Transforming Valleys: Finding Hope Through Christ

God's always been after the heart of people. Not after behavior modification. He's been after heart transformation. Some of you, you grew up in a religious system or a church where it was like you should do this and you should do that and you should do this and you should quit that and you should start that and you got frustrated with all the you shoulds. It's because you never got a want to inside your heart. When you get a want to. When you fall in love with something, you have a want to. You want to do what they want to do. [00:06:35]

And God has always been after the hearts of people so that they would have a want to to live the life that God wanted them to live. Well, what about the rules and the commands and things like that? That's just God simply telling you, "I made you. I created you. And I know the best way for you to live. And if you'll live this way, it's a place of blessing and life and peace. It's not a rule book. It's a love book cuz he's been after your heart." [00:07:12]

When Jesus captures your heart, you'll want to worship him. You'll want to be in the house of God. You'll want to serve him. You'll want to be generous. You'll want to be kind to people that aren't kind to why? Because you get a different want to in your heart because you've fallen in love with Jesus. And that's what he's always been after. He's been after your heart. Amen. The whole time. [00:08:33]

Because he loves the nation of Israel so much, he says, "Even though you have forgotten about me," and through Hosea, he prophesies, "I'm going to turn the valley of Acor into a door of hope." And you're like, "You keep saying that and I still don't know what it means." And I didn't either the first time I read it, but I started looking into it because it jumped off the page at me because the word of God will do that if you spend time in it. [00:08:57]

The valley of Achor was the same place where a man by the name of Achen earlier in the history of Israel had disobeyed God and because of that brought the judgment of God and trouble onto all the nation. And can I just say to you that whenever you are living your life apart from God, you're not just hurting you, you're hurting those around you. And so this valley of Achen was a place where great trouble came on the nation. [00:09:34]

Whenever the prophet Hosea says to the people of Israel, God is not just going to get you through the valley or out of the valley, God is going to do a move that bus moment and transform the valley into a door of hope. It would have been mind-blowing to them. In other words, here's what God is saying. That he has the power and he is prophesying, I believe, over your life today that what you used to not want to ever revisit, God goes, I can make it a door of hope. [00:10:43]

And what you used to call despair, I can call it joy. And what you used to call a valley, I'll call it victory. What you used to be a place that you would think, I never want to revisit that dark moment again, God, no, no, no. I have a way of transforming it into something for your good and for my glory. I can make the Valley of Acor a door of hope. God's in the business of reversing things. [00:11:09]

Sometimes the valleys that we're in are valleys of our own making. It's not even really what is happening around us. It's the narrative that we're telling oursel about oursel. Did you know that you're the most influential person in your life because you talk to yourself the most? And did you know that a lie believed as a truth can affect you like a truth even though it's a lie? And some of us are in valleys of trouble within our own soul because of the playground of the mind and the enemy and the narrative and the lies. [00:14:08]

Some of you suff so much that you don't even love laying down at night because the moment you do, your mind starts racing. You can feel and hear your heart beating and the anxiety just goes through the roof and it's tough to be in the valley. Some of us it's external life situations. It's the divorce you didn't want, right? Creates a painful valley. It's it's the miscarriage you thought you'd never walk through. It's the betrayal of a friend that you thought was a ride or die. [00:14:50]

And here's what I know about valleys is that they're isolating and suffocating and you feel powerless in the valley. And it's in the middle of that setting and the emotion we feel from that that Hosea arrives and he says, "Just want you to know God's going to make a door of hope in the middle of a valley." You may be thinking, "How could that ever happen to me?" And I want to propose you can have a door of hope in the valley because of what we celebrate this weekend. [00:16:00]

Jesus is going to the garden of Gethsemane with his disciples and he's going to pray. And I want us to read what what happens in that setting as he goes into this garden. And in verse 40, it says this, that on reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." And then he withdrew about a stones throw beyond them. And he knelt down and he prayed, "Father, if you're willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done." [00:17:02]

The cup was this. It was the cup of carrying all of the sins of humanity, my sin and your sin, to the cross because justice is required. And someone had to pay the penalty of sin. And because of that, God put his only son, Jesus, in the earth. And he lived the perfect life you and I could never live. And he hung on the cross carrying all of our sins on himself. [00:17:23]

And here is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And if you don't know this, geographically, it is located on the side of the Kidedron Valley. So he is in a literal geographical valley praying in this garden in his own internal valley feeling the pressure so much so that blood comes from his sweat glands dropping on the ground. It's been medically proven it can happen. He's under such immense pressure and in the moment he goes but not my will but yours be done. [00:18:21]

The word Gethsemane means oil press. And it it is it is just flooded with olive trees, beautiful olive trees. And the olive tree is self um renewing. And so those olive trees that are there, some of them are thousands of years old. So the actual trees that were in the garden when Jesus went to pray himself. It's quite amazing to see. And these olives grow on it and they're hard as rocks until the rainy season. [00:19:02]

And as they mature, then they are picked. And once they're picked, then they're pressed so that oil can come out of them. Because you could eat one olive and then it's gone. But if you have the oil, it'll last a whole lot longer. Are you following me? In the Old Testament, the oil is often used as a symbol of the power and the presence of God in your life. And I just want to say to you today, isn't it beautiful how Jesus was pressed in the oil press? [00:19:34]

And so the oil that came out of his life was the oil of our forgiveness and the oil of our salvation and the oil of our healing was taken care of, I believe, when he surrendered in the garden that day. And I want to speak over somebody's life today. You've been following Jesus and you're here and you are in a valley moment right now. You're in your own garden going, "God, where are you? God, what are you doing? God, if there's another way, let that be the way." [00:19:59]

And you feel like you are in a pressing. I just want you to know that in the greatest pressing is where the greatest presence of Almighty God shows up in your life. I want you to know he hasn't left you. He hasn't forsaken you. He hasn't forgot about you. He's strengthening something on the inside of you that you're going to need in the days ahead. There is fresh oil coming out of you. There's fresh joy coming out of you. There's fresh hope and strength coming out of you. [00:20:24]

If anyone enters by me he will be saved and he will go in and come out and find pasture. What does that mean find pasture? It means this when you enter through the door of Jesus you're going to have a fulfillment that money can't give you. That food can't give you. That sexual encounters can't give you. that alcohol can't give you, that drugs can't give you, that pornography can't give you, that a new career can't give you, that another promotion can't give you, that a new car can't buy you, that the right neighborhood can't give you. [00:21:16]

Jesus will give your soul a fulfillment that you can't find anywhere else in the world. He said, I am the door. And then he goes on to say in verse 10 of that same chapter, the thief comes not except to kill, steal, and destroy. That's the vision statement of the devil. Sounds like the valley of Acor, a place of robbery, a place of killing, a place of destruction in our lives. But Jesus said this, "But I've come that they may have life and have it more abundantly." [00:21:38]

I'm so grateful that Jesus didn't stay in the Garden of Gethsemane. But that night he would be betrayed by Judas, one of his own that he had brought in close. And he would be dragged away by Roman guards. And he would be lashed 39 times with the cat of nine tales, which was full of rock and stone and glass. And they would so wrap it around an individual's body, then pull it so it would shred the skin on their back. [00:22:48]

But because he loves you and because he loves me, he let him put nails through his hands and nails through his feet and a spear in his side and blood and water would flow out. Why? To cover the sins of all humanity. To pay the price to make atonement. He said, "I love you this much." And while on the cross, he would look down at the people and to the father pray, "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing." [00:23:37]

He had become the door. He had finished the work that God had sent into the earth to do. That no longer would humanity have to walk around disconnected from their creator. But it is finished. You don't have to do the work. I don't have to do the work. Jesus did all the work for us on the cross of Calvary. But thank God he didn't stay on the cross. After he had died, his friends took him off the cross and they put him in a tomb. [00:24:37]

Three days later on Easter Sunday, the stone would roll away and he would come out victorious over death, hell, and the grave, proving that he is the son of God with the power to take away the sin of the world. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the one that can forgive sin. He is our hope. He is our peace. He is not here. He has risen just like he said he would. [00:24:59]

But here's the deal. You have a choice whether or not you walk through the door. It's the way a real relationship works. If if I were to have gone to Tammy in those days of dating and said, "You're going to love me. You're going to date me. And if you don't, I'm going to hunt you down." That's called going to prison. The very nature of love is that you get to choose it and it gets to choose you. [00:25:37]

And God in his infinite mercy took the risk that our choice would be rejection. I would go as far as to say he took the risk knowing we would choose to reject him. And he went to the cross anyways. And he bore your sin anyways. And he bore your shame anyways. and he walked right into your valley and made a door of hope. But it's up to you to walk through it. [00:25:59]

The Apostle Paul, who wrote the book of Romans in the New Testament, says it this way. If you'll confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, meaning God, I'm I'm done doing life my way. I'm done living in apathy. I'm done calling the shots. I'm done having the reigns of my life. I'm surrendering my whole life to you. I'm going to walk the way you want me to walk, talk the way you want me to talk. I'm going to do the things you want me to do. I want you to have my heart. [00:26:30]