Trusting God's Plan Amidst Life's Crises

1) "But what about another story? What about an upper story? What about a God that intervenes in the lives of mere mortal humans and you can actually see it? What about that story? What about a story where you're not alone, where compassion is issued by a covenant-keeping God? You see, if we don't see the upper story of what God is doing in the book of Ruth, we will miss what God is doing. We'll just see it from a redemptive point of view of someone saw a widow in need, two widows in need, and help them out along the way after great calamity. But could there be something going on greater in the entire biblical text? Well, I think there is something going on greater. And it continues to go on to this day." [36:31] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "Our faith, especially in the lower story, is tested during a time of crisis. It's always tested. In your lower story, if you're going through something today, and you're going through a personal crisis, or maybe you're going through a financial crisis, or whether you're going through a vocational crisis, or whatever it is, parenting crisis, whatever it is, that's a time and a testing of your faith. And so when we look at the way that Ruth is set up, and it starts out like this, in the J, when the judges, ruled there was a famine in the land. Man, that's one strike and two strike. Number one, the judges didn't rule very well. And often when they did rule, people still did whatever they wanted to. But second, one of the big three was coming after the people in those days." [39:44] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "But I will tell you, in the middle of the crisis, the best thing you can do is to look to the God of heaven. Because the God of heaven in the upper story is gonna do something amazing in the lower story. Amazing. James 1, 2 through 3 reminds us this, brothers. May I remind you all of this today if you are in a crisis. Count it all, Joey, brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking for nothing. Trials have a way of really bullying out our character, don't they? They just have a way of doing it." [51:15] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "And often sometimes we feel like God has forgotten us in our own personal crisis. But I can tell you, you may feel, that's why we did an emotion study, you may feel God has forgotten you. But I will tell you, church, God never forgets us. God never forgets us. Even when you go through hard times. Even if you can't see his radiant glory, he never forgets us. He doesn't forget you in your lower story because his upper story is so powerful and dynamic and sovereign and good and graceful. And so we see the divine hand from the upper story into the lower story." [54:49] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "The basic idea, I love what Ed Welch says. He says this, that the basic idea is that those who are in the house of bread, those who help best, are the ones who both need help and give help. The healthy community is dependent on all of us being both. Do you know what a healthy church looks like? A healthy church looks like those who need help and those who give help and all of us knowing that we're at both places. That's a healthy church. I will preach. Amen. That's where we are. That's it. It's not the spiritual elite and the people who are here. No. By God's grace, it's all Jesus Christ and by his gospel. And we both need help. And we both can give help." [01:05:21] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "And my friend, if you are far off, if you feel like this life is not worth the living, if you felt like you've gone through all the things, I will tell you based upon the authority of the scripture and based upon the power and the blood covenant of Jesus Christ that he is here and he is alive and you can put his faith in, you can put your faith in him. That cross and that blood is still as active today. And so today, I ask you to come. Maybe you need prayer today. Some of our elders will be here, but maybe you need to place your faith and have someone change your heart. Jesus is in the heart changing business, amen. And I would love to share how he changed my heart with you today." [01:10:01] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)