When God Doesn’t Do What You Think He Should — Saturated Saturday: Pastor Jason Shepperd

I love you, dude. We didn't get a bang. [ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ Well, how do you 11/22? How you doing? I tell you, my greatest fear today was that they didn't change out the pulpit. I was scared to death. I didn't want to look like Jobe in that picture. [ Laughter ] And I would have. That's cool. Hey, years ago, I was at the Retreat Center, by the way. Thank you for the Retreat Center. Yeah, it's been a big deal. Thanks for paying for it. Thanks for doing it. Thanks for staffing it. I mean, God's used it to change my life. That's why I'm at Jobe. And I met a lot of other great pastors, but, you know, there are a lot of great things about Jobe. We can see here all night, and he wouldn't even want me to say this. But I'll tell you, the thing that made me go, this guy's a real deal. One night, all the other weak people went to bed, and I was just sitting around the fire pit late with Jobe. And the dude starts getting emotional,

tears in his eyes about one guy, one of his friends who he's sharing the gospel with, who was lost. I mean, nobody else to see it. I don't know who he's talking about, but he's emotional about the one more in his life that he's praying for. And I'll follow a guy like that. (congregation applauding) I'll follow a guy like that anywhere. I've been a little anxious about tonight because, you know, I preach every week to a room. We got a couple thousand chairs in it. I've been doing that for a long time. But there's something special going on here, you know. And I think you know it. I mean, look, y'all are just, y'all are singing songs to Jesus and about Jesus. Y'all are preaching the Bible. You're sharing the gospel. A lot of places are doing that, but not in a lot of places is what's happening here happening. And God has just breathed on this church. And I just want to tell you, thank you, like we're learning from you, we need you. Keep it going. You're leading us, you're leading a lot of people in a lot of places that you've never heard of, but we're really grateful for you. You're a great church.

(congregation applauding) I love my home church first, but you're just right behind it. You're right, you're right behind it. I've got to know some of your team, just phenomenal people. I almost regretted saying yes to this just because it's a big deal. One of our kids, when they turned 18, they asked, hey, for my birthday, could I jump out of an airplane? And I immediately said yes before my wife would say, absolutely not. So I said yes. And then my daughter said to me, will you jump with me? And I said yes before I thought. And so, but my yes is my yes and my no is my no. And so, I get up in the airplane. And right before I get out of the door, I decide I really don't want to do this, but the guy that was strapped to my back, which I don't like just for the record, I didn't enjoy a dude being strapped to my back. That would be one more reason why I wouldn't jump out of an airplane again, but the dude strapped to my back just waddled me to the door. And there we go, no turning back. That's how I felt about tonight.

I'm like, I let my yes be yes, but I feel like I'm jumping out of an airplane. No dude behind my back, thank God, but I'm like, I got to do it. So here I am. But hey, in addition to knowing how big a deal is just because of what God's doing here, also the topic that we're talking about tonight is a big deal. And in fact, last year I was sitting here, and I stayed this year and last year for the church leader conference, and then I stayed for saturated last year one night. This week I've been here all week. Jacksonville is pretty cool, by the way. Cool, and then I thought it was. Cooler than I thought it was. I don't even know what y'all are saying right now, but it's a cool place. I went to a bar/restaurant today for lunch with my family, and there were 90 people in there rooting for Penn State and Georgia Bulldog on the TV, and not one Georgia fan in there, so I don't know what was going on with that. We're an Aggie family, Texas A&M. Where we all at lunch, we would have joined you. But they're getting whooped right now, so no big deal. Hey, the topic tonight, you know, the whole purpose of this event,

you know, the idea was, you know, from confusion to clarity. And we've had some people this week talk about confusing things that'll keep the gospel confused and not clear in our life. Some of that has been said that we needed to repent of, or not understanding the fullness of the gospel in our life. But there's something that hasn't been talked about that last year sitting right here insaturated, I knew God wanted me to talk about. And I knew I didn't want to, because it's a hard topic and it's real personal. And I knew that if I talked about that topic, And so I'm going to do that tonight. [Applause] Yeah. And tonight I'm going to ask you this question, and I just believe that God has some work to do in our hearts through His Word, and this is the question. How far will you allow God to go before you pause pursuing Him or push Him away? How far will you allow God to go with allowing pain into your life before you push Him away or pause pursuing Him? I'd love for you to take your Bible and turn into 2 Samuel, chapter 12. Well, as we say at our church, we own a Bible, bring it with you, we'll use it every week. If you don't own a Bible, there's one in under a chair in our church, because we just got a couple of thousand plastic chairs where you have one right in front of you in a chair. Pick it up. Hey, if you've been a Christian a long time and you don't know where 2 Samuel is, you can be a little embarrassed, but if you have not been a Christian, you don't need to be embarrassed. Use your table of contents. If you know where 1 Samuel is but not 2 Samuel, well then, that's a whole other level of embarrassment.

2 Samuel, chapter 12, we're going to read, "I think it's the second hardest story in the Bible. I think it's the second worst story in the Bible. The worst is also the best, but the heart is the dark side of the story is where the father, you know, forsakes the son and crushes him and causes him to suffer, and it ends with our salvation and our resurrection. This story, I think, is the second hardest, and in fact, if I was doing PR work for God and I was editing the Bible, I would have been like, I don't think we should include this. It doesn't make you look good God. It's just too rough. We can't understand it. We don't have enough insight. I don't think we should include this, but I know how y'all do things here. You just get all the way down into it, and so that's what we're going to do if you're all right with that. 2 Samuel, chapter 12, you can start reading with me in verse 14. But because by doing this, you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die. After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife had born to David and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted, and he smith the night's lying and sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused and he would not eat any food with them. On the seventh day, the child died. David's attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead for they thought while the child was still living, he wouldn't listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate. David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child

was dead. Is the child dead? Yes. Yes, they replied. He is dead. Then David got up from the ground after he had washed. He put on lotions and changed his clothes. He went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house and at his request they served him food and he ate. His attendants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? Well, the child was alive. You fastened a web and now that the child is dead, you get up and eat?" He said, "Well, the child was still alive, I fastened and I went." I thought, "Who knows the Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live, but now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." Then David comforted his wife as she went and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to her son and they named him Solomon and the Lord loved him, verse 14. The worst thing that could have happened happened. I don't know if the worst thing that could have happened in your life has ever happened to you. It's happened to me, I'll tell you the story in a minute, it's not this worst thing, it's another worst thing, it was the worst thing that would have been the worst thing in my life at that point. There are in this room just a ton of suffering stories. Like if we went down the aisle, if we just, if we had time and we just took a minute and we just said, hey, let's circle up and share our worst story, we hear weeping. We're sitting seats among us. Some of these things people know about, some people don't know about, some of these things

people have seen, some of these things people haven't seen, like there's just a ton of suffering in this room. I stand in a four-year every week, and thousands of... and I just hear stories from people every week of the worst thing that could ever happen in their life happen to them. Everyone in the room would admit that we suffer. I mean, the things we've been talking about this week, we all have sin, we need to be safe from it, but we also have to admit, oh, we all suffer. There's suffering in the world. And some suffering happens because of our own self. And some suffering happens because of other people who've sinned against us. We've all hurt people and we've all been hurt by people. Some of us have been deeply hurt by people. And some suffering just happens because of the pain in the world, like tumors and tornadoes and earthquakes and fires and floods and death and disease. Like everybody in this room has some suffering stories. And here's the thing that I really struggle with, that I wrestle with when I read this, and I've been reading the Bible a long time. I'm 52, I came to faith in Christ at eight years old. Jesus saved me. I never really took a vacation from Jesus. I've been reading my Bible every day for decades and walking with God, but I just still, I can't quite understand why God lets things happen

like this, wrestle with it. I mean, look at verse 16, David did everything he was supposed to do. Now, David, we have to understand this right here. Like you can't find another story like this after David, not in this way. David was the head of a covenant. God was dealing differently with David, like just like he dealt differently with Moses. Moses, you can't go on the promise land, just like he dealt differently with Abraham. These were the heads of covenants. Jesus is the fulfillment of all the covenants and all the promises. And he dealt differently with Jesus than he does with us. But David he dealt with in this way. We don't understand it. So this is not the way that God is working in our lives, but he has allowed some suffering to come into our lives and we just don't always understand it. I mean, as said in this passage of scripture that David, look at what he did. I mean, in verse 16, he confessed to sin to God. What else do you want from me, God? I confess it to you. He begged God. It says he laid on the ground and sat cloth, and he didn't eat for days. He didn't take a shower, didn't move, just laid there for days.

God, how low do you want me to go? How long do you want me to stay here? And the question that David's probably asking God, is God, do you see me? And do you care about me? And are you able to do anything? So God is just letting this happen. And David did everything he was supposed to do on this side of sin and then God still let it happen. I don't know if you've ever begged God for the bad stuff to stop or not happen. I have, and then he just lets it go. I have a picture on the screen to show you. This is my family, beautiful family, good looking people. We made beautiful people. I love them, yeah. It's missing one of our kids, but it added in the oldest, it's made three, and now she's pregnant with number four. So like, you know, the rest of the people aren't doing anything about it, but we got grand babies coming into the family, which is cool. We got like two son-in-laws and a future son-in-law in the picture. I mean, that's in Houston at the zoo, the lights. I mean, that's fun, that's right before. My son on the right ships out to do some pretty special stuff in the military. I mean, family, I love my family.

I'd do anything for them. I love them more than anyone or anything else. And this isn't the way my family's always looked. I mean, this is the way my family looked for a while. In the next picture, that's me and my five-year-old son, my two-year-old daughter, and that was a tough time in life, man. It was the worst. I went home, I worked at a church, went home from church on a Wednesday night and nine o'clock, go on the house, nobody's home, there's a note on the table and that changed my life. And I didn't eat and didn't sleep, and I wonder where God was, you know? I'm like, God, do you see me? Do you care about me? And are you able to change the situation? I just, I don't get it, man. I would've never imagined something like this would happen. If you ever begged God for something to not happen, it did. And that changed my life. In fact, the next morning, I stayed up all night. And the next morning, I'm driving, set a desperation somewhere and the Lord brings to life. it says, "Consider it pure joy when he faced trials and many kinds, because the testing of your faith develops perseverance and perseverance must finish his work so that you can be mature and complete, not lacking anything." And I laughed out loud at God like Abraham's wife, Sarah, laughed at God. I'm like, "Are you telling me you want me to consider this joy?" And I entered into the darkest season of my life. And here's the darkest season of my life that I doubted that God was good. I'm like, "I don't have any room for your gospel.

I don't have any room for this story of salvation and love and grace, because you don't care about me." In fact, God crossed the line. I mean, do you see verse 18? On the seventh day, the child died. Like for me, "Hey, let the child be sick. I get it." Like, send a message to David. That's fine. But God, at some point, you cross the line. And here's what God did. When God allowed that line to be crossed. And here's the question that we don't know. God, do you do this or do you allow it? I don't know. You doing this or do you allowing it? I don't know. I can't really figure that out under your sovereignty and your providence. I don't really know. But I feel like you crossed a line with me. And when God crossed that line with me, a gap in my gospel was shown. And I had a gap in my gospel. And this is the gap. The gap in our gospel is that we leave no space for significant suffering. We love the gospel. But the gospel is full of suffering. And the gospel is because of suffering. And for some of us, the gap in our gospel is that we leave no space for significant suffering. And much of our gospel works for us. And so the pain gets too real, too big and too long. And then what we do is we pause pursuing Jesus or we push Him away. And I know that that's what we do because I did that. I'm just like, "I don't trust you anymore." And I don't want to follow you anymore because you can protect the thing in my life that mattered the most to me. The worst thing that could have happened happened. And I don't have any space for you. And when we do that, the timeline of our life gets a stop sign. Like, I can take you back to the day, the year, 20 years ago. I can take you back to the place on the plane at the latitude and launch you to. I could probably get you close to the minute of the second of when this happened. Like a mark on my timeline in my life where I said, "I pause pursuing you Jesus because you can't even stop the pain." And the gap in my gospel for me was, "This is just too much and you've crossed the line with me and you've gone too far." And I bet there are people here who are like, "I have a mark on my timeline." I mean, there's a place back in my life at some point where God allowed this to happen. And it was the worst thing in the world that could have happened to me. And I'm like, "If he's good, he wouldn't have let this happen." And if he's powerful, he could have stopped it, but he didn't. And it happened. So stop right here, pause right here. We put a mark on our timeline and everything from that day forward changes. And we just put a yellow light or a red light. We went down a different road. We paused our timeline. I had no good room for his goodness, his resurrection, his salvation, his power, his sovereignty in the middle of the

significant suffering that he allowed. Just had no room for it. In our church, we do this thing, like I realized years ago, I'm like, "Man, I am, you know, I'm sharing the gospel of people on my own, and we're not having many people get baptized though, but our people love Jesus. They love the word. They love this. They love the church. They love this. But they love the lost because Jesus said, see, he came to seek and say the lost and the more you love Jesus, the more you love what he loves. And he came to seek and say the lost. So our people were, but then they were frustrating because they didn't know how to share the gospel. So I'm like, I got to teach them how to do that. And so we ended up starting this thing called goodgodgospel.com. It's just learning how to have good conversations that turn into God conversations that turn into gospel conversations. I did a lot of work to do that. All Jobe did was come up with a phrase one more and look at what happened. So anyway, I overshot the arrow. Missed the target. Did too much work. But I will tell you what we did. I mean, since it's here, I'll just show you. We came with some icons too, these good god gospel icons. I want our people to learn how to share the gospel. And so this is it. It's cool. Like people are making tattoos of this. Like my son who's in the military just got like a full-on arm. And we do it for kids too. And we do it around the world. It's in like 25 languages. I'm sure the words one more are also in many languages. But these gospel icons and languages, he got it all over his arm, I'm like, when you get chidnapped and they're gonna be like, "What is this?" And you're gonna be able to tell them the gospel, you know? And so, here are the gospel icons. Like, this is cool, God created the world and it was good, good, good, good, real good. I mean, it's good, man. Where does the good stuff come from? When people are like, "I don't believe in God "'cause there's so much bad." I'm like, "Great, do you believe in good? "There's a lot of good stuff. "Where does that come from?" And I'm like, my gospel has an answer to that question.

God created the good, it was real, real good. But then where did the back come in? Well, everything got cracked, it got broken, it got bent a little bit because of sin. Sin came into the world and then death came with it. So we got this coexistence of beauty and this brokenness and we wanna fix it, right? Like, we feel it, we feel how broken the world is and we wanna fix it. I mean, that's what's saying, we wanna fix ourselves and we can't. We wanna fix other people and we can't. We wanna fix the world and we can't. And that's the latter, like, you know, it's like the Tower Bible. We're gonna try to get up to God and see if we can get closer to fix this crazy world down here but we couldn't get up to God so God got down to us. We couldn't get to God so God came to us. I mean, that's the crib, that's Christmas. That's Jesus coming here as a baby born in a manger. I mean, this is what we live for, the incarnation, the coming of God. But we like to say Jesus was born because we're born. He lived here because we live here and then he suffered because we suffer. Sometimes people say, why the cross? Because we suffer. He suffered, he could've died just like the rest of us died but he suffered him in death

because we're just suffering down here, right? He suffered but then he overcame it out. I like to say he was born because we were born, lived because we lived, suffered because we suffered, died because we died. But he raised back to life because we could not. None of us could but he did. He did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. He could be born, lived, suffered, but died, but not raised back to life. And so Jesus did this for us. And this is our gospel. I mean, just by saying, I believe in you and receive you, he gives us a spirit, lives inside of us and we got a whole new life for eternity. This is the gospel. And this is the gospel that we wanna change. I mean, the next slide is this. I'll take your gospel, but I don't wanna gospel with suffering. I don't want brokenness. I don't wanna cross. I don't need to die to things. And like this is the gospel that we want. And this is the gospel and I want when God allowed pain to push me past a certain point and I was done. The gap in our gospel is that we think if we do enough good that enough bad won't happen to us, life may not be our dream, but at least it's not gonna be a nightmare.

Like God, I'll make a deal with you. I don't need you to give me all the dreams in my life, but at least not let it be a nightmare, but when the nightmare comes, we're like, there's a huge gap in my gospel. I've done enough good. I mean, we heard the story of the prodigal son this week. I've done enough good, God, for you to not let enough bad happen to me. And that's where I was. That's where I found myself. I'm like, God, I've been pretty, pretty, pretty good. I mean, David was pretty good all of his life. And then he went on like a binder of a weekend, you know? Anybody here know what a binder is? Sorry, I told you not raise your hands. Like, you know, like he went on a massive binder of stuff. I mean, you know, adultery, murder, that kind of weekend. That's a different binder than many of you guys have been on. But David like went all the way. But most of his life, the dude, was pretty good. Like the good far outweigh the bad in his life in terms of years and time. And then God still let the really bad thing happen to him. But that's not the gospel. That's actually Christian karma. That's like, God, I've been real good. Or I've been more good than bad. And so you should protect me from this. That's not the gospel that's Christian karma.

We have a boundary for the bad that we will allow God to allow and to our lives. We tell God this, this far you may go and no further. I walked on the beach this week. Couple of times, I found my wife flew in and one day we went on a six mile walk on the beach. Like I'm feeling it. Like she's in shape and she's making sure I stay in shape because she didn't want to be married to an old fat man. So we go on walks. She takes me on walks and we're on this walk. And I stood on the shore for a while. I'm like, let's pray. You want to pray alone and together? She's like, let's just pray separately. And I just stood there, stood on the edge of the shore with my shoes on. And I'm like, I knew where the water was stopping. And I'm like, you know, we tell God, this far you may go and no further. And those words came from the book of Job where God said to the ocean, this far you may go and no further it's phenomenal that the ocean stops where God said it would. And when we tell God, God, this is how far you can go in my life. You went too far with me, you crossed the line with me, you went further than I allowed and the problem with that is those are God words, those are not man words. We do not have the power to tell God how far he will let pain go.

Two brief insights into pain here, just look at this with me if you will in verse 17. Look, the elders of his household stood beside him to get up, get him up from the ground, but he refused. He wouldn't eat any food. Like when you're going through really dark pain, like some of you in the room are right now, some of you listening somewhere. Right now, we're going through like pain that you never thought you'd go through. Or you're on the other side of it, but you know it. It's still fresh, you remember it. Like when you're in this deep pain, like it just feels like nobody knows. I mean, the elders around him are trying to get him to get up and eat. I don't care about food. During COVID, I lost my taste. You know, anybody in here ever have COVID? I had COVID, I lost my taste and went to my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant and I couldn't taste it, which I've been to some Mexican food around here and I wish I wouldn't have been able to taste it. Come on, come on, I'm from Texas. So you're trying, I appreciate it, but it's not a good Tex-Mex. But I went there and I couldn't taste the food, I wanted it. Like David's like, you want me to enjoy food? Yeah, you don't, I'm more alone now because you're trying to get me to eat. You don't understand the depth of pain I'm in. You want me to eat? You don't know, I don't even want to be a live man. And you want me to get up and eat? And when you're in the depth of this pain, like it's, you're so alone. People care, but they don't know how it feels. People watching Jesus carry the cross-carried, but they had never been crucified.

And when you're in the depth of your pain, like people care, but they just do not know how it feels. And life feels really alone when no one around you really knows what you're going through. Some of you are going through some stuff right now and nobody really knows. And I just want to tell you, I want to beg you to get with some people. Like one of the most amazing things about this church is that there are tens of thousands of people connected to it, yet they still care about the one, and they still care about you. And there's community here to be had, and I just beg you. Like we do a church of house church, it's like we live in a different type of community in some ways, but there's so much overlap, same gospel, same scripture, same Jesus, same salvation, same beautiful importance of the local church. We want you, wherever we are, my church, Joby Church, here there's community for you to be had, and I just beg you to get into it. Just go and go through life alone. But even still, when you're in community, there's going to be a point when you're in a trial that nobody knows the depth of your pain except Jesus. That's why in trials we feel closer to Him on the other side of it than we ever would have felt before. The trial does something for us that nothing else can do. Verse 18, look at this, we'll just go through this quickly. Verse 18, David, he's on the ground and he hears people whispering, and he gets this sense, something's going on. Like when you go through a pain, so deep, like you get this peculiar sensitivity to pain. Like David's like, these are smart people trying to not let them know what's going on, but David figured it out just because he had a new sensitivity that he didn't have before. So I'm a single dad now at this point in the picture with a five-year-old and a two-year-old. My mom had moved to Florida, and so we would come out here and get your Disney tickets from her because they're so freaking expensive for people from Texas. And so we'd get them from a Florida resident, you know, and we'd go to Disney, and so I have a picture of me on this trip. We were doing that for years, and here I am as a single dad, and I'm embarrassed about that.

I'm wearing a turquoise, tight, v-neck t-shirt. But you got to give me a little grace. I was in the middle of dark pain. I didn't even know what shirts to wear, man. I mean, look at the shorts to my knees. I don't know what shoes I'm wearing, but it's embarrassing. But I'm here alone with my five-year-old and my two-year-old, and I'm walking around Disney, and I'm like, "I'm the only single dad here." And I'm walking through here, and everybody's having a good time. The mom, and the dad, and the kids, and the grandparents. And here I am a single dad, and I've been here for years before with my kids, And then I went to next year again and I realized there are a lot of single people here and also even the married people are unhappy. They're like, we spent $30,000 on a vacation and my kids aren't even having a good time and they won't stop complaining. And so I was like, I'm happy, you know? I'm good right now. Like, when you go through pain and you just have a unique sensitivity, you see things like now, like even now, 20 years later, like I can tell when somebody's going through something, it's like you get a sense, like David got this unique new sense of pain that he never had before. Had a Navy Seal in our church. I did his wedding and it was cool at his wedding. Like, at the wedding that I did, it was a Navy Seal and then all the groomsmen were Navy Seals. And I've only done two weddings where like everybody in the bridal party was the same. One was a Navy Seal and the other one I did for a girl

who worked at Hooters and all her bridesmaids were from Hooters. So, totally different wedding. Really different kind of wedding. Different experience. But the Navy Seal guy told me, he's like, I can walk into a restaurant, I can walk through a crowd and I can pretty much tell you any other special forces guys. I'm like, how do you do that? I can just sense it. And when you've been through deep pain, like what God's gonna do at some point for you, when you get past this point where you paused him and you put a mark on your timeline, I'm not moving forward with you because this is too much when you get past that, what you'll start to do is this. You'll start to use your scars and your stories to serve others. And at some point for me, I'm like, it's almost selfish to not step into the suffering of other people and share the gospel lens I have for them. Because now because of my suffering, I now know stuff and I see stuff and I feel stuff that I never felt before. And some of you have suffered in here and look, what God wants to do is he wants to bring you back into life with them and then he's gonna start to repurpose your pain and use you to care for other people who are going through the same type of significant pain. (audience applauding) And I don't know a better expression of the church than that. I mean, it's a while last night, you know,

we're sitting over here and somebody leans up to my daughter and just prays for her. She says, "My pray for you." And I'm like, "Ask my daughter later." I said, "What was that about?" She's like, "Somebody just felt like..." They didn't know who I was. God wanted me to pray for you. I was at Chick-fil-A the other day. I went to the wrong place and I turned around and went to this Chick-fil-A and I go inside and this guy from your church somehow recognized me and bought my meal and then he's hugging me like uncomfortably long, hugging me when I get here, you know. Wasn't strapped to my back, but still, you know, still a little long. Love the guy though. I'll hug him again, but from the side, you know, maybe handshake, handshake here, you know, get some space and distance. So here's probably the wildest verse for me in scripture. Look at this, verse 20. "Then David got up from the ground, after he had washed, he put on lotions and changed his clothes and then he went to the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house and it was a request. They served him food and he ate. I mean, this is the moment on your timeline. And I think for many, many people, that's tonight. Like, I've been fasting for tonight for four months

from certain things. Like tonight when it's over, I'm gonna undo that fast. You know what I'm saying? I got some stuff in the back I'm ready for. But like, I've been fasting and praying for you for this verse and this moment in your life. And like I'm willing to share pictures with people that I don't know and tell a story like for you. Because there has to be a new moment on your time. There has to be a new mark on your timeline. I mean, the pain David knew, I'm not getting out of this pain, but the wildest thing for me is like, he understood the gospel. John Piper talks about how David knew the gospel. Like we do, we have more clarity than he did, but he still knew the gospel like by salvation alone through grace alone and a coming Messiah alone. Like he just knew the gospel and he hear a plight, all of that to his life. Like he knew about suffering and he knew about salvation I'm not going to let pain be the primary mark on my timeline. What I'm going to do is I'm going to get up and I'm going to move forward and look, all of us would have agreed and some of us would have applauded if David would have gotten up and said, "I'm done with you, God." Like we would have understood it. It would have made sense to us, but he didn't, man, he gets up and he washes his face. By the way, thank God he's been seven days without a shower. Have you ever been around people? Have you been a counselor at junior high camp? You know what that smells like?

Like seven days without a shower? I used to pick up hitchhikers. I don't do it anymore. I don't want my kids to do it, but I did it a lot. Like I was just driving down Texas roads, going between churches where I worked in college or other things, and I picked up hitchhikers all the time, and a guy gets in my car one time and he was saying things that I'm like, "This could be an angel from God." He's saying things that only God knew, but he smelled like he came just from hell, and so I'm like, "You know, David got up because he loved people, and he went and took a shower and look at what he did. He went to the quiet place." I mean, it says here that David got up from the ground. He washed. He put on lotions, changes closed. He went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Some translations here would say he went to the quiet place. When I found myself a single dad in year one, some people offered me a really great house on the beach, which by the way, it's a beautiful picture of church, and people are like, "Take my home." That's what we do. People open their homes for people all the time. I know you all have that here, and so I went and I did my first solitude retreat. I'd never been quiet for very long, and so I went and spent three days in silence of solitude. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but I needed to do some real business with God. Now I do some solitude daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. Like annually, I'll do a three-day solitude retreat most years, monthly I'll have a day of solitude, weekly I do about a half-day, and then every day I do about an hour and silence and solitude, and David here, he gets up, he'd been laying on the ground, and he goes into this place to meet with God, and he's alone in here, because at some point

I've had good counselors, I had good friends, I have good people, but at some point what it's going to take is a moment between you and God. And frankly, what I've been praying for is for that moment for you tonight, like right here. Because this pain is always going to be a mark on your timeline, I'll never undo the date in my mind, I could rattle it off to you now that I won't, I'll never undo the pain on my timeline, but I don't want that to mark the rest of my life. So I had to put a new mark in my life, and after some time of going, "God, you crossed the line with me, and you pushed me too far." After some time, what I had to do is I had to go get along with God and do exactly what David here, I had to get up, and I had to do some real business with God. And look at verse 24, "Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her." That's where Joby would say, "Bownsheka, wow, wow," you know, like, "Seems like David's feeling better," you know, "Seems like he's doing a little bit better." David's life changed, like he's like, "I don't want to stay there, and we don't know how long it took for that to happen," but at some point, David's like, "I don't want to stay in this pain, I don't want this to mark my life, I don't want that to be my identity, I got to get up and go." And here's the deal, we needed David to do that, do you know why? Because what's coming, Solomon's coming, the temple's coming. We needed David to get up and keep leading and living and loving people, because the future for David was incredible, and why was the future incredible for David? The tomb is empty, anything as possible. Why is your future going to be incredible? Even though you've been through pain, and some people know it, and some people don't, and some of us are struggling, and nobody's aware of it, or some people, everybody knows our story like now, everybody knows my story, look, why do we know that there's hope on the other side of it? Because Jesus suffered, and the same suffering that Jesus went through, we go through in

different ways. He sympathizes with his weaknesses, but get this, oh, get this. We overcome suffering the way Jesus overcame suffering through his resurrection. Thank you. Overcom. [applause] (applause) Your silence, your distance, your anger, you're not going to overcome your suffering that way. It's going to be a mark on your timeline and your life will be that. That'll be your identity until at some point like David, you're going to get up and go meet with the Lord. And this is going to be the moment for you. There's going to be a new moment. There's going to be a new day. There's going to be a new life. And let me tell you, we need that from you. We need you. We need you to get up and make a new moment and believe that the same way that Jesus overcame his suffering, he suffered unto death. And he overcame that suffering by the resurrection. And the only way you're going to overcome your suffering is with Jesus. And my big, deep prayer for you tonight is this. It's going to put a whole new mark on your timeline where you pause pursuing Jesus before because he pushed you past your point of pain. Like your gospel couldn't handle that level of suffering. Your gospel had a big gap in it.

God, I'll take a gospel, but with this much suffering. Maybe this much. But you can't do the worst thing to me. My gospel won't handle it. Some of us, we just were like, I'm never going to follow a God who will allow suffering in this world. How about this? You follow a God who would come here and suffer with you and for you. That's it. That's at the leadership conference this week, and it's incredible. Came last year or two. And so this week, so I was going to be here all week. And I want to go sit in different places in different seats, you know. So I like when sat in the back over here and over here. Honestly, I went and took a nap up there. I won't tell you he was preaching, but I was exhausted. But I just walked around this room, and I just prayed. And I wanted to see what it felt like sitting there, hearing this from there, or there, or there. And more than that, even metaphorically, I'm putting myself in your seat by sharing my own story and telling you, your gospel has to allow for significant suffering. And the way you can allow your gospel to allow for significant suffering is that the gospel itself has significant suffering in it. Jesus suffered. I think there's three types of people here tonight.

Number one, I think today is the day for some of you to begin following Jesus. I know that almost everybody in Florida got saved last night. The evangelist Jonathan McLudom, like, is there anybody else lost in this state, you know? That's cool. [APPLAUSE] And I know those of you who were going to mark that tomorrow with baptism, how cool is that? But I still think there are people in this room and in other rooms that are watching this. I still think there are people that you know this. You know that you've never followed Jesus. You know that. You know that you don't know Him. And you don't have to know much to know that. I mean, here's what John 1-1 says. Everyone who believed in Jesus and who received Him. Like, you need to go from, I didn't believe in Jesus, but now I do. I resisted Him, but now I receive Him. It's really that simple. It's just to lean into Him a little bit, and then He'll bring you in. Tonight's the night for you. The Bible says today's the day of your salvation. Like, if you're sensing that in your soul, the greatest gift God could give you would be the spirit of God, like convicting you. Draw on you.

There's nothing more loving than saying. Follow me. Become mine. Some people in the room today is the day where you begin to follow Jesus. You did not believe, but now you do. Second person in the room. Today's the day where you decide to return to Jesus. I get it. I did it, but I'm glad I'm not there anymore. But you paused pursuing Jesus because of significant pain. But tonight, just put a new mark. Like September 19th of 2026 is another date on your timeline. Jesus, I follow you, but I think I have a gap in my gospel. I think that I have some lines that if you cross them, it may be too much. And tonight you would just come and kneel and say nothing will ever separate me from you. You are who you always are and always will be. I love you. I worship you. I follow you. I hope tonight will be a moment that marks your timeline. I love you. I've been praying for you. I'm honored to share the word with you tonight and my own story. And I'd love to pray for you. Can I? But you pray with me. God, thank you that you work in moments that we're born again. We get a new life. It begins in a moment.

And for some of us, we have some dates that we remember. We have some things that we remember, but tonight, 9/19/26 could be a whole new date. It could be a whole new time. It could be a new mark of our lives and I pray it will be. I pray for people who have resisted you for a long time. They've held suffering over your head in between you and them, but I pray that would change tonight. I pray people would come believe in you and receive you and say, "I do to Jesus tonight." In fact, wherever you are right now, if that's you, everybody else is closing their eyes. If that's you tonight, if you're like, "I did not, but now I do. I did not believe it. Now I do. I did not receive him. I do. If that's you tonight, I'd love to just help you with the next step." Will you just raise your hand just for me? Yes. Awesome. Yes. Keep it up. Yeah. Let me just say, "Hey, if you had your hand raised in, why don't you say something like this to Jesus?" Jesus. I believe you are who you say you are and I receive you. I believe in you and I receive you and I'll follow you, give me your spirit. I do. There's some of us in this room. You pause to some point. I'm not going to ask you to do anything other than what I'm about to ask you to do.

Nothing else. No next step, no nothing. I just think it'd be really beautiful if you would just acknowledge that you've done that, but you're ready to move forward. If that's you, if you pause, but you're ready to return a new mark in your timeline tonight, you just want to raise your hand? I just want to see it. Oh, yeah. All over. Oh. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's it for you. Jesus, I pray that you move, you can seal these things, you can mark our lives and we'd move forward with you. We pray this Jesus in your name. Hey, I invite you to come spend a moment here. Let's repent and return to Jesus. Let's confess our faith. Let's acknowledge our confidence and the power of the resurrection over all pain. Let's wage war against this gap in our gospel and let's worship Jesus together now. [applause] [music]