It's Just a Season

So if you got your phone and you're taking notes or a notebook , I want you to write this down in your notes . It's just a season . Everybody just say real loud it's just a season , it's just a season . How many of you in here have siblings ? Raise your hand . Yeah , a lot of you got siblings , all right , real quick .

If you are the oldest , raise your hand , oldest sibling . If you are the youngest sibling , raise your hand . My hand's in the air this time I'm the youngest , all right . So a lot of you in here you got siblings . I got an older sister . I got an older sister Her name is Dana and me and my sister were four years apart .

And me and my sister one day , when I was like seven , we were hanging out and she we were doing something . I don't know what we were doing , but we were doing something with books . I don't know why . We were doing something with books and we were hanging out and we were talking , and the older siblings in the room can relate to this .

If you have younger siblings , they annoy the crap out of you . Yeah , you can respond . It's OK . Yeah , we know , I was the younger sibling that annoyed the crap out of my older sister . I did it on purpose , and all your younger siblings they do it on purpose too . Don't let them fool you .

And so I was doing something to annoy my older sister and , like older siblings , what they do when they get annoyed is they retaliate and they beat you up . So my sister decided to take these books that we were dealing with . There was four hard covered books in her hand and she's like my little brother is ticking me off right now .

She took four hard covered books and she threw them at my face , just took them , pelted them right at my face as hard as she could . I mean , she was from me to Journey , you taking notes about me and my sister throwing books . Yeah , that's what I thought . You want me to take it . She was about from here to Journey .

So my sister that's me , journey's me she was from here through four hard covered books right at my face as hard as she could Y'all . It made me so mad . It made me so mad . Has anybody ever done that to their siblings ? Have you ever physically harmed your sibling before ? Maybe not in a book way .

Yeah , I'm not saying you should do it , but don't do it . But hey , sometimes they need it . My sister got revenge , though , when I got older and got bigger . She's not that big anymore , I'm like 10 times her size , so it's good Anyway , but she threw these four hard covered books . Man , and I , just as a seven year old , what do I do ?

I mean , I started crying . I was a baby back then , so I started bawling my eyes out and I just started crying . I just let it out and I was so mad and so frustrated . And any younger sibling , when the older sibling does something , what do you do as older siblings ? You look at them and you go .

Don't you dare tell mom and dad , don't you dare tell my parents and they'll do something worse , right ? Any older siblings done this in the room . You threaten your . Ok , you're all lying right now in church . But my sister , she did that to me and I was like she doesn't know , but I'm going to tell her Soon .

As my mom got home , I remember , running out to the driveway , went straight to my mom and I was like mom , first off she gave me a black eye , full on black eye . I was like , look what Dana did to me and I was just crying and just belting it out .

I was told on her I'm pretty sure she got in trouble , I don't know , but she didn't like me afterwards . That's all I'm going to say . But in that moment I felt all these emotions Like I was a baby and cried . I was so mad and angry at her . I was frustrated because she threw four hardcovered books . How dare she ? Why not the softcovered ones ?

Why did I got to be hardcovered and I was so emotional . Anybody in here emotional ? It's OK to be emotional . I'm emotional , all right , I'm emotional . And in that moment I was so emotional I was revengeful , all of these different things .

But just because in that moment I was feeling all of these different feelings doesn't mean that in that moment I was defined by those emotions . I was a seven-year-old kid . Obviously I'm going to cry . But today , if you know me and if you don't know me , I'm going to tell you I'm not a crier . Ask my wife . She like begs me to cry in certain situations .

She's like please cry for me . I can't cry . Anybody can't cry in the room . You're just not a crier . Good , there's no shame . Most guys we can relate to this right now , because most guys are not criers OK , girls , it's a different story . It's OK , you guys have the feeling to cry , we don't . Ok , but I'm not a crier anymore .

Back then , heck , yeah , I was a crier , I let all the tears go , ok . But just because in that moment I was crying does not mean I'm defined now as a person who cries , right . And I think in today's day and age and we're talking about emotions tonight in today's day and age , I think a lot of times we label ourselves by how we feel .

What do I mean by that ? When maybe I feel sad , I'm now going to label myself as a sad person . Oh , I'm just a sad person . Or maybe you've been sad in a situation around other people and now those people see you as a sad person . So now they label you as oh bro , josh is just a sad person , he's just a sad dude .

Or maybe you've been angry more often than not , and now you're angry around friends .

Maybe you've been in an angry situation , you've shown your anger and now your friends maybe have labeled you as ah Josh , bro , he's just an angry person and we label maybe ourselves , but also we get labeled by other people , and other people are telling us who we are based on our emotions , and maybe you can relate to this tonight .

Maybe you can't , that's okay , but I believe a lot of times we're labeled by how we feel and I want to encourage you tonight , so maybe you're taking notes and you want to write this down . You aren't defined by how you feel .

I think there's somebody in this room that needs to hear that , because you think you're defined by how you feel right here , right now . Maybe you're going through a season . It's just a season . Maybe you're going through a season right now in life . Maybe something's going on in your life . You're angry all the time .

Maybe you're sad all the time , maybe you're frustrated all the time and you have labeled yourself as that thing . Can I tell you you are not defined by how you feel . You are not defined by how you feel . See , satan , if you didn't know , and you're new to church , you're new to this idea of Christianity . You're new to Jesus .

Can I tell you there's a guy out there in the world . His name is Satan , and this dude wants to take you out . If you didn't know this , satan is a guy who wants to tempt you to do all the wrong things . All the wrong things . He wants to lead you down a path that you are not supposed to walk down .

And see , satan , he wants nothing more than to make you feel terrible about yourself . He wants you to beat yourself up , and not only that , but he wants to keep you right there . So he wants you to label yourself as an angry person . He wants you to label yourself as an anxious person . He wants you to label yourself as a person who bullies other people .

He wants you to label yourself as all of these things , because once you label something , it's hard to change it . You can't go into the store , take off a label on a cereal box and put it on a different cereal box . It just doesn't work . You can't do it . You can't change the label on a cereal box . So we think we can't change the label on our life .

But see , that's what the enemy wants to do , is he wants you to believe that you're stuck . He wants you to believe that you can't change who you are and how you feel .

But see , I want to encourage you and that's why tonight the title of this message is called it's Just a Season , because in life you will go through seasons . What do I mean by season ? See , if you didn't know this , we have seasons here in Illinois . Does anybody know how many seasons ? We have Four . We have four seasons here . What are they ?

Winter , spring , summer and fall . Every single season we have pretty much lasts about three months and every single one of those seasons they last about three months . And then guess what we step into the next season and then after that we step into the next season . These seasons aren't meant to last forever . Remember that Seasons are not meant to last forever .

But see , when you're stuck in a season in your life , you think it's going to last forever . I've been in multiple seasons of my life . I'm going to talk about one of my seasons later tonight in the end of my message .

I've been through a lot of seasons where , in that moment , where I'm feeling angry , frustrated , upset , sad , whatever , I'm like man , this is just going to last forever . I'm never going to get out of this season . I'm never going to get out of how I'm feeling . I'm never going to get away from this .

But see , seasons come and go and I think somebody in here needs to hear that , because you're walking through some kind of season and you're saying to yourself it's never going to change . I'm always going to feel like this See , we are leaving the season right now , summer and we're heading into fall . And fall is amazing . Who loves fall ?

Cold weather hallelujah , I'm ready for it . Okay , I live in an apartment that has AC units and the other day , when it was like 99 degrees outside , my apartment was like 80 when I was going to bed . Anybody ever sleep in an 80 degree house when you're going to bed ? Not fun , all right .

So I'm ready for winter , all right , I'm ready for cold , okay , but we're about to go into fall , and summer only lasted three months . See , whatever it is , you are walking through your pain , maybe hurt . Maybe you're in a season of worry . Maybe you're in a season of frustration . Maybe you're in a season of being anxious , just all the time , just anxious .

Maybe you're in a season of depression . Maybe you're in a season where something bad happened to you in your life , maybe with your family , maybe you personally . Every season is meant to be over . It's not meant to last , and your emotions , what you walk through , will only last for a season . See , so often I think we like to hide our problems .

And see , I wanna encourage you with this tonight because when we're talking about seasons and what we go through , see , I want you to understand this A season will only end if you give it to God . And I want you to hear me , because so often I think we like to hide our problems . I think we like to cover up what we're walking through In this generation .

We have to go to school and we have to act like we have it all together . We go to school , we have to act like we're the cool guy . We have to go to school and we have to act like everything's chill . We come to church and we have to act like somebody else . See , I talked about that last week pretending to be somebody that you're not .

And we have to hide what we're going through , because if we show any emotions , we show what we're actually dealing with . People might look at us differently .

And I mainly wanna speak to the guys in the room right now , because girls , it's still struggle for you , but I know girls it's easier to share , maybe with other people , but for guys it's not cool to talk about things . It's not cool to tell people or tell our bros in a game night Yo-Bruh , I'm really depressed lately that just doesn't come up .

We're never in a circle or an opportunity where guys just vent their feelings . All right , girls , you have your slumber parties and that's just . You . Guys talk , okay , this is what happens . Guys , we play video games , we beat each other up , that's what we do , okay , so we don't talk about our emotions , we just fight each other .

That's how we deal with it . But we like to hide our problems . See , we all have stuff that we walk through and I think a lot of times we like to hide our problems in . Like when your parents tell you to clean your room , sometimes you clean your room , but sometimes you just shove everything under the bed or in the closet .

Right , don't deny it , don't lie . We lying . Okay , we're in church and we like to hide stuff . We're like mom comes into the room , hey , clean your room , okay , I'm just gonna throw everything in the closet so that when mom opens the closet it falls on her . You know , and we hide everything .

But see , guess , what happens is I just explained it right there it's eventually you gotta open that closet door and eventually it's gonna come out and eventually you're gonna have to deal with the mess .

Or eventually you're gonna shove so much stuff under your bed that it's gonna come to the point where you can't fit anything else and eventually you're gonna have to clean out the bed . You're gonna have to clean out from under the bed . It's the same thing with your life .

Can I tell you , the more that you hide , the more that you retreat and the more that you deny what you're walking through , can I tell you , one day it might be years from now , it might be tomorrow , but one day you're gonna snap and everything's just gonna explode out of you like a cannon , and it's gonna be cause you hid so much in your life and you

denied what you were feeling and you retreated how you were feeling and you hid how you were feeling . See , a season will end when you talk about it . A season in your life , what you walk through in life , will end when you give it to God . You gotta do something with it . You gotta do something with the mess in your room .

You gotta do something with the mess in your life . You can't just ignore it . You can't just run away from it , you can't just hide from it , because one day you will have to deal with it . And can I tell you how do you deal with it ? Is you give it to God ? You give it to Him .

See , I wanna talk about something that last year came to my mind and had a lot of students tell me that they didn't know how to do this , and I wanna talk about a subject called prayer . Anybody ever heard of the word prayer ? Raise your hand . If you've heard of prayer , cool .

I wanna talk about prayer , because this is one of the easiest ways , every single day , for you to give what you're walking through to God . See , prayer gives you a safe place to bring your intense feelings to God , gives you a safe space . Prayer can be a transformative encounter with God .

See , there's a week that we had called Mission Peoria and a lot of students in this room went to this week , and I wanna talk about one of the nights and a couple of people in the room . You already know where I'm going with this One night at Mission Peoria .

So , basically , mission Peoria was a week-long missions trip where every single day we would serve the community . We would come back , we would do a Metro Kids , teach kids about Jesus . We would come back to a church and we would worship just like what you had up here .

We would worship , have fun , dance , and then we would hear a message and then afterwards we would go into small groups , which we're gonna do tonight . Then we would go into small groups and every single night we did this Monday , tuesday , wednesday , thursday , friday , every night , every single night , in small groups .

I would ask our guys I had the guys for our group every single night . I would ask them how was that , how was the message ? Blah , blah , blah , the whole shindig . And then at the end I'd be like , does anybody have anything they want prayer for ? Maybe in your life , maybe what you saw today , maybe what's going on ?

And we got Monday , tuesday , wednesday in and we maybe had like a few prayers , tiny prayers , basic things , that just it was all right , it was chill . We got to Thursday night and I don't know what happened Thursday night . But I asked the same question and I said , yo , anybody got any prayer requests ?

And one after another , the guys in the circle just began to say things that they were going through , things that they were struggling with , things that they were dealing with hey , I need prayer for this , I need prayer for my family , I need prayer for myself and they just began to list deep things that they were walking through .

After everybody pretty much said something , I started to pray . I was like , all right , let's pray about these things .

We began to pray in that moment and what happened was is that each student pretty much gave something to God , and what happened is is I was praying , as I went down the list of every single person's thing , every single time I prayed for somebody , that person that asked for prayer just began to weep , just began to cry .

And I'm sorry , boys , if I'm embarrassing you . You don't have to say you went to Mission Pure , it's fine . I'm not gonna call anybody out . But at the end of this prayer , I got pretty much to the end and I realized that everyone was crying . I was crying . I'm just gonna out Derek and Corey . We were crying .

We were a hot mess , all right , we were crying , everyone was crying . And I say this story because in that moment , we had given what we were going through to God and we trusted him with it . We said , lord , we need you to take this , we need you to take this burden because we can't hold it anymore .

And we gave it to God and God began to transform our hearts . He began to transform our life and I'm pretty sure every guy that was in that circle can say they came away different than what they stepped into that circle that night . So if we let God work in our life , we will come away changed forever .

But see , that's the key word in there is we have to let him do it . It starts with us giving it to him . See , there's a scripture version James 4-8 that says this draw near to God and he will draw near to you . It doesn't say God will draw near to you and then you can draw near to him .

No , the first thing that it says is it says draw near to him . You I'm talking to all of you you draw near to him first and then he will come next to you . He will draw near to you . See , prayer is an opportunity for your struggles to meet God's power . It's an opportunity for you to give what you're walking through .

Give it to him and say , lord , I need you because I can't do it on my own . Can I just tell you and be real honest with you I don't care how physically strong you are , every single person in this room is weak Mentally . We are weak and we cannot live this life on our own .

If you think you're going to walk through this life on your own , you're going to handle every pain , suffering , hurt that you walk through by yourself . Can I tell you You're doing yourself a disfavor because you have a God who loves you so much that died for you and says I want to take your burden so you don't have to carry them .

It's a free thing he's asking for . I don't know about you , but I don't want to carry a burden . I don't want to carry pain , I don't want to carry hurt or suffering . There's a scripture reverse , john 15.5 that says I am the vine , you are the branches . Whoever abides in me and I in him , he it is that bears much fruit .

For apart from me , you can do nothing , apart from Jesus , we can do nothing . We can do nothing without him , which means every day we need to invite him in , every day we need to give our pain to him , every day we need to give our suffering to him , and can I just say he wants you to give it to him .

I think a lot of times we step into this space and we go . When we step into church we're like but I'm too broken , I've gone through too much , I've gone through too much pain , I've gone through too much hurt . I can't do I . No one wants my mess , no one wants to hang out with me . If people knew what I did , it wouldn't end well .

Can I just say he wants you , he doesn't care ? Can I tell you he actually already knows . So you may as well just give it to him anyway , because he already knows . He just wants you to give it all to him .

John 15 , 16 says you did not choose me , but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide , so that whatever you ask the Father in my name , he may give it to you . So he chose you . He chose you . God is with you and he chose you . He wants everything from you .

But I think the thing we miss a lot is that we don't give it to him . I think a lot of people we come into church , we come into an environment like this and we hear about Jesus , we're like , yeah , I accept my life to Jesus , but then we go and do whatever we want to do , but we forget the part where we need to actually put in some effort .

A lot of people just think church is like I'll show up on Sunday and I'm chilling and I'm good . God wants so much more from that than just you to show up on a Sunday and act like you care . God wants you to show up and listen . He wants you to show up and enjoy and engage in what he wants to do in your life .

Zephaniah 3.17 says the Lord , your God , is in your midst , a mighty one who will save . He will rejoice over you with gladness . He will quiet you by his love . He will exalt you over you with loud singing . See , god still hears you and feels you , even when you don't feel him . Even when you don't feel him , he is with you every single

step of the way . I want to share with you a season that I'm going through . I told you at the beginning I got a season and a lot of you have known this , maybe if you're new within the last few weeks . Me and my wife . We are walking through a season of trying to have a baby . We want to start a family . We're super excited about this .

But a lot of you already know this . But over the last year we have had two miscarriages . In the last year trying to have a baby , my wife she's had two miscarriages and actually two surgeries on top of it too to help us have a child . And every single day I have prayed Lord .

We just want to have a child , we just want to have a kid , we want to start a family . And every day I pray over and over and over again Lord , if this is your will , let us be able to have this . And it's not easy when you're walking through this season . When we had the first miscarriage , it was hard , so hard , and then we had the .

Then we got pregnant again . We were super excited , but then immediately after that , miranda's like I , it's another miscarriage and we just knew and it became so hard to have something just ripped away from you . I Don't know if anybody's ever experienced that .

I don't know if you've ever had that happen to you before , but it's literally just like somebody just gives you a gift at Christmas and it says psych and then takes a sledgehammer to it and wax it and it's like nope , you don't get that anymore , and it really just hurts . And so this past year we've been having a season Of just wanting a child .

So I don't know what your season is . I Don't know what you're walking through in your journey . I don't know what you're wanting to pray for . I don't know what you're looking for in life . I Don't know what you're hoping to get out of life .

And maybe and I believe that tonight there's a lot of you in this space that are feeling a lot of emotions that you have defined yourself with for so many years and if you're really honest with yourself in this time and in this space , and you allowed God to speak to you in this moment , right here , right now , I'm sure he's put something on your heart

already . I'm sure there's something Seeing . I believe tonight God doesn't want you to hold on to it . God doesn't want you to continue walking with this burden on your shoulders , and so we're gonna do something , like we did last week , and I'm gonna give you that opportunity To maybe give it to him .

And this is up to you whether you want to engage in this moment , but we're gonna sing , the team is gonna sing a song , lead us in worship , and I'm gonna invite my leaders .

If you're a leader in the room , I just want you to get up now and and we're just gonna do another prayer , and so our leaders are gonna get up and they're gonna come up front and it's just we're opening the field up for you .

If there's maybe something in your life man like me , that I've just been praying for this over and over and over again , god has an answer that I haven't seen results . Our leaders are up here .

Maybe you met your small group leader last week and you're like man , I'm gonna go talk to him , I'm gonna go talk to her , I'm gonna ask for them to pray for me . But in this moment , I just want you to try to encounter God for a second , and maybe you've never been in an environment like this . That's okay . Maybe you don't know what's going on .

You're like this bro's been talking way too long . I don't get anything . He's saying I don't understand anything . The band's doing like what is this a party ? Whatever you church like I don't know what we're doing , that's okay . The biggest thing is , I just want you to encounter God tonight and that starts with you opening your heart up and going .

You know I have messed up in life . I got some stuff that I'm praying through or I wish that would be different in my life . Trust me , I wish I would have a kid right now . Could you imagine me with a kid ? Exactly ? But I wish we would have had a baby back in May . If that first , first pregnancy would have gone through , we'd had a four month old .

So , trust me , the I'm walking through stuff . Our leaders , they're walking through stuff . So I know y'all are walking through stuff .

So I'm gonna give you an opportunity tonight for a few minutes To just take a second . Be like yo . I just need some prayer so you can come up and get some prayer . Maybe you don't want to , maybe that's okay . Maybe you might be embarrassed that's fine . Maybe you might be scared that's okay .

Maybe it's just you taking a seat somewhere in this room we got like 1300 seats in this room . Maybe it's you finding a corner and just being like yo . I'm gonna spend some time with myself and think through my life and pray for yourself . Maybe it's you want to stand where you're at and maybe it's it's gonna be y'all .

I'm just gonna look at the lyrics on the screen as they sing and just allow those words to just speak to me . So in this moment , whatever you want to do , we're gonna open the floor , but what we're not gonna do Is be a distraction for somebody else to be able to encounter God tonight .

So if you don't want to participate , that's fine , no one's making you . But my encouragement is that you do not distract somebody else from being able to hear from God . So I just want everybody to stand up real quick . I'm gonna pray . The team is gonna lead us in a song . Maybe it's a song you've heard before , maybe it's a song you've never heard before .

That's okay , just go with the motions , go with the flow , but our leaders are up here to pray with you . This is an opportunity for the next five minutes for you and God to have a moment . So let's just pray , lord . I just thank you for tonight , lord , I just thank you for the opportunity that you have right now to speak to us .

And , lord , I give every single student up to you right now . Lord , I just say I pray that they open their hearts to you in this moment , whatever it is that they're walking through , whatever it is that they're dealing with God . I pray that you just speak to them , you challenge them , lord , and that you just begin to work inside of them like never before .

So , god , we give this moment to you and we just say have your way In the Jesus name , amen .