It’s Not That Deep

Intro

My Name is Adam I am the junior high middle school pastor here at calvary

And it is an honor to be able to speak with you guys today

And if I am being honest I feel in very unique position

1 because I get to spend the majority of my time talking to high school students

2 because this group, and even young adults as a whole is something that I am apart of.

Yes I am no longer fresh out of high school

I am married

I am now a dad

However I am 24 years old so I am apart of the Young adult group

And to be honest as I preparing and asking the Lord what I should share tonight I was challenged

because I think when we look at who is in this room

We are all in such vastly different seasons of life

by a show of hands

Raise your hand if you graduated from high school 5 years ago or less

Raise your hand if its been longer than 5 years

Raise your hand if you are engaged or married in here

Raise your hand if you are a dating

Raise your hand if you are single

Raise your hand if you are a parent

When I look at all of those different things

those biggest mile stones in our life

change what direction our life goes

But there are even other things that I didn’t mention

Getting your first job that you think could be a career

Moving out of your parents for the first time

Buying your first house

Having your bills, under your name

There are so many things that come with our group of Young adults

However I think that is the very truth that unifies us

Many of us are in very formational significant seasons of life

experiencing the first of many things

And in my personal experience I have that so very often it comes with uncertainty

layers of uncertainty in every season of life

And so the real question for us to ask is how do I deal with that

What should our response be

when I have options which one is the RIGHT ONE

When I picking the new house

Picking the first job

Deciding if I should marry by BF or GF

And so if you are paying attention so far our title is

“Its not that deep”

And that is not a title of “Just don’t worry” and everything will be better

Not some sort of revelation from God

But wanted give practical things

That have helped me personally

Tonight talk about 4 Heart reminders when we are faced with our uncertainty

1. Let uncertainty be a blessing

James 1:2–4 “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

How many of you like to play video games

I really enjoy video games

How many of you have ever played the game It Takes 2

Without getting into all the details of the game

It takes 2 is a two player game only

My wife and I played this game together and we had so much fun

The game is full of fun, but the main emphasis in the game is puzzles and problem solving

You gotta open this door

Figure out how to jump up this wall

Or how to get past this obstacle

And of course the game is not super difficult

But there was a part of the game that we were stuck on

and I found it funny

Because I feel like we had 2 completely different reactions

I saw that we didn’t know what to do, and instantly my brain goes: why don’t we just look up a video

But Delaney being my wife was practically already reading my mind

“Don’t you look up a video, lets figure it out how we are supposed to”

its funny right because

Becasue we playing the game and we are faced with uncertainty

and my brain I instantly goes

We are stuck. look a video on Youtube

Give me answer

Before I could even Say that

Delaney is like don’t look up a video

Lets wait

And I think if we are honest we do this in every part of life not just playing video games

We live in a world that thrives on knowing information

The internet at our fingertips

AI becoming more common

We can have the answers to our various questions quicker than ever

And im gonna be honest

I am apart of that Me and Chat GPT are best friends

But I especially for our generations

Struggle become like this there is this distain for the unknown

We think if we don’t know something it is automatically bad

And this is not me saying

“Oh the internet evil, and we need to go back to the library to check out book”

But I feel like we have become people who find so much discomfort and trial in the unknown

But what does our scripture say

“when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”

Now that doesn’t mean any time your struggling you should just be happy

But scripture clearly tells us there is an element to our trials that can actually be good for us

God wants to grow us, he wants to build endurance in us

AND TRUTHFULLY ONE OF THE BIGGEST THINGS I THINK HE WANT TO TEACH US IS PATIENCE

here is what I want you to hear tonight

Uncertainty will always be a frustration without patience

If we don’t have the patience

If we encounter every uncertain situation in life with this negative attitude we miss out on see how God wants to help us grow

Just like me playng a video game. I looking up video

And for your sitiation if its not a video

Its a self help book

Or maybe its something more harmful

Like alcohol

Or nicotine

I also say that because many times I believe God moves the most in our uncertainty

When we don’t know what to do

When we don’t know which direction to take

Often times that is when he is seen the most

Because you don’t have the answer, but he does

Don’t forget t see uncertainty for the blessing that it is

2. Don’t get stuck

Matthew 6:33–34 “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

How many of you change your own oil?

Im sure some of you are like of course

I don’t and you want to save some money its a great idea FYI

I still remember the first time I ever changed my oil

I had a friend from work help me out

And if you have changed your oil before the first thing that you gotta do is get your car lifted up

alot of time people will use jack

Well I didn’t have a jack so I used

Ramps (Picture on the screen)

I get in the car

my buddy is guiding me

I was kinda nervous right

Because you don’ want your car to fall off the ramp right

And I remember I was so worried about driving off the end of the ramp that

I was tapping the gas

and well because I was tapping it so much

On the right side of my car flicked the right ramp underneath my car

and now my car was basically beached under neath this ramp

Don’t worry my car is working fine today we were able to get it out and everything

But I share that story because in that moment I was so uncertain

I was uncertain I was gonna mess up my car

I was uncertain about my tires being centered

all these thoughts are racing through my mind

I got so caught up in the stress

that I got myself stuck

The whole process came to a hault

no more moving forward

All because I couldn’t give it some gas

I couldn’t commit

why do I share this story

I believe there are many of us that are tapping the gas pedal in our faith

And when it comes to how make descions

And how we live for God we are crippled uncertainty

To the point of rather than making a decsion. rather than taking step of faith

WE KEEP OURSELVES STUCK

Except what does the bible say

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

That means when you are making decions

you simply need to ask does it honor God? does it go against scripture?

If the answer is Yes

Than simply make your decision too many of us are worried about disappointing God

We have this view that God is this tight rope for us to walk on

And we take one step off we ruin everything that he wants to do in our lives

We serve an infinte and all mighty God

YOU THINK HE IS THROWN OFF BY YOUR DECSION MAKING?

You are living your whole life tapping that Gas pedal

“What if I choose the wrong college to go to?”

“What if I buy the wrong house?”

“What God doesn’t want me to go on a date with this person”

Im not saying to just do whatever you want

don’t pray about anything

But stopping living your life as if God isn’t right there with you

We find oursleves stuck in the indecsion

Here is something I want you to hear tonight

Give your faith some gas

because If I am being honest

sometimes we like being stuck because then we don’t have to commit

Let me give you one more scripture with this

1 Corinthians 14:33 “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (ESV)

In this scripture Paul is talking about order in the church

But I think this attribute of God goes even past that

God isn’t trying to confuse you, and he is not trying to make things difficult

3. Run to your community

Hebrews 10:24–25 “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”

Ive shared a little bit with our CSM students, but never with you guys

I grew up in the church through and through

my Dad’s a pastor

But didn’t actually get saved until I was a freshman in highschool and a christian church camp

However to be honest I didn’t have anyone to come home to

However when I graduated highschool and got to college I really struggled

I had some personal struggles about my own worth

And what I found myself living was a double life

On one hand I was looking for life groups and trying to find a church home that I liked

While on the other hand I stuck in drinking

Going to parties

and if I am being honest even drinking by myself

And so I kept this going for about a year and half

Until one day I had a friend invite me to a young adult bible study

I decided to check it out.

my life completely changed

one piece that was missing out of my puzzle was community

before one else around me that was following Jesus

That is what I was missing

You couldn’t say it was bible knowledge - I grew up in the church

You couldn’t say I was just in pure isolation - Id go out and drink with people

I Had so much uncertainty about myself and who I was supposed to be

But what changed that was having someone else there with me

Oh “Adam we’ve already people tell us. we need community we need people in our lives”

Don’t just take my word for it what does the Bible say

“Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another,

The Bible makes it clear you and I aren’t meant to do this thing alone

Here is what I want you to hear with this point

Running FROM community leads to compromise; running TO community leads to growth.

Why does this matter so much

You are not meant to be alone

You need be seeing other consistently

I am going to be honest

JAY YOU CAN TELL ME I SHOULDN’T HAVE SAID THIS LATER

But you are meant to see each other more than ONCE a month

I know sometimes we can’t always make it happen

Theres a reason why we offer Life groups every single week

Be peeople continually do life together

“Don’t neglect meeting together”

And that doesn’t mean that we have to all 50 of us there

But have that person that can check in on you

That is how we can digest and deal with the uncertainty of life

4. Don’t coast, commit to the Run

Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”

How many of you have seen Forrest Gump before

Forrest Gump do this day is rated as one of the greatest movies of all time

Ranking on IMDB’s greatest movies ever list at number 32

Personally I believe it should be higher

For those of you that have seen the movie there is a very famous scene

Where we get to see Forrest Start running

If you remember the scene Forrest runs for a very long time

Fans of the movie estimated that he runs 15,248 miles

and he ran for 1,171 days

But what really stick out to me

WHAT HE SAYS ABOUT WHY HE IS RUNNING

“And for no particular reason I started running”

why Do I share all of this

Not because I want to keep you up to date on your Forrest Gump knowledge

Because so often we treat the privilege of being in community like this

In the movie Forrest starts running without any goal

He just starts going.

“i’m just gonna start running”

And I believe that we are honest to many of us have this exact mentality when we pursue community

We have no goal of how we want to grow

We have no interest in stepping out in faith

We show up with our guards raised

And then we leave community

And I believe the Devil gets to work right away

-No body talked to me so I guess this isn’t the place for me

No one sent me a text to ask me how I was doing so I guess they don’t care about me

I wasn’t pursed enough

Can I tell you something

I didn’t share this in my story earlier

That bible study that I went to that changed my life

Can I tell that that didn’t happen overnight

I didn’t show up 1 time and some sort of miraculous experience

It took me to keeping showing up, and not only that but it took some effort

What does the Bible show us about community

“let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.”

If one of our tasks in community is to help each other strip off everything weight that is slowing us down

Do think thats going to happen from you showing up one time

Here is what I want to end with here tonight

Lower your guard and raise your intentionality

If we want to experience help with our uncertainty in life

WE need to shift focus to the Lord in different way

And even more so stop doing it alone

UTILIZE THIS COMMUNITY

The reason that I called this whole things

“Its not that deep is because I want to be able to simply this process”

I am sure that many of things that you have heard tonight you may have already heard

Or even more so you now in your heart, but your’e not practicing it

and so when we are faced with uncertainty

know that it can actually be a blessing

Don’t get stuck in it

But know that your community is here for a reason

take advantage of it. lean into each

You aren’t meant to do it alone

Pray with each other with same color of card -

Pray for any uncertainty in their life right now

Pray for any needs

Come up with questions