[Gary Petty] You're a big crowd. There's 1,231 people in this room and the other room. It's nice to see everyone here. It's the first time Kim and I have been to a Winter Family Weekend in a number of years. I'd forgotten. It's sort of like... It's got all the challenges of running a fee site and all the challenges of running a summer camp sort of mixed together. And so I appreciate all the work that everybody does for this to be successful. Appreciate what the Welchs do. I have to say, I really got a lot out of the messages this morning. I thought they were exceptional. And I also appreciated the music. You know, there was music playing. Sometimes we were listening. Sometimes we were talking during the music. But that music this morning was good, too. And the music here this afternoon, it just sets the tone for the fact that we're here to worship God. We're not here just to enjoy music. We're here to worship God, and that music's part of that. So just appreciate all the work everybody's done.

As the men spoke this morning, and of course we were all asked to speak about faith, and I was asked to speak about what Jesus teaches us about faith. And I thought, well, what do I have, five hours? I mean, what do I do with that? But I appreciated that the four of them really set the stage. I mean, every issue they went through, or series of issues, we're going to sort of bring into a focal point here in the afternoon in this sermon.

A man came to Jesus. And he was experiencing the worst nightmare that a parent can have. His son would go into convulsions. There was no way to control it. He would froth at the mouth. He would just roll around on the ground, making strange noises. He continued over time to try to commit suicide by throwing himself into a fire and throwing himself into water. And he comes to Jesus and he wants help. He desperately needs help. And if you're a parent or a grandparent, you can imagine what he's going through. So let's go to Mark 9:23. Here's what Jesus says to him. Can you imagine this is the response? You go to God with all of your struggles.

Mark 9:23 And the answer is, "If you believe, all things are possible to him who believes."

If you just believe, you can receive this. The man gives one of the most profound understandings in the Scripture. It's a statement that if you've lived long enough in the faith, you've said in one way or another.

Mark 9:24 He says, "Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, 'Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.'"

The man realized I can only go so far. You can ask me. You can tell me, but inside of me, I can only go so far. Jesus didn't scold him because the point of this message is that's right. The point of this message is that's right. Sometimes people will say, have you ever heard somebody say to you, "Well, you just need more faith." And your answer is, inside you say, "I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to do that." I believe, help my unbelief. You believe in God. But there are times when the personal loss is so devastating, the pain so deep, the hopelessness so dark, that you don't have an answer to the faith you need. We're going to talk about the most difficult issues of faith today.

You know, sometimes it's nice to get up and give a sermon. Let's just talk about encouragement. We're going to step beyond that. We're going to step into the darkness sometimes in which faith has to live inside you and me. How many of you knew Kirk and Coco Talbot? Put up your hands. Look around. You've spent some time this week, I'm sure, saying, "I believe. But I don't understand. I believe, but where were you? I believe, but I can't bear this."

I remember when my wife came up a couple days ago into my office and told me the news. And I stayed up there for a while, tried to process it, and went downstairs. And there she was just sitting, staring. And I understood. Right? I believe. What do I do next? Because I don't have an explanation. It makes no sense. I can't solve the problem. It's nice when we see God answer prayers. I've seen God answer prayers. You've probably seen God answer all kinds of prayers. It's nice when He heals. It's nice when He does certain things. But what happens when it doesn't make sense? What happens if there doesn't seem to be an answer? And what happens if the answer is no?

We always think that faith equals a positive answer. And you know, that's not the Scripture. Faith doesn't always equal a positive answer. And that's the reality. So we're going through some hard stuff today. I'm going to tell a story. Actually, it's three stories that come together that I don't tell that often. In almost 40 years of ministry, I've only told them in a sermon a couple of times because they're too hard for me to tell, but I'm going to tell them anyways. I've even, there's close friends I've never told these stories to.

I remember the first time I had one of those, "I believe but." I believe, and you can fill it in with whatever experiences you have, because we've all had them. And those who haven't had them, my answer is, you will. You will. I believe but. I can't see everybody. I'm going to walk over here so I can talk to you people a little bit because you're going to go to sleep. So I'm going to be able to see you, okay?

I was 12 years old. My brother was four months old. I was so glad to have a brother, I had two sisters. It's like, wow, another guy, you know. And I knew something was wrong with him. I didn't know what was wrong with him. I didn't understand. Years later, I found out that my mom had a very difficult pregnancy. He was very premature. The doctor said his lungs never formed right. So he was doomed, except the church prayed. Every week, the announcement, to pray for him. And he kept living and living.

One day I woke up, my dad was sitting on the side of the bed. He said, "Gary, David died last night." And of course, I'm trying to process that at 12 years old. And I'm working through that. And then he said something I did not understand. He said, "Gary, you know, we've been praying all this time for God to heal him." He said, "Last night I prayed that God's will be done." He says, "And I picked him up and he died." Now, I don't understand. And then he said something else that was even worse. He said, "Now I know what Paul meant when he said nothing can separate me from the love of Christ."

I got mad. I don't understand. There's no way for me to process that. My brother just died. My dad had prayed God's will be done, and it was God's will that he died. I actually believed that because I believed my dad. I knew, okay, it's God's will, but now my dad is experiencing love from God, and I'm just experiencing loss. I don't understand. I believed, as much as a 12-year-old can, I believed. but I did not understand. There was a but to my belief.

Later that year, my dad was ordained an elder at the Feast of Tabernacles. Probably less a year after David died, one night, they dropped me and my sisters off at my grandma's house, If I remember right, I think it was my grandma's house to stay because they were going down into West Virginia because there was a woman down there that was having a baby. Now, you have to understand what West Virginia was in the 1960s. There weren't even a lot of hospitals. So there was a midwife that was coming to these people's house. They lived out in the country, I think. And my mom was going to go because she'd been a registered nurse. So she knew how to help with birthing. You know, it was something she knew, skills she had. And so my dad went and drove her down there.

And we stayed at my grandma's house, went to sleep, got up the next day, went home. But they were so excited, my parents were. And my parents explained to us how they got there and the baby was stuck in the birthing canal and was stuck there for hours and hours. Finally, when the baby was born, she was dead. My mom described, I can still remember her describing the dead baby because, of course, she had experience with dead people. She'd been a nurse. And how this baby was dead was beyond, you know, absolutely. And how the midwife worked on the baby for 20 minutes to revive the baby and said, "We can't do this, she's dead."

And my mom said how my dad came in, laid hands on her, prayed, and she started to breathe. And she was just fine. Now I'm sitting here listening to that at 12, maybe 13 at this point. I think it's still 12. And I'm thinking, wow. But I believe, but how does God decide when one baby lives and one baby doesn't? Besides, I still haven't figured out how God loved me while my brother died. How does that work? How does that work? I felt a connection to God, but I could not understand all this.

It was many years later, I was the pastor in Janesville, Wisconsin, and Rockford, Illinois. And I got a call from someone in the church and said, "I have a friend who goes to a Protestant church." And here's the situation. She adopted a crack baby. The baby was addicted to crack at birth. And the mother gave the baby up and she adopted it. And the baby was now two years old and he constantly had seizures. He's in the hospital and her minister won't come pray. And she believes in anointing. So I went, even though it was probably much closer for her Protestant minister go than me, I went.

And I went in and I asked her, I said, "Do you believe in the God of the Bible?" "Yes." "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came and died for your sins and has been resurrected?" "Oh, yes." "Do you believe in anointing?" "Yes." "So you believe God can heal?" "Yes." She said, "But they said he won't, he's on a ventilator. And when they wake him up in the morning, I mean, when they take him off in the morning, that's it. He can't survive. There's too much damage to him." Okay, so I went in and I looked at those blank stare of that little baby's eyes. And I anointed him. Oh, that ventilator.

And on the way home, I cried. I believe but I don't have enough. And I asked God, when they unplug him, just make it easy on him because he's already dead, you know, brain dead. Two days later, the woman calls me and she says, "We got so excited, we forgot to tell you." And I said, "Tell me what?" She said when they unplugged him, he started breathing, woke up, and within a short period of time, he's running around the hospital. Now, I don't know whatever happened to that woman. She never came into the Church of God. I don't know whatever happened to the little boy. That doesn't matter.

I remember thinking, yeah, I believe, but it didn't go very far, did it? Because I didn't believe God was going to do anything. And He did. And I tell you those three stories because they're all related. They're all related to moments when I was like that man. I believed but. And I had a big but. I believe but. How do you and I do that? And like I said, I know there are some of you who are doing that because of the Talmud. You're going through that. I believe but. How could God do this? How could God allow this? Why wasn't God there? Why did not God save them?

I remember when Coco was born, she was 14. And so many of you know them from camps. And you will have these moments. It is part of the Christian experience. What do we do? Do we say, "God, I'm hopeless. I don't have the faith. What's wrong with me that I don't have the faith?" Other people might say, "Just have more faith." What did Jesus teach us? I'm not going to go through teachings of Jesus. I want to just go through two examples from His life. what He taught us by what He lived, because there's going to come those times. I believe but. Let's go to Mark 14. Let's start in verse 32. Put this in perspective, Jesus had just met with the disciples and kept the Passover.

Mark 14:32 So he kept the Passover with the disciples and he told them, "The Father loves me. And I love the Father. We're one."

He told them that something bad was going to happen, they didn't understand it, that God had a plan and that He was going to be, if you read back through it, you realize He's telling them, "I'm not going to be here much longer." Right? "And I will come back." They didn't understand it. And they thought they had a lot of faith. What you'll find through the story, but we won't cover, they didn't have hardly any faith at all. Peter says, "I'll be with you no matter what. I got a sword," till 40 guys show up with swords. And then, you know, when Jesus doesn't start fire coming out of His mouth started killing them, it's like, "I'm a little overmatched here," right? So they leave that Passover ceremony. He's just instituted the new covenant.

Mark 14:32 "Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane. And He said to His disciples, 'Sit here while I pray. You stay here. I'm going to go talk to my father for a while.'"

Remember, He knows what He's going to go through. There's something here we have to recognize. And if you read Psalm 22, you see all of it. He knew what was going to happen. It had been planned in heaven centuries before. No, it had been planned from the foundation of the earth itself. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, what was put into motion was how I'm going to save them. One of the things that was brought out this morning was if you make a mistake, will God throw you away? If you understand this, you're going to know He won't. You walk away from God. He never walks away from you. Now, we can walk away from God.

And here He is, He's going, He's sitting down. He took James, Peter and John with Him, and they began to be troubled and deeply distressed. Jesus, remember, was God in the flesh. He's having a human moment. He had experienced what we experience. He's experiencing a very important thing for us to understand because the reason He does it is to show us, "I know. I know." We think He turns his back on us so quickly. "I don't have the faith. It's unbearable." Well, let's look at this.

Mark 14:32 Then He said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.”

Stay here with me. I need some friends. I know what they're going to do. You guys have no idea. They're going to beat me until you can't even recognize me. Read Psalm 22. "They're going to drive holes in my hands and feet." He says, "You'll be able to see my ribs." Psalm 22. He knew it. He says, "People will spit on me and they're going to kill me. Stay here, my friends, and help me." They didn't understand.

Mark 14:35-36 He says, "He went a little further and fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, 'Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.'"

Now, this is very important. He isn't having a, "I believe, help my unbelief" moment. The relationship between God and his father, that never happened. No, I trust in you. So He never had a believe I am believe moment. That's not what happened. What happened is, "I believe, but I can't do this. As a human being, this is too much for me." Now think about that. He planned it out. He knew He was going to come. He got here. And now when faced with it, because He's human, He took on the entire human persona, the human body, the human mind. He's working in this brain. And He says, "This is too much for me." Nothing was too much for him when God used Him to make the universe. Remember? God used Christ to create the universe. Nothing was too great then. Why is He going through this? It's important to understand why.

He's not going through it because, like, well, I'm getting a big benefit. You know, He's not getting a big benefit out of this. This benefits for you and me. "I can't do it. I can't bear it. It's too much." This is where faith gets hard and Jesus went through it. God never promised that He would keep us from all the troubles in life. You know what He promised? "I'll get you through it." That's the promise. If you think the promise is I'll solve all your problems and get you through everything, you're going to be really disappointed in God because it never was the promise. The promise is, "I will do something you can't." That's the promise. "Oh, if I could just work up more faith." There's times you don't have anything left. And here's Jesus Christ, the Son of God, saying, "I believe, but I can't bear this. This is too much." He said, okay, He prayed that. He gets up.

Mark 14:37 “He came and He found them sleeping and said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you sleeping?’”

Could you just watch one hour? Could you just stay with me, stay awake? Don't you understand what I'm going to go through? I got my sword. I have faith. We're okay, Jesus.

Mark 14:38 "Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

He's saying that to them, but He's also understanding himself. Right? "I am the Son of God, and I am willing to do this. But as a human being, it's terrifying. As a human being, I don't know how I'll do it. As a human being, I can't bear this."

Mark 14:39-40 "Again He went away and prayed and spoke the same words. And when He returned, He found them asleep again. And their eyes were heavy. And they did not know what to answer him."

"Well, we don't even understand what you're upset over." On the other account, says He's sweating in this stress and in this tension so much it looks like blood coming off his skin. "What do you mean you can't bear this? What do you mean this is, what's the problem? You're the son of God. You can do whatever you want."

Mark 14:41 “Then He came a third time and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and resting?’”

It's enough. Since I've reached the point here. I reached the point I know what I have to do. He always knew what He had to do. He reached the point that He could humanly, emotionally do it. Understand the difference. He always knew what He had to do. But the mental limitations, well, he didn't have limitations, but the limitations of the human brain without God, the limitations of human emotions without God, He can't do it. He knew what He had to do. He planned it. Understand faith here. He's telling us what faith is at our level. This is faith at our level. And He lived it for us. He says, 'Rise up.’

Mark 14:42 “He says, 'and the hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go see. My betrayer is at hand.'"

He says, "Oh, no, it's already in motion." Because they said, "We don't know what you're talking about." He says, "It's already in motion. It's way beyond me explaining this to you. Judas is already gone. He's already betrayed. And there's some Jewish soldiers coming to take me away."

They're probably like, "What are you saying? What's he talking about?" They didn't know, they didn't understand. They had no concept. They thought they did, but they didn't. And finally, in His heart and mind He's settled. Now, what's not in Mark's account? It's in Luke's account. It's very important to take all the accounts in the Scripture and put them together, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all the Gospels. Only by putting them together do we actually understand what's happening. It's only when we put them together. And what Luke says, God sent an angel to help Him.

Now this is real important. Jesus, the Son of God, who has existed eternally and is in heaven with the Father now, at this moment as a human being said, "I can't bear it." And God didn't say, "What's your problem?" God sent him help. Every time we get to that place, "I can't do this. I don't understand." And sometimes God says, "No, you won't. Let me calm you down. Let me give you the strength you need. Let me give..." And you say, "But I don't want strength. I want the problem to go away." "Now let me give you comfort." "I don't want comfort. I want the problem to go away." "Let me give you what you need." "I know what I need. I need for the problem to go away." But that's not how it works. It's not how it works.

The blessing from God is the help that builds a relationship between you and Him. That's the blessing. What did Jesus say? Blessed are those who mourn. What? No, blessed are those who get a good job. Blessed are those who, if we only think in physical terms, and that came out this morning too, didn't it, as the discussion on what do we do when the answer isn't what we think. It's I tithe. Why don't I have physical blessings? This person follows you. Why did they get sick? As we struggle with that, God says, "No, no, you're missing the point. This is a process from being people with corrupt human nature to becoming my children. And it's not always an easy process." And we say, "You don't understand." And He says, "Oh, Jesus is right here. Guaranteed He understands. He understands."

Not only that, there's passage that says that Jesus comes to us, that God's spirit comes into us, Christ himself comes and works with us as someone who's been a human being. See, we could tell God, "You don't understand." And He'd say, "Yeah, I do, but okay. Jesus understands, and He and I are one." We don't have that argument. We can't tell God He doesn't understand. The point is the blessing is the help. Now, sometimes it's the healing. Sometimes it's the job. Sometimes it's the perfect mate. Sometimes it's whatever we want. Sometimes it's the new car. Sometimes it's those things because God likes giving physical things away too. But in the end, that's not the purpose of our lives. In the end, the purpose of our lives is to become His children. Because He'll give us what we can't even imagine. In fact, one of the scriptures says that. It's beyond anything we can imagine what He's going to give us. And I have a pretty good imagination. Still, I can imagine that.

But I will admit, there are still times in my life I say, "I believe, but." I still do it. And if anyone here doesn't, please come talk to me, as I'd like your instructions. Because anytime you say, "I believe, but," you're telling God, "I don't get you. I don't understand. You're bigger. You're greater." And that's the point. That's the point. Faith is in God's greatness. Faith is in God's goodness. Faith is in God's wisdom. And faith is in God's love. That's what our faith has to be in. Sometimes we don't understand. We miss the point. Our faith is only as strong as what we have faith in. If you have faith in your faith, you will fail. You understand what I'm saying? If your faith is in your faith, boy, you're going to fail. Our faith is in God. It is in Jesus Christ. And it is absolute that He knows what I don't know. See, faith is rooted in humility. It's absolute. He loves greater than I can. He cares for me greater than I can even care for myself. His wisdom is beyond anything I can know.

Jesus wrestled and received an angel to tell Him, to explain to Him. His result was, "I get it. Not my will, but your will." I had to do principles. He teaches us. That's number one. There's a point where you say, "You're right. I don't get it. But I understand that you're greater than me, that you love me, that you're more powerful than me, that you're smarter than me. And you have a purpose for me. And therefore, even though I don't like it," because you don't. Sometimes we don't like what God does. It's, help me to like it. Help me to understand your will is greater and better than mine, and I give that up to you.

A second point Jesus makes is in Matthew 27. Matthew 27. This is an interesting test you can see Jesus goes through. And let's start in verse 32. So Jesus now goes through a night of them spitting on Him, beating Him with their fist, people beating Him with sticks, people slapping Him around, people stripping his clothes off, beating Him with a whip until He's not even recognizable. Now remember, He's going through this because he said to God, "Not my will, but yours. This is what's best for me. But I want to tell you something, it's a whole lot more important than that. It's what's best for you and me." Understand His viewpoint. We cannot Be justified with God in our present state of corrupted human nature and sin. We cannot. We're only justified before God when we accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for what we deserve. And then God says, "Yes." Actually, Jesus says, "Come, let me present you to the Father." That's how we get there. He takes us there. It was best for us. That's why He did it. He did it for us. So now they're dragging Him out and He's carrying that big crossbar until they're going to get to the place where they nail him to it.

Matthew 27:35 Says, "They crucified Him and divided His garments, casting lots that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet."

And here it quotes Psalm 22. Much of what we see in the accounts, the gospel accounts of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, it's in Psalm 22. As I said, it's all prepared ahead of time. But boy, there's a difference between writing it down and doing it. This is His faith in His Father. And He wants to teach it to us. He came to live this way so He could teach it to us.

Matthew 27:39 "And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, 'You destroyed the temple and built it up in three days? Save yourself. If you're the son of God, come down from the cross.'"

"You know, you said you were going to tear down the temple. You said that you and the Father had a special relationship, that you were unique and that God loved you." He said it over and over again. "The Father loves me and I love the Father." This is one of the great basic foundations of those moments, "I believe, but." They're saying this to Him. And then they said, verse 43, well.

Matthew 27:42-43 Says, "He saved others. He himself cannot save. If He's the king of Israel, let Him come down from the cross and we'll believe Him. He trusted in God." This is another quote from Psalm 42. "He trusted in God. Let him deliver Him now if He will have Him. For He has said, 'I am the Son of God.'"

Do you realize how sarcastic that is? Here's the guy that said God loved Him, God loved Him, God loved Him. Jesus' motivation his whole life was, "God loves me, God loves me." And now they say to Him, "Let's see if God will save Him because God doesn't want Him. See if God wants Him." Is that a remarkable thing? Yeah, come on. Let's see if God really wants Him. Let's see if He saves Him.

They're basically saying, "God does not love you." In all this, that thought's being thrown at him. And you know, in those times when I believe but, how many times are we doubting the love of God? That's where the doubt is. Jesus was forced into that kind of confrontation to try to get him to doubt. He already said, "your will." He set His will aside and said, "You're greater, you're smarter, you're more powerful than me as a human being. So you do what you're going to do." And God sent Him an angel and said, "I'll give you what you don't have. I'm going to give you the strength to do this." And now they're telling him God doesn't love Him.

How did Jesus respond to this? How did Jesus respond to this? Because it teaches us. Once again, He's going through this for us. It's very interesting. Matthew and Mark says right before He died, He just cried out. John said what He said when He cried out was, "It is finished." But Luke says He said something else also. Let's go to Luke 23. We can't hide from the hard stuff. Sometimes we face the hard stuff because it's there where God gives us something. God gives us what we don't have. "Well, I don't have enough faith." Well, neither do I. When you say that, neither do I. There is a point where God has to give us something, has to do with His will, accepting His will, and it has to do with this other issue that Jesus is facing here.

Luke 23:46 "And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' Having said this, He breathed His last."

It appears He says, "It's finished. And Father, I give you my spirit." Understand what that means. You know, when we die, we don't suffer the second death. The second death is total annihilation. When we die, everything we are goes to God and He saves it. We don't know how he does that. Right? But he saves it because He says, "I'm going to resurrect you. You partially are going to be resurrected." Jesus, after all this, at the very end, said to His father, "Everything I am comes to you. I wake up in three days and three nights, and boy, that's going to be a shock to everybody. I know what happens. We planned this out. So I simply go to you for a while, and then you wake me up."

I mean, He had to suffer death for us. He had to sleep. But He wasn't destroyed any more than Abraham is destroyed. He's just with God. He's not awake. Okay, I'm not teaching the immortal soul here. But he's with God. God takes him and keeps everybody and he resurrects them. At the second resurrection, there's no coming back from that one. It's total destruction. That's a totally different thing. That's one reason we can believe that there are people who are going to receive salvation in the future because God hasn't destroyed them. They're not in hell. They're waiting to be resurrected from it. And how God does that, I have no idea. And I'm comfortable with saying that. The older I get, more and more things, I'm comfortable with saying I don't know how He does it. I really don't, but I know He does. I believe He does. And I still can't figure out why He does everything He does because I'm not God. I'm just a guy, right? We're not God.

"I commend to you my spirit." And it's all right according to plan. Everything's happening just the way it's supposed to. I can't imagine His experience of dying, though. We all know death. Jesus had only known eternity, but He's going to go to sleep for a while. Yeah, He might say, "I planned this, but wow, this is tough." God was with Him. The only way He could do this, by the way, is because He believed absolutely that nothing could separate Him from the love of God. You're wiser than me. You're greater than me because here I am a human being. You're smarter than me. Your goodness is beyond what I can imagine. Well, what these people can. He understood God's goodness, but as a human being, He still struggled. He said, but I understand because I believe in your goodness and your greatness and I believe in your wisdom. Not my will be done, but yours.

He's telling him, as a human being, this isn't what I want. Understand what He's saying. But I realize that's what I'm here for, and I trust you. And the second point is, The second point is, you've loved me. You've always loved me. And you're going to resurrect me. And this thing's going to go according to plan because you love me. Because you love me. And nothing could separate Him from that. Without that belief, how does He do what He does? How does He do it? Oh, I know He's God in the flesh, but He's in the flesh. God builds faith in us when He answers prayers, and He gives us things, and He takes care of us. And we like those things, right? We really like those things.

Other times, faith grows in darkness and in despair, in hopelessness. And we cry out, "I believe, but." And you say, "Wow, God must be so upset with me. God must want to throw me away because I believe but and God's saying, 'No, this is an opportunity.'" See, God sees it totally different. "Good, child." You know, I just love it when my grandkids come, "Grandpa." They're here so I can pick on them. It's one of the few joys I have left in life at this age. You know, "Grandpa, such and such, you know, I need some help." Yeah, I could have told you so. Yeah, that's going to hurt. Let's fix it.

Same way with God. "I believe, but," He says, "Good, let's work through this." But it's so hard for us. Sometimes Faith grows when the answer is sometime in the future. But I'd like to get married now to someone in the faith sometime in the future. Sometimes the answer is no. And we have to believe His goodness, His wisdom, His greatness justifies the no answer. Sometimes we find ourselves in desperate need. And we have to go to God and say, "I don't have it. I don't have the faith. I don't have the assurance. I don't have the comfort. I don't have the wisdom. I don't have the knowledge. I don't have what I have to have for this to happen." And He has to give it to us. And if we think we can do that without Him giving it to us, we will fail because our faith is in God, not ourselves. And there's many things in our lives that can only come from God. And that's when faith really grows.

It's when you have no answer, when you have no solution, when there isn't anything but Him and Jesus Christ, that's when faith grows because you don't maybe get the answer you want. but you get the help you need. It's not always the answer we want. It's the help we need because He's doing something great in your life. Everyone here, I don't care if you're six years old, everyone here has the privilege to go to the throne of God and talk to Him. You have that privilege. He's given it to you. And you can go and understand that Jesus Christ knows exactly what it is to feel anxiety and fear and stress and sadness, betrayal. He's experienced it all. He always got the help He needed. God always took Him where He wanted Him to go because that was planned that way. He wasn't going to fail. Was planned to the finest detail.

Sometimes, even now in my life, I'm that little boy sitting up in the bed with my dad sitting beside me. I go there every once in a while because, I'm still learning. I thought he was such an old guy. He was in his 30s. I'm still learning what he had learned. And you know, it's interesting. He and I had lots of conversations in life before he died about how he had to learn it over and over again. And I said, "Yeah, I'm learning it over and over again." When he sat there and completely meant and understood, "Your will be done and I'll accept whatever it is. And nothing can separate me from the love of Christ." And he meant it.

And I go back there on occasion thinking, God, I have to go back to that, don't I? I have to go back to that simple reality, but I can't do it myself, and you can't do it yourself. And so much of the time we try to do it ourselves. God takes you there. You have to ask Him, "Help me understand. Help me, even if I don't understand, give me the strength. Give me the strength. like you did with Jesus Christ." The Bible talks about how Jesus will come into our lives. When you ask God to give you what you don't have, and you admit you don't have it, and you struggle with you don't have it. And you ask Him, only then can that miracle really take place that Jesus Christ will come through the Holy Spirit, He's going to work with you because He's been a human being. God the Father and Christ both work in us through the Spirit. It says that. And when He does, only then can you actually really say it and mean it, "Not my will be done, but your will be done." And even in the depths of the worst human experiences, you can know that God ultimately saves us, just like Jesus knew, "I'm going to die, but He saves me. You people don't get it. I'm already saved. I'm not going to suffer some eternal death here." Ultimately we can know. that nothing could separate us from the love of God.