Headlines I // Pastor Chuck Colegrove // May 25, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's up everybody?
Great to see you today.
You look great, you sound great.
What a powerful day.
In His presence already, andbefore I preach, I do just want
to pause and just honor thememory and the sacrifice for the
men and women who served ourcountry and gave their life the
greatest sacrifice.

(00:22):
If you have a loved one who isa fallen soldier, we take this
weekend to remember them and theprice they paid, and then also
really just wanna say a thankyou to every serviceman and

(00:45):
woman, every person that hasserved in our military.
I know Memorial Day is aboutremembering the fallen soldier,
but I just want to just take aminute and honor you that have
served our nation Amen, those ofyou that also are first

(01:05):
responders the way that you haveserved and protected and fought
for our freedoms and fought forour lives.
We thank you so much for that.
We know it's not always thepopular choice, but for you
you've made a difference in ourlives and so we honor you.
Amen, church.
Well, listen, I'm ready topreach God's word.

(01:32):
Are you ready to receive ittoday?
The year was 2009 and we wereliving in Houston at the time,
and it all started with a roundof golf.
I was playing golf on a Fridayafternoon and in Houston.
When you play golf in Houstonyou've got to play.
You can play any time from themonths of like late October

(01:54):
until the early part of March,and then it just gets too hot
and then if you're gonna play inthe 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 earlyhere it's still cold.
So most of us have not gottenour golf clubs back out yet
because it's still too cold.
But we're getting there, we'realmost there.

(02:15):
But this was 2009,.
Living in Houston, went out andplayed golf and going around
the course, had a little waterfrom one of the coolers on the
course.
Got home from playing aroundgolf, supposed to go to somebody
from our church they wereturning 60, supposed to go to
their birthday party and Iwasn't feeling great, didn't

(02:37):
like, I was not feeling good atall and so made it through that
night.
Did not go to the party, feltterrible.
Saturday, felt terrible.
Sunday.
Made it to church still feelingterrible.
Monday feeling terrible.
Couldn't eat.
By the time I would walk up tothe second floor office at our
church building and get into myoffice I was out of breath.

(02:57):
I felt terrible.
I had a few weeks of.
I couldn't really eat.
Anytime I was hungry, butanytime I had to eat I could not
finish the meal.
I lost like 15 pounds, which iskind of cool on one side, but
then it wasn't great, you know,in terms of not feeling great.
And so finally went to thedoctor and the doctor was like
well, let's send you for sometests.

(03:19):
I'm not sure what it is.
And so they started running meall kinds of blood work, all
kinds of catheters, all kinds ofthings happening to me, and I
was like I'm not here for thatand they're taking blood and
telling me all these things.
And they set me up for a seriesof other more in-depth tests

(03:39):
and one of the doctors finallysaid this is what I think it is.
He named a condition and he waslike this is the condition.
There's no real treatment forit, there's no real kind of
medicine you can take for it.
You're just going to have tosuffer with it.
I was like no, thank you.

(03:59):
He said well, that's what it isand we're going to do this next
test and and it'll show us forsure.
And that was.
That was on a Monday afternoon.
He told me that and, uh, I gothome and I told her I said we
need to pray.
And then we went to church onWednesday night and I felt like
in the middle of a worshipservice.
I felt like a healing presence.
The Lord flowed into thatservice and we started praying

(04:22):
for people to be healed and Ihad a moment where I know I was
touched.
Thursday I went in for thatnext procedure and they did the
procedure and on Friday whenthey called me with the results,
they were like Mr Kohlgrove, wegot to tell you we had a very
clear idea of what you werethere for and what we were going
to find, but when we got inthere we did not find it.

(04:42):
Amen.
I learned two things that year.
Number one, when you pray andbelieve, god will move.
And number two, I learned thateven though the report is given
doesn't mean it has to be true.
Hey, why don't you just turn toyour neighbor and say whose

(05:03):
report will you believe?
Oh man, bump the person next toyou and say I will believe the
report of the Lord.
We're about to have some churchup in here.
We need to pray.
Somebody buy us a B3 organ inthis house.

(05:25):
I get a little preaching cordbehind me.
I'm kidding, but I'm not.
Listen.
It is Memorial Weekend.
Can you believe it?
Memorial day weekend, we'reclosing out the fifth month of

(05:55):
our best year ever.
You're 21 Sundays in and yougot about?
What's that?
What's the math?
31 left To our best year.
Yet, man, give yourself a handfor the work you put in already
this year, leaning in, trustingGod, Come on.
Somebody's still declaring I'llbe responsible.

(06:17):
Somebody's still declaring Iwill have grit, I will be wise,
I will take responsibility formy life.
Somebody say I'm not going togive up.
Somebody still living inoverflow.
Somebody declaring it's not acomeback.
I've been here all the time Onyour way to your best year yet

(06:44):
and I'm here to tell you todaythat I could not escape this
little bit of this is not acomeback sermon.
That series we wrapped up lastweek, but I could not escape
this feeling I had that somebodyneeds to be encouraged today
With this idea that, no matterwhat the report has been given,

(07:07):
it's not really true until Godsigns off on it.
Some of you have gotten a reportabout your health, or the
report about your finances, thereport about your relationships.
The report about yourrelationships, the report about

(07:28):
your future.
And I'm here to say unless it'sGod's report, don't believe it.
If God didn't author it, youdon't have to accept it.
So let's look at our key textbefore I preach this short

(07:50):
message.
Colossians, chapter three, verseone.
Since then you have been raisedwith Christ.
Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is Seated at the
right hand of God.
Set your minds on things aboveand not on earthly things.

(08:12):
Set your hearts on things aboveand set your mind on things
above.
Tell your neighbor you need toset your mind on things above.
Tell your neighbor you need toset your mind on things above.
You know, it's reallyinteresting to me.

(08:33):
We're not really much of aheadlines culture any longer.
I remember in my day, way backin the day, when an event, a
sporting event, happened on aMonday night.
You wouldn't really know aboutit until you got the newspaper.

(08:57):
And in my town the newspaperwasn't a morning newspaper, it
was an afternoon paper.
So unless you really knew whathappened the night before.
And while I grew up I didn'thave a TV in my home, so we had
to listen to things on the radio.
Y'all don't even know, y'alldon't even know.
Maybe that's why I have a mindthat likes creativity and

(09:21):
storytelling, because I had topicture things as I listened to
Muhammad Ali fight.
I had to picture it as I waslistening to my Detroit Tigers
play every single night and ifyou didn't know the score of the
game the night before, youdidn't get the paper until the
afternoon.
But we're not really a headlineculture anymore, but we kind of
are, we kind of like thehighlights and we kind of have

(09:48):
this system.
I think what's happened is alot of a lot of us.
We fall for headlines in theterms of social media and if
it's posted it's true.
Well, they said it, I saw it.
I almost told this storybecause it's a current story.
Earlier this, a couple of earlyin the baseball season, one of

(10:10):
our favorite Chicago Cub players, anthony Rizzo, who was playing
for the Yankees for a while andright now isn't playing
baseball that I know of.
But I saw a report on socialmedia that said he signed with
the Cubs again and I took apicture of the post and I sent
it to our little family chat andI was like welcome back,
anthony or Riz, whatever I said,a-riz or something like that,

(10:35):
and they were like no.
And then one of the boys justsaid read the next post, which
was basically Jesus Christsigned with the Cubs too.
I got duped on a headline andso it got me thinking about
headlines.

(10:55):
I brought a few with me today.
Let's pull the first one up.
Noah, look at this headlineRooms with broken air
conditioners are hot.
This headline Rooms with brokenair conditioners are hot.

(11:17):
I mean, okay, smart personright there wrote that headline.
Let's go to the next one.
Watch this State population todouble 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 righthand and the left hand.

(11:39):
That's not amphibious, that's,but it's printed.
How about this one?
The Titanic sinking, no liveslost, literally Printed in the

(12:02):
world newspaper April 15th 1912.
It took all those days extra topost the article and they were
wrong, terribly wrong, and maybeone of the most famous ever.
Check this one out Deweydefeats Truman.

(12:24):
That's our own Chicago Tribune.
Guys, right here in Chicago1948, after the election, dewey
was the favorite, the incumbent,truman won the election and
Chicago was so excited about theearly results.
They printed the wrong title.

(12:46):
Hey, just because the headline'sprinted doesn't mean you have
to accept it.
The Bible is full of headlinesand people who decided not to
accept what the headline said.

(13:06):
Think about Esther, esther.
The headline read God's peopleare doomed.
But Esther realized she wasraised.
For a time such as this, wethink about the Hebrew children
Hebrew children about to beburned in a fiery furnace.

(13:30):
But you know what?
They didn't believe thatheadline.
They got in there and they saidthere's another one walking
with us.
They didn't even come outsmelling like the fire.
Listen, the world will print aheadline about you so fast.
You're down, you're out, you'rebroke, you're busted, you're

(13:50):
terrible, you're canceled.
But listen, just because theyprint it, you don't have to live
it.
Let me camp out for a few thingswith the Apostle Paul.
The Apostle Paul man.
What an experience I mean.

(14:17):
This guy was first named Saul,like that's who.
He was Saul, and he was trainedand he was educated with the
Sanhedrin and he persecuted thechurch.
He was a murderer.
He would throw Christians inprison.
And then he had a face-to-faceencounter with Jesus A few weeks

(14:41):
ago.
I preached to you that heliterally said I was the least
of people who would haveencountered Jesus and seen Jesus
, since I was born at the wrongtime.
But he did have a face-to-faceencounter and it blinded him for
three days until he got thegospel preached to him and he
was baptized and filled with theHoly Spirit and then he could
see and he began to see that hewasn't there to take out the
church.
He was there to take up thechurch and all through his life

(15:06):
he had some crazy, crazy thingshappening.
In fact, for the overcomer, thedifference is not the terrain,
it's the testimony.
We're all going to go throughthings, we're all going to face
difficulty, we're all going tohave hurt in our life, we're all

(15:27):
going to have bad newsdelivered to us.
But it's not the terrain thatmakes us who we are.
It is our testimony.
And the Bible declares weovercome by the blood of the
lamb and by the word of ourtestimony.
And so, even though theheadline might say, it doesn't
mean you gotta believe it.
In fact, you can flip thescript and preach something
different over your own life.

(15:50):
I think about my grandmother, mygrandmother.
So you know that I have alwaystold you I was born on Sunday
and in church.
The next Sunday Didn't miss aSunday.
Growing up Doesn't make me anybetter than anybody else.
It just gave me this love forthe church so that when the
doors are open we're going to bein church.
That's for me in my house whenthe doors are open, we will be

(16:13):
in church.
And so I grew up in a pastor'shome.
My mom and dad pastored in BayCity, michigan, where I was born
, and then we moved to GrandRapids and my dad pastored there
for 35 years.
Before he took that church inGrand Rapids it was my
grandfather's church and he hadpastored there for 35 years.

(16:33):
So my grandfather and mygrandmother, they were very
involved.
They were powerful in ministryand through a set of
circumstances and an accidentand a bad surgery, my
grandmother was confined to awheelchair.
And when I finally got mydriver's license to drive, my

(16:53):
dad would send me to pick mygrandmother up for church.
He would send me to pick her upto run errands and take her to
the doctor's office.
And in my early years I drove ared 1986 Camaro.
You know what I'm talking about.
I would throw that one arm upover the column steering wheel.

(17:17):
I get that little lean steeringwheel.
I get that little lean Gold rim, sunglasses, what's up.
And so he would pick.
He would send me to pick her upand I would love getting there

(17:39):
because I would wheel her out inher wheelchair and she would be
like you're driving this again.
I said, yes, ma'am, I would puther in the front seat, get that
seatbelt on her, put herwheelchair in the back of that
car I don't know how I made itfit back there and I put it in
the back and then I would driveas fast as I could and I would
watch her little, uh, her, her.
I would watch her, she wouldgrip, she would just hold on so

(18:01):
tight.
Those little arthritis handswould just turn white holding on
and I would just take everycorner as fast as I could.
But I marveled at my grandmother, because confined to a
wheelchair and knees swollenwith arthritis, and I know she
must have been in great pain,because there were moments where

(18:23):
she would just start rubbingher knee and just say, oh, I
thank you, jesus, my knee feelsso good right now, and she would
just listen, regardless of whather body was telling her.
Her, her voice, her testimonywas declaring she was healed and
even though she was confined toa wheelchair.
I believe in her heart.
She was standing up declaringthe goodness of God over her
life.

(18:43):
Listen, it doesn't matter whatsituation you face, it doesn't
matter what people around youare telling you.
You can just stir something updeep within your soul, like
David who encouraged himself inthe Lord, and all you got to do
is change your testimony and itwill change your perspective.
And it will change yourperspective.

(19:06):
No, you don't.
It doesn't have to go all rightevery single moment.
It doesn't have to go your wayevery single time.
When things go wrong, you don'thave to listen.
You might not be able to changeyour circumstances, but listen,
I'm gonna tell you you canchange what you're confessing
about your circumstances.
But listen, I'm gonna tell youyou can change what you're
confessing about yourcircumstances.
So here we are.

(19:30):
We're talking about Paul, right, and Paul had some stuff.
Let's go back to that passage inthe earlier passage, noah, and
read this about Paul.
This is what Paul says Threetimes I was beaten with rods
Once I was pelted with stonesThree times I was shipwrecked.

(19:52):
I spent a night and a day inthe open sea, like, not on a
boat.
He was floating with theremains of the boat and the crew
that went down with it.
I have been constantly on themove.
I have been in danger fromrivers, in danger from bandits,

(20:18):
in danger from my fellow Jews indanger from the Gentiles.
In danger in the city, indanger in the country, in danger
at sea, in danger from falsebelievers.
I mean Paul's writing a scriptlike nobody wants that life.
But I'm going to tell you theremight be days or moments or

(20:40):
season where you feel like Pauland when you start looking at it
and writing it out it's likedear Jesus, help us, what is
going on?
When's it going to end?
And Paul tells all these thingsabout his life.
And I'm going to tell you whatPaul learned to change his
testimony Because he might havebeen behind bars, but to him it

(21:04):
was a platform to preach.
He might've been chained inprison, but for him he had the
freedom to declare Jesus.
And he might've been waiting inthe in the last bits, facing
death, but he had a confessionto make that listen, oh man, I
am going to make it out of here.
I'm going to declare thegoodness of God in all things.

(21:26):
In fact, in Philippians 1.12,.
Look what he says.
Gina, you can come on up andhelp 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 actuallyserved to advance the gospel.
What do you mean, paul?

(21:48):
All that I've faced, all that'sbehind me, the good, the bad,
the ugly, all of it has servedto advance the gospel.
It's a change in our confessionthat changes our perspective,
that literally can change thecircumstance.
Paul preached his way out ofprison.

(22:11):
Paul sang his way out of prison.
Saul worshiped his way out ofprison like it didn't matter
what was happening.
Paul found a way to change histestimony in order for his
circumstances to be elevated,that God would get the glory and
the kingdom would advance.

(22:31):
I heard this pastor tell thestory of this.
Man came to the pastor.
He was pretty beat up and down.
He said, pastor, my marriage isfailing.
And he said and my finances area disaster.
I'm just disaster in financesand my faith is just tested and

(22:56):
tried and failing.
The pastor was like well, thatdoesn't sound good.
The pastor shot back at the man.
He said hey, tell me about yourmarriage.
Your wife left you.
Oh, no, no, no, she hasn't leftme, but we're just in hard
times.
Oh, okay, oh, tell me aboutyour finances.
You've lost your job.
No, no, no, no, no, I stillhave my job, but I might lose it

(23:19):
.
And then he says and tell meabout your faith.
You're giving up on God.
No, no, no, but I'm just reallytired.
The pastor looks at him and sayslisten, you don't need to
change.
You don't need a change of thefacts.
You need to change and elevateyour faith.

(23:39):
That's what Pastor Ursch wastrying to get you to do while we
were worshiping to look pastthe circumstance, to look past
the condition and startconfessing with your mouth.
You know, if you tell yourselfyou're tired enough times,
you're gonna get tired.
If you tell yourself yourthroat hurts enough, by the end
of the day your throat's gonnabe sore.
Like you can confess your wayinto good or you can confess

(24:02):
your way into bad.
And listen, church, I'm justhere to declare that some of us,
we don't need to believe theheadlines that are printed
around us.
You get to write your ownheadline.
Man, you know what I would do.

(24:22):
I would get into the practiceof writing my own headlines.
In fact, I've done it for years.
I learned it when I was asalesman and I had this little
hanging deal that hang in ourbathroom and I would get up and
I would read it and I wouldconfess it, I'm alive, I'm awake

(24:43):
, 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 feelgreat.
And there, man, my blood'sflowing.
I got a little pep in my step.
I'm like let's go tackle theday.
And then I would read the nextline that said today I'll meet

(25:04):
the right people at the righttime and I'll say the right
thing To execute the right dealand I will close it today, yes.
And then I started powerconfessions Because that's good.
But then you get into the wordof God.
I'm healed, I'm filled, I'mfree, I'm delivered.

(25:29):
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 mylife, I have the spirit of God
inside of me, my steps areordered in the word of God.
And I realized, no matter how Ifelt getting out of bed, if I
would go through those littlesteps right there, I would walk

(25:51):
out the door victorious alreadymore than a conqueror, already
able to stand anything that camemy way, able to deliver in a
moment's notice, because why?
I had built my own headlinesfor the day.
Man, if you ask my kids, man,my kids, what are they gonna do?

(26:13):
What are the twins gonna dowhen they get in college and I'm
not there to, hopefully, thememory 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'mawake, I feel great.

(26:33):
Say it with me, but listen, itchanges your confession.
Write your own headlines, getthe word of God out, confess it
over and over again and thenlook what Paul did, look what
the example Paul gives us.
If you don't get anything elseout of today's message, get this
for your own life.

(26:54):
Paul says this we are hardpressed on every side, but not
crushed.
We are perplexed, but not indespair.
We are persecuted, but we'renot abandoned.
We're struck down, but we'renot abandoned.
We're struck down, but we'renot destroyed.
Therefore, we do not lose heart.

(27:16):
We write a new headline, thoughoutwardly we are wasting away,
inwardly we are being renewedday by day.
And then here's the closingline, right here, for our light
and momentary troubles areachieving for us an eternal

(27:38):
glory that outweighs them all.
Hey, you need to tell yoursituation.
You're not all that.
You need to tell that sickness.
You're not all that.
You need to tell thatdifficulty, sickness, you're not
all that.
You need to tell thatdifficulty.
You're not all that because,listen, we're wasting away.
But what you're doing to me isgonna make me stronger.

(27:58):
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 couldnot 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.

(28:19):
There you go.
Then we close right here atsecond Corinthians four.
So we fix our eyes not on whatis seen.
We don't write the articleabout what we can see.
Faith is not about writing whatwe see.

(28:39):
We fix our eyes on what isunseen, since what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen iseternal.
If it ain't eternal, I ain'tlooking at it, I'm not fixing my
eyes on it and I'm not going towrite an article about a

(29:00):
temporary situation.
My spiritual father used to saythis never make a permanent
decision on a temporarysituation.
Don't do it, don't do it, don'tdo it.
Oh, it's not going well, I'mout.
No, you're not out, not crushed.

(29:30):
Somebody, somebody, get intoyour spirit the ability to write
your own headline through theword of God, by the power of the
spirit, and you walk yourselfright through that door with
confidence in victory, in thepower of the Holy Spirit, and
not afraid of what everybodyelse is going to say.

(29:51):
Let them write whatever they'regoing to write, but you own the
script through the power ofJesus.
Amen.
Can you receive that word today?