Sermons tagged with Goodness

Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be the lead pastor here. You guys say what you want about me, but I'm good at hiring worship pastors, apparently. I had no help. There was no teams or anyone else involved. It was solely my decision, and it was a good one. I'm sticking with it. No, just messing around. If you're here for the first time and I haven't gotten to meet you, I would love to do that. Please come shake my hand in the lobby. That would be fantastic. And I think there's one more free mug out there left. So if you leave in the middle of the sermon, I'll know what you're doing. I hope that you guys enjoyed the Lent series. As we wrap that up, we're moved into a new series called the Letters of Peter. With the Lent series, there was a devotional and I heard a lot of feedback that you guys really, really enjoyed that. And I loved getting to hear from all the different voices in the church. And we will definitely find a reason to do those in the future. That's not the last time you're going to see a church devotional like that, because I really thought it was very good for us as a church. If you are looking for what to read in your quiet times, we do have a reading plan. It's available online. It's also on the information table in the lobby. If you don't know where the information table is, we have a coffee table and an information table, and I trust you to figure it out. It's a small lobby. But if you are curious about what to read, grab that reading plan and read through the letters of Peter with us. I'm excited to be in 1 and 2 Peter. I love the books of 1 and 2 Peter. Every time as a staff, we sit down to brainstorm what it is we're going to talk about and to kind of map out the series for us. This ends up on the whiteboard. Somebody will say, usually me, we could do 1 and 2 Peter, and then we write it up there, and then we have other ideas that we like, and we move on. And this time, it just hit right, man. It just felt right. It was up there on the board, and Kyle said, maybe this is the time that we're actually going to do it. And I said, you know what? Darn it, it is. I love Peter, and we're going to follow up the Lent series with these letters from Peter. So I'll say a couple things up front. We're not going to go through verse by verse or even theme by theme. There's just not enough space to do that. So I hope that you will read along with us so that you can get the full message of the letters of 1 and 2 Peter. These letters were written to the early church in the first century AD in Asia Minor. They were written to Gentile people, so they were not written to Jews. Most of the New Testament was written with kind of a mind towards Jewish thought, Jewish culture, Jewish inheritance. Peter wrote his letters to Gentiles that lived basically in modern day Turkey. And the idea with these letters is that they're meant to be circulated around the churches that are in that area. The other reason I like these letters is because they're written by Peter. And I can relate to Peter, just in overall holiness and usefulness to the church. Thank you, Harris. Peter was the dummy. Peter was one of these ready fire aim guys. He was, Peter would start running his mouth before he really even knew the end of the sentence. He just had words to say and out they came. My dad likes to say about me that Nathan, because my family calls me Nathan, Nathan having nothing to say, thus said. That's Peter. That's what Peter does. He just, he hops out of the boat and he walks on water until he sees a wave and then he sinks. He's the one that says, no, Jesus, I won't deny you. And then he does it three times. He's the one that steps up and answers all of Jesus's hard problems, hard questions. He'll take one for the team. I got this one, guys. That's Peter. He's just hard charging and he's out there. But Peter writes these letters at the end of his life. The years have softened him. They've made him wiser and more measured. And this is his message to the church. And I find great comfort in that because it gives me some optimism that maybe one day I can be a little bit more wise like Peter. Maybe one day I can quit doing dumb stuff and maybe I'll season into it like Peter did. But I love where Peter starts his letter. You would expect maybe if you thought about it, I don't know, but this is a murky time in church history. Their faith is 30 to 40 years old. We're talking about, we're talking about 60, 70, 80 AD right now as these letters are circulating. So they have this murky faith that's not based on 2000 years of good sound doctrinal biblical teaching. They don't have a canonized New Testament. They have some confusion abounds and false teachers are there kind of influencing them. And so Peter writes to this culture and these churches, and I would expect him in that context to write a book, maybe like Romans, what Paul wrote to the church in Rome, that really is the most detailed theology in the whole Bible in chapters one through eight. It's basically, here's what we believe and here's why we believe it. And then the rest of Romans is, here's what we're supposed to do in light of those truths. Or maybe Hebrews, which is just this high Christology, this high view of Jesus, of who he is and who he was and what he still does for us. Maybe I would start there, but that's not where Peter starts. Peter actually starts with suffering. It's like the first thing he addresses right out of the gates. And it's interesting to me that he would do this. And I think he does it because this is a culture, first century AD, very familiar with suffering. They knew what it was to grieve. They knew what it was to hurt. They knew what it was to lose. This is a culture and these are churches that are being actively persecuted, arrested, beaten, killed for their faith. This is a culture in which infant mortality is high and life expectancy is low. They knew what loss was. They knew what grief was. They had to walk through suffering on a regular basis as a regular part of life. And what Peter, I believe, knew and knows is that suffering can very often derail our faith. And it's why I wanted to open up the series talking about it as well. Because though I think we would admit that life in the 22nd century is markedly easier than life in the first century, we are the spoiled billionaire kids of history and the way that we get to live our life. But on the other hand, it's similar. Everybody in this room knows loss. Everybody in this room knows grief. Everybody in this room has been hurt by something that's happened in their life in a deep and profound way. Most of us know what it is to get the phone call that you or someone you love has a disease that's going to be really tough to battle. Most of us know what it is to have life not go the way we wanted or the way that we planned to sit in the midst of shattered dreams. We know what hurt is. We know what pain is. And we know that suffering has the power to dismantle our faith. We know that it has the power to tear it down. Which is why whenever I have the opportunity as your pastor to talk about suffering, as not fun as it is and as somber as it is and as serious as it is, I'm going to stop and I'm going to slow down and I'm going to talk about it with you. Because we have to do everything we can as a church and as individuals to fight against this pernicious idea that sneaks into the church over and over and over again, that somehow when I choose God, that somehow when I accept Christ, that Jesus is going to protect me from pain. Yeah, I'm going to have to go through some things. I mean, it's not all just going to be rosy. Life doesn't get to just be completely awesome all the time. There's going to be seasons of unhappiness, but the really bad stuff, God's going to protect me from that. If I follow God, he will not let anybody that I love get a disease that they don't deserve. If I follow God, everyone who dies, I'll be able to explain why they did. If I follow God, he's going to protect my children. If I follow God, he's going to bless me with children. If I follow God, he's going to protect me from failure. That idea sneaks in over and over and over again. And I think part of the reason it sneaks in is because it's so easy to preach. I would love to bring you in here and tell you, listen, the more you believe in God, the better your life's going to be. Now go live the good life. But that's crap. That's not true. And so we have to push against it every opportunity that we have. This idea that somehow my belief in God protects me from pain. So when suffering comes up in the Bible, we're going to talk about it. Because if we believe that about suffering, that my faith in God protects me from pain, then when we experience pain, we will no longer have faith in our God. Some of you have walked that road. The erroneous expectation, the misguided expectation that Jesus protects me from pain, only to find out that he doesn't. And then to reject the Jesus that was supposed to protect you, and he didn't. That failure of faith comes from understanding suffering wrongly. But I think this morning that what we'll see is if we understand suffering correctly, if we understand it biblically, if we understand it accurately, then it can be something that actually strengthens us. It can serve us. So let's look at what Peter says about suffering. Let's look at Jesus's role in that suffering. And then let's look at our responsibility in that suffering. This is just an old-fashioned work-through-the-text sermon, which they are my favorite to do, because I just stick to God's Word. Peter says this in of a loved one to persecution, Peter? Those kinds of various trials that have grieved me for a little while? Trials that grieve me for a little while are when I remember that Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays. That grieves me for a little while, and then I go to PDQ, all right? But what he's talking about here is not that. It's deep loss. It's deep persecution. It's deep grief and deep suffering. And he says, though you endure these trials for a little while, if necessary, and not if necessary for you as if God is putting them on you, if necessary because broken things happen in a broken world, and sometimes that necessitates suffering. Paul is similarly flippant in Corinthians, where he says that we suffer from light and momentary affliction. Again, I love the flippancy with which the New Testament refers to really, really deep, hard, depression-level suffering. Light, momentary affliction. Grieved with trials for a little while. And so what we see from this attitude of Peter as he presents the topic of suffering, sandwiched with the gospel, as we'll see, is simply this truth. Suffering will happen, and we don't have to understand it. Suffering will happen. It will. No one dodges the raindrops of tragedy in their life. No one lives a full life and doesn't experience some suffering, doesn't experience or see abuse, doesn't experience or see death. I mean, right now, if you just turn on the news, you see what's going on in Ukraine and your mind is just boggled at the suffering that's happening there and the horror of the stories coming out of the towns that the Russian forces have now evacuated. And you know that once you live enough life, there's suffering that happens that you don't understand and that you can't explain. And there's this thing with suffering, with hardship, with grief and with struggle, where the very first thing we seek to do, our knee-jerk reaction is to understand it. Why would God let this happen? Why would God allow that person to die? Why would God allow that person to get this disease? Why would God allow things to not go that way? Why wouldn't God protect my family when he could? The very first thing we want in suffering is answers. Why is this allowed to happen? And sometimes, sometimes there's answers and it does make sense. Sometimes it is struggling for a little while so that you can harden your faith and so that it can be ready and seasoned. Sometimes the thing you're praying for, you're simply not ready for it yet. And if God gives it to you, you're going to mess it up. So you're waiting and you're being prepared. So sometimes when we suffer, we look back on that suffering and we go, oh yeah, okay. I understand why God allowed me to walk through that season. But sometimes suffering happens for which there is no explanation. That we cannot explain away. And this is when we need to be careful with phrases like, oh, everything happens for a reason. Does it? I've told you guys this before, but my college roommate dropped dead of a widow-maker heart attack at 30 with two kids under five years old. What was the reason for that? To make his wife's faith stronger? Get out of here. What was the reason for that? So his boys could grow up with a different dad who loves the Lord. No, my buddy was a pastor. He was one of the best people I knew. If everything happens for a reason, what's the reason for that? I was on the phone this week talking to a pastor. He's been a pastor for 40 years. He's been at one point the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He was really great friends with my father-in-law, John. And we were just kind of chatting about it, and he calls me buddy. He said, you know, buddy, I've seen a lot of people pass away. I've seen a lot of people go too soon. But this one, losing John, that will never make sense to me. That's one that I just don't get. And it just makes me think, if there is suffering that happens, that a pastor who's been a pastor for 40 years, who's pastored thousands of people, who's done hundreds of funerals, thousands of hospital visits, he's seen all the suffering. When you're a pastor, sometimes you get a front row seat to that stuff, whether you like it or not. And he's been through it and he's looking at a death and he's going, this one, I don't get, man, there can't be any reason for this. If he can't make heads or tails of it, then what, what hope do we have to make it all make sense? And so something I want to alleve you of this morning, alleviate from you, unburden you of, is the necessity to make it all make sense. Because sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the only explanation for events, like what's happening in Ukraine, is that broken things happen in a broken world. And God in his infinite goodness and his infinite wisdom is choosing to allow those things to happen. He's choosing to allow the world to remain broken until one day he returns and he repairs it. But there's going to be suffering that happens in this life that there is no reason for. And if someone tells you everything happens for a reason, it's only because they've never experienced something that doesn't happen for a reason. And in that suffering, Peter tells us that we should rejoice. In this you rejoice, even though you're suffering. Even when we don't understand it, we should rejoice. And sometimes when we seek to understand it, we just want to make the pain go away. And we feel like if we understand it, it will make it feel better. But when I say that sometimes we just don't get to know why suffering happens, sometimes we're just not going to understand it. That's not me just being practical about things that I've seen in my life. That's actually me being biblical about God being confronted with why. We see it, to my mind, two very prominent times. Once in John chapter 11, when Jesus waits and allows Lazarus to die and then comes to raise him from the dead. And Mary, Lazarus's younger sister, runs out to meet him and he says, to meet Jesus and says, why did you wait? You could have come and you could have done something about this. And Jesus, in that moment, when we lean in and we want to understand why, why do you allow suffering? He doesn't offer an explanation. He weeps with her. He cries with her. We see it another time in Job, towards the end of the book, when Job confronts God and he's like, I need to know. I demand an answer. Why have you allowed all these things to happen to me? The worst suffering that could ever happen in the world happened to Job. And he said, why God, why did you allow this to happen? You owe me an answer. And God said to Job, and we are going to, might be uncomfortable with this. This is graduate level theology. But God said to Job, you lost your place. If I tried to understand this to you, you wouldn't get it. Tell me how I laid the foundations of the world and then I'll explain this to you. Tell me how the oceans know how far to go and no further. Tell me how souls get created. When you can grasp that, I'll tell you. So I have a belief that even though sometimes in the midst of our heart of suffering, we go, God, this doesn't make any sense. That one day when we're in eternity, if our heavenly brains have the capacity to understand and we can understand things like God does. We'll all collectively go, oh, huh. Yeah, that checks out. That makes sense. And I suspect that what we'll find in eternity is that the ones that we grieve so much for losing too early or the lucky ones? Because they got there before us. We don't have the capacity to understand all the reasons and all the suffering that happens around us. And I can't sit up here as a pastor and tell you exactly why God lets a broken world do broken things. But I know that when we get to eternity, if we have the capacity to understand it, we'll go, hmm, yeah, okay, I get it. And so in the midst of that uncertainty and in the midst of our suffering, we're grieved by various things for a little while, Peter tells us to rejoice. How is this possible and what should we rejoice? Well, it follows verses 3 day these wounds will be healed. In what do we rejoice in the midst of suffering? How do we find a way to find joy? How do we find a way to find hope? Because Easter, that's how. Because last week I told you the most important sentence in the Bible is, why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen. On that, all of history hinges. Because Jesus came to earth, because he lived a perfect life, because he died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, because he rose again on the third day and left us with the Holy Spirit and ascended into heaven where he's prepared a place for us, where he sits at the right hand of God interceding for you, where he sends the Holy Spirit to chase after your soul and bring you near to him and bring you back to him as he prepares for the marriage supper of the lamb to call you into eternity. He bought your salvation and he's waiting for you and he invites you into that. And in that truth, you rejoice. In that reality, you rejoice. That because he rose from the dead on Easter, we know that he's gonna come back to get us in Revelation. We know that he's gonna come back and that he's gonna make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. We have faith that he is going to do that. And so we know that one day the wounds that we carry and the wounds that we walk in and the scars on our body emotionally and physically, that one day we will not have those anymore because Jesus has won us the next day. That one day we will not sit in that pain anymore because one day as believers, we're going to be in heaven for all of eternity where we will not need faith and we will not need hope and we will just simply sit in the joy of being in the presence of our Father and of our Savior and of the saints. We wait anxiously for that day. That's why I think if you pay attention, the most seasoned believers in the face of suffering and in the face of things that they can't explain will simply say, come Lord Jesus, just come. We don't get this stuff anymore. And so in the midst of suffering, we look to the gospel. We look to our hope. I'm fond of saying on days when I'm not feeling great, which is not awesome, or not often, because my life is awesome and my days are good. On days when I'm not feeling great, when I'm blue, or when I'm down, when I'm discouraged, when something hard is happening, I like to remind myself that not every day will feel like this day. This day is sad. That's okay. Let it be sad. But not every day is this day. Tomorrow's a new one. Maybe it'll be better. If it's not, there's a day after that. Not every day will feel like this day. And that's true in eternity too. If you're sitting in hurt and pain, if you've experienced loss, not every day feels like that day. And if there is scarring in your life that is so bad that it simmers under the surface at all times that can sometimes just jerk us right back into grief, there's coming a day when you can finally set that down and just bask in the presence of your Savior. And so we rejoice in that day and we hope for that day. And it's important to remind us that Jesus doesn't protect us from suffering. He sustains us through it. He doesn't protect us from the suffering. It's going to happen. All right, I can't reiterate that enough. There are no promises in the Christian faith that you get protected from suffering. There is a promise that you will experience it. And in the midst of experiencing it, Jesus will sustain us through it. It says in verse 5, That is us. That God himself is sustaining our faith. He's giving us the power for faith. And so he sustains us in the midst of our suffering. As we look at the gospel, we rejoice in the glorious future that awaits us. We know the people that we love that might already be there are experiencing joy and they are waiting for us too. So in the midst of suffering, we don't look to try to make sense of it here. We look to the fact that later it will not be true. That's what we rejoice in. And that's what Jesus does for us in our suffering. He wins us a future without that hurt and without those wounds. But what do we do in the midst of suffering? What do we do right now? How do we respond to it when life is really, really hard? Well, this is what Peter says we should do. Verse 7. So what do we do in the midst of suffering? What do we do when life is hard right now? How do we counsel people when they walk through suffering? We do it with this knowledge, that your faith, which guards your inheritance, becomes strengthened and results in the salvation of your soul. Your faith, which in this passage says guards your inheritance, the inheritance in verses three through five, that is imperishable, that is unfading, that is everlasting, that Jesus has prepared for you, your inheritance in glory one day. This teaches that somehow it is guarded by your very faith. That the fact that you have faith in that future protects that future. And I know that this calls into question, wait, wait, wait, so like I can lose my salvation if I don't have enough faith or I'm not secured by something besides my faith. No, no, no. God secures you. When you are saved, when you cry out to Jesus as your Savior and God as your Father, God saves you and secures you. But it is your faith that led you to that moment. Your faith is the one thing you're asked to maintain. Your belief in God is the one thing that he presses on you for your salvation. What do we have to do to be saved? We have to believe. What do we have to do to be invited into the kingdom of heaven? We have to believe that Jesus is who he says he is and that he did what he said he did. We have to have faith. But here's why God secures us. Because according to this passage, who powers our faith? God. So what do we do in the midst of suffering? We cling. We choose faith. In the midst of inevitable suffering, cling tightly to your faith and Jesus will sustain you. In a few minutes, Aaron and the band are gonna come up and they're gonna close this out with Don't Stop Believing. I'm just kidding. That would be awesome. I really wish we should have talked about that on Tuesday. But in the midst of our suffering, that's what you do. That's what you do. You don't stop believing in Jesus. You don't allow it to erode your faith. You don't allow it to steal it from you. You don't try to make sense and then argue Jesus away. You just sit in it and you know he's won me a future where one day this won't hurt like it does right now. And I'm going to cling to that future and I'm going to rejoice in that future. And in the meantime, when it's murkiest, when it's hardest, when life is darkest, I'm going to cling to faith. I'm going to cling to the faith that God empowers in me and choose to believe that Jesus is good and choose to believe in the promises of God and choose to believe that he makes graves, he makes gardens out of graves. We choose to cling to the faith when we don't know what else to do. Suffering will happen. It will. It's a promise. Because God knew that would happen, he bought our souls through his death. And he gives us an inheritance that's waiting for us. And so in the midst of that suffering, we don't say to ourselves, this must have happened for a reason. We don't say to ourselves, well, God has a plan. This has to be part of it. No. No, no. We say to ourselves, I'm going to choose to believe in the goodness of God. I'm going to choose to believe in the promises of God. I'm going to choose to believe that one day, if this could all make sense to me, it would, and I would understand it, and it would be fine, and it would be good, and it would be well with my soul, but until that day comes, I am clinging to Jesus. That's what we do in the midst of suffering. And that's how we should encourage others as we walk alongside them and their suffering. Let's pray and the band's going to come up. Father, God, first and foremost, if there is anyone in this room or anyone listening to my voice this morning or later this week who is hurting, who has suffering going on in their life that they cannot explain, that they cannot make sense of, that every explanation of it just somehow falls short. If there are people here or listening who are hurting, Father, would they cling to you? Would they wake up every day and choose faith and choose a belief in your goodness and choose a belief in your goodness. And choose a belief in your son. And in that choice, God, as your word promises, so galvanize our faith that it would be tested and true that as we walk through life many years from now, our faith is strong and our faith sustains and our faith guards. But in the midst of it, Lord, whether it's today or in the future, as we inevitably experience trials again, God, I pray that we would cling to you. It's in your son's name I pray these things. Amen.

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

The Pretty epic, huh? I mean, looky there. The sermon is half as good as the video. Y'all are going to leave here with your hair on fire. This is great. Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. So thanks for being here. I thank you for watching online or catching up during the week if that's what you're doing. This is clearly the start of our series in the book of Revelation. I have been studying and prepping for this as far back as the summer because Joseph was a fun series. I loved doing Joseph. I love narrative series where we're just telling stories and seeing what we can learn from the story. The prep time on a Joseph sermon is about two and a half or three hours. The prep time on the Revelation sermon is 10 times that for each one. So you got to start those early. But because I've been doing so much studying, I'm very happy to tell you guys that I have all the answers for you. I'm going to tell you very clearly what happens in the book of Revelation. You can't ask me a question that I won't be certain about. And this is going to be a very productive time for the church. So I'm very much looking forward to it. Revelation, for some of us, has a lot of baggage. For some of us, it doesn't have very much at all. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in the 80s and the 90s. And when you grew up in a Baptist church in the 80s and the 90s, Revelation was a big deal. I don't know if you guys realize that or what your church contexts are, but there was a season in church life when having strong opinions about the tribulation and the rapture was just a part of church. I actually talked to a church one time in a former life. I was a teacher at a private high school, and one of the churches was a small country Baptist church. And they said, hey, we're looking for a pastor if you know anybody. And I said, okay, well, you know, I'll keep my eyes out. And they said, but we're only going to hire people if they believe in a pre-trib rapture. That's a non-negotiable for us. And I started laughing. He's like, why are you laughing? I'm like, oh, you mean that? Like, that's really important to you. And they're like, yeah, absolutely. Well, are you not pre-trib rapture? Because if you're not, I don't want you teaching my daughter Bible. I'm like, rapture is not coming up. All right. We're not covering that in 10th grade Bible. Don't worry about it. I wonder how many of you though have had, like, when I say pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, 1260 days, the four beasts, the man, the eagle, the lion, the ox, the 144,000 Jewish males from the tribes. How many of you know what I'm talking about? You've heard those things before. Okay. And then I won't ask the rest of us, how many of you are like, I got no clue, man. Like, no idea on this. You don't have to raise your hand. But yeah, so like, how do we approach like that wide of a swath of information and knowledge about this book? Because there's some of us that have been a part of really in-depth Bible studies and there's some of us who we've avoided it all together. So in thinking about how to approach the book of Revelation for these next seven weeks, I really thought it was worth noting the tendencies that we kind of tend towards as we approach the book of Revelation. Because again, some of us are very experienced with it, and some of us have never opened it because it's scary or intimidating or whatever. So as we begin, I kind of wanted to begin the series with this thought as we think about how do we approach the book of Revelation. I would contend that most people either overcomplicate or oversimplify Revelation. Most people in their approach to it have a tendency to either overcomplicate it or vastly oversimplify the book. And what I mean is we can overcomplicate it so that we miss the forest for the trees. We can overcomplicate it so much and drill down on things so much and ask so many questions about it. When is the rapture actually going to happen? Because of this verse, I think it's going to happen in the middle of the tribulation. When is the tribulation? When's that going to happen? Are there Christians going to be on the planet during this part of the tribulation? When is the tribulation? When's that going to happen? Are there Christians going to be on the planet during this part of the tribulation? Are people, can you still get saved during the tribulation? What are the four creatures and the beasts and the angels and which angels have which wings and what do they represent and what's going on with the dragon trying to eat the baby and all these different things? what is the mark of the beast? Is it the vaccine? What is all that stuff, right? And so we can kind of drill down and the answer is no, stinking no, that's not the thing. The vaccine is not the mark of the beast. Anyways, we can get so concerned in drilling down on these details that we kind of miss the message of the book. And the thing about all those details that we'll talk about in a little bit and throughout the series is many of them are really not knowable. So to try to figure out what is the creature that comes out of the abyss that has a tail like a scorpion and stings you and it ails you for five months? Is that an attack helicopter or is that a scorpion? I don't know. And you don't either. And there's no way to know. So let's stop worrying about it, right? So we can overcomplicate it and get so mired in the details of the book that we miss the message. But we can also oversimplify it. I had somebody in my men's Tuesday morning Bible study who he's involved in a study in Revelation right now with another small group. He's cheating on me with another small group and it's hurtful. But he said, we were talking about Revelation and he waved his hand and he goes, Jesus wins. That's all you need to know. And listen, that's true. And this is a man who clearly he cares about Revelation and I don't mean to disparage him, but in that moment of just going, meh, Jesus wins, I would tend more towards that camp in my own interpretative approach of it, but that's not enough either. What happens when we overcomplicate or oversimplify the book of Revelation is that both approaches cheapen the message of the book. Both of those approaches really end up cheapening the message of the book in general. If we get so caught up with the details that it matters to us deeply who the 144,000 are and we search through the Bible to try to piece that one together, and we miss the overarching message of the book because of it, then we cheapen the message of the book. If we just dismiss it and say, listen, Jesus wins, that's all you need to know, then we cheapen the message of the book as well because there's a reason that Revelation exists. There's a reason that God called John up to heaven and gave him a vision of what's going to happen at the end of time. There's a reason he told him to write it down. There's a reason that people have died for the preservation of Scripture over the centuries. There's a reason that this book was canonized, was put in the Bible as part of every Bible that's ever been printed. There's a reason that God ends His revelation to us with this book. There's reasons for that, and so it's worth studying. And I would contend that the book of Revelation matters very much to God. And I would actually base it on the way that he starts the book. This is John writing it. Revelation chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. Listen to this. This verse, particularly the third verse, tells us that revelation is important to God. This book is important to God. And it says, blessed are those who read aloud, because this was a letter. It was written to the churches. And so there wasn't a bunch of copies. Gutenberg hadn't showed up yet. So there was just one letter and one person would read it aloud. So it's basically blessed are those who read it, blessed are those who study it, blessed are those who invest time in it. So God says that we will be blessed by doing this. And, you know, I was talking to Erin Winston, our great children's pastor, I think a year and a half or two years ago when we were talking about series ideas. And she just mentioned to me that she can't remember Grace having ever done a series in Revelation. And I thought, well, goodness, our church needs to know about this. Our church needs to know this book. We need to kind of demystify it and walk through it and see what we can learn from it. And we wanted to do it for a long time, but then the pandemic hit and this didn't feel like what I wanted to do strictly over video, right? I wanted this to be in person because some of the stuff that we have to talk about in the book is hard. That's not this week, but it's coming. And so I thought that it would be worth it to do this series together. And it'd be worth it to not overcomplicate things, to try to train ourselves to focus on the message of portions of it, rather than get mired in the details, but also get into it enough that we feel like we can understand it. So as we approach Revelation, we do need to do some background work to really understand why it was written. It was written by John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was in exile on the island of Patmos about 90 AD is what we think, is when we think it was written. So about 60 years after the death of Christ. He's the last living disciple. All the other disciples have died a martyr's death. He is the last stalwart of the disciples and the bastion of the early church. John really lived a remarkable life. And so God calls him up to heaven and shows him a vision and he writes it down and that becomes Revelation. And what we need to understand is that Revelation was written to bring hope to a suffering church. Revelation was written to bring hope to a suffering church. To be a Christian at this point in history is to take your life into your hands. To be a Christian is to put yourself and your family at risk. It's to go into the catacombs, into underground graveyards, to have your Easter worship service because you cannot be seen in public doing this because you will be killed. It's to know friends and loved ones who have been dipped in tar and used as live torches to light the path into Rome. It's to watch your friends and loved ones get taken and thrown into the gladiator arena with animals that rip them apart. It is a tough time to be a Christian. And so John wrote this letter to them from God to give them hope, to encourage them, to help them hang in there, to help them see a path to a better day. And so when reading Revelation, we can never separate our understanding of it from how the original audience would have understood it. We can never make it mean something that it wouldn't have meant to them. But that also means that it's right and good for us to approach it, mining it for hope. That's the best reason to approach Revelation. It's not necessarily to know what's going to happen at the end of times with great detail, but to cling to the hope that the book offers us throughout it. This is why I love Revelation. If you've heard me preach any messages for any time at all, you've heard me say things like there's coming a day when Jesus is gonna make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. You've heard me talk about Revelation 18 and 19 where he comes down with righteous and true tattooed on his thigh. He comes back not as the Lamb of God, but now as the Lion of Judah and he's coming to wreck shop. You've heard me talk about that because I take great solace in that in my personal faith. You've heard me talk about Revelation 21 when God will be with his people and we will be with our God and there'll be no more weeping and crying in pain anymore. You've heard me talk about that because it's in Revelation and it's hopeful and it's what we cling to. So when we read it, our top priority, our first priority ought to be to mine it for hope and to let it encourage us in our faith. That's far more important than some of the other details. And it's important enough to dig in and to see how it might offer us hope the same way it did the early church. As we seek to understand and interpret the book of Revelation, a couple rules of thumb for us as we walk through it together. The first is, it's not completely linear, but sometimes it is. It's not completely linear, but sometimes it's linear. And when I say linear, what I mean is just event after event from start to finish. The gospels are linear. The gospel of Mark starts at the beginning and moves through the story of Jesus to a crucifixion and then ascension. That's linear. It's just, it's all happening on the same timetable, right? Well, Revelation's not like that. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it moves through and it moves, this event happens, and then the very next thing he talks about is the event that follows the one that he just described. But sometimes he jumps. He says, I turn and I saw. And I'll show you in a second what I'm talking about. He says, then I turned and I saw, and it's something else is going on. And the thing that he's talking about over here happened before the thing he just got done talking about. Or it happens years after the thing he just got done talking about. And then in the next chapter over, he's going to talk about the stuff that happens in the middle. And then the next chapter over, he's going to talk about stuff that happened before that. So sometimes it's linear. Sometimes it's not. So you just have to know as you're reading it that he's not presenting us from chapter 1 to chapter 22 all the things in order. Another thing you should know is that it's not completely literal, but sometimes it is. It's not completely literal all the time. Sometimes it's figurative. Sometimes it is literal. Sometimes the words that you're reading are actually going to happen. They're descriptive of a thing that really will take place. Sometimes you're reading it and it's figurative language to describe to you in the best way that John can what it will be like. Or because God is intentionally using powerful imagery, it's a picture of other events that have already happened. So as we're reading it and as we're studying through it, and there's a reading plan that will be, it would be on the, is it on the table this morning, Kyle? Okay. It's there and it'll be online as well beginning tomorrow morning. I hope that you'll read through Revelation with us. I hope that you'll be talking about it in your small groups together. But as you read and study, we need to be asking ourselves as we look at the text, is this literal or figurative? Is this linear? Is this happening in order? Or have I jumped back or to a different place? We'll need to know this as we read. Now, some examples of where it's figurative and nonlinear or literal and linear are easy to find. So I'm going to read a passage from Revelation chapter 12. You don't have to turn there. You can just listen to my words as I read. This is a famous scene in the book of Revelation. Just listen. I don't know what diadems are. I think maybe crowns. Cool. Let's just go on to the next thing, right? What's going on there? Well, what's happening there is that John is neither being literal, nor is he being linear. Most scholars agree, and it's not certain, so I don't say it with certainty, but most scholars agree, believe it or not, that this is a picture of Christmas. What if I preached that this December 25th, right? What if I made that the Christmas message? Boy, that would be something. Most scholars believe it's a picture of Christmas. It's figurative. It's powerful imagery that God is using to drive home a point. And that in this depiction, the woman very likely represents Israel. The baby is Jesus. The red dragon is Satan. And Satan is trying to thwart Jesus, thwart the efforts of God. But God rescues Jesus back up to his throne, which means God's throne and Jesus' throne. And then Israel is nourished in the wilderness, which could be a reference to their exile in Egypt as slaves, or it could be a reference to the flight of Mary to the wilderness once Jesus is born and they have to go to Egypt for a couple years because Herod is trying to find and kill baby Jesus. The tail sweeping a third of the stars out of the heaven down onto earth, that's a reference to the fact that when Lucifer was kicked out of heaven and became Satan, that he took a third of the demons with him. So this isn't linear because it's Christmas. This happened 90 years before John even wrote it. And certainly not in order with the other things going on in the book. And it's not even linear within its own depiction because it's talking about fleeing to the wilderness and it's talking about the demons falling from heaven, which happened thousands of years before any of this stuff and the rest of the story was ever happening. And then the 1260 days at the end of it is a reference to half of the tribulation period that Revelation divides in half often in months or in days. So it's literally, as far as the time frame is concerned, it's covering thousands of years in a paragraph. It's got a ton going on there. And it didn't literally happen. It's figurative imagery. So that's neither literal nor linear. But sometimes Revelation is those things. Listen to Revelation 21. At the end of the book, John is given a vision. He's carried to another place where Jerusalem begins to descend. A new Jerusalem begins to descend out of the sky. God is setting it Its length the same as its width. And measured the city with his rod. 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall. 144 cubits by human measurement. Which is also an angel's measurement. Which is nice to know. If you're measuring in cubits. You're measuring as the angels do. So well done. The wall was built of jasper while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, then sapphire, a gate, emerald, onyx, chameleon, chrysolite, beryl, and he goes on and on. And then he says, and the 12 gates were 12 pearls, each of the end of the book. It happens at the end of the story. It happens at the end of time. We can read that, see where it's happening in the book, and know that that's how it's going to happen in time. And it's literal. That's not figurative speech about the specific jewels that are going to be the foundation of the wall or the way that the city is going to look or the size of the city. That's a literal interpretation. So again, as we read, we need to ask, is what's happening here, is it literal or is it figurative? Is it linear? Is it happening in the order in which it's presented? Or in its proper context, should it go in another place? When I was explaining this to Jen this week, she was asking how I was going to approach it, and I was kind of walking her through portions of the sermon. And Jen, she's my wife, for those of you who don't know her, not just a lady I talk to sermons about, but that would be cool. I have one of those. When I told her what I was going to do and how it sometimes is literal, sometimes linear, and sometimes it's not, she said, yeah, but, and she's asked the question that you guys all should have by now. She goes, yeah, but how do you know? How do you know when it's supposed to be one and not the other? Well, that's the tricky part. And the only possible answer to it is you have to work hard. How do I know when it's literal and when it's figured if you have to study? Listen, some books of the Bible are really easy to understand. Proverbs. You don't need to study Proverbs. Just read Proverbs. And it says that we should consider the ant and work even when we don't have to. There's no mystery going on there. That's pretty simple. When it says whatever you do, get wisdom, that's simple. Revelation, not simple. If you want to understand it, it takes hard work. It takes discussion. You have to read a lot of sources. You have to listen to a lot of people. There's no easy path to understanding Revelation. I can't stand up here in seven weeks and explain it to you in a way that will make sense and get everything right. I just can't do it. And people who claim that they can are dumb. They're just being intellectually dishonest. Which is why I think it's important for me to kind of share this idea with you, not just for this series, but as you encounter Revelation as you move throughout the rest of your life, which is simply when it comes to Revelation, be cynical of certainty. When it comes to the book of Revelation, when it comes to who you're listening to and what you're reading and how you're talking about it and how people are presenting ideas to you in whatever form you would consume them, we are wise when it comes to Revelation to be cynical of certainty. Now there are some things in the book of Revelation that we ought to be certain about. Jesus is there. He's in heaven. God is sitting on his throne. He's surrounded by angels. There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. Satan's going to be dealt with. People are going to be judged. We're going to be called up there. Like there's things that we can be certain about, but there's other things you simply can't be certain about. And for someone to present you information in a way where they are certain, where they don't even acknowledge that there's other theologians, there's myriad other views of this particular passage or this particular idea, and they don't even acknowledge that those exist, well now, I don't know if I believe you about anything. I was listening to a pastor that I really like a lot. He's been one of my go-to guys for years. And his church did a series in Revelation last year. And I thought, oh, well, shoot, I'm just going to listen to his and then steal it. That'll really cut down on the prep time here. This is going to be great. But as I listened, he got to a portion, I think it's in chapter four, where there's these four creatures, these four beasts that are really mysterious. And one is like a lion, one is like an ox, one is like an eagle, and one is like a man. And there's this incredible description of them. And the same four creatures are described in Ezekiel, in an Old Testament book of prophecy, with stunning accuracy and similarity to the four creatures in Revelation. There's very little doubt that both authors, that both John and Ezekiel saw the same four creatures. Now, what are they? And what do they represent? I don't know. But the pastor that I really liked when I was listening to him, he said, well, the ox represents this, the lion this, the eagle this, the man this. Does it not? And then he moved on. And he said it as if he was certain of it. And he said it as if there was no other possible explanation than the one that he just shared. When the reality is we only see them in Ezekiel. We only see them in Revelation. Very little explanation is offered about them in either place. So to presume that we know who they are, what they are, what they represent, and why they exist is not fair. It's not intellectually honest. The most intellectually honest thing to say about them is, they're pretty cool. That's it. They matter a lot to God. They're going to be neat when we see them. They're probably going to be scary. It's going to be awesome. What do they represent? I don't know and neither do you. And don't act like you do. We can make educated guesses. There's plenty of room for that. But we ought to be cynical of certainty as we move through this. And I'm saying that, hopefully, not for your benefit in this series, because hopefully I don't get up here and start teaching you things with certainty that I don't understand. Hopefully I'll teach them honestly and present the sides that exist and are merited. But I say that to you as you move throughout your lives and as you encounter other Revelation studies. Be cynical of certainty. So that's how we want to approach the book. I told you that we would mine Revelation for hope. And there's an incredible space to do that in the first chapter of Revelation. And that's where I want us to focus as we finish up the sermon today. I will also say this for those who know your Bibles well. Chapters 2 and 3 in Revelation are the seven letters to the seven churches. They are wonderful letters. They're hugely important. They're incredibly informative for us, not just of the ancient church, but what our modern churches ought to look like. They're a hugely impactful portion of the book of Revelation. They are so important and so impactful that we're going to skip them. Because I'm not going to reduce them to a week and preach them to you like that. So we're going to skip them. I'm going to set them aside. At some point in the future, we're going to come back and we're going to do a seven-part series as we move through those letters together. But if you know your Bible well, and next week we just open up and we get to chapter four, and you're thinking, why didn't we do the seven letters to the seven churches? That's why, because they're too important to reduce to a week. And Revelation would get too boring to expand to 14 weeks. All right, so we're going to do those later. But as we look at chapter one and we begin to move through the story, I wanted to bring us to what I believe is maybe one of the most poignant moments in all of Scripture. And we find it towards the end of the first chapter. We're going to start reading in verse 12. This is John writing. He says, And these are the words of Jesus now, which will always show up in red during the series. and I have the keys of death and Hades. I get chills every time I read this. John is swept up into heaven. He's told, you're gonna see some stuff, write it down. And he looks and there's someone who is white like snow, who is shining in brilliance, who has a voice like raging waters. And he sees him and he's so terrified that he falls on his feet. He falls at his feet. He collapses in fear. And we learn from those words in red that it's Jesus. And Jesus places his hand on John's shoulder, presumably. And he says, Behold, I am the first and the last. I have died and yet I live. Other translations say the Alpha and the Omega. And I have the keys to death and Hades. I've conquered them. Which is a remarkable moment. But it's more remarkable when we reflect on who John was and what John did. Do you understand that John calls himself in his own gospel the disciple whom Jesus loved? You should probably be pretty certain of your standing before Christ if you want to go around touting that nickname. This John is the John that was the disciple whom Jesus loved that may have been, some scholars think, as young as 10 years old when he was following Jesus. He was so close with Jesus. They were such intimate friends that at the Last Supper, Jesus was close enough to John that he was able to whisper in John's ear that Judas was going to betray him before anybody else did. He was able to communicate with John that closely at the Last Supper because John was, of course, next to Jesus because he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. When Jesus was hanging on the cross dying, when he's watching his savior and friend die, Jesus looks at John and Jesus only said a few things on the cross because you had to push up on the nails to do it. And he looks at John and he says, will you care for my mother? John, this is your mother, Mary, now. That's quite the commission. Can you imagine Jesus himself putting the care of his aging mother in your hands? And if you yourself knew that the end was near and that someone needed to care for your aging mother, who would you choose? Your most intimate and trusted of friends. And John went on from that moment and he cared for Mary. He went on from that moment and he led the church and the council. He saw them through this conversion of Gentiles, this difficult period in the book of Acts. He preached the gospel. He spread the word about his friend. And this whole time, he was promised by Jesus. You see it in the gospels when he tells the disciples, where I'm about to go, you can't go. And they said, we want to come with you. He goes, you don't understand. Jesus is telling them, I'm going to die and I'm going to ascend into heaven and you can't come with me. but where I'm going to go, I'm going to prepare a place for you and it's going to be great and you'll be with me there one day. Do you understand that John, he clung to that hope. He trusted his friend Jesus. He trusted his Savior and he spent the rest of his life caring for the mother of Christ. He spent the rest of his life proclaiming the message of Christ. He spent the rest of his life building the kingdom of Christ. But John eventually ended up as the head of the church in Ephesus, and there he discipled a man named Polycarp and Erasmus, who were the early church fathers that we begin now the church history that leads down to us. John is the linchpin in this. He watched all 11 of his friends, all 11 of the disciples die a martyr's death. And now he's an old man on the island of Patmos writing the last thing that he's going to write. And he's missed his friend Jesus. And he's looked forward to seeing his Savior again. And he spent every day living for his Savior. Every day building the kingdom for his Savior. Every day pointing people towards his Savior. And when he gets to heaven, he sees a figure that he doesn't recognize and he falls to his knees. And out of that figure comes the voice of his Savior, Jesus. Out of that figure comes the assurance that John has waited for and longed for his entire life. Out of that figure rushes the peace that only Jesus brings. He gets his reunion moment. He gets his welcome home. And it tells us that meeting Jesus is the best promise in the whole book. Meeting Jesus face to face, hearing his voice, seeing his eyes, feeling his embrace, that is the best promise in the whole book, man. There's other stuff that happens. We get to be with God. We get to spend eternity. There's going to be loved ones there. It's going to be perfect. There's no more weeping or crying or pain anymore. We're going to experience all of that. It's going to be an incredibly peaceful, joyful existence. But none of it, none of it is better than seeing Jesus in person. None of it is better than your welcome home moment. When he hugs you and he says, I've prepared a place for you. And he invites you to the marriage supper of the Lamb. I was thinking about it this week. What it would be like to finally meet my Savior. And how I would probably feel compelled to say I was sorry. And how he would probably just say, don't worry about it. I've covered over all those sorries. And how we would be compelled to say, I'm sorry, Jesus, I should have done more. And he would say, that's okay. I did enough. I did it for you. And I've thought about that moment when the burdens of hope and faith don't have to be carried anymore. When we can cast those things aside because our Savior is looking us in the eye. After all the stresses and all the struggles and all the triumph and all the worry and all the anxiety and anything else that we might experience, the loss and the pain and the sufferings and the joy, whatever it is, after all of it, we as weary travelers will end our spiritual pilgrimage in heaven at the face of Christ and he will say, welcome home. And maybe he'll even say, well done, good and faithful servant. But that's the best promise of the book. That if we believe in Jesus too, that one day we will see our Savior face to face and we can rest. And if you love Jesus, and that's not the part of heaven you're most excited about, I don't know what to do for you. I hope this series can change that. But more than anything else, as we move through this book, that's what we cling to. That Jesus is there waiting for us. And we'll get that reunion moment too. Where we get to meet our Savior face to face. Now, before I close, I never do this because if I tell you guys that I won't be here for a particular weekend, then what I've found is you don't come, which is mean. That's just mean to whoever is preaching that's not me. But I'm going to tell you this time that I'm not going to be here next weekend. I've got a bunch of my buddies I've talked about before. A bunch of us turned 40 this week, so there's going to be seven of us in a cabin in North Georgia making questionable decisions. We planned this back in the spring before I knew that this would be week two of Revelation, which is a week I'd rather not miss. So when I was thinking about who should I get to preach it, Kyle's great, Doug Bergeson's great, we've got plenty of folks here who would do a fantastic job with it. But there's one person who I know that knows more about the book of Revelation than anybody else I know. I'm not saying he knows the most about the book of Revelation, just more than anybody else that I know, and that's my dad. So dad's going to come next week and he's going to preach Revelation 4 and 5. And you'll get to see half of the equation of where all of this came from. To give you a literal picture of how deeply he loves this book, I wanted to take you to Israel with us. Dad and I had the opportunity to go to Israel, maybe about 2013. And we did the tour. We're up in Galilee. We were there for a whole week or eight days or something like that. And we get down to Jerusalem and we're in the Garden of Gethsemane. And from the Garden of Gethsemane, which is where Jesus prayed the night that he was arrested and then crucified, you can actually see the walls of Jerusalem, and you can see the Temple Mount. And so this is what you see from the Garden of Gethsemane. And you can see in kind of the bottom right-hand corner of the portion of the wall is a gate. That's the eastern gate. And when we were just walking along and we saw that, my dad said, that's the eastern gate. And I said, oh, cool. And then I looked at him and he was crying. And I said, dad, why are you crying, man? It's a gate. And he says, that's the gate that Jesus is going to walk through when he returns. And it moved him. And he doesn't get moved to tears very often. But he was moved by that. Because one day Jesus is going to come back and he's going to walk through that gate. And he knows it. And he believes it. And he knows his Bible. And he knows it so well and he believes it so much that it moved him to tears. So I couldn't think of anyone better to come and teach us a portion of the book of Revelation next week. So I hope you'll come. I hope you'll be kind to him. I hope he tells you some stories about me that make you laugh and like me a little bit less. And just you're thinking, oh, he must be an experienced teacher and have done this before for Nate to be asking him to do this here. No, he's an accountant. He's taught Sunday school a bunch of times, and I think it's going to be really, really great. So I hope that you'll give him a warm welcome when he's here next week and know that I'll be beaming from ear to ear watching him online with my buddies. So with that, let's pray, and then I've got an announcement for you guys, and we'll worship some more. Father, thank you so much for who you are and for how you love us. God, thank you for this book of Revelation. I pray that we would see clear and simple messages coming out of it. God, I pray that you would give us wisdom as we move through it. Give me wisdom as I teach it. Wisdom that I have no business having. Maybe just a special blessing for these next few weeks. God, I pray that we would always find the hope in it. That we would always see the justice in it, that we would always see the good news that we can cling to, God. Be with us as we go through the series. I pray that it will enliven our hearts to you. I pray that it will increase our passion and desire for you. And I pray that it will give hope to folks who might need it really badly right now. We pray all these things in your son's name. Amen.

Good morning. I am so thrilled to be up here this morning. So thrilled to have you on this Mother's Day morning. We talked about it a little bit last week, but these past couple weeks I have had the wonderful opportunity to get up and to preach as Nate has welcomed in his son. And so it allows him to have a little time to take, I guess, a break. Yeah, like I guess all the parents are laughing at that. But, you know, I mean, hey, I don't even work very much, but no. But we're so thankful for that, and I love that I've been able to, I've been given the task of being able to talk through, I think, one of the most beautiful and amazing and astounding stories in all of the Bible as we are going through the story of Ruth. Last week, we just went through Ruth 1. We just got into the nitty-gritty, just started out in the book of Ruth. And so I did want to take just a quick second to run through real quick what we talked about as a reminder for anyone who was not able to catch that. And so Ruth opens up around this woman named Naomi and her family. She has a husband named Elimelech and two sons. They live in Israel, and during the time, they are going through a famine. Because they are going through this famine, they decide that they are going to move, and they are going to run away. They're going to leave Israel and go into Moab. Now, this is significant because Moab is actually an enemy country of Israel, and so this was not a great thing, and we're going to actually revisit why more so in a minute. But as they go, and as they settle in Moab, pretty soon after that, Elimelech, who was Naomi's husband, dies. And so she is left there in this foreign country with just her two sons. Now, as they settle down, her two sons marry these two women named Orpah and Ruth. And they live, and they live there for about 10 years. And during this 10 years, something of note is that neither one of them were able to conceive. And so there was never a family line that was established through either one of these marriages for Naomi's family line and for her son's family line to continue. Well, after these 10 years, actually, she ends up losing both of her sons. So here are these two women that have lost their husbands, and here is Naomi, who has now lost her husband and has lost both of her sons, which means she's not only lost her family, but she's lost her future and the future of her family and of her generations to come as well. And so because of that, she decides the only thing that she's going to be able to do is to go back to Israel to hope that the Lord will show mercy on her and to hope that maybe somebody will be able to help her out and sustain her just for the end of her days. And so she decides to head back. Now, as this happens, both of her daughters-in-law try to go with her, and she says, no, you can't do it. You can't come with me. To come with me is to leave any hope of you having a future. You will end up like me. I don't have any other family members. I don't have any other way to produce another son. You won't be able to have a family. You won't be able to have another marriage or another husband because no one's going to marry you because you're from here. You're a Moabite. No one in Israel is going to marry a Moabite except for someone within my family, and I don't have anyone. So you can't come with me. Go back home. Go back where things are comfortable, where you have people that you love, and you can find a husband, marry them, and you can have a family. Orpah decides, okay, I will. I'll go back. Ruth says, no. She says, where you go, I go. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God. Only death will part us. And if I try to leave before that, may God judge me ever so severely. An incredible step of faith to look in the face of a future and of a hope of having a family and people that you love in a home and to be able to find a husband and to have a family. And she looks at all of that, turns all of a faith do you have to have to make that decision? And that I believe that the reason why Ruth made that decision is because in her heart she knew that this is where the Lord had her. And if this was God's will, then this is the decision she was going to make. That she was going to trust God and to say, I have no idea why you would do this. I have no idea why you would have me go with this woman and give up any hope of a future that I have. But what I also know is that living within your will and saying yes to you, even if it doesn't make sense to me, is always better and always more joyful and always going to bring about, in some way, God's goodness wherever that comes. And so she says she's going to go with him. And so that is where we pick up this morning. And as we pick up this morning, they're coming into Bethlehem. They're coming back into where Naomi is from. And Naomi, in her depression, just kind of isolates to herself. And Ruth, being the person who is there basically to take care of Naomi, says, let me go out into the fields. The barley season has started. Let me go out into the fields and I will glean. Now, gleaning is a farming term. And during this time, if someone, say there's a widow who doesn't have a husband, or say there is a family who maybe they've lost their land or their land isn't producing crops, for the sake of these women and for the sake of these family and for the sake of these people who might be impoverished, people who did have crops that were thriving, as they picked them, anything that was left over, they were told, do not go back and get those. Let the people who were worse off in this place go and pick up those scraps so that they can sustain and they can live. So this is what Ruth goes and does. Let me see what I can find. And so she goes into this place. She goes onto this farm, walks through these fields, and starts gleaning. Well, the farm is owned by this man named Boaz. Boaz comes up. He notices her, and he's like, who's this lady? Why do I have a Moabitess in my field right now, guys? Don't look at me, I don't know. So one of them replies and says, that is a Moabitess. She has come, and she is the daughter-in-law of Naomi, and she has come back, basically says the story that we just talked about. She's come back with Naomi to Israel to help her and to help her live. She lost her husband, which was Naomi's son, and she is there trying to take care of Naomi. And so Boaz is struck by just, oh my gosh, that is incredible. That's beautiful. What an incredible story. What an incredible person. And so she goes up, so he goes up and he talks to her. He's like, hey, Ruth, I'm Boaz. You know, I don't know. But he goes up and he's like, and basically says, hi, you know, this is my field and you are welcome here whenever you want. Not only are you welcome here to glean, but if you want to harvest with my servant women, then harvest with my servant women. And if you need water or if you need anything else, it's right there and I'm right here. You just let me know what you need. I will make sure that you are able to get out and be sustained and to have everything that you want and everything that you need. And so Ruth is obviously struck by this immense kindness and she's like, what's the deal? Why would you show me such kindness? Why would you show me such grace? Especially, she's like, you're a man from Israel. I'm a woman from Moab. I don't understand why you would show me such a kindness. And he responds, and it's not on the screen, but I do want to read his response because I think it's beautiful, and I think it's so evident that he sees what we saw last week, that everything that Ruth is doing is so Spirit and God-ordained, and she has such immense and incredible faith to be able to walk it out. And so I'm going to read. It's verse 2, 11 and 12. And so let me find it. I've heard what you've done. And honestly, it's not even about like, wow, look at what you've done. I'm going to do whatever I can. He's like, the Lord is who repays you. Like literally, the Lord has made, I have no choice but to do whatever I can to help you because the Lord has said so. Because the Lord has said, I have my hand on this woman who is standing and walking humbly and faithfully for me, even at the expense of her own life and of her own happiness. So she goes back home with a lot of stuff in her arms. And she walks in and Naomi's like, what happened? How could this be so? This isn't gleaning. This is like harvesting. What has happened? And so she says, well, I met this man who owned the field that I was in named Boaz. And Naomi is overwhelmed with thankfulness. One, because, wow, we have a place that is now able to sustain us where we don't have to live in poverty. We don't have to live in hunger. We have what we need. But also because Naomi has her eyes open to who Boaz is. Because Boaz is actually within the family of Elimelech, who is Naomi's fallen husband within his family, however you say it. Yeah, I don't know. We'll say cousin. But Boaz and Elimelech are within the same family. And so what she realizes is it's this term that is present within the Israel law and the law of God in Israel, but that Boaz is actually their kinsman redeemer. So what a kinsman redeemer is, it's got a lot to it. There's a couple parts to it, but one thing is with these two women living on their land and not able to work it and produce it, because obviously there's only one hand that can do it because Naomi's too old, what Boaz is able to do as a kinsman redeemer, if he wishes, he can buy this land in the name of Naomi and Naomi's family. He can put workers on it, he can work it, he can sustain the fields and he can sustain the land in Naomi's name, even though she doesn't have a husband or a rightful successor. What it also means, since Naomi doesn't have a son anymore, is that a kinsman redeemer can actually marry Naomi to produce a seed, to make sure that that land is sustained and to make sure that that family name is sustained even past and beyond the land. Well, as we know, Naomi's too old for this. But what a kinsman redeemer can do is he could marry Ruth. And so as they go about, she continues to work within that field. And at some point, Naomi finally says, you know what? I think the time is right. I feel like the Lord has given us this blessing. And Boaz seems like someone who's so faithful to the Lord that even though you're from Moab, and even though this might be a difficult thing to him, and kind of a shot to the back of some of the Israelite people, I think he might say yes to this. And so what I want you to do is I want you to go. I want you to visit him. So Ruth, in faith and in trust that Naomi is walking and acting in faith, she goes and she visits him. While he's asleep, she is to basically uncover his feet and to lay at his feet while he's asleep. Weird thing to do. But nonetheless, I mean, honestly, when I look at Ruth stepping out in faith, that's a pretty great way to step out in faith because I would have to be very sure that it's what the Lord wanted for me to sneak in someone's house to lay at their bed and to uncover their feet and for me to get under those covers instead. But that's neither here nor there. She does it. And as she does, literally in scripture, it says something awakened him. And like, yeah, it was the person that's laying at your feet. But I love it. I don't know why. That's like, to me, just random comedy within this. And he wakes up, startled. He's like, who is this? She says, it's your servant, Ruth. And I don't know if you know this, but you are my kinsman redeemer. If you would have me, and if you would have our land, could you buy our land, and maybe could you marry me? And maybe we could produce a son so that Naomi's family can be sustained. It's Naomi's name and just this woman who's lost everything that maybe we can give her a hope of a new family. And he says yes. He says, let me check on something because there's actually a man that was closer within the line of kinsmen redeemers, and so he reaches out. He says, hey, are you willing to buy this land? The man says, yes. He says, are you willing to marry this Moabite woman and to have a child with her? He says, no. And so Boaz says, okay, then I'll do it. And so that's where we're going to pick up and where we're actually going to have on the screen. And if you want to read along with me, you can as we read Ruth 4, 13 through the first half of 17. It says, And the woman of the neighborhood gave him And then, actually, we're going to stop right there because we'll pick up there later. I mean, that's a story, right? A woman loses literally everything, and because of the faithfulness of her daughter-in-law, who didn't even grow up as someone who loved God, because God has worked in the heart of her, then Naomi is able to survive, but survive at best. Ruth, who has said, I look into the face of that I could go back home, I could return, I could have a family of my own, I could be with my family and the people that I love, my mother and my father, and live in this place that I love, but instead I'm going to go to a place where I could be persecuted and ridiculed for being from Moab, and I'm going to do so knowing, because of what Naomi is saying, that there's no way that I could ever get married or have children or have a family of my own. I'm choosing poverty and I'm choosing isolation because, one, because I know that the Lord has me there, and two, because I know that I'll be able to take care of Naomi, who I love and adore. I think one of the main and major purposes of Ruth and the story of Ruth is for us to realize that God's will is never really the same as our will, but it's always, it's always better. Those of us who have lived long enough within God's will have been able to realize that, right? We've recognized that. We've gone through things that we just have no idea why the Lord would put us through those things, but we've come out the other side and been like, oh my gosh, I am just so thankful that the Lord did it that way. I'm so thankful that the Lord's will was what happened and not what my will was because otherwise I never would have seen this great glory. And I hesitate to leave it there because I hesitate for anyone in here to hear that if we'll just live faithfully to God, and if we'll just be obedient to God, that we'll get all of the things that we want, and we'll have all of these miraculous things that will just randomly happen to us. The facing the giants effect of that Christian movie where the guys pray, and so because they pray, then everyone wins a state championship, and all of the great fun things. And I don't want anyone to hear that that is the point, but instead the point is that the goodness and that the joy of living and being within the will of God far exceeds what we could ever hope to experience from whatever joys we could seek after by ourselves in our own life. And honestly, when you look at Ruth's life and when you look at the decision that Ruth made, if she would have chosen to go home, from a human perspective, that probably would have been the better option, even than having a family in a place where she doesn't know, right? She gets to have a family around her actual family. She gets to live at home where she has grown up and where she has loved and have a family there. And so it looks pretty similar, but maybe it could even look better on that side for someone to say, that would be my will versus having to go over here where I'm going to be hated by some people and I'm going to have to deal with this all by myself and I have only one family member and it's my mother-in-law. But there are some key differences. One of them is that she was able to be a redeemer to Naomi. She was able to remind Naomi that though things were hard and that things were bad, that God never turns his back on you just because things have gotten hard. Because of Ruth's faithfulness to God and to Naomi, then it was able to restore Naomi's faith in God and able to restore Naomi's line and Naomi's land and Naomi's family. She was able to provide that. And even if she was still able to have a family in this other place, when she had this family here, she was able to realize and understand the joys and just God's great and immense goodness and faithfulness to his people by realizing that in this place where I never should have been able to experience these joys, the Lord has just allowed me to just because he's good and just because he can. I think the biggest difference between having a family in Moab and leaving Naomi and having a family in Israel and sticking with Naomi and being able to redeem that line comes actually at the very tail end of Ruth. For anyone in here who has read Ruth, what you might know or what you might remember is that the book of Ruth doesn't end with Ruth's story. The book of Ruth ends with a genealogy. And so let's jump into there and then talk about why maybe that's cool. So if you will, we're going to jump back in. We're going to generations of Perez. Perez fathered Hezron. Hezron fathered Ram. Ram fathered Ammonadab. Yep. Ammonadab fathered Nishon. Nishon fathered Salmon. Salmon fathered Boaz. Boaz fathered Obed. Obed fathered Jesse. Jesse fathered David. If you hear that, or if you read that, and you get to thinking, you're right, it is that David. David, the great, the chosen great king, greatest king that Israel ever had, that David, the chosen great king, greatest king that Israel ever had, that David is the David that the line of David was continued by the fact that Boaz and Ruth had this kid that seemed like such a miraculous birth. For our Bible scholars who are like, wait, isn't the line of David also the line of Jesus? Yep. When you go into the New Testament, as you read the genealogy of Jesus, of how the birth of Jesus came to be based on generations prior, you get to see Boaz and Obed in that genealogy. It's a beautiful story. Ruth is an unbelievable story. It's awesome to see and to be able to express. Look at the joys and the goodness of God when we're able to live faithfully for him. But I believe that the true and ultimate significance of Ruth and the main point and what Ruth is truly trying to teach us because of this genealogy is this, is that God's will is eternally focused and therefore every step of obedience taken in faith is eternally significant. All of those tiny little steps taken. Ruth just growing up and being the, growing up into the woman that she is. Boaz growing up into the faith that he has. Naomi continuing to love God and to remain faithful to him regardless of what happens. Ruth leaves and goes. She goes into a random field. It's Boaz's. She asks Boaz to be a redeemer. He is. She has a son. All small, beautiful things, just small steps of obedience that led to three people being able to have just significant lives that just meant the world to their hearts. But the Lord used these small, insignificant people, this small, seemingly insignificant story to write creation and to write eternity through his faithfulness. This is where Jesus comes from, is this small little story. And what I'm here to tell you and what I'm here to argue is that the point of this, and I think what we can take from this, is realizing that when we do the same, that when we choose in the big and in the small steps to continue to take those steps of faith, to take those small, those medium, and those large steps of obedience in what God has called us and asked us to do every day, that every one of those steps are being used not simply so you can experience the joys and goodness of God, but so that anyone and everyone can for futures and for generations to come. And as I thought about this, and as I was just so, whoa, hello, as I was so overwhelmed by this truth and how incredible and beautiful it was, I began to think about what is an illustration that works well, that kind of makes way and makes it this fully understood. And as I was thinking about it, and I promise, this came out like completely randomly. It had nothing to do with today. And so like, shout out to the Lord and his grace. And if you don't believe me, you can ask me the story I was originally going to use, but I thought there really is no illustration better to describe what this means than motherhood. Because what is motherhood besides these small, medium, and large steps of staying faithful to your kid, loving your kid with everything that you have, serving them, cleaning up, telling them to do things, enacting your will, enacting your values and teaching them and driving them to church and sharing your faith with them and your experiences and reading with them, reading scripture and praying with them, driving them to youth group, but all of the other things as well, choosing to bite your tongue or choosing to choose kindness and to serve others so that they will see you and that hopefully they will do the same. All of these small and monotonous steps of motherhood that are taken, and it's like, I don't know if these are worth it or not because I'm never thanked for it except for one time when my kid shouts me out on Instagram, and it's only on the 24-hour story page because I'm not cool enough to get the full one that stays. That one was for my mom in particular. She hates those things. She's like, where did they go? I don't know. But if you ask a mom why, why do you do these things? You're so seldom thanked. They so seldom feel deserved. These kids don't deserve you. They just walk all over you. Why do you do all of these things even though it doesn't seem like the reciprocity is much? And they'll tell you because the joys that come from being a mother, the joys that come from having a son or having a daughter and being able to have a relationship with this person that I love so dearly is worth it. And the joys and the goodness are far greater than simply sometimes that it's difficult, and sometimes I have to step out of my comfort zone to just be a mom. And that is truly and wholly significant, but what I'm here to tell you as well, and as all of us know, the main joys of motherhood are the fact that everything that you're planting and everything that you're instilling within your kids all the way up as they grow up and all of the values and everything that you care about and trying to make them care about those things and trying to make them love the church and make them love the Lord and make them want to serve and love the Lord, you're setting them up to become adults and to do those same things. And as I think about my mom, I think about the fact that I'm so thankful for my relationship with her. We have a family who luckily is just super close and super loving, and all of that is great. But when I think about the true impact of her motherhood, it's far greater than just that I've grown up to love her. The true impact is the fact that now, as I do ministry and as I live my life, I pursue and I love God in the ways that she taught me to. And I minister and I love people and I serve people by the ways that she taught and by the ways that I was able to see evident in her life. And then when I have kids, hopefully one day, then I will instill the things that she instilled into me. And for that reason, the effects that she had as a mother go far beyond the fact that it blessed my heart. And it goes generations to come and it goes out wide and it stretches out because I'm also now able to be up here and talk to all of you about it. And so now you get to go and part of what my mom did for me, now you're taking out as you go today. And it goes generations deep because now I'm instilling those things into my kids. And I'm here to tell you that that is how stepping out in faith and that is how being obedient to God works. On this side of heaven, we probably will never be able to fully see or fully understand the ripples of what it means and of what it looks like of the ways that we stepped out in faith. But I promise you that we're there. And so we embrace those things. We embrace the things like going to church and reading our Bible and having quiet time. And as parents, we bring our kids to church and we want them to know the things that we love and what we value and that we love the Lord and teaching them how to seek after the Lord as well. And we show up to small groups and we open up in small groups, even though it's weird and it's uncomfortable because maybe it's going to benefit somebody. And we just show love to people. We choose kindness with every person that we interact with. We serve people. We look for ways that we can serve the people around us, and we just live out small, medium, and large, however ways, no matter how big or small or insignificant they may seem, when we take those steps and we say, I'm going to be Christ-like today. And in those big steps and in those small steps, God is using every one of them. I can promise you that God is never wasting his will and he's never wasting a chance for his will and his glory to be revealed through everything that we do. If we solely look at God's will for our lives through the lens of how it impacts the and they're wonderful. But God takes each and every story and each and every goodness that he gives us and uses them as a part of his eternal plan. And for this reason, our stories of God's goodness are more significant than simply what they mean to us. He is using us. He's using our stories. He's using our faithfulness to him to shape and to impact all of eternity. So today, won't you choose to be a part of that significance? Won't you choose to just take that next step of faith, to take that small step of obedience? Because I promise you the ripples that will come from it, the impact that will come from it are more than you could ever ask or imagine. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your goodness. God, we thank you that just because you can and just because you are who you are, we get to experience your joys and your goodness that we don't deserve them. And God, I pray and I thank you that every time, every single time that we step out in faith, God, that you are using it for your plan and for your worldly, eternal kingdom's will. God, I pray that we never forget that, that every single moment that we choose you, we are choosing to have eternal significance in our actions and in our deeds. Lord, we love you so much. Amen.

We always talk about the stories of Moses and Abraham and David and Paul. We know all about the boys, but what about the girls? Why don't we talk more about the people in the Bible who are like me? When I read the Bible, I see story after story of women who are amazing. I see the courage and hope of Miriam and the boldness of Mary Magdalene. I see the consistent and quiet obedience of Mary, the girls of the Bible are pretty awesome. And when we take the time to learn their stories, we will be amazed at what God can do with someone who is consistently, humbly, and lovingly faithful. Nice. All right. Good morning, everyone in the room. Good morning, everyone online. My name is Kyle, and I am the student pastor here. And as you can probably tell, I am not Nate, who is our head pastor. For any of you guys who are new, who are like, I don't know who Kyle or Nate are, I'm just a student pastor. And I'm thrilled to announce that the reason that I am on stage preaching this morning is because Nate and his wife, Jen, have just welcomed their new son, John, into the world. And so, yeah, let's get a little, yeah, let's get some cheers going for that. I mean, absolutely incredible blessing. I'm not exactly sure of the birthday, but I know I got a text with a picture on Friday, so we're going to go with the 30th and just, if I'm wrong, then we will correct it next week. But I mean, just such an incredible blessing. Like it has been such a celebration on our staff group text, just of celebrating Nate. And on Facebook, you'd think Nate's about to go like Facebook famous with how many people have commented and liked the pictures of his son. And it has been awesome. And honestly, too, guys, just to be aware of it for a second, it doesn't, or I guess to put it differently than that, it's not lost on me the fact that the last time that I was asked by Nate to step in and preach for him was when he had to take a little bit of time off because he and Jen were basically spending their last few days with Jen's dad, John, and dealing with that loss of a father and of a grandfather far too early. And how beautiful and how incredible is it that this morning, that the next time that I was asked by Nate to step in and preach so he could take a little bit of time off to be with family, that it is because they are celebrating the new life and the birth of their son, John. And so real quick, I just wanted to take a second and just pray for them real quick and just thank God for his blessings. God, thank you for bringing us here this morning. God, thank you just so much for Nate and for Jen and what they mean to our hearts and what they mean to our church and to all of us here this morning. God, I just pray that you are just showering them with joy right now as they have welcomed in John, this beautiful baby boy. And God, we just pray that in the midst of probably a lot of sleeplessness and a lot of unrest, God, that they find places where they can rest, even if it's not physically, where they can just rest in you and in your blessings and in your joy. Amen. So anyways, so with that being said, here I am this morning getting to go through another incredible woman's story within the Bible. And I love the ability to do that. And this morning, we're going to go into the book of Ruth. And one of the things that I think is incredible about Ruth and is noteworthy about the book of Ruth is that you could make a sermon, or excuse me, you could make a series that is called Faithful about the book of Ruth. When you go through Ruth and you see the way that these people live their lives, see the unbelievable ways that Ruth steps out in faith, looking at fear, looking at terror, looking at loneliness, looking at loss, and at every moment choosing to turn to faith. And this morning and next week, we get to spend two weeks talking about the faithfulness of one of the most faithful women and one of the most faithful people in all of the Bible. Before we get going, I do want to mention that in my just imminent and unbelievably high amounts of wisdom, as I thought about the fact that, you know, at some point I'm going to preach this series, these two weeks in Ruth and, you know, John's due date is May 17th. And so that's a few weeks away. And so in my wisdom, I was like, you know what I'm going to do? Because I know how babies work. And I know that sometimes people have babies early. I'm going to start on May 3rd to just get ready. You know, I'm going to be fully ready. That way, if John comes early, Mother's Day, I'm all in. I got it. I'm ready to go. Well, here we were on Friday when I got a text with a baby's picture. And I'm like, this is Nate messing with me. Turns out it wasn't. It was John in the flesh. And so I say that not to give any excuses or not in any way to say anything, except for the fact that this sermon might be a little bit less dialed in. It might be a little bit less polished than sermons you're used to. I know that anybody who's heard me preach before is probably laughing at the fact that I would use polished in my sermons in the same sentence. But I do say that to say that this story, as we read through Ruth 1 together, and we talk through Ruth 1 together, that regardless of how well or how poorly I speak or how polished this sermon is this morning, the truth that is found in Ruth 1 should speak for itself. And so I ask for grace, and I also ask for the fact that even if I am spitting absolute nonsense, that at least this story you will let resonate in your hearts and hopefully walk away learning something by simply hearing this passage of scripture. And so this morning, I actually, I wanted to start off by telling you guys the backstory of actually how I ended up making my way to grace. It's a story that I don't really think I've told that many people. I mean, not for like any reason. I'm not hiding it or whatever, but, you know, I figured it'd be something that would be worth talking about. And it's a story that I love because when I think back on it, it's just pretty wild that it worked out this way because, as a lot of you know, I was working as a student pastor in Atlanta at a church called Greystone. And I was actually working underneath Nate, who was also at Greystone. He wasn't the head pastor, but it was a, you know, it was a bigger staff. And so, so they were like, I guess, levels to the staff. And so I was actually directly under Nate. Well, we left Greystone at about the same time. He came up here, obviously, to enter into being, becoming a head pastor. Woo, exciting. That's us, yay. But I left to kind of go into school and to do some seminary stuff. Well, after about a year of doing that, I realized that as someone who was so used to being in full-time student ministry that when I'm sitting in classes listening to ministry and talking about student ministry, I realized how bored I was and how little I enjoyed learning about these things and talking about these things when I wasn't able to be a part of them. Ministry was great and talking about ministry is great, but doing ministry and actually having interaction and actually having students that are in my life that I love and that I get to be in their lives, when I was missing out on that, I was just like, dude, I don't even know if this is worth it. And so I decided, you know what? I'm going to try to get back into the church. We'll figure out what exactly it looks like and with school and all this stuff, but I'm going to try to get back into the church. So, you know, I tried to explore some avenues. I found that some churches were doing stuff. Nothing really worked out well. At about the same time, one, I texted Nate. I said, yo, you're a head pastor and head pastors know things. So if you hear of anything, I'm trying to get back into the game, baby, basically is what I said. And at the same time, my dad's first pastor that he was a student pastor under reached out to me. He was the head pastor at this Baptist church that was right outside of Athens, Georgia. Now, Athens, Georgia is where I lived. I went to UGA, Go Dawgs. Yep, we all agree. Tons of people are nodding in the building. I know you're all nodding at home for the good dogs. But I was living in Athens at the time. My brother and sister-in-law lived in Athens. I was hanging out with them most every day. A lot of my friends still lived in Athens. My parents even, even though they were in South Carolina, only lived about an hour and a half, two hours away. Everybody was in Georgia. Everybody was very near Athens or Atlanta or somewhere around there. And so when someone calls and says, hey, we have a job available doing student ministry where you don't have to leave this place you love and you don't have to leave these people you love, well, then you listen. Especially when it's a pastor who you know and who you already know, this is a man that I would love to work for because I know that my dad loved working for him. And so as I'm talking with Nate, because Nate texted back and said, well, you know, it's funny, we actually are looking for someone as well. And so I'm kind of, at the same time, I'm interviewing in Georgia, I'm interviewing here. And obviously it progressed a little bit quicker in Georgia because I could just get out to the church. And so, you know, I was able to go check out the church. It was this beautiful Baptist church. One of those Baptist churches that, you know, it's kind of just in the middle of town where it's just like, oh my gosh, this is just like beautiful and awesome. And there's so many people who come in from everywhere. And it sounds like they have like a big thriving student ministry. And all of these things are awesome. And I got to go to a service. I was like, oh, this is cool. This is really nice. This is great. All of these things. And so I actually got a call the night before I was coming up to Raleigh to do some of those same things. And the call was to say, hey, Kyle, we want to hire you as our student pastor. They gave me an offer, and you know, it was a good offer for, I guess, like monetarily as far as like being a student pastor. So that was cool and that was great. Well, so that was what I was sitting on when I drive up to Raleigh for the weekend. And so as I drive up to Raleigh, the first thing that happens is I like meet with Nate. And I'm thinking that Nate and I are and I are just going to be like, you know, gabbing about, you know, what's been going on, all this type of stuff. And, you know, cause I'm like, well, I mean, I know I got Nate on my side. I've already worked with Nate. And then we have this like conversation where I go, oh my gosh, I don't know if Nate wants me to work here. And, and all he was doing was he was grilling me and he was saying, here are these things that I've seen in you in the past. How, like, you know, how have you been able to make strides or Or are these still things that you would consider strengths? All of those things. But right off the bat, I was pretty overwhelmed. But I spend the weekend talking to different people and interviewing and getting to meet staff and came on a Sunday morning. And as I drive up, I'm like, oh, yes, this church is in the side of a storefront. Interesting. That's cool. I like the white letters though. But so I'm like, okay, interesting. And so I come in and obviously, you know, like we have done an incredible job with this space, but obviously like it doesn't really rival like a beautiful Baptist church's sanctuary, you know? And so we're going through these things and we go through service. And then I come on a Sunday night and I get to meet some of the students. And as much as I love meeting these students, I'm kind of hearing about that while there are certainly just some incredible students in this ministry, that there have been a lot of people who've left it. And because of that, it maybe wasn't at quite the healthiest state. And so as I left, I received a job offer from Grace as well. For less money, obviously. This is a smaller church. It is a smaller youth ministry. In no way was I expecting it to be more because I was kind of like, hey, I don't think you understand that I'm young and single and a student pastor. You shouldn't be paying me this much money. That type of thing in the other place. But as I left, you know, I just, I sat there and I'm like, hey, if I made a pro-con list, it's going to be an interesting look. And I was going to bring out a whiteboard and actually make a pro-con list, but I don't know how many of you guys were here the last time we used a whiteboard on stage, but Zach Winston and I, getting it off the stage, almost knocked the TV down and broke a wine glass that was on the table for communion. So we're not going to do that this morning. So just imagine with me a pro con list being on a whiteboard here. But when you look at it, it's like coming to grace means leaving my family. It means that instead of the max distance that I am from my close personal family as being about two hours to the closest that I am to anybody, which was my parents at the time, it was four and a half hours, and then six hours if I wanted to drive to Athens. And not to mention that, but also my friends and all of these things. And I'm choosing a smaller church that seems like the youth ministry might not be quite where the youth ministry was at this other place. And I'm choosing less money. And I mean, like, honestly, like, just like the definition of conless is having to work for Nate. But, you know, so here's all of these things. And I say that to say, when you look at every single decision that I had to make, when I compared the two, and when I made a pro-con list of what it would look like to go to Grace versus go to this other church in Georgia, from every human perspective, there was literally only one decision, and it was screaming at my face saying, you've got to take this job in Georgia. But here I am. And so, yeah, woo! Thank you for the claps. That's nice and funny. And I think that this first chapter of Ruth helps at least a little bit explain why it is that I'm here. To give a little background behind Ruth, basically what is going on in this time is they are living in Israel, God's chosen people in God's chosen land. You know, Moses had brought his people out of Egypt and, there weren't kings, and so it's instead the time of judges. And so God has given his people his law. These are the laws and the commandments that I ask you to abide by. And the judges were to make sure that those were abiding. I don't know. Whatever. Not important. So because there weren't kings, because there was no earthly ruler, then God kind of reigned supreme in a way that he doesn't. We don't quite see as much now where basically because these were his chosen people and the people who were called to live out his law and called to live out their lives in faith and to trust him and to worship him, when they were doing so, then times were good. Harvests were good. If they weren't, there might be times when armies come in and take over some of the land. There may be times of famine because people aren't living for God. It was just a different time, and it was how the culture was set up during the time of judges. Well, we were in one of those times as we jump into our story. It starts out talking about this woman named Naomi, and Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, were dealing in a time of famine to the point that they realized, hey, like, this is rough. And instead of choosing, instead of making the choice to say, I'm going to trust God to provide what he needs to provide for me and for my family, they instead decide they are going to leave. They're going to grab their two sons and they are going to go into another kingdom. Well, this other kingdom, we'll call it not a friendly. We'll say Moab is like an enemy nation, an enemy country. They're continuously at war. During this time, I read somewhere, it's not actually within the pages of Ruth, but that during this time, there was no love lost between these two kingdoms to the point of like war and battle and all of these things. And so for them to leave Israel and go seek refuge in a kingdom that was not only not God's chosen place and God's chosen people, but an enemy of God, people who were so against God and his people that they wanted to kill him. And so this is where they went. They settled in and Elimelech ends up dying. So Naomi loses her husband and now all she has is her sons. Malan and Chilian, her sons, marry two Moabite women. They marry Ruth and they marry Orpah. They live there for 10 years. And in those 10 years, neither one of them is able to conceive. Neither one of them is able to produce a seed that could lead to them continuing their familial line. In this culture, that was about the most important reason to get married was one, to take care of your family, but two, to raise up a son and raise up a family who is able to take care of your crops, who is able to grow, who's able to take care of your land, who is able to continue your family line. And when your family or when your parents get older to take care of them as well. So in these 10 years, there haven't been any children conceived and her sons die. Both of them die before they're able to conceive. And so now what we're left with, we're left with Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth together. And Naomi, in her overwhelming tragedy, finally realizes that she now has to look her shame in the face. She now has to look her fear and her bad decision in the face and say, I can't provide for myself here. There's nothing that I will be able to do here. I have to return home. She says, I know that the Lord would have me. I mean, she doesn't say this, but like essentially she says, I know the Lord would have me return home because I have to be able to survive. And so I'm going to have to look in the face of people who are probably going to look down on me and see me differently because I chose fear over faith 10 years ago. Coming back in her shame to say, you know what? God is asking me to be here. And so this is where I need to be because I need to survive and I need to be a part of where God has me, even if it means I'm going to be looked down upon. But on their way there, she looks at her daughters-in-law and she says, leave me. Don't be with me anymore. There's no reason for you to follow me back because if you do, if you follow me back, then I can assure you nothing good awaits you. They all weep and they plead with her like, no, we're going to stay with you. You need us. You need us for survival. There's no way you're going to be able to make it alone. But Naomi continues to press on and says, there's literally nothing there for you. I have no, you can't just marry some random man in Israel because you're a Moabite. They won't marry you. Also, I'm too old now to find a husband and much too old to find a husband where I can have another son and you can marry my next son so that you can continue the line and continue in this kinship. So don't go with me. Go back home. Go where your family is. Go where you're comfortable. Go where you know that you at least have some sort of hope at having a family and having a life because coming with me will be no life at all. At this, they all weep again. Clearly, there's so much love between these three women that it's just beautiful. But after it, Orpah says, okay. So she gives her love to these two, and she heads out. But Ruth says, no, I'm staying with you. She says, I don't care what you have to say with me. Stop pleading with me. I'm going to stay with you. And that's where we're actually going to pick up and we're actually going to read. It's in Ruth 1. we're going to stop. How incredible is that? How unbelievable is it that Ruth would say in the face of everything that Naomi is telling me, I'm going to stick with you, Naomi. Let's go, let's head back to the pro-con list. I want you, I want us to understand the implications of what she's saying. Because not only is she saying that by sticking with Naomi, that it probably means that she is going on towards loneliness and singleness, and that will be the end of her family line. Not only is she saying that, which is incredibly devastating, especially in this time, but I know that there's some that like in today's culture, especially some people like, yes, queen, you don't need no man, you know, but also take account that she is taking an elderly woman back and her goal and her mission and the only reason she's doing so is so that she can be a caretaker for this elderly woman who's not even her mom, just a mother-in-law that she has grown to love. So the rest of her life is going to be meant for just finding food wherever she's able to scrounge up food for a single woman without any land. But not only that, but she is a Moabite woman who is entering into Israel where she is hated. So she is walking into a place where she knows she is going to receive bitter racism. And it's alluded to multiple times later in Ruth that she is entering into a place that actually could be quite harmful to her, that she could experience, she could be hurt, injured, killed, or raped by any of these people because she is considered nothing as a single Moabite woman, as less than nothing by some of these people. What's waiting for her if she doesn't stay with Naomi? She gets to go back to her family. She gets to go back to her home. She gets to go back with the hope and encouragement that I can probably find another husband, that I can finally start a family even though I wasn't able to before. There is no good, satisfactory reason why she should stay with Naomi except that, one, she was being nice to help Naomi out, but I think that what Ruth realized and what Ruth knew in her heart, the reason why it didn't matter how long the list of cons were for entering and how long the pros of going back to her kingdom were. I think she knew in her heart what Daniel knew and what Daniel, I mean, excuse me, Daniel, what David wrote in Psalms 84.10 when he says, better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I think what she realized and what she knew without a shadow of a doubt is that the Lord had her staying with Naomi. And that is the only thing that mattered. When I was trying to decide, honestly, I'm going to be honest with you, I wasn't ever really trying to decide. Every stop that I made, every interaction that I had, every single part of my weekend in Raleigh was the Lord yelling at me, Kyle, this is where I have you. And I don't at all mean to, and please do not hear me at all, likening my experience coming to Raleigh with Ruth's experience of giving up her entire life to be a single caretaking woman who is ending her seed. Because I came here and I was overwhelmingly blessed. And I came here with immense hope at what was to come. She left without any hope except that if I am in the will of God, then I know there is always hope because I know that there is no place better to be than inside the will of God than anywhere else. I know for me, I was incredibly thankful because this would have been a very difficult decision for me had God not been literally screaming in my face, this is where I have you. And I don't mean to say that I haven't experienced drawbacks and sadness at the times that I have to miss holidays or birthdays or weddings or the like because my friends and my family are all in Georgia. There are certainly negatives to being in Raleigh versus having taken that job in Georgia, but I promise you that every day I get to wake up knowing that because I chose, honestly, because the Lord made it literally impossible for me to choose anything else, but I got to be in the will of God and it has been unbelievable the blessings that have come from getting to see what it looks like to be, to just choose the will of God. And the point of this morning isn't to look at each one of you guys and say, hey, time to leave your family, time to leave your homes, time to go to another state and work for another Nate. You know, like the purpose of this is not, it's time to give up everything that you hold dear so that you can follow God or it's time to, you know, give up your job or your career or your friends or whatever. Now, hear me saying, it's not not that. Because if the Lord is working in your life and asking you to do so, then that's a conversation to have. And that is a prayer that needs to be thrown out. But every single day, we are faced with decisions on whether we want to act in faith, whether we want to choose faith in this interaction that we have, in this way that we think about something, with the way that we spend our time, with the things that we value. We are having an interaction in our heads on whether or not we are going to choose faith or we are going to choose ourselves. Fear, worry, comfort, all of those types of things because it's a lot easier to make the decision that seems earthly like a good decision. But this morning, what I'm asking you, well, honestly, what I'm telling you is I I am a hundred percent sure that there is no better place to be than inside of the will of God. In big ways, but in small little decisions. When you're in your small group and it feels like it's uncomfortable for me to be honest and to be open and to be vulnerable with these people that are also my friends and I don't know how they'll react to me, that you choose faith and you say, I know that this is best for me and I know that these people, if they can walk beside me knowing me and my full self, then I promise you I will have a better life and a better faith and I will experience more joy. And so I am going to look that fear of how people will see me in the face and say no, because I'm going to be vulnerable and I'm going to be open in this small group and with these friends. Maybe you have co-workers or you have friends that you know need to hear who God is, but you're afraid of how they'll react to you or you're afraid that they'll look at you different or see you different or honestly, you're afraid of the discomfort of having to figure it out or you're just afraid because it's just scary in general to do something like that. Maybe you have a sin that's eating your lunch or overwhelming you, and you're so afraid to open up about it. You're so afraid to fight it because you're so rested in it that it's become the norm, and it's become your comfort, and it's become your reliance, and you're terrified of getting rid of it, and you're even more terrified of people finding out, but you know that as soon as you're able to open up and able to share this sin with somebody that you can maybe for once and for all kick this sin because you have somebody being accountable to you for it. Maybe you need to change your priorities from the fact that obviously we live in a culture where success and our jobs and the money and all of these things are what we should be pursuing and what we should be valuing. But maybe we decide, you know what? I'm going to value God over all of that. And I'm going to make my decisions that I make for God and for his glory and out of where his will is for my life and not simply what is best for my career and my life personally. I'll give the opposite of the student ones and I'll just talk to the parents now because this is one we talk about in students a lot, but parents. Maybe it means that you need to look culture in the face and say, you know what? I know that all these parents are going to look down on me, but I'm going to value my kids' spiritual life and their spiritual walk and their ability to come to church and to be a part of a church community. I'm going to value that more than I value their education and their athletic career and future. I'm going to value their future as someone who grows spiritually and is spiritually healthy and full that also seeks after being inside of the will of God. There are very easy arguments to fight against all of these. There are probably good spiritual arguments to fight against any of these hard decisions where the Lord is asking you to step out in faith. That's why it's faith. Last week we sang, I'm no longer a slave to fear, but I'm a child of God. And I've thought before, is fear really that big of a thing now versus Bible times? Yes. If you aren't experiencing any fear or any worry when it comes to living out your faith, then my question for you is, is it because your faith is so strong and who God has called you to be, and so at every waking moment, every decision is for him, or are you unwilling to step out in faith enough to where fear isn't even an impact or isn't even a factor? I often realize about myself that it's the latter. I don't lack fear because of my faith. I avoid fear at the expense of not doing anything that requires me stepping out in faith. May we not do that this morning. May we not do that this week. May we not do that in our lives. And may we instead just understand the joy and the goodness of God and allow that to bring about a freedom in our hearts to say yes to God at any and every turn, even if it makes literally no sense to us, even if it makes no sense to anybody else around us. Let's pray. God, thank you for bringing us here this morning. God, thank you for an unbelievably beautiful depiction of faith in the book of Ruth, God. Just in Ruth 1, we got three more chapters. Lord, I know that we're not always asked to give up our entire lives and everything about ourselves to follow you and to say yes to you. But God, what I also know is every single day we are faced with choices of whether we say yes to you and your will, or we say yes to us and ours. God, may we have the freedom and the love and the joy and the goodness that we have experienced from you. May that shape our decisions and boldness to say yes to you every single time. God, we love you so much. Amen.