wrong end to my face and been like, wow, these are terrible binoculars. And it takes me a second to be like, oh, oh, flip them around. And if you’re looking through the wrong end of the lens, how many of you know, if you’re looking through your shame, your sin, your past, your failures, that Jesus can look a million miles away, right?

Okay. So, what’s Jesus looking through? He’s looking through the other end of the binoculars, which is full of grace and mercy and love and forgiveness. And all of those qualities of Jesus, what do they do? They bring us close to him. His forgiveness brings us close. His mercy, his love, his grace, all those qualities, and through Jesus’ eyes, through his lens, through the way he looks at humanity, they’re all qualities that bring humanity close to him, right?

And so today, I’m hoping you’ll open your eyes and say, I want to see my life the way Jesus sees me, that I’m always closer than I realize that I am, or I imagine that I am.

So, quick quiz question, for the sake of authenticity and honesty in the room. How many of you, and I’m going to just say I’m in this crowd, will admit that you have had some times in your spiritual walk with Christ since becoming a Christian where you literally felt nothing from God, like God was a million miles away, and it just didn’t feel there? Okay, I’m going to put my hand up. I have been there where I felt God was so distant from me, and I didn’t get it, and I was like, did I do something wrong? Is he punishing me? What’s wrong with my life? And I was going through all of these kinds of things in my life.

There’s a Christian author that I’ve read over the years, most of his works, not all of them, but most of his works. And it’s a name you’ll be familiar with. He’s the writer of the Chronicles of Narnia, you know, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis. But he’s known more for his theological and philosophical writings than he is for his fantasy writings. And in one of his writings, he talks about his marriage to Joy. And he got married much later in life, for the first time. He married at 57 years old. And six months after he married Joy, she broke her leg. He got married in April. She broke her leg in the fall. And when she broke her leg, they discovered that she had breast cancer that had gone into her bones. Six months after marriage, he’s 57 years old, he discovers that his wife has cancer.

They lasted four years before she passed away from the cancer. And she went into remission for about three years, and they have an incredible love story for the three years that she was healthy. And then it was discovered again, four years later, she had about six months, and she passed away. And he was such a deep thinker and such a deep writer that he wrote an observation of her death and his experience of her death called A Grief Observed. I’m just going to warn you, if you ever decide to read that, it’s heavy. It’s dark. He’s revealing of a lot of struggles that he’s having in this. He’s not the biggest man of faith all the time through that. It’s just raw. It’s a very, very raw reading of someone having lost their spouse.

And when he’s writing this, he says something that’s maybe hard to hear, but it was really where he was, and probably some of you can identify with this. He said, in my loss and in my grief, I felt like a door slammed in my face, and I heard the sound of bolting and double bolting on the other side. And after that, silence.

How many of you ever had that moment where you’re like, what in the world did I do, God? How could you be letting me go through the agony, the pain, the loss, everything I’m walking through? And I’m praying, and I hear nothing. I feel nothing. The depression won’t go away. The weight won’t go away. The loss is not going away. I’m not finding a job. I’m not getting healed of my sickness. It’s just unending and unbearable. And all I can hear is silence. And this is where he was. And he was in that moment struggling through that.

And so what I want to do is, I want to, in this series, Not My Jesus, deal with this concept of a distant Jesus. That Jesus is somehow so far away, that he came to earth, and he lived this life, and he died on the cross, and he provided salvation, but then he took off for heaven, and he left us here, and we’re kind of on our own, and do the best you can do, and work hard and pray hard and read your Bible and do everything you can do, but if you’re not good enough, you’ll be distant from him, and he’ll be distant from you. It’s really on you now. And so I want to deal with that.

And so I want to address this first concept I’ve been talking about. And I just want to walk you through this journey kind of in three portions of this story, of this journey, that probably most of us are walking through, or have walked through, or may walk through at some later point in our life.

How many of you have gone through one of those dark times, one of those quiet times, and have a little bit of a suspicion that you might revisit a quiet time again with God between now and death? That that could happen again? How many of you will acknowledge that could happen again, right? And so if that could happen again, and in my experience with most people, it will, then it would be a really good idea to prepare your heart for that moment. Because in that moment is when I see the most people leave their faith, as a pastor. And that moment is whenever I see the most people get frustrated that God is not answering, and they’ll turn toward a substance to get them through, or a relationship to get them through, or workaholism. That’s when they turn to other coping behaviors, and it becomes very unhealthy in their life. And I’ve observed it enough to say, when people don’t prepare for this point in life, then it hits them harder than they imagine it will. So I want to walk you through how to be prepared.

Acknowledge the Feeling

First of all, just acknowledge the feeling. So I want to talk about that first. The feeling. In Psalm 13:1, let me read this to you. It says, “How long, O Lord, will you forget me? Forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” Now I want you to know that the guy who wrote down these words wasn’t this God hater. The guy who wrote down these words was King David, who was called in the Bible a man after God’s own heart.

And it’s not known, I looked up in commentary to find out when he wrote that, and it’s not exactly known. It’s suspected that it came around the time when he was hiding in the desert from Saul, who was pursuing him. Something along those lines, maybe in that period of time. And he realizes it’s like God has promised him that he would one day be king, but right now the king of Israel who is presently king is probably trying to kill him. That’s probably the circumstance. And literally, what does he think? He thinks that God has literally forgotten him.

And maybe there are things in your life that you felt like God said he was going to do in your life, like God was going to give you a spouse, or give you a child, or provide an opportunity for you to launch this new business, or provide financially abundantly, or heal you of a sickness, and suddenly you’re in a spot where you’re like, I think God forgot. I think he got busy with something else in this world, in this universe, and I’ve been left behind. How long will you hide your face? He said, you’re intentionally avoiding me. You’re intentionally deciding to not bring blessing. The face of God is perceived in the Bible like the hand of God. It means that the favor of God is on your life. And he’s saying, how long will you keep your favor from my life and not look on me and what I’m going through in my life?

And it’s interesting, for centuries, Christians, in fact, all the way back, I think the first guy that coined it was way back in the 1500s. A Christian man, he was called John of the Cross. And he talked about, in his writings, it started actually in a poem that he wrote in the 1500s, he talked about the dark night of the soul. Whenever he talked about the dark night of the soul, he meant that for many Christians, there is a period of absence where it feels like God is not there. And in those times, whenever you feel like God is completely absent, it’s that moment where your faith is being tested, where you discover, am I serving God all for the feelings and the emotions and the feel-good stuff God’s going to give to my life? Is it all about what I’m going to get out of this? Or am I doing this as a faithful child committed to him no matter what the feelings are? I will follow God no matter what I’m walking through.

A.W. Tozer, a great author, wrote this. He said, “The holy man is not the one who does not suffer darkness, but the one who keeps trusting God in the darkness.” I want to say that, because sometimes whenever you’re in the middle of that dark time and you feel like God is absent, you think, what is wrong with me? I must be so bad and terrible and unholy and darkened and all this.

And we know in the gospel that, in Matthew, it tells us on the people who lived in great darkness, God has shown a great light. This was an Old Testament prophecy talking about how Christ would come to people literally who were living in darkness. Jesus said these words, “I’ve come to seek and to save those that were lost,” right? Jesus was always finding people in darkness, people that were lost. And so, will God not show up to you if you’re in this sinful darkness? How many of you know that even in sinful darkness, God will find you out?

Remember the Apostle Paul, before he was the Apostle Paul? His name was Saul. When did Jesus show up to Saul? When he was hunting down Christians in Damascus to kill them. That’s when he met Jesus, in the middle of his murderous rage. Jesus met him there. How many say, well, I’m not in the middle of a murderous rage against Christians, so maybe Jesus could show up for me in the middle of my darkness. But so frequently we live by the lie of, I deserve this because I’m a bad person and I did bad things, therefore God must be absent from my life. And yet over and over, through the New Testament, you discover that’s exactly when he shows up.

Zacchaeus, up in the tree, when Jesus stops and says, “Zacchaeus, come down, for I must go to your house today.” And when he goes to his house, what does he discover? The tax collector has been cheating people for years, and his repentance is to pay people back for his cheating. He goes to the cheater, liar, and thief’s home that day. Over and over and over again, Jesus shows up in our darkness and in our sinfulness to restore us.

Because I think there’s something that Jesus notices about the righteous and sinner, and that we don’t see it at all. Did you know that a righteous man can be more sinful than a sinner? Here’s the difference. Did you know, and this was this great revelation that Samuel received about David, man looks on the outward appearance, right? But God looks at the heart. What was true of David’s heart? David was a man after God’s own heart. But did you know that David would go on to have a husband essentially killed, and have an affair with that guy’s wife, Bathsheba, and have a son named Solomon, who would become the king of Israel?

What did he see that made him a man after God’s own heart? He could never live comfortably in his sin. And he could never claim his righteousness as his own. His righteousness was from God. His sinfulness was himself. And his heart was to be connected to God, no matter what the state, righteous or sinful. Oh God, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are righteous in your judgments against me.

I think God looks at you and says, are you prideful in your righteousness, or are you broken in your sin? Because when you are broken in your sin, he can visit you and restore you and declare you righteous, because of what Jesus paid on the cross for your sins. Amen. Amen.

And so we always look and say, he’ll only show up for the righteous. No, he shows up for the contrite in spirit, the lowly in heart. That’s who he shows up for. God resists the proud, but he gives more grace to those who are humble, right? That’s what the word of God says. And so I may not get it all right every day of my life. And believe me, I don’t. Ask my wife. I don’t. But I want to tell you this. I want to live with a broken heart before the God who loves me, and a heart to be connected to him no matter what my state. Amen. Amen. Amen.

And so God shows up for people like you, and he brings light back into the darkness. And those dark nights of the soul may be teaching you that God is there. Even in your sinfulness and your brokenness and the barrenness, he’s just teaching you, I’m still here. I’m still here. You can rely on me. I’m not going anywhere.

In John 10:11-12, it tells us this. Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.” That’s how you know he’s good. He’s willing to give everything he has for you. And he did that. He gave his life on the cross for our sins. He paid the price we should have to pay when we die and face our judge. But then he paid it. He says, “A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they do not belong to him, and he isn’t their shepherd.” And we don’t have to continue on. We’ll stop there.

And so with this, I want us to look at our own lives, and I want us to consider, are we in this place where we are ultimately saying, you know what, I’m trusting Jesus to be here for me. He’s given his life for me. He’s not going to abandon me. That’s a matter of faith. That’s a matter of believing.

I remember, it was probably seven years ago, right after we built this building, in early 2019. I was absolutely exhausted. I was beyond exhausted. I was, I don’t know, ready to be put into a hospital or something like that. I had my first panic attack in life, and I had them for a period of a couple, two or three months. I’d never had a panic attack. I went to the ER and thought I was having a heart attack. I literally woke up in the middle of the night, told my wife I was having a heart attack. I was ready to pass out. Turns out my heart was healthy, but my heart was not in a 

way. And I was exhausted. I was worn out. And that went on for a period of time. That went on for a couple months.

And finally, I was curled up in fetal position in the dark, laying in my bedroom, not wanting to get up and do anything. And Sherry kept saying, “Matt, go to a counselor. Go get help. Go do something about this.” And I felt so stupid. But I was like, I’m not going to do this, because it’s wasting our family’s money for me to have to go and do this. It’s in my head. I just got to get over it. But I couldn’t. I could not get over it.

And finally, I did, and met a great counselor. In a matter of, I don’t know, six or seven times, it was like miraculous. He was a Christian guy who had been a pastor for years, and just God showed up in those rooms, and I wept and bawled and turned it all over to God and found such healing in my life, and haven’t had a panic attack since. Praise God. Amen. Amen.

But can I tell you the darkness that ensued about a year after that? Not even that. By that Easter, that was in January, by that Easter, I had some huge, massive events that piled on the top of that. And I went for about four or five months where I was like, God, where are you? It was just dark. It was heavy. I couldn’t sleep at night. My stress levels were so high. And I’d gotten on, it’s like, oh, I got on the other side of that, and now I have this slamming me in the face right now.

Now I can look back and say, well, God said, I had to give you this so you could get through this. I was like, I didn’t know you were setting me up, because I had more coming. I thought that was the thing, and it turns out, no, this was the thing. I was just getting it to where you didn’t totally crash and burn out. You just had to have enough to make it through the next storm that you were facing. And have you ever had them back to back, where you’re like, wait, that’s not fair. I just got out of a storm. God, you can’t give me another one. I’m not ready for this yet.

And I look at this, and I just want to say, there’s a couple things to me that occur in these moments. I believe that God prepares our hearts to be compassionate for people that are broken. I never understood why people couldn’t get it together. I was like, tough it through. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Have a good attitude. Fight through it. Get a positive mental attitude. Don’t let anything take you down. Why do you need to do all this counseling or whatever, and whining, and it’s just a waste of your time? Just get it together, man. How many say that’s kind of insensitive?

Let me tell you, God sensitized me really well. He’s like, I’m going to make you a little more sensitive, Matt. I’m going to give you something that there’s nothing you can do to overcome, and it is utterly defeating to you. Utterly and completely defeating. And after that, boy, it changed my heart for everyone. It was like, wow, you’re going through stuff. Oh, my heart breaks for you. My heart breaks for you. I cried for the next year for everyone who cried to me. And literally, it’s like, if you’re crying, I’m crying. And if you’re not crying, I’m crying before you’re crying, because I think you should be crying. And I’m like, what happened to my heart? My wife went through a weepy year with me. Every other story I told her, I was crying and repenting of anything I could think of that I had done.

And God needed to tenderize my heart. But I had to go through that dark night of the soul for God to do exactly what he wanted to do in my life. Probably I was so full of myself, my own energy, my own strength, that God was like, Matt, you’ve been trying to do this on your own. I don’t want you to do any more of this on your own. I want you to get to a place where all you can do is what I give you the strength to do, and that’s it. I just want you to run on me and not run on you now. And I got to that place. That’s a good place to get in life, right? That’s actually a good place to get. And so God walked me through that.

He’s Actively Involved Every Day of Your Life

I want to give you a truth here. Here’s the truth. The second thought I want to give you is the truth. He’s actively involved every day of your life. And he’s helping you wherever you are, whatever you’re going through. He really is. And this is a truth you have to decide. I believe this. I accept this. I’m going to focus in on this.

This is what it says in Hebrews 4:14-16. It says this. “Since we then have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.” Now, the priest on earth would pass through the outer court into the inner court to meet with God there and offer sacrifice for the people. It says we have a great high priest. He didn’t have to enter through from the outer court into the holy of holies, the inner court. He’s actually entered all the way, and passed through the heavenlies, through the heavens itself, to the throne room of God. He’s right there.

And who is this priest? It’s the Son of God. It’s Jesus Christ. “Let us hold fast to our confession,” our belief. We hold that. We have faith in that. We say, it doesn’t matter what I feel right now. I have a great high priest. He’s up in heaven, and he’s praying for me. He’s making intercession for me. It says, “the Son of God,” who, “let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who’s unable to sympathize.” Now, the high priest is making intercession to God. And does he care about you when he’s doing that? It says, well, we don’t have one who can’t sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. “Let us then come with confidence and draw near to the throne of grace.”

That’s where he is, at the throne of, what is the throne always in the Bible? It’s always the throne of judgment. It’s very rarely called the throne of grace. But here the throne of judgment is now called the throne of grace. And why is it called the throne of grace? It’s called the throne of grace because Jesus has done what? Passed through the heavenlies. He knows exactly what we’ve gone through. He knows all of that. And he’s there talking to the Father on our behalf. And he says, because of that, you can come boldly and with confidence, what? Before the throne of, what?

So, every time you feel horrible about yourself, and like God’s alienated you, and you can’t go to him, and you can’t talk to him, I want you to remember that when you go to him, your vision is, I’m coming to God who sits on a throne of judgment of my bad, sinful, awful life. And Jesus disagrees with you. He says, no, I’m actually up here, and I passed through the heavenlies, and I’ve gone through everything that you’ve gone through, and I brought your life before the Father. So now when you walk in to him, you’re going to experience his throne as a throne of grace for your life, “that we may receive mercy.” How many need mercy? Amen. “And find grace to help in your time of need.” How many say, I need grace to help in my time of need. Amen.

And he says, that’s what you’ll find now when you come to God. That’s who he is. That’s what your prayers, where your prayers are going. That’s what your conversation is going to be like. You’re talking with this God, with this level of mercy, with this level of grace for your life.

And so, I want to encourage you to start going to him and just saying, you know what, I can come to him, and I can know that he’s present, that he’s available. I can hold on to that truth. It doesn’t matter what I feel. I’m not going to let my feelings override my faith. I’m going to have to make a choice to let my faith override my feelings.

And I can always tell when people are choosing the one or the other. I meet both people. Sherry and I talk to people all the time that are in the middle of a hard hour, a dark time in their life, a dark night of the faith. And whenever they’re in that place, you can hear the agony, the groaning, the anger, the frustration. And sometimes they’ll turn it right around and say, but I know God loves me, and I know God will get me through, and I know he is faithful, and I’m confessing that he is for me, and he is not against me, and I’m confessing that God still loves me today, and my tomorrow will be better than my today. I know who he is. I know my redeemer lives, and I shall yet see his face. I believe that.

How many of you know you can go through a dark hour, but you can go through that dark hour with faith, right? And you can just see it when you talk to people. The beginning of the conversation may sound very similar, but boy, does the end start to change, as they turn back and say, but I am anchored to this. How are you doing? Do you really want to hear? Yeah. They spit it all out. But God. But God. And it changes things. It’s so incredibly important.

And the final thing I want to give you, before we’re going to take some time at the end here. Okay, I just want to prep you for this. At the end, we’re going to take some time to just come to Jesus in worship. In fact, I picked out a song, a little older worship song, one that invites the Lord to come and meet us right here, right now. Eagle Creek Church, this Sunday morning, will you meet us right here, right now? And in a little bit when we start singing that song, some of you, in fact, all of us across this room, how many say, I think we could all use a little more of Jesus. Meet us here right now. Amen. Amen. We’re going to do that in a little bit. When we do that, I’m going to encourage some of you to take a big step, where you felt distant and you need to feel close again, and to come up to the front and just say, I’m going to come and meet you. I’m going to step out. I want to give you this thought, though, before you do that.

The Invitation of Scripture

I want to talk to you about the invitation of scripture. The overall story of the Bible. I don’t want you to be confused for a moment. Let me clear up a confusion that a lot of us have. A lot of us have a confusion that we are responsible. There’s this phrase, you have as much of God as you want. And there’s some truth to that. You have as much of God as you want. There is some truth to that. But it’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is not just, you’re pursuing God, and you have as much of God as you want. Because how many of you know that Saul on the road to Damascus was not pursuing God? God was pursuing Saul, right? When the children of Israel were in Egypt, I don’t know that they were chasing God as much as God was chasing them. When Moses went and hid in the backside of the desert, who showed up to get Moses? Did Moses show up and say, God, come and get me? Or did God show up in the burning bush and get Moses? God showed up in the burning bush and got Moses.

So, let me tell you, this equation is both sides. God is chasing you. God is chasing after your life to come and get you. In Matthew 28:20, it says this, “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” It’s this acknowledgment that God is a present God, a here God, a now God. Right where I am, with whatever I’m working through, whatever I’m going through, God is present. God is here. God is right now. And there’s some faith that is required for that statement. Because some of you say, but I don’t feel that. But I don’t see that. But I’m not observing, experiencing that. I’m in like this dark place right now. And so this is a faith statement.

And whenever we sing that song, inviting him to come and meet us here, it’s a faith statement. It’s you confessing, I believe that you would meet me right now, right here in this place. And so I want us to look at that and just say, it says, “And behold, I am with you always.” By the way, the word “always” is actually three different words in the Greek, and it means all the days. Behold, I am with you all the days. Every day. Wait, the bad days? Yep. The sinful days? Yep. The dark days? Yes. Those days. It says, behold, I am with you always. And in the Greek, that means all the days. Behold, I’m with you all the days. Every single one, where you thought I was not there, I was there. That promise of God needs to ring true for you today.

But then it flips it around in the scripture. And even though God’s presence is here, and it’s now, did you know that God still calls you to pursue him? And this is what it says in Jeremiah 29:13. It says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” A heart and soul that goes after God.

I’m going to invite the band to come out, if they would, and just help to lead us in worship. Now, as the band comes up to lead us, I want to encourage you with this right now. I want to encourage you to begin to say, you know what, I believe that God is here, that God wants to meet me, that God wants to work in my life.

And I want to tell you this. For Sherry and I, we’ve been married 28 years. And in 28 years, there’s all these big moments that we could go back to. The moment whenever I asked her to go on the first date, and she told me no. It was beautiful. No, she didn’t. She didn’t. She nodded like she did. You didn’t answer me. You gave me no response. You’re like, let me think about it, I might have homework that night. And then she didn’t get back with me. I’m like, wait, did I get blown off? I literally was ready to be done with her. My sister was like, no, she’s got a thing for you. Don’t be done with her. She’s got a thing for you. So, I kept chasing her.

And then the moment when she said yes, and we had our first date. I remember that, where we went, what we did. The moment she said yes to marrying me, at Buckingham Fountain in Chicago. And the moment she said I do. I still can picture walking down the aisle. There’s all these big moments. But our love is built mostly on the small ones. On getting up yesterday morning and having a cup of tea, and for me a cup of coffee, and her sitting on the couch and me sitting on the chair, and talking for probably an hour and a half. It’s the Friday morning walk up in Weston, where we met a homeless guy that seemed kind of scary, but he was a buff dude. I was like, I don’t think I could take him on. I hope he’s nice, because I’m not sure what’s going on here. It’s all the moments, all the moments built together to make one loving relationship.

And this is just one of those moments for you and Jesus. One of those moments of building a loving relationship, where you said, I want to meet you here, right at Eagle Creek Church this morning. And maybe it’s been hard, because you’re like, but he let me down, Matt. But I feel like he didn’t answer my prayer. And he didn’t hear me. And where was he? And why did he let this happen?

Behold, I’m with you all the days. Every one of them. I’m a good shepherd. I don’t run when life is hard and the wolves come and they try to scatter your life. I don’t run. I don’t do it. I’m not like that. I’m not a paid hand. I love the sheep. I know the sheep. They hear my voice. They know my voice. I know them. I don’t run. I don’t leave. I’m here all the days. And in the dark night of the soul, when everything wants to rip him away from your heart, I know that, I’ve lived through the dark hours myself, and I could not control my anxiety. I could not control my thoughts. I couldn’t win the battle. I couldn’t find God in the darkness. But on the other side, he was there. He was changing me. He was softening me. He was teaching me to rely on him. And I can’t tell you I’m on the other side of every dark day of my life. I probably will have more dark days. But I know this. He is faithful, and he is there. Amen.

So, I want to invite you to stand with me all across this room. And as we begin to sing, and as we begin to worship, as we begin to turn our eyes toward him, and off of ourselves and our circumstance and our situation all around us, that are heavy and dark in our lives. As we go through all of those things, I want to encourage you to do this, everyone across this room, to just raise your hands and worship and invite him. I’m here, Lord. I’m here. I want to meet you right in this place. And then I want to encourage all across this room to literally fill the front of this room with people stepping out and saying, I will meet Jesus here. I will step out of my comfort. I will step out of my complacency. I will step out of my fear. I will step out of my faithlessness. I will step out of my past and my present. I will step out, and I will meet Jesus here today. Amen.

Let’s begin to worship. Let’s begin to invite him. Let me pray over you even now.

Lord, all across this room, for people that have literally been in the darkness, in the darkest days maybe even of their lives right now, they’ve been like, God, where are you? God, where are you? Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me alone in this circumstance? God, I pray in this hour, in this moment, in this very space right here at this altar, you would show yourself as a God who is here, as a God who has never left them and never forsaken them. Lord, that you are with them all the days of their life, every moment, Lord, that you never left them. And I pray that they would start to find faith over that fear, that they would start to find the comfort of God covering their heart and healing them and mending them and restoring them. I pray that grace all across this room as we begin to lift our hands, inviting you in, making space, Lord, in our hearts, to turn our eyes toward you. I pray, Lord, that you would begin to show up in lives, and that we would sing despite our storm, in faith. We would declare that we know you are here, and for us, and with us. We pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.

As we begin to sing, let’s come on forward now. Church, would you step out and let’s meet him here? Come on. Let’s worship together. Amen.

[Song: Here Again]

Lord, we ask you to just keep coming into our lives. Lord, we begin something afresh and something anew, where there was just dry bones. Lord, you’re bringing life and breathing life into families, into hearts, and marriages, into homes. Lord, we admit we cannot do this without you, Lord. We’re not strong enough. We’re not powerful enough. It’s your power. It’s your strength in our lives. You’re giving us a capacity to reconnect, to know your grace, to know your love once again. God, I pray that all across this room, in Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name.

We’re going to dismiss those that need to go. We’re going to take a moment. I want us to sing that chorus again. Just a moment. Just worship him and invite him in. Maybe you say, I wish I would have walked up. I need some more prayer. If you want to come up, we have people up here also that’ll pray blessing over your life. If you got to go, God bless you guys. Let’s be back next Sunday expecting God to move. Thursday night, Memorial Day weekend’s next weekend. Show up Thursday. We’ll see you there. God bless you guys. Let’s continue to worship.