Draft transcript prepared from the recording and edited for readability. Audio proofreading is still pending; please refer to the recording for the spoken wording.
You're listening to Sunday Sermons at Asbury Chapel. A couple of weeks ago I was in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and I was at a college event of a church that had brought me in for ten different events in five days. And I was standing in the back with the sound guys before I was speaking on that Thursday night and one of the tech guys said, after doing this as long as you do it, do you still get nervous? And I said, yes I do. And then on that Sunday morning something donned on me when I was in the church that had me for that weekend.
There's only one person in that room, probably in this room today, that is more nervous than me. And it's the guy sitting on the front row right here. Because whenever you bring a guest in, you sometimes are holding your breath. I hope that it goes okay, right? Amen for that. It was a great weekend. I started what I consider to hopefully in many days, weeks, months and prayerfully years ahead, a partnership ministry with this church that it has just been pretty phenomenal the last year when I started with Dick and with Palmer and Ted who came to the office.
And I guess I passed their tests and they had the youngster pastor come and I guess I made it there. But it was it was delightful this weekend to be with the group. And when Bobby came up here, where's Bobby at? I see you back there. When Bobby came up today. I had to look twice because over the weekend he had a cap on. And so today he's got his cap on. But what a delightful, delightful. And that word authentic is your pastor. I sitting down with him.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that's one of the things he says that he struggles with. What we what you just did is is, is people applauding. But I know his heart posture. And from the minute he came into our training a while back, I knew that he would become a friend of mine. So thanks for the honor to be up here this morning. I have something that we're going to speak about for just a few minutes that every one of us in this room have in common.
Everyone. Now this morning I was sitting in the back before the services begin. And I saw a little girl that was probably five ish, four or five years old. And she might be back with Lainey now. But whether you're wanting to be four or five years old, whether you're 25 years old, 35 years old, 65 years old, 92 years old, or anywhere in between all of that before or after. Every one of us walked in here with one thing in common. All of us brought our life experiences, didn't we?
All of us. Every one of us have brought in here many, many, many life experiences. As pastor referenced, place is something I hope every one of you get the privilege to enjoy. And if you have that opportunity, you will notice that place is an acronym. The P is for personality discovery. The L is learning spiritual gifts. The A is abilities awareness. The C is connecting passion with ministry. And the E is experiences of life. And as I did with the group yesterday, I told them that, you know, when you're listening to something online and it buffers and it stops, I said, if I stop today, one of y'all can come up and finish for me because I'm pretty much going to do the last part of what I did yesterday, the experiences of life.
And what my hope is, is it gives you a little bit of intrigue and interest that when place does come around again, you'll go back to the first of it and take the other four elements and see how your life experiences fit and are woven into how God has already been using you. How God wants to use you in the future. And you'll be validated on what he's doing in your life right now. But so much of that flows out of our life experiences. But the title of the message is, what is your perspective?
Because while all of us have brought those into this room today, here's where we diverge. We diverge on what is our perspective of those life experiences. Now, if you looked in the notes today, you see that I only have, I listened to one of your sermons last night and I, he's a lot deeper than I am. I, I, one of the things, a lot deeper than I am, but I don't have the gift of knowledge and uh, pastor does have that gift, but I'm on, I'm going to hang on one verse.
I'm going to share multiple verses with you in the few minutes I have, but in your, in your bulletin today, the one verse is Romans 8 28. As I told the group yesterday, I have worn this bracelet on my hand and since 1995. When God entered and on the back of the bracelet is Romans 8 28. This is not preacher talk right here. I have literally quoted the verse thousands and thousands and thousands of times since 1989. And in a moment, you're going to understand why I've quoted that verse so many times, but here's what it says.
And we know that in all things that God causes all things to work for the good of those who love him and have been a called according to his purpose. Now about 12, 13 years ago, I saw something in that verse that I've quoted so many times that I'd never seen in all the years of quoting it. What I didn't see that I always knew is the two words, all things, that's your life experiences. All things includes your life experiences. I did already know that God did not say all of your life experiences were good.
He said that he uses them for good, but after years and years of quoting that verse and wearing it on my hand, I saw something I'd never seen. And what I saw was how so many of us have things happen in our lives that we don't understand and we begin to question God. God, God, why? Why did this person walk out on my life? God, why did this person in my life, did you take them so prematurely before their time? God, why did I lose this job?
Why? And we've all seen people, maybe you here today, that become angry and bitter with God in asking those questions. Why? All of us have had these life experiences. But here's where we diverge in our perspective of them. And the two words that I saw that I had not really seen in all of the years were the last two words in that verse, according to, here it is, his purpose. When you committed your life to Christ, you gave up your purpose and your life became about his purpose, whether you understand it or not.
And here's what I want to make a statement. And I'm going to smile. I'm a pretty intense person. I'm going to smile at this so nobody gets offended with me, hopefully. To the degree that God uses your life will be to the degree of how you see your life experiences according to your purpose purpose or according to God's purpose. Now I'm going to take very quickly. I'm going to take five life experiences. I did this with the group yesterday. If you walk through place, you'll get to put all this together at the end of looking at personality, gifts, abilities, and passions.
You'll get to put this last section together. But I want to talk to you about five types of life experiences. And here's what I want you to ask yourself at the end of every one of them. It'll go pretty quickly. But the question I want you to ask yourself is the title of the message. What is your perspective? And to help you do this, what my desire is, you've heard people say this before, I want you to get your hands around the subject, or I want to get you to get your head around the subject.
I hope that when you walk out of here in just a few minutes, it'll be you've gotten your heart around this subject of life experiences. What is my perspective? The first type of life experience that many of us have had in here have been what I call spiritual experiences. Many of you probably know the story that young Samuel in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel chapter 3 verses 1 to 21. Young Samuel kept having these dreams and he kept going to his mentor Eli and he kept saying, what do they mean?
What do they mean? And God or Samuel, Samuel or his, the prophet kept telling, listen to God, listen to God. Well, we know now that God was calling young Samuel to be the prophet of Israel. Many of you know the story of the apostle Paul in Acts chapter 9 where he was converted on the road to Damascus as he was blinded on that road. I think you would say that that young boy Samuel had a pretty spiritual experience. I think you would say the apostle Paul had a pretty spiritual experience blinded on that road.
But I know what some of you are saying. I've never had a dream and I've never been blinded on a road. But for some of us, we've come to those crossroads in our life where we needed God to give us the direction. We came to those moments that were hard and we didn't know if we were going to make it to the next day. People had talked to us possibly, but somewhere, almost in a supernatural spiritual way, God comes down, gives us what we need to make the decision that ultimately has us in this room on this morning, maybe even many years later.
I had one of those experiences. I committed my life to Christ at a freshman at the University of Georgia. During my sophomore year, I committed to go back to my home church and to be a youth intern that summer. Ended up being two years a youth intern there. But that summer, when I went back, the first thing that we had to do was come here to Atlanta. I grew up in South Georgia and we had to come here to Atlanta and spend six days at a conference with 16,000 people.
And something had happened in my life between that spring retreat and when it got time to go up to Atlanta here for that first week. And what happened in my life was the biggest spiritual battle that even to this day I've ever had. And the battle was not whether or not I wanted I wanted to be a youth intern. The battle was, was I going to leave that conference that week and walk away from Christianity and can all I get and get all I can because tomorrow I may die.
And I will never forget that Friday morning, June 1981. It was about 10 30 in the morning, nothing emotional. They didn't even have music in this conference. But I'm sitting up in the rafters by myself with this war that is going on inside of me. And this is where God came. I don't remember anything the preacher was saying that day. But I remember God saying, Jay, you have spent your entire life, 19 years of it at the time, trying to be the very best athlete that you can be.
I have broken 19 bones in my body, including my back. And he said, Jay, your senior year of high school, when your back went out on you and they examined and told you that if you were hit wrong playing football, you would be paralyzed the rest of your life. You never thought twice about whether or not you keep playing football. When are you going to make that commitment to me? I can't tell you that every day I've walked the life that I've wanted since that day in 1981.
But I believe that one of the reasons that I am in this room today, hopefully prayerfully fulfilling his purpose in my life is when I came to that crossroads and God came down and spoke to me and gave me what I needed to make the decision to make the journey that I've taken. Some of you have had those experiences. What's your perspective of those experiences? Do you look at them as the purpose God has for your life or just some random thing that happened or I made that decision?
God uses those spiritual moments. Secondly, God uses what I call religious educational experiences. The verses in Acts 26, 4 and 5, they may not be that familiar to you. But in those verses, the apostle Paul is talking about, I was a Jew of all Jews. I knew the laws. I knew the customs. By the way, anybody in here from a Jewish heritage? Anybody? I don't see any hands raising. If you're not from that Jewish heritage, have you ever realized that there was a little boy that was four years old and because of a little boy that was four years old, you sit in this room on this Sunday morning in October 26.
That little boy that I'm referencing turned five years old. And because of what that little boy experienced as a five-year-old, you sit in this room on this Sunday morning. He turned six. And because of what he went through as a six-year-old, you sit here. You say, What are you talking about, Jay? Wasn't it the apostle Paul who went to the Jewish Christians and helped the Jewish Christians understand that God wanted to take the gospel to us that are Gentiles? How? Well, if you read your Bible, the Bible says that he's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The Bible says that he wants none, no, not any to perish. And if you read the Old Testament closely, God has always wanted all people, not some, all of us. How did Paul have the ability to go before the Jewish Christians and have them to endorse him as the ambassador to take the gospel to us as Gentiles? Because they knew that he knew. And he did know what the Old Testament said. And because of that credibility of learning what the scriptures were saying, he was given the opportunity to take the gospel to you and I down through the centuries.
I'm mentoring a group of young men some time ago. And one night, we're sitting in a little semi-circle, and we're giving our testimonies of how we came to faith in Christ. And some of the guys in my group, they've got some pretty rough stuff they've been through, horrible things, deep, just dark things in their lives. There's a guy in the group, his name is Chad. Chad is six foot six tall. Chad is sitting to my left. And all of a sudden, Chad begins to start crying.
And Chad says, Jay, I don't, I don't have a testimony. I committed my life to Christ at an early age. I graduated from high school. I went to a Christian college for the last four years. I've been a middle school teacher. And he said, in the summers, I go to Camp Cunnicutt, where I serve as a counselor at that Christian camp. He said, Jay, I just don't have a testimony. And I looked at him and I said, Chad, how many of those kids at Cannicutt are trying to decide, do I go the way of the world or do I go the way of God?
I said, Chad, you may not know much about the way of the world, but for the 26 years that God has left you here, you had walked with him. And many of those kids are going to look at your life and they're going to say, that's the life that I want. I said, yes, you do have a testimony, Chad. Can I tell you something, church? When you think you've listened to one too many sermons, when you think you've sat through one too many Bible studies, it may very well be the hearing, the receiving, the teaching of the Word of God, that God shows you something that will take a course for your life, that He will use you in ways that you never, never could have imagined apart from being poured into by His Word.
God uses the times in our lives that His Word is poured into us. What's your perspective sitting here today? Is it just another typical Sunday? I do this because it's Sunday morning? Or do you come anticipating that God may show you something that changes the course of your life to fulfill His purpose in and through you? God uses those times His Word is poured into you. Number three, God often uses our painful experiences. I want to take and I want to read 2 Corinthians 1, 3 through 5 to you this morning.
Here's what it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we'll be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. God uses your painful experiences. Jesus. This morning, I want to share with you why I'm in this room.
And it was because of a painful experience in my life. 38 years ago, I was a young, arrogant, cocky youth minister that thought I had the world by the world by the coattail. And I began to do in my 20s what a lot of people do, ministry careers. I started climbing what I called the ecclesiastical ladder. About every two years, a little bigger church, a little bigger church. And it was July of 1989. I was moving from Columbia, South Carolina, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where I was going to be the college pastor at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, which had a huge college ministry of some 300 to 400 kids during the school year.
A dream for me. It was July 19th, 1989, a Wednesday night. I was at the church with the college leadership that I was going to be taking over in two weeks to lead. We left that night. I went back to the hotel with my wife and I went to pick up the phone to call the real estate agent to say, this is where we would like to live. And as I went to pick up that phone, five words changed the entire course of my life. Have you ever recognized how simple words can be?
But yet so profound? Five. That's all it took. I don't love you anymore. And my wife, who is now my ex-wife, walked out of that hotel room that night, said goodbye, and divorced me. This morning, to tell you that that was a traumatic experience in my life is an understatement. Because two weeks after I heard those five words, I tried to commit suicide. And I ended up in a psychiatric hospital in Marietta, wanting to die. Thinking that God had no purpose for my life. And in that psychiatric hospital, God used two things to save my life.
I wear one of them on the back of this bracelet. Romans 8.28 God never said that my divorce was His perfect will. But in that hospital, He promised me that one day He would use it for good. I got out of that hospital. I began in some ways to run from the calling that one day that He would use it for good. And the other thing that God said was one day, one day, I would come alongside men like your pastor and his wife and his two precious, precious children.
And I would find a way to support those that went into ministry so that what happened to me would never have to happen to them. I had no idea in 1989 that one day I would write a little book called Finding Your Place in Life and Ministry that we have now been able to share with over 15,000 churches. Almost a million people have gone through it. I had no idea that that would be how God would allow me to come alongside you. Can I tell you all something?
Sometimes we look at our life experiences through the pain and we just want to ignore them, don't we? We want to put them aside acting like that never happened in my life. As I told the group yesterday, I don't have a day in my life since 1989 that I do not wake up. I did this morning. And think about July 19th, 1989. And I asked God to never let me forget them that day. Because you see, God took the pain in my life and gave me a purpose for my life.
God took the tragedy in my life. And I believe He's used it for triumph. God took a failure in my life and I believe gave me the future that God has given me. What about you? What's your perspective? I know in a group this size, there are people right now that are processing painful things that you've walked through in your journey. What's your perspective? Do you see them from your purpose? Or do you see them from God's purpose, God's perspective? And maybe you don't understand on this side of heaven, even to the end, you may not understand why God has allowed you to walk through those painful experiences.
But they are so vital if you will see them for His purpose, even if you can't understand His purpose where you are right now. God uses them. Number four, God uses experiences of failure. Most of you, I think almost everyone in here, not everyone, most would know in Matthew 26, verses 69 to 75, the night before Jesus was crucified around a campfire, Peter denied the Lord three times. When you get to heaven, maybe you walk up to Peter and you say, Peter, can you tell me what was the defining experience of your life?
Do not be surprised if Peter doesn't take you back to a campfire and tell you the defining experience was a failure as he denied the Lord three times. Peter, what gave you the courage in Acts 2.36 to stand up some only 50 days later in front of a very potentially hostile crowd and say, therefore, let all Israel be assured of this, this Jesus whom you crucified is both Lord and Christ. Peter, what gave you the courage, as tradition says, to be crucified upside down because you didn't consider yourself worthy to be crucified the way our Lord was crucified?
Do not be surprised if He doesn't take you back to a campfire. Church, God uses broken, repentant, messed up people and it is oftentimes through those failures of their life and they put their lives back together, they repent, they come back to God that they can also then go back to those who have been where they have been and walk alongside them and their failures. God uses even, even the failures of your life. What is your perspective on those failures? Are you looking at them from your purpose?
How many people, their purpose is nothing but shame and they won't even acknowledge where they've come from because of the shame that is in their life instead of saying, God can work even through my failure and He can get the credit for what He's done in me and through me. I don't want to leave you guys on a negative note this morning. God not only uses those spiritual moments of direction, He not only uses when His Word is poured into you, your painful experiences, your failures, God also uses your victorious experiences.
Those times that you have success in your life, you overcome a habit in your life, you overcome an addiction in your life. Hey, maybe you're elected the vice president of your senior class of three. Took you a while on that one. But you knew you had success, right? God uses those times in your life that you have success. Even when those don't stand up and cheer. In the material that I've written in the workbook they worked through yesterday, the next part of what they do is they process out their life experiences.
And on the next page of the workbook, it talks about what are some experiences that you've had success, victory, or triumph in. And people have pointed out to me in the workbook that I've put together, the fourth one down, they always say, that's a weird one in there. It says buying a jump rope and learning how to walk through a jump rope. And I always say to people, when you write your own material, you can put anything you want in there. Maybe nobody buys it, but you can put it in there, right?
You see, when I was born, the way that my mom cared me, my feet were turned straight in. Straight in. Not like this, but straight in. I got to be four years of age, and I would go every two weeks to the doctor, and they put little braces from my waist all the way down to my feet, and they would adjust my little braces where I grew up in South Georgia. I'd go to Savannah, Georgia, and they told my mom, they said, one day, the little fellow may walk fairly normal, but don't expect a whole lot more from him.
I was six years old, and I asked my mom, I said, Mom, can I take my money out of my piggy bank and buy myself a jump rope? You know, what do you tell a little six-year-old crippled boy who can't have a rope? My mom let me buy the rope. I went in the backyard. Nobody went back there. Little Jay couldn't jump, but he could turn his rope, and eventually, Little Jay got a little better, got a little better. Eventually, Little Jay's braces came off. Eventually, Little Jay did learn how to walk fairly normal.
Eventually, Little Jay did learn how to run, and eventually, Little Jay got to be a wide receiver on a national championship football team. Can I tell you this morning, more than being a receiver on that football team, I believe that as a six-year-old little boy, God began to wire into me to have the drive and determination for the purpose that God has given me to come alongside ministers, their families, and to support them. God uses those times that you have success. And as I end this morning, the question I go back to you is, this isn't a question, this is a fact.
Every one of you in here have had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of life experiences. What's your perspective? Do you see them according to your purpose or God's purpose? To the degree that God is able to leverage you for His kingdom will be how you answer that question. Can I pray, and then I'll turn it back over to you, Pastor.
