City Central Church Podcast
Bob Sorge (Saturday Night)
Bob Sorge gives a stirring message on endurance and perseverance in the face of trial and suffering.
[ Silence ] >> Thank you for your prayer and it's a delight for Joel and me to introduce Anna to you all tonight. And so my wife is playing grandma this weekend. She's got the three kids. And she was looking forward to that. And another one on the way, number four on the way. [ Applause ] Now, I'm just going to mention this real fast. The sisters that were that are in charge of the book table said that there are some titles that ran out. And some people were wanting some of the titles that ran out. So what we'll do is if you'll prepay the five bucks now, give us your name and phone number out there, we'll ship them here to the church and the church will distribute. Okay, so you can get that book that sold out. Now last night, I began by talking a little bit about Jacob. And I'm going to do the same thing tonight. I want to talk about Jacob. He's one of my heroes, Genesis 28. This is my preamble, Genesis 28. Jacob is on his way on a trip. And he stops at Bethlehem and he has that latter experience that he's famous for. And in that encounter, verse 13, Genesis 28, 13, the Lord stood above the ladder and said, "I am the Lord God of Abraham, your Father, and the God of Isaac." Now, we always call him the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But he's not that yet. Because right now in the story, he's only the God of Abraham and Isaac hasn't yet become the God of Jacob. And so he comes to Jacob on the God of Abraham and Isaac and the Lord makes these big promises. And he says, in verse 15, he says, "I am giving you the promise." And he says, "And I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you." So here's the promise. "Until I fulfill my word in your life, I will never leave you." Isn't that great? That as long as you're holding on to that promise, as long as it takes for that promise to be fulfilled, he is with you because presence always accompanies promise. Then, verse 20, "Jacob made a vow." Now, it's biblical to make vows like this. Jacob is going to do one of these kind of vows. He's going to say, "If you will, then I will." And sometimes God takes you up on those. So Jacob made a vow saying, "If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread, eat, and clothing to put on so that I come back to my Father's health and peace, then the Lord shall be my God." If God will do this for me, then he'll be my God. So Jacob makes the trip 20 years later, chapter 32, 20 years later. He's coming back. And guess what? God has kept his end of the bargain. And now, Jacob's coming back. And if you look in chapter 32, verse 14, I'm trying to find my way here. Wrong verse. OK, I'm not sure at verse I was going to point to, but in verses 24, I think you have 24, not 14, 24, where God encounters Jacob. And this is that famous story where God takes Jacob's hip out and changes his name. And at Peniel, this encounter at Peniel, my perspective on it is this is God coming, collecting. You said, if I did blah, blah, blah, I would be your God. Anti-up. [LAUGHTER] Are you for real? And that Peniel is God and Jacob coming into this covenant where Jacob is going to say in his heart, you are my God. And God is going to take his hip out, mark him for life in the covenant, and change his name, his identity. And from that moment on, Jacob was in covenant with God. And he said, you are my God. And Jacob had a whole what a journey he had. But one thing he'd never let go of, you are my God, even at age 130, when everything is against him, the famine sucking the life out of his household. He's lost his Joseph. He's lost his Simeon in Egypt. Now the man wants his Benjamin, the drought. The famine is starving him out and had 130 years old. He has been serving God faithfully. And now none of it is working. And heaven itself is against him, because the weather is in God's control. And even though heaven is against him, he stands firm to his vow, even if you take my Benjamin away, you are my God. Little does he know in three weeks time, bam, the whole thing turns around, and God validates his conduct. And now we follow his faith. That last sentence you had to be here last night, because we did that one last night. OK, that was for free, just because Jacob's one of my guys. OK, Genesis 3, you know, all the flack that Jacob takes, everybody gets on his case, and he's one of my heroes. OK, I'm trying to get off Jacob. OK, here we go. Genesis 3, 15. Now, I've been in chronic pain for 17 years. Every word hurts. And so when you're living in chronic pain, there's just that there's a few places in the Bible you just gravitate toward. Psalms, Job, Lamentations 3, and the Cross. Thank God for the Cross, the wisdom of the Cross. Most of my focus when I come to the Cross, I get real close. I get right into the thing. But this verse right here, Genesis 3, 15, actually looks at the Cross from a bird's eye vantage from a heavenly perspective. How many know that when you're in the vortex of your trial, it really helps when you can get perspective. How is God looking at this thing from an eternal light? So Genesis 3, 15, is God talking about the Cross for the first time in the Bible. And he's actually talking to Satan about the Cross. And here's the first thing out of God's mouth. When he talks about the Cross, Genesis 3, 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He, that is Christ, shall bruise your head, Satan. And you, Satan, shall bruise his heel. So this is an eternal perspective on the Cross. God says, Jesus is going to bruise Satan's head, and Satan is going to bruise Christ's heel. I promise you, when Jesus was hanging on the Cross, with a nail in his hands, a nail through his feet, a crown of thorns on his brow, I promise you, it did not feel like a bruising of his heel. It felt like he was being pulled apart Adam by Adam, because he was. Same thing is true for you. When you're in the vortex of your trial, you feel like you are being pulled apart piece by piece. But there is a perspective that God wants to give you on your trial. If you will wait on him and rise on Eagle's wings, there is an eternal perspective to be gained on your trial. I believe the day will come when you will look back on your trial and say, oh, that was intense. I took it in the heel, oh, that hurt. But my adversary has taken it in the head. As bloody as the Cross was, and beloved, it was a spectacle of blood, blood everywhere. But as bloody as the Cross was, Satan was more bloodied by the Cross than Jesus. And God wants to do the same thing with your trial. He wants as you endure, as you walk through this thing. There's a day coming when he will redeem your trial, and you're going to look back on it. And one of these days you're going to say, oh, boy, that hurt all right. I got that in the heel. But my adversary is bloodied in the head. Enduring your trial whole to your faith. Live in the Word and fasting in prayer, and allow him to redeem this thing. May the enemy get a migraine from messing with you. Now come to Zachariah 4. This one's probably one of the most beloved verses in the whole room, Zachariah 4.6. If you don't have this one underlined, it's time. OK. So he answered and said to me, this is the word of the Lord, is rubable, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before it's rubable, you shall become a queen. Notice it says, who are you? The whole great mountain doesn't say, what are you? It says, who are you? Because that mountain, that glooms in your life, that mountain, that stands in opposition to the will of God for your calling and destiny, that impossibility, that mountain, that stands before your life sometimes becomes so large and looming and real. It takes on a persona of its own. You can even attach sometimes a name to that mountain. There's even, at times, a demonic energy on it. Who are you, O great mountain, to stand in the face of the destiny of God for this saint? You shall become a plane. Anybody here ever been to Denver? Anybody here ever been so late? How about Albuquerque? Colorado Springs, Tucson, OK. All the cities I just mentioned have a common denominator. Denver is classic. You have this vast plane, and on the plane, stuff happens on the plane. You have highways, businesses, people. You've got buildings. You've got activity, you've got banks, you've got restaurants, you've got schools, agriculture, industry. It's buzzing with people. It's a lie, because you can do stuff on a plane. And then, especially in the case of Denver, it goes from plane to mountain. Just out of nowhere, bam, there goes the mountain. And when you hit that mountain, the highway stops, the industry stops, there's no schools, there's no businesses, there's no restaurants, there's no houses, well, there's that cabin up there. You know, the guy with the rifle in his pickup truck. I'm not a mountain man. Give me a plane. Give me something you can build on. And God wants to take that mountain, which represents loneliness. The ominous bleakness of wilderness, forsakenness, that morbid, black, dark, lonely, wild mountain. God says, my agenda for yours, for your journey, for this thing you're in. If you will work with me, and in my heart, it is that the mountain that faces your life be leveled into a plane that becomes a fertile plane to feed a generation from the goodness of God in your life. Beloved, there was a mountain that God turned into a plane. I'm thinking right now about the most morbid, horrible, depressing, agonizing mountain of history. Mount Golgotha, that God took this horrible, morbid mountain, leveled it, and turned it into a plane that now feeds a planet on the goodness of God. How do you take a horrible mountain like Golgotha and turn it into a plane? I will tell you how, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. That's why we present to the spirit. That's why we're reaching to the coals of the fiery spirit of God and say, holy spirit, I'm asking you to help me, to work with you, cooperate with you, enter into this thing with you, because in your power and strength, this mountain shall become a plane. Now, both testaments start with the identical same theme. Old Testament and New Testament launch with the identical same theme, quiz. Once they hold this book in your Bible, I'm hearing a lot of joke talk here. You got it right. You cheated. But it was an open book test. All this book in the Bible is the book of Job, the theme of which is enduring through suffering, not incidental, that the Holy Spirit used the book of Job to launch this edifice we call Holy Scripture. Set down as the cornerstone of Scripture, the book of Job is absent, it's essential that we get that book right, because if the cornerstone's wrong, whole building, and God wants you to have in the very fabric of the foundation of your life ownership of enduring through suffering. Some people have a problem with Job. They say, well, he had a bad attitude. You would too, and if you've never had an attitude like Job had, it's because you've never drunk a cup like he drank. I tell folks, it's really important that you learn to complain right. Because if you complain right, he puts it in the Bible. If you complain wrong, he kills you. So it's kind of important to complain right, how many want to know how to complain right, okay? I'm about to tell you, shut your door, get in his face, and duke it out. If you're going to complain, complain direct to him. It's interesting, you can almost say anything to God and get away with it. You know, he's like, go ahead, get it out. I got big shoulders. I'll work it out with you. You can even say it wrong. But if you say it to him, he'll get in the ring with you. And we'll work the thing out. What he doesn't have space for is when you take your lousy attitude to your neighbor. He says, no, no, no, no, no. I don't do that. He says, you have a problem with me. You come talk to me. And that's what Job did. He got him, so he parked himself on a pile of ashes, scraping his wounds, got into it with God and said, I'm not going anywhere until you talk to me. And he prayed his way through until the mountain came down. He's the only one in the book who prays. Everybody else talks about God, but he talks to God. God walks him through, brings him through. If anyone ever faced a mountain, it was Job. But because he walked with God in the thing, by the power of the Spirit of God, that mountain was leveled into a plane to feed generations with the goodness of God. And now every generation ever since has been empowered in their journey because of how Job walked the thing out with God and the enemy still getting a massive headache from good old Job. I think if you were to talk to Job about it now, he'd be like, ooh, that wasn't tense. I took it in the heel wound, but my adversary has been bloodied in that. So this is the foundation of the Old Testament enduring to suffering. We come to the New Testament. The New Testament launches with the exact same theme. Quiz. What's the oldest book in your New Testament? Give you a hint. It's not Matthew. I'll give you another hint. It's the only New Testament book that talks about Job. To turn to the book of James. Here we go. That's the first New Testament book put on paper. Look at how the New Testament starts. Are you ready? My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. Lord, could you come up with another way to start the thing? Count it all joy when your spouse comes down with cancer. Count it all joy when your child's in a car accident and I see you hanging on for their life. Count it all joy when your house goes into foreclosure. Count it all joy when you lose your job. Count it all joy when your child is born with a birth defect. Count it all joy when you have a heart attack. I'm having a problem with the verse. If the verse had said count it all depression, I'm there. Just going to be straight honest with you. My number one struggle in the 17 years since the voice injury has been with depression. Never had it depressed in my life. I used to think if you had issues with depression, you just needed to repent. And then I found myself in hand-to-hand combat with this multi-headed beast called depression. So if the verse had said count it all depression, got it. Holy Spirit says count it all joy. Well, when you're battling depression, joy is the problem. I really would like to have some joy right now. That's my issue. Count it all joy. I've wrestled with that verse for so many years. I finally said more times up. I'm not getting James 1 verse 2. You have to give me this verse. Come to the next one. Verse 3, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Now a better translation than patience is the word endurance. For our contemporary usage endurance is our perseverance is the best word. So let me substitute knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. We're back to Job's topic, enduring through suffering. So I've put together a definition of endurance based on James 1 verse 3. Endurance is, if you're taking notes here it is, endurance is, faith sustained over time in the midst of trials. One more time. Endurance is, faith sustained over time in the midst of pain. That's biblical endurance. When you're in a trial, when you're battling the forces of darkness, when you're in pain, and you do whatever you have to do to stay in faith. I'm going to do it a fasting prayer, desperate, whatever I gotta do. I've got to hold to your word. I've got to hold to your promise. I've got to stay in faith. Yeah, have a little bit of this sometimes, but I am going to hold to the word of God when you determine in your heart to stay in faith, whatever you have, shut the TV down, whatever you've got to do to stay in faith. When you stay in faith long term in the midst of a trial, that's biblical endurance. And endurance is so powerful that we'll look at verse 4. Let endurance have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking, nothing. Endurance is so powerful. It can do in you what nothing else can do. It can so transform your life. I'm talking about holding onto faith longer in the midst of pain. That process is so life transforming that it will do for you what nothing else can do. It will so change you that you come through your trial perfect and complete lacking nothing in righteousness, lacking nothing in holiness, lacking nothing in goodness, lacking nothing in grace, lacking nothing in the knowledge of Christ, lacking nothing in the goodness of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, laying hands on the sick and they recover, lacking nothing, lacking nothing in good works, lacking nothing in meekness, lacking nothing in kindness, lacking nothing in intimacy and love. Start making your list. What does it mean to be perfect and complete lacking nothing? I mean whoever in the world was perfect and complete lacking nothing. That's the answer. So how does a man who is perfect and complete lacking nothing handle trials? Well, if the boy's dead, you just touch the coffin and raise the boy to life and ruin a normal funeral. If you run out of wine, you just fill six jars with water and turn the water into wine. And if you don't have food, no problem. You just multiply five laws to fish and feed 5,000 people. And if you don't have tax money, you just send somebody down to the lake, put a hook in the lake, pull up the first fish, open the fish's mouth, take the coin out of the fish's mouth and pay your tax. Perfect and complete lacking nothing. And I realized this trial, this mountain, this trial, this cross, this mountain, this trial is an invitation, an opportunity, a doorway into a journey in God that if I will endure through suffering, if I will hold to faith long term in this trial, it's an opportunity for such profound transformation that I come through the thing perfect and complete lacking nothing. There may be another way to get there, I just don't know it. And I realized James 1 verse 4 is the fattest promise in the Bible. Now I call James 1 verse 2 the toughest verse in the Bible. If you can do James 1 verse 2, everything is downhill from there. But I got tripped up on the tough verse, verse 2, because I hadn't been awakened to the fat promise in verse 4. And if you don't see the fat promise of verse 4, you get stuck on the on the tough verse, verse 2. But when I saw the fat promise in verse 4, perfect and complete, lacking nothing, lacking nothing in the power of the Spirit, lacking nothing in intimacy with Jesus, lacking nothing of the character qualities of Christ. When I saw that, guess what happened? Joy. I'm like, what's this? And I haven't felt that one for a while, that's it. I like this. And joy began to touch my spirit because I realized this is going somewhere. God has a purpose and God wants to put a givey perspective when you're walking through that trap that you understand. If I will hold to faith, walk through this thing enduring through suffering. There's a day coming. I'm going to look back on it and say, oh, I took it in the heel, all right. But my adversary is bloodied in the head. The mountain has come down, has been charmed into a plane that is feeding in generation, and now perfect and complete, lacking nothing perfected in the graces of Christ. There's a saying going around, Americans almost become American idiom. Maybe you've heard it. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. How many of you are there? It's probably true in some contexts, but in the kingdom of God, it's mostly not true. Because in that kingdom, God calls you to do something and do it, and do it, and do it, and just keep doing it, and just keep doing it, and they're looking at you like, okay, no. How long have we been doing this? 17 years. What's changed? Nothing. Then change something. I'm not changing a thing. I'm going to live in the Word, live in the Spirit. I'm going to endure in suffering. I'm going to hold His promise. I'm going to endure in fasting, endure in holiness, endure in righteousness, endure in worship and praise, endure in thanksgiving, endure in giving, endure in good words. I'm not changing a thing because I believe in a God who comes to a guy who's 130 years old and can't see past his nose and comes, and in a moment turns everything around because he endured and held to his vow. You are my God. I believe in a God who comes to a job who has been enduring in his trial and will not let go, but holds to his love and stands and sits in that ashy and says, "God, I'm not moving till you talk to me," and God visits the man and changes everything. I serve a God of miracles, a God of signs and wonders who changes everything in a moment, so you can call me insane if you want to, but I'm not changing a thing. And the world will call you insane. And if you don't believe me, just give it a shot, just go to work on Monday until your co-workers. I'm waiting on God. They'll look at you like what planet have you arrived from? What is your... They call us insane. But we're not going to change a thing. We're going to endure in the Spirit, endure in the Word, endure in fasting, endure in His love. Give Him our heart. We're going to love Him. And if you take my life, I will love you. If you take my Benjamin, I will love and serve you. If you... I'm yours. You are mine. And while I'm getting stuff off my chest, can I just say, I'm not coping. I hate the word "cope." It just kind of spits off your mouth, "cope." It's not a Bible word, and it's not a Bible concept. God never called us to cope. He called us to endure in faith. The world copes, because they don't have promise. And when you don't have a promise from God, just go ahead and try to cope and make do until whatever. But I've got my sticky fingers wrapped around a promise from heaven, and I'm not letting go. And I shall never relent. But I'm going to endure in this thing. I'm going to hold to His promise and give Him my love. I'm not coping. I'm enduring. Faith sustained over time in the midst of pain. Now, let's be real. I would like to stand up here and pretend that I'm some paragon of faith that never has any kind of issues. You know, just steady. Shruth be known, I have mastered the art of rollercoaster. I can keep up with the best of them. Come to Romans 4. There is one point. I was thinking to myself, I wonder if I should write a book called The Roller Coasters of the Bible. The people in the Bible that did this. Well, I'm just going to go to my most outstanding example. Romans 4.20. Talking about Abraham and it's talking about that 25-year period between the time when he got a promise of a miracle baby and then had to wait for 25 years. For that promise to be fulfilled. Hello, count them. How many here aren't even 25 years old? 25 years waiting for that promise to be fulfilled. Here's the verse, Romans 4.20. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. When I read that verse, I said, God, have you read the Bible? Because anybody that's read Genesis knows that ain't the truth. He did not waver give me a break. I mean, we've got ishmael for proof. We've got the baby. He did not waver. Are we reading the same story, Lord? The guy was the way she watched the roller coaster par excellence. You read his story. He was just one up and down. Dude, have you ever read the time when he says to the main man, he says, pointing to his wife, he says, she's my sister. Because he's thinking, if you know she's my wife, you'll kill me so you can get her. So she's suddenly become my sister. And he pulled that stunt twice. Now if I ever tried that one with my wife, she would call it wavering. So Sarah's looking at the verse going, "He did not waver interesting perspective." I'm with Sarah. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief. Holy Spirit said he was strengthened in faith. Holy Spirit said, as Abraham went through this journey, he was strengthened in faith. Holy Spirit testifies that from the time Abraham was 75 to the time he was 100, he was strengthened in faith. Holy Spirit testifies that from the time the promise was given him, until the time the fulfillment was given him, he was strengthened in faith. Holy Spirit testifies. Now think of it this way. The longer the answer was delayed, the stronger his faith got. That's irrational. I'll tell you what's rational. Rational is the longer you're without it, the less your chances, sweetheart. So it's time to get in reality, wake up and smell the coffee. You don't have it because you ain't gonna get it. Now that voice, that makes sense. What kind of faith says the longer I'm without it, the more I believe in my God. Lord, that's not normal. It's a divine kind of faith that Abraham had found. Now Abraham, yeah, he was wishy-washy, but when he would get in his low places, when he would kind of belly out and have one of those human moments, he found a mechanism in the Holy Spirit to lay hold of the Word of God and once again rise on the wings of faith and say, "No, that was a promise from God. That was the Word of God. I'm not letting go. God, you say it." And he would rise again in faith. And then, oh, there we go. But he found a way to begin to lay hold of that promise and rise again in faith. Now here's how I see. Here's how I chart his journey from 75 to 100. He was strengthened in faith. He was a roller coaster the whole way, but he had more faith at age 100 than he had at age 75. And here's what God does. He takes off all the lows because he's not depressed when you are. And he takes off all the highs because he's not so impressed when you're having a prophetic moment. And he's looking to see how are you walking through the years. I want you to hear this. God doesn't measure your journey in days. Somebody says, "Oh, that was a bad day. Oh, doesn't even show up on a screen." Somebody said, "Ooh, that was a tough week. Not even a blip on his screen." Somebody says, "Oh, what a month. Oh, I glad that month is over." Doesn't even notice because he's measuring your journey in years. The question in the heart of God is where will you be this time next year? Where will you be in five years? Where will you be sister in ten years? Sir, where are you going to be in fifteen years? I testify. The Lord help me in giving me grace. In fifteen years, I'm going to be exactly where I am today, enduring in faith, enduring in the Word, enduring in prayer, enduring in love, enduring in fasting, enduring in the Spirit. I'm not changing a thing. I'm going to endure in hope, endure in kindness, holding to his promise, never letting go. And I'm trusting that somehow angry, "Oh, yeah, am I a roller coaster? Who?" Catch me at nine a.m. Come back at two o'clock in the afternoon, please. I'm just like, you know what, you just might catch me or whatever. I don't even care about my day anymore. Good day, bad day, good week, bad week, good. My whole cares. The issue is, let's see where we are next year. Five years, ten years, enduring through suffering. And as we endure in this thing, holding to faith, he's transforming us, making us perfect and complete, lacking nothing. The head of our adversary, bloodied because of our consecration, a mountain has come down, has been turned into a plane by the power of the Spirit of God. Strength in faith. Does this encourage any roller coasters in the house? Okay, just forget about October, all right. I'm going forward. So I'm going to finish with James one verse four. The verse says, "Perfect, dankly, lacking nothing." So I'm looking at this verse. Now I'm a melody I've never had the joy of actually visiting with you. And I think I had some correspondence with you a few years, some bunch of years ago, but I don't know how you might feel about your walk with the Lord, but I feel like in the trial I've been in that I've kind of been like in God's accelerated program. It's like the Lord just kind of messing with everything because when God gets you in that crucible, he doesn't just hit one or two things. He's just the whole thing. And so I feel like I kind of on a fast track, if I can say that, the Joseph prison accelerated program, you know, and God's been changing me. And I mean, I don't think the same, feel the same, even my personalities changed. And so I'm looking at this, okay, 17 years of this kind of change. I said, I kind of projected it over time over these curves. And I said, my heart is ignored. If I continue, if you continue to change me at this rate, that you have been doing in my life for 17 years, if you continue at this rate, I will attain to perfect and complete lacking nothing. I'll get there in about 463 years. And I got depressed all over again. I'm never going to get there. And then I realized, James 1 verse 4 is actually a promise. God is saying, if you will endure through suffering, holding to faith, I will interrupt your trajectory. I will visit you with my glory. And I will do in your life what you could never do for yourself. Beloved, when you are enduring through suffering, you are headed for an encounter with the glory of God. He will meet you like he met Jacob. He will come to you like he came to Job. He will interrupt your journey like he did with Abraham and fulfill his word and his promise in your life. Therefore, I shall never relent. I shall never give up. I shall not be moved. I'm going to endure through suffering, holding to his words, staying in faith, enduring in the word, enduring in promise, enduring in fastly, enduring in thanksgiving, enduring in good works, enduring in holiness, enduring in love, enduring in righteousness, enduring in giving in generosity. I'm going to endure in every good work. I shall not be moved. I'm not changing a thing because I believe in a God who finishes stories about I am yours. I will love you all my days. And I'm asking you interrupt my life. I'm asking now for all of this or interrupt our lives. Give us grace to endure through suffering, to be strengthened in faith. And I'm asking, Lord, that somehow in your kindness, you would help me to reach into the Holy Spirit, that this mountain would be leveled into a plane, and even though I may take it in the heel, may the adversary rule the day. He picked a fight with the siren of the Lord because now his head is bloodied because of the consecration of a saint who would not relent, but endured through suffering. God bless you. [Applause] [BLANK_AUDIO]