Sermons tagged with Salvation

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.

Merry Christmas everybody! My name is Fort and I'm a junior partner at Grace. Now come and join me. This is going to be the best Christmas Eve service ever! I can't wait! I know because I've been here at Grace for my whole life. Thanks for watching. Merry Christmas, everybody. Bye. Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope that you'll stand up and join us as we sing. guitar solo joyful and try Oh, come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of angels Oh, come let us adore Him Oh, come let us adore Him Oh Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God all, oh Oh, come let us adore Him. Oh, come let us adore Him. Christ the Lord. Every nation will bow down before You. Every tongue will confess You are God. We worship and adore you. We worship and adore. this happy morning Oh oh Let's birth. Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. In a lonely manger, the humble Christ was born. And God sent a salvation, the blessed Christmas is born. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on new content That Jesus Christ is born. Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. That Jesus Christ is born. is Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise Join the triumph of the skies With angelic hosts proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem Hark the herald angels sing is Lord in time behold him come offspring of a virgin's womb veiled in flesh the Godhead see hail incarnate deity pleased as man with men to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel Jesus But him, born Prince of Peace, hail the song of righteousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. While he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth, Bye. to the newborn king. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn king. The first Noel the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. In fields where they lay keeping their sheep. On a cold winter's night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. They looked up and saw a star Shining in the east beyond them far Into the earth it gave great light and so it continued both day and night. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the king of israel is to our heavenly Lord that hath made heaven and earth of naught and with his blood mankind has brought Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place. While Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their hometown to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. To Bethlehem, the town of David. Because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary. He was pledged to be married to him. And was expecting a child. While they were there, the time out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths. Suddenly a great companion of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God, saying, Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God in the highest heavens and on His mother Mary laid down his sweet head. The wise men were led. Come see the baby and worship him. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel, Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world Come and adore Him On bended knee He came to ransom Someone like me What could I offer? What could I bring? Come and adore him. King of kings, his name is wonderful. Counselor, mighty God. Prince of peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world. And the greatness of His reign will never end. Let there be peace on earth and all good will to men. Come, us worship him. Wonderful counselor. Mighty God. Prince of peace. Everlasting father. Emmanuel. Holy one. Son of God, Savior of the world. His name is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. You're the Holy One, Son of God, isn't a store-bought gift under the tree that we are waiting to open. We've been waiting. Waiting for something much more important. For hope to rise up. For love to embrace. For peace to invade. For joy to bubble up. In the midst of our waiting and longing, the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament tells us, For unto us a child is born, a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. When we see it like this, we should remember that in our turbulent world, the government is on his shoulders. For he is our love, our highest governing power. And so right now, we light the central Christ candle because we have found our hope. We have discovered our love. We have realized our joy. We have encountered our peace. Today we celebrate joy to the world. The Lord is come. Choose today to step out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. And as we light this final candle, we ask you, light of the world, to light a fire within us, to burn this a part of your Christmas Eve. You know, earlier, the kids did a great job of reading the traditional Christmas story, and that's a great story. That's the big story. That's the one that we all care about on Christmas. That's what Christmas is all about, is the gift of God's Son, Jesus, the greatest gift that was ever given. But one of the things I like about that story, as we retell it over the years, is that we are actually in the habit of placing people in that story who were never a part of that story to begin with. We see this in our nativity scenes all over the place. If you go through your house or your mom's house or the front lawns of churches, we see these nativity scenes. And in those scenes, we see, of course, baby Jesus. We see Mary and Martha or Mary and Joseph, his parents. And then we see angels and we see shepherds. There's usually a donkey involved, and inevitably there's three wise men, right? And those nativities in symbol tell the story of Christmas. And it's always been interesting to me that we place the wise men at the manger of Jesus as part of the Christmas story, when in all actuality, they had nothing to do with Christmas. Not only are they not a part of the Christmas story, but they never even saw Jesus on a Christmas, let alone the first Christmas. And this is something that's always been interesting to me. It's kind of one of those little Bible facts that I've always thought was kind of neat, but I wasn't sure that it was very significant. But this year, as I was thinking about the Christmas message and rereading the Christmas story, I was reminded of this fact that we always place the wise men at Christmas, even though they weren't even a part of Christmas. And I began to reflect on that, and it became evident to me that there is something in the Christmas experience of the wise men that speaks absolutely to us and is representative of us. And so I thought we would take this Christmas Eve service, this Christmas Eve message, and focus on what Christmas meant to those wise men. I would almost say those three wise men, but we don't even know that that's true. We just traditionally say that there was three wise men because there was three gifts, but there could have been any number of wise men who came from the East. So let's look at the story of these men who came to fall on their face and worship Jesus. The only place we see the wise men is in Matthew chapter 2. So let's look at the beginning of this chapter when we miss all the time. Something that just tradition just glosses over. It's right there in the passage. It says, now after Jesus was born, this was years after Jesus was born, they come to Herod and they're looking for him, which means they were journeying to see him for a while. And it also tells us that unlike our nativity scenes reflect, they weren't at Christmas. And it's interesting to me that they weren't a part of Christmas, but that they came in later to find Jesus because for them, Christmas invited them to Jesus. They weren't a part of the first Christmas, so they didn't get to participate in seeing the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. No, they weren't participants in the first Christmas. Rather, Christmas for them was an invitation to Jesus. From the east, from very far off, from Iraq, Iran, India, China, somewhere in that region, Christmas, when Jesus was born and the guiding star over Bethlehem appeared, Christmas was an invitation to the wise men to come and find Jesus. They weren't there, but they were invited by Christmas, and in that way they represent all of us. And that way they represent all of who we are. I see the wise men now as representative of the rest of the world coming to Christ after he was born. We couldn't be there for the birth. We couldn't be there to celebrate the first Christmas. But the same invitation that the wise men received is the one that we are offered, an invitation to come and find Jesus. And I think in this story, they represent all of us. All of us who couldn't be there at that very first Christmas. All of us for whom Christmas is an invitation to our Savior to come and to find Him. And so if that's true, if the wise men in the Bible represent us, and Christmas is an invitation to us that they received as well, then what can we learn from their pursuit of Christ? Well, one of the first things we see based on clues in Scripture is that they searched for Jesus for nearly two years. We see that once they got there that King Herod was an evil king and he was afraid that Jesus would be the king of the Jews and take his throne away from him. So he had all the firstborns, all the sons ages three and younger killed in Israel. Which means that their journey was at least two years long before they found Jesus. Do you understand that that means the wise men searched for Jesus for two full years at minimum before they really experienced him? Before they really were able to worship him? Before they really were able to find him? I wonder how arduous that journey was. I wonder how many times they wanted to quit. I wonder how many nights the storms that came blocked out the light that was guiding them. I wonder how many conversations they had about turning around and going home. I wonder how many people called them ridiculous for their pursuit. I wonder how long it took them to work up the courage to leave and to go. Two years is a long time to search for one thing. But I love that they had to do that. I love that they searched for Jesus for two years before they experienced him. Because that search and the arduous nature of it and the necessary persistence of it is so true to life. Some of us experience Jesus like the shepherds did that night in the meadows. In the Christmas story that the children read, we're reminded that the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night. And then the angels appeared in the sky and sang to them and ushered them over to the manger so they could see this baby Savior. And for some of us, our experience with Jesus is like that. We're minding our business, tending our flocks in the fields, and angels appear to us and they sing from on high and we're whisked into the presence of Jesus and we experience it right there in that moment. And some of us have stories like that where our experience of Jesus and our understanding of him and being swept away by him was just instantaneous. But for many of us, our stories with Jesus are a lot more like the wise men. We had to search, and we had to persist, and we had to overcome discouragement. And there were times when the storms of life might block out the light that is guiding us. There may have been times where we have wanted to quit. There may be times when we wanted to walk away. We may have had discussions with those around us about just going home and saying, this is too difficult. The truth of it is, we are told in Scripture to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We see in Scripture that there is this process where we grow closer to Jesus and that sometimes finding him is difficult. It's not that he's not there. It's not that he hides himself from us, but it's just more true to life that the search for Jesus is arduous, that it requires persistence. And it also makes me wonder about these men. How did they know to follow that light? How did they know that that star in the sky right there, that's the one, and we're going to follow that for two years. The only answer I can come up with is that to recognize the star, they had to listen to the voice of God that was in their lives. It's interesting to me that Herod and the men and women in his court could see the same star that the wise men saw. But when the wise men know that that was the star and the people in Herod's court didn't? I think the only difference is that the wise men were listening to the voice of God. I believe that Scripture teaches us that God has written himself on our souls. That our Creator God breathed in us spirit. He breathed into us the breath of life. And he gave us souls that yearn for him. He gave us souls that pine for him. He gave us souls that year. They listened to that yearning. And so they had the faith to follow the guiding light. And I'm comforted by the fact that that same yearning is written on our souls. Our souls were designed and intended to be united with Christ. Our souls yearn to be united with our Savior. And because of that, God always provides guiding lights. God always provides a flicker of hope. He always maintains a course of direction. He always beckons to us. He always invites. He never shuts the door. He never gets stamped out. His invitation never goes bad. He always shows us guiding light, sometimes in stars, sometimes in a flicker, sometimes in a pillar of fire, sometimes in a voice in our ear. But make no mistake about it, God? What did the wise men do when their journey was done and they're experiencing Jesus? Well, look at what offered Him themselves and they offered him their treasures. They immediately, haphazardly, without hesitation, offered themselves and their treasures to this baby Christ. And it wasn't, it's important to note, it wasn't out of the sense of ought. It wasn't out of obligation. It wasn't, well, I guess this is what we need to do now. It wasn't even out of a desire to placate this deity or to get God on their side or to endear Jesus to them. It wasn't for any of those things. It was this spontaneous and natural response to fall on their face and worship the creator of their soul and to rejoice that they had been united with their Savior and to offer everything that they were and everything that they had. That's the natural response when we encounter our Savior. I believe that so ardently that I would even say this. If we feel like we've experienced Jesus and our first inclination in that moment isn't to fall on our face and worship his majesty, isn't to be overwhelmed by his goodness and to celebrate his kindness, if our first response isn't to fall on our face and worship him and offer all that we have and all that we are, then we haven't yet fully experienced him. Maybe we have a notion of who he is. Maybe we have an idea or we've heard a teaching or we've seen a glimpse and our soul has lurched and responded. But if it's not this full, submissive worship, then we haven't yet experienced who Jesus is, and our search continues, and we have to keep looking for him. But I think it's interesting that we exist in this culture that ebbs and flows and is progressive and is conservative and cares about Christian values over here and over here, not so much, and sometimes it's hard to tell what those Christian values are, and we all experience this culture in different ways. But amidst all the changes in our culture over the years, Christmas stands as this guiding light every year. Every December, our culture stops and we focus on Christmas. It starts as soon as Halloween is done. Things get swept aside and we throw up the Christmas decorations and we start to decorate our house and we start to do all the things and we look forward to celebrating the holiday and Christmas music started in my house very early this year because I think 2020 needs a little extra Christmas. But if we'll sweep all the extra things away, what we see is that we live in this culture that has exalted Christmas, that God has strategically placed in the middle of our joint attention as this guiding light, as this beacon calling our souls home to Jesus. And what we have in Christmas is the same invitation that was offered to the wise men. We can't participate in the first Christmas. It's already happened, but in that light, in that star, in that very first Christmas was an invitation to come to their Savior. And the same invitation that was offered to the wise men is offered to you. It's offered to you right now, the opportunity to come and sit at the feet for whom your soul was created to desire. Now some of you have been looking forward to this all year. Some of you make it a habit to regularly sit and worship at the foot of your Savior. Some of you have been looking forward to Christmas because it allows you to celebrate the one that created you. It allows you to celebrate the one that saves you and who conquers death for you. It allows you to celebrate the one who loves you. You are already like the wise men. You have made your journey and you are experiencing Jesus and you are sitting at his feet and worshiping. And for you, I hope that this service is only a help in doing that. For others, we've tasted and we've seen. We've experienced Christ. Maybe even got glimpses of who He is. Maybe felt His warmth from time to time, but for one reason or another we've wandered off. And maybe we're a little bit further away from Him at the end of this year than we have been in previous years. Maybe we haven't paid attention to that light in a while, even as it beckons us back. My hope and prayer is that this Christmas you'll hear that invitation anew. And you'll turn and you'll take a step back towards your Savior. And you'll begin that search again. Or maybe we've never begun our search. Maybe we're like Herod in his court. And the light is there. The invitation has been extended. But we haven't been listening. So we don't hear it and we don't heed it. My prayer is that this Christmas would be the first time that you open your eyes to the beckoning of God. That you would listen to Him calling to your soul. That you would acknowledge that He is the one who created it. And that you would begin your journey towards Christ and experiencing Him. The great news is, if we seek him, we are promised that we will find him. We are told that if we ask, we will receive. That if we seek, we will find. That if we knock, the door will be opened to us. That's Jesus himself speaking to you. So my prayer this year for all of us listening is that we would heed the invitation of Christmas to come to our Savior. That this year we would take a step further in our journey. That we would take a step closer to Christ. And that all of you, whether it's right now in the service, whether it's this month, whether it's in months to come or years to come, but that all of you within the sound of my voice would have a moment where you fall at the feet of Jesus and you offer all that you are and all that you have and you worship him because you are experiencing your Savior. I hope that you know that Christmas is an invitation to do that. In just a few minutes, our great children's pastor, Erin Winston, is going to come with her family, and they're going to light the Christ candle to close out Advent. And when that flame lights on the wick, I hope that you will look at that and you will see that as God's guiding light. That you will see that as his invitation that he offered and extended to the wise men that he is extending to you in this moment to come and to be a part of Christmas and to come and to find your Savior and to know him and to fall down and worship him. I hope that you'll accept the invitation of Christmas this year. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for always beckoning to us. Thank you for always inviting us, for always calling for us, for never giving up on us, even when we give up on you. May we, God, all who are listening, accept the invitation that you extend through the birth of your son in Christmas. May we be guided by your light. May we have the privilege of experiencing Christ. And may we be so overwhelmed by him when we find him that we fall on our feet and we worship. Father, I pray that through song and through reflection and through communion to come in this service that the rest of our time together would be a time where we sit at your feet and we worship with grateful hearts and spirits at the miracle of the invitation of Christmas. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the greatest gift that's ever been given. It's in that gift's name we pray. Amen. are brightly shining, it is the breaks a new and glorious dawn. Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices. O night divine, O night when Christ was born. O night, O night Oh truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of praise in grateful chorus raise we Let all within us praise his holy name Christ is the Lord O praise his name forever Oh is proclaim fall on your knees oh hear the angel voices When Christ was born O Holy Night O Night Divine If you have been around Grace Raleigh on Christmas Eve in the past, you know that communion is a very special part of our evening. And we wanted this year to be no different. So we're going to give you the opportunity to participate in communion at home, giving us the opportunity as a body of believers to come together in fellowship and in communion. And so if you joined us and picked up a participation bag over the last week, you received in your participation package this cute little cup. This is what we will be using during communion. If, however, you were unable to pick up a participation package or you're joining us from somewhere, a different state maybe, and don't have access, then we ask that you take a journey into your kitchen and find some juice or some wine or some bread and then come back and join us. And while you're doing that, we will walk through a little tutorial on how to best utilize these cute little cups. So first of all on our cute cups there is a pointed side and if you bend it upward you will notice that there is a piece of aluminum foil and a piece of cellophane. The first thing that we want to do is take the piece of cellophane off. Underneath there, you will find your wafer or your bread, which we will use later. The next step is to then take your edge and to pull it back ever so slowly. And I caution you to do it slowly because if you just rip it off, you're liable to baptize the person sitting next to you or end up with a beautiful grape juice stain on your pretty carpet. So ever so slowly, pull back on the aluminum foil and you will reveal the juice that we will use in communion. And so now, I hope that those who have gone to the kitchen have returned. You have had the opportunity to open your elements. And now I'd like to prepare our hearts for this moment of communion by reading a piece of scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23 through 26. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is the body of Christ broken for you. Take and eat. The blood of Christ shed for you. Take and drink. And now I'd like to take the opportunity to pray for us. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for moments like this when we have the opportunity to remember who you are and the sacrifices that you gave for us. Thank you also, Lord, that you give us the opportunity to come together as a body of believers. Even though we are separated and in our homes, we still feel that communion with you and with each other. And thank you, Lord, most of all, for loving us so much that you sent us your son on this very, very special night. And Lord, we love you. And it's in your son's most holy name that we pray. Amen. And now I would like to invite my family to join me on stage as we light the Advent candle. John 1, 1 through 5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Tonight we light the final candle of Advent, the Christ candle. This candle represents the light of life. It is the same light that we began talking about on that first Sunday of Advent when we spoke of this light crashing into the darkness of the world with the arrival of Jesus. It is his arrival, it is this precious child and the promised king that invites us to seek him, to follow him, and to become people who walk in and share his light. So therefore, go into the world with great joy, love, hope, and peace, knowing that he is with you on and go ahead and light them. Now, normally the worship team would sing Silent Night, but this year, being so strange, I thought it was fitting to show what it was like singing Silent Night last year. So here's some footage of Grace singing Silent Night in 2019, and we hope that in 2021, we can all be together again. Merry Christmas. All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin, mother and child Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar. Heavenly hosts sing alleluia. All sing hallelujah. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love's pure light radiant peace from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord Merry Christmas, everyone. Heavenly Father, this has been a difficult year, a year fraught with challenges, hardships, isolation, tension, anger, and uncertainty. We know, Father, that you have seen your church and your people through more trying times, but for us, this year was hard. It was unlike any we've known. Yet in your word, you tell us to behold, for you are doing a new thing. You tell us that you make paths through the wilderness and streams in the desert. So even though at first glance it seems this year is one defined by pain and uncertainty, even though it may feel like we've been left alone to wander, God, we know that you are doing new things. You've done new things in the families of grace, allowing us to welcome new blessings into our homes. You've enabled couples to experience the life-giving fullness of holding their child for the first time. You've made it possible for children to feel the sense of privilege and responsibility that comes with being an older brother or sister. We see new things as this dark year has been brightened by announcements of children yet to come and blessings yet to experience. Even in a season of profound isolation, you've orchestrated the lives of those you love for our pleasure and your glory as parents saw the personification of years of prayers in the marriages you formed this year. We saw baptisms to celebrate and new families to welcome and small groups that tenaciously persisted. We do not deny that this year was trying and even for some of us, marked by loss. But we also acknowledge in that loss the years of profound gratitude for the time shared with those we love so much. More than that, we know that Christmas carries with it a promise that we will see them again. As this unique year comes to a close, we are more certain than ever of your presence and your goodness, bringing us together in socially distant circles and parking lots and driveways and backyards and drive-by birthday parties. Father, you've brushed away the fog of pain and uncertainty with moments of laughter and joy. We remember you on our soccer fields and baseball fields and Zoom calls and family outings and see you in the blessing of soul-warming friendships. After all that, we say thank you to our good Father. Thank you for the blessings in the midst of our struggles. Thank you for always making new paths for your children. Thank you for 2020 and all the new things it held and the future hope it has preserved. Amen. you

Good to see everybody. Thank you guys for that. As is often the case these days, when it's time for me to preach, I don't want to. I just want to keep singing. It's so good to get to sing with my church family and to look and see everyone praising. What a blessing that is. I'm actually going to invite you guys back into prayer as I start the sermon this week. I don't know if you guys know this. Tuesday is kind of a big deal for us in this country, and it would probably be wise for churches to pray over it. So join me in doing that. Father, Tuesday is the election, and this is, you know, one of the more contentious ones that we have ever experienced. It is more polarizing and divisive and filled with vitriol than any that I am aware of previously. So Father, I just pray that you'd be with us. Pray that you'd be in the process. May your hand be all over what happens on Tuesday and very likely, Father, in the weeks following. Would we see you in the nooks and crannies and the polling locations in the districts of this election and the results of it. And Father, more than anything, I pray that your people would be peacemakers in the wake of it. I pray that your people would be unifiers in the wake of it. That we wouldn't have a heart to be right. We wouldn't have a heart to gloat or to complain. Or even have a heart towards doomsday scenarios. But that God, your children would seek to make the peace that you have won. Help us to do that no matter what happens on Tuesday. It's in your son's name we pray, and we're able to do that. Amen. All right, this is the third part in our series called James. I take great pride in my creative series titles, and so this one is James. Last week, Kyle carried the torch exceptionally well in talking about taming the tongue. Take it easy, it wasn't that good. It was fine. I assigned that to him because he is better at that than I am. It was less hypocritical coming from Kyle than me, if you know me well. So I'm very glad about that. I would also say just as a general statement so you guys know that it's a big value for me and for the elders and for Grace to have different voices up here speaking into your lives. So we will always look for opportunities for people besides me to continue to share and offer you their perspective, because I think we benefit from that. Scripture tells us that where there is many counselors, that there is wisdom and wise choices. So I think that that's a good thing. This week, we are jumping back into James chapter 2 to one of, some people call it controversial, though I don't really think that it is. It is confusing. A cursory glance at the passage, James 2 verses 14 through 26 is where we're going to be. If you're watching at home today, thank you so much for doing that. I don't blame you on this rainy morning, but I hope everybody will grab a Bible and interact with the text as we move through it, because we're going to go through that whole passage today. Just a cursory glance of the passage, it renders it a little bit confusing, I think, because as you move through the whole of Scripture, particularly the New Testament, the New Testament writers are very careful to explain that salvation comes through faith. Paul says it most pointedly confess with our mouth and believe with our heart that Jesus is Lord, then we will enter into the kingdom. Jesus beckons us to believe in him and to follow him. So we see over and over again through Scripture the miracle and the mystery of the gospel, which is salvation is offered to you free of merit, free of works, completely by faith. It is the greatest gift that could ever be given. God sent his son to die on the cross for you, for everyone, for the sins that you have committed and for the sins that he knows that you will commit. He died for those so that you might be reunited with his Father, with the Father, and with him, and with the Spirit for all of eternity. God loves you so much that he came after your soul by sending his Son to die on the cross for you. And if we place our faith in that death, then Scripture teaches us that we're going to heaven. Scripture teaches us that we will spend eternity in bliss with God. Scripture teaches us that because of that, we don't have to fear death. Scripture teaches us that because of that, we're a new creature. We're no longer a slave to sin as the old creature was. And so all through the Bible, we see salvation by faith. And then we get to James here at the end of the Bible. At the end of the Bible, this peculiar passage, James says, yeah, you show me your faith, I'll show you my works. You show me your faith without works and I'll show you a faith that's dead. As a matter of fact, let me show you how Abraham proved his faith by his works. And at a cursory glance, it seems like James is disagreeing with the rest of Scripture. The rest of Scripture is like, I'm good, I'm good, I have faith, I believe. And then James says, yeah, but if you believe you ought to do some stuff. And if you don't do some stuff, then you may not believe. Actually, James is more pointed than that. Remember we said that this was a well-crafted punch in the gut, this book was? James just says if you don't do some stuff, then you don't believe. It's not real. It's not sincere. And so even though it can seem a little bit contradictory, even though it can be challenging, I don't think it's confusing. I think it is crystal clear. So I want to walk us through James chapter 2 this morning and help us understand this passage and let us be appropriately challenged and worried by this passage because it's a tough one. This is what James writes. We'll start off with the first half of it. James 2, verses 14 through 18. So James shares this pretty stark, blunt reality. You can say all day long that you have faith. You can give a mental assent and a lip service to faith. Do you think that Jesus is the Son of God? Yes. But what James says is unless actions follow that, it's not sincere. We saw in chapter 1 that one of the things that James says about true religion, the thing that James says about true religion, is that true religion visits the widows and the orphans in their affliction and remains unstained from the world. So what he's saying is, true religion, people who truly have a genuine faith, will care for the poor and the needy. They will care to be a voice to the voiceless. And in continuing to pull that thread here in chapter two, he basically says, you can't call yourself a believer. You can't say that you have a genuine saving faith if you don't help someone who is in need. If someone comes to you and they say, I'm wet and I'm cold and I need a jacket and I live, I'm homeless and I'm in need. And we say, in our double-layered North Face jackets, I will pray for you. Be warm and filled. I hope you find good food. There's a place downtown called Seat at the Table. You should figure out a way to get there. It's great. And then we leave. James is saying, you don't care for the poor and the needy. You just like to say that you do. You're like me this morning. I was watching a woman get out of her car with a baby, and I watched her do it for like 10 minutes. And at the last second, I was like, you want me to come get you an umbrella? And she said, I mean, I'm good by now. And then she walked in. Like, if I really wanted, if I really cared about her, I would have walked out there with an umbrella. I just cared for the perception that I cared, right? What we do shows what we believe. It actually evidences that. So what James is saying here, and it's important not to miss this, is that works are an unavoidable result of a genuine faith. Works, good works, and we're going to talk about what those are, are an unavoidable result of a genuine faith. It is a natural consequence. If you have a genuine, believing, saving faith, then God will work in your heart to change you. There's a verse in Matthew that says, if you delight yourselves in the laws of the Lord, then he will give you the desires of your heart. And I've always loved that verse because it makes it seem like if I simply just love the Bible, then God will give me all the stuff that I want. I'm going to be a billionaire in no time. But what it means is when we reflect on God's word and we delight ourselves in it, we grow more like the principles in it. We grow more like God in character. And slowly, over time, because we delight in His Word, our heart beats for the same things that God's heart beats for. Our hearts beat with God. This is how the Spirit gets in our life and changes us. And the things that we want slowly become the things that He wants. The things that He delights in are the things that we delight in. And we're told in Romans that when we are saved, when we become a believer, when we have a true saving faith, that the old self, the old version of ourself that was a slave to sin, is buried with Christ and that this new self is resurrected with him on Easter. That's why baptism is a symbol of this rebirth. We go under the water. That's our old self being cast off and we rise as our new selves that God has radically and fundamentally changed. This new self has a Holy Spirit that's given to us as a down payment on our salvation, who speaks into us, who convicts us when we're going wrong, who encourages us when we're doing right. And so everything in Scripture points to the unavoidable reality that when God fundamentally changes our heart, when we have a saving faith and He rushes into our lives, that the unavoidable result is good works. Because we no longer have to choose our good works. They're a natural manifestation of the faith that is going on inside of us. That's what James is saying. And in saying this, this is important, James actually agrees with Jesus. In saying this, James actually agrees with the teachings of Jesus you have in your notes there. And at home, you should have been able to download the notes on the Gracevine. You have in your notes there two references, John 15, 5 and John 13, 35. And he says in those, John 15, 5 is this wonderful passage. He says, I am the vine and you are the branches. In our vernacular, I am the trunk and you are the branches. I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit. I've talked about this before. When a branch is attached to a tree, it doesn't have to worry about when to produce the fruit or what kind of fruit to produce. All it has to worry about is staying attached to that tree. And Jesus says, if you abide in me and I in you, if you obey me, if you follow me, if you pursue me, if you walk with me, if you abide in me, then you will bear much fruit. You won't have to try to bear the fruit. You won't have to try to do the good works. You won't have to make a conscious effort to do it. Just abide in me and it will naturally produce a fruit in your life. James is simply agreeing with Jesus. He's saying it another way. He's saying it in a more pointed way so it's easier to understand. Then Jesus says again in John 13 35, he says, I give you a new command to love others as I have loved you. And then he says that the world will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another. The world will know that you are my children by what you do, by how you treat one another, by your actions. Jesus says you can say all day long that you love your brother. This is the exact example that James gives. You can say you love the poor and the needy, but if you walk away with your warm coat, then you don't. You don't really believe. Faith isn't really there. Jesus says, the world will know by your actions who you are. It's not a matter of just saying it. And honestly, we understand this principle. We get it. We've experienced this, that if there is love, there will be evidence, right? If you're not married, I think you can still appreciate the principles of this. When a husband and wife are married, when they get married, they stand at the altar and they make vows to each other. And they promise, I will love you and be faithful to you in sickness and in health and good times and in bad, in joy as well as in sorrow. It's one thing to stand on the altar and say those things. I had no clue what that meant when I was 25 years old. I said them and I meant them with my whole heart. I know what they mean now more than I did then. And those of you who have been married for 30 and 40 years, you know even way more than me what those words mean. And a husband, listen, a husband can tell his wife that he loves her. He can write her a nice card on her birthday, I love you, you're the best, you're the most beautiful woman in the world. Which apparently when people get married, everyone's unrealistic, right? I'm married to the most handsome man ever. Are you? Because we all look pretty average. Anyways, you can say nice things and it's fine to do that. It's fine to give a mental assent to it. But a wife knows if she's loved, right? If a husband loves his wife, he won't just tell her. He'll run interference for her on Saturday morning with the kids to try to let her get a little bit more sleep than she normally does. He'll clean the kitchen without being asked to clean the kitchen. He'll make a big deal over her birthday if she wants a big deal made of it. He'll make a little deal over her birthday if she wants a little deal made of it. He'll say kind things to her. He'll let her watch what she wants to watch. He'll take her car out on the weekend and wash it and fill it up with gas so that she doesn't have to worry about that. He'll learn the little things that let his wife know that she is loved. And she never has to wonder at that. And if a guy just says occasionally, hey, I love you, you know you're the best, and then never does anything, that's not love. That's selfishness. We understand this principle. We know this to be true in our own lives, and it's true of our faith as well. And it's so true of our faith, and James actually takes this, he actually doubles down on this. This idea of faith will produce works. Love will be manifested in how we act. By presenting us with this idea, and this is where it starts to get scary. According to James, mental assent is not the same as faith. Mental assent is not the same as faith. Promising love on the altar is not the same as loving for 30 years. Just agreeing mentally that Jesus is the Son of God is not a saving faith. This is why Jesus says another scary statement in the Gospels, not everyone who says unto me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. That should give you pause. This should give you pause. If what you're clinging to for your salvation is a prayer that you prayed when you were eight, the mental assent that you gave, we need to do some introspection about whether or not we have a saving faith. And I say that mental assent is not the same as faith because look at what James says in verse 19. He says, you believe that God is one. You do well. In other translations it says, good. Even the demons believe and shudder. You know who else knows that Jesus is the Son of God? Satan. You know who has way better theology than all of us collectively in this room? Demons. They know the Bible inside and out. They know who Jesus is, and they are scared of him. Yet they have not placed their faith in him for eternal life. They're still working towards something else. So a faith that simply gives a mental assent, that simply says, yeah, I think that's probably true, is a demonic faith, according to James. And we don't talk about demons and Satan here a lot, but it's in the passage. This is what he says, and this ought to give us pause that even demons go, yeah, Jesus is the Son of God, and they're scared of him, yet they don't have faith because it's more than just a mental assent. It's more than just agreeing with the set of facts. It's more than just confessing that Jesus is the Son of God. Again, I'll go back to that writing in Paul and Romans. If we confess with our hearts, if we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God, then we will be saved. Some of us stop at confessing with our mouths. That's where demons stop. And that's a scary, scary thing. James takes it a little bit further as he finishes out the passage. And he says that faith that doesn't provide works isn't even a saving faith. Faith that doesn't produce works isn't even a saving faith. He says it this way at the end of the passage. He says, A faith that is simply claimed and not evidenced and not met out with a series of good works and good deeds and love and grace and kindness, that's a dead faith. That's not a saving faith. A faith that we cling to because of a prayer that we prayed years ago and then nothing in our life changed after that is not a saving faith. That's why I am of the conviction, I've thought this for a long time from where I sit in ministry, that the surest sign that the gospel has taken root in someone's life is a radical change in their priorities. I've watched families come and go from churches. And you see families come and they profess a faith. They confess that they believe. And they come and maybe church attendance gets ramped up for a little bit. Maybe they're excited about it. They're caught up in the moment. But nothing between Sundays really changes. They still roll with the same group of people. And it's great. We ought to roll with the same group of people. We ought to have our friends who are not believers, but they can't be our only friends, and they can't have the only values that we emulate and try to not adopt. And the way that they spend their money doesn't change, and the way they spend their time doesn't change, and the way that they seek joy doesn't change. The only thing that really changes is now they go to church, and it makes them feel a little bit better. But eventually, eventually they'll start to fade away and then a year or two later, it's like that was just a flash in the pan. It was a confession, but it wasn't a sincere belief. Conversely, I've watched families profess a faith, come into church, kind of slowly step their way in, slowly take their next steps of obedience, becoming disciples of Christ, join small group, begin to give. Well, a huge indicator of someone's faith, and I don't talk about giving a lot, so hopefully you'll allow me this, is whether or not they give. I'm not talking about the church. I'm just talking about being generous people. Why else would you give 10% of your income away unless you were in love with a God who allowed you to do that as part of obedience to him? It doesn't make any sense. Why would a family do that unless God had radically changed their priorities? I've watched families come in and they had kids on ball teams and they were gone most weekends during the fall and the spring and every night of the week and it was consuming them. And they said, listen, because of our faith, because we want to be around church people more, we're not doing that. We're going to ratchet back all of our involvement everywhere else so that we can be involved in church. It's a radical change in priorities. I'm not saying that every family has to do that, but I am saying that that family radically changed their priorities. And to me, it's evidence that faith has taken hold. But James is very clear. If your faith is a faith that clings to a confession that you made years ago, and in the wake of your life, there is no difference. You're no different now than you were five years ago, and only you know the answer to that. And let me just twist it a little harder as I say that. Don't let yourself off the hook with this. Don't find pockets and ways to make yourself better when you really know that you're the same. If that's our faith, and there are no works, James says it's dead. So by now, you ought to be asking the question, well, crap, man, what are the works then? Because I'm a little nervous right now. What are the works that I ought to be producing? How do I know that I know that I know? How can I be certain? What kind of works is faith going to manifest in my life? I would point you to three passages to answer this question. The first is James 1.27. We talked about it earlier. I talked about it two weeks ago. It's the true religion passage. James says that, and I've that we are his disciples by our love for one another. So we should ask ourselves, as I look back on the wake of my life, do I have an increasing heart for the needy? Do I have an increasing desire to help those who are facing injustice and to be a voice for the voiceless? Or do I care about them as little now as I always have? Do I have an increased desire for holiness? Is the Holy Spirit in me, speaking into me and encouraging me as I venture into places where I need not be? Is he encouraging me as I venture towards places and people where I do need to be? Do I see that in my life? And then according to Jesus, do I look in my life and I see a wake of love in my life? Are there people who would point to me and say, I'm closer to Jesus because they love me well? Has that been manifesting itself in your life in such a way? And listen, the litmus test for this love, this godly love, this faith-inspired love that Jesus gives us is not loving the people who love us back. That's easy. Everyone does that. It's loving the people who don't love you back. It's loving the people that you don't have to love. It's loving the people when there's no transaction there. I'm not getting anything out of this. I just love you and I care for you. Do you have an increased wake of people that you love in your life that you don't have to love, that are sometimes unlovable? James says, if you have a genuine faith, then the answer to that question will be yes. And finally, Paul says in Galatians, we're told that we receive the Holy Spirit as a down payment for our salvation, that when we are saved, when we have a genuine faith, that the Holy Spirit rushes into our life, and that the Holy Spirit produces fruit. And the fruit of the Holy Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So again, look at the wake of your life over the last three to five years. Are you producing? Are you experiencing more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Are you still the cranky grump that you've always been? Is it more? Is it less? Is it the same? And now listen. I know this is not a fun sermon. You did not get up and shower and brave the rain and you families, we opened kids ministry today. You didn't get your kids ready so that you could come in here and I could kick you in the teeth. I'm sorry about that. This is a hard one. If you're feeling uncomfortable, you should. If you're doubting your salvation, that's all right. Because Paul tells us in Philippians that we should continually work out our salvation with fear and trembling, that our understanding of our salvation and our relationship with God will change over the years. And if it's not, and if it's not challenged, and we're just allowed to walk through life clinging to this thing that we said once and not seeing any works and not actually being a genuine believer and not experiencing genuine faith, shame on me if I'm your pastor for years and I never confront you with the truth that James gives us here. I have to. And here's why we need to have these hard conversations with ourselves. Here's why we need to think through this and ask the question, do I have a genuine faith? Do I see that in my life? Am I sure that I'm sure that I'm sure? This week, Jen and I spent the week back home. Jen and Lily are driving back today. I've shared with the church through the journey. Jen's dad, about two years ago, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so we've been walking through that, Jen and I have, as a family and with her family. And this last week, he made the decision to stop treatment and receive hospice care in the home. And so we went home to be with the family. The good news is, it was a really, it was a good, sweet, peaceful, life-giving, gracious week. It was good to be around the family. And we're probably talking about months, not weeks. And so that's good too. And we're looking forward to sweet times with John as a whole family. I would also say for those of you who love Jen, please direct your condolences through me. The last thing she needs is to drive home from Athens, be sad that she is not with her dad right now, and then have to answer emails and texts about how he's doing and thinking and all that stuff. So direct those through me. Thank you. But here's why I bring it up. Because I sat with that man this week who has a genuine faith. We were joking about the multiple jackets that he's given to homeless people and sign spinners on the corner of the road. He just stops his car, gets out of the car, and hands him his jacket. He worked at AT&T for years and years and years. He was the vice president of international real estate, yet he knew the name of the parking attendants, he knew their birthdays, and he gave them gifts. He left gifts for the cleaning people in his office. He had a genuine faith. And now, as he's made the decision to embrace death, he is totally fearless and completely at peace. He is living out the verse that says, oh death, where is your sting? It has none for John because he's not fearful. He's totally at peace and he's going to see his Savior. And he's looking forward to it. I want you to have that peace. I want you to know that peace. I want my church to understand what that is. And that peace doesn't come by avoiding the hard truths in Scripture. It comes by continually working out our salvation with fear and with trembling. It comes with being sure that we know that we know. It comes with a genuine faith that will unavoidably produce works. I want you to have that faith too. I want you to have that peace too. So go home. Be concerned. Be confused. Be fearful. Work it out. Make sense of it. If I've confused you today, email me. Let's have a Zoom call or let's have a lunch and let's talk about it. But it's a good thing to have these conversations. It's a good thing to think through these, because when we do, we can be sure that we're sure that we're sure, and we can live our lives in perfect peace, and that's what I want for you, and that's what I want for my church. Let's pray, and then I think we're going to sing one more song together. Father, you were good. In loss, you are good. In grief, you are present. And in joys, you celebrate. So God, thank you for all of those moments and all the ways that you're with us. Lord, I pray that no one here would unnecessarily doubt that they know you. On the flip side, God, I pray that some of us would very necessarily doubt it and that in that doubt we would find a saving faith for maybe the first time ever. God, if any of us listening to me now needs to cry out to you as we sing this song, would we do that? Would you give us the courage to kneel at our house or in these rows or stand and maybe not sing and maybe just pray and search our hearts for where we are with you? Give us a genuine faith. Give us a faith that's rooted so deeply that we abide in you and you produce fruit in us. Give us the peace that comes when we know that we know you. It's in your son's name that I pray all these things. 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.

Well, good morning, Grace. Good morning, those of you here in person. Good morning online. Thank you so much for participating online. Last week was a roaring success. We were blown away by how many of you brave souls showed up and braved the elements to be here. We were thrilled with how many folks watched online. And like I said last week, this is a new season in the life of Grace. We are going to exist this way for a long while where we meet either in our home or yours. So we are grateful for the opportunity to meet. We know that God has his hand on this place, and I have just really enjoyed this morning. I'm so grateful we have our music intern Dalton Hayes with us. This is wonderful. If quarantine brings him to us, the book of Kings in the Bible. And we understand that when it was originally written, it was one big long book that got divided in two for the sake of scroll length, and now it's 1 and 2 Kings. So that's where we are. This morning, we're going to start in 2 Kings chapter 22. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and open it. If you have one at home, go ahead and open it there. I'm going to try to highlight as much of the scripture and read it together as we can, but we're going to cover a lot of stuff. We're going to be, if you want to mark your Bibles already, we're going to be in 2 Kings 22, then we're going to jump to 2 Chronicles 34, then back to 2 Kings 23. So if you need to mark things, go ahead and do that. It's always great to interact with Scripture as we go through it. This morning we arrive at who I believe is one of the most unsung heroes in all of the Bible. It's a king named Josiah. We may have heard of Josiah before. We may have even heard a sermon on Josiah before, but I would be willing to bet that many of us here and many of us online have not heard of Josiah. Maybe we've heard of him, but we don't know what he did. We don't know what his role was. And as I went through and read the accounts of Josiah, both in Kings and in Chronicles, I realized, you know, there's really no way for me to preach about Josiah in the way that I normally do. If you've been paying attention to my sermons, which I realize is a big if, most of us come for the worship, but if you've been paying attention to my sermons, you'll know that I tend to try to drive to one point. I don't like to do the three and four point sermons. I like to drive to one point, mostly because I think it's difficult to remember more points than that. I think it's more engaging to just drive to one thing and take that home with us. But as I prepared this week, I realized, man, Josiah is too big of a topic to do that with, and what happens in his life and what's left from his example is too great to boil down to one thing. And when I grew up, I don't know about you guys that grew up in church, but when I grew up going to church, it was three and four points. I mean, the pastor took the passage, he read part of the passage, and then he made a point about the passage, and then he jumped back into the passage, right? It was just this old school way of preaching. So this morning, if you'll allow me with Josiah, I'm going to go a little old school, and I'm just going to throw things out to you as we go through a story. We'll drive to one main point, but there's going to be some other things along the way that if you're a note taker, you may want to write down. We encounter Josiah in 2 Kings chapter 22. And one of the first things we learn about him, which is pretty interesting, is that he was eight years old when he assumed the throne. He was eight years old when he became the king of Israel. He's the youngest king, I think, that Israel gets. And what's interesting about Josiah is if you read Kings and Chronicles, as soon as a king is introduced, the text will immediately say one of two things. The text will immediately either say, so-and-so was righteous and did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, or so-and-so was evil and did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Or so and so was evil and did what was right in their own eyes. And there's a lot more kings that did what was right in their own eyes and did what was right in the sight of the Lord. But when we meet Josiah, we learn right away he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He followed the God of his father, David. So it harkens all the way back to the second king of Israel, the greatest king of Israel, and said he embraced the faith that David had. And I think this is super interesting that he does this. Because his father, Ammon, and his grandfather, Manasseh, were evil. They were idol-worshiping, evil, greedy kings. He did not come from a heritage of faith. And yet at the age of eight, when he takes over the throne, he has a heart that follows our God. And it just makes me wonder, I was curious about this this week, who is the silent voice, the unseen voice in Josiah's life that was speaking Jesus into his ear? Who was the unseen voice in his life? Who was the one whispering? Who was the uncle? Who was the aunt? Who was the nanny? Who was the teacher? That every time they had time with this future king, they said, you know who the true God is? You know who really loves you? You know who really purposed you? You know who really created you? You know who got us free from Egyptian slavery? You know who sent the flood and then restored his creation? You know who that is, right? Who was the unseen voice in this young prince's life that turned his heart towards the Father? And it just makes me appreciate the role that unseen voices have in our lives. Teachers, you might have kids in your classroom that have no other voices pointing their hearts to Jesus. You might be the unseen voice in their life. Aunts and uncles, you might have nieces and nephews that you love and for reason, their parents' hearts don't track with your heart. You might be the unseen voice that points their little hearts towards Jesus. Keep speaking that truth into their life. Keep telling them about their God. Keep telling them about their Savior. We never know who these unseen voices are in our lives, and those of you that have influence, particularly with little ones and even with adults, you never know when you might be the unseen voice that turns their heart towards Jesus and impacts the rest of their life. I can't wait to meet the person who was in Josiah's ear saying, you know who the true God is. But at the age of eight, he takes over as the king, and he turns his heart towards God. And somewhere in there, we're going to find out, we're going to jump to Chronicles 34 and get the timing of it exactly right, because the timing to me is very interesting. But somewhere in there, he looks at everything that had built up in Israel over the years. Over the many different kings in Israel, they had erected different idols, different gods, and now there existed this clutter and clamor all over the nation that were monuments to other gods, to Baal and to Asherah and to anybody else that they may have worshipped, to the golden calves that we learned about last week. So much so that these images began to clutter the temple itself. Inside and outside the temple, the one place that was supposed to be the house of God and representative of God's presence with his children in Israel. Even that was cluttered with the presence of other idols. And so Josiah, like a madman, starts to clear away all of this clutter. And in the midst of doing that in the temple, they uncovered the book of the law. They uncovered the book of the law, which was the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, written by Moses. This was the closest thing in this time in history that they had to the Bible. This was their holy text. It's our same holy text, and they found it. And I want you to look at Josiah's reaction to finding the Bible, to finding the book of the law tucked away in the temple. We're going to pick it up in 2 Kings 22, verse 11. When the king, that's Josiah, heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. So they found it, they brought it somewhere, and then they read it to him. He said, I want you to read it to me. So they read it to him. And when he heard it, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded a bunch of people. I'm not going to read all those names in verse 12 and embarrass myself. He commanded a bunch of people. And he said in 13, go inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that have been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us. So in the midst of this cleanup, somebody finds the book of the law dusty and covered up with other things in the temple. They get it. News travels back to Josiah that they found it. He says, bring it to me and read it to me. And as they read the book of the law to him, he tore his clothes, which is a symbol of anguish. We're going to get to what that means a little bit later, but it's a sign of anguish. It's a sign of repentance. It's a sign of pain. He tears his clothes and he laments at what their fathers did. He said that the wrath of the Lord is kindled against us because of the sins of our fathers. He's acknowledging that over the decades, over the generations, the men and the women who had leadership in the country, who were saddled with spiritual leadership, led them off course. And now they're so far off course that he weeps at the reality of where they are. I picture it like this. I picture the book of the law, the Bible, God's word that Josiah read that day. As he's looking at it as the king, I picture it's a map of the ocean. And Josiah is supposed to be anchored over here, and they have drifted so far away that the faith of the nation is not even recognizable to David and to Abraham and to Moses. And he realizes in that moment that they've drifted so far off course, carried by the current of culture, by the shifting winds of preference and of intellect and of education and of convenience. They drifted away from who they were supposed to be and where they were supposed to be. And in the face of the law, in the face of God's word, he realizes, my goodness, we are so far from who we should be. Our fathers allowed us to drift, and God is rightly angry with us for the type of faith that we perpetuate. And it makes me realize, as I read that, that if we want to hand our children a solid faith, it must be anchored in Scripture. If we want to hand our children a solid faith, it must be anchored in Scripture. And so that's applicable to parents, it's applicable to those who lead young people, but it's applicable for us as we age, as we think about the next generation of grace. One of the things I got to see when I got here is we just had a group of girls graduate from high school, and they are all part of grace, and they're all, well, they went off to colleges, and now they're back home because, you know, COVID is a thing. But they went off for a minute together in faith, and then, and I've seen a picture of them as little girls playing soccer together at events at grace. And then yesterday was my little girl's first soccer game. And it was super fun. Everyone was terrible at it. But there's four kids on the team, including Lily, who go to Grace. And we got to take a picture with all of them yesterday. And that's the next generation of kids that's going to move through this place. And for those of us that care about God's church and care about his kingdom and care about the generations moving through this place, not just the children, but the parents of those young children and those of you moving into empty nests and people who have been through that before, each generation that follows, if we want to, if we care about handing the generations that will follow us a solid faith, it must be anchored in Scripture. And this seems like an obvious point. And I'm sure that all of you and all of you would agree with me. Sure, yeah, it must be anchored in Scripture. But do we practically do this? I'm not trying to poke too hard here. But how many of our ideas about the things going on in our culture are really us following the dictates of culture and the currents of change and the currents of intellect and the currents of education and not about anchoring ourselves in Scripture? How many of our attitudes towards homosexuality have to do with what the prevailing thought in our culture is and not what the prevailing teaching in our Scripture is? How many of our thoughts about politics have to do with the prevailing winds of culture and not anchored in Scripture? How much of the morality that we would pass on to our kids, how we discipline and what we tell them is right and wrong, is anchored in how we feel about things, is anchored in and shifted by what culture tells us should be important to us and not what Scripture tells us should be important to us. How many of us, me included, are guilty of looking at the way that culture shifts, of feeling that shift beneath our feet, and then beginning to try to bend this around what our community is telling us, rather than remaining anchored in God's Word. If we want to hand our children a faith that matters, it must be anchored in God's Word. And how can we anchor our faith in God's word if we are not students of it? Listen, I try the best I can to teach the Bible every week. It's my deep conviction that that's my responsibility, to teach you God's word, to enliven it, to make it so that you want to go home and read it on your own. But I will tell you this readily. If I'm the only Bible you're getting every week, it's going to be a shallow faith. If this is it, and then you just go from here, and you don't encounter God's word again, and we're not getting up and we're not reading it, we're not pouring over it, we're not learning it for ourselves, and we're not going back and going, what did he preach? Does that even make sense? If we're not doing that and this is all you're getting of Bible, of God's word, that's not enough. That's a paltry diet. We want to hand our children a faith that matters. It's got to be anchored in God's word. When I anchor our faith in God's Word, we have to be loving students of God's Word. But I thought that this was also interesting about Josiah. As I was studying him and I was looking at his life, some of the pieces weren't coming together all the way for me. So I flipped over to the Chronicles account of him. So if you want to flip to 2 Chronicles 34, you can. Really quickly, this is a good place for an aside. If you care about things like this, this is just kind of, here, Steve, I'm going to step this way, so get ready to move the camera. This is just an aside, okay? All right, good. Kings and Chronicles share the same stories. Kings shares the same block of time as Chronicles does. And so you may wonder, why did the Bible include two editions of the same stories with the same characters? Well, here's why. Kings was written during a time of slavery. The conclusion of both countries is that they were carried off to Assyria and Babylon as slaves. And there are generations of Hebrews being born into slavery, and their dads and their granddads are telling them, hey, you're the chosen people of God the Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You are his chosen people. He has a special plan for you. He has land promised to you. And they're looking around going, you sure? Because I'm a slave right now. Really, it feels like that God's kind of impotent. There's a generation of people angry at God for not keeping his promises. And so Kings is written to break the hearts of a hard-hearted people and help them see it is your father's fault that you're here in the first place. It's a book of conviction. Chronicles was written to what's called the post-exilic community. Kings was written to the exilic community, the ones in slavery, but eventually they all wandered back. So if that's interesting to you, there's that. All right, I'm going to jump back into the sermon proper. So in Chronicles chapter 34, we have the account of Josiah. And I want to highlight two verses here for you. The first one is verse 3. It says this, and I thought it was interesting. Okay. If you're tracking along, he's 16 years old. For some reason at 16, he decides that he is going to pursue the religion of his father, David. That's when his heart is turned. That's when God captures his heart. And that's when he begins to pursue that faith. Four years after the internal changes begin, he begins to purge the nation of all the idols that are there. And then this happens in verse 8. Now in the 18th year of his reign, so this is now, he's 26, this is 10 years after. When he had cleansed the land and the house, he sent. Okay. I stopped there at he sent because that's where we pick up the story in Kings. The rest of that is when in his 18th year, he sent those people to the temple. They cleared out the temple. They uncovered the book of the law. And then we pick up the story in Kings. But what's so interesting to me is this. When he was 16 years old, his heart was turned towards the Lord. He began clearly to work on himself and his own understanding. As a result of his own understanding, he began to clear out the idols that existed. As a result of clearing out the idols that existed, he uncovered the word of the Lord. Do you understand? It was 10 years between a heart conviction and a deep life-changing encounter with the Lord. It was 10 years between his discovery of faith and a place where he went, oh my gosh, and tore his clothes and repented and realized what he had been doing. He waited 10 years on the voice of the Lord. Some of us get frustrated and spiritually discouraged if we have to wait one week and we don't feel the voice of the Lord. Some of us say, you know what? I'm going to do quiet times now. That's going to be a thing. I heard what Nate just said about being dedicated to Scripture. I should really do that. One of these days, I promise you I'm going to do this. I'm going to preach a sermon, and I'm going to come up here, and I'm going to say, good morning, Grace. My name is Nate. I'm the pastor. You should read your Bibles more. Let's pray. And that's going to be enough. That's going to be enough where all of us are going to go home and be like, yeah, that's actually a fair point. And so maybe you've decided to do that. And you go home. It's day one. You get up. You make your coffee. You sit down. You read it. Your wife says, what did you learn? You're like, stuff. Something. Josiah seems okay. All right, and the next day, what'd you learn? The next day, what'd you learn? I don't know, reading the Bible seems silly. We can't wait on the Lord three days. Josiah waited on him 10 years with all these obstacles in the way. I think another thing we can learn from the life of Josiah is to find God, remove the obstacles. To find God, move towards him. Some of us just sit passively waiting, God, why won't you speak to me? Why won't you talk to me? Why don't I seem to feel your presence and hear your voice like so-and-so does? Maybe it's because of all the junk that we have in our life, all the idols that have accumulated all over the country and even in the very temple that are covering up the book of the law. Maybe, just maybe, we should take some steps towards God. And this isn't how it works for everybody. Sometimes we take a step towards God and he comes in and he meets us right where we are. I've heard of miraculous conversions of somebody who was an alcoholic on Friday and on Saturday they weren't because they met Jesus. And that's amazing. But that's not everybody's story. Sometimes it's 10 years of pursuit before we finally go, oh, hang in there. Persevere. Pursue the Father. This is even true in the New Testament. Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son, and it's this miraculous story of the sinning son being met by the saving Father. But it wasn't until he started moving towards the Father that the Father met him. While he was still a long way off, the Father went to meet him, but when he was in that foreign country, he began to move towards the Father. If we want to pursue God, move towards him, remove idols, instead of passively wondering why we can't hear from him. I think it's worth it. But then we see, if we look back to 2 Kings chapter 23, we see the conclusion of the story of Josiah. And this is the thing that I'm most excited about. If you look at 2 Kings 23, after being convicted, after removing the idols, after finding the book of the law, and now after tearing his clothes and being fearful of the wrath of God because of the sins of the father, because of the shifting faith that they were handed, he goes on a rampage in chapter 23. It's a detailed chronicle of just everything that he removes from the country. Thing after thing after thing after thing, clutter after clutter after clutter. He strips it all down until all that's left are the things of God. And then he caps it off this way. And I think it's incredibly appropriate. I had to read this story three different times before I saw the magnitude of why it finishes here, but I think it's such a huge deal. He cleanses all of these things, and then he reinst of the moving towards, after all of the conviction, he reinstituted Passover. And I think that this is so important. The Passover hadn't been celebrated like this since the time of the judges. The kings had mucked it up so badly that this was an unrecognizable ceremony for them. But you might remember if you were here last fall, we looked at the festivals of the Hebrew people and the one that points to Jesus more than any other festival is the Passover. It's a reminder of the 10th plague in Egypt when God sent the angel of death over the nation of Egypt and he said, unless you have the blood of a spotless lamb over your doorpost, then I'm gonna take the life of your firstborn son. And in that plague, God, through the blood of the lamb, he protected his children. He took them away from slavery into freedom because of the blood of the lamb. And the whole thing is a picture of salvation. They didn't realize it, but they thought they were looking back on a time that they were saved. And Passover, every time they celebrated it, was really looking forward to a coming Messiah. You understand that? And so how he kept off his repentance is to focus on Christ. That is why I think that Josiah is a picture of repentance. We hear this word a lot in church, to repent of sin and what that means. And I talked about it before, so I won't belabor it today. But if you ever need to know what repentance actually looks like, because repentance is to be moving in one direction, stop what you're doing and move in the opposite direction. So they're moving towards deeper idolatry. He stops and he doesn't just say, we're not gonna worship those idols anymore, but he knocks away all the clutter as he pursues God and he finishes his repentance. He stops, and he doesn't just say, we're not going to worship those idols anymore, but he knocks away all the clutter as he pursues God, and he finishes his repentance. He stops his repentance. His repentance lands in a place where he's focused on Jesus. You see? This is proper repentance. Sometimes we stop short, and we forget where our focus belongs. Last week we looked at Jehu. We talked about how Jehu started all the cleansing process, but he didn't go the full measure. He wasn't the picture of repentance. Josiah is a picture of repentance, and he stops all of that by finishing, by reinstituting a ceremony that focused his eyes on Christ. Incidentally, all the clutter and all the movement and all the stuff that we need to do to find God works by focusing our eyes on Christ anyways. I was reminded as I thought about this and what proper repentance really is of Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, one of my favorite passages in the Bible. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off the sin and the weight that so easily entangles and run the race that is set before us. And this is what Josiah did. He's surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, all the kings that came before him, all the people of Israel, all of heaven looking down on his reign saying, what will you do? And he began to throw off the sin and the weight that so easily entangled all the idols that would obedient to verse 2 in that chapter, which is this. How? How do we do this? By focusing our eyes on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. We can't throw off those idols ourselves. We can't do a good enough job of that on our own. We can't live perfectly enough to satisfy God, but Christ has already done that for us. So the proper end of repentance is to say, God, I'm giving you everything here, but my eyes are focused on Jesus. Josiah took the repentance. He took the obedience of the people. He focused them back on the Father, and he capped it off with Passover and focusing their eyes on Christ, which is why we continue. That's our version of Easter. When we celebrate Easter, what are we doing? We're looking back on the sacrifice that saved us, and we are anticipating a future with that Jesus. Josiah's life, 2 Kings chapter 22 and 23 and 2 Chronicles chapter 34, are a living, breathing picture of what happens in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, of throwing off the sin and the weight that so easily entangles and running the race that is set before us by focusing our eyes on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. That's who King Josiah was. That's an example we're following. And I hope that we will learn from him this morning and carry forward just some of those as we go through our weeks this week. Let me pray for us. Father, we love you. We are grateful for you. God, we are grateful for your conviction when it is both gentle and when it's more forceful. Father, we are grateful for your word. Make grace students of it. Give us a heart for it. Help us to love it. Give us a deeper understanding of it than we've ever had. Jesus, focus our eyes on you. Let us trust in you to remove the obstacles. Let us trust in you to draw us near the Father. Make us a church that has our eyes focused on you. God, thank you for your servant, Josiah, and the examples that we learn from him. I pray that in little ways this week, you would make us all a little bit more like him and help us focus a little bit more on you. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen. All right. Thank you guys for coming in person this week. Thank you for watching online this week. We will see you in whatever capacity next week. Have a great week.