2819 Church - CROSS TO COMMISSION | It Had to Happen | Matthew 26:47-56 | Lonnell Williams
Episode Date: December 1, 2025Welcome to the official YouTube channel for 2819 Church. This channel features powerful and life-impacting messages from Philip Anthony Mitchell and guest communicators.As you listen to these sound bi...blical messages you can expect to be challenged, stirred, matured, and inspired in your faith and walk with God. For more information about us visit 2819Church.org.
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You may take your seat.
My name is Lana Williams.
I'm the executive pastor here in 2018-19 church,
and I am so grateful to be given this opportunity to preach the word on this morning.
I would be remiss in this moment if we did not take a second, more than a second.
We're going to pause with the cause.
We're going to honor the lead pastor of this church, Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell.
If you've been blessed by him, just put your hands together.
Amen.
I'll tell you now, next week is his birthday.
And so next Sunday, we want to just honor him and just thank God for the life of the ministry of P.A.M.
And just grateful for him and his wife, Ms. Lena and their family.
And, you know, just grateful that they would even give us the opportunity to be able to just minister to God's people.
I also just want to shout out my wife who's in the room, my oldest daughter.
It's back from college for a little while, so grateful for that.
To the elders of this house, I thank God for you.
And I feel like one of them old Baptist churches,
but you got to name off everybody, the deacons on the roster.
Members and Christian friends, saints and saints, amen.
Listen, I'm just grateful for everyone here in the staff.
With this assignment, I've been given, you know,
the first gathering was interesting because I don't think I realized
that I was preaching to myself.
Yeah, I was preaching to myself.
It didn't hit me until in the back that this was actually a word for me.
So I think I'm just, I'm preaching in the mirror.
Y'all just so happen to be in the room with me.
But I pray that as it pierces me, that it pierces you as well.
Amen?
We're going to continue in this series, Cross to Commission,
as we continue to move through the final stages of Jesus' life,
his burial and his resurrection.
and as we move to that exciting text, Matthew 2819, which is going to be an amazing Sunday here
as we get closer and closer to that. But I've been charged with Matthew chapter 26, and I'm going
to read, well, I'll be responsible for, excuse me, verses 47 to actually 56. And so I'm not going to
read the full text in this moment, but I want to go ahead and preface to say,
that the crux of my message will probably be between 51 and 56, so we're going to move pretty
quickly to get to 50. But if I had to give a title to this preachment, I would call it,
it had to happen. It had to happen. You're wondering why it happened. And God is saying,
it had to happen. Let's begin. Father, you know, in 19, let's see, I'm 40,
years old now. So 1992, I had to think about that for a minute. In 1992, I was in the Linwood Aquatic
Center going through the graduation for my first swim lesson. I fell in love of swimming and
my mother took me to this facility. And a part of the final class was the ability to not only be
able to doggie paddle in the middle of water, but you had to jump off of the diving board.
Did you jump off the diving board? And I felt very confident.
in this endeavor. And so I passed the test with doggie paddling in the middle of the water for five minutes.
And then my class then kind of walked our way over to the diving board, to the diving board.
All of my classmates jumped into the water easily. And me, being the confident seven-year-old that I was,
I walked up to the diving board and I confidently walked to the end of the diving board. And when I looked over the edge,
I saw 14 feet of water beneath me and slowly but surely as I stared over the side of that
diving board I could feel my feet slowly backing up because you'll learn I don't like heights
and I don't like cats those are two things I cannot stand and and I and as I looked over I said nope
but unfortunately as I was walking back I could not find the strength to get off of the
diving board and I felt myself at the edge doing one of these and the whole diving board was
shaking because I was so nervous to jump off and and my family my mom and my classmates were
on the other end of the pool and they were saying jump lanelle jump and I was like no I'm not
jumping. I refuse to jump and five minutes turned into 30 minutes. And 30 minutes turned into two hours.
For two hours, I shut down the Linwood Aquatic Center. No other classes could go forward
because I refuse to jump. And in the moment where I thought I had gathered enough strength
to jump off of the diving board.
I felt this firm yet gentle hand on my back.
And it went just like this.
Yeah, did somebody push me?
And so I got in the water and clearly I was alive and well.
I got out.
I dried off.
Everybody clapping, you know, yay.
I'm like, okay, I got you, right?
I get off, you know, I get into the car.
And my mother's like, see, see, you just had.
to do it. And I was like, no, I don't understand, first off, why you would allow someone to come up
behind me and push me in the pool, right? Like, where were you? Right? And I was mad because I'm like,
I was just about to do it, you know? At the two hour and one minute mark, I was just about to jump.
I promise you I was. You just didn't give me a chance to. And my mother, you know, did not even
realize it at the time, but she was being prophetic. She looked in the rearview mirror and she said,
Lannell, it had to happen. It had to happen. And just as it was with me, as it is with you on this
morning, God is trying to move you to a place in your Christian maturity. And some moments have
to happen to ensure that you walk in your purpose. Can I help somebody here? This is what I
realized. I'm not saying, let me set the foundation for this text, I am not saying that bad things
are God's fault. Hear me out. Evil is evil. Sin is sin. So what I am not saying is that the
catastrophic thing that took place in your life was God's fault. Now, I am saying, though,
that the Christian life is not without suffering. Suffering is part and parcel of our Christian
experience, right? But catastrophic, like unbelievable things that seem evil, the Bible is very
clear. It says that God tempts no man with evil. Now, what he will do is he will redeem a negative
thing. He will redeem it and somehow get something out of it. But he is not the cause of it.
So when we think about this preachment, I don't want you to think from the lens of something catastrophic or evil.
Because God is not the author of either one.
But when it comes to our suffering, this is the part that we have to think through.
Now, in the reality of this text, we're going to find that Jesus is coming out of the Garden of Gissimity.
Peter, James, and John, and this is something I didn't say the first gathering, but I also want you to realize.
this. The disciples were also there too. Now, they weren't in the secret place, but as Jesus is
walking out, the rest of the disciples are in the space. And I can prove it to you later on,
because if you look at the last verse 56, the Bible says that the disciples fled.
They were present, but they were silent. All right, we'll preach that later. But here's the
thing. Here's the thing. So we find now that Jesus is coming out of the Garden, Gassimity.
He just said, not my will, but thy will be done.
We just had this experience with Peter, James, and John.
And then all of a sudden, the Bible says that Judas shows up.
Now, here is the thing.
Jesus has resolved that he was ready to do God's will.
But his disciples were not.
The scene was uncomfortable.
The scene was chaotic.
You've got all these people coming.
You've got Judas leading the crowd.
They've got swords.
They've got clubs.
They're going crazy.
You got Peter in the room with his weapon on his side, ready to go.
And Jesus is the calmest person in the space.
And I don't know about you, but have you ever been in a moment where you have felt extremely uncomfortable?
Have you ever been in a place where everything is falling apart around you?
And you don't know what to do.
Have you ever felt more uncomfortable than you can be?
can even imagine. Or maybe have you been trying to discern how God would allow you to sit in a season
like this? A season where you have been the most obedient. And it just so happened to be the season
that you've had the most pain. Listen to me. The fact that it is hard does not mean that you
miss God. Okay. All right. Just because.
Because it hurts doesn't mean you're off.
If obedience led Jesus into the Garden of Getsemite, why do you think obedience will always lead you in the comfort?
Lord, I'm obedient.
Not my will, but your will, ushers you right into the place of pain.
The story that I'm about to walk with you through is a story about reactions, it's a story about
emotional control, it's a story about purpose, and the text is not just happening to
Jesus is actually happening to us.
Jesus is the greatest example of how to manage our emotions in the midst of chaos.
And Jesus shows us what to do in these moments.
And other people in the text show us what not to do.
It is a mirror to our lives to see if we look like Jesus when all hill hits the fan.
I've got to push this very quickly.
But as we look at the story, in verse 47, it says that while he was still speaking,
Judas came one of the 12.
Now, this is what is so interesting to me.
While he was still speaking.
So Jesus is technically still in the Garden of Gisemite.
Judas comes and meets him in the guard.
And this is where I was confused.
How was it that Judas knew where Jesus was?
He knew the garden.
He knew the routine.
He knew the rhythm.
This is the thing.
Your deepest wounds will always come from people who have had access to your patterns.
Because they likely studied you before they stabbed you.
Let's keep going.
Now, now, now we see this.
It says this.
And with the great crowd of swords and clubs and chief priest,
priests and elders and people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign saying that the one I
kissed is the man to seize him. And he came up to Jesus. And at once, he said,
greetings rabbi, and he kissed him. What's interesting is this. He came with a great crowd.
They were chief priests and elders. If we were to contemporize this in the modern day,
these are church leaders. These are church leaders, people who stood in the front and would
proclaim the books of the Jewish community. They would read from the Torah. They were
religious folks. And they sat there to capture Jesus all in the name of God. In other words,
they misused the name of God for their own spiritual purpose. And I know you've never seen that
before. I know you've never experienced that before. You've never seen that before. You've never seen
wayward preachers who who try to use the name of God to, you know, purposely prop themselves up
and say, Jesus said, I know you've never been in a church where a preacher will stand before you
and say, the Holy Spirit said, 300 people in this room have $100. Amen. I feel the whole,
oh, Shatai, I feel them in the room, right? That is a lie. They are just like the individuals in the text.
using religiosity to force an agenda to keep their status.
Yeah, the Holy Spirit didn't tell you 300 people here, I got $100.
Say that y'all over budget and y'all need to raise this money or you're going to go in a hole.
Say you didn't get an honorarium and the pastor told you that you had to raise up your
offering so you can go home with something in your pockets.
Is that too real? Am I being too real? I'm telling the truth, right?
All right, let's keep going.
I just want to make sure I said that.
All right, here we go.
Here we go.
Here we go.
Verse 50.
Jesus said to him, friends, do what you came to do.
Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him.
I didn't even see that.
They laid hands on him.
How dare you lay hands on my father.
All right.
Greek, the Greek says this.
The word friend is not like a friend we understand, not like a friend or a brother.
The word in Greek actually means an associate or a comrade.
so so when you see him say do what you've come to do jesus is not confused he's not panicking
he's not stressed out he's not saying i'm okay with what you're doing he's actually saying i'm okay
with what god is doing through you he's saying i am not surrendering to judas he's saying i'm
surrendering to the will of the Father.
That's not passivity.
That is purpose in action.
He's saying,
when you're anchored in purpose,
you don't have to fight everything that hurts.
Wait, wait, let me do it. Let me do it.
Okay, very good.
All right.
When you are anchored in purpose,
you don't have to fight everything that hurts.
some things you just got to let it happen some things you have to experience because it had to happen how do i know
let me pose this question to you and maybe this will speak to your truth uh what if god can't complete
what you keep interrupting what what if the thing you fear is actually the thing that's forming you
what if the pressure you feel is actually the proof that god trust you
You know. Jesus. I felt that. But just do me a quick fair. I know we don't do this here,
but just, just nuts somebody if you can and say, I'm good. God's got me. Yeah, God's got me. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I felt like I was a little baptist.
That was good. All right. Here we go. Point number one. Let's get to the text. Let's get to the text.
Point number one, it had to happen. So Christ could reveal what's inside of you.
it had to happen so Christ could reveal what's inside of you. Let's look at this. Verse 51,
it says, and behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand. Now mind you,
Matthew never reveals the name of the person. We all know it's Peter, but he never reveals
the name of this person. I will talk to you about why that's the case in a second. And he drew his
sword and struck the servant. John 18 says his name was Malchus, the high priest, and cut
his ear. Church, we need to pause for the cause here because Matthew is showing us something
subtle and very severe. Peter did not swing because he was brave. He swung because he was
unheeled. He swung because he was emotionally unmanaged. Peter swung because swinging was
easier than surrendering. And I know, I know what you're saying. No, no, no.
No, that's not us. That's not us. We don't swing like that. No, no, no. That can't be us. You've got a sword in the hand that was supposed to be surrendered. And how do I know? Pressure will always reveal your reflex. Put you in a pressured place. And I'll tell you exactly how you respond. For some of you, your sword, it's not a physical sword. For some of you, your sword is pulling back out of conversations.
for some of you it's manipulation for some of you it's going numb for some of you it's an angry
attitude for some of you it's cutting remarks for some of you your sword is stonewalling for some
of you it's playing the white knight the savior for for some of you it's running instead of
confrontation for some of you your sword is your spouse you've turned your spouse
into a project instead of a partner.
And you call it having standards.
For some of you, your sword is your silence.
You've been cunning people with it for years.
For some of you, the people who are the closest to you
have the most emotional scars from your mouth.
And then you call it being direct.
Your sword is whatever you read.
for when your world is spinning out of control. And Peter's swing did not begin in the
garden moment. No, no, no, no, no. It did not begin in the garden moment. It began when he slept
when God needed him the most. Jesus was praying and Peter was asleep instead of being
attentive. And I know you're asking to yourself, well, how is that me? That's not me. Well, let me ask you
this. When was the last time you opened your Bible without a crisis forcing you there?
When was the last time you sat with God when you didn't need something from him?
I know I'm preaching better than you speaking, but that's okay. You've been running on last
year's prayer trying to fight this year's battle. How's that working? You neglected the
secret place and now you're panicking in the public place. Show me.
how you would respond when all hell breaks loose.
Now we find ourselves in a pressure moment, no clarity, no peace, no power.
And you're wondering why you keep swinging at the things that you should be praying through.
Peter is not our cautionary tale.
Peter is our testimony if we do not wake up.
Watch this.
Peter's sword was all right.
ready in his hand before the mob arrived.
He just hadn't drawn it yet.
And now in the moment that demanded stability, he walked into it with chaos.
Peter's swing was not bravery.
It was brokenness.
It is the visible manifestation of an invisible wound.
Emotions will force you to swing.
and missed the real issue.
In other texts and other gospels, the Bible says that Peter actually cut off the ear of Malchus.
Now, this is the thing that confused me a little bit, honestly, because he's not like he didn't
know how to use the sword.
So why would he cut off a ear?
Why didn't he cut off his head?
Why didn't he stab him in the heart?
Why didn't he stab him to try to injure him and to kill him?
I mean, you're trying to defend the Lord.
So why would he just cut off an ear?
And as I thought about that, I realized that for some of us, we respond just like him.
Our emotional swings are not coming from a place of what's happening in that moment.
They're coming from what you never healed five years ago.
They're coming from places you didn't heal 20 years ago.
And you keep blaming your circumstances, but your circumstances didn't create your chaos.
they exposed it.
Amen, lights. All right.
David Richel, in his book called Triggers, says this.
What triggers show us is where we have not yet become free?
You're not reacting to what they did.
You're reacting to what you never dealt with.
Yeah, your response has nothing to do with the moment.
your response has everything to do with what you have not addressed.
It's like me, for some reason, and this is just me, I love to cook, I love to cook, I love to bake,
I love to cook, you know, I do have some peach cobbler.
The staff knows.
I call it double-crusted slap your mom on peach cobbler.
Yes, yes, double-crusted, slap your mama peach cobbler.
It is that good.
You want to slap your mama because it is delicious.
Amen, double-crusted, crust on the top, crust on the bottom, it's real.
but yeah it's good see I got you but this is the thing this is the thing
for some reason whenever I cook I don't know why this happens to me every single
time but when I cook I burn myself some way should it perform like I don't know
why if it happens I burn myself and when I do I know that it's going to be good if I
burn myself that's how I know it's going to be good because I'm putting my foot in it
you know like I'm in that thing so you know I'm like oh yeah little oil pop on me I'm like
oh yeah this is about to be good right here yeah dog it's supposed to be good right here in fact i
i burned myself right there yeah it was good it was good but this is the thing uh whenever i do burn
myself my son uh who is just like me he loves to go get band-aids right he loves to go get band-aid he
grab a band-aid and give it to me uh and if you're not careful with a child they'll use up all
the band-aids on everything for like you don't even have a scratch you just feel like you
like I need a band-aid. You know what I'm saying? But with the band-aid, I always put it on. And because
I become frustrated, I pull the band-aid off. I pull it off, usually after a day, assuming that it's
healed. Because I don't give it the space to be healed, the scar, number one, can never properly
be handled by my body to fix. But number two, it always leaves.
a scar. The wound becomes a scar and a scar that can be visible. Do you understand what I'm
saying? If you're not careful, the thing that you don't deal with today will become the scar of the
future. Does that make sense? Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Let's let's keep going.
Point number two, point number two. It had to happen so Christ could draw you in to depend on.
him. Look at verse 52. Then Jesus said to him, put your sword back in its place. For all we take the sword
or perish by the sword. Jesus in this moment is rebuking Peter, but it's not a traditional
rebuke. It is a very subtle, very clear and surgical rebuke. Look what he says. He says, put your
sword back. Watch this. In its place.
He doesn't say throw your sword away.
He doesn't say give your sword to somebody else.
He doesn't say give me the sword.
He says, I don't want you to think that the sword is bad, right?
I don't want you to think that your emotions are bad.
He doesn't say there's anything wrong with having him.
He says, but I want you to put them in their place.
Your emotions aren't the enemy.
your timing is and if we're honest your responses are oftentimes your emotions just leading
they're dictating they're controlling they're interrupting your emotions were designed to inform you
and not to control you and this is how I know this is true it's like the phrase when we say
take the wheel, Jesus, right? Oftentimes what we will do as believers, as we actually will,
we will take the will. We'll allow our emotions to take the will. We put Jesus in the passenger
seat. And if we're honest, some of us actually push Jesus out of the car completely. And then we
drive with our emotions and watch this, our lives wind up in the ditch. And then we have the
audacity to say, well, Jesus, why did you allow
this to happen to me because we have not given our emotions the proper place in our lives
we we we we we we we we Jesus does not destroy emotions he does not ignore them
Jesus himself had emotions look at Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15 for we do not have a high
priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one
who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
In other words, Jesus has experienced every emotion that we experience.
And yet he has chosen, because your emotional response is our choice.
He has chosen not to sin.
Jesus teaches us how to discipline our emotions.
He never says, I don't want you to be passionate. In fact, he never says that you cannot be angry. The Bible says to be angry but sin not. I want you to put your passions where they belong. Put them in their place. I'm going to say this very clearly. If the only way you know how to feel safe is to stay in control, you will always interpret surrender as danger.
You have made control your God and called it wisdom.
Lord, all right.
Oh, that's fine.
I keep going.
Hear me.
Control is not safety.
It's a sword.
Control is not wisdom.
It's self-protection.
And self-protection oftentimes becomes self-sabotage.
How do I know?
Let me ask you this.
What have you been calling wisdom that is really just fear with a better vocabulary word?
Okay.
What has your self-protection already cost you that you're still not ready to admit?
How about this?
What impulses have you masqueraded as discernment?
I'm just, I discern.
I discern this moment.
No, that is just your faulty impulses getting you in seasons.
that you're praying God to pull you out of.
And God won't move because God didn't put you there.
All right.
Watch this.
We cannot ask God for peace when we are gripping our emotional weapons.
Whenever we reach for something when we're afraid.
We keep saying, Lord, help me while refusing to release it.
And he is saying, I want to help you, but you will not let go.
And what emotions we hold on in our hands
reveal what we don't trust God to hold.
Show me what you can't let go of.
And I'll show you what you worship.
That's my Jesus says.
Put it back in its place.
Jesus is discipling Peter's emotions and ours.
The correction had to be.
to happen so that he could no longer respond emotionally, but respond like Christ.
Point number three, and I'm almost done. It had to happen so Christ could form obedience
inside of you. What do I mean? Look at the text, verse number 53. Do you think that I cannot
appeal to the Father and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels?
Jesus is saying, Peter, I'm not here because I lack options.
I'm not I'm here because I have obedience
Jesus literally says all right so
Allegion is 6,000 right
6,000 right so if he says that
if a legion is 6,000 Jesus is saying I can send
72,000 angels
at my disposal
you talk about clapback
Jesus like oh I'm the king of clapback I got you
right watch this
he had enough spiritual control
to discern the moment
and hold back the gates of heaven
which he could have released.
So my question to you is
then why can't you hold your tongue in traffic?
Where's Rhonda?
Shata. All right.
Jesus could have escaped.
He could have retaliated.
He could have shut it down.
But he didn't, not because he was not powerless.
He did it because he was powerful.
I'm going to say this real slowly for you.
Real authority is not doing what you have the power to do.
It is resisting what you have the right to do.
Power is not in what you can do.
Power is in what you won't do.
and Jesus
had the right to fight
he had the right
to command the angels
but purpose
always speaks louder
than pain
now you're probably wondering
well then how do I delineate between
an unhealthy response and a healthy response
if Jesus is modeling for us what a healthy
response to pain and being obedient is
so how do I define what an unhealthy response is
that's very simple an unhealthy response
says, do anything right now. Just, just do it. Just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just to the wind, just yolo, just do it all. And, and a healthy response says, stand still and see the salvation of our faith without wavering. But, unhealthy says, rewrite the story. So, so you won't get hurt. But, but, but healthy says, run.
with endurance, the race that is set before us.
An unhealthy response says that the plan is failing and you need to take control.
But a healthy response says, trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not to
thy own understanding and all thy ways acknowledge him and he will direct your past.
If this is a Baptist church, this is when I would feel good and start hooping.
But he would say, now.
Unhealthy says now or never.
But a healthy response says, I believe that I should.
shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
An unhealthy response says that the pain is proof that you're failing.
But a healthy response says, let patience have its perfect work that you may be complete.
An unhealthy response says what you're feeling, you'll feel forever.
But a healthy response says, for I consider that the suffering of this present world
shall not compare to the glory that shall be revealed.
hear me every shortcut
but the enemy offers you
is sabotage
wrapped in relief
the devil's exits
always look like entrances
oh lord help us
he's not
trying to destroy you openly
the enemy is trying to
rerout you subtly
and the rerout feels
like a rescue until it realized where you realize where it led you.
How do you know if this is true?
Well, let me ask you this.
Where are you tempted to rush what God is trying to refine?
What are you trying to get out of that God is trying to get inside of you?
Jesus could have called the angels, but he used his power over the pain.
And if Jesus canceled the purpose, we would still be on our way to hell.
His escape would have cost us everything.
He said, not my will but thy will.
And so with yours, it had to happen.
Point number four, as I come to the close, it had to happen because the scriptures had to be revealed.
But if you look at 54 through 56, Jesus is explaining to those who are in the space.
He says, but how then should the scriptures be fulfilled?
That it must be so.
And at the hour, Jesus said to the crowds, have you come out, had you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me day after day I sat at the temple teaching?
You didn't seize me.
But all this had to take place that the scriptures, the prophets might be fulfilled.
Listen to the tone of Jesus.
He's not irritated.
He's not anxious.
He's not shaken.
And if some of us will be honest with ourselves,
if we were put in the same place,
our response would probably not look like Jesus.
He is rooted.
Jesus was the calmest person in all of the chaos.
In something that he could have prevented.
And that's what happened when you know the outcome.
when you know the outcome
when you know
he'll never leave you nor forsake you
it doesn't matter what comes your way
when I know the outcome
I'll trust in his word
he says now then
shall the scriptures be fulfilled
translation
if I stop this
I stop what God said.
If I protect myself, which I can from my own pain,
I prevent myself from this purpose, which is to die on the cross.
He's saying this is not happening to me.
This is happening for the sake of what God promised.
So what you have been calling confusion, heaven has been calling completion.
what we've been calling a breakdown.
Father's been calling it a set-up.
How differently would you carry this season
if you actually believe that God already wrote the ending?
What have you been calling falling apart?
That God has been calling, falling into place.
How much of your purpose?
purpose have you already delayed by protecting yourself from the pain.
Purpose does not make pain, painless. It gives pain purpose.
I'll say this. You can survive the what?
if you know the why.
You can survive the what
if you know the why.
And purpose will carry
what comfort cannot cure.
It had to happen.
Not because God is cruel,
but because God is
completing something
that required a season in your life
and in mind.
somebody in here is saying i am not about to waste this pain this pain will not be wasted
these tears will not be wasted this heartache will not be wasted this this financial trouble
will not be wasted this relationship that fell apart will not be wasted i am going to use
this opportunity, not to lean in myself, but to lean into the Father.
And say, I trust you.
It had to happen.
Why?
So that you, Father, can be glorified.
Not about me, but about Him.
And if we're honest with ourselves, some of us have blamed God for seasons.
where he was trying to form you in it
and not force you through it.
It's like a pottery class.
My wife and I took, I'm bad at it,
but he had to put your foot on the wheel
and it started spinning
and if you were too forceful,
pottery would cave in or it would fall out
and then you had to start over.
You have to get another block of pottery
and you slam it onto the plate
and then hit the wheel
and you form it
you form it, you form it, you form it, you form it.
If you're not careful,
we'll keep breaking.
And if some of us are
going to be honest with one of us one another,
this is a season where we feel like we keep breaking.
And we keep blaming the potter,
but it's actually the clay.
We are brittle.
We're broken.
And we keep saying, Father, do something.
You see me in this pain.
You see me.
You see me.
You see me crying.
You see my heart broken.
You see my heart broken.
me trying do something and god is saying son and daughter it had to happen it had to happen
because i'm about to use what you're experiencing to form you into what i need you to be in this next season
and watch this man
if some of us would be honest
I want to say this let me tell you this first
the story I shared with you in the beginning
about me on the diving board and getting nervous and being pushed
the part that I never shared with you was this
the whole while that I was up there looking down at that 14 feet
drop into that water, what I failed to recognize was that Kelly, the lifeguard, was actually
waiting water out there the whole time. For two hours, the lifeguard, was just waiting on me to jump.
I was nervous to jump in. I was nervous to trust. I was fearful of what would happen. And the
Savior was right there the whole time.
And some of us need to do what I did not get the opportunity to do.
Some of us need to take a moment and say, I'm sorry because you were there the whole time.
I cursed you, and you were right there.
I yelled in my prayer closet, but you were right there.
I fought this emotion and this pain, but you were there the whole time.
You kept me in the midst of my trials and tribulations, and I was still mad.
I never missed a meal, and I was still mad.
Breath in my body, but I was still mad.
Money in the bank, but I was still mad.
And this is the moment.
But some of us have to say, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for how I showed up, Father.
And I trust you that in this season, it has to happen.
It had to happen so that you would get the glory out of this pain.
You would get the glory out of this moment.
So we're just going to bathe this sermon.
with one stanza of this song
and I just want
I want the lights down so that you
could have an independent and private moment with God
and just tell them
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry.
And I'm sorry.
When I've just gone through the motion.
I'm sorry.
And I'm sorry
Forgive us
When I've come with my own agenda
And I'm sorry
When I forgot
That you enough
To take me back to where we started
I open up my heart
to you
I'm caught up in your presence.
Jesus.
I just want to sit here at your feet.
I'm caught up in this holy moment.
I never want to leave.
And I'm not here for blessings.
I'm not here for blessings.
Jesus, you don't know me anything.
Don't me anything, Lord.
And more than anything that you can do.
I just want you.
I just want you, Lord.
I just want you.
I just want you.
I just want you
And nothing else
And nothing else
Nothing else will do
I just want you
Nothing else
And nothing else
And nothing else
And nothing else
I just want you.
And nothing else, and nothing else will do.
I just want you.
Nothing else.
Nothing else.
And nothing else.
And nothing else.
Nothing else will do.
