well, good morning Mission Grove. If you are here in person at CB live or you're watching us online on youtube or facebook, let me just say welcome. I'm excited for what God has to say to us because I believe God has been speaking to me through his word and I'm excited to share that message with you. But in order to start off this morning I need your help and so the safest closest socially distanced person from you, I need you to turn to that person. I need you to say run christian run, go ahead and do that now. If you said it online, I appreciate the effort as well. I cannot hear you but I do appreciate the effort there. Now if I heard correctly, I think a few of you in the room we're trying to do a southern accent or trying to do forrest gump there and and so I want to allow you a second chance to do that. So you've ever seen the movie Forrest gump or want to do a southern accent, you can go ahead and turn to a person or you can just say it out loud for my benefit and go ahead and the most southern way you can say it, go ahead and say run christian run do it. Well that is the title of our message and yes, it's on purpose because when I think of that movie, I think of how is it that we can run in the midst of trouble And if you're familiar with the movie forrest gump there had braces on as a kid and as he was running from trouble, the braces broke off and he started running and realized he could run fast and he could run far and so there as he was telling strangers on that bench at the bus stop and he was saying in there that from that point on, if I was going somewhere I was running and it would go and so the question there for us is how is it that we can run? How is it that when our future seems a little foggy, where do we focus? How do we have courage when our circumstances seem a little challenging. I want to offer you some encouragement today and give you some strength that as we head into this holiday season to give you some spiritual food here and some energy so that we can refuel and refresh so that we can run and run well and run strong here as we finish up This year, that is 2020 and so over the past several weeks we've been talking about this idea of whisper, specifically a whisper from God, How can you hear the voice of God and I want to encourage you that if you've missed a week or two, go on our website, Mission Grove church dot com or go on our Youtube channel if you're watching it there right now, not right now, but after the stream and go back and watch some of the messages from the series as we talked about practical ways that God is still speaking to us today. And so what I wanna do is I want to share three ways. Three additional ways that God is still speaking. And if we understand these three ways it will dramatically impact us as we try to finish this year 2020 on a high note to finish well and finish strong. So if you're taking notes, write this down. God can speak to you through people promptings and pain. God can speak to you through people promptings and pain. If you have your bibles open up to the book of hebrews hebrews chapter 12 towards the back end of the book or if you're online watching with us, we also have the verses there on the screen And so we're gonna jump into verse 12, but I want you to notice the very first word therefore, and as you learn to study the bible, as you learn to read the bible anytime you see the word, therefore, you should ask yourself why is that? Therefore? Therefore it builds on the previous passage. And so what is this passage? Building on? Well, hebrews chapter 12 is building off of hebrews chapter 11 Yes, it works out that way, I can do math still. And so and I can count and so hebrews chapter 11 is described of what's known in religious circles as the Hall of Faith, pick your favorite sport somewhere. There is a Hall of Fame for that sport. If you don't like sports, consider something like maybe the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and whatever your preferred choice or industry. When you go to an industry's Hall of Fame, what you see are the icons, the legends and you see wax figures or um bronze and copper bus and memorabilia like oh that was used in this game, that was played in that concert. And so they have this place that recognizes all the legends of a particular industry. Well, when it comes to faith, hebrews 11 is described as the Hall of Faith And it describes story after story after story and there's too many stories in there for me to walk through right now. But I want to encourage you those watching online or hearing person that to take some time this week and read through hebrews 11 and you're gonna see these incredible courageous stories of faith. And so he's walking through a story after story after story and then we get to chapter 12 and the author says therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance. The race that is set before us looking to jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, consider him who endured from sinners, such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. I want to talk to you today about how God can speak through people promptings and pain. We're gonna see how God speaks through these three verses through those three ways. So the first way that God can speak to us is through people. I love that phrase. Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, that chapter Hebrews chapter 11 uses the word faith 21 times and so over and over and over again. We get these great stories. People that would be seen on the Mount Rushmore of Faith people that like, oh remember that fourth quarter comeback, remember that Super Bowl performance, the NBA finals performance, Remember that, that concert at Madison Square Garden, whatever industry again. And you're like, wow, I remember that and start going through, remember that. Remember when moses did this and and going through all these things. So since we are surrounded, let us run. One of the interesting things about living through a pandemic is that most major sports are playing with limited or no fans in the stands. That's gotta be weird. Alright, that's gotta be weird to be playing a game. Everyone that's in athletics is competitive. And so there's a level of okay, I'm gonna beat the guy across from me. But it's a little bit different to get yourself self motivated versus thousands upon thousands of people chanting for you. And so it's true when they say that you will go further and faster when you have people cheering you on now. I tested this theory last week and I just just confession time here uh parents in the room, maybe you can connect with me on this. Have you ever uh I don't know, fibbed a little bit to get your kids to do something that you wanted? I um I did this, we'll call it a coaching technique last weekend. Uh it was meant to be a joke and then ended up being effective. So I kind of kept going with it and so just just confessing time here on stage with you or watching and so I coach my son's basketball team and we're coaching through and if you were here last week you enjoy the music of my friend Isaac Isaac was hanging out with this and so he came to practice with me and when he got out of the car the kids were being kind of squirrely and so without thinking I just said, hey guys Isaac my buddy here is from Nashville but really he's an NBA scout for the Memphis Grizzlies here to do some work before the NBA draft next week really? And their eyes got so big. I had, I had at that point I had to keep going with it, right? And so I said, yeah you better practice hard. We got an NBA Scout watching like really? And so I leaned over to Isaac quiet and said hey change my contact in your phone. And so he changed my number in his phone to read Lebron James. And so the kids like you're you're not an NBA Scout. Yeah, I am. I was like yeah he's friends with Lebron. No he isn't prove it. And so he pulled out his phone and he said miss call from Lebron James and they're like no way. Mhm. And at this point I was feeling bad but I was in too deep because we're doing practice and again there kids elementary boys and so they're squirrely and so they were goofing around and then so without thinking I just said look guys if you make a good play I was just gonna make a video and he might send it to Lebron. I was like what? And all of a sudden they got so serious, they start practicing so hard and a kid made a shot and turned it goes is Lebron going to see that Lebron could see my shot. Lebron could see my shot and it was a great practice because they were so focused and I was feeling good that I motivated them as a coach and then I was on the drive home I realized I really just lied to them. And so that was felt bad. And so I finally confessed and I saw their little broken hearts, but I gave them candy, so it was all good. So, but we we do tend to respond differently when we think someone's watching, don't we? If you think about back in the dating stages of in relationship or maybe you've got kids in the dating stage, if if someone was there that you were interested in, don't you walk a little bit higher, don't you flip the hair a little bit, make sure you're looking good, looking fresh. Right guys, we always try to do something. We either make fun of the person or we try to do some feat of strength as if like still caveman days, like that's going to win her over like, oh, you need help lifting this, it's so easy for me. You know, we try to impress the person that's watching because when the person that we're interested in is watching us, we act differently, don't we? Do you have that friend whose voice talks a little higher when someone comes, Oh, hi, hi, how are you? When that person comes in, Why we act differently when there's someone we want to impress or someone we want to connect to. And so I used to read this that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, let us run. I'm like, oh yeah, we got fans in the stands, we got people watching us, we got the spiritual Lebron's like going through, you know, we have um if you think about it, you know, and today in sports, they always have that conversation of who's the goat, who's the greatest of all time. I wondered if christians back then had that discussion, I mean there's jesus, jesus was and is the goat the greatest of all time, but like christian level, right? Like who's the goat? Okay, They probably didn't have that discussion because there were actual goats nearby and so it's probably weird like who's the goat is right there. Okay, so, but but you have this okay, who is the greatest, who is legendary? And I used to read this like man there in the stands cheering for us, but then I thought about it and I realized it actually goes much deeper than that. You see these witnesses are not witnesses of us, they're actually witnesses for us. So here's the difference, witnesses of us are in the stands cheering, but they're not reporting what we do to God, they are written and talked about so that they can report about what God did for us. And so it's not actually the Hall of Faith. It is, yes, but it's so much deeper than that. It's not just the Hall of Faith, it's actually the Hall of God's faithfulness and God used ordinary broken people to make a radical difference for all eternity. And so when you read story after story after story of people in hebrews 11, you think, Wow God was faithful, Wow, God did that, Wow! God did that. And so because we are surrounded by all these stories about how God used ordinary people, let us run with endurance. Because if God was faithful, then God will be faithful now and notice that God always uses people to accomplish his mission so God can speak through people. It's not always people on the stage either. A few years ago watched the movie Hidden Figures. Have you guys seen that movie? Hidden figures about some of the behind the scenes people who made it possible for the United States space program to take off people like Katherine johnson who was so good at math that she could do math faster than the computers who are just coming out in that day. To the point where john Glenn would not launch until Katherine johnson check the numbers. There are so many stories of people who, I didn't know her name, I didn't know her story before the movie came out. But there are stories where people, while they might not be on stage, they might not be on the news, they might not be vocal out front. They're actually hidden behind the scenes that actually made everything possible. So do you have hidden figures in your life? Do you have people who make what you do possible? There were some of you in this room who were there that first Vision night for Mission Grove and if I asked you to come on stage right now you would be terrified because you don't like public speaking, but without those people in the room that day? Mission group doesn't take off. We're not here meeting right now. You're not here watching online. There are so many people that have influenced and impacted the launch of Mission Growth Church and even now as a pastor, I recognize that I don't have it all together. I mean I just lied to my kids last week. So clearly I need some grace. Okay, we'll say it was a coaching motivation tactic. But so I have people regularly speaking into my life were part of this network called Vision Arizona. And so I talked with guys like Bill Bush and randy deal from rock point or Lynn winters from cornerstone or Ryan rice from North Valley and these are other pastors who have already planted churches who have walked where we are walking and then give Godly counsel and encouragement advice to me. Do you have people that are speaking into your life? Do you have people that you are speaking into their lives because it really can make a difference. You know, God used moses to develop Joshua. God used Nathan to rebuke David. God used Mordecai to encourage queen Esther God used Barnabas to welcome paul and God God used paul to challenge timothy God speaks through people. So let me just share a couple just practical things that how do you decipher if someone speaking to you is speaking a word from God or how do you think it's out of left field? Well first of all consider the source. Okay consider the source. Don't take criticism from someone you would not take advice from. If you wouldn't take advice from that person then really don't take criticism from that person either. But when you're taking words of supposed wisdom, Run it through three filters. Number one never let compliments go to your head. Don't get all puffed up. Number two don't let criticism go to your heart. Those are actually two sides of the same coin. Pride and self pity are actually very similar. Pride says whoa look at me. What's up? Self pity says whoa look at me. Both are focused on what on yourself. Don't let compliments go to the head and puff you up. Don't let criticism. Go to your heart until you're down. And lastly don't let comfort or complacency go to your hands. If someone is a sinner, yo chill. Okay chill Does't happen. And he receptor 11 people that did great things or not. They were so great. They are legendary. They are heroes of the faith for they chilled. No they were coached and encouraged and mentored and built up and lift it up and raised up so they could run that race. So God uses people. But secondly God can speak to us through promptings. God can speak to us through promptings Everyone in hebrews. Chapter 11 was prompted to go do something. Notice that the world doesn't change when you feel something, The world changes when you do something. It's not the Hall of feelings, Jesus himself, John 3 16 for God. So loved the world that he felt all warm and Fuzzy. No, for God. So loved the world that he gave this Hall of Faith was for doing these things, accomplishing these feats and those all come from God's promptings in those people's lives. That's why it's important to run the race set for you. You will not be judged on how you run someone else's race. You will not be judged with the talent or the treasure or the time that God gave somebody else. So how are you running the race that God has given you specifically? And personally, that's why it's so important for us to lay aside the weight and burden of sin and hindrances to go after it. It seems like in 2020, right now, our goal is just to make it. And sometimes that's good. Those are seasons for that. But I don't really think I want a lifetime of that. You don't want to get to the end of your life and I existed. That was nice. No, it's not measured on how you die. It's measured on how you live. You're willing to go for it. Are you willing to follow God's prompting in your life? All those people in the Hall of Faith were prompted to do something and then that was followed by obedience. Any Star Wars fans out there, any Star Wars fans? Um see some nodding. I see some I feel like those that are nodding are doing so because they've probably been ridiculed by non Star Wars fans. That's okay, You don't get it. And so it's Star Wars is awesome. And so we just started the tradition at home where friday nights now we get the kids and we've been watching the Mandalorian together and it's so fun. And so if you're watching right now, I want you to comment in the comment section. What is your favorite Star Wars movie? And and don't you dare pick one of the first three episodes. No, doesn't count. Okay, so go in there, let me know your favorite Star Wars movie. Well, we've been watching the Mandalorian, but did you know that the Mandalorian actually comes from a biblical context? I'm serious. Let me let me let me prove it to you. Isaiah chapter 30 verse 21. It reads and your ears shall hear a word behind you saying this is the way walking. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's okay. But I always pray for a dollar. It's the main phrase from the character. This is the way, in all seriousness. This is an example of a prompting from God, You will hear a word behind you saying this is the way it's that little nudge in the right direction, A little whisper in your ear to go here, do that, speak to that person if you're at a stoplight and the person in front of you gets distracted or is thinking about something and the light turns green and you're behind them and that person doesn't go when it's a green light. What do you do? You patiently wait? That's what I do because I am a christian. No, I know what you do is you honk and depending on your day, depends on determines how hard you press the horn. Isn't it quickly? Isn't it amazing how quickly we get frustrated were like and we could be in church right now church right here? Like how are you doing today? Pastor? Blessed, blessed. You know, I'm grateful God is good all the time. All the time. God is good. You get in the car, buckle up, what are you doing? Where are your shoes going through? And then you get to the light, go, come on and you're like, how quickly it changes. Right, well maybe it's just me. Maybe you guys are more holy than I am. But what happens though is when you hit the green light the car behind you is a little, a little nudge, a little reminder. Hey, it's time to go, well what are those spiritual beat beat in your life? I should, I should try that. We should do that. And if you're taking notes, I want to encourage you with this. That if you're feeling prompted by God to do something. Number one, God's never going to prompt you to sin. So if you're feeling a nudge or attempted to go do something that's not connected with God's word, that's not from God. If you're feeling a voice that's talking about shame and guilt and that downward spiral of anxiety and depression, that's not from God. Now there's a conviction of the holy spirit, but that downward spiral, that temptation, that battle, that's not God's prompting. And so what is what's going to align with the word of God and then it's gonna do two things. Number one promptings require courage, promptings require courage And then # two promptings require choice. When you get prompted, you get nudged, you get a little whisper in your ear a little, a little heart beating and in that little man, I just can't shake it. You repeatedly get this idea. I think I should take that job. I think I should talk to that person. I think I should give. I think I should serve. I think I should reach out. It's always gonna require courage and it's always gonna require a choice, but when you obey, you're going to see God move, you see you, you don't have to understand fully to obey immediately. You're not gonna get 100% confidence when you're making a decision, You're gonna get that nudge, you're gonna get that feeling, You're gonna test it with the word of God. You're gonna pray, you're gonna run it past people that you trust and at some point you gotta jump at some point. You gotta step at some point. You gotta go for it. Let me just give you an example of my own life that happened this year. If you've been a part of Mission Grove since at least since the spring, you know that in May we partnered with a company called R. I. P. Medical debt And we paid off the medical debt for 700 families in our community. This company buys the medical debt At a penny to the dollar. So if somebody owed $10,000 that debt was purchased and then forgiven by for only $100. And so when I reached out to this company and found out how much was available in this area, They said that it would take a donation of $13,000 to pay off the debt in this area. But that would equate to over $1 million dollars in medical debt forgiven. Now I've shared that with you publicly and that's on our website and on our channel. But what you might not know is behind the scenes of that. You see God put that on my heart and prompted in my spirit, we were only in like a month two of this pandemic and I got this prompt and said you need to be generous, you need to double down on generosity and I know everyone's pulling back and guarding resources and you don't know what's gonna come and how long is this gonna be? You need to show this community in this church that you trust God and that you're generous and that you're gonna be for them. If you really say you're gonna be for the community, what's something big, you can go and do that. What you might not know is that $13,000 at the time represented what was gonna be roughly 50% of what was coming in to the church that month. And so to get this prompting that we're supposed to give away 50% of what's coming in in the middle of a pandemic that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Seems a little nerve wracking. So I ran it against scripture, I ran it with some trusted friends and family and mentors, we prayed over it and we came to this consensus that yep, I think God's prompting us to do this and here's what's crazy and what you might not know what the story. So I called back out to Representative and said okay we're gonna take it, you take what we're gonna take all of it. And so this was like Tuesday at like four PM okay. And so he said yep we're going to give it away others The next morning Wednesday eight a.m. The first email I opened was from the national office of converge and it said we want you to know that as converged as a network. That's our national network that were part of we are for our church plants and we want to support our church plants during this pandemic. Therefore I'm happy to share with you that you have qualified for a $10,000 grant and then we're gonna be sending your way. Yeah, we can clap for that. At the same time, God was prompting us. God was prompting them and we obeyed. And this doesn't happen every time, but it does happen. And I'm sharing this with you that we took a step of faith And 12 hours later got it already refilled it. That happens when we obeyed God's promptings in our life. It takes courage and it takes choice. But that's what the Hall of Faith is all about. When you take that step and you go out and you follow God's prompting. So God can speak to us through people. God can speak to us through promptings. But third and my least favorite of all of them from just being honest with you, God can speak to us through pain. This doesn't make sense to me if I'm writing a letter to encourage people to think through this for a second. Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Let us run this race set before you put it aside. All hindrances, fixing our eyes on jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Let's go team. Hit the logo on the top of the locker room and let's go take the field. Freedom. Ah Next verse Because jesus endured and suffering. Wait hold hold on. Because we've been surrounded by all these incredible people run the race set before you and don't forget jesus suffered a lot, I that seem weird to anybody else. Here's what I find interesting though, and here's what I love about scripture is that it really dives into reality. It's not fantasy, it's reality. You can ignore every other voice of God. You cannot read the scriptures, you can ignore desires, promptings and people you can dismiss open and closed doors, dreams, but you cannot ignore pain. C. S. Lewis put it this way he said, God whispers to us and our pleasures speaks in our conscience is but shouts in our pains. And if you take through this lens of pain and you look back on hebrews 11, you realize Yes, God used people. Yes, God use promptings, but every single character in those stories experienced pain and so jesus we find endured much suffering, but he was able to do so with joy. You know, I've experienced painful situations in my life and there's nothing that gets your full attention like I can think back to where my wife and I experienced back to back miscarriages and feeling depressed and feeling dark. But for the most part honestly, I feel blessed and feel pretty lucky have a good relationship with my parents, have a healthy family church is doing well. But you know what's interesting though about the profession, the vocation of a pastor. I've been a pastor for about 15 years as a pastor. I've had a front row seat to people's pain. When people walk through difficult circumstances, they often go to pastors and then you, so I've had to see firsthand people battle addictions, broken marriages, depression, suicide, anxiety, addictions, financial loss, health battles and it's hard those watching online right now, you can't tell this, but the room is completely silent and I believe that is because this is real and maybe you're walking through a hard time right now or maybe you have a loved one walking through a hard time and 15 years experience as a pastor, let me tell you what, I don't know, I don't know two things. Number one, I don't know why that happened. I don't, I don't understand abuse, I don't understand trauma. I don't understand cancer and sickness and lost it. It just, it's the hardest thing as a ministry. Number two, I also don't know the purpose for the future for that. You know when my wife and I, I lost the baby in pregnancy and someone came up to me and was like, God works all things for good and I prayerfully punch that person in the face, okay, I didn't, but in my head I wanted to write, I don't, I don't know, there's not like good cliches for when difficult things happen. I don't know why, I just know that they hurt. But well I don't know why they happened and I don't know the future for them. Here's what I do know and this if you're watching, I really want you to lean into this. I want all eyes up here Because this is what I do know. 15 years, personal experience, pastoral experience, scripture experience. And why I think it said Jesus suffered is that when you're hurting God is present in your pain and I think that's much more valuable and helpful then knowing why something happened, God is present in your pain. That that same hall of faith, those same people. In the bible, God heard moses in the desert, God heard David in a valley carried Elijah in the middle of a cave. He heard job when he lost everything, He heard Jonah from the bottom of the sea, in a fish. He heard Daniel in a den filled with lions. He was with Shadrach meshach and Abednego in the middle of a fire and he was there when jesus suffered and died on the cross. I think that's why it shares when we run our race, we can run with joy because jesus himself suffered in that means that when we hurt God hurts. But God is there got us present and got us close And the last thing I want to encourage you with on this is that pain forces you to examine your priorities. Time after time after time. I've talked to people who one day we're stressing about meetings and business and this or that and a dramatic and traumatic experience happens then all of a sudden boom. You know what's important? You know what matters. That's because pain forces you to examine your priorities. But when you lean into that pain, when you trust God with that, when I was at the darkest point after losing a baby, my wife and I and our pregnancy twice, I realized then that lowest point, God was still there and that you can press on and press through and move through. You don't just ignore it. You don't forget it, but you get stronger and you overcome and you prioritize things differently. I think we value gathering. I think we value family and ministry different in 2020 than we did in 2019, right? Because God can speak to us through pain. And we also know that for those that believe pain is temporary. It reminds us that we have been promised a better tomorrow. Do we have a God of hope? A god of healing the God that saves. So let me encourage you with this. That as we try to finish 2020 as we try to run Christian run to go after to run the race that God has set before. Let me just remind you and challenge you and encourage you with three things that you can apply this week right now. Number one, when it comes to God speaking through people, start by reaching out to people around you. Are you willing to reach out to those that can speak into your life, that you can speak into their life? Because God always uses people to accomplish his mission number two when it comes to promptings, are you willing to uncover the God prompting in your life? What are the moments where you're sitting at a green light and you're not going and you're going a little beep beep behind you where you need to go that you need to obey, that you need to take a courageous choice and a step forward. And then lastly, when God speaks through our pain, are you willing to say never give up. Those people in the hall of faith experience pain, but they didn't give up, jesus christ himself endured much so that we could know him and that God is with us and God is for us and God is in us and the same God, the same power that conquered death that rose from the grave that sustains creation is now available to you and to me so that we can live not comfortably but courageously and that we can become more than conquerors, bold and courageous, overcome ear's in this world filled with peace and joy, forgiveness and love and purpose that we can go and not just make it through 2020 but really see God's perspective in this and that even in the hurting, even in the pain, even in the questions and the doubts we can say God, I don't know why this is going on, I don't know what's gonna happen, but I know you are with me and so I'm gonna trust you and I will believe and I will not give up. God loves you and God is speaking. So are you willing to listen? Because God can speak through people promptings and pain. Mhm And believers run run christian run reach out to the people around you, uncover those God prompt these in your life. Never give up. Let's pray dear heavenly Father, I don't know how you're speaking today to the people in this room but I do know that you're speaking. And so I ask that you would move right now. God, if there's somebody in this room experiencing pain when you you bring peace, give them strength and endurance to fight God help us to know that you are present with us here and that you have promised us a better tomorrow. Help us be those that speak into others lives. Help us listen to those who could speak into our lives when we uncover and obey the God promptings in our life. May we run run after you run the race that you have set us and called us to let us love you more today than we did yesterday, and when we love others, the way that you have loved us. Thank you for speaking. Thank you for loving us. Let us run and finish 2020, well, strong and courageous for you are with us, even in our pain. It's in your son's name. We pray. Amen.