When life Hurts - Main Service Hour

[0:00] well i want to say take your bibles but uh i'm not going to do that today but you will in a minute outside there are books and materials that brother ashley has that you can use uh to help others and maybe to help your father 4 15 we will start on time please be here at 4 10 get your own time for that you know one of the biggest lessons and i get to say it today because i don't get to say it when i preach we're not here to learn about brother ashley we're not here to learn about the bible we're here from god you will learn about the bible but this can't be a bible college this can't be we're not here for information we're for transformation and so while you listen today i hope you'll listen to the holy spirit of god speak to you come on brother ashley enjoyed very much what you did in the sunday school hour and how you handled the word of god looking forward to this hour and so much pastor i appreciate that appreciate being here today um but we're going to be in romans chapter number five romans chapter five is we're going to take our text going to take me a while to get there so uh if you'll just uh bear with me for a second i'm gonna ask my wife and my son and his wife to stand up because i love embarrassing everybody when we go somewhere but that's my wife joanne my daughter-in-law kristen and my son jason jason lives here in the atlanta area we're so uh such a blessing to be able to not just be able to come here but be able to spend some time um with uh our son and uh my grandchildren uh you heard one of them probably blowing out the walls a little while ago crying but everything's okay so praise the lord we thank the lord for that um uh on our table in the back uh there i just want to explain a couple of quick things quickly um after our son passed away people had told us as johnny was growing up he was such an inspiration to so many people you gotta write a book you gotta write a book you gotta write a book and while we were raising johnny there was you know there's no thoughts of writing a book but shortly after he passed away um it seemed like the lord said it's time to write the book so this book here is it's called um finding grace and peace in spite of trials and tragedies the johnny ashley story but really it's the story of the grace and the strength that the lord gave us for the 28 years that we raised him um i call it 165 page gospel track if you know someone that's hurting and they're going through difficult time um this book will help them and i'm not just saying that because you know we wrote the book many people have been helped through this book and uh uh you can you can give this to someone that's lost and they'll know how to be saved by the by as they read this book also on the back table uh it's 14.95 on amazon but today at vision baptist church it's ten dollars all right and then uh the compassionate shepherds another book i just wrote this about a year ago uh it's written from a pastor to a pastor really um but uh the people that have read it have told me that they've gotten a lot of help just being if you want to learn how to help somebody we're going to talk a little bit about that this evening but if you want to learn how to help somebody this book will help you and uh again it's 9.95 on amazon seven dollars uh today and if you buy both of them together it's seventeen dollars so um math majors in the in the uh in the uh audience here but anyway um our prayer card is on the table back there take that it uh pray for us we sure would appreciate it um the lord's expanding our coast we're traveling a lot more than than we usually were in michigan but we're getting further and further out and then on that table is also a gospel track this track has got a picture of our son johnny less than 48 hours before he was in heaven god gave us this picture he's signing i love you johnny was profoundly deaf and uh and uh we were in a in a in a burger joint he had a big smile on his face a gleam in his eye it's almost like he's saying i know something you don't know as a matter of fact my wife the next day flew down here because jason and kristin had their first uh child and she was here and johnny passed away had to call and give them some horrible news uh that changed them changed our

[4:05] life uh and also on the table if um if you would like we have a monthly newsletter that we send out through email if you'd like to get that sign up and we'll get that to you uh every month but you got to put your your email address we don't sell your email address we don't use it for anything more than just getting our our newsletter to you our son johnny um was profoundly deaf like i said before and he is uh he was a notorious clock watcher he every time that we he knew to tell teachers when classes started what to do when it was in school and and if we were gone somewhere he'd always want to know what time we're going to be back he didn't want us to tell him oh we'll be back at 10 o'clock uh no we'll be back at 10 03 or or uh 9 55 or whatever it may be um and our church like your church starts at started at 10 30 the morning service well from time to time i'd get the opportunity to go fill pulpits and so i was filling a pulpit in a church that started at 11 a.m now we forgot to tell the clock watcher that he wasn't paying any attention went through sunday school went through everything and my wife and him would sit right in the front row and she would interpret for him while i would be preaching so i'm wrapping things up and it's it's almost new and out of the corner of my eye i see the clock watcher go like this and then he looks up at me now i know he's thinking we're supposed to be done with church already because our church started at 10 30 and he thought this church started at 10 30 but it didn't and and he looks at this watch and then he looks at me and he waits for a minute then he looks at his watch again and he looks up at me and he takes his hand sitting on the front row puts it up over his head like this and starts pointing at his watch and just in case i didn't i didn't see him he's going and i'm trying to ignore him because i mean this message i'm preaching was great it was a great message and i didn't i didn't want to break my stride you know but but i finally had to ignore because no one's paying any attention to me he's they're all looking at him they're laughing at me was what they're doing and finally i had to stop i said i know i'm almost finished and he put his hand down and shook his head and i closed the service and and at the end of the service the chairman of the deacon board comes up to me and says brother we really appreciate you coming today so you can come back anytime you'd like to as long as you bring your son with you thank you very much i'm glad the message impressed you so much but but that was johnny that that was kind of life with johnny but um johnny was born may 1st 1987 he was born with multiple unique malformations he had a double bilateral cleft lip and palate really whereas his head he had a hole in his face where his upper lip and his nostrils should have been he was wall-eyed he had eyes that were pointing in two different directions he had two bad heart valves which eventually were replaced with mechanical valves he had what's called a horseshoe kidney which uh during his development the kidneys never separated in the womb which led to kidney failure which led to a transplant uh he had kyphosis of the spine and scoliosis when johnny was 28 years old he was four foot six weighed all of 90 pounds he had leg braces from his hips down to the bottom of his feet he was profoundly deaf and he was fearfully and wonderfully made by god he was made exactly the way that the lord wanted him to be and how the lord could use him in his lifetime in spite of all of johnny's challenges he still had dreams he wanted to be like his brothers he wanted to be like bob and jason and he wanted to he wanted to have a wife he wanted to live independently but he didn't want kids and he didn't want pets because kids and pets run through the house and startled him because he was deaf and they would scare him but uh but he wanted uh wanted to wanted to get married wanted to live independently as a matter of fact he made a list one day of the qualifications for his wife i literally wrote it all down she had to be pretty she had to be

[8:10] hearing and she had to know sign language so that she could go to his doctor's appointments with him and interpret for him uh she had to be willing to go and uh be able to dole out all his medications and give them to him uh she had to be able to cook she had to be able to clean and he showed me that list i said son you don't want to marry a woman you want to marry your mother you know which is which is very very true but there was a young lady at the school he johnny went to school at michigan school for the deaf and there was one um teacher's aide that was really kind to johnny most of the kids picked on him and and he was made fun of a lot because he was the weakest of them all but uh but there was one aide that was that was pretty nice and actually she checked off a lot of the boxes that were on his list and her birthday and my wife's birthday were the same day and johnny would always talk us into getting together with her on their birthday and and you know just uh be able to kind of have like a date you know date night and johnny would make her a gift and and would give it to her and everything well one day unbeknownst to us he brought his list and as we're sitting at the table he took his list and slid it across the table to her and she picks up the list and she looks at it and goes what am i supposed to do with this i said well tell him you don't qualify and maybe he'll be okay with that i don't know i don't know if this was johnny's way of proposing to her or what he was doing at that point she goes oh johnny i'm sorry she goes i can't do that at least because your mom does that on that list he said fine and he pulls the list back and that was the end of that we never we never heard another another thing about that but the last two years of johnny's life he was on on dialysis the kidney transplant that he got lasted uh quite a long time 17 years was 17 years and um he uh it ended up failing and he ended up going on dialysis and he was in severe pain for the last two years of his life and his health really began to deteriorate and he knew that life was about as good as it was going to get and it was at that time johnny decided you know what i'm not going to live independently anymore he gave up on those all his dreams he gave up and as a matter of fact he began to pray that the lord would just take him home he had had enough pain he had had enough sorrow and he just prayed and he actually asked my wife and our sons and their wives if you'd pray for me that god would just take me home now friend when your child asks you that that's that's a hard pill to swallow it's a hard pill to swallow but he had several infections in this catheter that they did dialysis with and it's just things things just got really really tough on him and so he decided he was going to quit dialysis and let nature take its course so he'd set a date and uh that date would start to approach and he'd say well you know the tigers are going to start playing and i love going down to america park and watching the tigers play and well you know um the holidays are coming up so i want to do this or whatever and he just kept putting putting it off and putting it off well on october 3rd 2015 the lord took that decision out of johnny's hands he had gotten up that morning got dressed made his bed opened his blinds and he was using a walker because he was having a real tough time to walk at that time he used a walker he pointed that walker towards his door to go to start his day and before his body hit the ground he was in the arms of jesus amen i don't tell you that so you feel sorry for the ashley family we know that there are many people that have been through much deeper waters than what we've gone through but we're trying to be obedient to the lord trying to do what god would have us to do you use with the things that the lord has taught us to help other people our ministry is to try to help and encourage other people it was birthed our ministry was birthed out of johnny's life and his home going everybody here has it in spite of amen everybody has a trial everybody's going through something everybody's gone through things in in their lives and and and and so we're just trying to encourage people to live for the lord in spite of the trials that you face let god use you

[12:17] our desire is that god would use us to encourage equip and educate god's people to live by the power of christ in their life we give a voice to caregivers give a voice to the disabled give a voice to those that are in grief you know our trials we take personally don't we god you're doing a work in my life and and he is the lord's doing a work in our lives and the lord's trying to do something trying to build us trying to increase our faith and try to to do those things but one thing that you and i always forget is the fact that our trials are influencing other people that are around us we fail to realize what god is doing in their life through us and that's really what i want to talk to you about here this morning romans chapter 5 and verse 1 i'm going to ask you if you're able to just stand with me as we read romans chapter 5 and verse number 1 bob says therefore being justified by faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ but whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of god but not only so we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulation worketh patience patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not a shame because the love of god is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy ghost which is given unto us i want to talk to you this morning about the testimony of tribulation the testimony of tribulation let's pray father god we come to you now we thank you for this time we thank you lord for this day that we could come together father we thank you for your word we thank you for your peace and for your comfort and father we ask now as we open our word open your word and begin to preach i pray god you would just empower me lord give me the words to say today lord no doubt there's people that are hurting here right now lord there may be people here that don't know christ as their savior and their trials may have brought them to this church at this very time so lord i pray that you would use your word use me i pray as i try to preach bless encourage convict save souls lord we'll be careful to praise you and thank you for it in jesus name amen please be seated you know the greatest testimony that anyone can have is the testimony of being saved by the grace of god having your sins forgiven knowing that you're on your way to heaven knowing that that you have trusted christ as your savior when we witness for christ it's our goal hopefully to be able to tell someone what god has done in our life he has saved us by our grace try to share the gospel with others to share what god has done in our life we have a desire to connect with people and and try to bring them to christ through our witness you know uh but a lot of times we have a difficult time don't we connecting with certain people we have a friend of ours who um she was uh at one time a healthy vibrant young lady and and she had gotten sick and through one thing after another now she is pretty much homebound um she uh needs an aid to come into her house in the morning and in the evening to help her to to take care of her basic needs but she's also a powerful witness for christ and when these aids show up they're not always the same person when these aids show up they have no idea who they're about to deal with when they come walking through the door and and she says what i try and she tries to witness to each one of them try to bring them to christ but she said what i try to do is find out where they hurt because if i can find out where they hurt that's usually what's keeping them from god it's usually what gives them an attitude with uh with god you know again we may not be able to connect with a lot of people in life in a lot of different areas but one thing we can all connect with each other on is the the common experience of our trials

[16:21] of our heartache of our pain you know because we all have them in spite of situations that we need to live through you know you and i need to rejoice in the testimony of salvation in the testimony of having peace with god but paul goes on to say but not only so in verse three he says not only so but we glory in tribulations that word glory means to brag or to boast paul says if i'm gonna i'm gonna brag i'm gonna brag about all the problems all the trials that are in my life because you know what friend that's the part of our testimony that people can see people can see what's going on our testimony of our problems hey people may not see our salvation by looking at us but they they can see our tribulation they can see the trials of co-workers family members neighbors whoever it may be they can see what we're going through they they know what we're going through and hopefully we reveal god to them through our trials you know the christian life is not always so much how we act person can get saved and and and we we we begin to try to disciple them and we give them the list of do's and don'ts in their christianity and how to act what to do what to say where to go when to do this and when to do that and and we and and you know to be separated from the world and all these things we spend a lot of time working on the external and friend we need to be separated from the world amen but the fact of the matter is our christianity doesn't shine so much in how we act as it does in how we react how we react to the trials of life how we react to times that hurt people see our faith when we react to our trials in life johnny was an inspiration like i said earlier to so many people as a matter of fact the school that he graduated from michigan school for the deaf two teachers got together and they made an award in his honor it's called the john ashley inspiration award and he got it when he graduated from school and every year we've been able to give that out except for obviously last summer because of covid we couldn't give that that award out johnny actually gave it out for a few years when his health was good enough but it was it was because johnny met his challenges with a smile on his face most of the time and it was they he inspired so many lives you know we don't like our trials amen we want god to take them away from us i want you to hold hold your place in romans but turn over into second corinthians chapter number 12 second corinthians chapter 12 a familiar portion of scripture the bible says in second corinthians chapter 12 and verse 7 lest i should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations there was given me a thorn in the flesh the messenger of satan to buffet me lest i should be exalted above measure for this thing i besought the lord thrice that it might depart from me and he said unto me my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weakness most gladly therefore will i rather glory in my infirmities that the power of christ may rest upon me therefore i take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and necessities and persecutions and distresses for christ's sake for when i am weak then am i strong the apostle paul hated the thorn that was in his flesh he asked the lord to take it away from him get this out of my life i don't want this whatever it is whatever it was i'm sure he thought uh lord i could serve you a whole lot better and be a better witness for you if you just take this out of my life aren't we the same way amen but the apostle paul's attitude changed when he realized that the thorn in his flesh when the lord said unto him my grace is sufficient for thee he realized that the very source of god's power was the thorn in his flesh and so he he changed his attitude he went from hating his thorn to embracing his thorn and and and and using and allowing the lord to use that

[20:27] god said hey paul you know what you want me to take it away i'm going to use that to make you even a better witness even a stronger witness for me and paul went again he realized that that his trials were something that he could boast in as a matter of fact in in in second corinthians chapter 11 it says in verse 23 you know paul's uh his his qualifications of apostleship were always in question he was always being questioned his authority was being questioned and this is what the witness that he gives are they minister of christ i speak as a fool i am more in labors more abundant in stripes above measure in prisons more frequent in deaths off of the jews five times i received i forty stripes say one thrice was i beaten with rods once i was stoned thrice i suffered shipwreck a night and a day have i spent in the deep and journeyings often in perils and wall of waters in perils of robbers in perils of my own countrymen in perils by the heathen in perils in the city in perils in the wilderness in perils in the sea in perils of monk false brethren in weariness and painfulness and watchings often in hunger and thirst and fastings often in cold and nakedness besides those things that are without that which cometh upon me daily the care of all the churches who is weak and i am not weak who is offended and i burn not if i must needs glory i will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities paul says you want to know my qualifications let me tell you all these problems all these trials that i've come through because of the cause of christ because i've been preaching the word of god he goes i'll brag on those i'll boast on those things because that's what's made me qualified you know it's through trials that god shows himself real not only to ourselves but to those that are around us that's when we experience his power and that's when we can have the greatest impact on those that are around us before johnny was born my wife and i she had gotten saved a year and a half before i got saved years before that i was in the navy but got backslid i was away from the lord and and uh and uh got right with god so we were basically baby christians when johnny when johnny was born you know we began to witness to our friends and you know okay uh here they go they're gonna go off on this religious kick now our lives change the lord had come into our family and and really done a real work uh but you know a lot of friends thought we had joined a cult or you know we were in church every sunday morning sunday night wednesday night i mean and like i said we were busy busy serving the lord and they didn't want to pay much attention to what we had to say until johnny was born and then they began to watch our life they began to watch us like a hawk you know whatever you may be going through today or whatever you've been through in the past or whatever you're going to go through in the future god wants to use the trials that you face god wants to use so that he can show others his power his power don't look at your trials it's just something that god could have prevented but they're what god will use to reveal his power in us i read a meme on facebook a while back you may have you may have read it yourself it says someone had to go into the fire so that nebuchadnezzar could see the lord think about that so didn't didn't we throw three boy jewish boys into the end of the fire because there's a fourth one walking around it's the son of god hey friend the fire that you're in the trials that you're in the trials that you've gone through trials you're going to go through hey the lord the lord's designing that so that you can show others christ so that you can show others the lord jesus christ then there's a testimony of patience look at verse number three not also tribulation also knowing that tribulation worketh patience patience man have you ever heard anybody

[24:30] tell you whatever you do don't pray for patience man don't pray for patience you pray for patience god's going to answer that prayer and you're going to get that you're going to get patience through going through trials and going through tribulation so don't pray for patience hey friend you know what the bible also says about that hebrews chapter 10 36 says for you have need of patience that after you have done the will of god you might receive the promise james chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 says knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience but let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and entire wanting nothing hey the bible tells us that we have a need for patience and that there's a perfecting work that patience does in our life and if that be the case ought we not pray for it god give me patience amen allow the lord to do a work in our lives you know the word patience here has it literally means you know joyful endurance but it also has the idea of consistency consistency consistency going forward staying faithful going forward for the lord so as the lord has our our allows our faith to be tested and we deal with our trials we need to learn to keep a consistent testimony you know the bible talks again about the patience of job right job trusted the lord before he had his trials during his trials during his trials and when he came out the other side he trusted god job 19 verse 25 he says for i know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand upon at the latter day upon the earth you know people want to know that god's real i believe there's lost folks out there that want to know god's real and the way that they're going to see god's real is when christians start living a consistent life not just happy and praising the lord when everything's going good and then when trials come all down and and and and down in the mouth and and depressed and not not not able to thank god or or go forward for the lord when their problems are uh you're going that you're going through there was a guy that i used to work with he was a big old guy he was my boss and and he loved to call me john the baptist i don't know why he thought that was so funny but to him that was hilarious and he'd get all the guys together they make fun of me because i wouldn't do the stuff that they were doing and everything like that and uh he knew all the times that i had to take off work because i had to ask him you know tell him what was going on with our son and hospitals surgeries whatever it was one day he came up to me with tears in his eyes he says hey can i talk to you for a minute i said sure he pulled me off the side and he said i don't know how much power you guys have with god down there at your church but could you pray for my wife they believe she has cancer i said sure i will dave sure i will i don't know if his wife is still alive or not but they found out later that she didn't have cancer but that man i was able to lead to the lord six months before he died he had he had diabetes had kidney failure i met him in the hospital prayed with him in the hospital and went to his house and prayed with me and he trusted christ as a savior at his home one day why because he saw it and again it's i'm not bragging on us i'm not bragging on us at all i'm bragging on god but he saw some consistency in a christian's life you know you know people say god will never give us more we can handle amen i tell you something friend that's just not true god will regularly give you and i more we can handle first corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 that's that text that we use to to to say that god will never give us more than we can handle it says there is no temptation taking you but such as is common to man but god is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it you know if you look in context of first corinthians chapter 10 the whole chapter talks about israel's sin and rebellion

[28:34] and the lord will always give you a way out of temptation to sin amen he'll always give you a way but friend the lord regularly will give us more than we can handle come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and i'll give you rest amen casting your care upon him uh casting all your care upon him for he care for you the lord doesn't want you and i to handle it he wants you to give it to him and let him handle it amen i said johnny was born people began to watch our life my dad was a very hard man you know my mom i got divorced when i was five years old my dad was an alcoholic and uh when when when joanne got saved i got right with god you know my dad was yeah okay we'll see and then when our son got born like i said he really began to watch us he began to watch us and and and and i would always pray for my dad lord whatever it takes to save my dad do it now when you pray like that you're thinking lord send lightning bolts down upon my father so that he'll fall to his face and get saved amen there's something bring something into his life that would bring him to christ well no the lord brought johnny into our life and my dad watched us and he watched us he watched us and six months before my dad died he ended up getting cancer but six months before my dad died my pastor led him to the lord at the va hospital down in detroit and he said to my pastor he says i don't know what it is that john and joanne have but whatever it is i know it's real because of what god was doing in our life and living a consistent life joanne's parents got saved at 80 years old they bowed at their their coffee table in their living room trusted christ as their savior what i'm trying to say is friend people are watching you they're watching you and they want to see you be consistent they want to see you trust god all the time not just when life is going good testimony of peace with god testimony of problem testimony of patience then there's the testimony of persuasion verse number four says in patience experience experience is the best teacher right it's also the hardest teacher because you've got to take the test before you take the class you're going to go through the trials you learn to trust the lord you learn to trust the lord you learn to depend upon him you know we need to keep a consistent walk and learn to be faithful we can experience god's love and god's power in our life joe chapter 13 verse 15 says though he slay me yet will i trust in him but i will maintain mine own ways before him when johnny was born again my wife had a cesarean section i was for the first time able to be in the delivery room for one of our children and man it was great you know i had my scrubs on and uh they set me down by my wife and we sat there and i was by her head and they had sheets all around so you really couldn't see what was going on but the heads of the doctor and the nurse were up over the top of one of the sheets and i could see them as they're walking and there's banter going on in the delivery room you know and suddenly the the doctor goes well it's a boy and like i told you this morning no offense jason but we were hoping for a girl amen but uh but then what's the next thing you want to hear is he okay so well now he's got a he's got a hair lip do you know what that is it's what they used to call a cleft lip we're gonna have a cleft lip man he had a hole in his face his eyes are pointing in two different directions and they they brought him around the sheet and showed us showed us him and he's screaming he's crying and and and and you could tell that there was more wrong than than just the cleft and they rushed him off to intensive care and they escorted me out of the delivery room into the locker room and they said well uh the doctor will come and talk changing your

[32:38] street clothes and the doctor go wait in the waiting room the doctor will come and talk to you when he's done with your wife i remember leaning on those lockers in that locker room saying god i can't do this i can't do this i need your grace and i need your strength i got a wife that's in that other room over there and she's going to need a husband that's going to stand for you and help her and help her through this i've got two little boys that are going to be home they're going to have a ton of questions lord i can't do this i need your strength i can need your power and can i tell you something friend god heard that locker room prayer god heard that locker room prayer because after surgery after surgery and and emergency room waiting rooms and intensive care waiting rooms over and over and over again we had god's strength we had god's power and we were able to see god work in our lives in situations that we could not handle but god handled them for us amen he's been faithful through all those years you know the testimony of persuasion can only come through experiencing the grace and the strength of god then there's the testimony of promise in verse four it says in patience experience and experience hope hope i hope you realize there's no hope in our government amen there's no hope in our banks there's no hope in your 401k there's no hope in your job there's hope in jesus christ and in him only biblical hope is a confidence it's an expectation it's not oh man i sure hope things will work out no no no we have hope in christ we know that he's going to keep his word experience teaches us that we can trust god's promises no matter what comes our way people need hope today and we know that hope is in christ johnny had hope he was willing to quit dialysis just go to heaven because he trusted jesus christ as his savior not because he had all his physical problems he was going to heaven because he understood he was a sinner and he needed to be forgiven of a sin and one day in his life he accepted jesus christ as his savior as his only way to heaven he understood that he was willing to quit you know and he never wavered on that he never wavered on the fact that he knew he was going to heaven the bible tells us that god loves us no matter what you can always count on god dealing with us out of a heart filled with love the word of god tells us he'll never leave us nor forsake us you can always know you're never alone if you know christ as your savior the word of god tells us that he's in heaven right now preparing a place for us and we can live knowing that someday hey we're going to go home the word of god tells us that we can have joy in the midst of sorrow we can grieve with the expectation of joy joy and sorrow can coexist october 3rd 2015 was the darkest day in our lives like i said this morning johnny got up took care of get got himself ready and and and and he pat his heart gave out and he was on the floor when i went into his room i didn't know what was going on was taking him so long why why weren't you coming out johnny i gotta i've got to get to the church i've got things i've got to take care of and i finally opened his door and i saw his body laying on the floor and i ran over to him and i grabbed him and held him to my chest and i cried and i wept and i cried and i wept it was the worst moment of my life and then for a brief moment there was joy there was joy not for me but for him his faith became sight what he had been praying for and asking god to do he did i always imagined that that he'd be in a hospital room hooked up to ivs and and oxygen and and and

[36:43] that's where he'd go home from because he spent so much time there but if he would have wanted to go home from anywhere in the world it would have been his domicile man his room god took him home friend hope or or grief and joy come together at the cross that's why we should sorrow not as others which have no hope do you have that hope today do you know christ is your savior then finally the testimony of passion verse five says and hope make it not a shame because the love of god is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy ghost which is given unto us friend there's no shame in the testimony of tribulation there's no shame in having problems a lot of times i think somehow we think that will hurt god's testimony if we admit that we've got problems or we got trials in life friend everybody's got them everybody's going through something everybody's going through trials but because of the love of god will be on display through our trial through our problems through our trials our trials are only matched by by how much love god has for us the bible tells us that jesus sent us another comforter the holy ghost of god which dwells inside of us and he sheds god's love abroad as we're in our trials when our hearts are breaking and we can't even pray the bible tells us the spirit of god prays for us he reveals the love his love to us in the midst of our trials romans chapter 8 and verse number 35 the bible says who shall separate us from the love of christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword as it is written for thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter nay and all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us for i am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord through tribulation we gain patience through patience we gain experience through experience we gain hope and my friend through it all we're not ashamed we're not ashamed because we know that god loves us and nothing nothing shall separate you from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord testimony of tribulations today god doing a work in your life do you have hope today friend are you going through trials have trials even brought you to church today your world seems to be falling apart you feel like there's no hope my friend hope is in christ hope is in the lord jesus christ do you have a testimony of peace with god today meaning you've made your peace with god through jesus christ through trusting christ as your savior the testimony of your problems hey your trials are part of your testimony of what god's done in your life what god's done not what you've done but what god's done have a consistent walk through your trials and god will use you god will use you and then friend trust god through your problems trust him through them

[40:46] you don't need today religion you need a relationship with christ you're here today and you don't know jesus christ as your savior i'm going to invite you to trust him today so that you can know you're not going to go through your problems alone and if you're saved today i want to invite you to maybe start thinking a little differently about your problems start seeing they're not just something god could have prevented but something that god is using not just in your life but in the lives of all those that are around you that are in your sphere of influence allow god to do that father god we come to you now and lord we thank you for your word we thank you for the comfort that you bring and god i pray that you would speak right now that you would do a work in every heart that's here today lord we're asking you to do what no man could possibly do in this moment so in the quietness of this moment if god's spoken to your heart and you say i need to get my sins forgiven i need to be saved today maybe you just need to slip out that i'll come down to this altar and someone will take a bible and show you how you my friend can have hope for all eternity the same hope our son had maybe that you're here today and god spoke to your heart you're in the midst of trials but god spoke to your heart maybe the lord's working on you right now why don't you come forward and you do what god would have you to do in this service you come and you respond to what god would have you to do right now you