Polls have shown time and time again that the fear of failure is one of the most common and crippling threats we face. And we do face it...all of us. We’ve all encountered failure before, whether personally or professionally. Ways that we’ve not quite lived up to our expectations. Ways that we we’ve let ourselves down...or let God down. Failure is an awful feeling—but it doesn’t have to be. God wants us to see the truth, that there is an upside to every down. For every cross, there’s an empty grave! We don’t have to fear failure. We can embrace it. So the question is: “Will we choose to see that truth and allow it to reinvent the way we see failure?”

What if the difficulties that you face—the letdowns, the missed opportunities, the failures—are actually a critical piece of the story God is telling in your life? What if the thing that you hate is an essential building block of your faith? There are certain things we can only learn through pain, and there are certain things we can only learn about God through failure. And in the midst of those moments, we can find the miracle that God can bring out of every single failure.

We are in our final week of the upside of down I hope that this series has been helpful for you. Have you guys gotten something out of this? I hope it's been good. Everybody watching online, as well. I know God's spoken to me a lot through this series, just as I've been preparing, weekend and week out. I'm pretty accustomed to and familiar with failure. So this has been something that God's really been speaking to me through. One thing I want to say as we go into today's sermon, we're changing. We're changing the series title, just for today. Okay, so I know, it says the upside of down but just for today, I want to change the title. And this is why the word upside, kind of implies the idea that like you're, you're grasping at straws, trying to find something good, right? Like whenever someone tells you, hey, but there's an upside. It's like, Hey, I know, everything's terrible right now. But maybe, maybe if we sugarcoat things, maybe if we try to dig and dig and dig and find some little like a nugget of goodness, that we can cling to and hold on to. And so for today, I want us to kind of do away with that idea that there's just an upside to down. I want us to take it a step further. Because there's not just an upside of down, there are actually fantastic qualities of down. And what we're going to be looking at today is the idea that there's actually favor in failure. It's not just something that we have to like scrounge around and hope that we can find something good? No, there's actually favor God's favor in the midst of our failure. What we're going to be looking at today is from the book of second Corinthians chapter 12. So if you have your Bible you want to follow along, we're going to be in Second Corinthians, chapter 12, looking at verses seven through 10. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says, This is so good. He writes, therefore, in order to keep me from being conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Now, I'm going to stop right there. This is something that theologians have debated for years. What is the thorn in the flesh that Paul describes here in Second Corinthians 12? We don't know. We have no idea. Some people think it could be a physical ailment. Some people think it could have been a demonic spirit. Some people think it could have been a failure in Paul's past, maybe something in his ministerial career that didn't go the way he was hoping he was dealing with the after-effects of that. So we don't know what it is. But whatever this thing is, it's terrible. And it's tormenting. Paul, this is actually what he says in verse eight, Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. He pleaded with God. Has anyone been there before? Has anyone been here before? He's pleading with God? This isn't just a simple, you know, we've all been there. We make prayer requests on Monday and forget about it by Tuesday. The thing that was so important to us on Monday, we're like, oh, God, please, please come by Tuesday. We're like, Wait, what was I praying for? That's not the case with Paul here. Paul is begging God, he is pleading with him. He is passionately praying, God, take this thing, this torment, this, this, this failure, take this thing away from me. This is God's response in verse nine. But God said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest in Me. That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses and insults in hardships and persecutions and difficulties for when I am weak, then I am strong. For when I am weak, then I am strong. There is not just an upside of down there is favor and failure. I'm going to pray for us real quick, and we'll jump into the rest of the sermon Father God, we ask that your word would be illuminated before us, help us to see your word for what it is not just words that were written down 2000 years ago, but words that actually jump off the page, and are applicable and relevant and authoritative to us today, and every situation that we find ourselves so God, please illuminate your word. Help us to see it in a new and fresh way today, and we'll give you all the honor all the glory, and all the praise. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, hey, I want you guys to repeat after me all right. I may not like it.

But I need it. I may not like it, but I need it. That is going to be our sermon title for today. That's our topic. I may not like it, but I need it. My son Griffin. He's two years old. And let me tell you right now, I wouldn't say it's his greatest fear. He's not really afraid of it. It's him it's his mortal enemy right now his mortal enemy. He hates having his butt changed. Like this kid cannot stand it he just can't take it he hates it. All you have to say is like do you need to clean but do you need a new diaper and he just he Sprint's he just Sprint's away from you as fast as the little tiny legs will take him. And once you do catch him to start changing him, I mean, it's like trying to hold down a wild hog or something like that is his legs are kicking, he's going no, no, no, like, it's bad. He's such a cool, calm, collected kid outside of those moments, but he loses his ever-loving mind whenever you get ready to change his butt. And I don't get it because the kid has some stinky diapers. Like they're just, they're bad. And so you're like, I'm helping you. You. You don't see it at this moment. But you stink, no one's gonna be around you. We just let you walk around like this. He has no idea that we're helping him. Now I will say this. He's a graduate, he still throws a fit. But at least now after I'm done or Jessica's done, he'll say, Thank you, Daddy. And I'm like, well, thank you. You don't really need to tell me to thank you just stop the kicking in the screaming and the yelling and we're good. But man, he cannot stand and he can't stand it. And it's ridiculous that we even tried to do this. But like, as I'm cleaning, I'm trying to rationalize with him with a two-year-old like that. What good is that gonna do? But I'm telling him like, Look, I know you don't like it, but you need for this to happen. Like, I know you don't like it. I know you can't stand it. I know, you freak out every time I do it, but man, you need it. You need it. And I think the same thing is true when it comes to failure. When it comes to pain, when it comes to suffering, all of these things in our life that we do not like we don't want it. But man do we need it. We need it. In fact, there's not just an upside of down, there's a necessity of down. There's a necessity of brokenness, a failure of the pain of suffering. We kind of introduced this concept a little bit. Last week, we talked about last week's sermon just a little bit. This idea that God builds me the best when I've been broken the most, that God does his best work. Whenever I am torn down to the studs that God doesn't want to just add on to what I've already built. He's like, no, no, I want to build a new creation, not an ad on not a renovation of what you've been doing. I want to brand new construction here. And God does his best work. When that happens when we are broken down whenever we have been broken the most. God does his best work. And this is something that the apostle Paul became accustomed to in his life and in His ministry that God did his best work. When things looked the darkest and the bleakest. We're going to stay in the book of Second Corinthians. We're actually going to jump back just one chapter to chapter 11. Starting in verse 23, listen to the Apostle Paul. This is the apostle Paul and he's boasting here. He's bragging a little bit about what he's experienced in his life. But it's not the kind of boasting and bragging that we would expect. Listen to the stuff that he is bragging about here, starting in verse 23. I have worked much harder. I've been in prison more frequently been flogged more severely and been exposed to death again, and again. Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one that means five times He was whipped. 40 times. Unbelievable. Verse 25, three times I was beaten with rods once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I had been constantly on the move. I had been in danger from rivers in danger from bandits in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles in danger in the city, in danger in the country in danger at sea, and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep. I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food. I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I faced the daily pressure of my concern for all the churches. And on top of all this, I'm a lifelong Cleveland sports fan. the way those are my, my notes, let me just get that out here real quick. The worst, most brutal part of that entire passage, forget the shipwreck, forget being stoned. you root for Cleveland sport, you know, you know suffering.

Paul continues to verse 29, who is weak and I do not feel weak, who was led into sin and I do not inwardly burn. So if I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. Paul is bragging about these things? Think about that. How wild is that? How crazy is it that Paul is bragging and boasting? Paul went through hell. I mean, are you kidding me? Any of those things that he went through? If we experienced just one of those things one time, that would be the thing that marked and shaped and changed us for the rest of our life. He's been shipwrecked multiple times beaten with a rod multiple times, whipped multiple times stone multiple times all of these terrible, terrible things. And he's bragging about them.

He's thankful for them. He's glad that these things have happened. And if you're anything like me, you read this and you think to yourself, how? How are you? You're thankful? You're grateful that these things happen to you? How is that possible? Because here's what we know about Paul. He was made of the same stuff as you and me. One of the biggest failures, one of the biggest problems we have whenever we read, interpret and try to apply scripture to our life is we put the people in scripture on an otherworldly pedestal, we act almost like they're mythological creatures that didn't really live and didn't really exist, and didn't really walk through life and have to rely on God as we do. But they did. And so whenever we read this from Paul, and we think, Oh, this guy, well, of course, he was able to boast and suffering, of course, he was able to have all these things happen, but still praise God in the midst of it, because he was just different. He's not like me. No, he was like you. Obviously born at a different time, obviously, born into a different context. But don't let yourself out of jail free. Don't sugarcoat the experience by saying, Oh, well, he was a saint. And I could never know not only could you're expected to. This is something that all Christians are supposed to strive towards, to be able to not just make it through the hard times in life, but delight in the hard times in life, be thankful for the hard times in life, just like Paul was in most of us. And me, me included if we're honest when we go through hard seasons, where we just take an approach of grin and Barrett, like, Oh, please, please God, please let this season of hardness let this season of failure of the suffering of pain, be as short as humanly possible, let it just be like that. Like, I don't want to experience this any longer than I need to. And yet here, Paul, one of the greatest examples of the Christian life, welcomes those seasons, welcomes them with open arms, boasts about them is thankful and grateful for them. How did he do it? How did he do it? Well, I want us to one more time jump back to the scripture we looked at from the start. Listen to Paul, again, when he is tormented by this thorn in the flesh, this, this thing again, we don't know what it is, it could have been a ministerial failure. It could have been something that didn't go the way he hoped it it could have been a physical ailment we don't know. But this thorn in the flesh, this thing that was tormenting him three times, I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest in Me. You see, I believe Paul was able to delight in these moments delight in the hard time's delight, even in failure and pain and suffering, he was able to delight in these moments because he trusted in the story that God was telling. Even though he couldn't see it. Even though he had his own limited perspective, Paul was able to trust in the story, God is telling. And when we do that, when we trust in the story that God is telling, it gives us faith, even in the midst of failure, even in the midst of failure, because you see, Paul asked God to take it away. I got very clear from the text, Paul asked God, please take this away. I can't I can't bear this anymore. And rather than taking it away, God instead gave him the grace gave him the strength to stand up under it. Now if you're Paul, you're like, hey, that's, that's awesome. But couldn't we just take it this way? Like, if you're all-powerful, which you are, that means you could take this away. You could take this pain away, you could take the suffering away, you could take my failure away as these things could go away. But instead, you're given the strength to stand up underneath it. But what's so incredible about Paul, is that he just trusted God. He trusted in the story. God was telling this overarching narrative that God was telling them So Paul, even though he didn't get it, even though at the moment it looked like really I still have to go through this like you didn't just take it away, Paul trust but you know what, I know you're a faithful God. I know I can put my trust in you and in the story that you're telling. So even though I wouldn't do it this way, I can trust that you know why you're doing it this way. And that there's more at play here than I see. Last week I mentioned. We need to make Cornerstone Church bingo cards, right? Every time pastor Jacob mentions football or the Marvel movie, we check off a box. Last week I talked about football, so you can check that off. This week. We're talking to Marvel real quick. So if you got your bingo card out, you can just check off the MCU Next, in the Marvel movies, Thor is obviously a major character he's, he's in. I think it's either eight or nine of the movies, which is like half of them he's in a lot of them plays a big feature role in a lot of these. And a lot of the characters from the Thor comics make their appearance in these movies, too. But there's one character that is a fan favorite in all my fellow comic nerds out here gonna geek out probably, there's a character named Beta Ray, Bill, Beta Ray Bill, and he is like a fan favorite from the comics. And from the moment that they started making these movies, and people knew Thor was going to be in movies, all the fans were just like, dying just waiting. Okay, Beta Ray Bill. When's he gonna come? When is he gonna be in the movie? This is gonna be awesome. I can't believe he's gonna be in a movie.

But then Thor came out and he wasn't in Thor. So like, Okay, the next one will probably be an Avengers right? It'll be an Avengers Avengers comes out he's not an Avengers. Okay, well, there's a Thor sequel coming out he'll be in Thor The Dark World will be in that No, it wasn't in that one either. And so all these movies keep coming out and this guy never makes an appearance. And online you can just see people getting like infuriated. Like what in the world were like eight movies deep now is one of the best characters still hasn't come we're like 10 years into this thing. Like how have you not written this guy into a movie yet? And so then Thor Ragnarok, the most recent Thor movie came out. And Beta Ray Bill once again was not in it. And again, people are were livid. And so at the press junkets whenever they were talking to the directors, like, hey, we, I'm sure you've seen it online. People are just infuriated that Beta Ray Bill still has not appeared in any of these movies were like eight movies deep now. And he's not in a single one. Can you care to elaborate on that? No, I can't. Absolutely. So we love that character. We love that character. And there's actually been multiple times throughout all these movies that we thought we'll put him in it, we'll have a cameo, he'll be in it. But as we started writing it outside writing the story, those little cameo appearances wouldn't have done them justice, right? Because this is such a huge character, we want to do it right. We don't want to just like shoehorn him into a plot. And it feels like Man, why I was even there as a waste of time. They barely use him or anything like that, like so we're, we're holding on to him. And it's been killing us. It's been killing us. Because we love this character so much. It's, it's some of our favorite characters. And we've been wanting to put them in, but we're waiting for the right moment. And suddenly, everybody online is like, Oh,

cool. That sounds good to us. Because everybody at that moment, realize, Oh, that's right. There's a bigger story at play here. We're so focused on just getting this guy in. And every single movie that comes out and he's not in it, we see it's a failure, we see all this is, he missed it again, missed another opportunity. But now we're understanding you've been holding off because there's this bigger story that you're trying to tell there's more at play than what we could see here, and you're just waiting on him. The same is true for us in our story. And the story that God is telling. There is so much more at play, you don't even know. You don't even know. And so the failure that you're going through the suffering, you're going through the pain you're going through, you may look at it and like all these comic fans are going I don't understand it, why? Why not just take it away? Why not just do this differently? You don't know what God knows. You don't see what God sees. You don't have the perspective that God has. There is so much more at play in your story. And this is what I can tell you whenever I've talked to some of my buddies, who are also big Marvel movie fans and we talk about it. There are certain things that come up certain plotlines, certain movies, they're like, man, it was good, but how they're gonna, how they're gonna connect this and how they're gonna make that work. It's, it's the universe is getting so big. We're like, I don't know how they're going to do this. But almost every conversation ends with this. But hey, you know what? I trust Kevin Fahey, as the executive producer, he's the guy overseeing all of these movies, and this guy has connected all the dots and we're 20 Plus movies and all these series. And so it always ends with us saying, I don't know how they're gonna make it work. But I trust him because he's made it work so far. You see, whenever you have trust in the storyteller, you can have trust in the story that's being told. And if you trust in the storyteller, if you trust in God, you can trust in the story that's being written, even when it includes pain, even when it includes suffering, even whenever includes failure, you can trust him because he's a good storyteller. And frankly, you're not. I'm not like you tell terrible stories. So and why? God is a fantastic storyteller, and he sees what you don't see and he knows what you don't know. So I can trust him. I can trust his perspective. I can trust His timing. I can pray the same prayer as Jesus and Gethsemane. God, this is hard. This hurts. This is painful. If it's your will, please take this away. But hey, at the end of the day, it's not my will. It is your will, that I want. It's your perspective that I Want, it's your timing that I want. And so even if it includes pain, failure, and suffering, I can trust in your perspective. I can say, I may not like it, but I need it. I may not like it, I may hate that I have to go through this. But as I do, and as I get to the other side, I'm gonna look back and say, You know what I needed that. I needed that I needed to go through that hard time I needed to go through that pain, and that suffering we can trust. In God's perspective. Speaking of perspective, I love the perspective shift that happens in Second Corinthians 12. When Paul is praying to God, Paul is praying, and he's, he's asking God about this thorn in the flesh. He's saying, God, please take this away from me. He pleaded with the Lord three times, to take it away and look at what God said. God says to him, My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect. In your weakness. Do you notice what happens there? Paul goes before God with a problem with the thing he's talking about the thorn in the flesh, and God just completely ignores it. God doesn't mention the thorn in the flesh. When he responds to Paul. Do you catch that? Like Paul, Paul's praying to God saying, God, this thorn in the flesh, please take it away. Please take it away. And God's response wasn't? Paul, look, I know how hard this thing is. I know how much it hurts, you know, but look at the bright side. This is how it's all gonna play and the thorn maybe if you do this, it'll help. It'll help with your pain. During this time, we'll help you to see in a new light. God doesn't even mention the thorn in the flesh. He goes directly to his grace. Paul's talking about his problem. And God just starts talking about his grace saying, hey, My grace is enough. My power, my strength is enough for you. God used Paul's Thorn, as a tool, this thorn in the flesh. He used it as a tool. And that's what happens with pain in our life was suffering our life with failure in our life, it can be a tool that God uses to fix our focus. Because Paul was so consumed with this thorn in the flesh. And God is like, Hey, Paul, me.

You're concerned about this, I want you to be so utterly focused and concerned about me. And my power for you and my thoughts for you and my love for you. And the trust you can have in me that that just fades away. He shifted Paul's focus to where it matters, himself. And that's because failure is a tool that helps us fix our focus. Pain is a tool that helps us fix our focus. Suffering is a tool that helps us fix our focus. I think we can all agree, success breeds self-centeredness, doesn't it? Success. That's what that leads to. It leads to this feeling of I'm self-sufficient. I can do things on my own. I've got great thoughts. I've got great plans, my way of doing things is up here and everyone else's is down here. That's what happens when we get a little bit too much success under our belt, but failure. Humble Pie brings us down a notch. It reminds us of our utter reliance on God and it helps us get our focus back to where it should be him. And that's exactly what God did. God use Paul's thorn in the flesh, to build more reliance in more trust and more faith from Paul, on to God. He used that pain and that suffering. God does the same thing with us. God does the same thing with our failures. He uses these things to draw us back to him. He uses weakness to build up strength. I remember years ago whenever I first got my driving license, I mean, I love that I love driving everywhere. I still enjoy driving. I'm not one of those people who like, you know, it's annoying now I still enjoy driving. But this is one day I'm a man and I will freely admit this. In the early years of me driving I had a terrible sense of direction. Like just everywhere I was looking felt like north to me I'm like, well, that's worth it because I'm facing this way. That's North cuz I'm facing that way. That's No, it was bad. I knew how to get places that I had been to before like but even the road names and like yeah, you know, and when the squiggly road you go down that one and then you stop before that McDonald's like that's, that's my sense of directions was for the longest time. And I remember a little bit after I got my license. Me and my dad going down to Tennessee. We drove down there for like a conference or something like that. And it was just me and him in the car. And I remember on the way down now this is like I mean I'm, I'm old but I'm not old. Right. So this was whenever we started to print out like our directions where Mapquest and Mapquest print out. Like Marines and army, right printed that thing out. And we had that in the front seat. That's how we got down there, no GPS or anything like that. And so my dad, because you know my sense of direction, I'm just like, so my dad is like, you know what I'll navigate for us like, the enemy, the enemy the sheet, I'll tell you when to turn, I'll be on the lookout for all the signs and stuff like that. So you can just focus on driving, and it was great. So the entire ride down, he's telling me when to turn here and where to turn here and stuff like that. And we're talking, we're having a great, great time, it was like an eight and a half-hour drive. We're talking about everything, we're talking about sports, we're talking about shows, and Seinfeld, and all the things that we love. And we're talking about God and our relationship with God and family, we're talking about all this stuff. And it was such an awesome ride down and an awesome ride back just this conversation. And I was thinking to myself, Man, if if I was better with directions like if I just kind of knew where I was going, that car ride would have been a lot different, it would have been a lot different, what probably would have happened, knowing my dad is, hey, but I'm just gonna rest my eyes for a second just for a quick second. And then five hours later, he would wake up, right, like, that's what happened there. And me, I probably would have just popped one headphone in and listened to music the whole way down, like listen to my own music. And that would have been that, and it would have been a nice ride down. But there would have been no connection, there would have been no conversation.

You see, my weakness actually cultivated a connection with my dad. If I had just self-independence, and I knew where I was going, and I don't need any help, and I couldn't get myself down there, there would have been no connection, there would have been no conversation, there would have been no relationship there. But my weakness actually built our relationship in ways that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't there. God does the same thing for you. And me, He wants our weaknesses to draw us closer to him to rely on him to depend on him. And in the process, build our relationship with Him, in the process lean on him. And so we like Paul can say, Yeah, I'm glad I'm terrible with directions. And that was great. Because it got me closer to my dad. And yeah, you know what, I'm not the best in relationships, I self-sabotage a lot. But you know what I'm going to do, I'm going to allow that failure because of maybe what I've seen, what I've seen modeled for me from my parents and, and there, from their grandparents. And I'm going to take that I'm going to force that to draw me closer to God, because I know I'm so weak in this area, I have to rely on him. If I don't want to just implode my relationships, the rest of my life, God, I'm going to get as close to you as I possibly can. So even this thing that was meant for the evil that was meant to tear down all of my relationships, and my loved ones, my family, I'm going to use it for good. I'm going to hand it over to God. And I'm going to say, God, I'm dedicating my relationships to you. Help me, help me in this area, turn this weakness into a strength and God will do it, he will use your weakness to build your connection with him, he'll use it as a tool to fix your focus. He'll use your failure as a tool to fix your focus and get it back on him and the grace that He has for you. So that weakness that you have that suffering that you're going through that failure that you've experienced that pain that you're feeling, you may not like it. You may hate it, but you need it. You need it. You may not like it. You may not like it, but you absolutely needed it. You see, Paul is hyper-aware of his need for failure. Whenever you read not just Second Corinthians, you read all of Paul's letters, you see time and time again him coming back to and reminding people of how bad he had it, how bad off he was before God, how many failures he had, how many times he did not get things, right. In fact, whenever you look at Paul, and you look at his life, prior to his Damascus experience the road to Damascus encountering the risen Jesus. Prior to that moment, Paul would say every bit of his life was a failure. Everything. He was trusting in the wrong things. He was hyper legalistic, the Pharisee of the Pharisees, right. He was this guy who if you look back in his life, he would say honestly, before Jesus, it was all for naught. And so if you're someone who you feel like Man, there's an area of my life where Yeah, it does feel like a failure or an area of my life where it does feel like I've been suffering you're going through pain. Paul's like, oh, that's adorable an area of your life. My entire life. Up to this point was a failure. Everything I had done was counter the way I should have been doing it.

His whole life at this point felt like a failure. He literally had to leave his old life. He got a new name. That's how bad it was. He's like, it's not solid anymore. I'm Paul now. Jesus is calling me, Paul. So he's going by a new name a completely new life. So Paul was hyper-aware of this idea, that failure, that pain, that suffering is a necessity in life that God brings you through some things. And as Paul went on in his ministry, you see that his teaching in his old life actually helped prepare him for what God had in store for him. He was actually able to speak to certain people in ways that he wouldn't have been able to if it wasn't for his teaching and the schooling that he had early on in his life. You see, God uses everything, even our failures, even our pain, even our suffering. And so because he does that, and because Paul realize that Paul was able to not just make it through hard times, he was able to have delight and hard times, he was able to have joy in hard times. Listen to what he says again, Second Corinthians 1210. That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses. I delight in insults, in hardships, and persecutions in difficulties. Paul's not saying I grin and bear it through those things. Paul's not saying, man, it's hard. It's so hard. But you know, I just pray that they pass by as quickly as possible that God delivers me from this season as quickly as you can, Paul says, No, I delight in these things. I take joy in them. In fact, these are the only things that I will brag about is what I have gone through for the cause of Christ. Paul delighted in this because Paul knew, and his mission was a faithful life, just a faithful life of life that was faithful to the call that Jesus had put on him. And Paul understood that the story God is telling has necessary stops of failure. There are necessary stops of pain, necessary stops are suffering. Paul knew Paul knew. And this is something we need to know. Every faithful life is hallmarked, by faithfully handled failure. Every single one, there is not a single saint of our faith that you can name that their story does not include suffering. Every single saint has suffered. Every single saint has pain. Every single saint has moments of failure. And when things did not go their way, Joseph, Moses, Esther, David, Peter, Paul, Jesus, all of his disciples, pain, and suffering, went through hard times experiencing failure. But here's the key. They trusted those things. They trusted those moments to God. They faithfully handled the failures that life brought their way. My grandpa, James Mason, was an absolutely incredible man, one of the best men I've ever known if you knew him, he was one of the best men you could have ever known. Just I mean, a saint, every sense of the word, just an awesome man. And he was a pastor with a lot of churches, At the conference that we were in the denomination years ago, they really moved pastors around a lot like you would be in a lot of different churches. So like what Pastor Brenda has done being here for decades like that, that just wasn't a thing. They would send you to different churches. If you were a good pastor, they would send you to really difficult churches, to try to see if you could fix things. My grandpa is a great pastor, just a great man. So they sent him to a bunch of different churches that were indifferent to stresses and problems. And he was actually it's funny, I asked my mom before service last night, I was like, hey, what church? Was it at that grandpa's that that it split? They had a church split. And she was like, well actually wasn't one. It was two like he was a pastor of two churches. When they split. I'm like, Oh, my goodness, jeez, it's so hard, so difficult. And he was the pastor of these churches, they split for different reasons. And that is painful. If you've never experienced the church split or never seen one up close, it's God awful. It's God awful. Because these people that you look up to these people who are Christ-followers and believers are at each other's throats over things, calling each other heretics, and saying you're not truly following God. And you don't know what's truly going on in the church splits over and these are just awful, awful things. And he was at the helm of both of these when they happened. At that moment, after the fallout, after terrible things are said not just to each other, but about him, to him behind his back and he ends up hearing about it later. In the middle of these things. When you're looking at this you're going What good is that?

Like what good are these failures? What good are this pain and this suffering? Is this the body of God, a church splitting? Not one church for two of them. How can any good come of that? How in the world do you take delight in that? How in the world do you boast about that and say, Hey, this is a moment when God showed up in such a huge way. But it didn't seem like it at first. I'm sure for my grandpa for even not just weeks and months after the split, but years down the road still feeling like, how why did that happen? I'm still waiting for the moment where it's like, oh, okay, great, this awesome thing happened. And if I follow it back, it's because the splits like that didn't happen for a long time. For a very long time. My grandpa had no idea that his son, Dwight Mason, and his daughter, Brenda Mason, young, would be going through terrible, terrible experiences with the Free Methodist denomination, had no idea I had no idea that both of them at a point would end up having to leave the denomination, the only denominations they've known and loved due to ministerial reasons, not being able to still do ministry, the way that we've known it, the way that we've been trying to do it not being able to do it the same way if we stayed, so we had to leave. And in the middle of that turmoil in the middle of that stress in the middle of that struggle, Pastor Brenda and Pastor Dwight were both highly informed, and follow the example that third dad James Mason had set during his time of pain, suffering, and struggle, leading those to church splits. And so they were able to navigate it in a godly way, in a God-honoring way in a way that led both churches out of that terrible experience into a healthier, more thriving place than they've ever been. That would not have been possible. If James Mason didn't go through it, that wouldn't have been possible if he wouldn't have experienced that failure and handled it in a faithful way. But because he did, because he did, it made an impact on his kids. And so they handled a similar situation and a God-honoring way. Every faithful life is hallmarked by faithfully handled failure. I guarantee you, my grandpa did not want to go through that. He did not want to go through those church splits. But he needed to, he needed to. Because there was a bigger story at play than just those two churches, there was something bigger happening. And if he would have just focused on that moment, he may have not pushed through. But because he believed in the storyteller, and the story that he was telling, he was able to push through the failure and the hardships and the suffering and handle it in a faithful way, trusting it to God and God did something great out of it. You see what my grandpa knew what Paul knew what Joseph knew what Moses knew what Esther knew what David knew what Peter knew, what Paul knew, is what we need to know and that there is an upside to down, there is an upside-down and there is a favor in failure. In fact, I would say that for every single person in this room, every single person watching online, the fulfilling future that God has in mind for you that future where you look like Jesus, where you talk like Jesus, where you act like Jesus, where you affect people around you, for the kingdom of God, that future is on the other side of the failure that you're not wanting to face. It's on the other side of those hard things that you don't want to push through that season of suffering, that season of hardship, it's on the other side of that, you've got to push through. For the love of God, you've got to push through, you've got to believe in the story that the storyteller is telling and push through to the other side. I hate to tell you it but I'm also excited to tell you that you have to go through it. Right? You have to go through those hardships. It's like I remember my wife, Jessica, whenever we were going I think it was our honeymoon. We left out Akron, Canton, and had a connecting flight in Newark, New Jersey, before we go to Mexico like it just felt like this is weird, right? Like whenever you're, whenever you're looking at the map, you're like, Okay, so to go from here to there. We need to go from here to there to here right and it seems weird, but it's the whole concept of connecting flights, Akron, Ken did not have a direct flight to Mexico. Newark did it was the closest airport out of here. And so we had to go to Newark before we went to Cancun. I didn't want to go to Newark, New Jersey. I don't know if anyone wants to go to Newark, New Jersey, right? If it's Newark or Cancun, you're like, can we just go to Cancun first like do we have to connect but we had to, we had to, we had a connecting flight.

You have connecting flights that have your name on them. And for you to get where you want to be, you are going to have to go through it. You're gonna have to go through some hardship. You're gonna have to go through some pain, you're gonna have to go through some failure. You're gonna have to have weaknesses that are exposed. You are going to have to get through it. We actually shared last night and then this morning our MP rally our ministry partner rally before the services we shared, some different things that we've been Going through that seemed like they were down. But God has brought an upside out of it. Man, I wish all of you could have been present to hear. It's incredible. Just hearing what different Men's Ministry partners in our church had been going through different job layoffs, sicknesses, financial struggles, and how the thing that seemed like it was going to be negative in their life, God has actually used it and turned it for good. And when I was hearing all of those stories going around, it just made me think, what you know, what, what if let downs. What if missed opportunities? What if? What if failures are actually not just a part like, we always say, Oh, they're there. They're a part of my story. It's a part of my story. What if it's just a part of your story, one of those things is critical to your story. Like your story could not be written without that, without that failure without that pain without that suffering. What if those things are critical to the story that God is telling? Because let me tell you, the story that God is telling right here at 2445, South Arlington road, this story would not be possible. If it wasn't for the pain and the suffering at 578 Killian road, it would not be possible, we had to go through that. We had to go through losing our building, we had to go through that pain of a setup and tear down every week for years, we had to go through all that stuff. The story that God is telling now would not have been possible without it. So what if that thing that you hate is actually a building block of the faith that God is building inside of you? That thing that you hate that thing that you load that thing that you want nothing to do with? What if it is a building block of the faith that God is at work in you? What if you may not like it, but you need it? What if you may not like it, but you need it. There are certain things and this is just a truism of life, there are certain things you only learn through pain. There are certain things you will only learn through failure. And through suffering and through hardship. I learned things about myself after my dad's death that I would have never learned any other way. Not just about myself, I learned things about God that I never would have learned any other way. If it wasn't for that pain, and that suffering and a loss, sometimes you have to go through it. Sometimes you have to go through it. And when you go through it, you realize how faithful God is. You get on the other side. And you look back and you're able to say what Paul says that is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, and insults and hardships and persecutions in difficulties. Because in the middle of this weak point of my life, and all this struggle and hardship, God has shown up for me in such an incredible way, I take joy in it now. I take joy. And now that thing that I hate, I've realized it's actually a building block of my faith. There are certain things we only learn through pain, and through going through it. That's why we can delight in it. Because we learn things about ourselves and learn things about God. I'm going to ask the worship team if they would come back on stage as they do, I'm going to ask you if you would stand. As we get ready to close out today's service. I want to read one more time from Second Corinthians 12. But God said to me, My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses. I delight in insults, in hardships in persecutions, and then difficulties for when I am weak, then I am strong. Look, this is what I can tell you. I don't know what you're going through right now. I don't know what failure you're dealing with the fallout of I don't know what pain you're going through what suffering you're going through, I have no idea what you're dealing with. I don't know. I don't know what it is. And I don't need to.

I don't need to. And here's the thing, I don't know what's on the other side of that failure once you push through, and you don't either. That's what's scary about it, right. That's what's scary about dealing with pain and suffering in the loss. You wonder how things are going to be on the other side because you don't know what's on the other side. But here's the thing. You may not know what's on the other side, but you know who's on the other side. And not just who's on the other side, but who is walking through it with you. Jesus literally is the way he is the way through that our reliance in our trust and our faith in Him saying you know what? Every failure that I deal with everything, whether it's intentional, and I'm dealing with the consequences of my sin, or whether it's unintentional, and it's just naturally occurring failure just happened sometimes in life, whatever it is, I need to push through it. Whatever it is, I need to push through it and get to the other side because I know that on the other side is a faithful God who even the failures of my life can be used for good. And they can be something I can delight in and I can take joy and that is what I want. For me. That's what I want for you that we would be people who say, hey, whatever comes my way, whether it's good times or bad, I know God will use it for the good. All that it requires. All that it requires is our faith and our trust in the storyteller, and the story that he's telling.