Life's Not Fair Series

The question is not will we will face mountains in our lives, the question is how will we face them? That is a great question and that is what we are talking about in this series but before we jump back into that good morning and welcome to this place that we call DCC. We are excited, pumped, and jazzed to have you with us here this morning and that is especially true if you are brand new. If that is you we think it is important that you know that all of your story is safe here regardless of how it reads, you belong with us regardless of what you believe, and you are not alone in fact, you have walked into a place today full of people just like you. So thank you for being willing to take a chance on us if you are new and as always we want to give a special shout out and welcome to all of our online friends out there too.

So the question in this series really can be boiled down to this how are we going to overcome the mountains that we are all going to face and are facing in our lives even as we sit here today? We kicked this thing off last week by talking about how we have to refuse to allow ourselves to believe that overcoming is impossible, lean into people for help, and hold on to the promise that we are not alone. That’s a great place to start but it’s just that a start. Today, I want us to talk about learning to overcome the harsh reality and truth that we are confronted with in this statement “life’s not fair”.

ILLUST> I have a pastor buddy in town named Daniel who I get together with about 4 times or so a year. He’s a great guy. Without fail every single time that we get together I get a thank you note in the mail the following our meeting thanking me for investing in him and telling me how I make him better and challenge him. He always includes a Starbucks gift card in with the note as a way to say thanks, which I immediately turn and give to my daughters, which always creates also immediately creates a problem for me, which one. I initially tried to take turns but ultimately determined that the best way is to give it to one without the other knowing. Why? Because I don’t want to hear what parents of multiple children become so accustomed to hearing “that’s not fair” “it’s not fair”. I wish I had a dollar for every time that I have heard that. My guess is that this is a me too moment for many other parents in the room today too. This everyone is a winner, everyone gets a trophy world that we are living in really isn’t helping us with that. So, I don’t know about you but my typical response happens to be this, life’s not fair, you had better learn to get used to that.

So that’s the response that I give to my kids to try and shut them down but if I am honest I struggle with life not being fair too. We don’t have to look far to see it. We find ourselves living in a world where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, a world where care accidents happen and people in one car die while the drunk driver in the other car walks away without a scratch. I have a great relationship with my four girls today. My best friend Robert was killed in a tragic car accident almost 20 years ago leaving behind two daughters the same age as my oldest two at the time ages 6 and 4 who would grow up never knowing their daddy. Kids die of cancer, the manipulator gets the promotion and the honest hard-working dedicated person gets phased out. Life’s not fair. So, what do we do when the cards that life seems to continue to play us just don’t seem fair? How do we overcome when the path that we are traveling just continues to go from bad to worse? That’s what I want to talk about in the time we have left together today.

If you brought a Bible we are going to be in 2 different places today starting in Matthew 26 and then moving back and forth between there and Luke 22. If you don’t have a Bible they are back on the back tables that you can grab right now if you would like if you close or on you can always grab one on your way out. As always you can hit our app or the You Version app too. Or you can ignore all of that and read along with me on the screens. So here we go Matthew 26 starting with verse 36…