Sermons tagged with Resurrection

Thank you, Mikey. I have prepared some dazzling things, so you guys should be duly excited. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I haven't gotten the chance to meet you, I'd love to do that in the lobby after the service. And as I always say, thank you for making grace a part of your Sunday. Mikey's right. We are launching into a new series called Final Thoughts that covers what theologians refer to as the Upper Room Discourse. It's found in John chapters 13 through 17, the back half of 13 and through 17. I'm going to tell you more about what that is and why it's so important. It should matter to every Christian. But for now, if you have a Bible, go ahead and open it to John chapter 13. We're going to be to the back, the last few verses in 13 and the first seven verses in 14 today. So open up your Bible and get there. We are going to be in this series. It's going to carry us to Easter. So my hope is that you'll bring your Bible with you on Sunday, that we give you some things that are worth noting down, that are worth highlighting, that are worth underlining and notating, and that you can kind of carry this series with you in your Bible. Now, this is what I'm thinking of as our spring series. And I know that it doesn't feel like spring because it's Super Bowl Sunday and we're in the dead of winter. But for me, every year as your pastor, this is my, believe it or not, my eighth spring with you guys, which I know time flies and we haven't even been having that much fun. It just goes quick. Every spring in the weeks preceding Easter, we sit down as a staff knowing that what we want to do is put a series in the plan that's going to be focused on the person and work of Jesus Christ. And the purpose of which within the series, the purpose of the series is to begin to prepare the hearts and the souls and the minds of the church to celebrate Easter. Easter is the greatest holiday on the Christian calendar. I know that Christmas gets a lot of attention, and it should, but Easter is when the victory is won. And so Easter is the most holy of holidays, in my opinion. And in the liturgical Christian calendar, it's all set up to get us ready for Easter. And so the purpose of each of our spring series is to prepare our hearts, minds, and souls to celebrate Easter together as a family of faith. And so we tend to do that by focusing on the person and work of Jesus Christ. In the past, we've looked at Hebrews that compares Jesus to other things and says he's the greatest. Last year, we did the table where we looked at Luke, this gospel of hospitality, and said that ministry happens around tables. And then we've looked at the life of Christ through the gospel of John. We've looked at the parables before. This year, we're going to look again at what's called the Upper Room Discourse. Again, it's found in John 13 through 17. And John is my favorite gospel. John is a unique gospel. The other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are referred to as synoptic gospels. They all follow the same kind of timeline and they cover roughly the same events. Whereas John wrote his last and covered the life of Jesus much differently than the others. And the detail that we find in these chapters is not found in the other three gospels. What we have have in the Upper Room Discourse is the longest, nearly unbroken recording of the words of Christ just to his disciples. So we have the Sermon on the Mount, and in Luke it's the Sermon by the Sea, where we see the teachings of Jesus. Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, it's a prolonged big box of words that Jesus uses to teach the masses. But here in John 13 through 17, what we have is this nearly unbroken discourse. It's not a dialogue, it's a discourse. It's almost a monologue. Very few times the disciples deign to interject. And in it, what we have is the final thoughts of Christ. Because when he's done with this discourse, when he's done with the unity prayer in John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer, he gets the armed guards of Caiaphas, the high priest, come. They arrest him. He's taken to Caiaphas' house. He's put through a kangaroo court. He's arrested, beaten, crucified. And then he raises on the third day, and then we have the book of Acts where we see what these disciples do. But before he goes, he has some final thoughts for these young men that he's training up to build his kingdom and to build his church. He has some final instructions for them, some things he wants to communicate again intimately for just his disciples. Most of the time when he's communicating with them, especially at length, he's doing it when there's other people around. He's doing it for a big audience. This is just for his disciples. I don't know if you realize what's about to happen. These are the young men to whom he is entrusting the keys of his kingdom. He came here. He lived a perfect life. He's about to die a perfect death. But he stayed for 33 years. He had a public ministry for three years. Why did he bother having a public ministry for three years? Why didn't he just come, live a perfect life, die a perfect death, and then bring us to heaven with him? Because he needed to leave behind the disciples to build his church. Which is what happens in Acts. And to do that, he trained them personally, intentionally for three years. And he's about to give them the keys to lead this kingdom. And he is their plan. There is no plan B. He is the plan and the way through whom he intends to reach the whole world. He is placing in the disciples trust and hope that one day, 2,000 years from now, there can be a group of people that gather in Raleigh, North Carolina, a city that did not exist and a continent that was virtually unknown back then. And he's going to trust them to spread the word of the gospel all throughout the corners in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So the thoughts that he has for the disciples here are profound. They're remarkably important. I have been fascinated for years with the upper room discourse and the things that Jesus thought was important to share in the final moments of his life. Now for a little context of what's happening here. The disciples are confused and dismayed. They've been following Jesus for three years. They entered Jerusalem the better part of a week ago. And they've been watching Jesus' ministry. And they've been watching with a certain expectation. Hopefully, you've heard me say before on stage, if you've been in my men's group, you've definitely heard me say this. But hopefully, you've heard me say before that there was only a few people. I think there's really only two people in Jesus' whole life who really knew who he was and what he really came to do. And I would argue, just for fun, that that was Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist. I think those are the only two people in the life of Christ that really understood who he was and what he came to do. Everybody else, including the disciples, misunderstood who Jesus was and what he came to do. They put expectations on him based on a poor interpretation of Old Testament prophecies that he simply did not ask for. You see, they thought Jesus came to be an earthly king and establish an earthly kingdom. They thought that when the Messiah showed up in this context in the first century A.D. or last century B.C., however you want to phrase it, that he would show up. In this case, Israel is a far-flung province of the Roman government, the Roman Empire. They thought that this Jesus person, this Messiah, when the Savior arrives, he will overthrow the king. He will sit on the throne of David. He will rise Israel to international prominence, throw off Roman rule, and be the king of kings and lord of lords. And we're going to have an Israeli empire that's going to dominate the whole earth. That's what the Messiah is going to come to do. And the disciples believe this so much that a week ago, before this conversation, a week ago, Jesus is coming into Jerusalem in what's called the triumphal entry. And James and John and the other disciples are behind Jesus arguing about who gets to be the vice president and the secretary of war and the secretary of agriculture in the new regime. They still didn't know what was going to happen. But over the course of the week in Jerusalem, they began to suspect that things were not what they expected them to be. Something seemed amiss, afoot, if you will. They could sense things moving towards a climax, but it wasn't the one they expected, but they still weren't sure what was going to be happening. And Jesus keeps dropping these hints. I'm going to tear the temple down and rebuild it in three days. He keeps dropping these hints that he's not going to do what they think he's going to do. And it's all kind of coming to a head. And in the midst of that tension and those expectations, at the Last Supper in the upper room, that's why it's called the upper room discourse, Jesus addresses his disciples in an intimate and sometimes clear way. Jesus was remarkably unclear. He liked to mess with us in that way. Because of that, because of the context of what is shared here, I would say to you that Christians should have deep interest in the upper room discourse. If you're here today, you call God your Father and Jesus your Savior, whether you're here for the first time or the thousandth, whether you ever intend to come back. One thing I can tell you for sure is if you call yourself a Christian, which I always say is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is, that he did what he said he did, and that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. If you believe those things, then the upper room discourse should be of great import to you. It should matter a great deal to you. So here's what I want to challenge you to do, Grace. During this series, first of all, I'd love you to commit to being present with us on Sunday morning if you can be. If you can't be present with us on Sunday morning, try to keep up with us online because I believe that every one of these weeks is important because they're all reflective of the words of Christ. Second, I hope that you'll read it. I hope that you'll spend time on your own steeping in John 13 through 17. And I hope that at some point, preferably early on in the series, that you'll read it straight through as it was presented and as it was intended. Take 15 or 20 minutes. For some of my friends, maybe 30 or 45. I don't know how you are. It's sounding out words. But take a few minutes and read through. You know what I'm talking about, Kentucky, right? Read through John 13 through 17. When you sit in the front, Rob, you're right there, buddy. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't help it. That's right. It's okay, buddy. Take some time between now and Easter. Read it all the way through. Let it wash over you. Then go back and read it bit by bit. I'm sure it's broken down in our reading plan that you can follow and read along if you want to. But take some time to do that because this Upper Room Discourse ought to be of great import to us. It's a hugely impactful text. And my prayer is that God will use this series to move you closer to him. and maybe change the way we go about some things in our life. The first thing I want to point out to you is really kind of parenthetical to the sermon. This is not what I'm talking about this morning, but just the way that it opens up, I think, is so profound that I wanted to at least point it out, and then we'll move move into the sermon and we'll focus, like Mikey said in the announcements, on that statement that Jesus makes, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. We're going to get there. But before we do, a little bit of context within the conversation of what they're talking about can be found in John chapter 13. I'm going to start reading in verse 33. It's not going to be on the screen. I did not tell the production team about these verses. So if you want to read along with me, please do. If you'd rather just listen, that's fine too. But John chapter 13, verse 33, I'm going to read through 14.1. So we know what's happening here. Jesus says, my children, speaking to the disciples, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me. And just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now, where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you. Love one another as I have loved you. So you must love one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. We're going to come back to that verse. That's a whole sermon. We're going to spend a whole week there. So I'm not just glazing by it. Simon Peter asked him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus replied, where I am going you cannot follow now, but you will follow later. Peter asked, Lord, why can't I follow you now? I'll lay down my life for you. And Jesus answered, will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you'll disown me three times. And then verse 1. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. So Jesus has got the disciples assembled. It's an intimate circle now. We don't talk about this a lot, but there was not just when we think about Jesus and the disciples, we think about Jesus and the 12 disciples, but really there was probably 100 to 120 people traveling around with Jesus at any given time. So the moments of intimacy between just Jesus and his disciples were not as common as you might think. So it's just them now, and they can sense something's up. And he tells them, boys, you can't come with me. You can't come with me to Caiaphas' house. You can't come with me to the dungeon where I'm going to be held overnight. You can't stand with me while I'm being beaten and being spat upon and being blindfolded and hit and being demanded to prophesy who hit me. You can't be with me when they drive the crown of thorns into my head or the nails into my hands and my feet. You can't be with me when I do that, and you can't be with me as I die and I go. You can't be with me in those places. But you can come in a little while. And then, because the disciples, you've got to understand, are completely and totally dismayed and confused by this. They do not know that in a few hours Jesus is going to die on a cross, that he's going to raise himself from the dead, and in doing so is going to conquer death and sin for all time. They do not know that he is making a way into a perfect eternity in heaven with him and with his Father. They do not know that. They do not know that they are going to be left to be the leaders of the church and to bring as many people as possible with them to heaven on the way. They do not understand that yet. What they think is that Jesus is supposed to be the king of Israel and they're going to be with him as he rises to prominence. And so when Jesus starts talking about this stuff, where I'm going to go, you can't come, they're like, wait a second, that's not the deal. The whole reason we've been doing the whole bread and fish thing and sleeping on rocks for the last three years is so we could come with you. So you're kind of breaking the agreement here, Jesus. He says, where I'm going to go, you can't come. And Peter, you're about to deny me three times. I know you don't think you will, but you're going to. All of this confuses and dismays them. To which Jesus, as he launches into the upper room discourse, opens it with, let not your hearts be troubled. Do not worry. Do not be anxious. Don't let your hearts be troubled. His first words out of his mouth to his confused and dismayed disciples are those of comfort and of peace and of healing. And so it occurs to me, and again, this is parenthetical. That's why in your notes, it's literally in parentheses. And on the screen, it's literally in parentheses. This is not the point of the sermon. I just couldn't breeze past it without making the point. Worry and anxiety are not God's will. To carry constantly worry and anxiety are not God's will for you or your life or for the people around you. If you feel confused and dismayed and anxious and concerned and worried, that is not from God. That is not something that God wants you to feel. That is not his will for you. This does not mean that we can't be anxious and that we can't be worried or that we can't be concerned. But what I want you to know is that when we feel those things and they are pervasive and we live in a pandemic of anxiety, those things are not from God. Those things are not his will. And I believe us, I believe whether it's through counseling or conversation or prayer or devotion or small groups or service or whatever it might be, that God gives us every tool that we need to overcome the enemies of worry and anxiety. But what we see reflected in the heart of Jesus is that he doesn't just launch right into instructions for them without first comforting them and making sure that they felt peace. And he has that same desire for you and for me. I don't want to guilt anyone who walks with those things, but I do want you to hear your pastor say from stage that those things are not God's will for you. And he gives you the tools to begin to combat those because he is ultimately a God of comfort. Now, let's look at what else he says. John place where I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and you have seen me. I don't know about you guys and maybe no one can relate to this, but when I read those words, I'm going to prepare a place for you. In my father's house, there are many rooms. When I was a kid, I learned at many mansions, which sounds better. I don't want a condo, God. I'd like a whole, you know, whole place. In my father's house are many rooms. I'm going to go there. I'm going to prepare a place for you. If it were not so, I would have told you. I don't know how far back into your memory church goes, but for me, I don't have memories without church. And so I don't know how to describe it other than when I read these words, it feels in a way that I'm already going home. It feels like this warm blanket of these familiarly trodden paths, and I just love returning to them. When I read those words, I'm going to prepare a place for you. If it were not so, I would have told you. It already feels like welcome home. And this is the idea that we get where this is the whole place where we get the idea that Jesus is preparing a place for us, that there is a home in heaven for us, be it an apartment or a mansion. When we get there, we're not going to care at all. And it's also where I believe that I've done funerals before and I've lost loved ones. And for the ones that are hospitable, for the ones that love to have people around, it always occurs to me that they're going to go and they're going to work with Jesus to begin to prepare a place for us. This passage is the reason I believe that when I get to heaven that my papa will be there and he will have a fried catfish and creole spread out waiting for me and there's going to be a big dinner. Now I can't back that up theologically. I don't know for sure that's going to happen, but it doesn't hurt me to think it. So Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us. And here's what I love. Here's what I love. He says, I'm going to this place. I'm going to prepare a place for you there. Talking to the disciples and in turn, anyone who ever believes in him. And he says, you know the way to where I am going. And Thomas interjects. And Thomas gets a bad rap. Thomas is referred to as doubting Thomas. But I just think Thomas was the guy who was willing to say what everybody else was thinking, Thomas. And I got a lot of respect for that guy. Because I try to be that guy. And sometimes it doesn't work out. You got to be careful when you think you're thinking what everybody else is thinking. And then you throw it out there and people are like, we were not thinking that you jerk. Cool. Sorry. But Jesus says, I'm going to go to this place and you already know the way there. And Thomas goes, I don't, I don't think we do. And to that Jesus says, yes, you do. Because I am the way. And I am the truth. And I am the life. And no man comes to the Father except through me. And in that sentence, in that phrasing, what Jesus does is extend comfort and assurance and an invitation to Thomas. Thomas says, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know where you're going. We know he's talking about heaven. He says, I don't know how to get there. And Jesus says, you do so. You've known me for years. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I'm the only way you get to the Father. From now on, you know the Father because you know me. Don't you see that what Jesus is doing here is, first of all, he's assuaging Thomas' concerns and fears. He's comforting him, and he's extending him an invitation into eternal life with him and the Father. This verse, this statement, I am the way, the truth, and the life, as Jesus intended it, was an invitation into fellowship and eternal life with him. It was a statement of comfort and assurance and welcoming. Which is why how the church has treated this verse historically makes me really sad. For some of you, what I'm about to say, you will not be able to relate to at all. You don't have a church background, or if you do, they didn't talk about this in your church. And listen, you're lucky if you can't relate to what I'm about to say. But some of you can relate to exactly what I'm about to say. Because in the evangelical conservatism that I grew up in, this verse was used as a virtual cudgel to play whack-a-mole against world religions. It was used as a weapon to knock doubting middle schoolers back in line. Do you understand what I'm saying? We would refer to this verse, how do we know that the Muslims are wrong? Because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through me. So they're out and we're in because we believe in Jesus. Some middle schooler raises their hand in youth group, I'm not sure if I understand. I'm not sure if I believe. Well, you better believe because Jesus tells us right here in John 14, upper room discourse. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. And the way that I've seen this verse used in the last couple decades of church history is as a weapon to keep people out and to win arguments rather than an invitation extended to invite people in. It's the last nail that we drive into the coffin of apologetics to prove that we have an airtight argument against all comers that don't believe in Jesus. And listen, you can use it that way if you want to. If you want to reduce this verse to that, you can. If you want to take from this verse what Jesus is saying and make it mean the Muslims aren't in and the Buddhists aren't in and the Confucians aren't in and the Hindus aren't in and the Pantheists aren't in and the Atheists aren't in, and the Hindus aren't in, and the Pantheists aren't in, and the Atheists aren't in. They're all out, and we're all in. Praise God that we're not going to burn. If you want to use it that way, you can. But frankly, you look like a tourist wandering around Gatlinburg taking pictures with an iPad. You can do that if you want. You can take a picture at Ripley's with your iPad if you want to, but you look stupid. The iPad was invented for other uses. Can you take pictures with it? Sure. But you're probably over 65 if you're doing it. I'm just saying. Technically, it will do that. That is not the purpose for which it was intended. Technically, if we want to, we can use that verse to draw lines between us and others, between out and in. But I simply want to point out to you that when Jesus made the statement that became the verse, that is not what he intended. Jesus was not attempting to draw lines here. Jesus was not giving us a way to tell people whether they were in and out according to how we understand theology. He was not attempting to set up an apologetic fence so we would know who to include and exclude. Jesus was offering comfort and an invitation to Thomas. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And the people of the early church believed in this statement so ardently. And those around them in the cultures in which they were surrounded, in Ephesus, and in Rome, and in Corinth, and in Thessalonica, they believed in this principle so much that did you know that the early Christians, the first few generations of Christians after Christ were not called Christians. They were called the believers of the way. The followers of the way. Every now and again you'll see the church of the way. This is why. It's a stupid name for a church, but it's where they get it. And when Jesus said it, it was an invitation, not a weapon. When we use this verse as a weapon, we are more concerned with winning an argument than saving a soul. We can repeat this verse as a defense of the faith and as a way to draw lines between us and them. But when we do that, I think it belies an underlying desire that has more to do with being technically right than winning people over to our Jesus. It shows me that we're more concerned with drawing lines than inviting people in. This is such an important concept that when we get to the unity prayer, I'm going to spend a whole Sunday morning talking about the sins of the church and our insistence on looking at other churches and other Christians and other denominations and telling them, you're not Christian enough. You need to be Christians like us. When Jesus nowhere does that. But for this morning, in our corner, in our small corner of the kingdom that God has entrusted to us at Grace Raleigh, let's not use this verse as a weapon to draw lines, as a cudgel to defeat world religions, as an apologetic staple to win the argument. Let's use it for what it was intended, an invitation to us and to everyone we've ever met to come to know Jesus. See, I believe, based on Romans 1, where Paul writes that God has revealed himself as nature so that no man is without excuse. Based on Romans 1, I believe that Jesus has, when he says that verse, you already know the way. I believe that's true of every person that's ever existed. And that what evangelism looks like for a Christian is to help people see that Jesus has been showing up in their lives since the day that they were born. And you already know the way. And he desperately wants to know you. And he is the truth and the life and he is the way by whom you come to the Father. He's going and he is preparing an eternity for you. And he desperately wants you to join him there. He wants you to join him in eternity so badly that he condescended and took on sin and hell and death for you. And he endured the most painful death that mankind has ever invented so that he could go and pray. He made a way so that he could prepare a way so that you could follow the way until we are there for all of eternity. That's the invitation that Jesus extends to us in this verse. That's the comfort he offers to Thomas. Thomas, you already know the way. I've been working in and speaking to your soul since the day that you were born. You've been lucky enough to walk with me for three years. You know the way. And I believe that when we share the gospel and the good news of Jesus with our friends and our brothers and sisters who don't believe yet or may even believe something different, I believe that Jesus has revealed himself to them, that there's something in them that knows the way. And when we extend the same invitation that Jesus does, we move them a little bit closer to seeing that Jesus has been speaking to them for their whole life. So I want to plead with you to use this verse. I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through me. I want to plead with you to use it as an invitation, not a weapon. As a welcoming end, not a dividing line. I think it's a much more rich and frankly textually consistent way to understand that passage than to pluck it out of its context and use it as a weapon. So what do we do with this? What's the takeaway here? Whenever I think about a sermon, I think about the so what. What's the so what? Okay, that's true. I have a better understanding of that. I see it in this context of Jesus extending this invitation to Thomas. What am I to do with that? Well, Jesus answers this question for us. If we were to ask Jesus, I believe you, that's true. Now, what would you have me do with it? He answers this in John chapter 14, verses 11 and 12. So if you just look down the page in your Bible just a little bit further, verse 11 he says this, Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do greater things than these because I am going to the Father. What are we supposed to do with this realization that Jesus is the way? That he's extended an invitation to us that we are to in turn extend to others. But verse 11, he tells us, he says it plainly. Believe in me. Believe in me. What are we supposed to do with the revelation that Jesus is the way? Believe in him. Have faith in him. Two things occur to me here. The first is just how much I love the symmetry of scripture and what Jesus teaches. Because those of you who were here for the first Sunday of the year on January the 7th, well, I guess it was the second Sunday of the year, but the first one that we observed this Sunday, for the first service of the year on January the 7th, I preached about the Ephesians prayer, and I preached about Paul's opening desire. What does he pray for his churches? That through the power of God, through the movement of the Spirit, that Christ would indwell their hearts through faith. The riches of God, the power of the Spirit, that Christ would indwell their hearts through faith. What's his first prayer and priority? For everyone that he encounters, that they would know Jesus. That in our words, they would be saved. What does Jesus want us to do in light of the revelation that he is the way, the truth, and the life. He wants us to be saved. He wants us to believe him. It's also Jesus's first prayer and priority for anyone that he meets. You know what's so wonderful is I've had some conversations since that first Sunday of the year with some people who are beginning to express the faith, who had faith, but it was young and immature and brittle and maybe never took hold, and then they left the faith because of questions that they had. But now God has been moving in their hearts. Jesus has been revealing himself to them. They're coming to recognize him as the way, and they've articulated to me, we believe, but we want to believe more. We want a stronger belief. And so, if you were here that Sunday, and you heard me encourage you, pray for your children that they would know God. Pray for your family that they would know God. Pray for your friends and your loved ones that they would know God. He's answering those prayers. Keep praying them. And we come back to the very beginning of this series. And what's the point this morning? Believe in God. That Jesus' first prayer and priority for everyone that he encountered, like Paul, was that they would be saved. That they would know him. So the first thing we do is we continue to pray that prayer for ourselves and for the people around us. The second thing we do, and this occurred to me as we were singing. The disciples say, what are we supposed to do with this? And Jesus says, believe in me. Does it occur to you that they already did? They already believed who he was? A few weeks prior, he told people, if you want to go to the kingdom of heaven, you got to eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. And everybody was like, that's weird. We're out. And they left. And he looked at Peter and he says, what about you? Are you guys going to leave? And Peter says, you are the Christ, the Son of God. You have the words of eternal life. Where are we going to go? We believe. We don't understand all the time, but we believe. We're in. And then he teaches this to the disciples. I'm going to go someplace. You can't come yet. You will be able to come. I'm going to prepare the way. We don't know the way. Yes, you do. You know me. I'm the way. That's how we do it. What should we do in light of this? Believe me. Trust me that I am who I say I am. That I did what I said I did. And that I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do. And it's moving to me that to a room full of people who already believed, Jesus' first petition to them was to continue to believe. And to you, most of whom already believe, Jesus' petition to you is to continue to believe. Because if you've believed for long enough, you know that there are battles and scars and hurts that would seek to rob you of that belief. And Jesus says, continue to believe. Through the ebbs and flows of life, through successes and failures, through sin and through victory, continue to believe. With that belief in place, with our assurance of the invitation of Christ being the way intact and understood. We're ready to approach the rest of the lessons that Jesus has for us in the Upper Room Discourse. I hope that you'll be a part of the series and that God will use it to prepare your hearts to celebrate Easter. I'm going to pray and then we're going to move into a time of communion together. Jesus, we love you. We are moved by you. We are in awe of you. We are unworthy of you. God, I pray that if anyone here doesn't know your son, that they would come to know him. That the people in this room and listening to my voice would recognize where Jesus has already been moving in their hearts, would recognize that he's already been speaking to them, he's already been showing up, and that there is a part of them, a part of their soul that already knows the way. Would they just see that for what it is? Father, would we use your words not as a way to draw people in and out of your kingdom and your will, but would we use your words as they were intended as an invitation for others to recognize that Jesus has been working in them all along? And God, would we see even this year people come to know you through our extension of that invitation? Would you give us the faith to continue to pray for the salvation of those we love the most? And God, would you give those of us who already believe the strength to continue to cling to that belief, trusting that you are the way? It's in your son's name we pray these things. Amen.

My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I haven't gotten a chance to meet you yet, I would love to do that in the lobby after the service. This is the second part of our series called The Songs We Sing. Last week, we opened up and we did Graves in the Gardens. I gave you kind of a background of worship, and I started to, it's kind of trickled into me some good feedback that you guys are excited about this series, looking forward to it, looking forward to seeing what we've been singing in the Bible, what we will be singing in the Bible. And so I am thrilled to be going through this series with you because like I said, it's one that I've been wanting to do for a while. And last week when I got done preaching and we sang together, I was so encouraged at the voices being lifted up. And this morning we'll have the same opportunity. I'm going to preach about the song that we just sang because it's pulled straight out of Psalm chapter 8. And then we'll sing it again, knowing it better, having a better understanding of what it means in a full-throated, open-hearted way. And then we'll sing some other songs that are really special to us. And then we'll go into our week. So I'm feeling really good about this Sunday. And I just feel like it's worth saying sometimes that I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful for my church. I'm so grateful for the love and the community that we experience here, for the handshakes and hugs and laughter and the lobby for the stories of the team coming back from Mexico I'm just grateful for y'all I'm grateful to be here and I'm excited to teach to you out of the book of Psalms this morning now to do a series focused on worship and to not have at least one morning out of the book of Psalms would be sacrilegious. It would be absolutely awful because Psalms is the hymn book of the Old Testament. It is the hymn book of the Hebrew people. It is intended to be sung. A vast majority of the Psalms are intended to be sung. And sometimes there's even instructions about it at the beginning of eight. You don't have to look there yet, but the very first thing it says is to the choir master, according to the Giddeth, nobody knows what that is, a Psalm of David, but they think it's a certain tune to which it's supposed to be sung. So David is even giving this to the choir master. I wrote this to praise our God. Let's sing it to this tune. Let's sing it together. A vast majority of the Psalms were written with the intention of God's body of believers singing them his words back to him, which I think is remarkable. And Psalms is a remarkable book. It sits in the dead center of our Bible. It's the longest book in the Bible with 150 chapters. It's divided into five separate books within the book of Psalms. It has the longest chapter in the Bible in Psalm 119, which comes in at, I believe, 176 verses. It's a super long chapter of the Bible because it's a beautiful Hebrew poem. There's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and Psalm 119 has 22 stanzas, and each stanza, every line begins with that letter of the alphabet as the psalmist moves through. It's the one thing in the Bible that really makes me want to learn original Hebrew so I could hear that psalm read and sung in the original language in which it was intended because I've got a feeling that it is beautiful. I'll just wait until I get to heaven. I'm not actually going to do the work to learn Hebrew. That seems super hard. The seminary I chose, I chose it so I didn't have to learn original languages, so I'm not about to reverse course now, you know? But it's the longest book with the longest chapter, and it's filled with songs. And they're not all praise songs. They're divided up in different ways depending on who you ask and who's doing the dividing. You can find some people that divide them into five different types of Psalms, some as many as 20 and everything in between. But just a few examples of the types of Psalms that you can find in your Bible as you read through Psalms. And shame on me, I realize I haven't done a series in Psalms in the six and a half years I've been here. Shame on me for that. So I am promising you that coming up, we will do a series in Psalms at some point. But if you want to know some of the divisions of the book of Psalms, the different types that we have, there's Psalms of praise. Obviously, there's royal Psalms, Psalms of lament. And we're actually going to talk about those next week. I'm so grateful that our Bible has Psalms of lament, expressions of sadness and grief. There's what's called imprecatory psalms or psalms that are prayed and sung to seek vengeance over our enemies. David had a lot of reason to sing those. You probably don't. You probably don't have many enemies that you should sing imprecatory songs over, but they're in there. Psalms of enthronement and then psalms of pilgrimage. And I think these psalms of pilgrimage are really interesting. And I want to actually point you towards a book for my people who are readers. There's this book by a pastor named Eugene Peterson. Eugene Peterson is the pastor that faithfully translated the message to make scriptures a little bit more approachable for people who have never encountered them before. I read his biography last year, and I think it was an autobiography, a memoir, and it was one of the more moving books I've read in a long time. I was really, really touched by the heart of Eugene Peterson. And probably his most famous book is a book called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. And A Long Obedience in the Same Direction actually moves through what's called the Psalms of Ascent, this group of pilgrimage psalms And I've wanted to, that may be the Psalm series that we do. I'm either going to do it as a series as we walk through the book together, or I'm going to do it as like a Wednesday night course where those that want to come and we move through it together. But if you're a reader, I would highly encourage you to go grab or write down or put in your Goodreads, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson. It's a wonderful, wonderful book. But in the book of Psalms, we have all these different categories. We have all these different verses. And one of the things we see that I think is remarkable is that a majority of them are written by David. They're not all written by David. There's some authors that are just referred to as the sons of Asaph. And Asaph was, I believe, the choir master, the worship leader. And then these are his sons that he has passed this responsibility down to. And they've written their own Psalms in there. But one of the remarkable things about the book of Psalms is to see the heart of David just kind of filleted open on the table for you. And I love that God in his goodness includes the Psalms to offset the other stories of David. Because if you read the story of David in 1 and 2 Samuel, you can also see the stories in 1st Kings but more of details of the story are in 1st and 2nd Samuel and if you read the story of David you see this traditionally masculine macho guy who's fighting and killing and he kills Goliath and he fights lions and bears with his bare hands which you know who hasn't and then there's a song about him him. David has killed his tens of thousands. Saul has killed his thousands. It's just like, yeah, spear-throwing, meat-eating dude. And then you open Psalms, and here's a guy that's brokenhearted. Here's a guy that's highly emotional, highly vulnerable, who displays his tears and his lament and his repentance and his hopes and his fears and his deepest prayers for all of time to see. And the juxtaposition of Psalms and 1 and 2 Samuel kind of brings together this vision of what we can be as people and how multifaceted we can be. So I'm grateful that Psalms reads almost like a prayer journal of David at times. But to me, the most remarkable thing about the book of Psalms is that when we sing the Psalms, we join in the ancient chorus of all the saints. When we sing the Psalms, we join in the ancient chorus of all the saints. And you can sing the Psalms. Write this down if you want to, if you want something else to listen to. There's this, I don't know, I guess they're just a duet, a duo, I don't know the rules, a band, Shane and Shane. And they have an album called Psalms, where they have set the Psalms to music, and it's one of my favorites. I love it. I've loved it for years and years. You can go find it. It's on Spotify. It's on all the things. And you can sing the Psalms. I would highly recommend it. When we sing the Psalms, understand this, we are joining in to an ancient chorus of all the saints. I spoke last week about how when we worship, when we praise, when we sing out, that we join our brothers and sisters in Christ in unity. It unifies us according to the high priestly prayer of Jesus in John chapter 17. When we sing together, it unifies us in this remarkable way. When we walk in Republican and Democrat, we walk in 80 and 20. We walk in stressed and not stressed, successful and not successful in a season of plenty and a season of need. And we lay all of those things down and we praise our God together and it unifies us. And I've just, I just got to tell you, I shared this with the band and the tech team before the service. But this is just a, just such a good picture of how it unifies us. if I don't say it I might die a little on the inside. So I'm just gonna have to Yesterday I was at the funeral for a friend of mine's wife 40 years old perfectly healthy Went on a girl's trip Heart heart attack, died in the bathroom. No other explanation. Incredibly sad thing. Two kids, sixth grader, third grader. So I drive down, I go to the funeral, and the husband's name, my buddy's name is Jeff. There's about 750 people in the room. And in between speakers, they put up a slideshow of Jodi and her family. And they started playing under that slideshow a song called Gratitude. We've sang it here a couple of times. It's going to be the last song that we sing this morning. They started playing Gratitude. And when that song started, Jeff, the husband who lost his wife a week ago, stood up and raised his hands in worship. And so, if you're at a funeral and the husband of the deceased woman stands up and raises his hands, you stand up and you raise your hands. So 750 people stand up and raise their hands to this song too. And then they spontaneously started singing it. And I'm six hours away from my church family, with my old church family, singing a song with myriad other church families, with our hands raised, choosing to praise in a moment of grief, and it just unifies you in a way that nothing else can. It was a remarkable moment. And when we sing it this morning, we join them and their praises to a God in spite of grief. We join Jeff in our prayers for him. We join the other congregations that sing that too. So when we sing the Psalms, we join into the ancient chorus of all the saints. Do you understand? When we sing in a few minutes, Psalm 8, back to God, we are singing it with David. We are singing it with the generations of David and Solomon and the faithful generations of Jeroboam and Rehoboam. We're singing it with Hezekiah and King Asa. We are singing it with the faithful generations, with the remnant that gets taken to Babylon. We are singing these psalms with Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego. We are singing these psalms with the Maccabees who lit the menorah in Roman oppression. We are singing these psalms with the generations that cried out in the 400 years of silence between Malachi and Matthew We are singing these songs with Jesus himself and with the disciples And with the early churches that met in the basements in Rome when we sing the Psalms We are joining with the underground churches in China and in Lebanon and in Istanbul, singing God's songs back to him. One of my favorite quotes about the Psalms is by Charles Spurgeon, and I'll tell you why he deserves to be the one who writes this in a second. Also, I'm just going to compose myself. We've got a long way to go here. This is premature. I can't afford this. I only have one tissue. Jen's laughing at me the hardest, she knows. It's been an emotional weekend. Back off. All right. Spurgeon writes this, the book of Psalms instructs us in the use of wings as well as words. It sets us both mounting and singing. I love that. The book of Psalms instructs us in the use of wings as well as words. It sets us both mounting and singing. That when we sing Psalms, we are mounted on wings of eagles and we soar in the presence of God. Now let me tell you why Spurgeon has a right to write that sentence and should rightly be pointed out in any sermon on Psalms. If you don't know who Charles Haddon Spurgeon is, he was a preacher. He was loud. He had combed back hair and a beard and a belly, and he suffered from gout, and he liked to drink whiskey. So, just saying, he was called. He was and is called the Prince of Preachers. He holds the world record for preaching to the most people in one space at one time without a microphone and being heard. One time he was preaching in an auditorium. This is in the late 1800s in London. He was preaching in an auditorium, going through what he wanted to say, and some janitor in a hallway that he couldn't see bowed on his knees right there and accepted Jesus listening to Charles go through his sermon. It's an amazing story. The volume of work of Charles Spurgeon is unbelievable. The amount of books that he wrote. You can look up any of his sermons online, and they're long, wordy, lengthy sermons. And it was said of him that people would come from all over the world to hear him preach, and what they would say is, yeah, the sermon's great, but you need to listen to the man pray. He was known all over the world. He wrote tons of books. He ran a seminary out of his church. He wrote books for the seminarians that I have, that I refer to regularly, that still help me and my approach to pastoring and preaching and all the things. But his whole life, he worked on one book that became a three-volume set called The Treasury of David. It's a commentary on the book of Psalms. And he carried it with him wherever he went. He worked on it for decades. He would work on it for a bit. He'd put it back down, he'd pick it back up. You better believe that I've got the treasury of David in my office. And that every time I preach out of a psalm, that's the first place I go. If you're someone who appreciates materials like that, go get it. It's not like super expensive. Find it on Amazon with a cheesy cover. And he writes in the intro to his magnum opus, the book of Psalms instructs us in the use of wings as well as words. It sets us both mounting and singing. The book of Psalms is worthy of our study and it's worthy of our singing. And we ought to acknowledge when we're singing it back to God because when we do, we join into that ancient chorus of all the saints through all the decades. Now this morning, we're going to be in Psalm chapter 8. So if you have a Bible with you, I would encourage you to turn there. And I'm going to say this this morning. I don't try to get you to do a lot of stuff because I want it to matter when I ask you to do something. So I intentionally don't try to put pressure on you to do things. I just want you to be a good Christian adult and do what you want to do and do as the Spirit moves you. But I'm going to encourage us as a church to begin to bring our Bibles to church for Sunday mornings. Some of you like to read through apps. That's fine. Read your app. Bring it. Have your phone out. I'm giving you permission to have your phone out in church. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not scrolling something that you shouldn't be scrolling during a church service. And if you are someone who likes to read the Bible on your phone, that's fine to have it out. Just make sure that the screen is visible to the people next to you, okay? So that they can smack you if you're cheating and you're checking a score or something. But let's be people who bring our Bible to church. Because here's what I want for you. I want you to sit, and I want you to have your Bible open. And when something strikes you, I want you to be able to write a note. When you see a verse that you like, that you want to remember, I want you to be able to highlight it. I want your Bibles to serve you as kind of these spiritual journals where when you flip through them, you see where you've been. You know that God's spoken to you there before. When you go to different places, you have notes on the sides and you have dates and you have prayers so that as you flip through your Bible years from now, you see times when God was faithful. I can't tell you how many passages I have written beside them. What does this mean? God help me understand. And then I'll hear sermon on it, or I'll hear somebody teach about it. I'll read a book on it, and I'll turn to that passage, and I'll go, oh, I think I understand this now. Thank you, God, for your faithfulness. I want to encourage you to bring your Bible to church. Open it up. Make notes about what I'm saying or what God is saying to you. And then let me just tell you this. If things get boring, as they often do, you can start flipping through your Bible like you're source checking me or you're just interested in something. And then you look double spiritual. The people in your row are going to be like, yo, they're cross-referencing Nate. That's, look at, look at them. That's super spiritual. So just bring it, man. We'll probably make you an elder if you start doing that stuff. And you're just doing it because you're bored. It's so many benefits. Let's start bringing our Bibles if we don't already. But right now, what I want you to do is grab the Bible. If you don't have one, grab the one in front of you and let's read Psalm 8 together. It's only nine verses and I thought it would be well worth it to spend some time reading it together this morning. Find Psalm 8. It says this. When I look at your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. Verse 9, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. What a wonderful, declarative psalm of praise. This is the psalm that we sing from. This is the psalm that when I'm done talking, we will sing from again. And as we look through it and we go through it together and see what it has to offer, I think there's such depth of wisdom and goodness here. I love the way that the psalm starts. Verse 1, if you look at it in your Bibles, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name and all the earth. What I love about this, and this is a point that Spurgeon made, not me. What I love about this is the inadequacy of that declaration. This is a psalm that is clearly meant to glorify the majesty of God, that is clearly meant to frame him up among the stars, that is clearly meant to swoop us up and to carry us away into a reverent awe of the majesty of God. This is a big deal psalm. This needs to resound through the generations. And so we would expect some honorifics to go along with the Lord's name, wouldn't we? We would expect some more adjectives to be there. How majestic and all of your grandeur and the worthiness of your ways and whatever else. We would expect it to be this grand entrance as we open this declaration about God. And yet it's not that. It's this humble, oh Lord, our Lord. That's the best David could muster. Oh Lord, our Lord. It feels so inadequate for the moment, but that's why it's so good. Because to start a majestic psalm that way, so humbly, is to confess without even having to say it out loud, my words are inadequate for your greatness, oh God. What else could David say but oh Lord, our Lord? What else is fitting? What honorifics should he put there that would adequately capture who our creator God is? There's nothing worthy enough of writing. So he just humbly puts, oh Lord, our Lord. And so when we sing those words in a few minutes, when we say, oh Lord, our Lord, how wonderful your name, we are admitting in that song and in that declaration and with our voices and in our hearts that we are inadequate to adequately title God's glory and goodness. We are inadequate to adequately express and explain and capture who he is. And so we surrender to the simple, humble, oh Lord, our Lord. How majestic is your name. It's such a good beginning of the psalm to start it with humility and with simplicity as we confess through our words and our spirits, our inadequacy to capture who our creator God is. Verse two, we're actually going to look at in a second. That becomes important when we start to think about how Jesus employed this psalm. But verse 3, I love, when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place. Psalm 8 proclaims that God has told the story of himself through his creation. The song that we are singing based out of Psalm 8 is called Tell the Story. And it talks about how creation tells the story of God and how we participate in that. When we look at creation, when we look at a sunset or a sunrise, when we're on a plane and we can look out and get that unique view of God's creation and his earth, when we hike and we see beautiful things, when we look into the heavens and we marvel at God, when we get away from the city and we can actually see the stars, when we do those things, the heavens are declaring the glory of God. They're preaching to us about the presence of God. The purpose of creation is to tell the story of the creator. And since you are his creation and you are the only one imbued with a voice and entrusted with a voice, then it is our responsibility to cry out to God in ways that the rest of creation cannot do. It is our responsibility to make sure that the rocks don't have to cry out to our God because we're going to do that because we are the part of his creation that was made to praise him. And so we do it loudly. We do it vigorously. We do it openheartedly. And I'm reminded in verse three, as it points to God's creation, kind of declaring who he is of Romans one, Paul writes about this. Paul in Romans 1 says that the Lord has revealed himself in creation so that no man is without excuse. Through the millennia, men and women and children have looked at God's creation and marveled at the creator. The sun, the moon, and the stars tell the story of our God and who he is. And then we move into verses four and following what could be a little bit of a confusing portion. Because as I read it earlier, you may have picked up on the difference. If you were following along in an NIV, if you're using one of our Bibles this morning, then you're reading an N NIV maybe you pulled up an NIV on your app or that's what you carried in this morning but what you saw is in verse 4 when it says what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him your version says them so the ESV and some other versions say him and your version and some other versions say them. And so the question becomes, why is there a difference there? Why does that matter? Why is that important? Well, the Hebrew word there can be translated either way. And so some translations choose to say them because clearly some of these verses are referring to us, to humankind. I mean, when we read it, especially verse 4, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? That's not talking about Jesus. Who is Jesus that you would care about him, that you are mindful of him? Obviously, it's not talking about Jesus. It's us. Who are we that you would care about us? And to this point, just to bring this home, I do like that verse. I'm going to pause here. We're going to get back to him and them. But I like this thought, who am I that you would care for me? Why do I matter to you? I don't know if you've ever experienced someone singling you out in a way that made you feel special. You're like, why are you paying attention to me? Years ago, a few months before I moved to Raleigh, my pastor growing up died. He had had an aortic aneurysm, survived for a few years, developed an infection, and he passed away. He was very old, though. He was about 62, I think. He was too young. And his church had grown pretty significantly, and they had started other churches. So the people who were there were in the thousands. There was so many people who wanted to pay their respects for Pastor Buddy that they had to have a visitation the night before at the church. And the line was over an hour long to talk to the family. And when I got there, I hadn't been going to that church in years. I worked at another church. I grew up with, I grew up at that church and Buddy has three kids, Gabe, Joy, and Spring. Joy's my age. Gabe's a few years older than me. But Gabe and I, we were buddies growing up. We played Goldeneye together. He was my Goldeneye buddy. I don't know if that resonates with any of you. Like four of you, they're like, yes, Goldeneye buddies. But we weren't like super tight. And I really didn't expect to talk to anybody. I was just showing up because I have a lot of respect for Buddy and I love that family. And before I could get in line, I heard Gabe call my name. And I'm like, cool, I get to skip the line, which I love doing. And I go up to Gabe, and he hugs me, and he says, it's such a funny question. He goes, dude, what are you doing? Like, you got anything going on? I'm like, I'm at your dad's visitation, man. This is what I'm doing. You know, like, I didn't say that, but I said, no, I'm not busy. And he goes, come on. And so he leaves the line, and he takes me back to a hospitality room where there's Zaxby's. I'd love to say it was Chick-fil-A. It wasn't. There's Zaxby's. And he sits down, and he just wants to talk with me. And I just remember thinking, why are you talking with me of all these people why do i why am i the one that gets your time why are you treating me like this and in that case i really do think it was because i knew him when we remember growing up we we were at the church running around together we were the ones running around in in the service after it was over before there was thousands of people going there. And I guess nobody else kind of knew the family like I did. But the whole time I'm sitting there, I just felt such privilege of why in the world do you care about talking to me right now? And I feel like that's what the author of Psalms, David, is describing. God, why do you even notice us? Why are you calling me out in a crowd? Why do we matter to you? That should not be something that's lost on us, that God sees us, that he calls our name, and he says, hey, come here, let's talk. That's a remarkable thing. And so back to the he, him, and them. There are some verses that are very clearly talking about humankind, us. But there are some verses that are very clearly talking about Jesus. Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You gave him dominion over the works of your hand. You have put all things under his feet. Clearly that's talking about Jesus. And so the question becomes in Psalm chapter 8, in verse 5, is the psalmist talking about us or Jesus? Yes. He's talking about both things. He's talking about both us and Christ. Again, because clearly there are some verses here that could not apply to Christ. Who is Christ that you should consider him? That doesn't really work out. He's part of the Trinity. So that has to be for us. But he has not put everything under our feet. He's put everything under Jesus' feet. So clearly that's for Jesus. And I'll tell you how I know that's for Jesus, because Jesus, Paul, and the author of Hebrews also thought that it was for Jesus. If you turn to Hebrews, you'll see, I forget the chapter. I think maybe I wrote it down somewhere. Yeah, chapter 2. The author of Hebrews is comparing Jesus to the angels, saying that he's superior to the angels. To do that, he quotes Psalm 8 and uses it to point back to Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 15, verses 25 through 27, this is one of the times that you could flip and check me if you're bored and you'd look super spiritual. Paul is talking about Jesus and he's telling the people this is who Jesus is. He's the one that Psalm 8 was referring to. He's the Messiah that we are waiting on. The whole earth is in subjection to him. That is who we serve. And then Jesus himself uses this psalm to prove to a group of Pharisees that he's actually Jesus. He uses it to tick them off, which, you know, I'm a fan of. But this is what he says. Matthew 21 verses 15 and 16. I cheated. I had it marked. So I got there extra fast. Jesus says this, well, this isn't Jesus yet, but he'll talk soon. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant. Now they're indignant because for, for someone to declare Hosanna to the Son of David is to declare them the Messiah. It is to declare them God incarnate. And they were not willing to accept that about Jesus. So the children acknowledged who Jesus was before the adults were willing to acknowledge it. They were indignant. Verse 16. And they said to him, Do you hear what these are saying? Like, you need to tell them to be quiet if you have any sense. And Jesus said to them, Yes. Have you never read? Which is hilarious. Have you never read? That's like asking a Tennessee fan if they don't know that they got their tails kicked yesterday. Yes, of course they know that. Of course they do. Have you never read? It's ridiculous. Have you never read? Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise. It is a direct reference to Psalm chapter 8, where Jesus says, yeah, have you not read that Psalm? It's about me. So how can I be sure that Psalm 8 is about us and Jesus? Because Jesus told me. He uses it as a proof text to say, yeah, I am Hosanna, the son of David. And so what this means, what all this means, and I don't want you guys to miss this. When we sing Psalm 8, we declare the majesty of God, our wonder at his love for us, and the glory of our risen Savior. When we sing Psalm 8, we declare the majesty of our God, our wonder at his love for us, and the glory of our risen Savior. That's what's packed into these nine verses. We declare the majesty of God. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. We declare God is grand. God is big. God is huge. We declare it along with the churches down through the centuries. We declare glory unto God. We marvel at his wonder for us. Who are we that you should pick us out of a crowd, that you should call us, that you should talk to us, that you should care about us, that you should know us, that you would want my praise. Who am I that I matter to you, God? Why in the world did you send your son for me? So we marvel at God's love as we sing. And then, and then we declared glory for the risen Savior. We shine him in glory, understanding that Psalm 8 is also a messianic psalm that talks about Jesus and declares his glory and puts him in dominion and says the world is under his feet and we are in that world so we are subservient to him. So in this psalm, as we sing it and as we move through it, we declare the glory of God. We wonder at his love for us and we declare the glory of our risen Savior all in those nine verses. And if this all doesn't stir your soul to sing, I can't help but think I must be a terrible pastor. Because as I studied this, as I prepared this morning, as I thought through this, I couldn't wait to sing with you guys. If I were you, I would want me to shut up so I could start singing. That's what I would want right now. And so I'm going to do that right before I do. I just want to show you the words we're about to sing. And I want to show you the verses that they come from. So when we sing this song together, when we, in a few minutes, join the ancient chorus of believers who have been singing this song through the centuries. When we join the churches all over the world who have been singing this song and who might even sing this song or sing from the songs this morning. I want us to know what we're singing. So let's look. The first verse, the first words, O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful your name. That comes directly out of verse 1. Directly out of verse 1. We're singing that right back to God. And then the words right after that in the song are your glory on display. The works of your hands show us who you are. That's verses 2 and 3. Do you see? That's verses two and three when it says the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place. We're singing those words back to God. That's where they're pulled from. On down we see verse three highlighted again where it says, O Lord, our Lord, you light up our world, the sun, moon, and stars. Declare who you are. Declare who you are. And then finally, we see verse 4, and O who am I, unworthy one, that you would give your only son? Who are you to care for me? Amazing love, how can it be? That's where directly out of verse 4, we wonder and marvel at the love that God has for us, that he would notice us and care about us. And then the whole psalm declares the glory of Jesus. Anytime we sing about Jesus, who am I that you would send your only son? That's Jesus. That's who we're singing about. And then we say and we declare, tell the story. As we sing, God use me to tell your story of creation. I would remind you, all of creation was made to tell the story of God and declare praise for him. We're the only part of that creation that was given a voice to praise him. So let's use it together as we close out in these songs together. I'm going to pray and then Aaron and the band's going to come and we're going to sing together. Father, you are worthy of our praise. You are worthy of our adoration. Our words and our praise and our declarations are insufficient for you. They are inadequate for you and who you are. We admit that, God, as we look to sing to you. Lord, would you fill our lungs with praise for you? Would you fill our hearts with your grace and your goodness and your love that we might pour it back out to you? Would what we experience as we sing now not simply be something that makes our Sunday morning better, but will it carry us on a wave of praise into our weeks and maybe wash back up on these shores next week ready to praise again. God, fill our hearts with praise. Fill our hearts with joy. And let us do now, God, what you created us to do, to sing your praises back to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, Grace. My name is Erin. I get the honor and the privilege of being one of your pastors, and I can't tell you how excited I am to actually be in Big Church today. As our kids call it down the hall, this is Big Church, and I'm thrilled to be here and to be hanging out with y'all. But I do need to start our morning in a place of confession. You see, I have struggled a whole lot in the process of putting this together to bring to you guys this morning. It first started with the idea of this sermon series forever ago, and Nate and everybody was talking about it, and they're like, let's do this, 27. We'll do the 27 books of the New Testament. It's going to be great. And I was like, oh, okay. Did you say the New Testament? Well, okay. Yeah, well, for those of you guys that know me, anytime that I've actually stood up here before you guys, I've spoken from the Old Testament. So the New Testament, while I have read it and I have studied it and all those things, and that is not my safe place, maybe is a good way to put it. I love the Old Testament stories. I love the details. I love the battles. I love all those things. I'm a book girl. That's where I am, right? Now the New Testament has a little bit of that. The New Testament tells a fabulous story, but it's just not quite the same. And then we said, okay, so now you're going to pick one of these books and you're going to take it and you're going to study it and you're going to find one thing to talk about and you're going to present it. I'm like, okay, so I have to take a whole book and I have to go through it. And then I have to come up with one thing to tell you all. For those of you guys that know me, you know, brevity is not exactly one of my strong suits. I like words. I have lots of them and they tend to come forth. So, so, so now we have New Testament, we have brevity, and then now I have to pick a book. And there's 27. Thankfully, Nate took four. Aaron has taken one. Kyle has taken one. So I'm just down to 21. So I struggled with that as well. I went back and forth. Aaron and Kyle can attest to it because they kept saying, have you landed on one yet? No, I'm not there yet. So I went back and forth. And so one day I just was kind of picking up my Bible. I moved to the back and then moved forward because Revelation is not where I'm going to be. And then I moved forward and I dropped into the book of James. And I had read James. It had been a long time. And I sat down and I read James again. And then I kind of read it again. And it just settled in my heart and said, you know, this is the place, Aaron, that you need to be for the next little while. I think you need to study this. And then we'll find one thing that you can talk about together. And so this is where I am. And I think the other part that struck me as funny is that James's book is a very to the point and practical advice to people. So he got the brevity thing. So we're hoping that somehow over the course of the last little while, I have learned the brevity as well. But you guys can be the judge and you all can tell me at the end of the day today as to whether I hit home or not. But before we jump into the actual book itself, I would love to take the opportunity to introduce you to the person of James. Because I think if you sit back and you learn who he is and you get to know James' heart, then as we talk about the book, you'll see how very much of his heart comes through in the words that he presents to his followers. So, brevity, and here we go. We're going to make this work, I think. There are three prominent Jameses that you will learn about in the New Testament. There is James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of John. Then there was James, the son of Alphaeus. And these both were part of the 12 disciples. And then you had James, the brother of Jesus. Well, it is highly believed or widely believed that this book of James was written by Jesus's brother. And so we find out that James is the oldest of what would be the half siblings of Jesus. There were three other brothers and a group of sisters. We don't know the sisters because of course it doesn't tell us names. It just says he had sisters as well. So we have this group of brothers, this group of sisters, and we have James as the oldest. How many of you in here are younger siblings? Yeah? That's me too. I have an older brother who is six years older than me. So thankfully that gap helped a little bit. I've looked at my kids with their two-year age gap, and I see it more with the older sibling, the younger sibling. There's a little bit of maybe jealousy of the older sibling, or even the younger sometimes, but there's also a comparison that starts to happen because people know the older brother or the older sister, and they think that the little is supposed to be like the big. There's a lot of that. As the younger, you also tend to live in the shadow of your older sibling. And so here we have James. It says James is the oldest of the half siblings, but guess what? That also makes James the what? The little brother of Jesus. Okay, sit on that one for just a second. He was the little brother of Jesus. So that takes the whole living in somebody else's shadow to another level. I just can't even imagine what it must have been like for him. And in scripture, it continues to go on and tell us though that, oh, by the way, his siblings didn't believe him. They didn't believe in him. They didn't believe he was who he says he was. As a matter of fact, they spent a lot of their time following him around. And when he's in these crowds of people, they're going into the crowds, and they're trying to pull him out. And in the process, they're saying, we're really sorry. He's out of his mind. And I promise you, it says that in Mark 3 21, it quotes that as saying he's out of his mind. So you have James, you have all of these brothers and sisters, and they're trying really hard to kind of like convince everybody that Jesus is not who he says he is and that he's kind of crazy. Y'all, this is Jesus' family that's doing this. So let's fast forward now. We have Jesus' death, his burial, his resurrection. We're told that when Jesus is resurrected, he appears to his disciples. Then he appears to a really large group of believers. And then he appears to James. We have no idea from scripture what that meeting was like. But when I read that and thought about it, my heart melted, y'all. Like, this is Jesus coming to his baby brother. And of course, my human brain goes to the fact that wouldn't it have been funny to have been a fly on the wall? And could you have seen Jesus go, hey, so do you think I'm out of my mind now? But we don't have any idea, again, what was said. But all I could hear and all I could think about was just how sweet this moment was between two brothers, one who didn't believe, but one who is now experiencing this moment with the risen Lord. his life is now forever going to be changed. Because what we see now is James begins to hang out with all of the believers. James begins to hang out with the disciples in Jerusalem. And then Peter, who is in Jerusalem with him at this point in time, Peter decides to take off and go spread the gospel, leaving James behind. So there stands James in Jerusalem with this brand new group of Jewish Christians. And he becomes basically the first pastor of the first Christian church ever that's now set up in Jerusalem, which is the hub of Judaism, but it's also now the birthplace of Christianity. And there he sits. I can only imagine kind of the pressure that sits on James's shoulders during this. Y'all, he's the first kind of like pastor. He doesn't have any other pastors to talk to. Like, hey, did you know this is going on inside of my congregation? You got any advice? Or I want to talk about this. Do you not? He doesn't have anybody to talk to. It's him. He's by himself with this group of new believers. But the one thing that I think that is so cool that he does have, no Bible, but he has the time that he spent with his brother. He has all of the time that he spent with Jesus to be the place that he holds on to and the words that he then can speak to the people that are following him. And so now during the middle of James's leadership of this church in Jerusalem, Saul decides to start his great persecution campaign. What we know about Saul is Saul was someone who felt that the Christians were wrong in their belief structure and felt that he was going to throw them all in jail because they didn't belong out there. We know eventually Saul has an encounter with the risen Lord as well, and he is forever changed. And he becomes Paul, who we have been talking about before today. And we'll continue in the New Testament. But for now, he's Saul. And he is out to get these Christians. So this sweet little flock that James is in charge of is sitting in their homes or walking through the market in complete fear at all times of the fact that somebody's going to snatch them up, drag them off, and throw them in prison. They don't know if that knock on the door is a friend or somebody coming to get them. They don't know if they leave their house and head to the market, if they're going to come back to see their family again. It's a place of fear that I'm not sure any of us could ever really and truly understand. But that's where they are. And then let's add a little insult to that. And there's a great famine happening at this point in time as well. And so because of this famine and the persecution, James's people start to leave the city. They start to flee into the countryside to escape all that's happening in the city of Jerusalem. And as they escape, they're running into places called Judea and called Samaria, which what we know about Jewish faith is that was places that as a Jew, they never would have gone. But as a Jewish Christian, that's where they went for refuge. So they're now depositing themselves in these areas that are filled with pagans. And they're trying their best to reestablish their life. To bring their families back together. To find new jobs, and to find new community. And so this is where we find James sitting in Jerusalem still, he and a few apostles are all that's left, and wondering how his people are. Where have they gone? Have they found a place to settle? Are they together? Is there a chance that there's some community around them? And as I was reading this and I was thinking about it, it brought me back to some of the COVID lockdowns for us. I know as a staff, we struggled really, really hard with trying to do ministry and loving on our people when I couldn't see our people, when we couldn't really, we had the luxury of being able to talk to our people. We had phones, we had all that other stuff, but you get where I'm headed with this. We just were very separated and it was hard. Well, that's where James is. He doesn't know where they are. He doesn't know what's happening to him, but he does know that they have headed into lands that are not gonna be the most friendly to someone in a new faith. And so this is where James sits down with pen and paper or quill and parchment or papyrus. I don't know what he used, but he sat down at this point in time to write this letter to his people. And the thing that I found as I read through this, and like I said before, it's very practical advice. However, the overarching place from James's heart was to tell his people to live it. This idea that if you are a Christian, if you're going to say that you're a Christian, your life must reflect your words. That the people in Judea and the people in Samaria, when they look at you, they should know that you're different. They should know by your actions and the way that you choose to live your life that you're different and that you're a follower of Christ. And so in James chapter 2 verses 14 through 19, you can check out a Bible if you'd like. I did not have them put on the screens. You can just listen to me read it, whatever y'all would like to do. But that's where I am. So James 2, 14 through 19, if not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, I have faith, I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there's one God, well, good, because even the demons believe that, and they shudder. So right now, I know I have gained the attention of all of those that were trying to decide where they were headed for lunch after church was over because I made the statement about faith and deeds and everybody has it in their head that, oh, wait a second, wait a second. We all know that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works. And I'm going to tell you that's still 100% true. And I don't believe that that's what James is saying here. But what I believe he's doing is he is questioning our commitment to our faith. When we talk about our faith, we talk about this idea of trusting God fully and committing to this idea of lordship, that Jesus has lordship over our life, over all pieces and parts of our life. That's what it is to have faith. But I think, and that's 100% true, and that's what we get through our belief in Christ. But what James is saying is, I want you to take that a step further. And what I want you to do is, I want you not to just say that you believe in me, but I want that complete lordship of your life to show in what it is that you do. I want you to realize that people will see you and know you and know who you are in Christ because of what you say and what you do. So if we peace and keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? That's it right there. Somebody sits, somebody's cold, somebody's hungry, and I look at them and say, go in peace. I hope you get warm and I hope you get food. And I go this way. That's not living out our faith. Because I could say I'm a Christian, but I did nothing. There was nothing that shows. We talked about James having an encounter with the living God and then from there, everything changed. He changed. If we have this encounter with the living God, we can't live as if we have not been changed, because we have been. We have to learn to live in a place of obedience to what it is that he tells us to do. We can't just be hearers of the word. We also have to be doers. We can't come into church every Sunday and sit here and listen to what Aaron and Kyle and Nate have to say, but then not apply it to what we do. We can't sit down with our Bibles in the morning and read through them and be convicted by something and then, eh, maybe I will, maybe I won't. We have to be willing to allow that change to happen. Another simplified example, and this one's really simplified, but if I were to say to you that I have made a decision that it's time for me to shed a couple pounds, to get myself into great shape, well, I can talk about that all I want. I'm going to put together a great plan and I'm going to shop better and I'm going to eat better and I'm going to exercise. I'm going to the gym three times a week. It's going to be great. And then you come see me two months later and I still look like this. Hey, Aaron, what happened? Well, I talked about it, but I didn't do anything about it. Now, if I could talk it off, y'all, I would just be the most fit person that walked to the face of this earth. But I can't talk it off. I have to be willing to commit to, to be obedient to a plan, a course of action, whatever it is that's going to help, right? And that's what he's talking about here. We cannot serve a full-time God with a part-time faith. It doesn't work. So now if we go back and we remember James's original audience, we have this group of tired, fearful, relatively new, maybe even new to Christianity, Jewish Christians that are living amongst this group of pagans. How easy do you think it would have been for them to have kind of fallen into this idea of a part-time faith? I don't know about you, but I think it would have been pretty easy because they have no Christian community around them. They didn't have Bibles. They don't have somebody speaking into their life. It's just them trying to hold on, right? It would have been so easy to have fallen into a part-time faith. And that's where James' heart is, is he's writing these words to them and he's saying, y'all, I just want you to go back and remember what it was like when we were together. I want you to remember what it was like when you came to that moment and said, I've been changed and I now want to live this out. And so the rest of the book of James, he goes through and he reminds them of what this looks like in their words and their actions. And there's so much of this book of James that sounds like Jesus. It sounds like Jesus as he stands on the Sermon on the Mount and is teaching. And it's because we find out that James actually teaches the most from Jesus' words than any other author in the New Testament. And you gotta love that little brother who now thinks that his big brother is really cool. And he wants to make sure that everybody hears and knows what it is that he taught. And so he continues in this book to talk of a faith, of an active faith that endures in the midst of trials, that calls on God for wisdom, that bridles the tongue. That's a lesson for all of us. Bridles the tongue that sets aside wickedness, that visits orphans and widows, an active faith that guards against greed, that's patient in suffering, that's rich in prayer, that doesn't play favorites. And he stresses that this life of faith should be all-encompassing and pressing us to engage in the life of others. And so as I continued to read through this and I was thinking about like, hey, does James' teaching actually apply to us in 2023? And of course I came up with a resounding yes, it does. Because y'all, in the culture and the world that we live in today, if we as Grace Raleigh, as the people of Grace Raleigh, are this living example of people who are walking out their faith. They're not just talking about it, but they're actually walking out their faith, like the impact that we can have both as an individual and as a group. And so one of the things that really also hit me is, is that as I went through this is I was reminded of our traits of grace. For those of you guys that don't know what I'm talking about when I say the traits of grace, this was five traits that the elders and the staff came up with that describe our people, that as partners of grace, this is who we are and what we reflect. And there's a whole section that talks about our core beliefs, but then it goes on with the sentence that says, in the light of the gospel and because we love Jesus. So going back to like what James said, he had an encounter with the living God. He was forever changed. So in light of the gospel and because we love Jesus, this is what we choose to do. And it goes on to say that we are kingdom builders, that we leverage everything that we have, our time, our treasures, and our talents to build God's kingdom. We are partners. We partner with each other. We partner with our ministries. We partner with our missionaries. We partner with nonprofits because we truly believe that no one should ever do life alone. And of course, to further God's kingdom. That we're people of devotion where we spend time daily in prayer and in God's word to grow closer to him. That we're step-takers where we're committed to this next step of obedience. And then finally, that we're conduits of grace, that we acknowledge that God has lavished grace upon us and that because of that, we're actually able to lavish it on others. And so this is who the people of grace are. And I have to say that my family and I had the opportunity to be huge benefactors of watching the people of grace live out their faith. For many of you, many of you may or may not know who, I don't know. But over the course of the last year or so my mom was exceptionally sick and in poor health or declining health and starting about a year ago her health took a little bit steeper trajectory downward and we started with some hospital visits and I was running back and forth between Raleigh and Pinehurst on a weekly basis on the weekends. And then as time went on, the time increased a little bit more. I'd spend more weekend time down there, etc. And then in October of this year, mom was hospitalized. It was a sudden hospitalization. She was severely ill at that point in time. I dropped everything. I went to Pinehurst with my laptop and a bag, not knowing what I was going to find. When I got there, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Well, come to find out that over the month of October, so 31 days, my mom spent 21 of them in the hospital. And during that time, I watched as Julie slowly made sure that everything in Grace Kids was running as smoothly as it possibly could, so I didn't have to worry about that. I had parts of our small group, Tammy Vinson and Karen Latta and some of the others that jumped in and said, we've got this. And they took over all of the responsibilities that I had there, and the small group kept moving right along. I had Nate and the elders saying to me, you do what you need to do, Aaron. Your family is the most important thing. And so I was given the freedom to be there with my mom and with my dad to do what it was that I needed to do at that time. And Jesus took my mom home at the beginning of December. And as I look back on it now, though, I was given such a gift by the people of grace who loved on us so well, who loved on my family in my absence. It's something I can never, ever repay. But y'all, that's the best example that I have of what it looks like when a people live it. They didn't just say they believed in Jesus. Everything that was extended to my family during this time just shone the light of Jesus. And again, it's something I can never, ever repay. So a life where our words and our actions come together, where in light of the gospel and because we love Jesus, we are showing the world how an encounter with the living God has changed us and changed us for the better. So this little book of, it's five chapters and a hundred verses, y'all. That's it. It's not a lot. I promise y'all can sit down and read it. And I hope that you can hear the pastor's heart behind this book. And I also hope that you will allow it to challenge you like it's challenged me. On a little bit of a side note, I found this one funny. As we talk about being challenged by this book, Martin Luther actually was severely challenged by the book of James, and he called it a right strawy epistle, and then went on to say, away with James, I feel like throwing Jimmy into the stove, which I just had to giggle a little bit at that one, because I tell you what, if Martin Luther can be that challenged by this book, so much so that he wants to pick it up and throw it in the fire, oh, can you imagine what it's going to do to the rest of us? It might step on your toes a little. I expect it to. But I hope and I pray that you accept that challenge because in that challenge, it's going to produce change. And it's that change that helps us to grow and to continue to mature in our faith. So people of grace and followers of the risen Lord, will you look in the mirror each day? Will you take the opportunity to ask God what you need to change, what you need to do in order to get a little bit closer to him? And what is it that we can do in order to learn how to live it so that we're known by what we do, not what we say. Will y'all pray with me? Lord, thank you. Thank you for these beautiful words of James. Thank you for the challenge that you give us. This challenge to take that step of obedience and learn to not just talk the talk, but to walk the walk. We want our words and we want our actions to do nothing but bring the glory to you. So will we become that people, Lord, that when the people of Raleigh look at us, they see something different. They see lives that have had encounters with the living God that have been forever changed and who want to bring that change and that love to others. And Lord, we love you. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.

All right, I see no one paid extra for the splash zone this morning, but I feel like I should like just stand down here and preach, but no, it's good morning. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here at Grace. As most of you probably know by now, the month of July, our head pastor, Nate, is actually taking a sabbatical. It's something that was afforded to him as he has spent diligent, full-time service to this church, ministering to all of us so lovingly and so well for seven years. And so he is taking some time during the month of July to refresh and recharge spiritually in all other ways, spending time relaxing with family, on vacation, all of those things. And so I'm super happy for them. I'm super excited that he's getting the opportunity to do that. And honestly, I'm really excited for us and what that means for Grace, because you know he's gonna come out of that time ready to run in August, ready to run alongside of us in August as he comes back spiritually, recharged, and re-energized. But that also means is I get to preach this morning, which is really cool. Yeah, like cool. All right. I wasn't fishing, but I am thankful for it. I will say, like, I am mostly very excited about it. We're in our series 27, and in 27, we are going through a different book of the New Testament each week. Now, the reason why I'm mostly excited is because I think that there's a small part of me that thinks that Nate might have set me up for failure for this. Because as we talked about this series, we knew that he was going to be on sabbatical. And so there were a lot of voices, a lot of people talking, discussing, hey, what should this series look like? How should we do this series? All this stuff. And one of the main things that Nate made very clear is, hey, don't worry about us going in order. We're not going to go in order all the way through the New Testament. Just choose books that you're going to love and that stand out to you in your preparation. Awesome. Thanks so much. Man, Nate's the best. He doesn't want to be holding us to a certain book. He wants us to pick the book. And then Nate decides for the first four weeks, he's going to do the first four books in order of the New Testament. So while we know in his office that he has decided we don't have to go in order, now you guys are coming ready for an Acts sermon, and I'm hitting you with 1 Thessalonians. And not only did he set me up for failure, but he also knew if there's rioting in the building because I go out of the order you guys are ready for, he's gone. He's on sabbatical. He doesn't have to worry about it. So if you will, please bear with me, and please put down your, you know, whatever pickaxes that you're going to come to me because I'm breaking out of order because I am this morning going to peel off the Band-Aid and we are going to jump into the book of 1 Thessalonians. Now, one of the distinct things about the New Testament, as a lot of you guys know, 13 of the books are attributed to Paul and to Paul's ministry, the Apostle Paul. He wrote these letters to these different churches in these different areas, and they were all named after the areas in the people that he's writing to. And those are, and they're all written by Paul. And so for a lot of this series, we're going to be bringing up this guy named Paul, the Apostle Paul. Now, the thing about Paul, he was not a big fan of Christians. He persecuted them. He wanted to kill them. He thought like, hey, like get rid of this ideology of Christianity that you think exists because this is not, this is not it. You're wrong. You're completely wrong. I'm not having it. Until God kind of hit him literally in just this, he blinded him. I don't know what else to say. I don't really know what word I was searching for, but he blinded him and sent a Christian to go spend some time with Paul, teach Paul the truth, and then literally God opened Paul's eyes, both literally and figuratively, to the gospel that, hey, Paul, you're right that I am God, but you're wrong about who Christ is. This Jesus who came and lived, came and lived because I sent him as my son from heaven to earth to live a perfect life and to die a death signifying the death of all sins of the people who believe him. And he was resurrected from the dead, just as you've heard people tell. And that resurrection signifies that all those people who would believe in him and believe in Jesus as king and trust him as their Lord and Savior, that they are raised to life as well. That when God looks at them, they don't see the imperfections of their lives and of their walks in their life, but they see the perfection of Christ and the holiness of Christ because they have entrusted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And once the Lord told Paul that, Paul's life was then about one thing and one thing only, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everything that Paul did, when you read about his ministry and acts, when you read about his ministry and read his writings to each of these different churches as we're gonna go through, he has one goal and one goal only, and that Paul's ultimate goal was to share the gospel to all people and call them to repent and live a life reflective of that gospel. It's the only thing that he cared about. I want to make sure everyone I come in contact with knows who Jesus is, and I want to make sure everyone that I encounter not only knows who he is, but will give their hearts to that Christ and give their lives to the ministry of that Jesus, just as I have. And that's a lot of what 1 Thessalonians is. That's the goal of 1 Thessalonians is Paul writing to the people in the church of Thessalonica, some as reminding himself and just reminiscing on his time there, some to say, hey, like I'm so excited that this is taken, and some to say, hey, continue and press on. That is the goal of this. But as I was going through each one of his letters, as I was going through each book in the New Testament, man, what really jumped out to me about 1 Thessalonians is outside of clearly this being the goal, as it so often is in Paul's writing, I think that he just gives a really, really excellent description of exactly what that looks like. I think that's super valuable, because I don't, if you're like me, there's times where I hear sermons, or there's times where I'm reading through Scripture, and it is abundantly clear what Scripture would have me do. It's abundantly clear, okay, yes, I do love God. Yes, I know that I should go and tell more people about Jesus. Yes, I know I should minister to these people. I know I should make disciples. I should do all of those things. But sometimes I feel like it's a lot harder through Scripture to find, okay, so what exactly does that look like? And I think we find a pretty excellent description of what it looks like when we read the book of 1 Thessalonians. And so before we jump in, I want to give you a little background, a little history. So Paul and one of his ministry partners named Silas, you can find in the book of Acts, Acts 17, where they spent some time in Thessalonica. They go and join their community and start preaching the gospel, telling people who Jesus is, telling people, hey, this Jesus who came and walked on earth died for you so that you could have eternal life, so that you could have this eternal relationship with God the Father, all this stuff. And boy, was it effective. I mean, as they were preaching the gospel, the Lord was just taking hold of the hearts of the people in Thessalonica. And man, I mean, there was, it was like wildfire the gospel was spreading in the area. And it's incredible to read about. It's incredible to see. I mean, literally, it's like, it's like, you know, one of those church revivals where you see the Lord clearly moving. But in this case, it wasn't necessarily a revival because these people are coming alive for the first time. This entire city is hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time. And so it would be more of just a vival, I guess. They're becoming alive for the first time. I don't know. I don't know words like that, but that seems right. But it's incredible to read about how the Lord was moving, but then that brought some consequences as well because there were still Jewish people in the area who, like Paul was prior, was not happy about Jesus taking over, wasn't happy to hear that there were these two guys that were spreading these claims that they felt to be inaccurate, and so they started persecuting the people and kind of looked like seeking out Paul and Silas to the point that the Christians felt, the Christians and Paul and Silas all felt so distinctly worried that they ended up smuggling them out of the city at night one night because they were like, hey, if they find you, I think they might kill you. And so it is best for you and it's best for everybody if you can go ahead and leave, if we can get you out. And so they got out, they got out safely, and they got out knowing, hey, we know that a lot of people love Christ and give themselves to Christ, but man, Paul is really pretty downtrodden about the fact that he had to leave. As you read in 1 Thessalonians, there's a bit, especially on the early part of 1 Thessalonians, where he's really upset. It kind of takes on this flavor of, some of you guys probably know this, when you were a kid and your parents let you know that one of them got a new job in a new town or a new city and you were going to have to move, which meant, hey, all of these relationships that you've built, all of these friends that you have that you dearly love, you're not going to be able to see them much anymore, and you don't really have much say in that matter. You're just not going to get the amount of time that you hope to get with these people that you love. And that's kind of how Paul starts off this writing, just kind of really sad and really upset about the fact that he was having to be pulled out of this place with these people who he had really grown to love and adore. Not only that, but he got to see the way that Christ had begun moving in that place, and that excited him, but he just, he almost felt like he was leaving them when they needed him most to really learn, and to really learn from him and imitate him what ministering to other people looked like, and establishing roots where they had built a foundation of Christ. And so he just kind of felt like he got the short end of the stick on that and was really upset. So what he did is he sent another ministry partner named Timothy to go check in on him. Timothy, go spend some time with these people. First and foremost, let them know that I am praying for them every day. I pray that the Lord is continuing to move in their hearts, move in their lives, move in their city. But man, I also just pray that soon enough I get to come and see them again, to see my friends, the people that I love so much, once more. Let them know that, please, and spend some time with them. See how they're doing. See how the church is doing. See if the gospel is continuing to move, and report back to me. And so he does. He goes, he finds out, and he comes back. And the response is really positive. It's really good and exciting news that while obviously there's still issues going on in Thessalonica, but the gospel has just absolutely taken off. Where a foundation was set and where Paul had ministered to these people and showed them Christ, they were building upon that foundation and continuing daily to bring more and more people into the faith under Christ. And not only that, but it was moving outside of the city walls as well. I learned actually in researching that Thessalonica, how it is set up, it's actually kind of a, it's a trade town. So a lot of people in the rest of Macedonia and all over those nations, and also in the Roman Empire, all congregate to Thessalonica to do trading. And so while there is this there's this vival happening amongst the Thessalonians, as the gospel is traveling and hitting and encouraging so many people in this city, it is also moving outside of those city walls because as people are coming in for trade consistently, those people that are there are spreading the gospel to them as well. I actually read in a William Barclay commentary. This is really cool and really interesting. He basically said that you cannot understate, you cannot downplay how important the Christianity expanding outside of Thessalonica was for Christianity becoming a world religion. That's how important Christ taking over the hearts of the people in Thessalonica was. One of the main reasons why Christianity spread worldwide. And so you can imagine how Paul wrote to these people in response to this. First Thessalonians is in response to Timothy coming and telling him this unbelievable news. And as you can imagine, he writes just completely joyful and absolutely elated, which we've been there too, right? You've got, I mean, a lot of you guys are parents. You've raised kids that are still alive, which is like unbelievable to me, but good job for y'all. But you have kids and you have people in your life that you love and that you invest so much time and energy in. And so when you see them do well, when you see them do the thing that you helped them be able to do, get to that next step, get to that next point in life, when you see them come to know Jesus Christ for the first time, there's nothing better, right? There's nothing better, one, because somebody that you love is doing well. But two, there's just a pride in knowing that, hey, I had some small part to play in people doing well. But two, there's just a pride in knowing that, hey, I had some small part to play in people doing well, people getting to know Christ, Christ being shed and spread, Christ being spread through the nation and into other nations. And so that's how he writes. He reminisces on his time there spent with these people, building relationships, growing to love them, being a part of the culture, being a part of the community, and sharing the gospel through them, saying, hey, like, I'm so happy that I was able to minister to you in this way, and I'm even happier that the Lord is moving now, and that you guys are imitating the way that I ministered to you guys, and now you're ministering to other people in the same way, and it's effective, and I am so happy to hear it, and I think what that does is it opens up the door to asking a question. The question is, how did Paul minister to the people in Thessalonica? Okay, this is awesome. Paul ministered to these people. So many of them started giving their hearts and giving their lives to Jesus, and now they're doing the same thing that he did, and it's continuing to work incredibly well. And I think that 1 Thessalonians does an excellent job of telling us exactly what. And so as you go through, I think the whole book does a good job of sharing that, of sharing that directive, of giving, of saying, hey, this is exactly how it was done. I think in particular, chapter 2, verses 5 through 8, does a really excellent job as to making something that seems a little bit inaccessible very accessible, not only for the people in Thessalonica, but I think for the people in this room. It's a very doable strategy of ministering to people that we can emulate. And so we're actually going to start, we're going to start in verse 7, and then we're going to go backwards, because as we've established, I'm not going in order. So if you will, please just read with me verses 7 and 8. Let me read that one more time. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves because you have become very dear to us. We came and we brought you the gospel, but we brought you so much more than that. We brought you our whole selves. We gave you ourselves. I think it's a pretty excellent summation to say that Paul ministered gently and sacrificially through genuine relational love. He didn't share the gospel from a distance. It's not some guy who rolls up into this community during the day, sets up a pulpit, and preaches throughout the day, sharing the gospel, and then goes back to his place away from everybody afterwards. He immersed himself into this community. He built relationships with these people. He chose to serve them and love them well and intently. He goes after them, becomes a part of them, and builds through relational love these relationships and these friendships with these people so that they know without a shadow of a doubt that this person cares about me, that I am loved by this person. What's he doing? He's showing the love of Christ to these people so that he can share with them the gospel of who Jesus is, and they're going to be willing to hear it. I think what he realized is that we should strive to present the truth of Christ through imitating the love of Christ. We hear a lot about what it looks like to share the gospel, and I get a ton of questions about how am I supposed to do that. Like, I don't really think I'm meant to be Paul and go with a couple guys to different nations and different cities and preach to them until I'm thrown in prison and then write letters to them. But clearly what Paul is saying here, because Paul echoes a lot in his time and in his writing, I am ministering to you in this way and I am calling you to imitate and minister to other people in this way. How am I calling you to share the gospel? The same way that I'm sharing the gospel with you. I'm coming, and I'm going to be a part of your lives. I'm going to build friendships, and I'm going to love you well. I'm going to love you out of the love of Christ that I have received from Christ, and through that, through me loving you like Christ, I am going to share the truth of Christ with you in a way that is impactful, in a way that is meaningful, and in a way that you are going to be willing to hear from me because you know that I only genuinely care about you. He actually goes a little bit deeper in verses five and six. And so, hey, like, we're disciples of God. We could have come in and told you, hey, these are the things that you need to know. These are the things that you need to do. These are the things that you need to figure out so that you can be saved. But instead, he said, hey, that's not, that wasn't our goal. Our goal wasn't to share the gospel in this impersonal, in this formal, impersonal way. It was to share the gospel as personally as possible. Now, the wording of the greed part, I want to go dive into that a little bit, because as I kind of told you, he's a little bit repetitive with the things that he says throughout, and I think that is probably because they're important. Paul thought it was very, very meaningful and a very useful tool of ministry to, when he went into Thessalonica, not to establish a church and be the head of that church, not to be a guy who, what he did is, hey, I'm bringing you the gospel. I'm kind of going to be the minister here, and so please pay me, bring me food, give me shelter, so that I can bring this good news to you. Instead, Paul talks pretty distinctly about that he got a job in Thessalonica as soon as he got there, because he wanted to work amongst the people. He wanted the people in Thessalonica to know, hey, I care only's awesome that you're doing ministry and that that's your full-time job, but he's kind of saying all of you guys, y'all are doing it the way that he would do it. Y'all are doing it the way that he's calling here. That's how, I think that's ultimately maybe the thing that stuck out most to me in this is this is a message for the people of the church that aren't working in the church. I have to work hard to make sure I don't do that. I have to go out of my way to make sure that my students know that, hey, I'm going to minister to you and I'm going to love you while you're in this building, but I'm also going to go outside of these walls to make sure I'm a part of your lives, ministering to you, getting to know you so that you know without a shadow of a doubt that, yes, sure, this is Kyle's job to do this, but the only reason he's actually doing it is because he loves me, and he wants me to know the gospel. But you guys aren't beholden to those things, and I think that what Paul is saying is, y'all are doing it right. That's the way that he would call us to minister. And what I think he realized is that there is a purity of intention when you have nothing to gain from the people you are specifically loving and pouring into. How pure is your motivation when as you're building relationships and as you're building upon foundations of relationships, when you're loving people well, going out of your way to serve people, that you're asking of nothing in return, to where they know that you're only doing that because you care about them, just in the same way that you know that the only reason you're doing that is because, hey, the Lord loves this person, and so do I, regardless of who they are. And I think what I love about this is that this is a message that I, like, this is something that I see people in this church do really well. I think this is certainly something to be like, yes, I need to do this, whatever, but like, I see this all over, all over the place in this church. I got a buddy, Preston, that comes to the church that he's maybe one of the best possible, like, friend makers that I've ever met. Like, when I watch him in conversation, I'm just like, gosh, man, like, that dude genuinely cares about everything that everyone says to him. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know if he's just trying to be like Jesus or whatever, or if he's just, well, you know, like, I don't know what it is, but I'm just so taken aback at how good he is at making people know, hey, you are my friend and I care about you. And recently we had a conversation. He said there was a guy in his office who obviously was his friend because he's been around Preston and that's what Preston does. He makes friends. And he was like, hey man, like, I just seem to notice you really care about people a lot. And you honestly seem to be a lot more content than I am with life. You don't seem to get quite as upset about stuff. You love people well. And I just kind of want to know what's your secret. I want to be more like that. I want to understand how to do that better. That opened up the door for Preston to be able to tell him about Jesus. That door doesn't get opened if Preston is just trying to give him the gospel but not give him any part of himself. But Preston gave of himself, built this relational foundation that that guy wanted to ask Preston that question. I think about my buddy Logan, another guy who comes to the church. He, two of his best friends are two people he served in the Navy with. Neither one are believers, actually. But Logan has loved them well and has built that friendship to a point that he's able to share the gospel with them, and they're not going to be turned off. They're willing to listen. Not only that, but they love him so much that they want to support him in whatever the way they can. So he's actually, he hosts every other Monday night, he hosts this film watching group where the point of it is to watch this film and then talk about how it relates to the gospel. And guess who's on Zoom every single week from all over the nation? Those two guys. They want to be a part. They want to talk about film, and they listen. They get to hear about the gospel every other week on Monday night where outside of that, they don't hear it at all because they have a friend that they love and want to support a cool thing that he's doing. They hear the gospel because Logan has loved them and has loved them well and has built that relationship to that point. My wife, Ashlyn, she rules. I don't know if I've seen more tears than watching her go from two offices, one in Garner and one in Cary, to just being in Cary. The people in that Garner office, there were just so many tears because Ashlyn is the friend on staff, on staff with those people who's going to always consistently love them well and encourage them, point them back to Jesus and be a light in their life. You don't know how effective you are at that until you leave and you find out that the response is everyone being so upset. She had a mom say, hey, I know we live in Garner, but we're going to be there in Cary. I can't stop crying. My daughter genuinely says that Miss Ashlyn is her best friend. We're going to stick with you. That happens because Ashlyn loves very well. She's got a person in the office who just, in the carry office, who just experienced a tragedy and reached out to everybody, said, hey, this happened. Please don't ask me about it. I'm not ready to talk. A week later, guess who's, guess who walked in, whose door she walked in because she wanted to talk? Ashlyn. Because Ashlyn, she knows that Ashlyn loves her well and is going to point her to Jesus and point her towards the light. And finally, I look at, I look at Karen and Chris. I know Chris isn't used to being praised on a Sunday morning, but since Nate's gone, we're just gonna, we're gonna break all the, we're gonna break all the molds here. But I mean, their, their youngest daughter is my age, graduated in 2011, and they right now have decided, you know what, we're tired of having all this stuff, we want to have somebody come and live with us. They have somebody from, a soccer player from South Africa currently living with them, a college student, which like, I don't know, can't be like insanely fun, and't be insanely easy. I mean like super nice dude, but like, you know, they've been living with a lot of freedom for a long time by themselves. And so they're just hosting kids over at their house all the time, college students, just college dudes, just rolling up, soccer players, probably acting a fool. I don't know. I'm just kidding. Definitely not acting a fool. I know you're not, bro. But I mean, how easy is it? How easy would it have been for Karen and Chris to love them well by supplying them with Chick-fil-A coupons so they feel like they have some other food? To bring them some candy, bring them some extra clothes, whatever, and just check in on them every once in a while. But what they recognize and what they realize, in the same way that Paul knew was incredibly important, is if I want to truly impact the people that are around me, then I need to truly be a part of their lives. I need to truly build relationships with these people built on a foundation of the love of Christ, loving them well, encouraging them well, and that is a true and ultimate way to make a gospel impact. And that is where then the door is open to truly not only share the love of Christ through your actions, but share the truth of Christ in your words, and to truly share the gospel to the people around you. And in Paul's writing, Paul kind of says the same thing. He's like, guys, I want to encourage you in this, but you're doing it really well. Actually, I want to read it because I think it's beautiful, and I think that the simple way that I want to encourage you, Grace, who does this so well, is the same way that Paul encourages the people of Thessalonica. So if you will, please, let's read verses, or 1 Thessalonians 4, 9 through 10. Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you. For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, be able to show and share the gospel to so many other people. So my simple question for you that I want to close on is this. Who and where can you do this more and more and continue to do it more and more? So I want to close this morning in a prayer, but I want to, it's kind of a specific prayer. Ashlyn, my wife, she wants to be as helpful as possible in my sermons, and sometimes she feels like, I gotta like, you know, she feels like she's unhelpful. I'm like, Ashlyn, you're great. Just you loving me is very helpful. But she knew kind of what I was talking about this morning, and she was reminded of a song, it's actually by Casting Crowns, throwback, called The Bridge. And this song, I think, just does an absolutely beautiful job of just giving the same encouragement and the same prayer that we pray as we try to share the love of Christ so that we can share the truth of Christ. So if you will, we're just going to pray, and I'm going to pray over us these lyrics from this song. Bow with me. With love, we earn the right to speak your truth. It's not just what we say, it's what we do. I want to be a bridge, God, that leads to you. So reach through me and let them see, Lord, let them see. Lord, let us love like this. Let us share the gospel like this. Not formal, not impersonal, but as personal and as loving as we possibly can. We love you so much. Amen.

Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Jordan, it is interesting to me that you think profundity is what's required to get up on the stage when they parade me out here every week, falling woefully short of the bar. This is the third part in our series called Big Emotions, where we're just kind of looking at times in Scripture where we see a blow-up or a blow-out or people with with just big overwhelming emotions because that is so much a part of our life. That is something that we experience just as we go through life. Sometimes our emotions are too big for us and they're overwhelming. And so this morning I wanted to take a look at big emotions in our prayers and what happens and how does God respond when big emotions creep into our prayers, when our prayers really become cries. And to do that, I want us to think about prayer together. It's really, when you consider it, one of the more interesting passages in the Bible, one of the more interesting interchanges that Jesus has with his disciples. They're following him around. They're watching him do ministry. And at one point, they look at Jesus and they say, hey, Jesus, will you teach us to pray? Now, this is a really interesting question coming from the disciples. And many of you have probably considered this before. The disciples knew how to pray. They knew how to pray. They had prayed their whole life. They had gone to synagogue every week, maybe daily at different points in their life. I don't know. They had seen a ton of people pray. They knew how to pray. They had prayed many prayers before, but there was something different, so different about the prayers of Jesus that they had to stop him and say, can you teach us to pray like you pray? Because that's different than how we pray. And Jesus responds by sharing with them the Lord's prayer. You guys probably all know it. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. And so in that, Jesus gives the model of prayer to the disciples and to us in perpetuity. And if you break that down, I've always been taught prayer and I've taught prayer this way in church, in youth group, in camps, in different places, in men's groups, small group, when we talk about prayer, something that's always been really helpful for me is the acronym ACTS. And you guys have probably heard this before. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. So the way that Jesus opens up the prayer. When we pray, the first thing we should do is adore God. God, you're great. God, you're good. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. God, you are wonderful for this. God, you blow me away for that. And when we do this, it really puts us in the right posture for prayer, you know? It really reminds us who we're talking to. I had a Bible teacher in high school who was also my soccer coach, who was also my administrator because I went to a small school. And when he would pray in class, he would say, okay, everyone, let's pray, bow your heads. And we would bow our heads to pray, and he would wait 20 or 30 seconds. And so finally, I asked one day, Mr. Dawson, what are you doing? Like, that's awkward. Why do you make us just sit there in silence? What are you waiting on? Because it's almost like, does he want us to pray? Like, should we? And he told me what he was doing. He said he was taking his mind, whenever he would pause before prayer, to Isaiah chapter 6, where the throne room of God is described. And it says that God is on his throne, and the train of his robe is filling the temple with glory. And there's these six-winged angels flying around him saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And it's just so overwhelming that he cowers in a corner. And Mr. Dawson said that when, he said, when I pray, I like to take myself there to put myself in proper posture before God to remind myself when I pray, where am I going? I'm going to the throne room of God, the King of the universe, and I'm addressing the creator of the universe. That's a serious, somber thing. That's a place for humility. That's a place for penitence. This is why when we teach our children to pray, we teach them to bow their heads and close their eyes. It's a sign of reverence. It's a sign of respect for knowing who we're talking to and where we're going. It's why I encourage you as much as you can to kneel when you pray. Because it's hard to put yourself in the posture of kneeling and not feel humble, at least a little bit. And so Jesus says we should start with adoration. We should adore God. We should praise him. And then we should go to confession. What are the things, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. How have we trespassed against God? What attitudes do we bring into this day and into this prayer? What sins do we carry with us that yet remain unconfessed before the Father? What do we need to confess to God before him? And then we move into this time of thanksgiving, praising Him. God, thank you for your goodness in my life. Thank you for my family. Thank you for a church that I love. Thank you for the rain. Thank you for the day, whatever it is. It's John's second birthday today. Thank you for a great two-year-old son and for friends watching him in the nursery right now. Thank you for all of those things. We praise God for things. And then, suffocation. Then we ask for what we need. And you guys know, and you've heard this, that the tendency when we pray is to skip act and go straight to S. Skip all the other stuff and just go, dear God, I really need blank. I really need you to show up here. I really need this to work out. I'm really worried about this. It's all the I need, I need, I need. And there's a place for that in prayer. But the way that Jesus teaches us prayer, it follows this pattern of first putting ourself in the proper place and then confessing our sins, which remind us of the humility we should carry into the throne room. And then thanksgiving, let's acknowledge all the blessings God's given us in our lives before we ask him for more, and then in that proper mindset, say what we need to say. That's kind of the proper way to pray. But sometimes we pray when our emotions are too big for propriety. Sometimes we pray prayers that become cries. And the emotions that we bring into that moment are too big for acts. I've shared with you guys before that the first time Jen and I got pregnant, we miscarried. And I'm not in the business of doing comparative pain for miscarriages and who has the right to the most sorrow. But for us, the pain was particularly acute because we had been praying for a child for years. For years. We had struggled mightily. Our moms and grandmas were praying for babies. We had the church around us at the time praying that we could have a baby. We knew that's what we wanted to do. On my mama's deathbed, a few years before we got pregnant, the very last thing she did for me was direct someone to the top of her closet to get a stuffed animal that she made to give to my child when we had them. She went ahead and made it, and I think my sister finished it up for her so that we would have that to give to our first child. So when we got pregnant, we were elated. And then we went to the checkup for eight weeks, and the baby wasn't there. I don't know how long it took me to pray after that. But the first time I did pray, it wasn't Acts. The first time I prayed, it didn't look very much like our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It looked a lot more like God. What in the world? What the heck? I would say different words if I weren't on this stage and there weren't children in the audience. That's how I felt, and that's how I prayed. What are you doing? Because we, and we're not entitled to this. None of what I'm about to say really matters, but to us it did. Jen's a school teacher. She loves kids. She's teaching in a Christian school, leading people towards you. We still have relationships with some of the kids that she taught in those days. I was a school teacher. I taught high school Bible. And then I worked at a church. We had made good choices. We were good Christian people. We had checked all the boxes. We had done all the things. And there was people who were living lives way more rebellious than us who were just tripping accidentally into family. And then we get pregnant and then you take it? No, I'm not praying acts. I'm not following the pattern for this one. There are some prayers that we pray that become cries. When we hear of the terminal diagnosis and we go to the Father and we say, really? This one? Him? Her? Why not me in your jacked up economy? Why them? There's a girl in our community. She's a young woman in our community. Just last week or two. She battled cancer for five years and came to it a week or two ago. Beautiful family, young kids. I don't know when that husband is going to pray again. When he does, those prayers will be cries. We've all prayed prayers like that. Where we're walking through what feels to us like the dark night of the soul and we don't have time or patience for propriety. We just go to our God and we are raw and we are real and we cry out, what in the world? How is this right? How does this make sense? As parents that send their kids to school in that private school in Nashville, what do those prayers sound like when they start to pray again? We've all prayed those prayers that are so big and so raw and so emotional that they become cries. And so I think it's worth it to look and see how God handles these prayers in Scripture. Because we get to see some. God in His goodness left them for us in His inspired Word. And so what I want to encourage you with today is, I know that we've all prayed those prayers. If you've never prayed those prayers, I'm so happy for you. I hope you never do, but I think you will. And what I want us to know as we look into the scripture this morning is that God is not offended by our prayers that become cries. I don't think God in his goodness and in his grace and in his mercy is offended when I look at him after the deepest pain that I've felt up to that point in my life and I go, what in the world? That's not fair. That's not right. That doesn't make sense. I don't think God gets offended by those things. I don't think he's so small that our broken hearts offend our God. And I actually think that there's grace and space for those prayers because we see them in the Bible. We actually see Jesus pray one of these prayers, a prayer that is so raw and so real and so emotional that it becomes a cry. This prayer is recorded in all four Gospels. We're going to look at the account in the Gospel of Luke chapter 22. Beginning in verse 39. And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, speaking of Jesus. And the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, this scene, many of you know it, Jesus has just left the Last Supper with the disciples. He's instituted communion. He's told them, my body is going to be broken for you. My blood is going to be spilled for you. He knows what is going to happen. He knows when he gets done praying, he's going to be arrested. And he knows that when he's arrested, he's going to be tried. And after he's tried, he's going to be flogged and beaten, and he's going to be hung on a cross and left there to die and then face death and hell. He knows that. And so he brings the disciples with him, and he says, remain here while I pray. And he goes off a distance, one would assume, so that they couldn't hear him. And it is interesting that they all ended up hearing him, because there's nothing in the text to indicate that Jesus subtly knelt and clasped his hands and said, my Father who is in heaven. No, these prayers from Jesus that we see, in Luke it says he knelt. In another gospel it says that he fell with his face to the ground. And the disciples are a stone's throw away and they can hear him clearly. And then he gets so intense in his praying that sweat begins to mix with his blood, which we know is something that can actually happen in moments of incredibly intense stress in our lives. So the prayer that Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane was not, Dear God, if there's any other way, would you please point me in that? It wasn't that. It was Jesus on his face prostrate, God, Father, please don't make me do this. Please, is there any other way? Is there anything else I can do? I do not want to bear this. I do not want to be on the cross and hear you and see you turn your back on me. I do not want to say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I do not want the crown of thorns in my head. I do not want the nails in my wrist. I do not want to do this, Father. Is there any other way? Please, please take this cup from me. That's a prayer becoming a cry. That's Jesus sidestepping propriety and crying out to his heavenly father. And in there, he finds what we should find when we pray like this. No matter how deep, no matter how raw, yet not my will but your will be done. Please give me the strength to accept your will. So I know that God isn't offended by those prayers because his son prays one to him in full view and vision of the disciples. And then he tells us about it in all four gospels. And that made me wonder, where else in the Bible do we have prayers that are raw and real and emotional? Where else in the Bible do we have prayers that have become cries? And of course, I went to Psalms. And I just started reading them and flipping through and finding them, these things where people are just raw. I am weary unto death. I want to die. Take my life. And I put them in your notes, Psalm 142 and Psalm 13 and Psalm 77. I think of Hannah's prayer in the temple when she's praying so earnestly and fervently for a child that Eli the priest thinks she's drunk. I think of the book of Lamentations, which is a whole book of tough, raw prayers. And I was going to kind of bounce around between those prayers, but then I was reminded of another psalm that's really dear to my heart, Psalm 88. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you to turn there. I encountered Psalm 88 when I took a trip to Israel several years ago. One of the things most groups do when you go to Israel is when you're in Jerusalem, you go to Caiaphas' house. Caiaphas is the high priest that had Jesus arrested, had him tried, and had him murdered. And in the basement of Caiaphas' house is this makeshift small dungeon. And a portion of the dungeon is a cylindrical room that they would tie ropes under the shoulders of the prisoner and lower them into this pitch black, dark room. Now there's stairs that lead down, but in Caiaphas' day, in Jesus' day, that was not the case. They lower you in and they pull you up when they're ready for you. And most people believe that this is where Jesus spent the night after he got arrested, waiting on his trial before Pilate the next day. And when you go to Jerusalem, you can go down into that cell. And our guide pointed us to Psalm 88. Psalm 88 was written by the sons of Korah, we're told. But it's also believed by scholars to be a prophetic messianic psalm. And many scholars believe that this is meant to be the prayer that Jesus prays after he's arrested. If it's not the prayer that he prays after he's arrested, Jesus knew the scriptures, he knew the psalms, this could very well be a psalm that came to mind that he quoted. But when I picture Jesus arrested and alone and reading, crying these things out, it brings fresh meaning to it for me. And when we listen to it and read it, I think you'll be taken aback by how very real it is. So I'm going to read a good portion of it. Beginning in verse 11. Is your steadfast love declared in the grave or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? And then verse 13, They surround me like a flood all day long. They close in on me together. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. My companions have become darkness. That's a real prayer. That's not a prayer you pray in church in front of other people. That's not how we teach our kids to pray. We see accusations in this prayer. You have caused my friends and my loved ones to shun me. It is your wrath that beats against me and waves and covers me. The person crying out to God in this psalm feels the darkness closing in in such a way that they don't know if they will see the light again. My companions have become darkness, he ends with. And that's it. I am grateful to God for choosing to include in his Bible and his inspired word prayers that are that raw and that are that real. Prayers that show us that when our emotions are too big for propriety, that our God can meet us in those places and hear us. He appreciates those prayers so much so that he recorded them and fought for them and protected them down through the centuries so that we could see them too. So when we pray them, it's okay. When we need to cry out to God, we can. He's not offended by those prayers. He hears those prayers. He welcomes those prayers. And here's what else happens when we cry out to God, when our prayers become cries, when we lose all sense of propriety and we're just trying to figure it out. Here's what else happens when it's literally the dark night of our soul and the darkness is closing in around us and our life is falling apart and our children are making decisions that we don't understand and our husband is making decisions that we don't understand and everything that we thought was going to happen, this future that we had projected is not going to happen. This person that I love is not in my life anymore and I see reminders of them all the time and I don't know how I'm going to put one foot in front of the other. I don't know how I'm going to do it. When we pray those prayers, this is what happens. If we look back at Luke 22, there's a verse that I skipped. Verse 43. In the middle of his praying, and there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him. In the middle of Jesus crying out, Father, please don't make me do this. Please let there be another way. God says, son, you're going to have to walk that path. But he doesn't make him do it on his own. He sends an angel to strengthen Jesus in the dark night of his soul. And I can't help but believe that God will send angels to strengthen you too. When you pray those prayers, I think God sends his angels to strengthen you as well. And I don't know what those angels look like. Maybe it's a hug. Maybe it's someone's presence. Maybe it's a text or a phone call or an email. I know in our family it's cardinals. Maybe it's a southern thing, I'm not sure. But we believe that when a cardinal shows up in your view, that that's a lost loved one who's just stopping by to say hello. Just to check in on you. And so sometimes God sends cardinals just when we need them. Another big one in our family is Mallard Ducks. You know that we lost my father-in-law a couple years ago. And Mallard Ducks were really special to him. And I can't tell you all the cool places where we've just kind of looked and there's a duck there that doesn't belong there. And it's just God kind of reminding us that he loves us, that he sees our pain, that he walks with us in that pain. Maybe, for some of us, God's using this morning to strengthen you, to buoy you. I hope so. Maybe this is just what you need. My hope for all of you is that you never need this sermon and you never have to pray those prayers. But my suspicion is you have a better chance of dodging raindrops on the way back to your car in a downpour than you do of living a life without tragedy. And so I think all of us, at some point, need this sermon and this reminder that when our emotions are too big for propriety, God can hear those prayers too. And in the hearing, in those moments, he sends his angels one way or another to strengthen us. I just got done reading a book. It's actually Beth Moore's biography. I would highly recommend it. One of the best books I've read in a couple years. And in it, she was talking to someone who faced incredible tragedy. And she asked her, how is it that you have kept going through these years? And she said, God opens my eyes every morning. I have no other explanation than that. There are nights that I went to sleep and I did not want to wake up and God opens my eyes. And so I get up that day and for us today I use the breath that's in my lungs and I praise him and I go. We will all in different times and seasons and for different reasons and in different ways walk through dark nights of the soul. But when we do, we can cry out to God. And when we cry out to God, He will hear us. And when He hears us, He will send His angels to strengthen us. I'll finish with this verse from Isaiah, and then I'll pray, because it's one of my favorites. We're taught in Isaiah that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and that he comforts those who are crushed in spirit. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. You're big, you're good, and you're gracious, and we are broken. We need you so much, and we have no right, we have no right to pound our desk and shake our fist and demand answers from you. We have no right to do that, and yet in your goodness, from time to time, you allow it, and you hug us, and you weep with us. I lift up the people today who might have recently prayed prayers like these, and I just ask that you would strengthen them, that they would feel your presence, they would feel your goodness, they would feel your love, they would be strengthened by you. Father, buoy us and tether us to you. God, we also thank you that Jesus did drink of that cup, that he did die for us, that he did conquer death and sin and hell for us so that we don't have to. And God, we look forward to a day when we understand things just a little bit better. But in the meantime, may your presence and your love be ever enough. In Jesus' name, amen.