Some Years Are Like That

And if you have a Bible, we are in Second Peter, chapter one and Mark chapter nine. For a message that I'm calling, some years are like that. Some years are like that. You know, it's interesting last year was the best Huckleberry season on record in the last 40 years, which is incredible. They were everywhere. You were finding Huckleberries where they normally don't grow. I mean, it was just like you could not, you know, stop picking everywhere you look. There was a Huckleberry provided you live in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America. God's country, as we call it, and around these parts. But it's interesting, this year is such a contrast to that because they say that this Huckleberry season ranks among the worst in the last decade. You got from the best 40 in 40 years last year this year, you have the best. And what do we make of that? Well, we make of that this. Some years are like that. Some years it seems like you can do no wrong. Other years, you're gonna feel like you can do no right. My goal isn't so much to try and tell you how to never have a bad year, but to tell you what to do when you have one. In Jesus' name, what to do when you find yourselves

in a year that's like that. Now, we can, of course, try and figure out, try and understand what happened, what went wrong, what we need to understand. And that is this, that something being rare makes it even more precious. That's how we have to think during those years. It's like we're in one of those years and some years are like that. Well, what we have, what we do have, what we can find, what does remain needs to be strengthened and it becomes even more valuable. It's interesting, the prices for Huckleberries have continued to rise, right? Supply and demand tends to work that way. It's interesting, you know, you can remember when Huckleberries was $50 a gallon and he's like, "Oh man, that's crazy." And it's $75 a gallon. It's crazy when it hit for the first time, $100 a gallon. They're saying now this season, because of how rare and precious they are, the price has gone north of $125 a gallon, which of course, I was thinking about how it's more expensive than a gallon of gas, which is, you know, the day could come when we get that high, right? You know, four and a half bucks or whatever it is right now. It's more expensive than a gallon of crude oil. Is it possible that Huckleberries are in fact one of the most expensive liquid volume assets

on earth, right? Could the day come when wars are fought over a gallon of Huckleberries, right? So I thought to myself, wow, we're doing a series on a pretty important commodity here until I made the mistake of going to Gemini and asking the question, is it, in fact, the most expensive liquid you can get, the Huckleberry liquid? And I found this chart that was actually very disappointing and it shows that that is not the case, that the Huckleberry is not the most expensive liquid volume asset on earth. Look at this chart. In fact, that award goes to the Deathstalker Scorpion Venom, which can cost $39 million for gallon. It's also less expensive than Black Printer Ink, which is crazy. But man, the price is for Printer Ink. That's actually, we need to figure out a bush that can actually grow that stuff. That's what we need to figure out to do. But Huckleberries are way down there at the bottom of lowly $125, also cheaper than Dom Perion. So anyhow, the value, of course, goes up when the commodity goes down. And so if you can bring all of that with me, if you will, to second Peter chapter one, where Peter writes, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we may known to you the power and coming

of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory." And what did it say? "Is that this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased?" And we heard this voice, which came from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain. You wanna underline that on the holy mountain. And so we have, I love this, the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Now every message in this series, if you've been paying attention, has come from the epistles of first or second Peter. And so we end here as Peter, looking back, is talking about one of certainly the highest moments of his entire life. When Jesus took him, as well as James and John, on top of a mountain. And there you could say showed his true colors, right? Of course, if you have another finger stuck in Mark, like I told you, Mark, chapter 9, we'll jump over there for a moment, because the moment he's talking about is actually covered from his perspective, because Mark wrote Peter's account. Okay? So we hear him talking about it from later on in life. Let's now look at his account given to us by Mark. Mark says, "And he said to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.'" What an announcement, right? What an announcement. There are some of you. He doesn't tell who. He's talking to 12 guys, to some of you, right? I'm not mentioning any names, but some of you here are not going to die until you see the kingdom of God coming with power. Now, that's just Jesus, classic sneaky Jesus, because they're just on edge now until something happens. Fortunately, they did not have to wait long, because you see in verse 2, "Now after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up,

underline it with me, on a high mountain, apart by themselves, and there he was transfigured before them. His clothes became shining exceedingly white. How white were they, Mark? Like snow. Need more details, Mark. Such as no launderer on earth can whiten them, right? They didn't have bleach yet. And it wasn't Labor Day yet. So Jesus is rocking all white on that day. Verse 4, "An Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus." That's just a casual detail thrown in, like it's not a big deal, as though they hadn't been in heaven for some time. They just now have Bill in excellent tattered their excellent way to the mountain to be with Jesus here. If you laughed at that, you're old. Verse 5, "Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." You'll notice, because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. When a cloud came and overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, "Peter, be quiet." No, he said, "This is my beloved son here, him." And suddenly, look at this, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore. Moses and Elijah were gone, but only Jesus themselves. One other version says, "Only Jesus remained." And here we have the ending of our reading of God's Word. And we thank you, God, for what it is to read this, what it is to see the impact it made on Peter all those years later, looking back on it, as it still was in his heart. This bright light shining in his heart as he waited for your coming, as he waited the sand before you face to face. So Lord, I pray that what for him in this hindsight that so glowed inside of his soul would for us be a moment with you to see you through your Word. And we thank you, God, for your love. We thank you for your kindness. We thank you for the ways and encounter with you can change everything and can make sense of some of the low moments, low years. The ebb and the flow, the up and the down, the increase and the difficulty, the skinny cows sometimes, the fat cows sometimes, the time to mourn and the time to dance, the time to be born and the time to go to a funeral. So God, we're going to face it all. And we know that we're going to face it all with you. So I pray, God, that we would seek you and that the power of your presence in our lives would be this pull that would keep us motivated and moving every step of our journey following you on this earth. And we ask that if even one person here does not know you as we've gathered across our church and those listening in church online, God, if they don't know you, you would draw them to you. And we pray this in Jesus' name. And we said together, come on, let's give him a good amen, a good Sunday morning, amen. Now, this text serves as a perfect capstone on our series and it illustrates, for me, one of what is unquestionably my favorite things about the Huckleberry is because just like Peter's story in the text here in Mark chapter 9 and in 2 Peter chapter 1, the Huckleberry and the encounter with God both are best served on a mountaintop. They both take place high up. I did some digging and found out that the reason if you live in New Orleans or in New York City or in Los Angeles that you will not find Huckleberries if you're in New York City. By the way, we're glad to have you. Thank you for watching and being with us. Very glad.

But the reason you will not find huckleberries like those who are watching perhaps in Oregon or in Washington or in Colorado or in some parts of Utah even, is because you have to be high above sea level. Huckleberries grow best between 2,000 and 11,000 feet in elevation with the sweet spot being between 4,000 and 6,000. So a lot of times we're not, if we're not finding what we want to be finding, it's because we're too low when we need to be high. Hello, set your mind on things above. The Bible says not on low things where you live on this earth, but you got to set your mind on things above, right? We got to look above the mountains to the mountain maker. We got to go higher. That 5,000 foot elevation seems to be the sweet spot, a mile high. And notice the text, I had you pointed it out as we got through it. Where did the disciples encounter Jesus' glory? Verse 18 on the holy mountain. And in Mark's account, verse two, on a high mountain. Now we can reasonably say that this almost certainly took place on what's called Mount Herman, which is the highest point anywhere. There's in an area around Galilee, there's only one real contender for the high mountain. And that of course would be a mountain

that sits 9,000 feet in elevation, Mount Herman. So to go there is to actually be where almost certainly Jesus began to glow in front of them. And they got to see, like I said, his true colors, right? 'Cause at the incarnation when he came into this world, he took on humanity but did not lose deity. He was fully God, Jesus and fully man. And so just for a moment, he allowed to shine through some of not all 'cause it would have melted their faces off. Some of his glory that he always has had and will always have for he's the Alpha and the Omega. And so on the mountain, as they went higher, they got to experience God's glory. Here's my sermon in a sentence. The higher you climb, the more glory you'll find. This is as true of the Huckleberry's as it is true in your relationship with Jesus as you walk with him. Nothing will give you more frustration as trying to tick Huckleberry's when you're too low. You need to get higher. And listen, Jesus is the ultimate king of the mountains. He wants to give you the anointing on your feet to walk with him on the high hills, sure-footed like a mountain goat. Now I was reading it this week, an interesting interview with a professional Huckleberry ticker. This is what he does vocationally. And he was asked, like, are you discouraged? It's a pretty low season.

It's a pretty bad season. Are you discouraged about it? And he said this. He said, no, because I got high hopes for high hooks. I got high hopes. He said, come on, I'm preaching good today. I got high hopes for some high hooks. He said, hey, the season's not over yet. Low elevation Huckleberry's haven't been very good this year. In mid elevation, Huckleberry's have not been very good this year. But this man said, I've been through it for a time or two. I've been, I've seen some bad years. Some years I like that he's saying. But I got high hopes. Do you got high hopes for high hooks? Do you believe that the best is still to come? Do you believe that God is preparing things for you? Do you believe that I is not seen and here is not heard? The thing's got us prepared. Come on, I'm asking you, do you have high hopes for some high hooks? Do you believe you're going to see the goodness of the Lord and the Lord, or you kind of, well, it just is what it is. Well, it's always going to be that way. Well, you know, other people always get the opportunity. You know that you can choose to believe that. Or you can choose to get your hopes up. Come on, we got a good God. He's a God who annoys our head with oil.

He's a God who prepares a peaceful forest in the presence of our enemies. You got to believe that God is and God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. I love that I got high hopes for high hooks. Then he said this, this is the same interview. He said, besides, I like the latter berries better. I like the latter berries better because they've got more flavor to them. Come on, anybody can pick at the end of July. Anybody can pick in August. But I'm saying the later berries, they got more time to grow. They got more time in the middle. Come on, are you believing in your soul? The more you walk with Jesus, the longer you walk with him, it's just going to be more flavor. Come on, the later berries are better. It's easy to focus on now. It's easy to focus on right here. It's easy to focus on what feels good in the moment. But the later berries, they just get better. He said, so I'm going to keep picking until I get snowed out on the high ridges. And then the interviewer said, where do you pick it? He said, I can't tell you that. I can't tell you that, but it's high. I can't tell you that, but my big competition's going to be snow. it's meant to be onward and upward.

As we walk with God, we're meant to be continually moving up, further up and further in. We're continually walking up the mountain to experience the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. All right, jot these six takeaway truths down, and then we're gonna close this message series down. And I know we all got one tear. I'm sad too, 'cause I have love when people, I bump into people around town and invite them to church. "Oh, what are you preaching on?" I go, "I'm preaching about Huckleberry's." They go, "What?" They go like, "No, you can't." I'm like, "Yeah, I am, that's exactly what I've been doing." So I'm just sad, I won't be able to say that anymore, but we'll bring it back eventually at some point. But what I'm really trying to get you to see is that when you feel low, you gotta get high. On the most high, right? You gotta, when you're feeling low, the world's got a different high they're turning to. But there ain't no, there's no high in this world like the most high. There's no one like, who is like the Lord? Who can do what God does? Who can show His glory to you? Who can change you with it? Just one look of His countenance.

What we're gonna learn as we continue with this message is that when you're feeling low, you gotta get high. If you're gonna have high hopes for high up hooks. The first thing, jot this down. Little by little eventually becomes a lot. It's an interesting thing about picking. It's the interesting thing about climbing a mountain. It's one foot in front of the other. It's one berry in front of the other. I felt like I needed to really kind of bring this message series to a close. So I got up super early today while it was still dark. And I got out, it was gloomy. It was just beginning and I wanted to go picking. So I went running somewhere. I had never run before and I came across, I was right around that sweet spot, kind of at 5,000 foot mark and I came across Huckleberry's. And I brought a little Ziploc baggie with me so I stopped running and I started picking. And I had it happen the same way it always happens when I put the first berry in the bag. I go, oh this is gonna be terrible. This is the way I feel every single time. Have you ever had a single Huckleberry hit? The bottom of a gallon, gallon jug, boom. And you're just like, oh, oh, this is a bad idea. Let's go buy raspberry's kids. You know what I'm saying? Like this is terrible.

It's gonna take forever. And there's always this simple. It's like, what am I doing here? To even get enough for a single pancake is gonna take too long, right? But if you persist, if you can push past that and just keep on doing, here's what I got. I got just 30 minutes out there. I got some berries to show for it. Like a little by little, little by little. And then I finished my run and I got my nose together and I got my hair relatively combed and I got here to preach. Why? Because I got able to get on the trail and I was able to push past the instinct to despise the small things. And I needed to feel that feeling before I could be in the proper place to preach to you about I got one berry. 'Cause one berry barely takes up any room at all. And there's always the instinct to despise the small things. When you're trying to meet a health goal, when you're trying to begin to use your gifts, when you're trying to walk with God or overcome a bad habit or do something for the Lord or memorize the section of scripture, it's always that feeling like this is gonna take forever. The progress is not what I wanted, right? Some of you think after walking with the devil for a decade or two in your life,

that you're gonna walk with Jesus for 15 minutes and all of a sudden be some mighty titan man or woman of God. It's gonna take a little time. It's gonna take a little while. Some of you think you're gonna steal from God your whole life and then give one tithe and all of a sudden the windows of heaven are gonna open down upon your life. It's gonna take a little while but little by little eventually becomes a lot. One little decision, another little decision and you show up at church and you show up at small group and you begin serving and you sacrificially give and you see God in the quiet. But when you're walking with Jesus, it's like that first bury. Oh, this is never gonna work. And you want a quick fix and you want a shortcut but no such thing is possible. You gotta do the hard yards of walking with Jesus. One of my favorite quotes in all of, you know, cinematic history is I'm your huckleberry, right? I'm your huckleberry, right? Do you get wider, do you get doc holiday, you got Johnny Ringo, I'm your huckleberry. I love that, I love tombstone by the way if you've never seen the movie. But why was that phrase such a big phrase in use in that time and for a long time after that? I actually did a little research.

Why is huckleberry fin named what he is named? Well, here's what's interesting. There actually is a different huckleberry that grows in Mississippi and that part of the United States that's what's known as a dwarf huckleberry. It's a little huckleberry. It's so named because the plant never gets taller than a foot. So it's this tiny little, easy to despise plant. It's not a mountain huckleberry, okay? It probably is not nearly as delicious, right? But because that bush was so little, little, for something that's low brow, from someone who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, which is why Mark Twain chose to pick that name, sort of to describe Huckleberry, this rough and tumble little guy, because he represented easily despised, he represented nothing good is going to come from him, and that's how the world sees, but you know what, God selects what man rejects, it was David who didn't look like much, who knew, who knew, God knew that David had inside of him what his brothers didn't, a man after his own heart, and so what did God say to David? He said, "I'm your Huckleberry," right, and so you might feel at times in your walk with God, like there's a dwarf plant about your soul, that you feel like this is easily despised, I'm telling you little by little eventually becomes a lot, God can do great things from you, and here's what I've discovered, picking Huckleberries, sometimes the best berries come from the most wimpy bushes, and I was picking today, some of the big old bushes, listen, had the tiniest berries, why? Because all their energy was going into all their foliage and all their spread, but then I would see this tiny little, easily despised thing that was like the tiniest meat, and they would just have these massive Huckleberries, some of the best ones in my bag came from the least impressive bushes, and I was thinking about how sometimes the goal isn't to have more bush, but to have more berry, God's about fruit, he's not about impressive spiritual, he's not going to look how big

this is, look what I do for God, that you even when you feel like there's nothing there, that God can actually bring great fruit through your life, and so even if you have what feels like a little branch, just continue to plod, you know what plod means? That's a plod, right? We want walking with God to be like a helicopter right? Put us on the top of the man, that's not how it works, there's no shortcut, there's no quick fix, there's no device you can get on Amazon that's going to vibrate your abs, and all of a sudden you've got an 8-pack, come on, you have to do the hard yards of walking with Jesus, you've got to be willing to do some plodding, you've got to, you've got to seek God today, and you've got to seek God tomorrow, and you've got to keep showing up, and you've got to keep trusting Him, you've got to keep, well, you will see a harvest if you do, now here's to the plotters, come on, here's to those who are doing the unsexy, unspectacular things, not doing it for the gram, not doing it for the cloud, not doing it for the praise of man, but doing it because I want to seek God, I want to walk with you, I want to be walking with you, and I'm 50, I want to be walking with you when I'm 70, I want to be a grandpa with integrity, I want my whole ministry when they're talking about it in the past tense, to be one where they describe it in terms of faithfulness, where I stayed married to that woman, and where I was a man of honor for those children, and where I was a pastor that led well in the house of God, come on, I want to do some plotting, I want to do some walking, I don't want to just have a big flash up, flare up, good for a moment, I want to have the long obedience in the same direction, I want to walk with God all of my days, and then stand before Him face to face, oh, come on, I need to move on, because I got six points, and that's only the first, the second is you take on the character of what you're in contact with, you take on the character of what you're in contact with, now the text intentionally is juxtapositioning Moses and Elijah in this moment with Jesus in the mountain, and then they're gone, and Jesus only remains right intentionally to show that Jesus is not just one other option, like the rest of what we find in the Old Testament, he is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets in the Old Testament, and so that's why Moses and Elijah

fade away, and only Jesus remains, because Elijah, the mightiest miracle working prophet in Moses, who is synonymous with the law of God in the first five books of the Bible, right, they both fade away, only Jesus remains, right, so our goal is to keep some laws, our goal is to do more things, and if we do enough, then finally God's like, okay, well, I now see that you only smoked three cigarettes last week and not seven, like before, so excellent work, you get a gold star, hey, the goal isn't, right, there's lots of reasons to do all the things we're going to do for God, but to earn his favor is not one of them, we earn his favor only because of what Jesus has done, this is called the gospel, we're on the cross, he did, what we never could do, having lived the perfect life, he there sacrificed himself for us, having never sinned, and so any of us who have sinned can come to God on the basis of the finished work of the cross of Jesus Christ, and we can sit positionally under the voice of the Father saying, but as he speaks about us because we're in Christ. And you go, what about my sins? What about how jacked up I am? And God's like, I can't even see those things. They're hidden under the glory of my son. So we then, our goal is to just walk with Jesus. How does our life change? I don't know. Not even quite sure. As I was walking with Jesus, my whole desire for those old things went away. And my desire to do the new things that God wants me to do. So what's happening? You're taking on the character of the one that you're in contact with. Show me your hands, people.

What happens when you're picking berries? Look at this image of my wife and I. Last year we were picking on a great day day. Our hands, what? Took on the character of what we were in contact with. We were picking berries so our hands became purple. Spend time with Jesus, become more like Jesus. I'm telling you as you walk with him, you're going to become more like with him. So the goal to transformation is not to try and be, what Moses is telling you to do. Or Elijah is telling you, the goal isn't to, well, I need to see you do more. I need to try harder. No, I need to trust more. I need to walk with Jesus. And I'm going to watch his life, spiritually speaking, begin to take root in mind. My character's going to change as I walk with him. That's the goal, to become like Jesus. How? By spending time with him. You become like who you spend the most time with. It's a little word of caution about having the wrong friends. Bad company, corrupts, corrupts good character, but walk with Jesus, become like Jesus. Number three, you'll see more of what you stare at. It's easy to despise a bush and think, oh, there's only a barrier too,

but, man, you go to grab those and then you sit down for a moment and you start looking, you go, oh, there was a lot more here than I realized. The more you see, the more you stare. I'm telling you after a while picking, you lie in bed and I close your eyes. All you see is still bearings. You're still seeing them, right? And eventually, you can spot a huckaberry, riding a horse at a trot down the trail. You can just spot 'em 'cause you know what to look for 'cause you see more of in life what you stare at. Peter says, we did not follow cunningly devised fables, but we were, what? Verse 16, eyewitnesses of his majesty. That changes you. When you spot God's glory, you get an eye for God's glory. I like how the message translation puts it. We weren't, you know, just wishing on a star when we laid the facts before you regarding the powerful return of our master, Jesus Christ. We were there for the preview. We saw it, look at it, with our own eyes. His glory so burned into their retinas, right? This image, and then he spent, Peter spent the rest of his life chasing that high, right? 'Cause only the first one, right? He only got the first little glimpse of it. The best in the rest will come.

It came for him when he got to stand before God because of death, but for all of us is going to come if we do not die before he returns at the return of Jesus Christ with power and glory and authority to rule and to reign forever. I'm talking about heaven. I'm talking about the ultimate dawn, which is coming. And once you get a sense of who he is and what he's promised and you spend a moment in his presence, which is better than 10,000 days anywhere else, I'm telling you something, you can pull that back in. What, the glow? You can pull in the glow whenever you feel low. In those low moments, you can remind yourself, dawn is coming, Jesus is coming, the end is the best is really, truly yet to come. And so what we need then is incremental sunbursts until that day when the dawn comes as Christ returns and every moment we spend with him before we rush off to work or to school, every moment we spend with him as a new week begins as we gather in his name, it's the chance to glow. It's the chance to observe and to feel the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, especially as we gather together in his name and he promises to be there in the midst. Why? Because the Bible says that he is enthroned in the praises of his people, Psalm 22, not the praise singular of a person.

You can experience God, of course, on your own, but there is a unique undeniable way that we get to encounter God as we come together in his name and he is enthroned in the plural praises of his people. It's the reminder, that little glow that the ultimate glow of his coming where we get to see him and we get to encounter him and we will never have to say goodbye to him. All right, number four, nothing will change your altitude like attitude. the question, "How am I choosing to see what I'm seeing?" That's your attitude. How you're perceiving these two, same two people can see the same thing and have two completely different perspectives. The Bible says, "If your eye is good, your whole body is going to be good. If your eye is bad, the whole body is bad." What is the eye if not how you're choosing to use as a lens your attitude to view the circumstances and the difficulty of life? And some years are going to be like that, where it's not so good, and it's difficult. You've got to have then your right attitude adjustment in place to look at what you're looking at. I came across this Forbes article where the author says, "While Disney was fired," think about that, "fired from the Kansas City Star because he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." Oprah Winfrey fired from her job as a TV anchor in Baltimore for being too emotionally invested in her stories. Henry Ford had two, not one but two failed car companies prior to succeeding with Ford, and Steven Spielberg was rejected by the USC Department of Cinematic Art School multiple times people.

Now imagine, he says, "What would have happened if any of these people had a fixed mindset?" And their attitude was bad. "Oh, well, I've been told I'm not creative. I've been told I'm not imaginative. When I try and start a car company, there's no good that happens." Or, "Oh, it's a bad thing that I'm too good at connecting with people." Hello, every single one of these situations, this was their superpower, but it was their attitude that caused them to see what they were seeing but not see that as final, what they were seeing and not see that as fixed, to see what they were seeing and not see that as fatal. And my question to you is, can you go through adversity and bloom? Can you go through hardship and go on to blossom to what God has called you to do? Don't complain when things aren't going your way. Evolve and grow and learn and retool. Remember this, undisturbed forests contain the least productive huckleberry patches. Undisturbed forests, the forest that has never had anything hard or bad happen to it. They have the least huckleberries coming out of them. So can you take a lick in and keep on ticking? Can you deal with difficulty and grow back stronger? Can you be like that hydra and say, "You cut this one head off and three heads are growing back in Jesus' name. I grow when I'm hit. I grow when I'm struck. I grow when I'm punched. I grow when I'm low. I grow when I'm out. I grow when it's bad. I grow when I learn when it's difficult in Jesus' name. Number five, to go high, you've got to get low. To go high, you've got to get low.

I'm telling you, on foot, there's not a lot of huckleberries you're going to see. But you've got to kneel down. You see where I'm going with this. You've got to get low. Come on. I'm sorry. I don't ever experience God. Are you getting low? Are you spending time on your knees? Are you spending time in prayer? Are you spending time? You're never going to get high if you aren't willing to go low. When you get down low and you look under the leaves and say, "Oh, there's a lot I would have missed." There's a thing about it. There's a lot I would have missed had I not knelt. How much of who God is, how much of what God wants to do, how much of what God wants to give you. Are we never seeing because we're unwilling to get low? You know, right after this story in Mark 9, there will be a story that follows where these disciples of Jesus are trying to figure out how to cast a demon out, but they can't do it. And they say, "Why can't we do it?" And nobody says to them, "This kind only comes out through prayer and fasting." This huckleberry is only found when you're willing to get low. There are things God wants to do through you that you'll never experience if you're not walking in through the door called humility, in through the door called kneeling, in through the door called humbling yourselves because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. So you will never get to where God wants to take you without having that heart and mindset

of a servant, that heart and mindset of someone who's taking the lowly seed at the table to get high. You got to go low. Once you experience what's down low, now you know there's joy in it, there's beauty in it, and you rush down low every time. One author said, "This huckleberries are hard to find, challenging to pick and fragile, and they don't travel very well, right? Running down the trail was not great with this in my hand. I tried in my pocket for a minute, I was almost squishing them all. Why bother you might be asking at this point?" And then she says, "Once you pop one in your mouth, you'll forget you ever asked." Once you pop one in your mouth, once you experience the goodness of God, some people might look at you walking with Jesus, "This is difficult, this is bad, fragile, hard to hang on to. Why would you even bother walking with Christ? There's not been some picnic cake, cake walker, or picnic walking with him and you say, "Once Because you know, my Jesus, come on, do you know him? Do you know him? I'm like, I know him. Has he been there for you in those hard moments? There is nothing on earth you could give me to take me away from my God. And then number six, we close here. Don't cling to the wrong thing. So I think about Peter here on the mountain who's like blown away. Wow, this is crazy. I've been following this guy, but I had no idea. I declared you're the Christ of the Son of the living God, but I had no idea. So now he's like, well, we should never leave.

We should just stay on this mountain top. All right, let's build, let's build three tabernacles. He says, he just like has a whole plane. He's like drawing napkins. You know, let's build one for Moses, one for Elijah. Jesus, you can have your own like, this is, we'll never have to leave this mountain top. And God the Father has to be like, hey, the plan isn't to build a lekinta on Mount Herman, bro. I wanted you to experience this, why? So what happened on the mountain could be taken with you back down on the valley to the valley where people on the valley floor don't know nothing about what's experienced up here. So we always come. So listen, some years are like that. Some years we have a best and 40, some years we've got a lowest way. What we experience on the high is there to carry us through in the law. And it's not even just for us. It's what we receive by way of comfort, what we receive by way of blessing that can be a benefit to others as well. So what you got when you were up high is always meant to be brought down low. I was reminded this week of a time when we went puckleberry picking, when my daughter Clover was very young, and we didn't realize she had done this, but she had stashed something from the top of the mountain

into her purse so she could bring it with her down. That's what we went, check this video out. Clover, are you picking up the brace on the chairlift? - Yeah. - So you brought a bush with you. - Yeah, I'm going to do it. - So you can continue to pick on the way down. - Good one, love. - So are you're a genius. - You see Clover, no. What you need to know, what we got up there, it was meant to be brought down, meant to be continued. We can't just meet with God and ask that. You got to keep picking what you picked on the top of the mountain as you go your way through life. Don't cling to the wrong thing. It's not like, well, if I could get back to that promise keeper, if I could get back, a lot of people move around the country. Well, this is where I felt closest to God. It was here, we were chasing after the wrong thing. It's not, we're getting back to the mountain top moment. It's knowing that he's with us in the valley. We need to bring it with us into our future. You get the glory by touching heaven. You use the glory by fighting hell in Jesus name. And when you're handing out Huckleberry's download, you're fighting hell that's trying to push upon you and trying to get you to capture back some lightning in a bottle.

You receive it, say amen. And so Father, we thank you for your kindness and for your love. And we thank you that you're with us in the high and you're with us in the low. You're with us in the good and you're with us in the bad. And we thank you Jesus that for all of us who are feeling like we're just in the midst of a low season, you're with us. If that's you just, I'm describing right now, 'cause you just raise up your hand. If you just say, I'm in, I'm in a year like that. I'm in a month like that. I'm in a moment like that. I just feel like I really am struggling here, but I just pray that you would see that the disturbance of your forest, thank you God for every hand being raised. Bless these God in Jesus' name, that you would see the disturbance of your forest is so you can have a fruitful future. Thank you Jesus, the value becomes even more precious when we're barely producing any Huckleberry's. It's even more important that you don't quit. It's even more important you don't, so I pray that anointing and blessing on my brothers and sisters right now. You put your hands down. I wanna invite anybody who's not trusted Christ to make the most important decision of your whole life

to give your heart to him. I'm asking, have you invited Jesus in? Not have you done good things. I'm not talking about Moses, I'm talking about Jesus. Have you received him as your savior? If not, you can right now. Say this with me as a prayer to God. He'll hear you and heal you if you do. Trust me with us, no one praying alone, all of us praying together. Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for me and to rise from the dead. I believe coming to my heart and make it your home in Jesus' name. [BLANK_AUDIO]