Sermons tagged with Presence

Well, good morning. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I am the senior pastor here. If you're here this morning and I haven't yet had the chance to meet you, I would love to do that. So please say hello in the lobby after the service. If you're watching online, thanks for doing that. Particularly if you're on vacation, thanks for making us a part of your Sunday, even while you're away. This is the last sermon in our series, One Hit Wonders, where we have been pausing and looking at some verses and passages that we don't often get to stop at in a normal series or in our normal Bible study. Some of the lesser known verses and passages that we find in Scripture, a lot of them have been in the Minor Prophets, which is a whole section of the Old Testament that we don't often explore. But this morning is admittedly more of a greatest hit than a one-hit wonder. It's actually apropos with the last question of our little game, trivia game that we were playing there in the bumper video. Steve, I don't know if you did that on purpose, but I'm actually going to pull this one out of Psalms, which is that's the Beatles of the Bible. All the greatest hits there are in Psalms. And so the one that I'm pulling out this morning is one that we have framed and in our house. It's a very frameable verse. I would encourage you to do that. If you've never heard Psalm 1611 before, I think it's going to be one that you'll identify with and appreciate, and hopefully we can leave today thinking about in a different way, especially if you are aware of this verse. But Psalm 1611 simply says this. This is where we're going to focus this morning. David writes, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence, there's fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. You make known to me the path of life. In your presence, there's fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. That's a heck of a verse, isn't it? I mean, that's a really encouraging, life-giving verse. That's a great promise that David makes to us through the voice of God in Psalms. And as we walk through it, that first sentence, you make known to me the paths of life. Often in Psalms, David adopts kind of the motif of a shepherd, us as the sheep and God as our good shepherd. Psalm 23 is a very familiar Psalm where it says, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. So maintaining that illustration, you make known to me the paths of life is this picture of a shepherd leading his sheep to the good places, leading his sheep to where they can eat, to where they can drink, to where they can rest, to where they'll be protected. And so he's saying, and in the onset, you lead me to the life-giving paths, to fullness of life. You lead me, God, to the best possible places. And then he says, in your presence, there's fullness of joy. Now, I don't know if you've ever thought about this. Not everyone here is a scientist. You may not be aware of this fact, but you can't get fuller than full, man. When you're full, that's it. This idea in sports that we give 110%, that's bupkis. You can't do it. It's 100%. That's it. When you're full, you're full. So what he's saying is in God's presence, you will experience maximum joy. It is impossible to find any other place in the known universe, any other scenario, any other situation. It is impossible to pursue any other relationship in which you will find more joy than in your relationship with God, than in the presence of the Father, there is fullness of joy. And then he says, and at the right hand of the Father are pleasures forevermore. And we learn in Romans and Hebrews that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for us as our high priest. So what that is saying is, in Christ, if we obey John 15, when Jesus says, abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit, if we abide in Christ, if we pursue him, if we love him, if we chase him, if we know him, if we are intimate with him, then we will experience pleasures forevermore. That's some astounding promises, right? He's going to lead us to the best places possible in God's presence as we pursue him, as Steve and Lisa invited us into worship, as we go into worship, as we take ourselves like in Isaiah 6 into the throne room of God in prayer, in his presence, we will experience the fullness of joy. And then as we pursue Jesus and we go to his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. That's a pretty good promise, isn't it? Isn't that what we're all chasing anyways? Just better days and a happier existence? If we were to say for ourselves, what do you want in 20, 30 years? We'd say, I just want to be happy. If you have kids and you say, what do you want for your kids? One of the things I promise would be in your top five answers is, top three answers is, I just want them to be happy. This verse promises that. So I actually think that if we really believe that, if we really believe Psalm 1611, that our own selfishness would drive us to God. If we really believe this verse, that he's going to lead us to try to be generous or unselfish. We can do the most selfish thing possible, and that selfishness should, in theory, based on these promises, drive us straight to the throne of God. We should respond to this verse. Like I responded to the news in my mid-twenties that places like Fogo de Chão existed. Now, I don't know if you know what Fogo de Chão is, because we had one in Atlanta. That's where I'm from. We don't have one in Raleigh. It's a Churras, Korea. It's a Brazilian steakhouse. There's one over in Briar Creek, I think. I still need to get over there. But in a Brazilian steakhouse, let me just, let me just tell you what they do there. Okay. This is unbelievable. Some of y'all know. If you know me, you know, I love steak. I really do. I had steak the other night for the first time since John was born because I like to make it myself and it's a whole process and I was in heaven watching the recorded Open Championship. Anyways, I love steak. And they told me, and I was like 25, 26, you know there's this place called Fogo de Chão. And when you go there, there's a card next to your plate. And one side is red and one side is green. And when you put it on the green side, they just bring you steak until you flip it back to red. And I'm like, what now? And so I go to this place, right? And there's these men and they walk around with these skewers of perfectly cooked steak. And they bring it up to you. Your card is green. They go, would you like some, sir? Yes, I would. I'm glad that you came. And they start to slice the filet or the top sirloin or the skirt steak or the bottom sirloin or the lamb or whatever it is. Jen, we need to go to this place for lunch today. They just start shaving it until you tell them to stop. If you want a steak mountain on your plate, you can have a steak mountain. It's amazing. And I'm just telling you, if you leave there without the meat sweats, you're not a good American. It's a remarkable place. And so when they told me that this place existed, with all of my heart, all I thought is, I want to go to there. I want to go. I'll save my money. I will lie to people. I will disappear for three days so I can go to this place and experience phogo to chow. That's where I want to go. That's how we should respond to this verse. What? There's a place I can go and there is fullness of joy. There are pleasures forevermore. There's someone I can follow who will lead me to only the best places. That's a thing? I want to go to there. I'll disappear for three days. I'll sever relationships. I'll give up whatever I do. I'll save up whatever I gotta do. I want to go to there. That's how we should respond to this verse. If we believe that the Bible is the word of God and that what's in here is eternally true and good and right and worth staking our life on, if we really believe that this is God's word and that what he's telling us, what David is saying is true, then why don't we treat the kingdom of God like Jesus tells us to when he said the kingdom of God is like someone who finds a pearl in a field and they sell everything they have so they can buy that field and have that pearl. We would forsake everything for the kingdom of God and for the presence of God and to walk and abide with Jesus if we really believe this. But see, for me, I'm just talking about me. I'm not talking about you guys. For me, my actions don't bear out that I really believe this. If I really, truly believe that in the presence of God, I would find the fullness of joy, then I would betray everything that's not associated with that presence and chase after it as hard as I could. But I don't. And see, I'm preaching this because I've been a Christian about as far back as my memory goes. I've been around Christians for 40 years. I've talked to a lot of them. I have yet to meet a single Christian that when I ask them, how's your relationship with God going? How you doing? How's your spiritual health? I've never heard a single one of them say, I'm nailing it. I mean, I'm really good at this. I mean, about five, 10 years ago, I got to this place where I was just really walking with the Lord and now I'm just waiting on him to come down here and carry me up to heaven in a chariot without having to experience death. How can I help you? I've never met that person. Everyone I talk to has this profound sense of, I ought to be doing better by now. I know better than to do the things that I do. I thought I'd be closer with Jesus by now. I thought I'd be further along. I thought I'd be more spiritually mature and spiritually healthy. That's my experience of faith. There's this constant voice going, why aren't you better at this? And I think it's because we don't really believe that verse. We say we do. Do you believe the Bible? Yes. Every word? Yes. All of them. Okay, well, we don't seem to believe this one. So the interesting question becomes, why is that? Why do we have such a hard time trusting this verse in Psalms that says that in the presence of God, in the presence of Jesus, there are pleasures forevermore, which we all would agree we want. Then why doesn't our life look like we believe it? I think one of the big reasons is that we have an impoverished view of Jesus. We just have this impoverished view of who Jesus is. I've told you guys this before. I do premarital counseling with couples that are getting married. And one of the things I always ask them, so I won't belabor this because I really have told you guys this before, but the point that I'm making is important. I'll ask them on a scale of one to 10, place yourself on that scale of spiritual health. 10 is just zealot on fire for God, Elijah in the Old Testament, John the Baptist, just going and doing everything for Jesus, just totally on fire zealot. And then one is just very, very far from God. And I'll ask them, where are you in your spiritual health? And without fail, people will answer four to six, okay? Because no one wants to say, well, I'm currently doing great. And no one's going to admit to being a two. So everybody says four to six, okay? And then I'll say, and this is the important part, all right, that's great. In five years, where would you like to be? And it's really a vehicle, the numbers don't matter, it's a vehicle to talk about what steps can we take to grow in our spiritual health. That's what it's there for, to help us get into that discussion. But what's interesting to me is when I ask people, and where do you want to be in five years without fail? Eight. I've had one person in 11 years of premarital counseling say 10. One person. Everybody else, eight. I don't want to be like, I don't want to be crazy zealot. I don't want to be that person. Just make me an eight. That'd be great. And what they probably really mean is seven, but they're telling the pastor, so let's bump it up. And I can't help but think that that's probably due at least in part to the fact that they probably don't think that walking with Jesus is that big of a deal. They probably aren't that enraptured with Jesus. I probably just don't think he's as big of a deal as he is. Whatever picture we have in our head of what it would be like to be a 10 isn't that attractive. It's just not that great. We're not that compelled by it, so we don't pursue it. Why don't we say 10? Because we don't want to be. Because whatever's at 10 is not really something that we would enjoy. Because I think we have this small view of who Jesus is. Because for some reason or another, we've never just fallen in love with scriptures and made it a habit to get up and read it every day and see Jesus on these pages and read the gospels and walk through his life and see how he forgave and see how he was generous and see how he loved and see how he sacrificed and fallen in love with him. We haven't allowed the sin and the weight that so easily entangles in Hebrews. We haven't allowed that to fall to the wayside to a degree that we can begin to experience our savior. We haven't engaged in worship in such a way that we turn our heart to God and let him fill it up with his joy. We haven't stopped and reflected on the fact that Jesus, God, condescended, came down from heaven, became one of us, walked with us in our filth, was patient and gracious with us, marched to the cross, died there on the cross for us, even though he knew that we would crud on it with our own life and with our own actions and with our own hypocrisy and sits at the right hand of the Father despite all of that and intercedes for us. We don't sit in the weight of that reality and allow the gratitude and the grandeur of his forgiveness and grace to wash over us. And it allows us to create this impoverished view of Jesus that isn't really all that compelling. And I think one of the reasons we keep our view of Jesus small is the second reason why we struggle sometimes, I think, to believe Psalm 1611, which is that we like making mud pies. We like making mud pies. C.S. Lewis was an author in England prior to and through World War II, and one of the greatest authors of all time. And he described sin in this way. This is a very gross, loose paraphrase. But he described sin like this. He said, it's as if we are children and our parents want to take us on the most amazing holiday. For us in America, it'd be a vacation. Our parents want to take us on the most amazing vacation, but we content ourselves sitting in the backyard making mud pies. We'll sit in the backyard playing with mud because we don't believe that anything could possibly be better than this, and our parents have the most amazing vacation on the planet planned for us, and we're totally disinterested in it. That's how he describes sin. That God has the fullness of joy. He has pleasures forevermore. He leads us to the paths of life. He has something better for us that he's trying to draw us to and we content ourselves with making mud pies in our backyard because we just don't believe there could be anything better. This is actually a trick of the enemy. This is a lie of Satan. You understand that, right? Think of it this way. One of Satan's best lies is to trick us into sacrificing long-term joy on the altar of short-term pleasure. One of the enemy's greatest tactics is to trick us into sacrificing long-term joy on the altar of short-term pleasure, on what we can have right now. Isn't this why most of us fail at diets? Not me, but you fail at diets. Because I want to be in good shape. I want to exercise and have the sweat show up here before it shows up here. I want that very much. But I also want a steak right now. I also want Cinnabon. I also want a Chick-fil-A, number one. And I want the sweet tea and I want it to be large. We also want those things. And so we sacrifice long-term things on the altar of the immediate. And this is a trick that Satan plays on us, where God offers us the fullness of joy in this process. God is thinking long-term. He's promising us things years down the road, and we sacrifice those things on what we want right now. Marriage is probably the easiest example of this, where God makes it very clear in Scripture, in Genesis, and then repeated again in Mark, that for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh. And what God has put together, let no man separate. It is God's will for your life. When you are born, it is his will and hope that you would meet one person, that you would marry them, that you would become one flesh, and that you would experience the fullness of joy that comes from being in this lifelong giving relationship. Now, I'm not trying to diminish people who have walked through divorce or are currently divorced or whatever and diminish you as being outside of God's will. I believe that divorce happens because we're broken people and that there is redemption after that. But if we want to talk about what God wants for us, he wants a husband and wife to be united in one flesh and he wants them to walk down the years and the decades following him and knowing him and raising children together and walking through things together and experiencing the depth of love that can only come through that level of commitment sustained through the decades. That's what he wants for us. There's joy and happiness there. Just last night, I'm going to embarrass Jen here, I'm sorry, but just last night, Jen and I, we've got an 11-week-old and we've got a five-and-a-half-year-old, and sometimes, just sometimes, only me, this is not true of Jen, but sometimes I don't like either of them. I just want to sit. Yesterday may or may not have been one of those times. But we had a plan. That last night, we had a plan. We're going to get the kids to bed, and we're going to go get Chinese, and we're going to bring it back. There's this knee Asian kitchen that's really, really good. And we went, and we got the stuff. And I bring it back, and we set it out on the console table and we sit down on the floor and we eat Chinese and we watch Hometown with Ben and Aaron who are charming. If you're not watching Hometown, I mean, you're missing out. They're great folks. And we watched that and we laughed together and we ate together and we talked about how good the food was and then afterwards we laughed at Instagram videos and then both of us couldn't stop commenting on how great it was to have that night and how much we loved each other. Give me that. Give me that love after 15 years, all day long over our honeymoon in St. Lucia. When we were 25 years old, we went to St. Lucia for our honeymoon and we thought it was great and it was the best and we're so in love and it was wonderful. Man, that's nothing compared to what we experienced last night. Give me Chinese on the floor hiding from our children and our dog over a week in St. Lucia because the love 15 years in and what we've walked through and what we experienced and what we know about each other and the ways that our love has changed over the years is so much richer than it was 15 years ago. Now, I can't wait to experience what some of you guys have experienced being 10 and 20 years beyond where we are and the fullness of love that comes there. That's what God wants for us. He wants us to experience that fullness, but there's a process and it takes time. And Satan, Satan would will to steal that joy from us by tempting us to just fade in our marriage and not put in the work that we need by tempting us to just be selfish. And today I know I should help with the kids. I know I should do these things. I know I should love. I know we should go to counseling. I know that we need to work on this marriage, but today it's hard and I don't want to. So we sacrifice future joy on the altar of the immediate. Or even worse, he begins to tempt us to look outside our marriage and that would be fun and that would be entertaining for a season and that would be a type of joy and pleasure that we don't get to experience. And so we do and we sacrifice what could be long-term joy on the altar of immediate pleasure. It's true in our quiet times. I've said dozens of times from this stage, there's no more important habit in our life than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and spend time in prayer. And we know this. And we know that through doing that, we will find Jesus, we will be drawn to him, we will be caught up in him, that life will be better, that our attitude will be better, that our spiritual health will be better. We know it's good for us. Most of the whole room would agree with me that that would be an excellent practice in our lives, and yet for many of us, we don't have it. Why? Because it's easier to hit the snooze button. It's easier to flick through Twitter. It's easier to turn on SportsCenter or to get to work early or to just sit in the quiet or to read a book. There's so many different things that we could do besides dive into God's Word. And so once again, we sacrifice the joy that waits for us in the presence of God on the altar of the immediate, doing what we want. This is one of the greatest tricks of Satan, just to trick Christians into wasting their days and pursuing temporary pleasures instead of long-term joy. I came across a quote this week, and I that it was timely from some pastor that I didn't recognize and he just simply said, all of Satan's promises are for the right now. Promises without process are lies. God promises us the future. Satan promises us today. And we so very easily choose today. But really, I think in a room full, for the most part, of believers, the reason, probably the predominant reason, we struggle to believe Psalm 1611, is if we're being honest, I think we're afraid to be on fire. I think we're afraid to be a 10. I think we're afraid to be zealots. We're afraid to be on fire for Jesus. We don't want to be that person. We don't want to have to give up everything and move to Malawi and teach and write the Bible in another language. We don't want to have to do that. We don't want to have to sell all the things that we've acquired. We don't want to have to give up the pleasures that we enjoy. I know for me, the thing that makes me scared to be a zealot, and listen, I'm speaking to me more than you right now. The thing that makes me scared is I just don't want to be weird. I want people to like me. I like having friends. So I think we're scared to be on fire. And after being around church people my whole life, I'm convinced that this is true. And when I say this, just know I'm saying this to me, okay? I'm saying this to me. I am convicted by this. I am stepping on my own toes. If this doesn't apply to you, great. If it does, welcome into my conviction. But I'm saying it to me. I'm convinced that we carve out for ourselves a moderate middle ground that appears spiritually healthy while still leaving us the Lord of our own lives. I'm convinced that a vast majority of Christians are afraid to be on fire, and so what we do is we carve out for ourselves a moderate middle ground of spirituality that makes us appear spiritually healthy while still giving us space to hang on to some of the things that bring us joy and pleasure and therefore still being the lords of our own lives. I'm going to go to church. I'm going to go to Bible study. I'm going to say the things. I'm going to have the right friends. I'm going to reorient my life. I'm going to look different now than I did years ago. And now I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing okay. I'm not a 10, but I'm like a seven. And this is a pretty comfortable place for me. Maybe I'm the only one that does that. But we carve out this moderate middle ground. I'm not John the Baptist. Okay. I'm not one of the disciples, but I'm not one of the bad ones either. I'm good. Could I be doing better? Sure. Everybody could be doing better. Could I be doing worse? A lot worse. You should have known me five years ago. And so we carve out this middle ground. Well, we're not on fire. We're not totally cold and turned off to the Lord. We're just like a seven. And we're good with it. When we do that, the Bible has something to say about it. About specifically that. In Revelation chapter three, Jesus has written letters to seven churches in Revelation two and three. And in chapter three, he says, you're pretty good. You do a lot of good things to this particular church. But then in 3.16, he says this, but you are lukewarm. And because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. That word spit there is better translated as vomit or spew. That's what Jesus thinks of the middle ground that we carve out for ourselves. Well, we're comfortable and happy and sure, I could give more, I could do more, I could grow more, I could sacrifice more, but that's scary, I don't want to do it. I'm doing pretty good here as a seven. God, if you'll just kind of leave me alone and worry about some of those threes, I'll be happy to invite them to my house. I'll be good. And Jesus says, couldn't be less interested in that. To me, Nate, I couldn't be less interested in your moderate middle ground of spirituality here. He calls us to be on fire. He calls us to be zealots. And if you're in this conviction with me, of this middle ground that we carve out for ourselves, I would invite you into this question. What is it that you're afraid of? If you light your hair on fire for Jesus and go burn the world down, what is it that you're afraid of? What is it that worries you about getting up every day and reading God's word? What is it that worries you about inviting Jesus into every moment of your life? What is it that worries you about being a zealot? Is it that you'll have to give up something that brings you pleasure? God has more pleasure waiting for you if you'll just trust him, if you'll just drop your mud pies and go with him on vacation, what are we scared of? Is there some pleasure or friend group or thing that you like to do that you're worried, well, if I really sell out, then I can't engage in that anymore. So what? God's got something better. Well, I'm worried that, this is me, I'm worried that I'm going to be weird. People won't like me, that I won't be relatable. Who cares? Jesus didn't call me to be relatable. He called me to be passionate about him. And I bet the joy that I'll find there and the relationships that are there and the magnanimity of the love that's found there will do just fine with the weirdness. What are we afraid of that God's not going to give us back? What kind of pleasures are we embracing in our middle ground that we don't want to let go because I don't want to go too far? Why? Are you afraid he's going to ask you to sell everything and move to Ghana? He's probably not. If all American Christians moved to Ghana at once, that would be inconvenient. He's probably not going to do that. But even if he did, you'll find pleasures forevermore and fullness of joy in Ghana, so go to Ghana, man. What are we scared of? I think we're scared of being zealots. And so maybe what we need to do is understand what that means. I don't think that being a zealot is selling everything and becoming a weirdo and moving out into the wilderness like John the Baptist and wearing camel skins and eating locusts. I think that being a zealot means inviting Jesus into every moment of your life. Into every conversation. Inviting him in. How would you have me handle this? How can I reflect you here? Into every quiet, peaceful moment. Into every still morning. Into every late night. Into every dinner conversation. Into every relationship, into every work interaction, inviting him into every email, into every prayer. I think being a zealot looks like simply inviting Jesus into every moment of your life. What harm can come if we do that? What possible thing could we give up that's worth anything at all if we simply start by inviting Jesus into every moment of our life? If we do that, you know what we'll find? That our view of him begins to enlargen. That the lies of Satan become less convincing. That the fear of being on fire becomes a lot less fearful. So let's do that, Grace. Let's collectively light our hair on fire and light the world on fire for Jesus. Let's collectively be zealots. Let's collectively trust that this verse is true. And let's collectively ask ourselves the tough question, what am I hanging on to that's preventing me from pursuing God? That's preventing me from pursuing Jesus, from abiding in his presence and creating a larger view of him in my life. And then let's ask ourselves if it's worth it. I know that for me this week, as I've sat in this verse, I've developed a more deep conviction than ever that I want to trust this verse. I want to believe it. I want to live it out. I want to go be a zealot. And I want the church to come with me. Let's pray. Father, we love you. I'll be the first to admit, God, sometimes I just, all the time, I love you the best way I know how. It's an imperfect, insufficient, hypocritical, broken love. But God, we love you. We're grateful for Jesus. We really are. We know that sometimes it doesn't seem like that. We know that we demand a lot of your forgiveness. God, we are grateful for it. Lord, I know that I have been afraid to give up some of the things that I think are actually bringing me joy when all they're doing is keeping me from you. So I pray that you would give me the strength to walk away from those things and the strength of faith and hope to trust that you're going to bring me to these paths of life, to the best places possible. God, would you give us the strength this morning to put down our mud pies and trust that where you're taking us is exponentially better than anything we could ever cook up for ourselves. I pray that we would grow in our view of Jesus and be so enamored with him that we would just sprint towards him with all of our might. We pray all these things in your son's name. Amen.

Good morning. My name is Nate. I am the senior pastor here. If I didn't know any better, it would seem like your senior pastor guilted you into attendance this morning. This is great. Thanks for being here. I hope we keep it rolling. We are resuming our series today called One Hit Wonders, where we're looking at different passages in the Bible that we don't often get to stop at or pause at or focus on. And this morning, we're going to be in a passage at the end of Habakkuk. We'll be right back. Habakkuk. Very few people know where it is. You're probably going to have to get your table of contents involved. There's no shame in that. It's one of the minor prophets towards the end of the Old Testament. So join us in Habakkuk. What we're going to find there, I think, is a passage that is tucked away and little known, but it really brings to me a lot of hope and a lot of faith, sometimes when we need it the most. But as we approach that passage, I'm reminded of these rites of manhood that I would hear of as a kid growing up. You hear about these different tribes across the globe that have different tests for children to become adults. They throw you into the wilderness for a few days, and if you come back with like 10 beaver pelts, then now you are a man. There was the Maasai tribe I was reading about this week out in Africa. They don't do this anymore because it's illegal, but for generations, what they would do is on your 10th birthday as a little boy, they would send you into the savanna with a spear, and you had to kill a lion and bring back proof of this kill, which is an insane test for a little boy. But in the Messiah's defense, if a 10-year-old can do that, dude's a man, okay? I believe them. That's a legitimate test. But you've heard about these rites of passage and these tests of manhood or adulthood before, right? And I actually think, I bring that up because I think that there is a test for our faith in the Bible. I think that there is actually a test that all believers at some point in their life must go through, must experience, and must come out the other side as proven and mature. And I'm arguing this morning that we find that test in the end of Habakkuk chapter 3 and verses 17 through 19. So read them with me, and then we're going to talk about why I think this really is suchber verse. This is a difficult thing to be able to say. So I'm going to contend with you this morning that being able to authentically claim this passage is the mark of mature faith. Being able to authentically claim this passage, Habakkuk 3, 17 through 19, to be able to say this out loud to one of your friends, to be able to say this out loud to God himself, To me, to be able to authentically claim this verse, claim this passage, to say it out loud and to mean it, is the test of a sincere and a mature and authentic faith. And if we look at the verse and the context in which it comes, I think you'll see why I think this. Because the picture that Habakkuk is painting here follows three chapters of devastation. Three chapters of the nation of Israel being laid low. Three chapters of the consequences of their action resulting in poverty and death and famine. Three chapters of hopelessness. And so here at the end, he's saying, even in light of all of that, in light of all the devastation that we just experienced, in light of where I find myself now, and listen to this, even though the fig tree will no longer produce and the olive crop fails and there are no herds in the fields, what he's saying is, even though the present looks bleak and the future looks bleaker, even though today stinks and tomorrow looks worse, I don't find any good reason to hope in a good and bright and hopeful future, even though that's true, yet I will choose to find my joy in the Lord and find my strength in him. Do you see the power of that statement? And for many of us, we know what it is to feel like the present stinks and the future doesn't look much better. We know what it is to look around and think to ourselves, though the fig tree does not blossom, though the olive is not going to produce a crop, though the things that I relied upon are no longer there. We've walked through those moments, right? And I'm not talking about small disappointments. I'm not talking about little fissures in our life that upset our otherwise peaceful existence. I'm talking about the hardest of times. I'm talking about my dear friends in the church who they have some good friends who are in their early 30s, I would presume, and have young children, and she has been battling cancer for months, if not years, and has recently found out that her body is so riddled with it that she will not survive this. That's today stinks and tomorrow's not looking good either. That's hard. That's what Habakkuk's talking about. I've mentioned before my friend Carla Gerlach who lost her husband at the age of 30, my college roommate to a widow-maker heart attack with three children under the age of five. That's sitting in the middle of a present that stinks and looking towards a future that doesn't feel very hopeful. We know what it is to walk through these difficult times. That's raising a child and then watching them make decisions that hurt us so much and not knowing what to do. That's experiencing a parent with dementia or with a difficulty that has now been imposed upon you and you have to love them and carry them through it. I've seen that happen over and over again in our congregation as some of us age and take on the role of caretaker of our parents, that's a difficult spot. That's in the middle. What Habakkuk is talking about is how we feel in the middle of a divorce, in the middle of finding out about infidelity, in the middle of getting the call about the difficult diagnosis, in the middle of the difficult relational thing that we don't know if we're going to see through it. It's how we feel in the days and months after we lose our job or after someone hurts us deeply. That's what Habakkuk is talking about. And so what he's really saying in this passage, to put it in our language, is that even when God disappoints me, I will choose to find my joy and strength in him. Even when my God disappoints me, I will choose to find my joy and strength in him. I debated on that word disappoints because you could say, even though I'm disillusioned by, you could say even though I'm confused by, even though I'm let down by, even though I don't understand my God right now, I will choose to find my joy and strength in him. And where the rubber meets the road on that is when as a believer, you know that God is good and you know that he is sovereign and you know that he is loving and you know that he is all powerful and you know that he could have stopped this thing if he wanted to, but he didn't and you don't know why. You know that it's in his power to cure that cancer. You know that it's in his power to prevent that heart attack. You know that it's in his power to heal this person, to mend that relationship, to see this thing through. You know he can do it and he didn't. And you're left with, but why, God? Why didn't you do that? It's a feeling we feel whenever there's another shooting. God, you could have stopped this, and you didn't. Why didn't you? It's a feeling that Mary felt when Jesus let her brother Lazarus die. And she wept and she said, why didn't you get here sooner? And in that moment, when we're disillusioned by our God, when we don't understand why he let this happen, and there's no words that anybody can say that can comfort us, to choose in that moment to say, God, I don't understand you, but I trust you. God, I don't understand you, but I find my joy in you. And God, I don't understand why you let this happen, but I'm going to lean on your strength to get me through the season of disillusionment and confusion and disappointment. To be able to do that, to be able to choose that despite the confusion and disappointment that we're walking through, to me that is the test that produces a mature and authentic faith. To me, when you've been forced into making that choice, is when your faith becomes sincere and mature and authentic. And listen, there's some middle ground there. I've talked to people walking through this season. There's some middle ground there. There's some people who will say, yeah, life stinks and it's really hard right now. And God, I don't know if I trust you and you could have fixed this and you didn't and I don't know why. And they, even though they love God, they trust God, they still follow God and believe God, they are not yet prepared to say, and I will find my joy and my strength in him. They're not there yet. There's a middle ground where you don't understand what God has allowed, where you know you trust who he is, but you're not yet ready to fully embrace the reality of it. You're not yet ready to fully say, even though I find my joy in you, I rejoice in you, and I find my strength in you, and I know that you will make me walk in high places. There's a middle ground there. And if you are in that place, that middle ground, between God, how could you let this happen, and not quite ready to say, I want to rejoice in you again, this sermon is specifically for you. And the reality is we all face these tests. We, all of us, if you are a Christian, at some point or another, is to be disappointed or disillusioned by God and to feel that he has let you down. It's to go through this test. And the Bible is very clear. It's very open with us. We should see it, right? This shouldn't be a surprise to us. The Bible is honest with us that this test is coming. I could share with you myriad verses, but I've gotten just three here for us to consider this morning. In Proverbs, Solomon writes, He speaks of this test that's coming. The fire burns the gold and the purity rises to the top and there's something to this in the way that the Lord tests us as well. Peter writes famously, 1 Peter 1, verses 6 and 7, He says, on the vine, that today looks bad and tomorrow looks worse. And even though that happens, I will rejoice in the revelation of my Savior, Jesus Christ. I will look forward to the day when he returns and he makes the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. I will cling to that, even though I don't understand God, even though he doesn't make sense to me, even though I would do it differently if I were God. I will choose to trust that in eternity I will understand him, That if I ever possess the capacity to understand what God's doing and why he allows things to happen in this way, I'll sit back and I'll go, you're right. You were good. And I love you. He allows these tests to produce in us a perseverance that will result in glory and honor, praise and the glory and honor of the revelation of Jesus Christ. And then Peter writes at the end of that same book, 1 Peter 4, verse 12, I kind of like this one a lot. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Don't be surprised when we walk through the test. Don't be surprised when life is hard. Don't be surprised when there's a season and you look around and you go, God, where are you? When you relate to the Psalms where David writes, how long, O Lord, will you hide your face from me? Where are you, God? I cry out to you, and I do not see you. Don't be surprised when those trials come, and we look around, and we say, this isn't right. This isn't fair. God, you could have done something about this. He says, don't be surprised as if this is something unexpected. The reality is the test happens. And I want you to know this too about the test. Our father doesn't delight in testing his children. He simply knows that a fallen world will test us. Our God in heaven, our good father in heaven is not up in heaven looking at your faith going, hmm, they seem to be doing pretty well. How can I tighten the screws to see if they really mean it? What can I do to make them to kind of poke and prod them and see if they really mean this or if they're going to fade away? He's not up in the heaven tightening the screws. He doesn't take delight in watching you squirm. That's not what he's doing. He simply knows that in a fallen world, his children will be tested. And he weeps with us. And he offers us his presence. And he offers us his hope. And we're told that those who hope in the Lord will soar on wings like eagles, that we will run and not be weary, that we will walk and not be faint. We're told things over and over again. We're told that God is our refuge and our strength. We're told that we can trust him, that he is our ever-present help in times of trouble. We're told that he is close to the brokenhearted, and he comforts those who are crushed in spirit. We're told blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. We're told over and over again throughout Scripture that God is close to us in our brokenness, that when we are in the middle of this test is when God is closest to us if we will only be able to feel him, if we'll only have the ears to hear him and the eyes to see him and the heart to know him. We're told that the test comes. And it doesn't come because our God delights in testing us and watching things be hard. The test is coming because this world has fallen. Because in a fallen world, people get cancer. In a fallen world, sin begats abuse, begats divorce, begats pain, begats generational scars. In a fallen world, people die too soon. In a fallen world, people get addicted. In a fallen world, we have to watch our parents become people who no longer know us. And those things will test our faith. Those things will make us look at God and say, couldn't you have done something about this? Because of that, I think it's important for us to think, I actually think it's important for us to remember the story of John the Baptist who had this very moment. John the Baptist was this great prophet. He was the last of the great prophets. And he was the one to announce Jesus as the Messiah who was to come. He was the one to introduce Jesus to the people of Israel. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. And subsequent to that, John the Baptist is arrested. He's being held in prison by Herod, and he is going to die. And he sends one of his disciples to Jesus. And he asks Jesus, are you the coming one? Are you the coming one or should we hope for another? And we have no reason to know this, but this is a reference to Isaiah 35, which is a messianic prophecy, a prophecy about the Messiah that is to come. And he calls in that, in Isaiah 35, Jesus is referred to as the coming one or the one who is to come. And it says that when he arrives, that the blind will see, that the deaf will hear, and that the lame will walk, and that the prisoners will be set free. John the Baptist is a prisoner. And he sends a messenger to Jesus to say, hey, are you the guy? Because your word promises that when the guy shows up, I'll be let out of prison. Or should I hope for another? And Jesus tells that disciple to go back to John and say, go and tell John that the blind do see and the deaf do hear and the lame do walk and the prisoners will be set free, but you won't be set free, John. And then Jesus says, blessed are those who don't fall away on account of me. Blessed are those who have expectations of me that I don't meet. Blessed are those who are confused by my actions and my choices, and still choose to trust that I am sovereign and that I am good and that I love you. John the Baptist walked through this very test. All saints walk through this very test. Because of that, I think it's important for us to think of our faith as a clay pot. Think of the faith that you have as a clay pot. If you grab clay and throw it on the pottery wheel and start to form it, you can make it into a thing. I don't know anything about pottery. I've seen it in enough movies and TV shows that I feel like that's what you do, right? You slam it down and you press the pedal and it spins and you can make it into a thing. You can make it into a bowl or a pot or a vase, right? And if you just take the wet clay and you form it into a shape, it's there and it's real and it exists and it's not not clay. It's not not pottery. And you could probably even hold stuff in it if you wanted to. It could probably even serve a purpose. But that piece of pottery is not finished until it goes into the kiln and it comes back out of the fire. That pottery is not hardened. It's not mature. It's not ready to serve its purpose. It's not ready for use. It's not trustworthy until it comes out of the kiln formed and fashioned and fired. And after a couple decades now of being in ministry and being in church my whole life and watching people's faith and watching how it grows and how it fades and how sometimes it seems to go away and sometimes it seems to come back and then sometimes it seems to move into maturity. I am certain of this. Our faith isn't as mature as it could be until we walk through that fire. Our faith is most trustworthy when it's put into the kiln and it comes out the other side hardened and authentic and mature. Our faith, to me, isn't yet mature, isn't yet strengthened, isn't yet completely trustworthy until we've been put in the fire and we've been forced to choose God when sometimes it doesn't make sense to choose Him. And say, but even so, in the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we trust that God will protect us from this fire, but even if he doesn't, we will declare his name. Please understand that the test is not, the fire is not the circumstances that we find ourselves in because those will come and go. To me, I firmly believe that the fire is that moment, it's that season when we question, can I really trust this God? It feels like he let me down. Can I really trust him? Can I choose? When faith isn't easy, when faith doesn't come naturally, when faith isn't fun, when faith is a choice, will I then choose God? When it doesn't make any sense to me, will I trust his wisdom over my own? Will I trust that in eternity, when I can look my Savior in the eye, that I will understand the way that he ordered his creation? I really do think that that's the test of genuine faith. And there's something to that fire, too. And that picture of gold being purified through it. You know, the reality is, as hard as it is to hear, the fire burns off the impurities, right? And so what we find usually when we go into these crucibles and we go into these tests, and the real test is not the circumstances around us, but having to choose God in spite of our confusion. The real test is choosing Him anyways. And allowing some of our impurities to be burnt off. Acknowledging I've been carrying expectations from God for a long time that he never gave me. I've lived, and I know that this is hard, but I've watched it happen. I've lived in myopic faith where my assumption is that by my actions I can control him. And God, I've been good, so you should order the universe to not harm me. That person was so good. They were such a good man. They were such a good woman. They went too early. God, how can you let that happen? That assumes that God pres think the fire forces us to see that maybe we've built a myopic faith. Maybe he's opening our hearts to a grander vision of eternity in his kingdom. Maybe we open ourselves up to God, what did I bring into this test that doesn't belong here? So that when we emerge from the other side, we can authentically claim Habakkuk 3, 17 through 19. This is why James writes in the first chapter of his book, Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you endure trials of any kind. For we know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, and perseverance, when it takes its full form, will leave you perfect and complete, not middle space. When you find yourself in the fire, take heart in knowing that your Father is shaping you into a saint who can claim Habakkuk 3, 17 through 19. If you find yourself in that sacred middle ground and that land between God, you've disappointed me. I believe in you. I want to. I want faith, but I can't yet find my joy in you. If you find yourself there in that fire, take heart. You are in the midst of your test. And when you grab onto God and you choose faith, you will come out the other side persevering. You will be perfect and complete, not lacking anything. You will have a fire-tested faith that was hardened through experience, and you will be able to use your faith as a blessing and beacon to others. To this day, the people whose faith I respect most are the people who have walked through this fire and chosen God anyways and now use that to help walk other people through their test. So if you've been through the test, if you've been forced to make that choice, forced to choose faith, you know how formative that is. You know how solidifying that is of your faith. You know that that season of life, no matter how difficult it was, if you have a sincere faith now, is one that you look back to and flag as the time when I really moved into maturity. You know that that instance, that season of life, anchors your faith now and now so that when things happen around you, they are not near as difficult to deal with. Those of you who have not yet walked through that fire, you will. And when you do, remember those words of Peter. Don't be surprised by this. We all walk through this. Choose God. Choose to find your joy and strengthen him. And for those of you in that middle ground right now, who know God and trust him, but are not yet in your heart at a place where you feel like you can worship him, where you can find your joy in him. God has grace for that. God doesn't rush that. God loves you and is closest to you as you walk through it. My hope and prayer is that we will be heartened by that, that we will be encouraged by that, and that we will be a faithful of people who have chosen God and have mature, authentic walks with him that will stand the test of time, that will be perfect and complete, not lacking anything. Let's pray. God, you're good. Even when we don't understand how you're good, you are. Even when we can't see a hopeful future, God, we know that you do. Lord, I pray specifically this morning that you would be with those who are in the fire. I pray that they would feel your comfort, that they would feel your presence, that they would feel your peace, that they would feel your love. God, fill us with your spirit so much so that even though we don't understand how or why, God, that we would still trust in you. Give us the strength of faith to find our joy and strength in you. Be the one who strengthens us even as we walk through the fire. It's in your son's name we ask all these things. Amen.

We always talk about the stories of Moses and Abraham and David and Paul. We know all about the boys, but what about the girls? Why don't we talk more about the people in the Bible who are like me? When I read the Bible, I see story after story of women who are amazing. I see the courage and hope of Miriam and the boldness of Mary Magdalene. I see the consistent and quiet obedience of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Ruth and Naomi teach us of love, loyalty, and perseverance. Esther becomes a queen who uses her power to save her people. And Deborah becomes a judge and general who defeats the oppressors of her nation. It turns out the girls of the Bible are pretty awesome. And when we take the time to learn their stories, we will be amazed at what God can do with someone who is consistently, humbly, and lovingly faithful. Well, good morning, Grace. I am Erin, as Nate stated earlier, and I am humbled and honored to actually stand up here to kick off this fabulous new series that we have on some of these really cool ladies of the Bible. I need to give a quick shout out, however, to Caitlin Resar. She did the voiceover for that. She is one of our Grace students, and she is pretty amazing, and I think she did an awesome job. So shout out to Caitlin, and thanks for helping us to kind of give life to this series. For those of you guys that might know me know that I adore a really good story. And one of my favorite stories, and yes, I sounded just like Nate right there. This is my favorite of all the favorites, right? But the book of Esther really and truly is one of my favorite stories from the Bible. Y'all, if you look at it, it has all the good things that you would want in a story. There's a king. There's a couple of queens. We've got some trusted, loyal advisors. We have a villain that you just absolutely love to hate. And we have a couple of plot twists, and at the end, the good guys come out on top. So like really, what more could you ask for? And I might have to pitch this idea to Disney as their next blockbuster. It has the potential. Just wait and see. But as I was preparing to do the story of Esther, I kept looking back and talking about it, and I was like, there's just no way that you can do justice to Esther by diving in and picking just a book or a verse out of her story. So if you will indulge me, I'm going to give you like a 10,000-foot flyover of the book of Esther so that we're all kind of on the same page. So sit back, relax, enjoy. And here, let me introduce you to Esther. This starts back in 483 B.C., so a really, really long time ago. And you'll find historically that the people of Israel are coming out of exile. There's a group that have moved themselves into Judah, but then there's another group that have scattered. And they have scattered in the Persian Empire, which, mind you, is the ruling empire of the time. This is where we pick up the story of Esther. The capital of the Persian empire is a place called Susa, and living inside of that capital is the king. The king's name is Xerxes. Y'all, these names, bear with me today. His name is Xerxes. He's three years into his reign, and the thing that we know about Xerxes at this point is that he loves to be king. He loves the power. He loves the opulence. He loves the wealth. He loves all things that come from being king. He's at the end of a 180-day banquet cycle. Okay, 180 days worth of parties, basic and simple, that he has given for all of his officials from all over the empire, just to show everybody how cool he really is. But because he's Xerxes, this is not quite enough for him. So he decides to hold a seven-day blowout of a party, for lack of a better way to word it. It is seven full days. He hires the best party planners. They decorate the entire courtyard in all of the finest things that they can, the best food, the best wine, and then he invites all of the people of the Capitol to come join them. So he can show off how really cool and powerful he is. Well, here we go. At the end of seven days, you can only imagine with all of the food and all of the wine that you could want what condition King Xerxes may have been in. And I'm just going to call it for what it was. He wasn't in the best state. Most likely he was very drunk. And he decides one last thing he wants to do is he wants to show off his crowning jewel, which is his king or his queen. And her name is Vashti. Now Vashti's on the other side of the palace. She's giving a party for the ladies. Messenger comes over and says, Hey Vashti, Xerxes wants to see you and all your queen finery. And Vashti says, no. Now, scripture doesn't tell us why she says no, but y'all can only guess. They've been over there for seven days doing all things around this food and drink. And now I'm going to put on my crown and my royal robe and I'm going to go parade through a bunch of basically drunken men. No, no, thank you. I appreciate the offer, but I think I'll stay right here with my ladies. It's a little safer here. So Vashti says no. Message gets back to Xerxes. We find out Xerxes has this crazy temper, and he makes this quick flash decision and says, I'm sorry, you're no longer my queen. You're done. So now he's King Xerxes without a queen. A couple of years pass because he's out doing whatever you do to run the kingdom, right? And his advisors come to him and say, it's time for you to have a queen. Now we know that King Xerxes loves all things beautiful. And so his advisors develop this beautiful idea to hold a beauty pageant. There's really no other thing that you would want to call it. It's a beauty pageant. Please go collect all of the beautiful young virgins from all over the empire and bring them to us. And then we're going to parade them around in front of the king and he gets to pick his queen. So that's exactly what happens. Research that I did said somewhere around 400 ladies end up back at the capital of Susa. They get dropped into the harem of the king, and they get to spend the next 12 months, y'all, 12 months, getting themselves all primed and pretty and beautiful before they can go before the king. So stop there for a second. We're right there at the edge of the harem. Let me introduce you to our next two people. The first one is Mordecai. Mordecai is one of the Jews that chose not to go back to Judah. He's living right there in the middle of Susa. And he's raising his cousin as his daughter. Her parents died at a very young age. So she's orphaned. Her name is Hadasha, or as we know her, it's Esther. And so in Scripture, Esther is described as being lovely in figure, or beautiful in figure and lovely to look at. So you can only guess what happens to Esther now, right? She's a lovely in figure and beautiful to look at. She becomes part of that 400 that end up inside of the harem awaiting their parade before the king. The only thing Mordecai can say to Esther before she goes in is, Hey, Esther, just do me one small favor. Don't let them know who you are. Don't let them know that you are a Jewish orphan. So Esther, because she loves and adores her Mordecai, she keeps her mouth closed. It goes on to tell us that once she gets into this harem, she finds favor with the person that's in charge of all the girls. She gets the best of everything. She gets servants of her own. It is an okay time, I guess, if you're going to be caught in a harem. I don't know. But yeah, I guess it's an okay time. She's kind of up there in the top of things and all is good. The 12 months pass. It's time to basically parade the girls out in front of Xerxes. And because this is the story of Esther, you kind of guess what happens. The parading happens. They get to Esther and it all stops. Because the king takes one look at Esther, is bowled over by her beauty. And lo and behold, he walks up and he puts the crown on Esther's head. And she is now the queen of Persia. And they hold a huge banquet to celebrate all of this. So just to make sure you're with me, we have King Xerxes. We have King Xerxes who basically says bye-bye to Queen Vashti because he can, right? And then we now have Esther who is queen, and we have Xerxes who is absolutely smitten with Esther. I like that word. That's why I used it. Smitten. It's just kind of a good word. And if you don't know what it means, for those of you in here that are younger, go look it up because it's fun. It is. It's just a fun word. And then we have Mordecai who is hanging out outside of the king's palace at what they call the king's gate because he wants to check in periodically on his Esther and make sure she's doing okay. And it's at the king's gate that we meet our final character in the story of Esther. And his name is Haman. Haman is the king's right-hand man. He is the top of the top. He has got the king's ear. And if we go back to Disney references, for those of you guys that are familiar with Jafar, he is Jafar. He's going to do everything in his power to keep his power and to manipulate the king. Now, inside of the story of Esther, there's another little story that runs in the underneath side between Haman and Mordecai. I don't have time to go into that, but I suggest y'all read it because it's great. It really is. It's worth your time, I promise. But let us just suffice to say that Haman did not like Mordecai, and Mordecai did not like Haman. And actually the word here, which, you know, in my house when my kids were growing up, we always said we don't use the word hate. Like it's not a good word. In this case, that's actually a good descriptor of the relationship between Haman and Mordecai. They just despised each other. And so what happens in this moment is we have years that passed, and somewhere in there, about five years into Esther's reign, this ongoing feud, for lack of a better term, between Mordecai and Haman comes to a head. And Haman just decides that it is time for Mordecai to go. I'm done with you. But the thing is, is it's not just Mordecai. He decides that because Mordecai is Jewish, it needs to be all Jewish people that go. And remember I said he has the ear of the king. And so lo and behold, Haman goes into the king and he says, Hey, king, there's this group of people that live in the empire. They're not like us. They don't follow our rules. They don't do. And they're going to be a threat to us here before too terribly long. So we need to get rid of them. We need to annihilate them. We need to take them out. He wasn't talking about just slavery. He was talking about killing all of them. And so he says this to King Xerxes. And remember, King Xerxes is like, Haman's his right-hand dude, right? Oh, sure, go ahead. I'll even pay for it. Go on. So this decree is drawn up. It's sent out to all of the Persian Empire, and it states that on a specific day in time coming forward, they are going to kill all of the Jewish people living in the Persian Empire. Done. Well, the people living in the Persian Empire, the Jewish people living in the Persian Empire at this point in time had kind of assimilated into the culture. And so they hadn't been causing any trouble, really. This is because of Mordecai. And so they get this information about the fact that they're soon to be killed and they don't know what's going on. So there's a whole lot of weeping and a whole lot of lamenting. And if you know anything, tearing of clothes and wearing of sackcloths. This is the picture we get of our Mordecai standing outside of the gate. And the message gets in to Esther that Mordecai is in bad shape outside of the gate. And so she sends a messenger and says to Mordecai, hey, Mordecai, what's wrong? What's going on? He sends in a copy of the decree and he says in his message to, it's time for you, Esther, to go speak to your husband on behalf of your people. Well, then Esther sends a message back out to Mordecai and says, hey, Mordecai, I'm not sure if you've heard this or not, but anybody who happens to walk inside to speak to the king and doesn't have permission gets killed. And my husband and I have not spoken in like 30 days. So I'm not quite sure he wants to see me at this point. And so then Mordecai hears this and sends back a message to Esther. And y'all, by the way, offside here, would you like to have been that messenger? Like back and forth. Could they not have figured out how to talk to each other? Oh, well. But here they go. So here goes this messenger, goes back into Esther with a message from Mordecai. And the message from Mordecai is basically, and y'all remember, this is my paraphrase, but he's like, hey, Esther, you know that crown and those beautiful robes you have? Well, on the day of annihilation, that's not saving you. It's not. You are still a Jewish woman. You're going to be killed. And have you not thought about the fact that somehow, someway, you are the queen for such a time as this? There's something in those words from Mordecai that prick Esther's heart. And Esther stops in her tracks. And her response back to Mordecai is, I will, basically. And her whole thought process on this one is, I need you to do something for me first. I need you to gather all of the Jewish people together, and I need you to fast. And I'm going to fast for the next three days. And I'm going to get my ladies around me, and we're going to fast. And at the end of those three days, I will go see the king. And if I perish, I perish. Y'all, this is one of the reasons why I adore Esther so much. Like here she is, she's at this moment of time, she's made her decision, and she just says it. If I perish, I perish. It sounds like something out of like Gone with the Wind. Do y'all remember the end of the something about, yeah, it doesn't matter. But it's all, there's so like, here she is. It's this moment in this story of being this heroine. And she's like, if I perish, I perish. So at the end of three days, she gets dressed in all of her royal garb and she goes to the edge of the king's court and she stands there. Zerch sees at the other end of the court, he looks up and he sees his beautiful queen and he immediately hands her the golden scepter, which allows her to walk in and to speak to him. And he says to her, my queen, what is it that you want? Up to half of my kingdom I will give you. And so here you expect her to say, hey, save my people, right? This is the expectation. It's time. Like she's there. It's time. No. Her response is, I want to have a banquet. What? Food, drink, what? But she says, I want to have a banquet with you and Haman and me, just the three of us. King says, okay, fine. Next day, there's a banquet. The king, the queen, Haman, everybody eats, everybody drinks. It's a great time. At the end of it, though, Xerxes looks at her again, and he's like, hey, queen, what can I do for you? If it's, you know, up to half my kingdom, it's yours. It's her moment to shine again, right? It's here. And what does she do? She asks for another banquet. Again, just her and Haman and Xerxes. And her beautiful husband obliges her and says, sure, so here we go. 24 hours later, it's another banquet. This time around, it's just, again, the three of them sitting around eating, drinking. And y'all, I can imagine Haman at this point, right? Our power-hungry little villain. He's sitting back going, this is banquet number two. Just me and the king and the queen. Like, how cool am I? How powerful am I? This is the best of the best. And I can almost imagine that he's like at the end of the meal sitting back. Maybe he's got his feet up on the table because that would be a Haman kind of thing to do, I think. Feet up on the table, rubbing the belly like, I'm good, y'all. I'm so good. And somewhere in this moment, though, King Xerxes says to Esther, again, what is it that you want? Up to half of my kingdom, and it's yours. And this time, this time Esther responds and says that she wants her and her people saved. Okay, Haman's feet just fell off the table, by the way. Because all of a sudden, Haman is exposed for who Haman is. Because guess what? He knows what's coming next. The king gets furious. Who did this to you? And the queen's response is Haman. And so lo and behold, because this is one of those really cool stories where the good guys win, right? What happens? Haman is executed because of his crimes against the queen. And then all of his things are given to Esther. Esther gives all those to Mordecai. In turn, Mordecai then gets elevated to Haman's position. So he's now second in command in the kingdom. And all is right in the world, except for one thing. Unfortunately, when the king makes a decree in Persia, it's irrevocable. So that little decree that says that the Jewish people are going to die is still sitting out there. And so Esther comes to her king again and says, hey, what can we do? And he says, you and Mordecai figure it out and fix it. And so Esther and Mordecai come up with this brilliant idea that says, guess what? On that day, the Jewish people, y'all can defend yourself. So if somebody comes after you to kill you, you can defend yourself. So kind of think about that one. If you're a Persian person, yeah. So needless to say, the day comes and lo and behold, there is unfortunately bloodshed on both sides, but the Jewish people are far from annihilated. And I can honestly say that all was right in the kingdom at that point. So, wow. That was a lot. Thank you for hanging in there with me as we tried to do the flyover. And didn't I tell you all a whole lot of mystery and intrigue and suspense? And it's all good. It's one of the things that I love about it. But if I were to say to you what was missing from that story, or better yet, who was missing? Y'all, this story is in the Old Testament, and it sits right in between Nehemiah and Job, if you're flipping through pages. But guess who's never mentioned in this story? It's God. It's the only book out of the 66 books of the Bible that God has never mentioned. But in my opinion, God's fingerprints are all over this story. I see him as being a master weaver of the story of Esther into his story. Now, I am a needle pointer, not a weaver. And so the idea of master needle pointer didn't work in this example. So we're going with Weaver, but I'm going to use needle point as an example. So just bear with me. It's one of those days, y'all. It's just one of those days. So in needle point, you start with a piece of canvas and it's blank. And then you have all of these different threads of different colors that you use in your picture, in your needlepoint. And they get woven in. And so you start with one color, and you start it on its path. And then you add another color in, and then you add another color in. Each one of them has their own path, has their own pattern. Well, each one of them individually is a different color. And so like if we think about the story of Esther and God's blank canvas, you know, you've got Queen Vashti, and you've got, oh who, Xerxes, and Esther, and Mordecai, and Haman. And they all have their different colors. And we start this process of weaving them into this canvas. And then all of a sudden, they start to overlap. And they mix together. There may even be moments when you see knots start to form in this story. But the thing is, is that these seemingly unrelated, meandering lines and threads of different colors are really the master weaver putting together Esther's story and weaving it into his story and the story of his people. So give me one second here and let's go back quickly and look at the Esther story, but using the lens of having the master weaver attached to it. You have King Xerxes, who we know loves all things beautiful. We have Haman over here, who we know hates the Jewish people. We know what his plan is, right? We know he wants to annihilate God's people. We have a queen in place, but we need a different queen in order to make sure that God's people get saved. So what does God do? Well, Vashti disappears. There's a beauty pageant of all things that happen because we know Xerxes loves beauty. There's a beauty pageant that happens which then gets our orphaned Jewish girl to be queen of the large ruling empire of the time. Y'all, there's no other way but God that that girl would have ended up as queen of Persia. Esther is beautiful. Esther finds favor. Mordecai sits as her trusted advisor, loving on her, and is there as the person who actually gets through to her about what her purpose is. And her purpose at that moment is to stand before her king and plead for her people. And you know, throughout all of this, Esther has not known what her purpose is. And even when Mordecai says to her, oh, by the way, you need to go in and you need to plead for your people. Esther's only response to that was what? We're going to fast first. And I don't want you guys to miss this because this is the part to me that was so very cool as well in the Jewish faith when you fast what else do you do you pray so to me that said Esther is this sweet Jewish orphan who's now queen who doesn't know what her plan nor her purpose is, but she does know who her God is. And she trusts in him. Sorry. She trusts in him. She prays, and then she takes that step of faith, even if it meant the end of her life. So the other thing to see here too is I look at that section with the whole interaction between the king and the queen and the banquets and y'all seriously we know Xerxes had a hair-trigger temper. We know all those things about him, and yet he indulged Esther. And then he comes back and three different times asks her, what is it that you want? And she says, a banquet. But he could have just given up on the first one, and it would have been done. But no, God is in this moment prodding and pushing and saying, ask her again. There's something important coming. So God just continues to take what we think are these seemingly unrelated moments and weave them together to create these beautiful stories. He does it for Esther, but y'all, he does it for us too. Harris and I got married. There were three guys in our wedding that we knew in high school, which doesn't seem like a big deal, except if I were to tell you that I didn't know Harris when I was in high school. Think about that one for just a second. We went to the same school, and I was actually a year in the class ahead of him, so we were in different classes. Went to the same school, in different classes, but we somehow had a lot of friends that were similar, but we never met each other. I graduated. I went off to the University of Kentucky. Harris graduated. He came back here, because North Carolina is home for him, and went to East Carolina. I took a little detour and went to South Carolina. And thankfully, God showed me that, y'all, South Carolina, for those of you that like it, I'm so excited for you, but I hated it. I made it six months. That was it. I was like, I'm done. I am done. I am going home. And so I went back to Kentucky, and I'm there. And about a year after I had returned to Kentucky, one of those mutual friends from high school found it fit to introduce Harris and I to each other. And two years later, we're married, and somewhere in there made the decision to, as Harris would tell you, move back to the promised land. To him, this is the promised land. This is where family was, etc. I, on the other hand, was like, I kind of like Kentucky. My family's here, et cetera. But I stepped out in faith and went. Harris's family enveloped me as their own. Harris's mama, who I can't look at, she's sitting in the front row, and I didn't know that when I was doing this. But Harris's mama was very, very instrumental in my faith walk. And so then from there we find grace. And then from there our kids are raised here and you know, so on and so forth. And I'm now standing here before you guys, but there's a whole lot of meandering threads in mine and Harris's story that if those hadn't, if God hadn't been weaving in them, we wouldn't be, this wouldn't be our story. I wouldn't be standing here before you today and Zach and Zoe wouldn't be around. So like God is in the middle of all of these seemingly unrelated moments. He's building a beautiful, beautiful tapestry. And then your tapestry becomes part of his huge tapestry, his big story. So don't ever forget that. Yours is part of his. And so if I were to say to you guys, what is it that you do when you feel like God is absent? When you feel like you're in the middle of Esther's story and you're just reading it and God's name's not mentioned, what is it? When you're in the middle of a pandemic, or maybe you're in the middle of the season of life where you're caring for a bunch of young kids, young children, or maybe you're caring for aging parents. Maybe you're in the middle of a loss. Maybe it's just a dry season for you for whatever reason. What do you do? I want to ask you to ask yourself two questions. Question one is, are you willing to trust? Are you willing to trust him in even those darkest moments like Esther did when she walked into that harem? Because scripture tells us that he will never leave us nor forsake us. Do you hold on to that and do you trust in that? And the other one to ask is, are you willing to step out in faithful obedience? Even when you cannot see that big picture. Like what Esther did when she said, if I perish, I perish. And she walked in to see her husband. That, y'all, was that step of obedience. And she did it because she knew her God. And she trusted him. So, in this beautiful tapestry that has its chaos and its knots and what looks like seemingly unrelated threads, do me a favor. Turn it over and see it as your God sees it, as he has woven it together to tell his story and your story. Will y'all pray with me? Lord, thank you that you have given us these spectacular ladies of the Bible and stories like Esther that just show us that even when we feel like you aren't there, if we feel like we can't see you, that really and truly you are there. You're in the background. You're taking what we feel are just these random moments in time and this chaos that can be our lives, but you're taking it and you're molding it and you're weaving it together for your good, for your purposes, so that we, as your kids, can bring you glory. And so we just ask that in those moments that we trust you, that we walk in faithful obedience to what it is that you would have us to do. And most of all, Lord, we just thank you for loving us. And it's in your son's mighty name that we pray. Amen.

Good morning and happy Easter. It's so good to see everybody. Thank you for joining us online. It's good to see a good crowd and Easter colors. I love Easter. It's my favorite day of the year. I love everything that it celebrates. It's such a victorious day. It celebrates not only the greatest victory ever won, but the greatest one to come. It gives us hope for a future. My favorite quote about Easter is actually from Pope John Paul II. He said, we do not give over, give ourselves over to despair. We are the Easter people and Alleluia is our song. And what a day to come together and celebrate our risen Savior and all that he won for us. As we do that, we are in the middle of our series called Greater, going through the book of Hebrews together, and we're going to continue right on with that here on Easter. So hopefully you've been able to follow along and you have kind of a loose awareness of what we've been talking about, but for the uninitiated, for those that got drugged here by friends or are watching in somebody's living room, just so that we all are caught up together. The book of Hebrews is a letter. We don't know who wrote it, but we do know that it was written to Jewish people who lived outside of Israel in a Greek context who had at some point in their life converted to Christianity. So they grew up as practicing Jews, practicing the faith of Judaism, and then at some point received the news about Jesus and his resurrection and placed their faith in Jesus and converted to Christianity. Because of that conversion, they faced persecution from within and without, from the Roman government and from their own community, both of whom were trying to encourage them in various ways to walk away from their newfound faith and to embrace their old way of life. And so the author of Hebrews writes this letter to those people, those converted Jews into Christians, to compel them to stay the course in their faith. And he chooses to try to compel them by painting this lofty, soaring picture of Jesus and who he is. And he paints this picture by way of comparison. He compares Jesus to different facets of the Hebrew faith, which is why we're calling the series Greater, because he was greater than the angels and the other messengers. He was greater than Moses and the law. We see that he's the great high priest we talked about a couple weeks ago. And this week, we see that he's the greatest sacrifice. Now, to appreciate the fact that Jesus is the greatest sacrifice, we need to understand a little bit about how the sacrificial system in the Old Testament worked. And I know that you might think to yourself, boy, this is a weird place to go on Easter, but hang with me, okay? We're going to get to where we're going, but we've got to move through here first. In the Old Testament, the way that you would be right with God, the way that you would have a good standing before God, in our New Testament vernacular, most of us probably think of it as being saved. So in the Old Testament, the way that you were saved, or really the way that you had right standing before God, is through the sacrificial system. In Leviticus, we're given 630 some odd laws, and you had to live your life trying to follow those as best you could. If you could follow them perfectly, then good news, God is happy with you. But just in case you fall short, which everyone but Jesus did, then there were sacrifices that you could make. So once a week, once a month, whatever your rhythm allowed, whatever your wealth allowed, the head of the household, the dad or the grandfather, would take a bull or a lamb or a goat or whatever the sins of that household required based on different parameters of sacrifices that we're not going to get into. But he would take an appropriate sacrifice to the local temple, and the priest would sacrifice this animal on your family's behalf. And as the animal was sacrificed, the father would lay his hands on the head of the bull or the lamb or the goat or whatever it was, and the sins of the family are symbolically transferred onto this animal that is now paying the penalty for your sins. And once you go through this ritual of sacrifice, now you're good. You and God are squared away. You're fine. All your past sins are forgiven. The problem with the animal sacrifice is it only covered your past sins. So if you planned on screwing up in the future, well, then you better plan on making some more sacrifices. And you would. So every week or month you had to go back and you had to make a new sacrifice for the fresh sins. And then once a year on the greatest day in the Hebrew calendar, on the day of atonement, the high priest would go into the tabernacle or into the temple, into the Holy of Holies in the very presence of God, offer a sacrifice for himself and for his sins, and then a sacrifice for the nation of Israel. And it was this system of sacrifices of sinning and repenting and offering sacrifice to give yourself right standing before God. It was this system of sacrifices, of sinning and repenting and offering sacrifice to make yourself, give yourself right standing before God. It was this system of sacrifices that kept you right before God, that kept you saved, right? And so in the Old Testament, they really focused a lot on doing the rituals the right way, on offering the sacrifice in the right way, of putting our hands in the right place. If you were here a few falls ago, we did a series called Feast, where we went through the Jewish festivals, and the biggest one is the Day of Atonement. We spent a whole Sunday morning on the pomp and the circumstance in the Day of Atonement, and when things are supposed to happen, and the ceremonial bath, and the robe that you're supposed to wear, and when this sacrifice happens, and who's allowed in this room, in this space, and it was all very choreographed and nuanced and detailed. And you see, that led them to this assumption in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, they thought the rituals were the point. They thought the rituals were the point. If we can do everything just right, if I offer the sacrifice in the right way, if my priest is a good priest and he's doing it right, if the day of atonement goes well and that high priest performs his sacerdotal duties in the right way, then we're good. In the Old Testament, they thought that the rituals that they were following were the point. The problem is there's a little bit of Mr. Miyagi going on in these rituals. Now, I wanted to show you guys a clip from the 80s smash hit Karate Kid, but we can't. We're fancy now and we stream on YouTube and they would shut down our channel if we showed it, so we decided not to chance it. And now you'll be subjected to me describing to you a movie scene. So let's do this together. For those that don't know, Karate Kid is the predecessor to the really cruddy Cobra Kai that's on Netflix now and is a shadow of the former realities. But in Karate Kid, there's this great scene. There's a guy named, there's a little kid, or he's a teenager named Daniel, and he's getting bullied, okay? The kids are picking on him and he can't fend for himself and whatever, whatever. And so he finds this karate master named Mr. Miyagi. And he goes to Mr. Miyagi, and he says, will you train me? Teach me to do karate like you do karate. And Mr. Miyagi says, okay. But if you do karate, you got to do it all the way. You can't waver. If you do it, we'll squish you, he says. And Daniel's like, I'm in. And he goes, okay, great. And he puts a sponge in his hand and a rag in his hand, and he says, here's my cars. Wax on, wax off. Clean my cars. And he's like, what? And he goes, ah, no questions. You clean my cars. Daniel's like, all right, fine. So he starts cleaning the cars, right? And then the next scene over, he's like washing the car like this, and Miyagi sees him, and he's like, no, what are you doing? Wax on, and he takes his hand, and then wax off. And he moves it really intentionally. And he's like, what's the big deal with the waxing on and the waxing off? I'm cleaning the cars, right? And then he does this series of chores. He paints the fence, and he sands the floor, and he does all these repetitive motions. And it feels, for the first several weeks of of his training that Mr. Miyagi is really just using him for free labor, right? That he's just taking advantage of this kid's desire to learn karate and he's not actually learning anything. And then there's this great scene when Daniel gets ticked and he kind of confronts him. He's like, what's the deal? I want to learn karate and you're just making me do chores. And Mr. Miyagi's like, all right, wax on. And he's like, and he goes, no. And he takes his hand and he does it really intentionally. He goes, wax on. And then you hear Mr. Miyagi scream, hi, and he goes to punch him, right? And Daniel blocks the punch. And then he tries to punch him again and Daniel blocks the punch. And he's like, sand the floor and he blocks the kick. You know, paint the fence and he blocks the punch. And he's like, sand the floor, and he blocks the kick. You know, paint the fence, and he blocks the punch. And you realize in this moment, oh man, Mr. Miyagi really knows what he's doing. This is amazing. I'm all in on the karate master. This is like the smartest thing that happened in the 80s. And you can't believe it. And you're like, oh my gosh, all the things that he was doing, he was teaching him muscle memory. He was teaching him karate. Those were a form of what was to come. The waxing the floor wasn't the point. Waxing on wasn't the point. Sanding the fence wasn't the point. All the chores weren't the point. He was getting them to the point that he didn't understand yet. This is what's happening with the Old Testament rituals. They thought that the rituals were the point, that the cleaning of the actual floor, that the sanding the floor, the painting the fence, that that was the point. But they were really, through those rituals, getting in a much deeper reality. And the author of Hebrews actually writes about this reality and lays it out for them almost. I'm not willing to call it sarcastic and joking, but man what he's saying. He's saying, you guys went through these rituals all this time ago. And then he even comes out and he overtly says it. Those were shadows of the reality that was to come. Those rituals that you were doing that day of atonement was a shadow of the reality that was to come. It's not here yet. And then I love the way that he ends it. This is almost the sarcastic part for me. Maybe I just read my own personality into it. But it's like he leans in and he's like, did you really think the blood of bulls and goats is doing anything? Do you think there's anything magical going on in their blood? It's a symbol, guys. It doesn't make a difference. The ritual's not the point. And then he says this about Jesus. He says, those things weren't the point. They were a shadow of the realities to come. It's the reality of the ritual. And then he goes on and he says, and this is really the fulfillment of those rituals. This is why we did that. And he talks about Jesus in verses 11 through 14, when he writes, He says, that the high priest was pointing to our great high priest in Christ. You watched the sacrifices happen. You didn't realize that the sacrifice was a shadow of the reality that was going to come in Christ as he offered the ultimate sacrifices. And we've already acknowledged that the limited ability of the sacrifice of the animals was that they only covered the things that had happened in the past. But with the eternal sacrifice of Christ, you're not only forgiven for all the things you did up until the moment that you accept that sacrifice, but all the things that God knows you're going to do in the future, which is the remarkable thing about salvation. So he's saying that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the rituals. And what we need to see is what he was trying to get them to see is that the real point of the rituals was to point to the point. Do you get the point? The real point of the rituals was to point to the point. Think about it. The point is Jesus. The law that they give him in the Old Testament, follow these rules and you can be okay with God. The point of those rules was never to make them okay with God. It was to show them their inability to ever earn their way into God's favor and so surrender to their need for God. The law was given so that we would acknowledge our need for Jesus. The sacrifices that he gives in the Old Testament, those point to the sacrifice of Christ one day. The role of the high priest, the imperfect high priest going into the Holy of Holies is a picture of Jesus as your high priest dying on the cross and then going to heaven and sitting at the right hand of God where we talked about a couple of weeks ago. He prays for you. He intercesses for you. He goes to the creator of the universe and he says, I have him. I have her. They're good. They can approach. He goes, he not only wins our salvation, but then he goes and he sits at the right hand of the throne of God and he ushers in our presence into the throne room so that anytime we want to, anywhere we are, we bow our heads and we say, dear God, and we are rushed right into the very throne room of God, into his presence, which is not a place that we would dare tread if we were not going in the name of Christ. That's what our high priest does for us. And what he wants them to see is that everything in the Old Testament, everything in your old way of life, the point of it is to point to the point. It's all pointing to Jesus. The prophets pointed to Jesus. The kingship of David points to Jesus. The priesthood of Melchizedek points to Jesus. All streams are running to Jesus. The point of everything is to point to Christ. And it would make sense to me if now you were thinking, okay, Nate, that's neat, but we don't live in the Old Testament. We don't do those rituals. So I'm glad I understand that, but what does that mean for me? I'm glad you asked. Don't you understand that we're still just waxing on and waxing off? Don't you understand that we're still just being Miyagi'd? That everything we do as a church is designed to point ourselves and others to the point? Don't you understand that everything we do as a church, as a church, everything we do is designed to point ourselves and others to the point. We come here and we gather together and we worship corporately. We sing praises to our God. Do you understand that that's a picture of heaven? That that's just this glimpse, just this sliver of our ability, the grace that God gives us to gather together with other people who are united in faith and come together as a body of faith and praise God to his throne. That that's a picture of what we're going to be doing in heaven. So that when we come and we praise God together, the point isn't to worship and be moved in your soul right now. The point is to understand that one day we will do this for all of eternity, that one day I won't just be singing next to the people I go to church with, but I will be singing with all saints for all of history. I will be praising next to Moses and David and my grandparents and Esther and Ruth and Naomi and all the heroes of our faith. We will come together and we will praise before the throne together. And what we do on Sunday morning is a shadow, a glimpse of the reality that is to come in heaven. We're pointing to the point. Don't you understand that when we take communion, it's not about the ritual? It's not about how we do it. It's not about if we dip it right or if we use the right bread. It's pointing to the point. As a matter of fact, I just heard before the service started, and I said, oh, that's great. I'm going to use it in the sermon. We did communion two weeks ago, and a single guy was watching online, and he wanted to participate in communion, and the best he could muster up was a tortilla chip and a glass of wine. Great. He participated in communion with his family. I would lean into that like the author of Hebrews did and say, do you really think there's anything magical going on in the bread? I think it matters whether you use Welch's or like whatever, Summer Home. It doesn't matter. I don't even know if that's a wine. I'm a bourbon guy. Somebody in between services, somebody tell me a good wine to use there, and I'll see if I can remember it in the second service. There's nothing special going on in those elements. It's a sign of the things to come. It's pointing to the point that one day we will be gathered around the table of God, of the King of the universe, and we are adopted sons and daughters of the King, and we are invited into that fellowship with Jesus. It is a reminder of what Jesus did 2,000 years ago, and it's a reminder of what he will do, what he has promised to do in the future. Do you understand that even the behaviors that Scripture admonishes in you are designed to point to the point? That faithfulness and goodness and kindness and gentleness and meekness, that God doesn't implore you to be gentle for gentleness' sake. He implores you to be gentle because when you are different from the world that we live in, when you are so gentle that it's noticeable, it orients your heart towards Christ and other people who watch you walk in your gentleness are oriented towards Christ as well. That he asks you to be forgiving, not for the sake of being forgiving, not for forgiveness's sake, but for the sake that with radical forgiveness, we mirror Christ and orients our heart to him and other people are pointed to Jesus as a result of our forgiveness. Go down the list. Goodness, love, mercy, charity. All those behaviors that are prescribed in the New Testament, we're not prescribed them for the sake of the behavior, but so that our hearts would be oriented towards Jesus and other people would see that in us and want to know our Savior as well. Even our marriages, these things that we go through for our lives, we choose a life partner, we stay married, we love them, and even the most holy of marriages, it's a ritual to point to the point. The marriage is used over and over and over again in scripture as a picture of the way that Christ loves the church, that we are the bride of Christ. Pure, unadulterated, marital love between the most holy of people who love Christ only serves to show the world around them how Christ loves the church. Marriage itself is designed to point us to the point. We're still just waxing on and waxing off. Even, I would say to you, fighting your own sin nature within yourself, striving and failing and striving and failing and feeling never good enough is intentional to point you to the point so that you'll come to the end of yourself and admit, I need Christ. Even our striving against ourselves in sin is serving to point us to the point. Not to mention baptism, what we just did. People get concerned about the ritual. Did we do it right? We were in the bathroom changing afterwards and Kyle said, did my head go all the way under? And I said, you're good, man. It took. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's not the point. Whether or not we did the baptism right is not the point. The point is that it points to Christ. In Romans 6 it says in baptism we are buried with Christ in death and we are raised to walk in newness of life. That's why the early church did it on Easter because it's a symbol of Jesus being put in the grave and when Kyle Kyle goes under the water, he's being put in the grave too. And his former self is passing away. And when he rises up out of the water, he is washed clean. He is sprinkled pure by the blood of Christ. He raises to walk in newness of life in eternity with Jesus. It's a picture of Easter. It doesn't matter if we do it right. The point is not the ritual. The point is to point us to Christ. And speaking of Easter, Easter, more than any other day, points us to the point. Easter, more than any other day, points us to Christ. It is amazing to me, the victory that was won on Easter. It is amazing to me that when Mary went and she found the tomb and she heard the greatest line in the Bible from the angel, why do you search for the living among the dead? He is not living. Or he is not here, he is living just as he said. In that victory, Jesus conquered hell and Satan. Jesus conquered death for us. Jesus conquered disease for us. When we gather on Easter, we remember those of us who have lost loved ones in the last year or even further away than that. We are reminded that the last time we said goodbye to them was not goodbye forever. It was goodbye for now. Easter reminds us of that reality. Easter reminds us of the hope that we have. Because Scripture says, death, where are your shackles? Sin, where is your sting? Like it's been defeated. Jesus won that for us because Jesus died on the cross and left the tomb empty and went to heaven as our high priest and now prays for us because he won us that salvation. We get together on Easter and we remember that reality. And because he did that, my friend Kyle, his father watched him from heaven get baptized with his little granddaughter and with his wife sitting on the row and his daughter-in-law that he loved so much. He watched that and participated in that. And when Kyle goes to heaven one day, he's going to hug him. That was one on Easter. Do you understand? We don't have to fear what everybody else fears. We have a tremendous hope. That's why Pope John Paul II said, we do not give way to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. We praise God no matter what. It's an amazing thing that was won on Easter. And here's the bigger deal. Not only on Easter do we remember the victory that Jesus won and be grateful for what it did to us and ushering us into heaven and uniting us with him for all of eternity? But his victory over death is the greatest victory that's ever been won, but it's not the greatest one that will be won because Revelation tells us that Jesus is coming back on a white horse and he's coming back to wreck shop and he's gonna set up his new kingdom and his new earth where there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things have passed away. Jesus is going to come back and win that victory. One day when we don't have to ask why do shootings happen and why do bad things happen to good people and why do bad people seem to thrive? Jesus is going to come back and he's going to make all that make sense. As Christians, that is the promise that we cling to. That is our hope that will not put us to shame. That is what we usher others to. So even Easter, as we celebrate it, the point is not only the resurrection of Christ, but also the greatest victory that he will win. It's his seal on his promise. I kept that promise. I sent my son. He died for you. He conquered death. He resurrected. He ascended to the right hand of the Father. He prays for you. And one day he's coming back and he's going to make everything right. And so on Easter, we celebrate the promise that we remember that has been kept and we celebrate the promise that we look forward to him keeping. It's still pointing us to the point. As we celebrate Easter with our families, and we do all the things that we do, let us remember the victory that Christ won for us. Let us acknowledge that just like the Old Testament church, they were simply waxing on and waxing off, that the rituals and the things they did were simply designed to point them to Christ, that so it is with us as we exist as the New Testament church, that all the things he asks us to do and all the rituals he's installed and all the behaviors in our life and all the faith that he asks from us is really designed to point us to the point. And let us remember that on Easter, we don't just celebrate a victory won, but one that we know will be won in the future. Let's pray, and we'll continue to worship together. Father, we are so grateful to you. We're so grateful for your son. Thank you for sending him to pay the penalty for our sins. Lord, I pray that if there is somebody who doesn't know you, that this would be the morning when they decide that they want to. If there's someone who hasn't felt your forgiveness, let this be the day that they feel it. God, let us accept more and more that everything in our life is simply designed to point us back to Jesus. That everything we do at the church, everything that you encourage us to do together, all the ways that you encourage us to love, all the ways that you love us, all the things that you let us struggle with are designed, Father, to point us to our need for your Son. God, I pray that we would have the best Easter, not only reflecting on the victory that you've won, but on the one that you promised to win too. And it's in that returning Savior's name that we pray. Amen.

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