Well, hey everybody and welcome in to Valley Creek. We are so glad that you are here this morning. Before we get started, we just want to welcome in all of our campuses all together at the same time. So, come on. Let's hear it for everybody. We're glad that you are joining us this morning. I'm Karrie and I get to serve as the Student Director at our Denton Campus and I am really excited to be back together like this as a family again. See, this summer our family has been in a series called 60 Days of Enjoying God and the Life He's Giving You. And we're halfway through the summer and we've talked about a lot of different things. We've talked about enjoying God, enjoying the church that we're in, enjoying the relationships that we've been given, enjoying the storms that we're walking through. Like I said, we've talked about a lot, but we're not done. See, no, today, we are going to be talking about enjoying God and the season that you are in. And honestly, when I found out this was my topic, I kind of laughed because I was like, "Oh, cool, God. That's exactly what I am learning right now this year."

See, earlier this year, I was at RE. RE is our church's three-day, three-day encounter with God. We do it at the beginning of every year. And it was there at RE when I was sitting right here in this room. And I heard God just so clearly tell me that for me, this year was going to be a year of fun. And I was like, "All right, okay, cool. I'm into that. Let's go. Let's have some fun." But God, this is RE, so I need a RE word. So, like I need something cool like restore or renew. Refresh sounds fun. That's that's cool. What is, what is RE fun? Not, and like not even refund like money because that would be cool, too. But no, it was just like RE fun. And I was like, I'm not totally sure what that means. And at first, I think it was a little resistant because I was like, "Oh, fun. That's awesome, but that sounds just a little bit too unserious. Trying to be more grown up lately." So, I was like, "All right, what am I supposed to do with that one?" But the more I've walked with God throughout this year, the more He has shown me that the word fun is actually incredibly profound.

See, um, earlier this summer, we defined the word enjoy. And I think that kind of goes all-encompassing, to um fun is like enjoy is to rejoice, to take delight in, to be glad. And so before we even get started, can I actually ask you a question? When is the last time you did something just because it was fun? Like just because it was fun. Not because it checked something off your list. Not because you had to do something and it ended up being fun. Not because it made you a better parent, better employee, better Christian, but like just because it was fun. Yeah. See, I kind of think that's actually why God gave us the word enjoy and enjoying for this summer. And I also think that's why God gave me the word fun for this year because I think somewhere along the way for me, I think I forgot that I was created to have fun and just enjoy God in the life that He is giving us.

And so, like I said earlier this summer, we defined the word enjoy. Enjoy just means to rejoice, to be glad, to take delight in. And we said the word enjoy didn't originate on its own. It came from the word joy. Joy is not just happiness. It's not just a feeling. Joy is the presence of God. Having joy is having the awareness that God is with you – with you always in every single season of your life. But then that raises the question, what actually is a season? Cuz because you'll hear Christians say that a lot, right? And just – spoiler – it kind of you, it means like whatever we want for like any allotment of time. We use it kind of as a catch-all. And you'll hear us say things like, "Oh, well, in this season, God is teaching me. Oh, well, in the, in the last season, God showed me this, or I really hope God's moving me into a next new season.” And if you are newer to church, you're probably, yeah, like, yeah, actually, why do Christians talk like farmers all the time? And it's actually that's a pretty fair question. But today, I'm here to share a definition with you. For the word season, it means a God-ordained set time with divine purpose. Season – it's a God-ordained set time with divine purpose. God-ordained meaning that God is with you. He is not far from your life and He is not distant from your circumstances. He is there with you and He knew it all along. Set time meaning there is a beginning, a middle and an end. Some seasons, yes, are longer than others. And whether or not you or I know how long a season is going to be, it is set for a specific time. And divine purpose just means that there is meaning in it. God has a plan for it. It is not a waste. God wants to do something, say something, heal something, reveal something, enjoy something with you. A season is a God-ordained set time with divine purpose.

And so, can I ask you, do you know what season you are in? Like, if we were to sit down at coffee this week and I were to sit across from you, I'd say like, "Hey, like, man, what season are you in right now?" What would you say? Would you say you're in a season of waiting, season of healing, season of blessing, season of growth, season of hardship or transition? Because hear me, the way that you answer that question changes the way that you experience your life. The Bible actually, it kind of explains it like this in Ecclesiastes. It says, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." See, we didn't just make it up. A season for every activity under the heavens. So that means each season, every season has a set time, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Think of it uh, almost like in the way of the seasons that we have here on this earth, right? We have um like summer, fall, winter, and spring. Those are our four seasons. Yes. Or I mean, we do actually have the better ones, the better known ones in Texas. We have um pre-summer. We have summer, summer. We have fallish and ice storm. Those are actually our – those are our four seasons.

But what's actually really interesting about those and all of seasons is we never really know exactly when one season changes into the next one, right? It's like you just look up one day and you start asking yourself questions. Things like, "Oh man, like when did my kids grow up?" Or you look up one day and you look around at all the people in your life and you say, "Where did my best friends from high school go?" And see, spiritual seasons are sometimes a lot like that. Sometimes they slowly shift or they gradually change and you don't always know exactly when it happened, but then you look up one day and you realize that it did. And so, can I ask you again? Do you know what season you are in? Because today we're here to talk about enjoying the season that you're in, but you can't really enjoy something that you don't even know. And so, if seasons are God-ordained set times with divine purpose, that means that they're not random. That means that your age, your stage of life, your job, your family, your opportunities, your limitations, your singleness, your marriage, your parenting, your

retirement, your whatever it may be – it is not random.

God knows exactly where you are. Look how Paul says it actually in 1 Corinthians. He says, "Each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them." Assigned – so it means everything that we just said – it's not random. God knows exactly where you are. He knows what He's doing. He knows what's going on in your life. But like, let me be clear here. This verse is not saying that God assigns bad things to happen to you. Okay, let's just, you know, quick little caveat. Remember, we live in a fallen world. So after the fall in the book of Genesis, uh on this side of heaven, hard things happen and people hurt people and sin and brokenness is real and sickness comes. But still that does not mean that God assigns bad things to happen to you. Hear me. Not everything that happens to you is from God; but everything can be used by God. Everything can be used by God. That is different.

God is so good. Oh, He's so intentional that He can and will and He does use every part of your story. And so if God has you in a season right now, if He's assigned it, then there is something He wants to do in it because God does not waste seasons. But here's kind of the problem. I actually, I don't think that most of us struggle because uh God hasn't defined our season. I think we actually struggle because we try and define it ourselves. And because of that, I think we actually kind of end up living in the wrong season and we do things. It's like, it's like we're dressing for winter and God's like, "Hey, yo, it's springtime." Or we are over here and we're just like waiting and waiting for God and God's like, "Hey, I've been saying let's go." Or we're over here and we're just still grieving something that's over and God's like, "Hey, I'm trying to do something new."

But this actually isn't a new thing. We're not really the first people to do this. Actually Jesus Jesus talks about this very thing in the book of Luke. So this is Jesus speaking, okay? And He says, "Hey guys, when you see a cloud coming up in the west, you immediately say, ‘There's going to be a rainstorm,’ and it happens. When you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It's going to be hot,’ and that's what happens… you can forecast the weather by judging the appearance of earth and sky. But for some reason you don't know how to judge the time in which you're living.” This is, this is Jesus speaking. Jesus speaking to His people – people who He loved, people who knew Him. And He's saying like, "Hey guys, you are so smart. You're so smart. And you can see things coming from a mile away. And you use your gifts and your talents and your resources and your intellect to always know what's coming. You can, you can read the room around you. You always are able to see what's happening. But for some reason, you're not seeing me. For some reason, you're missing me – me, the person of Jesus. And Jesus is here and He's like, "Hey, I'm right here right now in this season. The time in which you're living is, is here. And I'm here to do something and say something and speak to you." He's saying like, "You're so good at reading a room, but you're just not very good at reading me."

And I actually think that that this is why all summer long we've been talking about how joy is so much bigger than happiness. Because don't get me wrong, it's happy to know that there's going to be a rainstorm. You can have your, you know, your rain jacket and your umbrella. It's happy to know what's going on and what's coming; but that's not actually where joy comes from. Joy comes from the awareness that God is with you – that means that joy isn't dependent on your season. It's dependent on whether or not you know that God is right there in that rainstorm with you. And I actually think that that's, that's really what Jesus was getting at that maybe the issue wasn't that they couldn't recognize the weather around them. Obviously, they could. The issue was that they weren't recognizing Him. And I think sometimes, I think sometimes we become really good at recognizing our season, the context clues, and the situation around us, but we're just not very good at recognizing the God that's standing in the middle of it.

And like I said, y'all, it's like it's like a lot of times it's we're just declaring it's the wrong thing. It's like we're declaring it's winter and God's like, "Hey, it's summer." Or we declare it's a season of hardship when it's actually just a season of preparation. Or we declare it's a season of hiddenness when God's like, "No, this is a season of transformation." Or maybe we declare this is a season of storms and God's like, "No, this is a season just of natural consequences from the choices you made in your last season."

And honestly, man, I do I think, I think that so many of us, we just self-declare our season. And through no fault of particularly you or anybody else, but because we're human, I think a lot of the times we're wrong. We're wrong and we misdefine our season. And, and when we misdefine it, we then don't know how to act. And so we act inappropriately for the season that we are in. And then we're miserable. And then we blame it on God and we blame it on everybody else. This is, this is silly, but it's like it's like you're wearing jeans and a winter coat and you go outside and it's 105 degrees outside and then you're miserable. I don't know. I think that, I think that some of us have been emotionally dressing for the wrong season for years of our lives. But I mean, guys, come on. Like, we, we will literally trust a groundhog to crawl out of the earth to tell us whether or not winter is over. And I, and I know that one's kind of a joke, but it came from somewhere. So like we as a people believed that at one time or another. Or we'll open up our weather app six times a day, even though it's wrong like half the time. We will constantly look at storm radar and hourly forecast because we really want to know the season that we are in.

But when it comes to the season of our own lives, it's like we just forget to ask the One who actually defines it – the One who ordains it, who sets its time, and who gives it its divine purpose. It's like we become experts at interpreting the weather but strangers to discerning what God is actually doing in our own lives. And so, can I just ask you, what season are you dressing for right now? And is your attire right for the season that you are in? And I don't know what that looks like for you. Maybe last season God was teaching you to wait and now this season He's asking you to step out in faith? Or maybe last season was all about healing and now this season is all about you bringing healing to somebody else? Or maybe last season He taught you how to receive and now this season He's teaching you how to give? See y'all the problem isn't your clothes. The problem is that the season changed and we never really changed with it. The problem is never the winter coat. You needed the winter coat at one time. The problem is you didn't take the winter coat off when the, when the weather warmed up.

And I think a lot of us, we actually just kind of miss the goodness of a season because we're just a little bit too busy trying to get out of it, right? Either move on to the next one or go back to the old one. And enjoyment, it's like, it's like it always feels just like one season away, right? And we'll say things like, "Oh, well, I mean, I'll really start to enjoy life when I graduate, when I get married, when I finally have kids, when these kids grow up, when I make more money, when I get that promotion, when I move into that house, when this hard season ends, or when I'm healed – whatever I need, when things look different.” But the season that you are in right now is meant to be received as a gift right now. Look at what it says in James. It says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above.” It's from above. It's from God. And so if God gives every good and perfect gift, and God is good, then what He gives is good. Which means the season that you are in right now, it's a gift. And so, hear me. Even if you wouldn't necessarily call your season good, I'm not here to tell you that you have to, okay? But even if you wouldn't necessarily call your season good, God is in it. So there is good in it.

And see I, uh I kind of think that we just think about our lives a little bit like TV shows. Okay, bear with me. All right, so I'm Gen Z. So I grew up with streaming. And so if there's anything that I understand, it is um accidentally wasting a whole day watching an entire season of a television show. I don't know if you've ever done that. Anybody? Okay. Yeah, sure. More of you. I'm, no. Um, so just me. All right. Well, if you know what I'm talking about, you know how sometimes you're in a show and you're like, "Yes, this is so good. I love it, but okay, what happened in this season? What's going on? There is nothing happening right now." And you and you're just sitting there and you're like, "Yeah, I guess the show got new writers or like there's these random new characters. The storyline really kind of slows down." But people online, they promise you, they're like, "Oh, just push through. It gets so much better. Just keep going." And you're like, "Okay." And you're sitting there and you're realizing that you could fast forward through an entire season and you would miss nothing important or like you could sleep through like several episodes and wake up and be like, "Yeah, I missed nothing. I know exactly what's going on." Like this is irrelevant. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Anybody ever seen a show like that? I'm not going to name names because I'm not going to make enemies, but like you ever seen a show like that?

Okay, hear me. Your life is not like that. It's not. But I think sometimes we start to treat our lives as if they are. I think sometimes we can start to view whole seasons of our lives as if they're just something to fast forward through whole parts of your life that you look at it and you're like, "Ah, this is not really worth being awake for." And we start to say things like, "Oh, well, this is, this is just a busy time.” Or, “This is just the time when my kids are just going through it. We just can push through these teenage years. This is just the time where work is crazy.” And hear me, we start living like whole parts of our lives are just filler episodes. But hear me, there are no filler episodes in the story that God is writing with your life. Every season matters. Every season has purpose. God is still there. He's still moving. He is still writing your story. Nothing is wasted – not a second of your life. And this is where I think it's actually really important to be clear, okay?

So God, He is the author. He is the author of your story. Hebrews 12 tells us that Jesus is the author and perfector of our faith. And so yes, God is the author. He's the one writing the story. He's the one who sets the beginning, the middle, and the end. But that does not mean that we get to sit just passively in a season and go, "Well, I guess this is what's happening to me right now." Because God is not writing your story apart from you. He is not some big, a big figure in the sky just saying, “Oh, this will, this will be what happens next.” No. He is inviting you to write it with Him. He is inviting you to walk with Him, to respond to Him, to arrange your life around whatever He is saying. And I think, oh, I think this part's really important because, because sometimes you don't actually choose your season. You don't. Sometimes it does happen to you through a circumstance you don't see coming through loss, through somebody else's choices, through disappointment. And hear me I am not saying that every season you, I'm not saying you choose every season you walk through but what I am saying is that in Jesus’ name you are not powerless in the season that you are in. I'm not saying that you get to choose every circumstance, but you do get to choose how you respond. You get to choose whether or not you're going to actually look up and ask God where He is in the middle of it. You get to choose whether or not you're going to say, "Hey, God, what is this actually all for? Can you tell me?" You get to choose whether or not you then are going to arrange your life around whatever He says. Because I think sometimes we're so desperately waiting for God to change the season. And God is just waiting for us to partner with Him in it. He's waiting on us.

And I think this is where we have to remember something about God's character: God is not in a hurry. He's not. We are. We're always trying to get to the next thing, right? The next season, the next milestone, the next breakthrough, next job, next relationship, opportunity, the next version of ourselves. But here's the thing about God: God is not rushed by our timeline. Look at what it says in 2 Peter. It says, "The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you." He is patient. God is patient. And if God is patient, then maybe, just maybe, there is something He is doing in this season that being in a hurry would actually cause you to miss out. I mean, like, think about it. Think about the Israelites, right? You know, God's chosen people, the people who wandered around a desert for an entire generation. Uh, that the journey, let that let's be clear, was supposed to be two years that ended up being 40 years. Not because God forgot about them, not because God abandoned them, not because God was not faithful to them, but because they chose not to arrange their life around what God was doing. And I wonder if some of us are literally sitting here today asking God to end a season while resisting the very thing that He's trying to do in it. We're sitting here and we're saying things like, "God, why am I still here?" And He's like, "Hey, because I have something good for you to receive here that you can only receive here in this season." And that's actually very hopeful because that means no matter what season you are in today, God is there and there is purpose to it and He wants to do something in it.

And the moment that we begin to partner with Him and what He's doing instead of fighting it, that, that is where joy starts to grow. And so what do we actually do? Well, I think to enjoy our season, there are really just kind of three questions that we have to ask the Lord all throughout our lives, probably over and over and over again. The first one being what we just talked about basically this whole time and say, "Hey God, what season am I in? God, what season am I in?" Not what season do I think I'm in? Not what season does everybody else say I'm in? Not what season do I wish I was in, but asking God, God, what season am I in? And then I think we move on to that second question which is God, what is this season for? What is this season for? I think it's important to actually take a step back and ask the Lord and say, God, what, what are You trying to do in me? What do You want to show me? What are You trying to shape in me? And those are two very important questions and they're also very, very different, right?

The first question is basically saying, hey, what time is it? It's very factual. The person who knows the time can tell you the time. Second one is basically asking what is this time for? And a lot of people can say a lot of different things, but only the one who set the season can actually tell you what it's really for. So, like I said, these are two very, very different questions, but they're both important to ask because like think about it. We can't just ask one and not ask the next because then like it would be like the whole goal was to enjoy God and know the season – but that's not the goal. The goal is to enjoy God and enjoy the season that you are in. Or like think about it this way. The point, the point of summer is not to know that it's summer. That's great, right? Like you can, uh you can know the weather. You can, you can look at your weather app. You can pack your sunscreen, your bathing suit. You have everything that you need because you know that it's summer. But the point of summer is not to know that it's summer. The point of summer is to go swimming. The point of summer is to eat a popsicle outside in the afternoon with your kids. The point of summer isn't to know that it's summer. The point of it is to enjoy everything that summer was made to give you.

And spiritually, it's the exact same thing. We don't just stop at the question of what season am I in? We then go further and we say, "God, what is this season for?" Cuz y'all, if He calls it spring, don't keep dressing for the fall. And if He calls it preparation, don't keep treating it like it's punishment. And if He calls it transformation, stop wishing you could skip it. Because when you stop fighting the season, when you stop wishing your life away, that's when you finally begin to really enjoy God and the season that you are in. And then all of a sudden, when God tells me, "Hey, I'm in a season of parenting." I don't just say, "Oh, yeah, the season's for parenting." No, no, no. And I ask Him the second question. I say, "Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm not just like raising little kids right now and spending every day at home. I'm like raising up the next generation of hope carriers that are going to go change the entire world." When God tells me, "Oh, I'm in a season of singleness. I'm not married." I don't just say, "Oh, the season is for me to just like be alone and like try and find a spouse." No, no. The season is for for me to develop more and more like Jesus so that one day if I want to get married, I can find a spouse similar and go have a family that can go and change the entire world and advance the kingdom. Like when I ask both of these questions, I see there's actually a very big difference.

And then all of the sudden, parenting isn't just exhausting anymore. And waiting isn't just frustrating. Retirement isn't just slowing down. Grief isn't just pain anymore. And hiddenness isn't just obscurity. No, every season becomes an invitation – an invitation to know God in a way that you could not have known Him otherwise – because every season reveals something different about Him. Like, like there are things that you learn about the faithfulness of God in waiting that you could never learn any other way. There are things that you learn about the nearness of God in grief that you can never learn in a time of comfort. And so if every season reveals something different about God, then why would we ever want to rush past one?

And Jesus, He practically says this. He's like, "Hey, be here right now in this time with Me." He says it in Matthew. He says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself." And we love this verse, but gosh, I think for so many of us, we are like mentally living five years ahead or we're emotionally living like five years behind. But Jesus, oh, Jesus is saying, "I'm right here. I'm in today. I'm, I'll be in tomorrow tomorrow, but I'm right here right now with you. Come be with me." And if we're going to learn this from anybody, we learn it from Jesus. I mean, think about Jesus. Everybody talks about like the water into the wine and the raising people from the dead, all the wild stuff, and that's all really cool. But do you know that almost nothing is recorded about the first 30 years of His life? Almost nothing. So if anybody could have called the season of their life filler, it could have been Jesus; but He didn't. 30 years before anyone knew His name, before the miracles, before the crowds, before the cross – yet Jesus never viewed His hidden seasons as wasted. So why in the world would we ever view ours that way? Every season had purpose. Every season of His life was surrendered to the Father. Jesus Himself literally said, "I only say what I hear the Father saying. I only do what I hear the, what I heard the Father uh doing." And because He was faithful in that season, He was always ready to go into the next one. Y'all, Jesus, He never got caught with a winter coat on in the summertime. He all like He already had His like sunscreen on. He was ready to go. And I think it was because He asked those two questions.

And then I think we just have one more question we have to ask and just say, “God, how do I arrange my life around You in this season? How do I respond to what You're saying?” Because this is where joy actually begins when I actually do the thing that He's inviting me to do. And so, hey, uh, moms, maybe for you in this season, maybe this is the season for you to just receive the grace of God and realize that your kids don't actually, they've never wanted a perfect mom. They've just wanted you. Or dads, maybe this is the season for you to get off work a little bit early and just throw the baseball, play the Barbies, be present in the room, both mind and body. Students, maybe this is the season where you just actually let God transform you into who you are becoming so that you can then one go uh one day go out and change the world. Singles, maybe this is the season where God wants to teach you that He is more than enough for you. Empty nesters, maybe this is a season where the season of raising your kids has now become the season of investing in somebody else's kids. Super adults, not maybe, but like this actually is the season or this is not the season where you where your usefulness is coming to an end. Actually, I believe in Jesus’ name, this is the season where your wisdom has now become one of the greatest gifts that you can ever give to the world around you.

And so this is what God has been teaching me all year. So remember how I said at the very beginning that God told me that this was going to be a year of fun for me – like enjoying, rejoicing, taking delight in. Well, what He's been teaching me is that fun isn't actually found in escaping the season that you are in. It's found in receiving the season that you are in because your life is happening right now. It's happening right now. See, viewing my life through the lens of God telling me that I was like created to be having fun, to be rejoicing in His presence really helped me to start fully enjoying my season. And that doesn't mean that anything circumstantially in my life has changed. But now I realize that this in fact is the life that I get to live every single day. And God is with me and somehow I've looked up and I look around and I say, "Wow, this is the best year of my life." And so, hear me, that doesn't mean that every single season of your life feels light, but it does mean that there is goodness to find because God is in your season. And if I'm totally honest, I think part of spiritual maturity is just learning how to have fun, learning how to find God. I don't know what that looks like for you. Maybe it's going on a walk and enjoying God's creation? Maybe it's getting coffee with somebody from your circle? Maybe it's watching God answer somebody's prayer? Seeing somebody get baptized? Maybe it's laughing really hard out loud with your best friend? I don't know. But I do know that there is joy all over your season if you just look up.

And so this summer, what we've been doing in these last 60 days is we've actually just been writing down the things that God has been doing, the things that we want to celebrate as we have been enjoying God in our lives. And so if you have been keeping a journal throughout these 60 days, here's my little pro tip invitation to you. Go back and read it – all of it. Because let me tell you, if you don't know what season you are in, that journal will probably help you answer that question very, very well. And who knows, maybe this week instead of saying, "God, when is this going to end?" Maybe you can try asking, "Hey, God, where is the fun? Where are You in this season? And where do You want me to enjoy You?" And I don't know, maybe you end up having the best year of your life, too. So, may we be people who don't just know God and, and know the season that we are in, but may we enjoy God and enjoy the season that we are in.

Would you close your eyes with me? Father, thank You that You are with us in every single season. Would You help each one of us see our season the way that You do? Would You help us actually know the season that we are in? Would You help us see what You are doing and each season? And would You give us the courage to arrange our lives around what You're doing and saying? Would You help us not rush? Would You help us receive each season as a gift? So would You open our eyes to Your goodness? Would we become aware of Your presence? And would we find joy in You this season? We love You, Jesus. Amen.