(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

I want to say good morning.

Thank you all for getting up on this cold morning, coming here and hang out with us.

If it's your first time here, a special welcome.

If you don't know who I am, my name is Jared.

I have the privilege and the honor of being the associate pastor here, as well as the student pastor.

I know all your kids, which means I know all of you.

But man, it's the most wonderful time of year.

It's the most wonderful, most stressful, most holy cow, your Walmart's hanging out, a holy Citibank, holy BB&T, crazy time of the year.

And it's this time of year when, you know, we talk about the reason for the season.

And this is incredible.

This is so important for us to understand the reason for the season, but it's even more important for us to convey to the world around us.

This time of year, I don't know if all of you know, thousands more people will go to a church this month and they won't be back again until Easter, unless, everybody say unless, unless maybe they come into a place where they feel so welcomed, so loved, so familial, like they feel like they found family around them that maybe, just maybe, they say, man, you know what, I think I'm going to try it again next Sunday.

And then, you know, it becomes an addiction.

I'm like, man, I'm going to try again next Sunday.

I'm going to come here sharing and saying, I'm going to come here Amanda saying, I'm going to come here Clay preach.

I'm going to get me a little bit of some of that because every time I go, something seems to be breaking in me, but that's the reason for the season.

I love that people keep Christ in their Christmas.

I would love to see Christ in the Christian the whole month and the next month and the next month and the next month.

But seasons is what we're going to talk about today.

In Christianese, we use seasons for everything.

We don't have time periods.

We don't have months.

We don't have weeks.

We don't have years.

We just have seasons.

I'm going through a season of breakthrough.

I'm going to translate this Christianese for you.

That means good stuff's happening.

Everything's working out.

I got the job.

I got the girl.

Everything's going good.

I'm going through a season of challenges.

That means things kind of suck right now, and I'm not really sure about it.

I'm going through a season of struggle.

That's what Christian is saying.

I'm standing right now.

I'm trying to figure it out.

I really don't want to, but this is what's happening right now, and I'm trying to choose Jesus over, but it is really, really difficult because my flesh wants what it wants, but my spirit wants something totally different, and I'm trying to balance the two instead of just surrendering this to God and saying, you know what?

I can't do this anymore.

I can't keep on walking like this.

I don't want to feel like this ever again.

Surrendering and letting the Holy Spirit do His work.

I heard a pastor say it this way.

He said, you ever notice how when people become Christians, they don't sin anymore?

They just struggle.

Oh, I'm struggling right now.

You're not struggling.

You're sinning.

You're doing things that you absolutely know are wrong, and then you're like, well, where's God?

He's still there.

He's still on His throne.

He's just like, man, are you going to get up yet?

Are you going to keep on doing this?

How long are we going to run in this hamster wheel?

These seasons, we have so many different polished up ways of saying that things are great or they're not right now.

But there's a vast difference between complaining and whining and being honest about our circumstances.

Out of this place, out there, I don't know what it's like at your job.

I don't know what it's like at your family dinners.

Everybody just got through Thanksgiving.

For some people, that's weird.

This Thanksgiving, I realized why my family doesn't really do it.

In my family, I grew up, what we did on Thanksgiving, my mom has a different memory, which is weird.

This past year, she decided she wanted to do a Thanksgiving, and my mom, we don't really do Thanksgiving.

Granny used to do Thanksgiving, but we didn't.

We go hunting on Thanksgiving.

And she's like, we've always had, I'm like, no, we haven't.

She's going to text me.

She's probably texting me right now.

But we don't really do Thanksgiving, and I went to Tasha's family.

We do every year.

Me and we go up for buck season.

And then after that, we go up to Tasha's family.

We have Thanksgiving up there, which is great.

I mean, they make pumpkin pie, which is weird, but you know, I know some people like that.

Out of all the things you can make a pie out of cherries, apples, blueberries, persimmons, pears, pumpkins, but pumpkin pie is good as long as it doesn't have the pumpkin in it.

But anyway, so, you know, I'm hanging out with her family and you know, and then I'm, sometimes there's some tension and then sometimes it's just all some family stuff and not the tension part.

I'm like, that's probably why family don't do it.

We'd be fighting.

You know, somebody be out in backyards and it would get weird.

But these seasons that we go through, we as a family, we've got to be honest with one another.

It's not complaining to tell your brother or your sister, look to your left, look to your right.

That is your brother or your sister.

That's not some dude, you know, that's not some girl you see on Sundays.

This is a family.

Everybody say family.

That means we bear each other's burdens.

We struggle together.

We work together.

We are on mission together.

If you have not plugged into that yet, you are missing out on something wonderful in your life.

But we've got to be honest about the struggle.

We've got to be honest with one another about what we're going through at that time so that everybody say so that people might be able to pray for you.

The Bible tells us in Romans 12, 15, Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

That's a command.

That's not a suggestion like, hey, that would be kind of nice, but that's a command to God's church.

That's not a command to the world, to non-believers.

That is a command to God's church.

Then in Galatians 6, 2, another command, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

What was Christ's law?

Love one another as I have loved you.

But by this fake strength that we convey, this fake outward appearance that we create and we're not honest with one another, we block the blessing that someone else could be.

God sent somebody to you.

You've been praying that God would do something.

God sent people to you and now because you want to hide it, because you can't just be honest, you can't just tell them, here's what I'm going through and allow them to pray over you.

Sometimes it is difficult for folks to come down here.

These prayer warriors, bro, that's what they do.

Monday through Sunday, that is their gift.

And when you don't allow them to pray over you, block them from using their gift, block them from being the blessing that God sent them to be, and I bet you would see some change in your life if you'd get over your inhibitions, walk down here, get a hand put on you.

Every time that I come up here and preach, my wife comes, she prays for me backstage and that is the most important prayer that I get.

And Pam comes and prays for me backstage because I need it.

I have not got this thing figured out.

Jared sucks in a lot of ways.

Jared's getting better in some ways and things are working out ish sometimes, but you know, sometimes Jared wakes up at 5am, you know, for the 27th day in a row and is like, you know what?

I'm tired.

My eyes are puffy.

But those prayers, if I didn't let them work in their blessing, this wouldn't happen.

I'm convinced, I'm convinced.

But we have to begin to share with each other in both our seasons of abundance and our season of little.

But as children of the God of abundance, we cannot operate from a scarcity mindset.

I want you to think about that for a second, I'm going to say it again.

As children of the God of abundance, we cannot operate in a scarcity mindset, which includes assuming that the church doesn't have time to be the church, that they are too busy.

I can't lay this burden on them.

This is what we are, this is what we do.

We're not just coming in here every week because the coffee's good.

Our coffee's okay.

We try, it comes from Starbucks.

Maybe you had grounds in your coffee today, we're working on it.

We come in here because we're a family.

We come in here every Sunday with our shoulders cleaned off so that we can put a shoulder up under your burden, so that we can help you in your time of need.

And we show this and we see this struggle all throughout.

This doesn't mean not to set healthy boundaries, church.

We should have time to be the church.

We should have, that should be our number one goal in life.

That is my job.

When I wake up in the morning, God, how can I glorify you today?

Please put opportunities in front of me today that I might glorify your holy, beautiful and precious name.

God, give me an opportunity to bless somebody.

But you also need healthy boundaries.

I'll give you an example.

I am a pastor and I know y'all think that we only work on Sunday and I'll be honest, when I first came full time here, I was like, dude, what do we do all week?

I already got my message ready for Wednesday and stuff, like, what do we do now?

By the second week, I was like, there's no possibility of getting this done in a week.

I'm going to be in a constant arrears for my entire life.

Like I'm still working on work from three weeks ago, I haven't even gotten to the work from last week yet.

We work really hard, but there has to be some boundaries.

I would love to go to dinner with every one of you.

I'd love to have lunch with everybody.

I'd love to have a meeting with everybody.

But at some point, I've got to go home to my wife because she gets mad and my kids, my little dude, if I don't play dinosaurs with him, eventually he's going to start throwing stuff.

He's like his mama.

But this is important, I want you to understand why.

Why the boundaries are just as important as being the church.

Because the ministry that I've been called to first is at my house.

Before I come in here and do any of this, and I want you to understand that in the Bible, it says that if a pastor does not have his house in order, it disqualifies me from this.

I have to leave here, go back, work on that, and then I can come back.

But until then, I cannot.

And that is the same because every man in here was born to be a servant king, a priest, a protector, a pastor in our house.

And so our ministry has to be our wives first, our children second, but in that we're going to need to share burdens with one another.

Men need men, women need women.

This is a fact of life.

And I know that this is true because Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity of God, right before he goes to the cross, goes to the garden of Gethsemane and he takes his boys with him.

Didn't need him to do anything, but stay awake.

Stay awake.

Come pray with me while I go over there and pray.

Just stay awake.

He needed his boys with him.

We need each other.

We are a family.

And no matter what season you're going through, if you came in here today with a burden, don't be dumb and walk out with it too.

Don't.

It don't make any sense.

It doesn't make any sense for you to keep on carrying this thing that you've been carrying for 15 years.

It hasn't gotten any lighter for you.

Maybe you need a somebody to come alongside you, somebody to link arms with you, to somebody to say, you know what?

Maybe your faith is little.

My shield will cover you for a time until you get back on your feet, until you grow a little bit, until you are strengthened, I'll cover you.

Dallarus Church is a group of people that have been to hell, come through hell and have been called out of the darkness and in the wonderful light.

We're not a museum church.

We actively look for the problems in our community and we attack them.

We go head on at the problem over and over and over again.

Ministries you don't even have any idea about, not because we don't like to tell people things, but because the left hand ought to know what the right hand is doing all the time.

We give you opportunities to join.

We give you opportunities to get involved.

I told that like yesterday, man, some 335 kids were served.

That's a lot of kids, okay?

That's you.

Some of us gave a lot of money.

Some of us gave 10 bikes.

Some of us came and we gave our time, our energy, and our backs all day long.

This is the stuff that makes me, it makes me cry.

So fired up yesterday after everything is done, these guys, and a couple women, a lot of women too, they've been here all day long.

The last shopper leaves and do this place was, didn't look in, none of these chairs were here yesterday evening, but like in an hour and a half, because many hands make light work.

If a family will come together, man, two people can move a couch real easy, but one person trying to move it, he's going to look silly and he's going to hurt and it's not going to work.

But everybody came together and that's the church.

That's the church.

We all chip in.

We all work together.

We show up for one another, but if you came here today and your back is tired and your legs are shaky because you've been under this burden so long, you are surrounded by brothers and sisters that have some big backs.

You're surrounded by brothers and sisters with broad shoulders.

What we can't help, I'm going to ask you today to come lay down at the foot of the cross.

No matter what season you are in right now, God means it to grow you, but if we're going to live a life of consistent growth, of consistent sanctification, we're going to have to understand some things.

The first thing I wrote down, if you take notes, write this down, life is seasonal.

Life is seasonal.

King Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes 3.1, he says, for everything, there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.

He follows this up with seven more verses that explain basically everything in the world in case you were confused about what he meant.

There's a legend.

It's unverified, but there's a legend.

Everybody says this too shall pass.

That's not in the Bible, but there was a legend and this is unverified.

This is not a fact from the Bible.

This is just a legend.

The King Solomon commissioned a ring to be made that said, this too shall pass.

Now, Abraham Lincoln made this phrase famous back when, you know, awful, awful things were happening in America.

But what does it mean?

Nothing in this life is permanent.

The good seasons in life, when life is just incredible, they'll pass and they'll be followed by times of pain and struggle, no matter who you are, no matter what you believe.

If you believe or you don't believe, it's the same.

The worst seasons will pass and the wounds can heal and make you stronger and they will give way to seasons of wonder and awe.

If you let them.

Seasons of little will pass and give way to seasons of plenty.

I want you to understand what I mean because I'm not giving you a prosperity gospel.

God will bless you richly if you are working and operating under his authority.

That may mean money.

That may for some people, if it means money for you, then give.

Blessings are supposed to come to me and out through me, but maybe they'll bless you with a lot of love.

Maybe you got a lot of kids.

That's a blessing.

A man with many children is like an archer with many quivers, an arrow in his quivers.

Arrows in his quiver.

Words are hard.

Some of us aren't even recognizing the incredible blessing that we have in front of us.

I woke up next to a good thing this morning.

I'm gonna lay back down this evening next to a good thing.

God has blessed me richly.

This evening, when I go home, my house is gonna be filled with kids that sound like they're 400 pounds thumping through my house and a baby that's hooping and hollering and a little girl that's singing at the top of her lungs somewhere in the house.

I don't ever want it to be quiet, though.

I can't even sleep if it's quiet.

I have no idea what quiet looks like.

If you ever met my family, you know, my family that lives with me now, and then the family I grew up with, there was nothing quiet.

The seasons of plenty will pass and give way to seasons of little.

This is true of everyone.

Where your trust is will determine your experience of it.

Where your trust is will determine your experience of it.

Because I don't know if you know, happiness and joy are two totally different things.

Happiness is fleeting.

It comes, it goes.

It flies around.

Now, you know, you're trying to catch it.

It's like, you know, a kid trying to catch a butterfly.

But then joy, joy is something that gets down in the deep, deep, deep in my heart.

Joy is something that I can wake up with no matter what the circumstance is.

Because I have seen my God move here and I have seen my God move here.

I've seen him show up in this dark spot, show up in this storm, and I'm not obtuse enough to believe that he's not going to show up in the next one.

I know that he will.

So I can have the joy because if you have the joy of the Lord, you don't need anything else.

I got that from a wise man.

It'll carry you.

It is enough.

But oftentimes we get short-sighted and feel like the circumstance we are in currently is it.

Pain we will never heal from, poverty we'll never get out of, marital issues we can't work through, sickness we will never heal from.

The problem with this is in it, we start making stupid decisions, start shooting from the hip.

That's what we call it where I'm from.

I don't know if all of y'all understand that.

You start not aiming.

You start grasping for straws.

You start trying to do things totally different and you think that every single problem that shows up, you need to completely revolutionize your life.

Sometimes you need to keep on marching the way that God told you to march.

Sometimes you need to continue to do the last thing that he told you to do before he's going to tell you the next thing that you need to do.

Sometimes you just need to keep on moving.

Or what's worse, we become victims.

I want you to hear me.

Once you decide to become a victim, you have completely lost sight of the truth of the gospel.

If you decide to be a victim in anything in your life, you have completely lost sight of the truth of the gospel.

I cannot be saved by grace, removed from my orphanhood, lifted up, pulled from the marsh, sat on a stone, out of the darkness, into the wonderful light, given the name of the king who was the king of kings.

I cannot be guaranteed a place in eternal paradise because my name is in his book and walk around moping like somebody did something to me.

And maybe somebody did.

People have hurt me too.

They're probably going to do it again.

People are going to continue to fail me.

But my hope isn't in any person.

My hope isn't in a woman.

My hope isn't in a man.

My hope is in a empty grave that's been empty for the last couple thousand years.

I'm going to stay that way.

And then when Jesus comes back, I got this imagery from this podcast I was listening to.

Man, it fired me up.

The image of Christ coming back.

The Bible describes him like this.

His skin is like burnished bronze.

His eyes are like hot coals.

He's got tattoos on his thigh that say, King of Kings, Lord of Lord, and he's wearing white.

He's riding a white horse.

You know who wears white to a fight?

Somebody who knows they're going to win and quick.

But he's up there right now just waiting to come back, waiting to come back and set everything right.

Why would I ever be a victim when that's my King, when that's who is inside of me, that's who goes before me, behind me, and beside me?

So why would I be so childish as to wallow in a circumstance when the one who speaks to the storm and hushes it knows my name?

Hard times come and go.

God is forever.

The next thing I wrote down is if we're going to grow consistently, we're going to have to be present in the season.

Be present in the season.

I work with teenagers.

Fifteen-year-olds just want to be fifteen and a half so they can get that license.

Fifteen-and-a-half-year-olds just want to be eighteen so they can be a senior.

Freshmen in college, they just want to be twenty-two so they can get out of college and start their life.

Thirty-year-olds wish they were twenty again.

Sixty-year-olds are like, I kind of want to be twenty, but sixty-five, I don't have to work anymore.

Maybe, if I made good decisions and I get Medicare.

Eighty-year-olds, they just don't care.

I love it.

They ain't worried about what you think.

They don't care.

They're going to wear two different socks, two different shoes, don't make a difference to them.

I do what I want.

We spend so much of our lives wishing time away, which is why most people who are fifty, sixty, and seventy are still sixteen emotionally.

It stings, but it's the truth.

I see it because in what I do, you really see the depth of people.

Where we say, when I reach this milestone, I'll enjoy life.

When I reach this spot, man, then I'm going to do it.

There's an old adage about this guy, his wife wanted to travel, and he said, baby, when I get this raise, we're going to do it.

And he got the raise.

Well, baby, when I get this promotion, then we're going to do it.

And it goes on and on until finally he's like, when I retire at sixty-five, we're going to go.

We're going to travel the world.

Retired at sixty-five.

Died of heart failure at sixty-six.

Never got to go.

There's two dates on the grave, a beginning and an end.

You can't decide either one of them.

But I tell you, you can impact the dash.

You can impact that a whole lot if you will be present inside of it.

We can't wait for all the stoplights in town to turn green before we leave.

Otherwise, we'll spend a whole life in the garage.

We can't wait until our depression, our anxiety, our sadness, our brokenness breaks to start enjoying life.

Sometimes you got to get up in your sadness.

You got to get up in your depression and in your anxiety and start moving your feet.

Start the experience because most of the time God heals you on the way.

God doesn't just heal you and say, then get up.

He heals you while you're moving, but you ain't going to see Jesus work laying on your back.

Say, well, I'm waiting for the Lord.

And God says, baby, I'm waiting for you.

When you going to get up?

Cause I didn't give you a spirit of fear.

I didn't tell you to lay here and wallow.

I told you to get up because I got you.

I'm going to take care of it.

I don't need you to do it for me.

I'm going to handle it.

My name is God.

And by the way, I'll be handling all of your problems today and I won't need any of your help.

You suck at it.

But God wants you to get up and understand the hard season.

It was meant to grow you.

We have to allow it to grow us, allow him to heal us in the season and understand the season.

Psalm.

If you have your Bibles, turn to Psalm 1.

It's a short little Psalm and we're only going to read verse 3.

But in this Psalm, he's talking about a righteous man, compares him to a fruit tree.

It says, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.

And all that he does, he prospers.

I come from apple country.

There was a time when my wife, she came from like the slap middle of apple country.

Like she grew up in orchards, literally, like her, all of her hometown is just, or used to just be orchards.

Musclemen, White House, you know, that applesauce that's in your house right now, that's where that came from.

If you ate an apple in the 1900s on the East coast of America, there's a 70% chance that it grew in her backyard.

But one thing that you understand about fruit trees, fruit trees are different than all the other kinds of trees.

But understanding fruit trees will help us understand this verse.

Those of us who are truly believers, how many of us would call ourselves true believers?

I've been washed by the blood, I've walked through the water, all my hope is in a cross.

I love that.

Give them some claps, come on.

Don't feel bad if you didn't raise your hand, that's okay, it might be today.

We have been giving the living water, see in the verse it says, like a tree planted by streams of water.

The living water.

Jesus said, I will give you water, you will never thirst again.

That's what he said to the Samaritan woman at the well, the spring of life, waters of life will spring up inside of me.

I'm really struggling with words today.

But getting saved doesn't protect you from hard times.

It does promise that the hardship won't be for nothing.

It means that we're called to bear fruit, like Clay preached a couple of weeks ago, but we can't compare fruit.

We're going to just pick this apart for just a second.

I can't compare fruit because you're a different kind of fruit tree than I am.

And I hear stuff like, you know, man, I ain't on your level.

On my level?

I don't have a level, bro.

We're on a journey.

You're on a different journey.

I'm on a different journey.

We're both going to the same place in a way.

I might be going to Louisiana.

You might be going to Montana, but we're both in America.

But we have a different journey.

My fruit is different than your fruit.

And if I am a pear tree, I can't produce apples.

Sitting and looking at the apples thinking, man, I wish I could make that kind of fruit is stupid.

If I was an apple tree looking at the pear tree, like man, apples are superior.

Why would I be?

I'm just kidding.

Why would I be looking at the pear tree wishing that I could produce that?

You've got to produce your fruit in your season.

Now, I'm going to cover this last part and say, in your season, this is important.

This is vital to the message today, but I've got to produce my fruit.

I can't keep on comparing, wishing that I had this or wishing that I had that.

But you know what's crazy is that all the different fruits, maybe your papaya tree, maybe your pineapple, maybe your, I don't know, something awesome.

Maybe you're a tangerine.

Maybe you're a white peach.

All of the fruit does one thing, nourishes the body.

All the different type of fruits.

It takes all of them to truly and fully nourish the body.

What is the body?

We are the body.

This is the body of Christ.

We ought to be operating that way, which means that I'm going to need every different single person type of fruit.

Preachers aren't more important than people that work in cafe.

Believe me.

I couldn't do this if I didn't have folks like Tina, John, all them.

They bust their tail out there to make sure that people feel welcome because all of these things when they work together like a body, invite people into the arena.

They invite people into a space where we make an opportunity for them to connect with the living God.

Even if you try to move out ever, we are so detail oriented here.

I'm still learning about it.

You know, we have scent machines because we want to appeal to all five senses.

We want to get everything out of the way so that everybody say, so that you could experience God and have nourishment for your soul.

Your fruit is different than mine, but stop trying to bear fruit that you weren't made for.

To bear your fruit in your season means there will also be a winter.

And I'm going to speak to you for a second because there's some folks in here that have been in the spiritual wilderness.

If we're going to use Christianese, they're in a spiritual winter.

They feel like, man, I don't know what's going on.

I'm praying.

I'm reading.

I don't feel like he's listening to me.

He's not talking to me.

I'm not hearing anything.

I maybe, and the devil comes in there.

He's hot on it.

And he's like, yeah, you ain't the Christian you thought you were.

You don't believe what you say.

You believe you are an imposter.

That's his favorite.

You are an imposter.

If they knew about your past, I've told them about my past.

If they knew about your past, they wouldn't listen to a word you say.

You weren't called.

You still are mine.

But see, I grew up around fruit trees.

In the winter, that's when the most magical thing happens.

Because then it says in the verse that his leaves won't wither.

That means it won't die.

The tree isn't going to die as long as it is planted in the water.

The water is Christ.

But in the winter, the sap gets low.

Some people know what that means.

That means the sap, the lifeblood of that tree comes out of those limbs and comes down into its trunk.

And the tree begins to focus its energy in a different way.

It focuses down.

The roots get fatter.

The taproot goes deeper into the ground waters.

See, in that place, this is the place where you need to dig in.

And if you're not hearing him read more, if you're not hearing him pray more, continue and trust this process, because that spiritual winter that you're in is the only way that there will be a spiritual spring where blossoms come.

But let me tell you about the blossoms.

Before you bear a single piece of fruit, the blossoms will have to die.

The blossoms have to fall off.

They smell nice.

They're pretty.

They're not apples.

But this is it, because those blossoms, that's a feeling.

And it's just like when you first got saved.

You remember?

When you first got saved, you felt the Holy Spirit rush in, and you were like, ooh, ooh, ooh.

Everywhere you went, like, hey, you know about Jesus?

I'm going to tell you about Jesus.

You know about Jesus?

Jesus loves me.

I don't know about you, but he loves me.

And everything felt so good, man.

Every worship song here, you're like, oh, this is my jam.

Oh, this is my jam.

But you're not meant to stay there.

That's good.

God gives you this honeymoon period, because we're in a marriage.

That's a honeymoon.

Just like some of us, like Mike and Barb, they've been married for like 120 years.

When they first got married, they had all the butterflies and stuff, but it wasn't until those butterflies flew that true intimacy could happen.

It wasn't until all those feelings started to go away and choices had to be made.

That's when intimacy happens.

So if that's you, maybe you've been a believer for the last year and you feel like something is broken.

I don't know.

I can't feel him.

No, you just don't feel the way that you felt before, because you are maturing.

You are growing.

Now it is a choice to open up my Bible.

Now I have to choose to turn on the worship music.

Now I have to choose to sit down in the awe of God, raise my hands, bear my heart, lay down my burden.

I have to choose it.

Stop chasing feelings.

That's what has you bouncing from church to church to church to church, because I just want to get that feeling back.

Stop following people.

Church isn't just about seeing your friends.

Church is about a people that you can get under the identity of that house and you can start to do work with, and in this body, you ain't going to like everybody.

I love everybody.

I really want to like everybody.

I'm trying to like ...

I'm just kidding, but it's okay if there's some people in that group of people that you don't agree with.

We bounce around from thing to thing because we're chasing a feeling.

The media has taught you that your marriage is all about feelings.

I'm not in love anymore.

You've been together 10 years.

Of course you're not in love anymore.

Choose it.

It's still the man that you married, still the woman that you married, still the one that you're in covenant with, not just a covenant between you and him or you and her, covenant between you, him, her, and God.

In that in this winter season, if I'll allow it, something amazing can happen.

It's okay for it to hurt.

It's okay to feel like you are not producing fruit because it has to produce its fruit in its season.

Sometimes you'll feel like you ain't got any fruit because you're looking at somebody else who's in a season of blossom, who's in a season of fruiting right now.

But God has you in that winter so that, everybody say so that, he can grow you.

Spiritual winters are real and they're good.

If you'll use them for what God means them for, dig deeper into his word, be strengthened and to prepare for the blossom and the harvest the same.

Last thing I wrote down was don't give up before the harvest.

It's so easy when we're in spiritual winters to get frustrated because of the lies of the the enemy and quit.

We even have a cool Christianese word for it called deconstructing.

I'm deconstructing my faith.

It's a fun way of saying that I've gone apostate.

Something has gotten into my brain and I have become spiritually stupid.

Suddenly I have forgotten all of the places that I have seen God move.

Suddenly I have been blinded by the thought processes of the media, the thought processes of my family, the thought processes of all this other stuff, and I've forgotten the only thing I've ever seen that was truly true in my entire life.

Deconstruction, tearing down what God has built.

It's just a fancy word for I don't feel him anymore and I'm gonna throw a tantrum and forget all the good things he's done for me.

I'm gonna look God in his face and tell him that he can't fix my problems or grow me in them.

How many times have we, as believers, looked God in the face, picked up our burden again, and said, you know what, I don't think you can handle it.

I just don't think that you can rock this one, God.

I think this problem's too big.

You're probably gonna need my help because I know what's best for me.

Like, I've been me my whole life, God.

Like, I know what I need.

Church, we're meant to mature in our faith.

Trees don't become very fruitful until they mature, till they grow up a little bit.

Apple tree becomes its most fruitful when it's about five years old, five to 10.

That's when it starts to bear apples.

But as it gets a little older, it bears more and more.

Where I'm from, everybody's got an apple tree.

Some of them are real old, too.

They're still bearing fruit.

Some of us in here, 70, 80, 90, we bear a lot more fruit now than we did when we were 30.

Church isn't a young man's game.

It's an every person's game.

Not one apple will show up on that tree until the blossoms fall off.

Just like in our earthly marriages, True intimacy comes when the butterflies fly away.

It's the same with God.

I'm gonna ask you today not to chase a feeling, not to chase the chills and the encouragement of man, but to chase the truth and live a life that is dedicated to the creator.

Dedicated.

He gave his life for me, so I've given my life to him.

I'm not worried about the winter.

I'm not worried about this new storm.

I'm not worried about this new struggle.

He's the same God that speaks to the storm, speaks to the wind and the waves and they hush immediately.

He hasn't changed.

I'm changing.

God isn't worried about your comfort nearly as much as he's worried about your character.

But sometimes you won't have all the answers and you won't know where the path is leading.

You'll need to just do the next right thing.

I want you to think on that for just a second.

And those times when you feel like I don't have any direction, I don't know where God's taking me.

I don't know what to do in this season.

It's so hard to hear.

Just do the next right thing, but do something.

Don't just lay there.

Galatians 6.9 says, and let us not grow weary of doing good.

For in due season, we will reap if we do not give up.

Keep going.

No matter what season you're in, keep showing up, keep serving.

Worship when you can't feel it.

Read when you don't want to.

Don't give up and reap the harvest if you don't stop two feet before the goal line.

We have work to do.

There's a whole world out there that doesn't know who we know.

They don't know who we are.

Jesus gave us all the same mission.

Doesn't matter whether you're producing pears or apples or pecans in here.

Your mission's the same.

Go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Take my name, make it famous to the ends of the earth.

Reflect me, be what you are.

Jesus says in Matthew 9, 37 through 35, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Remember where you came from.

Remember why you believe, because someone loved you enough to tell you about this incredible Jesus, about this incredible God.

I know some of you have gone through a lot of things.

Some of you have gone through things that were unfair, that you were too young to deal with, that you were not ready for, that no one could deal with.

Some of us have lost children.

Some of us have lost spouses.

Some of us have been in abusive relationships, and you're like, man, where was God in that place?

I was that.

I grew up in a terrible environment until I realized who was between me.

For 18 years of my life, it was nothing but a hard season.

It was pretty much created by other people.

After that, there were a lot more hard seasons that were created by me.

So I looked back and I was mad at God.

God, why would you let that happen?

Why would you let me feel all that pain?

Why would you let that abuse continue?

Why would you let me take those licks?

And then I got this vision not long ago in my mind of me there and the abuser there.

And then Jesus shows up.

He doesn't tackle him.

He doesn't body slam him.

He doesn't choke slam him like Stone Cold Steve Austin.

He covers me.

He took the beating for me.

The little bit that I have to experience in this life, the small inconveniences, because nothing can compare to what he gave for me.

No hardship that I've undergone, nothing that I've experienced, no pain that has hit this body is anything like the pain of swallowing the cup of wrath, swallowing my sin for eternity so that God could treat me like I'd live Jesus' life.

So in that, if you're in that storm right now or you're in that season, you're in that spiritual winter, understand that you're not alone.

You've never been alone in your life.

Long before you ever said his name, long before you prayed some prayer, he has been loving you.

He has been working things out for you.

Thousands of miracles in your life that you won't even know about because he did it before you ever got a chance to see the trouble that was coming at you, before you got a chance to see that storm that was brewing right off the coast of your life.

Right here in this place, I want you to lay it down.

You've been carrying it too long and you're not built for it, you're not strong enough, but us together collectively, we can see it blossom.

We can see a season of incredible fruit.

Church, our church has been in a spiritual winter the last couple of months, and that's okay.

It's good because God is the author of the season.

God tells the sun to rise, God tells the sun to go down, God tells the day to become a new day, and tomorrow will be another day.

But if we would sit here for a second and accept what's going on and understand that it might not look good for me and my finances right now, it might not look good for me and my marriage right now, that there is a God who sits on a throne and cares about every one of them, every one of them and every problem you have, He's already working out.

But your focus will determine your experience.

So will you experience Him?

Will you lay down your inhibitions, your pride, your worry of somebody else seeing you go to a cross and let today be the day that you come down or you say right where you are and you pray hard and you say, God, I'm done.

I'm ready to move into whatever season you want me to move into.

God, grow me, whatever it looks like.

If it's hard, I'll keep on walking.

If it's easy, I'll praise you.

If it's hard, the next time I'll praise you in that because I will see you work over and over and over in my life so that I have a testimony so that I can tell others about the goodness of my God.

Look where I was, but look where I am.

Look what God has done in my life.

In a minute, they're gonna play a song and I want you to respond.

And you don't have to make some big show.

You can stay where you are.

You can come down here.

You could be crazy bold and have one of these prayer warriors pray over you.

I promise you won't leave the same.

It's not some fake thing that we're doing, some, you know, theatrics.

They got the spirit in them and God's blessed them with this gift.

But let's all together collectively use our gifts and let's glorify our great God.

Father, thank you for today.

God, thank you that we get this opportunity every Sunday, that we live in a country where men and women have died and given their lives so that we might worship you in every way that the Bible says we ought to.

God, I ask that you would glorify yourself in this room today.

God, I ask that your presence would be so thick we could hardly breathe.

God, I ask that as we worship you in this next song, the chains would break, that spiritual curses and generational curses would break, that we would hear chains at the floor.

God, I ask that today would be the day, and I cry out to you for the one that doesn't know you, that today would be the day that they say, God, I'm done doing things my way.

I repent of my sin and I give it to you, Lord.

Will you forgive me?

Spirit, I invite you into my heart so that you can guide me all the days of my life.

Father, we love you.

We give you glory.

And all God's children said, amen.