[00:00:00] Well, hi everyone. And one more time. Welcome to Central. So good to have you with us. Actually, it's so good that you invited us into your house.

Thank you for doing that. And we're excited for the day that's coming when we're all going to be able to gather back together. And every day that passes gets us one day closer. [00:00:15] But there's a part of this, and I kinda dig because you don't know it, but you are in the front row every single week. And I'm that close to you and you're that close to me and it's just a cool thing. Hey, before I get to the message, I want to tell you about something that I just think is really awesome. [00:00:27] There is a ministry that's being started. It's called HELPR help enable local pandemic response. This originally grew out of Mission, a community church, but Mission called and said, hey, how about if we got together? So Sun Valley, Redemption, Central and Mission are going in on this thing, and the idea behind this. [00:00:45] Is that we're trying to connect people who need help with people who want to help. And it's a fascinating thing. We're running it right now in the East Valley. We hope to expand it all over the Phoenix area. But, um, if this interests you, you go, I would love to be [00:01:00] a help to somebody. Then what you need to do is go on helpraz.org and again, it's H E L P R, and just get on there, give your information, talk about what you could do. [00:01:11] This is a way that we, together as a church can impact people and make a statement that we are solidly together and we are here to help. And so we're excited about that. You're going to get an email from us, we'll give you more information about that, but I would encourage you to pursue that. So I want to begin right now. [00:01:28] I want to begin the message by showing you a picture of a boat. This ship you might go, I've never seen it before. No idea what it is. You may have never seen it and you might not be able to read the name on the boat. But my guess is you have heard of this boat and you do know the story of the ship. Okay? [00:01:44] The sea. It says Andrea Gail, the Andrea Gail, uh, is, uh, is the ship that the movie the Perfect Storm was made about. So basically what happened is all the way back in September 20th of [00:02:00] 1991, uh, this ship sailed out of Gloucester Harbor in Massachusetts into the North Atlantic. Never to be heard from again. [00:02:09] Uh, it broke up in pieces. They found parts of it. The six person crew perished and uh, and the movie, the Perfect Storm was made about it. Now, as you know, interesting as a boat in the crew and all of that story, is this the real kind of the, the star of the show, if you would, the main character is, is not the shipper of the crew it's the storm. [00:02:30] And on this particular storm, what happened is. There was a hurricane, Hurricane Grace was coming up the Eastern seaboard of the United States, and there was a front coming across from the across Canada into the, you know, the Pacific, the North East corridor, and then coming down from Canada, there was a cold front. [00:02:50] So here's what happened. Three different points of the compass had weather kind of colliding. It was warm air and moist air and cold air, and they all hit. And it all collided [00:03:00] on the Andrea Gail in the movie the Perfect Storm they, they try to capture the essence of the torment, the captain of this ship, and this gives you an idea of what he was trying, he was trying to deal with, but the last known recording of the captain was with these words. [00:03:21] His name was Billy Tyne, came at 6:00 PM on October 28 1991. Yeah, this is what he said. He says, she's coming on boys. She's coming on strong. Now a perfect storm. You know, it's not like it's never happened before. It's, it's, it's not new to humanity. I mean, these, these kinds of storms come, but we all have these moments in our lives. [00:03:42] We feel like everything is colliding in on us, and we have an expression when it rains, it pours. But the point I want to make right now is this ship stood very little chance because of the incredible power of those forces. Most ships don't take near that to sink. Most ships sink [00:04:00] much more easily than the Andrea Gail sink. [00:04:04] And that is what I want to talk about today. Today we're beginning a brand new series is called Sail On. It's kind of Uncharted part two. And I'm excited about this. We have used sailing across the sea as a metaphor to kind of explain what we're all going through and it's just been an image that we've been able to kind of hang on to. On our journey so far [00:04:24] I think there's a couple of things that we've discovered. Number one, we've discovered that the destination is further away than we imagined. We, if you recall, when we first started on this in home adventure that we're on. I stood in front of the church and I said, Hey, for three weeks, we're going to do, you know, online campus only and three weeks till the end of March. [00:04:45] And here we are in the, you know, the middle of April. And I don't know when this will end. Some talk is maybe at the end of April, some at the end of May. I really don't know, but it's a little bit further than we ever imagined. The second thing we've discovered [00:05:00] is this, the waters are a bit choppier than [00:05:02] than we anticipated. We, uh, we know, we started out, we knew that there was going to be a health crisis. I don't think any of us understood that health crisis would be to the degree that it's actually been. And it's proven, you know, it's tragic. And then also we had no idea that the economic collapse that we'd all be living through would actually hit us as hard as it hit us. [00:05:21] So these are things that we've discovered along the way. But see, what we've discovered is one of the inevitable, just the inevitable realities of sailing on the high seas. And that is this. You're going to encounter storms and storms like the one we find ourselves in right now. Now, I want to say this. [00:05:38] This is not the first storm we've ever encountered in our lives. This is not gonna be the last storm we ever encounter in our lives. This is just another storm that we are encountering in our lifetimes. This particular storm that we're now in the middle of was brewing on the, it was brewing on the horizon long before it ever hit our [00:06:00] radar. [00:06:01] We, we didn't know what exactly it was coming and it started showing up. The next storm that's going to hit us, and I have no idea what that is or where it's at right now, but it's brewing because that's the nature of storms are always brewing off on the horizon, and then they head towards us before they hit your radar. [00:06:19] Now knowing that a storm is coming can make a huge difference in your ability to survive a storm. And in the perfect storm, they were told that there's a storm coming and they disregarded it. Knowing a storm is coming can prepare you. It can just get you ready. I'm going to go way back in my life to when Lisa and I, when we first had kids, technically she had the kids. [00:06:40] I just tried to help it a little bit here, but anyway, when we were in the hospital and she was delivering Jeremy and Amy and both those experiences I had, I had one job to do just one job, and that was, I was to watch the fetal monitor. Had tell my wife when a contraction was coming [00:07:00] because I could see, I could see it before she could feel it, and it was before the days of epidurals and all that kind of stuff that we do now. [00:07:08] And, it was, it was the Lamaze breathing. So some of you are old enough to know exactly what I'm talking about. And my job was to tell her to watch the scope and tell her it's coming and that she would start the whole, he he he, whatever that breathing thing was and it would help her. And I would coach her and we do it together. [00:07:27] I had one job, just watch the monitor. There was another screen going on in the room. There was a TV screen. And in the background and I was watching the monitor and also watching the TV screen. I was watching Hogan's Heroes and at one point I was so drawn into what's happening in Hogan's Heroes. I missed the other screens signal that a storm was coming. [00:07:53] And I didn't warn her. And let me just tell you that when she felt that contraction without my telling her, it was [00:08:00] coming and without preparing to breath, the storm level, went to category five. I mean, this thing escalated and it was a big deal. And listen, one job, that's all. I had one job, and guys don't be so quick to judge me. [00:08:12] You know, you screwed up somewhere too. I just don't know your story now you know mine. But knowing it's coming makes it a little bit easier to deal with it. All right, so. The message I want to put together today. It's called Batten Down The Hatches! Batten down the hatches. I don't know if you're familiar with that phrase. [00:08:29] It literally literally just means prepare for trouble, prepare for trouble. A storm is brewing. Get ready. Now in ancient sailing ships, they would have the decks that would be open, and then they would have these hatches that would allow air to circulate in and all of this. But when a storm came. The expression was batten them down. [00:08:47] They would take a tarp and they would spread it over and then they would put battens to hold it down, Batten down the hatches, get ready for the storm. We don't do that anymore. Now they have, you know, the, the, the, they twist open the hatches, [00:09:00] they literally seal the hatches. Batting down the hatches means get ready. [00:09:04] It's about to hit. Now the big idea behind batten down the hatches is this, storm show favor to those who are prepared for them. Now. I'm not saying that storms avoid people who are prepared for them, but I do want to say storm show favor to those who are prepared for them. The storms are inevitable. [00:09:24] They are not bizarre events. They're not like freaky. Like who would have ever guessed a storm happened? A storm hit. You know, they're, they're not uncommon. They happen. Now tragically, and this is where I want to, you know, we want to transition, I want you to see something. We're not talking about storms at sea. [00:09:42] We're talking about storms in our lives. That's what we're really talking about, and the storms are inevitable. They're going to come our direction, but the tragedy is storms in our lives tend to destroy believers in ways I think we should talk about. Now, there's a couple of reasons [00:10:00] why I think that when a storm hits in a believers life, there's, there's a tendency to go, I'm done. [00:10:07] I'm, I'm sunk. A couple of reasons. Number one, I would point out as this many believers think that when you walk with God, it meant that He promised you that he would make sure nothing really bad happened to you, that no storm would ever come your way. It was like this covenant we think we made with God, we ratified, but He never actually agreed to. [00:10:27] But we just in our minds believe that if I'm walking with God, then He's going to keep me from any harm. No, I know. I know. I know a divorce is going to happen. It's going to happen to my neighbor who doesn't walk with God. I know there's going to be kids on drugs, but it's not going to be my kids on drugs. [00:10:40] I know there's going to be cancer in a family that's not going to be my family. I know someone's going to lose a job, but I'm not going to lose my job. See, we have a tendency in our theology to believe that God promised us something He never promised us, and so when the tragedy hits, we're, we're just not at all prepared. [00:10:59] That brings me to the [00:11:00] second thing. Why do storms in our lives tend to take out our faith in God? Because we weren't prepared for them. Our theology said God wouldn't let this happen. When it happens, all the sudden we find ourselves, um, very, uh, uncertain footing. We're caught off guard. We're surprised. [00:11:14] We're frustrated. Now I want to just remind you of a simple concept. Storms show favor to those who are prepared for them. Um, there's an image that, uh, is very, very powerful. That happens when a storm hits a storm can cause a ship to be shipwrecked. To suffer shipwreck, the image of suffering, shipwreck. [00:11:38] It's the idea of hitting the rocks. All of us who have walked with God for any amount of time, know people who used to walk with God. All of us who have been around this for any amount of time. We have memories of people you know who used to used to. Oh man, they used to attend. They used to come to church. [00:11:56] They used to pray. They used to serve. They used to give. They used to [00:12:00] believe, used to, but no more. Used to is past tense. What happened? What happened in their lives? Well, a storm hit them. A storm, a family crisis, a health crisis, a career crisis. Something happened and the minute that storm hit, they felt betrayed by God and they literally became a castaway on some deserted Island. [00:12:28] Now, you know, this is bizarre to me, but I have actually in my lifetime, and I'm making this up, and I'm not exaggerating this, and I wasn't alone. In fact, some of you from Central were with me on this adventure. My wife was and others, but I've actually had been shipwrecked before. I've been shipwrecked on an Island in the Mediterranean [00:12:46] Sea, I'm not making this up. I want to show you a map. I was shipwrecked on the Island of Crete, not making this up. Okay. As some of you with me, we're, you know exactly what I'm talking about. We were, we were traveling all around the Greek Isles [00:13:00] and we were up here in Turkey where we were visiting the churches of the book of Revelation and other sites. [00:13:06] You know, kind of the history, the historical sites of Athens and whatnot. So we were cruising around, and when we were coming in, uh, to the Harbor. In Crete. It was early in the morning, it seemed really early, like five o'clock, six o'clock in the morning, whatever. And the, there was the weather brewing and the pilot of the ship that we were on it, you know, it was a cruise line. [00:13:29] He misjudged the dock and, and he literally ground the ship into the concrete dock and gashed a whole big section of the side of the boat. And it was a mess. And we felt the jolt as it hit. And then know immediately tried to keep us on board and try to play it down. And eventually you can't hide the fact that you've got a gash in the side of your cruise ship. [00:13:54] And so they told us that we're going to be here for a while. [00:14:00] So instead of just a couple of hours on the Island of Crete on our way to some where else, actually we were going to Santorini I if you know where that is. We never got to Santorini because we were shipwrecked. We were stuck. We had nowhere to go. [00:14:12] Let me tell you something about being shipwrecked. It's boring. There's only so much to do and only so many things you can see and then you're just kind of stuck. Now, I do want to point something else out though, because if you, if you know the Bible, you know that in Acts 27 right over here. I'm in Malta. [00:14:28] The apostle Paul was shipwrecked, so the apostle Cal was shipwrecked over here in Crete, and the apostle Paul was shipwrecked over in, and the only, the only thing I have in common with the apostle Paul, I'm having fun here, but that's where he was shipwrecked. That's where we are shipwrecked and it folks, it's no fun to be shipwrecked. [00:14:44] Now, this image is very biblical. I want to show you something. When Paul was talking to Timothy, he was talking about people who hit the rocks. In fact, he says it this way, in 1 timothy 1. Timothy, my son. I'm giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies made about [00:15:00] you so that by recalling them, you may fight the battle well, that you will not go down, that you will not suffer defeat, that you will not hit the rocks in your faith holding onto faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected [00:15:14] good conscience and faith and so have suffered shipwreck. See it with regard to the faith. And then he mentions a couple of guys who among them are Hyemenaeus, and Alexander, whom I've handed over to Satan to be taught, not to blaspheme. They used to, but they know more and they, uh, they walked away from God. [00:15:32] Now folks, let me ask you this. Is it necessary for us to go down in a storm? Is this inevitable that we're going to go down in a storm? Is this the way God wants it? And I want to say absolutely not. It absolutely is not. Now I'm gonna say a phrase, and some of you are going to be old enough that it's going to ring a bell. [00:15:52] God never promised you a, I never promised you a rose garden. And so with the expression that comes from a Hannah Green novel back in [00:16:00] this early seventies and then a Lynn Anderson song was made after, I never promised you a rose garden. The idea behind that is that. Uh, sometimes we want to say that somebody agreed to something that they never agreed to. [00:16:12] And sometimes we want to say to God, you promised me a rose garden. And God goes, I never promised you a rose garden. I never promise you that your life was going to be easy and without difficulty and challenge you. You want to know what God did promise. So all of last week we call this Holy week. And we were talking about the different days of the week, and we talked about on Thursday how He was in the upper room with the disciples. [00:16:34] And He prayed that prayer over them. But you know what else He said to them? He gave them a promise. Let me, let me show it to you. This is John 16:33 I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace in this world, you will have trouble, but, but, but take heart, I've overcome the world in the world. [00:16:56] you're going to have trouble. It's as if God is saying, I need you [00:17:00] to understand something. So, so let me make sure we get this. Okay? So all Christians, as a Christian, you and I, we will. Number one, we will face problems. And number two, we will not have to face them alone. This is the promise that God gave us in John 16 we're going to face problems. [00:17:18] We don't have to face them alone, alone. Now, why would God allow this? Why would God be willing to let us go through storms. Wouldn't it be great if all of life was just, wouldn't it be great if all of life was just like smooth sailing and everything was simple and you know that you literally, you covenant with God and He kept the storms off your horizon and, and, and you didn't have to go through stuff because you loved God and He loved you and He watched over you. [00:17:48] Psychologist, psychologist, Jonathan Haidt. You might know that name. He had a hypothetical exercise. Let me just kind of read this to you as he presented. It's a fascinating thing to think through. [00:18:00] He said, imagine that you have a child and for five minutes, okay, for five minutes you're given a script of what that child's [00:18:06] life will be like, and you're given an eraser and you're given five minutes to read the script and erase anything in the future of your child that you want to edit out. Imagine that. So as you're reading the script of your child's life, you read this, your child's going to have a learning disability and reading is not going to come easy to him. [00:18:29] He's going to fall behind his peers when it comes to reading. What are you going to do about that? In high school, you're going to see that your, your, your child grows up and becomes a student that kids like and they like hanging out with him. He's got lots of friends. One of his closest friends, dies of cancer. [00:18:46] What are you going to do about that? You're going to discover that he gets into the college of his choice and he's excited about that. And, and man, he's doing well, but while there he's in a car crash and in that accident costs him his [00:19:00] leg. And after that he's battling with depression. You discover that, um, a few years later he's going to get a good job. [00:19:11] But he's gonna lose his job in a economic downturn. Your child's going to get married to the love of his life, and then she's going to leave him. So the question Jonathan Haidt poses is, what do you then take out? What are you just going to edit out? Like, I don't want them to go through that. Anything that causes any pain, out. It's going to be taken away. [00:19:36] So if you could just wave a wand. And erase every failure, setback, suffering, and pain that your child would endure. Would you do it, and do you think it's a good idea? Would your child without those things grow up to be stronger, have more character, be more generous, be kinder without [00:20:00] those kinds of situations in their life? [00:20:02] Could the adversities that your child is facing actually be the very thing that's going to make your child, become the man or the woman that God wanted them to become?

In the book of James, uh, James is talking about the struggle of the early church and the pressure and, but he says these words that are so profound, he says. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith [00:20:35] produces perseverance, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. Now, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask of God. So go through life and where you find yourself coming up short. Speak to God. Ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. [00:20:56] This the help you need through the trial. If you [00:21:00] ask God, it will be provided. But when you ask, and this is the, this is the criteria, okay? You must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. [00:21:16] Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all that they do. Here's the image you get. You should be in a ship. You should not be in the waves and blown to and fro as a wave is blown that there should be some stability because you have a relationship to God. You have a connection with God and you have a father who you know cares about you. [00:21:36] Here's what I need you to understand. Satan is going to do everything within his power to cause you shipwreck to cause me shipwreck. He's you do anything within his power to take me out to take you out. He's got a history of doing this, and you can see this all throughout the pages of scripture. You can go, I mean, we literally just point. [00:21:56] He, he, he tried to get [00:22:00] Pharaoh to kill the baby Moses. He wanted to eliminate Moses. Just wipe him out, have him drown. He tried through Haman to annihilate the Jews. And I talked about this this past Wednesday in my noon kind of Bible study. He tried through Haman, I'm going to kill off all the Jews. He didn't give up. [00:22:19] Then he tried to Herod to kill the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. If you know that story, he tried through the Sanhedrin to smother the church in the early days to shut Peter and Paul and James to shut those guys up and take them out, and actually even through a storm at sea in Malta, he tried to take the apostle Paul out. [00:22:44] And at some point you have to wonder, why does God allow all of this? Could it be that God allows this because ultimately when you're facing the wind, the wind really could make you stronger, could make you put roots down deeper. That could [00:23:00] give you more spine than if it were all easy sailing. The apostle Paul picks us up in Romans chapter five he says these words, you can just see it so clearly. [00:23:11] Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame. You see the progression to get from here to here, to here, to here. God has to let some things happen and God goes, it's worth it. [00:23:34] I remember a long time ago hearing this story of a little boy. Who was out playing in his yard. And he came across a caterpillar and he picked the caterpillar up and he ran inside and he showed his mom, he said, oh look Mom found a caterpillar. He goes, can I keep it? Can I keep it? And she said, okay, okay, but you're gonna have to feed it. [00:23:48] And so put sticks in there and would every day go get some green stuff of the caterpillar to chew on. And the caterpillar was doing great until one day it wasn't doing great. He noticed that it was doing something weird, [00:24:00] kind of around a stick, and he was looking at it and he said, mom, I think my caterpillar sick, and she looked at and said, Oh no, no honey, your caterpillar simply just [00:24:07] doing what caterpillars do. It's creating a cocoon. And he said, well, mom wants a cocoon. He has, what's his shell? Because what's going to happen is this thing we call metamorphosis is going to transform. Your little Caterpillar is going to become a butterfly. And he goes, it's going to become a butterfly? And gets all excited about it? [00:24:22] And he just couldn't wait to every day he would just wait and watch and wait and watch. And nothing seemed to happen until one day a little end broke open of the, of the cocoon. And sure enough, the little caterpillar, whatever it was, was trying to get, it's a butterfly trying to come out. [00:24:35] And he watched it and he became so concerned because it was having such a difficult time getting out. It was struggling terribly and he wanted to help it. And so he, he went over and got some seed, he didn't run because his parents said never run was scissors, he went and got some scissors. He came back and he just kinda clipped the cocoon so the butterfly could just emerge. [00:24:54] And when the thing popped out, he noticed it was kind of weird looking because it had a swollen body and [00:25:00] it has shriveled wings. And he, he, he waited and waited and waited for the body to shrink and the wings to expand. But neither did happen. And then he said, mom, I don't know what's gone wrong. And she said, well, what happened? [00:25:12] He said, well, I cut it. It was all, sweetie, you can't do that. You said that it's, she said to him is crucial for a butterfly to have to struggle to get out of the cocoon because it's in the struggle that it forces the fluid out of the body into the wings. And she says, son, your butterfly will never fly. [00:25:34] Folks, as hard as it is for us to understand, God knows for us to reach the heights that we're able to reach, we have to struggle and His love for us is so great. He's not going to make it easy. He's not going to take away the challenge. He's going to let us go through the storm and He's going to go, you'll be better. [00:25:52] You'll be better. I want to close this message by just giving you a four, five, six things you might want to do. How to prevail in a [00:26:00] storm. Let me suggest some things to you that that you might want to think about. Number one, expect storms. This is a crucial beginning. Expect storms. You're not immune. You're not above it. [00:26:11] God's not going to keep you from having storms. Expect them. Why do you expect them? Because storms show favor to those who are prepared for them. You intuitively know that's true. So when you're expecting, you know. A storm to hit. You're not surprised by it. And when you, sense it's coming, you do certain things to get ready for it, and you can survive it much more easily. [00:26:33] Always be immersed in the Bible will be the second thing, always have the word of God coursing through your veins. It'll give you perspective. It'll help you sort through what's happening. It'll, it'll open your eyes to things that will make sense of nonsense in your life. You'll start to see the hand of God and the plan of God and what he's actually doing. [00:26:51] And I encourage you to do this. Now I want to say this, no, go back. I want to say this about being immersed in your Bible. You might not know about YouVersion if you don't know [00:27:00] about YouVersion. You need to, you need to know about YouVersion. And, and YouVersion is this wonderful application that Life Church in Oklahoma city has given away to the public. [00:27:09] It is fantastic. It's got all the books of the Bible, and guess what?

it's all electronic and you can read it or it'll, it'll actually speak the word to you if you want to just hear it. If you want to read it and hear it. It's a fascinating thing. You go yeah but, I'm not really into computer apps. You know, it's not my thing. [00:27:28] There's this other way you can read the Bible. It's, it's in a book and you have to flip pages and you have to kind of find your way around it. But folks, the word of God will do you no good while it's outside of you, it changes you when it becomes a part of you. Here's a third one. Pray daily. Pray daily. The idea of this is that you tell God what you're concerned about. [00:27:52] You share your, your your request with Him. He talks about this peace that passes all understanding. That comes to those who pray. It does not come to those who don't pray. [00:28:00] And I just want to remind you and Bri said this earlier in the service we'd love to pray with you. Get online, centralaz.com/ prayer [00:28:08] We have people who would love to literally come alongside you and whatever it is, it's weighing you down. Share that weight with you. Make praying as necessary and as common as breathing and your storms will be much less severe. Here's a fourth one. Join a life group. Join a life group. You get in a life group and you start to realize that, you know [00:28:27] whatever you're going to go through in a storm. If you go through it alone, it's far more frightening and threatening than if you go through it with some people who walk with you. We believe life is better in community. It's better done in a group, and we're starting a new thing under the life group ministry that we're calling LYNC. [00:28:45] Love your neighbor connections, and again, you'll start hearing more about this. We're trying to get all of us connected to one another so that none of us go through the storm alone and all of us have people that we can turn to pay attention to that. Here's the next one. [00:29:00] Surrender to God any area in which you are fearful, fear was not meant to be a part of your life believer. [00:29:08] God didn't want you to live in fear. You don't need to live in fear. You, you, you have a relationship with one who can whenever you're afraid of is greater than, but here's what fear does. Fear is like the check engine light on your dash when fear comes. It means something's wrong under the hood. [00:29:23] Something needs to be checked out. When you trust, you're not afraid. When you're afraid, you're not trusting. When the fear light comes on, God's trying to communicate to you, you need to trust me in this. Maybe you need to pray more about that. And then the very last one is this. Thank God for problems. [00:29:38] Thank God for problems. I know it seems so counterintuitive because we would do anything but have a problem. Yet God says this, the problems in your life that I'm going to shape you again, just like, a tree is shaped by the wind as it blows against it. God wants to shape you and He's going to use the difficulties of your life to do it. [00:29:59] When you're prepared [00:30:00] for a storm, storms are not that big of a deal. You just, you just, they're going to come and they're going to go, and this too will pass. Now, what I want to do right now though, is I just want to, I want to transition to a thought. Okay, preacher, that's all that's all well and good. I just, I don't like pain and I don't like suffering and I don't like any of this, if this has. And I want you to understand something that God is not afraid of pain and he's not afraid of suffering. Folks, you got to understand something that these things shape us. They make us who we are. You cannot have a resurrection without having scars. You can't have a resurrection without having scars. And folks, you can't have a future without suffering. [00:30:45] Because God wants to shape you and the things that you're most afraid of are the things He's going to use to bring beauty to your life.