Sermons tagged with Lessons

Good morning. Good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Happy New Year. If I had known that worship was going to be that good, I would have prepared a better sermon. So we just had the best part of the service already. And let me just say to you, if coming to church more regularly is one of your New Year's resolutions, I am rooting so hard for you. I am happy for that. And we are doing everything we can to make it worth your while and enriching and good to get up and get ready and come and hopefully be pushed a little bit closer to Jesus when you left than when you were when you came through the doors. And I would also say this, if that is a New Year's resolution for you, and so grace is the place that you're choosing to do that, if you get a couple weeks in and this just ain't cutting it, man, this is not doing it, can you just please go visit another church before you just quit church? Because there's a lot of great churches in the area, and some of them are probably hitting notes that we're not. And I would really love to see everybody involved in a church family. It's such an important part of life. So I would just throw that out there to you. This series that we are focused on now for this month is called Known For. And we're going to be talking about this idea of reputation and what we're known for. So in week one, to be known for, and then we're going to say, what do we want our faith, big C church, Christianity, and our culture today, what do we want it to be known for? And so if you're a praying person, you can be praying for me for that fourth week, because there's things I want to say that I shouldn't. There's things that I need to say that I'm going to be scared to, and I'm going to have to find a good balance there because there's a lot to say about how Christians posture themselves in our current culture, and I want to talk to Grace about how we can be on the right end of that, helping Christianity in our culture. But that begins with focusing first on ourselves and on our reputations. Now, everybody, I would think, is known for something. Everybody has a bit of a reputation, right? I think when we think of people who are known for things, that maybe we think of people who have lived bigger lives than most of us. Politicians or athletes or celebrities or authors or people who influence in some way, but I would argue that everybody's known for something. I mean, if you think about it this way, what would you say your dad's known for? When you think about your dad, what do you think of? What's your mom known for? When you think about your best friend, your husband or your wife, what are they known for in your circles? Right? Something comes to mind. When you think about your favorite co-worker, what are they known for in the office space? When you think about your least favorite co-worker, what are they known for in the office space? In this office space, it's youth ministry is what they're known for. That was the joke of me making fun of Kyle, our student pastor, just in case you guys didn't catch on to that. He's the worst. He's getting married in six days. Yay, Kyle! Everybody is known for something. You're known for something. You're known for something by your acquaintances, kind of concentric circles of concern. By your acquaintances, you're known in certain ways. By your close friends, you're known in certain ways. And by your family, you're known in certain ways. And so the question that I would put in front of you this morning, and it's a good question to consider at the beginning of a year, the time when we do New Year's resolutions, What are you known for? What is your reputation? And I think those concentric circles of concern are important to consider because it's really easy to be known for certain things, to put on a good face with your acquaintances, with the people that you interact with at work sometimes, with your neighbors that you see sometimes, with your friends that you hang out with when you want to. We can put on a good show for those kind of outer edge people, right? And then our friends who may text with us more, call us more, interact with us more, they kind of know us a little bit better. I was 17 years old, and I had this really incredible experience at camp. And I was really moved towards Jesus. I grew up in the church, but God kind of got a hold of me, just reinvigorated me, and I was really just, it was one of those spiritual highs, right? And my dad was, he was the chairman of the board growing up. He was a big church guy. All my memories are church memories, and I was so proud to tell him, Dad, I'm really going to choose Jesus. I'm really going to push after him. He totally changed me while I was there, and he looked at me, and he said, that's great, son. Be nice to your mom. I was like, dang you. He just crutted on my spiritual high, but he was right. Our families know us best. We can't fake it with our spouses. We can't fake it with our kids. They grow up in our homes. They see us at our best and our worst. What are we known for in our families? And so then I would ask you, what do you want to be known for? What would you hope to be known for? When people hear your name, what do you want them to think? Your kids growing up in your house, what kind of stories do you want them to tell about you? When your coworkers talk about you behind your back when you leave the room or when you're in the meeting, what do you want them to say? When your friends that you play tennis with or you do trivia night with or you do whatever neighborhood stuff with find out that you're really involved in your church, what do you want them to think? Do you want them to go, yeah, that checks out? Or do you want them to go, really? Him? Huh. What do you want your reputation to be? Now, some of you could be like my wife, Jen, who's not here this morning. John's got a little bit of a fever, so we're kind of tending to that. So I can say this and not embarrass her. She's got a pretty good reputation. If you know Jen, you know that everybody calls her Sweet Jen. She doesn't have a lot of work to do on how she's perceived by the general public, nor does she have work to do with how she's perceived by me. She's got a pretty good name in our house. And so maybe that's you. And as you think about your reputation and you think about what you want to be known for, God and his goodness and you and your humility have done a good job in actually making a good name for yourself. And so we just need to continue there. That's great. But maybe you're like me. Jeff, what are you laughing at, man? Yeah, maybe you're like me and Jeff. And you've got some rough edges. You have probably a good reputation. You're known for positive things. People think of you well, but there's also some parts about you, and you know them, and they know them, that, man, you'd love to shave off. I know for me, I think I'm known at all three levels of my life. I think I'm known for being loyal, being honest, hopefully for being a good and loving friend, being present. But I can also be known to be gruff and grumpy. And if I'm being honest, one of my least favorite things about myself right now is I can get into moods that begin to affect the tone and tenor of everything around me, whether it's at staff or an elder meeting or at my house or with my friends. And I don't like those moods, man. I don't like being that grumpy sometimes. I don't want to be known for that. And maybe you have some things in your life that you don't want to be known for either. So as you move into this year, I would ask you, what do you want to be known for? And there are others of you who may just feel like no matter what you do, you're known for your mistake. You're known for screwing up. You're an addict, and you'll never not be. You're a cheater, and you've just got to live with it. You've made a big, huge mistake. And you feel like that when everybody sees you, all they see is that mistake, and all they'll ever see is that mistake. And I just want to tell you that it's never too late to rebuild your reputation. I told you guys at Christmas Eve, and I've mentioned stories about him before, about my pawpaw. And I hesitated to share this because it's, first of all, I don't want to talk about him all the time, and second of all, this is his business, it's not ours, but he's in heaven now, and I don't think he'd mind too much. I think when you get to heaven, you get a lot of grace for people's humanity. But I told you guys, he's my favorite person that's ever lived, and that's true. I've told you I have glowing memories of him and how present he was and how much he loved me. But his name was Don. Don also grew up real poor in South Georgia, I guess in the 30s. Had a daddy that was abusive, had a dirt floor. And then he had kids in the 60s and 70s, and he raised them. And he raised them like a man without a good daddy, without Jesus, would. And he had a temper, and sometimes it got the best of him. So the kids who grew up in that home did not know him like I knew him. But at one point, he came to know Jesus. And I don't know that he did it intentionally, but he began to rebuild his reputation. So that now, I don't know that part of him. I don't know that side of him. I never experienced it. And his children all have fond memories of him, all love him, all continue to mourn him. It's never too late to choose a new reputation. So the answer to that question, what reputation do you want to have, if it feels impossible to you, it is not. By God's goodness and through your humility, you can begin to work towards it. And there are others of you who fall into this camp. I'm not going to linger here long, but it is worth saying. There are some of you in here who have a good reputation. You have a good name. And that's good. And people think highly of you. And that's good. But you got a secret. You got some stuff going on in the shadows. And if people found out about it, you wouldn't have that good reputation anymore. So you look good, but you're not. And you know it. Maybe this can be the year that you finally leave those shadows behind. You finally leave those in the past. And you finally walk as the person that everybody believes you are and that God created you to be. And maybe it's possible that God in his goodness and his love for you has kept those things in the dark for you to give you opportunity to move away from them and be who he wants you to be this year and moving forward. I pray that none of us have stuff going on in the shadows that could ruin what everybody sees in the light. But if we do, let's be done with that too. But as we consider this question, what do you want to be known for? Not what are you known for, what do you want to be known for? I think it's actually way more important to ask the question, what does God want you to be known for? What does God want you to be known for? If you're a believer, if you're a Christian, if you're a child of God, which means to be someone who is a Christian, you believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God and he came to earth. That he did what he said he did. He died on the cross and he rose again on the third day. And that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. He's going to come back one day and he's going to make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. If you believe those things about Jesus, then you are a Christian. You are a child of God. And what does God want your reputation to be? What does he want you to be known for? And that might sound like a little bit of a silly question, but I actually believe, based on the counsel of scripture, that this is an important question, that it matters to God deeply what your reputation is. I think it matters to your heavenly father very much how you're known with your friends and in your co-workers and your good friends and in your family. I think it matters to your heavenly father very much how you're known with your friends and in your coworkers and your good friends and in your family. I think it matters to him a lot how you're known. And I don't just think that intuitively because as I was thinking about it this week, of course God cares what his children's reputations are because don't you care what your kids' reputations are? Doesn't your heart fill with pride when the teacher says, you've got a great kid here, they're doing wonderful? Isn't it filled with shame when your teacher says, your kid is terrible, I wish they weren't in my class? We want our children to have good reputations, not just because they're a reflection on us, but because we want them to have a good name. So does God care about the reputations of his children. But again, it's not just intuitively that I believe this. It says so in Scripture. In Proverbs 22, verse 1, it says, God says if you have the choice between great wealth or a good name, choose a good name. I do not have that choice. I get to choose a good name or nothing. It's not an either or situation for me. But if you do have the opportunity to choose wealth or to choose name, choose name, choose reputation, choose standing, choose favor. That's how important it is that you have a good reputation to God. It's so important, in fact, that in the New Testament, when they start to name church officers, things for people to do within the church, they make reputation one of the requirements. In the book of Acts, there's this scene, I believe in chapter 6, where they had to choose deacons, people to do the ministry of the church, kind of think church staff, because the disciples were getting, they were trying to focus on prayer and teaching, and they were getting so caught up in the daily needs of the church, they could no longer meet them. And so God instructed them, go and choose seven men to be deacons and to meet the needs within the church. And there was two requirements to be a deacon. One was to be faithful and filled with the Spirit. The other one was to have a good reputation in the community. God didn't want anyone in leadership in his church that wasn't well-known and well-thought-of in the community in which they were serving. And then to further that, to choose elders, Paul writes to Titus, when you're choosing elders, when you're choosing the leaders of your church, among the things that I want to be true of them, that God wants to be true of them, they need to have a good reputation amongst outsiders. There's another place where God says in 1 Peter, God says through Peter, that Christians are to be a good example, to set a good example, to have a good reputation amongst the Gentiles, amongst non-believers, so that they can find no fault in you. Your reputation and what you're known for matters a lot to your God. So what does he want you to be known for? Well, this is an interesting question, because there's so many instructions about this all over scripture. There's so many different times in scripture where we are told what he wants us to do and who he wants us to be. I think of Philippians 4, 5 when it says, let your reasonableness be known to all people. So God, and I think this is interesting and worth pointing out, God wants his children to be thoughtful, reasonable people. I don't think that we often associate that with a Christian trait, but it is. We need to be thoughtful, reasonable people. And let me just kind of put a finer point on that. If you learned everything you needed to learn in your life by the age of 33, and you don't have any new opinions since then, and no new information has entered your brain since then, you're not being a thoughtful, reasonable person. Or you're a freaking smart 33-year-old. You really nailed it. God calls us to be thoughtful, reasonable people. In the Beatitudes that we're going to focus on next month in February in a series called Blessed, he calls us to be meek, to be peacemakers, to hunger and thirst for righteousness. In different areas of the Bible, he gives us different lists of characteristics that we are to pursue. In Galatians, he tells us that we will be known by our fruit, either the fruit of an evil life or the fruit of a life filled with the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I think you can make a very strong argument that God wants his children to be known for those fruit. And then in Ephesians, we get kind of a seminal passage of what is the picture of what a Christian should be? What is the picture of what God wants us to be? Read with me in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 6. Paul writes this, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. So Paul kind of lays it out there in Ephesians. Be humble, be gentle, bear with one another, be loving, be patient. And we see these kinds of verses over and over again through scripture. And the reality of it is, it's really hard to wrap your mind around all the things that God wants us to be known for. I grew up, I don't have any memories of my life without church. We were there every time the doors were open. My parents were highly involved. I went to a Christian elementary school and high school. I went to a Bible college. I went to seminary. I've been in ministry for 20 years. And I don't think I could get 50% of all the characteristics that are listed out in the whole of Scripture as to what God wants His children to be. It's a lot there. So when you ask, what does God want us to be known for, that's a tricky answer because it gets long. And it can be confusing and intimidating, which is why God boiled it down for us. And the more I thought about this, the more I thought there really is a simple answer here for all of us. What does God want us to be known for? God wants his children to be known for loving well. That's what he wants you to be known for. What does God want you to be known for? He wants you to be known for loving well. And I didn't put a person there, loving him well, loving your neighbor well neighbor well. Loving your spouse well. Loving your church well. Just loving well. To be an excellent lover. That's why we're told in scripture that God tells us that we should love him with all our heart, soul, mind. Amen. And that we should love our neighbor as ourself. And then he says, on this rests the whole law and the prophets. The entire Bible. All the commandments in the Bible are summed up in those two, love God well, love others well. And then Jesus makes it even easier. He tells the disciples this new commandment I give you towards the end of his life, love others as I have loved you. And then John, 30 years later, writing his letters to the general church, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, basically says, if you say you know Jesus and you do not love, then you are full of it. Now that's a loose paraphrase, but the spirit of it is there. He says you're a liar and the truth is not in you. What does God want his children to be known for? He wants us to be known for loving well. And if you think about it, it makes sense. How can I love someone well if I'm not humble? How can I love someone well if I don't bear up their burdens? Well, if I don't bear up their burdens, if I'm not patient with them, if I don't listen to them? How can we love people well if we are not reasonable and we will not listen to what they say or what they think? If we're not open to new understandings and new ideas. How can we love people well if we're not meek but we're just brash all the time? And so the reality of it is there's a lot of different characteristics that a lot of us need to work on, but what God wants us to be known for and what I want you to be known for in 2023 is to love well. And that looks different in different seasons of life, but I can tell you this. If you have a spouse, God wants you to love them well, to respect them deeply, to serve them, to live for them and not yourself. God wants you to choose them. God wants the people who see your marriage to go, man, they love each other so much. He serves her so well. She honors him so much in the way she talks about him. That's what God in your marriage, if you have children in your home, God wants for your children to look at your marriage and say, that's what I want when I grow up and I'm not going to settle for anything less. So what do you want to be known for? What does God want from you this year? He wants you to be a good husband and good wife. He wants you to be present for them. If you have kids, if they're at home, what does God want for you there? He wants you to love them well. He wants you to be present with them. He wants you to get off your phone and turn off the TV and get on the floor and play with them. He wants you to listen to them. He wants you to be interested in them or feign interest the best way you know how. When the Bible says in Isaiah that you will run and not grow weary and walk and not be faint and will soar on wings like eagles, I think he's talking to parents who have seven-year-olds and have to watch the seventh thing of the day. What does God want you to be known for? He wants you to be the person in the office that people come to and share with. He wants you to be the consistent one. He wants you to be the one that will listen to other people be human but will not run down your boss or their coworker just for the fun of it. He wants you to be the one that exists above that fray. He wants you to be the one who honors him in all that you do, who loves your co-workers well. He wants you to be the one in your friend group who loves well, who points people towards Jesus. He wants you to be the one in the neighborhood that's the most patient with the other kids, that's the most giving and hospitable with your time. He wants you to be known for how well you love. And I wondered why this was so important to God. And why is reputation so important that we're going to spend four weeks on it? And this occurred to me, and I'm going to throw this out here. You guys try it on. You see if you agree with this, because it's going to come up every week. I'm going to remind us of this. We're going to tie back into these two ideas. Into one, that God wants us to be known for loving well. And then this idea too, that there is nothing more persuasive than a name. I don't think there's anything in life more persuasive than somebody's name. And here's what I mean. Think about recommendations that you get from people. Some people you get bad recommendations from, some good. There's somebody who was in one of my small groups a couple years ago, and in that small group we were sharing about this experience we had with sushi in New York City. And if you want to hear about it, I'll tell you about it, because it was amazing. It was the best food I ever had in my life. It was a great meal. And we were kind of telling them about that. And he pipes up and he says, oh, yeah, I know where to get great sushi. I said, really, where? He goes, yeah, there's this place in Boone. It's the best sushi in the world. And I'm like, Boone? Five hours from the ocean, Boone? Like that Boone? Hill country of App State? Where they're still nailing chicken fried steaks? Like that boon? That place? And I said, did you mean like best in, like boon? Or like Western North Carolina? He's like, nope, the world. Better than like New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo? Like the place where they invented it? Better than those places? Yes, way better. You'll never have better sushi. And in that moment, I realized I will never listen to you again in my life. That dude could tell me, dude, I tried this great barbecue restaurant down the street. I will never, ever go there. I do not trust. Now, he can tell me about other things. This book is good. These things are nice. But if he tells me about food, you can shove it, buddy. I've got this other friend who I've been really close friends with him for 30 years now. And I trust his recommendations on TV shows and movies and podcasts and books so much that he doesn't even have to talk me into them anymore. He can just text me the name of a show and I will just go binge all 12 seasons of it right there. Like I know it's going to be good. He doesn't even have to do anything. If Tyler tells me I should do this, I will because I trust him. Over time, he's built a good reputation of taste and I know that it's not to let me down. There is nothing more convincing than a name. And where this becomes particularly important is when we are trying to reach a lost world. I've mentioned this to you before, but if you are a believer, the only reason God doesn't snatch you right into heaven the very second you come to faith is so that on your way to that eternity for which he created you, you can bring as many people with you along the way as possible. The only reason you still draw breath is so you can bring as many people to eternity in heaven with you as you go as is humanly possible. If there was anything else to do, if that wasn't true, he would just snatch you right to heaven just as soon as you accepted him. Why wouldn't this place with so much pain and hurt and whisk you right up away to heaven immediately so you can begin to experience paradise with him? Why wouldn't he do that unless he's leaving you here so that on your way to that place that he's preparing for you, you can bring as many people with you as possible. That's why you're here. And if you want to bring other people with you, what could be more persuasive than a good name? What could be more persuasive than someone who claims to love Jesus and then loves them like they actually do love Jesus? Because in our culture, in 2023, your neighbors and your coworkers and your friends who do not embrace Christ, maybe they've outright rejected him. Maybe they're one of those people who say that they've accepted Jesus, they believe in him, but they're good and they don't really prioritize their faith at all and it makes us wonder if there is genuine faith there. If you have people in your life like that. You know, in the past, we talked about evangelism, this act of sharing our faith and pushing people towards Christ and hopefully seeing them come to faith. In the past, we were told about how to tell people about Jesus. 2023, guess what? They've all heard of him. It's very likely they have a reason. Can I tell you it's pretty likely it's a good reason? That deserves a thoughtful response? Are those people that you know who do not embrace faith, are they more likely to be won over by a theological argument? By digging into the science so that you can try to disprove atheism? By sending them to a blog post or a website or a case for faith by Lee Strobel? Or are they most likely to be won over by a name that's loved them for years? By someone who says they love Jesus, who says they love others, and in your marriage, and in your relationship with your children, and in your relationship with them, they see it. I'm not saying you're faultless, but I'm saying what's more convincing to the outside world than someone who actually practices what they preach and walks what they talk and has a good name that can be trusted. So that when that name says, hey, my church is pretty special to me, I'd love for you to come too, That actually carries some weight, and they go, because they think there's something different about this family. And I don't know what it is, but if it's their faith, then I want to understand that. A good name gets your foot in the door when you say, yeah, I do actually have a faith. I do believe in Jesus, and let me tell you why. If you have a good name and a reputation that supports that statement, they're going to listen to you with a lot more attention than if you don't have a good reputation with them, if the video does not match the audio. So I believe that God cares deeply about your reputation and what you are known for because a good reputation is more persuasive than anything else on the planet. So I hope that 2023 will be a year that you choose to ask yourself regularly, what am I known for and what do I want to be known for? How am I loving? Am I loving well? Am I being lazy? Am I being sloppy? Am I being selfish? Or am I being someone who loves like Jesus loves? Understanding that as we love in that way, there is nothing more persuasive to those around us than a consistent love of Christ and love of them. And please understand that the only way, you're not white knuckling your way to good love. You're not doing that. You have to wake up every day, spend time in God's word, time in prayer. You gotta pursue him. You gotta seek him. You gotta have friendships in your life that feed you spiritually. You gotta talk about Jesus to your children and to your friends've got to focus your eyes on Christ, the found love, and that love will be noticed. And people will come to faith because God is using you in their life. I went this year at Grace. We're back open. This is hopefully the first normal year we've had in three years. We're ready to run. We're ready to do ministry. We're ready to go. I want to see a lot of new faces at Grace. I want to meet a lot of your neighbors. I want to meet a lot of your coworkers. And listen to me. I don't want to do that because of church growth. And the people who know me best know I don't give a flip about church growth for the sake of church growth. I don't care about that. Can I just tell you this? Here's what I realized last year. If we just stay this size with this size staff and you guys all just keep coming, my life is so easy. But I want to see new faces here. Because new faces mean you're out in your community and you're sharing about your faith. New faces mean that you're trusted. New faces mean that you have a good name and you're using it to bring people to eternity with you. I want to see a lot of baptisms this year. Because baptisms mean people have been awakened to or have come to faith. I want to see the way God moves in our church this year when we are people who focus on loving well. I want this to be a year where we reach our community well, and I think that's done through building a good reputation. So we're going to take the next three weeks. I'm actually excited about this series because often in a series we'll have kind of a list of topics, reputation, faith, grace, love, whatever it is. And I'll kind of hit those and then move on. But this time we're going to spend four weeks in what we're known for and really deep dive into it. And I'm excited at the opportunity to do that. And I hope that you'll come along with me. And I hope that people will come to love your Savior because of how well you have loved them. Let's pray. Father, we always say that we love you, but we acknowledge that we love you because you first loved us, because you first cared for us, because you created us, because you created us to share yourself with us, and that you have designed for us and purposed us for in eternity. God, I pray that we would bring as many people as we can with us on our way there. Father, for those who feel like their reputation is tarnished, I pray that you would give them a vision for a new one and a belief that if they simply love you and love others well, that that will change. God, for those with secrets or rough edges, would you move us away from those and towards you? Would we embrace your goodness in our life? Would we embrace the firm foundation of love that you have given us and walk in that love and trust you alone and not other things to bring us happiness and joy. But would we lean into you more this year and in doing so be a magnet for those around you and God for those that you're using with good names already. Would you just keep on giving them energy as they go. Father we pray at the beginning of this year for a lot of new faces in this church so that we can have the opportunity to love on them and see them come to know you and that because we love them well, they open their eyes to how much you already love them and they come to love you too. It's in your son's name we are able to pray all these things. Amen.

Oh, hey there, pals. Don't you just love this music? It's nostalgic, isn't it? Takes you back to a simpler time, when you were a kid and things were light and fun. I love times like that. I'll tell you what else makes me feel nostalgic. It's those old Bible stories. The ones that we learned in Sunday school or maybe just picked them up somewhere along the way. I love the heroes, David and Goliath, Noah and the Ark, Jonah and the whale. The list really does go on and on. And I wonder, pals, how long has 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. Oh, today, Moses and the Ten Commandments. That's enough of that. We are, we are. That was 10, 10 long weeks, friends. Once more time with feeling on that. If this is your first Sunday with us, this is the 10th part of our series, Kids Stories for Grownups. We've been showing that video or a portion of it every week, and I want to throw up in my mouth a little bit every time I see it. So I'm glad, I'm glad that that has run its its course and we've got more videos for you in the future. As we wrap up the series, we're going to wrap it up looking at the story of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. And though it is one of the shorter stories that we will tell in this series, I would argue that it is perhaps the most impactful one that we've covered in these 10 weeks as far as how what happens here in Exodus chapter 20 through 32, what happens there resonates and reverberates throughout all of Scripture. And that when we share this story, we have to ask about the story. What were the Ten Commandments for? Why did God give them? And so we're going to dive into that. But in answering that, I really want two things to happen. First, I want God to stir our affection for Jesus this morning. I'm going to tell you right up front that the whole point of the service and the message this morning is that you leave here with more affection for Jesus than what you entered in with. That's my prayer for everybody, that simple prayer. The other thing about talking about the Ten Commandments and the law is properly understanding the law and the commandments helps us understand our Bible better. So I say often, as often as I can, A, I can't be the only source of Bible that you're getting in your life. 30 minutes a week of whatever Nate chooses to share is not enough. It's not sufficient to learn God's word for ourselves. And you'll learn it with my terrible slant and biases, and you'll be as off kilter as I am. So don't do that. The other thing that I say as often as I can is the best habit that anyone in the world can develop is to wake up every time, wake up every day and spend time in God's Word and time in prayer. To do that and to understand our Bibles better, we have got to understand the law because it shows up over and over and over again in the New Testament. Half the tension in the New Testament is these new believers trying to figure out what to do with the old law. So we might be tempted to kind of throw it away and be like, well, you know, a sermon about the Ten Commandments doesn't apply to me too much because those laws really don't apply to me too much anymore. I don't have to worry about those. That's for Old Testament people. But as a New Testament Christian, we're going to see today how the law turns and puts our affection on Jesus. And we're going to, I hope, have a deeper understanding of God's word as we read it with a proper understanding of the law and the intent behind it. So the story of the Ten Commandments takes place in Exodus chapter 20. And many of you probably think that you know the story. Moses goes up on the mountain. You might even know that it's Mount Sinai. Two points for you. You can get your free coffee on the way out the door today. But in Exodus chapter 20, Moses goes up on the mountain. God gives him the Ten Commandments on two tablets. He carries him back down the mountain. He's like, here's the rules now. This is what we have to do. Except a careful reading will tell you that that's not really what happened. What happened is in Exodus chapter 20, the presence of God rests on Mount Sinai and all the people of Israel, all the descendants of Abraham, the Hebrew people who have been wandering the desert and following this God, backed away from the mountain and said, we're terrified. Moses, you go. You do it. You go see what he wants. We're scared. And so Moses goes to the mountain, and from the mountain, the voice of God tells him the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20, but he doesn't stop. He actually continues to give Moses laws for his people all the way through Exodus chapter 32. So for 12 chapters there, God is doling out laws. If you carefully study the Old Testament, you'll find that there's about 632 laws, and most of these show up in this discourse from Mount Sinai. And then when he gets to the end of it, at the end of chapter 32, he writes, God writes everything down. He said he gives them the meeting notes. He said, here's what we talked about. Here's the laws for the people. Carry these down to them. And so Moses goes back down the mountain with the stone tablets that do contain the Ten Commandments, but more than likely, because the Bible says things were written on the fronts and backs of them, more than likely is all of the discourse from those 12 chapters. And Moses carries those down the mountain. So if you don't learn anything for the rest of the sermon, maybe you've at least learned something about how the story of the Ten Commandments actually goes. Just to tie a bow on the story, Moses gets to the bottom of the mountain and sees that the people have made a golden calf out of earrings and jewelry, and he's ticked because they need this sign for their God, and he's so mad at them that he throws these freshly inscribed tablets on the ground and breaks them, which I don't know if he was supposed to do that or not, but Moses has a very clear anger issue throughout his life, and this is more evidence of that. God calls him back up on the mountain, and he says, okay, listen, I'm going to tell you all that stuff again, but this time you're writing it down. Okay, Moses has to write it down. God says, I'm not your secretary. All right, I did it before you once. Now you've got to copy it down. So Moses writes it down, brings those tablets back down the mountain, and those are the ones that existed in the Ark of the Covenant for the rest of the Old Testament. That's the story of the Ten Commandments. Now, whenever we cover the story of the Ten Commandments, the right question to ask is, what are they for? What are they for? Why did God give them? To what end? Especially now in New Testament, post-Christ era, or during Christ era, he's eternal, but after Christ was on earth and he's changed everything, and after the crucifixion and the resurrection, now how do we handle the law? Now what is it for? So this morning, we want to look at that story of the Ten Commandments, but then really ask, why did God give us those things? Because understanding this, again, will point us towards Christ and will help us understand our Bibles far better. The presumed purpose of the law, when it was given and when we encounter it, I believe, is to provide a path to spiritual sufficiency and in our sufficiency, earn God's approval. When the law is given, there's a very clear path forward. Okay, good. Now I've got a plan. Now I know how to move forward. These are the rules that God wants me to follow. These are the ways that I can relate to him. For his children, there's a very clear path forward. I can follow these 632 laws. I can learn to follow them really, really well. And as I learn to follow them well, I can be spiritually sufficient and I can earn my God's approval. God says, we say, God, how do I make you happy? He goes, here, here's all the rules. Follow these rules super well and you'll make me happy. And I will give you my approval. And we can, in a sense, behave our way into eternity. We can behave our way into harmony with our Creator if we will simply learn to follow these rules well. And this, to us, and to the Hebrew people at the time, had to feel like good news, great, clarity. Finally, we know what to do. Think about it this way. Think about if you could sit down and read the Bible on your own without any knowledge whatsoever of what's contained in those pages. You don't know who Jesus is. You don't know anything about the Bible. You don't know how the story ends. You're reading it from Genesis on, and you're just paying attention to the narrative, trying to figure out how it's going to go. And so in Genesis 1, you see this instruction, hey, don't eat the fruit of this tree. Why not? Don't worry about it. Just don't do that. And then they mess up and they sin. And sin curses the earth. And curses the earth so bad that as you read along, you realize that in Genesis chapter 6, God decides I need to hit the reset button. I regret the way that this is going. And so he sends the flood. And all that's left behind is Noah and his family. And all God does to Noah, his only instruction to him, he doesn't give him the rules. What does God say to Noah? Hey, man, I want you to build a boat. What's a boat? Well, it floats in water. Well, what for? Just trust me, man. Just build a boat. But he doesn't give Noah the rules. And so you're reading along, you're like, man, this God is mysterious. How does he, how is he speaking to Noah and not the other people? And then you get to Abraham. He's called out of Ur of the Chaldeans in the Sumerian dynasty. And God comes to him and he says, hey, man, I want you to give up the future that you thought you were going to have in your dad's estate and I'd like you to move. Okay? Where? Don't worry about it. I'll show you. Man, this guy's mysterious. And how do I know that he's talking to other people besides Abraham? Is he only talking to Abraham? Where is this God? What are his rules? And when does he need us to follow them? Where is the clarity? And yet, Abraham gets to where he he's supposed to go and he meets a king there named Melchizedek who knows the will of God just as well as Abraham does. And we see that God is speaking to people all through this time, but we don't know where and how. And then he doesn't really give any more clarity to his son Isaac or to Jacob or to Joseph. And then 400 years go by and this Moses guy shows up. And what does he tell Moses? I want you to free my people, okay? Where do you want me to take them? I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna be a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Just follow me. And you're reading along going, man, this God is tough to follow. And then out of nowhere, Exodus 20. Hey, hey, hey, here's the rules, guys. This is what I want you to do. And I think our knee jerk as people would be to go, good, finally, thank you. Now I've got a plan. Now you're not just this weird cloud that I follow around and try to hear or just trust that Moses is hearing your voice. I mean, how weird would that be? If I got up here and I said, listen guys, I'm the only one who can really hear God very well, so you just need to listen to what I have to say. But that was the situation. And so with the law, good clarity, I have a plan. I can move forward. And don't we love that as Americans? Don't we love a good plan? I know in my life that when things start to go bad, when I'm not happy about what I'm doing at church, or I don't feel like I'm doing my job over here, or I don't feel like this part of my life is going very well and it's caused some pain and I try to figure out the best thing to do, what do I do? I sit down and I come up with a plan and then I work the plan. And there's great comfort in a plan that you think is going to succeed. And then you can work the plan. And so here, God finally gives some clarity. You want to make me happy? Here, follow the rules. And I think our human brains go, great, finally, a plan. I can do this. But I've always wondered, why did it take God so long to give him this plan? Why did God wait so long into the history of his people, a couple thousand years, to give him the rules? I think it's because God wants a relationship with us. And if we go back and we follow those first rules, those first instructions that he gave the early saints, we see that that's all he was really looking for. Adam and Eve, just trust me, don't eat of that. Why? Don't worry about it, just trust me. Noah, build a boat. Why? Just build it. Trust me. Listen to me. Do what I ask you to do. You're safe with me. Abraham, I want you to move. Where? Don't worry about it. Just go. Trust me. Follow me. Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your only son. But why? How? Abraham, don't worry about it. Just go. Obey me. Moses, lead my people. Where? Just follow me. At every instance, the beckoning of God is to follow him. Trust me. Work into a relationship with me. Get to know me. Pursue my heart as I pursue yours. And I think the real reason, when we consider it, that God waited so long to give the rules is because he knew that we would make them into a code, that we would begin to codify our relationship with him. Instead of pursuing him, we would just codify it, make a code of laws out of it, and go, here, this is all I need to do. I don't need the relationship anymore. What God knew is that relationships become contracts when we reduce them to codes. Relationships become contractual arrangements when we reduce them to a code of laws. Imagine if we did this in our marriages. I did a wedding yesterday, and I got to the portion where I did the vows. And at the vows, you vow affection to one another. You make promises to one another to have and to hold, richer for poor, in shape and not. However, we promise we will always love one another. What if instead of exchanging vows, we exchange our contractual agreements that we had negotiated prior to our marriage? And then on our anniversary, we revisited our contracts to see if we wanted to update them at all as ways to maintain the approval and affection of one another. Can't you just hear the contract negotiations? I think I would open with, for weekends in the fall when football starts, from noon on Saturday until when I go to bed on Sunday night, I would like to be able to treat my children like a railroad tycoon from the early 1900s. I would like to sit in my parlor, unbothered by them. Occasionally, they come in, and I laugh at them, tousle their hair, tell them they're cute, and then send them back to the nanny and I watch my football. This would be where I would start. And my wife would inevitably say, okay, but on Fridays and for at least one hour a night, you will engage with imaginative play with your children. You will even do Barbies. Also, once a week, I need some mom time. I need to go to Target, and I need to have lunch with people, and I need to go waste money on Starbucks. I'm going to need to do this, and I would say, okay. Once a week, I would like fresh flowers on the table. What kinds of flowers? You've got to help me out here. Can you imagine if we just negotiated our relationships and went back and forth? You give me this and I'll give you that. It robs it of its heart. It robs it of the love and affection that we experience in those things. The joy of marriage, the depth of marriage is getting to know one another over the years, is knowing when I do this, she's going to feel loved. When I do this, she's going to feel aggravated. When she sees me do this, this is what stirs her affections for me. So that by the time we've been married 30, 40, 50 years, we know each other better than any other soul on the planet. And that connection there was not achieved by making rules and negotiating contracts with each in attempting to follow those rules, we would rob the relationship that we have with him of its heart. And we don't need to look very hard in Scripture to see that he was right and that this is true. There was 1,400 years between Moses receiving the law and the gospels beginning, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, where Jesus comes on the scene. And when we get to the gospels, we see Jesus address the Pharisees. The Pharisees are the rule keepers, man. It is their job to read the rules, to interpret the rules, and to tell everybody what the rules mean, and to tell everybody how you're going to follow them. Like, it says don't work on the Sabbath, okay? Well, some Pharisees interpreted that as don't go out and plow the field with your donkey on the Sabbath. That's not allowed. Others were so strict with it that they said, if your sandal has a nail in it, that's heavier than it needs to be because it's metal and you cannot wear those sandals on Sabbath because that's work. So they had to figure out what do the rules mean and how do we apply them and how do we tell people whether or not they're following them. They were the keepers of the rules, the watchers of the rule book, and they should have known as well as anybody how to follow them. And if you follow them well, the way that God intended, their hearts should be rendered to God. They should be some of the greatest, most trustworthy people on the planet, except you guys know, what does Jesus call the Pharisees? Whitewashed tombs. He calls them a brood of vipers. He says, You're a brood of vipers. You're a bunch of hypocrites who had taken the religious authority that they were given and leveraged it for personal gain and personal power and then set up a system around themselves to protect their personal gain and their personal power. And they were complete hypocrites and their heart was very far from the Lord. They have figured out how to heartlessly follow God's rules and maintain a facade of righteousness. And I just wonder if that sounds like any segments of the church that we have today, where men, and it's almost always men, are in charge and they've set up systems so that they stay in charge and they can personally profit from the spiritual authority that they have. And it's gross. And it happened then and it happens now. Whenever we set up a system around who follows the rules the best, what inevitably happens is people claim that they follow the rules best and that you should follow them, and then they cast judgment on you and they exact taxes from you. And it's disgusting. Which is why I hope that if Jesus saw me, he would at least say, well, you're a messy tomb. You're dirty. And I would be like, that's great, because you're going to wash me off. But that was the condition of the Pharisees. They were a brood of vipers and whitewashed tombs, because they had so perverted the law over the years as to make it this thing of if you can follow it well enough, you can behave your way into God's affection and approval. And we need to watch it because we do that too. I remember when I was in high school, there was certain rules you had to follow. Every church, every group of Christians has them. Some rules that if you follow these rules, now you're righteous, now God loves you, now you're a good Christian. When I was in high school, if you didn't drink or do drugs, if you didn't cuss, if you didn't do anything with your boyfriend or girlfriend that you're not supposed to do. And you're a good Christian. Congratulations. Are you a jerk to everyone in your life? Yes, but you follow those rules, so you're fine. Meanwhile, we take the person over here who has a genuinely good heart and is gentle with people, but doesn't check one of those boxes, and we tell them that they are apostate and they need to go to youth group and probably some camp where they pledge purity or something like that. Every community of faith has its rules that it wants to default to. And we have our rules too. And we have our things where I just need a plan. If I can do this and this and this, then I'll be a good Christian. And without realizing it, we begin to try to behave our way into God's affection and approval. The end of that road is the Pharisees. The end of that road of trying to behave our way into God's affection is frustration and hypocrisy and a heartless obedience to God. And what's more frustrating is, in this following of the rules, it is possible to do it completely heartlessly, to follow the rules and not even love the rule giver. I went to a Christian college. There was lots of rules at that Christian college. I thought they were all stupid. But I followed them. Well, a better example is Jen went to a Christian college. And they had a lot of rules. And she didn't agree with all of them. But she followed them. Not because we had this deep and abiding affection for Toccoa Falls College and just a sense of loyalty to it. Not because we loved the rules and thought they were great. But because that was what was asked of us. And so we did. We can do that with God too. We all know how to go through the motions and follow the rules so it looks like everything's together. Meanwhile, our hearts are empty. And then Jesus comes along and he makes this heartless obedience harder. Jesus makes the heartless obedience harder when he shows up because he starts to redefine the law, to correctly define the law, to fix people's understanding of it, to help them see it's really impossible to follow it without heart. You can't follow the essence of the law without following the heart of the law. And he comes along with what is the single most convicting two verses for any man who's ever lived. He says this in Matthew chapter 5, verses 27 and 28. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. What that means is, I can only speak for the dudes, every one of us is an adulterer based on what Jesus taught. Now, we should not back away from that and consider it figurative. He meant what he said, and it's true. But until Jesus said this, plenty of us are going through life going, if I just don't commit adultery, the physical act of it, with someone else's spouse, then I'm squared away. I'm righteous, I'm good. And Jesus says, no, no. If you even look at them with intent, you're guilty. And then we all go, well, then I'm guilty. He even says that you've heard it said that we shouldn't murder anybody. Thou shalt not kill. And all of us, I would hope, can check that box. Yeah, you know, 40, I'm going 41 years. I'm in my 42nd year so far, no murders. Really nailing that one. But if you've hated someone in your heart, then you're guilty of that as well. And you go, oh, well, then I guess I'm a murderer. And the more you examine the law, the more frustrated you should become. Those of you in your life who have tried to white knuckle your way to holiness, who have just tried through sheer determination, I'm going to be a good Christian. I'm going to follow the rules. I'm going to do what God asked me to do and behave our way into God's affection. What always happens? You fall on your face. And when you fall on your face, you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, and you go, I wasn't holding on tight enough that time. Now, this is the time when I'm going to white knuckle my way to God's affection. And Jesus, in this gentle way, whispers in your ear, no, you're not. No, you're not. And so when we examine the law and we hold it up to ourselves, what we realize is this is impossible. It brings us to this inflection point of frustration where sooner or later, sooner or later when you've fallen off the horse enough times, when you've tried to follow the rules well enough, when you've tried to behave your way into God's affection and approval, and when you've disappointed him again and you've let him down, and you've got to pick yourself up again, sooner or later you're going to say, I don't want to do this anymore. And it's at that point that a lot of people walk away from the faith because they believe that faith is following rules well, and it's not. But the law has to get us to this point where we surrender. We say, I can't do this anymore. There's no possible way I can follow the law. And when we're there, when we understand that we cannot behave our way into heaven, and I know, I know, listen, I know that I say that, and all the Christians in the room go, yeah, no, it's God's grace. I cannot behave my way into heaven and into God's affection. And yet, you live out your faith like that's what you can do. You know intellectually that you can't behave your way into God's approval for you. And yet, boy, you try, don't you? I'm just talking to myself here. So lest we sweep aside, no, I don't do that. Yes, you do. We all do. But it's at that point when we realize that we can't, that we're ready to hear the message from Romans 8, 1 through 4, where Paul writes about this exact thing. And I'm going to read it to you, and it's going to be a little bit murky, but there's a couple phrases we can key in on to really help us understand what he's talking about. He writes this. He washed off our tombs. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. Paul says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For those of us who trust in Jesus and his sufficiency, our tombs are clean. We are alive in Christ. He's taking care of us. Because God has done, by sending him to die on the cross, to live a perfect life and to die a perfect death and to have a perfect resurrection, God has done what the law, listen, weakened by the flesh. But he sent his son who condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. He sent Jesus to live a perfect life and to perfectly follow the law, the only person in history who's ever done it, to die a perfect death, to have a perfect resurrection, to ascend back into heaven, and then begin, according to Romans and Hebrews, to advocate to the Father on our behalf. And in that action, he covers over our weakness, and we are restored into the life of the Spirit and into harmony with our Creator and into affection from our Father God. That's what Paul is saying in Romans. He's telling us the purpose of the law is to show us our need for Jesus. And so in light of that, I told you at the beginning, we presume the purpose of the law is to provide a path to spiritual sufficiency. And in our sufficiency, so earn God's approval. But what we see through a careful examination of ourselves, standing up against the law, what we see in the teachings of Jesus is that was never the purpose of the law. The purpose of the law is to provide a path to spiritual surrender and in Christ's sufficiency, receive God's affection. You see the difference? When we act like it's to achieve our own spiritual sufficiency, we butt our heads up against the wall until we reach a place of surrender. And we say, Jesus, I can't follow the law. You followed it perfectly. I'm totally reliant on you. I'm done trying. I'm done trying to behave my way into heaven. I'm done trying to behave my way into God's affection and into my Father's approval. And I surrender to you. I confess, you died, you lived a perfect life, you died a perfect death, and then you resurrected for me. And you are my path to harmony with my creator. And I am insufficient entirely to do that at all. I am completely and totally reliant upon the sufficiency of Christ and his death on the cross. That is my only path to affection with my father. And then in Christ's sufficiency, we receive, not earn, God's affection, which is far better than approval. We don't want our dads to simply nod in a condescending approval to us. Yeah, you're good. Yeah, you're okay. Yeah, you're allowed. We don't want a distant, heartless approval from our God. We want that affection. We want Him to love us. We want Him to take joy in our joy. We want Him to mourn when we mourn. We want Him to hurt when we hurt. We want Him to love when we love. We want to know that our Father God is right there. We want his affection. And to get that, all we have to do is surrender. Quit trying so dang hard. And what it looks like is this. How about, how about instead of deciding all the things you're going to do to live the life that you think God wants you to live and to be the person that you think God wants you to be and all the plans and all the rules and all the white knuckling that we're going to do, how about we scrap that? And how about we make our only plan is to wake up every day and remind ourselves of the love that Jesus has for us. I heard one pastor call this preach the gospel to yourself. Remind ourselves that we fall at the feet of Jesus, that we rely on his sufficiency, that we trust in his perfect life and in his perfect death, and that God, the Bible says that this is love, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Before we earned it, before we deserved it, before we had any claim to it whatsoever, God sent Jesus to live a perfect life and die a perfect death so that we could experience eternity in heaven with him, so that we could walk in the affection and the love of our Father, so that we could be at harmony with our Creator. Remind yourself of that every morning. Remind yourself every morning, Jesus loves me. My Father loves me. Not for who I'm going to be, not for how I'm going to behave, but He loves me because He sent His Son for me. And if anyone were to ask me, why does God love you? I would point to the cross and I would say, because of what Jesus did, not because of anything that I've done. And remind yourself of that overflowing love every day. I love that verse in the book of John that says, from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. Remind yourself of that grace every day. And what you'll see happening is when we surrender to Christ and we remind ourselves of his love, that our affections for the people around us are stirred as well. We'll be more gracious with our husbands and our wives and our children and our friends and our co-workers and the bad drivers. When we daily remind ourselves to surrender to Christ's sufficiency, when we choose surrender over sufficiency, God stirs our affections for Jesus. When we simply remind ourselves, I am insufficient, I have nothing to offer, Jesus has everything to offer, and I rely on that. When we remind ourselves of that, God stirs our affection for Jesus. And in stirring our affection for Jesus, he stirs our affection for one another, which by the way, isn't that the whole point of the law anyways? Didn't Jesus say that loving God with all your heart, soul, and your mind, amen, and loving your neighbor as yourself sums up the whole law and the prophets? This is how it does it. Instead of trying to be a people who are worried about the rules and all the right behaviors for Christians, which, by the way, will stop us from looking at other Christians and saying on social media, well, it's pretty unchristian. I thought you said you were a Christian and now you're da-da-da-da-da. If we would move away from a rule-following Christianity and towards a daily surrender to that Christ, we will find waiting for us an affection for Jesus and an affection for others that will help us walk in harmony with the law anyways. So the whole point of the law and the whole point of this morning is to grab our faces and point them to Christ and help us remember that he alone is worthy of our affection, that he alone is worthy of our devotion. And if we would quit trying to follow the rules so darn well and fail and get up and try hard again, if we would just surrender instead of trying so hard, surrender to the sufficiency of Jesus, that he would fill our hearts with affection for him, that that affection would overflow to others, and then we would finally be people who keep the law and walk in devotion and affection to Jesus. So I said my prayer for you at the beginning was that you would leave here with your heart stirred more for affection to Jesus than when you came in. That you would leave here desiring Jesus more than you did when you entered in. And my further prayer is that that would be a sustained thing, that some of you, gosh, maybe a few of you, would finally quit trying so hard and just wake up tomorrow morning and say, Jesus, thank you for loving me, and see where that leads. In a minute, the band's going to come up, and we're going to sing a song called Jesus, We Love You. There's a chorus in there, our affection, our devotion poured out on the feet of Jesus. Let's stand and sing this song as one church with one voice and one agreement and one surrender to pour everything out at the feet of Jesus and let him stir our affections for him. Let's pray. Father God, we are grateful for you. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us the law so that we can see how much we need you. God, I pray that we would want more of you, that we would simply want more of Jesus, that we would want to know you better, and that in that pursuit we would feel a freedom from the things that trip us up, from the things that seek to hold us back, that so easily entangle. But that maybe, God, by focusing on you, by focusing on your son, we can run the race that's set before us as we were finally, finally intended to run. Focus our eyes on you, Jesus. And let us trust you to take care of everything else. In Jesus' name, 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. This week, Gideon. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. And if I hadn't gotten a chance to meet you yet, I would love to do that in the lobby after the service. Right now, while I'm preaching, probably wouldn't be an appropriate time, but after that would be great. As a pastor, I often find myself in conversations where questions like this are asked. Questions like, hey, people talk about being able to hear from God. I'm not sure that I can hear from God. How do I hear God's voice in my life? How do I know his direction? How do I know what God wants me to do? Sometimes that manifests itself in questions like, hey, I've got this job opportunity. We have this opportunity to move. We're trying to make a big decision about this or that or what to do with our children. How do I know what God wants me to do? Sometimes this conversation will take on the shape of, hey, I've been a Christian for a while, and I just feel like I'm in a rut, and I don't really know how to get it back. What do I need to do? How come I'm not grown further in my walk yet than I have already? Why is it that I feel behind? Or sometimes it's conversations with people who are new to the faith or relatively new to the faith. And they just kind of feel like they're not getting traction. It's not taken off for them. What is it that I need to do so that I can grow in my faith? And I think that to be a Christian for any amount of time is to, at some point, to have asked those questions or questions like them, or at the very least, to feel this sense of, gosh, I thought I would have grown past this by now. I thought I would, I see other people talking about this rich, deep faith, and they seem to hear from God, and they seem to have this courageous faith that other people would seek to emulate, but no one would seek to emulate me, and I don't know how to get from where I am to where they are, but I know that I'm not content here. If that's you, and if you've ever had a thought like that, then Gideon's your guy. Gideon may be the most relatable story in all the Bible. Gideon, I find to be a character that resonates with me and with us as I tend to go through it very, very much. Because in Gideon, what we see is we see typical Bible hero stuff. By the end of the story, he's threatening kings and he's conquering armies and he's sitting on, he wasn't on the throne, but on the magistrate seat, I guess, as the judge of Israel. And he judges Israel for 40 years and he's the unquestioned leader of the country right underneath God. And so that's typical Old Testament hero stuff and none of us can relate to that. You're not about to rule over the United States for 40 years, although it may go better if some of you did it. I don't know. But we're not about to do that, right? But the beginning of Gideon's story, he's timid and he's fearful and he's characterized by doubtful hesitancy. The beginning of Gideon's story, we can relate to very much. And so as we go through this story, there is this overarching question that becomes very important to us if we feel like we can relate to Gideon in any way, in his fear and in his timidity and in our uncertainty of how to live out our faith. The overarching question, I think, over the narrative of Gideon is simply, how does Gideon move from doubtful hesitancy to confident clarity. How does Gideon begin with this rickety, secondhand, doubtful, timid faith and move to a place where he is the judge of Israel for 40 years, moving and acting with confident clarity? Because the guy at the end of the story barely resembles the guy at the beginning of the story. So the question becomes, how does that happen to Gideon? To discover this, we should look at the story of Gideon. I love the story of Gideon. I know that I say I love all the stories that I tell you, and it's true. I do. But this one in particular is special to me because I had the chance to go to Israel in 2013. And I've always loved the story very much. And in the story, they go to a brook and some soldiers drink from a brook. And when I went to Israel, they take you to that brook and they say, this is the stream of Gideon and this is the field of Gideon. And in the crease of my Bible, I have grass from the field of Gideon that I'm not going to pull out because I'm afraid I'll break it, but I'll show it to you after the service. But I've got grass in here from Gideon's field next to the brook that shows up in the story. So when I get to tell the story of Gideon, I get excited because you could say that I get giddy about Gideon. That one just occurred to me. Where's Kyle Tolbert? Is he in this room? That was just for you, pal. That was it. I don't care if anybody else laughed, buddy. That's great. You guys don't know this, but after I preach or after Kyle preaches, we have about 30 minutes where we talk about each other's jokes and how they were like, we'll always make one joke just for the other person. Just so you guys know, it's a little inside baseball. Probably shouldn't do it. I don't know why I'm talking about it right now, but we do and it's great. So I'm excited to tell you the story of Gideon. When we pick up the story, we're in Judges chapter 6, and we find Gideon in a wine press milling out grain. And you might wonder, why is Gideon in a wine press using it for something that it was not intended for, hiding out from whomever? Well, that's because in the verses preceding it, we learn that the Israelites, God's people, were being oppressed by the Midianites. And that oppression didn't look like just coming in and taking all the way over. That oppression looked like just waiting for the farmers to till their land and produce their crop, and then just going in and taking whatever they wanted, taking all the wealth and all the fruit and all the vegetables and all the livestock back to their cities to use as they saw fit. So they had subjugated the Israelite people. And Gideon, he is experiencing this subjugation. And this is in the period of the judges. I explained this last week, so I won't belabor it this morning, but in the period of the judges, God himself was the king of Israel. He ruled over Israel, and they followed God, and they obeyed him, and they followed his laws, and they acknowledged him. And God would appoint a judge to serve as a judge, a magistrate, kind of a one-person supreme court, and rule over the different disputes that would come up in the land between families and between tribes and individuals. But occasionally, Israel would forget that God got them there, would forget that God was their God, and they would start to live by their own rules and do their own thing and not really care about who God was and what he thought. And they would say, God, your hand over us is kind of annoying. Would you please remove it so that we could just do whatever we would like to do? And God would say, okay, I will, but you're going to have to experience the consequences of your actions. And because he moved his hand of protection from the Israelites, because their actions and their attitudes and their devotion basically said, we're not really interested in your rules or your hand of blessing over us. So if you could get out of our way, that would be great. God said, okay, I'll get out of your way. And then sure enough, the Amorites and the Midianites and the Amalekites and the various ites from surrounding cities and towns would come in and they would oppress Israel until Israel would cry out and be like, God, we forgot about you. We're so sorry. These people are really bumming us out. Could you come in and save us? And God would appoint a judge and raise them up and they would overthrow the oppressors and they would live in peace again until they forgot about God. And so the cycle continues. Judges, before it gets really, really bad, that we meet Gideon. And we see him in the wine press in chapter 6. And an angel of the Lord appears to him, and it's pretty clear that Gideon's not yet sure that this is an angel of the Lord. It appears to him, and he says, and an angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, the Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. Which is a really interesting comment. Because as far as we know, Gideon was neither mighty nor did he possess any valor. He's just a dude, tread and grain in a wine press. But the angel says, The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. This guy and an oppressed people who's never fought a battle in his life and is by no means mighty and does not seem to display any courage in any way. And so it's like, what are you doing, angel? Like, are you making fun of Gideon? Are you being sarcastic here? Because if you are, that's a good one. But I think what's happening here is that the angel knew because God had told him. The angel knew who Gideon was going to become. The angel knew who Gideon was. The angel knew the path that Gideon was about to walk and what he would be as a result of walking it. So he called him what he knew he wasn't yet, but knew he would be, O mighty man of valor. And Gideon's response to me is one of the funnier responses in the Bible. Now the Bible's not really known for its jokes, so when I read it, you're not going to fall over laughing at this, but the honesty of it is interesting. Chapter 6, verse 13. So the angel comes to Gideon and he says, the Lord is with you, almighty man of valor. And Gideon says, are you sure? Because I'm down here. I'm treading this grain in this wine press. You sure about that? Because if God's with us, like our fathers say he is, then why are we oppressed by the Midianites? If God's with us, then what am I doing? And why has the God who's promised us that he's going to protect us, why has he forsaken us? Which I think it's interesting as an aside to see Gideon blaming God for decisions that he and his people made. Gideon, brother, God didn't forsake you. You forsook him. God didn't take his hand off of you. God didn't take his hand of protection off of you. God didn't take his blessing off of you because he just got tired of you. You didn't want it there. So he removed it. And now you're living in the consequences of your actions. And I think it's a good lesson for us. It's not the point, but I do want to make it. Sometimes in life, we walk through hard times because broken things happen in a broken world. People get sick. We lose people too soon. Tragedy strikes. It's not fair and it will never make sense on this side of eternity. And sometimes those things simply happen because this world is broken. But a lot of times things happen because we did them. A lot of times things happen because we kind of said, God, your hand on my life is uncomfortable. Your control and sovereignty over my life is uncomfortable. I don't like it. I'd like to be able to do whatever it is I want to do. So if you could kind of leave me alone for a little while, I'm just going to do my thing. And God says, okay. And then we get to the end of the consequences of those choices. And like Gideon, we're like, God, why have you forsaken me? And like Gideon, he didn't forsake us. We forsook him. So I thought it was worth it to pause. I have a note in my Bible from years ago when I first encountered this story in this Bible. It's interesting how Gideon shifts the blame there to God for something that Israel had done. But to his better point, if God's with us, why am I here? If God's actually good and he actually promised us this stuff, then what am I doing in this spot right here? Why am I down here? And I think that's a question that all of us can relate to at some point in our life. If God's so good and if he's so loving, then why am I down here? Whatever down here is. And so the angel responds to him. And the angel says, the Lord is with you. I promise he's with you. You can go in confidence. And so Gideon says this in verse 15. Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said to him, But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man. And he said to him, If I have now found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. There's a lot going on there in those verses. But the first thing we see I think is very interesting. The angel doubles down and says, no, no, no, you're the one that God is going to use to save Israel. And Gideon says, but why me? My father's tribe, clan, is the smallest in all of Manasseh, and I am the youngest of all the brothers. You couldn't have picked a less significant person to lead your charge than me. No one's going to follow me. No one's going to believe me. I am not a mighty man of valor. I've never done any of this stuff before. You've got the wrong guy. But the angel doubles down and says, no, no, no, you are the one. God has chosen you. And so now Gideon realizes he's hearing from God. He's being told to walk in a direction, but he does so timidly. And he says, okay, I need to make sure that you're an angel from the Lord. I need to make sure that I think I'm hearing, that I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing. Will you stay here? I'm going to go make us dinner. And I need to see a sign. I need something so I know that this is the direction I need to move in. And so he goes back to his house. He leaves the angel under the tree. He makes some dinner. There's some hotcakes or something involved. And he serves dinner to the angel. And the angel takes his staff and taps the dinner. And the dinner catches on fire. It was baked Alaska, and he didn't know about it. And so he's like, man, this is amazing. I can't believe this. That's a neat trick and a pretty clear sign from God. Okay, I believe you, and I trust you. I'm in. What would the Father have me do? And the angel says, do you know? Now, this, the following dialogue is a loose paraphrase of scripture. It's in Judges 6, you read it. The angel says, you know those gods that the Midianites erected in the middle of town to kind of snub their nose at everyone and say like, hey, we're the boss now. Like those idols mean that, that's from that Tom Hanks movie. I'm the captain now. That's what those idols mean. Like we're in charge here now. Don't mess with us. We got you. And Gideon's like, yeah, I know the ones. And he goes, listen, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take your dad's bull, the biggest one. And then I want you to take a young bull from your dad. And I want you to go and tear down the idol in the middle of town and then I want you to sacrifice the bull to our God. And Gideon's like, now what now? Because that, friends, is poking the bear. That is walking into the middle of town, these idols that the Midianites constructed in the middle of town to make everybody know we are the boss now. It is not you. Our God is superior to your God. We've got a handle on the situation. Go and tear it down. What do you think is going to happen when Gideon tears it down and the Midianites wake up and they see that it's been torn down? Do you think they're going to show up in the middle of Gideonon City and be like, all right, guys, now come on. Who did this stuff? Fix that idol for us. You guys are the best. That's hilarious. That's not going to happen. They're going to be mad. They're coming for blood. And Gideon's tribe knows that. So they wake up in the morning and word starts to spread. Oh my goodness, somebody tore down the idol. Who was stupid enough to do this? What in the world? We got to figure this out. And so they figured out it was Gideon. They go to Gideon's house. And they're there with their pitchforks, man. They're crying out to Gideon's father. Give us your son Gideon so that we can kill him so that we might mitigate the anger of the Midianites when they come crashing down the hill to come make us answer for this stuff. We've got to be able to show them that we did our part. Please don't hurt us. They're terrified of the Midianites. And Gideon's dad gives this impassioned speech about who they are and they're the chosen people of God and that they need to band together and that they can defeat the Midianites. It probably was a really cool speech. I'd love to see it in like an HBO or Netflix series, this big climatic moment where the tide turns, it shifts. And the people who came to kill Gideon by the end of the exchange are now ready to follow him into battle. Yeah, let's get them. No more. It's Braveheart crying freedom, right? So then word goes out throughout all of Israel. We have a leader now. His name is Gideon and he's going to face off against the Midianites. Send all your fighting men. And as that cry, as that call is going out to the nation of Israel to send Gideon your fighting men in Manasseh where there's going to be a face-off, Gideon gets nervous and he goes to God in prayer. And this is part of the story that you guys may know. It's the most famous part of the story. He goes to God in prayer and he says, God, if you really want me to do what I think you want me to do, if I'm meant to lead these men after a lifetime of never leading a single fighting man in my life, we see no evidence in the text that Gideon had even fought, besides the fact that he had brothers, so he probably got into a couple scraps. But we see no evidence that he was a soldier of any kind. And so he says, God, if you really want this guy who's not a soldier, who's the youngest of all the brothers in the smallest tribe and one of the smallest clan in the smallest tribe, if you want me to lead the people of Israel, I need to know that I know that I know. So please, can you do something for me? I'm going to put my fleece out when I sleep. I'm going to put this lambskin out in front of my tent when I sleep. And if I wake up in the morning and the ground around the fleece is bone dry, but the fleece has dew on it and is wet, I'll take that as a sign from you that I'm supposed to lead these men into battle in your name and that you will give us the victory. So Gideon goes to sleep, wakes up the next day, pokes his head out of his tent, feels the ground around the fleece and it's bone dry. He feels the fleece and it's soaking wet. He's got a sign. God showed him. Ride into battle, mighty man of valor. But that's not what Gideon does. Gideon does this. In Judges 6, verses 39, Then Gideon said to God, Let not your anger burn against know why you picked me either. I'm a total drag. But if you could just do that do trick again, but this time the old switcheroo, then I would certainly know that this is what you want me to do. And so it happens. The fleece is dry, the ground is wet, and Gideon knows that this is what he needs to do. And so he goes and he leads. And it's worth noting at this point in the story that Gideon, he's frightened out of his mind. He's scared senseless. He is timid. He is doubtful. He is hesitant. He does not want to step forward and do this. He needs assurance from God at every turn. And he is right and good to be terrified. He would have been terrified to pull down the idols and have to face off with his townsmen and know that he's going to have to go to battle. And now a call has gone out to make him the general of all the armies of Israel. And he's never led a single person before. He knows he's wildly inadequate for this task and he is scared. But he steps. And it's worth noting that terrified obedience still counts. Terrified obedience? God, I don't know what's going to happen here. I don't know what's on the other side of obedience. You're asking me to jump over this fence. I don't know what's on the other side of it, but I know that this is what you want me to do, and I'm scared senseless, God, that I could take this step of obedience, and it could cost me this friendship. It could cost me this relationship. It could cost me money. It could cost me experience. It could cause animosity between me and my wife or me and my husband. It could cause me to take the wrong step with my children that there's going to be ramifications for for decades to come. God, I'm terrified of taking this step. And yet terrified obedience still counts. I would say it's probably the most forming kind of obedience. Some obedience is easy. You get lunch with your friend and you say, I really, I've got this decision to make. I really don't know what the Lord wants me to do. I'm trying to just discern. I feel like God wants me to move in this direction, but I just want to be sure. It's this new job. I get a lucrative signing bonus, better hours, more flexibility, 40% more money, and I get stock options. I just don't, does God want me to take this step? Yes, yes, he. Take the step. Take the step. And then you take us out to dinner. Alright, take the step. That's easy obedience. Some obedience is hard. Some obedience terrifies us. Moving six and a half hours away, taking your one year old away from their new grandparents with a wife who's not sure about whether or not to go. That's scary. That's scary obedience. But scary obedience is some of the most formative obedience. And so it still counts. And we're all called to it at some point. So Gideon decides to obey. He's going to be the general of the Lord's armies. And 32,000 men show up from all over Israel. It's like an act. We don't know. I searched the text. We don't know how many men the Midianites had. And by this point, they had partnered up with the Amalekites because they see that there's a revolt going on in Israel and they're trying to thwart it. So 32,000 fighting men show up and God looks at that and he tells Gideon, listen, that's too many men. If you guys go into battle and you win and people hear about it, they're going to think that you did it, man. And they need to know that I did it and that you had nothing to do with this. That's too many guys. Go to them and tell them that if anybody's scared, then they can go home. So Gideon goes back to them and he says, if any of you are afraid, if you're trembling, if you've been forced to be here against your will, if you don't want to go, if you don't want to fight, then you go home. No harm done. No one's going to hold it against you. Go home. It'll be fine. 22,000 men leave, leaving 10,000 behind. Which, if I'm one of those 10,000 men, and let's be honest, I would not have been. I'd have been like, all right, we'll see you later on the first chance. But if I'm one of those 10,000 men, I'm going, I made the wrong choice. But we're stuck here now. Let's rush to death together, boys. And God looks at those 10,000 men and he goes, yeah, Gideon, I'm sorry, buddy. That's too many. We need less than that so that people know I'm the one who brings victory. So he says, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take your men down to this brook to get a drink of water. There's going to be two kinds. There's going to be lappers who put their face in the water and lap it up like a dog. They just hoover it right in like some animals. And then there's going to be scoopers who keep their eyes on the horizon and scoop the water and drink from their hands. All right? I want you to keep the scoopers and send the lappers home. The lappers are weird. We don't need them anyways. The scoopers have their eyes on the horizon. They're good soldiers. Let's keep them. So that's what Gideon does. And when he's done with this winnowing process, there's 300 men left, 300 scoopers. And he's like, okay, God, what's the plan? God says, here's what I want you to do. Arm all 300 men with a clay pot and a torch. And I want you at night to go to the camp and surround the Midianites and the Amalekites. And when you give the signal, everyone's to shatter their pots and scream a sword for the Lord and a sword for Gideon. And then you're going to win. There's at least 30,000 men in this camp. But this is the plan. And God in his goodness to Gideon says, if you need a sign, because I know you're that kind of guy, if you need a sign, you don't have to ask for me this time. Take Pura, your servant, and sneak down the hill and listen at the camp of the Midianites and I'll give you a sign. So that's what Gideon does. He says, he could have gone right then, but he takes the sign from God, and he goes down, and he sits next to a tent, and at that tent, he hears some Midianite soldiers talking to one another, and one of them says, I just had a vision, and the soldier says, what was your vision? And he says, there's a man named Gideon. He's an Israelite, and he's going to come down, and he's going to kill us all. And upon hearing this vision, Gideon does this in Judges chapter 7 verse 15, as soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, arise for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand. There's so much to learn from that response. We can make the whole sermon that response. What was Gideon's response to the good news from God? He worshiped. What should be our response when we get good news from God? We should worship. What should be our response when we struggle to know what to do? We should worship. What should be our response when we're sad and we're down and we're low? We should worship. What's our response when we're at peace? We should worship. He turns and he worships God. And then he goes to the men and he says, let's go. God's given the Midianites into our hands. So they go down and they surround the Midianites and the Amalekites and all 300 of them and at Gideon's signal, they light their torches and they bash the clay pots and there's this great clamor and they yell a sword for the Lord and a sword for Gideon in unison. And the Amalekites and the Midianites wake up, they come out of their tents and they look. And as far as they know, in total darkness, they're surrounded by 300 torches. And on the other side of those 300 torches are the 32,000 fighting Israelite men who have come to destroy them. And so they wake up and they just start fighting whoever they can see. They start to fight each other because they can't recognize who's in their army and who's not. All they know is that there's an invading force trying to kill them in the middle of the night and they start killing each other. And listen, I know that might sound crazy, but even though I have never been a part of hand-to-hand combat, which I know is surprising news, but I've never been a part of hand-to-hand combat, but I have watched a lot of Viking and medieval shows, okay? And I've seen this happen a bunch of times. So I can tell you from pretty good second-hand knowledge, based on the way that the director chose to depict it, that these are incredibly chaotic scenes. And often I watch them and I wonder, they don't have uniforms. They're not wearing flags. How do they know who belongs to who and who's fighting for who? So they rushed out of their tents and all they know is that guy has a sword and I don't know him and I'm going to defend my life. And if anybody tries to escape, we presume that Gideon's army just kind of steps over. It's like, no, no, I don't think so. And then they kill that person. They just kind of wait until they defeat both armies at once. The Midianite king escapes, gets out with a small contingent, and Gideon goes to chase him. The Midianite king goes, and he goes through intentionally territories that are favorable to him, that are going to let him pass through their land without hassling them. But when Gideon tries to go through their land, the kings of those lands are like, hey, buddy, you can't bring your army through here, all right? We don't want to have to support you and your whole crew, so you've got to find another way around. And Gideon, without missing a beat, without waiting on a sign from God, says, hey, listen, listen, listen, listen. We're going to go, listen to me, we're going to go and we're going to kill him. And if you don't let us stay here, when we get done killing him, we're going to come back and kill you. So what do you want to do? And the kings go, we're sorry, Mr. Gideon, you just please use all the land you need. And he goes and he kills the Midianite king and he overthrows the oppressors. And scripture tells us that he faithfully judges Israel for 40 years. And the question to me is how did he go from this fearful timidity in the wine press to this confident courage on the field of battle? Because those are two totally different dudes, man. Those are two totally different guys. The guy in the wine press that talks to the angel, oh yeah, if God is with us, then where is he? Because I don't see him and I'm down here hiding out from everyone because I'm scared. The guy who needs a sign from the angel, who needs two signs from God, who needs to feel good about attacking, like the guy who's needed God's pushing all along the way and can barely hear him and barely obey him. By the end of the story is threatening kings and moving decisively and with confident clarity at hearing the voice of God and acting on the instructions? What changed for Gideon? He experienced God. He experienced God. At the beginning of the story, we get some insight into who Gideon was. He says, if God is here, if he's up there, then why am I down here? And then, I don't know if you saw in the text, he calls him the God of our fathers. If the God of our fathers is real, he didn't call him my God, the God of my fathers. See, at this point in Gideon's life, I would surmise he had only heard about God. Other people had only told him about who his God was and what he did. God was an experience of other people, of the people who came before him. God was not someone that he had personally experienced. He was still their God, the God that he had heard about. And I think this is so important because for so many of us, for so many years, God is the God that other people talk about. God is the God that Nate gets up and preaches about. Jesus is the Savior that other people sing to, that other people experience, that other people cry out to. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit that guides other people, that speaks to other people, that convicts other people. But we haven't personally experienced those things, and we kind of wonder when it's going to be our turn. And I think so many of us can relate to Gideon because to Gideon, God was someone that other people talked about. And to so many of us, so often, God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are things and gods and people that other folks seem to experience and talk about. But we haven't experienced them. And so we talk about them like I talk about Viking battles, secondhand from what I see. And so I think what changed with Gideon is that he experienced God. He walked in terrified obedience. God shows up and says, hey, I want you to go tear down those idols, but I can't, I'm gonna get killed. Just trust me, do it. Okay, can I please get a sign? Yeah, I'm gonna burn your dinner. Okay, I'm gonna go do it. And he does it. And he does it in the middle of the night because he's fearful of the ramifications. But God's faithful to him. And instead of having him be killed by the mob, the mob now wants to follow him. And then all of Israel is coming to follow him and Gideon says, God, are you sure I'm the guy? Are you sure I can do this? And he gets a sign and then another sign and with timidity and fear he steps out and he says, okay. And then God widows down his army to 300 men. And he says, are you sure, God, I need to do this? Yeah, I'm sure. And those 300 men conquer 30,000. And then we see him walking with confidence. Do you see this transition that happens in Gideon? This man who hasn't experienced God and doesn't recognize the voice of God and isn't sure if he can trust this voice of God becomes a man who, without blinking, recognizes God's voice and walks in confidence that God will do what he said he was going to do. So what happened to Gideon, what moves him from this doubtful, timid hesitancy in his faith to courageous clarity in his faith is nothing that he did. It's not following the rules better. It's simply walking in obedience to God. And in taking those steps of faith and walking the path that God called him to walk, he experienced the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God and the reality that God is one who keeps his promises. And Gideon learned the lesson that as long as I step in the path that God has laid out for me, nothing can happen to me that God doesn't want to have happen to me. He will keep his word. He will be faithful to his promises. And the same invitation is extended to us. Quite simply, if we want to experience God and grow in our faith, we need to obey. We need to take a step of obedience. In a few weeks, I'm going to do a whole sermon on the fact that at Grace, we define discipleship and spiritual growth as taking the next step of obedience. So I won't belabor that point now except to say that we believe that everyone has a next step of obedience that's been placed in front of them. And I would contend that if we feel weak in our faith, if we feel timid in our faith, if we feel like our faith hasn't progressed to where it should, if we feel like God is someone that other people talk about, but that we haven't experienced that maybe, maybe, maybe it's because we haven't been taking those steps of obedience, the easy ones or the fearful ones, to watch God come through for us. So we train our spiritual ear to hear the voice of God, to see him in circumstances, and know that's the way that he wants us to walk. And so for all of us, in light of the story of Gideon, as we move from timidity to courage, as we sing, I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God. As we sing in a few minutes and we say over and over again that God makes us brave. Let's understand he makes us brave by our obeying him, even when we don't know what's on the other side of obedience and trusting that when we get there, God will take care of us. So God, even though I'm scared and even though I don't know how it's going to work out and even though this is a really difficult step for me to take, I'm going to take it and I'm going to trust that you're going to be there for me when I get there. And I'm telling you, the more you do that, the easier the step gets the next time. Not because you've got it figured out and you're great and you're awesome, but because you know that you can trust your God to come through when he says he's going to come through. And so we become brave as Gideon became brave. I don't know what your step is. I have no doubt in my mind that with this many folks in a room, some of you, your step is right here. You know good and well what God would have you do. It may be terrifying. Terrified obedience still counts. Maybe it's to have a conversation that you've been putting off and dreading and avoiding. Maybe it's to mend some fences and offer forgiveness in a place where you're not quite ready to do that yet. Maybe your simple step of obedience is to actually set the alarm 30 minutes early and get up and spend time in God's word and time in prayer like we talk about all the time. Maybe your next step of obedience is to actually turn around and invest in your spouse and invest in your marriage and double down on it instead of finding small ways to escape it whenever you can and see what goodness comes from God in that. Maybe it's to be present for your kids and not try to avoid them so much. Maybe it's to take a step and begin to trust God with your finances and give generously. Maybe it's to deprioritize some things that are getting too much of your time. I don't know what your next step is, but I know that you have one. And I know that if you take it, as happened to Gideon, you will experience God in the taking of that step. You will experience him come through for you. You will walk with bravery as you take step after step, and you will become the person who God has created you to be. So, grace, go from here, mighty men and women of valor. Go from here, wise men and women of grace and patience, kind men and women of goodness and mercy, and obey God and let him make you brave in that step. Let's pray. Father, thank you for being the one constant that we have, the one thing that we can count on, the one constant in our life that will absolutely never, ever let us down. Lord, I pray that you would make clear for those who can hear me what our next step of obedience is. God, what would you press on us that we need to do? What step would you press on us that we need to take, God, and give us the courage to take it? Let us embrace the fact that terrified obedience still counts. You'll take it, and it is sometimes the most formative obedience. God, as a church, make us brave. As a church, give us the faith to take the step of obedience that you lay out in front of us. Let us move as one as you seek to impact corners of the community of the city of Raleigh and Wake Forest and the surrounding towns. Make us brave as individuals so that we might be brave as a church and so walk in your might and in your truth and in your identity and serve you well as we go. It's in Jesus' 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. This week, Daniel in the lion's den. Nice. All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Grace. My name is Kyle. I am the student pastor here, and I'm so excited. I'm so thrilled once again to be able to be up here preaching in the book of Daniel. As I always do, I spend time, I read through or I listen to different sermons on the topic I'm going to talk about. I'll read, you know, parts of books, whatever. Whatever I can do to get a good solid wisdom and understanding of what's going on. And as I found one sermon, I took specific note of something that I thought was pretty cool. And the reason why I'm going to do it up there at the front is it's not directly about Daniel 6, but I think it does an awesome job of reminding us of what we talked about last week, while then connecting it to where we're going to go today with Daniel and the lion's den. John Piper started out his sermon in Daniel, referring to Daniel's name and talking about that in Hebrew, his name in Hebrew means essentially, God is my judge. That's pretty cool. It's pretty cool, not only because, hey, that's a great name. You know, if you're thinking, if you're having a baby, Daniel, God is my judge. Perfect. But it's pretty cool because when you look at the book of Daniel, as you sift through the stories we talked about last week, and when you get into this week and what we're talking about this week, what we see is, I mean, there's not a more aptly named character that I know of in the Bible, right? This is a guy, Piper puts it this way. He says that God is my judge, this name that has been given to Daniel, that this almost becomes like a creed or like a motto of how and where he lives his life. He says this comes out of the way that he ate. We think back to Daniel 1. Daniel comes over as a young, exiled man from Judah, and he says, hey, I'm not going to eat the food that you're giving me because I feel like that will be defiling myself and defiling my God, and I'm not going to do that. He stands in his faith. He says, hey, what matters is what God thinks about this, because God is my judge. And then he says, it comes out in the way that he interprets dreams. We go to Daniel 2, which we talked about as well. Not only Daniel 2, but Daniel's, both Daniel 4 and 5, which we're not going to talk about today, but in essence, Daniel goes to different kings and he interprets their dreams. And the way he interprets the dreams is, one, through the providence of God. We know it's his connection and his commitment to God that allows him the wisdom to interpret the dreams these kings are having. And the interpretations are all about, hey, basically, hey, you're the king for right now. The Lord has allowed you to have the power that you have, but the Lord is in sole control of that power. The Lord has every bit of power, and you're just a pawn in his system. And we see that played out in different ways. We see him bring people into power. We see him take power away. We see him give power back to kings. And we see him ultimately put people to death for disobeying and dishonoring him. He says, God is my judge, influences the way he writes the book. As we go through these first six chapters of Daniel, Daniel clearly chooses and picks to write about these six significant events because this is where he sees that God is most glorified. And so this is what he chooses to write about. And then as we transition into Daniel 6 and Daniel in the lion's den, we see that it comes out in the way that he prayed. And so we open up to page number 880, whoever wants to roll with us, but we open up to Daniel 6. And we open up to Daniel and the Lion's Den, which at its core is just one of your classic workplace disputes. You're in the office and your boss decides that he's going to elevate, he's going to promote someone to be now over you, and you don't think he should be there, or you don't think she should be there. You're not thrilled about the promotion that your boss made, and so, like you do, you go to your other people that you work with who also don't think that that person should have gotten that promotion, and you devise a scheme. And you devise a scheme that basically allows the boss to be tricked into throwing that person who got the promotion into a den of lions. We know it. It's the age-old story. But ultimately, I guess for those of us who maybe have not experienced this or maybe will find a couple different things that maybe these guys tried to do. Let's still go through it together. We jump in on Daniel 6, and basically, as these chapters have gone, we have seen how devoted and how committed to God Daniel has been throughout his life. God is my judge. That's Daniel. That is how he lives his life. And through that, the Lord has moved in Daniel, not only to provide him wisdom, but also because of his commitment, we see that his character is such that he is found completely and wholly trustworthy to every one of the kings that he serves under. And so as that continues to happen, what we know is that his character and his integrity come and is rooted in his commitment and his faith to God. But that doesn't really matter to the king. All that matters to the king is this man is trustworthy and I know I can continue to elevate him and he's going to continue to remain faithful to him. And we know that that comes from God, but ultimately, it just works out for Daniel. And so here we are in Daniel 6. Daniel is now on his third king. We talked about Nebuchadnezzar last week. In the middle of that, there is a pretty wild and awesome story about King Belshazzar. But King Belshazzar has died, Darius has taken over, and what Darius has recognized and realized, once more, like every other king, Daniel can be trusted, and I am going to trust him with much. There are 120 satraps, it says. There's basically, satraps are these people who are over different regions within the empire. And then above those satraps, there's three people that their goal and their role is to govern and to lead the people that are the different satraps. So they're the leaders of the leaders in essence. Well, Daniel was one of those three, and Darius has decided, Daniel is my guy. I'm going to continue to promote him. I'm going to continue to elevate him to prominence. He decides basically to say, hey, Daniel, I'm going to elevate you above those three, and you are now going to be basically my number two. You are going to govern all of my governors, and the only person that you bow down to, or the only person that you serve, and that you're not over and above, is myself. Well, like we just talked about, not everyone really liked that. There's a lot of satraps who are like, wait, what? What's this? This guy, this random exile from Judah who doesn't believe or look like, who doesn't like serve or bow down to any of our gods, now we have to bow down to him? That's not how I'm rolling. And so he does what we would, they do what we would all do in a similar scenario, and they start to devise a scheme. And I love the way that they devise their scheme because they go about looking into his personal life. And they're like, all right, well, time to become private investigators. We got to figure out the way that this man falls short. What can we hang him up on? What in his character can we find that's flawed that we can bring to the king to where the king will have to relieve him of these duties that we don't want him to have. And it's pretty cool what we see. We see, as they say in Daniel 6, I don't think this one's on the screen because I didn't put it up there. At this, the administrator and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his contact of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally, these men said, we will never find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of God. So here we have these two sides of the same argument. We've got the king who recognizes and realizes that Daniel's faith and Daniel's commitment to God allows him to be completely trustworthy and completely good, and I can put whatever I want on him, and I know he's not going to turn around and stab me in the back. We recognize that he has character on this side. And then what these people who hate Daniel now realize is, oh, he is kind of exactly what the king is looking for. He is kind of exactly why the king is elevating him is for this very reason, that we can't find any fault to him. All of us know that's because of his commitment to God, man. He has godly character because he has remained committed to God throughout these 50 years or however long he has been in this kingdom. And so then they say, well, great. I know what we can get him on. His faith and commitment to God. If that's the backbone behind everything, what we know to be true is that this guy does not miss his times to pray. This guy is so committed to God that every single day he goes up to his room, he takes up to this window and he prays every day. He prays, he praises God, all this stuff. That's how we're gonna, that's how we going to set it up. And just real quick, imagine someone tries to take you down. They look into every single part of your life, and the only thing they know they can hang you up on is that you're too committed to God. That's pretty sweet. That's, I mean, oh, to have that much faith and that much character in our life. But nonetheless, they go to the king. Because how can you get the king to do something? You remind the king of how great and how powerful he is. They go to the king and they say, King Darius, you are so great. And because you are so great, you have to, you need to make a decree. Make a decree that no one can worship or bow down to any God or pray to any God or any person except you for 30 days. You deserve that kind of praise because you're awesome. And King's like, yeah, I am awesome. You are 100% right. We need this to happen. And so he makes a decree and he writes it into law. Not only that you have to do it, but he also writes in the consequence that if you don't do it, if you bow down and you worship or praise any other God or any other person, that you are to be thrown into the lion's den and executed. They got him now. And so comes one of my favorite written verses in all of the Bible. So let's read this one together. So comes verse 10 when our buddy Daniel finds out what just happened. Now, when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home in his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Perfect. Let's go to the window where people can see us. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to any God in this 30 days, you'll be killed. You will be ripped apart by lions. And Daniel says, what should I do about this? I got to go pray to my God about this. And it's incredible. It's awesome. I love that it's, and why I say I love the way that it's written is because it seems instantaneous, right? It's like, oh shoot, this is bad. I got to go pray about this, which is great because it is exactly what he just read that he wasn't allowed to do. But all that Daniel knows is that regardless of circumstance, that what he must remain connected to is his God. And so he goes and two to three times a day, he prays to God and he gives thanks to his God. And then the kicker, just as he had always done. He doesn't start doing it. He doesn't do like Michael Scott does in the office where Pam finds out that he's dating her mom and he's like, oh, I'm going to date her even harder now. It's not like he's like, oh, I'm going to pray so much harder now. King, you're not even going to believe it. He doesn't change anything. He just remains connected daily to his God, spending time in prayer. Does he know that it is still defiant? Yeah. But it's not worth it to give it up for him because it's the most important thing in his life. And it has grounded him through every part of his life and it has brought him this far and he has faith that it's going to continue to bring him through. And so they got him. They go to the king. They say, king, please remind me, didn't you write this into law that people could only bow to you and praise you during this 30 days? And before they mentioned Daniel, who he loves, and he's about to elevate to prominence, even greater prominence, he says, yes, it's been written into law. I can't take it back. There's no way. It is law. That's what law stands for. And they said, well, do you remember that one exile from Judah? I think his name's Daniel. And like, by the way, how disrespectful is that? Like, hey, you know the guy who's maybe closest to you of anyone in this kingdom, the guy you're about to elevate to the number two, I'm going to refer to him as just this exile that like back like 50 some odd years ago was exiled to this place. It'd be like me like referring to Nate, our pastor, and being like, hey, you guys know Nate, right? The one that graduated from Toccoa Falls College? Like, you guys all know him as the pastor. We all know this guy, but it's like, I don't need to bring up some random fact from like 30 years ago. I don't know if it was 30 years ago. I just know he's older than I am. So he's older than I am, so it is what it is. But as disrespectful and as weird as it is, what we recognize and what we realize is their ultimate problem with Daniel is his race and his values. And I think even more than that, it frustrates them that clearly he's right about something. They're frustrated that he only worships this one God, but they're even more frustrated that for some reason his commitment to this God has allowed his character to be what it is. And Darius is upset about this. He's hurt, he's frustrated because he realizes, oh, I've been tricked. I've been had. And so we roll to verse 16. So the king gave the order and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lion's den. The king said to Daniel, may your God whom you serve continuously rescue you. He has to do it. He has to throw him in. I love that part at the end where it's clear that these people all know his commitment to God. And King Darius is kind of open to the fact that, hey, may this God that you serve so continuously, may he come through. I would love, I would love for you to be right about this. They cover it, so Daniel can't get out. King goes home. Can't sleep. He doesn't have any entertainment brought into him. He doesn't watch any TV, I guess, is what that means. He doesn't? Daniel answered, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt do it? This God that you serve and this God that I know you believe was protecting you, did he protect you? And Daniel's like, yeah, of course he did, man. So he's brought out. King says, get Daniel out of here. We threw him in. Lions weren't interested because the angels shut their mouths. In his fury, he throws all of the remaining satraps that tricked him into the same lion's den and they were killed, which is a pretty grisly detail in the story, but it is a detail nonetheless. And then we come to the culmination, starting in verse 25. It says, in his land, and he dec. He performs signs and wonders in the heaven and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. He witnesses the glory of the God and not only does it change his life, but he makes a decree so that every single person in his entire nation can know how big, how great, how eternal, and how awesome this God is. Praise be to God for that. The synopsis of Daniel that we talked about at the beginning of last week was this, that the Lord is in complete control of everything. Praise be to this God that has, that certainly that saved Daniel, but saved Daniel for the purpose of bringing this glory to the king and to all of the people so that they will know forever the glory of God, that they can witness and understand how great he is, how powerful he is, and how good he is. That is just awesome. That is a great story. That is a story that probably most of us know and most of us have read and gone through because this is a heroic story. But even though and while it's a heroic story, I think while we certainly place God where he needs to be is like look at this God who wants to make sure that not only his people, but all people recognize and see and understand his power and his glory. I do think that sometimes we misinterpret and we misrepresent who Daniel is in this story. Because so many incredible heroic things happen, we forget and we miss that Daniel doesn't really do any big, significant, heroic action in this. Like next week, we're going to be talking about, who are we talking about next week? Samson. Thanks, Nate. Thanks, Toccoa Falls alum, Nate. Next week, we're talking about Samson. When the Lord's strength is in Samson, that dude's taking out armies on his own. That's not the same thing that Daniel does here. He doesn't start an uprising. He doesn't storm into the king's quarters and demand that he reverses the law or says the Lord is going to strike you down if you, whatever. He just stays committed to spending time with God, trusting fully that his commitment and his relationship with God will put him in places where he can make God's glory seen. And that's what happens, right? In the beginning, we see that he's being elevated to prominence because of his character and because of his integrity, his trustworthiness. We know very clearly that that comes from his connection and his relationship with God. He has godly character. He can't be brought down by these people because of his character that comes from his commitment to God. And when his faith is put to the test, because he was already committed to his God, nothing was going to change. And when the Lord finally did put Daniel front and center, Daniel comfortably knew and recognized the Lord has me here because he is going to glorify himself through me. A lot of big and incredible things happened, but the only role that Daniel played was simply staying connected and growing in his relationship with his father. And if I'm right about that, if I'm right, if I'm correct in my assumption, or if you listen to this story, if you read for yourself and you agree with me that, yeah, this is kind of weird. I've always considered Daniel in the lines in that Daniel's kind of the hero of it, but he's not really doing heroic things. He's just living a life connected to God. He just daily connects to God through prayer and through praise. then what I'd argue with you is that a faith like Daniel's is waiting for us, is waiting for you and waiting for me, on the other side of consistent discipline in our personal relationship with God. Because the other thing I find noteworthy that I think we forget, because we kind of lump in biblical characters as these men and women whose lives are completely and consistently committed solely to God. Now, this is true of Daniel, but he's not like Paul where he's traveling to churches and reading scripture and making sure he understands scripture and understands Christ well enough to be able to send it out to the nations. This is a guy who's in politics. This is a guy who's in politics in a land where no one believes what he believes. And so his connection to God is his personal connection to God. Now, do people recognize and know it? Yeah. That's why the people know that they could make him fall because, hey, he's going to stay committed to God. The king, this God that you consistently are committed to, did he save you? They know that he's characterized by his faith, but he doesn't go into work as a minister and spend eight hours a day reading scripture and praying. This is about people who go into work and live for God because they're committed to him in their spare and quiet moments. Daniel three times day, spends time in prayer. I imagine he wakes up, he starts his day off with prayer. He goes during lunch and spends time in prayer. Before he goes to bed, he prays. I don't know. But the point is not that his entire life, every second of every day is dedicated to prayer, dedicated to reading scripture. The point is that his consistent daily time, just spending some time with God, allowing the Lord to work in his heart, just in the spare time that he has, creating some time during the day to spend time with prayer, that that saturates everything else in his life. I think it's the same with us. I think all of us would agree that the things that we care about and the things that we pretty consistently do, it kind of shapes the things that we do. Like, this is a silly example, but bear with me. I'm a big Frisbee guy. I like Frisbee. I like playing Ultimate Frisbee. I was watching ultimate frisbee all weekend. And so while I'm preparing for my sermons, I'm throwing the frisbee up and down the hallway over there. But sometimes I'm not allowed to do frisbee. Sometimes I have to stand in Aaron's office and talk ministry with Aaron back here. And as Aaron can attest to you, when I talk to her, I throw a lot of backhands. I throw a lot of flicks. I throw in the occasional hammer. I do it all the time. It's dumb. It's silly. But it's because, like, even though I'm not actively doing this thing, it's still on my mind, right? And it's still, like, literally body want to like do it and play it and throw it. When I drive around, when I see trees in a line, I'm like, there's a disc golf hole. It's not actually a disc golf hole, but that's what I see. You know, I mean, some of you in here maybe were skateboarders. And when some people see stairs, like, oh, that would be sick to ollie off of. I was always one of those, hey, skating is cool, and I'm bad at it. So I was like, that would be a sick thing for other people to skate. We recognize and we see things through the lenses of what we care about and what we consistently do. How many of us in here are or have been married or have kids? You can raise your hand. Yeah, nice. Congratulations. Now, I might be wrong about this. I'm only engaged. But I'll be married one day, and I think that this will be true. Raise your hand again if your marriage, your relationship with your wife or your husband, your relationship to your kids, the love that you experience from these relationships, if they impact not only the times that you're spending with them, but they impact the way that you live every part of your life. Yeah, man. Because the thing that we care about and the things that we spend time doing, and when we get to experience this love that makes us better and changes our heart, that doesn't only change our heart, and that doesn't only impact the way that we live just when we're doing those things. But it's our consistent connection to those things that continue to allow us to live out that love that we experience with and from our wife, from our kids, from our husbands. And the same is so, so, so true in our faith. As we daily spend time in the Word, daily spend time reading Scripture, just when we wake up, we read some Scripture, We spend time praying. Or maybe before we go into a meeting, we stay a quick prayer. When we consistently come and we meet together on Sunday mornings, when you meet with your small group and you grow and you build each other up, when those things happen, it saturates every other part of our life. Like Daniel, our character grows. Our integrity is deeper and deeper rooted in the things of God, and people see and people notice. I think a lot of times we view faith and we want God to do these huge, incredible things in our life and we want Him to use us to glorify Him. And ultimately, I think what the Lord calls us to do is stay rooted and connected in Him. And when that's the case, nothing else can happen except for him being glorified in us. And that's why Jesus gives this call and why Jesus charges us in John 15. This one's going to be up on the screen. We're going to read verses 4 through 5 and verse 8 together. I am the vine and you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. This is to my Father's glory that you may bear fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. When we are in Christ, we are connected to Christ. He is the vine, we are the branches. And if we want to produce fruit, all it takes is being connected to the vine. And we let the vine be what the vine is. Someone who produces fruit and elevates the glory of God. And that's our goal. Our goal is to remain connected to Christ. Always. And ultimately, our goal is to be someone who's defined as Daniel is defined, not only by name, but by the way he lives, but someone who is defined by God is my judge. I will stay connected. I will remain in him. And he, through me, will produce fruit. And he, through me, will glorify himself and do incredible things. It's not just for the biblical heroes. It's for every single one of us. We all, as we give our hearts to Christ, as we all believe in his lordship and in his sacrifice to us and his resurrection for us, that connects us to the vine. And when we continue to remain connected, when we continue to grow closer and closer as we continue to grow in him, grow closer to God, recognize and understand and realize his love more and more, then so too do we produce fruit and we show that love and we serve people the way that we've been loved and the way that we've been served through Christ. To close, I found, I was reading this book. It's by Andrew Murray called Abiding in Christ. I had a hard time actually with this sermon for a while because I was so excited about so many things. Like I kept pulling at things and being like, oh, I love this, and I love this, and I love this. And ultimately, on Thursday, as I was preparing, I ended up just reading like five chapters of this book called Abiding in Christ. I think I say that mostly to say, like, you should read it. But this book called Abiding in Christ is a book that is solely written connecting us and trying to help us fully and rightly and completely understand those verses in John 15 of what it means to abide in Christ, what it means to remain in Christ, what it means that God is divine and that we are the branches, what it means that through God we are able to produce fruit. And in that book, he writes a prayer that I really liked. And so if you would, please bow with me and we're going to pray. And I'm going to read this prayer that he wrote because I think it's really beautiful. heartedly surrender to abide in you alone brings a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. May all of us who have begun to taste the sweetness of this life yield ourselves to be witnesses of the grace and power of our Lord to keep us united in him. And may we seek by word and walk to win others to follow him, to follow you wholly. It is only in such fruit bearing that our own abiding can be maintained. Lord, let us produce fruit solely by just being connected to you every day. We love you. Amen.

I wonder, pals, how long has 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. This week, it's getting hot in here, the story of the fiery furnace. All right, nice. Good morning everyone. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here. You can see me in films such as that video you just watched, most notably. But I am so excited this morning to be continuing in our series, Kid Stories for Grownups. In the next two weeks, we're going to be in Daniel, and we are going to tell two of the great kid stories of our faith. You know, I see a lot of people who grew up in church. These are stories you probably know back and forward, not only because you grew up listening to them, but you probably grew up telling them to your own kids as well. These are fun ones. As I was reading through here and as I'm prepping, I feel like I'm prepping myself to give a message that's basically just like a series download or like an episode download of VeggieTales. These are two of the great VeggieTales films, episodes of all time. But this morning, we find ourselves talking about the fiery furnace. But before we actually dive into the fiery furnace, well, before we actually dive into the story of the fiery furnace, I feel like it's important to have a little context, a little background of what is going on and how these men have found themselves being thrown into a fiery furnace. And so we open up in Daniel. We're going to be reading a decent amount in Daniel. So if you would be interested in opening that up, I actually am using this Bible, so I can tell you that you can find that on 873. And it's going to be on the screen as well, but like we're going to be reading a decent amount, and I would love for us to be able to open up our scripture together. But we find some background and some context that we need at the very beginning of Daniel chapter 1, verses 1 through 2. It says, That gives us some background because we see this nation, Judah, which is a part of Israel, and they are being taken away from Israel and brought to Babylon. They are becoming exiles to Babylon. Now, the reason for this, we find had a covenant with his people. The people of Israel, if you will serve me and love me and worship me as the one and only true God, and if you will live up to the Ten Commandments that I've given you, the laws that I've given you,. And they turned against him. They began worshiping themselves or worshiping other gods or other idols. They began to seek after self-satisfaction instead of the satisfaction of the Lord. The kings became power hungry and wanted them to be the most powerful as opposed to seeking the guidance of God, who they would have to argue is somebody more powerful than them, and they didn't want to deal with that. And so now we find ourselves at this moment where the Lord has allowed these people, Babylon, an enemy of Judah, to come and to take over this nation. Now, when we jump in here, we see that there's kind of, when we look at Daniel, there's kind of a decent summary that I can give you of Daniel, and it's this. One, God is in control. And two, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have complete faith and trust in that truth. We see it from the very beginning. God's people are being taken over, but they're only being taken over because the Lord is allowing it to happen. And so they begin to bring people. So what happens is, because King Nebuchadnezzar is a smart king, as they take these people over, what he doesn't want to happen is, hey, we have now taken you over. And so now you are like our servants, or now you guys living in exile are now enemies of us. He doesn't want to take over nations and have an entire nation of people hating him, and so he starts to try to work on his cultural appropriation. And so what does he do? He reaches out and he says, hey, will you bring to me from the nation of Judah, people in the royal family, people of nobility, of high birth, will you bring to me some of these men so that I can start bringing them in to my council? Maybe putting them in my armies or putting them as wise men in my council in different places and in different areas in different ways like that, which is a smart move, right? And you guys will never guess what four men were part of the group that they invited to come up. Yeah, right? Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I know it's crazy, but just bear with me. And so they get brought in, but the problem is that even though they were welcomed in as friends, they were welcomed in upon conditions because ultimately the goal is, let me build these people up. If they're going to be in my armies, they need to be well-fed and they need to be of right stature to be able to be in an army. And along with that, I'm going to teach them our ways. I'm going to teach them our culture so that they can dive into it and they can be a part of our culture. It sounds great, except for there are different cultural things that are against what Daniel and his friends think are true and accurate and right with the God. One of those is the food that they were being asked to eat and the wine that they were being asked to drink. They found that if they were to partake in those things, that it would defile both them and their God. And so they go to a guard, a servant who's bringing them the stuff and says, hey, here's the deal. We feel like we're defiling ourselves and we're kind of like making a mockery of God or whatever it is. By doing this, do you mind if you just gave us water and vegetables? That's all we want, and then we'll be good to go. And so it says, once again, the Lord is in control. We've talked about this. The Lord softened the heart of the man that they asked and allowed him to hear them out. And so he's like, yeah, but like, here's the problem with that. If you do that and then you don't build up and if you don't grow up to the stature that all of the rest of these men grow up to, then not only are you in trouble and probably going to get killed for doing the wrong thing, but so will I, because I gave you the wrong nutrients that didn't allow you to grow. But Daniel and his friends, they stand together and they say, if you give us 10 days, I promise you, our God is good and he's going to deliver. He's going to allow us to be in the same stature. And he was right. At the end of those 10 days, when they took stock of, hey, what do all of these men look like? Here are these four men that looked most ready and most nourished by what they had eaten. The Lord had provided for them. they were given the name Shadrach, Meshael, and Azariah. Background, those are the three names of the men that they were given. But when they moved to Babylon, they were given the names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So we'll go back to that. So they entered the king's service. In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus. They chose to serve God because they knew that, and they had faith that the Lord would pull through. And so here they are. Now they're brought in, and they are a part of the council of the king. Now they are within the king's inner circle, which should mean that they're set now. They're good to go. They are separated now from harm's way. But there's two problems with that thinking. The first is that King Nebuchadnezzar is like pretty unhinged. He's a pretty unhinged guy. He flies off the handle pretty quickly, gets pretty angry. And two, once again, they still find themselves within a culture that is polytheistic, that though they're totally fine with, hey, you guys are welcome to pray and serve and love your God, as long as you pray and serve and love these other gods. It's too narrow-minded of you to think that the God that you serve is the one true and only God. Well, that presents some issues. So we then go into chapter two. And in chapter two, what we see is Nebuchadnezzar has this dream. This dream is very troubling for him. He's very, he's upset. He's figuring it out. And so he goes to his wise men, the wise men closest to him. And he says, here's the deal. I need you to tell me what my dream means. But, but here's the kicker. I need you also, because how do I know you're not just making up, how do I know you're not just making up your own interpretation as opposed to the correct interpretation? The only way I'm going to actually trust that you're telling me the right thing is if beforehand you also tell me what my dream was. So not only do I want to know what my dream meant, but you have to tell me what I dreamed. And if not, I'm going to get angry. Well, the men naturally say, King Nebuchadnezzar, that is literally impossible. There is no way for us to tell you what you want. Sure, if you want to tell me your dream, I've got wisdom for you. I've got wisdom for days, but we don't have this. Well, the king, as we previously discussed, becomes unhinged. He becomes so angry at the fact that these people are acting like they can't tell him. He's like, okay, fine. It's time to clean house, find some new people. So he says, okay, all of the wise men that are here, all of my wise men in my council, I'm making a decree. I'm going to kill you all. You're all meant to be put to death. Well, Daniel hears this. It upsets him. But he goes and he says, can I have some time with the king for tomorrow? Whatever. And after he does so, he goes back. He goes back to his home. He finds Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And he urges them, he says, guys, right here, right now, we have to come together and we need to pray and just beg God for God's grace and God's mercy that he will show and reveal to them this dream so that they might be saved. Faced with a problem and his solution is, let go, find my friends, sit together, pray and praise God, and hopefully the Lord will reveal. And the Lord does. The Lord reveals the dream. They respond by praising God for his goodness, and then he goes and he talks to King Nebuchadnezzar, and he makes it very clear to the king. He says, no man, no man could ever do this, but the Lord, our God, has revealed the dream. Back story of the dream, basically the point of the dream is God has put Nebuchadnezzar in charge for now. God's in control, but right now he's allowed Nebuchadnezzar to be in control of this place. At some point that will end, and at some point the Lord will take back over. But the Lord will take over Nebuchadnezzar's reign and for the Lord's people. But nonetheless, Nebuchadnezzar is through the moon. He instantly falls to the ground. He falls at the feet of Daniel and basically just starts praising Daniel's God. Your God must be the God of gods. It must be the king of kings. And he just begins to worship and finally begins to understand how great Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's God is. And that is where we come to chapter three. And that is where we finally get to turn to and talk about the story of the fiery furnace. This isn't the first time that these three men, the story that a lot of us know so well, this isn't the first time they are standing up for their lives or standing up for their faith, even if it means their life. This is now going to be the third time that they get to do so. So it's been a few years, and certainly the king now understands that their god is one of the gods, but he doesn't quite understand yet that he's not, he doesn't quite understand that he's the one true god, and the only god. And so a few years pass, and as these men have been elevated, Daniel is now separated from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And so this story just includes the three. And what happens in this story is the king goes, and he basically has this giant golden statue idol made, and he puts it down. It's, let me make sure that I've got the name of the area correct. Oh yes, the plain of Dura in Babylon. The reason why I wanted to make sure of that is that's the same place that years before they had tried to build the Tower of Babel, trying to put themselves on a level playing field with God. And so here they are back in the same exact area, creating this giant idol to serve and to bow down to. And the decree is, hey, when all of the music, you can worship whatever God you want to, but when all of this music starts playing, you must fall down and you must praise and you must worship this idol that I have placed in the center of this town. Well, I think you can probably imagine what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did with that, and that was absolutely nothing. The kicker was, a part of that decree was not simply, hey, you have to do this, but if you don't do it, we're going to throw you into the fiery furnace. He said the title. They didn't care though. They went about their business. They served and they loved and they praised their one God. Well, some of the other people in the council of Nebuchadnezzar were not too thrilled about that. So they go to Nebuchadnezzar. they say, hey, the three Jewish men that you have in your wise council, not only are they not falling down and praising this golden idol that you've given us, so whatever, they don't pray to any of your gods. None of your gods they pray or praise to. And Nebuchadnezzar gives way to his being unhinged and gets furious. But as he calls them in, he reels it back in a little bit, and he offers them this. If you'll just pray to this idol the next time that the instruments play, if you'll now begin to praise and pray to these other gods, I'll let you walk. And almost in a way of cutting them off, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego respond this way in Daniel 3, 16 through 18. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. We have full faith and assurance that God is strong enough to deliver us from this. But we also have full faith and assurance that even if he doesn't, we're still going to only serve him because our God is not the God of right now. Our God is the God of eternity, and that's all that matters. So you can give us whatever deal you want to. We're not going to abide by it because our God is the only God. And so Nebuchadnezzar, as you can imagine, was very cool and understanding. He was furious. It says that he ordered the flames to be elevated to seven times as hot, like I guess the flames to elevate to his level of anger, which I think is funny because if you're burning people alive, then like, it seems like fire would be fire, but whatever, he decides to do that. So here we are. What's a few extra degrees, but you know, he wanted it, so they did it. And that's where we come to the rest of the story. That's where we get to close out. And I would love for us to be able to read the rest of the story together. And shouted, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, come here. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire, and the satraps, prefects, governors, and royal advisors crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair on their heads singed. Their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. Then Nebuchadnezzar said, Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses to be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to the province of Babylon. That's good stuff. That is an incredible story. So far, we're three chapters in. You feel like it holds up to the bill that I delivered of a summation of Daniel is the Lord is in control. And that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have complete and utter faith in the fact that the Lord is in control. Every step, every moment, every discussion, all orchestrated by God to reveal his glory, not only to his own people, but to these other people, to show himself to these people who don't know him. And that's worthy of praise, man. It's worthy of praise, and it's worthy of excitement to say this God who's completely in control throughout these stories is the same God who is completely in control right now over every one of our stories. It's why we come and we stand and we sing and we raise our hands talking about the goodness of God, that all of my life you've been faithful, all of my life you have been so, so good to me, and I know that you will continue to be so, and I know that forever I have you because I've given my heart to you. That is worthy of an amen. That is worthy of praise. That is worthy of excitement. But that second part of the summary sometimes becomes hard for me. I look and I go, you know, I have an easier time putting my feet in the shoes of some of our other people in this series. I see myself more, and I can take more, I feel like, from the stories of Thomas and Peter when they doubted, but then in their doubt, the Lord pursues after them and shows them great love and grace in their doubt and still continues to use them in spite of it. I feel much more connected to the story of Jonah that Aaron Winston talked to us two weeks ago about, or last week about. Someone who loves God, certainly, and has a complete faith in God, but sometimes his selfishness got in the way, and sometimes his fear got in the way of what he knew the Lord wanted him to do. But in spite of those things, the Lord still works through him, works through his heart and he allows his glory to be revealed through a man who has a faith that isn't perfect, I feel more comfortable there. I see myself in the fear and in the doubt, in the selfishness. And I feel uplifted that in those things, the Lord still uses me. But man, to continue to look in the face of danger and evil and death and to unwaveringly say yes to Christ and to stand in faith and to stand in the glory of God and no other, it feels too big and too much. It feels like this story is one where I go, that was so nice. I love that so much. How good is God? Amen. Now let me go back to my broken faith. Good for them for being heroes. That's not me. And so as I'm thinking through this, then the question, the impossible question that I'm asking myself and presenting to myself is, okay, so then how do you attain an unattainable faith? This feels completely unattainable for me and for most humans. And as I continued reading and as I continued to dive in and dig in, what I realized is, ultimately, the product of these men's great faith was huge and feels unattainable. But when we leave here and we come back to here, when we come and look at the root of these men's faith, and we look at the characteristics of what drives these men to have such great faith, I think we begin to see roots that are far more attainable than what we see on the surface. The first one that I see is that these are men that compare their circumstances not to their own power, but to God's. If that sounds familiar to you, it means you've been keeping up. That was Nate's point when he talked about David and Goliath. This tiny, young, teenage kid looks at this nine-foot giant or however big and says, who does this guy think he is? He's disrespecting our God, and God will not stand for this. And so while an entire army looks and says, there's no way we can fight this man because there's no way I'm strong enough to do this, this kid doesn't look at the circumstance that he's in and say, I can't fight this. He looks and says, God can fight this. This is what these men do. They say, God is in control of all this. God wants his glory to be revealed. If it was left up to them and if it was left up to their power, there's nothing. But left up to God's, never any doubt. We can be people who are reminded that it's not about our power, it's about God's power. The second one I see is they have their ark. This is a little insider language, but Aaron Gibson, when he preached on Joshua fighting the battle of Jericho, he talked about that these people were asked to do something that seemed pretty insane. Instead of trying to take hammers and all this stuff to these walls that they're trying to take down so that they can fight Jericho, God says, I'm going to take care of the wall. I need you seven days to walk around this wall. They're going seven days, and it doesn't talk about on day three, wow, look at all the bricks who have fallen already. Wall is standing up tight. Doesn't feel like anything's moving. Why would they continue to go? Well, because when they look back, they see that they have the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant holds the Ten Commandments and it holds these different treasures of their faith that are reminders to them that God provided for us then, and God was good then, and so therefore now, even though I don't quite see him, and even though I don't quite understand why he's asked me to do what he's asked me to do, I know that he'll provide for me again, and I know that he is still good because he was good then. And ultimately, like they say, they say, but even if he doesn't, even if he doesn't save me, what they ultimately know is the Lord is good for eternity. And they can get on board with that. But the problem becomes, once again, we're still left at a place where if you're telling me these things, then I'm saying, yes, I agree with both of those. But I think a lot of us have this. We know. We know the Lord is in control. We know that he is stronger than we are, and we know he's been good in the past. So why is it, Kyle, why is it that I still can't stand? Why do I still choose myself over my faith? Why do I still not do this? Well, that is where I come to a third characteristic that I see that I think kind of drives the point home a little bit better, not only for these people, but for us. And that's that they grow and that they stand in their faith together. I think a lot of times we find ourselves feeling the same way that Paul does. When he writes in Romans 7.15, bear with me here because this is a lot of, there's a lot of do's in here, so just bear with me. I do not understand what I do. Amen, right? For what I do, or excuse me know full well what is good and what is right to do, but then when it comes to actually doing it, we do something else? I mean, I know that is for me. The last time I was consistent in working out and lifting weights and stuff was ninth grade. I know full well how important that is and how valuable it is to be healthy, to eat healthy, to work out, all that stuff. But ninth grade was the last season I played a football. And when the weightlifting coaches are football coaches and the other people in the weightlifting class are football players, everyone is pushing each other because ultimately you are going to that same goal because we are best if you are at your best. And so I'm going to make sure you do what you need to do. You're going to make sure I do what I need to do. And the coaches are going to make sure that it all gets done. But then when I was away from that team, when I wasn't on football team anymore, then it kind of was up to me. Do I want to continue doing this? Do I want to continue this hard work and this hard grind? I know I should. It'll be best for me. It'll be best for all of the things. But when it's left up to me and I feel like it's up to my own devices, a lot of times it just doesn't happen. I mean, gosh, even in my relationship with Ashlyn, man, like, I see the way that she, like, the way that she values health. I see the way that she values loving and caring for people. I see the way that she values building up and encouraging people, random encouragements to friends, friends that are close, friends that are far away, valuing getting on the phone with friends that I have fallen far from connected to, even though I love them so much. All of these things I know to be true and good and right. I should love people. I should serve people. I should be more connected to the people around me and the people that I love that are not currently around me. But man, until I had somebody that I could see doing it with me, it was a lot harder to do it. And until I had somebody who encouraged me in those things and in those ways, I had a hard time figuring it out. And look at how these guys handle all of this. They come together, and together they stand and say, we're not eating these things. We're only going to eat these things. Daniel finds out about this, and instantly he goes to his friends, and he says, guys, we need to sit together in a circle right now, and together we have to pray to God. These three guys say, we're not going to serve this God, even if it means we're getting thrown into the furnace. And if we are going to be thrown into the furnace, we're going to be thrown in together. They stand on top of what they believe in, and they stand together, which gives them the power to do so. It is very hard, I would say nearly impossible so you don't need to find it, but will you just read it with me as you see it on the screen? Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promises faithful. What is he saying there? Let us hold without, like unswervingly. Let us never veer away from loving God and holding to our faith. How? How are we going to be able to do that unswervingly? That's why we have 24 through 25. And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day approaching. We spur one another on towards our love, towards the good deeds that we do in our faith. We don't give up meeting together, but we encourage one another. We uplift one another. In here on Sunday mornings, we stand and we praise together. In small groups, we're vulnerable. We talk, we discuss, we sit down in prayer with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We encourage, we love, we hold accountable. That is how we grow, and that is how we build up this type of faith. Because ultimately, our goal is this, to have a faith like Martin Luther discussed when he says, Because of it, you freely, willingly, and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love, and praise God. It's not just about looking death in the face. It's about looking every single person you see in the face and showing them love and serving them however you possibly can. That's our goal. And how we accomplish it is together. Let's pray. Lord, I'm so thankful that you have your hand on us and you are completely in control. Lord, I pray that I consistently remember that and that we consistently remember that. But God, I pray that as we try to build and maintain our faith, Lord, and as it gets hard, allow us to realize and remember that we have each other. God, I thank you for giving us such a beautiful and wonderful community as you've given us in grace. God, I pray that we are a people who love and meet together and serve each other, uplift and encourage one another so that we can do your will to the fullest effect. Lord, we love you so much. Amen.