The Pain You Didn't See Coming

Well, good morning, Summit family. It's a delight and joy to be here with you. If you've got your Bibles, please make your way to Psalm chapter 55. As you're making your way to Psalm chapter 55, can we just one more time give God praise for all the baptisms that we have experienced all across our campuses? Never take that for granted. God is alive and on the move. A special shout out to my nephew, Jude, at the Apex campus who got baptized today. It is indeed an honor and a complete joy. If you've been tracking with us, you know we've been making our way through the book of Nehemiah, so you may be wondering why aren't we in Nehemiah? We've got one week left. Pastor JD is going to come back next week and do that. They told me, so Brian, this week kind of dealer's choice, shouldn't use that language at a Southern Baptist church. I just said, you know what, let me just kind of share with you from a passage of scripture I've been sitting in the last couple of months personally, which is Psalm chapter 55. It's written by a guy named David, the second king of Israel. We're going to cover all of the Psalm, but I'll just only read into your hearing verses 12 through 15. So pick me up, Psalm chapter 55, beginning in verse 12. David writes, for it is not an enemy who taunts me, then I could bear it. It is not an adversary who deals insolently with me, then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together within God's house. We walked in the throng. Let death steal over them. Let them go down to shoal alive, for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart. Let me say a word of prayer. Off we go.

God, thank you. What a joy it is to be a part of what you are doing in this section of your vineyard and beyond through this church, Summit Church, God. We just rejoice with all of the people who went public with their faith through this great institution of baptism, Lord God. And we pray, Father, that the good work that you have begun in them, Philippians 1, 6, that you will be faithful to complete it. Now, God, I do pray that the seed of your word would fall on good ground, that you would be with me both in what I say and in how I say what I say. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would be near to the brokenhearted, that you would save the crushed in spirit, that Jesus, you would be lifted up, that your word would be unleashed, and that, Lord God, your word would be exactly what it says of itself, that it would be living and active. So Lord God, would you allow this word to take up residence in our lives and give us hope, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Her name was Ethel Waters. And Ethel had a horrendous childhood. Her parents never hugged her, never told her she was loved. She was never doted on, never encouraged. And yet, in spite of all that, at the age of 12, Ethel wandered into the local church there in her community, hears the gospel preached and proclaimed, walks the aisle, gives her heart and life to Jesus. I wish I could tell you it was at this moment that Ethel's loveless home life completely changed. Actually, things on a lot of levels got worse for Ethel. Several months after Ethel gave her life to Christ, joined this church, remember Ethel's 12, several members of the church coerced 12-year-old Ethel into an arranged marriage with a much older man. I'll spare you the details. Yeah, traumatic is a good word to use to describe what happened next.

After a year, at the age of 13, Ethel threw up the deuces. She said goodbye to her marriage. She left the church vowing never to return. How could these people, the people of God, do such a thing in the name of Christ? of Jesus and co-sign on the tragedies that happened to her. She made a vow, never going back to church. Next couple of years, Ethel came to discover that she had a talent called singing. She paired that with this deep well of hurt and trauma, and she began to sing the blues. No one could sing the blues like Ethel because quite honestly, no one had ever lived the blues like Ethel Waters. She became a rising star in the music industry. She leveraged that and turned that into a career on Broadway. She was a rising star there on Broadway. She became the second African-American woman ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. And yet as the years turned into decades, she was maintaining her vow. She just could not get away from what Blaise Pascal called this God-sized hole in her soul. She knew it was missing from her life. So about 40 plus years later, Ethel's living in New York. It's 1957. She hears about a tall, lanky preacher from Charlotte, North Carolina, who's in town, preaching at a church in Harlem, guy by the name of Billy Graham.

She breaks her vow. She goes to hear him, walks into the church first time since 12, slides into one of the pews in the back, hears the gospel preachers. At that moment, Ethel would say in so many words, the love of Jesus became more real to me than my hurt. She walked the aisles, rededicated her life to Christ. In the last 20 years of her life, look at it with me on the screen. This is what you could see Ethel doing. She's at Billy Graham Crusades, testifying of the goodness of God, pointing people to Jesus. She's reengaged in the local church. Somehow, someway, Ethel pushed through the church hurt, and what the enemy meant for evil, and what the enemy meant for evil, she helped to experience what God turned around and redeemed for good. I wanna talk to you today about church hurt. This is no psycho babble. Church hurt is as old as Psalm 55. If there's one word that canvases all of our texts, it's that word hurt. In fact, better phrase, church hurt. Here's David. David is going through a lot, and I gotta be honest with you, I've been preaching for years. As I sat down and engaged this text to study it,

to preach it, this is one of the most difficult texts to make sense of. Hebrew scholars say this is one of the most difficult texts to make sense of. For example, five Hebrew words that David uses show up nowhere else in Scripture. Four, an additional four Hebrew words that David uses, they do show up in other places, but they are very difficult to extract the meaning, and scholars, Hebrew syntax scholars say, 10 of the lines, 10 of them in Psalm 55 are almost impossible to interpret. This Psalm, it's just hard to follow, and that's kind of the point. It's hard to follow people who are hurting. Ever had a conversation with someone, and the wound is fresh? They just found out, they just got off the phone, they just heard about the atrocity, the car accident, the death, the diagnosis, whatever it may be, and they're reeling in hurt. When people reel in hurt, they don't think linear thoughts. They aren't giving well-organized responses. They're filled with moans, and there's weeping, and sighing, they're at a loss for words. There's gaps in the conversation. It's hard to follow hurting people. Not only that, you have to understand, Psalm 55, it's steeped in hurt, but I also want you to understand something.

Psalm 55 is not David's journal entry. Some of our Bibles, there's an inscription right above verse one. It simply says this, to the choir master. with stringed instruments, a mascal of David. In other words, David is actually writing a song that was meant to be sung by the people of God when they came into the house of God. He wanted them to sing about church hurt. David understood the power of not just communal celebration, like what we just did with baptism, but there's also power in communal lament. I think the church of Jesus Christ gets an A plus for celebration and an F for communal lament. It's okay to come to church and not be okay. I want you to write down 2 Samuel chapters 15 to 18. Many of the Psalms that David writes, they have a historical anchor, a historical context. 2 Samuel chapters 15 to 18 is the historical context out of which Psalm 55 is written. Read it. In these four chapters, what's going on is David's son Absalom stabs his father in the back. The narrator actually says that Absalom, who's a good looking man, would stand at the gates of the city of Jerusalem. And I love this phrase. The narrator says that Absalom stole the hearts of the people.

He manipulated the people to turn them against his father, who's the king, in an effort to dethrone his own dad. Now, here's what you have to understand about Absalom. Absalom is savvy enough to understand that he's going to need some help to mastermind the coup. And so he recruits David's closest confidant, a guy by the name of Ahitophel. This was the guy David confided in. In fact, most scholars are agreed that in verses 12 through 15, David isn't thinking of Absalom. He's thinking of his close friend, Ahitophel. Look at these words with me again. David writes, it's not an enemy who taunts me, then I could bear. I love this. It's sort of like David is saying, man, if you came at me with a sword, I could handle myself. Been there, done that. See, Goliath, I know how to fight. But that's not what happened. He says, it's not an adversary who deals insolently with me. Then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together. Here it is, within God's house, within God's house, within God's house, we walked in the throng. He says, here you are.

You cozied up to me under the guise of friendship just to stab me in my back. Let me give you the R&B translation of this. What they do, they smile in your face. All the while, they try to take your place. Them backstabbers. Yeah, it's a group called the OJs. I didn't think that would work in this crowd. When I preach in Compton, California, they're all over that. But you know, North Raleigh, not so much. Alamance, for sure not. They're Googling OJs, OJs, OJs. So today, I wanna talk to you about Church Hurts. A guy by the name of George Barna started a research company, foremost research company, Christian research company. And he actually commissioned a study once on Church Hurts. And here's what he concluded. Barna writes, look at it with me. For my research among unchurched adults reveals that nearly four out of every 10 unchurched people in the United States avoid church life because of bad past experiences in a church or in relation to church people. Here at some 25 to 30 million adults stay away from Christian churches because of the past treatment they have experienced from the local body of Christ. Right now, tens of millions of people

want nothing to do with the church, want nothing to do with the message of Christianity because not how Satan treated them, but how God's kids treated them. There's a mission field. There's a mission field we have in front of us. And if the people of God would only, through the power of the Spirit of God, lean into the fruit of the Spirit and show things like kindness and goodness, if we would authentically live this out. And when we fail, if we would authentically own it and apologize, just think of the people we could reach. Don't talk about hurt, not pain. What's the difference? Hurt is pain that you didn't see coming. Hurt isn't just pain, it's pain that caught me off guard. That caught me off guard. It's pain, I didn't look over there. If I'm driving down the street and man, I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing, I'm distracted by my phone, but I almost veer into another lane, almost hit somebody. And that person who I don't know, pulls up alongside of me and just blesses me in sign language. That might irritate me. That's not gonna hurt me. If I'm at the club, you're at the club,

person's over served, they drink too much, they call you out your name. Yeah, that might make you angry, but that's not gonna hurt you. Or that person on your job, it's obvious they don't like you and let's keep it real. You're having to be prayed up to engage with them. And they gossip about you. That's frustrating. I don't think that's hurtful I don't think that's hurtful because the dislike is out in the open, but you're my dad. I didn't ask to be here. And you left me when I needed you the most. That's hurt. We stood at an altar. We exchanged vows. We promised forsaking all others only to discover a couple of years later, you didn't forsake all others. That's pain I didn't see coming. That's hurtful. You're my kid. I've poured into you. I've invested into you. And here you are, the things you've said to me in the years of rebellion. I grieve that.

That didn't just make me angry. That hurts me. I walked into this church. I knew this wasn't a perfect place. I even engaged in a small group. In that small group, I met a handful of people we really connected with. We decided to hold each other accountable. I start sharing stuff with you I haven't shared with anybody else only to discover you took those confessions and now you're telling other people that that's hurtful. You asked me out on a date. We go to church together. But I got treated better by the people I hooked up with on Tinder before I met Christ. It's hurtful. You're my leader. I mean, I admire you. And then I just, I'm starting to put it together. You're leveraging and abusing your power to manipulate me. It's not just pain. That hurts. It's interesting. When hurt comes, notice keyword when, I can respond one of two extremes. One extreme is what we see David struggling with in our texts. The initial, I think it's actually the default response

that we have, you hurt me. We wanna respond by pulling away and isolating. That's exactly what. David does, or he's tempted towards, in verses six through seven of Psalm 55. Look at it with me. David says, in the middle of all of his herd, he just finds out it's Ahithophel, and he stabbed him in his back. And David says, and I say, oh, that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and be at rest. Yes, I would wander far away. I would lodge in the wilderness. But here's what he's saying. People are a trip. I don't want to go to church anymore. I don't want to sing songs anymore. I don't want to be around him anymore. Me and this guy, we used to walk together in the house of God, and he stabs me. You think I want to be back next week? So one extreme is isolation. I'm done, throw up the deuces. In fact, some of you all, some of you all, it's amazing, I didn't even put this together. We're doing this, Baptism Weekend. Some of you all, you've actually broken your vow by being here, because you've got a loved one being baptized, I'm gonna come support you,

but you're triggered right now. And I get it. Or the other extreme, we can actually lean into community, because you have to understand, if you isolate yourself, that's exactly what the enemy wants. Right. Bible says he goes about as a roaring lion. Have you watched how lions hunt? They don't just run up on a pack of wildebeest, they look for the one who's isolated. So I get it, it makes all the human sense in the world. Oh, that I had the wings of a dove, let me just get away. But you're now vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy. Or you can do the counterintuitive thing, and while you're hurting, lean into community. My neighbor, he got his knee replaced a while ago. I says, man, how's it going? He goes, man, it's terrible. I says, well, I figured the surgery would be rough. He says, no, no, no, it's surgery. Surgery was, yeah, it wasn't a walk in the park, but man, after the surgery happens, I'm just chilling, and all of a sudden, the door opens, and here's the doctor, and just all these strangers, the physical therapists coming in, going, all right, we gotta start moving. He said, what are you talking about? I just wanna lay here, I'm hurting, you guys wanna lay here and binge-watch Netflix? No, no, no, no, they say, if you want to get healthy

and a full range of mobility, we have to take the thing that's causing you pain, and you gotta entrust that thing to us so that we can get you back to a place of health. Laying in the bed by yourself is not going to get us to where you need to get. You're gonna actually have to take what's hurting and trust it to other people who have your good intentions, who will get you back to a full range of mobility, and that's exactly what you need. That's what David does. So here's my sermon in a sentence. As we round second, head for third, here it is. Here's the message of Psalm 55, it's all I got. Here's what David wants us to understand. I cannot choose the hurt that happens to me. I can choose what happens to my hurt. I cannot choose the hurt that happens to me. I can choose what happens to my hurt. Thank you, Jesus. I need you to say that with me, and I don't want you to say it like a Presbyterian. I need you to channel your inner Pentecostal. I need you to say it with your chest. You ready? I cannot choose the hurt that happens to me. I can choose what happens to my hurt. One more time. I cannot choose the hurt that happens to me. I can choose what happens to my hurt.

How you respond to hurt is everything. It's everything. I was talking to a friend of mine who did not navigate hurt well, and I said, what you're thinking is, you're thinking your anger, even your bitterness is just directed there, but it's spilling out everywhere. It's coming out everywhere. contaminating everything around you, even yourself. You don't know what joy is, you don't know what, and you let one person have a power over you that they were never meant to have, and here's the tripped out part. It's been years, and they ain't even thinking about you anymore. Don't you ever give someone that power over your faith. Preach. Three quick things and I'm done. When hurt comes knocking, let me just say this, I wish I could bubble wrap my kids from hurt, but then I stop and go, no, no, no, actually one of the greatest gifts to my growth in Christ is hurt. That the very thing the enemy has designed to take me out with, God flips the script, and what he used to destroy me with, God now wants to take to develop me with. I'm telling you, some of the most godly people I know

are people who have been crushed by life, and yet when they were hurt, instead of isolating, they leaned into him. You can't pastor me just with a seminary degree. I want folk who've been hurt, but they've said my God is greater. Yes, sir. That's it. Those are the people I want walking with me. Three things, hurt's coming, it's coming, it's coming, and if you're here today and you're not a Christian, and you're going, man, you know, it's just the church that hurts folk. No, it's not. You got hypocrites at the frat house. There's sorority hurt, there's fraternity hurt. I hate that they're putting that on the church. Wherever there's people, there's hurt. So what am I to do? Three quick things. Number one, number one, when church hurt happens, how do I handle church hurt? Number one, be honest with God, be honest with God. Verses one through five, David says, give ear to my prayer, oh God. Hide yourself not from my plea for mercy. Attend to me, answer me. Verse two, he talks about, I am restless in my complaint, and I moan because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked.

Verse four, he says, my heart is in anguish. The terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me. Horror overwhelms me. Do you hear and sense the hurt? He talks about it from an emotional level, from a physical level. How long is the hurt lasting? Verse 17, here's how long it's lasting. Evening and morning and at noon, my hurt is all day long. In the middle of all that, he says, give ear to me, answer me. These are what we would call imperatives in the Hebrew. The idea of an imperative is commands. Learn to read your Bible, not just in its historical, grammatical, literary context. Learn to read it in its emotional context. I submit to you that when you make a command, you don't whisper it. You raise your voice. I think he's in so much hurt, so much pain. Here's what he's saying, answer me. Give ear to me. Then I love this. Y'all ain't ready for this. This is gonna freak you out. This is how real this prayer is. Look at verse 15. Let death steal over them.

Let them go down to Sheol alive. Okay, let me just translate this. Sheol means hell. Brace yourself. Here's what David's saying in the middle of hurt. Send him to hell. Alive. Oh, that's the most gangster thing in the Bible, man. Send him to hell. Alive. Come on now, you know you got some folk in your life. Now listen, hear me. Some of y'all are like, ugh. But I don't think we should. Now hear me. David is going to land where he should. He's gonna land, verse 22, cast your burdens on the Lord. The Lord will sustain you. He's gonna land in a good place. But here's my problem with Christians. In our rush to forgive, we actually cheapen forgiveness. Until you stop and really absorb and process the offense, you will never be able to forgive the way that you should. Amen. God's word to someone, no, no, I need you to feel this. David, hey God, send him to hell. I am, he's honest with God. I, one of my kids, when he went to Christian school, and of course, of course, this isn't true

of all Christian schools or most Christian schools, whatever, but I just tell you that for context. He's at Christian school and, you know, kid was pretty outgoing, you know, pretty vibrant personality, and all of a sudden, his mom and I just kind of noticed this switch. He was more withdrawn, angry, sullen. It was just, man, something's happened, so we're asking what's happened. He won't tell us anything. At the same time, teachers are calling us all the time, like all the time, three, four days out of the week. I mean, we were on a first name basis. Hey, Brian, it's me again, and yeah, okay, I'm coming up to the school. We've got your parking spot reserved for you because you're here all the time. What do you do now? It's one of those things, right? And we're trying to get him to tell us what happened. He won't tell us, and in the middle of all this, he says this one day, he says, I don't want anything to do with your Jesus. A couple years later, it would finally come out that here he is at this Christian school and they're calling him hurtful things every single day while he's sitting next to them in chapel under the word of God and worshiping God. It's almost like I should have been at the public school. At least I know where, yeah, send me to Heathen High.

Yeah. Praise God, now he's doing great, engaged in the scriptures, engaged with God, engaged with church. What pivoted him from hurting to healing was at that moment, at one moment, he finally decided to name it. When he named the hurt, it's sort of like when you're in pain and you go to a doctor, first thing she's gonna say to you is, where does it hurt? You gotta open up your mouth and say something, or you can't get the help you need. David is honest enough with God to say, God, I'm hurting. This guy comes at me under the guise of friendship. Under the guise of friendship, stabs me in my back. I'm hurting. About once a year when I stand before you all and teach, I always try to give to you what's called the communication pyramid. There, you can see it on the screen. Five levels of communication, really helpful. My own marriage, my own friendships. Basically what it says, most surface level is cliche. Good morning, good morning, how are you? You've communicated, but you really haven't communicated. Levels two and level three are where most guys hang out, sports center talk. Level two, facts, who won the game last night? Did the Canes win?

Yes, they did, but how much? Level three is opinion. Who's better, LeBron or Michael Jordan? I can't even believe you asked this question. If the answer's not Michael Jordan, you're not saved. You should come down front, know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, get baptized. Hank, that's you, Hank, that's you. Come to know Christ as Lord and Savior. Levels four and five are the deepest levels of communication. Level four is emotive. Level five is transparency. I think the reason why Psalm 55 trips us up, when David says, send my enemies to hell, we only think about it through a level two lens. David is not giving us a factual theology of how to engage enemies. He's giving us raw, in the moment feelings. I think part of the problems with so many Christians is we give God these cute little King James prayers. You give the all-knowing God facts and opinions, you never give him feelings. God, I'm struggling with this kid. I don't like this kid. God, I'm angry with you. Do you ever get there in your prayer life? Number two, not only do you have to be honest with God, you have to be honest with yourself. Here's the problem that I've seen in my own life

and my own years of pastoral experience, as I've never been able to get to the point where I can say, I'm not going to do this. I've navigated hurt in my own life I'm not going to do that. and as I've sat down with people who are hurting, pain I didn't see coming. What happens when hurt comes, we tend to cave in on ourselves and we create this dichotomy where I'm the good guy and they're the bad guys. The problem is that does not make room for the complexity of humanity. Here's what I mean. Second Samuel chapters 15 through 18, David is hurt. But what happened four chapters earlier? Fasten your seatbelts. Second Samuel chapter 11, it's one of the most popular stories in the Bible. David is walking around the roof of the palace, he sees a woman who is bathing, sins for her. I've always said if I preach second Samuel chapter 11, I'm gonna call it bed, bath and beyond. So he sees this woman and he sins for her. Now watch this, as popular as that story is, we never talk about this. How could he see her unless obviously they lived close? And it was only friends of the king who lived close to the king. In second Samuel chapter 23,

they're writing down people in David's relational orbit, who he held space with and who's on that list. Uriah the Hittite, who was the husband of Bathsheba, the woman he slept with. So watch this, David didn't just sleep with another man's wife, he slept with his boy's wife. Which means this, he experienced hurt and he inflicted hurt. It's almost like, I wonder if God ever said to David, get over your self-righteousness. You haven't offended anybody. I had this guy, man, he knifed me good. One of the leaders in the church that I served, man, people tried to give me a heads up about him, I was like, no, no. Sure enough, knifed me. I couldn't even tell my wife. You get on my wife's list, you ain't never coming off. It's the Lamb's book of life, your name will never be blotted out. So I'm working things out with God. We had a little tiny home. I didn't even have room to have like a little prayer room. So I just go on these prayer walks, I'm walking and I'm fussing with God. God, how could you, man? I'm following you by faith and then this happens and God, I'm paying my tithes and I'm serving you. People walking by me, seeing me talking, thinking I'm crazy, but we just working it out.

And God, I can't believe it. God, you allowed and God, you did. And after a week of this, I just sensed the Holy Spirit saying, hey, hey, hey, hey, you really think I love you more than the person who wronged you, don't you? You kind of think the blood of Jesus is for you, not him. Get over yourself, Brian. I wanna say this with the most pastoral empathy and compassion coming from a person who's been crushed. What fuels self-pity is self-righteousness. The Jesus I know died for the offended and offenders. The Jesus I know died for those who are hurt and for those who did the hurt. And one of the best things I've ever done is make a list of people I've hurt. That keeps me humble. Let's go home on this one. How do I handle hurt? Honest with God, honest with myself. Finally, hand your hurt over to God. Over to God. I'll be honest, verse 15, send my enemies to hell alive. Whoa. Notice how he ends. Cast your burden on the Lord in context. The burden would be the hurts and he will sustain you. Notice he doesn't say, just cast it on the therapist. You've heard me say this.

I believe in therapy, but your therapist didn't go to school long enough to handle what only God can handle. So when you leave the session, you better still fall on your knees and give it to one who can handle it, which is the Lord. And let me just tell you something about the Lord. You think you've been through church hurt? No one's gone through church hurt like Jesus. John 1 says, he came unto his own and his own received him not. He had his New Testament a hit to fail. A guy by the name of Judas sold him out. His closest friend, Peter, denied him three times. Oh, but one of the disciples left him at the cross. And then there's you and I. We are accomplices to the hurt afflicted on Christ. He was wounded for our transgressions, our sins put him there. But praise God he didn't isolate. Praise God he didn't back away from us. But he leans in to you and I. So he says, here's the promise. Cast your burden on the Lord. I love it. And the Lord will sustain you. What does this look like? Hear the invitation, Matthew 11. Jesus says, come to me, all who labor, are heavy laden, I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me, I'm gentle, lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So sort of like, sort of like, it's a backpack, it's heavy, it's got books in it. This is our burden, symbolizes hurts. We wear it. The longer we wear it, the longer we refuse to cast it, the more it kind of becomes our identity. The problem is not that you've been hurt, the problem is you're wearing your hurt. It's become who you are. Now I want you to imagine, you're at sea and you're drowning. This hurt is weighing you down. And Jesus comes, Matthew 11, and he says, let's make an exchange. My yoke is easy. My burden is light, I got a life jacket. Give me your hurt. Here's what Christians do. Thank you, Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. That don't work, but that's exactly what we do. Come to church with my hurt, I won't cast it, but I'll pray. I'll open my Bible, I'll take notes. I won't deal with my hurt, I'll have a quiet time. It's like wearing a life jacket over a backpack. You're gonna drown.

The only way this works, before I take this, I gotta do what Psalm 55, 22 says, cast it. And here's what I've learned, here's what I've learned. That's not a one and done thing. That's a daily thing. I'm constantly coming to God. I'm constantly casting, not fishing. Fishing, casting, reeling it back in. Casting, reeling, ah, it doesn't say fish, it says cast. And what I've learned over time, just daily casting. I'm not wearing this today, Satan. I'm not wearing this today, Satan. I'm not wearing this today. Nope, we're not going there today, Satan. Nope, nope, nope, I ain't trauma bonding today. Nope, here you go. And you'll wake up one day and just realize a lightness. You'll wonder, how did I make it? Because I cast and I took his easy yoke. So I wanna pray. I wanna pray. I wanna pray. There's a lot of ways I could do this, right? I could just pray a general prayer. Everybody in their seat, those who are hurting. I could do that and Lord will hear that. Lord will bless that. that. But remember, remember, when we hurt, our natural default is downward into isolation. God wants us out of that. So if you're hurting, if you're dealing with pain you didn't see coming. I actually want you to stand. Because by your

standing, you're going to take your first step out of isolation and into community. If you're here and you're like, man, I walked into church, and I wore a backpack. You didn't see it, but I got a burden. I got hurt. Would you just stand? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It may not even be church hurt. It may be some family thing. It may be some betrayal. But yeah, I got this thing I'm wearing. I'm wearing. I'm wearing. I could stop right here and I could pray for you. I could pray for you. But I don't want to do that. Because what we need to be is we need to let the body be the body. I just sense in my spirit there's a section back here. Someone's not standing. You should. I'm not going to manipulate you. But it takes humility. It takes humility. So if someone is standing near you, I actually want you to feel the freedom to stand with them. And to pray for them. Someone's standing near you. I want you to feel the freedom to stand with them. And to pray for them. And here's what I want. Here's what I want. I know you don't know the issue. Don't ask them the issue. Don't ask them the issue. Here's what I want. I want you to pray out loud for that person who is by their standing is hurting. I want them to hear your prayers of intercession. All over this room. All over the campuses. Right now. We're praying. We're praying. Right now. Right now. Out loud. We're praying. We're praying. We're praying. Out loud. Let them hear you. Let them hear you. Let them hear you. Let them hear you. Let them hear you. Let them hear you. you