Sermons tagged with Commitment

My name is Nate. Thanks for joining us online. If you're watching online, thank you for joining us in person here on this Palm Sunday. As we anticipate Easter, I'm already seeing some Easter colors sneak out of the closets and into the church. This is fantastic. I see a Master's shirt over here. That is where my heart is at. The heart in the spring is with the Masters and is on Easter. So all things good are heading our way. This is the fourth part in our series called Greater, where we're moving through the book of Hebrews together. For some context, you'll remember that Hebrews is written to the Hellenistic Jews outside of Israel. So it's written to a group of people who grew up outside of Israel in a Greek context in one of the different surrounding cities and the surrounding countries. And they grew up as practicing Jews. They practiced Judaism and somewhere in their adult life, likely, converted to Christianity, heard the good news of Jesus, heard of the recent crucifixion and resurrection of this man who was the Messiah, the Savior, and then converted to this new faith later in life. And in this new faith, they're facing tremendous persecution from without and within, right? I've reminded you of that every week. They're facing persecution from the Roman government, who is violently opposing their faith. And so they're putting their safety and the safety of their family at risk by publicly professing their faith. And they're tempted to kind of fade away or shy back from that. And then they're facing persecution from within the Jewish community that's ostracizing them in their new faith and trying to woo or coax them back to their old faith of Judaism, not yet understanding that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish faith. So it's in the face of that that the author of Hebrews writes this letter. And in this letter, he makes these comparisons between Jesus and figures in the Jewish faith to make the point that Jesus is greater. He's greater than the greatest messenger. He's greater than the angels. We looked at that in week one when we looked at that profound statement where Jesus is the personification of God's glory and the exact imprint of his nature. And we kind of marveled at that thought and Jesus as messenger. And then the next week we compared Jesus to Moses and we compared the generation of Moses to the generation of Hebrews and then looked at for us. And we said, Jesus is greater than Moses and the law that he brings. Jesus' grace is greater than Moses' law. And then last week, we looked at Jesus being our high priest, and our absolute need for our high priest Jesus to be in heaven advocating for us at the right hand of God. He is completing the redemptive work of salvation in heaven on our behalf, on your behalf. After that, in the flow of Hebrews, if you'll allow me this editorial comment, we discuss how he is the greatest sacrifice. Jesus is the greatest sacrifice once and for all. But as we were planning the series, I looked at that and I thought, gosh, that's the perfect Easter message as we get to Easter and focus on the sacrifice of Christ and the miracle of his resurrection. So let's save that one for Easter, which means that we're skipping forward in the text a little bit this morning to Hebrews chapter 10. And in Hebrews chapter 10, and the verses that we're going to read, Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 through 25, if you have a Bible, go ahead and turn there. We're going to sink into that passage this morning and really work through that passage. I'm going to read it once, and then we're going to go back and look at kind of verse by verse and answer this overarching question. I think the question that this text is answering is this, and I would encourage you, this is not in the notes, and it should be. If you're a note taker, write this down at the top of them. If you're writing things down at home, I'll repeat it twice. But really, the question as we approach the text is this. In light of all that we've learned about Jesus, so he's the greatest messenger, priest, and all the things. You don't have to write that down. It would be awkward to write down all the things in your notes. But in light of what we know about Jesus, how should we then approach Jesus and others? That's the predominant question as we enter into the text this morning. In light of what we've learned about Jesus, in light of what Hebrews has said about Jesus, how then should we approach Jesus and approach others? That's the question that this text sets about answering. As a matter of fact, this text starts with the word therefore. And I've told you guys this before, that a little biblical interpretation trick is whenever you see the word therefore, you have to ask yourself, what's it there for? All right, what's the therefore there for? And in this situation, the therefore is there for this. How fun is that? The therefore is there to say, because of all the arguments that I've made, because of all the things I've taught you about Christ, because of this lofty view that we have of him, because he's greater than these things in the Jewish faith, because he's the summation. And last week we learned the culmination of these two streams that run through the Old Testament. Because Jesus is those things, now this is true. So he's kind of reaching the conclusion point of the narrative of the letter. And from here, we have the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11, which is one of the most famous chapters in the Bible. And I'm not going to get to cover it in this series, so you definitely need to read that on your own. It chronicles the heroes of the Old Testament and then concludes with the beginning of chapter 12 and this encouragement that he gives us to run our race. And that's where we're going to conclude the series two weeks from now. But this morning we kind of settle in to his conclusionary statements, which are this. This is a good summation of what he's been driving to over the course of the book. He writes this in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 through 25. Read along with me. That is, through his flesh. So this is kind of the great conclusionary statement of Hebrews after he makes the comparisons. When I was growing up, my dad would teach me about preaching. He would always, and as I was learning to teach, he would, I would say this point or this great thing about God, this thing that I learned, and dad would always look at me and go, so what? Like, now what do we do? Like, okay, that's great. So now what do we do? And this is kind of the so what of Hebrews. We've learned this about Jesus, so what do we do? Well, how do we approach Jesus and how do we approach others? And so this passage answers that question. And at first, I want to draw our attention to this verse because this is a verse that some of us may instantly understand, and that's great. We know exactly all the context that goes into this sentence, but for others of us, it's a bit mysterious. Or maybe we have no idea, and we would freely raise our hand and be like, yeah, you got me on that one. Or maybe we'd keep our hand down and think that we should understand it, but maybe we don't. So I want to make sure that we're all on the same page before we just continue through the passage together. But it's this sentence in Hebrews 10 verse 20 where the author writes, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh. Okay, so Jesus has united us with the Father through this curtain that is through his flesh. So what are we talking about with the curtain? Why bring that up? And again, some of you guys know this, but for those that don't, all the way back in the days of Moses, as they're wandering through the desert towards the promised land, the Hebrew people, God gave Moses and Aaron, the priests, some instructions to set up a tabernacle. Tabernacle is a series of tents that made this holy space. And in the middle of the tabernacle was this place called the Holy of Holies. And in the Holy of Holies rested the very presence of God. And only one person was allowed to go into the Holy of Holies, and it was once a year on the Day of Atonement. The only person allowed to go into the presence of God was the high priest of all of Israel, and it was to make sacrifices for the sins of Israel for the previous year. The high priest was the only one invited into direct contact with the presence of God. And then later on, so it's important to note, so if you wanted to get a message across to God, you had to go to the priest who would then go to the high priest who would then go relay that all the prayers of Israel to God, right? You did not have a direct connection to him. You had to go between. And actually several in the way that it was in the hierarchy was the way that that was established. And that stayed the same for millennia. Hundreds of years later, Solomon, they're in the promised land, and God allows Solomon to build the temple. And the center of the temple, sure enough, you guys know this, is the Holy of Holies. It's where the presence of God rested. Only one person could go into the presence of God, the high priest, once a year to atone for your sins, to make sacrifices for the sins of the people. And the thing that separated the holy of holies, where the presence of God rested, from the rest of Israel and from the rest of the temple complex was this curtain. It was said to be so thick that two teams of oxen pulling against each other could not rip it apart. And it was, it was this physical, visible barrier between God's people and God's presence. And when Jesus died on the cross and fulfilled everything in the Old Testament and ushered in a new law of grace, in the moment that he died, the curtain in the temple was ripped in two from top to bottom, almost as if God himself was reaching down and tearing it. And when that curtain tore open because of the death of Christ, the presence of God rushed out in the form now we know of the Holy Spirit and made itself ubiquitous among us so that we are now invited into the constant presence of God. Totally different than the Hebrew people would have approached God in the Old Testament where they had to go through all these intermediaries who would then go into the presence of God and pray. But what we learned last week is that we go directly into the presence of God. Anytime we want to, no matter where we are, we say in our head or in our hearts, dear God, or we begin to speak to him, we fall to our knees, or we say in the car, we speak to God, we are ushered, Scripture teaches us, into the very throne room of God before the Father, where Jesus our Savior sits at his right hand and leans over to God and says, they're good, I got them covered. And so a New Testament believer, because that curtain is torn down, is invited into the very presence of God. And in this way, in that moment, what this verse is indicating is that communication with God went from telegrams to cell phones. Communication with God went from telegrams to cell phones. I did zero research on telegrams to know how they work, but I've seen enough movies that I feel confident in using this as an illustration. I think in the Old West, if you wanted to get a telegram to someone out east, you wanted to get a message to someone out east, you couldn't just call them. You had to go into town. You had to go to the one telegram guy. You had to hope he was working that day, and you had to tell him your message. Then you had to trust that guy to write it down and type it out in whatever way it was supposed to be presented. And then they would send that across the cables and then someone else would get it and that person would come and they would get their message from the person on the other end. All these go-betweens to get this message and there's a physical place you had to go to to try to communicate with others, right? And then we had cell phones. Cell phones keep everybody connected all the time. We can talk to anybody we want to in the whole world whenever we want to talk to them. The thing that really drove this home for me when I realized just how connected cell phones make us was in 2008, I'm on an island off the northeast coast of Honduras called Fifi. Fifi Island off the coast of Trujillo. It was called Fifi Island because a year or two earlier, Hurricane Fifi had swept through and flooded an area so badly that it actually separated a whole mass of land from the mainland and created a new island called Fifi Island. And there was a village of people living on this island, and it was only reachable by boat. We literally, we drove, we parked in some gravel, we get in a John boat, and they take us out. In Miami, it's intercoastal waterways. In Honduras, it's just floodplains. They take us out there, and they take us to this dock, and we get out, and there's this village. Dirt and sticks, thatched roofs, no electricity, no running water. And we camped there overnight. And we were there to help the folks dig wells and dig trenches. And I could tell you stories about that and the way that they did it. It was just amazing. Those people are incredible. They're just ingenious in the way that they solve problems out there. But I'll never forget, they put a shovel in my hand and they put the shovel in the hand of this Honduran man. I don't know how old he was. He was older than me by, he could have looked like he was old enough to be my dad. And they sent us out to like this far-flung area in the village. And our job was to dig a trench from this high point to this house down here. And so we just start digging. And this poor man saddled with the American who can't keep up with him. He must have been so frustrated at me as he just like waits for me to keep up. But we're just digging together. And I'm telling you, I just want to paint a picture for you. The dude was dirty. Showers had been a while. Had a tattered button-up shirt. The edges of it were tattered. He had frayed, tattered jeans. He's wearing those cheap, flimsy, like rubbery 1980s flip-flops, and he is digging away. And we're just going to town. Pretty much in silence. There's a language barrier, but, you know, whatever. We're working. And then I hear one of those ancient old Nokia brick cell phone rings, right? That one that if the instant we heard it, I'm tempted to make the noise with my mouth, but I'm not going to do that. But if we heard it, we would know what it was. And I'm like, where in the world? And the dude drops his shovel, pulls a Nokia brick out of his pocket in the corner of a continent on an island that was created with no electricity. Hola, como estas? I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Cell phones work out here? And this guy's found out a way to charge, like it blew my mind that that's how connected we are, that we can be on a newly created island on the corner of a continent, and yet if you have a cell phone, you're connected with the whole world. This is now how our communication with God works. Wherever we are, no matter how far from God we feel, no matter how far out we've wandered, no matter what's happening in our life, no matter how surprising it would be in that moment, we can stop and we can talk to God. And to the Jewish mind, this was shocking. I do not think it's an exaggeration to say that this idea of constant communication with God, that just instant prayer and communication with God was as shocking to the Jewish mind as a cell phone would be to the mind of Wyatt Earp. I think it was that kind of a gap. Like, you mean I can just talk to him whenever I want? Yeah. Whenever I want? Yes. No matter where I am? Yes. I think it would floor them. And see, we're used to this kind of constant communication. And it's funny to think of the older generation, even my generation, I look at kids now and I'm like, you don't know what it was to call your girlfriend and hope her dad didn't answer the house phone. You just don't know. You'll never know that pain, right? Like now we have cell phones. Now we have direct communication with one another. And some people older than me, like you remember when it was more difficult to place phone calls. And so now we just assume that we have constant access to God and we have constant access to all the people that we want. And we never stop to think and marvel at the miracle of just being able to talk to the creator of the universe whenever we want. The second I shut my eyes and say, dear God, I'm ushered into the very throne room of God. And this is what the death of Christ won for us. It's worth us to stop and slow down and reflect on that miracle this morning. And that's what he's talking about in verse 20 when he says that he opened this channel of communication for us through the curtain. He tore it down and God's presence rushed out to all of us. So then he says this. Once we understand that, this is how we approach Christ. This is the answer to the question. This is in Hebrewsvering, for he who promised is faithful. I love this first sentence. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed pure with water. I've said this before, and I'm going to continue to beat this drum. I think as Christians, now some of us are there, but for most of us, if we were to think about approaching God, I know for me, there would be this degree of guilt and shame. There would be a degree of timidity. I don't deserve to be here. There would be a part of me that would want to approach God like the prodigal son approaches his father with a speech, with an explanation. I'm sorry for who I am. I'm sorry for the decisions that I've made. I'm sorry for my seasons of wandering. I'm sorry for allowing myself to become this version that you didn't intend. I'm sorry for all the regrets and the ways that I know that I've disappointed you. And so we would kind of approach God hat in hand. I'm sorry for who I am. I think if we're being honest that many of us would approach God with timidity and shame. Because I think to be a Christian is to hear about the grace of God, the forgiveness of God, to hear things like our hearts have been sprinkled with the pure blood of Christ, to hear that we've been washed in the waters of Jesus' baptism and think, yeah, they have, but I know better. And so we continue to approach the throne of God with fear. And what Scripture tells us over and over and over again is that we need not do that. Earlier in Hebrews, we're told that because of Christ, we can approach the throne with boldness. And here it says, we go with the true heart and full assurance that we just walk right in, expecting that God is excited to see us, expecting that he is excited for us to walk into his presence. And this, for so many, is such a foreign concept. We know intellectually it's true, but in our heart, we can't seem to master it. As a matter of fact, I came across a quote this week, and I'm going to butcher it. This is not word for word, but this is the gist from a Franciscan monk. And he said, God, your standards are not good enough for me. I'm going to create my own standards and my own will. To that God whom we have offended with our actions. Jesus covers us with his blood, washes us clean with his baptism, and now we go to God whenever we want to, as righteous as we will ever be, as loved as we will ever be, as innocent and pure as we will ever be. And the sooner we can accept that, the sooner we can enjoy the presence of God. The sooner we can accept that about ourselves, the better we'll be able to love other people towards our loving God as we are overwhelmed by his acceptance of us. The sooner we can accept God's acceptance of us, the sooner we'll stop trying to prove to everyone else around us that we're good enough to be accepted. When we bask in the fact that our God values us, we no longer need everyone around us to value us near as much. There's something incredible about being able to accept the fact that God loves you. He loves you as much as he ever will. He does not see all the things you did in your past or the things you will do in your future. He sees the righteousness of Christ's clothing you, and you have been washed pure in the waters of his baptism, raised to walk in a newness of life. Speaking of baptism, next week in our Easter service, I get to baptize someone who has become a good friend of mine, and I hope that we will show up and celebrate that and all that Easter is. But this is what the death of Christ wins for us. Rather than approaching God with timidity and shame and fear, we approach him with the boldness of faith and assurance. And scripture says we do not shrink back because Jesus has won that for us. And then at the end, he says that let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. So as we think about how do we approach Jesus? Well, first we approach him with boldness. We approach him with full assurance. And then we approach him with the knowledge that we can hold fast to God because he who promised it is faithful, which means we don't have to waver because God never does. We don't have to waver in our faith because God never does. We all know what it is, all too well and sometimes all too painfully, to hitch our wagons to the wrong thing. We know what it is to place our hope in someone or something that is going to disappoint us. I'm from Atlanta. I'm a sports fan. I live in the land of disappointment, okay? I know what it is to hitch my wagons to something and to look foolish. I know what it is to believe that the Braves are finally gonna win this series, or the Falcons are finally gonna win the Super Bowl, or that the Hawks are finally gonna make it to the next round of the playoffs, and then I know what it is to believe that the Braves are finally going to win this series, that the Falcons are finally going to win the Super Bowl, or that the Hawks are finally going to make it to the next round of the playoffs. And then I know what it is to have those hopes dashed and for me to feel like a dummy for not just rooting for Alabama and New England all the time. If you don't get that, I'm sorry. I'll come back to the reservation now and quit talking sports. But I know what it is to be disappointed. And more than that, we know what it is to put our faith in a spouse, to put our faith in a father or a mother or a friendship or an institution and to be let down by that. We know what it is to put our faith in pastors and then to watch them fail and for that to shipwreck our own faith. We know what it is to hitch our wagons to imperfect beasts and then watch them fail and drag us down with them. And so it engenders in us rightly and wisely a hesitancy to put our full and reckless faith in anything. But God says that he who promised is faithful and that we can put our full and reckless hope in Jesus to keep his promises. It's interesting to me, and I read it one time, and it has never left me. There's a theologian from Scotland named N.T. Wright. If you're bored one day, YouTube him. His accent is great, and he's super smart. And he wrote a whole book called Justification, a whole book on just that word, justification, in the book of Romans. And at the beginning of the book, he defines the righteousness of God. And a lot of y'all have been Christians for a long time, and if I asked you how to define the righteousness of God, I'm sure that you could do it in a way that would be effective. But he does it like this. He says God's righteousness is his commitment to his promise. God's righteousness is his commitment to keep the promises that he's made. He made a promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, and the Old Testament is a whole testament to the fidelity of God in keeping his promise despite the behavior of everyone. He keeps his promise to Jacob, and Jacob was a jerk. He keeps his promise through David, and David was messed up, man. He keeps his promise through Solomon, and for most of his life, Solomon didn't honor God at all. He keeps his promise to his nation of Israel, even though they rebel and they go against him and they follow after other gods and they get enslaved. God keeps his promise regardless of the behaviors of his people. He always has and he always will. His very nature depends on his keeping of his promises. And now through Christ, he's promised to us eternity with him in paradise. And he's promised that one day Jesus is going to return on that white horse in Revelation 19, and he's going to make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. He's going to make sense of all the pain that we've had to go through while we're on this earth. All the things we talked about in Ecclesiastes, God's going to send Jesus and he's going to clean all that up. That's the promise. And we're told over and over again in scripture that we can cling to that promise. Romans 5 tells us that our hope in Christ will not be put to shame. We can hitch our wagons to that with full assurance. So that's how we answer that question. In light of everything that we've learned in Hebrews, how do we approach Jesus? We approach him with full faith. We approach him with pure hearts, with humility and gratitude for his love. And we approach him with reckless abandon, knowing that he who promised is faithful. So then the question becomes, okay, that's how I approach Christ. How am I then to approach others? How do I treat my Christian brothers and sisters? And he answers that in verses 24 and 25. In verse 24, he writes, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. I love the simplicity of this phrase. You know how you should treat your Christian brothers and sisters? If we think about grace, you know how we should treat the partners of grace? By constantly considering how we should stir up one another to love and good works. And sadly, and I'm speaking of the Christian culture in general, particularly the last year and a half, as things have been so divisive in our country, love and good works is not the, spurring one another on to love and good works is not all the time how we see Christians treating one another in the public forum. So often it's blame or it's condemnation or it's judgment or it's how could you think that way when God clearly wants us to think this way. I have a friend who's a pastor in another state. And he posted, I think earlier in the week, this relatively innocuous like, hey, here's a Christian perspective on the vaccinations. Okay, I'm not gonna get into that on a Sunday morning. I didn't post it on my Facebook feed, but he did, he's brave. And I'm telling you, if you read through the comments, there's like 30 comments of all Christians, all people who go to this church or who claim, if they don't go to the church, they claim in their posts to be Christians, firing back and forth at each other with literally, how can you claim to be a Christian if you think this? Don't you know, yada, yada, yada. And then this person and three of their friends come to their defense. Oh yeah, well, how do you think you're a Christian? Don't you know these things? And then they get sniped by four other people who now want to jump into the conversation. And it's just back and forth. And I read this and I thought, what must a lost world think of this garbage? That Christians are so worked up about whether or not we should get a shot in the arm, that we're sniping at each other in such a way that both sides look terribly unchristian, and it is so far from stirring one another up to good works and to love. It's the exact opposite of that. And so many churches get caught up in that stuff. No grace, all condemnation. If you don't think like me, then you must be wrong and you might not be a believer. And it's happened a lot in the last two years. And it's gross. And I just bring it up to say, let's not have that happen at Grace. And in Grace's defense, I don't see that happening a lot. In Grace's defense, we are gracious. We know good and well that we have people sitting here right now on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of all the issues, and we allow the Spirit of Christ to unify us, and those remain tertiary background issues that we discuss sometimes, but we don't allow those to divide us, and I'm proud to be a part of a church like that. And so, in fact, if I think about how to use this passage, that we should seek to stir one another up towards love and good works, if I think about how to apply that at grace, it's really less about, hey guys, let's avoid judgment and condemnation. It's really more the opposite end of the spectrum. Let's encourage each other on to good works. Because if we're going to default to something in our church, it's going to be to encourage one another towards works. Whatever you're doing is great. Let's just have a small group, talk about the sermon a little bit, talk about what you're learning. Oh, that's going on in your life? That might not be great for you, but I don't want to rock the boat. So I'm just going to love you. I'm not saying we all do that. But I wonder how many of us in our small groups and in our good, like soul-warming, God-earned friendships that we share here, in the deep community that we share here that we're so proud of and that we continue to grow off of, how much do we think about that community as far as our ability to spur on our friends towards love and good works? You know, last February, February of 2020, we were doing our campaign series, right? And one of those weeks, right before the world shut down, we were on the all-time high, but one of those weeks was on discipleship. And we defined discipleship at Grace. We said it's this difficult, nebulous term that we throw out in churches, and it can kind of be confusing and challenging. But for us at grace, discipleship simply means to take your next step of obedience. This is what Jesus modeled with the disciples. He just put in front of them the next thing that he wants us to do. And we contended that all believers have a step of obedience that God has placed before them. And it's our job to simply take it. And in that way, we grow in our relationship with God through obedience. And then once we take that step, he's going to place another one in front of us. And our life is nothing but a series of steps of obedience as we grow closer to God. And that the way that we can help disciple one another is to encourage one another to take that step of obedience, right? Which sounds very much like what he's saying in Hebrews chapter 10. Let us consider how we might love one another, spur one another on to love and good works. Let us consider at grace how we might help those who matter to us the most take their next step of obedience. Let's be intentional with our community and intentional with our friendships. Let's challenge and be bold when it's loving and appropriate. Let's spur one another on to love and good works. And then he closes it out with this. And I think this is just a uniquely appropriate verse right now. He closes it out with this little nugget at the end. He says, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Verse 25, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Another translation says, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. It's the biblical imperative to have church. It's the biblical imperative to come together as a body of Christ and worship him and focus on him and be refueled by him. It's the biblical imperative to be communal in our faith. And it even says, let us not stop meeting together as is the habit of some. And as I read it this week, I just thought, my goodness, has this verse in any of your lifetimes ever been more appropriate and relevant than right now? When for a whole year, we began to meet virtually. And listen, I've been incredibly grateful for the opportunity to meet virtually. The technology that we have and the expertise of our staff, and we've said big thanks to Steve for doing it, but it's enabled us to continue to meet virtually, to continue to gather when gathering was impossible, and for the church to continue, to persevere. And it's been great. But now, as vaccines become more common, as people become more comfortable, and we've been able to open the church back up and meet with some regulations in place with relative safety, we have the opportunity to gather in person. But yet some of us, and I have to be careful here, I don't say this to condemn anyone, but I'm a bad pastor if I don't address what's in the text here and say it to a church. It says, don't neglect meeting together as is the habit of some. And listen, I've heard of people, and I am with you. I would do this if I didn't get paid to show up and run my mouth every Sunday. Some of us have gotten into the habit of wearing sweatpants and eating omelets while we watch church. And I've heard like, yeah, we're going to come back, but this is a pretty good setup. And listen, I get it. And I don't, I have never, and now, next month will be, I will have been here for four years. I have never in four years preached on the importance of attending church. I do not beat that drum because I am of the conviction that if we do things here that are God-honoring enough and valuable enough to your soul, that you'll show up for it. So me asking you to come is really not a good idea. It's a waste of time. But in this instance, do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. That imperative, that commandment has never been more appropriate. So I would say to you this morning, Grace, come on back. Come on back to church. Now listen, as I say that, and I'm looking directly into the camera on purpose, if you are a family that does not feel comfortable going out in public places, if you're a family who, for whatever reason, protecting yourself, protecting your children, protecting your parents, anybody else, you have your reasons where you don't yet feel comfortable venturing out in public, I would never, ever look you in the eye and say, get over it, come to church. I would never do that. I'm not going to play doctor. I'm not going to tell you where your level of comfort should be, ever. I would never do that. So I'm not talking to you right now. I know you want to come back, and you will just as soon as you feel like it's safe. But for those that do enjoy watching church in your sweatpants eating an omelet, and you've been going out to dinner with your friends, and you've been kind of hanging out with other people, and you've kind of gotten into this rhythm, and maybe it's become your habit to just consume church online, even though you would feel comfortable coming in person, I would say to you, yeah, go ahead and come on back. And I'm saying that because I'm a bad pastor if I don't. In Acts chapter 2, the church is defined and characterized by the gathering of itself together. Here in Hebrews, we are told that we shouldn't forsake assembling ourselves together, that we shouldn't neglect meeting together. And so if I skip over this because I'm scared of it, then I don't love you well. And I also think that it's the right thing to do because there is just, there is a power and an efficacy to the gathering. There is a power in gathering together. There is a power in singing praises together. It became apparent to me really quickly in quarantine that when we reduce church to a message, it's not really church. When it's just me on a screen every week, that's not really church. That doesn't feel as good. But when we show up and we sing together, I've had so many people say to me, man, you know, I was consuming church online, but man, I came back and I sung with everybody and it was just good. There's something good for the soul that happens when we gather together. That's why it's important to God. That's why he insists on it over and over again in Scripture. And so I would just encourage you, if you're comfortable, if you feel safe, if you're venturing out in other ways, then come on back to church too. Because this is how God says we're supposed to approach one another in light of all that Jesus has done. Because we should get together and praise together. We should get together and see that person that we haven't seen in a while. Because there is some unspoken encouragement when you show up, you've gone through your week, you've weathered whatever storm waited for you in the week, and you show up at church and you see that person, and you may not even talk to them, but you kind of know by just seeing them and acknowledging them, or just giving them a little fist bump, like your walk with God matters to you too. You're still in this thing too. You're still committed too. And it inspires one another. It builds one another up. It's a good thing. And I say this because what better time to come on back than Easter next week? We're asking people to register for services so we can make sure it's safe in here. And as Michelle mentioned earlier in the announcements, if you didn't catch it, the early service is filling up fast. So like in the parking lot, get on your phone and register for the early services. That's what you want to do because people at home, they got a beat on you, all right? They're already doing it. But what better week to come back and celebrate than Easter as we celebrate next week as a family of faith? But this, the author of Hebrews writes, is what we do in light of what we've learned. We approach Christ with full assurance of faith, knowing that we are washed clean by his blood, that we are as loved as we ever will be, that we are accepted, and maybe we need to work on the fact of accepting that we are accepted. We approach one another, trying to spur one another on to love and good works, and we commit ourselves to gathering together. Let's pray, and we'll see you next week for Easter. Father, we thank you for the book of Hebrews, for the challenges in it, for the encouragement in it. God, I hope that as we move through this book together that you have enlarged our view of Jesus. That he is more to us now than he was weeks ago. I pray that through your word and through song that you would draw us near to your presence. I pray that you would grow our faith, that we would recklessly count on you, that we would throw everything we have at you. God, for those of us who struggle with the fact, like me, that we are accepted by you, I pray that we would feel that more and more. God, if there's anyone who's listening to me who doesn't know you, I pray that they would. I pray that they would take a step closer to you this morning. And we pray in advance over our Easter services next week that they would be an appropriate and joyful celebration of all that you've done. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.

I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life, all over my life. I see promises in fulfillment. All over my life. All over my life. Help me remember when I'm weak. Fear may come, but fear will lead. You lead my heart to victory. You are my strength, and you always will be. I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life. All over my life. I see your promises and fulfillment all over my life, all over my life. See the cross, the empty grave, the evidence of your goodness. Jesus. I see your promises in fulfillment all over my life, all over my life, yeah. I see your promises and fulfillment all over my life. Yeah, you're all around us. So why should I fear? The evidence is here. Why should I fear? Oh, the evidence is here. I searched the world, but it couldn't fill me. Melted deep rays, treasures of fame were never enough. Then you came along and put me back together. And every desire is now satisfied here in your love. Oh, there's nothing better than you. There's nothing better than you. Oh, there's nothing, nothing is better than you. Come on, tell them. To show you my weakness My failures and flaws Lord, you've seen them all And you still call me friend Cause the God of the mountains Is the God of the valleys There's not a place Your mercy and grace won't find me again. Oh Come on. Tell them now. Come on, choir. Oh, there's nothing better than you. Nothing. You turn bones into armies. You turn seas into highways. You're the only one who can. Somebody give a praise in this house. I don't think we're finished yet. Come on. Come on, one more can. You're the only one who can. You're the only one who can. Jesus, you're the only one. Come on, give Him one more shout of praise. When all I see is the battle, you see my victory. When all I see is the mountain, you see a mountain moon. And as I walk through the shadow, your love surrounds me. There's nothing to fear now, for I am safe with you. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees, with my head lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs for you. Thank you, God. God, you see the end to tell. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees. With my head lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. And every fear I lay at your feet. I'll sing through the night. Oh God, the power of our God. You shine in the shadow. You win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. In all mighty fortunes, you go before us. Nothing can stand against the power of our God We wanted to let you know that our mission here at Grace is to connect people to Jesus and to connect people to people. One of the best ways to communicate with us here at Grace is through our connection cards. If you would like to speak to a pastor at Grace, if you have any prayer requests for our prayer team and our elders, or if you're not receiving our Grace Vine weekly emails, this would be a great way to fill it out and let us know. If you're watching with us online, you can click the link below and submit the connection card there. Or if you're here with us at Grace, the connection card is in the seat back pocket in front of you. Just be sure to drop it on your way out in the box next to the doors. Thanks so much for joining us this morning and we hope that this service is a blessing to you. Well, good morning, everyone. It's great to have you here at Grace Raleigh. I'd like to ask you to stand. My name is Steve Goldberg. I'm the worship pastor here at Grace, and it's great having people here in the room. It's great having people at home joining in with us. I thought that this morning we could start off with the scripture of John 3.16, that God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life, come to the well that never runs dry. Drink of the water, come and thirst no more. Come all you sinners Come find his mercy Come to the table He will satisfy Taste of his goodness Find what you're looking for. For God so loved the world that He gave us. His one and only Son to save us. Whoever believes in Him will live forever. bring all your failures bring your addictions come lay them down at the foot of the cross Jesus is waiting there with hope in our hearts For God so loved the world praise god praise god from whom all blessings Praise Him, praise Him For the wonders of His love For God so loved the world that He gave us His one and only Son to save The power of hell forever defeated Now it is well, I'm walking in freedom Oh God so loved, God so loved the world Bring all your failures, bring your addictions. Come lay them down at the foot of the cross. Jesus is waiting. God so loved the world. Amen. God sent his son. They called him Jesus. He came to love, heal, and forgive. He lived and died. To buy my pardon. An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. he lives all fear is gone because i know he holds the future And life is worth the living Just because He lives And then one day I'll cross that river I'll fight my spine No war with me And then as death Gives way to victory I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow Because He lives All fear is gone Because I know He holds the future And life is worth the living Just because He lives. And life is worth the living just because He lives. Amen. Amen. All right, y'all can have a seat for a moment. Good morning, Grace Raleigh. It is fabulous to see your smiling faces in here. And welcome to those of you that have joined us online. It is a beautiful and sunny Sunday morning, Welcome to the world for this beautiful sunny weather because in two weeks, the mission committee will be here to gather all of the goodies that you choose to bring. So if you go to Grace Raleigh's events page, you will find a list of things that the mission committee is looking for for the Interfaith Food Shuttle. You will buy those. And then on either that Friday or either that, I'm sorry, that Saturday or that Sunday, you can drive through. The hours are listed on the screen. You can drive through. They will come out to your car. They will pick it up. They will bring it inside, and they will take care of it. So all you have to do is go to the grocery. And I guess these days you could even have it delivered to your house. So that is fabulous. And speaking of driving by and dropping off, if you are the parent of a 6th grader through 12th grader, today is the day you get to drive by and push them out of the car. Woo-hoo! We are so excited to announce that Grace Students is back up and running live and in person. Kyle will be here tonight in all of his fun. And we have the cool thing happening too that he's live streaming the service. So if for some reason your 6th through 12th grader can't be in the building tonight, no problem. Email Kyle, kyle at graceralee.org. And he has all the information and the links that you need to be able to be attached to the live stream and join in that way. They're now going to start into a routine of being in person one week, meeting online together the next week in person, and you get the idea. But email Kyle for any information that you guys might need. So thank you again for coming, for being a part of Grace Raleigh thisbbling together another meal just to check that off the list. Have you ever wondered if you have the balance right? Have we worked hard enough? Have we played enough? What will our children remember about us? Have you ever wondered if you've done it right? Is it possible to even really know that? Did we give our passions and energies to the right causes? Have we given ourselves to the things that matter the most? Or in the end, is it all just favor? Well, good morning. It's good to see everybody here. This is as full as the church has been since last February. That's crazy. Man, you guys, apparently, we've been going through Ecclesiastes. Y'all love depression and hopelessness. So thanks for showing up to that. You're like, I got to get out of the house now. Maybe that's what I needed to do the whole time, which is make you really, really sad. So you had to come see people. This is great. If you're still joining us at home, we're so grateful for that. This is the third part in our series called Vapor, where we're moving through the book of Ecclesiastes. We've said the whole time that we've saved the dreariest book of the Bible for the dreariest month of the year. And what's really fun is that this is the joyful sermon. This is the one, this is the good news. This is the one where we celebrate. We only did two songs up front because we want to end praising God together, and he gave us sunshine to do this. So it seems that the weather is matching the rhythm of the series, and I think that that's fantastic. In the first week, we started out and we talked about this idea of a hevel or vapor or smoke, and we concluded that Solomon would argue that a vast majority of Americans are wasting their life, right? Which means a vast majority of us are probably investing our life pursuing things that ultimately we can't grab onto or vapor or smoke. They're here one day and they're gone the next. And so that really left us with this question at the end of that week, is there a worthwhile investment of our lives? And if you have notes, you see that at the top of your notes. I think that's been a question that's been lingering in the series. Is there really a worthwhile investment of my life or is it all just a waste of time? Is everyone here just, we're all just chasing vapor? And I think that there's a good answer to that question, but last week we answered it a little bit, but we stumbled into another harsh reality. The harsh reality that even if we pursue wisdom with our life, even if we're obedient, the godliest of the godly, that does not insulate us from pain. Our godliness doesn't protect us from grief, right? And so what we learned by looking at that beautiful passage in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, there's a time for mourning and there's a time for joy. There's a time for grieving and there's a time for healing and there's a time to be hurt. There's a time to live and there's a time to die. Like we saw that passage. And what we learned is that pain is not punitive. God's not tightening the screws on us to punish us. Pain is the result of a fallen world, right? And that the harsh reality that Solomon gives us in Ecclesiastes is that no matter what we do, we're going to hurt. No matter how godly we are, there will be seasons of mourning in our life. And so that leaves us, I think, with another really difficult question. Can I ever hope for true happiness? Can I ever, on this side of eternity, grasp onto something that isn't Hevel or vapor or smoke? Can I grasp onto a joy that is immutable and unchangeable, that is resistant to circumstances in life, that even as the storms come, I can still find myself in seasons of joyfulness and contentment? Is it even possible to do those things? And I think those are the two big questions that we bring into this week. Is it possible to pursue anything that really matters? And is it possible to grab onto anything that looks like actual true contentment and joy? And the answer to those questions, I think, is yes. And Solomon answers those questions multiple times in Ecclesiastes. I think in four separate passages, he addresses those with the exact same answer. Four different times, he gives this answer, and I love this answer. I think there's so much bound up in his choice to answer the questions in this way. But like I said, he says it in four separate times. I'm going to read you two of them so that you can get a sense. They're in your notes. If you have them, they'll be on the screen if you're following along at home. But here's what he writes in Ecclesiastes, Solomon repeats this idea. That at the end of the day, what's left for us to do is enjoy our toil, enjoy our food and drink, and honor our God. The end of the book, he ends. The end of the matter is this, all has been heard, fear God and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. We talked about that last week. And it's important that as we look through what I think is kind of this formula for contentment, that we understand that when he's talking about eating and drinking, when we see eating and drinking in the Bible, that is almost always a reference to a communal activity. Eating and drinking is inherently communal. The Bible rarely talks about eating for sustenance, right? It rarely talks about food as this way to be healthy. It always talks about food and bread and gathering around a table as a form of community. And so when he says that there's nothing for man to do except to find joy in what he does and to eat and to drink. What he means is when we look around the table, when we have our meals, if we love the people who are around us, that's good. That's a gift from God. We go out to eat, we're eating with our friends, and we look around and we have genuine affection, we enjoy these people. That's a gift from God. When you look around your table and you have family there and you love that family. Now listen, we're all parts of families. We know that love isn't just sing song and fairy tales all the time. Sometimes it's hard, but at the end of the day, if you know that I love you and you love me, then that's a gift from God. And so when he's talking about food and drink, he's really referencing community. And then when he talks about toil, enjoying your toil, I have a men's group that meets on Tuesday mornings at 6.30. Anybody can join us if you want to. Just email me. Well, the more the merrier there. And we were talking about this word toil. And to a room full of men, it means career, right? It means work. It means what's your job? But Solomon uses that word a lot more broadly than that in Ecclesiastes. And the word toil really doesn't refer to your job or your career as much as it refers to the activities that you have set aside for that day, the productivity of that day, whatever it is you're going to do. Because we have some men in the group who are retired. If it's only about work, career, then they have no shot at happiness, right? They better get back to it. But really, it's broader than that. It really means, Toyo, what do you have set for yourself today? What productivity are you going to engage in today? And then in this verse, he says that we should do good. And he defines doing good as honoring God with our life, fearing God and keeping his commandments. And it's with these understandings that I kind of arrive at this conclusion of kind of Solomon's equation for contented joy and apex happiness. And I really do think it's this. People you love plus tasks you enjoy plus honoring God equals apex happiness. Listen to me. If when you eat, if as you move through your day, you look around and the people in your life bring you joy, and when you wake up, you're looking forward to the things that you're going to do in that day. Maybe not everything, but the point of the day brings you joy. And you're honoring God with your life. If those things are true of you, then I want you to know this morning, you are apex happy. It doesn't get better than that. Sometimes our problem is just that we can't see it. But I'm telling you, man, if you wake up every day and you get to have breakfast with your family or you go out to lunch with some people at work that you enjoy or you look forward to seeing some friends at small group or something like that, if you look around at your community and you're surrounded by people you love and you look at your days and God has given you something to put your hand to that you enjoy, that gives you a sense of purpose, that helps you become who he's created you to be and use your gifts and abilities to point people to Jesus as you move throughout your days, if that's what you get to do and you're honoring God as you do those things, then listen to me, you are experiencing apex happiness in your life. And I think that we get it so messed up sometimes. We do all the things that Solomon talked about in the first two chapters, and we chase all the things. We run out there and we chase all the success and all the relationships and all the money and all the fulfillment and all the pleasure and all the stuff that's out there. When really what's true is God has already given us everything we need for joy. God has already provided in our lives everything we need for joy. And listen, if you don't have those things, if you look around, you're like, I don't like any of the people in my life right now. If you don't have a fulfillment in your job, if you're not honoring God with your life, then guess what? Those things are attainable. Those things aren't out there and forever away. Those things are attainable. They're right around you. God gives us everything we need for joy within our reach. That's why I brought this chair today. This chair here is my chair from my house. This is my chair in my living room. This chair sits in the corner of our living room, and opposite me is we have a little sectional couch. There's other people who sit in this chair sometimes, but for the most part, it's me. When I sit in this chair, I get to watch dance recitals. I get to watch Lily come in with her friends, and they sing Elsa to me. And I pretend to care about Elsa. I get to watch dumb little magic tricks. We went to some restaurant and they gave her some pot with a magnet on the bottom and there's a plant that comes out of the wand and she comes in and she does the abracadabra, the whatever, and then she pulls it out and for the 37th time, I'm amazed by this magic trick, right? I sit in this chair and Jen sits on the couch and we talk about our days. We talk about what's hard and we talk about what's fun. From this chair, when someone rings the doorbell, if I angle my head just right, I can see down the hallway to the front door and I can see the little face that's there to come play with Lily. If they're all over, I can look this way out the window and I can look at them all, all the neighborhood kids jumping on the trampoline that we got to get for her. In the mornings when I'm doing life right and I'm downstairs reading like I'm supposed to, at about 6.45, 7 o'clock, I can look up the stairs and see Lily up there and motion her down to come sit in my lap and tell me what she's going to do that day. When we have friends over, which I love to do, eventually we end up in our living room and we sit around and we talk and we giggle and we laugh. In the pandemic, I worked from this chair. I set up a little table right here and I do my Zoom calls and I argue with the elders and that's pure joy except for Chris Lata. I love working from that table. I can see all the things that bring me the most joy from this chair. And if I go out there chasing joy, if I go out there trying to track everything down, what am I going to do? Buy a new house for this chair These are from old David. If this church grows to 2,000 people and I get to feel what that feels like, do my conversations with my family and friends get any better from sitting in this chair? No, man. This is it. And sometimes it's not the chair, right? Sometimes it's the kitchen. Sometimes it's when I get to cook dinner and Jen sits on the stool and we talk about our days. Sometimes it's the mornings when Ruby and Lily are on the bed and I'm in the chair in the corner of that room and we're all talking, just enjoying our times. But here's what I know. I can go out there chasing whatever I want to chase. But my times of most profound joy come when I'm right there. They come when I'm around the people that I love the most. They come when I'm soaking in the blessings that God has given me. And this is what we need to pay attention to. Solomon tells us these are God's gifts to us. If people in your life that you love, who love you, they're God's gift to you. Drink them in. Hug them more. Tell them more that you care about them. Tell them more that you're grateful for them. Tell them more that they are a gift from God in your life. You have a thing to do every day that you like to put your hand to, whether it's raising kids or volunteering somewhere or spending time in your neighborhood or going to work or looking forward to seeing your friends or whatever it is. You have things that God has given you that make you productive, that let you feel like you are living out His intended will for you? That's His gift for you. That work, that toil, that's His gift. It's designed for you. And then if we honor God, His invitation to honor Him is His gift to us because He knows that when we live a life honoring Him, we live a life of fewer regrets. We live a life of deeper gratitude. We live a life with a deeper desire for Jesus if we'll just revel in his gifts. This helps me make sense of the Honduran children I saw at one time. For years of my life, I would go down to Honduras with some regularity to take teams down to visit a pastor named Israel Gonzalez. Israel is one of my heroes. The things that he's done for the kingdom are unbelievable. And he is based in a city in central Honduras called, called, uh, Swatopeke. He and his wife have set up a free clinic there. He has a church there. And then from that church, what they do is they organize these goodwill parties and they bring teams down and you get together hot dogs and little tchotchke gifts and you go up into the hillsides. There's mountains surrounding Ciguatapeque and you go up into the mountainside and you go to these villages and he throws these goodwill parties and he hopes that by doing this, these villages that are deeply Catholic, but Catholic in such a way that shuts them off to faith rather than turns them on to faith. And so they're lost communities. And he goes and he throws these parties, and by throwing these goodwill parties, they invite him into the community to plant a church. He's planted 14 churches that way, last I checked. And I would go on these parties. And you go up into these mountains surrounding Suwatopec into a village. And that's not derogatory. It's literally a village. Homes are built of mud and wood, makeshift roofs, one or two rooms, literally dirt poor. I've had the opportunity in my life to be in a fair amount of other countries and to see poverty on multiple continents. Honduras is just about the worst. But yet when we would go there, we would get out and there would always be these children there. And these children would have the biggest, goofiest grins on their face ever. They were so joyful, and they would laugh, and they would play, and they were happy to see you, and it never got wiped off of their face. And I always wondered, kid, how can you be so happy? Don't you know you don't have a Barbie house? Don't you know you don't have a PlayStation? Don't you know your soccer ball stinks? Those kids had it figured out, man. They had people around them who loved them. They had things to do each day that they looked forward to. And they hadn't lived enough life to carry the weight of what it is to not honor God with our choices. They were walking in apex happiness. And I carry all my American wealth down there and privilege, and I look at them and I'm jealous. Because they figured out something that we haven't. And I just think that there is this profound truth that everything that we need is right there within our grasp. We don't have to run around out there chasing vapor and Hevel. God has given us these gifts already. And in that truth, in that truth that everything we need for joy is within our grasp? We answer those two questions we started with. Is there a pursuit that's actually worth investing my life in? Yes. The people you love, the tasks that give you purpose, and honoring God. You want to live a life that matters? You want to get to the end of it and wonder if it's all vapor? Or not have to wonder that? Then invest your life in the people that you love and the tasks that God has ordained for you. Ephesians 2 says that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus, that we should do good works, that we should walk in them. Walk in those good works that God intended you for and honor God with the choices that you make. Those are worthwhile pursuits. You will get to the end of your life if you pursue those things and know that it was a life well lived. And he actually doubles down on this idea of pursuing relationships with other people. I don't have a lot of time to spend here on it, but again, this is a passage that I can't just skip over as we go through the book of Ecclesiastes. He doubles down on this idea of having more folks in our life when he writes this has not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. Solomon doesn't take a lot of time to tell you to invest in a lot of things in Ecclesiastes. If you've been reading along with us, he doesn't tell you to do a lot of stuff there. He just kind of tells you, hey, this stuff's a waste of time. You should honor God. And then he tells you how we got to that conclusion. But here he stops and makes sure you understand the value of having people in your life who love you, who you love in return. And he sets up life as this struggle, this fight, because it is a struggle and a fight to choose to honor God with our lives. It is a struggle and a fight to keep our marriages healthy. It is a struggle and a fight to direct our kids in the right way, to love our families well, to share our faith, to be evangelists in our community, and to make disciples of the people who are around us. That's hard. And Solomon says, if you try to do this alone, woe to you when you fall and you have no one to pick you up. Woe to you when addiction creeps in and there's no one you can tell. Woe to you when doubts creep into your faith and there's no one you can talk to. How hard it must be for you when your marriage gets rocky and there's no one to fight for it. If there's two, he says, you've got a fighting chance. If there's three, that's not quickly broken. We need people in our lives to fight for us. We need to fight for the people in our lives. It seems to be a big value to us. That will help us ensure that we always have people to eat and drink with that we love and enjoy. So I thought it was worth pointing out Solomon's emphasis on this. The other question that remained from the previous weeks is, can I ever hope for true happiness? Yes. Yes, because here's the thing. If the bad things in Ecclesiastes 3 are true, then so are the good ones. Last week, I read the passage and I said, listen, pain is coming for all of us. It's going to hurt. We're going to mourn. We're going to grieve. No one gets to dodge that based on our godliness. It's going to happen to all of us. We will walk through hard times, but here's the reality. If that's true, then the flip side is true. If the bad things are true, then God says we will walk through seasons where we experience the good things. Look at the good things. There is a time to be born, to plant, to heal, to build up, to laugh, to dance, to gather things together, to embrace, to keep, to sow, to speak. A time for love and a time for peace. If we're going to have to walk through hard times, there's going to be good ones too. And I just think that the blessing from Ecclesiastes is this. It hits us with some hard realities. It's stark. It's unflinching. Hey, most of us are wasting our lives. And no matter what you do to invest it well, you're going to hurt. Those are hard truths. But I've said the whole time that if we can accept them on the other side is this joy that is waiting for us. And this is the joy. The joy is, yes, there's big things going on that we can't control. But in the midst of all that stuff that we can't control, God gives us these gifts, these moments of joy, these pockets to lean into where we celebrate him, where we're grateful for him, and we acknowledge those things as gifts. And I just think that if we accept the difficult realities from this book, then we can start to look for these little pockets of joy in our life, and they will bring us such more fulfillment than if we just move through them waiting to get to the next thing. At our house, we do a thing called Breakfast Sammy Saturday, all right? I like a good breakfast sandwich. I know it's hard to tell by looking at me, but I like a good, I put butter down, I toast the bread, I do the eggs, I do some bacon, do some cheese on there, and then I put it all together on the blackstone, cut it in half, and the good egg bleeds out onto it. It's all the goodness, and then you dip your sandwich in there. It's the best. I love breakfast Sammy Saturdays. You guys are not enthusiastic enough about this. You need breakfast Sammy Saturdays in your life. Well, I'll just let you guys sign up. Come over to the house. I'll make them for you. We love it. But it's just kind of a thing that I do. I like it. I make one for Jen and Lily, and they kind of eat half of theirs. I'm more excited about it than anybody else. But then one day, Lily brought this home from preschool, and it made me cry right on the spot. That's breakfast Sammy Saturday. She drew my griddle. She put food on it. Apparently, I make pizza there. And she brought it home to me. Now, the thing about this is, it was an assignment at preschool. She was told, just make whatever you want. It's an art project. And she made breakfast Sammy Saturday. And she brought it home to me. And she said, look, Daddy. And she told me what it was. I started crying right there on the spot. I got these big old alligator tears in my eyes looking at Jen. What a cool thing. And sure, life's going to be hard. She's going to be a teenager. She's five now, so she's kind of maxed out on cuteness, and now it's just hyper sometimes. But even though I know that there's hard times ahead, even though I know she won't always appreciate things like Breakfast Sammy Saturday, I know she does now. And I know that that's a gift from my God. And I know that what Ecclesiastes says is the best thing I can possibly do is to drink deeply of that. The best thing we can possibly do is find joy in these moments that God allows. We don't know how long we'll have them. I was talking with a friend last night who's got a new infant. And he said every time he gets up with the infant in the middle of the night and holds her, that it's a privilege. Because he doesn't know when that last time's going to be. And that's the truth of it. I think that we have so many pockets of joy in our life every day. If we have people that we love, if we have something to do that we appreciate, if we're choosing to honor God with our life. And I think that because we're so busy chasing vapor, sometimes we miss these sweet little moments that can all be had right here if we're just paying enough attention. That's why I think on the other side of these realities awaits for us this profound joy. And I think that when we realize that, that when we realize that God has designed these things to bring us happiness in our life, that what's really important is if we don't believe in a God, if we're atheistic in our worldview, then that's it. The joy terminates in those moments. That's all we have. But if we are a spiritual people who believe that God designed these things and these blessings in our life to make himself evident in our life, then our joy doesn't terminate in the moment. It turns into exuberant praise. It reminds us that we have a God that designed this for us. And the other part is, and this is incredible, that the joy that we're experiencing in that moment is only a glimpse of the eternity that he's designed for us and won for us with Jesus, which is what we're going to come back and talk about next week, is how these things are glimpses to the eternity that Jesus has already won for us. So in a few minutes, the band is going to come, and we've saved two fun, exuberant songs to praise God together. And while we do that, I want to encourage you to keep those two thoughts in your head. What are the things that I can see from my chair? What are the joys that God has given me that are within my reach from places that I already have in my life? What are the things that maybe I'm missing because I'm chasing stuff that I don't need? And then let's reflect on the reality that there is coming an eternity where that's all we experience. It's no more just pockets. It's reality. And that is something for us all to celebrate. Let me pray for us. Father, you are so very good to us. You've given us so much. Lord, I pray that we would be grateful for those blessings. I pray that you would steep us in profound gratitude for the things that we have, that you would show us what we need and what we don't. God, if there is somebody here or who can hear my voice, who doesn't have people in their life that they love, God, would you bring that to them? Would you provide that community for them even here at Grace? Would you give them the courage to slip up their hand in some way, to fill out some sheet, or to send some email, or make some phone call, or some text, and help them engage with relationships that matter to them. God, if there are people who don't have something they enjoy in their days, would you give them the courage to find that? Show them how you designed them and what you created them for. God, if we are not honoring you with our lives, I pray that you would give us the courage to do that. Let us praise you exuberantly, God, for the joys that you have given us in our lives. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen. Amen, amen. Thank you, Nate. Let's all stand up. guitar solo Our God, firm foundation Our rock, the only solid ground Let's lift his name. you are the only king forever you are victorious Unmatched in all your wisdom In love and justice you will reign and every knee will bow we bring our expectations our hope is anchored in your name the name of jesus Jesus you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious We lift our banner high. We lift the name of Jesus. From age to age you reign. Your kingdom has no end. We lift our banner high. We lift the name of Jesus. From age to age you reign. Your kingdom has no end. You are the only king forever. Mighty God, we lift you higher. You are the only king forever. Forevermore, you are the only king forever Forevermore, you are victorious. He is doing great things See what our Savior has done See how His love overcomes he has done great things. We dance in your freedom, awake and alive. Oh Jesus, our Savior, your name lifted high be faithful forever more you have done great things and I know you will do it again for your promise is yes and amen you will do great things God you do great things Oh Oh you have done great things you've done great things every captive and break every chain oh god You have done great things. You have done great things. Oh God, you guys here today. God bless. Have a great week. Thank you. Come all you weary, come all you thirsty, come to the well that never runs dry. Drink of the water, come and thirst no more. Well, come all you sinners, come find His mercy. Come to the table, He will satisfy. Taste of His goodness, find what you're looking for. For God so loved the world that He gave us, His one and only Son to save us. If you never believed in Him, you'll live forever. Here we go. We'll live forever. God so loved the world. Praise God. Praise God. From whom all blessings flow. Praise Him. Praise Him. For the wonders of His love. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise Him. Praise Him. For the wonders of His love. His amazing love. For God so loved the world that He gave us. His one and only Son to save. For God so loved the world that He gave us. His one and only Son to save us Whoever believes in Him Will live forever Oh, the power of hell Forever defeated Now it is well I'm walking in freedom For God so loved the world. Amen. You are here, moving in our midst. I worship you. I worship you. You are here, working in this place. I worship you. I worship you. You are here. Working in this place. I worship you. I worship you. You are way maker. Miracle worker. Promise keeper. Light in the darkness. darkness my god that is who you are Jesus. Jesus I worship you. I worship you. You're mending every heart. You are here and you are mending every heart. I worship you. I worship you. You are here and you are way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light're the way maker. Yeah, sing it again. Oh, that is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. My Jesus. That is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. My Jesus. Yes, even when. Come on. You never stop. You're the way maker. Oh, that is who you are. Oh, it's who you are, my Jesus. Miracle worker. That is who you are. is above depression. His name is above loneliness. Oh, His name is above disease. His name is above cancer. His name is above every other name. That is who you are. Jesus. oh i know that is who you are When darkness tries to roll over my bones When sorrow comes to pain is all I know, oh, I won't be shaken. No, I won't be shaken. I am not captive to the light. I'm not afraid to leave my past behind. Oh, I won't be shaken. No, I won't be shaken. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I stand in your love. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I stand in your love. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I stand in your love. Oh, I'm standing. There's power in your name. Power in your name. There's power that can break off every chain. There's power that can empty out a grave. There's resurrection power that can save. is Thank you. I'm standing in your love. I count on one thing. The same God that never fails will not fail me now. You won't fail me now in the waiting. The same God who's never late is working you're working Yes, I will bless your name. Oh, yes, I will sing for joy. My heart is heavy God that never fails. Will not fail me now. You won't fail me now in the waiting. This ain't God who's never late. He's working all things out. You're working all things out. Oh, yes, I will lift you high in the lowest valley. Yes, I will. For all my days. Oh, yes, I will. And I choose to praise, to glorify, glorify the name of all names that nothing can stand against. And I choose to praise, to glorify, glorify the name of all Thank you. The name of all names. That nothing can stand against. And I choose to praise. To glorify, glorify the name of our names. That nothing can stand against. Oh yes, I will lift you high in the lowest valley. Yes, I will bless your name. Oh, yes, I will sing for joy when my heart is heavy. All my days. Oh, yes, I will. Thank you. Come let us bow at his feet. He has done great things..

Good morning, Grace. Welcome to the new year. I am so thrilled to be here this morning. Before we jump into what we're actually going to be talking about and going to be walking through this morning, I wanted to take just a quick second to give you an update. I know as many of you guys have been walking alongside and have been praying for Nate and for Jen, as Jen has been in the process of her father has been going through pancreatic cancer. And a lot of you know, as we've talked about kind of during the Christmas season, that it looked like that during this Christmas holiday was going to be the time where he finally was able to pass on into eternity. And that did happen. John is now in heaven, in the arms of the Father that he committed his life to. He's able to be up there absolutely rejoicing in Jesus, this Jesus that he's loved his whole life. He now is able to see and to know and to touch and to worship with no distractions. But as that has happened, I say that not only to say continue to keep the Vincent and the Rector families in your prayers, but I also say that to say that I could see and I could tell through your virtual faces as I look at you through your screens that you were like, ugh, this guy again. And I get it. I know and I understand. But I say that to say that John's funeral was yesterday. It was yesterday at two o'clock and then they did a graveside afterwards. And so it's my pleasure and my joy this morning to just have the opportunity to take away that one small extra burden from Nate that while he was dealing with being there for his wife and for his family and while he was there helping plan a funeral and preparing words to say for a funeral that he didn't have to worry about. Also writing a sermon and worry about jumping in the car from the funeral and driving from Atlanta all the way to Raleigh just so he could be here preaching this morning. And so I'm thrilled and I'm excited to be here this morning, not only because I love being up here getting to preach and getting to talk with you guys about things that I'm passionate with, but in particular this morning, just as a way to alleviate just a little bit of stress from Nate that he didn't have to worry about doing all of that, about driving back just so he can preach a sermon and he could just spend this week with his family as they mourn, but also as they celebrate John's life, what it was and what now it is in perfection in eternity. And with that, I say welcome to the new year. And this morning, as we're kicking off the new year at Grace, we kick it off with a new series called Things You Should Know. And I know that that title leaves a bit to be desired. I know it's probably, you know, you're like, okay, that could go a few different directions. And if it's going to go in the direction of you're going to come up and be Professor Kyle and teach me all of these boring things I don't know, then I'm turning it off. And don't, don't turn it off. That's not what I'm up here doing. I admit that probably when it comes to things of wisdom and discernment and just pure knowledge and understanding of things, I could probably turn to you much quicker than you would turn to me to learn those things. But instead, as we're focusing on things you should know, what we're talking about is maybe some of those words or some of those concepts that we hear and that we talk about in church that we definitely know what they are, right? And we definitely, like, we could probably define them and we could use them in conversations pretty well, but that maybe when we take like a deep look, and you've all been there, right, where you use a word, and someone goes, do you really know what that word means? Okay, like give me a definition, and as you struggle with it, you go, gosh, maybe I don't actually fully know that definition. Or when you talk about that you know a lot about, you know, you say like, I know about this, I understand this. And as soon as someone asks you two or three questions, you go, goodness gracious, I don't know how to answer that. And so these instead, for the next five weeks, we're going to talk about some of these words, some of these concepts, and some of these beliefs that we have in our church and through scripture that definitely we know, that we probably know pretty well. Some of you are going to know very well, but some of those things that I think at times we talk a lot about, but maybe don't sit down to just only talk about that, to just get a full and holistic view and understanding of what they are. And so this morning, I have the distinct pleasure of talking about baptism. What a wonderful and what a beautiful time to talk about baptism, to talk about us giving our hearts to Jesus, of the symbol of us being dead as Jesus was killed and being resurrected as Jesus was being resurrected. As yesterday, we celebrated a man, Jen's father and Nate's father-in-law going to heaven as this beautiful celebration of life and a celebration of a faith that he committed to and a baptism that he committed to long ago that he's now able to see the full fruit and the full fruition of what that means. But this morning, we're talking about baptism. And I know that if you've been around grace for a while, then you're probably, as soon as I said we're talking about baptism, you probably were a bit confused. You're like, wait, didn't we have like an entire Sunday, like an entire sermon where Nate preached about baptism, about what it is, and about what it means? And the answer is yes. It was, I would say, a little bit less than two and a half years ago. And the reason why I remember that is because my first Sunday was right after Nate had given that message. And the reason I know that is because my first Sunday was when Grace celebrated this huge day of baptisms where we had a group of people come, different people throughout age groups and men and women and youth and student age folks come and celebrate and be baptized this first Sunday that I was at Grace. And it was incredible and it was remarkable. And in that sermon that Nate gave that got all of these people thinking about and got all these people excited about being baptism, he talked about what we believe baptism is at grace. That we believe that baptism is for those who are able to articulate a faith and have experienced salvation. That when someone is able to give their heart to Jesus, when someone is able to repent of their sin and fully realize and understand the magnitude of their sin and how their sin equals eternal death, but because God is a good God, that God, because he sent his son to earth, that his son who lived a perfect life, when he was killed, he was killed to put to death your sin, to put to death our sin. And as he was raised to life, he was raised in a symbol that in the same way, if we would give our hearts to faith, if we would put our faith in that Jesus, that because of that, we could go from eternal death and destruction to eternal life and to have an eternal relationship with God, our creator and our father, both on earth and in heaven and eternity. And so in the same way, when that happens, we believe that we baptize when someone comes to faith through immersion. That's just a big word for basically saying we dunk people. As Nate puts it, we get them full wet or completely wet or whatever it is, the weird phrase that he says. But basically when someone comes to faith, they come in front of the church and they're baptized and they're brought down into the water, completely underwater, and then being brought back up. And that is meant to be a symbol of the faith that we are giving our hearts to. I think the symbol is most beautifully put and most beautifully said by Paul in Romans, in Romans 6, 3 through 4, where he says, What a beautiful depiction, and what a beautiful description, and what a beautiful symbol that as we are being dunked into the water, that we are being gone. And that is signifying the death of our old life. That is signifying the death of our old selves. And most importantly, that is signifying the death of our sin that no longer binds us and no longer holds us back from knowing God and having a relationship with him. And as we come out of the water, just as Jesus was resurrected, so are we being resurrected in newness of life. That water has washed the sins away from us. And as we burst forth out of that water, we are bursting forth into eternity, into this eternal relationship with God. And we know and we understand, just as John Piper put so eloquently, that faith, faith is what unites us to Christ. Baptism symbolizes the union. Baptism is a symbol of the union of Christ. We understand and we know and we have knowledge that it is our faith in Jesus. It's our hearts being given to Jesus is what saves us. If that is not something we've experienced, then baptism is meaningless. Then believer's baptism becomes meaningless because the water isn't what saves us. Our faith is what saves us. And on a Sunday where we're talking about baptism and on a Sunday where we get to talk about baptism, I don't think that there's any way, nor should there ever be any way around getting to talk about why baptism is so significant, why it is so important that baptism is the symbol of coming to faith. Because coming to faith is what this is all about. We are called, as we're called to make disciples, we're called, part of that is being called to baptism, that we come to a saving knowledge of faith. We come and we give our hearts to Jesus and we know that our eternal resting place is with God in eternity in relationship with him. And so when we experience that faith, we bring that faith, we go and we make disciples, we tell people who that is, we tell people of this experience that we have had with Jesus so that they can experience it as well. And as they do, we're able to baptize them into the kingdom, into our eternal family. And so there's no way to not talk about that, nor should there be. But I also understand, and what I also realize is you're like, Kyle, this is all stuff that we've talked about. This is stuff we do know. You should change the title to Kyle Tells Us Things That We Already Know, right? Because you've heard this before, and I know that it's not an incredibly difficult concept to understand, right? That when you've heard, when you read scripture, it's like, okay, like, I understand that symbol. You know, I understand that the water is washing away our sins and that we're going from death into life. And I understand that it's not what saves us, but instead it's our faith that what saves us. But I do understand why it's important. But the reason this morning why I'm excited to talk about baptism is because one of my favorite aspects of baptism is also falls in line with the question that I most often get from the people who I talk with about getting baptized. Granted, these are normally students. They're normally like middle schoolers, high schoolers who have given their hearts to Jesus. They've come to know who Jesus is and they want to live their life for him. And so they come in and they talk to me and they're like, Kyle, like, I get it. I understand baptism. I think it's really cool. I get why it's important, but they're smart. And they're like, but if it's a symbol of our faith, don't you talk about all the time that our faith is personal and it's ours and it's our own hearts, that our faith is not about our parents' faith, that we don't have our parents' faith, we don't have our friends' faith, we don't have our kids' faiths in the words of an adult or of a parent? Don't you say that? And so if it is a personal thing, then wouldn't the symbol of baptism, wouldn't it be that I could just like invite you over or I could just call up Nate and say, hey, Nate, can you come over to the house? We'll go out back and you can baptize me and you can go out back. You can baptize me in my pool and we can be done with it. But instead, the question, so the question they have is, I understand all of that, but why do I have to do it in front of everybody? And I love that question. I think it's a great, and I think it's a great point that yes, certainly baptism is the symbol of your personal faith. And certainly the symbol of baptism is not lost when you do it by yourself or when you do it alone. But I love the question and I understand the question, especially if you can imagine sixth and seventh graders being like, Kyle, I don't like when anyone looks at me ever. Much less do I want to be the reason why an entire room of people are looking straight at me. I don't want to go, because it's like, it's not like I'm standing, I don't even want to stand in the back of like a choir or like stand in the like, as Rob always talks about when he's playing the bass, he's like, gosh, we got to get some more light on me so people can see me rocking the bass. It's like, students don't want to be in the dark playing instruments up front, much less have a spotlight on them being like, hey, everybody in this entire place, we're talking about this kid now. And I would imagine that this is something that you've probably thought about and considered as well, because don't grow out of people of not wanting like everyone to look at you. You don't grow out of like being like, oh, this feels weird. This feels awkward. I don't like having all of these people looking at me. And so I think it's a great question of why in the world do I have to be in front of everyone to get baptized? And with that question, I want to take a quick pivot and I want to tell you about one of the best and one of the most joy-filled days of my entire life. And I know with all of that, everything coming down the pipe, you're like, all right, now he's going to tell me about his baptism or he's going to tell me about someone he loves baptism. And while that certainly probably would have been a far better idea, I'm actually going to not talk about that, and I'm going to talk about something else. Instead, I want to tell you about the day that my brother, Jay, my younger brother, and his wife, Conley, got married. To give you a little background, to know me is to probably also know Jay and to know Conley. I talk about them quite often. Jay has been my best friend since, I guess, his birth because he's younger than me. So I think mathematically that works. And for our whole lives, since he's only a couple years younger than me, we've kind of just done all of the same things. We like the same things. We do the same things. We've always gotten along really well. We don't fight a ton. We just have always kind of gotten along. And so especially as the years progressed and as he got towards middle school and interests kind of began aligning even more, we just were kind of best friends and have been best friends ever since. He's the person I love most in this world. On the other side, Jay had this great friend named Conley when he was in elementary school. And as early as like sixth or seventh grade, they started dating or going out or being boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't know. Like they were in sixth grade. No one knew what to call it, whatever. But as funny as it is, and as goofy sometimes as middle school relationship goes, their relationship lasted through middle school and through high school and through college all the way to marriage. And so I say that to say that as long as I have known Jay and as long as I have been so close to Jay, almost as much as that time, I have known Conley in the same way. And so in the same way, his wife Conley, I have seen for a long, long time, for years and years, as basically my little sister and as basically just another one of my very best and closest friends. And for the same reason, Jay didn't have too many friends that weren't also great friends with Conley and vice versa. Conley's friends were great friends with Jay and loved Jay. Because for so much of their lives and so much of their growing up, they were growing up together. And so as people are walking in friendship with these two apart, they are walking in friendship with these two together, walking towards and anticipating the day, one day when they will finally be able to have a wedding and be married. And so you can imagine how wonderful and how joyful a celebration we had when they finally got married a couple years ago. It was unbelievable. I can't describe to you a time where I have been more joy-filled and more proud in my whole life than to stand next to Jay and watch him be married. Standing in there with a church full of people, church full of loved ones who absolutely love these two and would do anything for them. And the celebration as we sang hymns, the celebration as we joined in excitement and cheering as they vowed to each other and as Jay kissed the bride, as Jay kissed Conley, and as we went off into the reception and we danced the night away and did all of those things because there was not a time more joyful than that because what an incredible experience. And we all know it. Like, you don't know Jay and Conley, but you've probably been to a wedding and you've probably had a wedding before. And so you get it. Weddings are joyful. People love weddings. I have even heard tale, this is true, I have even heard tale that Nate Rector, our pastor, has actually been known to dance at weddings. Like they are joyful experiences. They are joyful celebrations of these two people making these vows and making these commitments to each other. And I think just as significantly, even if not more so, one of the great and incredible reasons to have a wedding where you invite loved ones in to celebrate with you is not simply to celebrate with you on that day or on that night where you are saying yes to your partner forever, but also outside of that day, after that celebration ends, that the people that are watching and the people that are witnessing Jay and Conley and whoever these two people are that are getting married, as they are vowing their hearts and their lives to the other person, then the loved ones around them are being invited into saying, hey, I am making this vow. I am making this commitment. I need you to walk alongside me in that. And I think that's maybe even a more significant reason to have a wedding and to share your vows in public with these people that love you because what those people know because they've been married or just, I mean, for me, I haven't been married, but what I know through experience and what I know through loving people is it gets harder, right? That it's not always the honeymoon. They call it the honeymoon stage because at some point it ends and it gets more difficult. And so as that happens, Jay and Conley have all of these people who just as joyfully as they're celebrating are also saying yes to a commitment of saying, I care about these people and so I am committed to partnering them, to walking alongside them, to providing them wisdom and to providing them guidance in their new lives together, bound together for life. I say yes to giving them accountability. I say yes to allowing them to ask questions and for me to check in. Jay, how's it going? Conley, how has everything been? Is there anything that's difficult or is there anything that's great? And all of those things. And you know that, right? I know that maybe we don't in the moment think about that, yeah, we're watching them make that vows. And so we're committing to helping them as loved ones uphold those vows. But we all know how excited we are to talk to a newly married couple, to ask them how things are going, to ask them about all the great things, but then you always have the, you know, a little bit more like, okay, so what are some of the hard things now? Yeah, I dealt with that too. This is kind of how I dealt with it. This is how you walk in that. This is how you walk through it. And so for those two reasons, to be able to joyfully celebrate these two people who are coming together, while also committing to say, I will partner with you as you walk in your entire life, as you walk in your life committed to this person, I have chosen and I will partner with you. I believe that those same reasons are the main reasons why we have big weddings where we invite our loved ones in to join. Because what we know so well, and as sad and heartbreaking as it is, we have people in our church this year who know all the well and all the more because of COVID that it's not what legally binds us, right? It's not legally required that you have a big group of friends and family and loved ones around you as you get married. It only requires you, the person you're marrying, and someone to witness it, right? So why do we do it? I think more than any other reasons, those two reasons, the ability to celebrate and the ability to have people there to partner with you are those two main reasons. And in the same way, I also believe that the reason that we do baptisms in front of the entire congregation are the same. That in public baptism, that public baptism invites the congregation to celebrate and to partner with the person that is being baptized. When someone has gone from death to life, it is something that deserves to be celebrated. And I would say, I would go beyond that. The Bible says not only that it deserves to be celebrated, but that it is literally being celebrated. In Luke 1.15, it says, In the same way I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. If you have given your hearts to Jesus, if you have repented of that sin, if you have said yes to Jesus, if you have given your heart over to God, then the angels in heaven have rejoiced and have celebrated over you because of that. When you came to faith, angels in heaven celebrated. And so baptism is an earthly representation of the rejoicing that is taking place in heaven as someone has given their heart and given their life over to God. It's your family. It's your friends. It's your loved ones. It's your church family. Here in particular, it's your grace family coming together to celebrate that you know Jesus, that you have gone from eternal death to eternal life, and you now get to experience this eternal relationship with God, your creator. And we get to celebrate alongside you, and you get to be celebrated for this incredible moment and for this incredible thing that has happened in your heart, the greatest thing that can ever and will ever happen inside of your heart. Similar to weddings, once again, I think that there's another reason that is at least equally as important, if not more so, that when you're getting in front of these people, you're vowing and you're making a commitment, a lifelong, eternal commitment to God, to Christ. I know a lot of you probably were able to see, and if you haven't, you can go to our social media and you can watch the video of when Jordan was baptized a few weeks ago. And as she was baptized, as exciting and as joyful as that was, before she was actually put into the water, before Nate actually baptized her, he said, Jordan, I've got two questions for you. Have you accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior? He said, yes. He said, are you committed to living the rest of your life for him. Yes. So Jordan, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Before Jordan was baptized, she made this commitment. She made this vow, vowing and committing her heart for eternity to God, not only so that she can go to heaven, but so that in her life and in this life, she is committing to living the rest of her days, the rest of her life, glorifying and seeking after Jesus. And as she does that, what is being asked of you, and you have a part to play in this, us as her grace family have a part to play in this, in saying, okay, Jordan, I heard you say that. And so I know that just like there's a honeymoon stage in marriage, there's also a honeymoon stage in faith, that we're riding high and we have this spiritual high where we great, and Satan can't touch us, and we're trying our hardest to kill all of our sin, and we're just loving reading scripture and going closer to God. But in the days and weeks, months, and years to come, it gets more difficult. Life gets hard sometimes, and it's hard to maintain that. Or in the opposite, sometimes life gets really good. Sometimes what life is offering seems way better and seems way more valuable or important at that time than your faith or than your heart and maintaining it with Christ. And so with that knowledge, as you are saying yes to these two questions in baptism, I have given my heart to Jesus, I accept him as my Lord and Savior, and I commit to living the rest of my days for him. Then what the congregation, therefore, is being asked to do is saying, you are now my sister, you are now my brother in Christ. And so for that, I commit to partnering with you. To walking with you. To checking in on you. To making sure that you are continuing to press on towards Jesus. Asking you questions. Giving you advice. Giving you guidance. Giving you accountability when you need accountability. And for those reasons, though we are signifying and though we're symbolizing and though what is being celebrated is certainly a very personal and very internal thing of you giving your heart over to Jesus, it is made public and it is public because it is something that a congregation, that your family of believers around you should celebrate. And it is something that you should stand up because I promise you and you will hear us forever in eternity here at Grace talk about the value of people walking alongside of you. That faith can't be done alone. It is incredibly difficult to walk in your faith, to grow in your love and in your understanding and in your walk and in your life with Jesus if you don't have people walking alongside of you. And so when you make that commitment, you do it up in front of your congregation, up in front of your grace, in front of your church family, saying, hey, I commit to this and I'm asking you to walk with me. And grace family, those of you who have already made this commitment, those of you who have given your hearts to Jesus, those of you who have been baptized, when you compare the two, when you compare marriage and when you compare baptism, how much more joyfully should we celebrate someone who is not only committing their heart to another, but is committing their heart forever to Jesus. How much more should we celebrate literally someone going from death to life? And how much more committed should we be to that person? Committed should we be to their life and making sure that they are continuing to press after God, press after their Lord and Savior that they committed to on that day for us to see, for us to witness, and for us to celebrate. And so my question is, will you come? If this is a commitment you haven't made, today, tomorrow, this week, this year, would you press after Jesus? Jesus, I'm tired. I'm tired. We're tired of trying so hard and falling short. Jesus, I realize that that's the point. The point is that I will always and forever fall short without you. Will you say, Jesus, I'm done falling under sin. I'm done walking without you. Jesus, I need you. Will you say yes to the grace that is freely offered to you from God through Jesus' death and resurrection? Because God is just sitting there waiting for you. And for those of you who are listening this morning that maybe haven't been baptized and you're like, well, I've, you know, maybe I've given my heart to Jesus already or maybe I was a little bit worried and I had a little stage fright. I didn't want to do it in front of people. Maybe you listen this morning and you're like, gosh, I get it. I get it. I understand the value. I understand the importance, and I understand why it is important to do it in front of these people that I love, and these people that love me, and I'm walking next to in life. Would you come and talk to one of us? We would love to talk more about baptism. We'd love to set you up to baptize you. It'd be the greatest joy and honor in our whole lives. And Grace family, those of you who've given your hearts to Jesus, will you continue to celebrate those of us who are doing it now? And will you say yes to partnering with the rest of your Grace family and saying, I know I haven't cared quite so much about this person's spiritual life as I should have. And will you commit today to saying, yes, I am committed to partnering with these people as they're currently giving their hearts to Jesus or as this is my best friend and they gave their heart to Jesus 20 years ago and I need to be more partnered with them than I am. So will you come? I pray that you will. Pray with me. God, thank you for your son, for sending him. God, that as sin, as our sin, tears us away from you where we deserve nothing but death. God, that you sent your perfect son to die to take over that sin. And God, I thank you for that. And I thank you that all that you ask of us in return is a simple faith and is simply coming to you and saying, yes, I believe. And yes, I want to give my heart over to you. Lord, I pray that when we think of baptism, we think of that. We think of new life. We think of going from death to life. And God, I pray that even as some of us have moved beyond the stages where we are coming to a saving knowledge in you, God, as we have already maybe been baptized, that God, we realize that we still have a hand in these other people's salvation around us. That in our grace family, we have a hand in these people's salvation, and we have a hand in walking with these people as they are giving their hearts over to Jesus now. Allow us to commit to these people. Allow us to commit to our family. And God, first and foremost, allow us to stay committed and loving you. We love you so much. Amen.

This morning we are jumping into a brand new series simply called James, where we're going through the book of James in the Bible. The book of James is one of my favorite books, mostly because James tells it like it is, man. Like, James is blunt. He just kicks you in the teeth, and I need that. Subtlety doesn't work for me. I need you to just tell me what I need to do and tell me how I've messed up. And that's exactly what James does. So I'm excited to go through it with you. Another thing about the book of James that I like to share, because I think it's a really well-made point. It's not mine. It's a pastor named Andy Stanley. James is the half-brother of Jesus. And he ends up writing a book of the Bible and is one of the leaders, along with Peter, of the early church. He's like the very first early church father. So James believed that Jesus was the Son of God. Those of you with brothers or sisters, what would it take for them to convince you that God sent them from above and they came to die on a cross and save the whole world? Like what would it take for you to believe your brother or your sister when they said that? Because James believes that, that's pretty good evidence that Jesus was who he says he was, right? That's Andy Stanley's point, not mine, but it's a good reason to listen to James. As we approach the book of James, I'm actually going to share a video with you guys. There's a group called The Bible Project online. If you don't know about them, you should. They make tons of great videos that explain books of the Bible. You can find one for almost any book of the Bible. Just go to Bible Project. You can Google it. If you're at home right now, don't go yet. I'm about to show you a video. Please stay locked in here. But they make books, they make videos about the books of the Bible and about themes in the Bible. It's a tremendous way to begin to understand and approach Scripture. And I thought the one that they made for James was so good that as we kicked off the series, it was the best possible way to kind of prime us for what to expect. It's a little bit longer of a video. It's about eight minutes long. So settle in and buckle up, and we're going to watch this intro video to James together. Here you go. I hope that you enjoyed that. If the biggest thing that you get out of this Sunday, honestly, is to use that more in your personal life, I'm good with that. It's a really, really good resource. So I hope that you appreciated that video and how easy it is to kind of make the whole book approachable now as we read it. If you don't have a reading plan, you can grab one on the way out or we have them online on our live page. This week is set up just like chapter one is. You can see from the video that chapter one's kind of a setup for the rest of the book and the themes and the things that we need to be familiar with so that we can understand it and apply it to ourselves as we move through the book, and in this case, as we move through the series. And so that's what I want to try to do this morning, is pull out the themes and help us set up some parameters around what we're going to talk about for the remaining five weeks of the series. This is going to be a six-week series that's actually going to carry us into Advent. I'm really excited for our Christmas series that we're already working on that we've got coming up. So this is going to carry us all the way through to Thanksgiving. One of the things in the video that I wanted to point out that I thought could help us approach the overarching point of the book of James is that idea of perfection and living lives as our whole selves versus living lives, they called it in the video, as our compromised selves. I think that this is something that we can all relate to. In chapter one, they said that through the book of James that this word perfect or whole appears seven times and that James is writing to push us in that direction. And I think that we can relate to a need to be made whole in that way because many of us know what it is to live disjointed lives, right? I feel like if you're a believer for any amount of time, you know what it is to live a life that doesn't feel all the way in sync. You see a version of yourself that you know that God created you to be. I know that I can walk in that obedience. I see who he wants me to be, and yet I continue to walk in this direction and be this person that I don't want to be, but I keep getting pulled in that direction. We know what it is to come to church on a Sunday, maybe have a good experience, be moved by the worship, which I was this morning, that was great. Be moved by the worship. Be moved by the sermon. Feel a closeness to Jesus. Feel like it was a sweet moment. And then Monday morning you wake up and you go crack skulls at work. Monday morning you wake up and you forget that yesterday was a sweet moment. Maybe it doesn't even make it to the next day. Maybe you had a sweet moment and then in the car the wife says the thing that you don't want her to say and then you're off to the races, right? And there goes that peace and harmony. You know what it is to wake up in the morning, to have a quiet time, to devote some time to God, to spend time in God's Word, to spend time in prayer, and on that very same day lose your mind with your co-workers or your kids or your spouse. We know what it is to have a habit or a hang-up that we say, I'm done with this. I'm not doing this anymore. This has owned my life and has displeased God and displeased me for too long. I'm drawing a line in the sand. I'm not doing this anymore. And then maybe we added in some controls and some accountability and we asked people to help us out. And we took this stand. I'm going to live as that person finally. And then a day or a week or a month later, we do the same thing. And we live as the version of ourselves that we don't like, that Jesus died to save us from. But for some reason, we continue to go back there. I think we all relate to what I find to be one of the most encouraging passages in Scripture in Romans chapter 7 when Paul writes, he says, the things that I want to do, I do not do. The things that I do not want to do, I do. So he's talking about this tension. I see the things that I want to do. I see the person who I want to become. I want to do those things, but for some reason I can't walk in that life totally. And then I see this person that I don't want to be. I don't want to make these choices, but I can't stop myself from making those choices. The things that I want to do, I do not do. The things that I do not want to do, I do. And then he finishes off at the end of chapter seven with this great verse. He says in declaration, oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? I've taken the time a couple of times in my life to read all the way through the book of Romans from start to finish, it's great for plane rides, I always stop at that verse and just kind of go, thank you God for Paul and for his experience of this too. Oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death? Because we know what it is to feel out of sync. The Bible calls it our new self and our old self. That our old self was crucified with Christ and it no longer lives and now Jesus lives in me and we're free to walk in this new self but there is this part of the world that continues to drag us down and make us less than whole. And it's this that James writes to address. He writes to the church, and I believe that the reason that James writes the letter is to help us pursue wholeness. James is written to help us pursue wholeness. That wholeness that is walking in the person that God created us to be, walking in the person that Jesus made it possible to be in the first place through his death, walking as that person, walking in that wholeness. He wants us to no longer live these disjointed, out of sync, incomplete lives. I think we'll see that's why he wrote the whole book. His goal is, some people call it maturity, others call it wholeness. He calls it perfection or completion. His goal is to help us get there. We understand that the only way there is through Christ, but we also understand that in this earth, on this side of eternity, that God asks us to obey. He asks us to walk and to follow. And in doing that, we will grow into mature versions of ourselves and to who God wants us to be. And so James writes to help us pursue that wholeness. And I think that's true because of this passage, chapter 1. If you have a Bible, you can open it. If you have one at home, open one there, and you should have the scriptures in your notes. But I'd love for you guys to be interacting with the Bible and with the chapter and see how it all ties together. But if someone were to ask me, point me to the synopsis verses on why James is even written. What is James trying to do? I would take you here. This is where I think he's trying to help us pursue wholeness. Chapter 1, verses 22 through 25 why James writes the book. Because he wants us to be doers who act. He wants us to persevere. He says we shouldn't be like, again, it's this imagery of two versions of ourselves. Don't be the person that looks at the law of God. He calls it the perfect law of liberty, which I love that phrase because God's word was not given to us to constrain us, but to offer us liberty. And that perfect liberty, that perfect law of liberty is Christ. He is the word of God. And he rewrote the law of the Old Testament to say, go and love others as I have loved you. Love God and love others. That's how Jesus rewrites and summarizes the law correctly. And he says that there's one version of us that we stare at the law, we see what it says, we hear it, we pay attention to sermons, maybe we listen to podcasts, we talk with friends about spiritual things, we have our ears open. We hear the word, but then we go and we don't do it. We live lives as those disjointed versions of ourselves. He says, when you do that, you're like somebody who looks at your face in the mirror and then walks away and you forget what you look like. He said, but if you'll gaze into the perfect law of liberty and persevere in doing it, then you will be blessed in your doing. And so I think the answer to our question, James says first, we say first that James writes to help us pursue holiness. So the question becomes, okay, James, how do I pursue holiness? Well, he tells us in these verses, we pursue wholeness by persevering in doing. We pursue wholeness, that complete version of ourselves, by persevering in doing. So that, I think, as a summary statement, begs two questions. Why does James feel it necessary to highlight persevering? Why does he put that out front? Why does he open up the book with it? It's the very first thing, once he starts writing. He says, hey guys, how you doing? And then he starts talking about how pain is going to happen. Why is it that James says right away, if you want to live as a whole self and you need to persevere, because he's communicating this idea of you're going to want to quit. It's going to be really hard. It's kind of a terrible selling point for James. So why does he start there? And then what does doing look like? What are we supposed to be doing? So as we answer those questions, the first question, why persevering? Well, we persevere because life requires it. We persevere because life requires it. James is aware of this reality. Like I said, it's how he starts his letter. Literally, verse 1, James, the servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes and the dispersion. Greetings, which means the Hebrew people who have dispersed outside of Israel. You also refer to it as a diaspora. Then, verse 2, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. He says, hey, how you doing? Haven't seen you in a while. Listen, life's going to stink like a lot, and when it does, just count it joy. Like, that's a terrible opener. James, why are you doing that? But he says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know the testing of your faith produces steadfastness perseverance instead of steadfastness. But he says, And plenty of people have pointed this out before, but just in case you missed it those times, he doesn't say, if you have trials. He doesn't say, hey, if life gets hard sometimes, not saying it well, but if it does, then hang in there. He says, no, no, when? When you face trials, plural, of all kinds, count them as joy. Why? Because they're going to bear out a perseverance and a steadfastness that's going to make us perfect and complete, not lacking anything. It's this idea of being a whole person again. So a couple things from that idea and why James introduces it as a theme that shows up throughout the book. We find it again in chapter 5 when he's talking about having patience and doing good. James knows that your faith is going to be challenged. He knows that perseverance is going to be required. He knows that there are going to be couples who struggle mightily with infertility, and all they want is to experience the joy of having their own child. He knows that. And he knows that when that happens, it's going to test their faith, and it's going to make them wonder if God is really good. James knows that we lose people too early. He knew that parents would mourn the loss of children. He knows that. And because he knows that, he knows that it's going to be really easy for those parents in that moment to cry out and say, God, that's not fair. Why'd you let that happen? And that those circumstances would conspire to shipwreck your faith. And so he says, hang in there. Have faith when it's hard. He knows that marriages will end and that diagnoses will come and that abuse will happen and that abandonment is a thing and that loneliness and depression are things that we walk through. He knows that we are going to lose loved ones before we want to. James knows that and he knows that when those things happen, we're going to want to walk away from our faith because it's going to seem like God isn't looking out for us anymore. And he's telling you when that happens and it seems like things are broken, hang on, persevere, continue in faith, Continue to obey. And when you do, it will make you perfect and complete, not lacking anything. This is the real reason for perseverance. Those of you whose faith has seen that test, those of you who have walked through a season in your life where something happened that was so hard that it made you doubt if God was really looking out for you, it made you doubt if God really cared about you, it made you question your faith, if you came out of that clinging on to your faith, you know it is all the stronger. I was actually talking with someone this last week about this idea, and we just kind of noted, I noted, I don't really trust someone's faith very much until it's been through tragedy. Until it's been hardened in that kiln, I just don't trust it yet. There is something to the people who have walked through tragedy and yet have this faith that they cling to that makes it unshakable. Isn't there? I think of somebody who's going to be an elder in the new year, Brad Gwynn. To my recollection, Brad has lost his sister and his brother and his mom. He's, I don't know, in his 60s, maybe late 50s. Sorry, Brad, I don't know. He's been through tragedy. His faith has been through the tests. But if you talk to him about Jesus and about why he believes, it's humbling. It's admirable. I can honestly tell you, I don't know if I want faith that strong because I don't want to walk through what he has to walk through to have it. But I want faith that strong. James knows, if you cling to your faith through trial, if you cling to Jesus and continue to obey him even when it's hard, that it will produce this completion in us. It will produce this firm, unshakable faith that cannot be shaken, that cannot be torn down. So he opens with, hey, hang in there. Because when you do, you're going to be stronger for it. So if we're supposed to hang in there, if we're supposed to continue to obey, even when it's hard, what is it that we're supposed to do? What does doing look like, right? What does God want from us? What does he expect from us? James is setting something up for the rest of the book to go through, like, here's some simple ways to obey. If you really want to please God, then here's a simple way to do it. If you really want to walk as that person, then these are the things that you need to be doing. These are the things that you need to be paying attention to. The question becomes, what does it look like to do? And I think he answers this question by saying, doing looks like helping the needy and pursuing holiness. Doing, obeying God, walking as a whole person, looks like helping the needy and pursuing holiness. Here's why I think this. Look at verse 27. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God. You want to do what God wants you to do? You want to live out your faith? You want to live as a whole person? Then here's what you need to do. Care for the widows and the orphan and their affliction and keep yourself unstained from the world. Help the needy and pursue holiness. That's a synopsis for everything that comes in the rest of the book. Everything that comes in the rest of the book is telling you, here's the heart conditions you need to help the needy. Here's why you should do that. Here's why it's near to God's heart. Everything that happens in the rest of the book is, here's what you do. If you want to pursue holiness, then here's how you do it. And this is a theme throughout the Bible. In Isaiah chapter one, we see the very same thing. He distills, Isaiah distills it all down. God says, you want to make me happy? Care for the widows and the orphans. Pursue me. That's what you need to do. Micah says that we should seek justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. It's all through Scripture. So if we want to persevere in doing, what does doing look like? Doing looks like helping the needy and pursuing holiness. And when I say helping the needy, I really do mean that because in that culture, you've heard me teach this before, but for those who may have missed it or have joined recently, when we see widows and orphans in the Bible, what we need to understand is that in that culture, that was the least of these. Widows were typically older women who had no way to make any money. So if their husband had passed away and now they're living as single women and they don't have families to care for them, there is very little they can do besides beg for sustenance every day. They are the most exposed and endangered and vulnerable in that culture. Likewise, orphans are the most exposed and vulnerable in that culture. There's no welfare. There's no orphanages. There's no Social security, there's no public medicine, there's none of that. They're just on their own. And God says, my people should have a heart to care for those who can't care for themselves. My people should have a heart to care for those in the greatest need. That's why at Grace we partner with Faith Ministry down in Mexico that builds homes for people who can't afford their own homes because they work in a Panasonic factory for less than a dollar a day. So we send money down there and build them homes and go down there in teams every year to love the least of these, to care for those who can't care for themselves. We heard earlier Mikey talk about Addis Jamari, who literally cares for orphans in Ethiopia. As girls age out of the orphanages and have no life skills and nothing to do with themselves, they take them into a home, teach them skills, send them back to school, and give them a path forward. And now they work with families on the front end of it so that when they have new babies and they don't know what to do and they're too poor to afford these babies, they give them materials and they give them training and they give them money so that they don't have to turn those kids into orphans but they can grow up in good solid homes. That's why we partner with them. That's why so many people at our church are all into a seat at the table downtown where it's a pay what you can restaurant so that you can go and have your meal and leave a token behind so that someone else can have a meal too if they can't afford it. Caring for the needy is near and dear to God's heart. And I would say to you this, if you're a believer and a part of your regular behavior and pattern isn't to care for those in need, then I don't think you're doing all that God has for you to do. I don't think it's possible to say, I'm walking in lockstep with Jesus. I'm being exactly who he created to me. I love him with my whole heart. I spend my days with him. I commune with God in prayer and yet still not help the needy. It's one of the first things that shows up in every teaching in scripture that if you love God, you'll help those who can't help themselves. Not only should we be about this as a church, we need to be about this as individuals. If you call yourself a Christian, if you claim God as your Father and Jesus as your Savior and that's not a part of your pattern, I would encourage you to find a way to make that a part of your pattern. There's a part of God that we find in doing that work. It's who His children are designed to be. And then He tells us that we should pursue holiness. Keep yourself unstained from this world. The word holy simply means different or other. In Scripture we're told to be holy as God is holy. And it's this command, it's this acknowledgement. Listen, you're different. You're different than the world. You're not better than the world. We're cut from the same cloth. You know Jesus, and the world doesn't yet know Jesus. That's the difference. You're not better than anybody, but you're different than them. And we're called to be different than the world. We're called to laugh at different jokes. We're called to post different political memes, if any at all, ever. We're called to argue differently in the public square. We're called to behave differently than them. We're called to love differently than the world. We're called to watch different things than what they watch. We're called to different standards than what they're called to. Personal holiness matters a lot. And James says, if you want to be a whole person, then persevere in doing. And what does doing look like? It looks like helping the needy and pursuing holiness. Now listen, we're holy because Jesus has made us holy. We're already there because Jesus has died for us and we are clothed in his righteousness. However, in this life, the Bible reminds us over and over again that we are to obey. And obeying takes our effort. So as far as it depends on us, we help the needy and we pursue holiness. And the rest of the book is about really unpacking that idea. What are the heart conditions that exist around helping those who can't help themselves? And what does it look like to live holy and unstained in this world? So I hope that that will serve as a good primer to get you ready for the rest of the book of James. Next week we come back with probably the easiest thing to do. It's why we're starting off with it, taming the tongue. And then we're going to move on to the rest of the book. I'm really looking forward to going through this book with you guys. I'm going to pray for us and then we will be dismissed. Father, you're good to us. My goodness. You're good to us and we're not good to you. You remain faithful to us when we are faithless. God, you watch us live our disjointed lives. And you're patient with us, and you're gentle, and you're loving. Father, I pray that as we go through this series, that everybody who hears it or preaches it, God would just have their heart enlivened to this idea of walking wholly with you. Of walking in lockstep with Jesus. Give us visions of actually being the people that you created us to be, of leaving behind our disjointed selves. Give us the honesty to identify where we're not obedient, and give us the courage to walk in the obedience that you show us. It's in your Son's name we pray these things. Amen.

Good morning, Grace. It's good to be here again with you in this way. We are in now the middle of a series called The Time of Kings. We're going through the books of 1 and 2 Kings, which is probably worth saying. I don't think I've mentioned this yet. When the book was written, when the books of 1 and 2 Kings were written, they were one big long book. But for the sake of the length of scrolls back in the day, they just cut it in half and call it 1 and 2 Kings. But more accurately, we are together as a church going through some of the stories in the book of Kings. This week, we arrive at what is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. I would argue this is one of the greatest stories in the Old Testament. This story has everything. I love it so much. This is the story this week of Elijah and his showdown with the 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. We see this story in 1 Kings chapter 18. So if you have a Bible there at home with you, please go ahead and open that up. I try to encourage you every week, open up your Bible, go through the story with me, interact with the text with me, look at the parts that I'm not able to cover or that I don't bring up, and get a more holistic view of the story than just the perspective that I'm giving you. In this story, we see, I think, one of the greatest figures in Scripture, the prophet Elijah. Elijah and Elisha are these tremendous prophets that we see in the book of Kings. They don't get their own book later in the Old Testament, so we don't often pay them as much attention, but they were remarkable figures. Elijah was so righteous that God didn't even want him to experience death. He sent down a chariot to pick him up and carry him to heaven before he could even die. Elijah is a remarkable figure, and this is kind of his big moment. In this moment, he's going to interact with a king named Ahab, and we need to understand who Ahab was and the background that they have at this showdown. So I hope that if you've never heard this story before, that you are delighted, that you love it, that it flings you further into Scripture and brings it to life for you. If you do know this story, I hope maybe today we'll see it in a different light than perhaps what we've looked at it in in the past. So Elijah comes on the scene in 1 Kings chapter 17. That's when we see him. He's interacting with a king named Ahab. Ahab shows up in Kings 16. And when Ahab shows up, the writer of Kings, the author of Kings, tells us a couple things about Ahab was more evil than all the kings that came before him. And that he, more than any other king, because of his faithlessness, provoked the Lord to anger. Ahab was the king of Israel, the northern tribes. We learned last week that Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, had so much pride that he refused to listen to wisdom. And because of this, the kingdom descended into civil war. And for the rest of the Old Testament, continues on that path with the northern kingdoms of Israel being led by one king and the southern kingdom of Judah being led by another. Ahab is a king of Israel, the northern kingdoms. Jeroboam, the guy that went to war with Rehoboam, built some temples to some false gods and made up his own religion for tax revenue, really, if you look at it, in the northern kingdom. And so Ahab is one of these kings in the northern kingdom. The southern kingdoms had a handful of good kings who obeyed God. We're going to learn about some of those in this series to come. The northern kingdom had no good kings. Every king was evil. Every king was apostate. They were all bad. Ahab was the worst. He provoked God to anger more than any other king because of his deeds. He married a lady named Jezebel who had her own religion of Asherah that she followed, and she had 400 prophets that she kept at her table. Ahab had 450 prophets of Baal that he kept at his table. So they are funding 850 prophets for these counterfeit religions. Because they're doing this, God speaks to his prophet Elijah, who goes to Ahab, and he tells Ahab, because of your sin, because of who you are, I'm going to bring a drought on this land, and it will not rain again until I give the word, Elijah says. Ahab, of course, is incensed. He's furious. He tries to kill Elijah. Elijah gets away, and he flees, and he wanders around in the wilderness for three years. From there, God says, Elijah, I want you to go to this place where there's a brook. So Elijah goes, and he drinks from the brook, and every day God sends ravens with bread and with meat to feed Elijah in the morning and in the evening. I think this is the first recorded place in history that we see Uber eats. So they bring him bread and meat every day, and then eventually the brook runs dry because of the drought, and he hides out with a widow and her son. The son dies. Elijah lays himself over the son and prays and brings the boy back to life. It's this remarkable, remarkable story. This whole time, Ahab is trying to hunt him down and kill him, but he can't find him. And so there's this drought happening. Everybody is mad at Ahab for allowing the drought to happen because it's happening under his rule. No one's growing any crops. The country is doing terribly. And in Ahab's view, it's Elijah's fault. Three years later, Elijah decides it's time to meet up with Ahab. So he meets up with an old prophet friend of his, a guy named Obadiah. Obadiah has a book at the end of the Old Testament in the Minor Prophets. And he tells Obadiah in this really interesting conversation, and honestly, you should go read it. It's before this. This conversation with Obadiah is in chapter 17 and then part of 18. You should read this conversation that Elijah has with Obadiah. I don't have time to jump into it this morning, but it really proves for us that when God asks us to do hard things, he's going to see us through in that difficult season. So he goes to Obadiah. He says, go tell Ahab that I want to come see him. And then eventually they meet up. And when they meet up, Ahab says, oh, you troubler of Israel, to Elijah. And Elijah says, that's not me, man. That's you. That's you. And as a matter of fact, we're going to settle this. I want you to go gather all 450 of your prophets of Baal. And I want you to gather the 400 prophets of Asherah. And I want you to meet me on Mount Carmel on this day. And we're going to assemble all of Israel. So that's the stage. They're on Mount Carmel. I had the opportunity when I went several years ago to Israel to go be on Mount Carmel and look around. In northern Israel, there is lush farmland that is a lot more green than you think it would be. And Mount Carmel, you're able to see all of that from there. And you can look across the way and see the Mount of Transfiguration for those that know your New Testament well. And it was kind of a surreal experience to be there knowing that all of these events that I'm about to tell you about took place on this small hill, really, in northern Israel. And so they assemble all of Israel. Everybody comes. The families come and they assemble on the mountain, around the mountain, at the top of the mountain. All the 450 prophets of Baal are there. Ahab is there. Elijah is there. And Elijah begins to address the crowd. And this is what Elijah says. I pick it up in verse 22. Then Elijah said to the people, I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord. So he says, I'm the only one left. I'm the only prophet standing. Now, it's important to note put no fire on it. They're in it. They are there. And he says, here's the deal. We're going to get two bulls. I'm going to give one. See how they've got 450 people and I've just got me? I'm going to give one to the 450, to the prophets of Baal, and I'm going to take one of the bulls. And then I want you guys, you go and you build an altar. You cut the bull into pieces and you put that bull on the altar. I'm going to go over here. I'm going to build my altar. I'm going to cut the bull into pieces and put it on my altar. And then here's what we're going to do. We're going to pray to our gods. I'm going to pray to God, the father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the people of Israel, the God of the people who are here. And you pray to your God. You pray to Baal. And whichever one sends fire down first to light these altars on fire and burn up these bulls, that's the God. All right, that's it. And then we're done. Everybody good? And everybody says, Ahab says, the prophets say, the people say, it is well spoken. Deal. We agree. They spit in their hands. They shook them. Back when you could do that. This is the showdown. So Elijah, kind of like the cat that swallowed the canary, he's like, listen, Baal, you guys, go ahead. Just go ahead, build your altar. I'm just going to chill out over here. You just, you go over there, you pick the bull you want, you'll cut it up, put it on the altar that you make, And then you get to praying. And I'll be over here, and I'm just going to chill out for a second. I picture Elijah getting one of those camping chairs and kind of folding it out and sitting it down. And then maybe cracking something open and sitting in the camping chair and just kind of chilling out watching. Going, good luck, suckers. And they get to it, man. Those prophets of Baal, they get to it. They start weeping and wailing, and the Bible says limping around the altar. They're doing this and that. And you've kind of seen probably some clips somewhere in your life, some pagan ceremonies where there's this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and crying out and dancing and chanting and whatever it is that they do. And they did this. Can you imagine the scene of 450 prophets crying out to their God who doesn't exist, trying to get him to bring fire from heaven, what they must have been doing, the show that they must have been putting on. Meanwhile, Elijah's just sitting over there watching them, right? It says they did this until noon. They did it all morning long for hours. They're just dancing and prancing and chanting and raving and ranting and weeping and wailing, and nothing is happening. And so Elijah decides to talk a little smack. I love this. I love this line in the Bible. I love that Elijah says this. The fact that this is included in Scripture tells me that there is space in God's kingdom for sarcastic jerks. And it just, man, it warms my heart. It makes me think there might be space in God's kingdom for people like me because this is what Elijah says to them. He says in verse 27, and at noon Elijah mocked them. Okay, so the Bible, I'm not making this up, the Bible's saying he is making fun of them. He said, cry aloud, for he is a God. Either he is musing or he is relieving himself, that's my favorite one. Surely he's there. Maybe he's musing. Maybe he's just messing with you. Maybe he's just up there just kind of waiting until you do something right. Maybe, now I don't know what's going on with Baal's constitution, but maybe he's got a little tummy ache. Maybe he's in the bathroom. I don't know how long it takes him in there, but he's a god, so it could be pretty serious. I'm not really sure. Maybe, I tell you what, maybe he's on a journey. Maybe he just went out of town. Maybe he ran to Asheville real quick. He's going to be right back. Just keep it up. He is making fun of them, man, and it is great. And after he makes fun of them, it says that they began to cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed as was their custom. So now they're ranting and raving and prancing and dancing and chanting and now they're screaming out and they're cutting themselves and they're stabbing themselves with lances and the blood is flowing all to appeal to this God that does not exist. And there's this great sentence in the Bible after all this happens, it says, but there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention. Isn't that a sobering sentence for what happens when we cry out to gods that don't exist? Isn't that a sobering response for what happens when we place our hope in a thing that doesn't deserve it? When we do that, eventually we're met with the response that no one listened, no one pays attention, no one is hearing what we are saying. And no one heard the prophets of Baal. There's no God there to hear them. They were wasting their time. They looked foolish and Elijah pointed it out. After they had done their thing, Elijah goes back over to his altar. Now the first thing he does is, he says, people of Israel, gather around. Come here. Come here. I want you to see this. Get in real tight. And he grabs 12 stones, and he makes an altar with those 12 stones. And he does that very intentionally. Whenever people from Israel see 12 stones, they are reminded of the altar that their forefather Joshua built when God in his goodness brought them across the Jordan River out of Egyptian oppression. The very first thing he did is build an altar of 12 stones as a sign and a symbol and remembrance of a God who is righteous and keeps his promise. And so Elijah, by building this altar with 12 stones, is telling them, do you remember this God? This God that brought you here? This God that gave you this land? Each stone represents a tribe of Israel, represents God's goodness. So he's doing this to make a point. Look, gather around. And he builds an altar with 12 stones. Then he takes the wood and he puts it on top of the altar so that there's something to burn. Then he takes the bull, he cuts it up, and he places the bull on top of the wood. Then he looks at the people and he says, go fill these barrels with water and come back and dump it on the altar. And he makes them do that three times until water is running down the altar, everything on it is soaked, and then there's a trench dug around the altar, and that is filled with water too. And then it's time for Elijah to cry out to his God to see if his God won't send some flames, because Baal hasn't done it yet. And rather than ranting or raving or dancing or chanting or cutting himself or making this big, huge scene. This is what Elijah Lord. Answer me that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back. I'm going to pause right there. Can you picture in your mind the juxtaposition of the two prophets, two sets of prophets, the prophets of Baal who were just carrying on and ranting and raving and causing this huge scene, 450 of them just messing around all day, just causing this huge stir and this huge scene all day, cutting themselves and being dramatic about it and just all this over-the-top flailing. And then for Elijah, when it comes time to appeal to his God, he simply gathers the people around and he prays quietly because he knows that his God can hear him. He knows his God doesn't have to shout out. He doesn't have to shout out in a certain way to get God to pay attention. He knows that he doesn't have to do a certain dance or a certain chant to get his God to pay attention. He knows that God hears all the minds of his head and his heart and his mouth. And so he starts to pray. And I don't even think he prayed to make sure that God could hear him. I think he prayed for the benefit of the people around him. And he prays that beautiful prayer. The Lord God of Israel. He appeals to him to send down fire. I love the juxtaposition of those two types of appeals. And when he finished, when he prayed God. The Lord, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the great I am from the burning bush that rescued us from Egypt, that delivered us into Israel, that gave us the ground that we're standing on, that Lord, he is God, not Baal. That's the story of the showdown between the prophet of God, Elijah, and the prophets of Baal. And I love that story. I love so much about it. Many of you know it and love it too. And as I approached it this week, I knew I was going to be preaching about it. I thought, goodness, I was kind of excited to sit down and begin to study and just kind of say, God, what are you going to show me this week? What's going to leap off the page this week? What point is going to come out of this? How would you have us apply this to our life? And as I read, I saw this verse at the beginning of the story that I intentionally skipped as I began today that suddenly reframed the entire story for me. I've read this story a dozen times, but for some reason I've never noticed this verse before. But as I noticed it this time, it reshaped the whole story for me, and I hope that it will reshape it for you. What I see here is that this story of the showdown between the prophet of God and the prophets of Baal, the story is bracketed by these two verses that are absolutely incredible. The second one, the take home, is what we just discovered, is the people going, you are the Lord. He is God. Repeating it, the Lord, he is God. Which in that moment is a confession. It's an admission. It's a repentance and an apology. Yes, the Lord is God. Baal is not. But I want you to see this verse at the beginning of the story, verse 21, that when I read it, it reshaped for me the entire way I think about this story. Now, look at what Elijah says to them. I told you that he gathered them up on the mountain. I told you that he got everyone around him and he laid out the rules of the game. But before he laid out the rules of the game, look at what he says. This is amazing to me. Verse 21, and Elijah came near to all the people and said, You say, listen, listen Israel. And this is a depiction of what a prophet is supposed to do. When we think of a prophet, we tend to think of people who tell the future and mystical in some way. But this is what a prophet does. A prophet says hard things to a hardened people. And he looked at Israel and he says, how long are you going to keep straddling the fence between God and Baal? How long are you going to embrace Baal when that works for you and embrace God when that works for you? How much longer will you insist on doing this? And you get the idea that these people of Israel kind of worshipped whatever God was going to serve them best in the moment. That around some people they feared the Lord and around some people they honored Baal. And in some places they put on these masks and these clothes and other places they put on these masks and these clothes. Neither of their following was sincere. None of their faith was authentic and deep and meaningful. They were just putting on whichever God was good for them in the moment. They weren't committed to either. And Elijah says, enough of this. How long will you continue to straddle the fence? How long will you continue to limp along between two opinions? Let's settle this today. And if Baal brings fire from heaven, then great, we're going to worship Baal. But man, if God brings fire from heaven, then knock it off with the Baal stuff and let's follow God. Do you realize that that's the reason for the whole showdown? Do you realize that the whole reason that Elijah did this, that he comes out of hiding, that he goes to Ahab, that he says, assemble your prophets, do it on Mount Carmel, that all this fanfare, that he tells the people of Israel, come and be here, that he tells them, gather around me as I pray. Do you understand that the entire exercise was done not because Elijah had something with Ahab, not for Elijah to defeat Ahab, not for Elijah to overcome the prophets, but for the Lord to win back the hearts of his people. That was the goal. And he starts off the whole day by saying, how long are you going to straddle the fence, guys? How long are you going to pretend to follow God sometimes and pretend to follow Baal other times? Let's just settle this right now. And if God proves that he is God, then let's knock it off with the Baal stuff. And then the showdown happens. And at the end, we see their wonderful response. The Lord, Yahweh, He is God. And they worship Him alone. The whole point of the showdown was for God to win back the hearts of his people. And as I read this this week, it was an absolute punch in the gut to read that sentence, how long will you go limping between two opinions? Because how many of us can relate to that? How many of us listening do that? How many of you listening? Listen, it's just you in your living room, okay? And the people around you already know if this is true of you or not. So you're the only one you're trying to fool. How many of you in your living room have a face that you put on at church and a face that you put on at work? How many of us, me included, have a face that we put on around church people and a face that we put on around comfortable friends? How many of us straddle the line between these two opinions that in work and in our profession, we go out and we kill it and we crush it and we kill and we eat and that's great. And we act a certain way with certain morals and a certain moral compass there and then when we get around church people we have a different moral compass here. How many of us straddle the line between standards that we have for ourselves and then things that we accuse other people of? A lot of us, a lot of us, we're being honest, we're going to be super critical of what so and so over here does and not have any grace for them while we forgive the same sin in ourself over and over again. How many of us, listen, I'm sorry, this is so personal, how many of us teach our children things that we don't even do? How often in your life have you said what you believe with your mouth and then shown what you really believe with your actions? This kicked me right in the teeth this week. All of us, at some point, go limping along, straddling the line between two opinions, between two versions of ourselves. And I believe that this showdown wasn't just for the people of Israel, but that it's here in 1 Kings 18 to echo through the centuries for us today so that it would get our attention and that when Elijah looks at Israel and says, how long will you go limping between two opinions? He's looking dead at you, asking you the same question. How long are you going to straddle the fence, man? How much further is this hypocrisy going to go? Because I thought about this for myself this week. These two opinions that war within our hearts, they manifest themselves in different ways, right? The standards that we have for ourselves versus for other people, the face that we put on here versus there. They're going to manifest themselves in different ways, but at the heart of it, the difference of opinion that's happening is really this war between two ideas. And I think we claim one of these ideas every day. It's what we want to claim, what we know we should claim, what the people of Israel claim, which is the Lord, He is God. And then there's what happens in our heart, which is He may be God, but I'm the Lord. Those are the two opinions. The Lord, He is God. He is good. He is the Alpha and the omega. He is the Lord of my life. I will follow him. This is the fundamental confession of salvation, is that the Lord is God and that I will follow him. I am submitted to his leadership in my life. And then the idea that wars with that, which is the Lord may be God, or he may be God, but I'm the Lord. Yeah, he's God, and I believe in him, for sure. But today, I'm doing what Nate wants. Today, Nate's calling the shots. Today, Nate decides what's good and what's not. He's God. Absolutely, he's God. I believe he's God. But today, I call the shots. These are the opinions that war in each of our hearts. The Lord, he is God. He is good. I trust him. I will follow him. I will live according to him. I will submit to him. And then, yeah, the Lord, he's God. But today I'm the Lord. Today I'm doing what I think is right. And I think that this showdown happened not just to show us that God was superior to Baal, not just to wake up the hearts of his people in Israel and ask them, when are you going to draw the line? How long will you limp between these two opinions? But I think the reason this is here is to look at us thousands of years later and have us ask the question of ourselves, how long will I straddle the line between two opinions? How many more days will I get up and will I say, yeah, he's God, but today I'm Lord? How many more times are we going to do that? I think being a Christian is to make that claim that he is the Lord, he is God. God is the Lord of my life. And every day it's a battle to reclaim that and say, yeah, he's God, but I'm the Lord. And I wanted to preach this this morning and really be forceful with it so that we might ask, in all honesty and transparency, how long will I straddle the line between these two opinions? How many more days will I wake up and say, yeah, he's God, but I'm the Lord? And so I thought I would leave you with this simple question. What are you going to need in your life to make the confession that the Israelites made and make it every day? Will this showdown be enough? Will 1 Kings 18 be enough? Will what Elijah did thousands of years ago when once and for all God is the God of gods and it's settled and it's done, stop limping between two opinions, knock it off with the Baal stuff and follow God. It was enough for the people of Israel. Will it be enough for you? Or will you require your own showdown? I can only speak for me and say that I hope it's enough for me. I have no interest in a showdown with God. I hope that for many of us listening, we will quit straddling the line. We will quit confessing that he is God, but then believing that we are Lord. And that we will walk in such a way that with both our mouth and our heart and our actions, we will declare every day, the Lord, He is God. Let's pray. Father, Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You are God. You are good. You sent your son so that we might call you Lord. You sent your son to invite us in. And yet so many of us in so many ways, seen and unseen, felt and unfelt, we often reclaim that lordship. I, more than anyone, limp along between two opinions. Father, would you help those of us who are limping? Those of us who are wandering, would you draw us back? God, would you let this showdown be enough so that we don't require our own? Lord, let us feel even this morning your warmth, your embrace, your love, your approval, your desire for us. Let us declare from this day forward that you are the Lord and that you are God. In Jesus' name, amen.