BCC Modern Service 9/12/2021

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] everyone i stand and worship together and let's just worship god [Music] amen grace [Music] you are here [Music] you are here working in this place i worship you [Music] i worship you you are [Music] i worship you i worship you you are here you're working in this place i worship you i worship you [Music] light in the darkness my god that is [Music] keep light in the darkness my god that is who you are you [Music] [Applause] you [Music] you [Music] how is [Music] that is [Music] [Applause] [Music] that yeah who you are [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you never [Music] that is [Music] is that is who you are [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] bless you father amen amen hey everybody how you doing awesome it's so good to see everybody in this place today it is so good to come together and to praise god together it's so important for our spiritual walk and so i'm so glad that you're here i'm so glad that everyone is watching online thank you for joining us my name is stacy and it is good to be here and if you are new with us whether you are in this room whether you're watching online we're glad that you are a part of our worship service today and we want to know who you are and so if you would take the time just to text the word guest to the number 480-933-1482 we can text you a link for a 10 gift card it's a pretty cool little gift and we can also learn who you are so we would love it if you would do that so we're going to keep singing and this next song that we're singing we're we're talking about joy and i think we can all agree that life is messy and complicated and hard yet we can still have joy because we have hope in what's to come we have faith in a great god who is faithful in all things just like this scripture says so here listen to this dichotomy here even though the fig trees have no blossoms and there are no grapes on the vines even though the olive crops fail and the fields lie empty and barren even though the flocks die in the fields and the cattle barns are empty yet i will rejoice in the lord i will be joyful in the god of my salvation amen amen jesus made a way for us and if that is the only blessing we ever receive in this life that is way more than we could ever deserve right can i get an amen in here right so that is why we can praise him and that is why we can have joy so let's sing [Music] yeah come on [Music] worship the god who was we worship the god who is we worship the god whoever will be opened the prison doors he parted the raging sea my god he holds the victory [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] we sing to the god who heals we sing to the god who saves we sing to the god who always makes a way cause he hung up on that cross then he rose up from that grave my god [Music] our god is surely [Music] [Music] and now we're royalty we were the prisoners and now we're running free we are forgiven except and we did by his grace let the house of the lord sing foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] let the house [Music] [Music] there's joy in the house of the lord our god is surely in this place and we won't be quiet [Music] and we won't be quiet [Music] [Music] [Music] amen [Music] we bless you father [Music] friday's disappointment is sunday's empty tomb [Music] since when that's impossible [Music] this is the praise make a dead man walk again open the grave i'm coming out i'm gonna live gonna live again this is the sound of tribe tribal traveling [Music] pentecostal fire stirring something new you're not gonna run out of miracles anytime soon [Music] i believe there's another miracle here in this room this [Music] this is the phrase [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] gotta believe this next part sing it out come on my god is able to save and [Music] just ask the man who of was if there's anything that he can't do [Music] [Music] happens when god [Music] this is the praise [Music] gonna live again [Music] [Applause] again this is [Music] amen you can be seated [Music] hey there everyone my name is garrett and i'd like to tell you about what's coming up at broadway so check this out oasis is starting back up on wednesday september 8th at noon in the family life center enjoy solid biblical teaching over lunch prepared by bcc volunteers all for just five dollars this is a great way to build community and get closer to god sign up each week at bccmesa.com info our next mission trip to build a house in rocky point mexico is happening november 11th through the 14th come learn more at the info meeting it's at noon on sunday september 12th in the south lobby classroom details and registration are available at bccmesa.com info vcc women's ministry is going all out this fall they've got bible studies starting tuesday september 14th and the my body god's temple event happening on saturday september 18th learn more and sign up today at bccmesa.com info if you have any questions about any of our events or just want to learn more about us stop by the kiosk in the lobby or visit bccmesa.com info on your computer tablet or phone you can also connect with us on social media at bcc mesa have a great day and thanks for letting us be a part of it [Music] church uh you got to love that scratching needle on across the vinyl record right doesn't that kind of get you in your gizzard a little bit well good morning church i'm john i'm one of the pastors here i want to welcome you we've got people in the house people online however uh you are with us today we're just glad you're here thanks for showing up and hey the band was cooking today right i mean what's what songs boy those last two songs were just amazing i love that that that song called rattle and what a what an image that is what god can do our god can do anything amen now unto him who was able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine that's the kind of god that we serve that's who he is hey before i launch into today's message let me give you a preview of next time starting next sunday we're beginning uh a series well actually we're kind of returning to a very popular series that we do uh this time of the year and it's called at the movies and we're doing that because movies have a way of telling a story in a powerful way it's a great medium for telling stories but god has a story amen and what we want to do is look at some of the movies that are popular or have been popular and we're going to we're going to tell the story of god through those movies so i hope you'll come and this would be a great sermon series to bring an unchurched family member or friend with you someone that uh that is not familiar with church and this would be a great uh introduction to uh to who you are as a person of faith for your friend's perspective so hope you can bring somebody with you so show up next time and get ready for just a great sermon series uh all the way through the rest of uh september and then going into october now uh we're going to wrap up our sermon series today called the bible doesn't say that and so often we find ourselves saying things and believing that the bible says it but the truth is the bible doesn't say what we think it says and there are all kinds of things that we've through our lives believe that the bible says like that god helps those who help themselves and that sounds plausible except the bible says pretty much the opposite of that that god helps those who can't help themselves who recognize that they have a need here's another one cleanliness is next to godliness how many of you have ever heard that before cleanliness is next to godliness when i was a kid and my mom would walk into the bedroom that i shared with my brother she would look at the mess that we had made in our bedroom and she said come on the bible says cleanliness is next to godless clean this stuff up well it took me four years of bible college and three years of seminary to discover that the bible doesn't say that cleanliness is next to godliness so there you go when you think about misstatements and an inappropriate statements there's a baseball i was thinking back to a baseball player that i sort of idolized as a kid i when i was a boy my team was the new york yankees don't hate me for that okay i cheered for the yankees but like the bible says when i became a man i put away childish things amen so i quit cheering for the yankees but the yankees had one player that was the catcher his name was yogi berra and yogi is a hall of fame baseball player he's very well known for his playing abilities but almost as well known for the things that he said because yogi had these these sayings these statements that just they weren't quite like logical you know uh and they're called yogisms and people have been collecting these uh ever since he's been saying them for example here's one regarding a popular restaurant yogi said no one goes there anymore it's too crowded so that's why nobody goes to this crowded restaurant right he talked about the economy he said a nickel ain't worth a dime well it's never worth a dime when you think about it right uh this is a very familiar one to a lot of you uh yogi said about directions when you come to a fork in the road take it that is really sage advice when you come to a fork in the road take it and and he told his fellow baseball players about fan mail never answer an anonymous letter well thank you yogi for that sage wisdom right never answer an anonymous letter uh then yogi talked about baseball and he said that baseball is 90 mental and the other half is physical so i think you can tell that yogi wasn't real strong in the old math department amen i like this is my very favorite one yogi once said always go to other people's funerals otherwise they won't go to yours that is so true so true and finally one more yogi is said to have said i never said everything i said i never said everything i said which brings me to god never said everything that we think he said and the bible doesn't say everything that we think it says uh and one of those things that the bible really doesn't say is that god won't give you more than you can handle god won't give you more than you can handle does the bible really say that because sometimes when life is pressing in on you and you've got all kinds of pressure situations going on in your life maybe it's your own health maybe you or your loved one got a bad report from the doctor or there's a lot of financial stress in your life or or you've got a relationship that's kind of blown up and you don't know if you're ever going to be able to get back together or reconcile with that person or maybe the job situation is pretty shaky and you just feel like your plate is so full with all of the stuff that's going on in your life and and life gets that way sometimes and you think to yourself i just i don't know if i can take another thing and you ever felt that way i just can't take any more of this stuff and it never fails when you're in those moments and you're just hanging on to the bear just to the end of the rope you can barely hang on some well-meaning person sometimes a christian will come along and say something like well you know when god closes a door he opens a window when god have you ever heard somebody say that when god closes the door he oh what the heck does that mean anyway that doesn't sound like good news when you're on the 20th floor amen when god closes the door he opens a window like that's that's going to encourage you right and then they'll always add and plus you know you know that god won't give you more than you can handle well thanks for nothing when you tell me something like that that god won't be because it feels like i'm handling an awful lot right now in fact it's more than i ever would have wanted to handle so my goal in this sermon is that two things number one we'll gain a perspective on god and we'll be able to learn more about god which is what we should always do and the second thing is that maybe you'll scrub that statement from your vocabulary that god won't give you more than you can handle we say that and we think it sometimes so where in the world did that come from that statement come from well i'm pretty convinced that that's actually um a misinterpretation and a misapplication of a very par of a very powerful truth that the apostle paul spoke when he wrote to the church in corinth now the corinthian church by the way was filled with brand new believers and most of the christians in corinth that were in the church they had come from a very pagan lifestyle a very pagan background because that was corinth corinth was a port city and port cities in those days just like port cities in our days port cities were influenced by people from all over the world and and sometimes those influences were not good influences sometimes they are very pagan very very worldly very sinful and so here are these brand new baby christians just coming into faith the relationship with jesus and there's all these temptations to fall back into those pagan lifestyles and the temptations are really strong for the corinthians and so this is what paul says to them in first corinthians 10 god is faithful he will not let you be tempted there's the word tempted beyond what you can bear but when you are tempted he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it so the bible never says that god will give you more problems than you can endure that you can handle it doesn't what it does say is that god won't let you be tempted beyond your ability to say no to that temptation so paul is saying something in this verse and he's not saying something in this verse and what god is not saying and what paul is not saying in this verse is anything about the hardships that you face because sometimes we have hardships and loss and heartache and life and it just seems like it's oh so much he isn't talking about that at all so that's off the table what he is talking about is temptation and we're tempted all the time aren't we i mean jesus was tempted everybody in the bible was tempted you're tempted i'm tempted and the good news or the bad news is that you're going to be tempted every day until you die aren't you glad you came to church for this good news the temptation will never go away but the good news in this is that when you are tempted god will always provide a way out he will always give you an out he will always give you the ability to say no to temptation i'm tempted and it's well chronicled well known that one of my certain temptations is something called krispy kreme donuts i happen to have a soft spot for krispy kreme donuts to to show how strong i am not long ago maybe i've told you this before but not long ago i decided i would drive by the crispy cream store in case you don't know where it is it's exactly 2.3 miles from this very spot where i'm standing right here it's right on superstition right and i'm driving by i want to see if i have the ability to not go in and so i say i said lord if you don't want me to go in and get some donuts don't let there be an open spot right in front of the store don't let there be an open spot and sure enough the 13th time i drove around there it was that open spot so why is it now my wife is sitting over here to you you're right one day not and she'll verify this one day not long ago i said i'm going to start eating right i'm going to cut down in my portions cut down on my sweets why is it that that was the day somebody brought in a box of krispy kreme donuts the day i said that did i have to eat the donuts that day did i have was it beyond my ability to to not eat the donuts did i have to give in you know who did that to me why did that happen i mean was god up in heaven with all he's got going on and he looks around at the world in which we live and says well now there's war and greed and poverty and racism and covet and all that stuff that's happening oh let's see john and ethnic says he's going to eat right well quick get a boss of christmas became donuts so let's put them in front of him you think that's what god does was god the author of my temptation church yes or no no no all i was the author of my temptation and god had already given me more than i needed to avoid it i didn't have to give in to the krispy kremes that's minor that sometimes for some of us the temptation is much higher the stakes are sky high in the ways that we're tempted we can be tempted to to inflict on ourselves pain and harm you know maybe to abuse alcohol or to abuse drugs or to be unfaithful in our marriage or maybe to cheat in school or perhaps to you know to take advantage of other people at work or maybe to be apathetic in a different in the face of all the evil and the sin and the suffering that we see in the world there's always a temptation for self-harm to do things to ourselves or to not to stand up when we need to stand up but when we are tempted no matter what it is no matter how strong the temptation is god has always provided for us a way out and that's what paul's talking about in this verse that in that crucial moment that you feel yourself wavering and it's like you could tip toward it or tip away from it and it's just so delicate right in that moment you don't have to give in you don't have to say yes to temptation and sometimes sometimes the temptation is so strong that all you can really do is look outside of yourself and maybe call someone maybe call a loved one or a friend or a mentor and say can you just help me through this moment right now because i feel so vulnerable and so weak i mean to admit that we need help is not a weakness to admit that we need god is not something that makes us inferior because we need god we were programmed to need god so here's the statement i really want to attack today that god won't give you more than you can handle let's just address the first four words when we say that what we're implying in that is that god is the one who is the author of the hard things in life that in his infinite wisdom god says i'm going to make it really hard for that person for that guy or that girl i want them to go through the ringer right now i want to see what they're really made of the fiber of their being so every christian should think twice before they go around saying well god wills bad things in our lives and here's the truth no matter how much you love god and no matter how faithful you are you will go through difficult times you will have hard experiences in life that will bend you almost to the breaking point and that's just the reality of life i mean just leave through the pages of the bible and notice all these godly men and women that had such difficult moments in their lives i i think of moses and here's moses just minding his own business he's an 80 year old man i mean he's in the last chapters of his life when god shows up there out there in the wilderness and says moses i want you to go back to egypt i want you to lead my people the israelites out of egypt and into the promised land and moses begins throwing up excuses i can't speak i'm slow of speech and he and finally god overpowers his reasoning and moses goes back and he leads the people out of egypt now they're out in the wilderness they're on their way toward the promised land but the israelites are complaining up one side and down the other and moses is up to here with us complaining and he looks up to the heavens and says god i'm so sick of these people just kill me now i want to be done with that that sounds like a lot to handle doesn't it or gideon gideon's an old testament man god speaks to him one day and says i want i want you gideon to lead the israelites in battle against your arch enemy the midianites and gideon doesn't even have to think about it he says to the lord my clan is the least of all the clans in our vast tribe and my family is the least of all the families in our clan and i am the least in the family i am not equipped to do this god i'm not your man i don't have what it takes you can see his response in the book of judges or esther esther is the queen of persia but she's a jew and the time comes when the jews are going to be annihilated and is on a certain day in persia esther as the queen has it within her to save her people from destruction and the call comes to her to do that and she is terrified or jesus here's jesus in the garden of gethsemane prime example in the garden of gethsemane hours before he's going to go to the cross and the bible says that his he was so anxiety ridden with this so filled with with stuff in his life that he began to sweat drops of blood he was in anguish and it says in mark 14 my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death so here's the thing when you or someone you love is really having a hard time in life i want you to remember this thing that god will help you handle all that you've been given that's the big idea for this message not that god won't give you more than you can handle but that god will help you handle all that you've been given that's the promise that god makes because sometimes life is hard sometimes life is not good sometimes we feel like we are going through the ringer but god wants us to know that he is our help and strength can i get an amen from somebody at some point in this message that's what peter talks about peter says give all your worries and cares to god why for he cares for you he cares for you i've been a pastor a long time and i've been in this church long enough to have walked with several of you through really difficult moments tough times and sometimes when you've lost a spouse or lost your job or your health has really really deteriorated and the outlook doesn't look good i wonder to myself sometimes how are they able to hold up under all of this stress and strain and pressure now how can they do it and yet somehow some way you've been able to pull through and my faith is encouraged and i've got to tell you that the faith of all of us is encouraged by the example of how you've been able to do so well in that so kudos to you in that moment now today what i want to do is i want to show you from the bible for those of you that are feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders right now that life has given you more than you can handle i want to i want to show you how god will help you handle whatever you've been given i want to teach you from scripture about that so here's the first lesson number one is to depend on god's presence depend on god's presence because that's one of the lessons of life god wants to teach us to depend on him and have you ever noticed by the way that when things are really really going well in life it's pretty easy to kind of put god in the back burner you ever notice that they kind of put him in a place of secondary importance i mean when when you've got the finances and the bills are being paid and your health is good and the job's good the relationships are good it's so easy to kind of ignore god it's not that you don't know that he's not that he's there you know it but but god isn't so present in your life maybe as other times there's just not that urgency you know when when everything is cool but but then things start trending downward as they all do for all of us and that's the moment that you begin to cry out to the lord god i need you why would god give us or god allow us things to happen in life why would he allow things to happen in life that sometimes are just overwhelming to us well i think the lesson is so that we'll learn the message and the lesson of depending on him in everything and for everything there's a great example of this in the old testament a prophet named jonah now if you know the story of jonah you know that god called jonah the prophet to go to the city of nineveh and preach a message of repentance to the people that live there well there's a problem because as a prophet jonah should have done that but he wasn't interested because he hated the people of nineveh they were cruel and barbaric people so jonah did what a lot of us had a lot of us have done at one time or another jonah rebelled against god just like we have rebelled against god we've turned our backs on god sometimes and instead of going this way toward nineveh he went this way in the opposite direction and through a series of events unusual events that happen in his life he finds himself on a ship in the middle of a raging storm at sea and the only recourse that the sailors have jonah says just throw me overboard i'm the cause of all the problems here so they throw jonah overboard and now he's in this boiling sea and it's almost certain he's going to drown but just then a large fish miraculously miraculously shows up and swallows jonah hole and now he's in the belly of the fish and like i've always said jonah had a whale of a time in the belly of a whale i don't know if it was a whale or not but he was having a great time in there no he wasn't he was worried sick i mean he was alive barely he's in this in the belly of a fish he doesn't know what's going on and here's what he says jonah 2 2 in my what's the next word church come on help me out i can't hear you in my what in my distress i called to the lord and he answered me notice what jonah did not say he did not say in my success he said in my distress i called to the lord in my distress i called out it's amazing how much we crave god in our distress see we tend to overlook god in our success but we crave god we need god we lean into god in our distress in my distress i called to the lord then he goes on to say in verse 7 when my life was ebbing away when i thought i was a goner i remembered you lord and my prayer rose to you when i was in over my head and this is a desperate situation for this guy he doesn't know if he's going to survive odds are he's not it says when it was more than i could handle i remembered you lord which is the challenge for all of us because life sometimes has a way of handling us more than we can really uh con encompass and you're in the middle of a storm and you start to wonder about god and you you say things like well if god loves me like the bible says he loves me then why is he letting this happen to me and if god is good all the time like people say god is good all the time then why in the world is he allowing this to come into my life why in the world is that happening and here's what i want you to remember never let the presence of a storm cause you to doubt the presence of god never come on somebody get excited this morning come on guys let's go never let the presence of a storm cause you to doubt the presence of god can i get an amen from anybody on this because every now and then the winds will blow and the waves will wash over you and you feel like you're going down for the last time and the presence of god will just show up don't ever allow the presence of a storm to cause you to doubt the presence of god so why would god allow us to have more than what we feel like we can handle well sometimes so that we'll learn to depend on him like jonah said it's in my distress not my success in my distress i called to the lord and he answered me and david talks about calling out to god when he says in psalm 145 the lord is near to all who call on him to all who call on him in truth some of you are in a storm right now not of your own choosing and you're going to remember to call on god this week you're going to remember to call on god today because when you seek him you will find him and when you draw near to god the bible promises he will draw near to you never let the presence of a storm cause you to doubt the presence of god why will god allow us to have things in life that are seemingly overwhelming to us in that moment i don't know that i can give you a complete answer today maybe some of these some of these things we will not ever figure out until eternity until we set foot in heaven and then the mysteries that have plagued us and the questions that have troubled us then finally they'll be realized there but i'm convinced that that when god allows tough things into our lives it's so that we'll learn to lean into him like never before because the reality is that when life is going well when you're on the mountaintop and things are just looking great for you it's pretty easy to forget god but when you're in the valley when things are not going so well in your life that's when you need to learn that god is there for you and i say this with all sincerity i'd rather be in the valley with jesus than on a mountaintop without him i much rather be in the valley with jesus and on the mountaintop without him and i don't know who needs this message right now some of you are hurting today some of you are going through difficult moments and you wonder can i stand up under all of this maybe the one thing god wants you to learn is to depend on him to lean into him there's a second lesson though and that's to experience god's power god allows us to experience difficult moments in life so that we'll know that he is near so we'll depend on him that's the first reason and and the second reason is to experience his power to help us experience the supernatural presence and the power of god because frankly some of us are trying to limb the christian life under our own power under our own steam and it just doesn't work as i was writing this message i thought about back to my childhood and into taking uh road trips with my family when i was a kid we'd go on vacation in the summertime and and i got to tell you back when i was a kid we didn't have in those days what children have today when you're taking a road trip in a car kids today have what ipads and video games and they can watch movies we had nothing like that in those days can i get an amen from somebody that remembers those days it was not good you had to entertain yourself and you'd fight with your siblings in the back seat it was not fun at all and we were going to take the longest road trip i'd ever taken up to that point in my life and my dad bought a brand new car a 1959 chevy i was about eight or nine years old a 1959 chevy and and chevy had three trim levels for this particular car they had the impala which was the top top model they had all the bells and whistles and then the bel air and then the biscayne and the biscayne was the cheapest of the cheapest of cars it had no options at all this was the kind of car that taxi companies brought for their taxi cars or for fleet companies you know they'd buy a car like the chevy biscayne so dad brought this car home and it had it had no automatic tr it had a three in the tree anybody here know what a three in the tree is you can google it if you want to anybody here ever drive a three on the tree all right a few of you know what i'm talking about it had no power windows no power seats no power brakes no power anything didn't even have a radio which didn't matter because it didn't have air conditioning so when you're driving across the country like we were going to do in the hot summer you had to have all four windows down just to catch any kind of coolness at all and the seats were vinyl so we're sticking to the seats you know how miserable that is we had what's called 470 air conditioning right that's as you drive you pour all four windows down and you drive 70 miles an hour and pray to god that there's a breeze somewhere along the way then again it sounded like an aircraft carrier in the back seat because you couldn't even hear anybody it was so noisy you know just the wind you're just buffing it and beating you at the end of the day you just felt absolutely wiped out by that trip and here i am in the back seat and i'm squeezed over in the corner my sister's next to me and my brother my bigger brother's next to her we're trying not you can't touch each other because that's a cardinal rule you never violate you don't touch your sibling so you're uh you're elbowing you're trying to create your own space and all i had didn't have an ipad didn't have movies didn't have video games i had this little cheap you know those green army soldiers you know little cheap ones like the two cent soldier that's all i had for the entire trip and i would just play with it you know trying to uh you know how far 800 miles is trying to play with a little toy like that 800 miles it was hot it was miserable it was sticky we were fighting we were crabby and finally my dad said i bet you can't hold that little soldier yours out the window for the rest of the trip i bet you can't do it we had about two hours to go and there was no payoff there was no reward there was no here's a dollar if you can do it or you get to stay past your bedtime if you can do it or here's a lollipop just i bet you can't do it right and i thought i'll show him i'll show him that i can do it so i i held that little toy soldier out the window you know what it's like to try to hold on to something when you're moving 70 mi 70 miles an hour down the road i had a death grip on that little soldier right but i mean it all the way and i thought i showed you dad it was only 20 years later when we had kids of our own that i realized my dad was just bluffing me the whole way he just wanted to keep me occupied that's all he was doing but my fingers are so wrapped around that soldier i had to pry them off the soldier by the time i got to the end and i think about this morning about that this morning because i was holding on to that and holding onto that and holding on to that just like some of you are holding on to your own life and you're living life under your own power because you have believed the lie that god will never give you more than you can handle and you have never let go of your life and let god take control you've never learned to live under the power of the holy spirit and allow him to take control and precedence in your life you were never meant you were never created to do life on your own successfully you can only be successful under the power that god gives you the power of his presence the power of the holy spirit the strength that he gives you can never hold on to it by yourself you have to be able to let go and let god the apostle paul talked about this thorn in his flesh and we don't know what the thorn was we don't know if it was a physical ailment that he had if it was a relationship in his life it's probably something physical and maybe it impeded his work as an as an apostle but here's what paul said about this in second corinthians 12 he wrote three different times i begged the lord to take it away take it away god take it away each time god said my grace is all you need my power is made perfect in weakness and by the way that verse doesn't mean that paul prayed three times like morning noon and night like breakfast lunch and dinner it means that paul had three significant seasons of life where he called out to god god would you take it away from me this is more than i can handle and i think of paul in his thorn and if anybody was a candidate to have the thorn removed to be healed of whatever it was i think paul would have been the candidate just on the basis of merit alone paul was at the top of the list because of who he was to have this burden removed and it never got removed for the rest of his life and the time will come i promise you if you walk with god long enough in this sin-filled world that something will come into your life and you will begin to cry out and beg god take it away god why won't you answer my prayer why won't you heal my marriage why won't you help me with my depression that never goes away why can't you turn my child back to you why does god allow us to have more than we can handle why does that happen and that's where paul was he questioned all of this and then god spoke something so powerfully to him that paul wrote it down and this is the takeaway for us verse 9 says again each time he said my grace is all you need my power is made perfect in weakness therefore everybody say therefore therefore i will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that christ's power may rest on me that is why for christ's sake i delight listen to this i take pleasure in my weaknesses i'm happy for them for when i am weak then i am strong say that with me for when i am weak then i am strong do you believe that this morning that when you are weak then you are strong see the weaknesses and and and the thorns that you carry in life become the scars of your life and those scars become a part of your story and yours is a beautiful story if you can bear those scars for this for the glory of god bethany hamilton is probably a name that most of you know she's now a wife and mom this is an old photo but bethany as you probably remember was a teenager when she was surfing and she was attacked by a shark and obviously lost her arm and she said something that was so profound i wanted to share it with you she said i've had the chance to embrace more people with one arm my weakness than i ever could have with two and i don't know who needs this message today exactly but god knows who needs to hear what we have to say today that that when we are in the pressures of life and the stresses of life and the strains of life and what we need to realize is that you were created by god to need god to depend on god to depend on his presence and to depend on his power and i pray that if you learn that lesson that you will experience god in a new way and that you'll also realize this one very powerful truth that when you are weak in your life then god is strong god is strong amen church bow your heads with me would you father i thank you for the lessons of this day i thank you lord that the way you created us and the way you designed us was to need you to depend on you and father thank you that even when we go through the valley even when we go through challenging and trying moments whatever those may be whether it's a relationship that's been lost or a loved one that's passed or a health situation that's just overwhelming or financial pressures or or a job situation that's just so shaky whatever it is god that we would know that you are there with us and for us and you promise us in in your word that when we call you will answer and when we draw near to you you god will draw near to us be with us in the valleys lord be our strength and our shield we ask in jesus name at the close of this service i'm going to be here at the front listen if there's a spiritual decision that you would make in your life if you've not trusted in christ i can't think of a better moment than today to make that all-important decision so we'll continue our service but remember i'll be here at the front instead of going that way come this way and let's pray and let's talk about whatever the need is in your life god bless you hey everyone my name is tim and i'm going to be leading us through offering and communion this morning so right now it's offering time want to welcome anybody who's uh following with us online today as well just to remind you uh that you can give a lot of different ways here at broadway you can go to bccmesa.com giving and give your ties and offerings there you can go to our push pay app search bcc mesa and be able to give kind of on a recurring basis or if you're here in person go ahead and drop your uh offering in the boxes at the back of the room on your way out so this morning as i was uh kind of preparing for for a communion meditation um not that i wait till the last minute or anything like that but things come to my heart come to my mind um you know in life and and one of the things that that came to me was just this idea of somebody coming into this room for the first time maybe somebody said to them you know have you heard about jesus and instead of saying yeah i don't care they were like you know what maybe i do want to learn about jesus and so they came into this room and they hear us sing the second song of the day today was about joy in the house of the lord and they're like how in the world do these people have joy with everything going on in the world right now right we have this this virus that just continues to hold on we have christians being persecuted all over the world and we're sitting here and we're singing there's joy in the house of the lord we're singing things like we were the beggars now we're royalty we were the prisoners now we're running free and i can't help but think somebody who doesn't have any kind of background in church or whatever comes into this room and thinks these people are absolutely crazy because there's no reason for joy i'll give you another example we stacy and i were shopping yesterday we walked out the door of a costco and you got to get your receipt checked and the lady said thank you so much for smiling and say she looked at me she said this is where we are in the world now there's there's just there's no joy anymore but i'm here to tell you that we can have joy and we can have joy because we sang later in the service today friday's disappointment is sunday's empty tomb let me tell you what that means that means that god sent his one and only son here to earth to live as a man to minister for a time to be handed over to death on a cross on what we call good friday if you can even imagine the feeling of despair that people had who had been following him and seen his miraculous works and now it was over because he was dead but three days later god performed a miracle raised him from the dead to defeat death once and for all and so that's what we remember right now when we take of the emblems of communion [Music] this is our time to thank god for that sacrifice of sending his one and only son to defeat death on our behalf this is also our time that we can ask for forgiveness for our sins we can kind of get right with god so in just a second i'd like you to go to one of the tables in the four corners of the room and get the emblems and bring them back to your seat spend some time meditating on those things once everybody has them we've given sufficient time then we'll all take it together so go now [Music] [Music] [Music] the bread represents the body of christ that was beaten and bruised for you and for me take and eat [Music] and the cup represents the blood of christ that was poured out for your sins and for mine taken drink [Music] and the scripture tells us that as often as we eat the bread and drink the cup do we proclaim his coming until he comes again amen amen [Music] worship right now [Music] you bring down the walls of jericho you're the god who gives the miracle what we believe [Music] who brings the dead to life [Music] great things [Music] there is more [Music] we are confident [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] victoria [Music] the god who never failed [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all of our future is [Music] [Applause] [Music] all of our [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] great things [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] we've seen every victory for everything we've seen [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so we've come to the conclusion of our service but i want you to know that as you walk with god right there is more to come there's more excitement to come right more grace more learning more growing right continue to walk with him there's more love for you to give out to people right we need to give that out just walk with them throughout the week right and just keep them by your side keep them in your heart all right again if you are new with us we'd love to connect with you please text us at 480-933-1482 so we can get to know you and other than that have a great week amen [Music] you

Channel: Broadway Christian Church Mesa

Views: 104

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Id: ReXWI1mgnw4

Length: 70min 20sec (4220 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 06 2021