The Week That Changed EVERYTHING

That'll fire you up right there, won't it? I mean, what a great season we're in right now. I mean, we're here to celebrate, right? I mean, this is that time of year where the unexpected comes about, where strangers become best friends, shouts of adoration and excitement are occurring all throughout the land, right? We're all talking about March Madness, right? March Madness, that's what you're thinking of? Whose bracket's doing good? Whose is just trash at this point? Who doesn't even know what I'm talking about? Ushers, get them out of this room. Two of the most beautiful moments in the entire year, the Men's and Women's March Madness NCAA Tournament are happening right at this very moment. This is a big deal in our family. We've got our brackets going, guessing who's gonna win and who's gonna lose and all those things, which, you know, I'm in second place, just not to brag, but I'm almost there. We love this time of year. Typically, we watch a lot of games. We throw a big championship party at our house. They start doing the highlight reel. Y'all know this. One shining moment. And I'm just like in tears

as they're showing the highlights and wishing Baylor were in it. But over the years, we've seen some doozies and maybe none more powerful than 2016. Villanova was playing North Carolina. The final 13.5 seconds of that game will give you a heart attack because Villanova's losing and they go to the free throw line and they hit these free throws and now they have a convincing lead. And so Villanova fans are going bananas and North Carolina fans are like in tears. They throw the ball into the North Carolina point guard. He goes up, midair, comes down, shoots it, it goes in. Ties the game. Michael Jordan and his North Carolina family are like, you know, going crazy. Nova is in despair over here. I mean, those final 13.5 seconds could only be described as whiplash. You have like tears of sorrow, tears of joy, confetti, despair, dancing, all the above. Because what you thought was gonna happen doesn't go as expected. You could go back and watch it on YouTube from like nine years ago. And then you're like, oh, it kind of all makes sense. But in the moment, not so much. Let me ask you a question.

You ever been there in your own personal life? Where in about 13.5 seconds, it just seems like it goes like this. You know, I had that kind of week, to be honest, because I was preaching on this. I guess God thought he'd give me a chance to live it out. But Jason and I had a near historic week of prison ministry. We could fill the whole time telling you what God did this week, unbelievable. And honestly, then I hurt my wife's feelings in a way I did not mean to do, but you know, kind of a painful thing. Thankfully, she's a great woman and she forgave me. But I couldn't forgive myself. And I went down into a shame cycle that was really hard and I didn't know if I was gonna be able to get out of it. Then on Thursday, we go to our worship department, just released a brand new album called The House Project. And they did a release party on Thursday night. James Mark has completed a song he's been working on for about 25 years. And then when iTunes released it, they didn't put his name. Instead of Antioch Music, it said Antioch Music and Jamie to blame. I don't know where that came from. But today is my daughter Mackenzie's 19th birthday. I mean, all in a week. Enter Palm Sunday,

or actually this is the beginning of a week we all call Holy Week. And to paint the scene as our opening video portrayed, Jesus has told his disciples, go get a donkey's colt, have it ready for me. Now he's very aware that we're stepping into 13.5 seconds. And it's about to play out in a way that he is familiar with, but they don't get it. And he is stepping to the free throw line. This triumphal entry as it's called is that free throw moment. Joy is erupting on one side, but it's instigating despair and anger on the other side. Nobody should have been shocked about this because it was prophesied 500 years earlier. Zechariah 9, verse nine. Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. And now it's coming to pass. Mark captures it this way. Many people spread their cloaks on the road while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest.

heaven and by calling him the son of David they are making a definitive statement these palm branches going on the ground these coats being put on the ground are making it clear this is not just a prophet this is our long-awaited Messiah in fact this triumphal entry it occurs the Sunday before their Passover feast that's coming up that week so that particular Sunday was lamb selection Sunday for their Passover feast they're about to have so maybe in a similar fashion the Sunday before Thanksgiving you may go get your turkey and start getting it ready on that day they're getting their lamb ready and they're going to pick one that has no defect and one that's going to represent the saving of their family that occurred a thousand years earlier in the day of Moses they've been doing this ever since but this lamb at this time Jesus he is the spotless lamb of God and he would do something none of those other lambs had ever done because seven days after later he is going to conquer death he's going to come back to life and he's going to change every week and every week for that point forward so this holy week it doesn't abolish the Passover meal it fulfills it but as John's account tells us you're going to see this story played out throughout all four Gospels they don't see the full picture they're still kind of lost in 13.5 seconds somewhere in there and it says at first his disciples did not understand all this only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things have been written about him and that these things had been done to him why because this is not yet Jesus's coronation at the right hand of the Father seated on the throne of heaven this is the triumphal entry as we call it it's just not the final triumph because even in these throes of joy the authorities are grumbling and they are plotting in real time so the emotional high of Palm Sunday it's beautiful it's real and it's true and it's about to come crashing down and the disciples are about to experience the full gauntlet of emotions Holy Week provides it's gonna make Villanova and North Carolina look non-existent just watch the dizzying ups and downs that are in the space of Holy Week here it is I just told you we just read from Mark or actually in Luke 19 it also describes this triumphal entry we

watched earlier it's kind of like you know NCAA championship then verse 39 right in the middle of this some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus teacher rebuke your disciples in other words stop this madness this really is madness they're equating you with divinity they are calling you David's son which means you are God's son that's not true and so they reject him as the Messiah on the spot and as they are refusing Jesus as the Messiah Jesus can see into their future this rejection will in fact in effect lead to Jerusalem being ransacked in 70 AD and so that makes verse 41 make sense as he approached Jerusalem and he saw the city he wept over it I mean he's on the donkey's colt Hosanna branches coats now weeping four verses later when Jesus entered the temple courts he began to drive out those who were selling it is written he said to them my house will be a house of prayer but you have made it a den of robbers and maybe there was some confusion you would think they might be selling some lambs that were going to be used for the Passover feast but he knows the heart he knows they have replaced this center piece of the presence of God for their own greed the gospel writer mark places the anointing of Jesus's feet right here you might know that story where Mary breaks an alabaster jar by familiar with that expensive perfume and she just starts extravagantly wiping it on Jesus's feet and this beautiful act of worship was profound it was loving it was sacrificial it stuns everyone and it offends the disciple Judas he begins to conspire against Jesus so the emotional downward spiral of this story it's hard but just remember it's the Passover this is a feast they looked forward to this I mean it contains somber moments that recall the bitterness of past slavery but this is fundamentally a celebration of freedom of redemption the birth of a nation a reunion for family and friends to come together This is pure joy confetti streamers and the works so much so that Jesus says I have longed to share this meal with you and Then this meal takes a strange emotional turn when Jesus clarifies. He's about to be betrayed denied

Doubted broken and left by everybody sitting at the table They're stunned again, they don't know what to do So they head to the garden and Jesus says would you stay with me? Would you pray with me? Luke 22 verse 45 When he rose from prayer went back to the disciples. He found them asleep exhausted from sorrow This isn't a matter of four to five days. We have had a whiplash of emotions We have gone from a Super Bowl parade to the disciples are exhausted from not a long day and a big meal Overwhelming grief this truly was the week everything changed and The whirlwind that I just showed you it's a little bit hidden at first and if you just come on Palm Sunday and hear one sermon and Good Friday here another and Resurrection Sunday and here another you might miss The whiplash that's all in between but man, I'm really glad it's there Because all of our lives are going to be affected by this whiplash Circumstances change on a dime our emotions don't really know what to do and There's God. I Mean, maybe you felt that maybe it's a transition where you switched cities you switch states You got a brand new job. You had to move to a new community You went looking for a new church and man your body is here in Waco, Texas, but your soul is somewhere else completely Or maybe it's on a positive side buddy of mine called and said well wasn't sure I wanted to have another child we already have four but my wife said she wanted one so we went for it and We're pregnant with twins And I was like, whoa and he's like bro, I'm looking at minivans I'm trying to find new vehicles I'm like, man, I you don't believe in the gift of tongues. I bet you do now He called me a few weeks later Carl we just had another ultrasound It's triplets I'm looking at a new house and I'm like, I'm I'm fasting and praying for you

Again very joyful, but a whiplash And yet sometimes the whiplash is a Little bit more on the trying side a physical diagnosis you did diagnosis You didn't see coming or maybe you're something changes physically in your body. It just affects your life Or maybe you're switching seasons you went from college to now you're adulting and still trying to get some traction on the flip side of That you had a full family. Now you're empty nesting not sure how to handle it or you go through a breakup You didn't see coming Even more painful. Maybe you lose a loved one just changes the dynamics of your life and in a matter of days everything changes All of those things I just said will never rival the weight of what we see between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday But it will nonetheless try to turn us into deniers traitors runners and doubters and What I'm proposing today is that Holy Week is not just a sequence of events. It's an emotional gauntlet. It's raw. It's Disorienting but it's human and thankfully Jesus doesn't avoid it He walks right through it and he shows us how to meet God inside of it I'm so thankful because if you've ever encountered this kind of back and forth Then I'm sure that you know now that these Moments of testing they either form you or deform you emotional whiplash it either Deepens you or destroys you and the direction you move in this crucible can determine the person that you become Our blueprint of How to navigate this is actually sung in some of those songs That originated right there on Palm Sunday And so I want to look back at some of those songs I mean y'all remember what we just read Mark 11 the people are singing as Jesus came Riding in a donkey. They're like blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord? There's my Michael W Smith people there you are I see you Sandy Patty Now

For those of you, they're just like I don't know what's happening. That's okay. Stay with me They're just that is a Bible verse. They are not just this is not a cute phrase. They didn't come up with it on the spot They're quoting Scripture All throughout the Passover meal, in fact, they're gonna quote very scriptures, predominantly the Psalms, and Psalm 118 will be the most predominant chapter they will pull from during their Passover meal. They always did, every year. So this line, it comes straight from Psalm 118. It's verse 26. What's interesting is when the religious leaders beg Jesus, don't let them call you Messiah, he goes right back to Psalm 118. And he's going to reference a section of scripture just right before verse 26. Look in, it's actually Psalm 118, 22. Jesus said to them, have you never read in the scriptures that the stone the builders rejected has become the what? The cornerstone. Now Jesus is declaring a thousand years earlier, David wrote this, and he's using architectural imagery because in ancient construction, the cornerstone, it was the most critical stone in the building. And they laid it first at the corner to ensure that the entire structure was straight, secure, and properly aligned. So what they would do is they would look through various stones, and they're gonna sift through them all, and then they would see something that didn't make sense, and they would be like, okay, this looks flawed. This looks like it's incapable of holding the full weight of the building, and they would discard it. And Jesus is directly applying this scripture to himself, and he says, I am that stone that the builders rejected. The supposed experts discarded me as flawed because I didn't come like they thought I was gonna come. I don't look like they thought I was gonna look. I'm not the military leader they were expecting because I didn't come to dethrone the kingdom of Rome. I came to dethrone the kingdom of sin. So they don't know what to do with him, and he's looking at them going, the builders rejected me, but I've been appointed by God to be the foundation of a new spiritual building, the church. Jesus is, in this moment, he's describing a profound reversal that this one who was despised and overlooked, seen as useless, was chosen by God to be the most essential, foundational piece of his

work. And it points to something we all need to see because you may be in a 13.5 seconds and look at this time with confusion, deem it as useless, and want to discard it. He'd understand, but God is still doing something foundational and essential, a work that he's building into. What's interesting is he's gonna point to this phrase in Psalm 118. It's really interesting. It says, this is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. Marvelous? How can this rejection, this pain, this time of disorienting be seen as marvelous? Use some digging on this word, marvel, and it's a really fascinating study through the Hebrew words. I won't go into all of it, but it comes from a root word that it doesn't mean that the pain or the rejection itself is good or pleasant in a human sense. It actually comes from this other root word which implies distinguishing something as wonderful or hidden. The marvel isn't the suffering. It's the divine reversal that follows it that you didn't see coming and you thought wasn't possible, but the hidden presence of God was working all throughout it. Now, of course, we can look back. This is kind of us looking back at the 2016 YouTube. We can look back and know that the marvelous work was the resurrection of Jesus. It seemed impossible to human eyes. It's performed by God's power. We'll talk more about that next week, but this speaks to the dizzying moments we go through, and tucked within this passage is this promise. If you intentionally open your pain and your suffering to God, not only would God meet you in it, but he will work in it to form you to be more like him because Jesus himself finds himself in a garden. He's begging for this cup to be taken away from him, and then he surrenders in the whiplash and says, not my will but yours be done, and he bows in the middle of all of the weight of that pain and says, Father, you're faithful. As we were preparing for this Sunday, our team couldn't help but think of a treasured part of our community here at Antioch. the Martin family. For those of you that don't know them, Jonathan and Sarah have been a part of our community here for actually since the mid 90s.

In the last few years, I don't even know that whiplash is a appropriate term to describe what they've walked through. And so we asked Sarah if she would take some time and to take us into her story. And I just wanna tell you what you're about to watch in my opinion is sacred. I've been putting videos like this together probably for 30 years. I don't know that I've had a harder time trying to figure out what to cut out of a video. It was a 70 minute interview that me and the team did last week. And I just felt like it was unholy every time we would delete something. Like we should just watch the whole thing and then done ministry time is kind of what I was witnessing as we were watching her pour out her story. And thankfully before Jimmy went on his sabbatical, he actually interviewed Sarah. He has a full podcast and we're gonna link it to this video. You can watch it afterwards because I want you to see the full gauntlet of what she describes. But for today and for our purposes here today, I wanna take you right now into Sarah's video. I grew up in Houston, Texas. And I grew up in a home with a mom, a brother and a sister.

My father left our family when I was just six months old. So I don't have any memories of him living in the same house as me though he was involved. When I was around first grade, I remember a couple things happened that year that stood out. One was at VBS, they gave us each a red wooden heart and painted on it said God loves and then our name on it. And we went and we put them around our neck and we walked in the pastor's office. And I just remember he just like very simply shared the gospel centered around the fact that God loved us. I've really never questioned it since then. My church specifically, it was a prominent part of church life was missionaries coming off the field sharing. I remember middle school, high school, multiple times where I felt like there's something bigger for me. I came to college, I actually just remember being like, well, I'm going to be a missionary. So I guess you just pick a major. Sometime my sophomore year, someone invited me to a Antioch life group. They were sharing their vision

that the whole point is that we meet in these small groups life on life. And then these life on life is the same way we believe the world can be reached. If we just do life on life in small groups, we can do this anywhere. That the local church and life on life is the hope of the world. I was in like, and you know, all of that, like it just felt like, okay, this is how we do it. And during my ATS year, I committed to go long-term to Beirut, Lebanon with the first team that we sent over there. Part of my yes to God was like, I'm giving you one of the greatest desires of my heart, which is to get married. Like I felt like I just had to surrender that. And that was literally the summer before I met Jonathan. A few of my friends from ATS had started going to a young adults life group and invited me to come. And I walk into this apartment and they introduced me to the life group leader, Jonathan Martin. He introduced himself as Jonathan. Everybody called him Martino. I left for Lebanon and thought I wouldn't ever see him again. Really, I got to Lebanon. I'm so excited.

And I just couldn't stop thinking about this guy, John. And I was like, you know, I really had never connected with someone like that before. And that felt unique now that I was kind of away from it. So six months to the day after I left, I get an email and it's just one line from Jonathan. And it says, it's been six months. I can't stop thinking about you, Jonathan. And then I ended up coming home that summer. And in that time, he asked me to marry him. So we got engaged in June of 2005. I went back to Lebanon, packed up all my stuff, said goodbye to everybody, came home, and we were married in October of 2005. So he, starting in high school, actually, he discovered this love for pottery. So he came to Baylor and he majored in studio art. And a friend came over, Jill, who had Common Grounds at the time, and liked him and said, oh, I wonder if we could sell these in Common Grounds. And could you put a logo on them and we could replace maybe like the China made mugs? And it's Waco, so word kind of spread. And Joanna from Magnolia found out. She said, well, maybe we could try to do that same thing, but put Magnolia on the side. And maybe some people will even buy something with our logo on it. He found a little studio.

studio space he could use downtown and started making mugs for Magnolia and that just snowballed. I mean within a year of that he was doing it full-time and within a year and a half we had probably a handful to ten employees helping make those and we still have that today. I think we have about 20-25 employees and customers all over the country. So in August of 2022 we were a week into the first week of school. Our oldest son was a freshman and midway our daughter was starting eighth grade and our son was starting fifth grade our youngest and we were just doing normal life and had had you know a party the night before people at the house and he woke up on a Saturday morning to go on the jog and didn't come home from that jog. He was just a block from the house and he had collapsed while running and died most likely immediately from cardiac failure. I think I remember them saying does she have a pastor that could come meet her and somebody called Jimmy and seeming like immediately he was there as well. I just remember people holding me up like you know basically telling me like okay we have to go home now we have to tell the kids and and then we were probably left alone for weeks after that point so just surrounded you know it was family I mean my mom came in town obviously my sister lives in town. Jonathan's parents were in Europe they flew home his sister came in town. I mean it was the people that we were worshiping with in college I mean it was I mean people had to step in and help instantly fill in the gap that Jonathan was I mean Jonathan was running the company and that's obviously our livelihood as well as our 25 employees livelihood and so people stepped in and just made sure that kept running no employee didn't get paid it just kept going. There's like the looking back and then there's me remembering what it felt like at the time. Mostly I just felt so hurt I just felt so disappointed I felt like you promised like even getting married was like this redemption of my kids will have a father that I never had there were all these promises right like I gave it up and then you gave me this husband and then you took him away like all these promises felt like they got shattered in a second and so I just for the six months to a year after it was like my

faith was an actual choice it was not a feeling because my feeling was everything I just said my feeling was devastation sadness disappointment I this isn't good it doesn't feel good it doesn't feel like you were good but I've surrendered my whole life and I do believe that what you say in the Word of God is true and so I'm just gonna choose it and it was like oh that's what a sacrifice of praises like it was just like I could just do the bare minimum but I also did at that time multiple times it felt like the Lord was like and that's that's enough I don't ask more of you like I'm hurt too I just know that my story and Jonathan's story as that at the point of which separately we both decided to follow Jesus we decided he was worthy of our lives and now we believed who he said he was and we really wanted to do that until our last breath and he did do that until his last breath and he leaves that legacy to me and his kids and I want to do that too that's really all I want to do is keep following him because he's faithful there's a psychiatrist her name is Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and she once said beautiful people do not just happen beautiful people don't just happen they don't come to the end of their life radiant with the fruits of the Spirit just dripping off of them by accident in fact most people don't make it to that place because life is gonna throw some gut punches and there's gonna have to be some hard-fought choices in the midst of those scars. Like we said earlier, moments of testing, they'll form you or deform you. Emotional whiplash can either deepen you or destroy you. And as I was listening to Sarah's story, I don't know how many times I've watched it, I have not made it through it without crying yet, but it reminds me of another Psalm, Psalm 92. You may know it. Verse 12 starts this way.

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree. Do you know palm trees are one of the only trees that actually bear fruit all the way up until they die? And they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon. The largest tree in the ancient Near East, and it's not lost on me that these palm trees were found in the very city that Sarah went to go lay down her life for people to come and to know Jesus. But then Psalm 92 would go on, and it's gonna connect three ideas that are needed for us to make it in our own whiplash. Would you actually read this portion of scripture with me? Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age. Isn't that beautiful? I mean, I think that we would all say Sarah would be justified if in her pain she'd hold off, became a hermit, never saw her again. But she has been grounded in community and has run to the presence of God. This semester, she's actually not working much so that she can spend time in her garden just meeting with Jesus. That's how she had time and space to make this video with us, just going to the presence of God. And over this past year, seeing that there's not a lot of widow ministries

for ladies that are in her age and stage on the younger side of those dynamics. And so she just started a chapter of a ministry called Never Alone Widows. They just started a few weeks ago here in Waco, across the street. You could join them if that's your story. They created community and a safe space for women who need to know, I know you feel alone, but you are not alone. And she's still bearing fruit in her very young age. And I bet a lot of you actually, I mentioned this Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, I bet you know who she is, because she's the one who made famous the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, many years later, after that became famous, she realized she had missed one. And she added a sixth stage to this, and she contended this is the most important one. And it was meaning, meaning. Where she said acceptance is not enough, whereas acceptance says, this happened to me, but I'm okay. Meaning is that final stage, and it says, man, what happened to me was horrible. I would never want to go through this again. And at the same time, God has met me here. And he has brought good from this, and I know my suffering is being redeemed,

and one day it will be redeemed. And if you're there today, I realize that not everybody may come to this conclusion on this side of the resurrection. But that's where we all are right now, somewhere between the triumphal entry and an empty grave. And in between those ups and downs, the emotional ups and downs and whiplash we'll go through, it may not make sense. And your temptation is gonna want to be to pick up that stone, and inspect it, and throw it away, and discard it as useless, and say, I thought you were good. You made these promises. We're too, we're gonna reject this stone, because we can't see, and maybe we, like the disciples, will feel exhausted from our sorrow. The invitation, though, is to find him as our cornerstone, a place of steadiness that can hold the full weight of your life. This is where you come honestly before God. You pour out your guts to him and say, I don't get it. I don't like it. But like Sarah said, I know what you say in your word is true, so I'm just gonna choose it. That's what a sacrifice of praise truly is. That's the alabaster jar being broken at the feet of Jesus when it doesn't make sense to everybody around.

That's the coats and the palm trees being thrown down, declaring you are still God, regardless of what I feel. And then Jesus comes to you, approachable, not on top of like a Clydesdale, not riding on the shoulders of men and women. He comes at you. but I level, and what's the result of standing on that cornerstone? Psalm 92 tells us, they will stay fresh and green because they're proclaiming the Lord is upright, he is my rock, and there is no wickedness in him. Friends, this is not fake it till you make it. This is not denying the reality of the whiplash. Instead, it's coming to the place where we can all say, just like Sarah said, God, this is not good, but God, you are, and you do that until your final breath. Maybe you're there today, you're somewhere in this whirlwind, and it might seem minor to others. You didn't get into the college you wanted, can't pay that bill, whatever it is, or it could be extremely major, as we've talked about today, but the promise is still the same. If we intentionally open our pain and suffering to God, God meets us in it, and then he works in it to form us to be more like him. As we conclude here, I wanna just point to something that we always do and something that we're about to do, because we go into a time of worship at the end of our services.

This is the place where we step into God's presence together. Here's why we do what we're about to do. This is where we make a point that the information you just received is not enough to carry you through this week. It's not enough to carry you through the whiplash of what you're going through. It has to be wedded with the presence of God in order for it to be powerful and revelation that lands and becomes transformation and continues in your life. So at the end of every service, we kinda throw our own tables over and remind everybody, this is God's presence. First and foremost, this is where we go meet with God. If we're gonna see any lasting change or transformation, it happens in his presence. Scripture says, in his presence, mountains melt like wax. Do you know what worship is? Worship is prayers that are set to songs that give you a chance to go face-to-face with Jesus and talk with him. So we're about to do that. We're gonna lead you in a song that can be a prayer right now, no matter where you are in your life. And I bet many of you know it because it's a song that was not written in comfort. It was actually written in a whiplash.

A man named Horatio Spafford, he was a successful lawyer. He was a devoted follower of Jesus. And in 13.5 seconds, his life unraveled. He lost much of his wealth in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. So he had the idea to send his wife and his four daughters on a ship over to Europe. And while crossing the Atlantic, their ship collided with another vessel and it sank. And days later, he received a telegram from his wife. It just had two words, saved alone. She had made it, his daughters had not. So Spafford gets on a ship and he goes over to meet her. And as he crosses the ocean, the captain of the ship calls him to the deck. And he said, I just wanted you to know this is the place. Right here, where your daughters went down. And in that moment, standing over the grave of his children, he didn't turn away from God. He found him as the cornerstone. And he wrote these words, when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrow like sea billows roll. And then those words that have carried generations from the land of the dead to the land of the living, it is well with my soul. That's not denial. That's not pretending everything is okay. That's a man who walked through the gauntlet of grief and found God's there.

So we're gonna sing this song and you can sit while you sing this song. You can kneel while you sing this song. You can stand while you sing this song, but sing it. If you're in a season of peace, then just bring your alabaster jar, break it before God. If you're in a season of joy, everything's going great, work's going well, projects are working, kids are thriving, then wave your palm branches and sing it. If you're in a season of sorrow and you're exhausted like the disciples, just sit right there and sing it. If you're barely hanging on and your mouth can't even really open to get the words out, sing it. Because the God who met Sarah Spafford in the middle of the ocean, he meets us here right now.