Faith in the Midst of a Crisis

[Music] [Music] you [Music] you good alright hey everyone happy Easter and if Easter offends you then I'll just say happy Resurrection Sunday and if Resurrection Sunday offends you then I'll just say happy Sunday and if happy Sunday offends you then you may not be happy because this is a wonderful day I hope everybody is having a good time today a hope that we are all celebrating the death burial and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ now I understand that some people have had the idea that Easter is a pagan holiday and all these things so I just want to take a moment and just explain why I personally take some time out of my year to celebrate Resurrection Sunday if you don't want to call it Easter that's fine but listen there is never a bad time to celebrate what God has done through sending his son Jesus Christ to die a death that we should have died and to pay the price for our sins that we should have paid for it and so it's it's it's a good thing for us to take some time out of our year and just reflect and just meditate and just remember what Jesus actually went through on that cross whenever they were flogging him whenever they were beating him with sticks whenever they were spitting in his face and twisting a crown of thorns on his head and all of these different things he did all of that so that you and I could have fellowship with him and have a relationship with him and ultimately spend eternity with him so while we're allowing a few other people to join in let me know where you're coming in from all right I'd love to see where we are broadcasting all throughout the world so let me know where you are so I'm gonna go ahead and check out let's see we got some people from Africa we've got some people from the States and Philippines and my wife is over here she's out of the frame so you'll see her a little bit later we're gonna come on and do some Q&A and kind of hang out with you guys for just a minute but let's see where else everybody is and also let me know if you can hear me and see me okay give me a thumbs up because anytime you do live there's always possibility of technical issues and so we're gonna have a good time in the Lord today we're gonna have some worship alright we've got people from the UK I don't even know what time it is I think it's like six hours difference we got London we got Germany we got Maryland awesome awesome alright we've got a few other people chiming in here as well we got the LA Los Angeles California awesome the Philippines we got a lot of subscribers from the Philippines and so that is awesome all right wonderful wonderful thank you all so much for just taking a little bit of your time today on this very special day to join me and hang out with me um so today what we're gonna do is we're gonna do something a little different than our normal lives we're gonna start off with a little prayer time and then many of you may not realize this but years ago I used to be a watch and say I used to but I'm a worship leader I've led worship for many many years and so we're just gonna sing together one song and I really want to encourage you to just join with me and sing this song it's a very well-known song and I think it's appropriate for the Easter holiday or the Resurrection Sunday holiday and then we're gonna spend about 25 minutes in the Word of God and then my wife and I are going to just do some Q&A and just hang out with you guys and hopefully get to know you all better and vice-versa so let's not waste any more of your time and let's go ahead and start with a word of Prayer gracious God we come before you today and we just thank you we thank you that you loved us enough even though we are not worthy of your love we thank you that you have forgiven us of all of our sins everything that we've said everything that we've done and everything that we even think about is forgiven because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and so right now god I just lift my hands to you and I just celebrates you right now I thank you that you were willing to leave heaven to come to earth and not be a king but be a carpenter not come to be served but to serve and to give your life as a ransom for many god I just thank you as I commemorate today I think about how Jesus was was was stripped of his clothes I think about how he was humiliated I think about how they took clubs and and and and sticks and different things and beat him I think about how they put little pieces of metal at the end of these leather whips and they they whipped him and as they pulled those whips back it lacerated his skin allowing blood to trickle down on his back and on his forehead lord I think about how you put a crown of thorns on your head and mocked you and said oh you're not the King of the Jews and they twisted that crown of thorns so those thorns dug into your forehead and your brow so that more blood came trickling down I think about how they pierced you in the side I think about how they nailed your feet and your your risk to the Cross God and as I think about all of these different things and how how they say they brought an immense amount of suffering to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ this morning all I can say is thank you thank you because we are not worthy of it so god I pray that your spirit would lead us and guide us today in this discussion in your word in Jesus name we pray and give thanks amen all right so I want to encourage you to just join me in a little bit of worship today as we celebrate our God amen amen hallelujah got it if you know this song it's just a song that talks about Jesus resurrection and the name of it is resurrecting and you should hopefully hear a little bit of music here but I'm just going to sing it through about what to encourage you as the words come up on the screen that you would sing it in worship well amen the head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now the Savior now to wash our feet now at his feet we bow thank you lord the one who wore our sin and shame now robed in majesty the radiance of perfect love now shines for all to see your name your name is victory Oh praise will rise to Christ our King your name your name is victory or praise will rise to Christ our King hallelujah Lord we worship you we thank you God you are worthy of all the praise the fear that held us now gives way to him who is our peace the final breath upon the cross is now alive in me your name your name is victory oh praise will rise to Christ our King your name your name is victory Oh praise will rise to Christ our King [Music] we worship You God you worthy of all the praise and all the owner and by your spirit I will rise from the ashes of defeat the resurrected King is resurrecting me in your name I come alive to declare your victory the resurrected King is resurrecting me by your spirit I will rise from the ashes of defeat the resurrected King is resurrecting me in your name I come alive to declare your victory the resurrected King is resurrecting me by your spirit I will rise from the ashes of defeat the resurrected King is resurrecting me in your name I come alive to declare your victory the resurrected King is resurrecting me [Applause] [Music] the tomb where soldiers watched in vain was borrowed for three days his body there would not remain our God has robbed the grave our God has wronged the grain [Applause] [Music] your name your name is victory ho praise will rise to Christ our King your name your name is victory all praise will rise to Christ our King by a spirit on the rise from the ashes of defeat the resurrected King is resurrecting me in your name I come alive to declare your victory the resurrected King is resurrecting me spirit I will rise from the ashes of the resurrected King is resurrecting me [Music] [Music] in your name I come alive to declare your victory his resurrecting [Laughter] he's resurrecting [Music] his resurrecting me the resurrected King his resurrecting me [Music] hallelujah God we thank you we thank you God that you indeed are the God who not only resurrected but you're the God that resurrects us you ready to resurrect dead relationships you resurrect dead marriages you resurrect a dead faith you resurrect our dead hopes you resurrect our dead finances Lord you are the king that is resurrecting us and God we thank you that the same blood that was in Jesus Christ rather the same power that was in Jesus Christ that that allowed him to rise from the dead is that same power that is alive in us as well god we thank you today and we love you and praise you in Jesus name we pray amen all right everybody thank you once again for being here with us we're gonna jump into the Word of God today and today we're going to be looking at a very familiar passage of Scripture maybe not super familiar to everyone but it's found in John chapter 14 verses 1 through 6 and today I just want to encourage someone because we're living in a time where there's a lot of crisis there's a lot of uncertainty there's all sorts of things going on in our world and now as a time more than ever where we as believers need to have faith in the midst of a crisis and so this morning we're gonna talk about how to have faith in the midst of a crisis and so I'm going to begin reading here in John chapter 14 and you should see this on your screen here in just a moment and we're gonna begin reading in verse 1 and it says not your hearts be troubled believe in God believe also in me in my father's house are many rooms if it were not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am you may also be and you know the way to where I am going Thomas said to him Lord we do not know where you're going how can we know the way Jesus said to him I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me once again faith in the midst of crisis let's pray go out God we thank you so much for your word we thank you though our Lord that you are sovereign over all in the midst of the craziness that's going on in our world in our nation in our our country God that you are sovereign and you're in total control of all things bless your word today God fill me with your spirit and may it fall on good soil it's in your son Jesus name we pray amen ok so several years ago when my wife and I were dating we dated long distance and so there were some periods of time that we would visit one another and we would say stay sometimes three four or five days at a time and you know for the first couple of days whenever we were hanging out man it was so much fun there was so much joy there was so much bliss laughter and all sorts of great things but as we sensed that our time together was coming to a close normally either the day before we would have to go back to our respective cities or even the day of we would be filled with this sense of sadness because we knew that it was going to be a long time before we would actually see each other again and so there is that that is type is somewhat of what is actually happening here in the book of John chapter 14 now I love the chapter and verse notations that we have in our translations but sometimes they can get in the way because really what we're looking at here in John chapter 14 is a unit of Scripture called the Upper Room discourse and it extends from John chapter 13 all the way through John chapter 16 and many would include Jesus's prayer in John chapter 17 his high priestly prayer which was the very last thing that he prayed for his disciples and also for us and so all of this is taking place in the Upper Room and they are sensing that their time together his coming is coming to a close they're sensing that Jesus as he's been telling them all along that is getting ready to go to the cross and all of these different things they're sensing that this time has finally come after traveling with Jesus for some three and a half years and Jesus is giving them final instructions and there's this there's this poignant there's this beautiful passionate passage of Scripture that we see in chapter 13 where Jews excuse me where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and all of these different things and so as you can imagine they are filled with all sorts of fear and trepidation and worry and notice in verse one Jesus says do not let your hearts be troubled now let's do a little bit of Greek here that word this is actually a present imperative and basically what that means is Jesus is giving them a command and he's telling them something that is already in an action it's something that's already happening is something that they're already doing and essentially Jesus is saying stop it stop letting your hearts be troubled stop being stressed and this word troubled it just means to be agitated it means to be shaken and these it means to be stirred up it means to be to be filled with a sense of terror and and fright and confusion and all of these things and now the question is why Jesus tell these men not to be troubled well if you go back and you look at chapter 13 and some of the other scriptures that are related to this you'll see that there are several things that cause these men to be agitated and to be troubled and to be filled with fear and one of them was in John chapter 7 verse 34 where Jesus said you will seek me and you will not find me where I am going you cannot come so if you can imagine these men have been with Jesus for three-and-a-half years and now Jesus saying wait a second I'm going somewhere and where I'm going you can't come and this this threw them for a loop but not only that in Luke chapter 22 verse 31 it says Simon Simon behold Satan has demanded to have you or to sift you like wheat but I have prayed for you that whenever you fail your faith wouldn't when ever you fail your faith would not fail and so we see here that now they're there thinking about wow Satan is after us Satan is trying to sift us and Jesus saying he's going away and we don't know where he's going and wherever he's going we can't follow him so they're confused they're like what's going on but not only that earlier in John chapter 13 we see that Jesus predicts that he's going to be betrayed as a matter of fact it says here Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified truly truly I say to you one of you will betray me and so we know from other scriptures that it was Judas and we see that Jesus says one of you is a devil and so now they're all confused they're all nervous they're filled with fear because now they're like wow one of our twelve one of them one of our crew is actually going to betray Jesus and Jesus is going away and Satan is trying to attack us but now not only that the main leader Peter Jesus predicts his denial it says in John chapter thirteen verse 38 truly truly I say to you the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times now this is after Peter was super confident and he was like nah nah Jesus if you have to go to the cross I'm gonna come and die with you you can count on me you can count on the rock and Jesus like nah no not Peter Shh just just chill with all that before the rooster even crows three times you are going to deny me and so there's all these different things that are happening that are causing their hearts to be agitated and troubled but not only that in John chapter 12 Jesus now gets more specific and tells them that he's actually going to die not just go away somewhere but he's actually going to die it says and I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself he said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die and so now if you can imagine they've been hanging out with Jesus for three and a half years they've traveled with him they've walked with him they've learned from him they watched him do all these miracles they've hung out with him everything they they they know they learned from him and now he's saying he's about to die and then finally in Matthew chapter 26 verse 31 and this might be the kicker jesus said to them you will all fall away because of me this night so if you can imagine they're like what is about to happen that's gonna cause Judas to betray him our leader Peter to deny him three times and then all of us are getting ready to fall away from him and so knowing that they are filled with all of this trepidation and fear Jesus says let not your hearts be troubled you know we're living in some very uncertain times and it's why I picked this passage of Scripture because I can imagine a lot of you have troubled hearts you're shaken up you're stirred you you're agitated you don't have peace you're confused you're perplexed and oftentimes whenever we experience this it's normally because of one of three reasons number one oftentimes our hearts are troubled because of our family often times like like these disciples were worried about our loved ones were worried when we turn on the news and we see this coronavirus and we see the kovat 19 and we see all these different things that are going on in our world in our country and our society we're worried that maybe my family member is going to contract this virus and and maybe something's going to happen to them or maybe they're going to lose their job or maybe they're gonna lose a loved one or something of that nature so we find ourselves oftentimes worried about our family but not only that excuse me we tend to worry about our finances as well many of us are worried about how we're going to pay our bills and how we're going to make ends meet and all of these different things and I can speak from personal experience you may notice the different setup right here I'm actually in them in the in my math tutoring center right here because we're in the midst of a transition my family and I but this is hitting my math tutoring business hard and if it weren't for my faith that I'm going to talk about in just a little bit I would be troubled I would be agitated I would be irritated I would be nervous I would be perplexed and confused about whether God was going to really provide for me in this area of my finances and I know that many of you have been affected by this and you're worried and you're troubled by your finances but not only that the third thing that often times troubles us is this area of our future we start to think what does my future look like what what is my life going to be about how much life do I actually have left to live will I even be around to see my grandchildren and my children grow up and all of these different things and so we worry about all of these things and so today in our passage of Scripture I just want to suggest three shifts that we need to make in this area of our faith so that whenever we're facing any crisis whether it's dacovia 19 crisis or whether it's a personal crisis a health crisis a marriage crisis whatever it is a relationship crisis that we can have a faith that will stand in the midst of any crisis and the first thing but we have to do is that we have to shift from worldly faith to godly faith let me repeat that we've got to make a shift from worldly faith to godly faith notice what Jesus says here he says let not your hearts be troubled and then he gives them the reason he says believe in God now that word believed just simply means to be confident that a thing is will be and has been and so one of the reasons why many of us struggle in our area of faith is that we're putting our faith in everything else but God notice Jesus says have faith in God he doesn't say have faith in your job have faith in your 401 K have faith in your doctors to heal you have faith in the stock market have faith in the government have faith in a politician this is why we have faith that's always going up and down because we're oftentimes placing our faith and all sorts of other things that are unsteady and shaking we're fake placing right right now in the United States I don't know where you're tuning in from but this is an election year for us and I see so many Christians that are Soudan hurt vus about who is going to be the next president and I laugh because I'm not nervous at all because we serve a God that is able to use whether they're a righteous King or righteous president or an unrighteous president because the Bible says that the heart of the king is in the Lord's hands and he can turn it however he wants so we tend to get all rattled up in placing our faith in all of these different things rather than placing our faith in the God that does not change so whenever you lose your job God your job is not your source your job is a resource that the source is using to provide for you the stock market the 401k that's not your source that is a resource that God is using to provide for you God is the ultimate source so as long as you keep your faith in him that he will provide for you in other ways now if that's not enough Jesus is okay I understand that you may struggle to believe in a God that you don't see he says I get that you've never seen my father for yourself but he says okay believe also in me right he said believe also to me he says hey have I not been trustworthy have I have I not shown myself to be faithful and to be trustworthy in your life you've seen me heal the sick you've seen me raise the dead you've seen me still the storm you've seen me feed the 5,000 you've seen everything that I've said come to pass my track record with you is 100% accuracy so based on that don't let your hearts be troubled now you may be wondering how is it practically that I can develop strong godly faith and not have my faith that's shaken that's going up and down when my finances are good my faith is great when my finances aren't good my faith is not so good when my health is good my finances are my faith is good when my health is not so good it's it my faith dish ups and downs let me give you three very practical ways that you can increase your faith number one the testimonies of other people you see whatever you and I hang around other people that God is doing great things in their life and they share their testimonies of what God has done in their life my friends it encourages us it builds us up it makes our faith stronger that's the reason why you got to be careful to put yourself around people that can build your faith up now let me give you an example many of you know my story I didn't get married until I was 40 years old and I had a friend of mine he's a very good friend of mine his name was Marvin and if he's watching this Marvin thank you so much you may have heard of Marvin I referenced him before a few times but Marvin and I used to play chess as single brothers all the time because we were trying to make sure that we were staying single and celibate and and making sure that we weren't getting any trouble so Friday and Saturday nights we may be tempted to go do some things that we shouldn't been doing we would go and play for hours and hours at a time and we were single like mid 30s late 30s he was a little older than me and at 42 years at 42 years old Marvin finally met the love of his life and he got married and Here I am left being a single guy was about 37 38 at the time wondering when I would meet the love of my life and it was because that I was able to look at Marvin's life and I was able to see that Marvin met the love of his life and then Marvin had three kids in a three-year period and and and so I was able to look at that and see what God was doing in Marvin's life and that encouraged me to believe that if God can do it in Marvin's life then yes indeed God can do it in my life as well so you want to get your faith mutually encouraged and built up because of the testimonies of other people but the second way that you can build up your faith so that it's not shaken up and down every time you have a crisis is simply by the reading of the Word of God as a matter of fact the word the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God let me read that again faith comes by hearing hearing what the Word of God this is the reason why this channel exists this is the reason why I harp on you all so much about getting into the Word of God every single day even if you don't feel like you get anything from it discipline yourself to do it because my friends every time you open up the Word of God and you read about the stories of how faithful God was in the life of Jobe in the life of Ruth in the life of Hannah in the life of Abraham in the life of Joseph in the life of all these different biblical characters and you see all of these people having a crisis of faith having a difficult time many of them were in very bad situations for a very long time some of the women in the Bible were barren and unable to have children and yet God opened their womb some of the men were in prison in jail some of them were beaten and stoned and shipwrecked and all of these different things yet in each situation the Bible says that God triumphs and God God was faith to all of these men in different situations so every time we read the scriptures our faith is encouraged but not only the reading of the word but personal experience personal experience and this is probably the strongest listen I don't know what you're going through right now but I can assure you my brothers and sisters that whatever you are going through right now is a test from God designed to build your faith every time God gets you through a different trial a different test your faith level has just gone up a level let me give you a personal example in my life right now I'll be honest with you right now my math business is suffering I know y'all think that I do you two full time I do not all right I have a whole separate business that I have to do to take care of my family and because of all this kovat 19:00 stuff my math tutoring business is suffering financially but am I stressed about it no you know why because there's been several other times in my life where I've been unemployed I've been struggling financially and every single time every single time God has provided in some way shape or form he's allowed money to come from sources that I didn't even recognize people have given me money people have provided for me people have paid bills for me that I didn't even expect and so because I know from my past experiences that God is faithful now when I'm in a crisis of belief financially in terms of my business I can trust in God to know that if he's been faithful in my past my friends he'll be faithful again and so here are just three reasons three ways that you can practically develop and increase your faith I always said this a faith that is not trusted choose me a faith that is not tested cannot be trusted a faith that is not tested cannot be trusted all right the second thing that we see in this passage of Scripture and I love this hang with me now the second shift that we've got to make if we're going to have faith in the midst of a crisis is not only we have to shift from a worldly faith to a godly faith but we've got a shift from our earthly focus to a heavenly focus let me repeat that we've got to shift our minds from an earthly focus to a heavenly focus alright come on let's walk through the text together verse by verse here we go notice what Jesus says next this is beautiful he says in my father's house are many rooms now your version may say mansions alright if it were not so what I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you do you see what Jesus is doing Jesus is trying to shift their faith from focusing on what was going on on earth to what he was preparing for them in heaven he says yes I know that things are chaotic and I know that things are about to get real and I know that you're about to be afraid and I know that that people are gonna come for your life because they they're coming from my life but for just a moment let me just shift your focus from thinking about the earth and and and and and what's going on on earth to this beautiful place that I'm preparing for you that I'm calling home I'm calling home Jesus essentially says guys I am preparing a home for you I'm preparing a home for you now to better illustrate this I want you to just take a moment and I want you to think about a time in your life where coming home was the just a very happy time in your life I don't know if it's whenever you were a child maybe you're in high school and you're out playing basketball football with your friends and all your friends would come over to the house and your mom would have cookies and milk and snacks and all that for your friends and you just felt home when you open up the door you just felt welcomed you felt accepted you felt loved you felt like you were coming home or maybe it was in college whenever you shared a dorm room or you you had an apartment with all your girlfriends or all your best buds and every time you came through that door it was fun it was laughter it was excitement and you just felt home or maybe you're in the stage like me I've got a beautiful wife who's over here two wonderful kids that every time I come home they run and give me a hug and kiss and every time I come home it just feels like home this is the picture oh my goodness this is the beautiful picture that Jesus is saying he's saying listen do you have any idea what I am preparing for you matter of fact first Corinthians says eyes have not seen ears have not heard nor has it even entered into the very heart of man two things that God has prepared for those who love him Jesus says I know that it's stressful right now with koban 19:00 and finances and the difficulties and the sicknesses and all these different things going on your life but let me just shift your focus for just a second from the earthly struggles to this beautiful place that I am in the midst of preparing for you I am preparing a home for you but the question that I want to challenge you with today is do you believe that do you really believe that do you really believe that whatever Jesus is has been preparing for 2,000 years now is better than what we're experiencing now because if you don't believe that then all we're going to do is cling and hold on to this earthly light because in our minds we're convinced this is the best that it's going to get but whenever you have a heavenly mindset and you understand that in my father's house there are many rooms and I love it Jesus comes back and says if it were not sold you think I'd be telling you this he says you can take it to the bank this is exactly what you have now um I love how Jesus uses some imagery here from the ancient Near East culture let me deliver the background here a little culture background this is beautiful so in their culture in the Jewish wedding a man and a woman would be engaged and they called it the betrothal period and so they would be engaged and so what would happen is that that man that groom would then leave his um his fiancee his bride-to-be for a season but he wouldn't build a house by himself he would go to his father's house and build on rooms in his father's house so they could all live as a family and once that house was fully built and fully ready then after they were separated for some time that Jewish man would then return and take full possession of his Jewish bride all right and then he would take that bride that woman and they would become married and then they would live the rest of their days in a room in the groom's father's house and so do you see the imagery he's saying just as sure as a woman can be that this man is building something you can be that sure that I'm coming back for you but I love this because essentially what we see here is a couple of things we see that Jesus is is working on something behind the scenes that we can't see see just as this Jewish man even though she couldn't see her fiance anymore with her eyes she was confident that this man was building something and working on something behind the scenes that even though she couldn't see him with her eyes she knew that he was preparing something for her in the same way you may not be able to see God right now you're searching for him in the Word of God you're searching for him through prayer through fasting through friends through sermons and all these different things and you can't see God you you question whether he loves you you question what's going on you can be assured that he has been working on your behalf for 2,000 years and he is preparing something for you so that you were not just forever remain engaged to him Jesus says no one day I'm going to come back and we are going to be married I'm going to take you so that you can be with me where I am another thing that we can be encouraged is this just as we can know that Jesus is preparing something greater for us we also know that Jesus has gone ahead of us think about this for a second this Jewish man in this imagery he was going ahead to a place where the wife did the fiance would eventually catch up and be with him he was already in the place where she is going to become alright so in the same way right now we're stuck in April 2020 and all we can think about on the news is more deaths and social distancing and all these different things and the death rate going up and I don't want to touch this and I need to put a mask on and I need to have gloves and all these different things and we're stuck right here I've got news for you in the same way that that Jewish man would go be a head and he was already ahead of where the woman was in the same way Jesus he's already far out in 2021 22 23 24 he's just sitting there and he's already got something amazing prepared for us we just have to carry it out and walk it out and catch up to wherever he is and my friend it's the same in your life whatever you are Jesus is already ahead of you making provisions and preparations for you to catch up to wherever he is know a little bit feel out a theology here this is just an aside for people who don't believe in the rapture this is one of the key central passages that we look at that talk about the rapture Jesus says hey I am going away but I'm going away to prepare a place for you so that I may what not just not just come and set foot on the earth that's the second coming of Jesus Christ where the Bible says he will come and set forth set foot on the earth and establish his earthly kingdom here but no we see here Jesus teaching them about the rapture he says hey I'm gonna come back the next time you see me I'm gonna come back and take you to myself and so that is what we call the Blessed hope so not only do we need to have we need to have a worldly faith that is shifted to a godly faith and we also need to have a shift from a earthly focus focusing on this earth only and what's going on down here to really understanding that our focus really needs to be on heaven living our lives accordingly but the third and final shift is we need a shift from an informational faith to a personal faith we need to shift from an informational faith to a personal faith all right check this out notice what it says here Jesus says and you know the way to where I am going Jesus assumed he's saying hey y'all know where I'm going y'all know how to get there and Thomas said to him Lord we don't know where you going what you're talking about we don't know where you're going so how can we know the way Thomas is like Jesus you're not talking you're not making any sense like can you give us an address can you give us a pin can you give us some direction some turn-by-turn cand you can you can you let me know where you're going so that I can take this turn and do that and do this and do that and turn right over here and go left and Thomas missed it he thought that Jesus was talking about some physical location he was trying to get to Jesus through information he thought that if he had the right information that he could make his way to Jesus and Jesus says Thomas you've missed the point he says I'm not going to give you turn by turn instructions in terms of how to get to me he says I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but through me he says all you need to know is that you need to follow me and if you follow me it will get you to wherever it is that I want you to be you know my wife and I we joked because sometimes we're in the car and I'm one of those people that if I got the GPS I don't need to see turn-by-turn instructions I don't need to see all of the different next 15 turns on the screen before I can trust to use it right I just listen and she tells me where to turn my wife is a little different on the other hand she likes to I mean if we were doing MapQuest she probably liked to print it out and see everything so a lot of times we're be in the car and she wants to press that button that shows the next like 15 turns that are like 30 minutes away so she can plan ahead of time and many of us are that way masae my wife has weak faith my wife has great faith but many of us are that way we want God to show us all of the information before we travel before we trust him we want God to show us every single step of the process before we will yield to him and say okay you know what God this isn't about information this is about me having a personal relationship and personal connection with you and I'm going to trust you oftentimes you've heard me say this before God will seldom show you the whole staircase he just shows you the very first step you need to take because he wants us to not walk by a sight but walk by faith we walk not by sight but we walk by faith right and also let me just speak to that person who is trying to get to know God through information through intellectualism you have questions about the faith and and you're trying to to get to God to getting every single solitary question answered because you think that the way to get to know Jesus is through more and more information Thomas says can you give me some information so I'll know how to get to you Jesus say you don't need any more information all you need to know is I am the way the truth and the life if you keep following me I will be the way and I will be that source of truth so that everything else around you is going to be false and if you follow the truth that will ultimately lead you to life so my friends I'm done these are the three shifts that I believe we need to make as believers to have faith in the midst of a crisis okay number one we need to shift our mind from a a worldly faith to two we need to shift from a worldly faith excuse me to a godly faith in other words stop putting all of our trust in these earthly things that are going to change and trust that God is the only source that's not going to change but not only that the second thing we have to do is we have to share earthly focus to a heavenly focus in other words we can't be so attached to this world that if God were to say you know what the worst fear is for me to take you home that should be your greatest joy because if you know deep down in your heart with full assurance that what God is preparing in heaven is so much greater than what we are experiencing here our faith won't go up and down with every single situation that goes on and then number three we got a shift from simply needing all of the information and just say you know what God this is about a personal relationship with you I trust you to give me turn-by-turn instructions at the appropriate time I don't know what to say I may not always know what to do but God I trust that you'll give me what to say and what to do so that I can follow you at all times you know I'll close with this illustration there was a inexperienced there was an inexperienced pilot that was flying a plane on a cloudy day and he hadn't had a lot of experience landing planes in the midst of a cloudy day so he calls air-traffic controllers and say guys I don't think I can do this I don't think I can land this plane because I can't see I can't see it's so cloudy I'm worried that I'm gonna run into something and I can't see and so the message back from the air traffic controller was hey you just obey our instructions we'll take care of the obstructions they told that pilot hey you don't need to worry about that you just obey our instructions you just listen and tell it to what we're trying to tell you and let us take care of the obstructions and I think that's the message that God is trying to tell us today let me worry about Kovan 19 let me worry about who's gonna be the next president let me worry about your your finances let me worry about your business right you just do the little things and let God do the big things you do what you can do and let God do what only he can do you just obey his instructions and let God take care of all of the obstructions let's pray Lord we thank you so much for this day we give you praise we give you honor and glory and God I don't know who this was for but God I know that there's people right now that are watching this and they are they're struggling they're suffering whether it's through a loved one they're worried they're worried about their family they're worried about their finances they're worried about their future and it's uncertain God and we're living in uncertain times and we don't know how long this thing is gonna last but god I just pray that you would help us to have a strong faith for us to be believers who will be standing firm in the midst of uncertain times that we would recognize that this is not our home but Lord you're preparing this beautiful place so that when you welcome us it will be a feeling like none other that we'll finally be home to be with you to spend eternity with you god help us not to put our faith in all these things that shift and change but ultimately only in you and finally God we recognize that no amount of information will help us know you better it's about spending time with you on a regular basis that will give us the personal faith to trust you in Jesus name we pray amen amen all right thank you all so much for hanging out with us I've got a special treat here my wife is here today and we just want to take a little bit of time and hang out with you all and take some questions and yeah just allow you all to get to know us a little bit better and so let me just move this around here by the way thank you many of you for the super chats we want to acknowledge that we didn't want to disrupt the we didn't want to disrupt the message or the worship by letting you know that if you did want to get to the ministry there's two ways you can do that you can go to our website Allen par comm force last support many of you are already supporters of us and I can assure you that everything that we that we bring in it goes to support our staff we've got a staff of five people graphic designers web designers we've got all sorts of people video editors that we that we pay to make this thing running so that we can continue to provide free resources for you all ebooks and all sorts of free content we want to keep this channel free so that you all can be blessed by it and so so for those of you who have supported or for those of you who can't but you have the heart to want to and you just can't we understand God we thank you for you okay we thank you the best way you can support us let's do your prayers and so you can either go to Allen Park com4 slash support or you can do super chat there's a little dollar sign down there you can support us there but we don't even want to focus on that okay because right now we want to focus on Jesus and it's it's the day that we've set aside for Resurrection Sunday so y'all say hi to my beautiful wife I'm typically engaged online and I see all of you from the Philippines from England from the UK from Africa so thank you for that what an amazing message you did such a great job but also just taking time I mean I was looking at the chats and and you know there are some people who maybe might not be believers and to see the beat family just rally around and pour love speak truth is so comforting so just excited to be here to join you all and I think that we would love to just take a couple questions yeah if the message spoke to you in any way if you have any questions about anything you heard today we'll go ahead and and find a few but we would love to answer them but so good to see you all yeah absolutely we'll put those questions on the screen SDF 126 thank you so much for the super chat we really appreciate it once again this channel exists because of you all all right because of the 301 many thousand subscribers it wouldn't be where it is today without your support without you all commenting without you all sharing without you all liking and just encouraging me to do this I'll just say I never ever thought that I'm gonna go this is a man the questions are coming in yes alright here we go it says here oh no actually let me get to this one brother Alan do you ever regret leaving your career for full-time minister is very very good question yeah yes Banali a Benelli thank you so much not for one moment I'm telling you every time that you think you are giving up something for God God has something so much greater for you and I don't share this to boast okay but before I gave up my career as an engineer I was making very very very good money about $80,000 a year and I felt God in my spirit telling me to give that up and I won't go through the whole story but I didn't know at the time how I was gonna provide for myself I just felt like I needed to go back to sit go to seminary and go to school and I'll make this very quick but over the period of time and over some years whatever I felt that I gave up by going to seminary and giving up an engineering career God has more than given back to me in a variety of different ways so let me just encourage you whenever you follow God you don't have to ever regret doing what God has called you to do great question alright alright broadcast right Donnie yeah perfect okay so family lo first of all I let my wife read it but family lo thank you for your support you have been riding with us for a couple years now yeah so thank you we love you yes so family lo asked what is your favorite thing to do when you have extra time during this quarantine and they shared that they camp in the den which sounds like so much fun if we had done that I would do that I don't know I would love to hear um so yeah you know this quarantine has affected everyone and I'll be honest it doesn't matter how close you are with your spouse what if you guys just got married you've been married for years being around someone indoors for an extended period of time it's so much fun expanding so much is so much fun typically are not spending twenty hours a day just because he works outside the home I work outside the home but it is so much fun it's so - answer the question what is our favorite thing that we've done so you know here in Texas specifically in Dallas the weather has been kind to us during this time I know it's not that way across the rest of the world but it has been and so we did take a walk about a couple of days ago what intended to be a 30-minute walk ended up being a two and a half hour walk and we took that time to spend time outside of the home to talk talk about things in our marriage that we might not have had the opportunity to talk about we brought the kids there in the double stroller and they fell asleep and we literally just talked and became like closer as friends best friends again rekindled our friendship yeah which is what we told y'all we dated long distance so we all we did was talk all we had was talking on the phone and so we fell in love with each other just from talking on the phone and so we won't keep this about us but essentially yeah just having time finally to spend with people that you normally wouldn't have that time right now we're living in with my mom for a couple weeks while we're in transition getting ready to move and so you know having so much time with our kids because our kids daycare is closed so instead of not seeing our kids for nine hours a day we see them all day every day and and that's been very interesting so that's been great great question great question yes yeah we're gonna try keep our answers short cuz I okay let me take just a couple more questions thank you all for these questions there was a couple questions talking about communion we don't have but if you are a place where you do have those resources feel free to take time this morning and just take communion on your own I know these times don't really allow for us as believers and Christians to gather and worship in our typical setting in a church but that doesn't mean that you can't bring that home with you you can take communion anytime anywhere just you and God so feel free if you've got juice whatever just go ahead and spend that time with Christ this morning yeah yeah we do how do you handle people twisting the word gray question yeah yeah and you all know that that's a passion of mine it's passion of ours that we we believe in the Word of God and so you know how do we handle that first of all we recognize that it's always going to happen Jesus predicted that people are going to do that both outside the church and also inside the church and so yeah yeah yeah so so we have to we have to continue to stand forth for the truth but here's how I handle it if it is somebody that is genuinely confused and wants to learn and grow from the Word of God then I will spend as much time as I have with that person to help them untwist the word and try to get them to understand it but if it's somebody that's maliciously trying to twist the Word of God then I'm not gonna get into a long debate with them because they've already made up their mind what they believe but what I will do and I've caught a lot of slack for this on my channel every so often if I see somebody that potentially is leading hundreds and thousands millions of people astray by twisting the Word of God I will expose that because the Bible says that we should expose people who do false teaching let me just say something very quickly here I don't wanna get on this but I caught a lot of slack for the Joyce Meyer video and I wouldn't touch on that very quickly I want to make sure you understand that I was in no way shape or form calling her or any of these people that I review a false teacher I'm simply looking at some of the teachings and saying these teachings are false it's not my place to Lok to label someone a false teacher any more than I would want someone to label me if I stumble in the Word of God and say something incorrect and say Alan's a false teacher but what I would invite them to do is say Alan what you taught was not a correct teaching it's a false teaching so I want to be clear about that I have the utmost respect for Joyce Meyer but some of the things that I put in the video were false teachings but it's not my place to call her a false teacher okay so good question there all right let's take some more I love this we're good we're good to go we'll have to be home - yeah yeah we got some time we'll take five more questions I'm enjoying this I don't get to go live that often okay let's see I'll let my wife pick it let's see what does it say okay will you be participating more with your Bible study course will you be participating more okay yeah okay what Brandi says will you be participating more with your Bible study more great questions for those of you do not know I have a course called Bible study made easy and you can find out more about it by going to Bible study made easy not the word easy but easy the letters easy.com so a Bible study made e-z calm and it's a six-hour course it is packed with all sorts of tools techniques and tricks and strategies to help you go deep in the Word of God so that you're not just reading the Word of God you're actually studying it for yourself I teach you how to do word studies Greek Hebrew how to use all the different tools concordance as lexicons and Bible dictionaries and all these different things and how to observe the scriptures and all that I don't move off that because I don't what you think I'm trying to sell you something but the point is this I have a private Facebook group that I engage with every so often and to your point brandy it was my intention a couple of years ago when I did the course for me to come on there once every couple of weeks and do Bible studies inside of that course and do live training and advanced training and do more and more since that time sadly I have not been faithful with that and I confess that and that's something that bothers me every day life has gotten in the way I do have a full-time business that I run to provide for my family I want to be a good husband I've got a one-year-old and a three-year-old and so life has gotten in the way and it's hindered me from doing all that I want to do in ministry which is why it my wife and I are praying fervently about how we can eventually go into full-time ministry together so that we can focus on just serving you all so very good question we have some amazing questions but here's one that we do here tonight so I know that many of you might either be struggling with this or have funds and family that are going through this so Becca gee thank you so much for your question your question was how do I deliver the message peacefully to family members who aren't believers how many times do we get this question about just being a light loving speaking the truth with love but really trying to help those who do not believe so do you want to maybe try to address a few of those I could add on yeah sure thing yeah so first of all we have to understand that once again as we talked about today information alone is not going to save them the Spirit of God has to quicken their spirit and cause them to come alive so that they can have the capacity to even respond to what you're saying matter of fact a patient's too says for we were dead in our trespasses and sins so think about this if you were to go to a cemetery right now and you were to preach your heart out those people wouldn't be able to hear you at all because they're dead doesn't matter how good your convincing arguments were they're dead they're unable to hear you and so they would have to be quickened in their spirit to come alive to even be able to hear you so just know that be a light in the midst of a darkness continue to stand firm don't let your family members water down your faith but just to understand that share your faith with them and answer questions be knowledgeable enough so that if they do have questions about what you believe your ready first Peter 3:15 always be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have so that you can distill those questions but at the end of the day just know that it is the Spirit of God that is going to enable them to even respond to what you're saying isn't a believer but attacks your faith you know the word says that they will know that we are disciples or Christians by the love that we show so in the midst of that I've had to practice this with friends with family with with people who challenged my faith finding that love to show them where however that looks like and also just knowing that we're undeserving of Christ's love and grace every day and he still gives it to us and we don't deserve it so to find it in your heart to show love to them as well I saw you all do that in the chat as we get comments sometimes that are from unbelievers just continue to do that and we just encourage you to in that it that comes straight from the Bible so those are great examples of when you are facing non-believers or people maybe who are believers but are straying away from the faith just continue to show them that love ya I could be here like two more hours Pegasus super Jack my sister first of all Pegasus thank you so much for the super chat god bless you we appreciate this and oh by the way the reason why my wife is a little bit like wanting to get back home because my mom who 73 is at home with our one-year-old two three year old if any of you know if you have a one-year-old a three-year-old running around it's a lot of work so we got to make sure we get home so we can relieve my mom so that she can enjoy her Easter as well yeah Resurrection Sunday and so why are you looking for the last message I'm gonna go ahead and start Stacy's message okay she has a great question about marriage hi Stacy thank you for your question guy Stacy she's also my best friend and so in our wedding yes matron of honor but here's the thing is that you are not being treated yeah yeah so the question is how do you prioritize your marriage during this time without getting lost in the woes of today if any of you can relate just give a thumbs up just give an acknowledgement so that you know even us it is hard to prioritize your marriage in general yet alone given what the situations that we are in today and so you know do you want to maybe start to address that and I can add on to it sure sure yeah in place and be intentional it's not easy yeah and and and let me just share this with you all because I hope this will be somewhat of an encouragement to many of you my wife and I we are very very candid that we do not have a perfect marriage okay we're transparent about that we have a solid marriage we have a strong marriage we're committed and divorce does not come up in our home and by God's grace it never will so we have a strong marriage a good marriage but it's not perfect we do fuss with each other sometimes we disagree right we don't see eye to eye finances raising kids this stuff is going to happen right but what we have to do is we have to as my wife said we have to be intentional about doing the things that brought us together in the first place for instance little things like taking a walk that just little small little seed that we planted walking around the block with our kids leaving our phones at the house and just walking around for a couple hours and reconnecting and talking that's what we did that brought us together five years ago that caused it to fall in love we need to do those things right we used to pray together every single day I confess we've gotten away from doing that on a lot of nights we used to have discussions about the Word of God and about videos and different things that I was getting ready to do we away from that to some degree because once again life gets in the way we understand that so what you have to do is you got to go back to all the things that you did at the time that caused you to say I want to marry this person I want to spend the rest of my life with them and we trust that when you do those things the feelings will rekindle and the the love and the the genuineness and the fellowship all that stuff is going to rekindle because the stressors are going to be there the finances the work the job children although there are blessings sometimes can be stressful none of that's going to change so you have to go above and beyond that right and so stressors you hear Alan talk about stressors what are stressors stressors are if you did a new job that's a stressor if you have a new child that's a stressor if you lose your job that's a stressor if you have an addiction if you are having some issues outside of stress anything that is external that happens that comes into your marriage or that happens outside of your marriage is a stressor and so when you have multiple stressors in a year in a month in a week it is challenging and so just to follow up on what Alan said is that there's one thing that always brings us back together and that is remembering the purpose of our marriage all those stressors that Alan talked about is gonna cause pain there's going to be pain that comes whether with each other whether with people that are influencing your marriage the media society in general that might not even respect marriage nowadays because all of those things cause pain if you if the pain ever becomes greater than the purpose of your marriage you will drift and just know that it happens but if you have to remind yourselves and remind each other why God put you together what is the purpose of why you are together and if you don't know that that's fine this is the time to discover that I mean you're spending time with this person anyways every day now cuz of this copán crisis take some time maybe write out a purpose statement write out maybe some expectations that you want out of the marriage expectations they have and align it align it together so that you guys can discover your purpose together as a couple as Christians because your marriage is not just a reflection of yourselves of a section of Christ so that would be to answer that question how we prioritize it is take the time to be intentional and then also go back and just remember that whatever pain is happening in your marriage the purpose has to be greater get with that purpose aligned with and keep it at the forefront of your marriage you'll see why I married my wife she got she gonna be on she's gonna be on the be a little bit more oh it means let me go to that real quick so notice the purpose right whenever you do things together with your spouse in terms of serving God and in ministry it brings you closer together with each other right this what we're doing now we've gotten away from it that's why you haven't seen my wife on the beat it's not because she doesn't want to be it's once again she works a full-time job and we have kids and we have to get food on the table and all that stuff and get the kids down and it's hard right but in doing these type of things together which we're going to do more on a consistent basis moving forward it brings you closer together because you realize okay this is the purpose for why God put us together so we can endure some of the difficulties about relationships marriage and we want to do some stuff on Instagram we've got some stuff planned this year so I'll just add on to that why yeah one more question yes we can relieve the question yes we have a plan C D more future q and A's going back to just what Alan was discussing about your purpose you know even though we have a purpose together as a couple we also have you know individual callings and gifts that God has put on our lives and so we would love to not only come together to share that with you all but answer some of those questions that you have helped you all determine how to find your purpose how to find your calling how I develop a purpose together as a man how to restore your marriage all of those things are things that we not only have been through but we would love to share with you also yes KB that the question to answer your question yes okay yes yes yes yeah a fire fire off a couple quick ones though okay all right dear Alan what's your view on the second coming of Christ and the rapture are they the same I'm not gonna take time to answer that but I do have a video on my channel that you can go to it's in the playlist for the endtime events it's taught it's called the second coming of Christ and it'll talk about the differences between the second coming and the rapture once again I know everybody some people have a little different view on that but that's my position you can find that there okay Mac Mac Mac said hi Alan I sang live with you during the worship song can I send it to you it's so beautiful please send it send it - info at Alan Park comm is our ministry email and would love for you to send it to us yeah thank you so much for that I would love to hear you my voice was going out a little bit while we're trying to worship but thank you so much for that and let's see here mr. Eric says yes thank you all so much is very helpful for the ministry mr. Eric says more Q&A with the wife please yes sir mr. Eric I know that's right okay let's just hit a couple little quick ones as a pastor's wife how do you handle being ignored in the ministry and husband oh let me I'll let this be the last one okay because this one sounds like something you can maybe answer I hadn't read it I hadn't read it all the way through okay mark thank you for your question a question that I know a lot of women you know my either struggle with or have been through so the question is as a pastor's wife how do you handle being ignored how do you handle being ignored in the ministry and husband is always being appreciated appreciated and seeing in stage the feeling that you don't have functions in the ministry as a wife so thank you for that question um you know that question is not even just only in ministry but sometimes it's just in general of the world in society and just how sometimes women particularly are are minimized our value our worth I I cannot stress how often women feel this way and they don't speak on it so again thank you for your courage in this question so to answer it you know it's a couple things I would first ask are you as far as being ignored a lot of times it's natural to want that public praise it's natural to see him being praised and to you to wonder you know where am i what do I fit in in this am I being encouraged to to live out my gifts first off you guys are a unit two becomes one when he is praised it's a reflection of you when you are praised whether it's by your peers by other women it's a reflection of him in proverbs 31 it talks about how when you're when you're when you're a wife that is adored you know a wife that is is we're like like that's all reflection of each other you all are both are in this together so never look at his praise as a minimization of your praise Oh even further your worth your worth and then Ephesians talks about how Christ looks at us and considers us a masterpiece his masterpiece it's hard to not receive praise externally but there is one person who praises us every day pursues us every day and is we are considered a masterpiece to him were enough were worthy we don't need anything else and then finally when the scripture says rely on man man will always fail you if you look for that praise externally what happens when it stops coming in that's how our worth is diminished our worth is found only in Christ and so lean and so Christ during this time and yes it is natural with social media but likes with with how many likes and views you get it is natural to get consumed in that says your worth only comes from him you are a masterpiece you are a gem and when people praise him you praise him to cheer him on to have become one I mean we are in this together you are in this together couples you guys are a reflection of each other so always always always remember that I can go on more about that and and I'll just add one thing and then we'll be done and we'll pray I did a video recently called why every Christian needs to be in full-time ministry I really encourage you to look at that because it will help us all redefine what we call ministry right I may be in a public ministry in terms of the beat but my wife does minister he she does ministry all the time matter of fact then I'll be honest with you the ministry that my wife does I personally consider it much greater than the ministry that I do but it's behind the scenes she's the one that is gonna visit you in the hospital when every year sick she's the one that whenever you just had a child she's gonna order dinner for you or bring food to you or or if she hears that you lost your job she's the one that's gonna cash up you or PayPal you or venmo you some money or if you lost a loved one she's going to be on the phone with you praying if you have a relationship issue she's gonna be the one walking through that with you so that you can make good decisions in your relationships like these are things that 20 years from now people are gonna remember and say you know what this this woman of God Jennifer was there for me at a very difficult time and she ministered to me I don't know people are gonna remember my videos 20 years from now I don't know maybe but the point is be careful that you don't minimize what you're doing right now as it's not ministry because it's not public and that you're not getting all the likes and all the praise and all the adoration and all the followers and the views and stuff like that I don't think then we get to heaven God's gonna ask how many followers imbues you I think he's gonna say did you feed those who were who were you know hungry did you did you clothe those that were naked did you visit me when we were in prison and all the things that he talks about so and don't ever minimize the ministry of raising children yes that's amazing ministry and whether you're male or female both of us got to do it so bellas not just a wife's job that's a ministry in and of itself alright so my mom so we can use her for a babysitter at some point in our lives in the future and she doesn't get too upset with us yes yes yes we it's not but today we have a reason to celebrate to celebrate and if nothing else just hold on to that hold on to that hold on to each other there are people that are dropping dead every day just other health issues don't take that heartbeat that you feel in your heart for granted that you wake up every day and you're given the opportunity of life so thank you all for spending your morning if you're in there Philippines for evening in the UK your afternoon with us we're just so grateful and we're so honored we are we are I mean this is amazing I mean we've got at some point we had 1600 almost 1700 people and I'm not getting up in the Colombes I'm just saying thank you because you know without you all we wouldn't be where we are today so we will continue to pray for you all and we ask that you all do the same and by the way this ministry has never been designed to compete with your local church my wife and I are are members of our church and we're heading home right now so we can watch our resurrection Sunday service at the church that we are active members in so we want to encourage you all to do this okay this was just like a little bonus little extra but if you are a part of a ministry please support them now with your giving with your time with your prayers because the Bible the church is the Bride of Christ the beat is not the Bride of Christ the church is the Bride of Christ and it needs your support now more than ever so if you were giving before the on online live streaming continue to give and support them because they need your support during this time we love you all and oh man another super chat from Kevin thank you so much Kevin once again we appreciate all of that kevin says god bless you guys may God bless you abundantly we love and appreciate everything your ministry provides we appreciate you Kevin and all of our subs we love you all and yeah we'll close out with prayer Lord we thank you so much for this day we give you praise honor and glory Wild Lord never in our wildest dreams five years ago when we started this ministry together with an idea with a vision that we ever imagined that you were gonna allow us to steward a flock of people all over the world that loved the Word of God that are in community with one another that that want to want to serve you with their whole heart god I pray there's something that was said and done today would be encouraging but most importantly that it would give you praise and glory on this day because this day is about you it's about celebrating the sacrifice that you made for us on the cross 2000 years ago Lord so we love you and praise you and we pray for this day in Jesus name we pray amen amen everybody god bless thank you so much we love you all have a great rest of your day bye-bye

Channel: THE BEAT by Allen Parr

Views: 49,348

Rating: 4.9515772 out of 5

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Id: 5a7Iu3hDB5M

Length: 91min 49sec (5509 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 12 2020