When You Can't Trust God, Acknowledge Him

We'll be right back.

We'll see

you next time.

Thank you.

I didn't realize you had all this when I came in, and a friend of mine owned the

company,

I went in, and guess what they do, they put

manholes in is that something you do yeah okay well i thought that

looks simple just you know

hey we just lower it in there nothing to it well i got there he said get in i said wait

a minute

what do you mean he said get in i'm 18 i do whatever i'm told right so

i jump in they hand

me a jackhammer i'd never seen a jackhammer only hammer i ever had was building

my treehouse

and i had never seen that and i

to grinding in that thing and the dust is flying it's 90 degrees outside and

i'm like god what am

i doing lord give me a new job and i'm like i'm out of here and i jumped

out of there so fast

and he come over to me and he said get back in there and

then he said some other things

that i won't repeat that you probably say today you know get your back

in there

And this song came to my head.

You know that old Johnny Paycheck song?

Take this job and shove it.

And before I knew it, it came out of my mouth.

Take this job and shove it.

I said a few things that my dad taught me.

And that was my only day on a construction job.

My last day.

Worked one day.

And I learned.

really quick sometimes when it comes to trust it's very clear

it's very clear what I needed to do

that day when he talked to me that way I understood hard work that's not what I wanted

heat that's not what I wanted a boss yelling at me that's not what I wanted and it was easy

for

me to make a decision and as I've grown up in church I've seen some great

things happen in

church I've seen people

Changed their lives.

I've been in ministry 30 years now.

I've seen a friend of mine that was a heroin addict most of his life.

Been clean for 10 years now.

Has a family.

Three boys.

I've seen God do miracle after miracle changing people's lives.

Putting families back together.

And I trusted that process.

I trusted that process that my dad taught me.

Work hard.

Be good.

I trusted the process.

the church taught me trust God and do good and that was working out

for me that balance

for 30 years now I'm going to tell you something in the last

five years

that has challenged me what I thought

was real I doubted here's

what happened

to me a few years ago.

I won't get into all the details,

but I think it's good to share with you

as a pastor of all these years

what happened to me in my faith.

I lost my church.

I lost my job.

I lost friends.

Close friends for years.

Walked away from me.

And I'm thinking,

okay, God, where are you?

Trust in me, Brian.

Trust in me.

Now I don't want to do that anymore.

I'm done trusting in you, God,

because you don't see me.

You don't know what's happening.

I've done all this for you my whole life,

and this is what happened.

And to pile it on,

I go to the doctor with my wife.

He says, your wife has lymphoma.

She has cancer.

I said, great, God.

thank you again you're so great to me i appreciate it

i am so angry and i'm so mad that's where i

was and that's where i still come from many times and i want to

tell god a few things my daddy taught

me i want to say a few things to him because you're

not living up to what you told me you're

not living up to the word of god that i taught

to people like you every day.

Trust God to be faithful, Eric.

You can do it.

You can do it, Jared.

Trust God.

It's easy, right?

Until hell comes

and it all falls apart.

And I had to deal with that.

I had to wrestle

or wrestle with that.

My last five years of ministry,

I didn't...

ever had a clue that I had not known God the way I

should have. I had not experienced

Him the way I had been teaching. It took something like

what I call the year of Job for my life

when I lost pretty much everything that God said,

I want to show you something you've

never seen. I said, good, show it to me. Because I'd like to see.

see it and i want to tell you what i i

won't get i could be here for an hour if i told you the

entire story and the miracle of what god's doing in my life dude we got time okay but

my wife's doing good amen doing good i found a great church

perry noble's been one of my best friends eric

all these guys have really just

taken my family and loved my family.

And I never thought I'd want that again.

I did not want church.

I hate church.

I literally hated it.

But that's not God's fault.

And I had to learn that.

I had to learn that the hard way.

Let me get into what I want you to learn today.

Because

Because I think some of you are there.

Some of you are probably where I am right now.

Some of you are thinking the same thing.

I've seen the God thing.

I've tried the God thing.

You know, it's full of crap.

Who needs that?

I've had a diagnosis.

My family's going through this.

Maybe I've lost a job.

Or whatever's happening in your life that has caused you to doubt in God.

It's going to happen, right?

Because we live in a life.

of trouble and it's going to happen to you so that might be where you are today

and you don't know what to do you don't know who to talk to you just want to cuss and

yell at god

i get it i've done it and

i'll probably do it again and here's the beauty of god i want to

show it to you i want to read something to you my favorite verse uh psalm

excuse me proverbs i believe

verse 3, 5 through 6.

It says,

Trust the Lord with all your heart.

Lean not to thy own understanding.

In all thy ways,

acknowledge Him,

and He shall direct your path.

Now I want to break that out a little bit.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

That's hard.

That's hard for me.

When I'm going through this,

and I admire Job for his...

willingness to praise God in those times.

I had a harder time.

You know, how do I do this, God?

How do we break this out?

How do we trust God?

Sometimes we just can't.

Can I say that as a pastor?

Yes, I can.

Sometimes we just can't trust

even God

because of what's happening in our life.

And it's a challenge.

for us but a part i want you to get about this verse he said in all thy ways what

did i say

acknowledge him and he shall direct your path that's

the point i want you to get

acknowledge him regardless of where you are in your journey of faith i'm

it's like this hey eric

it's good to see you glad you're here hey brian hey jared listen it's good to see you

I don't. I'm mad at you right now. I don't like you right now. I

really don't want to speak to

you, but I'm acknowledging you're here. I'm going to do that part of the verse.

I'm going to

acknowledge you're existing in my life. And that's what I had to do at that time.

I just had to say,

God, you're here. I know you're here. And I did one thing. I said, help me. I

said, help me.

Help me because I don't believe you.

Help me, I don't trust you.

And I made that a consistent part of my day.

This is my verse for my day.

Every day.

This is what I wake up and read every day.

God, help me.

I acknowledge you in my life today.

I acknowledge somebody today needs to hear your word.

Needs to know you love them and see them.

And know that the hell they're going through, you notice.

that's what God was doing in me

and is still doing in me

I am not there by any means

standing in front of you today

is a miracle

I used to do this every Sunday

but I know more now

about what God was trying to do in my life

than I ever did for 30 years

I wouldn't trade

what I've been through for anything

because

that taught me who God really is.

And He's doing that.

And I want to show you on down.

Psalms.

This is great.

Psalm 35.6.

This is the kind of prayer I'm talking about.

He said,

My God, my God,

why hast thou forsaken me?

Jesus Himself said it.

Jesus Christ Himself said,

Why have you forsaken me?

Surely I can say,

God, where are you?

Why have you forsaken me?

Help me.

I need to know you're here.

I'm acknowledging you're with me.

And maybe that's what you need to do today.

And that's my challenge to you.

It's very simple.

You don't have to go out here

and read a chapter of Genesis.

You know, it might do you some good.

really all God needs from you is like acknowledge He's in the room.

Say, I know you're here, God.

I may not feel you.

I may be mad at you.

I don't get it, but you're here.

I see you.

That's all He wants from you is a relationship.

And I challenge you to do that.

Wherever you are in your life, just say that.

Just say,

Hang out with me.

He wants to do that.

He loves you.

Let's pray.

Father, I just want to thank you for your words today.

And I thank you to allow us to speak our heart,

to say what we need to say, even when it's painful.

We can come.

to you, with our hurt, with our discomfort, with

anger and words that sometimes might

not be appropriate, but you're okay with that.

You just want our honesty.

And I pray for these guys today, everyone in this room, that you would encourage,

that

you would speak to their heart and their mind right now that wherever they are, they

can

to you they can say hey I'm here I see you and we thank you for this day

keep

us safe and we love you in Jesus name and everybody said amen

good job