Hold On when you can't see anything

Outline:

When there’s something else going on in the relationship

Tension: Jesus is supposed to fix me and do amazing things but it feels like he’s doing nothing

He said he’d fix me, why don’t I see it?

Bible: Paul wrestled with the tension of not being fixed

Why do we not believe Jesus?

Application: Hold on (i.e. Get close to Jesus)

Prophetic: God wants to do more than fix you.

Intro: Me getting played

Tension: It looks like Jesus isn’t doing anything

A. Transition: But can I tell you who plays you the most? Jesus. Why? Because we often think he is doing nothing. We have amazing promises about how Jesus wants to transform us, heal us, and make us new. But sometimes I feel old.

B. Example 1: (Self-Image, friends/ popularity)- You thought once you accepted Jesus there’d be an insane difference, you’d look in the mirror, have abs, they’d snap you back when you shoot your shot, you get invitied to those elite hangouts, you’d just feel good about yourself. And now you’re more isolated when you go home at night

C. Example 2: (Mental health)-

D. Example 3: (Addiction/ desires)

Question: What do you do when it feels like Jesus isn’t doing a single thing in your life, like he’s left you, forgotten about you, but still expects you to follow him?

A. Simple question: If Jesus said he’d do it, why don’t I see it?

B. This is often where we do 1 of 2 things

Suppress: Oh it’s fine. He’ll do it someday, and we’re not honest about the emotions

Deconstruct: We don’t understand, so from one side of things we start to make sense of things by ourselves rather than talking it out with God.

Include 2nd audience- whether you realize it or not Jesus is doing so many things in your life that you are unaware of.

C. So tonight we’re going to do the third option. Let’s talk about this. What should we do when we think Jesus isn’t doing anything?

God: This is actually a common theme

Let me preface this, I don’t want to slap you with the Bible tonight, I want to help you see the power it has in these insecure, deep spots we have. Especially by someone who had to rationalize this

Romans 7:15 “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

Paul believed God could change him but didn’t see it.

This was such a common thing with Paul that he changes his view of himself sometimes calling himself an apostle other times calling himself a sinner.

2 Corinthians 5:6 “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—”

Paul’s on this rant about how hard it is being in this body because of the problems and then leads us to a famous verse you might know

2 Corinthians 5:7 “for we walk by faith, not by sight—”

This verse gets misinterpreted a lot. Some of that is because it was written in Greek and translated to English., sometimes its because we hear what we want to hear

Example: Some of you have someone talk directly to you and then relay to everyone else that you were yelled at. No you weren’t.

This verse comes after about 6 verses of Paul talking about how much these earthly bodies suck, and he drops this little nugget in the middle of it saying: We’re not living by what we see but by faith that Jesus is going to redeem us. When he says faith, he’s talking about faith that when we accept Jesus into our lives there are is going to be something that happens that transforms us into a creation, even if we don’t notice it.

Sight- he’s challenging the Corinthians here to not be obsessed by what they see, even if it seems counter productive. He’s telling them to have faith, to Hold On to Jesus when you can’t see him doing anything.

How do I have faith? Easy you all exercise faith

I have faith that Matt Canada is going to get fired

I have faith that Travis Kelce and Taylor are going to break up

You: We often get tripped up because we think there’s a way things should go, should look

#1 I wouldn’t be broken [external circumstances]

Rejection/ Acceptance: They’d text me back, I’d be important to them instead of that person who goes to a dance by myself

Abused/ Comforted: They wouldn’t take advantage of me anymore

Mental Illness: I wouldn’t feel like I had zero control over my head. I don’t want to feel anxiety

#2 I wouldn’t be sinful anymore [internal circumstances]

Correct desires: I wouldn’t want to do, that… anymore. Look at that, them, do this stuff anymore

Lying: I wouldn’t feel the need to sneak out with them anymore

If Jesus did what he said he’d do, I would look different.

Testimony: My lung and brokenness

Some of you I know this about me, but I’ve never really opened up about it, and I felt the Holy Spirit really prompting me to, but this past summer my lung collapsed

In a matter of 45 minutes I was sent from an urgent care, to AGH, to signing in a waiver in case I died, to having my insides ripped, plans changed, summer plans destroyed. And the whole time every person I’m meeting is asking: what do you do for a living? And I was embarrassed, because that’s not what a Christian is supposed to look like.

I had a hard time processing through this, and then a mentor asked: Where was Jesus at in the room?

And then Jesus walked me back through the people that were shocked as I was rolled through the ER doing a double take asking, you? You have a collapsed lung? Sometimes we don’t need to look like we’re in perfect condition for people to see Jesus in us. For every moment everyone asked, how did you make it 5 days? How are you not in more pain? How are you able to still breathe ok?

My response now is: how could I not see Jesus was doing so much more than what I realized?

Prophetic: It’s not what it’s looked like

A. Let me just say this, what you’ve seen was not true in your life. It’s looked like Jesus abandoned you, forgot you, didn’t pick you, protect you, fight for you, care about you.

Transition: When we focus on what we see, the appearance rather than walking in faith we create distance and miss that Jesus is in the room doing more than what we can imagine.

It’s not what it looked like: because Jesus is in the room. And when Jesus is in the room he does so much more than what you realize.

Application: Hold on/ Get close

Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Let me make this so practical- hold on to the hand of Jesus. Eliminate the distance and reach out. Make this as real as possible and see where Jesus is at in the room and be with him