Sermons tagged with Miracles

Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I hadn't gotten a chance to meet you, I would love to do that in the lobby after the service. We've been moving through a series called Big Emotions. This is part six of the series. And within this series, as we kind of planned it, I realized that we needed to have a morning like this morning where we talk about some of the heavier, harder emotions that we can experience in life. In the past just few months, I had a lunch with a young man who was and is a recovering alcoholic, and actually today is his one-year sober anniversary, so we're excited for him today. Yeah, he's not here. That's okay. He didn't hear how much you didn't, how tepid that was. If he were here, I would have. But we're thrilled about that. And he shared with me as I talked with him about a story that part of what led him down that path is dealing with a depression. This creeping sense that he wasn't going to be who everyone expected him to be and who he was. And it was this feeling of not mattering anymore, of not living up to things that sent him into a depression that caused him to seek out some help for that from chemicals. In the past couple months, I've talked with two different dads in our community whose daughters are struggling mightily with depression. You could even call it a crippling depression. And one of them even shared with me that he's learned through her struggle that that's what he's always dealt with. He just never had the words to put around what he was feeling, or it's entirely possible because men are stupid, that he just didn't allow himself to admit that he was sad because we're too manly for that. I've sat with people in the wake of great loss. Sat with a family, and I won't detail the struggles, but they just kind of, life just keeps running them ashore, man. Life just keeps beating them up. I get texts from them, and I'm like, God, you've got to be kidding me with what they're having to walk through, and I'm certain. As a matter of fact, I know for a fact that some of them are staving off bouts of depression and anxiety and deep grief and deep sadness. In my own family, on both my side and Jen's side, Jen's my wife, on both my side and Jen's side, we have depression in our family. We're walking through it. Sometimes it's harder than other times. Sometimes it's more extreme than other cases, but it touches us and it touches our lives too. And I know that each of us deals with or loves someone who deals with depression, grief, melancholy, sadness from time to time, these seasons in life that just feel dark and heavy. And I also know that many more of us deal with feelings of insignificance, like we don't matter. I know firsthand that being, because of walking through it with my wife, that being a stay-at-home mom can make you feel very small. It can make your world feel very inconsequential, that all you are is the nursemaid for a toddler or a shuttle service for your kids or whatever it might be. Being a parent can sometimes make your world feel very small. As you age, sometimes your world can start to feel smaller and smaller and the things you do less and less significant. And some of us have gone from seasons of mattering a great deal to mattering not very much. Some of us have gone from having great identities that we are proud of to these small identities that we kind of wander in and aren't used to yet. And so I know that in our family of faith, in our congregation, in this room, and the people watching online, the people who will hear this later, all of us have dealt with personally or love someone dearly who struggles with bouts of depression, with grief, with sadness, with loss, or even insignificance. And so I thought it was absolutely appropriate to take a Sunday while we talk about big emotions and talk about these. And I thought it would be really helpful for us as we identify with that sadness, with that grief, with that inadequacy, to look at someone in the Bible who also dealt with that and to see how God meets him in this place. So we're going to look at just a part of the story of a prophet named Elijah. Now, many of you were not here years ago when I did a whole series in the summer on Elijah, or if you were here, you were probably at the beach and didn't hear it. So some of this stuff will be reviewed, but maybe not much. I'm not going to tell you the whole story of the life of the prophet of Elijah, but he is one of God's, as Aaron said in the announcements, one of God's great servants. Elijah was so great. In fact, I'm not sure I need to tell you anything else about his life, but at the end of his life, as he was aging and the end was near, he's walking with his disciple, Elisha, and on the west bank of the Jordan River and Elijah decides that he needs to go to the eastern bank of the Jordan River and so he just parts the waters and walks across it like this miracle of convenience. Like the ark stopped the Jordan River so that God himself could move into the promised land with his people and then Moses parted the waters so that God's people could escape from the Pharaoh. And Elijah parted the water so that his sandals wouldn't get wet. That's just okay. He just puts his cloak in the water, parts it, walks through, come on, Elisha, and then they go through. And when they get on the other side, a chariot descends down out of heaven. An angelic chariot comes down and scoops Elijah up and takes him to heaven. Dude was so righteous, he caught an Uber ride to the pearly gates because God didn't want him to experience death. We see Elijah again in the New Testament at the Mount of Transfiguration when he appears along with Moses to Jesus to strengthen him and encourage him. He's a major figure in the Old Testament and a hero of the faith. And when I say it's difficult for anyone to get closer to God than Elijah was, I mean it literally because all of us in here are very likely going to experience death. He did not have to. And yet, in his life, we see pretty convincing evidence that at least in this season, Elijah was low. He struggled mightily with depression and insignificance. And so I think it's worth looking at this part of his story and seeing how God responds there. The part of the story that I'm going to present to you is somewhere, I would guess, about 45 to 50 days of his life. So I'm not even sure you could call it a season. It was just a time of his life when he was low. We don't know if there were other times or not. One would assume that there were. But here we get just a snippet or a snapshot of Elijah's, what I believe to be, depression, at least in this season. We're going to be looking, and not yet, but if you have a Bible, you can turn there. 1 Kings chapter 19. If you don't have one, there's one in the seat back in front of you. Unless you're watching from home, I don't know what's in your seat backs. But in 1 Kings chapter 18 is the big showdown, the big thing that Elijah's famous for, the showdown with the prophets of Baal. And I don't have time to give the full treatment to the story. I wish I did because it's a fantastic story and you should really read it. But the predominant religion at this time was worshiping this God named Baal. The king was Ahab, the queen was Jezebel. They were evil and they supported this idol worship. The followers of God were pressed into the margins and the fringes. And Elijah was by all accounts, essentially the chief priest for God at the time and the head prophet. And so he goes to Mount Carmel and he has this showdown with the prophets of Baal. There's 450 prophets of Baal. And they make this deal that they're each going to build an altar. And whichever God from heaven itself lights the altars on fire first, that's the best God. And the other one has to take his ball and go home. And so they start this competition. And Elijah, I just have to point out, he says one of the best lines in the Bible. He is a sarcastic jerk, which breathed life into me from God himself. And Baal is not responding and lighting the altar on fire. And he's making fun of them. Maybe you should yell louder, yada, yada. And at. And at one point, he's like, maybe he can't hear you because he's in his heavenly bathroom taking a Tuesdays. Maybe that's what's going on, which is phenomenal. It's the kind of stuff you get here at Grace Riley. And after they give up, Elijah prays this humble prayer. God, it's time. God sends fire from heaven, lights the altar on fire, and Elijah has all 450 prophets arrested and put to death. After this, the beginning of chapter 19, Elijah's praying. There had been a drought for three years in Israel, and God told Elijah that the drought's going to be over. Get ready for rain. And then swept Elijah with the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God sweeps Elijah to Jerusalem. So he beats Ahab's chariot back to Jerusalem. When Ahab, the king, gets to Jerusalem, he goes to Jezebel, the queen, and he tells Jezebel all that Elijah has done. She responds by sending a messenger to Elijah that says, everything that you did to my prophets, I'm going to do to you, and it's going to be worse. I'm going to kill you. And this is interesting because a couple chapters later in 2 Kings chapter 1, she tries to send soldiers to kill Elijah. And Elijah says, I'm a man of God, and if you try to arrest me, then he's going to send fire and kill you. And then they do, and then he does. Three times. Dude has nothing to be scared of. He has the protection of God on his head. He has the hand of God on him. But when the messenger reaches Elijah this time and says, Jezebel's wants to kill him. And in fear, he flees a day into the wilderness. He gets done with that day and he sits down and he prays a prayer that I hope none of us have prayed, but I bet some of us have. God, it would be better if I were dead. Please take my life. I'm done. I'm no better than my father's. I have nothing left to give. I'm exhausted. I did this great miracle in your name, won a great victory, and it's like it doesn't matter. She's going to kill me. Do you understand that he was despaired to his point of death? He was despairing for his life. Do you understand that he went to sleep under that broom tree, that he closed his eyes praying, God, please don't let me wake up? You understand that when Elijah's eyes were opened that he was disappointed? I don't know if you have ever gone to sleep and before you went to sleep, you prayed, God, please don't let me wake up on this side of eternity. But I bet some of you have. I bet we know people who have felt what Elijah felt. God, I'm going to sleep and I don't want to wake up. This world has nothing left for me. I don't want to be here. No one cares about me. I don't matter. This needs to be over. It would be better off if I were in eternity than here any longer. Please don't let me wake up when I go to sleep, God. Elijah is despairing unto death. And is at, by all estimations, a very low point. But God wakes him up. He wakes him up with an angel who feeds him, gives him food. I love that that's God's response to the dark night of the soul. Like a loving divine grandma. Here, just eat a little something. You'll feel better after some cookies. Elijah goes back to sleep. The angel wakes him up again. Says, you're going to need this for your journey. You're going to Mount Horeb. So he eats and he travels 40 days to Mount Horeb. And God tells him when he gets there, go up into this cave. I'm going to talk to you there. And when he gets up to the cave, God speaks to him and he says, Elijah, what are you doing? And Elijah says, my part. I've served you well. I've done everything I'm supposed to do. And they've killed all my friends. They've killed all my companions. I, even I, only am left. There is no one left in Israel like me. I am totally alone, God. I have no friends. I have no family. I have no companions. I have no love. I have no camaraderie. I'm alone and I'm destitute and nobody cares about me anymore, God. This time when I go to sleep, can I please just not wake up? I'm done. This is an articulation of the lowest of lows in his life. I, even I only, am left. I have no friends. I have no family. I have no companions. It's just me, and I'm tired. And God says, I'm going to speak to you again. And it's this remarkable passage where Elijah is sitting in the cave on the side of this mountain. And the text tells us that there's this great earthquake and the ground shakes and the stones tremble and the trees shake. And you think surely that God's voice is in the earthquake, but he's not in the earthquake. And then God sends this fire by the mouth of the cave that consumes everything in its path, and you think, surely God is in the fire, and he's not in the fire. And he sends a mighty wind that shakes and vibrates and stirs and scares, and you think, surely God is in the wind, and he's not in the wind. And then scripture says there's a gentle whisper and God is in the whisper. And Elijah goes out to the mouth of the cave and God says, what are you doing, Elijah? And Elijah gives the exact same response in verses 14, in verse 14 that he did in verse 10. I've been very jealous for you. I've served you well. And I've put all my friends to the sword, and I, even I only, am left. And God hears him. And he says, I want you to go do something for me. I want you to go appoint this man and this man kings of their different areas. I've still got stuff for you to do. Go make them kings. And when you do, here's what's going to happen. Now go. And on his way to go do that, he comes across a man plowing in his field named Elisha. And he grabs Elisha and he says, I'm going to essentially make you my disciple. Come and follow me. I'm going to teach you to be a prophet like I'm a prophet. And Elisha goes and tells his parents that he's leaving and he leaves and he goes with Elijah. And he spends the rest of his life following Elijah. And when Elijah goes up into heaven on the chariot, his cloak wafts back down to Elisha, and Elisha receives a double portion of the Holy Spirit that Elijah had, and outperforms Elijah in miracles and in all the other things, has a greater ministry than Elijah did. And it can be argued that Elisha is probably the greater impact than defeating the prophets of Baal, that Elisha may have been Elijah's greatest work. But without question, in this 45 to 50 day period, we see one of the great servants of God at a low point in his life. We see him despair unto death. We see him go to sleep and not want to wake up. We see him express solitude and isolation, feeling completely alone and wanting to die. We see him despairing. What we see, I think, at least for this season, is a depression. And if you look at what he says, and if we think about what we've experienced when we've been low, then what we understand is that depression silently screams, you don't matter. Depression silently screams at you that you don't matter, that nothing you do matters. Look at what Elijah says the first time. I'm the only one left. I did everything you wanted me to do. Now they're going to kill me, and I'd rather just die I'm no better than my father's. I have nothing left to give God. My best days are behind me. I have no bigger miracles to work. I've done everything I can do. All that's left is waiting for death. Please just go ahead and take me. And it occurs to me as I reflect on Elijah voicing in that way that he felt like he no longer mattered. That one of the great strengths of grace is having a generationally diverse congregation. I love that about our church. And what I'm about to say is in no way a joke. This is not a time for stupid jokes. I'm not doing that. It occurs to me that a large portion of us, a large portion of you, you've reached the end of your career, the last portions of your career. You've ended your career and you're in retirement. You've raised your kids. Maybe you've even helped raise your grandkids. In your mind, you've shifted. I've seen the shift in men and women that I love. From wanting to build a name for yourself to thinking about what kind of name you're leaving behind. You've shifted from establishment to legacy. And you've accepted that you are in the twilight of your life. And I think it would be very easy to become convinced in that season that your best days are behind you, that you've done the great work that you're going to do. You've climbed the biggest mountain that you're going to climb. You've defeated more prophets then than you ever will in the future. I think it would be very difficult to have lived a life where in one setting you were important. Your voice mattered. People came to you for your opinion. They paid a fair amount of money for your time to a place where people don't come as much anymore and they don't ask as much anymore and your voice isn't as weighty as it used to be and you become convinced that my best days are behind me and if we're not careful, we can slip into, as Elijah did, just kind of waiting for the last day to get here because I have nothing left to give. And so I think in that way, even if we're not people who are depressed, we can hear that message of the world and that message of depression creeping into our hearts. Hey, you don't matter. Your best days are behind you. Or we can feel insignificant for other reasons. Our role in life right now reduces us. We have a thankless job and a somewhat thankless marriage with thankless kids, and we just feel small, and no one tells us that we're good enough, and no one tells us that they respect us, and no one tells us that they're grateful for us. We can move through seasons of life where we just feel like we're going through the motions, and we feel so insignificant and small. I know firsthand that when I preach sermons about God having a purpose for us, God having a use for us, when I quote one of my favorite verses, Ephesians 2.10, for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, that we might walk in them. And I encourage you guys, identify your good works and walk in them. I know that there's a large portion of you that hear that and go, yes, that's good. I have no idea what my good works are. I have no idea how God gifted me. God's gifted other people to do other things, but he has not gifted me in any significant way. So the best thing I can do is just keep my head down and be nice because I don't really matter that much in God's kingdom. That's what Elijah was saying. I, even I only, am left. I don't matter. There's nothing around me that's important. And I talked with some friends of mine who deal with depression more than I do. Candidly, this is not something that I'm given to struggle with. I have other struggles, and I'm pretty transparent with you about those. For this one, I had to outsource a lot of it. So this idea that depression silently screams at us that we don't matter, that's not my idea. That came from someone who walks it. And then I called someone else who probably deals with depression in a little bit more profound way, and I said, hey, does this check out with you? If I say that depression insists that we don't matter, does that resonate? And he said, yeah, but it's worse than that. He says, my depression tells me that it doesn't matter, that nothing matters, let alone me. And so if you've ever sat in that place, or you've loved someone who sits in that place, when we start to listen to the voices that tell us that we don't matter, I think God's response to Elijah when he was giving into those voices should breathe some fresh air into our lungs. And here's what God does to Elijah. We go back through the story. Here's what we see him doing. God strengthens, whispers to, sends, and encourages Elijah. And I think all of those things are important. He strengthens Elijah. He whispers to Elijah. He sends Elijah. And then he finally encourages Elijah. He strengthens him. He literally wakes him up and gives him food. You're going to need this for your journey. He literally wakes him up again and gives him some food. You're going to need this for your journey. Eat up. He strengthens him. He gives him enough to get through the day. Whatever you need to get through today, God gives that to you to sustain you. That's the daily bread. That's the manna. That's the daily sustenance of God showing up and sustaining you for today. I shared with you a few weeks back that I was reading the Beth Moore biography, and she encountered her mother-in-law had walked through a tremendous trial, and she said, how do you do it? How did you giving me strength for that day. I'm reminded of this famous passage in Isaiah Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. God will sustain us if we trust him to do it. He will strengthen us in the darkest of days when it's so dark and so heavy and so cloudy that we can't see a glimmer of light or a glimmer of hope. God, if we have within us one ounce that is willing to reach out to God and ask him for that day, he will sustain you that day. He will whisper to you. I love that we have a God that speaks to us in the whisper. In the most unexpected places, in the most unexpected ways, God shows up with his presence. A few weeks ago in men's Bible study, one of the guys shared his story. He's a little bit older now, late 50s, early 60s, than he was when this happened. But at some point in his life, I'm not sure when, but he lost his wife. Lost his wife to breast cancer. I can't imagine the pain of losing a spouse or a child. Losing a parent is hard. But I bet losing a spouse or a child is harder. I used to work at a school years ago and there was this woman named Emmeline McKinnon who founded the school. Wonderful lady, everybody loved her. A few years ago, she passed away from cancer, and her husband, in his grief, took his own life too, a few days later. And to anyone with a heart, when they hear that story, I think they say, I get that. They loved each other for 60 years. How do you keep opening up your eyes after that? So understand it. I empathize with it. And I don't condemn it. And my friend was walking through that grief. Did not have kids. No one was relying on him. He was in the depths of sadness. And so he made the decision that he was going to go to heaven to be with her because he didn't want to be here. He went and acquired whatever it was he needed to acquire to put together a cocktail so that when he drank it, he would be in heaven with his wife. He went home, put it in the blender, started to mix it up. As the blender was going, the phone rang. So he stops it. He answers the phone. The person on the other end says, hey, is this so-and-so? He says, yeah, who's this? And he says, well, I'm Dr. So-and-so. I was your wife's optometrist. And my buddy said, I haven't heard from you in years. How you doing? And he said, I'm doing good. I just wanted to call you and tell you how special your wife was and how sorry I am for your loss. And my buddy said, well, thanks. I appreciate that. He said, how are you doing with it? And he lied, and he said, I'm doing fine. The way you're supposed to lie in polite society. And the doctor said, hey, I don't know if you're a religious man, but I am. And I feel like I need to tell you that God has been really pressing on me to call you. He's been doing it for a couple of weeks, and I'm sorry, I'm the worst. I've been putting it off. Every time he presses on me to call you, I kind of have something else pressing, and I think, yep, I need to do that, and I set it aside, and I mean to do it later. He said, but about five minutes ago, I felt the press again. And I was in the middle of doing paperwork, and I tried to put it off, but God would not let me put it off. He would not relent, and I just really felt like I needed to call you. So how are you doing? And my buddy really told him how he was doing and what he was up to that day. And they cried together and prayed together. And my buddy dumped it down the drain. Lived to remarry, to love nieces and nephews, and to sit in that circle and tell us that story. God whispered to him that day. So not only will God whisper to you, but sometimes he'll use you to whisper as well. When he's prompting you to do it. Do it. And then, God doesn't just whisper to Elijah. He sends him. And I love the matter-of-factness of God sending him. Because it's like, Elijah, listen, I can see that you're clearly bummed out, but I've got some things I need to do. There's some guys who need to be named king. They don't have kings right now. They need to be anointed. So I need you to get back to work. Go appoint these kings. He sends them. He says, I'm not done with you yet. I know you feel like you're done because you finished this thing with the prophets of Baal, and now there's nothing left to do. There's stuff to do, Elijah, and I need you to get to it. And I was actually talking with my dad this week. I wouldn't call it arguing. We weren't arguing. We were just kind of going back and forth, as we are wont to do, about what the greatest work was in Elijah's life. Was it the prophets of Baal? Or was it the training and developing of Elisha and leaving him behind as a legacy? Which one was bigger? And in the middle of the discussion, I said, Dad, this is really a stupid conversation. Which usually he's the one that gets to do that. So I was happy to be the one that got to do it this time. This is a really stupid conversation. And I just pointed out to him, the size of our works don't matter nearly as much as the faithfulness of our works. Who cares if the miracle with Baal was the bigger deal than anointing a king or naming a successor or raising someone's son from the dead? Who cares what the bigger miracle was, the size of the work, the grandeur of the work, the import of the work? Who cares if that's bigger than what's left? For those of us who maybe our best years are behind us, maybe the biggest thing we've done is behind us. Maybe the most important thing you think you'll do from a human perspective is already in your past and not as big of things are waiting on you in your future. I think that's silly. God could care less about the size of our work. Like God's impressed with the size of any work. What matters is our faithfulness within the works that he gives us for as many years as he gives us. Here's how I know it's true. I know that you guys would support me in this. Right now, there's probably about 200 people here this Sunday morning. If next week you snapped your fingers and you made grace 2,000 people? Would my work next week in preaching be any more impactful, any more great, any more important to God? Would I somehow be more spiritual next week preaching to 2,000 people than I am this week preaching to 200? Would I somehow be more faithful or more loved next week preaching to 2,000 people than I am faithful or loved in preaching to you today? No! It's stupid. The size of our work is irrelevant. It's our faithfulness within what he gives us. What lies ahead of you is not insignificant if God has placed it there. What's significant is your faithfulness as you are obedient to that. And after he sends Elijah, he encourages him. He peels back the curtain a little bit. And he says, hey, I know you think you're the last one here. There's 7,000 more just like you. I've kept them for myself. They have not been the need of bail. You're not alone. You have companions. You have friends. And I see you. And I'm not expecting you to carry all this weight. Now go do what I've asked you to do. What we see in the story of Elijah. If depression says, you don't matter, and if Elijah's expressing, God, I don't matter, and I am alone, then what God says in the strengthening and in the whispering and in the sending and the encouraging from a megaphone is, Elijah, you matter, you matter, you matter, you matter. I see you. I know you. I love you. What you're doing is important. And what he says to us and what he says to you and what I hope you hear is that you matter. Look, the love of God drowns out other voices and gently reminds you of how much you matter. The love of God and the strengthening and in the whispering and in the sending and the purposing and in the encouraging remind you in these subtle ways, I know life is hard. You matter. I know you feel insignificant. You matter. I know the world is trying to convince you that you don't matter, but I'm telling you that you do. Sorry, it's been an emotional week for me. One of the people I reached out to shared with me that he'll walk through really dark depression for months and sometimes a year at a time. And as I was walking through with him what I wanted to share, I admitted my own feelings of inadequacy to even address what it's like to actually be deeply depressed. Because I know that there's some depression that words don't touch. It just doesn't matter what I say. It doesn't matter what I pray. It doesn't matter how I encourage. There's just some depression that you walk through that's so dark and so difficult that words don't touch it and arrest you from it. And so I said, in your greatest times of trial, what helped you? And as I even admit the own inadequacy of my words to you, what can I say to help you? And he said, let me write you an email because I'm better with my thoughts like that. And he responded with some very helpful things, but one thing he said was so profound that I thought I wanted to share it with you this morning. He wrote me this. Solitude and isolation are freedom. They're the ability to define you as you wish because there's no consequence to any decision you can make. If you decide to surrender, there's no consequence. Your story ends and nobody else is there to see. Nobody else is there to care. Nobody else is there to respond. The profundity of that struck me as I read it in my office. That when you are deeply depressed and you are convinced that it doesn't matter and that you don't matter, that you are all alone and no one sees you. That you're isolated. In your solitude. But then that is freedom because you can do whatever you want and no one's going to care. And I thought, my gosh. That's a low place. But then he said, but it's because of, and this is a paraphrase, we have a conversation preceding this to help me understand that what he meant in our language is that because of the cross, because I know Jesus died for me, because I know God made promises to me. Because I know I matter enough to God for him to send his son. He said this, because it means, because of the cross, it means that there is no way not to be seen. There is no situation in which you are finally, truly, absolutely alone. You understand the cross stands eternally reminding you of how much you matter, that in the depths of not mattering, in the depths of despair, in the depths of I'm not important and I don't matter to anyone and no one sees me and no one cares about me and it might just be better if I weren't here, that even in the depths of that, that God sent his son to die for you, to claim you back to him. And before you say, no, he did that for other people. No, no, he did that for you. If you're the only person on this earth, he still would have sent his son to die for you, to reclaim you to the heaven that he created for you. And if we will cling to the cross, to the glimmer of light that shines through the millennia, we can take hope and solace in the fact that there's going to be a day where depression doesn't exist and where the darkness goes away and every day is bright and filled with joy. And I might not get to experience those here today, right now, but I will one day. And if I cling to that cross, God's promised that I matter, that there will be days where this will let up, where I will see joy, where I will live in the fullness of life, but even if it doesn't come, there's an eternity where I'll see that every day. We sang a few minutes ago that you're fighting a battle that I've already won. I'm fighting a battle that you've already won. This is the battle, and it was won on the cross. So let God strengthen you today. Let him whisper to you today. And hear me say that you matter to your God. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your son. Thank you for who he is. We thank you for loving us. Lord, I lift up those that feel sad or depressed or insignificant or unwanted or unwarranted. God, it is my fervent prayer that they would be strengthened today. That they would get enough from today to keep clinging to you. God, for those we love who live in a cloud of darkness from time to time, we pray that you would use us to help them brighten it. God, we pray for the days ahead that you promised through your son, that you won through his death on the cross. Where in your presence we finally at long last experience fullness of joy. God, I pray for my brothers and sisters who are sad and who are downtrodden and ask that you would pick them up, that they would know today that you love them, that you care for them, that more than anything, they matter deeply to you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. What a powerful thing that is. I just want us to pause and reflect a little bit for a room full of people to cry out together with no other music going on, just our voices. There's nothing better than you. Oh Lord, there's nothing better than you as we declare that together. I wish I had planned to preach on that. And the profundity of that and how if that would truly resonate through our days and our weeks, the choices that we would make, the priorities that we would set, what would it really look like if we lived our lives like we just declared, where there's nothing better than you and what you have to offer me? But that's not what I have to preach about today. What I have to preach about today is actually something that is near and dear to my heart and something I look for an opportunity to do whenever I can. What I get to preach about today is celebration. This is the third part of our series called The Table, where we're looking at the Gospel of Luke and how Jesus employs the table for different means and methods throughout the Gospel to accomplish different portions of his ministry. And one of the things we see Jesus use the table for in the book of Luke, and we'll get to the passage where we see that, and we see that in his life in other areas. We'll talk about that too. But we see Jesus use the table for celebration. And when I think about celebration in the Bible, I think of one particular scene of exuberant celebration that we find in 2 Samuel chapter 6. Now what's going on here is David is dancing before the ark of the Lord. So in the Old Testament, the ark is where the presence of God rested. It was representative of and emblematic, and even it actually was where the presence of God was. So the presence of God was with his people in Israel. It was the most sacred thing on the planet. And the Philistines had conquered maybe Shiloh where they kept the ark and taken it back to Philistia. And David mounted an army and he went and they conquered and they reclaimed it back and they were bringing it back to Israel to put it where it belonged. And what we see in the verses preceding what I'm going to read is David was throwing a party every night wherever the army was encamped as they caravaned back to Jerusalem. The harp was going and the lyre and the cymbals and the tambourines, which I guess is a big deal when you get the lyre fired up. They were partying every night. Huge celebration because the Ark of the Covenant was with them. And it says that David, when they would proceed in the processional, that David was dancing with all of his might, which I don't know what that is. I've never once in my life danced with all my might. I would be mortified to see what that would look like. But David didn't care. He was dancing with all of his might, and he was dancing in a linen ephod, which is basically Hebrew underwear. So dude, boxers, undershirt, just dancing before the Ark of the Covenant. And this is the king. This isn't just some crazy guy. This is the king totally undignified in front of the Ark as it parades back into Jerusalem. And this is where we pick up the story. Chapter 6 of 2 Samuel, verse 16. and inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And when David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts and distributed among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins to each one. Then all the people departed, each to his house. So this processional comes ushering into Jerusalem. And then this procession comes ushering into Jerusalem. David's been dancing before the ark in his underwear for the whole journey. and now Michal, his wife, sees him and despises him. You know she gives him that look. You wives know what I'm talking about, and you husbands really know what I'm talking about. That look that you get from your wife, you're being an idiot. Stop it. I get this probably with more regularity than most of you, besides you. I know you and I are pretty neck and neck there. I get that look pretty regularly. I know what it is. She looked upon him and she despised him. I do not blame you. I understand what I'm doing right now is unconscionable. But this is the look that McCall gives David. David finishes, and it's a great combination of the celebratory praise, right, and this somber worship. He offers the offerings. He does that. He hits pause on the party, on the celebration, and he offers the offering. And then as soon as he's done, what does he do? Nationwide feast. Everyone gets a cake of bread and a piece of meat and a cake of raisins, which if you want to make my day, give me a cake of raisins. That's fantastic. So everybody goes home. They celebrate. The whole nation celebrates the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant because the presence of God is here. And this is how David responds. And what follows is this insight into David's marriage and personal life. And I would just say this, David has many good traits. David provides us with many good examples. We're looking at the example of celebratory praise today. David was a pretty bad father and a terrible husband. So we're going to see that here. But look, I just love this conversation that follows. Verse 20, and David returned to bless his household. But Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet David and said, this is all sarcasm, by the way. This is complete, it's just dripping. How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants, female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself. And listen to this. So she just said, oh, big king, big important king, how you honored yourself today, stripping down and dancing in front of the female servants where you could be seen by anyone, you dummy. And then David says this. I love it. And David said to Michal, it was before the Lord who chose me above your father and above all his house. So Saul was the king, And David said, no, no, no, I don't want him or his line to be the king. I'm going to make David the king. So then David says, oh yeah, McCall, were you embarrassed about me dancing? Well, I wasn't dancing for the female servants. I was dancing before the Lord, the same Lord that chose me over your dad and you. And so that's why I was dancing. It's just great trash talk. And then he says, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord, and I will make Mary before the Lord. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this. That's what I tell my wife. It doesn't work the same way. And I will be a base in your eyes, but the female servants of whom you have spoken by them I shall be held in honor. So it's this great scene of the arrival of the presence of God in Israel. And for the entire processional home, feasting, celebrating, partying, dancing, music, and joy. It's this great, however many day long celebration. And then when McCall calls him out for it, have a little bit of dignity, have a little bit of class, which in McCall's defense, I think that if you put us in that story, we would be Team McCall. If we saw that happening, we would be on her side. And the side that says, hey, listen, it's okay that you're happy. Just have a little bit of dignity, okay? You're a king. Carry yourself like it. Act like a man, don't do that. Have a little bit of self-respect. And I know that we would be on McCall's side because in here, when we exuberantly praise the Lord, the absolute apex expression of our joyous praise is when we go from this to this. This is normal worship. This is, I'm about to lose my mind and start crying. I love God so much. That's all it is. That's the whole difference. So if you think you're not on team McCall, you're full of it. You are. I've seen you. And David's response is, no, no, I will dance before the Lord. I will be less dignified than this. And you know what God does? For all of this, all of his showing out, for all of his exuberant praise, for all of his lack of dignity, the very next chapter over, we see what's called the Davidic covenant, where God comes to David and he promises him, the Messiah is going to sit on your throne. Your name will go on forever and ever as I honor it through bringing the Messiah through your line and he will sit on your throne one day. Your kingdom, your throne will last forever. God, instead of being miffed by that praise, he honors it. And I think that this is an important story to remind ourselves of, because as we think about our own expressions of faith, I think we would agree that for whatever reason, we tend to think of faith and the expression of faith as this austere thing. Faith is a pious thing. It is somber and sober. It is serious. It is serious, quiet, personal prayers. It is early morning, quiet Bible study. It is sitting with someone as they hurt and sitting with them. It is being serious in church. And maybe it's because our biggest habit of the expression of our faith is to come to church every week and sit quietly while we do stuff. then sometimes you're allowed to sing but please don't make any other noise besides that because it's distracting. Maybe that's why our expression of our faith is so serious and so somber and so pious. But I think over the centuries, they understand. I think over the centuries, we have assigned this seriousness to our faith that God never intended. And I think that if we look carefully at Scripture, what we find is that celebrations play a vital role in the Bible. Our God is not a God that demands seriousness of us all the time. In fact, our God invented joy. He invented laughter. He's the author of it. And if we look carefully, we see that celebrations play a vital role in all of Scripture. If we think about God's role in celebration, there's a parable in the New Testament, Luke chapter 15 of the prodigal son, and I'm not going to belabor it. If you don't know the parable, I'm sorry. Come another time, I'm sure we'll tell it eventually. But the son who went off and was sinning and who squandered his money comes back. And when he comes back to the father, he has a speech prepared that basically says, I'm not even worthy to be called your son anymore. Will you hire me as a servant? Can I at least live in your house? And the father, who is representative in that story of God the Father, sweeps that aside, embraces his son, puts his robe on him, kills the fattened calf, put on his slippers and his ring. And what does he do? He throws a party. God says there is a party in heaven every time someone comes to know him. Our God throws feasts. When we see God depicted in the Bible, he is depicted as one who celebrates. As a matter of fact, when one day we go up to heaven, when he sends Jesus back and we're all called up into heaven, Lily, my daughter, she's seven, she was asking me yesterday, when is Jesus going to come back? And I said, baby, nobody knows. And she was like, oh, I want to know. I'm like, I know, I get it. And she's like, is it going to be soon? I said, I don't know. She said, could it be a hundred years? I said, yes. And she was like, oh, that's too long. She's ready to go. So whenever, I mean, if I was your dad, wouldn't you be ready to go? So whenever God comes to get us and he takes us all up to heaven, do you know what our first planned group activity is? Feast, marriage supper of the lamb. It's priority number one. It's the very first thing we're going to do. He's going to get his family together in heaven, and we're having the feast of all feasts. It's the very first thing God wants to do. He doesn't want to put us in a church service. He doesn't want to do some sort of meet your neighbor thing because we've got the new houses and the new bodies. What he wants to do is have a party and feast. It's the first planned group activity in heaven. And then we can look at the way that David describes this God. David says in Psalms that better is one day in his courts than thousands elsewhere. And I've got to believe that if that's true, that in God's courts there is exuberance and there's praise and there's joy and there's laughter. Otherwise, how could it be better than everything else? And then David says in Psalm 1611, and I remind you guys of this psalm regularly, that in God's presence there is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. Doesn't that describe a God of joy and a God of celebration and a God of laughter and a God of exuberance? And God the Son is no different. What was Jesus' first miracle? I know my Baptist friends are uncomfortable with the reality of this miracle and we would like to make it Welch's grape juice that he put in those vats. It was not. Jesus' first miracle was at a wedding in Cana when the host ran out of wine and was very embarrassed. And his mom said, hey, do the thing where you make the water wine. He had been saving the money for years, I guess, on wine. And she said, do the thing where you change water to wine. He says, no, no, no, it's not yet my time. And she puts that mom pressure on him, and so he does it. And he changes the water into wine. His very first miracle, he broke his silence by keeping the party going. And I do think that says a lot about our Savior. It reminds me of my father-in-law. My father-in-law, sometime in the 80s, decided that he didn't want to go to the movie theater anymore. It wasn't worth his time. It wasn't a wise investment of his time. So the last movie he saw in the theater was like Raiders of the Lost Ark. And then he takes this 20-year hiatus where he doesn't go see anything, not going to do it, not worth my time, not interested. And somewhere in the mid-aughts, he broke his silence. Do you know what he broke? A movie, my father-in-law, very serious. He was one of the vice presidents of AT&T. He was a pretty serious, straightforward guy. Do you know what he broke his silence for? Talladega Nights, The Legend of Ricky Bobby. And I loved it. I thought it was great. It said so much about, to me, it said so much about John, what he broke his silence for. He's got a sense of humor. He doesn't take himself too seriously. It was really great. I think it actually does say something about our Savior. What did he break his silence for? Well, it was primarily so that the host wouldn't be embarrassed and probably to please his mom a little bit, but he knew what he was doing. As a matter of fact, the guests were surprised because they were like, this is the good stuff. You're supposed to give us the good stuff first and then the other stuff after because we can't really tell the difference anymore. Jesus' first miracle was to continue a celebration. At another point in his life, some of the disciples from John come to Jesus and they're like, what's the deal? We've been fasting with John. We fast and we mourn and we pray. And the expression of our faith is very somber and very pious, kind of the way we would expect the expression of faith to go. And Jesus says, and they said, why don't your disciples do that? You guys go around feasting and partying with everybody. Why is that? And Jesus says, because I'm the bridegroom. And when I'm present, it's not the time to fast. It's the time to celebrate. It's the time to enjoy. It's the time to have fun. It's the time to respond with exuberant praise. God the Father and God the Son are gods of celebration. They're gods of joy. They are gods of merriment. That's why Matthew's response to Jesus when he gets called to be a disciple is the appropriate response. Now, we're going to see in this passage that I'm about to read that Matthew or Levi is a tax collector. Now, tax collectors were particularly abhorrent in ancient Israel because the ancient Israelites were, they were basically a province of the Roman Empire. They were governed by a Roman governor. That's why we see Pilate later in the story. And they resented this Roman rule, but there was nothing they could do about it. To pay for their armies, the Romans needed to tax the folks that they ruled over. And to collect those taxes, they hired locals. They hired indigenous people to become tax collectors and to collect that tax from the people that they were from. So to be a tax collector already meant that you were a little bit traitorous because you're working for the Roman government. But then, this is the way it was explained to me. I could be wrong about this, but the way it was explained to me is that the way tax collectors made money is that they would create a little margin extra of what the Roman government actually said. So if you went to them, they said, how much do I owe? The Roman government says we want to exact a 20% tax on the populace. Then Levi, the tax collector, might say, well, it's 25% this year. I'm so, so sorry. He sends the 20% to Rome, and he takes the five for himself, the 22.5. He takes the 2.5% for him and 20% to Rome. That's how they made their money on the backs of an impoverished people in Israel. So they were a despised people. That's Matthew or Levi, the tax collector. And when Levi encounters Jesus, this is what happens in Luke chapter 5, verses 27 through 32. After this, speaking of Jesus. So Jesus' statement there at the end about coming for those who are sick, not the well, is what we focused on in the first week of our series, and we won't belabor again here today, but I do want to be honest and say that's the point of the passage. Jesus making that statement is the point of the passage. However, what we see in the statement also is Levi's reaction to being called. When Jesus shows up in his life, what is the first thing he does? We've to throw a party. We got to have a feast. We got to celebrate. And in that, he models for us that celebratory praise is the only right response to the arrival of Jesus. Celebratory praise is the only right response to the arrival of Jesus. That's one of the reasons I started with the story of David in the Old Testament. The ark is back. The presence of God is here. What does David do? He dances with all his might for days and days. He throws a party. They have a feast. It's a nationwide celebration. What does Levi do when Jesus shows up? He throws a party. It's a feast. It's the only right response to the arrival of Jesus in our life. What does the father do when the repentant son comes home and what's lost is now found? The arrival of Jesus in this person's life, he throws a party. It's the only right response. What do we do when we get to heaven and we're finally with Jesus? We have a party. We have a feast. It's the only right response to the presence of Jesus in our life. This is why I would argue that Christians ought to be a people of celebration. Christians ought to be known for our joy, irrepressible, undeniable, contagious joy. We should be a people of celebration. When we come to church on Sunday, it should be a good time. When we get together, when we have barbecues, and we have big night out on Friday or on Saturday, it should be a good time. We should be a people of celebration because the only right response when we acknowledge in different ways, at different times, and different avenues, to different effect, when Jesus shows up in our life, we ought to respond with exuberant praise. We should be a people of celebration. We should be the Easter people because Easter reminds us that we can celebrate no matter what. So first and foremost, I want us to acknowledge through these stories, through the table of celebration, through what we're talking about today, that Christians should be a people of celebration. We should be a people of joy. Now, I understand that it doesn't feel right to celebrate all the time. Ecclesiastes tells us there's a time to dance and sing, and there's a time to mourn and be sad. Joyful, exuberant celebration isn't appropriate all the time. Sometimes it would look mean. It would look crazy. It would look insensitive. Just this week, we had a dear lady in the church have a stroke. I think it was a very early Monday morning. And I called on the family. I called her daughter. Her daughter goes here too. And I said, how's your mom? What's going on? And there was a lot of fear there and a lot of trepidation. And the first time she regained consciousness after the stroke, there was nothing there. Her eyes were open, but it didn't seem like anything was registering. It was a really scary thing. She went back under. The next time she came out, she was talking. And then the next day, she was walking. And then her voice got stronger. Now she's home. She's struggling with recollection, but she's continuing to gain on things. Praise God that she's progressed that far, that quickly, and the family is very hopeful. But when I'm on the phone with her daughter, when I go to the hospital room and visit, that's not the time for celebratory praise. I get that. I was talking with somebody else this week who is getting older, and they fell and needed a shoulder replacement. It just stinks. We've got somebody else in the church whose both of his parents have fallen and injured themselves in the past weeks. And I can't help but think how hard it is to be in a season of life where you have to realize that you can't trust your own balance anymore. Where just getting from here to there is a real trial. I can't imagine what it feels like when your body begins to betray you like that and you have to slowly let go of the independence that you have. That's got to be a tough season. And so when you enter into the midst of that and someone's crying because they know the rehab that they're facing, that's not the time for celebratory praise. When we sit with someone in loss, a diagnosis, and shattered dreams, those are not times for celebratory praise. And yet, here's what we know, and here's why we should be a joyful people. Because we can celebrate in the midst of crisis because Jesus claimed the final word. If we want to, when it's appropriate, when we're ready to acknowledge it, in the midst of crisis, we can celebrate because Jesus has claimed the final word. No matter what was to happen with that stroke and the results of it, because that lady knows Jesus, that stroke does not get the final word in her life. That is not the end of her story. That is not all that is written. There will be a one day when she sits at the table of the marriage supper of the Lamb and she is completely stroke free. Because Jesus defeated death, because Easter is true, these hard things that seem like they get the final word don't get the final word. Death has lost its sting. Sin has lost its shackles. Do you see? Even as we age and our body betrays us and it can't be trusted anymore, we have the glimmer of hope that on the other side of eternity, we will be given new bodies and a new heaven and a new earth, and they will not betray us. And my time in this rickety thing is limited, and I will not have to do this all the time. Even in the midst of crisis, because of Easter, because of Jesus, because of what Jesus claimed, there is still hope, and we can still celebrate. This is why that quote from John Paul II is my favorite. We do not give way to despair for we are the Easter people and Alleluia is our song. Because of Jesus, even in the midst of crisis, in the midst of loss, in the midst of frustration, in the midst of sadness, we can still, in spite of what Paul calls this light and momentary affliction, be a people who praise and a people who celebrate. So I would say that we need to look for reasons early and often to celebrate as much as we can. And one of the reasons, maybe the biggest reason, that we are a people of celebration is because of what it does when we celebrate well, when we celebrate as Christians should. Because Christian celebration turns horizontal joy into vertical praise. It takes the joy that we're experiencing here and then at some point or another attributes it to the author of that joy. Yesterday, we're just sitting around the house, just me and Jen, and I've got a daughter, Lily, she's seven, and a son, John, who's almost two. And we're just sitting around in our living room and Lily figured out this thing to do with her face and her tongue to make this sound that I will not replicate for you right now or ever that made John crack up. And if you've ever seen a two-year-old just losing it, it was John's very first spit take. He took a sip of milk from a sippy cup and then just all over the living room and nobody cared. It was great. And Lily's just making this face and making this noise. John's losing his mind, laughing so hard. And Jen and I are looking at each other, cracking up, and it's like the happy, fun, joyful tears. Not because we were so moved by the moment. We were just laughing that hard that our eyes started tearing up. And don't you think the joy that I was taking in John's laughter and Lily's laughter is the joy that God takes in us when his children laugh, when his children experience joy. And in the midst of that moment, because I try to be in the habit of this whenever I'm experiencing part of the good things in life, I didn't just let my joy in there and be like, oh man, isn't this great? But in my head, just kind of quietly, I stopped and I praised God. Thank you for moments like this. Thank you for my children. Thank you for a wife to share it with. Thank you that I get to be the one that watches them grow up. Thank you for the moments like this that you authored, God. So when we are in moments of joy, it does us good to be in the habit of acknowledging the author of that joy. It's why when I do a wedding, I always pray and I pray over the reception and I pray that it would be a good time, that it would be celebratory, that it would be fun, but that the joy would not terminate in this space. It would not terminate horizontally, but be turned into eternal vertical praise to the author of that joy. I think we celebrate to remind us to praise the God who gave us that reason to celebrate. And here's the thing, if we don't do that, if we just let all of our joy terminate here and we never turn it to praise, then I think we start to take for granted the things that bring us joy here. I think we start to get muted to that. I think it takes us more and more to get excited about if we won't express gratitude to God for authoring the joy that we're experiencing now. So I would encourage you, when you're having a good time, when you're making merry, when you're feasting, when you're with your friends, when you have a good laugh, when praise moves you, when something good happens and you get the happy tears, man, pause and make that a moment of praise to God. We're going to have a chance to do that right now this morning. In a minute, the band is going to come up and we're going to sing a song together. We're going to sing that song, There's Joy in the House of the Lord. And it's going to be big and it's going to be exuberant and I want this place to be loud. And I want you, as we sing this song, as we declare this as a people of celebration, I would encourage you to think of the things that God has given you in your life that bring you joy. Think of the kids that you're grateful for, the grandchildren that you get to watch, that you get to hold. Think of the relationships that you have, the friends that you share and do life with. Think of all the good things that God has done in your life as we declare this joy to God. So I'm gonna invite you to stand. Go ahead and stand with us. And we're gonna go right into this song. I'm not even going to pray to close out the sermon. I'd like for this prayer that we offer together in exuberant praise, I would like for this praise to be our prayer that we offer back up to God as we are a people of celebration and declare our joy for him in the house of the Lord.

Good morning. Welcome to Grace. If this is your first time here and you're wondering, do these people wear their pajamas every week? Yeah. Yeah, we do. You should see us in July. It looks crazy. No, we don't. Thanks for participating in Christmas Jammy Sunday. If you did, we said we were going to do a prize or we're going to acknowledge the most festive. And I really think there's only one way to skin this cat this week. Shane, will you do me a favor and stand up? There's about four families wearing those pajamas, which apparently were on sale at Target. So if you are wearing those pajamas today, if you would be so kind as to kind of collect your kids and maybe just hang out in this area after the service, then I'd love to take a group picture of just one big church family that wore the same pajamas today. So if you'll participate in that, that would be really, really great. Next week is our holiday hoot. If you spend any time at all around Grace, you know we like a good hoot nanny. If you don't know what a hoot nanny is, just stick around, you'll find out. Next week is just our church-wide Christmas party immediately following the service. We're just kind of asking everybody, just bring something to share, doesn't really matter what it is, and we'll have some tables set up. You can drop that off, and then after the service, we'll all hang out for just a little bit. We'll provide some stuff to drink, and we'll just have a church-wide Christmas party for as long as anybody wants to, although I know some people are going to be home before the one o'clock kickoff. I get that too. This week we are in part two of our series called Not Alone, where we are looking at the different ways that God reminds us of his presence through the Christmas season. Last week we talked about the silent generations between Malachi and Matthew, the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament. And we talked about that Christmas is a reminder that we serve a God who keeps his promises. So when we feel forgotten, when we feel alone, when we feel like we've seen God move for others and he's not moving for me, we, like they, in between the two testaments, cling to Christmas and to the promises of God. This week, I wanted to start us out by just diving right into Scripture. It's an obscure verse from an obscure book of the Bible, Micah. If you think you can find it, you can go ahead and start turning there. I see some people who are ambitious and eager. Good for you for knowing where Micah is in your Bible. The rest of you, get it together, man. This is church. Come on, memorize the books. No, I'm just playing around. Micah is tucked away in the middle of the minor prophets towards the back part of the Old Testament. And we're just going to jump right in and I'm going to the verse, and then we'll talk about it. But it's from an obscure book, from an obscure prophet, kind of tucked away, which makes it really appropriate for this morning. So this is what Micah writes in chapterah is what we call a messianic prophecy. It's a prophecy about Jesus. What Micah is saying is that God has told him, and now he is communicating to the people, and he specifically addresses it to Bethlehem, which is Bethlehem, not ham, just so you know, Southerners, it's Bethlehem, okay? So he addresses it to Bethlehem, and he tells them, from you is going to come what we know of as Jesus. From you is going to come my son. He's going to come a king and sit on the throne. It's this messianic prophecy. And he gives it to Bethlehem specifically because Bethlehem is unknown and insignificant. It says in the prophecy that Bethlehem is too little to be included amongst the tribes of Judah, which means it's really small. I probably should have gone and done the research. What did it take in ancient Hebrew and ancient Israel to become actually a clan within a tribe of Judah or any other tribe. And I just didn't do the research because if I did, the result of the research would have been that Bethlehem was insignificant and small. So I'm just skipping that part and telling you that Bethlehem was insignificant and small. One of you is going to do the research this week and be like, you were way off. I'll have to issue an apology next week. But let's go with that, that Bethlehem was just this small, nondescript, unimportant, insignificant town. And God says in the Old Testament, I'm going to use you in big ways. You're going to be really important. You're going to have a part to play in this grand story of Christmas and my kingdom. And I bring that up and I start our sermon there this morning because really and truly, Christmas has always been about the unseen, hasn't it? Christmas, the story of Christmas, maybe more than any other story, brings to light this thread throughout Scripture of God choosing the unnoticed and the unknown, the unseen and the insignificant. And in Christmas, we see this theme woven throughout the story over and over again. He chooses Bethlehem, a nondescript town from a nondescript place that hasn't even risen to the part of having its own clan within the tribe of Judah. And he says, this is where my son, Jesus, is going to make his grand entrance into the world. He could have chosen Jerusalem. He could have chosen Rome if he wanted to, but he didn't. God chose Bethlehem, this unknown and insignificant town, off to the side, in between, on the way down to the Dead Sea from Jericho. And when you think about the rest of the Christmas story, that's very on brand. Who did God choose to be the mother of his son? Somebody rich? Somebody influential? Somebody that everybody would know and trust? Somebody with a lot of clout from an important family in the nation of Israel? No, he chose Mary, a girl who was probably in her early teen years, who had not yet gotten married, who was from a small, nondescript town called Nazareth. That in the New Testament, when somebody hears that the Savior is from Nazareth, their response is, has anything good ever come out of Nazareth? They talk about it like we talk about Mississippi. Nothing good comes from there. How could that be possible? It's a little nothing quarry. It's a rock quarry town. It's a workaday town. It's in the backwoods. It's in the country. Nobody of any renown comes from there. And yet God chooses Mary to bear his son. Not somebody known. Not somebody influential. Not somebody with status. Somebody with nothing. And then to have his son born, he directs Mary and Joseph to go down to Bethlehem. They tried to stay in Jerusalem. They tried to stay in the important place. There was no room there. So God makes a way for them to end up in Bethlehem in a manger. He doesn't bring him into a noble estate. He brings him into a manger. And I don't know what you think of when you think about a manger, because we hear that in the Christmas story a lot. But I've had the opportunity to go over to Israel and to be in Bethlehem and to see what their mangers are, and they're basically caves. Bethlehem is rocky and hilly, and so on the side of a mountain, there's a little cave. They'll dig that out a little bit. They'll build a couple stables in there, and that's where they would rest. That's where the animals would be. So there's sheep and goats and maybe a donkey back there, and who knows what else, maybe a llama. I don't know. We got a Christmas llama. So a Christmas llama was in there on the sweater over there. Y'all should see it. It's great. It's got a little thing to hold water bottles. And that was the manger, just this little nondescript place where God says, this is where my son is going to come forth. And then God does a birth announcement. He has the angels go and they sing. And it was a little bit different than our birth announcements, right? We do birth announcements and he could have had Mary and Joseph hire a photographer, dress in their business casual wear, and then take off their shoes and get in their bed like they do every day, and then just have the light pouring through and post on Instagram like white people do. That's what we do when we have children. But instead, he had the angels sing. And to whom did they sing? The rich and the wealthy in Jerusalem? No, the poor and the unknown shepherds who meant nothing to anybody. That's where he announced the birth. There were some dignitaries that came, but they came from the east. That's all we know. They came from the east. And they showed up a long while later. Everything about the Christmas story is God choosing the unknown and the unseen to bring about his will. And I happen to think, I don't know if I even believe in the phrase, the spirit of Christmas, and I feel really cheesy saying this to grown adults, but if there is a spirit of Christmas, certainly it is wrapped up in noticing the unnoticed. Certainly it is wrapped up in bringing significance to those who feel insignificant. Certainly it is wrapped up in seeing the unseen. And Jesus lived his life this way. Jesus, the Son of God, born into this obscurity, lived his life noticing the unnoticed. He carried on that tradition and that ethic throughout his life. Think about the disciples that Jesus called. I don't have time to go into the cultural significance of what it was to be a disciple, but I can tell you, and you can take my word for it if you like, that to be a disciple, that was still like being in an Ivy League school. That was to really have accomplished something. Pretty much every little boy hoped to be a disciple. That's what the athletes were back then. They didn't have anything else to aspire to. That's what they aspired to. And so to be a disciple was a big deal. And so those who were in their adolescence, those who were in their late teens, like the disciples may have been when Jesus called them, and not actively following a rabbi, not actively being a disciple. And we need to understand that Jesus didn't have the only disciples in the New Testament. John the Baptist had disciples. Respected rabbis had disciples that they trained for ministry. And so to be going about your business after your education and not be a disciple of a rabbi was for the system to have told you, you're good. There's nothing left for you to pursue here. Learn a trade. We're going to train the more excellent ones. And so for Jesus to go and call his disciples the way that he did tells us that he chose people who had felt rejected. He chose people who had been told you're not gonna be good enough for this. And Jesus goes to Peter and says, yes, you are, follow me. He goes to James and John, yes, you are, follow me. He goes to the tax collector who sold out his people to make money. And he says, Levi, follow me. He goes to different people that are unknown and unnoticed that are cast aside. And he says, follow me. And I think it's really interesting because if I were trying to start a movement in the ancient world or any world, but in a small country like Israel, I would go to the affluent, right? I would go get the sons of the rich people. I would go find the sons of the ones who had the most influence and the most sway in the country. And I would try to, if I were Jesus, win them over to my cause and he saw them when they were unseen. And he noticed them when they were unnoticed, and he gave them significance when they felt insignificant. And then he modeled for them what it was to see the unseen throughout his ministry. We can think of miracle after miracle. He's walking through the pool at Bethesda, and he sees the man who's blind, who has no hope of getting into the pool before the other people do and earning the miracle. That was the myth around that pool at the time. And he goes up to him, and he heals him, and he makes it possible for him to see. I think of the woman who's caught in adultery in the act and drug through the streets to the feet of Jesus. He didn't have to have anything to do with this woman, but he chose to give her dignity. And he chose to give her respect. And he chose to defend her. And he chose to see her for who she was when everybody else just saw her for what she did. I think of Jesus' interaction with the woman at the well that Kyle preached on a few weeks back. This woman who is on her fifth husband, she's not respected in society. She's kind of ashamed of who she is. She goes to the well in the heat of the day so that no one would notice her, precisely to be unnoticed and unseen. And Jesus shows up and he sees her and he gives her living water and he speaks into her. He makes a habit throughout his whole ministry of noticing the unnoticed and seeing the unseen. Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who's rejected by everyone around him, climbs up in a tree just to get a glimpse of this savior. This famous person as he walks by and the crowds are gathered around him. And he looks up and he sees Zacchaeus, the last person anyone there wants to talk to. And he says, hey, I'm gonna come to your house for lunch, all right? I would love to know what Zacchaeus made, short notice for Jesus. At every turn in the life of Christ, you see Jesus living out this Christmas ethic of seeing the unseen, noticing the unnoticed, of giving significance to those who felt insignificant. And then he captures it for us, this ethic and this desire and this command for us to do the same thing towards the end of his life when he's speaking to the disciples in a story, in a parable, or in an example in Matthew chapter 25. We're going to put verse 40 on the screen, but I'm going to start reading in verse 35 when Jesus says this. Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. This is the Christmas ethic. This is what's woven all throughout scripture. This is how Jesus lives his life. And this is what he leaves us with as we are tasked with seeing the unseen and noticing the unnoticed and loving the unlovable. And Jesus himself tells us, whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. And so as we sit here in the middle of festive Christmas season, I can't help but think what better way to honor the arrival of Jesus than to continue in his example. What better way as individuals, as families, to celebrate Christmas season than to honor the example of Christmas, to honor the example of Christ, and to be intentional about noticing the unnoticed and seeing the unseen, about doing for the least of these. What better way at Christmas than to do for others, right? And I think that when we think about this, when we think about this idea of doing unto others what we would have them do unto us, when we think of this idea of doing for the least of these, and in that way we're actually serving Jesus. And this is a concept that almost everybody in here knows and has heard. And I think that when we think of that concept, doing for the least of these, we tend to think of people who are down and out. We tend to think of people who do not live in our blessing. Who do not live necessarily in our financial status. We tend to think of people who are poor. I think that we tend to think of soup kitchens. Or the homeless. Or maybe that tent community that's right around the corner. And our minds say, what can we do for them? The least of these. I think that's who we think of when we think of the least of these. Or we think we can walk out and we can grab a card off of the angel tree. And these are some people who are in need. And I want them to feel seen and significant. And so we get that. And we participate. And Jen and I, we've participated. And those things are good. And they should be done, and those are the least of these, and we should love them, and we should see them, and the church should be first in line to go love on those people, all the people that come to mind when we think of, quote unquote, the least of these. As a matter of fact, just as an aside, parents in the room still have kids at home. And I have to be careful here because I'm perfectly happy to share with you the things I'm terrible at. I'm perfectly happy to tell you what I'm bad at and to run myself down because we're all bad at something. I don't really have a lot of insecurities around that. Everybody stinks, so get on board. I never want to run down my kids, right? But I think that this issue is so ubiquitous that I'm really not running her down. All I'm doing is saying that Lily is seven. One of the things that we're starting to notice in Lily is this entitlement for Christmas, right? What she wants for Christmas. She starts working on her Christmas list in like May. She'll just tell us what it is. Like it's just gonna arrive. And you with young kids like yours do this too, I'm pretty sure. They all do it. They all go through it. And we start as parents to think like what can we do for the entitlement of our kids? How can we kind of show them so that they can be more grateful? And then we all toy around with that idea, don't we? Like, this is the year. I'm not getting them anything. Then they're going to learn. They need to learn some gratitude. But you don't because you're chicken. You're totally chicken. You're not going to do it and scar them for life. They're going to be in therapy because of it. But I do think that a good way to chisel away at some of the entitlement of our kids is to expose them to the least of these. I remember going down and serving in downtown Atlanta around Christmas season, I believe with my dad, but I know with folks from my church. So just as an aside, those of us with kids still at the house, it's probably not a bad idea to take a field trip this year somewhere and go help in a way that exposes them to another portion of life that they may not see in the circles that they run in. So I do think that when Jesus talks about the least of these, he does mean those people, people who are in different socioeconomic categories than us, people who have less than us, people who need in different ways than we do. But I also believe that the unseen are in and around our lives every day. The unnoticed, the unseen, the people who feel insignificant, I think they're on your row. I think they work in your cluster at the office. I think they're on the Zoom calls and in your neighborhoods. I think those people are everywhere. And I think that we should ask God for eyes to see them and hearts to hurt for them and wills to do for them. I think of my mother-in-law, Terry. Many of you know that part of the story of our family is that now two Christmases ago, December 29th, we lost Jen's dad to cancer. And Jen's dad was highly involved in the church. John and Terry went to church every week. Jen's dad was really, really close with his pastor. The pastor is a good family friend of theirs. And so the church was a big part of John and Terry's life. And because of that, it was really difficult after John passed for Terry to want to go again because it was such a painful, difficult thing. The idea of going to church just made her want to cry because she'd have to do it without John, and she wasn't sure if she would be strong enough to do it. And so a few months go by from essentially January to Easter, and Terry decides, I need to go to church. I need to go to church. Those are my people. I need to go. And so she gets up on Easter, drags herself out of bed, gets herself ready, and she drives there. And she's terrified. She's terrified because she's going to be sitting alone. She can't even bring herself to go to the side of the church that they normally sit on. She goes to the opposite side. And she knows that people are going to see her. She knows she's going to be sitting by herself. And she can already feel the pity in the stairs as she sits down as she's going through this. And she hates all of it. And she's scared of all of it. But she knows she needs to go. So as she's sitting down, a good friend of theirs sees her and says, hey, gives her a hug, tells her he's glad to see her. And he wasn't going to be sitting in that service, but he knew some people who were. And so he introduced this couple over here to Terry, and Terry and this couple had met before. They weren't friends, but they had talked. They were friendly. And they got to talking to Terry. And that couple invited Terry to sit with them at Easter. And as soon as they did, all the tension left Terry. She was good. She was comfortable. She was safe. And she felt seen. And she felt loved. But she was also going to get up from there, and she was going to go home to an empty house with no Easter celebration. And at the end of the service, the couple looked at her, and they said, hey, we're going to go to lunch. Would you like to come with us? And so she went to lunch with this sweet couple, and they talked for hours. And as soon as Terry got done having lunch with this couple, she called her girls. She told them all about this couple that loved her so well, that made her feel seen and made her feel important. I don't know who that couple is, but I know that they rescued Easter for my mother-in-law. I know that they made church a safe place for my mother-in-law. I know that their act of just simple hospitality and inclusion. Let her know God sees you. God loves you. God cares about you. He's going to take care of you. And even you can extrapolate that out to this path theory that you have to walk is difficult, but I'm going to send you little angels along the way. And I can't tell you the difference that it made for her to be seen that day, to be loved that day, and to be noticed that day. And you have those people in your life too. You have people who this year, their life changed tremendously. A diagnosis, a loss, a divorce. And you know that they're facing an uncertain holiday season, or maybe it's certainly going to be very difficult. You have them in your life. You have people in your life who are hurting, who are lonely, who are struggling with mental illness or newfound depression. You have folks in your life who have been praying for something and they don't have it yet. You have people in your life who on their social media feeds, there's less and less pictures of them with their spouse. And you see less and less of them at church. And you can read between those tea leaves. And we know that a phone call would probably be really good. We know that a lunch would probably be really timely. I could make a longer list, but we all have those people. We all have the people in our lives right now who are unseen and unnoticed and hurting. What better way to honor Jesus at Christmas than to make sure those people know that they are seen? Than to make sure those people know that their God loves them, that their God sees them. So why don't we do that? I was talking to Jen about it this week, and she made the point, and I think it's a great one, that we all think it, but it only matters if we actually do it. We all think about the nice things to do, don't we? We see them, we know we should call them, but it only matters if we actually do it. We can't be like me and Kyle. Kyle, our student pastor, we joke around a lot, but neither me nor Kyle really love pranks. We just love the idea of pranks. And so very often, with some degree of regularity, like at least weekly, somebody will do something and the other one of us will be like, dude, I was going to when you left, I was gonna do this to you. I thought to do this. Wouldn't that have been funny? And then we laugh at it. Yes, that would have been funny. Like a couple weeks ago, staff was going to Gonza for lunch because we take about three and a half hour lunch every day. So we're going to Gonza for lunch and we were supposed to leave at a certain time, and I just, to be an idiot, because I'm like this, I just walked out of my office. My door had been shut all day. I hadn't talked to anybody all day. I was writing a sermon, and then I just, I left, and I walked out the door, and as I opened the door, I said, later, losers, and I got in my car, and I drove to Gonsa's, knowing that they would have to drive together, right? So then they all arrive at Gonsa's a few minutes after me, and Kyle comes up to me, sure enough, and he's like, dude, I really thought it would have been funny to convince everybody not to come to lunch with you and just leave you here by yourself. And I was like, I know. I was actually pretty worried that's what you guys were going to do. And then we laughed about it, but we don't actually ever do anything to each other. We just joke about how it would have been, right? We can't do this when it comes to loving people who need it so much. What if that couple, months later, the next time Terry went to church was like, Terry, listen to this. We thought about inviting you to sit with us, but, you know, we just didn't do it. And then we thought, we should invite her to lunch, right? This is her first Sunday back. It's Easter. I don't know if she has any plans. Let's just invite her. But, you know, Terry, we just, we had stuff going on, so we decided not to do it. It doesn't work the same way, does it? We all think the things. We need to do it. I was talking to a dear friend of mine yesterday, who when I think of people who see the unseen and notice the unnoticed, I think of her. And I was talking to her about the sermon. And I made the comment to her, I bet the more you do it, the more you see. And the more you see, the more you want to do. And she said, yeah. And I thought about it more. And it really is true that when we become those agents, God's hands and feet, God's hugs, God's presence, God's attention, God's smiles for the people who need it so desperately. We really do meet Jesus there. We really do find our Savior there in those moments. We really do get a glimpse of what it's like to love like he loves. So that when Jesus says, whatever you do for the least of these, you do it for me, it's not hyperbole. It's just true. And so my simple encouragement for you this week is to go do it. Let me just challenge you to think of one person, one family, one neighbor, one coworker, one person sitting on your row right now who might feel unnoticed or unseen, who might be hurting. And allow God to use you. And maybe you get to be the angel that rescues Christmas for them this year. Maybe God allows you to participate in his good and perfect will in that way. Maybe you'll be the one that other family members that you don't even know will be telling stories about to their friends two and three and five years from now because of a simple act of love this December. And I'll be the first to admit I'm the king of thinking about things I should do. I'm just letting them float off and not do them. So when I say do it, like actually do it, I'm talking to me more than anybody. But what could happen in our little community? What stories could come out? What ways could God be seen if just everybody in this room decides, you know what, when I go to school, when I go to work, when I get home, I'm going to make it a point to ask for eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to feel. And I'm going to love somebody that needs to be loved. I'm going to notice somebody that needs to be noticed. I'm going to see somebody who doesn't feel seen. What could God do with that in just this room right here? Let's find out. Let's pray. Father, we love you so much. Thank you for always seeing us when we feel unseen. Thank you for always loving us when we feel unlovable. And God, thank you for the opportunity to participate in your word and in your will. I pray that you would give us eyes to see the people around us who need your love. And that you would give us the will and the courage to express that to them. Let us this week, Father, write the email, make the phone call, extend the invitation, buy the gift, reconcile. Give us your heart for the unnoticed and for the unseen so that when we go and love them, we might find you there. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, good morning. You guys can have a seat. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thank you for being here on this holiday weekend. As I always like to remind people who come on holiday weekend, God does love you more than the ones who are not here right now. He loves you less at the beach. It's just how it goes. So thank you so much for being here to celebrate Ministry Partner Weekend with us. This is a really special Sunday for us. We like to remind you as often as we can that 10% of everything that's given here at Grace goes to ministries going on outside the walls of Grace. And so the way that we are structured is we support three international partners and three local partners. And you're going to get to hear from most of those this morning through video or from them being up on stage. Speaking of people being up on stage, we're going to hear from Addis Jamari. Towards the end of the service, I get to talk with Suzanne Ward, who helped to start that. And we get to find out more about that ministry. But I'm also really excited this morning to have David Rodriguez with us from Faith Ministry. I got to meet, you'll have a chance to cheer. David's not that big of a deal, all right? Just messing around, David. Love you, pal. I got to meet David in October of 2017. I had started here as the senior pastor, and that was the trip that we do in our church. And so we went to Mexico, and I felt like I needed to go to Mexico because missions are important to me as well. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And as soon as I met David, I thought, man, Grace would love this guy. Grace needs to see this guy. Grace needs to hear his heart for missions and what's going on down in Reynosa. And so I've been wanting to find a time to get him up here, and finally it's the time. So he's going to share with us a little bit about God's heart for the world, and then I'm going to have a chance to talk with him on our behalf to find out more about faith ministry and what's going on down there. Buenos dias. Puedo hacer esto en español, verdad? Todos hablan español. I was going to ask Nate to translate this for me. I feel more comfortable speaking in Spanish. I know you are an expert, but I'm going to give you a break today, my friend. So thank you so much. It's so good to be here, guys, with you. It's amazing. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. And you know my name is David Rodriguez, and I'm Executive Director of Faith Ministry, whatever that means. I have no idea what that means, but I'm the Executive Director of Faith Ministry. And as I was walking here, I just saw those beautiful familiar faces, and thank you so much for coming and doing this with us. And I was talking with some of the youth that used to come to faith ministry years and years ago as students in high school, and now they're grown up and married and with kids and all of that, and that did not make me feel old at all. So thank you for doing that, but it's just a beautiful, beautiful time. I think the last time I was here at Grace, it was 2015 or something, something like that. I don't remember. Don't trust me on that, but it was a different world right then, 2015, a reckless world when they put in front of us a birthday cake and we blew on the candles and then we gave the cake away. What were we thinking? Gosh. But it was a different world right there, but it was just great to be here with us. And they asked me to share a little bit about God's heart for missions and for partnerships. And I know for a fact that it runs really deep in the DNA of church, right? Missions and programs and all of this. And I know for sure it's important for this church. I was hired in 2002 to work with faith ministry. And by the summer of 2003, I was introduced to Grace Youth, right? With 50 or 40 or 80 kids coming. and I wanted to run away right there. But I was introduced to the beautiful leadership of this church with everyone that you know from years and years ago, and I can see how much love you have for the communities. I can see how much you put into the ministry and how much you love everyone. And every time that the team came to the area, it was a fiesta, not only for the ministry right there, not only for us, for the whole town. You know, everyone got really excited about that, and it was just wonderful, wonderful to have. And then I was introduced to the adults, right, that they're a little crazier than the kids, so, but beautiful adults, and every time they come, I have tons and tons of people coming to the ministry, because they want to take pictures with you guys, and they call you family, and they call you my friends, and they call you, and they feel that you you belong to them and they belong to you. And it's just a wonderful, wonderful feeling about that. And that's how much you appreciate the partnership and we appreciate the partnership with the ministry. That's the fiesta, that's family. And that's how God sees us without putting ourselves first and our minds and our cultures and our languages and our ideas and all of that. We put it on the side and we say, you're my brother and you're my sister. Regardless of everything, we are family because we belong to Jesus. And that's it. That's the important part. That's the heart of God working through all of us. God loves us so much. That beats me because I know me, right? It's how come God loves me? I have no idea. I don't know about you and yourself, but you guys look beautiful and it looks like you behave very well. But God loves you so much. And that's the important thing, that we can give back that love because of what we receive. That's the responsibility that we have. We are, God is counting on you, by the way. God is counting on me to go out and to share that love. If you're expecting an angel that came from heaven, you know, to do the work that we are supposed to do, I have news for you. It's not coming. The closest thing that you're going to have to an angel is Nate here and me. Let me tell you, you are in troubles right there, right now, right? You look like an angel, by the way. I'll send you the invoice later. You are in troubles. There's not going to be fire from heaven in showing people the love of God. God is depending on you. God is depending on me to get involved in organizations like this, to go out and to share that love of God with the people that is in need. I witnessed firsthand the love that you guys have and how comfortable you are, how good you are in that field. But let me tell you something, this world is an expert on throwing things at us that make us, you know, discourage us from going. You name it, COVID or financial crisis, or you put the name there that discourage you to go out in the field and do this. And when I was growing up, I learned this the hard way because my dad was a principal, a director of a ministry at Bible College. And that's what they did all the time, going out and doing mission work and going in different fashions. And one of those fashions was singing. He had a choir, a group of people singing, and I thought that was fun. He's like, let me do it. You got old, good old David thinking that that was beautiful, and I wanted to join that team, go all over the place and sing and all that. I didn't count that my father was a perfectionist, and he wanted to deliver quality. So they were practicing and practicing for hours and hours because he wanted the harmonies. He wanted the first voice to match with the second voice. And then it was all of that. And it seems like he wanted me to join one of those voices. And I was singing not on first voice or second voice. I was singing on reverse because he was always speaking on me. So I became uncomfortable with that. I became like, this is not fun. I don't want to do this anymore. And I talked to him about that. It's like, I don't feel good about this. I don't want to do this anymore. And he looked at me. It's like, do you really thought that this was going to be fun? Do you really thought that this was going to be something easy? You think it's about your feelings? You think it's about you, how you feel, how comfortable you feel, how happy you feel about that. Let me tell you something. It's not about you. It's not about how you feel. It's about the responsibility that we have to share that love of God with the people that have never seen the love of God. So put your feelings on the side. We have work to do. And I keep on trying to sing. I keep on trying because this world makes and produces problems. And we know this wonderful God. this loving God that we need to share with the community. In Romans 5, 8, it speaks loud about this. God demonstrated His love while we were sinners. Christ died for us. And I keep thinking, how fun that was for the Lord. How easy that was for the Lord. And that's the question. How good He felt about dying on a cross for you and for me. I guess it was not fun. It was not comfortable. It was not easy. But He did it for you. And He did it for me. He loved us so much. He loved us so deep that He died for you and he died for me. He cleaned me. He saved me. He put me in a place that I don't deserve, but he deserves and he's in me. And now I have a big responsibility to go out there. God cares for me. God cares for the people. Let's go out. Let's get involved. Let's go out and tell the people from Raleigh, from people from Mexico, people from Africa, from people from all the way in the world that we have an awesome God. That God cares. That God loves us so much. And they need to hear this good news. There's plenty of bad news. Just turn on your TV. They don't need that anymore. They need to know about this God that you have. And that you can share those great news with everyone. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. It's so good to see you here tonight. I mean, today, tonight, tomorrow, yesterday. I don't know. But it's so good to see you here. And we love you and we appreciate the partnership that you have with us. And I heard that there's going to be tacos later on, so I'm going to be quiet now. Okay, let's go for tacos. So let's pray together. Lord, thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity to be here and to be with people, family. I know you love us so much, and I know you have saved us and cleaned us. And give us that desire, Lord, to go out and to share those good news with the people that needs to know that you are God and that you are your throne. This world is upside down, but you are not. Thank you for everything that you are doing for us. In your name we pray. Amen. God bless you guys. Thank you. Amen. Yeah, have a seat, my friend. David, I'm so excited that you committed to me on the way to church this morning that you'd come back and preach to us for the next two, three weeks. We're looking forward to your series on missions. You got it. People are not going to be happy in Mexico, let me tell you. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. I'd ask David just to share a little bit really about the heart of God and why God cares deeply about the ministries that we're focused on this morning. And thank you so much for doing that. A simple message of it is our job. God's counting on us to spread his love. And David's actively doing that with his staff down there. The folks that we've highlighted on video are actively spreading the love of God. We at Grace do everything that we can to actively spread the love of God. Suze is going to talk about that in a little bit. And so now what I want us to get a kind of a sense of is faith ministry and what they do and what David's role is there and moving forward what we're looking forward to next. And then ultimately, how can we partner with them in moving God's love forward and spreading the love of God to other people? And so really, if you're here this morning, what I would really encourage you to do, or if you're catching up online, I would encourage you to think through, God, how can I partner with one of these ministries? How can I do something? How can I help spread your love in a way that I'm not currently engaged in? What's the thing that I can engage in and help with? So just allow the Holy Spirit to kind of speak with you as we hear more from these folks that we partner with. So David, first of all, I got to hand it to you, pal. When I told you, you know, take about 10 minutes and share, I didn't think there was any chance in the world that was coming in under 10 minutes. I thought for sure we were going to be 15, 18 minutes. I'm just going to be sitting there and be like, well, I'm just going to interview him for two minutes. That's it. That's his time. So I'm, first of all, very impressed. Thank you. So tell us what Faith Ministry does. And let's pretend that there's people here who have never heard of Faith Ministry before and don't know what it is. Educate us on what you guys do and where you do it. Well, I thought you say 10 Mexican minutes. I was going to go for 20, right? But I said maybe, Jimen, you know, 10 minutes, actually 10 minutes. You did good. I appreciate that. Well, Faith Ministry is an organization that creates opportunities, opportunities to meet the Lord, to meet Jesus in different fashions, different ways. What we have is people that they leave their hometowns. They leave South Mexico. South Mexico has nothing for it is extreme poverty that is over there. It's beautiful areas, but it has nothing for them. They move into big cities like Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterey. But you need education to succeed. And Monterey is my hometown. It's four million people. So it's an industrial capital of Mexico. So it's hard for them to do it. So they come to the border, not because the border is beautiful. It's because they want to jump in the United States, right? It's the American dream. And they get stuck in the middle. They cannot come here. They cannot go back home. So they're stuck with nothing, nothing at all, with no hope, no things like that. And that's, I'm sorry, my phone, it's saying that he didn't understand what I say. So it's listening somehow. So, beats me. Your phone is mocking you from the audience. I know, right? That's great. It's throwing jokes. I didn't understand that. Can you repeat that? Okay. And that's what we do. We meet these people where they are, and we tell them that we have an awesome God. But it's hard to tell somebody that has no house and no food and no medical attention, and they cannot send their kids to school, that God loves you, right? And you go and say, God loves you. Jesus loves you so much. And they look at you like, really? You're making a mistake. I have never seen the love of God in my life. And that's why we begin doing things and we've been building houses and providing meals. We have three churches that we support and we provide meals for 150 people a month. And we create all these opportunities to tell them with actions, God loves you. And that's faith ministry. That's faith ministry in action with all of that. Yeah, great, great. And as I understand it, you guys kind of have, a little bit, you kind of have your summer focus, and then you have your focus during the year. So tell us about those two different focuses. And during the summer months, what do you focus on? And this is when teams go down, and this is how Grace has a relationship with faith ministry. And then during the year when teams can't come down as often, you're focused on other things locally. So tell us about your summer focus and your year-round focus. The summer looks beautiful for us. You know, for a few years it was awful with everything happening. But now every week we have a team. And that means that there's a group of people from a church organization coming our way. And we focus on that week and that church. And they come to build a house. And they come and there's nothing. And at the end of the week, there's walls and there's columns and there's a ring and there's a house for families. And we keep telling families, God is awesome. God is good. Perform miracles. And then there's a team coming and building a house for them. And that makes that team an answer to their prayers and how beautiful that is. So that's the summer. They come on a Sunday. They leave on a Friday. And the next team comes either Saturday or Sunday. and that's team after team all the summer. Let me interject real quick before the rest of the year, because one of the things that was interesting to me is to go down, and when you're there and you're helping build the house, and when I say help, I use that term very loosely, because I am no help. I lay the worst cinder block. I'm terrible at it, and I'm never going to do it again. That's what people say in Mexico about you as well. Yeah, I know. I'm probably a legend down there. There's no kidding around. There was one afternoon I worked all afternoon on a wall to get it to this high, and one of my buddies who goes here, Keith Cathcart, he's not here this morning, but he's a jerk. And he was there working as well, and he came around the corner to give me a hard time about the bad job that I was doing and saw the abject stress and terror on my face and left me alone. Can you imagine how bad the wall looked for him to leave me alone? And then when Angel, the foreman, got there later the day, he had to literally, I'm not making this up, take a sledgehammer to the wall to get it back aligned to where it needed to be. So help, the word help is very loose there. I will never attempt to help in that way again. But sorry for the digression. That doesn't count as part of your time. When you get there, usually they have the families on a bulletin board or something in the kitchen of where you're staying and kind of telling you the stories of the family. A single mom who works in an electronics factory and makes a little bit more than a dollar a day, and she's got two kids who are in school, and they're trying to figure it out. So I would love, just off the top of your head, I know I'm putting you on the spot, just an example or two of the last couple of houses that you built, who they were for, what was going on with the families. And then I think it's also important for the folks to know what qualifies you to get a house built for you by Faith Ministry. Well, we have a lot of examples. I'll tell you one that it's a lady that works for us and she injured her hand and she cannot work anymore. She's broken her hand and they have family, extended family with a mentally challenged kid with mobility issues. And for them to build a house, it's horrible. They can say for years and years and years and nothing is going to happen about that. And then there's a team coming in one week building a house for them. And you have to see their faces and their smiles and their tears saying, well, think this is a miracle for us. You know, this is something that God has given us. Years ago, I was working in Miguel de Man with many of you who work and a lady came to me and say, I need a house. And I told her, we cannot build a house anymore. Our summer is done. We have all the teams coming. We're not going to be able to build a house anymore. And she began crying. It's like, what's going on? Tell me. Why do you need a house? And I was not ready for the answer. And she looked at me and said, well, I need a house because I'm dying. I'm going to die. And I said, well, we are going to die, right, one way or another, sooner or later. She's like, no, you don't understand. I'm dying right now. I have cancer in my stomach. And I have two kids that they depend on me. And it was three kids that depended on her, the're little kids, so I'm gonna go and I'm gonna leave them with nothing. So I want a house for them to stay to go in because I'm gonna die and they're gonna thrown out of the street. I was speechless. What do you say to somebody like that? I didn't have any teams coming, everyone was already committed to a house, and it was that need, and I began telling her in the interview, oh, we have an awesome God and a mighty God and a God that makes miracles. And when I hear all of that, I say to myself, David, you and your big mouth, right? Now we're going to have to do something about it. And it was amazing to hear one of the teams calling in and say, David, we told you that we're going to build one house. And guess what? We have the money to build two houses. So you need to find me another family. And that was the miracle right there. So we built a house for her. That was the first member of the Miguel Aleman Presbyterian Church that got baptized. And she got baptized in her bed. And the pastor called me, he's like, David, she passed away, and she passed away with a smile on her face. And that's the impact that you do when you come to the community because you're sharing the love of God right there with people in extreme need. And that's great. Thank you for sharing that with us. And as I understand it, to get a house, to have a house built for you, you have to have someone representing your family who agrees to work for faith ministry. What's the time period on that? How long do they have to work with you guys? It depends. If they bring me tacos, it's a short period of time. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Right. But if they don't. Right. Those jerks. Yeah. Yes. We always ask the families to come in and work because we want them to get involved. We're not a construction company. We don't build houses for people. The house is just an excuse to share the love of God with them. But we want to tell them, if you work hard, you help, good things are going to come. So eight months, we ask them to get involved. And the first thing that they do is not building their own houses. They begin building some other people's houses. And by the time that they build their own house, they already help 10 different houses or 15 different houses by the time they build their own house. And then everyone else is going to join them and build this. And their reward is at the end of the season, they're going to to have a beautiful beautiful house not the wall is not going to be straight all the time no no right but we call it art you know it's like it's it's abstract handcrafted yeah exactly exactly so well there's so many more questions i want to ask you, David, but we are running out of time. So I would encourage you, hang around afterwards for tacos. I've even heard there's going to be an after party after the tacos at Compass Rose where we can hang out with David a little bit longer. So make a plan to stay and hang out and ask him personally what else happens during the year at Faith Ministry and most importantly, how can we get involved as individuals? I would think the biggest way to get involved as an individual 22nd through the 29th, we are taking a trip down there as a church and you can go and see faith ministry. David is really, really good on site at mixing concrete and doing all the manual labor. Very, very impressive at those things. He will be right there alongside you. David doesn't do any of that stuff. He wears khakis every day and says, good job everyone. Which is why I want to be like David. All right, David, thank you so much for your time. God bless you. We look forward to hanging out with you more afterwards. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Hey, Suze. Hey, Nate. I'm glad I don't have to follow David. I don't envy you one little bit. I'm going to do the best I can. I know you will. I know you will. So, again, we'll start off. Suze is with Addis Jamari, a ministry based in Ethiopia that you and your pal Cindy started how many years ago? Six years ago now. Wow. Yeah. Look at you. Okay, so tell us what it is and why. Well, I think it's more interesting to say why it started. You went over there, you saw some things, and then this started, and then tell us what it is. Yeah, so back in 2014, said yes to a mission trip and went to Ethiopia for the first time, and we worked in orphanages. While we were there, the level of poverty that we saw was on a level I'd never seen. But more importantly, the children that were aging out of orphanages were very young. And what happens to them when that happens? And we came home with this bird. What does happen to them when they age out of orphanages? Well, I have a 15-year-old, and that's a similar age to the girls aging out of the orphanage. And they fend for themselves. And that comes with not being educated to find jobs that can be self-sustainable. They end up having to do work that you would not want any child to have to do. Slave labor, sex trafficking, things of that nature. And so this burden was laid on our heart. Because once they age out, and I'm sorry to interrupt, but once they age out, just for our American brains, there's no government infrastructure for them anymore. They've aged out. They've just exited the government infrastructure. Now they're 15 and there's nothing to help them and there is no education. Yeah, basically they're given a small stipend, some pots and pans, maybe a pillow and a good luck. That's it. And so that burden was on our heart. We came home and we said, you know, this is not right. We can do something about this. So we went back multiple times over the next few years and just began to learn, partner alongside other ministries. And Adishamari was launched in 2016, where we first opened a home for orphaned teenage girls. And it was a safe landing place for girls that had aged out to have a loving home with people that could care for them, got them back into school, really taught them about the love of God, that they're valued and worthy. And that's how Adishamari began. Right. But now, if you work in a country long enough, you begin to understand the root issue. And some of the girls in our home had living mothers, but they just couldn't afford to care for them because of poverty. So they had to make that hard decision to relinquish their child to the orphanage, knowing they would have a better chance of getting a meal there than they would at home. So the poverty in Ethiopia, and it's the capital city. We're in Addis Ababa, which is the capital city. I always forget if it's Ababa or Adaba, and I have no confidence to say it, but the capital of Ethiopia. They're there, and these women, and sometimes women and men, sometimes it's couples. They already have children. They have another child, and they are really faced with the decision of, does this child have a better chance at a decent life if we hand them over to the government to feed them because we can inadequately care for our children? Like that's the excruciating decision that their decision point that they're coming to. And some of them are realizing their best shot is to hand them over to the orphanage. Yeah, that's right. So that's how they end up having living mothers. So we noticed and learned that some of our girls in our home had living mothers. And we had this thought, well, what if we had come alongside Zelphy's mom before Zelphy was in the government orphanage and then in our home? And we gave her tools and education and things to thrive. And that's where our family empowerment program kind of came to life, where the AJ Home combats the orphan crisis. The family empowerment program prevents it. So we want to be alongside those families, giving them the tools so they can keep their children at home. So what does the family empowerment program do? So if there's a family that's partnered up with you guys in Ethiopia, what are you providing for them? And what are you asking of them? Yeah, so when you become part of our family empowerment program, we come alongside you with education. We're teaching financial literacy, English. English is very important in Ethiopia. If you know English, you can get better jobs. You can make more money. We do economic empowerment. We're teaching them how to put business plans into practice and business management. We're doing discipleship because none of this really matters if you don't know Christ and the love of God. And then social support, medical assistance, counseling. Most of these families come from immense trauma. And so in order to really make a family whole, you have to get to that root issue of what's causing some of the rift and some of the things that are holding them back from thriving. And I think what else you guys stumbled upon, if I remember correctly, is you look at the scope of the ministry you're able to do. How many girls are you able to have in the home at once? We have six, and we do that intentionally because you can really pour into six. You get many more than that, it becomes orphanage. Yeah, when I was there, you had three. How many families are you serving through the Family Empowerment Program? We intentionally keep that small as well and only do 50 because we want to really, we'd rather pour deep than spread thin. And so we do that so we can really get to know the families. My family is different than your family and different than your family, and we all have different needs. So you really want to get to know the family on an individual basis so you can serve them best. Right. And I think it's, I don't know if you picked up on that, but when they went over, it was to care for girls aging out of orphanages. And then they realized, man, we can be so much more effective if we'll focus on families and prevent it on the front end. And even intentionally keeping it small, three to six compared with 50, and I know that they want you to do more. I know that there's opportunities to take it. You could probably take on another 50 families in the next week if you really wanted to do it. And I also think that that's a wise thing that they're doing because they're a growing organization. So staying small on purpose so we can do it well and grow with wisdom instead of just grabbing all that they can grab and then being overwhelmed and doing a bad job. So I always think highly of you guys for the pace at which you're kind of going through that. So, and I would say this, she's not going to say this. If you want to partner with Addis Jamari, you can sponsor a family. I think sponsoring a family every month is 60 bucks. That's one Chick-fil-A Coke a day. Just don't go to Chick-fil-A just like once a day. Or I went the other day. That's two meals. That's two family of four lunches. It's just two. It's so expensive over there. So just don't go to lunch at Chick-fil-A twice a month. Support Addis Jamari and you're done. It's fantastic. But that is an easy way to get involved. Suze will be at a table out there, and you can find out how to support a family for the FEP program and know that what's happening over there is really, really an effective use of God's resources to love on those families. So as we wrap up, what's next for AJ? What's on the horizon? What are you most excited about? Yeah, July's a big month. We get our second set of 50 families. We are moving FEP centers. Inflation in Ethiopia has been at a rate of 35%. And so our landlord so kindly told us recently the new cost to stay at the center. And unfortunately, we had to make a move. But with that comes great blessings. So we're moving to a new FEP center. We have 50 new families coming into our program. And we also have a new girl joining our home tomorrow. So if you guys can be praying for all of those things. What's her name? Her name is Solita. Solita. Yes, I love that name. So yeah, she comes with a really hard story. So just prayer that she will feel like God's presence from day one, that the other girls in our home will wrap their arms and love around her and that she'll just immediately feel like she's home. Good, good. Great. Well, will you join me in prayer for these ministries and for Solita? And then I think, are we closing out with worship? We're not? We're canning it? Oh yeah, I'm supposed to ask everybody to do a thing. All right, let's pray. Father, thanks so much for this morning. We lift up Solita to you and just are so grateful that it was your will to acquaint her with Addis Jamari. We pray that your hand would be on her in the transition to yet another new place with yet more new faces, but that these would be faces that reflect your love. These would be eyes that carry your acceptance and your support, and that these would be arms that are your arms wrapping wrapping around her and that when she moves out, however many years from now she does, that she would be an equipped young woman with a heart for Jesus and want to go share the love with others that she's received from the home at Addis Jamari. We pray for AJ as they move into July and all the exciting things going on. And we know that even though it is difficult to change homes, God, that your hand is in that. And I pray that they would see evidence all over the new complex that this is exactly where you want them to be as they look to move forward. Thank you for David and what he's doing in faith ministry and how you're using him to share your love with the people in Reynosa and Mago de Arman. And God, we just are so grateful for the opportunity to partner with them. I pray that we would continue to partner with these ministries boldly and cheerfully as a church, but that we would also do that as individuals as well. Show each of us how we might partner with them in what you are doing in those places around the world. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.

Oh, hey there, pals. Don't you just love this music? It's nostalgic, isn't it? Takes you back to a simpler time, when you were a kid and things were light and fun. I love times like that. I'll tell you what else makes me feel nostalgic. It's those old Bible stories, the ones that we learned in Sunday school or maybe just picked them up somewhere along the way. I love the heroes, David and Goliath, Noah and the ark, Jonah and the whale. The list really does go on and on. And I wonder, pals, how long's it been since we heard those stories? I bet it's been a while. And if we could tell them again, I wonder if we would find out that those stories aren't really kids stories at all, but they were meant for grown-ups all along and that there's still lessons we can learn from them today. Let's find out together. Speedy delivery. For me? Thanks, Mailman Kyle. Good morning, everyone. If you missed on the video, my name is Mailman Kyle. I am the student pastor here at Grace. Before we get going, I just wanted to make you all aware. I had COVID about a month or so ago, and I have a cough that has not yet subsided. So you see a lot of things on this table. I've got tea, I've got water, I've got loose cough drops, all of the things that I need. But there may be a time where we run into me coughing a little bit, and I promise you that as annoying as it is for you, it's at least as annoying for me. So let's just get through it together. But I am so excited this morning to finally be kicking off our summer series, Kid Stories for Grownups, where we take these stories that we've heard and been told so many times if we grew up in the church. And if you're parents, you've probably either read or more honestly, you've probably recited all of these stories to your kids over and over and over again. These stories that we know back and forth. And we take a look inside of those stories and we dive deep into them and are reminded that, hey, like, certainly these are awesome stories for kids, but these stories are incredibly rich and they're incredibly deep and they're incredibly beneficial to us as grownups and as adults as well. And maybe as we go through these stories, we highlight something that maybe isn't the thing that jumps out of the page, that maybe, hey, I've always taught this story and read this story and taken this from this, but maybe there's something more or something deeper we can take away. And this morning, as Nate so beautifully told us, we're talking about Jesus walking on water. And I know a lot of us probably know this story. This story comes on the back of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Jesus has come to earth. He has left heaven and he's come to earth. He has begun his ministry. He has gone and he's found his disciples and they have walked together in ministry, serving people, teaching, preaching, doing all those things. Well, he comes to this crowd, and as he's preaching to them, he realizes, hey, these people are hungry. They've been here all day. We've got to feed them. And so what happens? They have five pieces of bread, two pieces of fish, and Jesus breaks those apart until literally every member of the 5,000 plus the wives and children are fed with food to spare. An unbelievable, incredible, awesome miracle into this second unbelievable, incredible, awesome miracle of Jesus walking on water. After he was done ministering, he sends the crowds away, and he sends his disciples on a boat. So the disciples head out, and Jesus goes up on a mountain, and he prays. He spends time recharging and refocusing. He spends time with his father. He spends time praying. Well, as the disciples are on the boat, winds are crazy, weather's crazy, the water's up and down, all of those things, and they're a bit scared and they're a bit afraid. Well, their fear then suddenly increases by tenfold because then a man starts walking towards them in the like middle of the morning, like 3 a.m. Here comes this man walking up and starting to talk to them. So they get terrified. Literally their response is, is this a ghost? Are we seeing a ghost right now? What is going on? And Jesus's response to that is wherever it is in my, oh, looks like my, I turned the page. I'm very sorry about that. His response is, take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid. And we look at that and we're like, that is unbelievable. That is incredible. This is literally Jesus walking on the water. An unbelievable miracle, back-to-back miracles to say, look at this. This man, who is definitely a man, is definitely not just a man. This is clearly the Son of God because no one else, no other human would be able to do such a thing. And we look at that and we tell and we learned about that story as a kid and we're like, wow, look at what Jesus is able to do and look at what he was able to do when he was on earth. But that story continues. And I think if we cut the story short by simply talking about Jesus walking on water, then we miss some of the meaning and we miss some of the gold that we can find if we keep going. And so I want to start off by reading the rest of the story. We're going to be in Matthew 14 and reading 28 through 33. It says, But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, O you of little faith, why do you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God. Not only does Jesus walk on water, but so does Peter. Once again, an unbelievable, incredible miracle of what happens when the power of Christ says come. But then Peter falls in. As the wind is going crazy, as he looks and he sees the crazy seas, he gets a bit blinded to the power of Christ. He begins to doubt, hey, I don't think I can be doing this, and he falls in. And Jesus comes and grabs him. And to help us draw a bit more from this story, I think that the best and the easiest way is to connect to another story that a lot of us grew up listening to. A lot of us grew up learning, and a lot of us have taught our kids as well, and that is later in the Gospels, in the Gospel of John, with another disciple, Thomas. When I mention Thomas, a lot of us in our minds immediately think of one characteristic of Thomas. Thomas is a disciple. He's mentioned plenty in Scripture. He's mentioned plenty in the Bible. There are times where he shows absolutely incredible courage and incredible faith throughout the Gospels and throughout Scripture, but that's not the characteristic that we're thinking of. Those of us who grew up in church, or those of us who have begun coming to church and reading the Bibles for ourselves, we know Thomas by a nickname. What's that nickname? Doubting Thomas. We know him by Doubting Thomas because when Jesus hung on the cross, when Jesus died and was resurrected, Thomas didn't immediately believe. This man that Thomas had followed for years, had absolutely love, had complete and utter faith in, had gone up and he had watched him be killed and die. And in his sorrow, he isolates himself and just sits and wallows and is so overwhelmed in sorrow because he's like, this guy that I believed in, maybe he actually wasn't who I thought he was. And so the beginning of this story with Thomas comes when a lot of the disciples were together. And when they were together, Jesus, after he had been resurrected, after he had come back from the dead, had gone and visited those disciples. And the disciples, obviously, absolutely threw the roof, crazy excited that Christ actually was who he said he was. He actually had been resurrected. He is alive again once more. They go and they tell Thomas, Thomas, he's back. He's back. He did what he said he was going to do. He's here. He's living. But Thomas, so overcome and overwhelmed with his grief and with his sorrow, just can't bring himself to believe. And so he responds to them, unless I see him, unless I see and I feel the holes in his hands where the nails went, unless I'm able to see that and to see him, then I'll never believe. And so that is where we pick up and we read John 20, 26 through 29. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas this time was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus answered him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have yet believed. Here we have the story of two disciples of Jesus, two of Jesus' closest friends, these two people who Jesus had been preparing them for the whole time that they were together to fully have faith and believe and trust in what Jesus has to say. I am with you. I will not leave you. I am in complete control of what is going on here. Yet in both circumstances, we find two disciples wrestling with doubt that puts them in places of turmoil. We've got Thomas flailing about in the water and in the winds, yelling and asking Jesus to come and to save him. You've got Thomas sitting isolated, crippled by sorrow, and crippled by the doubt that maybe Jesus isn't the guy I thought he was. But that's not the only connection of the two stories. Because what drives those two connections home is the way that Jesus responds and the way that Jesus reacts to that sorrow, to that fear, and ultimately to the doubt that both of them experienced. And he responds by going to them. He responds by literally putting his hand out, giving them his hand. Peter reaching down, reaching his hand down, pulling him up, putting him in the boat, and calming the winds. Thomas, he shows up, he offers his hands, he says, look, put your fingers here. See me, believe that I am who I said that I am. He reminds them that he is in complete control. He reminds them that he never went anywhere. He was always with them, and all they had to do was believe, and all they had to do was have faith. I love these stories, and they remind me of this commercial that I've seen. I've seen it a few times, but I couldn't find it on the internet. So I think that it was a commercial about adoption and just how great parenthood or fatherhood is or whatever. One of those. And in the commercial, it starts off, it's this kid who's kind of running around the house and it's pretty frantic. Like he's running, he's like, dad, dad, dad. Like where you can see where he's like, dad, dad. and then like it just kind of elevates to frantic of he's running around, and he's worried, and he's looking around, and he's trying to figure out where his dad is because he can't find him in the house. And as his calling turns to be a bit more frantic and a bit more fearful, then his dad comes out from a hiding spot, gives him a hug, and basically the response is, hey, we're just playing hide and seek. I promised you I was never gone. Hey, I was here the whole time. I would never actually leave you. There is absolutely no reason to fear. And I think it connects pretty well to maybe both sides of both Peter and Thomas' doubt, right? That at the slightest amount of doubt, his fear took over. The kid's circumstances were such that he couldn't find his dad, and his fear took over, and he forgot about the fact that if he would have sat back and thought, he'd be like, oh yeah, dad would never leave the house and leave me. But his circumstances were bigger than that and he began to fear. Or at its deepest, he did think about it. And at his deepest, he went around and as he's looking and he can't find his dad, he goes, maybe he would leave me. I can't find him. I can't see him right now. I can't feel where he's at. So maybe he's not who he said he was. But ultimately, the point and the purpose of the video and the point and the purpose of the commercial is not to rest on why is this kid doubting that his dad would be there. Ultimately, the point and the purpose of the commercial is seeing the dad's response to the kid getting afraid. And that is to show up and to say, hey, I'm right here, and I never left. I've always been here, and as soon as the kid needed to seek out, and as soon as in his worry and in his frantic energy goes, dad, where are you? His dad instantly came to his side, put him in his arms, and said, buddy, I'm right here. I was never anywhere else. And I think that's what we see with how Jesus responds to Peter and with how Jesus responds to Thomas. In their doubts and in their worry and their sorrow, their fear, and all of it, Jesus literally seeks them out. He offers his hand, not simply to save them, but more importantly to restore their faith that he never wasn't there. He never wasn't with them. He never wasn't for them. He's always going to be who he said he was. And I believe that these two passages are a lot deeper in that way than simply focusing on the miracles. Certainly, walking on water is a miracle that is unbelievable. And it's like, yes, this must be the Son of God. This is incredibly important to see that this man is no simple man. He is literally walking on liquid. That's unbelievable. Or on the other end, far more importantly, this is a man who came not only to live, but also to die. And when he dies, he brings our sin with him. And ultimately, we get to see and realize, just like Thomas and just like all of the rest of them, that he is raised back to life. That as we believe and have faith in that, then we too do not live our final chapter by death on earth, but we just begin eternity. Both of those things are incredibly important, but at the same time, I think both of these passages are meant to encourage us, those of us in our lives who have experienced doubt, to help restore our faith and to help remind us that Jesus is exactly who he said he is. I don't think it's too presumptuous for me to say that we've probably experienced doubts similar to Peter and doubts similar to Thomas. Like Peter, there may be times where our circumstances feel heavier than the peace and the assurance that Jesus offers. I know that Jesus is bigger. I know that Jesus is better. But right now, everything is so big and everything feels so hard and so scary that it just makes me just forget. And so I begin to doubt just for a second that Christ is who he says he is, and he is in control. Or maybe like Thomas, there may be times where we wrestle with doubt or struggle to believe that Jesus really is everything that he says he is. I think many of us have felt this way about Christ. There are times where our circumstances overshadow the goodness of God and we simply fail to believe or even remember that Christ truly is in control. And for that reason, we have passages like this. We get to see that even Jesus' best friends dealt with doubt, and we get to be reminded of how Jesus responds to us in our doubt as well. I love the way that William Barclay puts it in his commentary about Jesus and Peter walking on water. When he says, in life, the wind is often contrary. There are times when we are up against it, and life is a desperate struggle with ourselves, with our circumstances, with our temptations, with our sorrows, and with our decisions. At such a time, no one needs struggle alone, for Jesus comes to us across the storms of life with hands stretched but Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, still reaches his hand out to us in our times of fear, doubt, and everything in between. And if you're like me, there's times where we kind of wish it would be reversed, right? There's times where I'm just like, Jesus, if you would just for once physically grab me and pull me out of my storms so I would know that you're here. Jesus, if you could just one time come and show me those scars that you showed Thomas so I could feel them and I could know for certain that you are still here and that you are still alive. But Jesus pushes back on that fully. In John 16, he basically tells the disciples, it is better for you that I leave, that at some point I'm going to go, at some point I'm going back to heaven, and it is better for you that I leave, because when I leave, there is a helper that is coming, that I am sending the Holy Spirit, And he assures us that the most intimate connection that we could ever have with Christ on this side of heaven comes only through the Holy Spirit, not through his physical presence, not through his hands, not through seeing his hands or foreshadowing that one day it's coming that I'm not going to be here at all. But I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit, while he's not offering a physical hand to pull you and a physical hand to say, I'm right here. It's going to be okay. I have control. I am still exactly who you believe I am. But he instead offers us Christ's heart. And when we seek after his heart, we find his heart, which is far deeper and far greater than simply his hand. Maybe the best way I've heard that put is by an author, Dane Ortlund, in a book called Gentle and Lowly that I've had the opportunity to read with my small group and read also with the staff. It's just a perfect and beautiful quote that reminds us and tells us, hey, when we have the Holy Spirit, we have the full living and active heart of Christ inside of us. The quote's a bit lengthy, but we're going to read it together. It's going to be on the screen, and so as I go to read, would you please just read along with me? You don't have to read it out loud, but just read along as I read. The Spirit makes the heart of Christ real to us. Not just heard, but seen. Not just seen, but felt. Not just felt, but enjoyed. The Spirit takes what we read in the Bible and believe on paper about Jesus's heart and moves it from theory to reality, from doctrine to experience, from knowing to believing. It is one thing as a child to be told your father loves you. You believe him. You take him at his word. But it is another thing, unutterably more real, to be swept up in his embrace, to feel the warmth, to hear his beating heart within his chest, to instantly know the protective grip of his arms. It's one thing to hear he loves you. It's another thing to feel his love. This is the glorious work of the Spirit. When we fear, when we experience sorrow, when we get overwhelmed, there are times where that can lead to doubts. Where is Christ and why isn't he here? Or can Christ actually be real if this is what's going on in the world, in my life? In those times, all that Christ asks of us is to seek after him. In the same way that that boy sought after his dad, and the second he did, his dad was there simply to give him a hug and remind him, hey, I've been here the whole time. You were never alone, and you were never in danger. There show his heart to us, and we allow him to remind us that why would we ever doubt because he is exactly who he says he is. So that we may believe. So that our faith may grow. So that our faith may exceed where it currently is and we may not doubt again. The end of both stories. You see worship and praise. Surely you are the Son of God. Praise be to you, the Son of God. Christ gets on them a little bit. Why would you doubt me? But ultimately, he gets on them after coming and showing himself to them and saying, I'm going to be here. When you doubt me, I will be here to remind you and prove to you that I am exactly who I say I am, that my heart is still for you, and that I still love you with all of my heart. And when I show up, I want that to increase not only your joy and not only your worship of me, but your faith in me. When you look at the kid's perspective in that hide-and-seek commercial, if that was real life, I imagine if they're playing hide-and-seek again, he's a little bit less fearful if it takes him a minute to see where his dad is. Because he knows. He's experienced it. He's experienced his dad show up and say, I'm right here. You are never in danger. And in the same way, maybe the next time we experience certain circumstances that are overwhelming or bring us to fear or bring us to sorrow, then maybe we wouldn't doubt. But when we do, because we know Jesus has showed up before, then maybe we would pray the prayer of Mark 9, 24. It says, I believe, Lord Jesus, help my unbelief, knowing full well that he's right there with us and he's ready to offer us his hand. Let's pray. Lord, we love you so much. Lord, I wish that in our life of faith that there would never be a moment or never be a time where we would doubt you, doubt your goodness, doubt your heart, doubt anything about you. But Lord, I also know that we live in a fallen world and there are times where it gets hard to trust in what you say. It gets hard to believe in you. And so Lord, in those times, may we as your children turn to you and seek after you and allow you to remind us of your heart and remind us that you are perfect and exactly who you say that you are. And Lord, as we seek after you and as we find you, as you wrap us in your arms, may our faith grow ever stronger through our experiencing you. We love you so much. Amen.