I want to get the message started a little bit non-traditionally this morning, at least for me. Uh if you've been here long, usually what I do is I tell a story or maybe recap what we've been talking about. We sort of ease into the main takeaway. I want to connect some dots and make sure that we're in the right frame of mind for what the main point of the morning is going to be. But today I just want us to go right into the takeaway. I just want us to, right now, right off the bat, get our minds focused on what the message is all about today. Because as I as I read our scripture that we're going to base the teaching on today as I was preparing, this is just what jumped off the page. This is what God made it so clear that today needed to be about. Because today's all about faith. Today's all about not just having faith, but having a persistent faith. A faith that is more persistent than fear, a faith that is more persistent than our troubles, than our problems. It's about having a faith that never ever gives up. It's about having a faith that doesn't stop. As I as I read the scripture today and this whole last week and just prepared, it's like three words, three powerful words just kept ringing in my brain. It's don't stop believing. And so I thought it only appropriate. It's where you put bucket list items. And I have one on here that says incorporate, don't stop believing by journeying into a message. And that is done. So that is done. If it's your first time in his hands, I don't know if to say sorry or or what, but uh one one of you know, one of the core values we have here that I will never lose is that we take God really seriously. We take ourselves much less seriously. So sometimes we just have to have fun. But in all honesty, in all honesty, though those are the three words that I just kept jumping into my mind as I as I asked God this week, what is the focus? You know, sometimes there's there's stories you read in the Bible and you have to stop and you have to think and you have to pray and go, God, what are you trying to say through this? And then other times you read something and it's just like God is screaming at you. It's just like God is is is at full volume singing to you what he wants you to get out of this. And that's what happened to me as I was reading scripture. I had to ask myself, God, is it okay that a journey song is stuck in my head as I'm reading your word? And he said, It absolutely is. So that's good. That's good. If you're just joining us, we're in a series right now called Elijah Shah. What we're doing is we're studying the lives of these two prophets in the Old Testament, Elijah and Elisha. These are two men who were very close to God, men who were prophets. They were kind of God's mouthpiece to the world, and they were they were friends. Elisha ended up following Elijah, and so we just sort of smushed their names together, and that's why we call this Elijah Shah. And we're just going through their story. We're just looking at what the Bible has to say about what they experienced in life. We're just going kind of story by story and then taking away whatever it is that God wants us to take away. That's the beautiful thing about Scripture. Even though Elijah and Elisha lived about 3,000 years ago in a very different place, in a very different part of the world, very different culture, their experiences with God resonate with us because of one simple reason. No matter what happens in this world, no matter what changes in culture, no matter what happens in history, God is always God. And he's constant. I mean, Hebrews chapter 13 puts it this way: remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, follow the example of their faith, for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So when we study the lives of people who lived 3,000 years ago, Jesus is still Jesus. And the same Jesus that was working behind the scenes in Elijah and Elisha's story is the same Jesus who came for us 2,000 years ago. It's the same Jesus who we follow today. He's alive, he's the same, he's unchanging, he's constant. He's the one thing in this world that we can count on. The one thing in this world that we can like build life on. And so when we study the old stuff, we're still studying something that's relevant right now. It's really exciting. And just to kind of jump into the story and set the stage, last week we got to this really epic moment in the story. It was this showdown between Elijah and these prophets, over 400 of them, prophets of a false god called Baal. What happened was that King Ahab of Israel married this woman named Jezebel, and she came from a place called Phoenicia, and she brought with her worship of this false Phoenician god, this little G God called Baal. And Baal was the Phoenician god of rain. And so she comes in, and Ahab is very influenced by her, and he starts to worship Baal as well. He sets up Baal worship as the official worship in all of Israel. And so all the Israelites are now worshiping Baal. They're asking Baal to make it rain, they're sacrificing to Baal. Baal is in, and God is kind of out. So God sends Elijah, his prophet, to have a conversation with King Ahab. And we looked at this the very first week we started the story. This is when Elijah first shows up. It says, now Elijah, who is from Tishbi in Gilead, this is 1 Kings chapter 17, told King Ahab, As surely as the Lord the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word. Elijah is speaking on behalf of God, and God is saying, Hey, if you want Baal to make it rain, King Ahab, I'm gonna let Baal handle the rain. But it's not gonna rain because you and all of Israel need to understand who Baal is. You need to understand who I am. It's not just some random thing. It's connected to what Baal was all about. And today we get to this moment in the story where Elijah gets to give the word that he promised he would give years ago. It's three years later. And there's been this epic confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, and Baal didn't have a very good day. God did. And those prophets were utterly defeated, and Ahab is gotta feel dejected. He's got to feel like such a fool because he's put it all on Baal, and Baal just didn't show up because he's not real. But our God is the God who shows up and he showed up in a big, big way. And now Elijah has a conversation with Ahab, and we see this play out. And this is a conversation that's a fulfillment of the promise he gave to Ahab when they first met. He said, Hey, one day I'm gonna give the word and it's gonna rain again. And so in 1 Kings chapter 18, verse 41, this is where we pick up. Then Elijah said to Ahab, Go get something to eat and drink, for I hear a mighty rainstorm coming. I mean he's he's basically talking trash at this point in time. Like he's he's just had this big victory, and he tells King Ahab, you know, hold on to your crown, because it's about to get really windy. And so Ahab went to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel, and he bowed low to the ground, and he prayed with his face between his knees. So he is praying fervently. And then he said to his servant, Go and look out toward the sea. And the servant went and looked, and then returned to Elijah and said, I didn't see anything. Seven times Elijah told him to go and look, and finally, the seventh time his servant told him, I saw a little cloud, about the size of a man's hand rising from the sea. And then Elijah shouted, Hurry to Ahab and tell him, Climb into your chariot and go back home. If you don't hurry, the rain will stop you. And soon the sky was black with clouds, a heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm, and Ahab left quickly for Jezreel. And then the Lord gave special strength to Elijah. He tucked his cloak into his belt and he ran ahead of Ahab's chariot all the way to the entrance of Jezreel. That last part's pretty cool. God just gives Elijah the ability to run faster than a chariot. Those things are like four horsepower. Those things are intense, right? Elijah was booking it. And we'll talk more about that next week, but but I want to focus on this interesting, this interesting interaction between Elijah and Ahab, between Elijah and God, really, because Elijah says with confidence, hey Ahab, today's the day. It's gonna rain. Get ready. And then he goes and he sends his servant out to look for rain, to look for signs of rain. And the way the story's reading at this point, like if especially if you were here last week or you've read this story before and know what comes right before this, Elijah has this mighty victory over the prophets of Baal. And then he goes up to Ahab and he's like, Hey man, remember when I said three years ago that it's gonna rain? Well, today is the day. And then he tells his servant, go look and tell me what you see, and you expect his servant to come back and say, Elijah, I have never seen clouds like these before in my life. I mean, the storm clouds that are on the horizon, they're so intense, they're just they're bigger, they're darker, they're more menacing, there's lightning. It's just, I think this is gonna be the greatest storm that Israel has ever seen. That's how it feels like it's gonna play out. But his servant comes back and says, Yeah, I uh I didn't say anything. I get it, it's clear skies. And Elijah, who is praying intensely, says, Go again. And goes again, second time, nothing. Go again, third time, zero. Go again, fourth time, nothing. It's this point where you start to feel bad for the servant. You know? Like, oh okay. Fifth time, nothing. Sixth time, nothing. And then the seventh time, Elijah sends him again, and he comes back, and and you know, you almost feel like the servant must have been trying to spin it in a way that could encourage Elijah, because I doubt the servant got up there and saw that little tiny cloud and thought, yeah, it's happening. You know, and the servant comes back, and it's almost like the servant saying, Hey, uh, good news. Elijah, it's okay, it's not, it's not raining yet. But there's a tiny cloud, and you never know. You never know. Like all storms start off as a little cloud. So, hey, maybe maybe things are on the up and up. But Elijah is filled with so much faith that the second he hears that there is a tiny cloud on the horizon, he says, That's it. Go go tell Ahab to leave right now, to go right now, to get in his chariot and go, because if he does not, the storm is gonna be so intense, there's gonna be so much rain that just the mud that it creates will get his chariot stuck in the ground. And you have to imagine the servant was like, Yeah, that's kind of bold. I don't know, I don't know if you heard me, Elijah, but it's a little cloud, it's tiny, and and what you're describing does not match what I saw. But the servant does what Elijah says, and what Elijah says is what comes to pass. And I read this and I'm blown away by the persistence of faith that Elijah has. I think it's important to remember that Elijah's faith in this moment may have may have been struggling. Sometimes I was actually talking to Megan about this this morning. She was reflecting on some Bible study she was doing, and how sometimes when we read the Bible, we we kind of put on some some extra confidence with the the people in it, the characters in it. You know, the Bible does an amazing job of showing us the good, the bad, and the ugly. It does not put much spin into the lives of the people that it it talks about. We say this very often, but it's so important for us to remember that the Bible is not the story of amazing men and women doing amazing things for God. It's the story of an amazing God using broken people to do his work in this world, which is really good news for all of us broken people. And for those of you people who aren't broken, well done. But I it's not me, you know, like that's what the Bible's about. So sometimes we read stories like this, and we might think to ourselves, oh, Elijah is just sitting there like so full of faith. But we don't know. Maybe Elijah, when he's praying, maybe he's saying, Hey God, I told Ahab it's gonna rain today. Like I thought that's what you told me to say, and I told him that, and I'm not seeing any rain, and my servant's been back five times, and he said nothing. And look, God, I'm just saying you need to make it rain. Like you need to now, and maybe I got my wires crossed, maybe I heard wrong, God, but I told Ahab it's gonna rain now, and and and like your reputation's on the line, so God, please, please make it rain. We don't know what's going on in Elijah's heart and in his mind. But but regardless of whether he was filled with utter confidence or he was even shaking a little bit, fearful that this isn't gonna work, he persisted. He persisted three times, four times, five times, six, seven times. I think he would have gone to 70 if he had to. He persisted. He's the living embodiment of this verse in Romans. Romans 12, 12 says, Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. I read that this week and I had to ask myself a tough question. I read those words, confident hope. And I had to ask myself, what has more confidence in my life? My hope or my worries? Because I don't know about you, but I have very confident worries. You know? Like there are there are things that I worry about happening, and I'm I'm almost filled with confidence that they will happen. It's easy to be confident that that the worst is going to take place. Even in situations where you really feel like God's in it. I mean, here I am, I'm a pastor, and so I should be this person that's like, oh man, I'm just, you can't phase me. You can't phase my faith. Things can happen. I'm like, oh, God's about to do something. That is not, that is not how it goes. I wish it was, but it's not how it goes so often. There are times in my life, many times, where my fears and my worries are more confident than my hope. I remember a few years ago, it was Christmas, 2015, and uh our theme that year was life gets brighter. Was anyone here for that Christmas Eve gathering? All right, it was a really good time. It was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences in my life. Because what happened was every year at Christmas, and by the way, Christmas is coming up pretty soon. I mean, it's it's it is too early to listen to Christian, or Christian, not Christian, Christmas music. I mean, you can listen to Christian music if you want, but it is, like, don't stop believing. It is, it is too early, I think, to listen to Christmas music, but not way too early. Like it's coming, and we're gonna have an amazing Christmas Eve, as we always do. But Christmas Eve 2015 was the first year that we were doing something that felt very risky. God had really spoken to us and made it clear that our theme that year needed to be light. That Jesus is the light of the world, and when he came to this world, this world got brighter, and when he comes to our lives, our lives get brighter. When we have Jesus, it's like the light comes on for the very first time. We see everything in a new light. That's what we knew God wanted us to talk about. And Nathan had this incredible idea, really felt like it was from God. He said, Hey, what if what if the people are the light that night? Just like Jesus said that you're the light of the world, when you have him in your life, you're like an extension of Jesus to this world. You are the light of the world. What if the people are the light? And he said, I've seen these bracelets, and they're really cool. They're these LED bright bracelets, and you put them on, but then you can control them, and so we could give everyone, you know, these bracelets, and then at this one moment they can all like turn on in unison, and and then from that point on, all the songs we do will just go crazy with them, have fun, and and the people in the in the crowd, they'll be the light, just like Jesus said, we're the light. And I was like, Nathan, that's brilliant. Like that, that's it. And so we we did some research and we figured out how to get these, and we got them, and there was just like one little catch. You couldn't test them. Because the way they worked is when you when you open them, you had to pull a little strip. You've probably gotten things like that where you pull a strip and it activates the battery. But the batteries are designed to only last about four hours because they're kind of made to be disposable. And so once you pull that strip, you're all in. And so we're gonna have over a thousand of these going at once, and there's no way to test it. We pulled the strip on like seven of them as a test, and we we ran it, and it all worked. We had an amazing young man named Zach Van Dyne. Uh, he's an awesome guy. He was in charge of making it all happen. He was 17 years old at the time. But he he was on it. And so we pulled the seven to test, it all worked fine, and then we're just sitting there going, okay, I I hope, I hope it works. Because the whole the whole night was kind of riding on this moment where I was gonna be given the message, and everyone has these bracelets on, and the the bracelets are on, there's no going back. People are not gonna forget that they're wearing something, and and what was gonna happen was I was gonna say, when Jesus comes into your life, it's like the light comes on for the very first time, and then boom, all the lights are gonna come on at once, and that was just gonna be fun and cool and celebratory, and then we were gonna go from there, and it was all awesome, and and I'm sitting there on the stage, like right here, standing, talking. And in the back of my mind, I'm going, it's about to happen. It's about to happen. And God, you know, it's amazing how you can have a conversation with people, but also have one with God at the same time. So I'm saying the words I'm supposed to say, but in my mind, I'm like, God, I like this has to work. You know, this has to work. I mean, we we felt like you told us what the theme was. We felt like you gave Nathan this idea. We feel like all the pieces have come together, but we haven't tested it, and what if it fails? And I was not filled with hope in that moment. I was filled with a very confident fear. And then I was like, oh no, we have a 17-year-old in charge of this. What have I done? You know, he was awesome, but how many situations in life if someone said, Don't worry, we've put our best 17-year-old on it, and uh we're real confident that it's gonna work out. You know, like that never happens. That never happens, and I'm sitting there freaking out in my mind, and and and I remember the moment that the words came out of my mouth, and I said it, it was pretend confidence, you know. I was like, and it's like the light comes on for the very first time, and then boom, they all came on. And I was I was just like, thank you, God. You know, thank you. If you if you weren't here, we actually have a picture of of what that kind of looked like. It was really, really cool. And so all these people have these bracelets on and they're all brightly lit, and it was awesome. And then the first the first gathering finished and everyone left, and I had to do that two more times. And I'd love to tell you that the second time I was like, got it, we're good. The second time I was just as nervous as I was the first, like it all working did not fill me with with more hope. And in a way, it was like, oh no, like I started worrying about the batteries because I'm like, batteries only last four hours, and I mean maybe we got a bad batch. I don't know. And the third gathering was the worst, because by then it had been like three hours since we had pulled these, and I'm sitting there going, God, you know, the batteries, oh no, the batteries. And it worked every single time. It's just it was this amazing reminder to me of how, in even little situations in life, even when I believe God's in it, even when I believe God's the one who's done it, when push comes to shove, there are times where my fear, my worry, my anxiety is much more confident than my hope. And again, I can't tell you what was going on in Elijah's mind that day. Like we can't, we can't hear the conversation he was having with God as he prayed. But you can tell that he's not being nonchalant. You can't see, I mean, he doesn't go get a bite to eat, he doesn't go, hey Ahab, it's gonna rain. I'm gonna go grab something to eat, you know, while this happens. He is praying passionately, pleading with God to make it rain. But what I love about Elijah is that even though we we don't know how confident he was, we don't know if his hope was as confident as maybe we'd like it to be, he persisted. He did not stop. He did not stop believing that God was going to show up. He did not stop sending his servant out time and time again, and I said it, I say it again, I think he would have sent him out seventy times if he had to. It's very interesting the effect that faith has on God. It's interesting to think about the fact that faith affects God, that something that we do can actually have an effect on God. There's two times in Scripture where Jesus is surprised, which is kind of a cool concept, right? Surprising Jesus. Probably a really hard thing to do. You know, he's God. How do you surprise God? But two times in Scripture the Bible says Jesus was amazed, and the word amazed actually means he was surprised. He was caught off guard. Once was at the lack of faith a group of people had in him, the other was in the amount of faith. A person who was very much an outsider in their culture, a person who really shouldn't have had much faith in Jesus, even maybe knowing who Jesus was, he was amazed, surprised at the amount of faith that that person has. It was a Roman centurion. Two times that Jesus was amazed, was affected deeply, caught off guard, and both had to do with faith. Our faith has an impact on God. It's interesting. I can't put it in a formula. I think sometimes in church we try to create formulas to, you know, if you do X, Y, and Z, then God will do this. And, you know, I there's not a formula. You can't look in scripture and say, oh, if you just do these three things, then God will always, because God's not a vending machine. You know? But He is consistent. And faith, it impacts him, and persistence in faith, persistence in faith is something that really gets God's attention. The Bible speaks to this many different times. For example, in Galatians 6 9, God's word says, So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. Revelation 2.10 says, don't be afraid of what you're about to suffer. This is Jesus really talking to some churches who are about to undergo some intense, intense persecution. He said, The devil will throw some of you into prison and test you. You will suffer for 10 days, but if you remain faithful, if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life. Jesus says, Your persistence will be rewarded, your persistence will pay off. James 1.12 says, God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. You cannot get more clear than this. God blesses those who patiently endure, who persist despite testing and temptation afterward, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. Persistence pays off. And when we have a faith that is persistent, regardless of how confident we might be, regardless of how things look like they're going, regardless of how the world around us perceives things, when we have a faith that is persistent, God takes notice. I think part of that is because God is persistent. Like God gets persistence because he is persistent. If you think about the life of Jesus, there's so many times where it would have made sense for him to quit on us. You know, Jesus comes to the earth and he leaves heaven, and sometimes we kind of gloss over that fact that Jesus left heaven, a place where he was worshipped, adored, exalted, glorified, had all power, all knowledge. He left that to come to earth and live as one of us. You could make the argument that Jesus sacrificed far less on the cross than he sacrificed when he left heaven to come live with us. He gave up all of that to know us, to have a relationship with us. Not just that, he gave up all of that to save us, to rescue us from the inevitable result of our lives, which would be a lifetime, an eternity completely and totally disconnected from God, an eternity of suffering. Jesus came to suffer to save us from suffering. And we did not exactly make a great case for ourselves over the course of his ministry. There's not a lot of moments where Jesus has the ability to go, see, that's why I came. You guys, you just blow me away. Like they're really few and far between. But what we see over and over again are these moments where if we were Jesus, and thank God that we're not, but if we were Jesus, if I were Jesus, I'd be like, yeah, I'm done. You know, I'm just this is thank thanks for showing me your true selves. I'm done. And it would have made total sense. For example, in Luke chapter 4, we actually looked at this a few weeks ago. This is one of the first moments where Jesus goes public. And he's reading from a scripture, a scroll in Isaiah, to the synagogue in his hometown. These are the people that have known him his entire life. He has served them, he has worked alongside them. And he basically reads it. It's a prophecy about the Messiah, and he says, Hey, this prophecy, it is happening right now in front of your eyes. I am that prophecy. Luke 4.28 says, When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious. Jumping up, they mobbed him and they forced him to the edge of the hill on which the town was built. They intended to push him over the cliff, but he passed right through the crowd and went on his way. These were the people that had known him his entire life. And what's amazing is if you if you dig into this, read Luke chapter 4 later today, the arguments that the people have that they make against Jesus, being the Messiah, have nothing to do with Jesus' character or the things that he's done. All they can think of, these are the people who know him best, people he grew up with. They just say, well, how could he be the Messiah? We know his family. His family's not that important, they're not that special. There's not one person in the crowd that can say, Jesus is not the Messiah, he owes me 10 bucks. Like years ago, he told me he'd pay me back, and he never does that. Not one person has anything like that to say. If I said I'm the Messiah, within 30 seconds, there's gonna be a long line of people making a strong case for why I am not. Most of them are related to me. Like, you know, the better someone knows me, the more they would know that's impossible. But these are the people who know Jesus best, and all they can come up with is his family's just, you know, carpenters. They're just working class people like us. How could he be the Messiah? These are the people that Jesus knows best, and their reaction to him is to try to kill him. That's a great opportunity for Jesus to bail. If the people who know him best are gonna do that, that's a great indication that maybe these people aren't really worth it. It's not like it ends there. Mark chapter 3, verse 1 says, Jesus went to the synagogue again and he noticed a man with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus' enemies watched him closely. If he healed the man's hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. In Jewish culture at that time, there were strict laws for what you could and could not do on the Sabbath. They were told by God to keep the Sabbath day holy. That meant it was a day of rest. That meant you shouldn't do any work. But the Pharisees and the scribes had gone way overboard and created all these crazy, crazy rules that were not God's intention at all, that were designed to keep people from breaking this rule. So, for example, if you lived in that culture, you you could not pick an apple from a tree and eat it on the Sabbath. Because picking an apple was work. That's harvesting. Medically speaking, this is where it gets really crazy. If you were a doctor and someone came to you badly wounded on the Sabbath, you were allowed to treat them in such a way that it would keep them from getting worse, but you were not allowed to treat them in such a way that would make them better. Because that was work. So it was like, if they're bleeding, like just put a bandage on it, but don't sew it up. It's crazy. That's why they're watching Jesus so intensely. And Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, come and stand in front of everyone. And then he turned to his critics and he asked, Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it? But they would not answer him. And he looked around at them angrily and he was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. And then he said to the man, Hold out your hand. So the man held out his hand and it was restored. And at once the Pharisees went away and they met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus. These are the religious leaders. Forget the people in his hometown. These are the spiritual elite. They're the ones who are supposed to see Jesus coming from a mile away. They're the ones who should be first in line to line up and say, We've been waiting for you for so long. And they want to kill him. This would be a great moment for Jesus to tap out. To say, Yeah, I'm done. But he didn't. He persisted with us. He persisted with us. Later in Matthew chapter 12, verse 24, when the Pharisees heard about the miracle, this is another miracle Jesus has said, has done, they said, No wonder he can cast out demons. He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons. Like it's one thing to not understand what Jesus is doing, it's another thing to see the good that Jesus is doing and to call it evil. They are so hard-hearted, they are so twisted in their thinking that they look at God and call him Satan. That would have been a great moment for Jesus to say, Yeah, I'm done. I'm out. The moment that the soldiers came to arrest Jesus. They come to his defense for a moment. They try to stop Jesus from being arrested. I love what Jesus says to his disciples in that moment of Matthew chapter 26. He says, Don't you realize that I could ask my father for thousands of angels to protect us? And he would send them instantly. Jesus is reminding his followers of his power. He's saying, Look, they're not taking me. But here they are, they're arresting Jesus. They're treating their creator like a criminal. And if I'm Jesus, I'm sitting there going, they treat their creator like a criminal, yeah, I'm done. I'm not going any further. Not for them. Not if this is how their attitude toward me is going to be. That's that's just how the average person, I think, would probably respond. And they take him and they brutally torture him and they nail him to a cross. Scholars say that crucifixion is probably the most painful method of execution that humanity has ever devised. And Jesus goes and he endures that. He can call on these angels instantly, and he is off that cross, and everyone goes, Oh no. And the people who are watching him be crucified basically dared him to do it. They dared him to. In Matthew chapter 27, verse 43, they say this. This is the people talking. He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him. For he said, I'm the Son of God. They're basically saying to Jesus, hey, if you're really the Son of God, why don't you do something about this? And if I'm Jesus, that's definitely the moment that I say, All right, y'all, I'm done. But what Jesus does is instead he prays and he says, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Jesus persisted with us. Jesus persists today with us. With all of humanity. You know all those times that you turn on your TV and you look at the world around you and you go, it's all going to just wherever, right? This is so bad. We're hopeless. If you watch much news, you'll learn that the world is more confident in fear than anything, right? Our world is much more confident in our fears than it is in our hopes. And we look at it and we be, we're like, it's it's a this is it. This is too far gone. There's no way that things are gonna turn around or improve, it's just too bad. That's not Jesus. Because every single time that humanity gave Jesus a reason to quit, Jesus persisted. Because Jesus believes in us. Because Jesus, he believes in you. I mean, think about it personally. There have been so many times in my life personally where I have done things where it would make total sense, total sense for God to speak to me and say, hey, you know what? I gave it my best shot, but you're just not getting it. I make mistakes over and over and over again. Sometimes it's the same mistake over and over and over again. I show God so often that all the things he's done in my life, that all the things he's taught me, all the things I've seen, they just haven't really even penetrated because I'm still stuck in so many of my stupid petty behaviors. And it would make so much sense for God to say, Justin, you know, it's not me, it's you. And I would I would nod my head in agreement and say, I know, I'm sorry. But he does not do that. He persists. He doesn't do that with you either. Because crazy as this may sound, Jesus has faith in you. And his belief in you persists through every trial, through every mistake, through through every stupid thought, through every everything we do that would give Jesus a sign that says, I'm not getting it, I'm not worth it. Jesus looks at us and he persists. His love for you, it persists. His faith in you, it persists, his hope for you, his desire to know you, his grace for you, all of it, it persists, it never ever stops. Jesus does not stop believing in you. I mean, think about that. Jesus doesn't stop believing that you are worth his love and that you are worth his life. He never stops believing in you. And and the only thing that we can do in response is to just never stop believing in him, is to persist. A worship team, if you guys want to come on out, I just had this worry that they're gonna start playing Don't Stop Believing Again. And uh please don't. That's a good one-time thing. Um, it's a great song, though. It's classic. If you look at the disciples, the the people who follow Jesus, they don't they don't really have much that they do that impresses you. There's not really much about them that makes it obvious why Jesus chose them. There's this one story, though, in John chapter 6, starting in verse 66. At this point, many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. And then Jesus turned to the twelve and asked, Are you going to leave? Simon Peter replied, Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe, and we know that you are the Holy One of God. I heard a pastor say one time that the only thing the disciples did right was they just stayed in the boat. The only thing they did right was they just persisted. And sometimes they persisted through all kinds of stupid actions and stupid words. They missed it, they got confused, their faith was minuscule so many times, but they stayed. They persisted with Jesus, and their persistence paid off. And maybe you're here today and you've been following Jesus for a very long time. There's just things in your life, and it feels like it's never gonna get better. And you're ready to throw in the towel. Maybe it's your career, maybe it's your marriage, maybe it's some other relationship in life, maybe it's it's something that's completely different that I can't even imagine. But there's just something in your life and you're going, you know what, I just I can't. Persist. Do not stop believing. Because at any moment, God can show up and he can change it all. What if Elijah had told a servant to go home after the sixth time? Sometimes we have this tendency in life to say, I tried once, I gave up my best shot, it didn't work, so I'm done. What if Jesus had pulled out the first time we we gave him a reason to persist. Do not stop believing in the God who believes in you. Never stop believing in the God who believes in you. Because I'm telling you, if you persist in him, he is going to persist in you, and you will see him show up and you will see him deliver, and you will have a testimony and a story that brings glory to God. That will happen if you persist, because he's promised that. Maybe you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus, you've never had that moment where you've crossed a line in your heart and said, I will follow you. If you have not done that, I'm telling you, today's the day. Today's the day to start believing in the one who believes in you. To begin putting your faith in the one who refused to quit on you, who to this day refuses to quit on you. Do not stop believing. Start believing, persist and keep going and keep going and keep going. And when life tells you that you should throw in the towel, when people around you tell you that you should quit, just be like Elijah. And put your head between your knees and pray. And believe that if you persist, that if you keep going, you will see God come through. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for the fact that you never stop. You're the God who never gives up. And it's unbelievable to think about the fact, just to sit here and think about the fact that you did not quit on us when we hung you on a tree. And Lord, I just I believe there are people here right now who are afraid that you're gonna quit on them. But if you didn't quit on people when we crucified you, you're not gonna quit on one person in this room, you're not gonna quit on one person in this world just because we mess up, just because we make mistakes. Yes, Lord, I pray that you would fill us with faith and remind us that you're never gonna stop believing in us, you're never gonna stop pursuing us, you're never gonna stop loving us, you're never gonna stop giving us grace and mercy, you're never gonna stop hoping for us and hoping in us, Lord, and we just want to be people who respond in kind. We want to be people who say to you right now, Jesus, that we will never ever stop believing in you, that we will stay in the boat, that we recognize who you are, and no matter how hard it gets, no matter how difficult it becomes, no matter how much we don't understand, no matter how much it hurts, we're gonna stay with you. We're gonna persist with you because you love us and because this world depends on it. And we ask all this in your name, Jesus. Amen.