Randy Meeks, the horror film fanatic from the movie Scream, declared that “The horror genre was destroyed by sequels.” And while he may have a point (we’re looking at you, Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan), we beg to differ! Because sometimes a horror movie sequel breaks new territory, pushes its story into uncharted places, and, on rare occasions, is superior to the original. And that’s why this #SpookySZN, we’re creeping into our own scary sequel; once again learning what to do when we find out the movie of our life has become a horror flick. So grab some popcorn, turn off all the lights, and join us as we find out how following Jesus can help us survive the deadly mistakes and wrong turns that have taken the lives of so many others.

Running from the killer never goes well. The protagonist falls down, they get cornered, they hurt themselves—and in the end, the killer always catches up. So what if the best way to survive a horror movie is to face the killer head on? You see, it’s time to stop running away from the battle. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead is alive and He is empowering you—it’s time to start acting like it!

Wonderful. I want to say Happy Halloween. It's good to see everybody today. I hope that you guys had a good weekend. Little Halloween weekend. Does anybody get any good candy? Are we more chocolate candy or fruit candy people? Chocolate, chocolate peanut butter. The third category peanut butter I've missed. I don't know how I missed that one. But yeah, it's good to see everybody. Happy Halloween, everybody watching online too. We are finishing out our How to still survive a horror movie series. I honestly have no idea how we're here. It felt it feels like we went from October 1 to October 31 and three days. But here we are the final day of the month and we are finishing this series. I hope that you've enjoyed it. I hope it's been helpful. If you've missed any of these, make sure that you go online and check out the service archive we've had for weeks previous that you may have missed out on looking at different common horror movie tropes, different themes that we see pop up in horror movies all the time, and how in the middle of those there are actually a lot of truth, little nuggets of truth that we can actually see in Scripture to these little these themes that keep recurring over and over again, we can see wow, these actually pop up in my own life. And here's what scripture has to say about that idea. So we've talked about getting ourselves a tune-up making sure that our faith can start whenever we find ourselves in horror movie moments in life we've talked about a be wearing where we build what we talked about last week, this idea that we don't want to build on the foundation of dead things, right that we want to build on the foundation of Jesus as the solid rock and on him alone. So that's where we've been, like I said, for weeks, make sure you go check them out if you've missed them. But today, what we're going to be talking about in our time together is probably the most common horror movie trope that there is it's the most common reoccurring theme that you see over and over and over again. And that is this that in horror movies, out of the 99% of all deaths that occur 99% of them are people running away from the killer, and they get killed, right? Like pretty much every person that dies in a horror movie dies in this motion like their mid-sprint, their mid-run. They're trying to get away from the killer, and it goes horribly wrong. My wife and I just went we had a date night the other night we went and saw very the rom-com of the season Halloween kills. the family film, right mister feel-good movie. We went and saw the new Halloween movie. And let me tell you, it's constant running. Right? It's just constant running from the bad guy. If you took that, like if you were able to digitally alter the movie, to renew, remove the knives from it. You would think that it was just like you're watching the Boston Marathon or something because it's just people running away, people running away. And terrible things happen. Every single time these people run away from Michael Myers every single time. People they run and they trip over, you know, air, they just tripped over the air and then they break their leg and then oh, well he's walking towards them and catches up, right people. They're trying to run away from them. And this is one of the worst things that they turn their back on him and they start running and then they turn around and they've lost sight of him. He's disappeared now. And now he's gonna pop up who knows where right? And then there are just the people who just run and they run right into them. They think they're running away, and they run right into them. And it just goes to show in all of these movies, not just the Halloween movies, and all these horror movies, running is just never a good option. It never works out. All that it does. All that it does is delay the inevitable. We're watching this movie and I'm thinking to myself, what Save your strength, save it, you're going to need it. Because at the end of that run, guess who's going to be there? The killer is like he's waiting for you. You need to save some energy so you can square up because let me tell you, you're not going to be able to outrun him. He's inevitable. He's at the end of every run that you make. And I say all of that, to say this horror movie moments in your life moments that crop up, where life throws you a curveball and you find yourself in this terrifying situation. Horror Movie Moments are a lot like Michael Myers, they're inevitable. It doesn't matter if you run doesn't matter. If you try to get away you try to flee. No matter how quickly you run, no matter how fast you take off. They seem to come up out of nowhere. And what I want to challenge you today and I'm challenging myself in the same breath. What I want to challenge us today is as we look at our life in See horror movie moments that we find ourselves in? What I want to challenge you to do is stop running. Stop running, fight or flight. No, just fight. Just fight. Because when life brings those horror movie moments to your front door when you find yourself in the middle of it, fighting is the only way that you're going to get through it. It just is. And you need courage and I need the courage to get us through that. So if you will, let's bow our heads. And let's pray together real quick Heavenly Father. Today we come before your throne and we asked for courage. We asked for bravery, we asked for boldness to be able to stand up to the fights to the opposition to the challenges that we come across in life. Because of God, we know we will come across them. We know that no matter how good and how sweet life may seem at the moment, for some of us, there is another hurdle coming. There's another hiccup coming. There's another killer coming. And we want to be ready. So God go before us at this moment to give us steel in our backbones that we would be able to not run from the fights that find us but that we wouldn't say turn and face them down with you being our help. We love you. Father, we pray all this in your name. Amen. Amen. Um, I can't speak for anybody else. But I know for me, I, I would love to have a soundtrack for my life. Does anybody else hip to that idea? Anybody online? I would love to have my life would be 12 times cooler than it currently is. If I had a soundtrack was playing behind me for every moment that I find myself and one thing that I really liked about soundtracks and again, we just seeing this movie Halloween kills it. It re-asserted the reason why soundtracks are so great. One of the things about soundtracks that are awesome, that would be great to have in my own personal life, is they give little cues to what's about to happen. So you're watching the movie and like a character, they're having. It's like a legal drama, right? And one, one guy's telling another character like, hey, look, I'm, I'm going to give you a little bit of information, but you got to take this to your grave. You can't tell anybody. And he's like, oh, I swear, I won't tell a soul. And all of a sudden you hear Doom dude? Oh, no, like, you hear dramatic music come and you're like, oh, that dude's gonna talk. He's gonna sing like a canary. He's gonna tell everybody what's going on. Because the soundtracks given you the cue like this, dude, he's gonna spill it to everybody. And I wish I could have that in my own life where I could know, at the moment, hey, something's happening here. Like, I know, you're hearing one thing I know, you're seeing one thing, but this is actually pretty important. Right? On Halloween, they have a soundtrack that lets you know something important is about to happen. You can kind of tune out watching the movie. But as soon as you hear done nananana you're like, oh, wow, who's about to get there? It's like, Who's he coming for? Right? And so I and Jessica are watching the movie. And sure enough, there are characters and they're introducing them and like, Oh, they're kind of funny. I like this new character. I like the direction they're going. And then they round a corner and you hear Dunoon, and now you're like, Wow, man, I kind of liked them. That stinks. Nothing's happened yet. But you know, you know what's coming or who is coming because the soundtrack gives it away, something inevitable, is coming. And that the character may not know it, but there is nothing they can do to avoid Michael Myers. Right? They can't avoid it. And that's the thing about horror movie moments in our own lives, these moments where we suddenly find ourselves just in a desperate anxiety-inducing situation. There are three different kinds of horror movie moments, one or horror, more horror movie moments that we just completely can miss. We talked about this idea last week, be aware of where you build, we're talking about the idea that if we build on the solid foundation of Jesus, if we trust in Him, and we build the house of her life on him, that there's a whole lot of horror movie moments in our life, we can just completely avoid, we just completely avoid things, because we have made the right decision to trust in Him alone, and to put our confidence in him rather than ourselves, which is great. So there are horror movie moments that you can miss. Then there are horror movie moments that you can manage. You don't miss them, they come to your front door, and you got to manage it. We talked about this week one would get yourself a tune-up this idea of man, I'm finding myself in the middle of this terrible situation. I've got to change some things up, I got to start feeding and taking care of my faith in a new way so that I can get trust in God that I need to have to get myself through this. So there are horror movie moments, you can miss horror movie moments that you can manage. But then, unfortunately, and I hate to say this, this is not going to be a real-like, kind of sermon today. It's just not because there are some horror movie moments that are just mandatory. They just happen. You can pray. You can know it's coming. You can do all that and it comes all the Same. So there are some horror movie moments you can miss that you can manage. But there is a whole nother category. That's the category we're talking about today. The ones that are mandatory, and they just come. They're inevitable. They're Michael Myers, no matter what you do. They're there.

As a killer arrived for you I know the people in this congregation I know some of you Yes, it has some of you. It's kind of crazy the movie Michael Myers, whenever you see the credits, it never says Michael Myers played by so and so it says the shape. That's, that's what his name is in these movies, the shape because he always just seems to take shape lurking in the shadows. And I think about that I think about us, and I'm like, Well, yeah, maybe you're in a horror movie moment. And it's taken on a certain shape for you. It doesn't look the same way for everybody. But maybe your horror movie moment has looked like a miscarriage. Right. And that's scary. There's nothing you could do to prevent it. But you find yourself in the middle of it now. And it's terrifying. And it's anxiety-inducing, and it's depression-inducing. And you've got to learn how do I deal with this? How do I fight through this? Or do I run from the feelings that I'm feeling maybe you're finding yourself in the middle of friends, or have parents who are divorcing, and you've done nothing, you've tried to prevent it, and you're just stuck in it, you're stuck in the middle of it now? And it's completely changed your idea of those friends, or it's completely changed your idea of your parents and of what love is and what forever looks like. It's just completely uprooted all of those ideas for you. And you're wondering, how do I fight through this? Maybe it's your health or the health of a loved one. We have numerous people in our church who've had not just minor but major surgeries recently, like life-changing kinds of surgeries. And that's scary. That's terrifying because those are things that change your life. And its issues that these people couldn't have done anything to prevent. It just came, it just happened. They were inevitable. These mandatory horror movie moments came up in their life. I've been there. I will say this though. I've lived a pretty charmed life. Like I'm not one to be like, Man, where I came from who things were no, they were not like things were actually really good for me. Like I had a loving family. I've had a lot of good stuff go for me. Like I've been a very blessed person in so many ways. But a horror movie moment in my life was my dad's death. It was sudden, it was tragic. We didn't know this was going to happen. And the man at that moment, it was like, Whoa, how am I going to handle this? Like, how do I mean, how do I fight through these feelings that I'm having? How do I manage this in a godly way? How do I actually get through the other side? Or do I not? Do I just run from what I'm feeling guard run from the way that I'm feeling about God and about my dad and about all of these issues? And it stinks because there was nothing I could do to avoid it. It was mandatory. It wasn't a horror movie moment. I couldn't miss it. It wasn't a horror movie moment that I could just kind of manage my way out of no, it was a mandatory one that I would have to fight through. And that really is the question for us. Because those moments are coming for you. If you're not in one right now. One is coming sometime. I can't tell you when but sometimes it is coming for you. And you have the same decision as I have the same decision that everyone who has ever lived has, will we fight our way through? Or will we take a flight?

Will we fight our way through? Or will we just flee and run away from the issue and act like it's not even really an issue? Or try to numb our feelings in a different way in a relationship in a substance and something else will be fighting? Or will we flee? What will we do when the horror movie moment comes for us? I want to tell you and I mean, we know we know this is true, but I feel like I need to say fleeing. Taking Flight does not fix the problem. It just frustrates it. It just aggravates it, it just makes it worse. It just strains your relationships more I've been in this situation where I have strained relationships. And I have that moment I can see the fight coming. I see. I see the killer I'm hearing dinner and then and then and rather, rather than fighting, I'm like yep, I'm out. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna take off on I don't want to, I don't want to deal with this. I don't want to face it. I'm just gonna run and hope that the killer forgets about me or hope that I just push this off to the second act or the third act or maybe to the sequel, or the three-part like I just keep kicking this can down the road because it's scary. And I want to have those conversations because they're hard because things will change right. And what I have discovered, what I have found out is fleeing taking flight helps nothing. Nothing. If anything you noticed that The strain and the tension get worse and worse, the more you put it off, it just builds and builds. So rather than fixing anything, rather than making the killer goes away the killers there, but he's angrier than ever. But he's stronger than ever. He's worse than ever. Fleeing doesn't fix our problems and only frustrates them. The killer is still coming. He's still coming. There are certain issues that are just mandatory. There are certain issues that you just have to deal with. No one knows that better than our King. No one knows that better than Jesus. There are some things that you just have to do. There are some things that you just have to deal with. I mean, talk about a horror movie moment, the cross. Are you kidding me? Is there any worse horror movie moment than what Jesus endured on the cross Jesus's crucifixion, how brutal the agony he faced the pain, he faced the isolation, feeling separated from God? And even though Jesus knew that's what awaited him, even though Jesus knew the cross, and he was abundantly aware of what all the Cross would entail for him, even though he saw that coming. Jesus still thought when the choice was, hey, do you want to flee from this moment? Or do you want to fight Jesus decided to fight to listen to how Luke words in his Gospel, this is Luke chapter nine, verse 51? As the time approached, for him, for Jesus to be taken to heaven, he resolutely set out for Jerusalem, the city where Jesus knew he would be killed, the city where Jesus knew if I show my face in there, again, those people hate me. They're the religious leaders who cannot stand me if I go back there. And I keep doing what I do. I know where this is going to end, it's going to end on a cross. And still, he resolutely set out for Jerusalem. Because he knew this is mandatory. This horror movie moment, this thing, it's so terrifying this thing that's so scary this thing, it's going to have me weeping blood, from the pain and from the stress from the anxiety I'm feeling. It's so important. It's so important that even despite all that I'm still walking towards it, I'm still going to fight rather than flee. Jesus ran to the fight. And from Jesus's posture of running to his fight, we can learn so much. We can learn so much from what he shows us. First off, what we can see is this. No one is exempt from the fight. Nobody, no one. I don't care how good you think you are. I don't care how many people like you. I don't care if you won, Miss Congeniality, or Mr. popularity. People love you. And everyone seems to think you're a great person. I don't care if they came for Jesus. They're going to come for you. If Jesus couldn't avoid conflict, what makes you think you'll be able to skate through life without really having, you know, come to blows at some point or another with somebody else? You can't, you can't come to expect that no one is exempt. We need to expect the fight. We need to expect that there will be a confrontation at some point in our life. Jesus was the best person ever and the worst thing possible happened to him.

That should be a reality check for all of us. You want to know so Luke, I just read you Luke chapter nine, verse 51. Do you know what happens in verses one through 50? Some of just some of the things Jesus commands His followers to go out to help people to heal the sick, to give to the poor to preach the kingdom of God, they go do that. Jesus feeds 5000 People with the help of his disciples he does that. Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy cast out the demon gives this boy a chance at life again, Jesus does all those incredible self-sacrificing things. And yet he knows people are gonna want to kill me.

No one's exempt from the fight. So expected, expected to expect that the fight will come. And that's not a bad thing. Like I know like I said, this isn't a very sunny, cheery sermon today, right? Shocking that since we're talking about horror movies, that it's not sunny or cheery, right. But there's nothing bad about expecting that fights will come in life. And again, I don't mean literal fisticuffs or brouhaha or anything like that. I'm just talking about confrontation, man, it, it's gonna come and it's not a bad thing to expect that it's going to come. Because when you expect things, you prepare yourself expectation breeds preparation. The more that you expect things to happen, the more that you will prepare for them. Jesus prepared for the cross his whole life. His entire life was a step-by-step preparation for what he was going to accomplish on the cross. Think about it. Jesus was preparing the bookends of Jesus's ministry were him preparing for the cross. temptation in the desert, temptation in the garden, right? Temptation in the desert to Hey, walk away from this, I can give you everything you want, I can give you the kingdoms of the world, the glory, all you got to do is walk away from the fight Jesus, you don't need to do this all the way to the garden. Jesus, you don't need to do this, this cup, this burden is too heavy for anyone to bear. You shouldn't have to do this. There's got to be another way to ask you're just ask yourself. This kind of is another way to do this. Jesus faced all this temptation. He faced these trials, but because he was prepared because he was preparing himself, he was able to get through and he prepared himself because he expected it. He expected he knew there would be pushed back he knew that people would be coming for him and because he expected he was prepared for it. It makes me think about these movies that we were just watching the Halloween movie. So let me give you a little quick background. Um, so the original Halloween came out in 1978. And then they came out with the new sequel so they ignored all the other sequels that came out from Halloween to Halloween three, all those they acted like those never happened. And they came out with one in 2018, which was supposed to be the first true sequel to Halloween that came out in 1978. And so in Halloween 1978 Jamie Lee Curtis his character Laurie strode, she's I mean, she's just like a young, innocent high school girl. All of her friends make fun of her because she's like, such a goody-two-shoes, right. And she's babysitting kids in the neighborhood. And that's whenever Michael Myers returns back to Hayden field and, and everything goes crazy. Right? So that's her and that original one. You watch her and it's just like a little baby's face. Jamie Lee Curtis and everything. Skip forward to 2018. And what they've been preparing you for is that at the end of the 1978 movie, Michael has been arrested by the police. He's been sent back to prison. He's been in prison for 40 years. He's been this mental institution. But whenever you see Laurie, she is completely different. She isn't the little innocent, DOE-eyed girl from the first movie. She is like, you don't want to cross her. Like she's packing her house is nuts. It's got booby traps, set all over trap doors. She's got the thing ready set with explosives to like, set the house on fire. It's It's insane. Like her house is just set. And she's like a survivalist. And all of this, the whole reasoning behind it is because she knows what even though Michael's been arrested, even though he's been put in prison. I expect he's going to get out. I expect he's going to get out and I expect he's going to come for me to finish the job. And I am not going to be found by him. Like I was in 1978. This little girl has no way to really defend herself. No, I'm going to prepare. So if he comes from me, he's going to rue the day he came for me like I'm going to be ready for him. Her expectation drove her preparation. She was preparing for this moment because she expected that it would happen. We need to get there church, we need to get there. We need to expect some times that we're going to have conflict. We need to expect some times that we're going to have you know some conversations that we need to have some ways that we need to talk with people. It's uncomfortable, and it's difficult, but we need to expect it. Because if we expect it we're more likely to prepare for and this is what I want, you know, preparation. I'm not I'm not telling you to go out there asking for a fight with anybody. Preparation isn't asking for a fight preparation is being ready to answer the door. Whenever you know you need to walk through it. That's what it means to prepare. I tell that to pretty much every couple that I counsel for premarital counseling, I tell them this like man, just be prepared. Like I hate whenever people tell you, you know, marriage is the hardest thing I've ever done. Like what a way to pump someone up for marriage. Right? Like, oh, it's a battle every day, every single day like geez, man. Wow, pretty intense. I don't tell people that. But I do tell people, whenever you step into marriage, just expect that there will be conflict. So many people walk into it. Just like Lori and 1978 doe-eyed and just, oh, we're gonna always love being around each other. Everything's gonna be great. We agree about everything. And then they get into marriage. And you don't agree on everything. And there are difficulties and there are things where you're like, man, we just don't see eye to eye on this. expected that will happen. Because if you expect it and you prepare for it in a God-honoring way, you'll be ready. When those moments come you'll you'll realize we're not fighting with each other. We're fighting for each other. Like we're on the same team in this because we've been preparing for this and I know I love them with my whole heart and they love me and so we're prepared for this. We need to expect the fight because no one knows One is exempt. I would say let's not even just expect the fight. Let's welcome the fight. There's sometimes we just need to straight-up not just expected, I'm ready for it. We need to prop the door open, come on in. Come on in Michael, like, Come on, we need to welcome the fight. Because this is why the fight that you're running from might be the very thing that God's trying to draw you towards the fight that you're like, I don't want to have anything to do with this. And I just want to get away from it. It might be the very, very thing that God said, No, I stop running. I'm trying to get you here. Like I need you here. You have no idea what this is going to do for you. I need you in this fight. Listen to this. This is from Jesus's ministry. This is the conversation that he's having with his disciples, Jesus is constantly trying to lay out his game plan to his followers, and they just, every single time they just don't get it, they do not get it. So Jesus tries it again, hear this from Matthew 16 says, From that time onward, Jesus began to explain to his disciples, that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed. And on the third day raised to life, Peter, one of Jesus's closest friends and followers, took Him aside and began to rebuke him. Never Lord, He said, This shall never happen to you. Jesus turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the concerns of God but merely human concerns. You see, Peter is looking at this situation. He's looking at the situation. And he's thinking we need to run from this. Jesus if we go to Jerusalem, but you're telling us if this is true, they're going to kill you. We need to get as far away from this as we possibly can we have got to run. And Jesus is saying, Peter, you're looking at this from finite human eyes, you have no idea what my father is up to what looks like a problem to you is the whole point. I guess the whole point where you're trying to run from I need to be running towards, we can't run from this fight. There are certain horror movie moments that are mandatory, this is not a problem. It's the whole point. So what if in your life, what if in your situation, that friendship that frustrates you? What if that's the point?

What if that's the point, we don't see eye to eye on things? They're, you know, I'm conservative, they're more liberal and feel like we're just always rubbing each other the wrong way. Right? What if that's the point? What if God has brought this friendship into your life to show you that, hey, those people are people to those people or people I died for as well? What if that's the whole point, this problem that you're thinking, God, how can I like graciously back myself out of this friendship? How can I get away from this? It just feels like there's a fight on the other side of this, I need to back away and God's saying it's the point. That is the whole point. What if the problem is the point? What if God has you there for that exact reason? What if the work that you hate because it's pointless, and it just feels like, oh, just one thing after another? And it's just a slog? What if that's the point? I know it's terrible. And I know it's boring. But man, what if God is trying to do something in you to show you that even in the mundane? He can do miraculous things that he can, he can change you, and that he's saying, Look, I don't want you to be so formed by your circumstances. I want you to be formed by me. And so yes, in this season, I'm trying to teach you I'm trying to grow you and what you see is the problem I see as the point. What, what if you're in a church, and it challenges you? Oh, right. Wow. A church that doesn't line up with literally every belief I possibly have is shocking, I must flee. But what if a church doesn't believe the exact thing you believe on every single point of doctrine? And what if that is the point? What if that is the point to just show you that you know what, man there are, like 1000 denominations? Not in the hyperbolic term, but No, literally there are like 1000 denominations that all disagree on different things, and maybe being in a church where I don't agree with everything. This is showing me you know, what? The body of Christ is diverse and the body of Christ, we may not have one denomination it all gets it perfect. But together man we reflect the fullness of God in such an incredible way and what if that's the point that God is trying to show you but you're seeing it as a problem you need to get away from what if the issue what if the fight in front of you what if the whole thing is the point, to begin with? We're going to talk about this a whole whole lot more in our next series that starts next week. But man, there are some lessons that are only learned from Fight. There are some lessons that are only learned from a fight. I think it's Mike Tyson, who said, talking about going into the ring. Everybody has a plan until you get knocked in the mouth. Everybody goes in there saying like this, I'm going to do it. This is the way I'm going to take a slow round 123 that I'm going to try to come in until you get popped in suddenly everything changes. And that is so true of us. There are some things that we only learn about ourselves in the middle of a fight. There are certain things we only learn about God in the middle of a fight. And if we are constantly fleeing, constantly walking away from hard conversations, constantly walking away from taking risky steps of faith, if we're constantly doing that, we're constantly removing ourselves from situations where we don't agree with the people 100% We miss it. We miss it, we don't grow in the way that we possibly could. Because we are hindering ourselves we're hindering ourselves when the problem was the point, to begin with. Problems can grow us fights can grow as they grow us grow our faith in God, we have so many people here in our church, who I could pass the night to, they could preach a sermon about it, Mike slice an amazing, amazing man at our church. Just celebrate if I remember right, eight years of sobriety from addiction to different substances just

absolutely incredible. And I, I guarantee you, I guarantee you, if you would hear my talk, what he would tell you is, of course, if I could go back and undo everything I did, I would. But at the same time, you know what the stuff that God has taught me through this time, the stuff that God has shown me in the middle of this fight, as I've fought to break out of this addiction. I can't even tell you, I can't even tell you how much it's meant to me how it's showing me what kind of God I serve. And it's helped me be able to lead other people. And while of course, I'd I'm not saying that those decisions were the decisions that I'd make them again, but man how God has turned it and used it for good. In the middle of that fight. I learned certain things about God, I would only know because I was in the fight. We have people I mean, we just heard the testimony from Matt Ellis, I believe last week talking about different struggles that he went through as a young kid family struggles and health struggles and how in the midst of those he developed mindsets and views of God and of church and of serving that are still empowering him today. Today. In the middle of that fight, he learned something about himself and learn something about God, Pastor Brenda shared it and her here in our building campaign testimony, how trusting God with her finances in a new way, and like a more crazy way than she's ever done. And she's trusted him in some crazy ways before how he's showing up. And she's learning even new things about God and about her relationship with him. And it's all because these people did not see the fight as a problem. But as the point I'm supposed to push through, I'm supposed to come face to face with the killer and fight through I'm not supposed to flee, back down, and run. Don't avoid the fight. Don't avoid the fight, face it. Face it, even when the option to run looks really really good. Because that's what our enemy does. He makes the option to run look really, really good the enemy will use what seems good to keep you from what you should love Dr. Seuss rhyming in there. Right? Then the enemy will use what looks good to keep you from what you should Jesus. We just read it from Matthew 16. Jesus knew what he should do. He knew what God had called him to do. He knew what his mission was here on earth to initiate the kingdom of God culminated with his death, and resurrection. That's what Jesus should do. But you know what looked good. Not going on the cross. That looked really good. Right? Peter, here is Jesus explaining this saying that I'm going to go to the cross and I'm going to die. And Peter goes, what? Never, Lord, this will never happen to you. I get that. I get where Peters coming from Peter is saying like, hold on, hold on. Jesus. I've spent three years with you. Three years. I've gotten to see perfect love up close and personal. I've had breakfast with perfect love. I've lived beside perfect love my entire life. Jesus, you're the most kind, the compassionate, truthful person that has ever lived. And you're telling me you're going to go somewhere where people are going to kill you know, the world needs. You can't. You can't do this. That sounds good, doesn't it? Yeah, that sounds good. But what sounds good can absolutely 100% become the enemy of what should happen. And that's exactly what the devil does the devil. I don't think there's gonna be people in here who are tempted to like, murder somebody. I don't. I don't think that will be your temptation. What will be your temptation are those Little things that man, they look good. It looks good. And it sounds good. And you could probably use some Bible verses to justify it. Right. That's how the enemy gets us, he gets us to see something that looks good to keep us from what we should do. Whenever I and my wife Jessica moved to Cleveland to start a church plant, we had this, we had this option. What looks good, and what we should do, I gotta tell you, I've twice in my life felt God talk to me, like, not audibly, but just impressed on my heart to such a degree that I knew this is not me. That was to become a pastor and to move to Cleveland to start a church. That's it. Those are the only two things I'm very careful about, even whenever I've had stuff that I'm like, Man, is that God or not? I'm like, No, that's me. I'm not, I'm not putting that on God. Like, I don't want to pull the God card. I've only twice felt that. And so I was so certain about us moving to Cleveland. But man, Cornerstone looked good.

For us, I look good. I was leaving behind a job, and a paycheck, and family and friends and comfort and just an amazing situation with people leading an awesome church like that were on one side. And that all looked really good. But what we knew we should do was something wildly different. And it was very tempting, very tempting to just go with what looked good, very tempting. Because we could give ourselves Bible verses, we could tell ourselves what's not like, our options aren't become a drug dealer, or move to Cleveland and start a church. Well, I Oh, God, please reveal your will to us. We're gonna fast and pray to see what you want us to do in this situation. Like, it wasn't that it was, you know, a good thing and good thing. And what looked good, like what looked good, almost kept us from what we should do. And almost kept us from that. That's exactly how the enemy works. He wants to keep you from what you should do by introducing something good to you. That is why man and I can see it in your eyes like, Well, how do I know the difference? The Holy Spirit. That's it, you have got to be walking in the Spirit. That is why it's so important to be following Jesus. Because even when you go to somebody else for advice, they're only knowing what you're telling them. They only know part of the story. They don't really know everything. Jesus, the Holy Spirit God, they're the only ones that actually know every aspect of the story, every twist and turn that they know everything. And so you've got to be in such lockstep following the spirit, that you feel that conviction saying, hey, look, I know this looks good. I know this may even look godly, but you know, better you know, this is not what you should do. This is not what I had in mind for you. We have got to be so careful that what's good doesn't prevent us from doing what we should do. Even if that should involve a fight. Can I tell you that the vast majority of it, we talked about cortisol and time, it's part of our mission statement, helping people find the father of a family and a fulfilling future. And I want to tell you just about every fulfilling future that you want the fulfilling future, you see for yourself, it exists on the opposite side of a fight. It just does. A fight against a habit that you're not wanting to break a fight against a mindset that you're you're just clinging on to a fight against a relationship that you know, you have no business being in and exist just on the other side of that. Just on the other side. We cannot avoid the fights, we have got to push through and face the fights that Jesus leads us towards. You and we have got fights with our name on them. We just do.

There are conversations that need to happen. There are people that need to be talked to, there are things that need to be stopped God, God is calling you to stay somewhere. God's calling you to leave somewhere. God's telling you to talk to somebody, God's calling you to bite your tongue and stop talking. That's for some of us, right? God's calling you to give God's calling you to serve in a new way. And you will have incredibly noble reasons just like Peter, for why you should flee instead of fight through that discomfort. You'll have very godly sounding reasons for why you should just back up and say, Ah, well, I know that I have this fight. But I'm just going to go over this way because of this Bible verse. Because of the song that really spoke to me today. And I have really noble reasons to flee but God will let you know. If it's a God-ordained fight something you need to push through something that you need to face he will let you know and you with confidence can follow him into the fight. You can follow him into it. And you need to follow him into it. Do you want to know why? Because if you're a Christian, if you're a Christ-follower, Jesus is Lord. Can we just declare that together, Jesus is Lord? That means He is your King. That means that he doesn't seek your opinion on what we should do. He tells you, he directs you to listen again to what he says to Peter here, Peter tells him that he won't do this. Jesus says, Get behind Me, Satan, you're a stumbling block to me. He says, Gets behind me. Essentially, what Jesus is saying at this moment is Peter, who do you think you are standing in front of me trying to lead me? Get behind me? You're not Lord. You don't get to direct the battle plan here. I wasn't asking your opinion on what you think about my plan to go to Jerusalem and suffer and die and rise. I wasn't asking your opinion, I was telling you what we're doing. So you can get back in line. And you can follow me into the fight. Because we're not running. I'm not running, I'm constantly going into the fight. You can either join me you can flee. But if you join me, no, you're not going through it alone. Like you will never fight alone because I am going in front of you. Jesus is Lord. That means we follow him even into the midst of the fight. Even in the midst of the fight, I'm going to ask the worship team if they would come up real quick as we get ready to close out today. As we wrap up the series, I really just want to stress this point. If you want to, if you want to survive. If you want to survive, if you want to save yourself, if you want to survive a horror movie, it's never going to happen by fleeing the fight. It can sound tempting, right? You may think that whenever you watch these horror movies like they just go hide somewhere for a little while like just go and hide. But if you watch any of those, you know the killer always finds that person too. Because some horror movie moments are just inevitable. They're just gonna happen. And in fact, you want to know one of the interesting things. I'm a horror movie kind of sore. As you can tell, I've watched a lot of them, you want to know one common denominator. every horror movie, every horror movie that ends with the killer being killed, every single one that I've seen, it's because there was at least one person who stopped running and faced the fight. Every single one, every single one, there's at least one person who says, I'm done. We're not running anymore. I'm taking the fight to them. I'm going to face the fight, I'm going to do what I know I'm supposed to do. The same is true in our life. If you want to survive, it's not going to be from the foot from fleeing and taking flight. It's going to be from turning and facing the fight of pushing through what God is calling you. To do. I want to read to you as we close out today. This is from the book of First Peter. So Peter is the man who just was trying to talk Jesus out of the fight. He's a man who's trying to tell Jesus, hey, let's back up, let's do something different. Let's not run towards the fight. And then Peter does it again. After Jesus is arrested, Peter denies even knowing Him. Peter has a second turn or a second chance to run towards the fight to say yes, I'm here with Jesus, and instead he denies him denies even knowing who he is.

But yet after Jesus's death and resurrection, Jesus reinstates Peter gives him confidence gives him bravery and courage in such a brand new way it changes everything. For Peter, Peter goes from being someone who constantly is trying to run from conflict to someone who is running towards it. In fact, if you read the book of Acts, you'll see that Peter, this man who was so scared of people scared of a young girl, that who brought up hey, you know, Jesus, I've seen with him, and he was scared of her saying, No, I don't even know the man, that same man, Peter, about a month and a half after Jesus's death, Peter would be in the streets, the very streets of the city where Jesus was killed, preaching about the fact that Jesus is Lord and that he's alive again. It's amazing. That's incredible. This man who used to run and used to flee from conflict was now openly embracing it saying, hey, Jesus is alive again, that Jesus that you all killed, he's alive. There's only one way that happens. There's only one way that happens that Peter goes from someone who would flee to someone who would fight and that's it. He knew he wasn't fighting alone. Peter 100% knew in his bones that Jesus was alive and that these fights that I used to be afraid of because what if I and Jesus are separated? What if something happens here? He knew that nothing can separate us now. Like the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is now alive in me and it walks with me it goes into every fight with me. There's nothing that can stop me. So I can face every refight knowing no matter what the outcome as long as I walk through with God, I'm going to be good. I'm going to be completely and utterly good. So I won't fear the fight. Listen to what Peter says in his letter. First Peter, this is chapter one, verses three through seven. I'm going to ask you if you would stand as we read this and you're ready to close out. Peter, the Peter who used to flee this is what he says, Praise be to the God and the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and The great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation is ready to be revealed in the last days. In all this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. But these trials of coming that you can have proven genuineness of your faith, of greater worth than of gold, which parasite perishes even though refined by fire, that it may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do you see what Peter says? The same Peter, who was so terrified of fights, is now describing the trials that he's gone through the persecution as grief for just a little while. He went from being someone who was petrified to someone who was powerful in the name of Jesus. And it's because he knew he wasn't facing the fight alone. And the same truth that Peter knew is the same truth that you and I can No, we do not face our fights alone. God, Himself goes before us. So we don't need to flee, we can fight. Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for the truth of your word. We're thankful for the power that it conveys and the truth that it gives us the truth that there is not a single battle we face that we face alone. And it's with that confidence that we can stop running from the fight and instead, turn towards it. Turn our face towards it like you, like your son Jesus going to Jerusalem, we can do the exact same thing marching towards the battles of our life, knowing we can see victory because we don't fight the battle alone. The battle is fought and it belongs to us.