Speaker 1: 0:01

What's up everybody? Great to see you today. You look great, you sound great. What a powerful day. In His presence already, and before I preach, I do just want to pause and just honor the memory and the sacrifice for the men and women who served our country and gave their life the greatest sacrifice. If you have a loved one who is a fallen soldier, we take this weekend to remember them and the price they paid, and then also really just wanna say a thank you to every serviceman and woman, every person that has served in our military. I know Memorial Day is about remembering the fallen soldier, but I just want to just take a minute and honor you that have served our nation Amen, those of you that also are first responders the way that you have served and protected and fought for our freedoms and fought for our lives. We thank you so much for that. We know it's not always the popular choice, but for you you've made a difference in our lives and so we honor you. Amen, church. Well, listen, I'm ready to preach God's word. Are you ready to receive it today?

Speaker 1: 1:42

The year was 2009 and we were living in Houston at the time, and it all started with a round of golf. I was playing golf on a Friday afternoon and in Houston. When you play golf in Houston you've got to play. You can play any time from the months of like late October until the early part of March, and then it just gets too hot and then if you're gonna play in the summer you've got to play super early. So it's not like that here. Here you can play any time. In fact, if you play too early here it's still cold. So most of us have not gotten our golf clubs back out yet because it's still too cold. But we're getting there, we're almost there. But this was 2009,. Living in Houston, went out and played golf and going around the course, had a little water from one of the coolers on the course.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Got home from playing around golf, supposed to go to somebody from our church they were turning 60, supposed to go to their birthday party and I wasn't feeling great, didn't like, I was not feeling good at all and so made it through that night. Did not go to the party, felt terrible. Saturday, felt terrible. Sunday. Made it to church still feeling terrible. Monday feeling terrible. Couldn't eat. By the time I would walk up to the second floor office at our church building and get into my office I was out of breath. I felt terrible. I had a few weeks of. I couldn't really eat. Anytime I was hungry, but anytime I had to eat I could not finish the meal. I lost like 15 pounds, which is kind of cool on one side, but then it wasn't great, you know, in terms of not feeling great.

Speaker 1: 3:14

And so finally went to the doctor and the doctor was like well, let's send you for some tests. I'm not sure what it is. And so they started running me all kinds of blood work, all kinds of catheters, all kinds of things happening to me, and I was like I'm not here for that and they're taking blood and telling me all these things. And they set me up for a series of other more in-depth tests and one of the doctors finally said this is what I think it is. He named a condition and he was like this is the condition. There's no real treatment for it, there's no real kind of medicine you can take for it. You're just going to have to suffer with it. I was like no, thank you. He said well, that's what it is and we're going to do this next test and and it'll show us for sure. And that was.

Speaker 1: 4:06

That was on a Monday afternoon. He told me that and, uh, I got home and I told her I said we need to pray. And then we went to church on Wednesday night and I felt like in the middle of a worship service. I felt like a healing presence. The Lord flowed into that service and we started praying for people to be healed and I had a moment where I know I was touched. Thursday I went in for that next procedure and they did the procedure and on Friday when they called me with the results, they were like Mr Kohlgrove, we got to tell you we had a very clear idea of what you were there for and what we were going to find, but when we got in there we did not find it. Amen.

Speaker 1: 4:48

I learned two things that year. Number one, when you pray and believe, god will move. And number two, I learned that even though the report is given doesn't mean it has to be true. Hey, why don't you just turn to your neighbor and say whose report will you believe? Oh man, bump the person next to you and say I will believe the report of the Lord. We're about to have some church up in here. We need to pray. Somebody buy us a B3 organ in this house. I get a little preaching cord behind me. I'm kidding, but I'm not.

Speaker 1: 5:42

Listen. It is Memorial Weekend. Can you believe it? Memorial day weekend, we're closing out the fifth month of our best year ever. You're 21 Sundays in and you got about? What's that? What's the math? 31 left To our best year. Yet, man, give yourself a hand for the work you put in already this year, leaning in, trusting God, Come on. Somebody's still declaring I'll be responsible. Somebody's still declaring I will have grit, I will be wise, I will take responsibility for my life. Somebody say I'm not going to give up. Somebody still living in overflow. Somebody declaring it's not a comeback. I've been here all the time On your way to your best year yet and I'm here to tell you today that I could not escape this little bit of this is not a comeback sermon. That series we wrapped up last week, but I could not escape this feeling I had that somebody needs to be encouraged today With this idea that, no matter what the report has been given, it's not really true until God signs off on it.

Speaker 1: 7:17

Some of you have gotten a report about your health, or the report about your finances, the report about your relationships. The report about your relationships, the report about your future. And I'm here to say unless it's God's report, don't believe it. If God didn't author it, you don't have to accept it. So let's look at our key text before I preach this short message.

Speaker 1: 7:50

Colossians, chapter three, verse one. Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is Seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above and not on earthly things. Set your hearts on things above and set your mind on things above. Tell your neighbor you need to set your mind on things above. Tell your neighbor you need to set your mind on things above. You know, it's really interesting to me.

Speaker 1: 8:33

We're not really much of a headlines culture any longer. I remember in my day, way back in the day, when an event, a sporting event, happened on a Monday night. You wouldn't really know about it until you got the newspaper. And in my town the newspaper wasn't a morning newspaper, it was an afternoon paper. So unless you really knew what happened the night before. And while I grew up I didn't have a TV in my home, so we had to listen to things on the radio. Y'all don't even know, y'all don't even know. Maybe that's why I have a mind that likes creativity and storytelling, because I had to picture things as I listened to Muhammad Ali fight. I had to picture it as I was listening to my Detroit Tigers play every single night and if you didn't know the score of the game the night before, you didn't get the paper until the afternoon. But we're not really a headline culture anymore, but we kind of are, we kind of like the highlights and we kind of have this system. I think what's happened is a lot of a lot of us.

Speaker 1: 9:50

We fall for headlines in the terms of social media and if it's posted it's true. Well, they said it, I saw it. I almost told this story because it's a current story. Earlier this, a couple of early in the baseball season, one of our favorite Chicago Cub players, anthony Rizzo, who was playing for the Yankees for a while and right now isn't playing baseball that I know of. But I saw a report on social media that said he signed with the Cubs again and I took a picture of the post and I sent it to our little family chat and I was like welcome back, anthony or Riz, whatever I said, a-riz or something like that, and they were like no. And then one of the boys just said read the next post, which was basically Jesus Christ signed with the Cubs too. I got duped on a headline and so it got me thinking about headlines. I brought a few with me today.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Let's pull the first one up. Noah, look at this headline Rooms with broken air conditioners are hot. This headline Rooms with broken air conditioners are hot. I mean, okay, smart person right there wrote that headline. Let's go to the next one. Watch this State population to double by 2040, to double by 2040, babies. To blame those babies. Let's do the next one. Oh, that's amphibious. Pitcher makes debut. Do you see? He's pitching with the right hand and the left hand. That's not amphibious, that's, but it's printed. How about this one? The Titanic sinking, no lives lost, literally Printed in the world newspaper April 15th 1912.

Speaker 1: 12:09

It took all those days extra to post the article and they were wrong, terribly wrong, and maybe one of the most famous ever. Check this one out Dewey defeats Truman. That's our own Chicago Tribune. Guys, right here in Chicago 1948, after the election, dewey was the favorite, the incumbent, truman won the election and Chicago was so excited about the early results. They printed the wrong title.

Speaker 1: 12:46

Hey, just because the headline's printed doesn't mean you have to accept it. The Bible is full of headlines and people who decided not to accept what the headline said. Think about Esther, esther. The headline read God's people are doomed. But Esther realized she was raised. For a time such as this, we think about the Hebrew children Hebrew children about to be burned in a fiery furnace. But you know what? They didn't believe that headline. They got in there and they said there's another one walking with us. They didn't even come out smelling like the fire. Listen, the world will print a headline about you so fast. You're down, you're out, you're broke, you're busted, you're terrible, you're canceled. But listen, just because they print it, you don't have to live it.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Let me camp out for a few things with the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul man. What an experience I mean. This guy was first named Saul, like that's who. He was Saul, and he was trained and he was educated with the Sanhedrin and he persecuted the church. He was a murderer. He would throw Christians in prison. And then he had a face-to-face encounter with Jesus A few weeks ago. I preached to you that he literally said I was the least of people who would have encountered Jesus and seen Jesus, since I was born at the wrong time. But he did have a face-to-face encounter and it blinded him for three days until he got the gospel preached to him and he was baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit and then he could see and he began to see that he wasn't there to take out the church. He was there to take up the church and all through his life he had some crazy, crazy things happening.

Speaker 1: 15:09

In fact, for the overcomer, the difference is not the terrain, it's the testimony. We're all going to go through things, we're all going to face difficulty, we're all going to have hurt in our life, we're all going to have bad news delivered to us. But it's not the terrain that makes us who we are. It is our testimony. And the Bible declares we overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony. And so, even though the headline might say, it doesn't mean you gotta believe it. In fact, you can flip the script and preach something different over your own life.

Speaker 1: 15:50

I think about my grandmother, my grandmother. So you know that I have always told you I was born on Sunday and in church. The next Sunday Didn't miss a Sunday. Growing up Doesn't make me any better than anybody else. It just gave me this love for the church so that when the doors are open we're going to be in church. That's for me in my house when the doors are open, we will be in church.

Speaker 1: 16:15

And so I grew up in a pastor's home. My mom and dad pastored in Bay City, michigan, where I was born, and then we moved to Grand Rapids and my dad pastored there for 35 years. Before he took that church in Grand Rapids it was my grandfather's church and he had pastored there for 35 years. So my grandfather and my grandmother, they were very involved. They were powerful in ministry and through a set of circumstances and an accident and a bad surgery, my grandmother was confined to a wheelchair.

Speaker 1: 16:49

And when I finally got my driver's license to drive, my dad would send me to pick my grandmother up for church. He would send me to pick her up to run errands and take her to the doctor's office. And in my early years I drove a red 1986 Camaro. You know what I'm talking about. I would throw that one arm up over the column steering wheel. I get that little lean steering wheel. I get that little lean Gold rim, sunglasses, what's up.

Speaker 1: 17:32

And so he would pick. He would send me to pick her up and I would love getting there because I would wheel her out in her wheelchair and she would be like you're driving this again. I said, yes, ma'am, I would put her in the front seat, get that seatbelt on her, put her wheelchair in the back of that car I don't know how I made it fit back there and I put it in the back and then I would drive as fast as I could and I would watch her little, uh, her, her. I would watch her, she would grip, she would just hold on so tight. Those little arthritis hands would just turn white holding on and I would just take every corner as fast as I could.

Speaker 1: 18:12

But I marveled at my grandmother, because confined to a wheelchair and knees swollen with arthritis, and I know she must have been in great pain, because there were moments where she would just start rubbing her knee and just say, oh, I thank you, jesus, my knee feels so good right now, and she would just listen, regardless of what her body was telling her. Her, her voice, her testimony was declaring she was healed and even though she was confined to a wheelchair. I believe in her heart. She was standing up declaring the goodness of God over her life. Listen, it doesn't matter what situation you face, it doesn't matter what people around you are telling you. You can just stir something up deep within your soul, like David who encouraged himself in the Lord, and all you got to do is change your testimony and it will change your perspective. And it will change your perspective. No, you don't. It doesn't have to go all right every single moment. It doesn't have to go your way every single time. When things go wrong, you don't have to listen. You might not be able to change your circumstances, but listen, I'm gonna tell you you can change what you're confessing about your circumstances. But listen, I'm gonna tell you you can change what you're confessing about your circumstances. So here we are. We're talking about Paul, right, and Paul had some stuff.

Speaker 1: 19:37

Let's go back to that passage in the earlier passage, noah, and read this about Paul. This is what Paul says Three times I was beaten with rods Once I was pelted with stones Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea, like, not on a boat. He was floating with the remains of the boat and the crew that went down with it. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews in danger from the Gentiles. In danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, in danger from false believers. I mean Paul's writing a script like nobody wants that life. But I'm going to tell you there might be days or moments or season where you feel like Paul and when you start looking at it and writing it out it's like dear Jesus, help us, what is going on? When's it going to end? And Paul tells all these things about his life.

Speaker 1: 20:55

And I'm going to tell you what Paul learned to change his testimony Because he might have been behind bars, but to him it was a platform to preach. He might've been chained in prison, but for him he had the freedom to declare Jesus. And he might've been waiting in the in the last bits, facing death, but he had a confession to make that listen, oh man, I am going to make it out of here. I'm going to declare the goodness of God in all things. In fact, in Philippians 1.12,. Look what he says. Gina, you can come on up and help me close out Philippians 1.12,. This is what Paul says. Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. What do you mean, paul? All that I've faced, all that's behind me, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it has served to advance the gospel. It's a change in our confession that changes our perspective, that literally can change the circumstance. Paul preached his way out of prison. Paul sang his way out of prison. Saul worshiped his way out of prison like it didn't matter what was happening. Paul found a way to change his testimony in order for his circumstances to be elevated, that God would get the glory and the kingdom would advance.

Speaker 1: 22:31

I heard this pastor tell the story of this. Man came to the pastor. He was pretty beat up and down. He said, pastor, my marriage is failing. And he said and my finances are a disaster. I'm just disaster in finances and my faith is just tested and tried and failing. The pastor was like well, that doesn't sound good.

Speaker 1: 23:04

The pastor shot back at the man. He said hey, tell me about your marriage. Your wife left you. Oh, no, no, no, she hasn't left me, but we're just in hard times. Oh, okay, oh, tell me about your finances. You've lost your job. No, no, no, no, no, I still have my job, but I might lose it. And then he says and tell me about your faith. You're giving up on God. No, no, no, but I'm just really tired.

Speaker 1: 23:32

The pastor looks at him and says listen, you don't need to change. You don't need a change of the facts. You need to change and elevate your faith. That's what Pastor Ursch was trying to get you to do while we were worshiping to look past the circumstance, to look past the condition and start confessing with your mouth. You know, if you tell yourself you're tired enough times, you're gonna get tired. If you tell yourself your throat hurts enough, by the end of the day your throat's gonna be sore. Like you can confess your way into good or you can confess your way into bad.

Speaker 1: 24:03

And listen, church, I'm just here to declare that some of us, we don't need to believe the headlines that are printed around us. You get to write your own headline. Man, you know what I would do. I would get into the practice of writing my own headlines. In fact, I've done it for years.

Speaker 1: 24:29

I learned it when I was a salesman and I had this little hanging deal that hang in our bathroom and I would get up and I would read it and I would confess it, I'm alive, I'm awake, I feel great. And it said say it three times. So I did it again I'm alive, I'm awake and I feel great. I'm alive, I'm awake and I feel great. And there, man, my blood's flowing. I got a little pep in my step. I'm like let's go tackle the day. And then I would read the next line that said today I'll meet the right people at the right time and I'll say the right thing To execute the right deal and I will close it today, yes. And then I started power confessions Because that's good.

Speaker 1: 25:20

But then you get into the word of God. I'm healed, I'm filled, I'm free, I'm delivered. I'm the head, not the tail. I'm delivered. I'm the head, not the tail. I'm above, not beneath. I have the hand of God on my life, I have the spirit of God inside of me, my steps are ordered in the word of God.

Speaker 1: 25:43

And I realized, no matter how I felt getting out of bed, if I would go through those little steps right there, I would walk out the door victorious already more than a conqueror, already able to stand anything that came my way, able to deliver in a moment's notice, because why? I had built my own headlines for the day. Man, if you ask my kids, man, my kids, what are they gonna do? What are the twins gonna do when they get in college and I'm not there to, hopefully, the memory will hit them because they would walk in and be like, you know, teenage stuff, young young people stuff, just look, beat up by life. I'd be like not feeling good. No good, no, I'm alive, I'm awake, I feel great.

Speaker 1: 26:33

Say it with me, but listen, it changes your confession. Write your own headlines, get the word of God out, confess it over and over again and then look what Paul did, look what the example Paul gives us. If you don't get anything else out of today's message, get this for your own life. Paul says this we are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. We are persecuted, but we're not abandoned. We're struck down, but we're not abandoned. We're struck down, but we're not destroyed. Therefore, we do not lose heart. We write a new headline, though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. And then here's the closing line, right here, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all.

Speaker 1: 27:42

Hey, you need to tell your situation. You're not all that. You need to tell that sickness. You're not all that. You need to tell that difficulty, sickness, you're not all that. You need to tell that difficulty. You're not all that because, listen, we're wasting away. But what you're doing to me is gonna make me stronger. I'm gonna be better. You're pushing me towards God. You're getting me on my knees. You're doing in me what I could not do for myself. So thank, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And then, and then we we close. There's a seat right there, there's a seat right there. There you go. Then we close right here at second Corinthians four.

Speaker 1: 28:23

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen. We don't write the article about what we can see. Faith is not about writing what we see. We fix our eyes on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. If it ain't eternal, I ain't looking at it, I'm not fixing my eyes on it and I'm not going to write an article about a temporary situation. My spiritual father used to say this never make a permanent decision on a temporary situation. Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Oh, it's not going well, I'm out. No, you're not out, not crushed. Somebody, somebody, get into your spirit the ability to write your own headline through the word of God, by the power of the spirit, and you walk yourself right through that door with confidence in victory, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and not afraid of what everybody else is going to say. Let them write whatever they're going to write, but you own the script through the power of Jesus. Amen. Can you receive that word today?