This summer, Katie and I, and the kiddos, we were in Florida. How many of you guys remember? We took a sabbatical this summer, and we were in Florida for a portion of that trip, and we were getting to the last week of our trip. And we thought, man, we just have like an opportunity.
We can't miss this opportunity. We should go boating on the ocean. And we're like, we're just gonna do it. How much is it?
We did some research, 300 bucks. I'm like, yeah, let's do it. This is like one time thing. And we were in the Cape Coral, Fort Myers area.
And so we decided, yeah, let's pull the trigger. I didn't go with a company. I went with just some random guy I found on Google. It's like Google Maps, and it's like sometimes, that's dangerous, okay?
And so I showed up, and Katie was like, yeah, I don't think we should get a sports, what is it, not a sports boat, a speedboat. I don't think we should get a speedboat. We should get like a pontoon. And I'm like, okay, yeah, totally.
We've got a baby. And so, Naz was about six or seven months at that time. And so we got a pontoon to drive that on the ocean. Huh.
This is the safest option, for sure. And so I show up, this guy's like, he's kind of one of those guys that you don't want to ask too many questions, because you just want to play it cool, right? What he didn't know is that I grew up in Colorado. And there's no lakes in Colorado.
And I've never driven a boat before. Katie though, she comes from a boating family. So she's been on the water all her life. And so I'm learning how to use the boat, and the kids are in the car.
And he's showing me things. He's like, hey, you need to make sure to the red and the green flags. Just follow those. And he's showing me this map.
No GPS. I'm like a millennial, right? And I'm like, where's the GPS? And where I'm supposed to go?
And he's like, follow this map. And he just opens up this map. And I'm like, OK. I totally got it.
No problem. This is going to be great. And I didn't tell him it was my first time driving a boat. For sure.
Because I wanted him to feel like at ease. Like, he can rent the boat to me, right? And so it's 95 degrees. It's just like hot.
The kids board the boat. And I push off. And I go. And I know.
I was going to make a sound effect. And I'm awful at sound effects. So I'm not going to do it. But I try to open.
I try to turn the key. And it's not starting. And there's a concrete wall. About 20 feet over there.
And we're starting to float towards the concrete wall. And the kids are like, Daddy, what's going on? And Katie's like, hey, guys, it's OK. We're going to be OK.
Just be quiet. And I'm trying. So hard to start this. It's not starting.
And there's a little catch in the throttle. And so finally, I got it started. And I was literally like a foot or two away from this concrete wall. We get going.
And there we are. We went about 30, 40 feet. And I saw the green and red flags. And all I remember is, OK, green and red flags be where.
And I kind of remember what he said about the green and red flags. And so I kind of just took a right onto it. It was by the shore. And it was this moment that every couple has where she asks you the question.
Like, well, did you ask him? You know, it's like this question. Well, did you ask him which way to go? And I was like, for sure.
I actually asked him detailed questions about the red and green flags. And he wasn't a good communicator. And I tried. And I don't even know if he knew.
And so I had to make this call of shame and call him back and be like, OK, what am I supposed to do with the green and red flags? I didn't mention that he said, hey, you've got to be careful about the reefs. Like the muscle reefs or something? What the heck is a muscle reef?
Is that a thing? And then he's the end of the manatees. Don't kill the manatees. Don't kill the endangered species.
And I'm like, OK, all right. So we're going. And I finally figured out it's like those flags are way too close together for me to actually need to go through them. And he said, yeah, you have to go in between the red and green flags.
So I finally make it through the red and green flags, avoiding the muscle reefs. And we're going out to the ocean. And we're approaching the ocean. And then there it comes.
The 150 foot long yacht. Probably like Elon Musk at the helm. Just this luxury yacht. And there's these waves that are coming behind the yacht.
And you can't do anything about it. But I've watched. I've watched Katie's dad. He does this thing where he kind of just hits them right.
And it's like, oh, it's nice. But he has a pretty much a yacht, OK? So you don't even feel the waves when he does it. But these waves are billowing.
And they're approaching us. And I literally hit it perfectly. But we're like, no. And all of our kids are like, dad.
And I'm like, I know. Hold on to your infant. And we're just like, go ahead. And literally almost capsized.
And we decide, OK, we're not going in the ocean. If that's what boats are like in the ocean, we're not going in the ocean. And so we take a turn to the right. It's like, oh my god.
These waters are nice. These waters are so peaceful. In fact, I don't see any other boats around these waters. Just glass smooth waters.
And all of a sudden, I heard this like thump, the manatee. I don't know. I don't know. We still don't know.
Was that a manatee? I'm not sure. Lord, forgive me. But I look over the edge.
And I can see the bottom. Like it's right there. And this Katie's just calm, cool. Like, hey, kids, this might be a perfect opportunity.
We can get out and swim. And so I stopped the boat. And our 10-year-old daughter's like, are you sure? And we're like, yeah, jump out.
Make sure you have your life check. And they jump out. And they literally hit the ground. And the waters at there, like right above their knee.
10 years old. Oh my god. Oh, no. No boats anywhere.
And we got on the right track, though. We just took it slow. Saw some dolphins. That was good.
We did not get capsized or anything like that. But then it ended. And how it ended is he told me that I have to get gas. Before I bring it back.
Gas means that you have to go up to a dock, right? And you have to park the boat. But it wasn't just any gas dock. There was actually a restaurant connected to the gas dock.
And there was a full deck of people enjoying dinner at the restaurant. And they're just watching me come in. And Katie's like, you don't have to feel it if you don't want to. He can.
And she's trying to give me a way out. And I'm just like, oh, I got it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.
And I'm just like, white knuckling this thing. I successfully took it. There's concrete on both sides. I literally did the ui.
And I just perfectly. It was amazing. Yeah, you can clap. You can clap.
But here's the deal. It was later that night, I'm trying to go to sleep. And it's literally like, did I have PTSD? OK?
It was a small tea trauma that I went through. And so I opened up to get him like, hey, I'm having trouble sleeping. I just have some anxiety. And what happens in the moment?
As I open up, and it took me a lot of strength to just open up about it, because I had so much shame about it. And whenever you have shame, you know you have shame. Because then when you open up in that place, and the person asked you a question, she literally was like, hey, OK, what are you feeling? I'm like, why are you accusing me?
Why are you being so mean to me right now? I just opened up. And she's like, I just wanted to understand. And that's what happens when you start having the shame about your weakness.
And weakness has a dysfunctional relationship with shame. Weakness has a dysfunctional relationship with shame. I want you to open your Bibles to Matthew 5. I want to talk about weakness tonight.
In our culture, weakness is a really, really bad thing. Is that right? It's like no one wants to be weak. No one wants to have it set of them.
Like, oh, yeah. Wait. Yeah, the weak skinny kid? Nobody likes that.
I remember when I was in middle school. And please don't reuse this. I was in middle school, and my basketball coach used to call me chicken wings. Because I had such skinny ankles.
And he was like, man, I just want to. He actually started calling me KFC. So that was my nickname, my whole middle school. It's because he's like, I want to just take those legs and eat those calves.
And I'm like, oh, that's so weird. But I'm in my identity years. And there's this insecurity. And it's this weakness that none of us like feeling weak.
And I think you even look at our culture. Nobody likes, no, I won't say that. Everybody loves Enneagram because they start feeling known and seen, right? But there's not a book written called Weakness Finder.
It's like, Strengths Finder, but not Weakness Finder, right? Because in America, it's about strength. It's about you be strong, and you don't let anybody else see your weakness. Last week, we talked about verse 4 in Matthew 5.
And it was about morning, right? And this week, I want to talk about verse 3. It says, blessed are those who are poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That phrase, poor in spirit, in Hebrew culture in the first century. That was actually a Jewish idiom that meant you come to the end of yourself, the end of your strength.
So those who come to the end of their strength, the end of themselves, they're the ones that get the kingdom of heaven. See, a lot of times, we think that's just to get into the kingdom. That's just like a salvation thing. You realize, I can't earn it.
I can't buy my works, earn salvation. And so I say, I can't do it anymore. You have to save me. I need to save you.
And that's how you get in. But the beatitudes are how we actually live in the kingdom. And we actually need to come to the end of ourselves, the end of our strength as believers and followers of Jesus. But our culture is that that's not normal.
That's not normal for you to actually show your weakness, right? But every time you feel weak, you have a choice. And I have a choice. It's our choice.
Do I go towards hiding? Or do I go towards embracing the weakness? Either I hide the weakness that I feel. And listen, we feel it.
If I had a conversation and you are fully vulnerable, every single one of you, all of us, if we were rod open and real, we have insecurities, pain points, feeling like we don't have what it takes, feeling like I just don't have capacity, feeling confusion, feeling weak. Every single one of you. And you don't want anybody to know it, but you're all weak. Behind closed doors, I know it.
There's weakness on the inside and you feel it. But we have a choice when we feel the weakness in those moments. Do I hide like Adam? Or do I embrace the experience and the feeling of being weak?
Now that doesn't make any sense because if I'm feeling weak, I'm supposed to be strong in the Lord, Pastor Josh. I am strong in him, right? And it seems unnatural to go for me to say, hey, embrace the weakness. Because what happens is we're faced with this moment of, we're faced with this moment of I feel weak.
And then the tendency is to go into isolation. The tendency is to go right into, I'm going to hide, I'm going to isolate, I'm going to defend myself. There's in the early years of Kati and I's marriage, we had three kids under the age of four. And we got credit cards.
And I remember deciding, OK, I'm going to put all of our expenses on the credit card. And then at the end of the month, I'm just going to pay it all off at the end of the month. And it's just great plan is for the rewards. How many of you guys are like rewards, right?
Credit card rewards, you're like, yes. And you literally get like pennies back. It's just such a joke, it's such a trick, OK? But I'm like, yeah, we're going to get the rewards.
And I get to the end of the month, and I don't have enough money in the check-in to actually pay the credit card off. And then it kind of happens another month. And then it happens another month. And Kati's unaware she's like caring for harvest, he's a newborn.
And it just kind of kept on going. And in that moment, what I'm doing is I'm feeling shame about a weakness around not being good with finances and not knowing what to do and feeling helpless. And so I feel this helplessness, I feel weak. And then I start to listen, listen to what happens in you, subconsciously.
I start doing deductive reasoning in that moment. And so I go, if she finds out where we're at, then she won't trust me. And if she doesn't trust me, then she won't respect me. And if she doesn't respect me, then she won't love me.
I'll feel misunderstood and will be disconnected. And I don't want that. And I want to be loved. And so the hiding happens in that hiding.
There's these longings of my heart of wanting to be seen and known and loved. But I'm hiding. And I'm in isolation. And I'm alone.
This happens all the time. Shame and weakness have a dysfunctional relationship. Turn in your Bible to 2 Corinthians 12. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9 is where we're going to pick up.
2 Corinthians 12, verse 9. What happened was I shared with Katie, shared with Katie what was going on. And Katie responded totally like Jesus. And it was a really humbling moment for me because I'm anticipating Katie to respond to me the way that I had imagined in my shame and in my hiding.
How often do we do that? We picture how the person is going to respond to us in our isolation and in our weakness. And we actually have already tried on the identity as a victim in our hiding. And then she responded to me with so much compassion and grace and unconditional love.
And obviously, there's consequences in trust and in a relationship like that. But her response was full of so much love and compassion for me in my weakness and in my hiding. But then it happened again. And I showed up April, I think it was April 13.
It was two days before tax day. And I got off the phone with our tax guy. And he proceeded to tell me that we were in debt to the IRS because of self-employment tax that I didn't know about. That's really unfortunate when you have your own business and you don't know about self-employment tax.
And he informed me that we were $14,000 in debt to the IRS. And we were month to month on hitting our bills. And I had a moment. I had a decision to make in the crossroads.
Am I going to hide my weakness and have shame about my weakness or am I going to embrace my weakness? And I called Katie and I called my father-in-law and I called my dad and I told them all what was going on. And I humbled myself in that moment to say, I need help and I'm weak. And this is a mess.
Let's read in 10 Corinthians 12, verse 9, it says this. But he said to me, this is Paul writing about God and them having a conversation. He says, but God said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness.
Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest on me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. What happens when we choose to embrace our weakness is that we get met with two people.
One is his name is Jesus and he is the high priest that sympathizes with our what? Our weaknesses. That's what he purists for, says. That our high priest Jesus sympathizes with our weakness and then we get Holy Spirit the helper.
What do you need more than anything when you feel weak? Somebody to sympathize with you and someone to help you. The key to strength, what Paul just said, is the key to actually experiencing power, empowerment, and strength is first owning your weakness. This is the growth mindset of the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is growth. To actually embrace the weakness, and it's the first step of growth, it's like if you're lifting weights, and you feel the weakness, and you can't push up the weights any longer, what's happening is your muscles are getting broke down in your weakness, and it's actually the key to you becoming stronger. But you embrace that weakness and you push to your limit, and you feel the weakness, but it's making you stronger. But we need to feel our weakness.
It's just like last week we talked about mourning, you actually have to sit in the morning long enough to be comforted by him. Sometimes we have to sit in our weakness long enough to actually be helped. But what happens when you hide? What happens when you hide is that you don't receive help, you feel isolated and you never grow.
You never grow. You stay put in hiding because you ignore the fact that there's weakness because it's too hard to face. And I believe God is calling us to step into Kingdom growth in our relationship with God. In our relationship with God and in the Kingdom, none of us have it together.
None of you, none of you get it. I don't get it, you don't get it. We haven't arrived, we're not there. We are all in process and we're in process and it's messy.
But oftentimes we come as the people of God, we think like I have to have it together. And the Lord is saying, if you wanna even enter into the family, if you wanna be right in the family, you have to embrace your weakness. God is inviting us to embrace the weakness I believe it's Hebrews, Hebrews 12. Says that Jesus enduring the cross despised its shame.
Enduring the cross despised its shame. And I was just thinking about Jesus. Jesus the great God of creation. Literally invented the sun.
He could pluck the sun out of the solar system and it would just be like, oh, okay. Like pinch the sun in between his thumb and pointer finger if he wanted to. We are, he is the most awesome mighty, strong, powerful being in all of the universe. And yet he's crawling on the Via Dela Rosa to Golgotha to get crucified.
And somebody else has to carry his cross for him because he was so weak and he couldn't. And he crawls up onto the cross. Listen, what was Adam and Eve doing? They were hiding behind the tree naked.
But this God puts on flesh, humbles himself to the point of obedience. And instead of hiding behind the tree in his nakedness, he lays on top of it fully exposed and vulnerable in weakness. Fully weak. In that moment, every single moment he's choosing weakness.
He's not despising, are you catching this? He's not despising weakness. He doesn't despise it. He's actually embracing weakness.
But he despises the shame of hiding. He wasn't shameful on the cross. He embraced the weakness, but he despised the shame that came when you're naked hanging on a tree. He's going, I'm not gonna have shame about this.
This is actually gonna mean strength for billions. This is my moment to actually show them how the kingdom works. It works with embracing the weakness of it all. I believe that there's an invitation for us.
Whether you're a husband, whether you're single, whether you're a wife, business man, business woman, whatever your everyday looks like, I believe that there's couples that are gonna become more vulnerable after tonight. I believe kids, teens, are gonna become more vulnerable and open with the weakness that they feel. Because what happens is if you, when you're in your 20s, when you're in your 30s, you're learning, and when you're in your teens, you're learning, okay, what I need to do is I just need to bottle up all the weakness and not show anyone. So then I can be seen and perceived as strong because that's how I get love.
But it's broken reasoning. The deductive reasoning, it doesn't work. And you always feel isolated. You always feel like I don't connect.
I don't feel connected to people. And the reason is because you haven't embraced the weakness of humility because God gives grace to the humble but he resists the proud. And this is pride over here. I'm gonna pride that I got it.
I'm gonna hide myself. I got it. Adam and Eve are thinking, they're covering themselves. What did they do in the garden?
Do you remember this? They sewed figgy, figgy. They sewed itchy fig leaves together to clothe themselves in their nakedness behind the tree. That's literally what it looks like when you try to cover up your weakness.
It's like, oh, that's uncomfortable. Like I got a rash, right? That's literally what it looks like. It's like, is that a rash?
It's like, oh no, you're just covering up your weakness because you have shame about it. And the Lord is like, oh, would you come to me? Give me your weakness. I love your raw mess.
I love your insecurities. I love you in all of your pain, all of your confusion, all of it. Bring it to me. You don't have all the answers.
You're asking why and I'm not afraid of the why. I actually wanna step right into that place of pain, into that place of unknown, that place of insecurity. And that's where I want to be with you in the mess, not in the, oh, I've got it all together. I've got the facade, how which I'm itchy, right?
God is inviting husbands and wives to be more vulnerable. God is inviting us as sons and daughters to actually be raw with Him again. Many of you are feeling weak. You're feeling like, I don't know what this season is, but it's awful.
I don't feel like waking up in the morning. And the moment that you're feeling, how you're feeling that way, it all has to get brought to, Lord, this is how I'm feeling and talking about it. Hiding it isn't gonna make it go away. The first step to you walking in strength and power is actually to just embrace it.
That's all I stand. What I wanna do is I wanna commission us out tonight. And I believe that there's a sympathizer that actually gets what you're going through. And he understands the weakness that you feel.
And he's not afraid to go there with you. It's I wanna encourage you to be just a little bit more open because that's what our community is gonna go after. We are not gonna be a people that sing worship songs, adore Him, love Him, you're amazing. I love you, I'm totally good.
Yeah, we're great, blessed. I'm having a good day. No, we're gonna be a community of people that are open with people that are safe. I'm not just saying you're like at work.
So please don't show up tomorrow at your job and be like, yeah, I'm just really struggling right now. Stop it, please. Like open up inappropriate ways in safe places that are healthy. Don't spew on someone that doesn't have the tools to even help you.
And then sit in all the mess with them and be like, yeah, I'm a mess, you're a mess, we're all a mess, we're messy. You don't even know Jesus and I'm like, I'm a mess. Right? Like it's okay to show people, yeah, I'm in process.
But there's a safe place for you to be open with people that can actually hold what you're talking about, okay? I don't know why, I think that was for someone. I'm gonna pray, are we good? All right.
Lord, I thank You that You paved the way for us by going to the cross. Lord, we thank You that You didn't hide and that You actually chose to be fully vulnerable and embrace weakness. And so Lord, we just follow in Your footsteps as Your sons and daughters, as Your brothers and sisters, Jesus, we wanna actually mimic what You did. We wanna be those that embrace our weakness because when we are weak, then we become strong in You.
And so Lord, I just thank You for the empowerment that is ahead, all the growth that is gonna follow when we actually embrace the weakness that we're experiencing. And Lord, I just declare a special grace over this house to not have it all together, but to actually be present and raw with You. Lord, we want raw connection. We don't want religious facades.
And so Lord, that's what we want. We want real connection. We want the Matthew seven reality of, but hold I never knew You to be a part of, any part of our life, we actually just wanna be fully known. No door closed off to You.
We just wanna be Your children that are like fully wide open. Oh, you wanna go in that room? Yes, it's wide open to You. Oh yeah, there's a big mess under the bed in there.
Lord, it's wide open to You. Lord, that's what we're choosing. We're okay to be weak with You. You are safe.
You are the safe Father. And so we just, we go to You and we thank You that You're the One that gets it. Jesus, You're the great sympathizer. And Lord, we thank You that Holy Spirit is our helper.
In Jesus' name, everyone said Amen. Amen.