This is the subject of our message today: there is no way around it. That’s what I want to talk about. As you think about everything that has taken place, remember there was no way around it. I want you to say it at home, in your office, in your car, or wherever you are listening to or watching this. I want you to take a summary of everything you have gone through over the last 12 months and say to yourself, «There was no way around it.» This has been, pardon my French, one hell of a year. It’s been tough; it’s been hard. The insensitivity of people who haven’t endured what you have is frustrating, and the hypersensitivity to things that don’t matter has been daunting. This year, we have seen it all—whether it was the knee of an officer on the neck of a man or a disease that struck the world and left no corner untouched. Right here, at the end of the year, we find out that possibly Russian operatives poisoned an opposition leader. We have seen more people die on film and witnessed racist undertones coming from the depths of our nation than ever before. We’ve experienced one of the most tumultuous years of political theater in our lifetime. It has been a merry-go-round, a world of evil, tossed and battered by, as the old church would say, an angry sea. What a year it was! But if you survived it, I think you ought to take this day to say, «Thank you, Lord.» You may have lost some things along the way, and you may have climbed some hills and mountains, but I came to tell you today, in no uncertain terms, that if your destiny is in front of you and your history is behind you, and what God has for you is coming, I know you would have preferred to reach your destiny with a different track and a different set of circumstances. However, God has given me the assignment, the authority, and the mandate to tell you today that there was no way around what you and I had to go through to get here. I don’t believe that God brought us this far to leave us now. I remember growing up, as a younger man, going through hard times, and I recall saying, «I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this.» Have you ever said that? «I don’t know how I’m going to get through this; I don’t know how I’m going to overcome it.» Now I know that the same way you made it through 2016, the same way you overcame in 2017, the same way you had a testimony in 2018, and the same way you gave God glory at midnight in 2019, is the same way you will give Him glory at the stroke of the clock at the end of 2020. The same God who brought you through all of that is the same God who will bring you through all of this. The truth is, and I want you to hear the words coming out of my mouth: there was never a way around it. You were always going to be left by that person; you were always going to lose that job; you were always going to suffer that infraction. Your child was always going to cause you that problem; your relationship was always going to hit that wall. There was no way around it. So, since you do not have a choice regarding what happens to you, you may ask yourself, «Then, Pastor, why are you preaching this sermon?» I am preaching this sermon because, even though there is no way around your mountain, you do have a say-so in how you climb it. You have a say-so in how you endure; you have a say-so in how you overcome; you have a say-so in how you respond; you have a say-so in what you tweet. You have a say-so whether you press send on that text or whether you delete it and let God handle the battle. You do not have a choice about which mountain you must climb, but you do have a choice about how you climb your mountain. The reason I bring this into conjecture and conversation is that one of the major themes of the book of John is that it speaks of our Savior—not just the Savior of the Jews, but if you read the text, it states that He is the Savior of the Gentiles. This means that He came first for the Jew and then, secondly, according to Paul, for the Greek. The theme of John’s Gospel is that Jesus is not just the Savior of a certain group of people; here it is: Jesus is, in fact, the Savior of the world—not just the Savior of a race, as some would have you believe; not just the Savior of a certain set of people who have a specific set of resources; not just the Savior of people who live on one side of town; not just the Savior of people who do church in a certain way; not just the Savior of people who dress a certain way; not just the Savior of people who have not sinned—although there are none—but Jesus is the Savior of the world. That’s why John says, «He is the Lamb of God who takes away not just the sins of the rich but the sins of the world. He is the Lamb of God, not just for the Democrats, but He is also the…
