208. Becoming Mature in the Wilderness // James 1:2-8 // Josiah Bogue

Intro Hey everybody, thank you for listening to the collective podcast. My name is Josiah and I'm one of the leaders here Collective is actually the young adult ministry for Grace Church Bath campus in this podcast is just a collection of all the teachings we give every Thursday night at 7:00. So if you are a young adult between the ages of 18 to 29 ish, I want to invite you out to personally see collective for yourself. The thing I love the most about it is it's not just a place for Christians. So if you you have a lot of questions about Jesus and don't know what to think about God or the Bible or whatever, you're going to fit right in. So whether that's you or you've been following Jesus for a really long time, I hope to meet you in person and I hope you find today's episode helpful. All right, let's get to it. We started a series of conversations last week that that it really resonated with me personally, not right now called stuck in the wilderness, Stuck in the wilderness. What to do when you don’t know what to do And, and the tagline is this what to do when you don't know what to do. And here's the premise of the series. There's this theme in the Bible that shows up over and over and over again of the the wilderness. Does anybody I look this up today. Does anybody know how big the Sahara desert is? I was like, you guys remember that Matthew McConaughey movie Sahara. ANYWAYS, this is a crazy movie. So I, I look, I looked it up, the whole Sahara desert, 3.6 million square miles. Can you imagine that? 3.6 million square square miles. Not long, but like, why it included? Well, well, I'm glad you asked. A square mile is not just one mile long, but one mile and in all the directions. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Imagine with me for a second that you just got like dropped into the dead middle of the Sahara Desert and you have no phone, you got no compass, you got no map, you got really no sense of direction. Maybe you can like read the sun and the stars and you're like, Orion summons me. But other than that, like, you really don't have much going on. How, how long would it take for you to feel unbelievably anxious, unbelievably overwhelmed, unbelievably helpless? For me, it would, it would take, whoa, is that me? Is that something else? You make sure it's only only this mic is on for me. It would probably take me like 10 minutes to just feel like I was going to die. In fact, I might like if you drive me to the Mills Air Desert. I don't even know that I look for help. I think I just like laid there and be like you can take me now. You know that that might be me. But but the Bible picks up on this image of feeling lost and feeling directionless and feeling like it's the same. Everything's the same thing over and over again. The Bible picks up on that feeling and says that's exactly what life feels like all the time. The wilderness in the Bible really serves as this metaphor for any season of life when you legitimately don't know what to do or where to go. The wilderness is is really any season where you don't know what to do or where to go. You have no direction. We talked about this last week. There's many forms that the wilderness can take. It can be burnout. You know, some of us are just burnt out from the mundane of life. The routine over. Some of us are, you know, some of us are Christians. You're burnt out of church, you're burnt out of spiritual things, ministry. You're like, you know, you kind of drug yourself here or whatever the wilderness can be, you know, being between jobs or being a job you hate. Give me a breakup. It can be being single. It can be a season of like hyper insecurity. You ever have like seasons where like 1 insecurity defines like multiple months and like every room you're in, you're like, how big do they think my nose is? You know, like I, I, I feel that, you know, sometimes it, but it, sometimes it's a season of depression. Sometimes it's, it's this immense season of loneliness where you feel like you have no one by your side to do life with that sucks. Sometimes it's a season of grief where you lose someone that you love or you lose something that you love and you're mourning that and, and, and you keep expecting to, like, get back on top, but it, it really never comes. Sometimes it's a season of heavy temptation. Sometimes the lack of finances. It we could go on and on. But here's what's really important to catch. It'd be easy for us to just think, yeah, the wilderness is just like the worst possible things that could ever happen. You know, if like, World War 3 broke out, that's the wilderness. But that's not really. Yes, the wilderness is those dramatic seasons, but really the wilderness is any season where you just feel directionless. Sometimes it's not like in tears. Sometimes it's just you're just, it's life is just, it's not going where you want it to go. The wilderness could be, In other words, the wilderness is any season of life when I'm not where I want to be. That's another way you could define it. I'm not in the place where I want to be. And hear me, every single person will go through the wilderness. Every single person will probably go through multiple wildernesses. We learned last week the wilderness is not necessarily punishment from God. Even Jesus went through the wilderness. Like sometimes the reason you're going through the wilderness is because you're being faithful to God because you are following him. Yo, it's Josiah. The Importance of Being a Part of a Church I just wanted to pause our conversation real quick to talk about something super important. One of the things that's been so encouraging to me about this podcast is hearing stories from people all over the place to listen to this every week. But if you would call yourself a follower of Jesus, I want to remind you of something. Podcasts like this are only intended to be a supplement to you being a part of a local church community and mission every single week on a regular basis. These are not intended to be a replacement of being a part of a church. I talk to people all the time who say, oh, just say I'm really busy. So I listen to sermons on YouTube or on podcast or wherever it is. And if that's you and all love Jesus would look at you and say, bro, that is not what I had in mind at all. So if you are in the car right now or getting ready for work, but you are not every week, multiple times a week plugged into a church community, I would stop this podcast right now. You don't ever have to listen to this podcast ever again. Instead, get on the Internet, find a church in your area that believes the gospel of Jesus and is trying to reach the people around them and jump into that community hook line and say, all right, let's get back to it. So if you missed that conversation, you can catch up on that on, on the podcast. You can scan the QR code in front of you and, and you can listen to that or watch it on YouTube or whatever. Now here's what I want to pick up last week at the very end of our time. The Toxic Wilderness Mistake I, I just threw it out and, and asked if anyone in this room is going through the wilderness right now. Would you just, you know, I asked last week if you would stand up And actually it surprised me because probably about half the room stood up, maybe more than half of the room stood up. And so here, here's where I want to, here's where I want to start. If half of us in this room are currently in a wilderness season and the other half of this room are probably going to be headed into a wilderness season sometime more or less in the future, We we have to talk about something. We have to talk about something. And what we have to talk about today is what I call the toxic wilderness mistake. That's what we have to talk about, what I call the toxic wilderness mistake. Because many of us in this room right now, you're in the wilderness and you are making this mistake right now. And you have no idea because you don't know what it is. It doesn't matter how old you are or how far along you are in life or how much you know about Bible stuff. You know, I, I, I talked to college students that are making this mistake. I talked to people that are like, you know, in their 20s, but they're professionals and you know it well into their job who are making this. I talked to 80 year olds who are making this mistake. And I've made this mistake many, many times. And and before I tell you what the toxic wilderness mistake is, I got to tell you what does OK, The toxic wilderness mistake is going to make your wilderness way more painful and last way longer than it needs to. Everyone's going to go through the wilderness, but you don't have to stay in the wilderness as long as the people that are making this mistake. The wilderness mistake is going to make your wilderness far more painful, even though it's already going to be painful and lasts way longer than it needs to last. You guys want to know what the toxic wilderness mistake is? Well, it's in the Bible. So if you got a Bible or phone or you want to watch the screens up here, we're going to look at James chapter one. We looked at a little bit about this last week, and I want to look at a different part of James Chapter 1. So this is what we read last time. James says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. In other words, every time you're in the wilderness, it is an opportunity to draw closer to God. And so because of that, even though the wilderness sucks, it is an opportunity to have deep, immense joy and happiness because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete and not lacking anything. OK, pause. This phrase, Let perseverance finish its work is so important because here's what implies. It implies that just because you're in the wilderness does not mean you are growing or maturing or letting God work in your life whatsoever. I need to be really clear about this. Just because you're in the wilderness does not mean you are growing or becoming more mature or letting God work in your life whatsoever. The wilderness is a double edged sword because it is very possible to enter the wilderness and actually exit the wilderness less mature and further from God than you were when you started. In fact, probably most people exit the wilderness that way. Have you? I'll say it this way. Have you ever talked to somebody who is just always telling you about how much they've been through, you know, like how hard their life is? Is this just me? Maybe you guys just trauma dump on me a lot. I don't know. Have you ever talked to this is this is a lot of you, by the way, where you're just always talking. You're like, you're always saying things, man, If you just knew where I grew up and if you just knew like the family that I came from, you know, if, if man, if you've been as broke as I've been broke, or, or if your, if your mental health got to the place where it got to me or man, this, this boyfriend did this to me. This girlfriend did this to me. If you've been to these, these different places and they're always, and I don't mean to say this insensitively, but they're always like talking about how bad their life is and maybe how many people in their lives have like passed away. And they're always going on and on and on about, you know, how bad their life has been. And, and that's fine. I, I totally, there's nothing wrong with that. We need to share what's going on in each other's lives. Actually, I think that's a good thing. Here's where it gets kind of weird. Then then because of their hardships, they look at you and they're like, now, because of all I've been through, let me give you some advice. Has this ever happened to you? Because of all I've been through, let me give you some advice. I've been where you've been. So let me tell you what you need to do. Can I be completely honest when that happens to me? My actual thought, maybe this is bad, maybe this, I don't know, maybe this is insensitive. When someone does that to me most of the time, depending on who they are. But when someone does that to me, most of the time, a huge chunk of the time I have two reactions. The first reaction I say out loud, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I'll always tell the man, I am so sorry how hard your life has been. Like oftentimes I'm talking to somebody whose life has been 10 times harder than mine, 20 times harder than mine. I'm so sorry that life is not fair. I'm so sorry that you've been through much, you know, because there's a lot of pain going on. And so I always let them know that. But here's my second reaction. And I just kind of keep it in my head. You know, I don't really say it out loud, but if here's what's going on in my head, if I'm being honest, I don't want to listen to this person's advice at all because I don't want to be anything like them. You know, like I sometimes I'm thinking to myself, like, I know your life has been hard, but if I'm being completely honest, I don't think you've learned anything from the hardships. So I don't want to hear your advice because I'm worried my life is going to start looking a little bit more like yours here. Here's what I'm trying to say. Just because your life has been hard doesn't mean you have learned anything from the hardships. Just because your life has been hard doesn't mean you've learned anything from the hardships. And I wish I didn't have to say that out loud, but we live in a culture right now where like my status is determined by how much I've been through. But that doesn't mean you're wise and that doesn't mean you're functional, and that doesn't mean you've made good decisions. It's not being in the wilderness that matures you, it's how you approach the wilderness that you're in. I was talking to 1 friend one time and he was just going on and on about, you know, all these bad things have happened in his life and and he has a very legitimately difficult life. Like I'm not trying to ignore that in in any kind of way, but but here here's my honest thought. Here's my honest thought. He was asking me to kind of tell him what I thought about everything. And so as I was listening to him and kind of assessing what he was saying, here's what I noticed. The 1st 30% or so of his hardships were legitimately unjustly inflicted upon him. Like legitimately the world was cruel, family was cruel, unfortunate events. The 1st 30% of his hardships were were truly unjustly inflicted upon him. But the following 70% of his hardships only came because of how horribly he dealt with the 1st 30%. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Meaning the last 70% of his hardship, most of it was actually a prolonged wilderness because because not he was not responding to the wilderness properly. It lasted so much longer than it needed to and it was so much more painful than it needed to be. I love this verse in Proverbs. Somebody shared with me yesterday says this. Proverbs says, listen, people ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then they're angry at the Lord. You know, people make really dumb mistakes and they ruin their own life and they go, God, why'd you do this to me? And you have to pay attention to this thing now. Now, obviously I don't think this is all the time. I obviously, you know, like I'm, I'm for example, like the the Jews that went through the concentration camps in the Holocaust. I don't think that happened because they were irresponsible with their lives. And so you might be thinking about examples in your own life and you're like, I didn't do anything deserve. I'm not saying you did, but but I do think this happens a majority of the time that we're responding improperly to the wilderness that we're in. We're committing the toxic wilderness mistake. And what does that mistake do and makes it more painful and makes the wilderness last way longer. So what is that mistake? That's probably an important question to answer. All right, we'll keep reading James chapter one, verse 5. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the winds. The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. A person like that is double minded and they are unstable in everything that they do. What does James say that the toxic wilderness mistake is? Well, he gives us this phrase. Here's the key mistake. If you're writing some down, you might want to write this down. The toxic wilderness mistake is being blown and tossed by the wind. Blown and tossed by the wind. Now, what does it mean for someone to be blown and tossed by the wind? Well, a few years ago, my wife Sarah, her whole family, like all her siblings, her parents and nephews, we, we decided that we were going to go on family vacation. So we went to Florida and we decided that we just for a little bit, we're going to go to Universal Studios in Florida. Some have been the Universal Studios before. Yeah, dude, I, I'm, I'm not gonna lie, I was stoked. I, I have a nine year old nephew way more excited than Jackson was. I can't lie about it. Like I, I was stoked because, you know, this is up my alley. They, they had like the Harry Potter worlds and they had like Jurassic Park and they had Transformers. Probably the greatest piece of cinema ever created, you know, is, is Transformers one. They have a bunch of Marvel stuff like like I was just so stoked to be in Universal Studios and and so was everybody else. You know, my nephews are really excited. My mother-in-law loves Harry Potter. Like that's her favorite thing in the world. So she was so excited to do like Hogwarts and all that kind of stuff. And so so we walk in the Universal Studios, but we only have a little bit of time. We're only there for two days and there's two different parts and we're not even at Universal for those two full days. So we only have like X amount of hours to get everything done. So we had to be kind of strategic if we were trying to like ride all the rides and stuff. So we, so we walk into the park and the first thing that we see is this fast and furious ride, which is awesome because nothing is stronger than family. And so we, we see the fast and furious ride and the line is 45 minutes and we're like, OK, let's get in line for that. So we get in line for fast and furious and you know, the line's going as lines do kind of slow, you know, so we're we're waiting in this line for, I don't know, it's like 2025 minutes or so and everybody's kind of looking at their watches and her family's kind of quiet. So like no one's really talking. So it's not like the time is really flying by and 2025 minutes ago. And then finally, sorry, sister-in-law goes, Hey, I looked at the app and it actually says that the minions ride across the park. The minions ride has no wait, we can just walk onto the minions ride right now. And I'm thinking we're like 15 minutes away, but everybody's like, let's do the Minions. So I'm like, OK, well that's fine. So we leave the Fast and Furious line and just walk right over to the Minions ride. Well, we're about to get in line to the Minions ride when my nephew goes, the minions are for babies. You know, he's in that phase where like two years ago, like the minions were everything, but now the minions are for babies and he's like, the minions are for, I don't want to ride the minions ride. I want to build a wand at the Hogwarts place. And so I'm like, all right, so I guess we're not doing the minions thing. So we walk all the way over to Gringotts or wherever we were going. You know, we walk all the way over there and go to the the wand shop and they're sitting there doing the wand thing and they're like, hey, there's this awesome Harry Potter ride. And that line was like an hour and a half wait. So like, all right, let's get in line for the Harry Potter thing. And then all of a sudden I hear my mother-in-law go, wait a second, where's Joe? We can't get into line without Joe. And Joe is my father-in-law who just vanished. Like he just left. And so for the next hour, we're trying to find Joe and we finally find him in some gift shop. He was still back with Vin Diesel. And so we finally found him. This kept going on and going on and going on. Every time we're about to do something. We were at the park for 8 hours. Do you want to know in eight hours how many things we did? Two. We did two things. One of those things was because I just abandoned the family and got into a line by myself. That's how many things. That's how many things that we did. Now listen. Listen, here's the point. Here's the point. Ready for it? Ready for the point. That is exactly how many of us are living our lives every day blown and tossed by the wind. How to live your life blown and tossed by the wind What do I mean by that? Well, here's what I mean. So let's say you're 1819, you go to college, right? You started doing college and you start doing your classes and, and, and you, you think, well, I don't really know if this major is for me. You know, I don't know if this is the one for me, which is fine. So you switch majors like halfway through and now you add like another semester, another two semesters of credits. And now college is taking like an extra long time. And so you clock in another year or so and you're like, man, college is taking a really long time. I don't know if I'm going to. I don't know if college is for me, you know. And so now, which is fine too, but now you drop out of college and you have no plan at all, which means now you're 22 years old, exactly where you were when you graduated high school in the exact same spot. You just left the line or, or, or you say, you know, let's say you need some money or you need a job, whatever. So you get just like a entry level job at Amazon and they pay $175 an hour. So you're like, I, yeah, I'll do. I'll, I'll take box letter H and move it to the assembly line H. Like I can do that for a like that's fine. So you start doing that for a little bit and then, you know, a couple, couple months into working your job at Amazon, you're like, you listen to some Billy Eilish and you're like, I feel like I was made for more than this. You know this can't be all there is and you're right, you were made more for this. But instead of duking it out and getting promoted or earning the money that you need to start your thing or whatever, you basically go, this ride is too lame. This ride is for babies. So you quit and then you get another job. And now at your new job, you're you're all excited and like this is everything that's going to be it. Then you find out that your boss is a jerk and that and that the, the, the work environment is toxic and you say, I don't deserve to be treated this way. So you work there for a few months and then you then you quit and then you get another job. And this job, you know, it pays really well, it pays the bills, but you're not passionate about it. You know, and this isn't showing up on your, on your Disney Princess biopic. And you're like, I got to quit this job. So you quit that job without having anything else lined up. And then what happens? Then what happens is you look to God and you say God. Why is no one offering me any meaningful jobs? Well, I can tell you why. Because every time an employer looks at your resume, all they can see is that you can't complete an entry level job. You leave off in the exact same place that you started. And then of course this happened spiritually. This is really important because there's, there's many of us who would say to God, maybe a Christian, you'd say to God, God, I want to be a light in this world. You know, I really God, will you use me, use me to make a difference? Use me to make an important difference. And anytime you pray that prayer, God's going to say absolutely, I would love to do that. So God says absolutely. And So what does God do? He leads you into a really dark place, a, a place where where, where people are far from God, a place where there's not a lot of hope. And so in a place that really needs light. And so you get led to this really dark place. And then you go, oh, these people treat me terribly. They don't appreciate me. They talk behind my back. They hurt me. And you leave and then you go hang out with a bunch of church people 24/7, and then you do a bunch of collective stuff. And then you look and say, God, why aren't you using me for anything important? You get the cycle here blown and tossed by the wind. What's happening? You're doing the same thing my family did at Universal Studios. You get in line to experience something amazing, but as soon as that line gets too long, whereas it gets too difficult or you lose the vision of what you're going to get, you leave and try something else in. The cycle continues and before you know it, years have gone by and you have not accomplished particularly much at all. You know, I, I, I know guys that are in their 20s, their 30s, their 50s, their 80s who've all fallen for this. I've fallen for this time and time again, I'm not saying any of this as I'm saying this, right? So I'm not saying any of that. But what is that? It's the toxic mistake of the wilderness. Now, why is this such a problem? Well, here's why this is such a problem, not just in life, but when it comes to your relationship with God. The Toxic Mistake of the Wilderness Here's why the wilderness is always a season where God is trying to mature you, complete you and give you the tools you need for the next season of your life. Everybody catch me on that. The wilderness is, is always 100% of the time that you're that God leads you into the wilderness. It's always a season where God, he's trying to mature you, he's trying to complete you and he's trying to give you the tools that you need right now to do something distant in the future, which look at James again. Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds whenever you're in the wilderness because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish it's work. Let the line run its whole way through so that you may find maturity and completion and so that you're not lacking anything. Everybody track with everybody. Listen to me. Without the wilderness, there is no maturity. Do you guys know anybody who's been sheltered? Have you? They have a friend that's been sheltered. How mature are they? Without the wilderness? There is no maturity. There's no spiritual maturity. There's no emotional maturity. There's no relational maturity. There is no maturity of any kind. OK, everybody track with me. What Does It Mean To Be “Blown and Toyed by the Wind”? What does it mean to be blown and tossed by the wind? What does it mean to get out of line every time something gets too hard or too long or too boring? Here's what it means. Being blown and tossed by the wind is you trying to escape the wilderness instead of trying to embrace what God is trying to teach you in it. Being blown and tossed by the wind is when you try and escape the hardship of the wilderness instead of trying to embrace the maturity that God is trying to give you. You are you're actively and I'm actively trying to avoid maturity. So This is why James says in in verse 7. It's an odd sentence until you put it in the context like this. James 17 says that person, the person that's phone tossed by the wind should not expect to receive anything from God. They shouldn't expect to receive anything from God because that person is double minded and they're unstable and all they do. Now here's what I don't think God is saying. I do not think God is saying, man, those impatient people that are always wanting more, those snowflake Gen. Z's, man I man, I'm not going to bless them with anything because they don't work hard enough. I don't think God is doing that. Here's what I think God saying. Here's what I think God is saying to us. He's saying, listen, I am trying to hand you a meaningful life. I'm trying to give it to you. But every time you get closer and closer and closer for me at to the line, for me to finally hand it to you, you leave before I can put it into your hand. Yeah, I don't think God's saying I'm going to withhold it. I think he's saying we are rejecting it. Now. You might ask, I think a very fair question with all this. I think this is a very fair question. You might ask something like this. It says, well, God, why don't you just let me jump to the front of the line? You know, why do I have to wait through this whole thing? Why do I have to go through this long wilderness season? Why do I have to truck through the Sahara desert? Why don't you just take me right to the front of the line where you can take me where you're finally going to do these incredible things. Use me, Show me your purpose for me. Why don't you take me there right now? Let me put it in real talk. Let me give you some examples of this. God, if you have a spouse for me one day in the future, why did you just let me break up with this person and go through all the pain that comes with it and going through all the hardship? Why did you let that happen? God, if my future job never required a college degree that I have to begin with, which is going to be 80% of you, I'm sorry, if my future job never even required the degree that I spent $50,000 on, what was the point of college? Like why did you take me through all of that? God, if you're going to use me to lead thousands of people to you, to impact thousands of people, why don't you just take me there right now? Why are you making me wet? You fill in the blank for your life, right? You guys get what I'm saying? God, why don't you just take me there right now? Have you ever asked God if you have something for me in the future, why don't you just tell me what it is so that I can position my life and start moving in that direction? Now that's a very good question. I think that's a very, very fair question and I think there's a pretty clear answer to it. But I gotta be honest, the answer to this question is is really hard to hear. So I'm just going to make an assumption here that that you can take it that you're you're mature enough to handle it. It's kind of hard to hear. So let me start with myself. I I know that God has some things for me, Josiah, in my future. I know that I don't know entirely what they are. I think God has given me some glimpses into what they might be. But I know that God has some pretty significant big things for me in the future. So why doesn't God take me there right now? Well, here's the reality. I'm not mature enough for those things yet. I'm not mature enough to handle them. There's still lessons I need to learn there there. There's still things God needs to teach me. There's still personal endurance or perseverance like James talked about, that I need to develop. And right now, if God were to take me over there right now, I would collapse under the pressure. I'm not mature enough to handle them. Look at James again. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Listen, listen, everybody, look at me. Why doesn't God take you to that future phase of your life right now? You ready for it? You're not mature enough right now. You lack the maturity you you're probably incomplete with your relationship with God. Your motives are probably far more mixed than you think they are. You're probably a lot more selfish and self-centered than you're willing to admit. And you probably lack some tools, some tools that you will need over there. And God's not done with you here yet. He's got a lot more going on. And we're going to talk a lot about that next week. That's the second reason. But he's got a lot more for you right now. Any, any Fortnite fans in the room? Fortnite Any Fortnite fans? Okay. You know, you know, Speaking of lack of maturity, I feel like I just see, I feel like I just exposed myself right there. Anyway, if you don't know if, if you are doing something meaningful with your life and therefore don't know how Fortnite works, it works something like this. So in, in Fortnite, you literally get dropped into the middle of the wilderness. It's a perfect metaphor. You jump off this, this hot air balloon thing, right. And you got, you know, you glide. Yeah, you, I understand. And you glide all. And then you land, you land somewhere random and you land there with nothing but an axe, which is the manliest or manliest thing to land with. And you have nothing but an axe. And you have to kind of scavenge and pick up different weapons and tools and try and be the last person standing or, or the last man standing. Now, for all you Fortnite fans, you know that there's, there's these bosses, right? And so you know, there's Doctor Doom and Thanos and Peter Griffin and Godzilla, you know, and like, so you know that there's these big bosses. Now let me ask you, if you're, if you're a big Fortnite fan, the first thing that you do when you land, when you have nothing but the axe, do you go after the big boss? Is that your typical strategy if you're trying to win the very first thing, like as soon as you got, you just go straight for Peter Griffin, Godzilla? Is that going to work out for you? No. Why is it not going to work out for you? What's the first thing that you do? The very first thing that you do when you land is you scavenge the wilderness, searching for the tools or the weapons that you need to defeat the final boss. OK, OK, that's stupid analogy. Let's take it all the way there. Why doesn't God and all of his love and kindness and how much he believes in you? Why doesn't he take you directly to the big boss? Probably because you don't have the tools that you need yet, and those tools are found in the wilderness and those tools are forms of maturity. Listen to me everybody. God loves you more than anyone. He loves you if you have good parents. He loves you more than your parents love you. If you have a good person and you have a good friend. He loves you more than those friends. He loves you more than anyone else. God wants you to have a meaningful life. He's trying to give you a joyful life. God is not trying to make your life hard and and and and suffer for no reason and overly complicated. That is not his character. Which means this. The only reason God will lead you into the wilderness is because he knows that there's something in the wilderness that you need. The only reason that God will lead you into the wilderness, it's because he knows that there's something in the wilderness that you need. It's not him trying to be cruel, it's him trying to be kind so that you can survive the things that he has for you in the future that you are going to love. So my, my, my first job here. My First Job at Collective So when I, when I first started, when I first graduated high school and I was first starting college, I, I applied here for an internship, a part time internship while I was doing school. And my first job here actually was leading worship. So I was doing like music stuff, which is really cool. And so I was doing that for a few years and eventually, like my assignment with my part time job was I was going to lead worship for this new up and coming ministry called collective. And that was so I got to start building bands over there and, and doing a bunch of cool stuff. And a lot of these guys like Zach and John, like we did a lot of that together. And so I did that for probably like 2-3 years and 2-3 years and that that was my job and those were my career aspirations. And that was what I was going to do. And I had no other plan. Two or three years in, I realized really quickly, this music thing is not for me. Like I, I do not feel fulfilled by this. Music is a great hobby. It's a great side project. It's a horrible thing to dedicate your life to. I think I'm like this, this is not going to be my jam. And I was working for Collective and at that time I really was not excited about where Collective was going at all. And so I found myself every day having to work on things that I really didn't believe in. And then we got really hard was all my friends stopped, like believing in what Collective at the time was doing too. And so they started all leaving. And it sucks when your friends leave and you're the only one, right? And so I had to keep kind of like, you know, working hard and trying to make it make sense and trying to do all the best thing. But I really didn't believe in it either. And I remember I would come home and, and Sarah and I got married in there. And I remember I would come home and I told Sarah, I'm like Sarah, I just, I can't keep doing this. Like I have to leave. I, I cannot, I, I'm, we're going to have to look for a different job, maybe a different church, maybe a different state. Like I, I cannot keep doing this. I do not believe in what I'm doing whatsoever. But every month, once a month, I would meet with a very wise mentor of mine, a guy named Chris Heyman. And one hour every month we would sit together and I would tell Chris, he would always ask how, how my job was going. And I was just vents about, man, this, I hate this. And I just don't think there's going anywhere And I can't get out of bed in the morning. And I'm just, I have no motivation and I'm losing my friends because we're trying to defend this thing. And I, I would just vent and vent and vent about how much I was struggling. And every month Chris would ask me the same question. And this question drove me crazy. This question like kind of shook my, you know, my core a little bit, but I needed to hear this question. And he asked this so gently. But here's what the question was. He would always say, Josiah, I know it's super hard, but what is God trying to teach you during this season? You're not here for no reason. You're not in the wrong place. What is God trying to teach you during this season? And when I flip the framework of how I was looking at my life, as painful as it was, I learned a lot of things. God was trying to teach me a lot of things #1 God was trying to teach me that if I trust God, I will honor my boss and the people who are in charge of me. No matter how I'm bored. I am with what they're doing. No matter that. Here's the thing, man, If you have a job, if you have a job right now or you work for somebody or you got professors or whatever, no matter how toxic the situation becomes, no matter how bad the situation becomes, if you are dishonouring to your boss or your professor or your manager or whatever, you gossip behind their back, you don't put in as much work as you could. You're taking shortcuts. You're, you're, you're not believing in what the if you are dishonouring to them in any way. Listen, the problem is not that you don't trust your boss. The problem is you don't trust God. I don't care how you frame it. The Bible's super clear on this. Peter says in the Bible, he's like, listen, make sure to honor the authorities. And he was talking about governing authorities at the time. He said that when Nero was the emperor. So I'm like, I'm pretty sure he knows psychopaths, right? Why? Because if you trust in God, you trust where God leads you. And so I learned I have to. And I had AI, had a good boss. I just, you know, the ministry wasn't where I wanted to be, but I had to get every day be like, Nope, I'm going, I'm going to do my best. I'm going to do my best. Here's another thing I learned. If I can't lead 10 people, how on earth do I think I'm going to lead 100 people? How on earth do I think I'm going to lead 1000 people, 10,000 people, if I can't lead this band of 10 people and if I can't find fulfillment and that and bring out their, the best of them and their skills and their talents, How on earth do I think God is supposed to is going to use me and, and, and anything more than that, I'm just going to be dead in the waters. But here's the biggest thing that I learned and this, and maybe you want to write this down, I don't know if you trust Jesus in the day by day, the wilderness is not a detour from God's path for your life. The wilderness is God's path for your life. Everybody hear me on this. If I'm trusting Jesus, the wilderness is not a detour from God's path for my life. The wilderness is a built in intentional, on purpose, fundamentally important stop in God's path for my life. You know, sometimes you know, if you believe in God, you'll find yourself saying the things God, when are you going to get me back on track? You know, when are you or, or have you ever said, man, I feel so behind. I feel so behind. You know, my friends are making more money than I am. You know, everybody seems to be, you know, all my other friends went off and moved to another state. I'm still back here. When you know, when you know God, why have you stopped working in my life? Meanwhile, what God is trying to say to you is, listen, the wilderness is the only route to the promised land. The wilderness is the only path to the only path to what I have in store for you. This is not a detour, but do you want to know when the wilderness becomes a detour? The wilderness becomes a detour when you try to escape it and when you try to run from the things that God is trying to teach you in it. Now here's what's really wild. So God was teaching me and I don't want you to get this concept that Josiah was doing this perfectly. When I was working with this, I was it was a struggle bus and I slipped up and I I said too much and like, you know, I'm not, I didn't do it perfectly, but I would come to God every day and say, God, show me how to trust you. Show me how to trust you. And what happened was you, you think. And then Josiah learned to love his job. No, I hated it get more every day. It got worse and worse and worse. I remember there was there was one week I I'm pretty sure it was a Thursday. I get in the car and I told Sarah I'm like I we're we're going to have to figure something out like my, my internship is up in a couple months. When that's up, I need to move away or figure something out. It was December of 2019 when the most unexpected thing happened to me. In December 2019, a guy named Pastor Brad came up to Brad these Creek came up to me and said, Hey, just I need to talk to you about something like, OK. And he's like, can you bring Sarah? I'm like, oh, I'm fired finally, you know, so I, I go to I go to meet up with Pastor Brad and Brad says something really unexpected. He says, Josiah, we didn't see this coming. But the current leader of collective right now has felt called by God to go somewhere else entirely. And he was a godly man who legitimately called by God to go somewhere else. And he said, do you want to take over this ministry? And my jaw dropped. I didn't even know that was an option. And then he asked me the craziest question of all. He goes, and if you want to take over this ministry, do you have any idea what you would do with it? And Sarah just started laughing. And she says he's been talking about what he do with this for the past three years. You know, yeah, I had a plan. Now, here's what's crazy that turned in this job I love. This job has turned into one of the greatest privileges in my entire life. I love this job. I feel like I was made for this job. God is God is done and and I never wanted to do it. I never wanted to lead this. When I applied for grace, I said I would work anywhere except in the young adult ministry. So that's really funny. I never want to do this. I never wanted to speak. I said I would do anything except speak in front of people. I'm not very interested in that. I didn't want to do any. God changed my dream, changed my dream, changed my path, changed my path. And where did he land me? He land me, landed me exactly where He intended me to be the whole time, but none of that what would have ever happened if I got out of line because it got too long, it got too boring and started searching for something else. Listen, listen, God has things for you. The only reason He'd take you through the wilderness is because He has something in the wilderness that you need. Listen, if you want to gain the maturity of the wilderness, you need to change your question. So let me be what Chris Heyman was for me. Let me be that to you. If you want the maturity of the wilderness, you need to change your question from why is God keeping me in the wilderness to what is God trying to teach me in the wilderness? What is God trying to teach me in the wilderness? How is He trying to mature me, to complete me, to bring me closer to him, to bring other people to him, to share him with other people? What, what is he trying to give me that I need? What is he trying to teach me now? Everybody, right now, everybody, just take a second pause, deep breath, deep breath. What is God trying to teach you in the wilderness? I'm seriously asking that. Maybe it write it down if you want to, or just think of it in your mind. Is it patience? Is it kindness? Is it the self-control of your words? Because right now a lot of you are known for the person that other people can complain to all the time and other people can gossip with all the time. And that's a fundamental mistrust in who God is. Is, is God trying to teach you real time forgiveness? And maybe that's why your work environment is is so unbearable? Is he trying to teach you how to believe in people that no one else believes in? Is he trying to teach you about not giving in the peer pressure, but value in his opinion above the opinions of other people? Is God trying to unpack and heal some real childhood wounds in your life, some real trauma and he's trying to set you free from that so that you can live the next 60 years of life and then all of eternity and freedom away from the abuse or the neglect or the abandonment that happened to you as a kid? Is he trying to teach you endurance? Like some of us right now, we feel down, we feel depressed, you know, and, and I get that. And sometimes what God, what was James say it? The, the, the trials teach us perseverance. What does that mean? To do the right thing even when I have 0 motivation to do it. To do what Jesus would do even when I don't feel the warm fuzzies from Jesus to to, to bring myself to become the person I need to be even when I lack motivations otherwise. Jesus has this principle in Luke chapter 16, and his principle is super helpful to me. This is Luke 1610. He says whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. But whoever's dishonest with very little, they're going to be dishonest with much. OK, everybody, can I shoot it completely straight with you? Can I be completely honest? I everything I'm going to say, I'm saying from personal experience that I'm not saying any of this in the judgmental way. Everything I'm about to say is something I struggle with. But but can you be mature enough to hear what I'm about to say? Because some of this might hurt a little bit. OK, let me just be honest. If you can't forgive your ex or your housemate or your mom or whoever it is because of how much they hurt you and how badly they've betrayed you, what do you think is going to happen when God gives you a spouse and they hurt you far more personally and far more deeply? We're going to love each other forever, and you're going to hurt each other. What if God is trying to teach you something right now that's going to prevent you from imploding your life in the future? Here's another one. If you don't have time, if you don't have time to spend with Jesus, whether in the Bible or in prayer or being plugged into the church or serving or whatever it is. If you don't have time to be with Jesus because you're so busy because you work part time at Panera Bread, I'm being serious. Why would God rush to give you a job that's more demanding and cost more time? What if God is trying to teach you your priorities right now? Because actually, you can't be trusted to choose the right priorities in the future. You can't be trusted with little right now. Why would you rush to be trusted with much? All right, I'm saying this very sensitively. Everybody hear me out. If you can't say no to your anxiety right now, whether at work or school or wherever the situation is, and I'm not, I'm not talking about like getting rid of the feeling of anxiety. Like sometimes you can't get rid of the feeling. I'm talking about like if you can't say no to the messages of anxiety, don't do this. Do this instead. Because anxiety, listen, anxiety is just another version of being tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Like, yes, I know there's a clinical and a hormonal and neurological components, all that the Bible actually teaches that. But anxiety is still being fed lies and temptations from the devil. Lies to ignore what God is asking you to do, to to back out from the right thing to do, to stay away from certain environments. So listen, if you can't say no to those anxieties right now, even though your responsibilities, generally speaking, are relatively little, so you're always calling off and you're always avoiding taking more on because you don't have the capacity for it, you're always lashing out in anger or frustration. If that's the case right now, the anxiety of your future responsibilities is going to crush you. It's going to crush you. So no matter the chemical makeup of your brain, what if God loves you, but he also just believes in you so much? God wouldn't ask you to do anything He's not going to give you the strength to do. What if God believes in you so much that he's trying to squash those immaturities right now to prepare you for these incredible things beyond what you could ask or imagine in the future? And before these lies destroy your life, let me ask you again. Let me ask you again, what is God trying to teach you in the wilderness? What's he trying to teach you? Because here's here's the reality. When you're in the wilderness, you have two options. You can run towards the maturity that God is trying to teach you, or you can run away from it because it's hard, but that's it. The two options. You can run towards the thing that God is trying to teach you, the maturity, or you can run away because it's hard, but there's nothing in between. Now, I'm sure a lot of us in this room are thinking one of two things. Either you're thinking just, I just have no idea what God is trying to teach me. Like I couldn't tell you. Like what could God possibly with all this going on, what could he possibly be trying to teach me? How would I even find that out? That's one group. The other group of us is thinking, Josiah, what you just said sounds impossible. I do not think I could possibly like it. You're like low key offended by some of the things I've said. I don't think I could possibly do any of the things that you're saying God is asking me to do. Well, I have good news for both groups. Good news for both groups because James, James actually gives us a promise from God. God gives you a promise. Verse 5. If any of you lacks wisdom, wisdom is the knowledge to know what God wants and the ability to actually do it. That's what wisdom is. The knowledge to know what God wants and the ability to actually do it. So if any of you lacks the knowledge to know what God wants you to do or the strength to actually do it, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, without judging you, without being like you can't handle it. He gives generously to all without finding fault. It will be given to you. Do you get the promise here? If you don't know what to do in the wilderness, or if you don't feel like you have the strength to do what you know you need to do in the wilderness, ask God. And God promises everybody. He promises that he will give you the wisdom that you need, the knowledge to know what you need to do and the strength to actually do it. Ask God and God will show you a next step. Ask God and God will give you strength in an area of weakness. And this is a promise from God because you are not supposed to do the wilderness on your own. You're supposed to do it with God. But then James continues verse 6. But when you ask God, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. By doubt James does not mean you can't feel nervous, you can't second guess, you can't question. That's not what he means. Here's what he means by doubt. What James means is. But when God tells you what to do and he gives you the next step or He gives you the strength you need to actually do it, you need to actually do what he says. Don't ask God for help if you're not going to listen to him. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. That person is double minded. They're unstable and all that they do. So here's how this might work. You might reach out to God for help and he might tell you something unexpected. So, so you know, I'm, I don't know what's going to happen in your life. I'm making this up. But, but maybe you ask God for a new job and instead of God actually giving you a new job, he gives you opportunities to share the gospel with your coworkers and a burden to actually do it and make conversations and and invite people over. Well, there you go. That's the wisdom that you need promise kept. You might ask God to take away your depression and instead of God, poof, taking away your depression, he provides you a church community that you need to get plugged into and you need to actually get to know other people. You know you, you might ask God to change one of your friends. God, would you change their heart? Would you change what they're doing? You might ask God to change one of your friends, but then you open the Bible and the words on the page say, carry each other's burdens. And in this way, you'll become more like Christ. And then God gives you the strength to actually help your friend in their time of need and in their time of struggle. Sometimes God gives you exactly what you asked for. He's not trying to trick you. He's not trying to like give you the hardest thing. That's not him. Sometimes God, it gives you exactly what you asked for. Sometimes he gives you something else. Every time God gives you exactly what you need, He gives you the most loving thing that He possibly can. He never leaves you hanging. So you have two options. You can run towards the maturity that God is trying to teach you, or you can run away from it because it's hard. In other words. In other words, do you want to become more like Jesus or do you want to become less like him? Do you want to become more like Jesus, or do you want to become less like Him? Listen, here's where this all boils down. This is going to, this is going to feel far too simplistic, like some of you are going to roll your eyes and be like, that's obvious, but it's true. And just because it's obvious doesn't mean you understand it. Here's where this all boils down. Do I trust Jesus? Said. Do I trust Jesus? Do I believe that Jesus is doing what's best in my life, or do I believe that I could carve out a better path? Do I believe that Jesus loves me and he's guided me exactly where I need to go and I just trust him? Or do I believe that I know something better? Do I really believe that He actually loves me? Listen to me. If Jesus loves you, then where you are at right now, if you're following him, if he loves you, where you are at is not a detour. It's not wasted time. It's not meaningless. It's not hard for no reason. Listen, Jesus doesn't waste time. Jesus doesn't waste potential. He's not wasting your potential. Jesus doesn't waste pain, and Jesus never, ever wastes a tear. I know some of us. You're going through it right now, man. Like I'm talking about the wilderness and making jokes or whatever, and you're going through it and there's tears there in the promise of the Bible says in the book of Psalms that God never, ever, ever wastes a tear. But in Hebrews chapter 12, the author says something absolutely fascinating. You got to cling to this. Listen to this. The author says something fascinating. He says if you know what Jesus went through when he died, if you understand how he was rejected, how he was beaten, how he was mocked, how he was tortured, how he was killed, the life that he lived. If you understand what Jesus went through when he died on the cross, and if you understand that he did that all because he loves you, you will trust him with every season of your life. And if there's any season of your life where you're not trusting him, it's because somehow, in some way, you don't believe or you don't understand what he did for you when he died on the cross. Now, how does Hebrews say that? Like what? What gives the author the right to make a claim like that? Well, here's what this means. If you know that Jesus loved you so deeply that he took on the wilderness of the cross, you'll trust him with everything in your wilderness right now. If you know that Jesus love you so deeply that he took on the worst wilderness of all, He endured, He persevered, He suffered through the worst wilderness of the cross, you'll trust Him with everything in your wilderness right now. Why? Why? Because if Jesus suffered that much for you, anything he's asking you to do is only a fraction. And clearly when God has the choice between you suffering and him suffering, he's going to suffer every single time. So if you're going through it, it's because there's no other way. A God who would die for you and bleed for you would never forget about you in the Sahara Desert. That's ridiculous. You're precious to Him. The Bible says that He watches your every step like a father who loves and is obsessed with his precious little kid. So if God never wastes your time or tears, that means if you are following Jesus, you are exactly where you are supposed to be right now. Where you are right now is God's divine plan for your life. So let me ask you something, are you living like it? Are you living like it? Are you living like the most loving, sacrificial being in the universe asked you to be here on his behalf? Or you're neglecting that and trying to get out and complaining? Becoming better? He loves you so much and he wants to do this entire season with you. There's purpose in the wilderness, but I am I even looking for it Now, let me talk to everyone in this room who's not a follower of Jesus, just for a second. If you, you're in this room and you say I, I don't not sure if I believe in God. I'm not sure if I'm down with the Christianity thing. Whatever it is, let me talk to you because I know that many of you right now, you feel directionless. You feel like you have no purpose. You feel stuck. You feel like you're expected to make good decisions and expected to accomplish big things, but you feel completely left on your own to do it. You feel lonely. Some of us are constantly changing life directions and you feel like when you go through the wilderness it's meaningless, It's purposeless, there's nothing to it. You try the self help stuff, you've read Atomic Habits 50 times like you try it all, but nothing is giving you this, this deep soul fulfillment that you're longing for. Can I tell you why that is? Can I tell you why that is? You don't know the God who loves you. You don't know the one who designed you. You don't know Jesus, who loves you and wants you so bad he's obsessed with you in the best way possible. You don't know the Jesus who left heaven for you, who lived his life on earth for you, who literally bled out for you, who died for you, and who came back from the dead for you. So no wonder your life feels empty. You're missing the most important part. If you want purpose, that purpose always starts with Jesus. But He is inviting you to give up your own way, to give up your own direction, your own path, and follow Him 100%. He's not just trying to get you out of the wilderness, He's trying to get you. So let's end here. If you're a follower of Jesus in this room, if you are a follower of Jesus, I'll ask you one more time, everybody listening one more time. What is Jesus trying to teach you in the wilderness? What is He trying to teach you this week, Tomorrow, tonight, Monday? Are you going to look for that? Are you going to embrace that? Are you going to ask him for strength, ask Him for wisdom, ask Him for direction? Or are you going to be blown and tossed by the wind if you're not a follower of Jesus? Here's your question. What if the whole purpose of your wilderness right now was to show you that you need the God who loves you with all his heart? What if that's the whole purpose? You might say, well, God's never reached out to me. Well, you are sitting here, you know, what if the whole purpose of the wilderness that you're that you're in was so God could show you that you need him and that he loves you and he wants you because your way is not working. But Jesus's invitation is always open. So what are you going to do with that? The band's going to come out. I'd encourage you just during this time, these songs are not songs to sing. You know, that's not the point. You can sing them, that's fine. But these songs are songs to spend time with God. They're prayers. So as the band comes out and gets settled in, I'm going to kick us off in prayer. And then they're going to pick up with some songs and continue our time in prayer. And I just want you to spend some time with Jesus. If you don't believe in Jesus, maybe ask him to show you a little bit of what he's like. And for the rest of us, will you ask him to teach us, mature us, complete us? Once again, thank you so much for listening to the Collective podcast. If you have any questions about any of the things we talked about, feel free to shoot us an e-mail. Our e-mail is [email protected]. Those emails come straight to my inbox and I'd love to have a conversation with you and I'd love to meet you in person at Collective. We meet every single Thursday night at 7:00 at 754 Jet Rd. Fairlawn. OH, and if you have any questions or need any more information you can find that on our Instagram GCM under score Collective. We would love to see you soon.