Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Through the Eyes of a Lion, Part 2: Through the Eyes of a Lion

Episode Date: March 19, 2017

The darkness you might feel looming over your life won’t last forever. Heartbreaks heal. Suffering is temporary. Let’s welcome the light and gain a new perspective on our pain—let’s see it Through the Eyes of a Lion. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thanks for joining us here at Life Church, where we are one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world thanks to the help of Church online. If you ever have any questions or you'd like to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life.church. Or we'd love for you to stay connected throughout your week and everywhere you go with the Life Church app available today wherever you download your apps from. You know, again this week, we welcome back to the stage, pastor and best-selling author Levi Lesko, who will help us see

our pain through a different perspective and understand that where there seems to be impossible pain, there's also incredible power through the hope and grace of Christ. All of that coming up in part two of through the eyes of a lion. Life Church, how are we doing this weekend? Doing good? I want to greet every single Life Church and everyone joining in on the internet and the brand new Life Church campus on the space station, the bands floating towards their guitar right now. You will figure it out. I'm sure of it. I want to say how grateful I am to have the chance to be with you again. I am overwhelmed with excitement and enthusiasm on behalf of my wife and on behalf of our church staff and our team. Just full of gratitude, full of thanks to God for what he has imparted to us through Pastor Craig and Amy Groschelle and this church, what you've done for us, the example you've given for us. The Bible says, to follow those who you've watched inherit the promises because you see the outcome of their life. And I'll tell you what, Pastor Craig and Amy, the outcome of your life, the fruit of your life, in your children,

in the ministry that you lead, in the way that you serve the body of Christ at large, you serve Jesus well. I want to be like you when now I grow up. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much. And I know that you guys know this because you get to be a part of this church. but dang, you get to be a part of this church. My advice to you would be to wake up every day and pinch yourself. Like have Siri remind you, wake up, coffee, pinch yourself, wake up, pinch, wake up, pinch. Because you get to be a part of a church where God is in full-blown revival mode. Look what he's doing.

Look around you. Don't take it for granted. Dig in. And I think the danger of being a part of a church. where you have it so good with the preaching and the leadership and the Bible app and everything would be that so much is happening that you would feel like if you didn't do anything, no one would notice. And you know what? The truth is, that's exactly what would happen. If you didn't do anything, no one's really going to notice. But here's what's going to happen.

You're going to miss out on what God put you on the earth to be a part of. It's the blessing that comes from serving. It's the blessing that comes from giving. It's the blessing that comes from sacrifice. And if you say, well, they're doing so much. What does it matter if I serve or if I don't, serve. What doesn't matter if I give or if I don't give? Let me tell you something. Just imagine the ground this church could take if every single person gave like crazy, served like crazy, prayed like crazy, and fully invested yourself into the work that God's doing. Just imagine what could happen. But I believe this, God puts you on this church to make it, on this earth to make a difference. And the thing he's doing that's going to last forever is the local church. It's the only

manmade thing that's going to be in heaven. And so it's never a mistake to pour your life out, to see God build it. And I'm just blessed. Fresh Life Church is blessed because of the generosity with which you give out so much building plans and wisdom and just the wealth of generosity that marks this house. So thank you so much. I'm going to talk to you this week, kind of picking up where we began. If you weren't here last weekend, we talked about turning off the dark, how Jesus turned off the dark, and he can do that for us. Today, if you have a Bible, please join me in 2 Corinthians, It's chapter four in your app, in your Bible. Those of you church online, it's so easy.

And I love how you can mail the notes to yourself. Like, my goodness gracious, right? Sometimes I think about what is Spurgeon, what is John Wesley, what is Wycliffe, what are all these, Martin Luther, what are they going to think of what we were given, right? It's like heaven, let me tell you something, the rewards in heaven are scored like a golfer's handicap. It's like, what did you do? Okay, but what did you have?

Oh, you had the internet. Spurgeon's like, uh-uh, you're not getting the same reward I got. You did the amount, but I had less. I didn't have a microphone. So, you know, churches, people ask the dumbest stuff. Can we do this? Can we do multi-sac? Can we use video?

Let me tell you something. John Wesley, who got on a horse and rode all over the country, preaching thousands of sermons, he would go, you better dang use that internet. I got on a horse. You better get on the internet. The last thing you want to do is to get pimpslapped by John Wesley when you get to heaven because you didn't use all that God gave you. And I happen to believe this is a place where to reach people, no one's reaching.

You've got to do stuff. no one's doing. Amen, somebody? All right. So second Corinthians, that's not my sermon. I went on a complete out of control rabbit trail. Second Corinthians four, the title of my message is through the eyes of a lion. I want to talk to you for a moment about how to see life through the eyes of a lion. Lions have spectacular vision. They're what you call long-sided. They can see things a long ways away. And so what eyes of a lion stands for, it's a metaphor that stands for looking at life, through the telescope of faith. Looking at life through the telescope of faith.

Because that's really how a lion's eye functions. They see six times better than the eyes of a human does, and they can see in much darker conditions. What would be pitch black to you? But you couldn't, it would be dark to you. It would be light to a lion. What would be so far off in the distance,

you would have to squint and could barely tell you, like, I can't make it out. Is that Jim? Is that Billy? The lion would be like, I know what that is. That's dinner. I see. It's right there. That's what I'm going to eat human. It's what's for dinner.

right. Lions see well. Their eyes are like little telescopes. And there's so many things that make a lion's eye just optimize for seeing. One of the things is their pupils are bigger than our, so more light can come in. Because you know how sight works. It's light coming in through the cornea, passing through the pupil, the opening. It goes to the lens where it gets focused to the rear wall of the eye, which is called the retina, where millions of rods and cones send the information to the optic nerve up to the brain for real-time processing. Did you get all that? Well, the lion's retina and pupil. The whole apparatus is built for seeing. And they also have this white stripe.

Check this picture of a lion out right here. Lions have a white stripe under each eye, and that white stripe is the opposite of a football player's eye black. And isn't that beautiful? And the white stripe causes all the visible light that's there to go into the eye. And so their eyes are just optimized for seeing. Not that they have more light than any other animal, but they just take advantage of all the light that's there.

And that's why Ephesians 1 says, we need to have, by the Holy Spirit of God, the eyes of our understanding, enlightened, that we would then see what of the riches of the inheritance of the saints in the light, what's the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe, and what is the hope of his calling. It's not that we need more light. We're not looking at our like, someone illuminate me. Please, Yoda, come back from the Degaba system. I need a, I need someone.

Give me light. Oh, Fortune cookie, please give me light. Right? No, we have our light. His name is Jesus. He turned off the darkness of death by turning on the light of his life. the lights all around us. We just need to have the pupils of our soul dilated by the Holy Spirit,

stretch wide like a lion's pupils, have the white stripe put under each eye, so all the light that's there would come into our eyes. And what will happen if that happens? We will see his promises and his plan, and we will see that he is near, even when he is far, and we will always believe his power no matter what happens to us in this life. That's why you need to see life through the eyes of a lion. 2 Corinthians 4 is kind of like the user's manual for looking at life through the telescope of faith.

Paul describes this in verse 16 is where we're going to jump in. It says, that is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. yet they produce for us a glory, everyone say glory, that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. He's saying our troubles are small and won't last very long. Now you might go, my trouble is huge and it seems like it's lasting a long time. And if you were going to correct, Paul, you'd say yours is too, buddy boy, your life is one big bad day. Like the guy goes and preaches, gets thrown us in jail, preaches, gets beat up, preaches, has to get out of the city in a basket, preaches, gets in a shipwreck, gets bit by a snake trying to build a,

fire wakes. Our pets' heads are falling off, right? But he's saying, our troubles are small. You go, Paul, it's lasting your whole life. He goes, that's not my whole life. Birth to death. That's how you measure your life. I look follow through. I look at 10,000 years. We have no less days to sing his praise than when we first begun my life is hidden with Christ and God and when Christ, who is our life appears, and we shall appear with him in glory, he's thinking much bigger than we're thinking. So he goes, my life on earth? That's not big. Out of the scope of eternity, what is that? A speed bump on the weight of glory? Hello. He goes, my trouble, I don't, it's not going to last very long, even if I keep it till I die.

Even if the thorn in the flesh stays till I die. It's not lasting very long. Why? Because it's not going to last forever, but what God's going to produce through it is going to last forever. I got news for you. Whatever your cross to bear is on this earth, you're not going to keep it forever. It will not be yours in heaven. But what God produces in you, you will get to keep that forever. The glory he produces through the weight. He gives you the strength to carry in this world as you cue the eagle, and he gives you that power when you are weak. So, verse 18, everyone say so.

So we don't look at the troubles we can see now. Rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. if your gaze is only staring at things of this world, Instagram followers, dollars and cents, logos on purses and jeans, lifted trucks and systems with the base that goes bum to boom to boom, if you're only looking at the stuff of this life, your gaze is broken.

The only solution for a broken gaze is to fix your gaze on things that cannot be seen. You've got to set your mind on things above. So we don't look at what we can see, the trouble, but we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. And then he says this, this is the best part ever. He says, for the things we see now will soon be gone. But the things we cannot see will last forever.

So think about it. Paul here says, I look at stuff and it would cause me to be disillusioned, but the solution is looking at life, I guess you could say, through the eyes of a lion. Father, I pray now for these few moments together that you would do what only your spirit can do. that you would help us to see what we cannot see so we can do what in our own flesh we could never do.

We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. The year was 1990, and the United States Space Agency NASA was finally completing what had been a dream for 20 years, to launch the most powerful, most versatile space telescope into low-earth orbit. Hubble is what it's called,

and this was an ambitious project if there ever was one. I mean, this thing is the size of a tractor trailer and to have it sent up to fly around the world once every 96 minutes, taking pictures of the heavens and beaming them back. They spent $1.5 billion on it, which was more than they spent on the world trade towers at the time. So just to know how much that was.

And they justified the expense by saying, we're going to know more about outer space, we're going to see things we've never seen before, and we need to get this big old telescope out to low Earth orbit, so it can take pictures of the heavens and send them back. Now you'd be like, why? We have all these great telescopes on the Earth. That seems very complicated. And we do. We have a lot of great telescopes on our planet. But eyes that are on this Earth with powerful lenses looking up will always be limited. You want to know why? Because you have to look through the Earth's atmosphere to see. see the heavens. And the Earth's atmosphere functions, they say, like a piece of dirty stained glass.

If you were to stand in an old church and look at the outside world through stained glass, you wouldn't see the world, you'd see it through the stained glass, meaning you'd look at the imperfections, the dye, any distortions in the glass, and it would change what you see. That's what the atmosphere does. That's, by the way, why stars appear to twinkle. They don't actually twinkle. All you moms, you've been lying to your kids. Twinkle, twinkle? No, they don't. Liar. They only seem to twinkle because of shifting pockets of gas in the atmosphere, shifting pockets of air that cause you momentarily to not see the light that's pulsing constantly out from them. So even that, it's not what you're seeing. They're steady. They're unending. They don't twinkle. Okay. So if we get the telescope above the atmosphere, it could take the pictures unobstructed, send the information back. So that's just what they did. 20 years of R&D, 20 years of planning. Wasn't the first telegraphed? but like I said, the most powerful. And so they get this thing up there and they turn it on and they're all excited. And you can see the video footage on YouTube, but all the scientists at NASA

are all gathered around this terminal. They're so eager to look at these pictures. They're nerding out. And finally, Hubble starts transmit data. And the first picture starts to download. Only it was 1990s. So it was AOL. It was very slow. Very, very slow. We're going to go get something to eat. You want to come back? Then someone picked up the other line, disconnected it. They lost it. It started all over again. My God, the struggle was real. Remember that? Remember what it was like in the 90s?

Like the kids these days. Like, oh, life so hard. Oh, really? Siri, what's this song? Oh, oh, got it, bought it, right? No, no. I was born in 82, and let me tell you something about music. You call the radio station.

I like to request this jam. Then you wait by your radio, waiting, waiting, waiting. They play it. Two fingers, ready, play, record. Boom. So you can get your mixtape, walk it on your walkman. And you could be busting a job. Jam. All my mixtapes for missing the first 10 seconds of every song because I'm like,

that's not it. That's it. Dang it. There's licking of stamps. There was all sorts of stuff that went down. Crazy time. So finally the image downloads and they get the whole thing. And guess what? Well, look at this. The image was blurry. Blurry. Like Hubble couldn't see clearly, which is kind of a problem when you're a supersonic space telescope, right? You had one job, Hubble. Well, I'm really good at everything about flying around the world. Yeah, but you need to see good. And Hubble, they went back to the math, found out Hubble's primary optical component had been miscalibrated. And so it couldn't see.

It was near-sighted. Hubble needed glasses. And they didn't know what to do because it was far too expensive to bring Hubble home for repairs. And it was impossible to take out the damage component. But someone came up with a brilliant solution. They said, what if we could make the exact same error reproduce it in another lens but backwards? And if we put that on front, it should cancel out the damaged component. And so that's just what they did.

They built an enormous contact lens, and they flew this thing all the way out there on one of the space shuttles. They had to get Hubble to sit still, and they get a little solution on it, and then they pop that sucker in Hubble's eye, and they fired it up once again, and on pins and needles, they downloaded the image. And this time, look at this. Hubble could see clearly. That's your cue to react, because that's dang amazing. to see what Hubble now could see. And that testifies of the goodness of God, the wonders of outer faith. Never have we had such glorious understanding

of our universe as what Hubble has sent back to us. Now go with me. When Hubble was seeing blurry, it wasn't the Milky Way galaxy's fault, was it? It was a lens problem. Leadership guru, Stephen Covey once said, we don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. We see the world as we are accustomed or conditioned to see it. And in the next few moments, I want to challenge from this scripture and this

metaphor of the eyes of a lion, the telescope of faith, perhaps the lens that you are choosing to use to view the most difficult things you face in this life. And I don't know what you've been through. I don't know what you're facing. And I don't know what you'll face in the days to come. But I do know that what you determine, what you take away as a conclusion, what's your response is to what you face when life hurts most, has everything to do with the lens that you choose to look at it through. And I, if I could boil my entire message down to one sentence, would challenge you to look at pain through this lens. Are you ready? Suffering is not an obstacle to you being used by God. It is an opportunity for you to be used like never before.

That's the lens that you should pre-decide you're going to look at pain through. And I've got three kind of takeaway truths as we move towards praying and asking for God to open our eyes in a brand new way through His Holy Spirit, breathing that new life on us and dilating the pupils of our soul so that the things of this earth would grow strangely dim in the light of his glory, the light of his grace. I like how Eugene Peterson put it. He says, said reality is made up mostly of what we cannot see. We think of this world as being so real, but reality is made up mostly of what we cannot see. So that's why our first takeaway truth is, jot this down, don't rely on the naked eye. Don't rely on the naked eye. And the naked eye is how

they describe you looking at anything with unassisted human vision, without binoculars, without a telescope, without the eyes of a lion, just in your own natural man, to, it's a human, you In human understanding, look at your experiences. You cannot rely on the naked eye. It will always get you into trouble. You'll always lose heart if you look at what you face only in the human. If you want to be able to do the impossible, by faith, you have to choose to do the invisible. And that's why all through Hebrews 11, all those who did the greatest things for God were people who lived by faith. Because what they went through didn't define them. They were choosing to interpret it through the lens of God's plan. And I love the power that Paul has here. Paul says, my outward man is perishing, but I'm not looking at my body,

the crow's feet on my eyes, the fact that I'm getting older. What I look at is the inside Paul that I can't see because callings are invisible, and there are some parts of you that will never be apparent, even if you take a selfie, no matter what filter you use on Snapchat, I'm telling you, Paul said, I see that my body's perishing, but my inward man's being renewed every day because our souls in Christ reverse age like Benjamin Button, more glory, more grace, more peace, More wisdom, more strength. And Paul said, Paul said, how you like me now?

I'm more like Jesus. Every trial has made me more like him, and I'm thankful for it. Okay? So what do you got to do? When you look at something and you get scared, learn to do a double take. The double take.

It's a different kind than the one you do spring break at the beach. Repent of that one. That's a different double take, different sermon. You've got to learn to swipe right, somebody. So what you've got to do is the double take of scripture.

Because faith, how do you get more faith? The lens of faith is eyes of a line. How do you get more faith? Romans 1017. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. So your vision will always be tripping if you're hearing of God's word is slipping. So you've got to be all up in your U-Version plan every day. I cannot face a day without my contact lenses or I will not see 10 feet in front of me. And some of you, the reason you're full of anxiety, lacking in peace, lacking in strength, lacking in conviction, always worried, always nervous, always fearful, always assuming the worst, is because you're not living your life out on the firm foundation of the Word of God that will hold and be secure no matter what storms of this life may come. If you first thing in the morning, get all up in your spirit, something from God's word,

then the moment you face difficulty, you will look at it through the right lens. You'll be bent, but you won't be broken. So for me today, as I speak to you this message, I'm exactly four years now, where four years as December came and went from my daughter going to heaven, as I talked about last week, worst day of our life. And some days, four years feels like a long time. And we're about to bring a little baby boy into this world, and he'll not know his sister on earth except pictures and stories,

and it's hard and it's challenging. There's moments of great sadness. And I could look at it one of two ways. I could look at it and go four years from when I was last with her, four years from when my last fell her arms around my neck. Four years from when I last heard her voice and kissed her cheek. And I could feel like every year has taken me from her, from her, from her. one, two, three, four.

And I can feel like every day I have to wake up and I'm getting further from my little girl. Or by the lens of faith, I remember, wait a minute, Levi, Linia's not in the grave. She's not where you last are. She's actually over here in heaven. And every day you get up, you're actually getting closer and closer and closer and closer. Come on, I'm moving in the right direction. And I got more of my daughter in front of me than behind me. And the same is true for you, no matter what your cross is that you carry.

If you face bankruptcy, okay, look again now with the right lens on, he's your shield and you're exceeding great reward. I think you'll be okay. You look at loneliness. You look again and go, wait a minute, he's with me always, even to the end of the age. I'll look at you again. I'll see something different I didn't see before, like Elisha in Second King 6, when Gehazai only saw the soldiers, but Elisha saw they were surrounded by angels. Whatever's got you surrounded is itself surrounded by God. So you could even look at death, but hear him saying, I am your resurrection, and I'm your life. I'm the length of your days. You cannot rely on the naked eye. You've got to look at life through the right lens. There's a second thing. Jot it down. Train for the trial you're not yet in.

Write that down. Today, you may not know it. You are in training for a trial that's coming. We all have two calendars, the calendar of what we plan and the calendar called reality. The day we buried my little girl, we were supposed to be on a plane taking our family to Disneyland for vacation. We stood in a snowy cemetery singing Chris Tomlin's I Will Rise, and the plane that would have taken us

flew over our head at the time it was supposed to depart. You right now have a whole year in front of you you're planning. This is where we'll go. This is what we'll buy. This is what we'll do. This is what we'll sell. This is who will marry. This is how to work. This is the 10-year plan, five-year plan. A man should plan his way. But remember, the Lord also directs his step. and sometimes that means going through valleys low we would otherwise avoid.

That means sometimes we have to have the banqueting table and the presence of the enemies. Really, you have to invite them to? I mean, sometimes it's going to include the valley of the shadow of death. Father knows best. He always understands what he's doing. And so we have to understand something around the river bend might not be what we want it to be. So right now is the only time we have, Joseph, to get the fat cows all up in the bank for the skinny cows coming. Weird church joke.

If you're new, just be like, what, what, what? It's all about margin. It's all about reserves. It's all about not having barely enough, but more than enough. God can speak a word to you in season, but also out of season. So it's why it's always a mistake to walk out of church going, I didn't get anything out of that. Dumbest thing you could ever say.

With all due respect, how do you know what you actually needed? With all due respect, what if you didn't get 15 goosebumps? And oh, that's my word, right? What if the word you needed, you had no idea, but you're supposed to write it down. So it's there when you need it the most. That's why we have to be faithful to let God speak to us. we're in training for trials we're not yet in. There's a branch of smoke jumpers, these guys parachute into fires to put them out like in national parks. And their creed is this, listen to me,

do today what others won't, do tomorrow what others can't. And I want to encourage you to eat before you're hungry, to drink before you're thirsty, to realize that if life right now is sunshine and rainbows and everything's coming up roses, then you need to pile deep into your heart, that will come to bless you and benefit you on the darkest day that may come eventually. And that way, you will stand strong, steadfast, immovable. You'll be able to say on the worst day of your life, on Christ a solid rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand and wind all around me. These things give way on then, on him. My soul will stay. And I believe that God will give you strength as you lean into him in times of blessing and in times of difficult. The problem is

we often rush to church, rush to the Bible in times of suffering, and if that's you today, that's good. But oftentimes it's in blessing we let our foot off the gas. But what are we silently communicating? We're saying, God, take my suffering, but I'm going to keep my blessings for myself. Ouch. We must bless God in good times and in bad times, and we'll trust that he'll give us the strength to go through what we otherwise would be destroyed by. Train for the trial you're not yet in. There's a third thing, and we'll begin to move towards our conclusion here. Jot this down. Let God use your pain.

Let God use your pain. I believe one of the most powerful ways to move through hardship is to believe that inside of any pain we face, God has tucked power, like someone who gets sent a cake in prison with a file baked inside of it. whatever God has allowed to come your way, it's really an honor in disguise to be trusted with suffering. That sounds almost insensitive, but take that in the spirit in which I sent it. Because here's what Charles Burgeon said. He said, God gives his most difficult assignments to his most trusted soldiers.

Remember, nothing can come your way except God allows it. He doesn't cause evil, but he's in charge of it. So the devil says, can I do this? God has to say yes. I know that causes problems. Why did you say yes to this, God? I'm serving you here. Why did you say yes to that, God? Really? Really? Really? But you have to believe that just like when he allowed it for Job and just like when he allowed it for Joseph

and just when he said yes and Peter got sifted his wheat and every time God allows it, there's always a purpose for the saving of lives. There's always a strengthening. There's always a deeper story. So don't preemptively get mad. Don't throw your hands up in a huff. That's what the devil wants. He wants when the sun comes up for the plant that doesn't have the roots going deep down to be destroyed and then to be with by it, but you need to put your roots deep down in. And when you go through something hard, you need to have some grit and some spit inside your spirit and say, God's got a plan. He hasn't lost control. He's up to something. I believe he's good. I'm going to watch him do something. I'm going to lean in more to the work. I'm going to serve more. I'm going to reach out even more. I'm going to give even more. And I'll tell you, honestly, my wife would tell you if she was here,

Jenny, she would say one of the things that got us through our grief more than anything was extravagant giving. As we've leaned in, sacrificially, our heart has gone more to heaven because that's attached to your finances. And so our response to grief has been to give more to the kingdom than ever before. And God's response has been to trust us with even more so we can give even more. And our hearts have even greater peace. And so I would encourage you in that way. But let God use your pain.

Even in the most difficult moments, and I'll close with this, when we got home from the hospital, the night Lenya went to heaven. And her name Linia means lion. And her nickname was Linia Lion. We called her Linia Lion our whole life. The night we got home and we were just reeling from this at all. because we had to get in the car and back out of the spot, and I looked in the rear of your mirror,

and there's an empty car seat where Linia should be. It was horrifying to me. But then eventually I went back in and invited the people. I told you all that. Then we get home, and the hospital calls on the phone, and they said, Mr. Lesko, there's no easy way to say this, but we want to know your thoughts on organ donation. And specifically, we want to know about Linya's eyes.

We want to know about, and I'm hearing this, and this is a picture of my little girl, Linya. It's on the cover of the book, but here's the whole thing here. Beautiful eyes. They said, could we have her corneas for those in need? Jenny and I prayed about it, and we decided that God and Linia both would want us to make this decision. And we allowed them to take her corneous, the outermost lens of her eyes. And they gave them to two blind people.

And we received letters back later on that told us that Linia's eyes gave sight to two blind people. And they today see life through the eyes of a lion. And I believe God wants to do the same thing. for all of us. On the night my daughter went home, I had to do what no dad should ever have to do. I reached out and closed my little girl's eyes. But what I didn't understand was that God was going to use her to open mind. And like never before, I've seen eternity. I feel close to eternity. I feel the power of eternity. And in my most difficult disaster, there's been an opportunity to show his love to more people. And that's given me strength. Because anytime blessing flows through you,

it blesses you on the way out. So that's my prayer for you. Can we all pray to God, I thank you for anyone and everyone who's hurting, whether it's been the loss of a job, the loss of a limb, the loss of a dream or a friendship or a marriage. I thank you the loss of a loved one. I thank you that none of these things have overcome you or surprised you and that you have a plan in all of them to use what the devil meant for evil to be used for your kingdom good and our joy, that we might be stronger, that we might know you better. God, you're near to the broken heart. It's why I thank you for each hurting heart. You're near to them now. And I pray you to open the eyes of their heart to help them to see the invisible so they can do the impossible. I pray this in the

mighty name of Jesus. Amen. God bless you, Life Church. Thank you. Thank you, Pastor. Man, it's an honor to pray with you after such a powerful message. Let's all just pray together. Father, thank you so much that you are the God that makes all things possible. And so, God, we're going to pray. and ask for miracles today in your presence. All of our churches, I want to talk kind of to the extremes. Those of you right now that may be facing a really difficult time, it may be in your own life, it may be in the life as someone that you care about deeply, and they're going through something difficult.

Would you take a moment and just lift up your hands right now? Just lift up your hand all of our different churches. Those of you who would say, you know what, things are pretty good right now, and I'm really thankful for them. Would you lift up your hands for a moment, just around the churches? Father, I want to pray for both these groups. and God, I pray that you would give us eyes to see you at work in our lives. Father, for those that are full of joy and blessings right now,

I pray even as Pastor Levi said, that we would drink even when we're not thirsty, that would feed on your word, that would be strengthened when we need you, God. That our roots would be planted deeply, God, so that the fruit would grow generously. I pray, God, that we would never forget your goodness in the times that our good, that we continue to know you're the author of every good thing. And Father, whether we're in the season of prosperity or the season of desperation, we worship you, God, because you are good. May we never forget your goodness. For those that are hurting today, God give us eyes to see through the eyes

of a lion, the Lion of Judah, the risen Christ, that you're working in all things. To bring about good, when others see obstacles, God, help us to see opportunity. God, when we cry out because we're suffering, May we rejoice that our suffering conforms us to the image of Jesus and draws us close to you. God, may we see the goodness of your hand reaching out to us and loving us, even when we hurt and when we grieve. Father, I thank you that today in your presence, by the power of your word, we've experienced you. Help us to see through eternal lens that we'd never forget your eternal calling as you change us to become like your son, Jesus. all of our churches as you keep praying today nobody looking around there are those of you that you may turned on a computer you may have walked into a building someone may have invited you and you

thought it was just another day but suddenly you're seeing things like you've never seen before and that's because god is reaching out to you in a way that you've never experienced before maybe you feel really low right now you think i couldn't be any lower what if god allowed you to be at a place where the only thing you could do is reach up to him some of you things are going really really well right now and you think how could they get even better, but on the inside you're empty and you're recognizing you have everything you've ever wanted, and yet there's a longing in your heart that's never been fulfilled.

Why is that? Someone said there's a God-shaped void in all of us. When you have all the blessings this world offers and yet you long for more, it's because you haven't received the blessing that eternity offers through a relationship with Jesus. And all of our churches, there may be those of you that are low

and you recognize you need help, healing, and salvation. there may be those of you that are blessed and you realize you need help, healing, and salvation, no matter where you are when you recognize there is more. I want to encourage you to turn away from your sin and turn toward Jesus, the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, the Lamb who was slain so that our sins could be forgiven. You're not here by accident. You're here because God loves you. He brought you here, and you recognize you have a need.

You need the forgiveness of God. You need salvation for your souls at all of our churches, those who say, I am hurting and I need healing. For those who say, yes, I have so much and I'm empty. What am I missing? You need Christ. You need His forgiveness. You need His grace.

You need His power. You need His presence. And that's why you're here today, all of our churches, those who say, yes, I turn from my sins. Yes, I turn toward Him. By faith, I call out on Him. When you call in the name of Jesus, he will hear your prayer, he will forgive your sins. He will make you brand new at all of our churches. Those who say, yes, I need His grace.

I call on Him. I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now. All of our churches say, yes, Jesus, I surrender to you. As we have people to all of our churches calling on him, you all at church online, just click right below me as you pray to him. At all of our churches, would you join your voices and pray with those around you?

Pray Heavenly Father. I need your grace. I need your presence. I need your forgiveness. Jesus save me. Change me. and make me new, fill me with your spirit so I could follow you every moment of my life. Today I trust you to make me new. I give you my life devoted to you. Thank you for new life.

Jesus, you have mine. In your name I pray. All of our churches, would you celebrate big worship? God, thank him for new life in Christ. It's our honor as a church to play a small part in all that God is doing in and through your life. And we would love to continue with you on that journey. To find out what your next steps could be in your relationship with Christ, all you have to do is go to life.church slash next. You know, one of the biggest honors we have here at Life Church is to play a part in the U-Version Bible app, making it possible for millions of people around the world to engage with God's word on a daily basis. One of those people is mixed martial arts champion Michael Chandler, who uses the Bible app to not only find strength for

what he does in the ring, but also what he does in life. Known by many as a guy who fights in a cage, but there's so many more layers to who I am. I was on our side. 90% of success is between the years. What a fight. Man, this is unbelievable. Chandler struggling at this point. In mixed martial arts, you're not just fighting against your opponent.

You're fighting against yourself. Your own doubts. That small voice you have to silence because you know. that you were put on this earth to do something great, to achieve more than you thought you ever could. Every time before I go into battle, I focus on talking to myself. If I sit in silence and I listen to myself,

I'm going to hear negativity. I'm going to hear the doubts. I'm going to hear the fears. But if I talk to myself, if I choose, what gets dwelled on, I am in the driver's seat. I can't listen to the lives that I've been told. that I've been told. I have to continue to listen to God's truths,

and I hear his truth through His Word. I tell myself that I was created in the image of an Almighty Savior, created in the image of an Almighty God. It's a constant battle every day to try to stay built up. And the easiest way to stay built up is to stay in God's Word, and I stay in God's Word through the Bible app. And to be able to have God's Word right there at your fingertips is something that doesn't just have the ability to keep you built up

and keep you encouraged every day, but it's something that can literally change your life and change your life for the better. If you haven't had a chance to engage with God's Word on your mobile device, you can do it today by going to Bible.com slash app and downloading the U-Version Bible app completely for free. You know, it's our mission here as a church to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ.

That single statement drives everything we do here as a church, all because we believe whoever finds God truly finds life.