Sermons by Aaron Gibson

Good morning. Welcome to Grace. It's a good thing we turned out all the lights so you couldn't see that transition up here. You had no clue I was on the stage until the lights came back on. Just believe that. It's fine. Hey, if you are new, if you're visiting, my name is Aaron. I get to serve as one of the pastors out here, and honestly, I'm so blessed to serve as one of the pastors out here. If you're watching at home, online, thank you for tuning in. So glad that you all decided to join us today. As Sarah said a little bit earlier, at the beginning of the summer, we jumped into a series called Moses. And essentially all we're doing is we're going through the book of Exodus and we're looking at the journey of Moses and the Israelites as God rescued them from slavery to the Egyptians and is leading them towards the promised land. And so we're just, we're taking some of the stories, honestly, most of it's a lot chapter by chapter, and we're seeing exactly what we can learn from this. And I'm very excited to be sharing with you today. Nate, thank you so much for allowing me to teach. He didn't take the day off. He is still here. You don't recognize him because you see more of his face than usual. I don't know if I like it, but it's there. I'm just kidding. You look lovely, man. Keep it going. But hey, so I want to jump in today. I want to start off with, honestly, just a little bit of vulnerability. I want to put myself out there against my better judgment, mostly because of you, if I'm being honest, Chris. But I'm going to be vulnerable, throw myself out there, okay? I'm not a big fan of spiders actually I don't like spiders at all I believe that in the creation God allowed Satan to create two things one was spiders the other was Walmart like both of those things just avoid with everything you can and actually like I used to be a lot worse than I am now I used to be terrified of spiders to the point that I could even kill him I you where it started. I was sub-10 years old and my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to watch Arachnophobia. So if you need some good parenting advice, just let your kids watch a horror movie and just see how it scars them for the rest of their life. And then it got to the point where I couldn't even kill them because I remember I was at work one time and there was a big fat spider crawling across the ground so I stepped on it. I didn't realize that it was a pregnant spider. And so, yeah, yeah, you've experienced it before. They don't just die. Thousands of little spiders are like, this ain't for me. I don't like it. I don't like it. So Tamara then became the resident spider killer in our home. I can remember. Don't judge me. It's justified, but I can remember one time driving down the road. We were in Georgia at this point in time. We had somewhere to go. I don't quite remember what we had to do or what we were headed to, but I know a spider crawled across the dashboard. And what popped in my head was one of two things are going to happen. I'm going to wreck and kill us both, or the spider is going to crawl across the vent. It's going to blow in my face and eat me alive. So both of those things are very realistic. Both of them could have happened. So I knew it had to die, so I did the thing you have to do. I pulled over on the side of the road, got out of the car, and I said, Tamara, I'm not getting back in the car until you kill the spider. She's like, no, we're going to be late. You've got to get in the car. I hear what you're saying. I just don't see me doing that. I need you to kill the spider. And then she's like, fine, okay. So we had to wait for it to reemerge from the blower that's going to blow in my face and all that stuff. So she grabbed a paper towel, killed the spider. She's like, okay, fine, it's dead. Let's go. I was like, well, I hear you. But I kind of need evidence. I need you to show me the spider is dead. Because you may not have squished it hard enough. Maybe it's still running around. We need to see evidence. Then I need you to dangle it out the window so it's no longer in the car. Just in case it decides to resurrect and come to attack us then because you made it mad for trying to kill it. Because if that doesn't happen, we're staying where we are. We're not going to go anywhere else. Like you can drive. Just come back and pick me up after you kill the spider. Right? Like I think we've all had those moments before where we face something that's deeply uncomfortable. And it's like, yeah, I don't see me doing that. This isn't for me. Right? But if you've been following Jesus for very long, isn't it true? And wouldn't you say that you have those encounters a little bit more often? Like we all have next steps. One of our traits, you can read it on the lobby in the back, is that we are step takers. Every person in here has a next step in front of them. God has moving you to something. God is asking you to do something, whether it's something he wants to do in you or something he wants to do through you. And doesn't it seem like we often come to this place where God asks us to do something, and it's like, well, God, I hear you. I don't see me doing that. I don't see me taking the step that you're asking me to take. Like there's just too much uncertainty on the other side of that. I don't quite know how this is all going to play out. I need a little bit of evidence. The problem that we kind of run into when it comes to these being step takers is that we oftentimes confuse or we oftentimes mistake comfort for confirmation. I'm not talking about comfort like the AC seats, right? Like those should should be. Instead of EV vehicles like where your car shuts off automatically at the red light. That needs to be. The AC ventilated seats needs to be the thing that they mandate for all cars from this point forward. Because they're lovely. That's comfortable. But that's not the comfort I'm talking about. The comfort that I'm talking about is comfort in your security. Hey, God. I want to take this step, but you've got to give me a little bit more evidence that I'm going to be okay when I do. Hey, God, I hear you that you want me to go in this direction. You want me to do this thing, but honestly, I'm just not sure that's for me. I don't think I have the skill set for that. You've got the wrong guy. You've got the wrong person. You're barking up the wrong tree, God. listen, I want to go and I want to do the thing that you're asking me to do, but the thing that you're asking me to do, I just don't see it happen because I'm uncomfortable with this. God, I want to know it's you asking me to move in this direction, but I just, we chase this feeling of comfort and we let that be our confirmation that we need to step in a particular direction, that we need to do the thing that God is asking us to do, or even if it is God asking us to do it. We oftentimes let comfort be our confirmation, and the scary thing about chasing comfort is not necessarily what it leads you to. Although we've all probably experienced moments of pursuing comfort that have led us to doing things that haven't been good for our life. But the scary part about this is what it keeps you from. Like, do you know, listen for a second. Like, do you know you were created with a purpose, regardless where you are in your faith journey, regardless if you believe or not believe. I understand that. But you were created, you were specifically wired, because God wants to do something through you that would blow your mind. Like, I love how Paul says it in Ephesians. He says, hey, God is working in you to do something through you to impact the world around you that would absolutely stun you. You have no clue what's on the other side of that step. You have no clue what's on the other side of stepping in and leaning into that discomfort to experience God in ways you haven't experienced him before. And here's what's sad about it. Like, I've experienced this, right? What's sad and scary about these moments is you want to take the step. Like, I don't know what it is for you. Maybe it's initiating reconciliation with a relationship, a spouse or a friend or a child or a relative or something like that. Maybe it's taking a step in your job, maybe to leave a job, maybe to start a new job. Maybe it's to do something in ministry. Maybe it's to get involved with one of our mission teams. Maybe it's to go to Mexico, whatever it may be for you, I have no clue. But on the other side of that decision is this, God, I need a little bit more evidence that things are going to work out the way that I'm hoping they're going to work out. So how do you do it? How do you step in? How do you lean in to the discomfort? How do we keep that from preventing us from fulfilling and walking into the person and the life that God has created us to live? That's what we're going to talk about today. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to Exodus 17. That's where we're going to be camped out. I'm going to jump over to James at one point, but we'll come right back to Exodus. If you don't have your Bibles, we're going to put it on this fancy digital Bible in the sky, but let's jump in. The Israelites, like I said, we started from where Moses was confirmed as leader. God kind of called him, and he goes, and they rescued the Israelites. We are less than six weeks away from the Red Sea, where the Egyptian army was chasing them. They got pinned up against the Red Sea. The Red Sea split. They walked through. And it's even less time than that from what Nate talked about last week with the manna and the quail. Well, God just made bread appear from nowhere to excess. So they take the next step in the journey. And this is where we are in 17.1. The whole Israelite community set out from the desert of sin. Just a quick aside. That's not sin. Oftentimes when we read scripture like this, we try to make it say something that it doesn't say. It's not talking about, hey, oh, look, they're leaving sin. That's not it. It's a place, the desert of sin. And it says, traveling from place to place, as the Lord commanded, they camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses and said, give us water to drink. Moses replied, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test? But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and our livestock die of thirst? Then Moses cried out to the Lord. I love this. I love this prayer. Moses cried out to the Lord. What am I to do with these people? Look at these people you gave me. What am I supposed to do with them? He said that Moses cried to the Lord. What am I supposed to do with these people? By the way, when our staff gathers, like this is our prayer oftentimes. What are we supposed to do with their heathens? Again, talking about you, Chris. But what are we supposed to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me. I don't know what the Hebrew word is for, hey, Moses, you about to catch these hands? But I'm sure he heard it quite a bit in that manner. Like they were fed up. Like they were done. And what's incredible about this, the journey that they had experienced and they reached their breaking point. Like the word quarreled. Some of your versions, depending on what you read, it may say complain. But this is another level. Like they had reached another level of discomfort. They had stepped into a situation like, you know, we can't do this anymore. The word, this is the first time that it's been used because they were checked out. They had experienced a fatigue and a failure of their faith just because they were tired. And Moses even responded in a different way. Like when they came to him, Moses was now fearing for his life. He's like, no, no, no, this is out of hand, God. I understand you're leading us somewhere. I understand you're taking us on a journey, but I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation right now, Lord. These people are about to kill me. Everyone was checked. They had gotten to this place. If you had been here for many of the sermons throughout this series, you'd begin to notice this pattern emerge. They take a step, they're obedient, they encounter a challenge. They take a step, they're obedient, they encounter an impossible situation. They take a step, they're obedient, they're going where God is asking them to go. And now, there's no hope. The word test that is used. It was interesting to me because you see places throughout Scripture where it says, hey, test the Lord, right? Like we're invited to test God's will, to see, hey, is this really, you see Gideon do that? Gideon tells him, hey, I want you to go to the heroes. Okay, make the fleece wet. Like he's just asking, God, I want to make sure this is you telling me, but that's not what's happening right now with the Israelites. The Israelites aren't testing God's will. They're questioning his character. They believe one of two things to be true. They say, God, you brought us here and you abandoned us. And or you brought us here to kill us, you and Moses. And they were done. I've done everything you've asked me to do. I've taken the steps you've asked me to take. I've done the ridiculous things that you've asked me to do. And yeah, we've had some great experiences, God. But look, I did it and now I'm here. This is what happens when what you experience doesn't match what you expect. And now it's very easy for us to look at this and kind of throw rocks at them, right? Like, man, you guys, how could you possibly question? Like, you were just fed. You had more manna than you could possibly ask for. Like, you saw the seas split and then swallow the Egyptian army. Like, you saw the Nile turn to blood. You saw all of the places. Like, how could you possibly doubt that God is here with you, that God is working with you, that God is willing to take care of you. They had reached their breaking point, and they began to crave the comforts of familiarity. And this isn't just a Christian thing. Like psychologists and mental health professionals tell us that the majority of people choose to stay in the familiar versus venturing into the unknown. Even if the familiar is unhealthy, even if the familiar is a place they know they don't need to be, even if what's on the other side of the step is something that they crave, they choose to stay in what they know because of the uncertainty, because of the risk of what could be. And this is what was going on with the Israelites. They began to crave. Like, listen, listen, I know life with Pharaoh was hard. I know we were slaves. I know that things weren't good. But you know what? We didn't have to wonder when we were going to eat or what we were going to eat. We didn't have to worry what we were going to drink. We didn't have to worry where we were going to sleep. Like, I missed the comfort of just knowing. So God, like all of their confirmation that God was with them, that God is faithful, that God is good, completely went out the window because their comfort was rattled. Some of you know some of my story. I grew up in the church. My father was a pastor, and I remember one season in particular. It just got really bad. I remember going to church one Sunday morning, and when my father got up to start preaching, every single thing that he would say, from the hello, so glad you guys are here, you heard this echo from the crowd, and there was a guy who began just mocking him. Every single thing that he said, he would begin mocking. My dad knew something was about to go off. Not yet. It's a little bit early. Sorry. That's on me. But hey, way to pay attention. But he began mocking. I was going to let you come. I just didn't want you to stand up there for 30 minutes. Sorry. All right, let's start over. I've got to go back to the beginning. Hey, guys, welcome to Grace. I'm so glad that you're here. No, I'm kidding. But I remember when that started to happen. My dad knew something was about to go on. And so he asked me to stand up, and we just lived right down the road. He said, hey, son, I want you to go home. I was maybe 12, 13 years old. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to church today. This is great. But he sent me home, and what I found out later on is that the guy and his family were upset with my father because he was going to allow someone to become a member of the church who had been divorced and remarried. They didn't think that was okay. And so him and his family were pretty prominent in that church, and on that day when my dad asked me to leave, they ended up gathering around him like a schoolyard bully threatening to fight him. And what my family did in that point, maybe within a month, two months, I didn't sign up for this. God, this isn't what you told me I should expect. I don't want to do this anymore. Have you ever been there? The church has done a pretty horrible job, if we can be honest, about talking about the grittiness and the challenge and difficulty of faith. And because of that, the expectation of ease has crept its way into Christianity. God, it's not supposed to be this hard. God, I understand that you're good. I understand that you're faithful, but this? I didn't sign up for this. I don't want anything to do with it. There's a book called The Nuns. It's not talking about the little Catholic black hat ladies. It's talking about a group of people who sociologists and researchers studied for a little bit. On the census, it's the people who mark non-affiliated when it comes to like the religion portion. Hey, are you affiliated with the? No, no affiliation. So they're calling them the nuns. And what they found is there's this age range between about 30 to 50 to 55 years old who are marking not affiliated, want nothing to do with church, have no desire to go. It's just not a part of their life. But that wasn't always the case. They actually grew up, a large portion of the people grew up in the church. And they were painted this picture of what it means to follow Jesus. That when they began living their life, when they stepped into the real world, when they started experiencing the challenges, it wasn't what they were told. And they were told when they were a kid, hey, listen, just give your life to Jesus. Everything's going to be great. You'll get the promotion. You'll have money issues. Your spouse is going to be great. Your kids are going to stop throwing shoes at each other on the way to church. All you got to do is just follow Jesus and everything changes. You'll have the house, you'll have the yard, all the dreams that you want. It's right there for you. But when they experience something different, say, God, this isn't what I expected. I'm a little uncomfortable being here and I just don't, I don't think this is for me. Because clearly I'm either believing wrong or it's just not real. Like I'm not sure about this whole faith thing anymore. The only problem with that, man, you don't see that anywhere in the Bible. Anywhere throughout scripture, you don't see this promise of perfection or this promise of a great, easy life. You actually see the opposite. You see Jesus tell his disciples, hey, listen, the things that you're seeing me do, man, the things you're seeing me experience, it's going to be harder for you. You see John the Baptist, who was the, he ushered in Jesus, like he was the one who was the first one. This, this is the guy, this is the guy that the Old Testament promised, who's going to fix all the stuff, this is the guy, and he ends up in jail, he's like, well, this isn't what I expected, and he asked some of his disciples to go and just check, hey, make sure he's really the guy, because this is supposed to be different, like I'm not supposed to be dealing with the thing that I'm dealing with right now. Is he really the guy? Like, have you ever been there? I love what James teaches us. Jesus' brother writes a letter to the Israelites. And in James 1, it says this. It says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. What? James, I don't think you know how trials work, my man. Like that experience of joy, no, no, no, no, no. Because in your trial, when your faith is tested, it produces perseverance. There's purpose in that difficulty. There's purpose. And don't lean away. Don't let the discomfort, don't let the uncertainty push you away from what's on the other side of leaning in to the uncomfortable step, of leaning in to the place that God asks you to go. Because when you do that, when perseverance finishes its work, it does so that your faith may be mature and your faith may be complete. James says, listen, you're going to face moments that you didn't expect. You don't have to let discomfort push you away from what's on the other side because those moments are necessary in your faith journey. What James is teaching us in this moment is that it's impossible. It's not possible to grow your faith beyond your certainty. That's the next slide. I'll move through those verses, Laura. You can jump ahead. It's not possible to grow your faith beyond your certainty. When you shape your life and surround your day-to-day, when you're living in a moment where you don't have any questions, where you don't have any worries, where you don't have any doubts, where you don't have any fears, where you have no reason to call on God and lean and depend on God and who he is and his provision, no faith is necessary. We have to exercise our faith in order to see it grow. And what James is saying, don't run from these moments. Don't run from these places. Because if you lean in, like the step that God has asked you, if you just lean into that, just take the step, what you will see is you will see God show up. You will see God be faithful. You will see God in ways you never expected and you have never experienced before. And the result of that is a greater dependency, is a stronger faith, is a deeper faith, is a more unshakable faith. And James says, just, you can, you can just lean in, like lean into those moments. Now it's really important that you hear this. So, how does Nate do it whenever he says, is it do like this, and then I think he goes down like this? Like, it's really important that you hear this, right? I love you, man. But no, it's very important that you hear this. Because it's easy to confuse. Every bad thing that's happening in your life isn't a result of God leading you to that place. It's important to remember that we live in a broken world where sin exists, evil is present, and sometimes the pain, the challenge, the discomfort that you're feeling is a result of someone else's sin against you. But the beautiful part about what James is saying, the context in which James is writing this letter, he's writing it to Israelites who are being persecuted for their faith. They're being persecuted. Someone else is evil. What James is telling us in this moment is God's goodness and God's plans aren't only possible when he orchestrates it. God doesn't have to lead you to the place of discomfort for him to do something incredible. God is able to work and move and do in all things, in all situations. He's not limited to his own plans. And James says, so regardless what it is, regardless what season you're facing, you can lean in. And for our context, what we're talking about today, the step that's ahead of you, James says you can lean in. Because what's on the other side of that? It may take a while. But what's on the other side of that is a deeper dependency. And you have never been so secure in the steps that you're going to take than when you have a deep dependency on who God is and his provision for you. If faith is a gift from God, seizes of doubt and uncertainty are the box in which they're wrapped in. You don't have to run away from it. But how do you do it? I think God understands the human struggle. Like I said, you don't see throughout the Bible anywhere where it says, hey, listen, get it together. It's easier than this. Just believe. Which is why I think God didn't respond to the Israelites in this moment with rebuke. He didn't slap them across the head. He actually, Moses, he says, what am I supposed to do with these people? In 17, verse 7, it says this. I'm sorry, verse 5. So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massa and Meribah. Because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord, saying, is the Lord among us or not? I do think it's interesting that the remedy that God offered to Moses to move forward was another ridiculous task. Hey, grab the staff and go hit that rock and water's going to come out of it. God, that's not what rocks do. I don't think you understand that, but he did it. He took these steps, he struck the rock, and God provided for their needs. Just like us on this side of the story looking in, like, yeah, yeah, we knew that was going to happen. We know how the story goes. But it just serves as a reminder for us that, like, God's not calling you to a place where he's going to watch you fail. There's not a timeline on that. Like, the step he's asking you to take, like, it's as good as what you believe it could be, why he's leading you to that place. But I love that it's just not, like I said, you don't see throughout the scripture. I'm not convinced that, I'm not convinced that God asks us to have blind faith. Like I don't see Jesus just getting so mad because the disciples that are following him just don't believe. What I see him rebuke and correct is, hey, do you still not believe? Like, do you still not trust that I am right here with you after all that you've seen? And I think that's why God instructed Moses to grab the staff. The staff has made a lot of appearances throughout the journey so far, throughout the book of Exodus. And actually, it's going to be here for the remainder of the Old Testament, because it was put in the Ark of the Covenant, along with a couple of other things, with the manna from last week's message, and then the stone tablets, which are coming up in a couple weeks from the Ten Commandments. But also you had the staff that was in there. The staff represented more than just a wooden stick. It represented more than just stability. It was a representation of God's faithfulness in the past. The staff was what God used to convince Moses the direction he needed to go, that he was the one that he was going to be leading. The staff is what God used to convince Pharaoh that God was legit. And you better listen, man. Let his people go, right? The staff is what God used to turn the blood, the Nile River into blood. The staff is what God used to show, hey, listen, watch my faithfulness. The Red Sea splits and you find your escape. The staff is what God used throughout so much of their story. The staff represented. Do you remember? Do you remember what I did? Do you remember that previous step that you stepped into that you were uncertain about? And do you remember my faithfulness? So after my family and I walked away from the church, I had no thought of God. It wasn't a consideration at all. And I don't know any other way to say that. I just lived my life. There was never anything that made me think, I need to do something different here. Until I was about 19 years old, I had a car accident that should have killed me. And it was a miraculous moment that I didn't. But God reintroduced himself to my life. And I remember in my faith journey, I got to this point. I was like, okay, God, listen, I just want to serve you. I just want to do something. I want to go to the place that you're asking me to go. I hope it's music. I was a mediocre at best musician. Maybe still am. Don't laugh at that. But I was a mediocre at best musician. I hope it's music, God. But I'll legitimately do whatever you want me to do. I'll legitimately, I'll clean the toilet. I just want to serve you, Lord. And I remember I called some friends and I had them pray for me. Hey, listen, I'm searching for what God wants me to do, and I just need to know what direction to go. I need to know what step to take in my life. And I remember at this point in time, I was a night owner at a hotel. I was an assistant basketball coach for a high school, and I was going to school full time. I legitimately got maybe four hours of sleep a day during basketball season. It was even less than that with practices and all that. And the four hours, four to five hours, it was just so intermittent. But I remember after talking to a friend in Florida, man, there was like a two-week stretch where I legitimately could sleep no more than about an hour a day. Because have you ever had something on your mind so much that it keeps you awake? Like that's a real thing. And there was something, every time I laid my head down to go to sleep, there was a musical riff, there was a guitar, a chord progression. There was, that I had, it was just so eating away at me that I had to get up and go play the guitar. There was some lyrics that I was writing down or something was just something with music. It was so heavy on my mind that it legitimately kept me awake at night. And I remember getting out of the shower one day to get ready to go to the hotel for work, and I saw my phone had a missed call, and it was a voicemail. It was actually the guy that prayed with me in Florida. And I remember the moment, I had no clue what his voicemail said, but I remember the moment that I heard his voice. I remembered one of the lines from the prayer two weeks ago. And he said, hey God, put it on Aaron's mind. So much. What do you want him to do if he loses sleep at night? And I, man, oh, this is it. Like, this is evidence. Like, now I know where to go. I know what to do. I know God is with me. I know God has called me. I know God has chosen me to be a part of something. Like, I'm just so excited. And so I started that journey. And in the journey of being a pastor, in the journey of leading worship, I can't tell you how many times insecurity sets in. It says, you're not the guy. You're not the one. You're not good enough for this. Who are you that people are going to follow you or listen to you? And I'm not saying this because I need accolades or I need you to give me kudos. That's not the point. But what I have in my life, the gift by the grace of God, has given me a staff that I can cling to when my faith begins to slip. So, let me ask you a question. What's the step God keeps putting in front of you? What's the thing he's asking you to do for your marriage, for your family, for your ministry, for your life? What is the step that has caused you to pump the brakes? Because it's a little uncertain. Second question. What's your staff? And don't answer that too quickly. Spend some time thinking, where have you experienced the greatness and goodness of God in a way that it cannot be taken away from you? Where have you experienced the greatness and goodness of God that you can cling to it and let it be a motivator? No, no, no, no, no. I can lean in. I can go and I can do the things that God is asking me to do, not because of me, because I serve a faithful God. He will not leave me. Just step. Take your staff and go. Let's say a prayer. God, thank you so much. God, I thank you for man, I'm just struck by by your grace and your willingness and your desire to use us in ways that we could never imagine. God, I'm so grateful that for each and every person in here, regardless where they are in their faith journey, or if they're not stepping into faith, or they don't really know if they believe, God, I thank you that you thought of them, and you have a plan for them. And I just ask, God, that you would, just by the graciousness and the gentleness of your Holy Spirit, you would come alongside of us, God, and you would remind us that you would do for us what you did for Moses in this moment when he was terrified, when he had no clue what to do, when he thought he was about to die. You reminded him, hey, you remember the thing? You're not asking us to believe blindly, but you're asking us to cling to the faithfulness we've experienced, God, and we can all, all go back to the cross. In the text that Paul tells us, that if God is for us, who can be against us? And the evidence of this is the cross of Christ, that you, God, wouldn't even spare your own son for our lives. Thank you for that, God. We ask for clarity. We ask for wisdom. We ask for hope. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning. How are you guys doing today? Hey, if you are new or if you are visiting, my name is Aaron, and I get the privilege to serve as your worship pastor out here, and I can't tell you how glad I am that you're here today. If you are watching online, I'm half as glad that you're watching just because you're not present, and you're probably stealing your PJs, so it doesn't really count. But no, so, so glad that you guys decided to join us. Nate, thank you so much, man, for allowing me to share what's been on my heart over this last week or so. Well, we'll see. We'll see. Let's see. Let's pray and go home. Hey, so if you're just joining us, I've missed over the last couple of weeks, we've been in a series called Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs if you're an efficient person. And what we did is several months ago, we sent out a request from our small groups. Hey, give us some questions. If you could ask the church anything. If you had any questions that went unanswered. Maybe you grew up in church. There was just some confusion surrounding this. What questions would you ask? And so that's what we've been doing is we're taking some of these topics, some of these questions that were presented, and we're talking about them with you guys. If you guys wish you would have had input, then you should be in a small group. It's just another good reason for that. And so today, what we're talking about is why does an all-powerful God need our worship? And it's a great question. And again, as your worship pastor is one I'm extremely excited to talk about. There is a little bit of a weight to this, though, because as a worship pastor, if I don't do a good job in explaining to us why we need to worship, I may not be a worship pastor tomorrow. So there's a lot more than the next 30 minutes riding on this, all right? So I'm going to do my best to get us there. But it's a fantastic question. Just because the question itself presents this contradiction that we have to wrestle to the ground. Why does an all-powerful God need? Like from the beginning of your Bible, the first words in your Bible talk about how God is the creator of all things. He is all-powerful and in need of nothing. Yet we see throughout scriptures that he wants and needs our worship. It even goes so far to say is he is jealous for our worship? He commands our worship. It just sounds icky, right? I mean, because I remember writing through this sermon, I wrote down that line. Why does God command our worship? It just, there's something about that that feels off. So why? What's the purpose of that? And before we get too far into this, I have to make sure that we're on the same page with what we're talking about when we say worship. It's one of those things that seem to have gotten lost in translation. Some of you remember, because you remind me of it often, when I was trying to impress my wife by speaking Spanish, and I just wanted to tell her that I want to go to Five Guys. And instead, I said, I want five men. That's not what I meant. Like, I said the exact words, but it didn't mean the same thing, right? And so that's happened with worship in our life. Like, we tend to reduce worship down to the acts. Stop laughing. It's not that funny. I'm trying to preach. Nate said I have to do good. I may not have a job tomorrow, and you're distracting me by making fun of me. I hear it. No, but we have a tendency to reduce worship down to singing. Maybe you include in it the acts or the spiritual disciplines, right? Like you'll include praying, reading your Bible, quiet time, going to church. And those are certainly acts of worship. They're certainly involved in worship, but they're actions that come from a deeper form of worship that we read about throughout the New Testament. The word that's predominantly used to describe worship in the New Testament is proskuneo. And it literally means to kiss towards. And it's used to convey this idea and this image of bowing down to surrendering to the will of. It's the same thing that would happen. That's the word that would be used as if you entered a king's court and you bowed before. You would be surrendering to the will of. You would put your hope in. It's so much more than just singing. The worship we're talking about, the worship that God is jealous for, the worship that God asks for from us is a surrendering of our will. A surrendering to his will. It's what we center our lives around. It's what we center our lives around because it promises something that fulfills us. It's the thing that we center our hope and our dependency on. That's the worship we're talking about today. But even that, you have to dig in just a little bit. Why does it matter to God if he's the center of anything? Why does he have to be the center of my world? I mean, we know people like that, right? If you're married, ladies, your husband, when he's sick, is very needy. He has to be the center of attention. And what do we do? Like, it's exhausting. We attribute to people like that that we try to avoid. We say, they're really needy and they need a lot of attention. Maybe we use the words controlling. We say, hey, I just don't want to. They don't care very much about anybody else. They're pretty self-absorbed. And those are uncomfortable questions to sit with. Like how is God any different than that? So that's what we're going to talk about today. Paul addresses this exact question to the people in Athens. He's going on one of his many missionary journeys, and he comes into the town of Athens. And Athens, I haven't been there, but just from the things that I've read about, it would have been an absolutely incredible city to visit because of the architecture. It was just stunning, and the art that existed. I had a chance to go to Paris several years ago and went to the Louvre and got to go into the area that had all the ancient Greek statues and just all of that. Some of them were gold. Some were made of marble, silver, yet stone that they were used of. And those lined the streets in Athens. It would have been an incredible sight. But Acts 17 verse 16 tells us that when Paul walked into Athens, he was greatly distressed. Like some versions of your Bible will say, his spirit was shaken. It just, he was rattled to the core. Because for the Athenians, like they weren't just statues, they weren't just works of art, they weren't just pretty things to look at, but they were, they represented gods. Gods and goddesses. And that it was affectionately known as the city of idols, idols. Like I've heard it said that if you were to go to ancient Athens, that it was easier to run into a god than it was a person. I've heard it, I saw one source that said there were over 30,000 statues and idols that were throughout the city in Athens. And Paul was just rattled by this. He was rattled by seeing all of these objects of worship. And so what he started to do was just tell people about Jesus. He started to proclaim the good news. And some of the philosophers and the Stoics in the area, they said, hey, we want to know about this God you're telling about. Clearly, we're open to all kinds of forms of religion. We have them all over the place. Tell us about your God. I need to know a little bit more detail in here. And so what Paul ends up telling them is as he's talking about their God, he does talk that God wants our worship. But what he points out to them is that God wants our worship because he wants something for us, not from us. When God commands our worship, it's because he sees a need that he's trying to fill. And this is what he says to him in Acts 17 in verse 22. Paul then stood up in the meeting and said, people of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with the inscription to an unknown God. So you were ignorant of the very things that you worship. And this is what I'm going to proclaim to you. So it wouldn't be a Paul type approach without some kind of dig in there. Like, I don't know what kind of man tries to persuade somebody. Hey, you're just a little ignorant. That's all. That seems like a rough way to start. But Paul is typically a very upfront, very direct, very kind of pull no punches type of preacher, right? Like he's very quick to rebuke. He's very quick to just say what you're doing wrong, but he doesn't seem to take that approach here. The very first thing that he does is he acknowledges, hey, man, I see how religious you are. I see the high esteem that you hold your objects of worship, and I see how much they influence and impact your life because all of the gods, all of the gods represented something that they would want. And so the Athenians' life was shaped around pleasing the gods. You would see festivals thrown. You would see them being marched down the street. You would see songs being sung about them. You would see altars. You would see incense burning. Like all of these different, like they just held in such high regard. And what Paul comments on is, hey, listen, I see that you want deeply. And I see that you hold in a high place all of your objects of worship. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. And what they were doing is they were shaping their lives around the promises of these idols, of these objects of worship. They were trying deeply to not offend them. You don't want to get on their bad side. You don't want to do the things that are going to make them not bless you. You also want to do the things that they're going to provide in their pursuit of comfort, in their pursuit of pleasure, in their pursuit of fulfillment and meaning. Their lives were shaped by the gods they trusted. Now, for us, it's hard to relate to something like that because we don't really worship objects like that in the western part of the world, right? Like if I walked into your house, I wouldn't see you rub baby Buddha's belly for good luck. That's just not a thing that we do. We don't bow to Athena. We don't bow to Apollos. And honestly, that's the thing that makes it a little bit more difficult to point out the things that we worship. The things that I was talking about earlier, the things that we surrender our will to. But we don't bow to the will of Athena. But we do have a tendency to bow at the altar of success and status. We don't go out of our way to please Apollos or Zeus. But we will shape our lives around the pursuit of power and influence. And here's the thing. This is what makes these so tricky, is they're not bad things. Like they're good things. Comfort is a good thing. It just makes a crummy God. And this is what Paul is pointing out to them. Hey, you have these desires. You're looking for these things to find fulfillment. You're looking for these things in your life that you feel like are going to offer you value and offer you worth. But look at what's shaping you. Like I love the way that Augustine talks about this. He says that it's a matter of disordered love. Like, it's not that we love the wrong things. We love the right things, but in the wrong order. Because whatever's at the top of the list, like, that's what has the steering wheel. That's what determines our steps. That's what determines who we become. That's what we are placing all of our hope in. And whatever's at the top of the list, it will cause us to make sacrifices, even for things on our list that's just a little bit lower. And so Paul, when he walks into Athens and he sees them so heavily invested in pursuing something, it's not a matter of if we worship. It's a matter of what. It's a matter of who we worship. And this is what Paul is pointing out to the people in Athens. And this is what he says. In verse 24, it says, and this is what I'm going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he's the Lord of heaven and earth, and he does not live in temples built by human hands, and he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. So right there, Paul immediately answers our question, right? That God's not in need. And I can kind of see this picture of Paul standing around looking at the statues. And what he's telling the Athenians is that God is the only one worthy of your worship because he's the only one who can carry the weight of your worship. Like I kind of have this picture of him standing around and he's looking at the statues, maybe surrounded by some of the idols while he's talking to the people. And he says, like this, like you created this. Like this wouldn't exist if it weren't for you. Like you gave this thing shape and it's the thing that you're going to trust to shape your life. Like you legitimately have to dust your gods. What kind of God is that to trust with your life? What kind of God is it? He has no power. And so what Paul is doing, the way he, I think he approaches the topic the way that he does, not with a firm slap, but it's just this empathetic, no, no, no, I understand you have a longing for something. You have a longing for fulfillment. You have a longing for purpose. You were born with an understanding and an awareness of your needs. That need creates pursuit in your life. What you were pursuing to give you that value, man, it's powerless. It wouldn't exist. Like it was created by you. And he contrasts that with God. But look at the God that I serve. Let me tell you about him. He's the creator of heaven. He's the creator of earth. In him, he is the guy who we actually get our breath from. He gives life. Like, he wasn't created. He is the giver of life. He doesn't need you to build him a house. Like, he exists everywhere. He was there before the foundation of the world. And what Paul points out is that, no, God doesn't need anything. But he says it in such a way that compels them to offer their worship, to direct their worship to the only one who can actually satisfy, the only one who can actually do something, the only one who can actually give them purpose, who can give them fulfillment, who can give them satisfaction in the things that they pursue. I don't know what it may be for you. I don't know what it is that has kind of crept in and we have placed our hope in and has grabbed a hold of our heart. Like to find that you can ask questions like, okay, what is it that you feel like I only have value and I only have worth if fill in the blank? And if this thing is taken away from me, like the bottom falls out. And what Paul is pointing to is like, man, aren't you tired? Aren't you exhausted and perpetually disappointed? Like what you're pursuing is a good thing, but where you're going, the direction you're moving forward to try to grab it, like it's, are you not constantly let down at the empty promises of the things you lift and raise to the position of God. I love Timothy Keller. He calls them counterfeit gods. They're full of promises. And so we devote our life to them. They become the center of our pursuit. The way we treat people is impacted by the highest desire. The sacrifices we make are chosen by the highest desire. And I don't know, have you ever been on the other side of that journey? To where something is so heavily pursued, and then maybe you grab it, but you look at who you became to get there. And it wasn't worth it. It left you wanting. It left you needing. Like you thought it was going to provide the satisfaction. You thought the promotion, you thought the raise, you thought the job was going to give you everything. You thought, okay, I'm going to, all I need is this. And then once it arrives, like it arrives, it feels like you're running this race with a moving finish line. You just never can quite get there. And what Paul says to the Athenians, no, no, God doesn't need your worship to give him value. That's like saying that a waterfall is benefited by you pouring a glass of water in it. Like it's the appropriate place. But it does nothing for the water. That's actually the source of the water. And this is Paul's argument. He's, hey, would you, it almost reads more like an invitation than it does a rebuke. Like, are you not exhausted? Like, your pursuit of the career, has it cost you to sacrifice relationship with family? Like, your pursuit of image management, has it cost you to be overbearing and just focusing on the behavior of others? And just, like, is it costing you more than what it's promising to give? That's the question that Paul is putting in front of him. And I love, I love how he finishes that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. He is not far from any one of us, for in him we live, and in him we move, and in him we have our beings. As some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. Like, so what Paul is pointing out, hey, you were created with an awareness for more. You were created with an awareness that you need something greater. You were created with an awareness for more. You were created with an awareness that you need something greater. You were created to pursue more. You were created with an awareness of your limitations. And just that causes us to move towards something. It causes us to yearn and long for something. And what Paul says is all of the things that you've elevated to the status of God, all of these statues, all of these things, hey, you weren't created for them. You will never find, you will never find the satisfaction that you're longing for. You will never find the purpose that you're hoping for. You will never find you being the person you desire to be by elevating these gods to a position in your life that causes you to bow to their will. You were created for God. You were created by God, for God, to be loved by God, and to find fulfillment in God. It's not that all of these other things don't matter. But it's that you're not dependent upon them. You aren't dependent on them for survival, or you aren't dependent, like if they were taken away, you're like, no, that's okay. That's okay. God's in control. I trust him with my life. I trust him with my tomorrow. I trust him with my right now. I am going to continue to offer him my praise. I am going to continue to allow him to be the center of my world. I'm going to continue to allow him to be the one that I place all of my focus on. This is Paul's argument. And what he's telling the people of Athens, and I think he would tell, how he would answer this question. The question that we started out with is God doesn't command our worship because he's controlling. He does it because he's loving. Like I think about this story that we talked about it maybe, I think, in the last series, Mark's Jesus. And in Mark 10, you see this, you may remember, you see this picture and this story of the rich young ruler who goes to Jesus. And he goes to Jesus and he's asking him, hey, listen, I really want, I want to follow you. I want to serve you. I want, I legitimately want to inherit the kingdom of heaven like it's promised. I want to live that life. What do I need to do? And I love the text where it says Jesus looks at him and he loved him. And what he told him is the thing that has a grip on his heart. He said, listen, as long as that's number one, it's never going to let you live the life that you desire because that's what's shaping you. And what's heartbreaking about that story is it says the guy walked away like money had such a grip on his heart. It says he walked away grieving because he just couldn't let go of what he worshiped the most. He couldn't trust God the way that Jesus was asking him to trust him because of the promise that wealth provided. Like I said, I don't know what it may be for you. It's hard to identify. Because with the Athenians, it was a transactional type of worship. It was all external. I'll do this for you, and you do this for me. But for us, it's something that happens internally. It's something that grabs our heart. And it's disguised as good, because it is good. It's just not a worthy God. I can tell you, there was a few years ago in my life, I don't remember exactly what the situation was, but I know control started to get really, really big. Like there was anxiety that was brewing in my life, and I felt like I needed more control over everything. And so I remember reading through the scriptures, and I came to the text where Jesus, just before he started his ministry, he spent 40 days in the wilderness. He spent 40 days and what stood out to me is he spent 40 days before he began, he spent 40 days in the place where he had to depend on God. He had to be in a place in the desert where he depended on God and as he came out of that, he lived the life that he lived. And so what struck me is like, man, is that what happened in my life? Have I gotten to the place where my dependency on God has fallen below my dependency on something else? And so I did this. It was more of a, it was just a little spiritually intentional journey. That's why I went out backpacking. I don't know anything about backpacking. Never backpacked, but I did it by myself. The only thing I knew is don't come across people because I don't trust them in bear's bite. Like that's the extent. And if you don't eat, you'll starve. So I went with about a 60 pound bag on my back. But it was all with the intention, I need to put myself in a place where I depend on God. Because when I find myself depending more deeply on God, I find freedom. So what Paul is inviting the Athenians to do, hey, rest. He's inviting them to place their trust, their hope, and center their life around God. He's inviting them to a deeper dependency on God. Maybe as we're starting to talk about the things that are idols, it's popped in your mind. Maybe there's something right about that. Yeah, yeah, no, image management's definitely something. Oh, yeah. What's funny is even religiosity can become how holy I look, how good I seem to people. Doing the right things, like that can become something we depend on. Family can become like they can't carry the weight of our worship. Your family, your spouse, your husband, your kids. Listen to me, listen to me. They cannot carry the weight of providing fulfillment, purpose, and meaning in your life. They weren't designed for that. Your work, it can't provide meaning and purpose and fulfillment and value in your life. Because if it's gone, so is everything that came with it. And Paul's invitation is, hey, aren't you exhausted? Depend on God. And so what we're going to do, in one second, I'm going to invite you to stand and just sing this song. And you've heard me say before that our songs, our songs are important. But our songs, when we come together, they're simply prayers put to a melody. Sometimes they're prayers that are saying, hey, God, you're awesome. God, you're great. And oftentimes they're also prayers that say, hey, God, I need you in this area of my life. And there's this line that I want us to focus on in this next song. It simply says, God, I depend on you. I depend on you. And listen, just to make sure that I still have a job tomorrow, singing is important, okay? You got to do it. You got to do it. Otherwise, you got to hire me. But well, and here's the other sad point behind it. If you don't like singing, like I know we got some folks who just wait for the second half of the service, like whenever the message is there and the good stuff happens, you just kind of hang out in the hall. Listen to me. You're going to hate heaven, right? You know what you're going to do? You're going to be singing the entire time. You will be miserable. Because there's no way, there's no lobby outside. That's outside the gate. You don't want to be there, get you behind inside and sing. Like, it's worth it. But I'm going to invite you to stand and just make this your prayer. Maybe it's something. God, I just, I have a hard time shaking this object of worship, this misplaced worship in my life, Lord, and I want to depend on you. Can you help me? Will you help me depend on you? So let me pray for us, and then let's see. Father, thank you so much. I thank you, Lord, for your love, for your faithfulness and for your kindness. God, I thank you for planting in us an awareness of our need for something greater. God, I just ask for you to help. Help us to keep you the center, not meaning that we don't pursue other things, not meaning that other things aren't important to us, but we place them in their appropriate order. And we allow you to shape our life. We allow you to determine who we become. And God, we don't worship you because we get something from you. We worship you because you're worthy. We worship you because you're holy. We worship you because you are the only one who is worthy of our worship. We thank you. We need you. Amen.

Good morning, guys. We want to invite you to stand as we just worship together this morning. Let's sing this together. There's a God. There's a God who is real and strong. He's alive and fights for his own. Let me hear you sing it out. Sing again when you are done Endless praise to the Holy One Sing a song as loud as He is worthy Our eternity stepped into time The water turned into wine Come on, let's sing it. Come on. Ruler over earth and sky Sing a song as loud as He is worthy Sing again when you are done Endless praise to the Holy One Sing a song as loud as He is worthy Let's sing this out together. Clap your hands. Sing it out. Sing a song as loud as he is worthy. Sing again when you are done. Endless praise to the Holy One. Sing a song as loud as he is worthy. Sing a song as loud as he is worthy. Church, can we put our hands together this morning? Let's just celebrate. Come on. You guys can go ahead and have a seat. All right. Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If you've been going to Grace for a long time, this may be the first time in your life you've ever seen my face. I shaved down to a mustache so I could be Mario for Halloween. And now I'm actively trying to grow the beard back so that I don't scare you next week when I preach. So let's just get that out of the way because I'm getting a lot of weird looks in the lobby. All right, with that out of the way, I want to read to you this morning the first four verses from Psalm 122 as we continue in our series called Ascent, where we're looking at the different psalms of Ascent in Psalm 120 to 134. So here's the first four verses of Psalm 122. Listen to this. Every year in the fall, now for the past several years, we pause and we do a morning of worship where the whole service is an opportunity for us as a body to worship God together. We set aside the sermon for that morning, and we let ourselves be ministered to through song as we approach God's throne together. And it made a lot of sense to put this service here in the middle of the series ascent because of this psalm. Because in the middle of these psalms of ascent, in the middle of praising, they stop to acknowledge, they stop before they enter Jerusalem. We're standing at the gates of Jerusalem. So they're not going in yet. They're going in to worship. But before they go to worship, what do they do? They pause and they worship. And last year we did a series called The Songs We Sing. And we focused intentionally on worship for a large portion of the fall. And one of the things that I said over and over and over again is that corporate worship, raising our voices together, singing to God together, proclaiming his praises together is probably the most important thing we can do as a body of believers on a Sunday morning. I tell people all the time, you can download all the best sermons on Wednesday. The best speakers in the world, the most dynamic sermons, you can download those on a Tuesday while you drive to work. You can listen to those anytime you want to. What you can't download is community and corporate worship. What you can't fabricate on your own and experience during the week is what we're going to experience this morning. Coming together, unified as one voice, praising our God together. And as we were coming to church this morning, my wife Jen pointed out to me, this is really an important time this morning because we are in such a consumeristic culture and even time in that culture. We're inundated with news, especially now in this season. We're sitting and we're listening and we're taking in information and the TV is on and a podcast is going or the phone is on or noise is being made and we're just being bombarded with information all the time as we go throughout our days. So it's right and good to pause and not be told things, not have to sit and listen for much longer, but to participate and to praise and allow it to just be your thoughts and your God as we worship together. And I believe that if we do that, that God will speak to each of us in uniquely encouraging ways today as we lift our voices. So let's sing loud, let's give ourselves over to it, and let's allow God to move as we pause to praise him. Please stand and we'll continue to worship. We worship the God who was. We worship the God who is. We worship the God who evermore will be. He opened the prison doors. He parted the raging sea. My God, He holds the victory. Yeah. There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. And we won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. Our God is surely in this place. We won't be quiet. We shout out right back. We sing to the God who always makes a way. Because he hung up on that cross. Then he rose up from that grave. My God still rolling stones all way. There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. And we won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. Our God is surely in this place. We won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. We were the beggars, now we're royalty. We were the prisoners, now we're running free. We are forgiven, accepted, deemed by His grace. Let the house of the lord sing praise we were the beggars now we're royalty we were the prisoners now we're running free we are forgiven accepted redeemed by his grace let the house of the lord sing praise All right, Grace, come on, sing it out. Here we go. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. And we won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. There's joy your praise. We shout out your praise. We shout out your praise. Church, can we put our hands together and let's just celebrate this morning. God is great. Thank you. I've seen a glimpse of your heart a billion years. Still I'll be singing. How can I praise you enough? How can I praise you enough? You are the Lord Almighty. Outshining all the stars in glory. Your love is like the wildest ocean. Oh, nothing else compares. Creation calls all to the Savior. We are alive for your praise. In earth and sky, no one is higher. Our God of wonders, you reign. Our God of wonders, you reign. You are the Lord all mine. Outshining all the stars in gold. Your love is like the wildest ocean. Oh, nothing else compares. You are the Lord Almighty. Outshining all the stars in gold. Your love is like the wildest ocean. Oh, nothing else compares. Not to us, but to your name, we lift up all praise. Not to us, but to your name name we lift up all praise not to us but to your name we lift up all you are the lord almighty outshining all the stars in glory Great. Lift your voice. Yes. I'm sorry. My Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like you. All of my days I want to praise the tower of refuge and strength. Let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you Shout to the Lord All the earth let us sing Power and majesty Praise to the King Mountains bow down I see joy I sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. Psalm 98, 1 through 9 says, His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations. He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout to the Lord, all the earth. Burst into jubilant song with music. Make music to the Lord with the harp and the sound of singing. With trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn, shout for joy before the Lord, the King. Let the sea resound and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. Let the rivers, to lift our voice, to sing. It doesn't matter if you play an instrument or not. It doesn't matter if you can sing well or not. We are commanded and called to shout to the Lord, to give him glory and to worship his name. So we're going to continue singing this song and we're going to worship the God of all creation. Sing my Jesus. I give all of my days. I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love. My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength. Let's sing it. Shout. I sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand Nothing compares to the promise, all the earth, let us sing. Power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name I sing for joy at the work of your hands Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. Sing this with me. Silence the boast of sin and shame Heavens are rolling The praise of your glory For you are raised to life again You had no rival You had no equal Come on, sing it out. Come on. what a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus. How great thou art. How great thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee. How great Thou art. How great Thou art. Let's sing it again. Yes. How great Thou art. We serve a great God. A God whose love is unconditional. A God whose love is never failing and never ending. And whatever, whatever moment you may be wrestling with and whatever moment life may have you in, can we just, can we just declare that truth? Can we just lift up our voices, sing this out, then sings my soul. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee. How great Thou art. How great Thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee. How great thou art. How great thou art. Lord, we just ask you to hear our heart. Hear our cry this morning, Lord, that we believe that you are great. Your greatness isn't dependent upon our season. Your greatness isn't dependent upon what's happening to us. We're around us, Lord. You are great and you are worthy of our praise. And so this morning we offer it. We just put you in your proper place, which is above all. We just seek to give glory and honor to your name, Father. Church, can I just ask you this morning, what reason might you have to be grateful? What reason might you have to just give God praise and thanks? With that in mind, can we just do that? We get to this portion of the chorus that says, so I throw up my hands and I praise you again and again and I sing hallelujah. Hallelujah simply means this, I give praise to Jehovah. I give praise to the King of kings in this symbolic gesture of lifting my hands. Father, I surrender all to you. I give you all and I trust all. It's just offering our thanks and our gratitudes. All my words for sure I've got nothing new How could I express All my gratitude I could sing these, as I often do. Every song was dear to you and me. Come on, let's sing. So I throw up my head and praise you again and again. All that I have is a hallelujah. Hallelujah. I know it's not much. I'm nothing else fit for a king. Except for a heart singing hallelujah. I've got just Come on. so i throw up my hands and praise you hold back. Let's just offer a praise inside of those lungs. Get up and praise the Lord. Come on, church. Lift it up. Come on, my soul. Don't you get shy of me. Lift up your soul. You've got a lion inside of those lungs. Get up and praise the Lord. All right, give it all you've got. Let's shout it out. All right, one more time, shout it Lord. Shout it. So open my hands. Praise you, Jesus. Because all that I have is a hallelujah Come on, shout it out. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. All that I have is a hallelujah. We sing hallelujah. And I know it's not much. I have nothing. Except for a heart singing hallelujah. I sing it again so I throw up my hands. So I throw up my hands. And I praise you again and much, but nothing else fit for a king except for a heart singing. We sing hallelujah. We say hallelujah. Hallelujah. are called to worship you. We are called to shout out your name, God. We are grateful, Lord. I pray for everyone in this room. I pray that you are stirring in our hearts, God. We feel you moving in this place, Lord. Thank you. Amen. You can have a seat. We hope you guys are having a good morning so far. I wanted to share with you something that really stood out to me as we read through Psalm 122. As Nate said a little earlier, we're in this sermon series called Ascent. And really what we're doing is we're looking at this collection or a portion of the collection of Psalms called the Psalms of Ascent. And it's just songs that the Israelites would sing while they were in route to Jerusalem, while they were on their journey. They would just sing these songs. And then you get to Psalm 122, and I thought it was really interesting that on their way to worship, they begin to sing the song about worship, right? And if you read it, Psalm 122 really reads more like a prayer than it does anything else. And so you may have heard me say this before, that when we come together, when we sing in this moment right now, like we're coming in, we're lifting our voice. Our song is simply a prayer to a melody. That's all it is. In these moments where you sing corporately, while you sing songs of worship in your car, all of these times, you're offering a prayer in the form of a melody. So when you come and you're singing these songs about hope, we have these fear, we have these moments that we aren't sure what's going to happen, and we just start singing about this. I place my trust in you. What you are saying in this moment, God, I need you for my hope. God, I need you for what's coming. I don't know how to deal with what I'm doing right now. When you sit in these moments and we say, God, you are worthy, you are above it all, we trust you, we praise you, and you offer this glory and thanks. What you are doing is from your mouth to God's ears, you are offering this prayer, expressing gratitude, showing thanks, declaring his glory. And that's one of the things that makes corporate worship so beautiful. There's a quote. I don't know who said it. Maybe me because I say wise stuff all the time. But it's not necessary. But no, there's a quote. I don't know who said it. Maybe me, because I say wise stuff all the time. It's not necessary. But no, there's a quote that says, the beautiful thing about corporate worship is not the songs that we sing, but the fact that we sing them together. And so when we come together with that idea that our songs are a prayer to a melody, how beautiful is it that you come together as one body, lifting one voice, serving one God, offering one prayer in unison. It's a gorgeous thing. How awesome and how incredible is that? Does it have to be to God's ears? That's what Nate was saying a little earlier. The thing that you can't have watching online, sorry if you are, but it's true. The thing that you can't have is this unison of prayer, this unison of voice. And so at the end of Psalm 122, it shifts, the prayer shifts just a little bit. What the Israelites begin to do is pray for their family and for their friends. I want to read it for you. Maybe this is going to be more complicated than I thought. Okay, here we go. Psalm 122, verse 6 says this. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels. Listen to this. For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, peace be within you. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your prosperity. En route. En route to the temple to worship. They are worshiping. They are singing a song about worship. They are offering a prayer about the beauty of worshiping together. And then in this prayer, towards the end, they begin praying for their family and versions. It says, for the sake of the house of the Lord, I will seek your good. In this prayer, where they are praying for their family and friends, they also include a line that says, help me to pursue your good. God, for the sake of my community, it is good that I pursue what you say is good. For the sake of my community, for the sake of the people around me, it is good that I pursue the life you have created me to live. It is good for them, for me to be who you've created me to be. It is good for them. It reminds me of this, Nate said we're not going to talk. He lied. I don't know if he knew I was going to talk like this. I love Mark 7 because that's what this really kind of points to for me. There's this portion in Mark. Jesus is maybe at the height of popularity in his ministry right now. Like everyone has heard about this guy. They've heard of the miracles that he's done. They've heard of his teachings or they have seen the miracles that he's done. And they've heard his teachings himself or they've seen just all of these different things. And so you have this one little section in Mark 7. I think it's in verse 30. But it says that there was a guy who was deaf and could hardly talk. And there was some people in his life, some people in his community that brought him to Jesus. And then it says they begged Jesus to touch him. They brought this guy to Jesus and they begged Jesus to do Jesus things in this guy's life. And it's not isolated to this. There's multiple areas throughout the Bible. You can read just a little bit later in eight. Those are the first two that I'm aware of. But time and time again, you see people bringing to Jesus and then begging Jesus. And I love this. I think it's what we see in Psalm 122, this combination of action and prayer. This combination of doing everything that I can to point people to Christ, to take people to Christ, to move people to Christ, to live a life that reflects the love of Christ and saturating that action with a plea for Jesus to do Jesus things. That's what happened in Mark 7. Hey, I've seen, I've heard you can do this, Jesus. I saw you do this before. I need you to do this for my family. And it's not just a passing prayer. It's a plea. It's a beg, begging Jesus. I think that that's what James would call a works that shows your faith you move towards Christ and you beg to do Jesus things and when I first saw this when I first recognized it I wrote in my Bible I have friends like that right and I underlined it. And then we all kind of want that, right? I have a group of guys that I meet with. One of the guys, he calls it an intimacy group, and I don't like that. So we're not going to call it that because it just feels weird. Put your hand down, Jacob. We're not talking about that right now. But this group of guys, and what I love about it is that we can be open, we can be honest, we can just tell the struggles, and I know. Then we walk away from there. I have a group of people who are pleading with Jesus to do Jesus things in my world. We all want that. That's right and good. I wrote it down in my Bible while I was sitting there. I was like, oh, that's good, right? I felt kind of like this little poke, right? It said, hey, buddy. It felt like Jesus was saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, you could. You could find friends like that. You have. You could also be. Be that friend. You could also be that husband. You can be the husband that lives a life that reflects the life of Jesus. Be the husband that lives a life that reflects the love that you've experienced. Be the husband who reflects a life and lives a life that believes and trusts in the life of Christ while at the same time interceding with prayer. Not just a passing prayer, but a plea, a beg, like such a hurt and such a longing for the people in the world around me, such a hurt and a longing for the people in my community that I'm not just gonna say, hey, Jesus, just help them with that. But it's like, no, you do Jesus things. Jesus, do Jesus things in their life. Like I love them too much to just let this go. And I beg and I beg and I plead. Like be that type of husband. Be that type of pastor. Be that type of leader. Be that type of friend. And then after it hit me, I was so convicted, I just sat back and I wept. It's like, man, how much more faith can you express than living the life that Jesus has called you to live? All at the same time saturating everything that you can do. Believing, living this life, everything within your power, saturating that action, that life with a prayer. It struck me hard. And what I want us to do this morning as we wrap up is I want to give you an opportunity to do that same thing. My prayer is that while I'm talking through that and I say just, hey, begging Jesus for people, interceding in prayer, just lifting, having such a hurt for them. Maybe you have a child who's entering into a new season of life, some new things coming up. Why don't we take some time and just begin to beg Jesus to prepare the path that's ahead of them, to begin to beg Jesus to just move and stir in their life that they experience Him in a way that they never have before. Maybe you have a child or a friend who's dealing with depression and anxiety and they just can't seem to shake it. Why don't we take some time to begin to beg Jesus, to do Jesus things in their life, just to begin to put them in the right places, to begin to put the people around them that needs to be there and just help relieve some of the torment that they're feeling. Maybe it's a spouse. Why don't we take some time to begin to beg Jesus, to do Jesus things in the area. Maybe it's in your relationship. Maybe there's a fractured relationship. Maybe it's your relationship at home. But I just want to give us a little bit of time to model what we see in Mark 7 and model what we see in Psalm 122. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to shut up, right? Then I'm going to give you some time to just pray. And to close out our morning, we're going to do exactly what we read in Psalm 122. We pray blessings upon the people that we love. We pray for the sake of our family and friends. We will stand together and we will sing and offer a blessing, but also include in that prayer, it says, Jesus, help me to live the life you've created and called me to live. Help me to live a life that is a reflection of you. Help me to live and build my life on your love. So I'm going to give you a couple of minutes and then we're going to start singing the song. If you know it, you're more than welcome to stand and sing as well or just stay and remain praying in your own words. But towards the end of that song, I'll invite us to stand and we'll close that off seriously. So take a few minutes and just begin praying for the people that God has laid on your heart. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Amen. Thank you. I just want to speak the name of Jesus. Your name is power. Your name is healing. Your name is life. Break every and all of anxiety. To every storm held captive by depression, I speak Jesus. Oh, I just want to speak the name of Jesus over fear and all anxiety To every soul held captive by depression I speak Jesus Your name is power Your name is healing Your name is power. Your name is healing. Your name is life. Break every stronghold. Shine through the shadows. Burn like a fire. Your name is power. Your name is healing. Your name is life. Break every stronghold. Shine through the shadows. Burn like a fire. Church, would you stand and sing it out. Jesus for my family Come on. I speak the holy name, Jesus. Your name is power. Your name is healing. Your name is life. Break every stronghold. Shine through the shadows Burn like a fire Your name is power Your name is healing Your name is life I just want to speak the name of Jesus over every heart and every mind. Because I know there is peace within your presence. I speak Jesus. I speak Jesus. I speak Jesus. Oh, I speak Jesus. I speak Jesus. Church, we're just going to make this our prayer. I will build my life on your love, Lord. Let's just sing this out together. Father, we give you our heart, we give you our life, and we give you our hope. Our faith is expressed in the life that we live and the prayers that we offer for our family and friends. Come on, church, time. Sing it out. Let's pray this blessing. generations He is for you. He is for you. He is for you. He is for you. He is for you. He is for you. He is for you. Come on, sing it out. Amen. Amen. Amen. May His favor be upon you and a thousand generations and your family and your children and your children and your children. and behind is is Just our voice, let's sing it out. One more time. We sing. Amen. Amen. Amen. God, we thank you so much and we praise you, Lord. Grace, we're so glad that you decided to join us today. We hope that it was a good morning for you. Make sure you come back next week. Don't forget Thursday night, the fall fling at Ignite Up. You guys have a great week. We'll see you.

Good morning, Grace. How are we, Jay? Everybody good? Good, good. Off to a great start. I'm really excited. Thanks, Jacob, my man. Nate, as Nate mentioned earlier, my name is Aaron. I am one of the pastors out here, and I'm excited to be talking with you today. We've been in a series called 27. We started it last summer and continuing it this summer, and essentially we're just taking a book, pulling a theme or the overall theme of the letter, and talking about it on Sunday morning. This week, we're talking about... Not that one. We're talking about Galatians. So gotcha, right? But we're talking about the book of Galatians. And if I can be honest, like a couple of weeks ago when I started writing this, I got a little bit nervous because last year in the summer, I used the book of Colossians. And as I was preparing this message, I was like, man, there's some very similar tones that Paul is using in both of these letters. Man, I really hope they don't think I just kind of pulled last year's sermon out like he's doing this one again. Like, look at the one trick pony guy, right? But then last Sunday, Doug told us he had no clue that I did Colossians. So I'm like, I'm in the clear. So this was really the easiest sermon I've ever prepared because I did take last year's and I just did a find and replace with Galatians and Colossians. And you guys won't even know it. So that's not true. I am excited to be talking with us about Galatians today. Again, not Ephesians. To kind of get our minds moving in that direction. Some of you know a little bit about my story. But in case you don't, I grew up in the church. I wasn't a Christian at all. My father was a pastor. And if you've ever heard the saying that pastors' kids are the worst, it's true. Just not on Sundays, right? So that's one of the things I learned very early on is that people are looking at my behavior. Like there was an added weight to looking the part, right? Because it seemed like there was people, um, they would assess not just how good I was, but how good of a parent my father was based on how good of a boy I was. And so I learned Monday through Saturday, I can do whatever because I don't hang out in Christian circles on Sunday, Christian circle be good. And so that's what I was. I learned how to say the right things and do the right things. There was all this extra emphasis just on the way that I behaved. But when I did give my life to Jesus, I was maybe 19 or 20 years old. I was a night auditor in a hotel. I was an assistant high school basketball coaching going to school full time. And I can remember as a night auditor, you work about one hour a week. If I ever got fired from the church, I would go be a night auditor because you work one hour a night and the rest of the time just hide from the camera and nap and you were okay. But no, I remember whenever I would open my Bible, my prayer every single time was, God, help me forget everything that I learned about you as a child growing up, and you teach me who you are from your word. I wouldn't be able to articulate to you then why, or I had no clue what the, that was my, that may have been a very bad thing to pray. I have no clue, but what I knew was there was a difference in what I was feeling in that moment and what I felt as a child growing up. There was a very big difference in the unconditional love that I was currently sitting in, the unconditional love that I felt, the total and complete forgiveness that I felt that I had received from God, and the love that I felt growing up. Like the love that I felt growing up very much had to be earned. It had to be good enough. I had to do the right thing. I had to look the right way and say the right things. Otherwise, that love, it was kind of like God was just dangling it and ready to take it away at any point in time. And it didn't take long in my adulthood, or I guess if you can call 20 adult, in my almost formed brain, like it didn't take long before I started to question. I started to question my salvation. And it was always because, man, I messed up again. Does God still love me? It didn't take long before I started chasing good enough. And it's exhausting. And it didn't take long before I just wrestled with this idea of Christianity and who I'm supposed to be and I'm not good enough, I can't measure up, and just this weight, everything that I experienced as a kid suddenly kind of came back and even still today have struggles with it. Maybe you've experienced that. Maybe you've had the thought and this feeling of not being good enough. Like you just have to be better. Like it's this over-emphasis on the rules and this idea of if you don't do this, then you're really not this. God doesn't love you. God doesn't care for you. God is mad at you. It's almost like when you mess up, you feel like Jesus is stepping back in heaven and saying, hey, God, listen, I didn't know he was going to do that, right? Like, I knew all this other stuff, but that's surprise. And every decision, every action, every mistake has eternal consequences on the other side of it. Every bit of that is as a result of being exposed to legalism as a child. We all have been impacted by legalism on some level. Now, we could sit down and probably share story after story of hurt that has came from the church. Church hurt. And even if we didn't realize, and if we started to dig a little bit, what we would probably uncover is some type of legalism being at the root of all of that. Like everyone has this idea and this overemphasis, we've been exposed to this overemphasis on the rules and the regulations of Christianity. Even if someone who hasn't been in the church, hasn't grown up in the church, someone who doesn't go to church now, if you ask them, hey, what is a Christian? The majority of them will tell you some variation of, it's got something to do with Jesus, but then there's rules that you kind of have to follow throughout your life. How many times as a kid, like don't raise your hand, but how many times as a kid, maybe you thought this same thing, right? Like, hey, church is good. Christianity is good. I want to do that. I want to be involved in that, but I'm going to do it when I'm older, right? Because right now, I just want to kind of enjoy my life. I want to have fun. I want to do the things that I want to do. When I'm older, a grandpa, like 35 years old or something, like that's when, I don't know what it was for you. Like me, when I was a kid, 35 was ancient. I was dumb, right? It's not ancient. But that's the thought. Like Christianity, when I settle down, when I get to this place and I wonder, I'll start following the rules and the regulations, this emphasis on behavior. When I get older, I'll do that. When I get older, I'll be a part of that. That's legalism. We've all been impacted by it. And it's not something that's new. It's something that has been around the church ever since the church started. At the very beginning, it's the reason that Paul wrote Galatians. I feel like this is falling off of my ear, but it's the reason that Paul wrote the book of Galatians. In the book of the Galatians, it's six short chapters. Paul attacks and disarms legalism. If you've ever been impacted by it, if you've ever been hurt by it, you will absolutely love this book. But when Paul comes in, he comes in hot. Look at chapter one, verse six. This is what he says. This is verse 6. And Paul's like long-winded. He uses a lot of run-ons. This is his third sentence into the letter. This is what he says. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one that we preach to you, let them be under God's curse. Paul, throughout the entire book of Galatians, the only thing that he's talking about is legalism that has made its way into the churches at Galatia. And he's confronting really two false gospels that come from that. This idea of I have to be good enough, this overemphasis on the rules that I have to be good enough, or this overemphasis on the rules that, hey, I'm a Christian, I've got grace, now I can just do whatever I want and I'm all good. Paul confronts both of that. What's happening in the church in Galatia right now, these are fairly new, actually very new Christians. Christianity in itself is only about 49 to 50 years old at this point. And so Christianity came from Judaism. It came from the Jewish culture. Christianity came out of the Jews. And so the practices, the culture, the traditions have always been a part of it. Early Christians, even before Galatia, most early Christians were Jews. And then they came to know Christ. And then the Gentiles who came to Christ early, usually they became Jews first and then became Christians. And so as Christianity began to spread through the Greco-Roman world, like the leaders in the church had to answer this very difficult question. Like, what do we do with all of these non-Jews who are becoming Christians now? Do they have to first become Jews? Do they have to follow the traditions set in the Old Testament? Do they have to follow the customs? Do they have to do the things that we have been doing for years and years and years in order to first become Jews? And there were two camps that set up. The Hellenistic Jews were like, no, they don't have to do that. You can actually read about a conversation in Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, where the statement that came out of that was, we should not make it more difficult for the Gentiles to become Christians. But who is Paul is talking about in the book of Galatians is the Judaizers. And the Judaizers came in behind Paul to teach the Galatian Christians, hey, your faith has only just begun. Actually, your faith is not yet complete. Faith in Jesus is good, but now you actually have to become a Jew as well. You have to practice the Jewish customs and traditions, and you also have to become or get circumcised. Could you imagine that as an altar call, right? Like, lights come down, band comes up. Hey, if you want to give your life to Jesus, just go into this room on the right. You're going to be introduced to the 613 laws in the adjoining room in the back. That's our circumcision room. Go through there, and you are a Christian. You thought raising your hand when the pastor asked was hard? Like, no, that's a different kind of level, right? But that's what was happening. The Judaizers were coming in behind Paul and saying, hey, your faith isn't complete yet. You are not quite yet a Christian. You haven't yet attained the salvation that you're hoping for. Jesus is a start, but you also have to do this. It was Jesus plus something. It was Jesus and you have to look a certain way. Jesus and you have to live a certain way. Jesus and you have to believe additional things. Legalism is when we contribute identity as a Christian to anything other than faith in Christ alone. Jesus plus believing these things. Jesus plus living this way. Jesus plus this rule. Jesus plus this law. Jesus plus this command. This is what was happening in the church in Galatia, and it's what Paul is writing about. And if we can be honest, that doesn't sound incredibly different than the church today. Like, it's pretty mind-blowing to me that a faith that is based off of a singular event can have so many variations. It's pretty incredible to me that a faith based off the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, putting your hope and trust in this one man, can have so many different trends, so many different variations. And the thing that we have to realize is Paul wasn't writing and condemning the practices. He probably participated in a lot of the practices. What Paul was condemning was elevating the practices to the status of gospel, elevating the tradition to the status of gospel. Your faith isn't complete. Your salvation isn't complete. You need faith in Jesus and isn't that what we see today? Like you could line 10 different people up and ask them, what does it mean to be a Christian? And you're likely going to get several different answers. But not just about faith in Jesus and like what to believe, but about the way things you should do, the things you shouldn't do. This is what makes someone a Christian, or this is what makes someone a Christian. And this is what Paul was writing and correcting, was this confusion beginning to happen within the church. Like, how do you become a Christian? Well, you have to be this. And that's when you begin to see and you begin to hear statements like a Christian would never do this. A Christian could never say this. A Christian could never believe these things. A Christian could never be a part of these things. I have been in a place before, and I heard, I wasn't serving a church, but it was an area that I was at, and I heard pastors start to teach, hey, listen, if you want to be a good Christian, it has to be the King James Version. If you're reading anything other than the King James Version, you're a bad Christian. How ludicrous is that? Elevating something like that to the status of gospel. It's not that those things and those ideas and those beliefs may be wrong, but that is not what defines someone as a Christian. That's not what makes you a Christian. We have these ideas. You could never be a Christian and be baptized without full immersion. You can never be a Christian and believe or go to these places. You can never be a Christian. And you know what we're going to experience a lot of in 2024? We're going to experience a lot of promotion of Christian politics. You can't be a Christian and vote this way. You can't be a Christian and be for these things. Somehow, at some point, politics has came in and kind of hijacked what it means to be a Christian. And we've fallen for this false dichotomy that's presented. Like Christians are over here. This is the Christian vote. Christians are over here. This is the Christian vote. And you know what's crazy? Oftentimes they're using the same scripture to argue different perspectives. But this is what it means to be a Christian. You have to be this. There's this growing group of people called the nuns. Not like the little hat ladies with the black dress, right? It's a category on the censuses to go around. There's a question on there that says religious affiliation. And there's a box that says nun. That category. There's a book, I think it's called The Nuns. I would check it out. It's a good read, but there was a lot of political scientists who went in and did a lot of research. And what they found is this growing group of people, this growing group of folks who want nothing to do with the church, are standing in that place because of political affiliation. Because Christianity is not Jesus. Christianity is not faith in Jesus. It's faith in Jesus and this political alignment. It's faith in Jesus and this political belief. I don't want anything to do with that. And that's what Paul is writing. And that's what Paul is addressing. There is this Alistair Brigg, as I was kind of preparing this message, Nate actually brought him up to me. I went back and I watched the video and he does this incredible illustration. And he says, when he gets to heaven, what he wants to do is he wants to go and find the thief on the cross. And he wants to say, he just wants to experience, hey, what was it like? Like when you, when you got to the gate, what was it like? Like, what did they they say to you? Like he didn't even know where he was. He just kind of showed up and he ended up at this gate. And then the guy came up to him, Peter or whatever you want to call him. Peter came up and he said, so can you tell me about the doctrine of justification? He's like, the what? Well, tell me what you think about the scripture. Like give me your thoughts on it. He's like, man, I don't have any idea about any of this. Okay, well, I need to go get my supervisor. So let's go get this guy. And he's like, so can you tell me exactly why you're here? And he's like, I have no clue. Except this one guy right over here, the guy on the middle cross, said that I could come. This is what Paul is correcting throughout the entire book of Galatians. It's this convoluted confusion that has crept its way in to the Christian belief. Paul is writing and he's telling them, hey, you are, you became, and you remain a Christian because of your faith in Jesus. In Galatians 1, he says this. He says, Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by believing in what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain, if it really was in vain? So I ask you again, does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law or by believing in what you heard. Paul reminded them. Hey, you know that justification, salvation through the law is not possible. Its sole purpose is to point you towards a savior that you are in need of. And I love his reminder. He said, do you remember your faith? Like, do you remember when you came to faith? Do you remember whenever you were saved? Before you knew all the right things? Before you did all the right things? Before you lived in the right way? Do you remember who you were? Do you now have to maintain and earn that love that was freely given? He reminded them of their faith in Jesus. He reminded them that a Christian is someone who trusts in Jesus. The way we say it at Grace is that you become a Christian by believing Jesus was who he said he was. He did the things he said he would do, and he will do the things that he promised. Like, that's the faith that Paul is defending. That's the faith that Paul is arguing for. And when I first read this, like, I read the, you foolish Galatians with the exclamation point, like, still kind of get that vibe, like Paul's really going in hard. Like he's still, you fools, how could you dare? But the more that I read it, I started to hear a different tone. It's an exclamation, just like you would shout to a child running towards the middle of a busy intersection. When a fear and pleading, like you have to correct course. You can't go down this path. And in verse five, he points out, like, are you still equating God's love for you by the rightness of your life? Are you still equating God's love for you and faithfulness by the blessings around you? Are you not having the things happen to you and suddenly God doesn't love you anymore? Because that's the result, isn't it? Like, haven't you been there? Or have you been there before? It's exhausting. This pursuit and this treadmill of trying to run towards awesome enough for God to save you. This over-emphasis on the rules and the regulations of Christianity and perfect adherence towards all of those is what's necessary for God to give you the love that he gave you when you first began. And it creates, it can create this judgmentalism that comes inside us. We can become the older brother in the story of the parable or the prodigal son. Like we can see the blessings in other people's lives and be like, I'm doing better than they are. Like what's going on, God? Like why is this not happening for me? Why am I suffering in these different ways? Why am I not having these good things happen to me? Look how awesome I behaved. And the moment things start going down here, suddenly, okay, it's where prosperity gospel kind of gets its momentum from, right? Like, I have to be good enough, and then all these awesome things will begin to happen to me. I have to be good enough, and then God's love will shower down on me. I have to be all of these things. And Paul says that is foolishness and we have to correct course. Like every bit of legalism really does get its leverage by its offering of direction. Like it tells you where to go. It tells you how to live your life. It tells you the things you should and should not be a part of, which there are things that should not be a part of the Christian's life. And I don't believe, I don't believe the Judaizers were malicious. I don't believe that when they came and they were teaching the Christians in Galatia, I don't think they were trying to lead them astray. I think they were trying to lead them. There have been thousands of years of tradition, and it is all that they knew. And what Paul says as a result of legalism is exhaustion, this feeling like a rejected child instead of an adopted heir with Christ. This feeling in the sense of judgmentalism, this feeling in the sense of not good enough and we begin chasing it. That is what naturally comes from legalism. And he says, anytime that we move Christ to the periphery, anytime we make him not the main thing, that's the fruit. This is what begins to pop up in our life. But there are things that should not be a part of your life. There are things that you should pursue and there are things that you should try to do. But what you need to do is keep Christ at the center of your faith. The beginning and end of what it means to be a Christian and that moves you towards something different. In Galatians 5, I'm going to read 16 and then jump down to verse 22. Galatians 5, 16 says this. So I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. I call it mountain biking Christianity. I don't know if you've ever been mountain biking before. I did whenever I was in Georgia. Well, I was in Georgia, so it would be more hill riding than anything. But if you ever go, what they will tell you is the very first rule, other than like knowing how to ride a bike, the very first rule is you're going to have a tendency to want to look at the things you want to avoid. As you're going down the hill, you're going to want to stare at the stone. You're going to want to stare at the tree. You're going to want to stare at these things because that's how you're going to avoid them. And I learned, actually, I learned that the guy was not lying to me when he told me after I was going down the hill and I saw a rock. And so I'm like, I've got to know where I'm supposed to avoid. I've got to know what I'm supposed to kind of veer towards and all of this. So your eyes and your body move towards the very thing that you're focused on. That's the entire role. That's where it all comes from, which is the same principle in life. Like Paul says it in Romans 12, he says that you're transformed by the renewing of your mind. It's this idea that you will always move towards the direction of your most powerful thought. The thing that you're thinking, whatever you are focused on, that will be the direction that your life moves. Mountain Viking Christianity says this, that yes, there are things that you want to avoid. There are things that you need to avoid. There are things in your life that shouldn't be there. What you need to focus on is the path. Is the journey that you're going on that the Holy Spirit is leading you towards. Keeping Christ at the center. Not moving him towards the periphery. What starts to happen is love develops. It's a fruit of the gospel. Patience starts to form. It's a fruit of the gospel. Kindness, gentleness, self-control. Like these things start to develop in your world, not in order to attain salvation, not in order to attain God's love, God's forgiveness, God's freedom, but as a result from it. It says that the spirit and the flesh are at work against one another. And any time we move what should be avoided, we move what should be in the periphery to the center, our body, our life will move towards those things. And what develops is exhaustion, fatigue, judgmentalism. But if we can stay focused in Christ, do you want a check mark? Do you want to know the marker along the way? Are you moving down the path? Are you growing in those things? Are you growing in love? Are you growing in peace? Are you growing in patience? Are you growing in kindness? Are you growing in self-control? Like if you want a marker that you're moving in the right direction, it's not by an overemphasis on the rules and regulations. Those kind of take care of themselves when you're focusing on becoming who Christ has created you to be, walking and riding in the path that he has called you to walk on. Paul's entire letter to the Galatians is simply a reminder that a Christian is from a life of faith defined itself by a life of love. Are you moving down that path? Are you moving towards greater patience? What's popping up in your life? The band is going to come here in one second and we're going to sing the song Living Hope. It's simply a reminder and a focus that we were separated and it's only through the saving work of Jesus. It's keeping Christ the path. We pray for us. God, thank you so much. Thank you for your love, your grace, and your kindness. We thank you for all that you've done in us and through us because of the grace that we've received in Jesus. And Father, we just ask you as it's going to be a natural tendency. Legalism isn't a new thing that's happening and the effects of it have been felt for thousands of years, God. And we just ask you to point us toward the path you're asking us to follow with the grace of your spirit, and even if it means reminding ourselves of the gospel we came to know daily, Lord, help us to do that. Help us to live the life you have asked us to live by trusting in Jesus. We need you. We thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen.