Worry & “What If’s?” // Permission Slips // Read

The last couple of years have been anything but easy. A worldwide pandemic, tumultuous elections, racial and social tensions…it’s been quite a ride. Now generally, January is a time of optimism—people are hopeful, believing the best about the future. But all of that craziness we’ve endured has led to an understandable unease about the upcoming year. You may be one of the millions who are wondering: “Will 2022 really be any different? How can I be confident about my future in the middle of so much uncertainty?” The good news? You don't have to limp into the new year with anxiety. God has given you permission—permission to hope, dream, and believe in the new year. No matter what comes…this year will be your year!

After what we experienced the last two years, it makes sense to expect the worst to happen. COVID-19, inflation, job losses…everyone is worried. So what do you do with your worry and your “what if’s?” this year? How do you stay confident while at the same time recognizing the reality of the world? The answer may scare you and surprise you—but also give you hope that even the worst this year throws your way cannot shake your confidence and optimism.

Live you guys braved the elements out there; the snow has been coming down pretty hard pretty consistently. I know we've got a little higher than usual online attendance today. But it's good to see your smiling faces for all the people on-site. Who's ready for spring, though? Like who's ready for some spring? I got to tell you. This time of year is hard for me. I am not a big. I'm not a big January February fan. I'm just not. I don't like this time of year. It's rough. You know, all the Christmas stuff is down. So it's darker outside. No, I will say this though our Christmas lights are still up on the house. And on like I I was right. I was determined to get one good snow in with our lights on the right. So I was waiting for the snow to come, so they'll get shut off sometime soon. But had to get the snow and the man it's hard. It's dark outside people's lights are off and stuff. You know, there's no like big holidays in January and February to look forward to, and what I mean by big is like, you get together with family, you plan for it like this big, big event. There's none of that. And so it's just kind of like, depressing time of year, like I want to fast forward and just get to like March Madness, and all of that fun stuff. I just want to get to spring as soon as we can. And I know there are actually some people who this is a real thing. Some people actually have the seasonal affective disorder. Have you ever heard of this, where people's moods truly, like really, and truly can be completely and utterly affected by the weather? And a lot of people, it's this time of year, it's January and February that really throw people off, it gets them just feeling depressed, and just filled with anxiety and just looking forward to spring. Another thing that happens is the time of year. It's not technical like disorder or anything like that. But I would like to say that I believe worry, syndrome, worry syndrome, it starts to elevate this time of year, January and February. There's a time when worries and what-ifs are cultivated this period of time. Because what do you know, tax season isn't too awful far away. You already see the commercials for it on TV, right? People are saying, Come get your taxes done at Jackson Hewitt or get Turbo Tax and get your taxes done. So people are stressing out kind of like, okay, yeah, that's right. I've got taxes coming up.. I've got to figure this out. I got to go through that. How much am I going to owe this year? Right. Another thing people worry about this time of year is the cold weather. It just exposes things. If you have a weakness in your house, you have a weakness in your car, this weather will find it right it will find it, and it will expose it. Just yesterday, we had pipes that were starting to freeze here at the church. So we had to get an extra heater and plug it in out there. It was just a hole. We were blowing breakers. It was just a really fun, awesome time yesterday. You know my car, it almost didn't like turn over yesterday morning when it was one degree it was one degree out. One on the degree that's all that it was yesterday. Like anytime, the temperature is one syllable. It's not a good thing is not a good thing. And my car barely turned over is on my God geez, am I gonna do I need a new battery like what's going on here. So you know, just worries, a lot of worries this time of year. But the thing that we've been talking about, as we start off this year, is confidence. Right? And confidence is kind of the opposite of worry. And so it seems kind of counterintuitive to be talking about confidence at a time when there are so many worries. But what I want to let you know today is that even in the midst of whatever worries you have, whether they're as you know, whatever, as a car battery, or you know issues around your house, or if they're deeper if they're family issues, what whatever you're going through whatever worry you have, I want to let you know today you can face it with confidence. You can face it with confidence. I want to read two scriptures as we start off today. The first one is the one that we've been looking at this whole series. It's our verse for the year Second Corinthians 119 through 20. It says For the Son of God, Jesus Christ who was preached among you by us by me, and Silas and Timothy were not yes and no. But in him, It has always been Yes. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And so through him, the Amen is spoken by us to the glory of God, what confidence that gives us to know that every promise God has ever made is rubber-stamped and validated by Jesus Christ. That's incredible. That's incredible. That is good news. For us now, the other passage I want to read from I'm going to give you a little cliff notes background before we jump into it. But I want us to look at just a few verses from the book of Daniel. Today, where we pick up the story, is with three guys shad rack me shack and Bendigo or for all my OG veggie tale people out there shack rack and Benny did anyone remember, there's my truly sanctified born again people room shattered me check it a minute ago, these are three guys who, you know they were taken from the land of Israel whenever Israel was conquered by the Babylonian Empire, they were taken away taken to live in Babylon because they were especially handsome and strong and smart guys very articulate. So they were plucked from that kingdom to come to Babylon and to serve in the Babylonian Empire. Now while there, they were having a hard time trying to remain faithful to God; in a pagan empire, we can relate right trying to remain faithful to God in our current day and age. And so they're in this situation; they're trying to remain faithful to God. And all of a sudden, construction begins on a brand new idol, a brand new idol for the people of Babylon to worship. And so an edict a command goes out to the whole nation saying, hey, as soon as we complete this thing, what needs to happen is every morning, there's going to be praised music played when this music is played, we expect everyone in the kingdom to kneel, to bow to pay homage to pay reverence to worship this image. Now rack shack and Benny they're like, No, we're not. We're not gonna do that. We can't do it. We can't do we have to remain faithful to God; we can't bow our knees. And so sure enough, the morning comes, the music starts people start to kneel, but they don't. And that's noticed, noticed by important, powerful people. And so they're brought before King Nebuchadnezzar, who's asking them, hey, what what's going on? The music played; you guys didn't kneel what's happening here. And that's where we pick up in verse 16 of Chapter Three of the book of Daniel; this is what Scripture tells us Shadrach, Meshach. and Abednego replied to him, King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from Your Majesty, his hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you have set up. See, what we're going to talk about today, in the remaining time we have together is even if faith, God wants to develop, God wants to build God wants to cultivate even if faith in your life, so that you and me when we face the worst that life can throw our way when we face the biggest What if the enemy can conjure for us that we can have even if faith just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that we can say, You know what, even if the worst comes to pass, I know I serve a faithful God, I know that God is good. I know that God is great. And I know that no matter what life throws my way, I do not face it alone. So essentially, what we're going to do today, we are going to learn to wrestle with our worry. We're gonna wrestle with worry today. Are you guys ready? Are you guys ready? Ready online? All right, let's hop into the sermon. So growing up, I've noticed something funny about remote controls. We've kind of been on like a little loop with remote controls; they started off very simple, right? If you remember the early remote controls, you had like five buttons at most, right? Like power channel volume. That's it like nothing else. So they started off really simple. And then they started getting progressively more and more complicated, right, like more like I've got one of these ones. This is one from an old DVD player. This thing has 42 buttons on it. 42 It looks like something that you could launch a ship into space with the right like it's looking pretty, pretty advanced, a lot of buttons on this bad boy. But now we've come full circle again. So we went from simple to complicated to now. Like I've got anybody to use Roku sticks, Roku sticks as well, we got my Roku people out there. This only has like 10 or 12 on it. And a bunch of them are just like hyperlink kind of buttons to get you to your specific app. But outside of that, it's really simple, right? But one thing that I appreciated during the complex days of remote controls is just figuring out what in the world these buttons do. Because there's some of them on here that you're like, what what, what is what does this do? I remember I was trying to find it. I was looking so hard, but I couldn't find exists an older remote, but it looked a lot like this one. And it was for an old DVD player that I had, and I found it. Whenever I had that DVD player. I was younger. Was I probably like 13, You know? And on the remote control. There was a button that just said A dash B, A dash B. Has anyone ever seen that before? No, I got weird. I don't know what, what like bargain store DVD player this was but it had an A B button on, and I'm like, What is this? So one day, I'm watching a movie. And I hit it to just try to figure out what does this thing does? I hit it. And all of a sudden, a little a appears in the corner. But the movie keeps playing. I'm like, that's weird. Okay, so I hit it again. And then, all of a sudden, a B button or a little b appears right next to the A. And then I noticed it started to loop over again. Like so basically, what this button did is it created an ongoing loop, like a is your start point, b is your finish point. And as soon as it plays from A to B, that scene just starts right back over again. And right back over again. And right back over again. And as I hit it, I'm like, What is? What's, what's the purpose of this? Like, what does this for what? Why did someone invent this? But of course, me being an immature little 13-year old I found them like most stupid moments of movies. And I'm like,

be like I'm watching the Dumb and Dumber Bathroom scene over and over again. This is fun. I've, I've matured greatly since then.

But I do remember seeing that and being like, what's the point of this button? This is just a weird thing to have. But I was thinking about it as I was preparing for the sermon today. Because I'm like, You know what, as weird as that is, if the enemy if Satan had a remote controlling our life, I bet his remote control would have an A B button. I bet it would. And it wouldn't be a B. It would be w and w. Worry and what if, because that's what he wants to do with us. He wants us to get stuck in just this endless loop of worry. And what-ifs, where we are just so paralyzed by what life is bringing our way, we're so paralyzed by the choices that we have to make by the obstacles that we're going up against, that we can't move on. The enemy has an A B button, and it is worrying. What if that's our sermon title for today. The enemy wants to weigh you down with worry. And what-ifs, he wants to weigh you down. He wants to keep you in that same loop living the same question, the same worry, the same fear over and over and over again. That's what he wants. And how he does that. One of the most common ways is he just consistently puts question marks over everything God has ever promised over everything God has ever told you. There's just a little question mark. In fact, that's the first thing he ever did back in the garden. In Genesis chapter three, we can see the first thing that the serpent did. The first thing that the accuser that Satan did was put question marks over what God said. Did God really say that to you? To can't really say, You must not eat because, man, I don't know. What if God's holding out on you? What if God's not telling you the whole story? What if God is just afraid you're going to become like him? And he doesn't want that? Because he's selfish. And he's proud. He just wants to be his own special little thing. What if that's all true, and God is holding out on the best for your life? And these commands, man, you don't want to follow these. You need to rebel. He's been doing it since the beginning. He has been getting us stuck in these AB loops over and over and over again, worrying and riffing ourselves to death. The enemy wants to weigh us down with worry. And what-ifs. That's what I experienced. I told you guys a few weeks ago whenever I was supposed to go to Cedar Point for my sixth-grade trip. The last trip of the year, supposed to be a field trip, would have been awesome. And I didn't go and if I were to give you the reason why I didn't go. It's because I was stuck in a worry, and what if time loop? Because see, at the time, I was afraid of rollercoasters. And I like them. Whenever I was younger, they freaked me out as Cedar Point had just opened Millennium force right around the time that we were getting ready to go on our sixth-grade trip. And I'm reading about this thing. It's like the world's first strata coaster. Like the air is more difficult to breathe up there. Because you're so high, you can feel the wind blowing around. I'm like that doesn't. That's not fun. Like, I didn't sound fun to me. Like I don't want to. I don't want to do any of that. Like it sounds terrible. And so I start getting in this loop of worrying and what elsewhere I'm thinking okay, what if I go? And what if I'm like stealing my nerves before we go and I'm, you know, I'm going to get on the roller coaster. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. But what if we get there and I don't? What if we get there and I chicken out? What if I can't do it? And then all my friends see that. And they think I'm some sort of like a scaredy-cat. I'm some sort of baby who won't get on roller coasters. When everybody else says, What if that happens? What if I get on one, and I've been on one like this? What if I get sick? It'd be embarrassing. What if I get sick in front of everybody? And so I just start living and playing these what-ifs over and over again. And then they start getting crazy and like, what if I get one that loops and I fall out of it like as fall out of the thing, just like I'm having all these just irrational, stupid worries that I just I don't need to worry about but they're there. And what I wish I could tell you is that those worries and what-ifs stopped in sixth grade. They did when it comes to rollercoasters; I love them now. But all that's happened is my worries went from things that were rare. Like, I mean, really like how many people fall out of a roller coaster-like it doesn't, it doesn't happen. That's very rare, right? All it happened is my worries went from being something irrational and rare to stuff very rational and very realistic. Things that actually no, they can't happen. So all that's happened is it's gotten worse. By worrying, what-ifs are now rational, and they're real. I have a lot of what-ifs as a father, man, I think to myself all the time. Like okay, am I like spending enough time with the kids? In my playing with them enough? Am I or do we talk about Jesus enough? Like, do we live it out? Well enough, do? Like, are we disciplined? Maybe this is one that other parents go through too? Are we disciplining them, right? Because I don't want to like, you know, do the wrong thing. And they end up on a counselor's couch one day talking about how their dad messed them up. Right? And so we're like, okay, are we too hard? Are we not hard enough? What if we're, what if we're not too hard? What if things go wrong? What if they like to rebel? What if they have a period of time where they're not following? Like, all these things are going through your head? I have what ifs? As a pastor, my wife can tell you, Jessica, almost every Sunday I get off here after I'm like, be confident. Don't worry about what people say. The second I got down, there was that good that the sock was? I mean, what do you think? Did it connect with people? And get back up here? Do it all again? Second service, right? I have those I have that worry. And I have that. What if, like, Man, did it connect? Are people? Are people connecting with this? Does it make sense? The word and what is have not gone away. And if you are anything like me, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Because you have to worry what ifs, maybe you're someone you've never given to God. You've never trusted God with your finances, either here at Cornerstone or any other church; you've just never done it. And the reason is, is because you are stuck in a worrying, what if loop, the devil has hit that button. And all you think about is what if I start giving to God and I don't have enough for myself? What if I start giving, but suddenly I can't pay the bills? What if I start doing this? And God doesn't come through for me in the way that I thought he would come through? What if I finally tried to make the changes to fix my marriage, but it's already too far gone? And they're not going to try? Well? What if I take that step of faith and I'm not met halfway? What if I pray, and I pray, and I fast? And I pray, and I fast for my team to get back and start following God? But it just doesn't happen? What if Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? I have to imagine; I have to imagine before we pick up their story in Genesis or Daniel chapter three, I have to imagine that they had an entire night, full of worry and what-ifs, knowing because, again, we tried to make these people like they're not real. These were real people. They really lived. They really had fear and worry and what if just like you, and I do, and so I have to imagine that the night before they know, with every minute that passes, dawn is coming, which means the music is going to start and they are going to have to make a choice to either kneel or stand. Imagine what they were thinking in those moments. And what do we do? I mean, what? Maybe we do like a fake-out kneel like whenever the guy comes by, we act like we're kneeling, but we don't really, then we stand back. Like what? What are we trying to fake him out? Maybe, maybe we kneel just for now. And God will understand until we can figure out a better way. Maybe we just kneel. But in private, we pray that the king would change his mind, and God will understand that, and God will know that we're still faithful to him. What what do we do? Because I mean, we can't defy the king. Because what if? What if? What if we actually do that? What would happen to us? Do you see why the enemy wants us to get into this loop this worrying? What if loop? He wants us to get there because worry and what-ifs lead to waiting and wasting. Isn't it true that whenever you're worried about something, or you're asking a lot of what-ifs, your natural inclination is to just wait, just stop what you're doing? Just hit pause, be like, Okay, well, I'm worried. So I'm not going to take that step. I'm worried. So I'm not going to trust that thing. I'm worried. So I'm not going to try to change anything. I'm just going to maintain the status quo because there are way too many what-ifs out there, and I don't want to deal with them. And what happens is as we wait, all we're doing is wasting time. All we're doing is wasting opportunities. All we're doing is wasting more moments to be able to take those steps of faith and trust God. I've shared this story a few times before my wife and me, yet like years ago, we had a Sears credit card. We Used it for something, forgot to pay the bill off. And we had moved, the forwarding mail didn't come to us until one day we like had finally gotten a realization of like, Oh, that's right. We still owed money on that thing. So Jessica talks to her sister, Rachel, and is like, hey, because her sister has, you know, she's farther down the road and stuff when it comes to finances than us. And so she asked like, hey, what's the what do you think's the best thing to do here? How should I? How should we approach this? And our sisters like, Okay, well, have they? Have they gotten in contact with you recently? No, no, no, we just remember that we owed this, and she's like, Okay, well, then just hold on. Don't do anything. Just wait. Just wait. Because yeah, a lot of these companies literally just write that stuff off. You don't even have to worry about this right off. If you haven't heard from them and literal years. That's probably what's happened with you. And so if all you do is contact them, they're gonna beg. Oh, yeah, let us bring you back up in our system. Absolutely. You still owe us money. Like, let's pay it. So we're like, okay, that, that makes sense. We'll just keep waiting. So we wait. Until one day, a very heavy envelope came in the mail from the barber didn't Municipal Court. I didn't have fun if it was addressed to us. So we open that bad boy up. And wouldn't you know it? Is it a subpoena? Oh, that's great. A subpoena to come to the court. Because we haven't paid off this bill. We're like, what, what in the world? Right? Jessica calls her sister Rachel. She's like, thanks a lot. He's just got summoned to court for this. Luckily, in the thing, there's a paper it says, Hey, you don't have to come to court. We're just, you know, essentially, we're trying to scare you into paying this thing. So we contact them. We're like, look; we weren't sorry. Like, we'll get this thing paid. And so we had to scramble to figure money out to get this thing paid off. But we got it paid off. But I was thinking about that. I'm like, man, isn't that exactly how it works? You're worried about something we were worried about the bill worried about Manville that come back up. So we waited; let's just wait, let's not do anything drastic. Let's just wait. And while we waited, all we did was waste time. All we did was waste the opportunity to slowly and surely save up money. So it wouldn't have been a stress to save up little bits here and there to then pay that thing off. Instead, all we did was waste time waste money. And so then we had to scramble and a mad dash to pay this thing off. Right? That's exactly what the enemy wants you to do. He wants you to be so consumed by your worry and your what-ifs that you just wait and you waste time you waste opportunities, you waste skills, you waste your life. The enemy wants you stuck in the worry in what if loop? Because the enemy we know he can't destroy us. It's one of God's promises. It's one of those promises that has been validated, and yes and amen. By Jesus, the enemy cannot destroy you. But he sure as heck can distract you, and He will distract you. But be like, Okay, I can't destroy you. But man, I can get you so consumed with the worry and the what-ifs in your life that it's as good as destroying you. Because you will be useless. You won't take any audacious steps forward; you won't be bold in your faith; you're just going to be paralyzed by your fear of your worry in what is confidence. And living confidently will be the furthest thing from your mind. If you are stuck in a worry. And what if loop? I wish I could tell you all of the issues that we have had come up at our church since we started our here now campaign. It's funny; I can look around at people on the staff and see the heads going. Yeah. We just had a lot of stuff happen. Since we started that campaign. Last, you know, February and March. It's been crazy. Just stuff happening stuff. That's weird stuff that Pastor Brennan would tell you. Stuff that hasn't come up in years and ministry comes up and people being frustrated. And you know, I hate even saying this but having people from other churches saying stuff about our church, and you're like, Man, this is crazy. I just a lot of pushback, a lot of stuff going on, you're like what in the world is happening? And let me tell you what would have been very easy to do. Thank God, we have such a great staff and high-level ministry partners and board of directors here because what would have been easy to do is in the middle of all this stuff, where we're worrying and going, Whoa, well, what if? What if this happens, and what if them doing this means this and all these what-ifs and worries? It would have been very easy and very tempting to say; You know what, let's just pause. Let's just wait. Let's just hold on. Because apart from all of the other stuff happening, never mind the fact that we're in a pandemic, right, where we're trying to build a new building in a pandemic when building materials cost three times what they used to just a couple of years ago, right? That's reason enough to feel like, well, I mean, we should just hold on. We should just wait. We just hit the pause button. Luckily, as I said, we have such fantastic people here at Cornerstone. We didn't do that. Like no, come hell or high water. We're advancing. We're moving forward and confident. We're not going to wait and waste away. We're going to continue to take those steps until, No, we know that we are doing what we are supposed to do. We're just gonna keep moving forward with confidence. And so that's what we've been doing. And let me tell you,  we've been moving forward; we just this week had a meeting with a lender from a bank that works and specializes in working with churches. The meeting went fantastic. They're, you know, they're, they're looking at our plans and looking at our financials and saying the Yeah, I mean, your guy's building because I don't know about you guys, but there's always my worry. And my What if is, or what if this building like we go before lenders and like you can't afford that, here's what you can afford. And it's like think a little storage shed that we can put a stage in. Oh, awesome. Yay, Oh, God.

So there's still that worry and that what if, but man, whenever we met with the lender, they're like, No, your plans, these are not like pie in the sky. For you, these are all very realistic; we absolutely can see this working out for you. So that's exciting. And let me tell you, that wouldn't have happened if we had just kept pushing forward through the worry in the what-ifs trusting God to see us through. And that's what we have to do; we have got to push through. That's one of the things the devil does not want you to know about the A B button about the loop; you see, there were two ways to get out of that thing, I can remember this, there are two ways to get out of that it wasn't hitting the A B button again because all that would do is start a new loop. We just started a new, a new sequence over and over again; there were two ways you could get yourself out of that whenever you had hit the A B button. And the first way was by hitting fast forward; if you hit fast forward, it would get you out. And see, I think the same is true in life, whenever we are so consumed with worry. And when we're so consumed by the what-ifs that we face in life. I mean, we just got to move forward. Sometimes you just got to actually step in faith forward doing the next thing you know; God wants you to do, just do the next thing. Stop living in the middle of that loop and step out in faith. We can overcome the paralysis of the what-ifs in life through the productivity of I will. So when you face a what if, start responding to it and say, Okay, I will. What if this happens? Well, this is what I will do. This is how I will respond and then respond and then act; I can tell you one of the most helpful things I have ever done in my life. It's something that I tell other people to do whenever they're feeling overwhelmed with worry or stress is writing it down, write down everything that stresses you out. It might sign sound counterintuitive, like the I don't want to dwell on it, I want to think on it. That's the best thing you can sometimes do to dwell on it, to think about it. Years ago, I won't go into big detail. But whenever we were living in Cleveland trying to start a church up there, things were just so crazy and hectic. I'm not kidding; I went through a period of time, for about six months, I had an eye twitch from stress, my hair started falling out, and I started getting I would get like little rashes across my face of dry skin, all provoked by stress. It was a hard, hard time of life. I remember during that period of time having so many things on my mind just feeling like Man; there's just, there's so much there's just so much, you know, just completely just feeling terrible for myself and sorry for myself, like God, why do you give your toughest battles to, to me like, why do you do this to me just completely, you know, just really laying it on thick. And I really, I just felt impressed by God. So you know what, write it down. You think you've got so much going on; I want you to write down everything you can think of, every single thing you can think of that's stressing you out right now. So I did, I got my phone out, opened up a Notes tab, and I started writing down, and whenever I say everything, I mean everything, like I put down a clogged sink in there. Like it seems clogged to just the work of unscrewing it and getting all the stuff out and getting the new piece Home Depot just it's one of those things. And you know, those worries and what-ifs, man, they start to pile up, they start to pile up, and you just feel like you can't do anything. It's that paralysis that you find yourself in. And so I wrote down everything. And I remember there was about if I remember, right, there's about 35 things on my list. And I'm looking at it, and at first, I'm like, wow, that's a lot. But not as much as I thought it was, like in my head. I'm like, I have 100 things that are just on my mind. I got to do it. So actually seeing it, I'm like, that's not as bad. And I start going through the list. I realize well, some of these things are actually the same thing, like the same thing. So I do that whittles it down from like, 35 to like 20. Wow. Okay, this really isn't that bad. So I'm looking at the list, and I'm like, Okay, well here first thing on the list. The first thing on my list, we used to have a car lease through Serpentina Chevrolet up in Strongsville, and it had I'd gone over the mileage in it to go to work whenever I worked at all state, so I had to go over the mileage a little bit. And there was like a scratch on the back bumper. I remember that scratch and going over my miles being like I'm going to owe these people $5,000 There. Whenever I pull this car into their lot, they're gonna look at that scratch and back while the car is totaled; we have to buy some brand new car and be like, Oh crap, I

I don't know what to do here. So I was freaking out over it. And I remember seeing it on my list and being like, well, you know what I, I just call him, I'll just call him, I'll tell him what's going on and see what happened. So I called him, you know, took a picture of the scrap, sent it to him told him how much mileage was over. And it wasn't bad. I can't even remember; I think it was like five something maybe I can't remember the exact amount, like 500. Like, that's, that's it. That's not bad. I was, I was building this up in my head to be way worse than it actually was. Like, wow. Okay, so then I tackle the next thing on my list. And the next thing I just did was the next thing that I could do to help push those things towards completion. And then let me tell you, that helped me so much just realizing then the worrying what-ifs in my life, sometimes, the only way to break that loop is just by acting, just by doing something doing the next thing that I know, I'm supposed to do, we can either. And here's the truth, we can either work out the worries in our life, we can just work our way out of them, or the worry will work us out. It'll work us right out of God's plan for our life, right out of God's purposes for our life, you will shrink back, and you will be paralyzed from the things that God has called you to do. The people he's told you to get invested in the ways he's called you to sacrificially give, you will never step into those things because you'll be so consumed by the worry and what-ifs in your life. We're going to talk more about that next week. Now, today, this is what I'll say. It's very tempting for me to end the sermon right here because that preaches well. Like if you have worry, just work it out, right? Just work it out. Amen. God, God will help you, and you can work through it everywhere. What I'll tell you, though, is that work doesn't work on every worry. It just doesn't. Work does not work on every worry. Because sometimes, the worry that you have is completely and utterly legit. You should be worried. You should be worried. I remember my sister and me in September of 2018. Having a conversation on our family vacation late at night, I'm sure she can remember it too. I can like almost remember exact phrases from our conversation. We were the only ones awake. And we talked a long time about my dad's health. Because my dad's knee had been jacked up, and it wasn't getting any better. It was progressing worse, actually. And I remember sitting and talking to me like, Man, if his knee doesn't get better, like, what's gonna happen? I mean, what if this doesn't get any better? I mean, how is this actually gonna play out? And we talked a lot that night about my dad's health, asking a lot of what-ifs having a whole lot of worry. And guess what happened? He didn't get better. He didn't get better. That was in September 2018. By January of 29th, 2019. He was dead. He was gone; he passed away.

And we worked in that in-between time. It's not like we were just, you know, just praying and just doing that. No, we were praying. And we were also doing what we knew we should do. We were my mom. I was taking them to doctor's appointments. We were trying to help them in any way we possibly could to figure this thing out. Sometimes work doesn't work on your worry. Sometimes the worst thing imaginable happens. Sometimes your worry becomes a reality. And then what-if becomes A what now? What if that you're like, man, well, what if this happens? It will sometimes transition, and it becomes A what now? And what are we going to do now? How are we going to move forward? Now? How are we going to live in this new way? And this is just the truth of the matter. So many of us, me included, do not want to grapple with a what-if becoming a what now. We don't even want to think about it; we put it off. We don't want to deal with the weight of a what now. We don't want to think about it; we don't want to talk about it. We don't want to think about what it would be like if they died. If I lost that job. If she got sick, we want to think about what it would be like if our child seemed a little bit behind in first grade and then more behind in second grade. And now, in third grade, they're the outlier in their class. We don't even want to think about it. We don't even want to entertain it. We don't even want to consider that the six months you haven't been able to get pregnant has now become a year and now a year and a half in two years. And you don't even want to wrestle with the idea of if that what if becomes A what now? Just yesterday, just yesterday, I was on Twitter, just you know, minutes before I left my house to come over here to start prepping for service last night. And I was on Twitter. And I saw a tweet come by. And it was a picture of the sweet little picture of a mom holding her baby's hand, a little two-year-old, and just saying prayers for my little guy. He's having a really hard time breathing. His vitals are over the place. The doctors don't. We have no idea what's going on. And the doctors say at this moment he is only living because of the machines. Please pray. Like, oh my gosh. So I clicked on that because it had gone viral like 35,000 people. I had liked it and was saying that they were praying. So I click on it. And I see she had had one new post since then. And it was a GoFundMe for his funeral. The baby had died. And I remember at that moment, as soon as I saw that, you wanted to know what I did. Swiped right out of Twitter, right out of it. Like, I don't want to see that. I don't want to see it. Because what it does is it makes me start thinking about my little two-year-old starts making me think about my kids. And guess where my mind started to go? And what if something like that happened to me? I mean, what if Griffin gets sick? I remember never he was sick before. And my God, that was so scary. And what if our kids got sick? When was the last time we got them into the doctor? Okay, what if next time we take them in? What if something's wrong? What? What stuff runs in our family? Again, What's up, friends and Jessica's family? We need to look into that. I'm in it. I'm in it. I'm in the worry. And what if I'm in? I'm in the cycle. And it's amazing how quickly I'm trying to shut that off and not even entertain it, not even think about it just completely, you know, zone out. A lot of us had a funeral here yesterday. I'm sure a lot of people at the funeral we're doing exactly what people do at every funeral, trying to check out whenever they think about their own mortality. Like, I don't even want to consider it. I don't even want to think about the fact that one day people are going to be doing this for me. A lot of worrying about what else we don't even want to consider them. We don't want to think about it. But what if ignoring the what-if is the worst thing we can do?

What if ignoring it is actually the worst thing we can do? Because let me tell you this and a neglected What if can get worse. It can become a reality. And then that thing that you neglected ever thinking about ever considering about ever wondering what you would do in the aftermath. Suddenly, it's not hypothetical anymore. It is very real, and you're living in it. And you've given it no thought. You've given it no prayer, you've given it no preparation, you've not offered anything to God up to that point. And now you're just stuck. Not in it. What if anymore, but in what now? So with that in mind, what I want to challenge everybody to do today is replaced that what if of worry that you have replaced that what if of worry with an even if a faith? Stop asking what-ifs and start asking or declaring, even if, you know, even if the worst thing imaginable happens, I know that God is faithful. And I know that he will see me through. Replace everyone if of worry with an even if a faith. That's what shattered me, Shaq and Bendigo did. That's what we saw from Daniel 316. Through 18. They had to be wondering; they had to be asking their own what is having their own worry that they're trying to navigate and work through, right? They had to. They're humans just like us. But in the middle of it, we see it in their response. Let me read it one more time. Shadrach, Meshach. and Abednego replied to him, King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If, if we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. They're declaring, hey, we know what God is capable of doing in this situation? What if the worst thing happens? We know God can deliver us from it, but look at what they do. But even if he does not, they play that thing out. They take it to its logical conclusion. If the outcome we want to see happens, awesome Glory to God. But even if it doesn't, even if we face our own death, even if we go into the furnace, even if he does not, we want you to know Your Majesty, we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you have set up. You see, they knew in the midst of every fear-filled worry is a faithful God. They knew that. And so that's why they could stare a what if in the face and say, even if, even if that happens, even if the worst thing imaginable happens to me, we will remain faithful because we know God is faithful. You see, I told you there were two ways to get out of the A Bloop. One was hitting fast forward. The other way was hitting the play button. And for a lot of us, that's what we need to do. Play that worry out. Play it out to its logical conclusion. I know you don't want to. I know it's scary. You don't even want to consider that that thing could happen that you really could lose your job and be laid off. Even though your company's making the cuts. You're thinking you're going to be the one I'll be safe; I'll be safe because I don't even want to entertain. What if that was me. You don't want to entertain if that person dies, you don't want to entertain if the sickness gets worse, you don't even want to entertain that. I would encourage you to entertain it. To play that thing out. Play it out to its logical conclusion. And I promise you; you will see that at the end of every fear-filled worry is a faithful God at the end of every single one. Play it out. Me and Rachel. We played out my dad's death that night. We played laid it out. We asked the what-ifs we talked about our worries and what we would do. And so when it hit when my dad passed away unexpectedly, whenever that happened, yes, the grief came. Yes, the sadness came. Yes, the pain and the loss hit. But man, we had even a faith. So it didn't hit the way that it normally hits. It didn't hit the way that it probably should have hit. It hit differently. Because our faith wasn't what if and what now, faith it was, even if faith even if my dad doesn't get better. We know God's faithful. God's faithfulness isn't dependent on this circumstance. We know God's still faithful. And we know he's still going to see us through; he'll get us through somehow we'll be able to stare down the worst enemy can throw at us and make it through. We know that. And we experienced that to be true. So many people in our church have experienced that to be true. I was just talking with Wayne Sims last night. And he was reminding me about people in our church who have had this, even if faith, we have an incredible saint in our church, Debbie Knickerbocker, who she's been in heaven for a while now. But man, whenever she was younger, she and her husband got pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter, Kelly, and the very next day, he was in War Vietnam; the very next day, he was killed the very next day. And so now Debbie faced this new reality that this I'm sure she had asked What if so many times what if something happens to him over there? What if he doesn't come home? Well, that what if became a what now. But thank God Debbie had even a faith. And so she raised Kelly, to follow her Lord, she followed the Lord. Now Kelly's following the Lord in a very real way. And it's all happening because of even if faith because of someone playing out the worst that life could throw their way, and trusting God with it. And knowing that there's a faithful God at the end of every fear-filled worry, the same can be true for you. And the same can be true for me; we can know that in the middle of every worry, God is there and that our faith can bounce back from even the worst that life throws our way. I want to read just one more verse as we get ready to close out our time that I'm going to ask the worship team if they would come back up. This is from Hebrews chapter four, verses 15 through 16. This is what it says, For we do not have high priests talking about Jesus, who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses and weaknesses right there. What that means is just the normal weaknesses, that humanity has the struggles that we have the ways that we fall short, we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with those weaknesses. But we have one who has been tempted in every way. And what temptation right there means is he has been put under trial in every way, the obstacles we face or the obstacles that Jesus faces. He has faced all those obstacles in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. Yet he did not miss the mark. Let us then, in light of this, approach God's throne with the grace of grace with confidence, confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. When that worry becomes a reality, when that what if becomes A, what now? The God who is the source of our confidence is the God who promises and remembers His promises are yes and amen. They are Yes. And so be it. He promises that at that moment when it feels like life is too much, when it feels like the grief is too much, the pain is too much. At that moment, we can receive mercy and grace in our time of need.

So we can drive down to the bottom of our greatest fear of our greatest worry of our greatest What if and see that there's still a faithful God and that our faith can bounce back. We can get back to the surface. The waves of grief may hit you, but they don't overtake you because our God is a faithful God. He's a faithful God; he's, he's a God who has been faithful in our past. He's faithful in our present, and he'll be faithful in our future. So all of those worries and what-ifs that we have that we struggle with, we can just put those at his feet, put it at his feet, and say, God, here I'm trusting you with this. I'm going to try to work myself out of the worries that I can work myself out of, but all the other ones got. I'm just going to play it out and trust and know that you are faithful at the end of it. And we know that's true because God has been faithful, then it's going to be faithful now.