Sermons tagged with Family

Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and I'm very excited for the series. I hope that you guys had a good Thanksgiving. For the Rectors, it's a whirlwind. It's six and a half hours to Atlanta on Monday, five hours to Dothan on Wednesday, six hours to Greenville on Friday, and four and a half hours to Raleigh on Saturday, which is 22 hours of travel. So if you see my children and they look a little bit addled, that's why. But they did great and we had a great time and we saw family and I hope that you did too. But now that we're past that, we have arrived at my favorite time of year at Grace. I love this time of year at grace i i love uh getting to celebrate next week uh as mikey said is uh christmas sweater sunday so i hope you'll bring out your best um i've seen some of yours before and i know they're pretty good so maybe you've upgraded but i hope that we'll all have a good sweater to wear for next week my favorite sunday of the year is fami jammy sunday We'll be like them. Which is more pointedly Amo La Civita every year. I'm looking at you, pal. Let's put something on this year, buddy. But I love this season. I love the Christmas series. I love how fun it is. And for me, obviously, we're celebrating Christmas. We're celebrating what that is. We're celebrating the arrival of Christ. But I also, in my head, as I kind of celebrate the end of the year, I celebrate what God has done at Grace. I celebrate who you are and who we are and God's presence here. I celebrate the people who are committed to this place and who love it so much, and all that God has done. So I think it's a perfect time of year to kind of not only celebrate Christmas and what that means and the arrival of Christ, but to also reflect on what God has done in our church and in our church family and look forward to what He's going to do in the future. To that end, we've got a meeting on December the 14th, immediately following the service to update everybody on the building, where we're at, and exactly what it's going to take to get us where we believe we need to go. And I think we're a lot closer than people suspect. So I'm optimistic for that meeting and I'm hopeful that you'll make it a priority to be there. I also know that that's on the same Sunday that we're doing the kids caroling. So there's going to be grandparents and stuff like that here. So to the young families, I would encourage you maybe bring two cars that day and one party can stay behind and attend the meeting and then the rest can go out to eat with grandma and grandpa and then you can can catch up later, because let's be honest, that lunch is overrated, and you probably just want to be here. Anyways. This series, here we go, is it, was, Wassailing, here we go, Wassailing. As Aaron mentioned, it was either Aaron or Mikey, I don't pay much attention. A few years ago, either last fall or fall before last, we did a series called The Songs We Sing. And we looked at the songs that we sing as a church, some of the hymns and praise choruses that we do, and we found them in the Bible. And we said, let's kind of imbue them with more meaning by looking at these songs. And it's a Christmas series that I've always wanted to do. And so this year we're going to do that. We're going to look at a Christmas carol each week and look at how it's imbued with meaning through scripture. We're going to climax this on Christmas Eve, looking at the greatest song that's ever been written, in my opinion, Oh Holy Night. And so I'm very excited to do that, but we've got some good songs along the way. And we have a song that we're focused on this morning that if you were paying attention to the video, you already know what it is. Or if you've looked through the notes to try to see what the fill in the blanks are, you already know what it is. But I'm not going to tell you yet if you haven't done either of those things. The first thing I'm going to do is make the opening point. This is the least expected opening point that I'm going to put on the screen in the history of Grace Raleigh, okay? A few weeks ago, I had a point that said something like, faith is like a Brazilian steakhouse. And Carly, who I send the notes to, who puts them on the bulletin, emailed me back and she said, I can't wait to see what this is about. And then I sent her this week's notes and she said, I never thought you would top Brazilian steakhouse, but I'm about to. Here's the first point of the sermon. Be like Keith Cathcart. Yeah. Where's Keith? Hey, buddy. Don't let him go, Keck. Be like Keith Cathcart. Here's my second point. Sort of. Okay. Now that we're clear. Now listen, before I just dump on him for the rest of the sermon, let's be clear. Keith is a really good friend of mine. I love Keith. I have a policy in my house. I do not pay money to a handyman of any kind until I've gotten permission from Keith. When there is something wrong in my house, I call him and I say, I think I need to call somebody to come fix this. And he will often say to me, if you call somebody to fix that, I will not be your friend anymore. I cannot respect you as a man. Keith has stood on the safe confines of my deck while I was up on my roof with FaceTiming him, showing him some flashing underneath some shingles and he helped me repair it. And we did, we fixed the leak. Did we not? Yeah, we did. So he's a good buddy. He's also the greatest evangelist I've ever met in my life. And this is true. Keith evangelizes like no one I've ever met. He espouses his beliefs more zealously and more effectively than any Christian I've ever known. The problem is he's an evangelist for the Steelers, not Jesus. Although I'm sure he does evangelize for Jesus from time to time. He's an incredibly effective evangelist for the Steelers. As a matter of fact, to prove it to you, I texted him earlier in the week. And I said, hey, I'm not going to tell you why. I just need you to text me pictures of people you've converted to Steelers fans. I just need three or four pictures. Dude sent me 20. 20 pictures. And he said, this is just the beginning. He got so excited about it. He's going down to Mexico to celebrate Christmas, to do a Christmas celebration with our ministry partners there. And he printed up terrible towels that say Feliz Navidad. And he's going to hand them out to 200 children and get them to wave them at once. And he told me it's going to be the greatest moment of my life. Just so you don't think I'm making this up, I wanted to share with you some of the people that Keith has evangelized for the Steelers. So let's take a look, Lynn. This is a young man at our church. He did not grow up in Pittsburgh. He does not care about the Steelers, but now he does. His mom made the mistake of going to Mexico with Keith and the rest of the team. They didn't just go to Mexico together, let's be clear. Sorry, Miel. There was like a whole group of people. They all went together. That's funny. He converted him. This is Patrick. Patrick did not, he's wearing, I don't know, Patrick, are you in the service this morning? Yeah, there he is. He's wearing that jersey. I didn't even tell him to. He didn't even know that this was happening. He's caught the virus, okay? Keith gave him that jersey. He's so proud of himself. Look at that dumb grin on Keith's face. Look at him. He's evangelizing for the Steelers. What's the next one? Is this Chucky? Oh, no. This is a guy. This is a random dude from Home Depot. That's who that is. That is Casey. Casey. Thank you, Keck. Keck is also in Steelers gear. Did you purchase that gear, Keck? Or did Keith? He puts on his hat. Yes, that's a random guy from Home Depot that is now a Steelers fan because of Keith. Who's the next one? Chucky. Chucky is the foreman in Mexico. Now this, I'll give Keith some credit as much as it pains me. Keith has been going to Mexico for darn near 20 years. And he met Chucky when Chucky was in seventh grade and was a volunteer working to get a home for his family. And he has gone through the years and he is now the foreman of the work crews for Faith Ministry, the ministry with which we partner. Every year, Keith goes down and he spends time with Chucky. And every year, he gives Chucky more Steelers crap. He has gotten birth announcements, wedding announcements, engagement announcements. That is like a surrogate son to Keith, and that's a very special person to us here at Grace. So I don't want to make light of it, but also, look at that. He's got all kinds of Steeler stuff. Can I tell you this? He even got me. Here I am. I went, too. I figured if I was gonna be in Pittsburgh, I needed to look the part, so I shaved down to a mustache, which I would say looks awesome. And here's the worst part. Do we have it, Aaron? He got my children. He got them too. But do you know what I did with those towels? Last time we had the hootenanny and we had the grill, the Blackstone needs a towel to clean up the grease I use those just so we know all right that's enough of that Keith is the most effective evangelist I've ever met in my life he loves the Steelers he wants everyone else to love the Steelers and he and it's a point of pride and joy when other people love his team too. And it's harmless and it's fun. But he, as I was thinking about the song this morning, he embodies this song better than anyone I've ever met, which is this, Go Tell It on the Mountain. We know this Christmas carol. Go tell it on the mountain. Go proclaim it. Here's the chorus of the carol. Let's look at it together. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. I love this carol. I thought it was the right place to begin the series. I don't know how you guys do it in your house, but at our house, after Halloween, the first weekend after Halloween, we decorate for Christmas. I know that's crazy. I know. But here's what Jen and I say. There's nothing wrong with a little extra Christmas in the house. We love our living room with lights and a tree and the ambiance. And during the year, we got our TV up on the mantle, you know, like you're supposed to do in 2025. And then bracketing the TV, we have these potted plants that are fake that have like different like plumes coming out of them like you're supposed to. But at Christmas, they're reindeers, and it's cooler. And then instead of just this naked mantle, there's garland with lights on it. And so it's just festive. And then we turn on the gas fire that emits zero heat whatsoever. And it's more cozy in there. So in our house, we decorate for Christmas the first weekend after Halloween and the first school day after Halloween we get in the car and Lily will say, Daddy, can we listen to Christmas carols now? And we do. On the way to school we listen to Christmas carols. We've got a playlist. We've added to it over the years. She has her favorites. I have mine. If you haven't listened to Barbara Streisand's version of Jingle Bells, it's the best in the whole wide world and I love it. I highly recommend. But one of my favorite songs that we listen to in the car together is Go Tell It on the Mountain. It's fun. It's festive. It's energetic. And it really gets across the point of the season. This idea of go be an evangelist. Here's what Keith does for the Steelers. As he goes and he tells it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Everywhere he goes, he's going to tell you about the Steelers. He's going to give you a terrible towel. He's going to give you a jersey that you don't want, that your children are going to wear, and now your host. But he's going to go and he's going to tell. And that's what this song is about. Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell people about Jesus. And this is a fundamental part of our faith that we don't talk about often enough. I'll be the first person to admit that I'm bad at evangelism. I don't do it as often as I should. And before I get into the sermon too far, making a crude analogy that's clumsy, it's far easier to evangelize for your team than it is to evangelize for your Savior. Because there's not a bunch of social emotional baggage wrapped up in your team. Keith doesn't go tell people that they should root for the Steelers and then get the response, I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but the fans of the Steelers are hypocrites and they hurt me. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have existential reasons to believe that the Steelers don't exist. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have this and this and this reason why I just can't do that anymore. You tell someone to root for the Steelers, and they're like, no, I like the Falcons, and you're like, I'm so sorry for you and your life, but I understand. But you tell someone to convert to your Savior, and it becomes a lot more complicated and a lot more deep. And so it's a clumsy comparison. And the point of the story isn't to guilt Keith into sharing Jesus with the same zeal that he shares the Steelers. Although, Keith, maybe. But it's a clumsy comparison if you want to make it one-to-one. Nevertheless, evangelism and going and telling it on the mountain is a fundamental part of what it is to be a Christian. And here's how I know that this is true. I don't know if you've ever thought about the disciples in this way, but I have a cousin. I was just with him over his cousin-in-law, actually. He's an OBGYN, and he had to go through a ton of school to get to practice as a doctor. And the last part of school that you do when you're pursuing the medical field is residency. You go and you follow actual doctors who are licensed. And you that's what the disciples were doing. The disciples were in residency with Jesus. They were being trained by him. They were being prepared for ministry. And this is not the point of the sermon, but just by way of thought exercise, I doubt that you've ever considered, why didn't Jesus, if what Jesus came to do is come and live a perfect life and die a perfect death, why didn't he die on the cross when he was 21? Why didn't he die when he was 18? Why didn't he die when he was 30? Why didn't he just come down here, live a sinless life, die a perfect death, and be our perfect sacrifice, which is what we believe that he was and is? I'll tell you why. Because he wanted to spend the last years of his life training young men in residency to take over the church. To do what he did. And so that's what the disciples were doing. They were in residency learning how to lead what would be known as the church. Because the church didn't exist as an idea before Jesus implanted it into the minds and the practices of the disciples. And when he left, he said, now go and spread the good news to the corners of the earth, to all the nations. Go to the ends of the earth and tell them who I am, baptizing people in my name. Go make disciples in Jerusalem and Judea and all of the ends of the earth. The reason that Jesus didn't just live and die was to train the disciples. You understand? And fundamental to that training was evangelism. It was so fundamental that 30 years after the death of Christ, when Mark and Luke, and Mark wrote the gospel on behalf of Peter, and Luke wrote the gospel to, oh, blessed Theophilus, to explain to this man named Theophilus what was going on, and then to explain to humans for the rest of time what was going on. It was so important to them that they included this story in Mark chapter 6 and in Luke chapter 9. Two of the disciples thought that this part of their training was so important that it needed to be recounted. In Mark chapter 6 and Luke chapter 9, you can look it up if you want to. I'm not going to read the verses. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. He said, go in pairs, go into the surrounding towns, cast out demons and heal, and tell them the good news of the gospel. Tell them who I am. Tell them what I've done. Tell them what I'm going to do. And we often, those of us who know our Bible, associate that with the end of the story, which is if they don't receive you, shake the dust of that town off of your sandals as you go, which is to say, like, I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore and go. And we like that because that way, if evangelism doesn't work, we don't have to feel bad and whatever. But the point of that story, the point of that recounting, the reason that it's included in the gospels, the reason that Peter and Mark and Luke felt compelled to include that in their narrative and in their recounting of their experience with the Messiah is to say the point is we were told to go and tell other people about Jesus. We were told to go and evangelize. And so it is unavoidable that part of our Christian experience is to tell people about the Jesus that we love. Now listen, I want to be really clear here. If you're new to the faith, if you're questioning the faith, if you're here kicking the tires to see if faith is for you, I'm not preaching to you this morning. This is not for you. I don't want you to feel an ounce of responsibility for the things that I'm about to say. I just would invite you to soak it in and know that this is what we're about. But if you're a Christian, if you're not kicking the tires, if God is your Father and Jesus is your Savior, if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he said he did, and is going to do what he says he's going to do, then this is for you. And this should compel us. A fundamental part of your life, of your faith, is evangelism. Is to tell people about your Jesus. And I know that this makes us deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable conversation. But that does not negate the fact that it is a biblical imperative, that it was a course requirement for the residency of the disciples, and it is an expectation that Jesus himself places on you to go tell it on the mountain, to go tell it everywhere, to go tell people about the Jesus that you love. And in our culture and in our context, go tell people why you still love him. Go tell people why you stayed in church and they left. Go tell people why you've come back to church after wandering for a while. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. Go tell people about the sense of peace that he's given you. Christians, go tell people about the sense of worth that he's given your soul. Christians, go tell people about the purpose that he's given you in the waning years of your life. I know many of us are at the point of our life where we're thinking, we're not thinking about a cruel, we're thinking about legacy. What do we leave behind? Go tell people what you want to leave behind and why. Go tell people what you want to build in your building years and why. If you're young, go tell people what you want to do with your life. And why? Go tell people how you want to raise your kids and what you want them to do. And why? Go tell people about your Jesus and why you're sticking with it and why you're still doing it and why you still have faith and why you still bother to get up on a Sunday morning and to do your makeup and to do your hair and to tuck in your shirt and to blouse your sweatshirt, which is something I just learned this morning. Go tell people why you bother to do that instead of sleep in. And don't just keep it to yourself as this personal private thing that's my business and not their business and I don't want to offend anyone. No. Go tell it. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. If you serve in the community, tell people why you do. If you're kind to someone at the office that other people are not kind to, tell people why you're kind to them. If you pray for your grandchildren, tell people what you hope for your grandchildren and what you pray for them. I think in 2025, this idea of evangelism, it used to be when I was growing up in the 80s, evangelism was like, go tell people the good news. Go tell people about this Jesus. They may have never heard of him before. He forgives their sins. And he omits their shame. He erases it. And he's conquered sin and death so that we don't have to be afraid of him. So that we don't have to be afraid of it. Go tell them the good news. Go tell them that Jesus exists. And it was this idea that you could sit down with a person and be like, let me tell you about the person in this Bible that the whole Bible is about. It's about Jesus. Let me tell you about him and how he erases all of your guilt and shame for all of your life and accepts you for who you are and makes a passage into heaven for you for eternity. And then the idea was that they would hear that and be like, my gosh, I've never heard that before. That's incredible news. I'd like to be a Christian. Is that true now? The people in your life that you know who either don't believe in Jesus or are not actively engaged in faith, they have a reason. They have a reason. And it's a good one. I don't know what it is, but it's a good reason. The people that you know in your life who are atheists, when I was coming up, do you know what I was taught? Atheists are dumb. And if you'll just do a couple easy arguments with them, you'll win, and they'll convert immediately. Have you guys found that to be true? The atheists in your life probably, some of them are dumb, just like some of you are dumb. But most of them are pretty smart. And some of you are pretty smart. Begrudgingly. Evangelism is different in 2025. But I think an interesting way to engage the conversation is to say, here's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. Here's why I'm still here. Serving my God, praising my Jesus, worshiping my Lord. And I think that's an interesting place to start the conversation. But the larger point is, we can't get around the fact that evangelism is an essential part of Christian life. And I bring that up because Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Our whole world rallies around this holiday, right? Our whole world commercializes this holiday. This is when all the holiday stuff starts. This is when they start telling you to buy presents. This is when Lexus every year comes out with the most ridiculous ad campaign I've ever seen with a red bow on a $75,000 SUV as a Christmas present. Listen, I've often said I don't believe in reincarnation, but if it's true, I want to come back as a member of a family that gives away Lexuses at Christmas. And if any of you are giving Lexuses as Christmas gifts, consider the building campaign. It could help. Our whole culture rallies around this holiday. We commercialize it and we make it about gifts and all the things and family and decorations and lights and we celebrate. But Christians, we hold the truth of it. I am not going to say that Jesus is the reason for this season. I will not preach that. Although he is. We hold the truth of what this season is about. It's about Jesus. It's about his arrival. When I preach on Christmas Eve, it's going to be the phrase, long lay the world in sin and error pining until he appeared and the soul felt its worth. Oh, that's the most compelling line ever written. That's what Christmas is about. It gives us a sense of worth and purpose and hope and joy. And we know that better than anyone around us who doesn't love Jesus and who isn't spiritually engaged. So Christmas is the easiest and best time of year to go tell it. And let me tell you an easy way, the easiest possible way to go tell it and to evangelize your friends. This is going to sound self-serving, but I'm going to explain it. The easiest, I can't think of an easier invite than a Christmas Eve service. Can you? How easy is it? I've got some friends. I'm not setting myself up as moral exemplar. I'm a terrible evangelist. But one thing I have done in my life is Lily was a part of a soccer team for years. My daughter Lily, she's nine. She'll be 10 in January, which is nuts. And I coach. I have a soccer background and I coach. And I got to be friends with the coach and her husband, Heidi and Trey, and their daughters, Josie and Hannah. And Lily decided to quit. And I was like, I like this community. I'm going to keep coaching. And I'm also convicted that I asked you guys to volunteer. This is an organization that runs on volunteers. And so you guys give up an extra day to volunteer here. And I get paid to be here. And I don't volunteer anywhere else. So I thought maybe I should practice what I preach and volunteer somewhere. So I coach. So I kept going. And people are like, you're just a creepy guy coaching nine-year-old girls, and your daughter's not on the team. I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Don't worry about it. But I volunteered, and I enjoy that relationship with them. And there's another coach on the team, a guy named Vishal, who's from Pakistan. And I enjoy him too. And I've developed a relationship with him such that I told him when I get back from Thanksgiving, he actually said, let's get drinks or let's get wings or something like that. And so I'm going to go out and spend some time with what we call Coach V. And I was actually in the lead up to this, I realized I need to invite Heidi and Trey to the Christmas Eve service. And here's why this is such an easy invite. They're people of faith, but they don't go to a church. It's marginal for them. But they probably want to celebrate Christmas Eve somewhere with their family. There's a chance they want to go to church somewhere. So why not just invite them to Grace? And it's actually funny, we've joked about them coming to Grace and they said, we kind of like you being our friend and not our pastor. And I'm like, I kind of like you being my friend and not someone who comes to my church. It's nice. But I bet you have people in your life where it would be a really easy invite to just say, hey, I don't know if you're going to celebrate Christmas Eve anywhere. I don't know if you're part of a church right now, but you can come to my church. And at that service, can we show them that we take our Jesus very seriously and we don't take ourselves very seriously at all? Can we model for them what church can be? Can we show them who our Jesus is? Can we use that service to go and tell it? And now here, this is very important to me. I'm not preaching this sermon to get you to invite people to Christmas Eve, okay? I don't care, and I don't think you understand how true this is. I don't care how many people come to the Christmas Eve service. I'm gonna have a good Christmas with my family either way. I'm not trying to get butts in seats I never have. I've never, ever, and some of you know you've been here for all eight years, stood up here and tried to compel you to invite people to grace for the sake of grace. I've never done that. And I never will. But it does occur to me, invite them to Summit's Christmas Eve service if you think I'm full of it. I don't care. Go to a Christmas Eve service with your neighbors. That's not the point here. I'm not trying to fill up our services. But what I am presenting to you is the easiest of opportunities. Is it easier to invite your neighbor, your coworker, a family on your kid's ball team, an associate, whatever? Is it easier to go, hey, I don't know if you wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve in a church but if you do come to mine it's gonna be pretty okay and here's how I know it's gonna be pretty okay the sermons like 12 minutes that day and then it's all songs all right so we know we're in good hands Aaron's got it is it easier to invite them to that or in March? Hey, do you want to come to church with me on Sunday? Yikes. That's a tougher one. I hope you will. I'm just saying, I'm just acknowledging what we all know. So it's never been easier to go tell it than it is this Christmas season. So I hope that you'll consider that as a way to kind of open the door to conversation with some people that you care about. And I hope that maybe you'll leave her thinking about who can I invite to the Christmas Eve service. And again, if you think this is remotely self-serving, take them to Summit. I couldn't care less. I would, I would, listen, I would rather you invite people to Summit's Christmas Eve service and go with them and let them experience church there than I would you come by yourself having never invited anyone. Okay? But if you want to bring them here and let us show them what it's like to worship Jesus together and celebrate who he is, what a wonderful introduction into church. There's never been an easier time or season to go tell it. Now, I don't just want us to go tell it this season. I want us to continue to do it. So three very quick ways because I just realized it's 1056 and I'm going to move very quickly through these. Three very easy ways to be an evangelist. Okay? First, this sounds cheesy but it's true. Wear it. Wear it. Keith, did you wear a hat this morning? Yeah. What is it? Nah. Keck, you, listen, you don't have to spend more than 15 minutes with Keith to know that he's a Steelers fan. All right? Huh? Always. Always. That's right. It's on his car. If you go to his house, it's all over his dumb basement. Well, I don't even think he has a dumb basement anymore. He has like an apartment because he's building a house. But it's all over his stupid apartment. It's on his clothes. It's where he wears it. You go to his office, it's all over the place. It's everywhere. If you experience Keith, you experience the Steelers. And it reminds me of this verse in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, that says, We are led in triumphal procession by Christ, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. I love that verse because it's this idea that passively from us wafts this knowledge of God passively from, from Keith, unfortunately wafts this love of the Steelers. You just, it just is infectious. He just does. And what if we love Jesus in such a way? What if we wore it? And this is, this is so funny. I wrote this point before I knew I'd be wearing a gray sweatshirt that we're currently selling this morning. We're not commercializing this. I'm not making any money off of it. Actually, I get 5% of every sweatshirt. So please. Wear your gray stuff to the gym. Wear it to the soccer field. Put it in your office. So that when people come in your office, they know this person loves Jesus. Put it in your home. Put verses on your walls so that when they come over to your house, when your neighbors come over, they know passively this person loves Jesus. This family loves Jesus. This home is oriented around Jesus. Make it so that wherever people go in your life, when they encounter you, whether it's in your car with what you're listening to, with what you're wearing to different things, and I'm not actually saying that you should wear a grace logo every day to work. That would be ridiculous. But I think you get my point. Put it out there that if you know me, you know I love my Jesus. Regardless of church, wear it. Make it visible so that people passively know who you are allied to. Second is live it. Live it. In Matthew 5, 16, we find one of the most challenging verses in Scripture which which says, Let your light shine before men so that they might see your good works and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. This is more than passive. This is if someone were to follow you through your day, just by seeing you move in and out of conversation and people, they would see that you are so different, that you are so other, that you are so holy, that they would want to know more about you and glorify your Father who is in heaven. If you want to be an evangelist, spread the good news of Jesus and what he's done for you. Live that out. Be kind to the cashier. Be patient in traffic. Be considerate of the co-worker that no one else likes. Be even-handed in your dealings. Have character in your deals. Be honest in your negotiations. Do not backstab your co-workers. Be forthright even when it's hard. Tell the truth even when it's inconvenient. Be loving to your spouse even when they're being a jerk. And they deserve to be clapped back at. You can talk to Jen about how to do that if you need some examples. Do not yell unnecessarily at your children. Do not lose your temper. Be people of a meek countenance and kind such that others see your good work and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. Live it out. The last way we evangelize is to love it. Do you know why Keith tells everyone about the Steelers? Because he loves the Steelers. And when you love them, it brings him joy. It's a maniacal, twisted joy that's harming to humanity. Nevertheless, it's what compels him. And here's what I would say to you as a challenge. If you find yourself convicted because you're not someone who evangelizes for your Jesus, maybe, maybe it's a love issue. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to soften it. Maybe if you found yourself loving him more, you would tell other people about him more. I know the reason that my buddy tells people about the team he loves is because he loves them so much that it brings him joy when you love them too. And if we don't love Jesus so much that it brings us joy to see other people begin to love him too, then maybe we don't love him enough. And if we want to be evangelists, instead of looking out, what we need to do is look in and ask the Father to cultivate a love for him and what he's done in our hearts, so much so that we are so compelled to go and tell it. So I'm going to invite up Aaron and pray. And we're going to sing Go Tell It on the mountain together. And we're going to mean it. Yeah? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for Keith, I guess. Thank you for a Jesus who loves us so well, loves us so much. I pray that we would be so compelled by that love that we would go and tell other people about it. God, there's no easier time of year to spread the good news of your glory to our friends and to the people that we care about so much. So I pray that you would give us the wisdom and the insight and the courage to do just that. And that this season we would invite, we would compel, we would introduce, we would be courageous, and we would engage in conversations that maybe we're fearful of, but we know that we are so compelled by our love for you and our love for them that we want to see them love you. Help us to do that, Father. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. If you're joining us online, thank you, or catching up, thank you for doing that. Clearly, you're all getting in your pre-Thanksgiving Sunday because you intend to skip next week. So let's make the most out of this week, and thank you for being here. As we finish up our series in Daniel, we arrive at the third very famous story. So in the first week, we talked about the Daniel diet, Daniel choosing not to eat according to the dictates of the Babylonian empire, but saying, hey, can I set my own standards in what we talked about for holiness for myself? And so we looked at that first week about choosing holiness and choosing our own standards. And then we had a morning of worship. And then last week, we looked at Abinadab, Mishael, and Hananiah, better known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and the fiery furnace and this idea of even if faith, even if God doesn't do what I expect him to do, I will continue to remain faithful to him. And now we arrive at the last famous story of Daniel, and there's more famous stories. The handwriting on the wall, that phrase comes from the book of Daniel, so there's other famous stories there, but Daniel in the lion's den may be the one that it's most known for, and so that's where we find ourselves this morning. And so as we approach that story, a couple things. When we plan out series as a staff, I kind of have an idea of where I want to go each week. And as we planned this one, I knew where I wanted to go with Daniel and his diet. I knew the holiness, choosing holiness in Babylon. And I knew where I wanted to go with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, even if faith. And I write up a document for the people who make the graphics and for the people who make the videos and for Gibby as he's attempting to assemble worship music around what we're doing. And I kind of summarize everything. And week by week, I'll give a summary. And for this week, I said, I don't know, but I'll figure it out. So I didn't know where I wanted to go with Daniel and the lion's den. And it's probably not where you think I'm going to go this week. Because there's a lot of angles that you can take. Consistent devotion. And I say all the time, the most important thing anybody can do in their life is to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. I say that all the time and I try to remind you guys of that because I believe it to be true. You can go with character and what you do behind closed doors is who you are. You can go with when you're alone in the lion's den, God is still with you. There's a lot of approach angles to the story and things to take away. And I don't think that what I'm going to talk about this morning is the only thing to take away, but I think it's what grace needs to take away. And because I want you to understand how we're approaching the story, I want to tell you about two different conversations. One was with a friend of mine, a very good friend, who's another pastor of a church in Georgia. His name is Ken Sermons. For some reason that I don't remember, I called him Keith Hermans. And we went to a pastor's conference together, and I registered him for this conference in Orlando a few years ago, and I him as Keith Herman's and so he had to wear a name tag that said Keith Herman's the whole time which delighted me and then we went to Star Wars the Star Wars area of Disney World together where I had bought us matching t-shirts and we also happened to wear the same color shorts and there's a picture if you look at my Instagram of us in Orlando together and it I don't think at first glance you would assume that we were two pastors just going to a conference together okay but I remember going to that conference with Keith and we sat in the auditorium of the church that was hosting the conference and it was this big monolithic auditorium 3,000 seats stadium seating lights and camera and screen and stage and all this production and so many people in the room and they're doing at, at pastor's conferences, you have to do worship. Whether you want to or not, you have to stand and sing. It doesn't matter. They treat us like we treat you. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, sing this song, and then we're going to preach. This is what they do to us too. And I remember leaning over to Ken because his church is about the size of our church. And I just said, this is so far from everything I love about being a pastor. It's so impersonal. It's so produced. And there's no way as a pastor you can stand up and know the people that you're preaching to. Because it's 3,000 people. And I'm not critiquing those churches at all. They're serving a purpose in the kingdom. But as for me, I don't enjoy that. Every week, whether you realize I'm doing this or not, I call out names. Amel, Jeff, freaking Tom. I call out names. Alice Ann, hello, from Tennessee. Wonderful. Because we're a family. Because we're close. Because the way that I get to pastor you is familiar. Mayor Steve. I get to do that. And I don't want to not do that. And if you're a visitor here, I was told at my last church that when I preached, when I preached at my last church, there was however many people, 650, 700 people in the audience. And then we were simulcast out to three other campuses, two other campuses. And so I was told, don't say anything that a first time guest will not connect with. Don't use names. Don't say anything that they don't have context for. And I've just chosen a grace that I'm going to celebrate when Jan O'Sullivan and Ann Erb are here and they're with us and we've set out your special chairs for you that we set out every week because we love you. We're going to celebrate that. And we're going to be a family. And if it's your first time here or your second or third time here and you're like, I don't know about grace, just know we love each other. And as part of that, I'm going to talk to us as people and as individuals. So here's another conversation that I had. This one was with my dad. And my mom gives me flack because I talk about my dad more than I talk about her. So, Mom, Donna, I'm sorry. I love you. I love you. I love you more than Dad. You're far less annoying than him. Okay? But as we've gone through this building campaign that we've been languishing in for five years, we're going to have a meeting about it on December the 14th. I hope that you can come. I'm tired of it, and you are too. So let's see if we can't get to the end of this joker. But as we've gone through it, my dad has been on boards and has piloted efforts and campaigns to get buildings out of the ground for churches. And we've talked a couple of times. And when we'll talk, he's like, have you considered this? Have you considered this? Have you considered this? Do you need to do this? And he's giving me his advice and counsel, which is warranted because he has more experience than me in this space because he's done it a few times. But every time he asked me if I've considered this, I say, yeah, dad, we, we, we put a committee together. And on that committee, we have two career, um, corporate real estate agents. We have another career corporate real estate agent that we're calling on for advice, but they're not sitting in the committee, but we're talking to them. We have a corporate banker that is in charge of corporate loans at his bank, which is a pretty good bank. We have two general contractors who are advising us because they've done this professionally. And dad quickly realizes, which is very difficult for him to do, that the expertise in the room is beyond his. And at every turn at Grace, when we need to make a decision or we need to do something, what I realize is I'm surrounded by leaders. I'm surrounded by experts with influence. And one of the things, I share that story because then my dad says, how do you get all of these people to come to this church? And I say, I have no idea. I think it's the music. Or the children's ministry, which thanks to Kyle is great. Aaron's old news. This is wonderful. But here's my point. I have been aware of for a while that we have an unusual confluence of influence in this church. We have an unusually high capacity church. There are more of you per capita. If we were to go to another church and compare just per capita, what are your direct reports? What are your professional accomplishments? What kind of manager are you? What kind of CEO are you? What kind of leadership do you exhibit in your life at Grace? And this is just true. And this is why I shared the story of Ken, of, hey, that church is so far from what I want to be because it allows me to know you. And here's what I know about grace. And this is why I'm approaching the story this way this morning. We have an unusual confluence of influence here. We do. We have more people who are high capacity than if you were to just randomly gather 225 folks per week into a room. Our potential here and our influence here is outsized compared to that. And that's honestly, so what? Who cares? But it is also true. And so I want us to acknowledge that we have, I'm talking as I look out, I'm talking to many people who have direct reports, who there's an org chart and your name is on it and under it there are more names. I'm talking to people who have started businesses. I'm talking to people who have developed leaders. I'm talking to people who have been to leadership conferences and care deeply about that. And as I say that, that we have an unusual confluence of influence here, as I say that, there are some in this room who would check out and go, well, I'm a stay-at-home mom, so this one's not for me. Do you not think you're influencing those kids growing up with you? Do you not think you're influencing the people that you are in a small group with? Every person in this room has influence. At different capacities and for different reasons. And we find ourselves at different rungs on the ladder. But every person in this room has influence. I was, this is a funny right turn, I was on the streets of Istanbul in March with my friend Ru. And Ru had just done a session with Iranian pastors. Ru trains pastors who serve in countries where faith is illegal. Christian faith is illegal. And we were going back and forth on leadership and what it was. And we arrived at this definition of leadership. And those of you who have been to leadership conferences and have thought about it and have read books, you can try this on for size and see what you think. But here's what we concluded. Leadership is intentionally deployed influence. Leadership is intentionally deployed influence leadership is intentionally deployed influence it's acknowledging I have influence over the people around me I can impact the people who are here I have direct reports and I can influence them and this works vertically and. Maybe I have a vertical position where there are people below me and I can influence them because their job requires me to allow me to influence them. Or maybe it's horizontal. I have people on my team. I have no authority over them, but I can exert influence with them and through them. So leadership, I believe, is acknowledging that we have influence in different places in our lives and then intentionally deploying that to an end that we desire. There is the context that I want you to have as we approach the story of Daniel and the lion's den. Here's the story. Many of you know it, but let's review. Daniel was taken captive by the Babylonians, we assume in his late teens or early 20s. And he was put in with a group of other captives to be trained for service in the Babylonian government. And he served under King Nebuchadnezzar. And then Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by Belshazzar. So he served under Belshazzar. And then Belshazzar was slain by King Darius, who is the king of the Persians and the Medes, who took over the Babylonian empire and set up the Persian empire. And even if you have no idea what the Bible says about anything, if you're a student of history, you know that Darius was a big deal and the Persian empire was a big deal. And that's where Daniel finds himself. And so we find Daniel likely as an older man who spent his life in government service. He's been doing it for a long time. And when Darius takes over, when he kills Belshazzar and claims the throne for himself, he looks at Daniel and he says, you're good. I want to keep you. It makes me think of Jen's dad, John, who was a VP of something or other at Bell South and then AT&T bought them out. And every vice president except for John from Bell South got fired. And then they put him in charge of all the AT&T properties over all the world. He was on the phone at 4 a.m. one day because there was a flood in Hong Kong. That's what he was doing. He was the one guy they kept. And so Daniel was the one that got kept by King Darius. And there was, it says, the text says there was 120 satraps, which is a foreign word to us. We don't know what that is, but that's essentially a governor. We're going to divide up the Persian Empire into these different provinces, and a satrap oversees that province. And then over the 120, there was three satraps. And then over the three, there was one. And it says that Darius wanted to make Daniel that one. He essentially, in our terms, wanted to make Daniel the managing partner of Persia. This was a big deal. He had garnered and gathered a lot of influence over the years. He had shown himself excellent. And he wasn't just rewarded by the first king, Nebuchadnezzar, by the second king, Belshazzar, but the third king realized his talent and elevated him. Darius made him the managing partner of Persia. And the rest of the satraps got jealous and the administrators and the governors. And so they went to Darius with this ploy, with this plot. And they said, hey, for 30 days, let no one in our empire worship anyone or anything but you. And if they do, let's throw them in the lion's den. Listen, this is just an aside. Why do kings have lion's dens? What are they doing with those? Seems like a lot of upkeep. You need a zoologist of some sort. Probably a veterinarian. You know. I don't know what you have to do to take care of lions. But he had a lion's den. And they said, and it was well known apparently. And they said, if people don't worship you for the next 30 days, put them in the lion's den. And then there was an edict released. This is what they said. This is what they said to Darius. Just so we're on the same page in the text. Daniel chapter 6 verse 6. And satraps went as a, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered in accordance with the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed. So King Darius put the decree in writing. So they went to him with this ruse and they appealed to his ego. And they said, may you live forever. You're the best. Let's put in writing that for the next 30 days, everyone has to worship you. And if they worship anybody else, they're going to be put to death in the lion's den. Put it in writing so it's true. And he did. They appealed to his ego and he signed it. And it went into practice. As soon as the decree was issued, the very next thing in the story is Daniel goes to his house. He goes to his room in the city and he opens the windows. And he opens the windows so that he could face Jerusalem. And you may not know this, and I did not know this before I went, but in 2013, I had the opportunity to go to Israel. And one of the things I learned over there was that all of the temples in Israel are built facing the temple in Jerusalem, the temple. And there is some sort of orientation within every temple that exists on the planet that faces it towards Jerusalem. So it's a very Jewish thing to face Jerusalem where God is. At this time, there was still the Holy of Holies. It was the presence of God. And so Daniel opened his windows, not to show that he was praying, not to be bold in what he was doing, but because he wanted to face the very presence of God. He was a man of humble faith. And so he opens the windows and he prays. And the jealous satraps see him doing this and they go to King Darius and they say, your servant Daniel has refused to worship you. He's worshiping his Hebrew God. And Darius is in a pickle. And to his credit, he's torn about this. He realizes his decree and what he needs to do. But he also loves Daniel. But he goes and he gets Daniel and he puts him in the lion's den. And it says that he had a sleepless night because he was hoping for the heart and the health of Daniel. And he says he wakes up the next morning and he rushes to the den and he sees that Daniel is healthy and alive and intact and in joy. He says, remove the stone. And he calls Daniel out and he celebrates with Daniel, and then hear, Darius, Cyrus, Daniel persists. His leadership persists. His influence persists. And when I read this story to get ready to preach to grace, the thing that jumped off the page to me, and this is why I have this story of the conference at the beginning and what it must be like to preach to 3,000 or 4,000 people and how much I love preaching to the people of grace. The thing that jumped off the page to me was not to reiterate devotion, was not to reiterate consistency. It was the juxtaposition. Knowing that we are a people of influence, knowing that we are a high-capacity people that impact the lives of others when we leave this space. It was the juxtaposition between how Darius and Daniel used their influence. Darius used it to point to himself. They came to him and they said, oh king, may you live forever, which is stupid. No one lives forever. That's just a silly thing. The fact that your ego needs that is automatically ridiculous. But they said, may you live forever. And then they proposed that everybody should worship you for 30 days. What kind of a leader wants that? A sycophant. It's kind of unbelievable. But he used, Darius was a man that had incredible influence. Absolutely incredible influence. He was a leader. He had intentionally deployed influence. He was someone that impacted millions of people. And what did he use that influence for? To point to himself. Worship me for 30 days. And so the juxtaposition of Darius and Daniel, to look at Daniel who had garnered influence over the course of four different kings, four different reigns. I don't know what your experience is in the corporate space, but if you've had four different bosses, you know how difficult it is to ingratiate yourself to a different person after a different person after a different person and to be one that rises above that means you must be someone of great potential and so that's what Daniel did and then he had an opportunity to use his influence and how did he use it by opening his windows and praying and pointing himself towards God. And pointing other people towards God. In Darius, we have someone of great influence and impact who uses that influence to point people towards himself. In Daniel, we have someone of great influence and impact who uses that influence to point people towards his God. And so the question before us this morning is, how are you going to use your influence? With your direct reports, in your career, in your company, in your school, on your team, with your clients, with your children, with your family, in your small group, with your friends. You have influence. How are you going to use it? Are you going to use it like Darius to point people towards yourself? With your grandkids? Or are you going to use it like Daniel to point to God? How are you going to use your influence? And that question would be enough of a landing zone, but I think it begs another. How do we cultivate that influence? How do we become the kind of people who impact the people around us towards God? If we can acknowledge that we have influence in various lives and in various ways, and we want to use that influence, not like Darius, but like Daniel, how can we use it to push people towards God? And how do we develop more of it so that we might push people closer to God. Here's what I would say. Influence is developed by displaying character over time. Influence is developed by displaying character over time. Character, I've been told since I was young, is what you do when no one can see what you're doing. What do you do alone? Do you pursue God? Do you pray? Do you do the little things, the small acts of kindness to someone that you have nothing to gain from except to be kind to them. This influence in our lives and with the people around us is developed by small acts of character over time. Think about your workplace and the people you work around. Think about the people that you trust the most. Think about the people that you respect the most. If you think about the people that you respect the most, isn't it true of them that what you've seen is over time they make the right choice over and over and over again? They say the hard thing when it needs to be said. They do the honest thing when it needs to be done. The people that you respect the most, haven't they over time displayed character? And every time you display character, isn't that a little bit of money in the bank on what influence is? One of my heroes in my faith and in my life is a man named Israel Gonzalez. I can feel it now. I might get emotional as I share his story. Please excuse me. Israel is a hero of the faith for me. He's a hero in life. From about 2008 to about 2013, I got to take some trips to Honduras. And in Honduras, I met Israel. Israel is a pastor. And he's an immigrant to Honduras from Nicaragua. And he married a woman who's a doctor. And Israel felt compelled to plant a church. So he planted a church called Christian Community Honduras. I don't know what it is in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. Andrew, you could help me out with that. I have no idea. Or probably Doris. She's more reliable than you. And out of Christian Community Honduras, he discipled a young man. And he trained him and he raised him up to be a pastor. And he sent him out to plant a church. And the way that you plant churches in Honduras, which is a deeply traditionally Catholic nation and is also always in the bottom three of poverty in the Western Hemisphere. So he's in a city called Ciguarapeque. And in the mountains and hills surrounding Ciguatapeque are these villages and towns. And he goes into those villages and towns. And you have to literally, this is foreign to us, this sounds weird to us, but you have to ingratiate yourself to the town elders. And so to do that, he throws parties. And if you go on a mission trip, that's what you do, is you throw a party in these towns. And you serve hot dogs and you serve ice cream and you hang out with the kids. And I would go and get out of the van and throw a soccer ball up in the air. And 40 kids would come running and you just play soccer for forever. And then the other people who speak Spanish would minister to the parents and to the grandparents and to the adults in the village. And it was a wonderful experience, but he was doing that to gain traction with the village elders who would then approach him and say, we'd like a church here. They would have to ask for a church. And then he would take someone he had been training at his church and send them out to be the pastors of those churches. And this is his model of ministry. The other thing he would do, and this is incredible, the other thing he would do to ingratiate himself to the village is in Honduras, because of the poverty, they're cooking on open flame indoors, and that would cause smoke inhalation and cause people to die of lung cancer at accelerated rates. So Israel, and this is true, invented a stove, invented an oven that reduces smoke inhalation by 90%. He had it studied by Duke, and he had it studied by the University of Indiana, and he got a patent for a patent for it a patent thanks Tom I'm just looking at you helped he got a patent for it and you can give to Israel an amount of money that will allow him to buy the materials and build a stove and they go into these villages into the favored mothers of the. And they take out their old stove and they rebuild this new stove so that they don't have to breathe in smoke. And he does this to ingratiate himself to the villages so that he can build churches there. So that the gospel can go out. He uses his influence to point towards God. And here's a couple amazing things about Israel. If he did that in America, we'd put him on podcasts. We'd put him on stages with a thousand people. We'd make him famous. We'd give him money. And oh, by the way, with the extra money that he gets from the stoves, they built a clinic and his wife left her practice and she practices free medicine on the people in Ciguatapeque. Not for nothing. If he did all that here, he'd be a celebrity. But because he doesn't on Honduras, he's nobody. And I can't wait to get to heaven and meet more people like Israel. But let me tell you about his influence and what character does. These small acts when no one else is watching. One visit to Honduras, it was the last day, so it was R&R day. And you guys who have been on mission trips know that Americans demand at least one day of tourism at the end of serving God. You have to do it. Otherwise they won't come the next year. So we did our American day of tourism and we went to a waterfall. The waterfall was an hour away from Ciguarpeque, outside of what I would anticipate Israel's range of mission to be. And there wasn't enough room in the van, and so I ended up riding in the car with Israel. And we had a good conversation. I don't remember the conversation. It was his broken English and my non-Spanish. But we talked. And at one point he said, hey, brother, I have to make a pit stop. I hope you don't mind. That's fine. I was actually, I was really ticked. I was like, Israel, we've got to get to the waterfall. But no, he said, I need to make a stop. So we pull up. We're in this kind of community. And if you've spent time in third world countries, you know that that homes kind of double as bodegas. Sometimes homes are homes and their residences and their places of business. And this was one of those places. And we pull up in front of a home and the garage is open. And you can see the garage looks like essentially a makeshift convenience store. And it's over there and Israel's in the driver's seat and I'm sitting right here and he rolls down my window and he yells something at the proprietor. And the man looks and says, oh, hello Israel! And then turns and he yells something into the house. And immediately this kid, this teenage kid comes out of the house. And the first thing you notice about this kid, that any of us would notice about this kid, is that they were extremely special needs. So this special needs kid comes out of the house and sees that Israel's there and begins to make noises of excitement. And then get this, goes to the cooler, opens it up and gets out a Mountain Dew. He knows Israel's order. It's funny, but catch that. Israel's been there before. He's got a lot of Mountain Dews here. This kid's excited to see him. And he walks to the car with a Mountain Dew, and Israel gets out and he hugs him. And they have this moment in excited Spanish that I don't need to hear the words to understand. And I'm sitting there, sorry, in the passenger seat, marveling at this man who has made friends with a kid who lives an hour away from him, who will never give to his ministry, who he will never train to be a pastor and send out into the villages, who he has absolutely nothing to gain from. An hour away. He's not making a show in the middle of the city and going, hey, everybody else who can see me, look at the way I love. No one will ever know about that. And if I weren't in the car, 100% chance Israel stops there anyways. What kind of man is it to use your influence like that? To love like that? To point people towards God like that? In the story of Daniel in the lion's den, I see a picture of two men using their influence in different ways. I believe at grace we have an unusual confluence of influence. And I believe that we can use it to point towards God. And I believe that we can use it to be the kind of man that Daniel was, that Israel is, and that with what we have here, we can deploy all of our assets to point people towards God and who He is. Yeah? Let's pray. God, thank You for Your servant Daniel. Thank You for Your servant Israel. Thank You for this room and this body of people that does have great influence. And God, I pray that as we consider our influence, that we would use it to point people towards you. May our coworkers be better, be more inclined towards you because they worked with us. May our employees be closer to you and more inclined towards you because they worked for us. May our families desire you more because they were in a family with us that you assigned us to. Father, use us. Pull us towards you. And help us bring people with us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thank you for joining us at Grace. I was late into the service this morning. Anecdotally, I'm just indulging myself. This has nothing to do with anything. I was just happy with the moment. When I was growing up, I got in trouble at church all the time. Me and my best friend, PJ Smith, we got kicked out of every ministry that ever existed at our church because we were troublemakers. And my senior pastor, a guy named Buddy Hoffman, used to, in Sunday night service, back when we encumbered our pastors with having to preach two sermons on one Sunday, he would call me out, Chris, stop talking to Karen, or do I need to get Donna to come down here and sit between you two? Like that kind of stuff in the service. And as a 12-year-old, that's mortifying. And I just remember that as what my pastor did. And I was next door refilling my water and getting ready to come over here. And there was a kid that got a little sideways. And the teacher had to pull him out. And the kid wasn't really listening to the teacher. And so I had to crouch down and get real stern with said kid and say, you're going to get right. And he says, she's not my mom. And I said, yeah, you're right, but she's your teacher. And if you don't listen to her, I'm going to go get your mom. And it was just like, and she said, thanks, Nate. I was like, you're welcome. Also, Carly, it was your, no, I'm just kidding. It was not, it was not, it was not. This morning, we're in our second part of Daniel, where we're going through the first portion of the book, the narrative portion of the book, and looking at these stories and asking what we can learn from them and what they have for us now. This morning, we arrive at the story of the fiery furnace, one of my favorite stories in the Bible, in the Old Testament, and I'm thrilled to arrive at it now. It's a story about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but years ago, I went to Honduras on a mission trip, and I got to know a man named Mark Searcy, who's a custom home builder in western North Carolina. But in his teenage and 20, in his late teens and 20s, he was a missionary to Haiti and has this missionary background. And he's really southern and really. And one of my favorite humans I've ever met. And he's, he told me that, uh, that I'm not going to tell him what, I'm not going to tell you what he calls, uh, Nebuchadnezzar. I'll tell you if you ask me after the service, I'll tell you, but I'm not going to tell you from here. Uh, he, and he said that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are the demon names for those boys because their real names were Benadab, Mishael, and Hananiah. Those were their Hebrew names that all meant some sort of praise to God. And they were renamed by the Babylonian government, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, what we know them by. And those are their demon names because those give praise to the Babylonian gods. And I'm not sure how convinced I am of Mark's perspective, but I do think it's interesting that there is, that there have been a dad, Mishael and Hananiah. Those are their God given, the names given by their Jewish parents that give praise to God. And I do think it's good as we remember the story to know their real names. But in the Bible and in the story, they're referred to as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So we will refer to them as that. And here's the situation. Last week, we talked about the exile and basically Jewish slaves being carried to Babylon to serve in their court and that they took some of the elite, the cream of the crop, young men, and they installed them in the government. They put them through a training process and then they installed them in the government and gave them different roles. And so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have been prepared for that, and they've now been installed in their roles, and they've reached the upper echelons of government. And as such, they've made their peers jealous of them. So there are native Babylonians that are now working with them or even under them that have become jealous of their progress and of their success. And that's the environment. And in the midst of this environment, there's an edict that goes out. King Nebuchadnezzar erects a gold statue of himself. And there's an edict that whenever music is played, and in the Bible, this is where in Daniel chapter three, I'm going to look at some verses in a minute. So if you have a Bible and you want to turn there, that's where we are. But it says in the Bible that whenever these instruments, the lyre and the harp and the whatever, and the trumpet and whatever are played, then you should bow and worship the golden image or just bow towards the golden image and worship Nebuchadnezzar, who has now deified himself. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego don't agree to this. Whenever the music plays, they don't worship. And I was thinking about this as I was rereading the story and reacquainting myself with it. It's difficult to believe that they would stand in the city center obstinately going like this and saying, we're not going to worship. It's more easy to believe that they would discreetly and respectfully move off to the side and just kind of let everyone else do their thing. I certainly don't know what the situation was, but I seriously doubt they made a big show of not worshiping. I think they just didn't worship. But some of their peers noticed this and told on them. They went to King Nebuchadnezzar and they ratted them out. They told on them. And this is a lesson for all the, everybody, if you're in here and you're under 15, raise your hand. Snitches get stitches. All right. That's a real thing. Don't do this. Don't tell on people. That's for you. They told on them. And they said, hey, whenever the music plays, these people aren't worshiping you. They're not honoring you. And the text says that Nebuchadnezzar was enraged. He was an emotionally volatile man from everything we can tell from the text. Nebuchadnezzar was enraged, and he calls them in. And he's furious at them. And he says, I've heard you guys. I've brought you in. I've supported you. I've trained you. I've elevated you. I've progressed you. I've given you success. I've given you affluence. And as a thank you, you refuse to worship me. He's furious at them. He says, if you don't worship me, I'm going to play the music. I'm going to turn on Spotify. And if you don't worship me, I'm going to burn you in the fiery furnace. That's the threat. So that's the situation and that's where we are. And this is their response to King Nebuchadnezzar. And I think it is a remarkable response. Daniel chapter three, verses 16 through 18. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to him, King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we. That's the most important phrase in the story. But even if he does not, we want you to know, your majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. So he brings these young men before him. He's this enraged king surrounded by guards. And he says, if you don't worship me, I'm going to throw you into the furnace. I'm going to burn you alive. And their response is, we do not need to defend ourselves against you in this matter, which is difficult to parse out. And different theologians would say different things, because with this limited story we get from the text, it's difficult to know exactly what their intent is. And so this is a guess. But my guess is that they believe that Nebuchadnezzar knew of their faith. That they believe that he knew, like, hey, we're worshipers of the Hebrew God. We're not worshipers of other gods. We don't need to defend ourselves against you. I don't think it was defiant. I don't think it was, no, no, no, I'm not going to talk about that with you. You don't deserve that. I'm not going to answer that question. It was, it was more of, I believe, you know who we are. You know who we worship. That's not going to change. And that God that we worship is going to protect us. Throw us in there. He'll protect us. And even if he doesn't, we're going to continue to believe in him. And we will not worship you. That's their response. When they responded in that way, Nebuchadnezzar is so angry that he looks at his guards and he says, make the furnace seven times hotter, which is a hilarious command. Because if you're on fire, you're on fire. You know, does it get worse if it's seven times? Like if your arms on fire and then you make it seven times hotter, is that a worse fire on your arm? Like I don't understand that. And I also don't understand in ancient Babylon how you gauge what seven times hotter is. But that's what he says. Make it seven times hotter. And it was so hot that one of the guards that bound them and threw them into the furnace burned up himself because he got too close to the flame, which is a really tough way to go. But that's what happens. And he throws them into the flame. And then he's watching them in the flames, expecting to see them burn up. I don't know if there was like a bulletproof, like double-pane glass that was heatproof that he could see through, or if it was just like an open furnace. I don't know how it worked, but he's looking in and he's seeing them, and he notices something. And this is what the text says, Daniel 3, 24 through 26. Then King Nebuchadnezzar leapt to his feet in amazement and asked his advisors, weren't there three men that were tied up and threw into the fire? They replied, certainly, your majesty. He said, look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods. Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace there three people in the house, but only are there three people who are unharmed, but there's a fourth. And the text just says he looks like a son of the gods. And here's a thing that I like to do with the Old Testament. We don't know who that was. We don't know who the fourth person was in there with them. It could have been an angel. Some people think it could have been Jesus himself. And here's what I do as a highly trained theologian. Whenever... Shut up. That's great. I'm a very lowly train. I'm not a pastor, theologian. That's crazy. Anyways, just the snicker from the 26 year old was deserved. It was deserved. Whenever we have the opportunity in the Old Testament to put Jesus in a place, we should. So maybe it was an angel. But I think it was Jesus. I think he showed up with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And he said, I'm with you. You have faith in me. I'm with you. And he protects them from the fiery furnace. You can extrapolate that out however you like. But I think Jesus was there. I think Jesus was there in the form of Melchizedek when Abraham showed up in Salem and gave a tithe to him. For me, it's just cooler to allow Jesus to show up wherever it seems like he does. So who knows who is there? And who knows who wrote Hebrews? But let's make guesses. And I think that was Jesus there in the furnace with them. When Nebuchadnezzar sees this, he calls them out. Come out right away. And the ties that bound their hands were done. They were burned up, but they were unharmed completely by the flames. And his response, if weadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel and rescued his servants. They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own god. Therefore, this is important, I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of them must be cut to pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rub is, if you honor God, you will get a promotion. He sees what happens. Also, that's false. He sees what happens and he calls them out. And he says, he gives praise to this God that he was moments ago committed to defying. Do you see? And so that's the story. And then God gets the glory. So that's the story of, and that's all the rhyming I'm going to do. That's the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace. And it's a wonderful story. And typically, when I preach a sermon, I'm really, whether you've noticed it or not, doing my best to try to get us to like one point to think about. I'm trying to drive the ship to this one thing for us to consider. And I'd love to do that with this story, but here's the problem. It's too grand of a story to reduce to one point. I've also been your pastor now for eight years, and this is the first time I've preached on it. I don't see myself getting back to it anytime soon. So instead of just saying one thing, I want to pull out three things from this story that we learned for us to consider this morning. And I would encourage you to weigh them with equal weight and to decide and determine this morning. We don't have the capacity to apply three things to ourselves and do three new things in our lives and all the things. So one of these three things, I think and I hope and I and I pray will connect with you. And I would invite you to just grab onto the one that does. And maybe you'll get to the end of them and be like, is there a fourth one? I don't, none of those mattered, but hopefully one of these three will be something that relates to you. So the first thing we see in this story is simply this. Holiness matters. Holiness matters. It matters in life. It matters to God. It should matter to you. Holiness matters. Last week, this is what we talked about. We talked about Daniel being trained by the Babylonians and being offered this new diet. And with this diet, he was encouraged to eat stuff that was outside the purview of the Jewish laws in which he grew up. And so he said, I'm going to refuse that and choose this vegetarian vegan diet. And let's just see how it goes. So he chose holiness. And when I say holiness, here's what I mean, because this is what the Bible means. The word holy means different and more accurately, it means other. So when we say holy, and when God said, when we say about God, holy, holy, holy, what we are saying is different, different, different, other than us, set aside from us, not the same as us. And so when we say we act with holiness, we pursue holiness, what we're saying is we're pursuing being different. And what we talked about last week is we're pursuing being different from the society in which we find ourselves entrenched. We are not citizens of the United States. We are not citizens of North Carolina. We find ourselves residing here. We are aliens in those places, and we are citizens of heaven. And so our behavior and our standards should be not in line with the given standards of North Carolina or Raleigh or North Raleigh or wherever it is you find yourself. Our standards for ourselves should be in line with what scripture says and who God tells us to be. That's what holiness is. Now, I had lunch with a friend of mine this week. And, excuse me, and he he was saying how does a leaf get up on this stage like all the way in looky there I had lunch with a friend of mine and he was saying that he enjoyed last week's sermon but that he wanted when I got I got to the holy part, to the diet, he wanted to say, what's the diet? Give me the standards. Tell me what to do. He's like, I don't know how everybody feels, but sometimes I like to get kicked in the teeth on Sunday morning. Like, make me feel a little bit bad. Like, ruffle my feathers a little bit and tell me what the standards should be. Tell me what we should watch and what we shouldn't watch. And tell me what we should think and what we shouldn't think. And tell me what practices in my life, like get on to me a little bit. And I said, I'll never do that. I'll never do that. That's not what I'm here to do. Because holiness, this is going to sound odd, is gray. It's different things for different people. I'm never going to get up here and tell you what it looks like to be holy as if I am that. You guys are smart, responsible adults with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Most of you. I believe in your capacity to decide what holiness is for you. I'm not going to sit up here and list standards off by which you should live. I'm going to trust you to establish those for yourself. And here's one of the reasons. I've given this example before. Years ago, I found myself, and I still do, as a big fan of NBA playoff basketball. I hate the regular season. I think the mid-season tournament is one of the dumbest things I've ever encountered in my life. That joke's going to land with 5% of you, but you know who you are. But I would watch the NBA playoffs because I like it. I like sports. I watch all the sports. And I like the playoffs. But the playoffs would keep me up because of the West Coast games until 1, 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning. And by watching them every night, I was getting up later than I needed to. And sometimes it would cause me to either miss my quiet time, which you've heard me say a hundred times. The most important habit anyone can develop in their life is to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in his presence through prayer. You've heard me say that over a hundred times, if you've been here for any length of time and by staying up late and watching those games, it was causing me to wake up late and either have a truncated quiet time or none at all. And so it was impacting me spiritually. So it became unholy for me to stay up watching basketball games. But I'm not going to stand on this stage and tell you it's unholy to watch sports. That's how it's great. You have to determine how your behaviors impact you and how they push you to God or not and what diet is right for you. But here's what I know based on this story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is that holiness matters. Here's the second thing I know from this story. God is always working for his glory. God is always working for his glory. You see in the story that they get into this scenario where they've been told on. It's a bad scene. And they could have justified their way out of it, couldn't they? They could have said, God, I'm going to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar so I don't die. And so that I can remain in this place and influence in the right way. I mean, if I die, they're just going to replace me with a godless Babylonian. You don't want that to happen. So like, I'm just going to do this. I don't mean it, but I'm going to bow down. They didn't do that. They were in a tough spot. And they had this standard because they chose holiness of I can't bow down to Nebuchadnezzar. And at any point, God could have intervened and saved them. But he waited until the very last minute to save them in the fiery furnace. And so they were in this predicament that was preventable, but God didn't prevent. He allowed his servants to continue to suffer. And what we see at the end of that is that God was working for his glory because what's the result of the story? The result of the story is Nebuchadnezzar declares, no one will ever blaspheme the God of the Hebrew people. No one will ever blaspheme the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And by allowing them to go through this difficult phase and rescuing them at the very last minute, God made his own name great. Do you see? It was declared throughout Babylon because of that. There's an edict that went out that we will honor this God now. So it's important for us to hear from the story that whatever God is doing, he's doing it to work his own glory. I have a friend who, when he graduated, he got in with an accounting firm. And he began to just work and work diligently and work hard and do what you do in that stage of your career and kind of rise in the ranks and yada, yada, yada. And he ended up making partner with two other folks. And so now he's a partner with two other people, but he feels a sense of injustice because they don't work as hard as he does. They have this kind of mentality that once you make partner, now you have employees to do the work and you get to make the money off of what they do. And he felt like, no, you have to outwork your employees. And then he looked at his partners who he viewed as lazy and they are not working as hard. And this frustrated him and it caused years of frustration. And then eventually what happened was, and he's, by the way, going to church, he's a deacon at his church. He's, he's one of these people and he's getting frustrated with the situation because it feels unjust and it feels unfair. And he's like, God, I'm honoring you. Why are you, why is this happening? And then there's a personal fallout and he actually gets kicked out of the partnership and he has to start from scratch. And so he finds himself in his mid-30s with children starting from scratch and going, God, how is this happening? Why is this happening? This seems unfair. But he starts from scratch and he builds a new company and develops new partners. And you fast forward another 15, 20 years after that, and his firm exists and gives 20 to 30% of their profits to nonprofit organizations building God's kingdom around the globe. And he has people on his payroll whose entire job is to do the finances of nonprofits for free. He had to go through a hard time and be recalibrated. But it was to be recalibrated for God's glory. So that this person could be, so that my friend could be used to bring glory to God in his kingdom in a greater way. Some of us in here may find ourselves going through times that seem hard and seem preventable. God, if you wanted to fix this, you could. God, if you wanted to rescue, you could. God, if you wanted to restore, you could. If you wanted to repair, you could. If you wanted to heal, you could. And maybe he's not. But God doesn't work in days. He works in decades. And he works in centuries. And here's what I know about God based on this story and many others. God is always working for his glory. And he will involve you. In that path. If you stick with him. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So God is always working for his glory. Here's the last thing. And this one. I said consider them with equal weight. But this is my favorite one. And I stole this one from a friend of mine who I hadn't talked to in years. And I actually called him this week and I said, Hey dude, he's a guy, his name's Alan Smith. He's on staff at my last church. He's still there as a campus pastor. And he and I worked together. And I remember him preaching this sermon. This was the first sermon that he preached. It was on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when he had a chance to preach at the last church. And I called him this week and I said, dude, I'm preaching that story. And I remember the point you made. And I'm totally stealing it. But I'm going to give you credit. Like just so you know, I'm not going to pretend like this is my idea and my insight. and we had a good catch up and whatever. But this is not from me. This is from Alan. Not that Alan. This is from another Alan. Here's the question that I come out of with this story. And this is the thing I want to leave you with. Do you have, even if, faith? Do you have, even if, faith? I told you those words were the most important words in the story, and I told you that we were going to come back to them. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, Nebuchadnezzar, O king, if you throw us in the furnace, our God will protect us. But even if he doesn't, we will still worship him. Do you ever see the power of that? I believe my God can heal my dad. But even if he doesn't, I'm going to worship him. I believe my God can repair this. But even if he doesn't, I'm going to worship him. I believe that my God can make this better. But even if he chooses not to, but even if he doesn't, I will remain faithful. Do you know how hard it is? Many of you have walked through it, and you know what even if faith is. Do you know how hard it is to feel let down by God and say, but even if he lets me down and he doesn't do the thing that I think he's going to do or that I want him to do or that I need him to do or that I'm desperate for him to do or that I'm weeping for him to do, even if he doesn't do it, I will still choose him. That's even if faith. I had a conversation this last week and it made my week, man. I used to be a high school teacher. And Honeymoon is a football coach, Mike Devine. And I got really close with a particular class. And there were some of the kids, some of the guys that I got really close with. So close that I'll tell you this. One of my greatest regrets, this guy's name's Alex Williams, and we went to the lake. I took them to my in-law's lake house. And we were joking about getting tattoos, and I don't have any tattoos. We were joking about getting tattoos, and Alex said, I'll get a matching one with you. And I said, what do you want to get? And we decided that it would be great to get 100% awesome written on our butt cheek. I wish I had that tattoo. Golly, what a miss. That would be great. But I don't. But Alex and I were that kind of close. And in his junior and senior year, Alex's dad was dying of cancer. And I have a vivid memory of bringing in some of the other men and dads from the class into my classroom. And we gathered around Ron. And we prayed for God to heal him. And God did heal him. He just healed him in eternity. He didn't heal him here. And so Alex lost his dad. After losing his dad, his mom, understandably so, kind of went off the rails. And his two elementary age brothers had to move in with Alex at 19 years old. And he found himself as the caretaker for them. He had a hard go. And Alex always loved Jesus, but this was a hard season. And I lost touch with him for a while. I would see him on Facebook. He's got a wife. He's got a young family. He seems to be doing well and be thriving. And I got a Facebook message, which I don't check very often because it was two weeks old. But he reached out to me and he said, hey, I'm doing okay in life. And I want to give to people who need it. How do I do that? And so I said, this is a great conversation to have, dude. Let's talk. And we talked and he said, and this is, you guys will find this funny. Um, and it's sad that it's true. He said, you're the fourth pastor I've talked to. I'm involved in the church. I've talked to three other pastors. Can you guess where they told me to give my money? And he said, I knew you wouldn't do that, so I called you. And I said, 10% of everything we give goes to you. We had a great conversation. We caught up. We shared stories about the time I got too excited as a football coach and punched him in the stomach in the middle of a game. Not because I was mad, because I was pumped up. I was like, let's go get him. And I accidentally hit Alex. Anyways, it was a wonderful conversation. And he's coming to Raleigh. He's doing a bid on our church. He's a general contractor. He might build our church. Who knows if that's what God is orchestrating. But he's going to come here, and when he comes here, I'm going to lay out in front of him six nonprofits that I know of and say, whatever God directs your heart, get involved in these. But these are good people and they're doing good things. And I'm so thrilled to be able to do that. But here's the point of that story. That's even if faith. Isn't it? Even if you don't heal my dad. Even if my mom goes off the rails. Even if I adopt my brothers at the age of 19. Even if I have to go through trials and I can't go to college. I will find a way, and when I do, God, I'm going to honor you. As soon as you give me the means, I'm going to honor you. That's even if faith. So that's the question that I would leave you with today. Do you have even if faith? Let's pray and we'll take communion. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for this wonderful church and group of people. Thank you for the way that you allow us to love you and one another. Thank you for speaking to us through the stories of the Old Testament and this morning, hopefully, through the story of Ben-Hadad, Mishael, and Hananiah. Thank you for your servants then and your servants now. God, as we move into this time of communion, we just pray that we would reflect and be grateful for the way that you love us, for the way that you're always working for your glory. I pray that we would pursue holiness and that we would, if we don't have it now, progress towards an even-if faith. It's in your Son's name we pray these things. Amen.

All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Kyle. I am one of the pastors here at Grace, and I am downright stoked to be able to be preaching this morning. Obviously, I love opportunities to get to speak and to get to preach and just talk about what the Lord has laid on my heart. But ultimately, this is a story that we're going to dive into today that I have loved ever since I was a child. And honestly, this was not on purpose, but I think it aligns perfectly with the child dedication that we just did as well. And clearly the Lord works well. And amen to that. Can I get amen? Yeah, sweet. So if you haven't been, if this is your first time, or maybe you have been out a lot this summer, we are diving into and spending time in the life of Moses. And we are learning about his life and his ministry and the people of Israel as he has helped free them from slavery and is leading them towards the place where one day they will be their own nation and they will be the people of God. And so leading up into this point, right now, they're basically this nomadic group of people who the Lord is providing for them as they're moving forwards and they're continuing to learn how to trust him and trust his guidance and trust his provision. But ultimately, they don't have a whole lot going for them, quote unquote, as a nation. And yet the story that we're diving into right now is where they find themselves in their first battle that they will have to face. And I say find themselves there because ultimately they were attacked. There's these people named the Amalekites that decided, you know what? These people have no way of defending themselves. Certainly they have people, but they have no place to bunker. They have, they don't have resources to be able to fight a war. Let's go attack them. Let's go kill all of them and take their maybe few to many resources that they have while they're on the move. A pretty evil act. So along with our battle premise, we have some of these classic battle tropes for our battle fans out there. We've got our good versus evil. We've got our David versus Goliath, these group of people who never in their right minds should be able to win a battle like this. And yet they've got God on their side. And so you can imagine where that's going to go. And so let's go ahead and let's dive into Exodus 17. And we're going to start by reading verses 8 through 11. The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur, Hur being the name of a person, went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. All right. I want to pause for a second because I just want us all to collectively recognize and understand how insane the premise of this strategy is. So I can only, like, I'm just imagining myself being Moses and going to God, God, these people are going to attack us. They're on the move right now. What should we do? And God's like, all right, I've got you. Don't worry about it. Grab Joshua. This is actually the first time Joshua is mentioned in scripture. He's going to be a big player coming here in just a few weeks. But ultimately, grab Joshua. Let Joshua grab some of our men, and they're going to go out and fight, but you're not going to go with them. Moses is like, all right, sweet. I got something special, baby. All right, I want you to grab Aaron, and I want you to grab her, and I want you all to go up onto this hill over outside of where the battle is happening, not even in the mix. And so then I'm like, I'm sure Moses is like, hey, all right, sweet. I've got God's staff. He's done a lot of cool things. He's done a lot of miracles. We're probably going to all grab it, and we're going to fly, or we're going to float down to the battlefield. You know, like what, what, what do you call that? Like we're going to hang glide down there. Um, and then it's going to probably become this super weapon and we're just going to, we're just going to wreck shop. We're going to hit them with an upper flank, which I don't know if that's the right, I don't, can you flank from the top or is that only from like ground level? I don't know, but we're going to say we're going to flank from above. That's what I'm imagining that Moses is imagining. That makes sense to me. Instead, God's like, well, not exactly. You are going to take your staff. You're going to have it. And this staff is going to come in handy. Okay, cool. But instead you're going to stay up on the hilltop and you're going to lift that staff over your head. And then, and Moses is like, all right, and then what baby? Like fire is going to rain down, whatever. And then you're going to lift that staff over your head. And then, and Moses is like, all right, and then what, baby? Like fire is going to rain down, whatever. And then you're going to hold it there. And that's it. You're going to keep it up over your head. And that is how you're going to win. And kicker, spoiler alert, if you drop your arms down, your guys are going to begin to lose. That's insane. And that doesn't make any sense. But it pretty much walks in line with the way that the Lord has provided for his people up to this point. It seems like when the Lord is asking Moses or asking the people of Israel to do something, it normally doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And it normally doesn't allow for many explanations for why they are continuing to survive, except for the fact that God is in control and that his ways are better. I think that when I look at this, what I realize and what I recognize is this. Were they to fight by their own hand, there could have been the possibility where they realized, hey, you know what? We're pretty strong and we're pretty good at this. But God wanted them to know without a shadow of a doubt that there is no way that you can win this battle. There's no way that you are going to be able to survive. There is no way you are going to be able to get through this except for by my hand and by my power. I am in control. My ways are better. Follow me. Trust me. Step out in faith and I'm going to provide for you. And leading up to this point, over all of these past few stories, which if you've been joining us, you know, throughout all of these moments, they have learned time and time again that God is never asking them to do the thing that makes the most sense. And oftentimes, he's putting them in situations where they are having to really step out into faith and to step out into fear. Hey, Moses, I want you away from your people that have to battle. Hey, the people who are battling, you don't have your leader with you. You do not have the staff of God that is going to be leading you into battle. And yet I'm asking you to trust me and to go out into battle and trust that everything's going to be okay. And so they did. They stepped down to the faith. They stepped into possible confusion. And ultimately, they found themselves in battle. And just real quick, I think this is a perfect connection to, if you were here last week, Aaron Gibson, in his preaching, reminded us that just as the Lord asked these people to step out in fear and to step out in faith in a way that seemed a little uncomfortable or maybe even possibly terrifying, that we're called to do the same thing. And so we can trust, just as they trusted, that God is in control and that his ways are better. And so they find themselves in war. They find themselves in battle. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur find themselves on this hilltop where Moses is doing everything he can to maintain his strength and to bear the weight that he was asked to bear so that his people can win this battle. So let's dive back in. We're going to read the next two verses. Exodus 17, 12 and 13 say this. When Moses's hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up one on one side and one on the other so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. Let me read that again. Aaron and Hur held his hands up one on one side and one on the other so that they, so that his hands remained steady until sunset. And that is how they were able to win the battle. So first off, woo. Yeah, that's exciting. Sweet. We won. They won this unbelievable battle. Once again, they found themselves able to survive simply because God allowed it to be so. God has performed another miracle so that these people who never in their lives should have been able to win this battle end up winning this battle. But what I find so fascinating about this passage, God has already confounded all possible understanding or mindset of what is or is not possible. Why didn't he just give Moses this ultra super strength to where he could have kept his arms up for as long as he needed to do it? He's already performing this massive miracle anyways. Why not give him Kyle-like strength so he can keep those arms up for literally as long as his people need? But he doesn't. Instead, he provides from two faithful friends who are simply just able to bear some of the weight and to bear some of the burden that Moses was experiencing. It already said, there are times where it was too much for Moses, but these two men, these two faithful friends who care about Moses and care about the Lord, stood to him and they just simply bore some of the weight that Moses had been asked to bear. And what I realize is I feel like Moses could have easily found himself before that moment entering into a bit of the hero mentality. Hey guys, look, Aaron, Hur, you're welcome to come with me, but stand back and watch the master. I'm the one who's supposed to hold the staff. I'm going to hold it up. You guys don't worry about it. Honestly, y'all can go fight unless you're just a little scared. If you're scared, come and watch how awesome it is that the Lord threw me because the Lord has given me this task. I'm going to hold my hands up and our people are going to win this battle. But stand back. This is not your responsibility. It's mine. I got this, boys. He also could have taken on the martyr's mentality. Guys, this is going to be unbelievably hard. It's going to be too much of a weight to bear, and yet I don't want you to have to bear it with me. It is going to be so hard, and I don't want you to be mixed up in this. And God has given me this. He's given me the call that I'm supposed to be the one that's holding it. I don't want to have to make you guys hold that weight with me. You don't have to worry about it. I got it and I'll just figure it out on my own. Had he done either one of those, then both he and the Israelites would have failed. But instead, in his humility, what he realized and what he recognized is that Moses needed Aaron and he needed her to be able to bear his burden in order for him to carry out God's plan. He could not, he could not have borne the weight and borne the burden that came with what God had asked him to do without these two people, these two faithful friends on either side of him, helping bear that weight alongside of him. Ultimately, what Moses had been learning up to this point, what he learned here, and what he will continue to learn throughout the rest of his story, is that in his faithfulness with God, in his faithfulness to God, there are always going to be moments where the miracle doesn't come, but simply the people do. That just like God has given him this staff, he has also given him these people around him to live faithfully alongside of him. And to help him move forwards and to help him move on. And I think what he was keenly understood and what we need to be keenly aware of is in his story and every story throughout all of scripture and all of these teachings and all of these writings in the Old Testament and the New Testament. What we talk about all the time and what Nate reminds us all the time is that it is impossible for anyone to live out a life of faith and to adequately live within God's will in isolation. To try to walk in the paths of God by yourself and on your own, you will not succeed. And that's why it is so baked into the DNA of the church in general, but specifically of Grace Raleigh. That is why community is so baked into our DNA. What's our mission statement? Connecting people to Jesus and what? Connecting people to people. Why do we make such an emphasis on our grace groups, on our small groups, of joining volunteer groups, on creating opportunities and atmospheres outside of Sunday mornings where we get to connect and communicate and get to know one another? It's not simply so that you have some people that you can make friends and that that's cool. And hey it's nice to say hello to people on Sunday mornings. And it feels a little less awkward when you're walking in. It is because in a life of faith. Certainly it's always worth it, but we cannot do it or walk in the steps that God has placed before us alone. Because there are times where it's too difficult. There's times where it's too hard to bear if you're the lone person trying to hold up that staff over your hands. You know, I think back to when I came to Grace, and I'll spare you most of the details of it, but if you don't know, I've been here for about seven years, and I got a job offer here at Grace Raleigh, and I also had a job offer from a church back home in Georgia where I'd spent my whole life. And ultimately, if you put the two side by side and you did like a pro-con list of which one is best and whatever, basically it was a landslide victory for not grace. It's like pastor, no. Pastor was a huge reason I came here. I'm just kidding. But I was leaving all of my family. I was literally have been able to live where I was. I would have had all of my family around me, all of my friends. I was in a place that I knew I would have been making more money. I would have been working for a pastor that I grew up in his church. All of these boxes were checked to have gone here. The only thing that wasn't checked was the only thing that mattered is that the Lord had made it abundantly clear, Raleigh and Grace Raleigh is where I have you. Your next step of obedience, Kyle, is to move to Raleigh and to be a part of this church. And seven years later, I can tell you with all certainty that I am able to present to you that it was the right decision. I have been so blessed and been able to see such immense and unbelievable joy by being a part of this church, by being a part of Grace Raleigh's student ministry, Having a wife. I'm about to have a kid in a month. Like joys that I beyond compare. Beyond what I could have ever asked or imagined. Have simply come by being a part of this community. And being a part of this church family. I tell you that. So that you realize and recognize. What I'm telling you. Is without a shadow of a doubt. The Lord had me here. And also to tell you that so that you realize and recognize what I'm telling you is without a shadow of a doubt, the Lord had me here. And also to tell you that I promise you, had I tried to do so in isolation, I would not still be here. I would not have experienced those joys because, guys, even within the will of God, there were moments that I felt super lonely and super isolated. I moved away from my whole family. I'm missing all of these incredible things and all of this stuff that they're getting to do. I moved away from all of my friends. But I was able to lean on the strength of families that were here, who welcomed me into their families with open arms, people like the Rectors and people like the Winstons and the Gentiles and the Hills who brought me in and made me a part of their family. And certainly they weren't my family, but it just held my arms up just enough to where I could move past that loneliness and back into this beautiful, joyous will of God that he had shown before me. In this ministry, I could have come in with the haughtiness of, hey, the Lord's got me here. He made it abundantly clear he's got me here. So if you want to be a part of Grace Students as an adult, as a parent, as a kid, hop on the coattails and let's get rocking because your boy's about to kill it. Had I done that, that ministry would not have been a success and I would no longer be here once again because the ministry would have failed under the weight of how limited my ability is. But instead, in moments where it was confusing and where it was hard and I didn't know what the next step to make was, and in moments where I questioned, am I right to still be here? Does the Lord have me somewhere else? I had parents and I had students and I had volunteers who took up that battle, who continued to serve faithfully and who continued to love me and encourage me and bring me wisdom and allow me to see and understand the forest through the trees. And certainly that was a weight that was mine to bear, but there they were on either side just helping me hold it a little bit longer. And now I get to be on the other side of that and just look back at the immense and unbelievable joys that I would have missed out on had I tried to do it alone. And every one of us in this room wakes up every morning and we put up our staff in some way. I got a prop. I'm sorry. I shouldn't do it this way, but now I've started saying, so we're going to say it this way. We're talking about the Lord's provision and whatnot. This is just out back. Like I told him, like, why is this? This was outside of this door. Why was it there? I don't know. But hey, clearly the Lord wanted me to use it. I told Aaron Gibson, I'm going to pick up a table later, but I'm a little bit worried because I'm not actually strong. And he's like, hey, you know,'s a staff out there. I was like, okay. Anyways, let's dive back in. I'm so sorry. But every one of us, we wake up every morning and we put our staff up in whatever way the Lord has put in front of us. I'm going to switch my notes a little bit. Those of us who are married, we have the opportunity and the joy and the privilege to be able to recognize and understand the sacrificial love of Christ that he has for his church. We get to know that and experience that and we get to share that with our spouse. But man, sometimes the anger and the frustration kind of wins, you know? And sometimes it gets a little bit harder to see and to value that love. Our parents. We have the opportunity to raise up these kids to know Christ and to know the love of Christ and to live in his ways. And we get to understand and value and teach them the unconditional love of God by showing them this unconditional love. But man, these kids are really getting annoying and frustrating and hard to handle. And I know you laugh, but I know you laugh because you know it. We need those people. We need our Aaron and we need our her to where we can still uphold and maintain that staff and live out this call that he's put in front of us. If you work at a job, we get to rest in the fact that we are doing something that the Lord has uniquely designed us to be able to do. Not only that, but he has given us our own unique mission field where we can share and show the love of Christ to a group of people who may or may not have ever experienced it before. Man. Sometimes in the midst of that call to be able to be that light for those people, anxiety and fear and worry and frustration take over. And it's too much to bear on our own. And it's in these moments where we know that we're taking up our staff and we know that we're living faithfully to God, but it's in these moments where God's plan gets hard. We're on our own. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to do it. Where we need our Aaron and where we need our her. Someone who's able to help bear with us and bear our burdens, as Paul says it, bear our burdens in love. The people who, as Hebrews says, will encourage us and will spur us on towards love and good deeds, spurring us on towards what the Lord has for us. People who will offer us their shoulder or offer us a hug so we can just let out some tears. People who will find and offer us some grace that we're not able to see for ourselves. People who will offer us a dose of perspective that we're too close to perceive on our own. People who will give us ears to listen. Will give us mouths to speak wisdom into our lives. And people who will bring their faithfulness in being able to pray for us. Because what's on the other side of that burden, what's on the other side of the weight of this staff, are joys beyond compare. And I want us all to be able to experience those joys, but we're not going to do it unless we do it together. And so my final reminder is this, that the door swings both ways. I know in this church we have a lot of people who love being able to be the Aaron and to be the her, who jump at the opportunity to be the person to say, hey, bring me some of your weight and let me carry it for you. Let me serve you and let me love you in this way. I think sometimes those people have a hard time remembering that you need those people as well. And so let us as a church, as Grace Raleigh, as a Grace group, as a part of our volunteer teams, let us be Aaron's and let us be hers for one another. And let us also be Moses and step outside of our comfort zone and in humility and in openness and in vulnerability, allow other people to help us bear our burdens so that we can experience the other side of what the Lord has for us. Pray with me, please. Lord, we love you so much. God, thank you that you are always with us, that your plans are always best. But God, thank you so much that you give us the people besides us and around us to uplift us, to uphold us, and to allow us to pursue you. Lord, I just pray that as we take up our mantle and do as Aaron asked us to do last week and find our staff, find what our next step of obedience is, God, that we remember that as we take that step, we do so not on our own, but side by side, hand in hand with the rest of the believers that you have placed in our lives and the rest of the people that are in this room and that are a part of our church family. Lord, we love you so much. Amen.

I'm laughing with Aaron because after the last week, my name is Nate, I get to be the pastor. After the last week that I was here, I went to him and was like, hey dude, we're using that bumper a lot, can we get that shortened down to maybe 15, 20 seconds and go ahead and get to it? And he was like, yeah, I'll work on that. So I came up here and I was kind of getting ready and obviously obviously I'm jet lagged and stuff. I've been in Istanbul for a week. And I looked up and there's 10 seconds to go. And I go, this is the week you shorten it? And he goes, yep. And just smiled real big at me. Like it's his personal joke on me this morning to be caught off guard. But excuse me. Like I said, I spent the last week in Istanbul working with some Iranian pastors, and I'm going to tell you all about that, but I've had a lot of people ask about my safety. I'm so glad that you're home safe, which is a kind thing to think and to say. There was no real danger in Istanbul. As a matter of fact, for those of you who don't know, the president arrested the mayor of Istanbul. That's his biggest political rival, and so the youth took to the streets to protest and demonstrate and riot and there's a pretty heavy police presence I was just hoping that Jen didn't stumble upon the New York Times while I was over there luckily she did not but the second night of the planned demonstrations they were going to be in this place called Taksim Square and so we went down there early in the afternoon just to see it there's police barricades and SWAT vehicles everywhere with like crowd deterrent guns on top and things like that. And we thought that's pretty cool. And so then we went and we had dinner and it was probably about nine o'clock at night. And I looked at my traveling partner, Rue, and I said, Rue, do we do this smart? We're about 20 minutes south of Toxum at this point. And I said, Rue, by walking, should we do the smart thing and get on the subway and go back to our hotel? Or should we do the fun thing and go watch democracy die in Toxin Square? And he was like, he got his twinkle in his eye and we walked to Toxin. I was really hoping to grab a sign and protest as well. But apparently protesting and riots are a young man's game because it was like 930 and there was 20 people in the square and some getting off the subway. They were all younger than me. So I went to bed and I think the thing got really fun at about 11 o'clock. So I missed it, but I tried to go see it while we were there. But safety was never really an issue. The reason that I was there was through a friend of mine named Anaruda Sin. who goes by Ru. And so what I'd like to do this morning is rather than preach to you a sermon, what I'd like to take the morning to do, if it's all right with you, if it's not all right with you, tough. I mean, you can leave, but that's it because that's what's going to happen. But if it's all right with you, I'd like to just share about my experience over there and give you guys some takeaways of what I took away from it. Because I've just come back feeling incredibly full and incredibly blessed and profoundly humbled. And so I thought it would be better than preaching to you. And preaching, the point of preaching is to inspire and convict a change in hearts and minds for a change in that person. That's why you preach. But sharing is just to say, hey, I had this experience and I want you to hear about it. And I know that many of you will ask and many of you will want to know. And many of you did ask before the service, hey, how was the trip? And so I said, it's great. I'm going to tell you all about it. So if you have any questions for me after the service today, if you want to know more about who I went with or you want to know more about what's happening there, I would love to talk with you about that. And if it's too much for a lobby conversation, let's go out to lunch and we can talk about it more because I feel a tremendous passion for what I got to participate in. But a few years ago, I got to be friends with a guy who was introduced through a mutual friend to Roo. And Roo trains church pastors across the world in underdeveloped countries. So where I was exposed to him first was when he was training pastors who have churches in sub-Saharan Africa. There was a room full of about 60 pastors from about 10 different countries, and Roo was training them on how to build disciples and send them out to plant churches. And when you're talking about planting churches in underdeveloped countries, particularly in persecuted countries, which is who we're working with now, what you, what, how we would think of those churches is small groups. They meet in the home. The leader is considered a pastor. Some pastors can have two or three or four small groups. Tom Sartorius would be a remarkably successful pastor in underdeveloped countries because he has about eight small groups that he's in and lead. So he'd be great at that. But that's kind of the setup there. And so it's not quite the same as training up someone to go get hired at a church or to go plant a church the way we think about it. It's train up someone who can be a spiritual guide for 12 to 20 people and their children. So that's the process. And through that process, Roo, his network of churches plants three to 500 churches a year in India now for work that he started 10 years ago with no churches. So it's a remarkably effective way to spread the gospel in God's kingdom in these unreached people groups. And so a few years ago, Roo left the organization that he was working with to start his own organization to plant churches, not just in underdeveloped countries, but in persecuted countries. So now he works exclusively with pastors who lead churches in countries in which it is illegal to lead that church. And so a few weeks ago, he told me that he was going to fly to Istanbul and he wanted to bring me with him just as an exposure trip, just so I could see it and be blessed by it. He wanted to bring me with him. And so I had the opportunity to go and not help train. That's way too, that gives me self-aggrandizing. I did not help do anything. I was able to watch them get trained. And it was a group of seven Iranian pastors. Four of them brought their wives. Two of them brought their moms. We called them the grandmas and they were incredibly wise and incredibly wonderful. And so I had the opportunity to go over and watch him work with these pastors. And by the way, this is a ministry that is led by Summit Church. So there's a guy named Nathan, and I think his story is amazing. At the end of the service today, I'm going to show you a video, a message from one of the pastors to us that's translated by Nathan. I will not be able to show that to you online. We're going to actually cut the feed for the safety of the pastor in the video, and then we'll show it just here in-house. But in that video, you'll see the Iranian pastor, a guy named Yahya, and then you'll see Nathan. Nathan fled Iran when he was 19 years old due to religious persecution, came over to the States, and began a social media account and has a huge social media presence in the Persian world where he spreads the gospel to Iran and to the Iranian diaspora all throughout the world. And he has a huge following. And at one point or another, he moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and he began to, he was a part of Summit Church. And then he loved J.D. Greer's sermons. That's a pastor over there. He loved his sermons so much that he started to retool them in Farsi and make the illustration something that Iranians could relate to and then preach them online and develop even more of a following doing that. And so then he went to Summit and he was like, hey, I'm doing this with your sermons. Is this okay? And they said, yes, of course it's okay. And he goes, by the way, I know a bunch of pastors that I'm still networked with, but they really need training. What can we do for them? And so they brought him on staff to help solve that problem. And then him and his boss, a guy named Chris Watkins, one of the missions pastors over there, started looking around for people who knew how to train pastors in underdeveloped, persecuted countries. And they found Roo. And now Roo has partnered with them to do what they're doing. And I got to tell you something. After being exposed to what Summit is able to do on a global scale, I've never cared about church growth. Not my thing. I care about church health and doing it the right way. But now I'm coming back and I'm like, y'all, we got to get in the building. We got to grow because we got to make a bigger kingdom impact. Invite your friends. Send out mailers. Let's make a video. Let's go. We've got to make a kingdom impact. Let's move it. I'm all about church growth. We're going to do some stupid Father's Day giveaway this year with a four-wheeler and a grill or something. So that's who I was with. So the first morning, I go into the room and I meet these pastors. And it was an incredibly humbling experience. Because every single one of the people in that room are risking jail time to do what they do. If their local authorities find out that they're having underground Christian services in their home, they can be arrested. If the wrong group of Muslims find out, and this is not a big if. This is not like me taking a chance going to Toxum Square on the 1.5% chance that somebody gets mad and punches me. It's not that kind of risk. It's a legitimate risk that if the wrong group of Muslims find out in their neighborhood what they're doing, they will beat them repeatedly until they stop. Or they will just murder them. And no one will care that that's why they were murdered. One guy told a story, Mikael. He said that they were talking about times that the Holy Spirit had guided them. And Mikael said that he had a neighbor that was harassing him and his family and his kids so bad, his wife and his kids so badly, that in the middle of the night he had to move away because he was fearful of what this neighbor might do. And he's so grateful that the Holy Spirit moved him to move on that night because the very next night, a lynch mob of Muslim men within the community stormed his house and burned it down in an attempt to kill him and his family. That's a real story that happened. And he told it like I would tell you I'm going to McAllister's for lunch today. And nobody in that room batted an eye. Nobody in that room said, oh my gosh, man, are you okay? I didn't know that. Like, if we share that story in an American small group, like the rest of the night stops and that's what we focus on. You share that in a group of Iranian pastors and they just go, oh, yeah, same. One guy made a joke. I couldn't believe this joke. And it crushed in the room. Everybody's laughing. This guy, Farh, was really funny. He said that he was sharing the gospel with somebody and the guy showed up at his house one day and was angry and he said, if God is real, how come my dad is dead? And Farood said, that's no problem. Mine's dead too. What else you got? It's just a joke he made. And it crushed like the whole room was dying laughing. They just live in a different world than us. Every one of them. They wake up every day. They kiss their wife and they kiss their kids. And the husband and wife don't know if they're going to see each other again for a while. Every day they could go out and the wrong person could find out what they've been up to and they will get arrested. And they'll be in prison for six to 18 months. And when they're in prison, they're away from their job. They're away from their family, they're away from their kids, they're away from their wife, they're away from their life, and they don't know what's going to happen to their family. And if you're an elder, there's three elders. If you're an elder and they find out, the Iranian government finds out that you're running a network, that there's other pastors underneath you, I was told that what tends to happen is you serve your 18 months and then within a year of your release, an accident happens and you're not there anymore. These men face beatings. They face arrest and ultimately they face martyrdom for their faith. So I was already prepared to be tremendously humbled when I walked into that room. And I had already thought about how ashamed I am of some of the things I complain about, having to sacrifice to build God's kingdom and to be a pastor when it isn't a fraction of what those men risk every day to build God's kingdom in Iran. So I already went in incredibly humbled by that. And then when we get there, it was pretty close to start time for session. And so we kind of say some hellos and we sit down. And then in the break between sessions, which those guys were getting it, we did four 90 minute sessions a day. It was a lot. In the first break, I'm walking down the hallway to find the restroom. And there's one, one of the hallway, and he's on his phone, and he looks at me, and he goes, and he walks up to me and gives me a huge hug. And while he's hugging me, and it wasn't like an American, like, how you doing, bro? It wasn't like one of those hugs. It was like how a grandfather hugs a grandson. Like, he just engulfed me, and I'm like, I guess this is what we're going for now. I guess I'm just settling into a Persian hug. While we're hugging in my ear, he says, my brother, my brother, every one of them came up and hugged me and learned my name and called me their brother, my brother, my brother. And it was so moving that by the time they were done, I had to get to the bathroom so I could close the door in a stall and just let myself gain my composure. Because I do not feel worthy of being their brother. Because what they do is so much harder than what I do. And those people that they pastor are your brothers and sisters too. And you'll meet them in eternity one day. They are our family. And it was incredibly moving to know that they so quickly regard me as their brother and you as their brothers and sisters. I was already ready and postured to learn from these pastors. As a matter of fact, that was the biggest thing that I went over there to do. My friend Rue had told me, which was very good for me. If you know me, you know this was an excellent exercise for Nate. He had told me as we were preparing, he was like, hey, listen, we're going to be in these sessions. I've got a translator. There's only one translator. He's working very hard. I've got a lot of information to get in. So, you know, just try to be really limited on interjecting or asking questions. Like, this is really not for you. It's for them. Like, you're an observer. And I said, got it. Speak when spoken to. And he was like, wasn't going to say it like that, but yes. And it was so, it was, y'all, I've never been around that many people for that long and used so few words. It was, I felt like Jonathan Poston. I just didn't say, I just didn't say anything at all, ever. It was crazy. You have a lot of time to think, dude. Like, I got to tell you. And so what I set myself about doing, because all I wanted to do is learn from them and their experience, is I had my laptop out and I wrote down every word they said. Every time an Iranian asked a question, every time they spoke up, every time they made a point. I wrote down the prompt that Ru had given so I would have some context for it. And then I wrote down their name and I wrote down a summary of what they said. Every single one. I've got a 9,500 word document on my computer of everything that they said all week long. So that I could listen to them and learn from them. And hear their hearts about ministry and how they do it. And here's my biggest takeaway from my time with those pastors as a group is just the vast difference in how the persecuted church behaves versus how the secure church behaves. There is a gulf of understanding and commitment between us, between American pastors, and the way that Iranian pastors think about their church and their mission. They use military language over there. The elders consider themselves the captains. The pastors, the foot soldiers. They have contingency plans in place. They are fighting a war. Discipleship over there isn't optional for them. It's urgent and necessary for them because Ruth would tell them, you are going to need to get beat up for the faith. And when you do, consider that suffering a gift from Jesus himself because nothing will spread the news of the gospel more quickly in your community than how you handle that beating. That was never said to me in seminary. They view themselves as soldiers in enemy territory trying to bring about a change as they build God's kingdom. They sincerely want to change the face of Iran. And I've said before that as you look through history, whenever you see a church in a persecuted area, that church is always thriving and always vibrant and always filled with the holiness and the fullness of God. And whenever you see a church that exists in a country or a culture where it's been allowed cultural primacy, where it's been set aside as this is our default setting. Think about Catholicism in the Middle Ages. Think about evangelicalism in the United States for the last 200 years. Whenever you see the church elevated to a place of cultural primacy, in walks corruption, in walks doctrinal issues, in walks power-hungry people, in walks greediness. In walks laziness. In walks the uncommitted. In comes the cultural faith that doesn't really mean it. When you are persecuted, you are lean and mean. And when you're risking your family and your reputation to step into that small church, you have to think twice before you do it. The bar of entry in American churches is so low that you can do it socially for your whole life and it not mean anything. So when I come back from seeing them and hearing them and writing down everything they said for five days, my overwhelming impression is just the gulf that exists between churches in persecuted countries and churches in secure countries. Which means that at Grace, it's our job to acknowledge that historical trend and to figure out how to be a church in a secure country that understands that our cultural Christianity is dying and should, but we want to rise from those ashes and taking on the mentality of a persecuted church. How do we do that? I don't know, but I know that that's our responsibility and I don't know what I'm going to do with that. I don't know if there's going to be a series or a training or just small things along the way. Or I don't know if I'll lose that conviction and just fall back into being fat and lazy and comfortable. I hope not. But we've got to do something with that. That's my takeaway from my time with the pastors as a whole. Now there's one pastor in particular that I want to tell you about this morning. And he actually illustrates the passage I knew I would be speaking about this morning. So if you have a Bible, turn to Mark chapter 9. We're going to be looking at verses 30 through 37. If you don't have a Bible, I would encourage you to pull out the one in front of you because I'm not going to have anything on the screen today. If you're using one of the blue Bibles, can you tell me what page this is on? Can you find it fast? And somebody just yell out the page. 1,000. I knew it. Perfect. All right. So page 1,000. Thanks, guys. That's the passage where we're going to be. This is the quintessential Mark passage. Okay. And I knew that I didn't want to prepare a sermon on this passage. I didn't want to prepare a sermon on this passage and not, do we have a different verse in the bulletin? Is that why you guys are laughing? Okay. I'll find out later. I didn't want to do a sermon on this passage without having that experience in Istanbul with the Iranian pastors, because I knew that if I were to write this sermon and then go over there and have that experience, I would want to change the whole thing. So I decided to wait until I'd have that experience and then come back and share with you what I learned. And so this is the quintessential Mark passage. The last two verses say that whoever wants to become great must be least, whoever wants to lead must be servant of all, okay? And so that is really, but there's one verse that summarizes the gospel of Mark, that's it. But I wanted to wait until this morning, and I'm waiting until now to bring it up in the sermon because there was one man that I met that personified this maybe better than anybody I've ever seen in my life, and that was the leader of their network of churches, a man named Yahya. I'm going to call him Yahya because that's what we called him. And to say Yahya sounds a little bit like an American going, I was in Colombia the other day. So I'm not going to do that crap. I'm just going to call him Yahya, okay, even though it's wrong, but we're going to agree to be wrong together. When I walked in and Ru introduced me to Yaya, and Yaya is probably in his early 60s, I would guess, maybe late 50s. When I saw him, he immediately looks at me, and Iranians have this thing they do where they go like this, my heart, my heart, I'm grateful for you. And he goes, like so many kind gestures. And he introduces himself, he holds out his hand and I shake his hand. He said, my brother, it's so good to have you here. Thank you so much for coming. And I'm like, are you kidding me? This is how many people get to sit in a room with persecuted pastors outside their own country and then get to meet the one that started this 20 years ago by himself? And this is only one network that Yahya leads. He has four or five groups of pastors that come to him for encouragement, for training, and he has his own churches that he leads. And the man runs a restaurant that's been in his family for generations. He's busy. Often, I put in front of you guys this verse from Colossians that says that we are led by Christ in triumphal procession and that through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. I have met maybe four people in my life, Yahya being the fourth, that is the very second I meet them, that's the sense that I get. This man is full of the Holy Spirit. I've never met this man in my life, but I know that he loves me. And I know that he loves everybody in this room. And I know that he knows God in a way that I have never approached. And I'm lucky to be in his presence. I think sometimes about the heroes that we'll meet in heaven. Those faithful believers who just quietly did God's work their whole life in far-flung places where they can't write books and they don't do podcasts and there's no conferences and we never hear about them. But they quietly and faithfully and humbly and lovingly did the work of God their whole life, built his kingdom. Yahya is one of these men. And it is one of my great privileges to have met him. And so as soon as I met him and got that sense of him, I watched everything he did. Like almost like a weird stalker, like I was locked in. I watched how he interacted with his pastors. I watched how he interacted with his wife, Vicki, and with his daughter. I watched how he caught food and made tea and let everyone else go first. I paid attention to when he raised his hand and when he didn't. I paid attention to where and why it seemed like he chose to chime in in the conversation for a man that knows all the answers to the questions that are being asked. And most people would use that as an opportunity to show off and to know the answers and to say the right thing. And maybe I'll let my staff talk for a little while, and then I'm going to come in and I'm going to give the really wise answer. He never did that. As a matter of fact, most of the time when he chimed in to talk, it was to repent in front of his other pastors and to say, we don't do this in my churches, and we need to, and I'm sorry. I watched the way that man holds leadership, and it is the personification of the verses that we have in Mark chapter 9. So let's go there and read them and then we disciples did not yet have a full perspective and understanding of who Jesus was and what he came to do. They expected that the Messiah was going to come, that he was going to rise into a position of political prominence, establish an earthly kingdom in Israel, and rule over all the world from Israel. Their vision was too small to understand that Jesus came to die and reconcile us back to the Father and establish a heavenly kingdom to exist for all eternity. Their imagination for who Jesus was and what he could do was too small. And we see that all through the Gospels. Okay, that's just a little sideline that I wanted to bring your attention to because when we start talking about Easter and the resurrection, that becomes really important. Verse 33, He took a little child whom he placed among them, taking the child in his arms, and he said to them, Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes by Yaya, so I brought this up with me. Now we're going to go back and we're going to look at this idea of whoever wants to be great needs to serve. Whoever wants to be first must be last. But before we do, just as further proof that Yahya is the personification of this. Look at those last two verses. He took a little child and he placed it among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to him, whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me. During the second break, Yahya was near me again and I said something to him, and he says, Yaya, John. And I go, John? And he goes, yeah. And I joked with him, and I said, Yaya is way cooler. And he laughed and whatever. But then I thought, he seems like a sweet man. He'll probably like to know that my son is named John. So I went, do we have the picture? Okay, I went up to him, and I said,, yeah. And he looked at me and I said, I put my hand on his chest. I said, John? And he goes, yeah. And I said, this is my John. And I showed him John. I showed him this picture. And yeah, yeah, it goes. And I kind of pulled it back. He goes, oh my God, let me see that again. And I pulled it back up and he zooms in on his eyes. And he goes, he has the most beautiful eyes. What a blessing. Oh my God, John, that is so lovely. Praise God. What a blessing. And he says, I will pray for him. I said, thank you, Yahya. Three days later, I got to a session. You can take that down. That's just going to be distracting because he's so precious. Three days later, I got to a session early. I'm the only American in the room, and the pastors are all talking, and they start kind of laughing. And Yaya's daughter, who apparently has worked on English, says, they're all talking about your son, John. They've all been praying for him every day this week. It's just humbling. Let me just be honest with you. That is not how I respond to pictures of your children. Okay? That is embarrassingly far from my character. And they meant it. They meant it. And those men who have so much to be concerned about. I asked Nathan, the refugee, I said, what's their level of concern when they fly back into the country? What's their stress level when they're going through customs just to get home? And he said, as high as it can be. They know that one of these days they're going to fly back in country and one of them is going to end up in a security office. And I said, can I please get a text to know that they all got home safely? And when I landed yesterday, I had a couple of texts on my phone telling me that they had. So we praise God for that. They have so much to worry about. And they choose to spend their time in prayer, praying for my son. And I was told, Nathan told me, he goes, you're lucky. He goes, they're not kidding around. There's people that we dealt with three years ago and they committed to pray for them. And whenever I see them, they still ask me about those people. They will ask me about John for the rest of the time I know them. That's what it is to be the servant of all. Whoever wants to be great must be least. And I watched the way he held his authority. I watched the way he held his authority with those men and women in that room. How he supported them and put them first, and how very different it is from most of the pastors in underdeveloped countries that I've been to. This is a very sad truth, but most environments like that, these men get really competitive and they make the church about their ego. They even come up with titles. If you're a church pastor, if you have one church, you're a pastor. If you have more, if you have two churches, you get to be a priest. And if you have multiple churches, you're a bishop. And, and if you're, if you're a priest and not a bishop, you can't talk to a bishop. And if you're a, if you're a pastor, you can't talk to a priest. And if you're a pastor and a bishop is talking to you, you better listen or you'll be out of the church. It's very territorial and it's very sad. But it's not too different than how Americans hold authority either, is it? When we get positions of authority, we think about the rights and privileges that will be afforded to us by that authority. We think about what sort of things can I get to do. I remember vividly when I was 27 years old, I got hired as a Bible teacher and school chaplain at Covenant Christian Academy in Loganville, Georgia. And I remember after I got hired, it was the summertime and I had to ask, can I go begin to get my room ready? They said, sure. And I walked into my classroom for the first time. And I remember looking at it thinking, this is mine. I get to do what I want to in here. I'm going to, I think I have to design a bulletin board. How much can I, what's the least amount that I can put on that and not get in trouble? I was excited to come up with my own class rules. I'm the authority here. I get to, what I say goes. And so I sat down and I tried to generate some class rules and I landed on one class rule. This will surprise none of you. The one, the one class rule I had in my classroom was don't be dumb. That was it. I had it on the bulletin board and those stupid teacher round letters that you staple on. I had don't be dumb on my bulletin board. That was the one class rule. This made discipline very easy because when Aaron is in my class and he does something, he shouldn't, he cheats or he throws something at someone else or whatever it was. I pull Aaron outside and I say, Aaron, is what you did dumb? And he goes, yes, Mr. Rector. And I go, okay, so I'm going to have to punish you. Yes, Mr. Rector. All right, great. Let's go back in. It was very, very simple. But all I cared about in being an authority was what I got to do. And often this is how we hold it. Different than Jesus. Different than Yahya. When we get positions of authority, we think, oh, what do I get to do with this? What good things happen to me? How can I leverage this to continue to grow my authority? And when Jesus gives authority, and when Yahya receives authority, the primary question he is asking is, Father, how can I use this position to serve the people that you've entrusted to me? How can I use this authority to build them up? If we understand leadership to be intentionally deployed influence, which is how I understand it, then how do we use our influence to give away more influence to the people who follow us so that they can rise above us? This is how he holds his authority. Next week, I'm thinking about preaching about how that is possible. But for now, I'm going to leave this there. I told you I wasn't preaching to you this morning. I'm not driving to a single point. I'm sharing with you what I took away from this experience. And those are the two things I took away. First, we must learn what it would look like to behave as a persecuted church in a secure church culture. We must learn to behave more like them if we don't want to die on the vine like the rest of American churches. B, we must learn, I must learn to hold my authority the way that Yahya does. I must learn to hold my authority the way that Jesus tells us to, with an open hand, seeking to serve the people that we are in authority over, not seeking selfishly to make that authority about ourselves. We need to be more like the Iranian church and our leaders need to be more like Yahya. Let me pray and we're going to do a song and then I have a really special treat for those of you that are here in person after that. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for the experience that you gave me. Thank you for impressing upon Rue to invite me. Thank you for the way that it's enriched me. And God, I just pray sincerely that grace can be enriched through my enrichment. That from your fullness flows grace upon grace. And from the fullness that you've given me, God, let it flow onto grace. That we might be a church that behaves more like there's something to do here, like there is a war to fight, that there is a battle to be won. And let us start that by holding our authority and loosely holding it like Jesus tells us to, holding it like my brother Yahya does. Make us more like them so that we might serve you better, so that we might reach future brothers and sisters and bring them into your family. Thank you for the week that you gave me. I pray that I would allow it to change me profoundly and that that change would be communicated and connected to this church at Grace and that we would be exactly who and what you've called us to be. In Jesus' name, amen.