Spiritual Highlight Reel

Happy Sabbath! Does he always give you trivia tests like that? I was sitting there thinking, I haven't heard that story in years! It's got to be in Kings or Chronicles, but I was panicking sitting over there. As a regional pastor, I need to know these things. That was a tough one. It's nice to be here. I've never been to Columbia. My wife has. She was born here. She says she doesn't remember. Her dad was in the Army, right? So she was here until she was one. She's always told me she wanted to come see the city someday just because that's where she was born. We got a little tour of the downtown this morning, and it was nice. I've always wanted to go to Charleston. That's on my bucket list. I've just never been there. That's one of the cities on my bucket list that I'd like to go to and spend some time there and just see the—there's so much history there—just see the place. It's always so uncomfortable. People run up and say, I see you on television, but I can't see you. Little kids have actually come up and said, I wave at you. Why don't you wait back? So for years, I would end each program by saying, thanks for watching. And I would tell the little kids, I'm waving at you. And then one day the producer said, why do you do this quirky little thing and say, thanks for watching? I said, because I'm waving at all the little kids. So I can't do that anymore. For a couple of years, I used to have a coffee mug. And sometimes there was nothing in it, because at the end of every program, when the credits would roll, I would take a sip out of the coffee mug. Well, that was my way of telling my wife, I love you. And one day the producer said, your coffee mug was empty. Why were you taking—well, it's my way. So I can't do that anymore. So I, they keep—so I'm running out of quirky things to do than they let me do. So. It's nice being here, as I said, I just, just to get around and get to visit some of the churches in the region and, and, you know, and then I see some of you and I think, I've met some of you before. I know, you know, I see some I know I've met before. And then it's like others, I think, I don't know. And it's always a little awkward, you know, and one at the feast a few years ago, I'm standing in it, you know, all these hundreds of people, and there's a man that looked at me, and I looked at him, and he walked all the way to me, and we just stood there for a minute, and we stared at each other. And I said, we don't know each other at all, do we? He said, no! I thought I knew you. I said, I don't know you either. So we had to introduce ourselves. But it was when I saw him, I thought, I know that guy, and he had the same thought, and then we stood there and stared at each other, and we never met. So. But it's, it's nice to be here. In sports, they call it the highlight reel. You've seen the highlight reels?

You know, if you follow any sports, college basketball, NBA football, baseball, what you, you know, whatever you watch, you'll find a highlight reel. Usually every year, or I had an NFL player I used to watch as a kid who died recently, and I went on YouTube and found his highlight reel, and they showed his greatest place. Now they didn't show all the fumbles. They didn't show all the time he only made, or he lost yardage on a run. You know, they showed always great plays.

So if you were going to put together your life's highlight reel, what would be on it? So this is my highlight reel. And I'm sure there's some things that first come to mind, you know, graduation from high school, or getting married, or having a child, and you think of all these things. These are the highlights of my life that you wouldn't show all the bad things, right? All the terrible times, the times you made mistakes, the times you failed. You wouldn't show all that. You'd show all these highlights. And I said, well, what's your Christian highlight reel? And you'd probably have to think about that one a while. You know, what's my Christian highlight reel? He said, okay, God, make a highlight reel of my Christian life. Sometimes, you know, I've thought about that. It might be like 42 seconds long. I mean, there's not a lot to put in there, right? What's our Christian highlight reel like? Well, you know, we look at the Bible, and we see what appears to be highlight reels of all these people, right? They're doing all these amazing things, and people are being healed, or they're standing up to armies, or they're speaking to armies, you know, and some guy's getting run over by the herd of people. And I mean, these are the highlight reels. But you know, when we read through the Bible, there's a lot in there that's not a highlight reel, but it's in there for a reason. And it's an important reason that teaches us something. We're going to look at three examples today. It teaches us something, because we have to see ourselves in a different light than my highlight reel, which is very small, while my failures are very big. Okay? We have to see this differently. So what kind of highlight reel are you going to have? What kind of highlight reel? I mean, does God have a highlight reel of you? What is your highlight reel? The first person I want to look at is Jeremiah. Let's go to Jeremiah 1, because we're going to start here with something that obviously, if you are going to make a highlight reel of Jeremiah's life, this would be the very first thing you would show.

Verse 4 of chapter 1.

Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, came to Jeremiah, he's writing the book, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, Before you were born I sanctified you, I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Now you think that's it. I mean, that's the guy hitting the grand slam home run. That's the guy that scored 40, 50 points in a basketball game. That's the guy that ran for three touchdowns, caught the winning pass. This is it. This is the beginning of the highlight reel. I know you, God says. I formed you and you are a prophet I'm sending to the nations. Now Jeremiah heard those words and Jeremiah didn't feel like, oh, this is a high point because he realized the gravity of what God had just said. Verse 6. Then I said, Lord God, behold I cannot speak for I am but a youth. He says, I'm not a good speaker and I'm too young. Young men don't do this. This is what old men do. You can't send me out to do this.

He has no confidence. So you think, wow, I mean, what would happen if God came to you and said, I knew you before you were born and I have a purpose for you? Actually, He has said that to you.

It just is in this book instead of Him personally showing up. But He's actually said that to you. But we don't... what's our response to that? Much like Jeremiah's. Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't do that with me. You know, I don't... I'm not a first stringer here. There's never going to be a highlight reel of my life. You can't do this with me, which is exactly what Jeremiah said. So we look at this and say, wow, this is so far different than my life. No, it's not. He just did it in a different way. He did it through the Bible. He called you and He says, here's what the Lord said to him in verse 7. But the Lord said to me, do not say I am a youth, for you shall go to all whom I send you. This is going to be the key of what we're going to talk about today. You're going to go to all where I send you. And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord. So God says, no, no, no, I'm going to do this.

Okay. Jeremiah starts out and does it. He has some confidence. God has given him this confidence that he's going to go out and he's now going to live a life of, you know, of course, they didn't highlight reels. You can't get a highlight reel now, it is, because that's film. It's done differently now. But anyways, we know the term. You probably know the term. So he starts to prophesy. He prophesies for decades. He prophesies to numerous kings. He's the most well-known prophet in all of Judah. Everybody knows Jeremiah. So let's now spend the next half hour going through all those home runs, all those stolen bases, all those, you know, three-point jump shots to win the game. Let's go through all those highlights of his life. Well, in Jeremiah 11, it says he's rejected by his neighbors. All his neighbors, people he grew up with, rejected him. In Jeremiah 12, he's rejected by his family. In Jeremiah 20, and again in verse 28, all the religious leaders reject him, publicly ridiculing him. In Jeremiah 20, he's rejected by his friends. In Jeremiah 26, he's speaking to an audience, and the entire audience rejected him. In Jeremiah 36, he's rejected by the king. That happened more than once. In Jeremiah 37, his highlight is he's thrown into prison for preaching God's Word. Boy, when do the highlights start? When does he win a game? And then in Jeremiah 38, they take him, and they put him down in a cistern and leave him there to die.

Years he's been doing this, and these are his highlights. This is his biography here. You know, not too many people would buy a biography of Jeremiah if you didn't know it was in the Bible, because this guy's just a failure after failure after failure. God comes and says, I knew you before you were born. I have a purpose for you. Oh, I can't do it. I'll do it in you. And his highlight reel is pretty disheartening. But it actually gets worse. We'll see it in a little bit here. It actually gets worse. He would watch his country, and he would watch his country slide deeper and deeper into sin. Fewer and fewer people listened to him.

Life became more oppressed because he was, or difficult because he was oppressed by his family, his friends, his neighbors. Nobody liked him. Nobody liked him. Jeremiah 20 verse 9. Just read Lamentations. If you're having a good day and you want to feel depressed, go read Lamentations. I mean, how many times do you hear Lamentations quoted in a message? Very seldom because we don't want everybody leaving here, right? Just down. Because why? He wants to give up. And the whole story, or the whole story flow of Lamentations is, I want to give up, but God won't let me. I actually want to, but He won't let me. Jeremiah 20 verse 7.

I like this section here because the humanity of Jeremiah comes out, but you've got to put it into the context. The high point of my life was, I've called you and I have a purpose for you, and it went downhill from there. Oh, Lord, You induced me, and I was persuaded. You're the one who came along and said You had a purpose for me, and I believed it. You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. And so I don't want to do this, but no, I do it because of You. He says, I will send You.

I am in derision daily. Everyone mocks me. For when I spoke, I cried out. I shouted, violence and plunder because of the word of the Lord was made to me, a reproach in a derision daily. You know, we're finding out just, just on Beyond Today, where we try to craft what we're saying for the world. And we are being attacked constantly now. We're starting to be censored. Man, we're being pretty nice here. You know, in fact, there's times we've talked about, well, if they're going to take us off, let's just get out there and say some things. You know, it's like, well, hold off, guys. He tells, hold off, guys. There has a time. Although Mr. Shaby said, well, man, just start saying stuff. Just be nice. Don't be mean, but just start saying certain things. So we are. And yeah, so the censorship is going to become more and more common. It just is.

He says, then I said, now here's where he comes to, and he is highlight real. All the things he's doing for God, all the things he's accomplishing. Then I said, I will not make mention of him. I just love that part. It's like, God, this didn't turn out like you said it would. Nobody's repenting. Everybody hates my guts. Even my family doesn't have me over for dinner anymore. So I'm not going to even talk to people about you. How's that? I mean, he reached that point. He says, nor speak any more in his name. He said, I actually decided that at one point. He said, but his word was in my heart like a burning fire. Shut up in my bones. I was weary of holding up back and I could not. God said, this is what I created you for. Go do it. And he couldn't hold it back. God's spirit was in him and he went and did it anyways. And he ended up in prison. He ended up in a sister. He ended up in all kinds of things. For I heard many mocking, fear on every side. Report, they said, and we will report it. All my acquaintances watched for my stumbling, saying, perhaps he can be induced. Then we will prevail against him and we will take him, our revenge on him. Verse 11 says, but the Lord is with me as a mighty awesome one. He came back, I only do this for God because he is God.

Because of his love for God, he would keep doing it.

Well, that's a little discouraging.

And when you read the end of the book, the Babylonians marched in just like he told them they would. And they destroyed Jerusalem.

And he is let go.

They let him go. Basically he was told, you told these people we were coming. You told them to repent. To repent, they didn't repent. So we're not taking you into captivity, we're leaving you here.

And you have Jeremiah at one point walking through the ruins of Jerusalem.

It's like all my people are gone. Great highlight, Rio, huh? All my people are gone.

But he's still alive and he's still in the Promised Land. Now we're going to come back to Jeremiah, because there's still more to this. But I want to talk about another person in Jeremiah's life. Let's go to Jeremiah 36.

Over the years, this man has become a personal, I don't know, example. There's been times in my life I've decided I was going to somehow save the church. I mean, not literally, but you know, sort of like, I'll fix things. And Baruch has become my go-to guy when I think that way.

Baruch is the scribe of Jeremiah. Baruch comes from a prominent family. We know that much about him. He was well known in society. You know, a scribe was the most educated person, because a scribe took the scriptures, they took the scrolls, and they're the ones who reproduced it, because, you know, scrolls would wear out. So they had to read and write and be exact. That's why you see in the Old Testament and the New Testament, biblical questions and they bring the scribes in. What does Isaiah say about this? Well, we better get a scribe, because they copied it and they memorized it. So they're sort of the intellectual geniuses of their day.

Even today in Judaism, Ezra is considered the greatest scribe of all time. So he's a scribe. He's an important man, comes from an important family, has recognition in society. So that's where he's coming from.

Verse 1.

Now it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that the word came to Jeremiah from the Lord's saying. Okay, so here's Jeremiah now, still plugging along, still waiting for some great play to happen in his life, some big thing, and nothing's happened.

Take a scroll of a book and write it in all the words I have spoken to you. And that's what God is talking to him against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations. From the day which I spoke to you, to the days of Josiah, even to this day. Josiah tried to make some changes. Most of the kings never tried to make any changes. And he just watched his nation. But not only that, he had to tell other countries that to repent before God. Say, he's probably the most unpopular man in the entire Middle East.

It may be, verse 3, it may be that the house of Judah will hear all the adversities, which I propose to bring upon them, that everyone may turn from his evil way, and I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. He says, because maybe they'll change.

Maybe they'll change Jeremiah, and you're the one who I want to tell them, and they know that I'm sending you. So what does he do? Verse 4, Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Noriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll a book all the instructions of Jeremiah, all the words of the Lord, which he's spoken to him. So he's now sort of this personal, I guess, kind of like personal secretary to Jeremiah. And Baruch writes down everything he says. These are the words of God to Judah. Now, we don't know exactly what was written down, but we know the general message. Now, we turn to God, do these things. So it's a pretty potent message that he's sending. Jeremiah was pretty blunt. He wasn't like Amos. Amos was a farmer, and God called him. Amos was just, I mean, he called the rich women of Israel a bunch of fat cows, and he really didn't care. Okay? Jeremiah, on the other hand, he's known as the weeping prophet because Jeremiah, he could be, he could tell the truth, but he was always trying to tell it in a way that encouraged people, that brought people into him. You can just see it in his, it's just a different personality. So that's why he's called the weeping prophet, because he just, he cries for his people. He's always crying for his people. Amos was like, I'm going back to farming. I'm tired of you people, you know. And Jeremiah, it's just totally different personality. It's maybe why Jeremiah had a greater work than Amos, you know.

Amos was just too blunt. I mean, there's a time you need an Amos, and there's a time God uses a Jeremiah. It just depends on what he's achieving.

So, and Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am confined, I cannot go to the house of the Lord. We don't know exactly why he was confined. He might have been under some house arrest, he might have been ill. You go therefore and read from the scroll which you have written at my instruction, the words of the Lord and the hearing of the people in the Lord's house on the day of fasting. And you shall also read them in the hearing of all Judah who come from their cities. He says, I don't want this just read to like the priest. You're going to come in when there's a huge assembly taking place, and you say it's from Jeremiah, and they're going to let you speak, and you get up and you read it to them, to everybody. Baruch is having one of those highlight, real moments, right? You know, I'm a famous scribe, and I know the scriptures, and Jeremiah is sending me out, and I'm going to speak to all the leaders of Judah and thousands of people there at that assembly, and I'm going to get up and read the words of God to these people. Yes, sir, this is a home run, right? This is it. It's only up from here. It'll be nothing but great deeds from this point forward. And then he says, verse 7, this is what God had told him. Maybe he didn't say they will. This is what's real important here. He said, maybe. It may be that they will present their supplication before the Lord, and everyone will return from his evil way. For great is the anger and the fury that the Lord has pronounced against the people. Maybe they'll listen this time, Baruch.

And you know, Baruch went in here, I imagine, believing. Yep, they're going to listen. Baruch, the son of Nerea, did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading from the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house. So he's actually in the temple doing this. Now it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month that they proclaimed a fast before the Lord to all the people in Jerusalem and to all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem. So this wasn't necessarily the name of the tolman. Then Baruch read the book of the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, in the chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the scribe in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house, in the hearing of all the people. Wow! He did it! And what's interesting is the response, because they responded by saying, this needs to go to the king.

Yes, yes, we need to hear these words. This needs to go to the king. And so they took the letter to the king. Now once again, Baruch's saying, wow, this is a bigger thing than I thought it would be. And after they take this scroll written by Jeremiah, read by Baruch, they take it to the king, verse 19. So some of the princes here, some of the leaders of Judah come to Baruch and say, go and hide you and Jeremiah and let no one know where you are. You know, this has got to be feeling a little, wait a minute, we've got a revival going on here. I mean, this is what we've been working for. God's people responding to God, they all want me to... and it's like, no, you don't understand. They're taking this to him and he's going to be furious and he's going to kill you. Run and hide. Just go and hide. And tell Jeremiah to hide too. He's not turning out exactly in this glorious way that he thought God was going to have it happen, right? Verse 20. Oh, it gets worse.

Okay, this is what he said. I want to hear it word for word. For they bring the scroll in and he reads it now, word for word, in front of the king and all the leaders of Judah. Verse 22. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month with a fire burning in the heath before him, a hearth before him. And it happened when Jehuadai had read three or four columns that the king cut it with the scribe's knife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. And they were not afraid, nor did they tear their garments, the king nor any of the servants who heard these words.

Now what's going to happen? Run and hide. So Baruch has to go back to Jeremiah and say, boss, this didn't work out the way we thought. We thought we were going to be really light now, and people were going to, you know, I come from a well-known family. My family's going to turn against me and my life's going to go down the tubes because I did this. And now we got to go hide.

Verse 27. Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words in which Baruch had written all the instructions of Jeremiah, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, okay, now Jeremiah's going to be thinking, okay, I refuse to spend, I'm not going to say anything more about you anymore, right? This has to be one of those times. I can't do this. I can't ask what you want me to do. I can't live the way you want me to live. I told you I can't do this when you called me. And God said, no, you won't. I will.

That's what he told him. No, you won't. Remember? I will. I will do this.

Take another scroll. Now Baruch's got to be thinking, I really, I'm really hard on to the wrong guy here. Take another scroll right on in all the former words, which were in the first scroll, which Jehoa-akim, the king of Judah, had burned. And you shall say to Jehoa-akim, king of Judah, thus says the Lord, you have burned the scroll, saying, why have you written it in, the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy the land and cause man and beast to cease from here. He says, okay, that's it. God's not going to save you now. Babylon's going to come and destroy your country. Go tell him that. Now Baruch's got to be saying, I can't even walk down the street and I'm going to go tell the king, what? That now Babylon, the pagan Babylonians, are going to come destroy our country. Yep, that's what God says. Therefore, thus says the Lord, concerning King Jehoa-akim, king of Judah, he shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, oh, this is going to really make him happy, on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out into the heat of the day and the frost of the night, and I will punish him, his family, and his servants for their iniquity. And I will bring on them, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the men of Judah, all the doom that I have pronounced against them, but they did not heed. And so Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Dariah, who wrote on it all the instructions of Jeremiah, all the words of the book which Jehoa came, king of Judah had burned in the fire, and besides there were added to them many similar words. So now he doesn't get one scroll, he gets a, you know, one small scroll, he gets a giant scroll, and now it's taken and read to the king. And it's not long after this, not long right after this, read the next chapter, that Jeremiah is put in prison. Baruch seems to have escaped prison, but let's just say he's now an outcast in his own country, an outcast in his own people.

This isn't what it was supposed to be. Jeremiah and Baruch thought, but I was called by God, and now I'm going to just have spirit, you know, I'm going to be healed of everything. How many times when you come into the truth, do you think, well, I'm going to be healed every time? Well, there's no promise that we're going to be healed every time. Well, if I pay my tithes, I'll always be blessed physically. Actually, there's a promise of that in terms of the old covenant or the new covenant. You're told you'll be blessed spiritually, and that's a different thing. And so we come in thinking, my life is going to be nothing but high life, real material, right? And you know, a lot of it is. We are really blessed.

We live lives. The poor, I don't know how poor we are, our health issues, the things we're going through, you see how much of the world, the people throughout this globe live, and we are really blessed. God has blessed us. But it's not exactly sometimes what we thought it would be. It sure wasn't for Jeremiah, and it sure wasn't for Baruch. It wasn't what they would have thought at all. Now, God sends a message to Baruch, Jeremiah 45. You think, what's this have to do with me? Well, we're going to... I'm going to show you in a minute, because it's very simple, very simple, but it's very complex to actually think it through, reason it through, emotionally. It's very complex, and yet it's a very simple thing that Jeremiah and Baruch had to learn. And we read about it here. There's a reason. Their whole lives are put here. I mean, he could have just had it written down the messages through Jeremiah. Why did he have to write down all the things Jeremiah went through, and all the things that he felt? Why did he do that? That's for us. Why is Baruch's story here? He just subscribed. Well, it's for us. Chapter 45, verse 1. The word that Jeremiah, the prophet, spoke to Baruch, the son of Neoriah, when he had written these words in a book at the instruction of Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoah, king, son of Josiah, king of Judah, said, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch. So now, Jeremiah says, Oh yeah, God has a message for you too. You said, Woe is me now, for the Lord has added grief to my sorrow. I fainted in my sighing, and I have no rest. He says, Okay, you're filled with anxiety. You're filled with fear. You know, one of the things that no matter where you go, wherever I go in this country, the whole world, society is filled with anxiety and fear. And we in the church are experiencing that. Jeremiah Baruch experienced that. And he's saying, I just fell into such anxiety. He says, I can't even, you know, I don't even know how to go on. I have no rest. I can't even sleep at nights. That's Baruch, the guy that sort of had it all together, who is really respected in society. And this is it? This is what serving God does. What God's message to Him is very interesting. Thus you say to Him, this is what Jeremiah was to say to him, Thus says the Lord, Behold, what I have built I will break down. What I have planted I will pluck up. That is this whole land. He says, No, Judah's coming down. I've sent them prophets, and I've sent them priests for, you know, generations now. No, they're going to go into captivity. Now, there were promises they would come back, which they did. Jesus was born there. Why? Because He was promised He would be born there. He was going to take them back. But this generation, number of generations, were going to experience punishment. And here's what He says to him, And do not seek great things for yourself. Do not seek them. In other words, do not use this you're a scribe. You're somewhat important in society. Don't use that. Don't try to make yourself the solution. Don't try to even save your country. Just keep telling them what I'm telling them. Just do what Jeremiah tells you. I will bring adversary in all flesh as the Lord. And this is what He promises him. But I will give you your life to you as a prize in all places wherever you go. He said, I will be with you and I'm going to take care of you. That's the only promise He gave him. I will be with you. So don't try to fix it. You can't fix this. Only God can fix it. Now, Baruch's story and Jeremiah's story come together here.

Because both would see the Babylonians come in and both would end up in Jerusalem, probably them and their closest families. And that's all they had.

Wherever you go, He said, wherever you go, everybody else was taken away, but this small group was left. And He says, wherever you go, I will be with you. That's the promise. That's it. Wherever you go. You know how the Jeremiah ends?

Jeremiah and Baruch are there and there's other survivors. And God comes to Jeremiah and the survivors decide they're just going to leave Judah and they're going to move down to Egypt. I know there may have been thousands of them because it's a big country. You know, people survive an invasion. We're just going to move. And He says, God says not to do that. And now think about it. These people had heard Him say for years, repent, or the Babylonians are going to destroy you. And the Babylonians came, they destroyed them. And the people said, you know what? We're still going and we need a prophet. And Jeremiah and Baruch were kidnapped and taken to Egypt. That's how the book of Jeremiah ends. It's not a big highlight reel. They're now kidnapped by their own people and taken to Egypt after God said, don't do it.

And so now they take care of those people living in a foreign land. And what did God tell Baruch? Wherever you go, you have no idea where your life's going to go here, Baruch. And wherever you go, remember, I'm with you. Which is basically what He told Jeremiah. Wherever you go, I'll be with you. You know, I think of Jeremiah saying, you told me they would repent, they didn't repent, I'm not going to preach to them anymore. And God's response was probably something like, who told you they would repent? I just told you to go preach to them. No, no, no, I want them to repent, they're my people, I love them. That's what was so hard for him. He loved his people so much. And he says, I love them too, but you just do what I tell you to do.

It's a different way of seeing Jeremiah, isn't it? Because we see Jeremiah as nothing but a highlight reel. But his experience wasn't that, and neither was Baruch's.

We see it. They didn't see it. It was like nothing but losing seasons. A team that never wins anything. That's what their experience was like.

Now let me tie in another one from the New Testament, because this is going to Matthew 14.

This one, I think, even focuses us in more on what the issue is here.

I mean, I imagine being in a really bad storm. We've all been in bad storms. Every once in a while in Tennessee, a tornado comes through.

We had one in the vicinity here, I don't know, I guess it was in the fall. And Kim says, she comes and says, Gary, there's a tornado! And I looked in the news and I said, huh, it's probably south of here. So what do I do? I look out the window. Because, I mean, according to the map, it's still far off. I'm trying to see the cloud build up. And she says, what are you doing? What are you doing? And she runs into the place. We have the middle room with no windows. And she goes in there.

She says, you have to come in here. Okay, I'd rather be sort of looking out the window, but this isn't smart. So I go in and we sit in there. And that's not a highlight reel, part of your highlight reel, right? The time you spent 30 minutes sitting in the little, it's our laundry room, sitting in the laundry room, you know, listening to the wind blow outside. But we drove through a tornado one time.

So we have a, I mean, literally, we have a healthy, yeah, when you're, when you're, it's black, so dark you can't see. And it's like, it's like a strobe light. The lightning's flashing. And you're looking at something coming through you, through the darkness. And it's a pickup truck about six feet off the ground. And then you realize, no, it's not. It's a semi full of pickup trucks being driven down the road towards you. You get a healthy respect for tornadoes. We didn't know we were driving into it, and we did.

So anyways, see, you're, there's a storm. It's raging outside, but you're in your house, and you're okay. You're in a nice house. The storm's going, it's raining, the wind's blowing, and you're sitting around a fire, and it's okay. And it's, you know, it's something you don't talk about. You don't think about it much in life. It's not part of your highlight reel.

I mean, it's a, it's a, you weathered a storm one night, sitting around talking and with your kids, and okay. Now think about being on a boat. I mean, a little fishing boat, and you're in that storm. You're on a fishing boat in that storm, out in the middle of a sea, and there's 12 of you, and the boat's starting to sink. Okay? The boat's starting to sink. The mast is broken.

It's taken all water. You can't bail it out fast enough. You're just looking at each other. Nobody has to say anything. You're looking at each other and thinking, we're gonna die here, right? We're gonna die here. Matthew 14 verse 24. You know the story. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. Now on the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.

And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled and said, it's a ghost. Some kind of spirit out there. What is that? And they cried out for fear.

You know, to make it worse, we're watching something supernatural. Maybe it's a demon. They have no idea what's coming. I mean, who walks in water, right? Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it is you, of course, immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, be of good cheer. It is I. Do not be afraid. Sort of like God telling Jeremiah, no, you can't do this. I will. And Jesus, or Peter said to Him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you in the water, or on the water. And He said, come. And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked in the water to go to Jesus.

Now, this would be part of Peter's highlight reel, right? Except it's not. And sometimes we miss the point here. He says, and when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me! And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him and said to him, O you of little faith, why did you doubt? When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped him, saying, truly you are the Son of God. Now you say, well, this is one of Peter's fumbles, right?

But we're missing the point. This isn't part of the Peter fumbles the ball highlight reel.

It's part of the highlight reel of Jesus Christ. We make it about us. It's never been about us. It's about what God does in us. That's what it's about. It's about what this is Jesus Christ's highlight reel. We talk about Peter failing, and we should be talking about Christ walking on water. As long as we look at Peter's failing, you know what we do? We look at our things.

Because we're just like him. No, he had more faith than we have.

He had more faith than we had. We're missing the point.

The point is, whose highlight reel do you want to be part of?

That's the point. I sometimes feel a great heavy rock trying to get the church to understand. We're not focused on God enough.

And this world's going to eat us up. And it's not going to get any better. I'm not a prophet of doom. But it's not going to get better. We're never going back to 2019. Those weren't exactly the good old days spiritually, right? We're not going back to 1955. But you know, those weren't the good old days spiritually. The world needed Jesus Christ to come back just as much in 1955 as it does now. You know, we look back thinking, oh, we wish we could go back. There are no good old days. They don't exist.

And then we try to make these sort of highlight reels of ourselves.

And that's not what it's about.

In the lives of the people in the Bible, I mean, we looked at Jeremiah, Baruch, and Peter. They all considered themselves somewhat failures in what they, you know, what they thought they should do or what they thought God should do.

What happened with Jeremiah was that he was persecuted and hated by everybody in the country that he loved dearly. He loved those people dearly. But then we have an entire book dedicated to Jeremiah.

That's God's highlight reel. It's not his. It's what God did in him.

We have Baruch where God sent a message to him and said, all I'm promising you is wherever you go, I'll be with you. And as he's being dragged off by his countrymen violently, because they kidnapped him, he didn't want to go, he and Jeremiah, off to Egypt, God's with him. And they became people who taught those people in Egypt. That's all we know about Jeremiah from the Bible. That's where it ends. That was God's highlight reel.

Peter falling. Well, that's Jesus Christ's highlight reel. That's what we should be centered on. Those things.

Because that's what happens in our lives. Those things that God does.

You know, you think about it. Years after Peter, you know, was sinking into the water to die, and Jesus was out grabbing him and said, you don't have much faith, son. You just don't have much faith.

Think about this. When you feel like your life is a failure as a Christian, because you can't make sense of what God's doing. Because the older I get, the more I realize, it's like you ever try to argue with a two-year-old?

You know, so many people say, well, my parents would just tell me, tell me, you do it because I tell you, so I'll never do that. Now, say, wait till you have a two-year-old. Because there's times you just look at him and say, I can explain this for the next three hours, and you will not understand. Your little brain can understand. So you just do it to us, because I told you to. You know, that's what God does with us a lot. He explains and explains and explains, and he says, just do it because I told you. Just believe dad knows what he's doing. That's all I can tell you, because you won't get this. And in those moments, it doesn't make sense. There's a lot in life I go to God over. I watch some people suffer, and I go, I don't understand. Why are you allowing this? And, you know, what's the answer? Son, that's not your business.

Trust me, I'm taking care of them. I will go where I send them. Wherever they go, I will be with them. Yeah, but I don't like that. They're not going in a nice place. Yeah, but wherever they go, I'm with them. Sometimes that's all the promise we get. Sometimes it's all we got. Sometimes it's all God.

And as we face the world ahead, that has got to be a very important ingrained in us.

That wherever we go, God will be with us.

It's 20 years after Peter, you know, had his experience trying to walk on water. I can imagine Peter going to visit some people, and they all invite him in, all the little kids run up and say, tell us about the time Jesus walked on water. But he's going to tell you how I felt. Okay, but that's not what they're asking about. Okay, tell us the time he walked on water.

And he's part of the story.

If you had a choice to go back to that day, okay, where would you rather be?

What'd you think about this? Would you rather be in the house where it's warm and there's a fire and you have to shutters up and it's stone and the wind's blowing and, you know, it's raining and you're safe? If you had your choice, would you rather be there or on the boat in the sea, thinking you're going to die, bailing water, probably blaming Peter Ford anyways.

You know, I could see Thomas and James get into a fistfight, you know, just their personalities.

Or John and James as brothers, you know, I could see them doing that too. Or hugging each other and saying, man, this is it, you know, this is it. We're not getting to shore tonight. And they see Jesus walking on the water.

Where would you rather be?

God puts us in the boat. We want to be in the house.

See, God puts us in the boat.

We want to be in the house.

And you can be in the house, but you're not part of God's highlight. Really.

Probably we can't even remember all the names. I mean, I'd have to really think, there's a good question for you. What were the names of all the 12 of the apostles, or disciples who were with him at the time?

Judas was with him. They're all there. They're where he put them, to be there. Yeah, they could have been safe in a house. But see, it wasn't their high life real they're part of. It's his.

Just like Jeremiah, God said to you, I knew you before you were born, and I have a purpose for you.

And just like him, and just like Baruch, and just like Peter. What did Jesus tell Peter? When you're older, you'll go where you don't want to go.

In other words, you're going to die for me, but I will be with you.

That promise is so important.

Because I don't know how fast the world economy is collapsing.

I don't want to be negative. It just is. But it's beyond that. This has happened before. In history, it's a it's a sicker. And as it does, you know what comes out of it?

Chaos. You know where Satan does his worst work? He thinks this is his best. It's in chaos.

So it's at there's cycles to it. You can see it. You can go back. 1914 was the last time it happened.

And nobody thought it would. Actually, nobody planned it. But once it started, you couldn't stop it.

His cycles happen again. This one may be the last one.

And if it is, or even if it isn't, there may be some hard times. The important thing is God made you a promise. And his promise is, I'll be with you wherever you go. That's it. Because in the end, a lot of times all we're going to have is God in each other. That's it. God and other people that are trying to follow God.

And still we have to be lights of the world. We have to love the people around us, just like Jeremiah did.

We have to love him just like he did. So what I want to do, simple thing today. And it's something I just, you know, we talk about revivals. I think the Church has to go through periodic revivals. And I think the Church needs a revival on a level, not just the things we do, which are important. We don't want to compromise with the Sabbath. We don't want to compromise with honesty. But I think at the core, we have to come back to a central understanding that God has called me and that the promise is, wherever you go, I will be with you.

So