Sweet Sorrow | NO MATTER WHAT COMES THROUGH THE DOORS | Kyle Idleman

[Music] [Music] [Music] one of the things god has taught me over the last number of months is that he can do anything he wants any time he wants wherever he wants there anyone he wants to do it i've just been humbled again and again that even in seasons that are uncertain and even when things don't go as planned god still has a plan and god can still accomplish his purpose now it doesn't mean that god causes all these things the bible tells us that we live in a fallen world and in this world until jesus returns there will be trouble as we've been studying that rain will fall and when it falls it falls on the just and the unjust and no one's exempt from the suffering of life but one of the things we see is god's faithfulness we realize that his promises are true there's all kinds of things that come through those doors but whatever comes through those doors we don't deal with it alone he's with us every step of the way and he can redeem anything someone asked me the other day what's your favorite thing about god and i just without hesitation said my favorite thing about god is that he can redeem anything anything and nothing is so broken he can't make it beautiful nothing is so done that he can't undo it if you're a follower of jesus the bible says that in all things god works for the good and if things aren't good yet it means he's not done yet and so we watch and we wait as god accomplishes his purposes and i've more confidence in that than i've ever had before it's been fun to watch even in this season how true that's been for us as a church if you would have told me at the beginning of this that um we would launch a number of campuses i would have thought no way that's it's not gonna happen in 2020. and yet right now our bullitt county campus is uh watching us from bullet cam county god's doing amazing things there and i mean god just had that planned out love seeing that beechmont campus our multi-nation campus we've watched it launched this year and um yeah it's beautiful to see [Applause] see those things and then we let you know a number of weeks ago that we would be launching our south louisville campus that the south louisville christian church is going to become a campus of southeast now if you weren't here for that announcement it's a really beautiful story because this is the church that started our church so our mother church is going to become a campus of southeast and to me it's just a beautiful story of god bringing bringing things together and this church south louisville christian church just celebrated their 118th anniversary to put that in perspective that means this is their second pandemic like they've already been through it spanish flu they started in 1902 and so we're excited about how god will continue to write the history of that church through being a campus of southeast and this weekend i'm excited to announce who will be our campus pastor there some of you will know him because he's been on staff for a little while his name is justin wiese and justin has been a community pastor and he's been a college age pastor for us the last five or six years justin his wife ashley so if you're at the blankenbaker campus if you're watching this online you just heard from ashley she led us during a time of communion so justin and his wife ashley are going to be um leading that new campus it's a unique opportunity it sits between the university of louisville and churchill downs and um we just believe that god is going to do some incredible things in that community so be praying for justin as uh as he prepares for that launch you'll hear more about it in the weeks to come as we kind of circle a date on the calendar and move towards an official launch um this weekend as we begin the sermon i need your help i want you to think of a question that starts with the word win and make this personal if you're watching this at home what's a question about your life that starts with the word when now i don't care who you ask it to i mean we're just doing this in our minds so have fun with it like ask your boss you know when am i going to get that promotion you ask your boyfriend you know when are you going to propose my suspicion is that a lot of us have some of the same win questions all right like when are when are we gonna have a vaccine when are we gonna go back to school any parents asking that like when will my kids go back to school give me a date when um thank you when when will we be done with like the masks and the social distancing when will i get to go on a real vacation when am i gonna find a job when are we going to get to retire when will we get pregnant what's your win question because here's what i would say is that all of us always have some win questions that we're asking sometimes silently but we're always asking them what is your win question and how do you respond when you're waiting for that to be answered i uh i found myself asking a win question earlier this week my wife and i went out to breakfast and it was kind of a cold and rainy morning and we got there and there was a 10 to 15 minute wait and so they gave us a little buzzer and said hey it'd be 10 to 15 minutes and we had to wait outside because you kind of can't wait now in that common area and so we're waiting outside 10 to 15 minutes that's no problem 10 minutes passed i start to get a little you know busy my wife's like just stand still i'm like we're getting 10 to 15 minutes and finally we get to the 15 minute mark and we still are waiting and i'm like well they said 10 to 15 minutes i'll just go check just i'm just going to check on it i'm i'm that guy i don't mind telling you i try not to be but i am and uh so i went up and i i'm not frustrated i got a smile on my face pulled down my mask to show it i'm like um do you know when we'll be seated and she says without looking down at her magic tablet she she just looks at me and she says uh when it's your turn okay i respect that actually like um i like to give answers like that so i know i can't be a hypocrite about it so when i receive them i enjoy it and so she said when it's your turn and i went back waited with my wife i it just starts to seem like everybody's getting called now but uh i mean do you do this where you start keeping like i've forgotten about whatever conversation we were engaged in and now i am just keeping track of who came in after us and why are they being called before us it doesn't make sense and i i saw somebody come from their car and it looked to me it looked to me like they were just immediately seated well who's that guy what why does he get to be seated right away and i start getting very concerned about my turn and are people getting preferential treatment why why are their names getting called before our names are getting called and then i become so convinced it's it's our turn that i start to experience the the phantom buzzer phenomenon in my front pocket that that's the phenomenon where you're so sure it's you that you feel a buzzer go off in your pocket even though it's not buzzing so i keep i keep checking it thinking that is that did i feel that nope i didn't my wife's like you you keep checking the buzzer it's not gonna make it buzz faster i'm like i know i know it but it was supposed to be 10 to 15 minutes now it's been like 17 or 18 maybe 18 minutes and i'm gripping it trying to will it you know bus just buzz pray in the prayer of serenity god held me to control the except the things i can't control and here's here's the problem what i was experiencing was different than what i was expecting and this is what throws us off when we're waiting that what we are experiencing is different than what we are expecting we were expecting something to happen sooner we were expecting it to be over by now we were expecting an answer and we still have questions we were expecting a diagnosis we were expecting a second chance and when we when we find it's not happening we get a little anxious maybe a little frustrated a little frustration a little indignation because when we're asking when we're typically asking it at a point where it feels like whatever should have happened isn't going to happen we're concerned about how much longer we can wait so what's your when question and what is an acceptable answer to you do you feel like because there's a lot of unacceptable answers like uh you know when it's your turn it's not very emotionally satisfying maybe the most common but the least emotionally satisfying answer to the win question is in a little while in a little while it's a go-to though for parents right like this is the ant most any question your kid asks that starts with when in a little while it's the equivalent of saying you know i'll think about it or um you know we'll see it's a way of saying to your kid you know i'm not committing to anything it's a way of reminding them that they're not in control of their situation like they can ask the question but they don't get to pick the calendar like we're not operating according to your schedule it's a way of addressing some entitlement issues like when is it going to happen in a little while it's not up to you you're not in charge the answer of in a little while has a way of ripping our hands away from the controls and here's what we see in john 16 as we study this passage together the phrase in a little while shows up seven times in four verses as jesus is talking to his disciples about how long there will be trouble and how long it will be before they have joy before their sorrow turns to joy so john 16 verse 16. jesus went on to say in a little while you will see me no more and then after a little while you will see me okay well that's helpful at this some of his disciples said to one another what does he mean by saying in a little while you will see me no more and then after a little while you will see me and because i'm going to the father what's he mean they kept asking verse 18 what does he mean by a little while and that phrase they kept asking the idea here is not that they kept asking in this moment it means that they've been asking that apparently jesus has used the description a little while a lot and they've never really understood it they've had this conversation what's he mean by a little while he keeps saying a little while what's he mean by a little while and they're having it again they kept asking what does he mean by a little while we don't understand what he's saying jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this so he said to them are you asking one another what i meant when i said in a little while you'll see me know more and then after a little while you will see me yeah that's exactly it that's what we were trying to understand we don't we don't know what you mean when you say a little while it seems not very specific or helpful it seems like the kind of thing that's hard to hang hope on it's hard to say for sure what jesus is referencing here like if you put it in context of the final discourse as we've studied together it would seem that he's referring to his return that in a little while i'm going to go to the father in fact that's referenced in this verse as well that a little while i'm going to the father i'm preparing a place for you in a little while i'm going to come back to take you to your heavenly home and so at first it looks like that's probably the idea here but then if you keep reading and we're going to do this in the upcoming verses it starts to sound like jesus might be talking more about his like crucifixion and resurrection and in a little while in a little while he's going to die and then in a little while he's going to conquer death that's what it sounds like to me in verse 20. very truly i tell you you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices so that sounds a little bit like the crucifixion you will grieve but your grief will turn to joy and that to me sounds a little bit like the resurrection a woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come but when her child is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world so it is with you now is your time of grief but i will see you again and you will rejoice and no one will take no one will take away your joy you can hang your hope on that so i don't know for sure if jesus is referring here to his resurrection or to his return i'm not sure that the answer would be different either way because in a little while was his go-to and in fact if we see this consistently throughout scripture when we talk about times of trouble when we talk about what's coming through those doors the answer is it'll only last a little while and so the bible talks to us in the old testament about if there is grief that lasts through the night but what comes in the morning joy joy comes in the morning in a little while the night can feel long but it doesn't last forever and so this is a consistent answer that doesn't feel very emotionally satisfying how much longer jesus when a little while and we just see that throughout scripture whether it's the resurrection or his return or whether it's something very personal and specific that's going on in your life and you're trying to figure out when is this going to come to end to an end or whether it's something we're experiencing as a nation and we're trying to figure out how much longer is it going to be like this the answer is often a little while longer not super specific just let you know won't last forever and we just want something a little bit more some detail um and disciples are frustrated about it just be more specific it reminds me a little bit of uh the text conversation i had with my son this past week so my 15 year old son kale was with some family friends for fall break so he was out of town this week and i i have three i've had three teenage girls right like they're they're none of them are at home right now um two of them are married my youngest one's out of the house and so it's just it's just my wife and i and my my son and i just am amazed at how different it is to have a teenage boy compared to having teenage girls it's just very hard to get anything specific out of this kid like he's all about non-details and i'm like i'm gonna use you as an illustration if you don't figure this out so now you know and here's a uh here's a actual text conversation while he was on vacation nothing's been altered or changed me you on the road yeah hey did you guys make it yup hey what's up how was your day and then i asked it again because it had been overnight how was your day good yo how's it going good how's it going more than one word answer please it's going good [Applause] rolly eye emoji hey bro how's it going advertisement for a new gmc hummer electric vehicle because when he turns 16 yeah that's what he's gonna get and then uh hey how'd your day go good my boy how are things chuck norris thumbs up like give me give me something give me something and there's just this frustration when we're looking for some details and we just get these you know generic one-word answers and i'm glad things are good but i'm i want something a little bit more emotionally satisfying than that and so jesus says in a little while in a little while it's the same language that the hebrew writer uses to describe the return of jesus so hebrews 10 37 says for in a little while he who is coming will come and will not delay well when is jesus going to return in a little while well how much longer is that because i'd like to set some kind of an alarm if possible be helpful if i could stick that on the calendar and we just instinctively want to take a little while and put it on our schedule jesus says in verse 20 in this season that we're in now you will weep and you will mourn but then in a little while here's what's going to happen your grief will turn to joy so what we have is a a description of time that's not very helpful but we have a promise that is really helpful in a little while your grief will turn to joy and so the title of this merit sermon is sweet sorrow sweet sweet sorrow it comes of course from shakespeare's romeo and juliet or juliet at the end of the night says to romeo parting is such sweet sorrow well it's an oxymoron to put sweet and sorrow together how can something be sweet and sorrowful well it's it's sorrowful because they're having to separate but it's sweet because they're going to be reunited and in fact what makes something sweet is the fact that they have to celebrate or they have to to separate right does that make sense like it it wouldn't be sweet to be reunited if they didn't have to go through the sorrow of separation and so this this is the idea that we have where jesus says that your sorrow doesn't say it will be replaced with joy it says it will do what what will happen to yourself it'll turn to joy this is this is important because what we're seeing here is the very thing that's causing you grief is the thing that will bring joy later the amount of joy you experience later is directly connected to some of the grief and sorrow you feel now does that does that make sense like for some of you it does because you've lost a loved one unexpectedly and you have unspeakable grief and sorrow in this season but that same sorrow will turn to joy because of the grief that you have felt you will experience a joy in being reunited in heaven that is unspeakable the physical suffering that you might be experiencing in this season causes grief and sorrow but that same physical suffering will be turned into joy in heaven where the bible says there will be no more of that no more sickness no more suffering no more tears and so jesus says it lasts for a little while but then it it turns to it turns to joy and he uses this image of this a woman who gives birth and in a moment there's anguish and pain and then in the next moment that same anguish and pain is what brings unspeakable joy and so jesus gives us hope for our in a little while moments that there will be no matter what comes through those doors it won't last forever joy comes in the morning in a little while it will be turned to joy and no he says no one will take that from nothing and no one will take that from you and you can hang your hope on that and yet the longer you wait the easier it is to lose hope uh you know most of us are not are not good at waiting like i like this is why i don't really care for disney world um and i know for some of you like you're already skeptical of me because i don't really like chocolate so not liking chocolate or disney world like who's this heretic that's preaching i understand but but if you think about if you think about disney world what are you doing you're spending exorbitant amounts of money to wait and i mean maybe that's just the way i see it i i haven't gone i've only been twice i don't plan on going again but but that that's what it feels like to me i'm spending exorbitant amounts of money to wait paying somebody to wait and i get it disney does its best to make it tolerable they have the fast pass that's y'all like not that fast right but what it what is a fast pass i don't want to get too caught up in this tangent but it needs to be we're truth tellers here what is a fastpass a fast pass is a pass that tells you how long you have to wait until you can come back to where you already are that's the fast pass i mean we're falling for that the fastpass is here's how long you have to wait before you can come back to where you already are and wait a little bit longer to go on the ride i i will say this one thing disney does well in their lines i think most amusement parks have adopted this practice is they tell you when you're standing in line how much longer you've got and that is helpful like their sign doesn't say in a little while like if you i don't know what's popular there these days but if you're waiting in line for pirates of the the caribbean there's a sign up that shows you your weight from this point is and then whatever two days like whatever it is your weight from this point this is how long you've got and it may seem like the line isn't moving it may feel like you're not making any progress but you are and there are these signs up that lets you know you're getting there and i think for many of us this is where we lose hope as we just we don't know what the signs are it would be so helpful if in this season someone would put up a sign and say that would say hey this is how much time you've gotten left to homeschool your kids okay i could i just need to know how much time is left there's some sort of sign that just said finding a job four months okay that's not gonna be easy but i just need i just need to know some sign up says you know finding a spouse two years uh it's longer than you would want but okay i can wait two years but when it feels like not yet really means not ever that's where we start to lose hope and so jesus says to his followers in a little while in a little while your joy will turn your sorrow will turn to joy in a little while so peter is one of the disciples who was listening to this and my hunch is that for him this you know i think he's probably like one of the people maybe i'm just telling myself this to make me feel better but i think he's one of the people who after 10 or 15 minutes would go up and say you know when we'll be seated like i think that was probably peter so jesus is saying all this i don't know how emotionally satisfying it would have been to him and yet if you look at his letter first peter where he's writing to christians who've been through incredible suffering or in the midst of incredible persecution he uses the same language first peter 5. and the god of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in christ hey everybody after you've suffered a little while after this he will himself restore you and make you strong and firm and steadfast a little while and so we wait and waiting is hard work but here's what i want us to embrace as a church i want us to embrace the weight that seasons of waiting are opportunities for us to deepen in our faith that they don't have to set us back they can move us forward that what happens while we're waiting is oftentimes as significant as whatever we're waiting for what happens while we're waiting is often preparation for whatever it is we keep hoping will come isaiah puts it this way those who wait on the lord will renew their strength and they will mount up on wings like eagles i was uh reading this week that there are three different ways that birds fly so one way is flapping right like a bird will flap its wings some of them 100 times a second in order to stay in the air frantically flapping um and then there's another approach where birds will will glide and so they will flap and then they'll glide and then they'll flap and they'll glide but the gliding doesn't last long and the gliding requires lots of flapping and then there's soaring and there aren't many birds that can soar but isaiah references the eagle as a bird that can soar so how does that happen well she spreads her wings and she she catches the wind the hot winds that come off the earth and there are eagles that have been seen as high as 10 000 feet altitude flying it more clocked at more than 80 miles an hour and all all they're doing is waiting on the wind all they're doing is soaring and isaiah says if you just wait wait on the lord in other words you're waiting with confidence you're waiting with faith you're waiting with belief you're waiting and i just believe that for some of us in this season it's the message that we need to hear because there's a lot of frantic flapping and i get it like it's impressive you've managed to stay up as long as you have but it doesn't work those who wait on the lord what's that look like it means this it's what we're doing here together like together we soar together we wait on the lord to renew our strength so what it looks like when you start your day on your knees you're starting your day by spreading your wings so i'm waiting on the lord today i'm waiting actively i'm waiting purposely but i'm i'm not i'm not trying to take control of it myself and and and so was thinking through how a lot of us wait what that looks like the flapping what it looks like and here's the cycle that i feel like i've seen more consistently amongst believers in this season of waiting is the first um thing that we do is we become impatient and when we become impatient we get uh independent we're like okay i know what needs to happen so we start flapping our wings like we we asked god to take care of this problem he hasn't taken care of the problem instead of walking with him through that we're like okay well you had your chance watch me do it and then that doesn't tend to go very well or we try to put our hope in something science politics technology we try and put our hope in something that will answer our win question and when that doesn't happen um the next thing i see is that people become indignant and i think we feel this in our society people are just angry and frustrated because things are not going according to their plan things aren't going the way they think they're supposed to they had a calendar they had a schedule they had a vision this is what i'm going to be doing this is what is going to happen for us and it doesn't go that way and people get angry with each other lots of blaming lots of shaming and then the third thing that happens and i think we'll see more of this is indifference spiritual indifference where we start to realize that nothing else we're putting our hope in is going to hold us up and then our hearts get hard and we just decide the best thing to do is live for the moment and that that becomes our approach to life and so i just want to challenge you as we finish up with two couple of a couple of things here that while you're waiting in the waiting room remember that it only lasts a little while and if it only lasts a little while first thing i would say is make sure that you wait intentionally make sure you wait intentionally if you pay attention in a waiting room you'll see that a lot of people you know don't do anything they stare at a wall they're just waiting some people get distracted like they just scroll through their phones just killing time then some people pick up a you know sports illustrated from 2004 that's been on the table there it's just trying to just trying to get through it there's not really any intentionality for it that we waste the waiting we waste our waiting but what we see biblically and scripturally is some of the most important word god will do in you will happen while you wait on him and some of you can testify to this there's lots of examples in scripture lots of them a couple that come to mind moses you remember he wants to free his people from slavery he wants to deal with the injustice that they experience and so he kills an egyptian soldier but it wasn't the right way and it wasn't the right time and so he has to flee egypt and he goes to the back side of the desert where he works for his father-in-law as a shepherd for 40 years 40 years 14 000-ish days right of waiting and then one day he sees this uh burning bush that's not consumed out of the corner of his eye finally the buzzer goes off i think of joseph who had these dreams of having an impact being a leader great leader his brothers made fun of him for it they sell him into slavery he's falsely accused of a crime thrown into prison 13 years and then his name gets called and what i would say is that what god was doing in them during that season was essential to what god wanted to do through them there was no way for god to accomplish what he wanted to through them unless he had some time in the waiting room to do some things in them it was part of the process and so the way i've written this down here kind of what i want you to hang on to in this season is to remember that waiting is so often a part of becoming like this this is how it works that waiting is a part of becoming who god wants you to be if you'll if you'll do it with intentionality if you'll do it with purpose if if in your seasons of waiting you'll say god what do you want to do in me what do you want to teach me how do you want to deepen me how do you want to prepare me what do you want to do see for a lot of us when we're in the waiting room our question we become obsessed with the question of when when's it going to be my turn and if you'll shift that question from when to what and say god what do you want to do while i'm in the waiting room what do you want to teach me in this season if you can turn your focus towards that look this is this is what it comes down to is that you can you can focus right now you can focus on what you're going through or you can focus on what god wants to do through it you can focus on what you're going through or you can focus on on what god wants to do through it you can obsess about when it's going to be over and when things will go back to the way you want them or you can ask what and you can find that this time is a hugely important time for you spiritually and what god wants to accomplish in you so if it only lasts a little while wait intentionally and secondly wait expectantly romans 8 says that there's trouble that there's suffering in this world there's a lot of it that comes through those doors but that we wait with eager anticipation does that describe you you wait with eager anticipation not with a sense of resignation but with hopeful anticipation like a kid waiting to go on a roller coaster ride you're not just waiting you're waiting expectantly joyfully a friend of mine spent a number of years like seven or eight years walking with his wife while she battled cancer lots of treatments procedures surgeries he spent tons of time in the waiting room for a while he kept track of how much time he spent in the waiting room and he hated it i asked him about this he said that and i'd heard him talk about it in the waiting room you know it was just miserable because in the waiting room people were depressed and in the waiting room time just seemed to stand still and in the waiting room he's surrounded by people who are scared upset exhausted anxious but he was in there so much at some point he started to think well maybe i should make the most of my time while i'm waiting i started to get more intentional with it started to reach out to people in the waiting room asking if he could pray for them inviting them to church listening to their story sharing his story he said there were a number of times where he stayed in the waiting room longer than he needed to because god had given him an opportunity and he didn't want to walk away from it and he discovered that one of the biggest impacts he could have in the waiting room is if he just waited with peace and with hope and with joy so how much longer a little longer and so we wait but listen we do not wait as those who have no hope we wait differently as i was studying the phrase in scripture a little while i kind of got caught up in all the different ways it's used and there was one reference in particular that jumped out at me it's in james 4 verse 14. james says you don't look you don't even know what'll happen tomorrow what is your life you are a mist that appears for here it is a little while and then vanishes what we don't like about the phrase a little while is it's ambiguous like we want we want to put it on the timeline and so james helps us with a little while by giving us a uh a word picture that's also somewhat ambiguous a little while is a mist it's just a mist and yet i think there's some hope for us here i um i brought this up here with me example of what miss looks like i don't know if you uh have these around your house got a number of them around my house my wife at night will will grab one like this and uh it's lavender and she'll she'll spray the sheets and then she'll spray me and i i used to not like that but then i realized it's not all bad and so she's she'll spray this just there and then let's go you know what a little while looks like looks like that you want to understand your troubles and sufferings from an eternal perspective there you go 2020 and yet james doesn't just describe our struggles and troubles as a mist he describes our entire life that way this is your life and this really messes with us if we'll think about it right because we would say 90 years it's a long it's a full life but 35 years if someone dies at age 35 that seems like it was shut cut short it feels very brief but you know the difference between 35 and 90 from heaven's perspective that that's about the difference like after 50 000 years in heaven 90 years compared to 35 it's like 0.16 of your existence versus 0.07 percent of your it's just you're just it's just a mist that appears for a little while now there's hope in that when you're going through times of trouble it doesn't last very long how how much longer until sorrow was turned to joy that's how much longer but i think the real problem is not god telling us a little longer i think the real problem is that that's what we say to him i think i think the real issue is not god telling us not yet wait i think the real issue for most of us is us telling god not yet wait so listen to me some of you have been telling god a little longer for a long time and i don't know how much longer you've got i don't want to be dramatic i'm just being honest i don't know how long will it be i mean a little longer but it's getting closer and the bible says that on that day when jesus returns every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that jesus christ is lord there'll be a day coming or that will be true for everyone but at that point it's no longer a choice that you're making it's being made for you i'm not sure the best way to say this but at that point you don't get credit for it and so for those of you who are so upset that god keeps answering your prayers with a little longer my my warning for you and i say this out of love make sure that's not what you're saying to him because we don't have that much time left god i know that uh over the years i've i've heard you know different preachers and pastors use lots of fear and guilt as a way to manipulate spiritual decisions and you and i've talked about that a lot and i've promised you that i never want to do that because that's not how you did it you've called us by love and grace it's your kindness that leads us to repentance and yet god i know one of the most loving things that we can do for one another is is help each other prepare for the time that will soon come when you will return and there's a lot of distractions a lot of us have sat in the waiting room and we're just scrolling through our phones obsessed with the here and now would you help us would you help us wait intentionally would you give us hope so that we can wait expectantly i know that for many of us god the question in this season has been when but would you help the question become what what do you want to do in us during this time it's in jesus name we pray amen

Channel: Southeast Christian Church

Views: 4,493

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Southeast Christian Church, Dave Stone, Kyle Idleman, creative church, sermon series, worship, Jesus, God, Louisville, Kentucky

Id: HTALxnf7yMA

Length: 43min 23sec (2603 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2020