Sermons tagged with Synoptics

All right, well, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here with us this morning, especially on a holiday weekend. I always joke around about you being a better Christian if you're here on a holiday weekend, and while I do believe that is true, I also think that it's just really nice and impressive when it is a holiday weekend and you choose to make church a part of that. So that's touching for me and I think good for you on that. And good for you if you're watching online and making it a point to be with us in spirit this Sunday as well. We did it. We made it to the end of the summer. This is the last in our series for this summer called 27. We'll pick it back up next summer when we jump into Paul's letters and finish in Revelation. So this is the last one that we're going to do. We're focused on the book of Jude this morning. And as if you guys needed more evidence that my wife, Jen, is a better Christian than me, when she asked what the sermon was on this week or which one I was going to be writing for this week, I said, Jude. And she goes, what are you going to do it on? And I'm like, I don't know. It's Jude. Like, I don't know the last time I read Jude. And she was like, well, I love this verse. You should do it on this one. And I'm like, of course she knows a random verse from Jude. So that was humbling. And you'd be better off if she were your pastor. But you have to settle for me this morning until she can be convinced otherwise. When I sat down to study Jude, I saw very quickly that it was kind of a microcosm of the entire Bible, of one of the dynamics happening all through Scripture and in the way that we understand scripture. So I'm starting us off here. Jude is a perfect depiction of both the depth and approachability of the Bible. Jude is this kind of microcosm and a picture of both the depth and the approachability of the Bible. Jude in verses 5 through 19, that's 15 verses. I know that's 15 verses because I counted on my fingers to make sure that I would not be wrong when I said 15 verses. In those 15 verses, there are 18 references to other scriptures, to Old Testament scriptures, and even apocryphal writings. Within just those 15 verses in Jude, 18 references to Old Testament scriptures and apocryphal writings. Some of the quotes are from the book of Enoch. For many of you in the room this morning, you didn't even know that was a book. You didn't even know the book of Enoch exists. It's an apocryphal literature. You'll find it, I think, in the Catholic Bible, but you don't find it in the Protestant Bible. But in Jude, there's references to the book of Enoch. There's, again, 18 references and 15 verses. And so if you're looking at Jude and you're trying to understand Jude, which by the way, Jude is probably short for Judah, which was a brother, a half-brother of Jesus. So if you're trying to understand his letter to the churches, how could you possibly understand Jude without understanding those 18 references? And scholars believe that the audience that he wrote this letter to, the churches in Asia Minor, they were people of a Jewish background and had grown up with a Jewish faith. They understood these references. It was like when I would refer to you and I would say, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. You know that, John 3.16. Most of you can fill in the rest of that. These references to them were that ubiquitous and that identifiable. And so as I'm studying Jude, again, I think to myself, how in the world could we seek to understand this book if we don't have any bearing for the 18 references found in the middle part of it that make it come to life and make it understandable. And this, I feel, is a depiction, too, of the depth of Scripture. I'm 42 years old. I've spent almost my entire life studying Scripture. I grew up in a Christian home. My dad was a deacon. He was important and fancy. I went to church every time the doors were open. And this was back in the day, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. I went to the church so often that my pastor felt totally comfortable calling me out in the middle of Sunday night service and telling me to quit talking. And then I would get in big trouble. I got spankings, is what I got. I would get struck with objects when I got home for that offense. Back when we raised kids right, you know. That's right. That's right, Jeffy. Let's let it all hang out here on Labor Day Sunday. Who cares? Beat your kids, Jeff just said. Don't do that. Don't do that. Totally off the rails. Jeff, this is your fault. Shut up, Jeff. But I grew up in church. I did Awanas. I memorized all the verses. I don't know if you guys did that when you were kids, but I memorized verses every week. I memorized them for the test, and then I promptly forgot them because I was eating candy right after that and then playing games. But some of them stick because sometimes I'll start to quote a verse, and it'll be in the King's English, and I'm like, oh, that's from Awana. That's from KJV back in the day, right? I went to Christian private school. I went to Christian high school. I've had a Bible class. I went to Bible college and studied theology. I got a master's degree in more theology. I've studied the Bible my whole life. Now, not as hard as I should have all the time, or maybe ever, I don't know. Not as consistently as I would like to all the time, but far and away, for the balance of 42 years, I've studied God's Word. And I'd be the first to tell you, there are myriad 42-year-olds who know way more about this than I do. But I can also say that I've devoted a life to studying it. And here's what I know. I'm embarrassed by how little I know. I'm humbled by how much more there is in this. I feel like God's word is an ocean and I've waded into it up to my waist and been like, yeah, okay. I think I get the gist. You can spend your whole life plumbing the depths of these pages and you will never get to the bottom. You will never stop learning from it. It will never return null and void. It will never not have more layers. You will never not see more connections, and there's so much of the Bible that's really impossible to fully understand without a grasp of the rest of the Bible. You can never understand the book of Galatians if you don't understand the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. You just can't do it. It's why, it's one of the reasons I say as often as I can, it's one of the reasons that one of the traits of grace is that we are people of devotion. It's why I say that the single most important habit that anyone can develop in their life is to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in prayer. Because the bottom of this is unfindable. The depths of this are unknowable. And some of you have spent your life studying it too. And you know I'm right. Your heads are nodding the most because you've done it. And it always leaves you wanting more. So there is a degree to which approaching the Bible feels a little bit like approaching Jude. You could read Jude on your own with no background and with no study, and you probably wouldn't recognize but a couple of the references, if any, in verses 5 through 19. You don't know what you don't know. You don't know that you're not getting the depths of it. And sometimes I think people get intimidated by the Bible and how deep it is and how much there is to learn because I know good and well. Not all of you grew up being exposed to scripture every day. Some of us, when I say, and you're good believers, you love Jesus, you love the word, but when I say turn to Galatians, you're like, I don't know yet where that is. I want to know, I just don't know yet. And you go to small groups and there's other in the small group, and they're not professional Christians. They don't get paid to be a Christian like I do. That's all being a pastor is, is I just went pro with my Christianity. I'm still doing the same things that you guys should all be doing. I just get paid for it. I don't know if that's right, but I do. And you're sitting there in your Bible study with the other amateur Christians, and somebody knows way more than you. Right? They just know the Bible. We have them in every small group. And maybe you think to yourself, gosh, I don't know how I will ever understand that much. It just, it can feel intimidating. But that's also why I think it's beautiful that Jude depicts the approachability of Scripture as well. Because sure, the Bible is complicated. It's challenging. It's difficult to understand. It's unmasterable. And yet, some of the messages that come from it are so simple as to make it immediately approachable. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. It's the whole gospel. That's all of Romans compacted into a sentence or two. Right? Jesus says this new commandment I give you, go and love one another as I have loved you. That's it. That's all the law and the prophets compacted into this one commandment. I don't really understand the rest of the Bible, but I believe in Jesus and I can go love people in his name. Okay. Then you get it. And so in Jude, again, we have this depiction of the depth of scripture, but also the approachability. Because even if you don't get the references from verses 5 to 19, there's a simple message in Jude that we can all understand. Sorry, I had to crunch the ice without you guys hearing. And that's what I want to look at now, is this simple message in Jude, and we're going to spend the rest of our time on it. What is this message that Judah, the half-brother of Jesus, wanted to give us, and why did he write this short little note and it get tacked into the end of the Bible as the penultimate book? Well, I think we see the beginning of this purpose in verse 3. This is the simple message of Jude. This is why he wrote the book. And even if we have no context, we can pretty much understand what this means. In verse 3, Jude says this, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. So here's why he wrote the book of Jude. He says that he had been eager to write to them concerning their common salvation. And so a lot of scholars believe that Jude was trying to write a letter that looked more like Romans or Hebrews, something long and formal where it kind of outlined this faith that they would share. And that's what he was eager to do, and that's what he was working on. But another matter began to press, and he thought it was so important that he put that large work on hold so he could write this short note to them. And what he wants them to do is, I wanted to talk to you about our common faith. I wanted to lay out all the things that we believe to give you some clarity. I don't have time for that now, so I'm just writing to you to urge you to contend for the faith. Why? Well, because in verses 5 through 19, what we learn is that there's false teachers. The early church, they didn't have an agreed upon Bible, an agreed upon book, agreed upon doctrines. They didn't have denominations in theology. They just had their faith and understanding in Jesus, which means that the populace in the church was very easily deceived, very easily misdirected in the wrong ways. And so the churches had false teachers that were entering into them, gaining clout, proclaiming that they knew the teachings of Jesus. And yet the morality of those teachers did not line up with the words that they were teaching. They were teaching a kind of hedonism that's clearly out of step with scripture and with God's will for his people. And so Jude was writing the churches to say, hey, you can't listen to those guys. They're trying to steer you in the wrong direction. They're wrong. You need to contend for the faith. And what's really interesting is I was thinking about it, at least this is interesting to me, is when in churches, especially in the South, you use phrases like we need to contend for the faith. That usually means go out and fight a culture war against the waves of culture that are trying to bash down and beat down the truth of Scripture. But that's nowhere in here with Jude. It's contend for the faith. Where? Well, it looks like, based on what he says, within yourself. Contend for your own faith. Fight for your true and sincere faith. Because God doesn't need culture warriors going out there fighting for the faith. Contend for it in your own heart and then guess what? You're abiding in Christ and you'll produce much fruit. Contend for it here and you will be who you need to be as we operate in culture. So I believe that Jude is telling us to contend for our faith. And the simple message of Jude then is to contend for the faith with your whole life. Contend for the faith with your whole life. And we're going to read the verses that make me think this is true here in a second. And really this is kind of a launching pad into what I'm going to preach about next week when we do our big reveal Sunday. Next week, we're going to show the plans for the new building. If it's your first Sunday with us, then you have no idea what we're talking about. But we have four acres over off of Litchford Road, and we're looking to build there. And so we're going to share the plans with the church next week. And I'm very, very excited to do that. And the message that I'm going to preach is basically this. We have to contend for the gospel with our whole life. Contending for the gospel, contending for your faith, takes everything you got, and you can't let up. And that is the simple message of Jude. It's interesting to me. Sometimes, I don't know if you guys get to see this from your perspective, but from my perspective, as I just kind of, we map out series and what we're going to teach and what we're going to cover. There's so often that God has woven things together and woven themes in week in and week out to kind of prepare our hearts for things that are coming and help our hearts respond to things that have happened. And I see him weaving things together as we approach next week as well. But I believe that's the simple message of Jude. Contend for the faith with your whole life. And I believe it because of what he says at the end. So he says, contend for the faith. Here's why. Here are the threats. Verses 5 through 19. And then he says, if you're going to contend for that faith in yourself, here's how you do it. But you, beloved, verse 20, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life and have mercy on those who doubt. So Jude says, contend for the faith. Here's what's threatening your faith. Here's what you need to protect yourself against. And then he ends with, and here's how you do it. And he gives us four things that we can do to contend for our faith. Now, here's the thing. If you're here on a holiday weekend, you didn't accidentally come to church. All right. Labor day Sunday is typically not the Sunday when non-church people decide, you know what I'm going to do on a holiday weekend? I'm going to try church. That's not normally how that goes. If you're here, chances are you are probably a church person. If you're here, if you're listening, chances are your faith matters to you or you're visiting people that drug you to church. Either way. But I'd be willing to bet that your faith matters to you. I'd be willing to bet that you are a people who want to contend for your faith. That when Jude says this, if we are believers, we lean forward and we go, yes, how? So I'm going to give you four ways that we contend for our faith directly out of scripture. But here's what I would say to you. I don't think that any of us, and maybe you will, and if you do, that's wonderful. But I don't think that any of us are going to take all four of these things, keep them in our heads and work on all four of these things this week. So here's what I'm going to ask you and challenge you to do. Pick one, one of the four things that I'm about to mention that we can do to contend for our faith. My hope and my prayer is that one of them will resonate with you, that one of them will move you, that you will lock into one of these as you move into your week. And between now and the 10th, you will turn the dial on this in your life in such a way that you are responding to the simple message in Jude and beginning to contend for the faith with your whole life. So like I said, there's four things that Jude tells us to do to contend for the faith. And the first one that we see right there at the very beginning is to strengthen your faith. When I contend for your faith, you need to strengthen your faith. This is an interesting idea to me. How do we strengthen our faith? I don't think our faith is too much different than like a muscle or a muscle group. I've joked before, and I do think it's true, that I've probably had more first days in the gym than just about anybody in history. I've had a lot of first days. Some of those first days were also my last days, and I just didn't know it yet. But I've had a lot of first days in the gym. And one of the things I like to do when I go to the gym is I like to do squats. Big muscle group. I like to do squats. I think it's important. I don't know anything about anything, but I see people in better shape than me. They do squats and like that seems smart. So I do squats, right? And I don't know how much longer my knees are going to hold out and let me like do this. I don't know how many more of those I have in me because I'm aging more like a light beer than a fine wine, but that's how it goes for me. And one of the things I notice when I go back to the gym on the first day, especially if my last day was the last day after like a lot of days and I was actually kind of like in good shape, when I put the weights on the rack and I go to do what I think is going to be a warm-up set. Okay, for those of you who don't work out a lot like me, a warm-up set is when you do a little bit less weight just to get the muscles going and then you put on the actual weight and then you do the exercise. So there's been a couple of times on my first day where I've put the weight on, you know, just like 375, 400 pounds, and I'm just doing a warm-up set. And I go down and I'm like, yeah, this ain't no warm-up set, man. I only got about four of these in me. This is the real deal. This is the real set that I'm doing right here. Because my muscles have atrophied. Because I haven't done that in a couple of, they go into atrophy and they shrink and they get weaker if we don't continue to use them. I think our faith works the same way. If we're not using our faith, living a life that requires faith, then the faith that we have, I believe, can begin to atrophy so that it's not even as strong as it once was. So Jude tells us to strengthen our faith, acknowledging that this requires a regular use of our faith. And I did not come here this morning with the intent of convicting you or making anyone feel bad, but I do just want to ask the question, when is the last time that your life required faith? When is the last time you took a step of obedience, knowing that if God doesn't come through and deliver, this is not going to go well? If we're not taking those steps, if we're not living a life of faith, then our faith is going into atrophy, and it's not being strengthened. It's being weakened. I thought back to 2015, December of 2015, Jen and I were pregnant with Lily and we were, uh, we were not wealthy people. I was an associate pastor at a church. She was a part-time office manager. Uh, we did not have a ton of money, but because Lily was due in January, we had about $5,000 set aside for medical expenses and all that stuff. That's what we figured would work and cover it. And at the beginning of December, her car, her 4Runner, started to make weird noises, and so we took it to our guy who goes to the church, a guy named Kelly. And Kelly called me one day, and after I took the car in, he said, hey, man, how you doing? I said, I'm pretty good. How you doing? I said, hey, Kelly, how are you doing? And his first words were, better than you. And I went, oh, geez, what's going on, man? And he goes, we have to replace the engine. And I said, ugh, this is terrible. How much does that cost? He said, $5,000. Which apparently is super cheap for an engine now, but back then it was not. He says, $5,000. And I'm like, well, you got to do what you have to do, I guess. So make it happen. And there goes our new baby cushion. And we're just looking at each other like, great, what do we do? And that same week, a little bit prior to that revelation, we had committed to giving a certain amount of money to the Christmas offering that year. We had talked about it, prayed about it, and there was an amount that God had laid on our heart to give. And so I went back to Jen and I'm like, I don't think we can afford to give that anymore. We just lost all of our cushions. Certainly God would understand that. But the more we talked about it, and mostly Jen thought this, I was against it. The more we talked about it, the more we thought, no, God put that on both of our hearts. He did it knowing that we would have to pay for an engine. And we should be faithful to that. We should walk in obedience. Okay. So we did. We gave the amount that we had agreed to give. The very Sunday that we gave that amount, some random person walked up to me in the lobby and just said, hey, just want to say thank you. You and your family have been such a blessing to us. And they handed me a Christmas card. And then the Christmas card was a check for the amount of money that we had given to the church that morning. And it was like God was winking at us going, I'm going to take care of you. All right, don't worry about it. Now, do you not think that my faith got stronger after that? When I took this step of faith and obedience, God, I feel like this is a thing that you want me to do. I'm going to do it. And then I watch him come through for us. That strengthened my faith. My faith got stronger. We made a decision that required God to come through in an incredible way. And he did. And so for many of us, I think it's very possible, particularly in our affluence and in our abilities to live lives that do not require faith. And so maybe what you need to take this morning is this little nudge from God to make that decision that requires some faith. To step out in obedience and trust him to come through. That's the first thing Jude tells us to do. Strengthen our faith. The next thing he tells us to do is to pray in the Spirit. I love this. Pray in the Spirit. He doesn't just say to pray. He says to pray in the Spirit. Now, why does he say to pray in the Spirit? And what does it mean to pray in the Spirit? We get an insight into this in Romans chapter 8. It's so funny to me that God laid Romans 8.28 on Aaron's heart for worship. And now just this morning I added in Romans 8.26 for the sermon because there's just so much good truth there. And God often speaks in stereo. But in Romans 8.26 it says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. Meaning the Holy Spirit hears what comes out of our mouths and then communicates to God what we really need because we are spiritual babies and we don't really know how to pray for what we actually need. I don't think it's too dissimilar from when my two and a half year old son, John, says he needs a passy. I need a passy. I want a passy. He wants a passy, but what he really means is, I'm tired. What he really means is, I want to snuggle, which, come on, I got plenty of that. He can do that whenever he wants. What it really means is, I just feel a little bit off kilter and I want to be centered and I need some peace. That's what it means. We're praying to God for passes and the Holy Spirit's like, here's what they really need. And so to me, I think if we learn to pray in the Spirit, it's praying with an awareness that the Spirit is going to translate this to God anyway. So how do I change my prayer? How do I have an awareness within my prayer to pray according to what the Spirit will ask for, to pray according to what the Spirit will translate? How do I pray according to the desires of the Spirit and the very heart of God? To begin to put that filter on our prayers. Before we just blurt out what we need and what we want and what we're hopeful for, to put on the lens of, I'm praying in the Spirit, I'm praying through the Spirit, The Spirit is going to translate this to God. What is it that he's going to translate? I think this is why Jesus teaches us to pray by starting off praying for the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We need to put on this mindset when we pray of Holy Spirit, how would you have me pray for this? Which begins, I think, with praying for things that actually concern the Father. This is appropriate at the beginning of football season. I'm not entirely sure God is very interested in the outcome of football games. I could be jaded because I prayed fervently at the beginning of the Falcons Super Bowl a few years back. And he let me down, which means that he does not care about football at all, because certainly he would have come through for my Falcons if he did. It always makes me laugh at the end of a football game when the athletes and the coach want to give glory to Jesus for this victory. Because I just think like, man, you really lucked out playing that whole team of atheists over there so that God could very clearly pick a side. He had to have been against that football team. And if God really did care about football, how does LSU ever win? Like they're Cajun rednecks. It's the worst combination. And yet they're good. So God doesn't care. It's silly, but often we pray about things and God in heaven just has grace and patience for us. I wonder what the translation is when we pray that a certain team would win. I wonder if the translation is, this one's faith is weak, God. I'm working on it. And it's funny there, but there's other ways in which it applies and it matters. One of the things I've learned over the years and the way that I pray for people who are sick and maybe dying is when I have opportunities to go and pray for families over seemingly terminally ill loved ones. If the family asks me to pray for healing, I will because I think that's an honoring thing to do. So sure, I'll pray for healing. But when I pray privately for that family, I almost never pray for healing. I always pray, Father, help this family see and accept your will. Help them to be comforted by it. And help what they're about to walk through to conspire to make their faith in you stronger, not weaker. God, please don't let this path that they're walking shake their faith to a point where they question it. Would you make everything that's about to happen, whether you heal or whether you take, would you let everything conspire to make this faith stronger in this family? I could be wrong, but I think that's a more reflective prayer of what concerns the Holy Spirit. And I think if we can teach ourselves to pray in accordance with the will of the Spirit, we better acquaint ourselves with the heart of the Father. And we see a lot more answered prayer when we do it that way. So pray in the spirit to contend for your faith. The next thing we do is we walk in God's love. We walk in God's love. Now this is what we talked about last week. How do we walk in God's love? And it's actually in the verse, it actually says, keep yourselves in the love of God. So I probably, I should have said, keep yourself in God's love. How do we do that? That was last week's sermon. That's how God's weaving things together. That was first and second and third John. How do we walk in God's love? How do we walk in love for God? We obey him. Because when we obey God, we admit his expertise and that we trust in it. When we obey God, it proves that we trust him. Right? Obedience proves trust. So how do we walk in God's love? We walk in obedience to God. And some of us may have carried in the same sin and the same weight and the same thing that's entangling us. Last week when we preached a sermon on, hey, if you love God, obey him. Where are we being disobedient? Where do we need to walk in obedience? And maybe we brought that exact same disobedience into this sermon this week, into this place this week, and God is still after us. Hey, when are you going to hand that over to me and walk in obedience there? And so maybe this week is just a reminder for you that God really does care. He really does want you to let that go. And he really does want you to walk in obedience. And that's how we need to respond this morning. The last one I love, and I love that it seems to just be tacked on there, but it's such an important concept as we contend for the faith. Have mercy on doubters. There's not too many other places in Scripture where we're given instruction on how to handle doubt and doubters, but it's really interesting to me that Jude, as he's listing these other things that we would all agree with and expect to be there, walk in God's love, strengthen your faith, pray in the Spirit. Sure, we know that. We hear that kind of stuff every week and all the time. But then after that, just as importantly, have mercy on the doubters. And I love that this is in here because can I just tell you a secret about faith? If you are a thinking person, if you are an observant and thinking Christian, then doubts in your faith are unavoidable and absolutely necessary. They are essential and unavoidable parts of faith to run into places where you are experiencing doubt. And if you have never experienced doubt, you either have the strongest faith of anyone I've met, or you, I would gently say, have not really deeply considered your faith and what it means. Doubts, wondering if all this is true anyways, are an unavoidable and completely essential part of our faith. Why do I say that? Because I know personally from experience that the faith you find on the other side of doubt is more rich and more full and more vibrant than the previous version of your faith could have ever imagined being. I walked through a profound season of doubt in my early 20s as I was finishing up Bible college and doing ministries. And then I walked through another profound season of doubt during COVID in the summer of 2020 while I was pastoring. It felt like reassembling a plane in midair. So I know that doubts in our faith are unavoidable and absolutely essential. And I know that when we do the hard work to learn and to actually answer the questions, not let the questions drive us away. I don't understand this, so I'm done with faith, but I don't understand this, so I'm gonna dig in harder. I'm gonna look from new sources. I'm gonna look new places. I'm going to ask more people. And when we find the answers that actually satisfy the doubt, what happens is we emerge with this firm foundation and this vibrant faith that's more rich and more generous than what we could have ever imagined. And what we find on the other side of doubt is that we actually love God more because he gets bigger and more mysterious and we find out we can trust him. Doubts are good, but we shouldn't stop at doubt. We should work through them and talk through them. The problem in churches with doubt is that often doubts are met with condemnation and not mercy. I shared with you guys weeks ago, and we all know that this is happening, that over the last 12 years or 20 years, 40 million people have left the church or something like that. We know the church in America is shrinking. We are now very familiar with this term deconstructing, which refers to someone who grew up evangelical Christian, who grew up with faith and as an adult walked away from it. We're familiar with that. Why is this's going on in our culture it's something that i think about a lot but one of the big reasons it's happening is because doubts in our churches tend to be met with condemnation and not mercy because our pastors and our leaders are not obedient to jude's instruction to have mercy on doubters And when people raise their hand and they go, hey, what about, or how come, or I don't understand, but how could this be true if this is also true? When people express doubts, sometimes they're met with dismissals. Sometimes they're met with condemnation. When I grew up, you felt like this person with a weak faith if you had any doubts. If you didn't understand. That the people who were in charge, the spiritual leaders, the pastors and the deacons and the elders and all those people, they were the people with the fewest doubts. They were the people with no chinks in their armor. They were the people who had all the answers and understood it the best. And so having doubts made you weak. And I think we need to have a church where having and expressing doubts actually shows some strength because you're trying to fight through those rather than bury your head in the sand. And you have a desire to enrich your faith by working through those and finding answers. So if we're going to be obedient to Jude, we need to have mercy on the doubters, understanding it's a necessary process in faith to move through those and find answers. This means, parents, we create that environment in our homes where our children are allowed to doubt, and they are allowed to ask questions, and they are allowed to wonder, and they are allowed to learn other information that causes them to question things about their faith. And they are allowed to move through that in mature ways that are helpful for them, believing that on the other side of that doubt lies a rock-solid faith. So we give them mercy when they have questions. We create environments in our homes where we can have spiritual conversations, and they don't have to agree with mom and dad about everything. And then maybe most of all, for some of us, we have mercy on ourselves. And we allow ourselves to express those doubts. We allow ourselves to express that uncertainty. We give ourselves some grace and start to seek out answers. Not being afraid of the doubt, but knowing that pushing through it and seeking answers in the doubt is going to lead to a faith that we don't have right now, but we desperately want. So we have mercy on the doubters. That's the simple message of Jude. That's how we contend for the faith. The simple message of Jude is to contend for the faith with yourself, with your whole life, with everything you got. How do we do that? We pray in the Spirit. We walk in God's love. We strengthen our faith. And we have grace and mercy on those who doubt. And we walk through this together. I don't know which one of those resonates with you. But if any of them do, I pray that you'll take it from here and you'll leave and you'll work on that this week. And contend for your faith with your whole life in accordance with the message of Jude. Let's pray. Father, you love us. We know that you do. We feel it and we see it. It's all around us all the time. God, if anybody doubts today that you love them, I pray that they would see evidence of that sometime before their head hits the pillow tonight. Lord, we thank you for the simple message of Jude and ask that we would be people who would contend for our faith, that we would contend with our whole lives and our whole heart. Lord, if we have lived lives that don't require faith, would you help us take steps of faith and watch you come through? Lord, if we need to learn to pray more in the spirit and according to your will, would you make us aware that your spirit is with us as we pray? Make us sensitive to praying according to your will. God, if there are areas of our life we know are not in accordance with your word, that we know we are walking in disobedience, would you help us to walk in obedience and therefore walk in your love? Father, if we are experiencing doubts, would you help us be brave in those? To have mercy on ourselves. And to seek out the conversations that we need to seek out. To help us arrive at a stronger, richer, more vibrant faith. Help us contend for the faith that you've given us. In Jesus' name, amen.

This is the fourth part in our series called 27, where this summer and next summer we're going to do an overview of all 27 books in the New Testament. We've been spending June in the Gospels, and this week we arrive at John. John is my favorite Gospel, and in the mode of the other Gospels, if you've listened to all four sermons, you kind of know that each Gospel is written to a certain audience and depicts Jesus in a certain way. By way of review, Matthew was written to the Jews, and Jesus is depicted as the king. Mark was written to the Romans, and Jesus is depicted as a servant. Luke was written to the Greeks, and Jesus is depicted as a man. And the book of John was written to everyone, and Jesus is depicted as God. The book of John is different than the other books. It's written to all people for all time, not a specific audience, and it begins right off the bat talking about Jesus as God. John's gospel is different. In fact, it starts off different. It starts off with a resounding claim that feels far different than the other gospels. I love the way that John starts his gospel. It's one of the reasons it's my favorite gospel. Look with me in John chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. And I'm going to keep reading verses 4 and 5 because I read them again this morning and I'm like those are cool verses too. They need to hear them. So here, John chapter 1, this is how his gospel begins. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him not anything made that was made. Listen, in Him was life by John. Who at the very beginning, from the very beginning, places Jesus in the Godhead at creation. He says, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. Through Him all things were made. Without Him nothing was made. If you think back, this is why it's a big deal to call Him the Word of God, because if you think back to Genesis 1, and you think back to the creation account, how did God create things? He spoke them into being. God said, let there be light. And there was light. He said, let there be fish and birds and animals. And there was fish and birds and animals. He spoke them into being. It was God's very word that was the agent of creation. And here at the beginning of John, right off the bat, just boom, right in your face, John says Jesus is the word, the logos of God. He is the agent of creation. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made. He places Jesus in the moment of creation along with creator God the Father and God the Spirit that Genesis says is hovering over the surface of the deep. So right there we get the idea of the Trinity. B.B. Warfield, a theologian from either Yale or Princeton, I should have double checked, from the early 1900s, wrote a lot of things about the Gospels and a lot of different things about Jesus. But one of the things that he said is that the synoptics were written from below upward, and John was written from above downward. The synoptic Gospels are the first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They follow the same chronology. They have a lot of the same stories. They have a lot of the same parables. Those are called the synoptic gospels. And they present Jesus from the bottom upward. Matthew and Luke begin with genealogies. Here is Jesus' genealogical tree. Here are the men and women from whom he descends, right? It starts at the bottom. And then they introduce him as a baby, helpless, lying in a manger. And if you know nothing else outside of these gospels, this is your first encounter with Christ. And you see him gradually. We learn that he is God and that he is divine and that he is the son of God and that he is the Messiah. We build Jesus from the bottom upward. But in John's gospel, in John's gospel, we see Jesus from the top downward. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and then we see him show up at baptism. Then we see him human. Then we see him as fully God and fully man. But John's gospel is unique and differentiates itself from the rest of the gospels. If I were going to stay in the mode of the series that we've done so far, every week I kind of look at how Jesus is depicted and why he's depicted that way, and then we kind of pick it apart and see why that's important to us. Why is it important to us that Jesus needed to be displayed as king, or that Jesus is a servant, or that Jesus is man, and we kind of look at that. And so if I were going to follow that mode, I would take this week and I would say, why is it important that we understand that Jesus is God? How do we pull that theme out and how does that apply to us? But to me, and it doesn't mean I don't respect the other gospels, but to me, I love the gospel of John so much and there's's so much good stuff in there, that I found that to be overly reductive and dismissive of the message of John. So I didn't want to do that. And I thought about all the things about John that I love that make it unique, and eventually what we'll do is we'll land on this single unifying principle that comes out of the gospel of John that I think is one of the most profound, powerful, freeing principles in all the Bible. We might spend our entire spring on this one principle. But as we get there, I wanted to share with you what I love about the book of John, what I think makes it unique, because I'll tell you right now, the whole goal of this sermon, the only thing I want you to do is leave here and read the book of John. That's my goal. It's for you to walk out those doors or those doors thinking tomorrow or this afternoon, I'm going to crack open the book of John and I'm going to read it. And I'll tell you, I started reading it again too. And I read chapter one this morning. And if you can read chapter one and not want to read the rest of it, then I can't help you. Chapter one is a great chapter of the Bible when you're locked in and you're paying attention to what's going on. So my whole goal is to have you leave wanting to know Jesus through the book of John and wanting to read the book of John. What I think is unique about John, and it's not just me, I mean, you can find lists online. But the things that matter to me are, first of all, John is written from the perspective of a loving friend. Now Matthew and Luke, they knew Jesus. John Mark knew Jesus through Peter and Paul, but John knew Jesus. John was a loving friend. He was a close friend. And in your life, if someone was going to write the story of your life, who better to write it than a close and intimate lifelong friend, than someone who's known you and walk with you for years? Someone who's seen you, who's seen your vices and your values, who's watched you lose it, who knows what frustrates you, who knows what brings you joy, who knows how to complete your sentences, who knows what makes you happy, who's been with you in the down times and laughed with you and cried with you and mourned with you and wept with you? What about, who else can have a perspective on you like that of a good friend? And we say that John was Jesus' good friend because it kind of drips off the pages. First of all, in John's gospel, he refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. Now that, that is a bold claim. To write your gospel knowing the other gospel writers like they're around, they're going to see this and he still puts it out there that he is the disciple whom Jesus loved. So it would almost be like writing a letter, writing a book about your parents and calling yourself the child whom my parents loved. Like it's a bold claim. And in my case, everybody would just be like, yeah, that's true. It's legit. But he calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. And you can see that their relationship was unique amongst him and the disciples. At the last supper, they're reclining together and the way that they would eat dinner, you would lean on your side and you would reach to the table that way and so they were kind of front to back and John's head was in Jesus' chest at one point because he was asking, who is it, Jesus, that's going to betray you? And Jesus whispers into John's ear, it's the one who's going to dip the bread next. He whispers into John's ear who it was going to be, that it was going to be Judas. It's this intimate moment that only John records. And John records a lot of intimate moments like this. As a matter of fact, at the cross, we see that John may have been the only disciple that even bothered to show up. And Jesus musters up the energy and the oxygen to push himself up on the nails and tell John, when I die, please take care of my mother. He entrusted Mary to John. That was how close and intimate they were. So John's gospel is written from the perspective of a loving friend three decades later as he reminisces on the sweetest years of his life when he walked with his Savior. And so John just writes down different things than the other gospel writers did. John almost writes down a personal memoir of Christ where we get insights into these amazing conversations. We get insights into miracles that we don't see in other places like the miracle of the wedding at Cana. We get the longest recorded prayer of Jesus. We get long teachings of Jesus that we don't see in the other books. Matthew and Luke have the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon by the Lake, whichever setting you want to take. But John has teachings and conversations that we see nowhere else. I actually have some there in your notes for you so you can use this as reference later when you're going through John. But in John chapter 3, we see him have this amazing conversation with Nicodemus that the other gospel writers don't record. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. And the Pharisees rejected Jesus and who he was. But I've always respected Nicodemus because Nicodemus had a way to see past the fake news and the tide and the current and the way that everything else was running in culture and say, wait, but what do I think and who is this man? And so he seems to have requested a conversation with Jesus. And they meet under cover of night and Jesus lays out everything for Nicodemus, who he is, what he came to do, and how we can be, in our words, saved. And in this discourse with Nicodemus, we see the most famous verse in the world, John 3.16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. It's the salvation message, it's the gospel, it's the whole point of the Bible wrapped into this one succinct verse. It's in the conversation with Nicodemus that that verse appears. One chapter over in John chapter 4, Jesus has this incredible conversation with the woman at the well, this Samaritan woman where he breaks cultural norms, he goes past hated divides, and he talks with a woman who comes to the well in the middle of the day because she's so ashamed of her life that she doesn't want to be seen by the other women. And Jesus calls her out, says, you've had five husbands. The guy you're living with now is not your husband. That's not good for you. I don't want you to keep doing that, but I love you. I'm the living water. Drink of me and you will never perish. And she goes back to her village or her town and she tells everybody, there's a dude at the well that just told me everything I ever did and you guys need to come check him out. And the whole town goes out there, they meet Jesus and they have faith in him. We don't see that story in the other gospels. And then I referenced it earlier in John chapter 17 we have the lengthiest prayer recorded of Jesus. Now the most famous prayer of Jesus is the Lord's prayer. When he teaches the disciples how to pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That prayer. And then we have accounts of the prayer in Gethsemane, right before he's arrested to be crucified, where he says, Father, please take this cup from me. Please don't make me do this. But in John chapter 17, we have Jesus's most lengthy recorded prayer. It's an insight into his heart and his desires into his conversations with his father. And scholars refer to it as the high priestly prayer. And in that prayer, it's so remarkable because he starts off by praying for the disciples. And then after he prays for the disciples, he prays for all of those who would follow the disciples. He prays for the church down through the generations. Do you realize that in John chapter 17, if you're a Christian, if you're a part of God's church, if you call God your father and Jesus your savior, and to be a Christian means that you believe that Jesus is who he says he is. You believe that he did what he said he did. And you believe he's going to do what he says he's going to do. If you are a Christian, then in John chapter 17, Jesus prays for you. It's right there in the red letters. And I can't get over the fact that tucked away in this corner of the Bible, in the 17th chapter of John, that my Savior prayed for me and he prayed for you. And it's recorded and we get to read it. We don't see that in the other gospels. That kind of intimacy is not there. We see it in the gospel of John. And just as an aside, do you know what Jesus prays for? For his disciples and for the generations of the church to come? What would you pray for in that moment? Faithfulness? Power and efficacy of mission? The growth of the church? The fidelity of the saints. Jesus, in that moment, the most important thing on his mind was to pray for unity. Unity within the church. Unity within his children. Unity within the descendants of God. So when I read that passage, I feel equal parts inspired and encouraged that my Jesus prayed for me. But there's also a tinge of sadness there for me. Because I think we can admit and confess we're doing a pretty bad job of making our Savior proud of our unity. We, the church, we've let our Jesus down with all of our denominations and all of our differing beliefs. And it's not that we can't have variant beliefs, it's just that we insist on ours to the exclusion of others. And you fire up Twitter and it's just Christians calling other Christians bad Christians and you fire up Facebook and now it's Christians who know each other calling Christians bad Christians. And it's all just gross. And it's not the point of the sermon, but grace, let us not be a part of that evil. Let us not be a part of God's children that further the divide amongst His church and amongst His children. Let us honor the prayer of Christ and seek unity with one another, understanding we're not going to agree on everything and that never really seems to be a priority of Jesus'. But we see those lengthy discourses in the Gospel of John. Another thing that makes John unique amongst the Gospels, as I mentioned earlier, Matthew, Mark, and Luke include the teachings of, and Jesus always very intentionally taught through parables. We know these parables, the parable of the prodigal son, of the lost coin, the shrewd manager, the persistent widow. We could go on and on. We know the parables of Jesus. Even if you're not very familiar with the Bible, even if this is your first Sunday in a church in over a decade, you could probably name and loosely describe a parable because they're just kind of ubiquitous in our Christian culture. In the book of John, you won't find any parables. I don't know why, but for some reason, John didn't feel like he needed to record those. Maybe he had access to the gospels written prior to his and was like, they got those squared away. I don't have anything to add to the parables. Or maybe he thought it was more captivating to describe Jesus in the terms and to follow the teachings of Jesus in the way that Jesus described himself. Because in the book of John, Jesus teaches using I am statements rather than parables. If you read through the book of John, you'll find seven huge I am statements where Jesus tells us who he is. He's not reliant on the descriptions of gospel writers. He's not reliant on the descriptions of historians or other people or word of mouth. He tells us straight up who he is and what he is and how we ought to think of him. And the seven I am's are there in your notes if you have them. They're not going to be on the screen, but Jesus says, I'm the bread of life, I'm the light of the world, I'm the gate for the sheep, I'm the good shepherd, I'm the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, and the life, and I am the true vine. And if you look at those for a second and you study them, what you'll see is that all of those things are referring to salvation and they're referring to life in him. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. Come to me. Believe in me. I am the Savior. I am the Messiah. And then once you get to me, I am the shepherd at the gate. I am the good shepherd. I am the true vine. I am the bread. I will sustain you. Jesus beckons you. Come to me, believe in me, know me, and then be sustained by me. All through the gospel of John, these are the I am statements where Jesus invites us to come and to know who he is and then to find life in him. And then in the book of John, we get these verses that I love so much. I tell you guys every week, this is my new favorite verse, and whatever, but I love these verses in John. I love the way that John opens, that we read at the beginning. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made. That is profound. Elevates Jesus to exactly who he is. Later on in that same chapter we get John 1 16 which is one of the verses I like to repeat around here that humbles me every time, fills me with joy every time. It's a simple verse. From his fullness we have all received grace grace. At grace, we say that we are conduits of grace because we are connected to God. And from his fullness, we have received grace upon grace. We can give grace upon grace to other people. From his fullness, from God's goodness, we, all of us, have received grace upon grace. I pointed out John 3, 16, the most famous verse in the Bible. I also think of John 10, 10, one of my favorite verses for a long time. The thief comes to steal and to kill and to destroy, but I have come that you might have life and have it to the full. Where Jesus says, I'm going to give you the best, most exciting, richest, fullest life possible. Well, he promises you, I know, I know the world tempts you with things that you think you want to run after. With wealth or power or success or men or women or attraction or friendship or whatever it is. I know that the world tempts you with things that you want to run after. But I promise that I will give you life to the full. When we pursue Jesus, when we trust our life to him, when we spend our life pursuing him, his promise on that pursuit is not that we will have given up some sort of richness of life to pursue him in this life and experience eternity later. No. It's that if you pursue him now, he will give you that richness now. You cannot imagine a better life for yourself than Jesus would give you if you would only follow him. That's his promise. I come to give you life to the full. I could do a sermon on every one of the things I've said so far. Because there's so many good, so much good stuff in the gospel of John. But my favorite one, the verse that I love so much, the verse that I want to land on that feels to me like a unifying principle for all of Christendom, is found in John chapter 15. After he said that he is the true vine, he tells them this. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Now here's why I love that verse. And here's why I think it is so profound. Because Jesus says, you don't need to worry about anything but abiding in me. You can sweep all the other concerns of life aside and focus on me. Pursue me. Follow me. Make me the apple of your eye. Stay attached to me and you will bear much fruit. And here's what I really love about that promise. One of my biggest fears in life, I think we all carry this fear to different degrees. One of my biggest fears in life is to get to the end of my life and to learn that I've wasted it. Is to have to settle into the harsh reality that my years didn't matter very much. That I could have done more or I could have done better. I first heard this quote from D.L. Moody. I've researched it out. I don't know to whom to attribute it because it wasn't his, but I heard it from him. He said that one of the most tragic things in life is to watch a man spend his entire life climbing the ladder of success only to get to the top and realized it was propped against the wrong building. It is profoundly sad for people to spend their life in pursuit of things that don't matter. And I carry a fear of that with me. And this verse, this principle safeguards you from that fruit. Over in first, I think it's first Peter or 1 Peter, it says that if we can learn to love one another, that it will keep us from being ineffective and unproductive in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are these promises through Scripture that if we'll pursue God and do what he has for us to do, that we will not waste our life, that we will bear much fruit. The question becomes, I think naturally, what that fruit is and what it looks like. What does it mean to bear fruit? And I think we probably think about that in ministerial terms. We think about that at Grace. We say that we want to be kingdom builders. We actually say we want to be kingdom builders so much that my goal for you, if this is your first Sunday here and you're here for 10 years, I hope that moves you through this process in life where you realize that everything that you have been given, every talent, all your time, all your treasure has been given so that you can leverage it for the growth of the kingdom of God. That's what we want for you, to leverage everything in your life to bear fruit and grow God's kingdom. So what does it mean to bear fruit? Well, I think we think about that ministerially, making disciples and converting people to Christianity, evangelism, discipleship and evangelism. We think about those things. We call it strengthening or adding to God's kingdom. And I think that's absolutely true. That is the way that we bear much fruit. And if we abide in Christ, we can't help but bear that fruit. That's another part that I love. If a branch is attached to an apple tree, then when it's time, that branch is going to grow apples. All it has to do is stay attached to the tree. It doesn't have to worry about what kind of fruit to bear or when to bear it or what to do or how to get the nutrients. All it has to do, stay attached to the tree and you're going to bear fruit. All we have to do if we stay attached to Jesus is we're going to bear fruit. That's it. That's all we have to worry about. But I got to thinking about what kind of fruit we bear. And if you just look at the natural world, there's all different kinds of fruit. Apples, oranges, pears, tangerines, lemons. That's about all I know. I don't eat a lot of fruit. I can tell you a lot of fast food menus. But throughout the natural world, trees grow fruit. They grow all different kinds of fruit. An apple tree doesn't decide, you know what we're feeling this year, boys? Oranges. Let's do it. That doesn't happen. Apple trees grow apples. That's it. For the rest of their days, apples. I don't think that God's kingdom and that this natural world is that much different. I tell you all the time, Ephesians 2.10, you are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that you might walk in them. I think that's the same ethos that we find in Proverbs when it says that we should train up a child in the way that they must go and they will not depart from it. We're going to train up that child to be quiet in church. That's great. We love you, Faith and Phil. But in that, in that is this tip of the cap to the idea that we're all different. In Corinthians, we see that there are a myriad spiritual gifts, and not everybody has all of them. We all have our different parts to play. We all have our different giftedness. God knew before you were that age when you were going to live, what you were going to do, and what gifts he was going to imbue you with so that you might be used in his kingdom. He already knew that. And I've told you before that because you're a God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that you might walk in them, that your job is to figure out what your good works are and then walk in them. All of that ties in with abide in Christ and you will bear much fruit. I don't think the ministerial fruit looks the same for everybody. I think it is as wild and variant as the natural world and that what abiding in Christ and bearing fruit means is you will bear the fruit that God designed you and intended you to bear. If it comes out of your creativity, your hospitality, your gift of care, your gift of discernment, your gift of boldness, your gift of timidity, your gift of confidence, your gift of charisma, whatever it is, God has gifted you in different ways and he has gifted you to bear your fruit in his kingdom, in his way, in his ministry. So it doesn't look the same for everybody. And so what Jesus is promising is if you abide in me, listen, if you abide in me, then you will become the exact person I created you to be. You will experience the exact full life I want you to experience, and you will produce the exact fruit I designed and created you in your mother's womb to produce. You will be the absolute best version of yourself on this side of eternity, and all you have to do is abide in Christ. All you have to do is pursue him, is walk with him, yearn for him, know him, love him. And we could talk a long time about what it means to abide in Christ. Right now I'm leaning towards making the spring series that leads into Easter. Just call it Abide. And every week talk about what it means to abide in Christ. If you're a note taker, I should have brought it up here with me, but write this down. There's a book called Abide in Christ by a guy named Andrew Murray. I would highly recommend it. I tell a story about the facilities manager at the summer camp I worked at, a guy named Harry Stevenson. And now he's one of the godliest men I've ever met in my life. He has those eyes that when you look at him, you know immediately he loves Jesus and he loves me. Just an incredibly godly man. Harry, when I asked him, I said, what book do I need to read, Harry? And he told me, Abide in Christ, Andrew Murray. And I've read it and reread it. If you're a reader, go read it. If you're not a reader, grow up and go get it. The book of John beckons us to know Jesus that we might find life in him. The whole book of John through the I am statements, through the claims of Christ, through the conversations, through the prayer, through the examples beckons us to come to know Jesus. Look again at the I Am statements. Jesus himself beckons us, come to know me, come to trust me that you might find life in me, that you might find the best life possible in me. The book of John beckons us to know Christ, that we would find life in him. It beckons us to abide in Christ. And I would just close by saying this as I push you back into reading the book of John on your own. We can only abide in Christ if we can know Him. And we can best know Him through John. And that's said with a caveat. There's other ways to know Christ. We experience Him. We pray with Him. We walk with Him. We see Him in the Gospels for sure. But I think if you want what is the best written account to know the person of Jesus, to see His heart and to see Him exposed and to understand Him, then the Gospel of John is absolutely essential reading for knowing our Christ and abiding in Him and bearing much fruit in your life and in your ministry. So I'm going to pray. We're going to sing a song. And I hope you'll walk out those doors and open up the book of John soon and begin a fresh pursuit of Christ. Let's pray. God, we love you so much. We thank you for your son. We thank you for John's account of him. That we can know him intimately through John's gospel. We thank you for all the powerful teachings that we find in there, for the way that your son loves, for the simple admonition to abide in him and let you handle the rest. God, we want to be who you created us to be. We want to do what you intended us to do. Would you give us the clarity of sight, the strength of faith, and the boldness of courage to walk with you? Would you let us shake off the demons and walk past our past and leave the shadows behind and pursue you with vigor and fullness of heart and openness of mind and eyes that we might know you and experience what it is to walk with you. It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.

I wonder, pals, how long's it been since we heard those stories? I bet it's been a while. And if we could tell them again, I wonder if we would find out that those stories aren't really kids' stories at all, but they were meant for grown-ups all along. And that there's still lessons we can learn from them today. Let's find out together. Speedy delivery. For me? Thanks, mailman Kyle. Today, Jesus calms the storm. We'll be right back. here, and I would love to get to meet you after the service. I'm so glad that you guys chose to make Grace a part of your Sunday, whether you're watching online or here in person, braving the elements. We are very, very grateful for that. We've got two more parts of this series, Kids Stories for Grownups. Today is Jesus Calms the Storm, and next week is Moses and the Ten Commandments, and I'm really excited to share that sermon with you that God's laid on my heart for next week. But this week, we look at what is one of my daughter Lily's most favorite stories in the Bible. I've told you guys before, sometimes at night, she'll ask me to tell her Bible stories. And I love to do that. And this one, Jesus Calming the Storm, is one of her favorites. And, you know, I'm not really sure why that is. I think that this story, if you know it, is one that captures your imagination from the very beginning, from a very young age, the idea of this Jesus, this man who was 100% man and 100% God at the same time was able to calm the wind and the waves. The sky and the sea obey him. And that just captures our imagination, I think. And so it's fun to revisit that story and reflect. And as we do and as we go through that story and we reflect on what we can learn from it and what Jesus has for us in this story and maybe hopefully what he would have us glean from that story. I just wanted to impress upon you that I kind of feel bad every week when I get up, when the worship stops and then you have to start listening to me because I just want to keep worshiping. And one of my favorite things to do is to lay out and listen to my church worship. And as I hear all of you cry out, it's your breath in our lungs. So we pour out our praise. We pour out our praise. And you say, great are you, Lord. I'm reminded that you are God's children and he is in pursuit of your hearts. And so let's let this message and where we go and where we lean into, let's make space for the Holy Spirit to speak to us no matter why we're here this morning and give him the opportunity to draw us closer to the Father, closer to the Spirit, closer to Jesus. So Jesus calming the storm takes place in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and they are beginning Jesus's ministry. So it's important to put this story in the context of the timeline. For those that don't know, Jesus spent about 33 years on this earth. We think he started his public ministry around the age of 30, and that he spent about three years going around Israel and ministering in the various villages and cities, and then eventually in Jerusalem. And we get that timing from Passovers and things like that in the New Testament, or in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So at about 30, Jesus begins to call the disciples. So if you open up to any of those books that I just mentioned, you'll see at the very beginning, Jesus starts to call the disciples to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men, that kind of thing. And a lot of us know those stories. Well, that marks the beginning of Jesus's public ministry. And then obviously his crucifixion and resurrection marks the end of his public ministry. And so in that first year, early on, this story takes place. So the disciples have just started following Jesus. We'll see from the story that they don't fully know him yet. They really don't know who this man is that they're following. They haven't fully realized who this Jesus guy is just yet. And we'll see that come out in the story, but it's important to place it at the beginning of Jesus's ministry. If for no other reason than we can empathize with the disciples and their ignorance in this particular story. On a night after they had gotten done ministering and preaching, Jesus tells the disciples, hey, let's load up in the boat and go across the Sea of Galilee and we'll spend the night in a town over there on the opposite coast. Because when you pay attention to the life of Jesus, what you notice is that it's this always fluctuating balance of being with the people, surrounded by people, people pressing onto him, asking for miracles, listening for teachings, trying to trip him up and stump him and trick him and all those things. And then Jesus retreating for respite and rest so that he can gather his wits like we all need to do before he goes and faces the angry throngs the next day who want more things from him. Kind of like being a mom. So Jesus says, let's go across the Sea of Galilee and we'll rest there. And so that's what they do. Bless you. That's what they do. And they get in the boat and they begin to go across the Sea of Galilee. And as they go across the Sea of Galilee, it begins to get pretty turbulent. The wind picks up and the waves start to pick up and it begins to get pretty hectic in the Sea of Galilee. And I've had the opportunity myself to be on the Sea of Galilee because I'm a pastor. And if you're a pastor, you have to do that. So I went to Israel and I was on a boat in the Sea of Galilee. And I remember being surprised by how wavy and choppy it was and how much the boat was bouncing during totally clear blue skies with very little wind. And some of the waves did crash up over the side of the boat, not in a dangerous way, but just in that way that gets your rear end wet enough to make you uncomfortable for the rest of the day that you're trekking around Israel. And so it became believable to me that a storm could stir up and really make a trip across the Sea of Galilee feel pretty unsafe. And that's what happened that night. And so the Bible tells us in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and we're going to look at the depiction in Mark, that the waves started to pick up. The wind really started to blow. And the waves were crashing over the boat, not in the way that just makes you inconveniently wet, but in the way that makes you scared for your life. And the disciples became very fearful. And it would take something for the disciples to be fearful because many of you know that the disciples were fishermen. Peter, James, and John. James and John were called the sons of thunder. That was their nickname, okay? They were not sissies like Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. He was an accountant. All right, my dad's an accountant. They are sissies, man. They cannot be trusted on open waters. I'm just kidding. Dad's great. I get seasick. He does not. I'm a pastor. I'm even worse. Anyway, talking about requisite toughness. But you've got James and John and Peter, and they're starting to freak out. They're getting legitimately scared. And so we pick up the story in Mark chapter 4, verse 38, and I'm going to read 38 through 41. This is what they do. It says, And I love that story. It's a simple one. It's a short one, but it's a powerful one. And one of the things that's so neat to me is that the disciples sense that they were in danger. And the hull of the ship is a guy that's older than them. They were not yet in their 30s. They were younger than him, presumably early 20s or maybe even younger than that. It could have been, some scholars think, upper high school boys that Jesus was giving the keys of the kingdom to. And they get scared and they know they're scared. They know they can't do anything about the weather. And so they go to Jesus. And it's clear from the text, they don't know what Jesus was going to do about it because when Jesus does what he does, they're shocked. So they weren't expecting him to calm the wind and to calm the rain and to calm the waves. They weren't thinking that was coming next. They just knew they were in trouble and they needed to go to Jesus. They didn't know what he was going to do. They didn't know how he was going to solve it. They just knew my soul's in fear. I'm going to run to Jesus. And I think that's such a great lesson for us. If nothing else, even when we don't know what he's going to do, run to Jesus when we're scared, run to Jesus when we don't feel safe, run to Jesus when we feel we need shelter. So they run to Jesus and Jesus wakes up. He's annoyed. He's clearly from the text. He was, he was, he was having a good snooze down there. He was out of the rain. He was nice and dry. Maybe it was working as like a little bit of like rock-a-bye baby white noise for Jesus. I don't know. Dude may have been hardcore. But he was sleeping. And I know, I happen to know from personal experience that even the sweetest people in the world, when they are awoken at 3.30 in the morning in the middle of the night and they don't want to be, they're not kind about that. And so Jesus clearly is annoyed with the disciples. He goes up on the deck and he looks at the wind and the waves and he says, peace, be still. And they do. And I've often thought, man, that would be a really cool moment in history to be in. If you could go back to one spot that's got to be in the running. Can you imagine, those of you who know me, how smug I would be on the deck of that ship with my popcorn? If you could time travel also popcorn with you, smart food, white cheddar, please. I would sit there and look at the disciples and be the least scared person laughing at them, be like, you're gonna be fine, just watch. Can you imagine how smug I would be knowing what was going to happen, just waiting for Jesus to come up on the hull of the ship, on the deck of the ship and say, peace, be still. And then it happens and you're like, see, I told you guys. It would be so easy to be peaceful in that moment because we know how the story ends, but they didn't. And so they were scared. And he comes out and he says, peace, be still. And peace, be still. When I hear people cover this story, talk about the story, preach on this story, peace, be still usually gets the focus. That's usually the phrase we stop on is the power of Jesus. And that's a good place to focus. But that's never really caught my attention as something else in the story. The next thing that catches my attention a little bit more is the disciples marveling at who this Jesus was. He goes back down into the stern of the ship, presumably to go back to sleep, this time peacefully, without his white noise. And the disciples look at each other and they were fearful and they said, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. See, when they went down into the ship to get him, they called him teacher, rabbi, pastor. They didn't know yet what Jesus was or who he was. They didn't call him Lord. They didn't call him Savior. They called him teacher. They were ignorant as to the nature of Christ just yet. And so they knew that guy could do some stuff. They knew that he could perform some miracles and cast out demons. They had seen a little bit of things. They knew that he possessed a wisdom that was unique in their generation. But they didn't know he could do this. So they marveled at who he was. And sometimes we focus on that. But for me, as far back as my memory goes from hearing this story, the thing that's always captured my attention is Jesus's incredulity with the disciples. He's incredulous with them. He's frustrated. And to me, because look at the text. He says, why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? Oh, you of little faith. Like, what's the matter, guys? Why are you being so scared? Like, just chill out. It's going to be all right. And it's never made sense to me that this would be Jesus' response because we're taught about Jesus that he's meek and mild. We see him being abundant in patience and grace and love. And from a very young age, it's always seemed out of step with the character of Christ that this would be his chosen response to his disciples at their very reasonable fear. Again, Peter and James and John, the fishermen in the group, they're scared too. When the flight attendant on the plane starts to freak out, it's time for you to get scared as well. So I don't really care what Matthew's doing, but I'm looking at Peter. This is the guy that walks on water a little bit later in his life. And he's scared. So there's not anybody listening to my voice who wouldn't have been scared on that boat too. And to that very legitimate fear, Jesus goes, what's the matter with you? What's the matter with you? Why are you scared? What, you have no faith? Come on. He's frustrated with them. And it's always puzzled me. Why was Jesus frustrated with the disciples? And I want to propose to you two reasons. The first reason that I'm about to share is not the reason. It's a reason, and I think it's worth talking about. But really, the first reason provides a bridge to the second reason that I'm going to get to at the end of the sermon that I think really is why Jesus was internally frustrated with the disciples. But we can't get there without going through the first reason first. So the first reason I would like to submit to you that Jesus was frustrated with the disciples is the disciples underestimated Jesus' power, plan, and love for them. I think very simply the disciples underestimated Jesus. They underestimated Jesus' power. They ran to him because they knew he could do something, but they didn't know that he could do that. And apparently Jesus felt like he had revealed enough to them and instructed them enough that they ought to have known. They ought to have known that he had this special connection with God the Father and that everything was going to be okay. But they underestimated his power and his efficacy and his ability to be able to bring about the change or the provision that they needed. So they underestimated the power of Jesus. They underestimated the plan of Jesus. See, the disciples got called by a rabbi, and in those days, if you understand how that worked, that was kind of going to seminary back in the day. That was preparatory school for being released as a pastor or a rabbi into the wild. And so their expectation is most likely we're going to follow this man for a little while, however many years it takes, four, five, eight, 10 years. And then eventually we're going to be released out into the wild to do, to lead our own ministry. A lot like a young pastor going to seminary, expecting to graduate with a degree that says, I know all the things about theology I'll ever need to know. There's no questions that will ever stump me. And I have good categories for everything that's ever going to happen in my life. And then going to church and starting real ministry and finding out those categories are going to be pretty challenging, pal. You're going to have to learn to adjust those. But that's what a seminarian does. They go to school, they get a degree, and then they're released to church. And so that's what the disciples presumably thought they were going to be doing. Training with this man, learning how to be a rabbi, eventually they'd be released to be rabbis on their own. What they had no idea about was the scope of Jesus's plan for their lives. Jesus wasn't going to release them into the various cities and towns within Israel to do their own personal ministries. No, these were the foundational rocks upon which the church of God was being built. They were the kingdom of God on earth. They were being entrusted with the keys to the kingdom. Two and a half years after this moment, Jesus was going to die on a cross. He was going to raise himself from the dead, conquering death and sin. Then he was going to spend 40 days with them and then go into heaven and say, wait for the Holy Spirit to come. He's going to tell you what you need. And then they were going to launch the movement of God on earth, the intersection of the physical and the spiritual in the temporal God's church, his kingdom here. He had big plans for the disciples. And listen, it's 2,000 years later. We're on a different continent talking about their Jesus. They did a pretty good job. It was a pretty good plan. They did not realize, the disciples, that they were plans A, B, C, D, E, all the way to Z of God starting his kingdom here on earth, of transferring it from the nation of Israel to the kingdom, God's church, the bride of Christ, of which we are a part. See, they underestimated Jesus's plan for them. Pay attention to this. Because they reduced it to what they could envision for themselves. They underestimated Jesus' plan for them because they reduced it to what they could envision for themselves. They didn't make space for what Jesus could possibly be envisioning for them. And then they underestimated the love of Christ. That Jesus actually loved them enough to execute that plan. Because the plan involves Jesus dying the most painful death that that era of humanity could cook up. Suffering through the torment of hell and being resurrected on the third day, conquering death and sin. The plan involved Jesus being separated from his God. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me is one of the things he mutters on the cross. It was the first time in all of time that Jesus and God had been separated even for a little bit. And Jesus endured that. He endured the sufferings on the cross for us, for you and for me, because he loves us. Because the Bible says that love is in that while we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us. That's what love is. And what the disciples did not know and did not understand is that two and a half years from now, he's going to be hanging on a cross and we're going to feel like we've failed and he's failed, but that's the necessary thing that has to happen because he is winning for us a seat at the banquet table for all of eternity. That through living his perfect life, through leaving the keys of the kingdom with us, through dying on the cross, through raising from the dead and leaving that tomb empty, that Jesus was conquering death and hell for all of eternity and there was going to come a day, spoiler alert, when he would calm all storms for all time. But that was going to require an excruciating death. That was going to require limitless forgiveness over and over and over again as he watches us, you and me, trample on that death with our willful actions and our willful rebellion and our decision to not honor the death of Jesus on the cross and our decision on a weekly and daily basis to put ourself as Lord of our life and not Jesus as Lord of our life. And he knew that he was going to die on the cross, that he was going to offer you his love, that we were going to trample on that, and yet still he was going to offer us grace and invite us to a seat at the banquet table in heaven one day where we will be in harmony with our God for all of eternity. The disciples did not know that Jesus loved them that much. They did not know his plan was that big and that his power was that great, and so they underestimated him. And it makes me wonder, do we underestimate Jesus too? Do we forget how powerful he is? Do we sit in a circumstance and render it hopeless as though prayer can't possibly help because Jesus can move mountains, but not that one. Jesus can fix other relationships, but not this one. Jesus can empower other people facing temptation, but not me and not mine. Do we underestimate his power? Do we underestimate Jesus' plan for us by reducing it to what we can envision for ourselves? Can I just tell you, you have no idea what Jesus wants to do with you. You have no clue what Jesus wants to do with a single faithful heart who will be consistent. I see over and over again people who are convinced that they have no gifting, there's nothing special about them or outstanding about them. And so when they hear pastors like me talk about plans that Jesus has for them, they think, certainly that's not me. That's for other people. And it just reminds me of my mama. I've told you guys this story plenty of times. She died of ovarian cancer at 74 or 75 years old, and she was a woman who would sit in sermons like this, and she would think, I have nothing to offer the kingdom of God. I have no talents. I have no skills. Everyone around me is more important and better liked than I am. And yet, because she loved God, she just faithfully loved others her entire life. And when she passed away at 75, there was over 400 people at that funeral. All a testament to how Linda had loved them so well throughout the course of her life. And I gotta tell you, I've done plenty of funerals for people around that age and older. It's not often there's 400 people there. And she's one that throughout her life would have sat in a sermon like this and thought, God doesn't really have a plan for me. Yes, he does. Yes, he does. You have no idea who you're raising. You think Billy Graham's parents and Mother Teresa's parents knew who they were raising? You have no idea who you're friends with and who you're loving on. You have no idea how much an email or a prayer or a phone call or a late night conversation can mean to somebody. You have no idea. Just walk faithfully in Jesus' plan and you let him do what he's going to do. So often we underestimate Jesus' plan for us by writing off ourselves and limiting that plan to what we can envision. And he has such a bigger picture for us. Do we underestimate his love for us? Do we think that we've trampled on his grace one too many times and he's probably fed up with me now? No, he's not. Do we forget that he's promised us in Hebrews that he's at the right hand of the Father interceding for us? Do we, like the disciples, underestimate our Jesus? I think one of the reasons that we do that is because we fail to remember, as the disciples are a good example for in this story, that Jesus has depth just like anyone else. And knowing him takes time. I don't know if you've ever thought about it this way, but very clearly in the story, the disciples simply didn't know Jesus enough yet. Jesus felt like he had revealed enough of himself that they should have faith in him by now, that they should know by now, but they simply didn't know who he was. They simply didn't know by then. And so they doubted him and they were scared and they were anxious and they worried and they were fearful. And so they underestimated him, I believe, because they didn't fully know him yet. And we've got to acknowledge that getting to know Jesus is just like getting to know anyone else. There's depth there. There's layers. I think of one of my favorite people that I've ever met in my entire life, Harris Winston. No, I'm just kidding around. It's not Harris. It's this guy that I used to teach with. It's really not Harris. It's this guy that I used to teach with named Coach McCready, Robert W. McCready. When I started teaching school, thanks Harris for being the punchline for that joke. Anybody could have done it. When I started teaching school, I was in a previous life, my late 20s. I taught high school Bible and was a school chaplain at a small private school outside of Atlanta. In my first year there, I got hired at the same time as this new science teacher and the football coach, Coach McCready. And when I met him, I learned about him that he was a tailback at Auburn in the 60s. And so tough, Southern, good old boy from Alabama. He didn't, actually he did chew tobacco all the time. Now I think about it, he always had to dip in, that guy, teaching at a private Christian high school. Everybody just looks the other way, right? That was Coach McCready, just tough as nails. And he calls me out. The first week, he starts calling me Coach Rector. I'm not the coach of anything, but he just brings me to practice, and he makes me the special teams coach because I know how to kick a ball because I have a soccer background, and he did not because he has a football background. And so I was the special teams coordinator. And he called everybody baby, and he called buses cheese wagons, and he was just a character, man. I could tell you some very colorful stories with colorful language about Coach McCready and some of the things I heard that man say. But then I find out that he was also a Vietnam veteran and that he led 100 Marines during his first tour in Vietnam to the jungles of Vietnam. That'll do something to you. He did such a good job with it that the Marine Corps honored him with a nice, easy assignment doing recruiting in Alabama so he wouldn't have to risk his neck anymore and could wait out the war that way. And Coach McCready hated that idea. So he bugged his CO over and over and over again until he could find a path to get back to Vietnam. And the only way to do it was to go to training to become a recon Marine. So he went back to Vietnam as a recon Marine crawling through the tunnels of the Viet Cong shirtless with a Bowie knife and a pistol. I'm not making that up. That's Rambo stuff, man. That's a tough son of a gun. And he was all of that. He dripped that toughness. He could look at you in a way and no one's ever made me that scared in my whole life. But you get to know him. And I had the opportunity to do that. Seventh period, I was free. He taught seniors a class that he didn't care about who were on the football team, and he just let them sit in the back and do whatever they wanted. It was a really great school. And me and Coach would sit in the front, and we would just have a conversation for an hour. And we'd talk about everything, and we'd talk about life, and he didn't know it at the time, but he was discipling me, and mentoring me, and counseling me, and helping me in my marriage, and helping me learn to be a man, and helping me learn to follow God well, and showing me different ways that faith could look, and I learned about his heart, and I saw him tear up with something special that happened for the boys. The last year I was at that school, he and his wife, by his request, got a little toy poodle, black one, named Pepper. And Coach McCready's policy was if Pepper's not invited, then neither am I. And it never went anywhere that Pepper was not invited. Took him to stores before emotional support dogs were a thing and just dared people to tell him to get out of there because you wouldn't. And I bet over those three years, I got to know Coach McCready better than anybody else at that school. And if I saw him this afternoon, we could stop and we could have a four-hour conversation and it would not be enough. We were thick as thieves, man. But that knowledge of him and who he was and his heart, that came over time. It came over investment. It came over going to see him every day when I didn't have to and us wanting to spend that time together. You have those friendships too. Why would your relationship with Jesus be any different? How can we come to church once a week, sing about Jesus, hear about Jesus, go home and don't think about Jesus for a week, and then show up the next week and think, why am I not closer to Jesus? It's a pursuit. It's a getting to know him. It's exploring him. It's mining the depths of who he is in his word. Learning more about our God. Reading the gospels over and over and over again and printinging on ourselves the character and the heart of Jesus, pursuing him in prayer, spending time with him that we don't have to passionately following after Jesus so that we get to know him, so that we get to trust him, so that we get to love him. And then what happens when we do this, when we pursue Jesus and we know his heart, we get to watch him come through over and over and over again. And we get to watch him calm the storms over and over and over again. We get to see how he's going to do that. I've had that experience to do that as the pastor of grace. When I got here, we were in a heck of a storm. And I'm not going to recount all of that for everyone present, but it was not good times. But I saw Jesus come through. I could tell you a story about a Memorial Day offering that was supernatural that first month that I was here, where God said, hey, I care about this place. How God has had the right people show up at the right times to just affirm for us, I care about this place. This place matters to me. And frankly, I've weathered enough storms with grace, and some of you have too, that we're now just the people on the boat eating the smart pop popcorn with the white cheddar going, this is going to be fun. Look at what God's going to do. The more you know Jesus, the more you trust him, and the less you doubt he will come through. And I asked the question earlier, have you underestimated Jesus? And I would tell you that a pretty good indicator for that is how much we worry, how much we give into anxiety and fear and stress. Now listen, I'm not talking about clinical anxiety that's treated by medications. I'm not talking about an actual chemical imbalance that causes that. I'm talking about your regular, everyday, run-of-the-mill worry. Is my kid gonna get the right teacher? Maybe if I stay up a couple more hours tonight worrying about it, then that will help the situation. And they will definitely get the teacher they're supposed to. Will the deal close? Is my kid going to make good decisions at college? No, but they'll learn from them. Will my son or my daughter meet the right person that they're supposed to marry? Am I going to like them? I don't know. But listen, God is over all of those things. And the longer we walk with Jesus, the less worrisome those things are because we know he's got it. And so a good indicator of whether or not we're underestimating Jesus in our own lives is how much fear and anxiety and worry and stress we carry about the things that only he can control. And this, I think, is the real reason that Jesus was frustrated with the disciples that night. Because the disciples were focused on the outer storm while Jesus was focused on the inner storm. The disciples were focused on the storm out there, things beyond their control. And Jesus is sitting there sleeping in the stern going, guys, if you'll just trust me, you could be asleep now too. If you'll just trust me, you don't have to be scared right now. You don't have to be fearful right now. You don't have to be anxious right now. See, Jesus comes to us and we often miss this and he offers to calm the storms in here. And so often we're like the disciples and we're like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm fine in here. Can you calm the storms out there? Can you make that go away and that go away and that go away and that go away? Can you heal here, here, and here? Can you handle all of those things so that I don't feel any stress? And Jesus is like, I'm offering you my perfect peace so that you don't have to stress at all. I'm offering you my perfect peace so that you can be calm in here and not have to worry about all the things going on out there. Because let me tell you something. To live this life is to experience storms. When Jesus calmed that storm in the Sea of Galilee, how long was it until the next one? Did they just stop altogether? When Jesus fixes that bad news, you've lived life long enough, there's more coming. We've weathered storms at grace. We're in a fun season right now. You think there's not more coming? Maybe you're in the midst of a storm right now, and we want desperately for Jesus to calm it. Maybe we're in a peaceful time right now. Either way, we know that there's more coming, but here's what Jesus offers to us, that he will give us such an internal peace and calm this internal storm in such a way that none of those will ever have an impact on us again. He gives us the option to trust him and walk in perfect peace. Maybe this is what Paul was talking about in Philippians. When he says, be anxious for nothing but in everything through prayer, petition, and with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the God of peace who transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. He's offering to calm the inner storm. Because on this side of eternity, in this broken world where sin pervades, there will always be storms. And there's coming a day in Revelation 19 and in Revelation 21 where Jesus calms all the storms forever and there's no more storms. And until then, and between now and then, there's gonna be storms out there, but he's offering you peace in here if you'll get to know him and trust him and love him and walk with him. And so that's the invitation to us. That's the invitation that we see as a result of this story. This story is an invitation to know Jesus more. This story is an invitation to go deeper with him, into his word, to pursue him in prayer, to swallows me up, even if that storm is the storm that swallows up someone I love so much, that Jesus has gone to where that storm is and he's conquered that too. And one day I'll exist on the other side of eternity and I'll be with that person again. That's the storm that Jesus has calmed for us. He's won that for us. So let's not look at the story of Jesus calming the storm as a simple story that displays the power of Jesus and the ignorance of the disciples, but let's look at it as a story that beckons our hearts to go deeper with him, to know him more, to trust him more, to walk with more peace and more humility and more grace as we see him come through again and again and again. Let's allow Jesus to calm the storm in here and we won't be so concerned with the storms out there. Let's pray. Father, God, we thank you for calming our storms. Lord, for the folks in here who are walking through them. There are waves crashing over their boat, man. They don't know how they're going to make it out of this one. God, I do pray that you would calm those. But more than that, I pray that you would calm them. Calm their anxious hearts. God, for those of us here who don't know you, who don't know your son, with the depth that we would like to, would you beckon us towards you? Would you call us into your presence? God, give us a daily desire to meet with you, to hear from you, to talk to you, to listen, to praise. God, would you be a part of our conversation? Would you be a part of our friendships? Would you be a part of the way we work and the way we operate and the way we think, be a part of our car rides and our walks and our workouts. Jesus, we invite you into our lives that we might know you more, that we might trust you more, that we might trust your heart more, that you might calm the storms that rage in us from time to time. And we thank you for being the one who calms the storms once and for all. It's in your name that we pray these things. Amen.

Well, good morning. It's good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be the pastor here as just a little point of order. If you received a bulletin when you came in and you're someone who fills out the notes, I would direct you to the back of the bulletin. In the middle of the notes is a point that starts out. I think the local church is the blank thing to which we are all called. You can cross that out. Okay, I'm not going to get to that. The word there was bigger, so if you really just want to fill it in, there you go. But we're not going to include that. So I don't want to get to that point of the notes and you guys think, oh, no, he forgot it. No, I didn't. I'm leaving it out on purpose. Also, some of you have asked, Nate, why are you wearing your Crocs? Do you have a gout flare-up? No, jerks. I know that you would love that, but I did not. I did not. I also, before I'm telling you why I'm wearing them, have promised my sweet wife that I would communicate to you that she loathes them. They are the least favorite thing of hers that I own, and it is to her great dismay that I continue to wear them every day. I'm wearing these because these are my friend's shoes. These are the shoes that you only see when I am your friend. If you come to my house, and I knew you were coming, if you come to my house and I didn't know you were coming, come on, man, what are you doing? But if I do know you're coming and I'm still by choice wearing these, it's because I'm totally comfortable with you and we're friends. If you invite me over and I'm wearing sweats and Crocs, it's because we're pals, all right? Only my close friends see these because they are shameful. And when I come to church early, I get here early on Sunday mornings, and usually I just throw these on just to be comfortable until I need to put on my church shoes, my preaching shoes. And as I was pacing, thinking through what I was saying this morning, I just realized that what I'm going to say to you this morning is hard. It's hard for me to say. It's going to be hard for some of y'all to hear. And as I say it, I want these to remind me and you that I'm coming to you as a friend. I'm saying these things to you because I love you. Because I feel like Grace is collectively my pal. And so I want you to know up front that I have been praying this week and this morning for courage and gentleness. And so these Crocs are a little bit more gentle than my preaching boots. So I'm wearing these today. Years ago, there was a show called 24. I don't know if you guys have ever seen it. If you have, your life is better for it. But 24 was released, I don't know if you remember this, right on the cusp of like DVD series and then live series. For those of you, I don't know how young you have to be to appreciate series that are on DVDs, but we used to buy whole volumes of series that now you get on Netflix. But 24 is right on the cusp of that. And so when I heard about it, my friends were watching it and they were like a couple seasons in, I think they were on season four. And they had this tradition of every Monday night, they would go over to my one friend's house and they would all watch it with rapt attention and then talk about it during the commercials. And then when it started again, total silence and they were very committed to it. And then they would kind of talk about the episode afterwards. And I really wanted to go to this. I was having serious FOMO, which for old people, that's fear of missing out. I was having some serious FOMO of my friends are having this fun and I can't have this fun because I'm not caught up on the series. So I tracked down the DVDs and got caught up on the series. And I don't know if any of you have had this experience. Raise your hand if you watch 24 on DVD. Okay, you are my friends and you know what I'm talking about. The end of the episode always, without fail, ends on a cliffhanger. And then there's that countdown, the beep, boop, beep, boop. And you're like, no, I got to know what happens to Jack. So then if you're watching the DVD series, it's like play next episode. Yes, of course. And you play the next episode and you just binge that thing. This is when binging started. And it was so satisfying to be able to watch. And this was, let's see, I was probably 19 or 20. So I could watch an ungodly amount of uninterrupted TV at a time. And I mean the word ungodly because it was not spiritual to do what I was doing, but I could watch a ton at one time. And so you power through these seasons, man. And I got through them and I got to go watch with my friend. Now this is the big night. I get to go to my friend's house. There's like 15, 20 of us there. This is great. I'm going to consume this content this way. And as I was doing it, I was like, this stinks because it ended. First of all, I had to watch commercials. That's a bummer. I don't want to watch commercials. I'm into the story. I don't want to hear about Claritin again. And then it ends. There's the beeps. And it's like, let's watch the next episode, guys. And you can't. You've got to wait a whole week. And by the time the next week rolled around, I really wasn't very much into it. And I realized within a couple of weeks, you know what? I don't really like consuming this this way. I like it better on the DVDs. So I waited and just watched it all at once on the DVDs. And I bring that up because this is when content really began to make it very clear that it was a product and we are the consumers. We can watch whatever we want to watch. We have all kinds of streaming services. We have everything available at the tip of our fingers. We can choose the content that we want to watch whenever we want to watch it. This is 24 to me illustrates when it became very clear in our culture that there's all kinds of content out there that we can consume when we want it, where we want it, and when we actually have a desire for it. When we think it's what's going to be best for us, when we feel like it's what we want in the moment, it's right there and we can consume it. I'm bringing that up because I feel like I've seen church become that for many of us too. I feel like in Christian culture, in church people, and then most pointedly at grace, I have watched a slide over the years that the pandemic has accelerated where we are now in ways consumers of church. Church, to some of us, in our mindset and in our families, has become a product that we consume. Sunday morning is something that if I have time, I'll go. If we don't have other plans, I'll attend. If there's not just one more inconsequential thing, and when I say inconsequential, I mean something that we allow to take Sunday morning away from us that isn't gonna matter one little bit in 20 years, then we'll just do that thing and I'll catch up with church during the week. I'll watch it on Tuesday. I'll binge it. I'll listen to the whole series. And it's not easy or fun to say this because normally when I come to you as the church and I say convicting things, I'm right there with you. I always put myself first and say, this is my conviction, join me in it if it applies. Well, this one's different because I get paid to do this. I don't have the perspective that church partners have. But I do have the perspective of a pastor. And I can tell you what I see from my perspective. And what I see from my perspective, as someone who leads a church, as someone who I think is pretty tapped into Christian culture, as someone who talks to other pastors regularly, I see a slide in our culture towards consumerism as it relates to churches. That for many of us, church has become a commodity or a product that I will include in my life when and where I want to, when and how I want to. And I know that none of us would cop to that out loud. None of us would say, yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm a consumer, church is the product, that's how it is. But in our practices and in our patterns, that's what we make it. I'll get to it when I can. I'll include it when I want to. I'll catch up with it on my jog. Revelation really is not very interesting of a series for me. I'll catch it at Christmas. Or, Revelation is super interesting to me. I'm going to totally pay attention to this one. Last one, I wasn't really there for it. I've seen us become consumers in the way that we volunteer, which is less and less, which is a good indicator that in my mind, church exists for me to make my life better. It's a product that's there for me to grab and to consume when I want it. And this is something that I have seen and noticed for several months. And something that I've wanted to put in front of you for several months. But I didn't know the best way to do it. I didn't know how. And I wanted to be really sure when I did it. Because I know that I'm stepping on toes right now. And here's how I've been complicit in it. Is I've allowed that mindset to reduce my role to a producer of content. There are many a week in the last two years when I viewed my role as literally nothing more than just giving you something worth consuming on a Sunday morning and forgetting about the pastoring and the leading that has to happen during the week. I have been complicit in reducing my own role as the pastor of a church to simply producing content that's good for you that you'll choose to consume again. And I'm just, I'm telling you guys, we're wrong about that. It is a dangerous thing when church gets reduced to a commodity to consume. And I'm convinced that that's true and that it's right and good for me to take a Sunday morning and talk about it and that it's worth stepping on some toes because Jesus's attitude towards the church is so vastly different than the attitude of someone who consumes the church. Jesus didn't for one second think that the church was a commodity to be consumed. Jesus for one second was not interested in putting out a product that people would want to come back to. He wasn't interested at all in commodifying and making us comfortable in the way we choose to consume his body. The New Testament does not talk about the church as something to be consumed. It does not talk about the church as if it's something that's optional for us, that we can include in our life when we feel like it, that we can include in our life when we feel like we have time or effort or energy or space. And so for me as a pastor to watch this slide in my church and say nothing about it is a dereliction of duty. It is irresponsible. So we've got to talk about it. Again, we've got to talk about it because as I thought about communicating this idea this week and what passage to use, I was thinking through the New Testament and how the church is talked about and it dawned on me, there's not like a single passage to use because the whole New Testament is about the local church. The whole New Testament assumes that you are a part of the local church. The New Testament teaches us that the moment you get saved, that when you accept Christ as your Savior, that you are now a member of the big C universal church. And it is incumbent upon you to express that membership within the body of the local church. The one book, the biggest portion of the New Testament that's written to an individual is written to a guy named Theophilus by Luke, probably on behalf of Peter. And he writes to Theophilus so that he can understand who Jesus was and what he came to do, which is to begin the local church. The one big major book that's written to an individual to explain things in the New Testament is written so that that individual could understand the local church and how it came about. Then Paul writes letters to churches. And every directive in the Bible that's given is given to us communally. There is nothing, nothing about individual spirituality in here. It all, the whole thing, cover to cover, assumes that you know and understand that you are functioning within a body. That you are functioning within the local church. And so it's difficult to pinpoint one place where this is clarified because it's assumed all throughout the New Testament. And I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but do you realize, and I believe this with all my heart, that the local church, this expression of grace that we sit in this morning, is the reason that Jesus stayed some extra years to do ministry? I don't know if you've ever wondered this, but Jesus was 33 when he was crucified. If all he came to do, if all of his marching orders were to become flesh, live a perfect life, die for the sins of the world, why didn't he just get crucified at 30? Or 25? Or 17? What was he doing? Hanging around, putting up with us? He was building the church. He was training the leaders. He was preparing the world for his kingdom. Jesus stayed those extra years and put up with us so that he could call the disciples to him and train them and show them. He taught them how to teach. He taught them how to perform miracles. He taught them how to cast out demons. He taught them how to lead. He taught them how to love. He showed them how to do ministry to one another. And then he died. And then he came back and he left. And when he left, he said, now go do all the things that I've been showing you to the ends of the earth. Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He said, go and do what I told you to do. And how did they respond to that? They huddled up in Jerusalem. And they said, what do we do? And then they got the gift of the Holy Spirit and they started a church, man. And its numbers grew day by day. Acts 2, 42 through 47, you can find it there. And then the rest of the book of Acts is about the disciples' effort to go and to plant more local churches. All of Paul's life was dedicated to planting local churches. When Jesus left and said, you, I've given you the keys to the kingdom. I've spent these years and I've trained you and now I'm going to leave and you've got the Holy Spirit. Go do my ministry. What did lost and broken world, and there is no plan B. That's not my idea. I stole that from another pastor. I don't remember who. But the local church, this expression, this Grace Raleigh is God's plan to reach this community. And there's no plan B. We have got to do our part. We are a part of God's divine strategy, of God's divine plan. This is not something to be flippantly participated in. That's not the point. There's something bigger going on here. The New Testament teaches us that we are the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We're the body of Christ. We are his different members. We're going to talk more about this next week. But the New Testament also preaches this. And this was one of the more convicting things to think about this week as I think about our attitude with how we approach church. It is admittedly an odd passage to land on for the sermon this morning, but it's Ephesians chapter 5, verses 25 through 32. This is a marriage roles passage. This is usually talked about in weddings. And when we read it, that's where our mind goes. And one day, hopefully sooner than later, I would love to walk through this passage with you as a church body and walk you through kind of how my understanding of this passage has changed over the years. But this is not what I want us to highlight this morning. As I read it to you and you read along with me, I want you guys to pay attention to the relationship between Jesus and the local church. I want you to notice the dynamic that's going on there, and then we're going to talk about it just a little bit. Ephesians chapter 5, beginning in verse 25. He says this in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. and cherishes it just as Jesus does the church because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. The church, Christians, we are the bride of Christ. That is our divine identity. We are the body that he came and died for. We are the body that he's going to come back and rescue. We are the body that he intentionally started. We are the body that was prophesied about in the Old Testament. We are the love of Jesus's life. We are the bride of Christ. And what I'm saying to you this morning is being Christ's bride should be wholly consuming, not flippantly consumed. Being the very bride of Christ should be an identity that is wholly consuming to us, not flippantly consumed. Nothing about that passage and nothing about that role says to us that there's any space whatsoever to simply be consumers of the product that church puts out. No, we are called to be a part of what the church is doing. This is where the whole idea of this series came from when I was thinking about it last fall, is this idea of doing what I can to transition us from sliding towards consumerism and push us back towards being consumed. The church was not created for us to consume it. It was created so that it could consume you. It was created for your whole devotion. It was created for you to be all in. It was created to give you a new life completely separate from your old life and give you something bigger to be a part of that we all long for. Being the bride of Christ deserves our full attention. It deserves our fanaticism. It deserves to consume us. To drive this home just a little bit, I want you to think about something with me. What would your marriage look like if you decide that you were simply going to be a consumer of it? What would my marriage with Jen look like if I decided, you know what, I know she wants to talk about her day-to-day, but I'm not really feeling it. I don't really want to do that. I want to watch football. And also, I've never done this. What would it look like if all the time my interactions with her, I only thought about, well, how does this benefit me? Is this something that I really want to do right now? Why don't I just schedule something over what's happening? What would it look like if in our marriages we simply became consumers and when we were asked to volunteer our time to make the house better, we said, what's in it for me? What are you gonna do if I clean clean the garage? You make meatloaf? All right, I'll clean it. How dead would our marriages be if we became consumers within them? And we saw our marriage as something that just produced a product that was there for me to consume if I wanted it or not. If that analogy holds true, and Ephesians tells me that it does, is it any wonder why some of us just don't feel like our spiritual life is clicking like it should be? Is it any wonder why we just don't feel like we're in sync with God? Is it possible that maybe we don't feel a spiritual vibrancy in our life because we've reduced the things of God to things to be consumed to improve our life when we feel like we need them? You know, it's funny, and it's worth mentioning. Over my years as a pastor, and Grayson at previous church, I've sat down with parents of teenagers, and they've said, we just can't get our kid to come to youth group, and we don't know what to do. And I can't say it, but I think it. Well, if you want to do anything right now, you need to get in the time machine and go back 10 years and quit treating the church like it's something to be consumed for you. You have modeled this method of consumption to your children for 10 years and now is it any wonder that when they get to make their own choices, they're consumers too? Is it any wonder that maybe we don't feel as close to God as we could when we don't treat the things of God as they deserve to be treated. I thought of this as well. Paul is at the end of his ministry and he's writing a letter to Timothy. It's one of the few things written to an individual in the New Testament. And guess what? It's about how to lead the local church. Anyways. In already being poured out as a drink offering. And the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. What a remarkable statement to make. Now I'm about to ask you a question. It's an unfair question. It's a gotcha question. And I'm admitting that up front. So this isn't to make anyone feel bad. This is just to help you think along with me, okay? Did any of us on December 31st, a few days ago, kneel and pray and say, God, thank you for 2021. I was poured out for you like a drink offering. Now, listen, you may have gotten to the end of 2021 and felt like you were poured out like a drink offering. We may have gotten to the end of that year and said, I got nothing left. But were you poured out for the right things? Were you poured out for the things of God? Were you poured out because you were consumed with your identity as the bride of Christ? So, either you're just mad at me and you want the sermon to be over. I get that. Or you're with me and you're okay. I want to be all in. I want to be consumed by the church. What do I do? Well, the very simple answer is this. You give of your time, talents, and treasures. A very simple answer to think about how can I be consumed by the local church is to give of your time, talents, and treasures. And as I was prepping this sermon, I lamented that when I got to this point in the sermon, I've been preaching for too long to really adequately do justice to what that means to give of our time, talents, and treasures. And then it occurred to me, dude, you're in charge of the series. You can do whatever you want. So next week, we're going to talk about that in detail. We're going to come back. Those of you who remain with us are going to come back and we'll go, here's how we can be all in together. Here's what it means and looks like to give of our time, talents, and treasures. But for this morning and for 2022, this is the message and the challenge that I wanted to issue to us as a church. If you're at Grace, be all in. If you're here, mean it with everything you got. You'll notice through this whole sermon, I've not talked about grace as far as what God calls us to. I've talked about the local church. And so I say this with all humility and candor. If you can't be all in at grace because you're not all about what's happening here, that's fine. There are a lot of churches. And with only kindness and love in my heart, I'm admonishing you that if grace isn't it for you, find a church you can be fanatical about. Find a church that you love what's going on there. Find a church that you can be all in, and that you can be consumed by, and you want to pour yourself out for. I hope that's grace, and I hope that what we're doing here is something that matters deeply to you. But if it's not, as just your friend, as a pastor, as a Christian, I'm telling you, we need to be consumed by the local church. So find one to consume you. And this is why I think it's so important to preach this message. And why I wanted to do it at the beginning of this year. Because I know that the cloud of the pandemic still looms over our culture. But I've got to believe that the sun's going to break sometime soon. And I don't want to tread water in 2022. I don't want to just cling on and try to exist this year as a church. I am praying and hoping that Jesus will eagerly and earnestly move in this place. I want to see Jesus show up this year. I want to see children fill that baptistry. I want to just dunk them and I want their friends to be in here celebrating it with them. I want to baptize you guys. I want to see your friends and your family and your coworkers begin to come to church with you and for you to experience the joy of watching them move into a faith because God used you in their life. I want to see you guys take steps of obedience that are far beyond what you thought you would be capable of sacrificing before. I want to see a church with their hair lit on fire for Jesus and begging him every week that his kingdom would come here and that he would move here and that he would do great things here. And that starts with our individual decision to be consumed by the body of Christ and by the identity of being his bride, and then it culminates in a corporate culture of pursuing him and of prizing him and of doing the things of Jesus because we love him and because it's our identity and because we're consumed by him. I don't want to tread water anymore. I want to move. I want to do ministry. I want to see salvations. I want to see people come to know Jesus. I want to see marriages rescued. I want to see children discipled. I want to see hurt people cared for. I want to see people prayed for. I want to see small groups blossom and multiply. I want to see discipleship happen intentionally. I want to see the great friendships that God has planted in this church do more than just make us feel good about ourselves, but point us back towards our Father and enhance our spiritual walks. And how can any, and here, you're all looking at me and I know that you want that too. And how can it happen if we're consumers? If we continue to just slide towards thinking of church as a commodity to be consumed? It can only happen if we say, here I am, Lord, and allow ourselves to be consumed for His purposes. So if you're at grace, be all in. And listen, I say that knowing and being humbled by the fact that we have a bunch of people who are all in. I know that we do. I'm humbled by your service every week. And we have people who have watched online faithfully for two years who simply have health issues that will not allow them to come and be a part of us. And I know you're all in. I know it. And so my prayer has been that the Holy Spirit would be whispering in each of your ears. And if you are someone who is all in, and if you are someone who has been consumed by the local church, that the Holy Spirit would be whispering into your ear right now, and he would be telling you, hey, this is not for you. This is to bring you some help. You don't need to feel convicted by this. Similarly, my prayer for the rest of us is that the Holy Spirit would whisper to us too. And he would be telling you right now how you need to listen. You need to hear this. For the sake of your marriage and your kids, you need to hear this. For the sake of your anxiety and your peace and your joy and your angst, you need to hear this. For the sake of being swept up and knowing how much I love you and experiencing my goodness as being part of a kingdom, part of my kingdom on earth before eternity, you need to hear this. So next week, we're going to come back and we're going to talk about what it looks like to be all in. I hope that if the Holy Spirit is telling you right now, hey, this is not you, that you will pray with me this week. For those to whom it may apply a little more. If the Holy Spirit is talking to you right now and telling you that you need to listen, I pray that you will. And if any of you are mad at me, my door is open. I'd love to chat. But next week, we're moving forward with who we got and we're gonna do some cool things this year. I believe it with all my heart. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the church. Thank you that we are invited to participate in it. Thank you for the way that it wraps its arms around us. Thank you for the way that it is your presence in our life. Thank you for how it trains our children. Thank you for how it strengthens our marriage. Thank you for how it points us towards you. God, we pray that grace would be the church that you want it to be. We pray that we would be consumed by building your kingdom here. We pray that we would understand in our bones what it means more and more to be your bride and to be your body. God, if I've said clumsy things, I just pray that you would grant grace and forgiveness where it's needed. God, we offer you ourselves. We offer you this place. We thank you for creating it. And we just ask that you would give us the faith and courage to serve you and to be consumed by you as we move through this year. It's in your son's name we ask. Amen.

Good morning, I'm Doug Bergeson. Wait, wait, you've got to be kidding me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it just a few months ago when Kyle Tolbert, our youth pastor, came up here to speak? And before he uttered a word, before a single word, good or bad, was out of his mouth, you were applauding him. What do I get? I'll tell you what I get. I get bubkis, nada, nothing. Let me tell you something. It's not lost on us, those of us who are asked to speak in the middle of July, but never ever at Christmas time, and for sure not at Easter. It's not lost on us that we're not on God's A-team. We get it. We're not stupid. So given that, it might be nice if you tried to be a little bit more encouraging and supportive. So let's try this again. I would not have done that. You know, the Bible's very clear that we're to test and approve what we hear, to be discerning about what's being taught, not just to accept it willy-nilly. And here you all are already clapping for me, and you haven't the faintest idea what I'm going to say. Come on, people, you're better than that. Anyways, hopefully it's obvious that I'm just goofing around, as I'm not only thrilled to be here, but I feel immense privilege to be sharing this morning. And just for the record, far from expecting applause, my desperate and sincere prayer and hope is that God will make what I say clear and useful to you all. I'm really excited about this new sermon series that we're starting. In the past, when I've been asked to speak, I've always kind of hemmed and hawed, wanted to think about it. But when Nate called me this time and explained that the new series was going to be on the obscure heroes of the Bible, I was, for some strange reason, I was enthused, and I immediately jumped at the chance. A big part of it might be that it's just different than the norm, and different is sometimes really good. Mix it up a little bit, move off the beaten path. But more than simply serving as a nice change of pace, there's a much more consequential reason for studying these obscure heroes. They have a lot to teach us. Now, there are plenty of times when I wish the Bible was easier to understand and didn't avoid so many questions that I'd like answers to. Wish that it explained a whole bunch of things better. A little less ambiguity and mystery would sometimes be nice. But in response to that wish, I've heard it said that God, whose Spirit inspired every word written, must have included what He thought was important, what He thought we needed to know. So rather than worrying about the stuff that wasn't included, we'd be much better served paying attention to the things and those people and those events that God did include in his word to us. And that brings us back to our sermon series. God saw fit to tell us about these characters and their stories. And for that reason, we are not going to ignore or gloss over or relegate these heroes to a footnote any longer. Instead, we're going to exploit them for all their worth and see what they can teach us, what they can reveal to us, how they might strengthen and encourage us. The Apostle Paul said it this way, for everything that was written in the past, even obscure heroes that maybe we've never heard of, was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. As I said, I was surprisingly enthused when Nate called me. Not only was I pumped for the series, but one name immediately popped into my head and I knew that was my guy. That was who I was going to talk about, Gamaliel, the great Pharisee and teacher of the law, and what he wisely concluded when confronted by the incredible boldness and defiance of Peter and the other disciples in the earliest times of the Christian movement. Now, how many of you have heard of Gamaliel? You don't have to raise your hands. You know, just wink or smile as I look around the room. Nothing but a sea of blank, expressionless faces. That's perfect. But before we get to Gamaliel, I need to set the table a bit for you, provide the backdrop to help explain why what he does, what he acknowledges is so valuable to me, that his was the first name in all the Bible that popped into my head. In other words, I need to make sure that we're on the same page with respect to one significant foundational point in order for us to see why Gamaliel, who himself is not even a believer in Jesus Christ, is a hero for us today. The key foundational point is to identify the overarching story of the Bible. Some of you are probably going, oh, sheesh, we're not going to be out of here until Tuesday. Not to worry, not to worry. It's not that daunting a task. In a nutshell, the opening chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, reveal that God's loving intent was to provide all that we, His creations, need. Our job, our part of the bargain, is to trust that He is both able and willing to do that on our behalf, and for us to resist the temptation to want to decide for ourselves what's best. The rest of the Bible is just a long and involved telling of our incredible struggle to trust in God rather than ourselves, as well as the remarkable lengths God goes to to make it possible for us ultimately to place our full and abiding confidence in Him. Now, most of you are probably familiar with the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The garden was a fantastic place. Those two have a great life. It's a really sweet setup. There's only one rule, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, growing up in church, I didn't fully understand the significance of the boundary God established for humankind. My general sense was, you know, God likes rules. He's kind of a stickler about rules. And Adam and Eve got in pretty big trouble because they broke one of them. Well, as I've later come to understand, what actually happened was a much bigger deal than simply breaking a rule. What actually happened struck at the very heart of God's intent for creation. In allowing them to eat from any tree but the one, God was establishing the critical boundary for Adam and Eve and for every human since. God was saying, if you want to enjoy all of the good of my creation and live in my kingdom, you have to trust that I and I alone know what's best for you. And even more than that, you have to trust that I'm both able and willing to provide it to you. And so the questions that's faced Adam and Eve, as well as you and me, is do you believe that? Are you convinced that God knows what's best for you and that He is intent on providing it at all times and in all circumstances? When Eve first faced that question, the fate of all humanity hung in the balance. And what did she decide? Well, it turns out Eve wasn't completely convinced that God could be trusted. And she decided and felt the need to trust in someone else. Eve, that's who she decided to trust. She just trusted in herself instead. And now the serpent was cunning and planted the seed in Eve's mind that although God was certainly able to provide what was best for her, He wasn't willing but was holding something back. The serpent said, come on, Eve, you won't die. God's only worried that if you eat that fruit, you'll be like Him and be able to decide for yourself what's best, then you'll be your own God. And that has been humankind's struggle ever since. In the last book of the Bible, Revelation, it wasn't a question of God was willing to provide for his people, but if he was even able. Written at a time when Christ followers were just undergoing terrific persecution, with their very lives at stake, the facts on the ground were so difficult and so dire that only a nut job would conclude that somehow God was still in control and still in charge. And into that terrifically difficult and stressful situation, the Apostle John shared a vision of being transported up to the throne room of heaven where God sort of pulls back the curtain for a second just to show what's really going on behind the scenes. The message, no matter how things look from your perspective, I am God and there is no other. I have your back now and I have it for all eternity. Nothing can ever separate you from my loving care. Your faith and trust are well placed. God is asking each of us, do you believe, are you completely convinced that I'm both able and willing to provide the very best for you? That's the central question running throughout the entire Bible, and it's the central question of our human existence. But our struggle, our temptation, is to say in all different ways, well, God, to tell you the truth, in this particular area of my life, or in this particular relationship, or in this circumstance at this particular time, I'd like to have a say. I'd rather decide for myself what's best for me, what will make me most content, most comfortable, most safe, most fulfilled, most affirmed, most successful, most happy. After all, wouldn't I know better than anyone else what's in my best interest? That's exactly what Eve did. That's exactly what I do. And that is the root of all sin, a failure to trust in God's promise. We're just not entirely convinced, not enough to give up complete control. A famous passage from Proverbs that many of you probably know by heart is, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. But that's not easy. Our world and our culture constantly bombard us from every conceivable angle with arguments that God, even if he does exist, is neither able or willing to provide what's best for us. That life demands we take charge and we're better off when we do. Non-stop appeals to be our own little lords of our own little lives. Now we're going to do a little audience participation here for just a minute. I'd like you all to close your eyes. Alan, keep your eyes closed. Okay. Imagine that you're on the seventh floor of an office building. You are alone, and it's dark. An electrical short circuit has knocked out the lights and started an intense fire, which has engulfed the entire floor and will soon breach the room you're in. The smoke coming in under the door and through the vents is overwhelming, forcing you to drop to your knees. Your eyes are burning and you're beginning to cough uncontrollably. You can open your eyes now. Suddenly, off to your right, you hear a violent pounding on the outside of the far wall. Then the blade of an axe comes crashing through and soon the shape of a firefighter appears in the opening and he shouts, come on, follow me, I'll get you out. Wouldn't he be surprised if you yelled back, oh, thanks, buddy. I'm good. I got this. Of course, no one would do that. No one trapped and on the brink of perishing would respond that way. We would not only listen to the firefighter's commands, we would literally cling to him. We would follow his every word because we implicitly trust him. Not only does he know what he's doing, but he went to great lengths to find and rescue us. And it's plain as day that we desperately need his help. My illustration borders on the ludicrous because we'd never do that. Yet that's what we say to God all the time. I'm good. I got this. Now maybe some of us hear this illustration and say, that's not me. I'm good at trusting. My faith is rock solid. Maybe that's true, at least on the surface. But even for those of us who trust God fully in most areas of our lives, I bet that there are little nooks and crannies. I appreciated you using that earlier. Little pockets where we don't. A relationship, a decision, a priority, a behavior, perhaps, for which we're not convinced God's preferred course of action serves us best. So we plot the course by our own wisdom. We decide for ourselves what's best. And when we do that, we forfeit some portion of the abundant life that God so desperately wants for us. Sadly, doubting God's promises, not being fully convinced that he is both able and willing to provide the best for me in all of life's situations, happens far more than I even recognize. The decision to trust in my own judgment is typically very subtle. So subtle, in fact, that I don't even realize that I'm doing it much of the time. I'll share an example from my own life, but first I have to give you some context. Twenty-six years ago, we moved down here from New Jersey. I quit a really good job on Wall Street. We sold our dream house that we only lived in for two years. We left our beautiful little town and all our friends. We had a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a newborn. We moved for a lot of reasons, but chief among them was my concern that it was all too consuming and that only over time does the true cost of that kind of investment in one's career become apparent? And by that point, it's often too late. The damage has been done. I believe back then, as I still do today, that wherever your treasure is, wherever you invest most of your time, your energy, your ambition, that's where your heart will ultimately be found. And I knew that for me, I couldn't keep doing that job in that city for very long without it, for all practical purposes, becoming my treasure and stealing my heart. Okay, so we did everything they tell you not to do all at the same time. Moved to a different part of the country, changed careers, sold houses, bought houses, had another baby. Deb had just turned 33, and I was 35. The plan was that I would invest our modest nest egg in the financial markets to support our new downsized life, and we'd live happily ever after. Now, fast forward 15 years. I'm meeting Jeff Hancock, who is Grace's teaching pastor at Carolina Ale House. I think it was on a Wednesday afternoon because that's when they had their specials. It's true. Jeff and I had a relationship built largely on a strong and abiding shared love of beer and for the places that happen to serve beer. Is there any stronger foundation for a friendship? Nevertheless, that was ours. So we'd get together every so often. And that particular afternoon, as soon as I sat down, Jeff asked if there was something wrong. And I started weeping and began to share with him how I was in the midst of suffering what for me was a breathtaking financial loss in the futures market. How I couldn't sleep, how it had stolen all of my joy, how it affected all of my personal interactions, including my most cherished ones with my wife and kids. Excuse me. With the child in college and two in high school, how it jeopardized everything Deb and I had planned. That loss was wreaking havoc in my life. Now, I shared with Jeff that afternoon that, yes, I was obviously sad to have lost so much of our nest egg at such a critical time. Yes, I was sorry for my stubbornness, my stupidity. Yes, I was sorry for my arrogance not to respect the markets. All that was true. Yet the reason I was weeping, what most undid me, was what the loss revealed about where I placed my trust. How it betrayed the fact that much of my confidence, my security, and my hope was wrapped up in our little nest egg, and that the notion that I trusted God was clearly not true, if not a bald-faced lie. And that is what makes it so tricky, because a lot of the time our struggles to trust are in those gray areas, things which in and of themselves don't strike us being all that bad or sinful. Nevertheless, we are not doing what God is asking us to do, to trust him with everything and in every situation. We simply aren't convinced that his way is always the best way. In answer to his question, do you believe that I am both able and willing to provide all that you need, we are saying no, not always. In the example I just shared from my own life, my answer was clearly no, I'm not completely convinced. In addition to trusting you, I would like my nest egg back. When we worry about things, even very serious things, we are wrestling with the question, will I trust God with my crisis? Is He capable to handle it on my behalf? Once again, our worrying says no, as it reveals that we're simply not convinced that God can handle the situation, or at least not to our satisfaction. According to the Bible, worry is the opposite of trust. When we choose not to forgive someone, contrary to God's clear desire and instruction, what are we doing? In not so many words, we are saying, I don't believe that God knows what's best for me. What about how we spend our money? I like to think that I include God in those discussions. But what I really do is only involve him in the discussion about the small portion that I might realistically earmark for charity. Concerning the other much bigger chunk, the 80, 90, or 95%, I say, wait just a second, God. Stay in your lane, buddy. I gave you some. This over here is for me to decide what to do. Scripture encourages us to confess our sins to one another, even and perhaps especially the deepest, darkest, and most shameful ones. My immediate response is to say, no, thank you, over my dead body. No way can that possibly be in my best interest. We're encouraged as believers to always be prepared to share why our hope is in Jesus Christ. I don't do it. I don't want to offend this person or turn them off. I don't want to be thought a weirdo or a creep. I'm a confident person generally. I'll share my opinion on almost any topic with almost anyone. But for some strange reason, I don't trust that God will have my back if I share my faith. God says be thankful at all times and in all circumstances. But I don't want to always be thankful, and there just so happens to be things in my life that I'm not thankful for. Yet having a spirit of appreciation and thankfulness is one command of God's that I've come to acknowledge clearly leads to joy and abundant life. I think of the people I know who are most pleasant and encouraging to be around, the ones that are most nutritious for me. Almost without exception, there are people who live life in a spirit of thanksgiving. The old saying is true, it's not happy people who are thankful, it's thankful people who are happy. Ironically, even knowing this, there are still times when I choose to defy God's good intent for my life and instead choose the way of the woe-is-me, self-pitting grumpus. Now, I could go on and on, but if each of us took a deep dive into our motivations for doing some things and not others, for worrying about things over which we have little control, for habitually engaging in certain behaviors or responding in certain ways, for placing so much importance on what others think, we would understand more clearly that, at least in those instances, we're not fully convinced that God always has our best interests at heart or that His way is always best, that He is completely trustworthy in all of life's circumstances, that He is intent on giving us life to the full, the life that is truly life, if only we would trust. And that, at long last, brings us to our hero, Gamaliel. What he offers is a simple proof, evidence to bolster our conviction that the God we worship deserves our full confidence and trust. I've never been a fan of belief for belief's sake. Don't care how sincere it might be. In other words, if I'm going to believe that God always has my best interest at heart and is able and willing to provide it to me, I want it to be true. More than that, I need to be convinced that it's true if I'm ever going to fully trust in it. Otherwise, as we've seen this morning, I'm going to succumb to the temptation to lean on my own wisdom and judgment. This is where the battle lines are drawn and the war for my trust is waged. And this is where Gamaliel's cool logic and reasoning come through in the clutch. Now let's go to the story in the book of Acts and jump into the action. Our story takes place in Jerusalem, not long after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The Christian church is in its infancy and growing rapidly. The Jewish establishment is nervous and on edge. The disciples, Peter and John, have just healed a beggar who had been crippled from birth. Everyone was amazed, and when Peter saw their reaction, he said, men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if it's by our own power or godliness that we had made this man walk? You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in the name of Jesus, the man you see and know was made strong. It is in Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. While they were still speaking, the Jewish leaders, none too pleased with Peter and John's message, arrested them and threw them in jail for the night. The next day, they were brought before their rulers and elders and teachers of the law who questioned them about the healing. By what power or what name did you do this? And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, replied, Let me interrupt our story for just a second to point out what remarkable change can happen in the hearts and minds of ordinary men and women when convinced of God's truth and imbued with His Spirit. Just a short time ago, these same disciples were the gang that couldn't shoot straight, timid and wavering, untrusting, unreliable, and unconvinced. Now look, there's hope for all of us. Now back to our story. The Jewish leaders were astonished by the courage of Peter and John, especially when they realized they were ordinary unschooled guys and weren't sure what to do as they had to admit that the healing was a fantastic, outstanding miracle which they couldn't deny. And they couldn't really punish them because everybody was running around praising God because of that miracle. So they issued some threats and ordered Peter and John not to speak about this Jesus. However, even after the imprisonment and threats, the disciples continued to preach, teach, and heal until the high priest and his associates could not stand it any longer and arrested them again. But that night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail in order the disciples to go back to the temple and tell the people the full message of this new life. When all the rulers assembled the next morning and sent for Peter and John, they were surprised to learn that although the jail was locked and secure, nobody was inside. The Bible says they were puzzled by this. I love the understatement. I bet they were puzzled when they later learned that the men were back in the temple court preaching and teaching. They went and got them, but not by force for fear of what the people might do. The high priest again questioned them, and now reading from Acts 5, 28 through 39. This is the high priest. We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, he said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood. Peter and John and the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed them, men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago, Thudas appeared, claiming to be someone, and about 400 men rallied to him. He was killed, and all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too wasailed, and the apostles were let go. And now here, for you all this morning, is the $64,000 question of the day. If Gamaliel, the wisest and most esteemed teacher of the day, could be here with us this morning, is there any doubt that he would conclude if their purpose is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men. You will only find yourselves fighting against God. Well, it hasn't been stopped. There has been nothing like it in all of human history. No other power or movement or belief system has come close. Down through all the centuries, across every people group and culture on earth, and reaching the furthest corners of our planet, God has been on the move, faithful to all his promises. The prophet Isaiah wrote about God's faithfulness this way. and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. And that's why Gamaliel is a hero to me. His wisdom and insight remind me again that God is true to his word always and is going to do what he promised to do. If I'm going to trust God completely and not rely on my own wisdom, but surrender control in all areas of my life, not just some of them, I need that assurance. Our God is both able and willing to provide all that we need. My hope and prayer for all of us this morning is that the words of the Apostle Paul might be our words. I know whom I have believed, and I'm convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. Thank you. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for loving us. Thank you for all these people who carved out time on a hot Sunday morning to come to know you better and to worship you. Lord, thank you for pursuing us. Obviously, forgive us for all the times that we are trust wavers. We're simply not convinced that you're completely trustworthy in all of life's situations. Thank you for the hope that you give us through your son. And it's his name we pray. Amen.