Sermons tagged with Resources

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

Thank you. Well, good morning. Welcome to Grace. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Before I launch into the sermon, just point of clarity, when Mikey was doing the announcements earlier, there was some pictures of Grace Serves, and there was one picture that one of our elders, the esteemed Doug Bergeson, was in. And in that picture, he appeared to be just leaning up against his rake and resting. And I would love to tell you that that was not typical for the morning, but it was. After that, he was sitting, and that was it for the whole morning. So anyways, we're launching into this new series called Traits of Grace. And this is a series that has been a year in the making, and it's one that I've been very excited to share with you. So I thought that it would be helpful for you to understand how we came about this series and how we arrived at a need for the series and a need for the traits of grace and what they even are so that as we go through them each week for the next five weeks, you'll have an appreciation of where this comes from. So a year ago in our staff meetings, we have staff meetings on Tuesday afternoons, and this is when we talk about things like this. A year ago in our staff meetings, I kind of brought to the staff that I wanted to start doing some more liturgical elements in the church service, which if that's a church word that you're not familiar with, that's kind of from high church, from old school church that's fancy and proper and has an order of service that they go through. There's reading. Sometimes you stand and read. Sometimes there's prepared benedictions. But some of those elements can be really good and really helpful and really encouraging. And some of you come from backgrounds with those liturgical elements. And so we wanted to try to serve everyone in the church and bring those into our service. But as we were talking about what elements to add and what to do, I think it was Kyle made the point that, you know, we really can't just start adding things to Sunday morning services willy-nilly. We really need to know, like, what is the goal of a Sunday morning service? How do we determine if it's good? Is it when people sing loud and the sermon ends on time and people seem to get five or more compliments in the lobby? Is that what a good service means? I heard a snicker over here. I get compliments sometimes. Like, what denotes a good service? And so we started talking about that. What's important to us? What do we want to do? What is the goal of a Sunday morning service? And as we started having discussions about what the goal of a Sunday morning service was, we realized we really can't adequately talk about that until we understand who we are as a church. So what defines us as a church? What are we trying to do as a body of believers? What makes grace, grace? And then let's work backwards to that. And then let's work back into what we should include in our services. And so as I enjoy doing, I pulled out the whiteboard in multiple colors and so that it can all be color coordinated and clear for me up there. I pulled out the whiteboard and I said, that it can all be color-coordinated and clear for me up there. I pulled out the whiteboard, and I said, okay, and this is over the course of several weeks. I said, okay, what makes Grace Grace? Who are we? Like, just throw out things, our traits, our characteristics. And I started to throw them up on the whiteboard, and we got them up there, and there was some that were true but maybe not as true or maybe not us or whatever it is. And there was some that's like, well, those three kind of seem similar. I think we could combine those into one. And after talking about it for a couple of weeks, we arrived at these five traits. And we said, these things we feel as a staff are the things that make grace, grace. It's what we feel we are as a church. So as I put these in front of you, as we put these in front of you, this is not a new direction for grace to go in. These are not new directives for us to walk in. These are putting words around things and around values and around passions that I hope you all share. And this just gives us common language for them. So this is a process by which we are defining the church and who we are. And before I could just come out with it and say, these are the new five traits of grace, I had to take these to the elders because the staff doesn't decide who grace is. I don't decide who grace is. Our elders do. So I typed these out and I presented them to the elders and I told them the process that we went through. And I said, what do you guys think? Do you want to add to or take away? Do we want to tweak some descriptions? What do we, what do you think of this? And the elders were actually excited about it. I was a little bit surprised. I thought they'd be like, all right, great. You know, run with your traits, buddy. But they were, they were actually a little bit animated by it, so animated that they put it in my yearly goals. At the end of my work year, I'm going to get assessed, and when I do, part of the assessment is how well did we begin to integrate these traits into the culture of the church. So my goal is that all the partners of grace would know these five traits, at least like two or three of them, okay? Just like we all know that our mission as a church is to connect people to Jesus and connect people to people, we want us to start understanding these traits and to start understanding this common language. So much so that when we build a new building, which I'm going to talk about at the end of the service today, when we do that, because that looks like that's what we're going to be doing, we're going to put these in the lobby in some decorative way so that we can see them and be reminded of them and who we are and what makes us us. And I kind of think about it like this. I think it's important for us to have these traits and for us to know what they are because I think it helps us stay focused as a church on what we do. And I think that this is important because I'm not going to belabor the story. This story is not the point of the sermon, but there's this great story in the Old Testament, the book of Nehemiah. A man named Nehemiah, he's a captive of a Persian king and he is higher up in his kingdom and he hears that his home city of Jerusalem has been laid to waste and that the walls are no longer standing. And he begs the king for the opportunity to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls. And the king gives him that permission. So he goes back to Jerusalem. He gets a lay of the land for a little while. And then to rebuild the walls, he looks at the families that live in Jerusalem. And he says, okay, you guys, you build the wall from here to here. And then you guys, y'all build it from there to there. And then you build it from the gate to that post. And he assigned portions of the wall to all the families of Jerusalem. And every family had their portion that they built. And I think it's a great picture of what the church is. That in church, we all have our portions of the wall that we're supposed to build. Your family's assigned to these things. Your family's assigned to these ministries and those tasks. But I also think that that's a really good picture of how God builds his kingdom in the cities, how God builds his kingdom in communities. I personally believe that there's plenty of great churches that you could be at this morning. There's plenty of churches that you could be at with good worship, with likely better preaching, with better looking people. I mean, the whole gamut. You could go out and you could find other churches and they would be good churches. I would never argue to you that Grace Raleigh is the one church nailing it in the city. We're just doing great. And everybody else is apostate and they need to get on our level. Like that's ridiculous. There's Catholic mass happening right now where Jesus is being honored. There's other Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, Methodist churches all over where Jesus is being honored and that's good. And so I think that God designed and gives a DNA to churches and assigns them portions of the wall to build in his communities. And I think that there's a portion of the wall in Raleigh that's been assigned to Grace Raleigh. And there's a portion that's been assigned to Summit. And there's a portion that's been assigned to Providence. And go on down the list, we all have the portion of the wall that we're supposed to build. And so as a church, as we think about it, these traits are how we build our part of the wall. This is what we do. This is what we focus on. This is not a statement of faith. This is not a statement of what we believe. That's on our website. That's a different thing. This is believing that Jesus is the son of God and that he came to save us and that we love him with all of our heart. What should we do in light of that belief? These things. So the first trait that I would talk with you about, it's what all the songs are about. You ought to be able to guess it by now, is partners of grace are kingdom builders. Partners of grace are kingdom builders. Now, these traits define us as a church holistically, but they also should define what a partner at grace does. I've actually shifted in our Discover Grace class that we do for people who are coming here and are newer to the church. We spend more time on the five traits than on the old boring stuff we used to focus on. So if you came in previous years and it was boring, come again, maybe it's better. But partners of grace are kingdom builders. This is based on a principle that I've shared with you before. And I would say, if parts of this sermon sound familiar to you, they should. I preached a very similar message to this back in January when I talked about what it meant to be all in at grace in our Consumed series. It was the one that I had to come in and film early, so I was actually wearing a hat for the sermon for the first time in my life. And then a couple of years ago in the spring, we went through the book of John, and when we got to the story of John the Baptist, I talked about this, about building kingdoms. So if this sounds familiar to you, it should, if you're a partner of grace. If you're not yet a partner of grace, this is a great series for you to go, for you to know good and well what you're getting yourself into. But when I say that partners of grace are kingdom builders, the idea behind this is every one of us, every one of us to one degree or another is building a kingdom. Every one of you is building a kingdom. It could be your kingdom. It could be God's kingdom. You could be a real sucker and it's someone else's kingdom. You don't even get any of that. But every one of us is, we spend our lives building kingdoms. We go through adolescence. We grow up. We're told somewhere around college age that we've got to make a way for ourselves. We get a degree or we learn a trade and we jump right into it and we just start building our kingdom, right? I had an old pastor that would use the phrase, the American dream is to get all you can, can all you get, and sit on your can. That's what we do, man. We're just building our kingdom. Look at all my stuff I got. Look at my, I'm the king of my quarter acre lot, right? And now some of us have big dreams and build huge kingdoms. Bezos has got himself a big old kingdom. But compared to God's, it's a little baby kingdom. We build our kingdoms too, and sometimes we have big dreams, and we want to build big kingdoms, and we got big goals, and they include multiple vacation houses all over the world. And sometimes we have smaller goals, and our kingdom is our family, and that's what we pour our lives into. But I want to turn, I want to open our eyes to the idea that every single one of us invests our life building a kingdom. And so the question becomes, whose kingdom are you building? And to answer that question, we define kingdom builders like this. A kingdom builder is one who realizes that all the talents, gifts, abilities, and resources they have were given to them by God for the purposes of building his kingdom, not their own. I know it's a longer note than we normally put up there, but I wanted to be very clear. A kingdom builder, someone who's not building their kingdom, someone who's building God's kingdom, is one who realizes that all of the talents, gifts, abilities, charisma, resources, finances, everything that I've been given or the tools that I use to acquire the things that I have are not mine. I am a steward of those things. And God gave them to me to build his kingdom, not my own kingdom. Many, many, many, if not a vast majority of us in church and outside of church go through life believing that all the talents that we have and all the abilities that we have and all the ways that we can find to build relationships, power, money, whatever it is that we're after, that we just came by those by hard work or luck or some combination of the two and that we're supposed to employ those for our benefit. But to be a Christian, to be a believer, to be a child of God is to understand, no, no, he didn't give you those things to build your kingdom. He gave you those things to be a part of building his, which is a much more thrilling invitation than building our paltry kingdom that will all fade. They all will. I remember when this clicked for me for the first time. I was about 28 years old, and I was taking kids to summer camp. And I had always been marginally athletic growing up, all right? And that's not false humility. I really was. I was good enough. I was marginally athletic, although I don't think I really need to claim that. No one's looking at me going, I don't believe you, man. You were apex predator out there on that soccer field. Yeah, all right. So we're all on the same page here. And I don't, I mean, I don't know if you know this, but you are looking at a member of the 1998 Georgia Association of Christian Schools All-State Soccer Team. So, yeah, I know. I know. I don't want to intimidate people, so I don't bring it up a lot. There was like four schools in that association. I really thrive in low-bar situations. It's been a theme of my life. But I was marginally athletic. I was athletic enough that I could get in just about any game, any sport, and jump in and participate and not embarrass myself and sometimes do well and usually not get picked last. And so that served me well in high school and college and particularly growing up in my culture in the, where you, as a dude, your worth was your ability to play sports. And so I had that ability, and I could jump in. Clearly, I'm no longer in a position where that attribute is relevant. So that is atrophied greatly. I'm not a marginal athlete anymore, but I used to be. And I remember I was going to summer camp, taking these kids, and I had just been hired by this church. It was a larger church with a youth group of about 200, 225. And I was hired as the middle school pastor. And when we went, we had a high school pastor who was a friend of mine. But I knew that when we got back, they were going to fire him, which was an uncomfortable week. But I also knew that these high school kids are really close with him, and they're going to be bummed when we get back from intense relationship building camp. And then they have to say goodbye to their buddy, and they're not going to understand why. So I knew that I needed to create relationships, bridges with these high school guys as quickly as I could, because I was going to need to be there for some conversations when we got back home, but they didn't know that. So I'm racking my brain, how do I even get these guys to talk to me? They don't care about me. I'm the middle school pastor. They don't care about the new guy. They have their relationships. But every day during free time, they'd go down to the ball courts. And so I would too. And we'd roll the basketball out on the court, and I'd get to playing with them, and I'd spend two hours every day playing basketball with these guys. Building rapport, making jokes, and whatever, whatever. And it built a bridge for me so that when we got back and everything hit the fan, I was able to lean on some relationships that I had begun building. And that's when it dawned on me, oh my goodness, God did not give me marginal athletic talent so that I could get people to like me in high school. He gave it to me because he knew that I would spend 15 years of my life in youth ministry and that it is an essential and crucial part of building necessary relationships with the people around you. And I thought, oh, getting to be on the All-State soccer team in 1998 was a happy byproduct to what God really cared about, which was putting me on the courts with those guys in 2010 so that I could build some rapport with them as their pastor. That's the first time it really clicked with me that everything I've been given has been given to me to build his kingdom, not my own kingdom. And that it is so easy to get caught in the pattern of putting our head down and building our own kingdom without remembering regularly that we are to be stewards of the gifts and abilities and the resources that we have. And Jesus actually preached this in the Sermon on the Mount. He addressed this. He talked about it like this. that we can build here on earth. And how eventually, no matter how big we build them, they will fade. The moth and rust will destroy. They will be corroded away. And what we build will not matter. Rather than investing your life in something that ultimately doesn't matter at all, invest your only finite resource in eternal things, in God's kingdom, and things that will matter for eternity. That's the invitation that God gives the Christian. I think it's one of the greatest apologetics for the Christian faith. Where else in this world, where else in our lives can we be imbued with purpose that great as to wake up every day and have the opportunity to build something that will last forever? And yet that's the invitation that God gives us, to be kingdom builders. So how do we build kingdoms? What does that look like? I hope by now you're asking that question. Yeah, Nate, I get it. We're supposed to leverage our gifts and abilities to build God's kingdom. But what does it mean to build God's kingdom? I think this is how we build God's kingdom. We build God's kingdom by adding and strengthening souls. Supposed to be a souls there. Sorry. I must've been moving fast when I put in the slides. We build God's kingdom by adding and strengthening souls. And here's how I know that's true. Because this is what Jesus told us to do. The very last instruction he gave the disciples. He's trained them for three years. He's died. He's resurrected. He's heading back up to heaven to be our high priest and to leave the Holy Spirit with us to guide us as we go. And he gives them final instructions. What does he tell them? Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He says, go, build my kingdom. I'm giving you the keys. You're the only pastors the world has. Now go and tell everybody what you saw for the last three years. Go and make disciples. And because Jesus says go and make disciples and not simply go and make converts, that I know that Jesus wants us to build the kingdom not only by adding souls to the kingdom, by sharing our faith and seeing people come to faith and seeing people trust in Jesus. And again, just so I can be clear, what it means to be a Christian, as I understand it, is to believe that Jesus was who he says he was. He's the Savior and Son of God. He did what he said he did. He died. He conquered death. He rose on the third day. And he's going to do what he says he's going to do, which is to come back and make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. You believe those things about Jesus Christ, you're a believer. But it's not enough to just bring someone to the point where they believe those things and we so add them to the kingdom and make the kingdom grow in number. We are commissioned to strengthen those souls that are converted. That's why Jesus says, go and make disciples. So not only do we build the kingdom by sharing our faith and adding people, adding numbers to the kingdom, but we build the kingdom by walking with one another, by helping one another deepen our faith and grow in our spiritual life and become more vulnerable with one another as we share this journey together. We add to the kingdom. We strengthen the kingdom by discipling one another. And that's one of our traits. That's step-takers. We're going to talk about that one. But if you're asking, how do I build the kingdom? You build it by adding and strengthening souls. And so our job is to set about with our lives doing that the best way we can. And I think when I think of people who are building God's kingdom, I can think of so many people at Grace who are kingdom builders, inside and outside of Grace. I think of a man that I deeply respect who's a business owner. And within his business, he has the opportunity to develop leaders. And he sends those leaders out and they start their own businesses. But they grow up within his culture. And his culture is founded on Christian principles and Christian values. And the people that he leads are almost always believers and creating work environments where people are treated rightly and justly and fairly and they're loved. And all the people under the umbrella of his business are people who are loved well and led well. And then he develops people within that and sends them out so that they love and they develop well. Adding and strengthening souls to the kingdom by simply doing. Everybody from the outside would look at him and say, well, he's doing his job. But what he knows is his job is boring. What's fun is developing leaders and sending them out and watching them replicate these cultures. That's what my life is for. I think about Lynn Lemons, who's been given a gift of organization and been given a heart for missions. And she uses that as the chair of our missions committee, who, I don't know if you know this, decides what happens with 10% of our budget and how we partner with ministry partners outside of the walls of grace, using gifts and abilities that she's been given to add to and to strengthen God's kingdom. I think of Phil Leverett. Y'all probably don't know that Phil is our head usher, which is, I hate to say it publicly because it always goes to his head, but he is. He's our head usher. And he shows up early almost every Sunday. And he makes sure everything's in line. If stuff needs to be on the seats, he'll double check that. He'll make sure everyone's scheduled. He's just faithfully devoted to doing that, to building God's kingdom, strengthening souls, adding to the kingdom by making everything in the church work. I think of Debbie Bergeson, who sits in the COVID baby room and just holds a screaming child once or twice a month, just completely nonplussed, shuts the door, just sits there, the kid screams, and mom and dad just hold on for dear life, hoping they can get an hour to themselves and enjoy church and enjoy one another. Just silently, thanklessly doing that week in and week out. I think of some of the moms we have in the church who are devoted to homeschooling. And they get together and they teach their children. And they build them up and they make disciples and they form them and that is their ministry and that is how they build the kingdom. I think of somebody who had an opportunity to become an elder, and he said, not right now. It's not my season to lead the church in that way. We're so busy with all of our schedules. I need to focus on my children and be the husband and the father that I need to be. And he's going and building God's kingdom that way. But I happen to believe that all of us are given gifts and abilities and talents that God intends for us to use to build his kingdom. And I believe that not only because I've seen it, but because it's in the Bible. It's in the verse that Tamara read to us during the worship this morning. Ephesians 2.10, I don't know when or how I stumbled upon that verse, but it was in the early years of me at Grace, 2017, 2018. I was just reading my Bible, and the all-star verses in Ephesians chapter 2 are the two that precede it and talk about salvation. It is by grace that we are saved through faith, that not of ourselves, that it is a gift of God, so that no man may boast. And you always read those, and you're like, yeah, and you highlight those, and those are the important ones. But this one right after it, for the Christian, who understands the doctrine of salvation, we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You know what that verse tells us? Whether you believe it or not, God created each one of you with a design for good works that you would walk in, that he's laid out for you with the sincere hope and with the will and with the desire that as you move through your life and as you move through your faith, your eyes would be opened to what those good works are and that you would walk in them. I believe that this is true of every human that's ever lived, that God has created them and imbued them with certain gifts for a purpose so that they might deploy those to build his kingdom. I think of my uncle, Uncle Deg. Those are his initials, but everybody knows him as Deg. If you knew him in the 80s, you knew him as Flash, so that's the kind of dude he was. There was Camaros and motorcycles involved. Deg is a militant atheist. It breaks my heart. But when he was growing up in the 70s, he went to a hyper conservative independent Baptist church that just ruined his faith. And I don't really blame him for walking away from that God, because I would have too. And I'm grateful that my mom didn't introduce me to that God that she met when she was growing up. But Deg, Deg can tell a story, man. That guy can own a room. He can take over a dinner party. And people follow Deg. People listen to him. And he's smart. And I just know he would have been a great pastor. I just know it. I'd love to go to his church. I think when God formed him in my grandmother's womb, that that's what he purposed him for. But Degg's just lived a life and he hasn't been able to have his eyes open to see his good works. And so he doesn't walk in them. But if you're at grace, let's have our eyes open to that. Each one of us, no matter how talentless, talentless, or insignificant, or unimportant we might feel, your God doesn't think that of you. We don't think that of you. We think that Ephesians 2.10 is true. And that when God formed you in your mother's womb, that he laid out for you good works that you should walk in until the day that he takes you back up to heaven to be with him. Because we believe that, and because we believe, and this is so important, and I'm so glad, Aaron, that you referred to this in your prayer earlier today. When you are walking in God's purpose for your life, when you are walking in obedience, when you are walking in the good works that God has prepared for you, there is no greater happiness or peace. To walk outside of those, to build our own kingdom, to refuse to walk in the good works that God laid out for us, that's where life feels disjointed. That's where we feel out of whack. That's where we beat our heads against the wall trying to find a sense of purpose. But when we walk in the good works that Jesus laid out for us before time, there's no greater peace or joy than being exactly who God created you to be. Parents, while we're here, do you know what you're raising? Kingdom builders. You're raising humans that God formed, knowing the good works that they should walk in. And it is your primary job as a parent to help them love Jesus and be able to identify the good works in which they are called to walk. That's what a successful parent is. Parents of adults, you get to help coach them through it. But because that's what we believe, because at Grace we are kingdom builders and we believe that everybody has a portion of that kingdom to build, I want to leave you with these two questions. I want you, honestly, I want you to think about these, talk about these with your spouse or with your small group people or with some friends at the church. And I would really love it, small group leaders, if we could spend a portion of our small group time this week in our groups talking about these two questions. Not all the time, but just give folks who heard the sermon a chance to respond to these a little bit. Five, ten minutes. Here's the two questions I want you to go thinking about this week. Whose kingdom are you building? And what is my good work? Whose kingdom am I building? Am I building my kingdom or am I building God's? Have I rallied all the resources in my life to make my name great or am I doing it to make God's name great? And then what are my good works? What can I walk in right now? If you don't know, ask somebody who loves you and knows you. But everybody has them. And we all should walk in them. I hope you'll go and you'll think about those things. Whose kingdom am I building? With the time I have here, whose kingdom do I want to build? And what is the good work that God has prepared me to walk in. Let me pray. Father, we thank you for who you are and for how much you love us. God, I just pray particularly right now for folks in the room who just really might not know. Maybe their heart position is, God, I want to serve you. I want to do what you want me to do. I want to build your kingdom, but I don't know what. Lord, would you please show them? Would you have someone who loves them speak into their lives and in their hearts this week? Would you show them the good works that they could walk in, that they might experience your joy as they do it? Father, if there are those of us here this morning who have had our heads down building our own kingdoms, would you convict us of that? Would you show us that in ourselves? Would you help all of us be people who are zealous to build your eternal kingdom? And God, as we do this, I pray for courage and I pray for strength and I pray for the peace and joy that comes with taking the steps of obedience and faith as we begin to live out the purpose that you've given us. 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.

Sometimes in life, we simply need to pause. We need to stop and sit and rest and think and reflect. In these moments of rest, often what we need most is for God to refresh us. We need Him to speak to us and breathe fresh life into us. We need for God to move and restore and encourage. This is why we observe Lent. It is a moment for us amidst all the busyness of our years to pause and focus on Jesus. Lent reminds us of what Jesus has done for us, how much he loves us and how he relentlessly pursues us. So let us together right now, be still and set our collective focus on Jesus, asking him to speak to us in this holy pause. Good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. It's good to see you on this Sunday. As your pastor, I should tell you that if you attend church on Spring Forward Sunday, you do get an extra jewel in your crown in heaven. That's just scriptural. It's in Revelation. You can look it up yourself, particularly if your basketball team lost last night and then you got up anyways. Boy, howdy. That's two jewels. Well done. Good for you. The love of Jesus is strong in you. That's great. Or maybe after your attitude, you just needed some church. I don't know. One way or the other. Before I just launch into this, I don't do this very often, but I kind of thought it was pretty sweet, and I wanted you guys to be able to just, I don't know, celebrate it, know it too. But Jeff, he's standing up over there, so we can all look at him again. He led us in Amazing Grace. He shared with me before the service that that was the first time that he led Amazing Grace since his dad's funeral. So we're grateful for Jeff. Thanks, man. All right, that's good. Just relax. It's tough enough as it is. Yeah, so we're in the middle of our series called Lent. We're observing Lent as a church for the first time since I've been here, and I sincerely hope that you guys, if you're a partner of grace, that you have been following along, that you've been participating. We've got the devotionals available. There's still some on the information table and they're available on the website in PDF form if you prefer that way. But hopefully you're following along and reading those every day along with the rest of the church. I love all the different voices that speak into it. And as an aside, what a gift when you're a pastor to get to, for me, I write sermons on Tuesday. So what a gift it is on Tuesday to sit down and be like, okay, I'm preaching on this topic this week. Let me open this handy book and see what five wise, godly people in my church think about this topic and then steal their ideas and make it my sermon. Like, this is fantastic. We're going to do a lot more devotional writing, I think. But it's been really cool to let other voices speak into us, and I've really enjoyed that. And I hope that you're fasting as well, that you picked something to fast from during this period. And just by way of reminder, if the fast to you never gets past just grinning and bearing it, like I've given up sweets or I've given up Coke or I've given up whatever it is, and all you're doing is getting through another day and going, yes, I didn't do the thing I wasn't supposed to do, then it's really, the fast isn't really serving you spiritually because a want for that thing is supposed to take us and put our eyes on Jesus. It's supposed to remind us that this is how we should long for Christ. So there's a second place to go when we fast, and I hope that you're going there as you're experiencing your fast as well. Now this morning, as Kyle said at the beginning of the service, we're focused on stillness. We've been talking about stillness in the devotionals this week. That's what you have read this week to kind of prepare our hearts for this service. And that's where we want to put our focus is simply on being still. And so as we put our focus there for the sermon, I would bring our attention to the same place that one of our devotional writers brought it, to Psalm 62. Kelsey Healy wrote this devotion, and I loved the psalm that she kind of used as her launching point, and so I thought I would start us here as well this morning. But in Psalm 62, the psalmist writes this, And I think that that struck me this week as I considered this message and this topic because of that word silence. And I thought to myself, and I wanted to pose to you guys this morning, when is the last time you experienced silence? When is, like, seriously, when is the last time you comfortably and by choice sat in silence? And I don't mean lack of audible noise. I also mean lack of mental noise, lack of distraction, in silence with nothing else, simply waiting on the Father and inviting him to speak. I started out the devotion, I wrote a little note to kind of set up this season of Lent, and I use the passage from Samuel when he says, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. When is the last time in our lives we sat in silence with no noise or clutter to distract us, and we said, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. Like, God, talk to me. I'm listening. I'm here. I'm waiting. Whenever you're ready to speak, I'm ready to listen. Because there's a waiting there. I think sometimes we go, okay, God, I'm ready to hear from you. And then it doesn't happen right away. We don't look up and see the sun shining on a particular bird that tells us a thing that we were wondering about. And so we just go, well, God's not speaking to me today. And we go on with our day, and we didn't sit in silence. And it just made me wonder, when's the last time you chose silence? When it was quiet. And to stifle the quiet, you didn't pick up your phone. You didn't let your mind start to race about that thing that's making you anxious. You didn't start to solve the unsolvable problem and start to try to control the uncontrollable events. When is the last time we sat in silence? And here's the other thing that occurred to me about the effort to sit in silence and stillness before God and wait for him. We exist in a period of time in all of human history where it is incredibly difficult to choose silence. It has never, ever, ever been harder to avoid distraction than it is in 2022. And I mean, I kind of think about that and just the clutter and the noise that exists in our life and how it would be processed by someone who was around in the time of the Bible, by someone who was part of an agrarian society 2,000 years ago, and how they would process all the noise and clutter in our life, I think it would be a little bit like taking them on a tour of a gym. Whenever I go to the gym, which is all the time, I chuckle a little bit because I look at all the contraptions that we have set up and they're really just set up to simulate ancient life because we don't need to do any of that stuff anymore. And I've thought about how fun it would be to take like an ancient hunter-gatherer and bring them to lifetime and just let them look around, you know? And be like, what's that over there? Well, that's a treadmill, man. Well, they're just walking. Like, yeah, that's what you do on a treadmill. Well, why didn't, like, they don't live here, do they? Like, no. Why don't they just, like, walk here? Well, we have, dude, we have cars. What do you think, man? Like, we got cars, buddy. We drive here so that we can walk in place around other people. We don't need to do that anymore. What's that guy doing over there? Well, that's called the bench press. Why is he doing that? Well, so he can develop muscles in his chest. Why doesn't he just like hunt? And like, doesn't his life require him to pick up heavy things? No, never. We pay people to pick up heavy things. We don't do that. Basically, if we don't come to the gym and simulate your life, we waste away as frail and fat, like just fragile people over the course of time, if we don't try to simulate your life. I think it would be so foreign to them what happens there that I think similarly, trying to explain to a person who would have originally read Scripture, to whom Scripture was originally written, trying to explain to them the clutter in our life would be equally challenging. Before electricity, you put the kids to bed, and what do you do? They didn't have books. Only the most wealthy people had scrolls. And if you do, I mean, you've only got a couple. How many times are you going to read that scroll, man? Like, what do you do? You can't pick up your phone and scroll Twitter. You can't turn on the TV. You can't grab a magazine. You can't call a friend. What do you do? You sit there. You just be still. You think about your day. Talk to your spouse. When you're on the hills shepherding all day and the sheep are eating and you can't pick up the phone, what do you do? Well, you sit. You're silent. You wait. And it's worth, I think, pointing out this unique challenge that we face for stillness and silence in our lives. Because it is so vastly different from a large swath of human history. And it makes me wonder, can this possibly be good for us as people, for our spiritual health, for our mental health? Can it possibly be good for us to be so distracted and so diverted all the time? Can it possibly be good for us to cure our boredom this quickly? That can't possibly be healthy. Surely, surely the enemy looks at our devices and is delighted with the distraction that they provide. And surely the Father looks at the clutter and does not marvel at the fact that he struggles to make it through that clutter into our hearts and into our lives and into our ears. And so, I think that the point that my wife Jen made this week as she and I were discussing this is a good one. That being still requires an action step. Now more than ever, if we want to be still, if we want to be silent, we're not going to stumble into it. It's not going to happen by default. It's not going to happen while we're watching the sheep, right? We're not going to stumble on it. We have to choose stillness. It requires an action step. It requires us to actually do it. And this is modeled for us by Christ. Jesus models for us this choosing of stillness. And I can't imagine what it must have been like to be Jesus in ancient Israel. And every city you go to and every little town you go to and every street you walk down, people are clamoring towards you and they want and they want and they want and they need and they need and they need. So the only way for Jesus to just take a breath was to do what is said in Mark 1 35 that Doug read for us at the beginning of the service when he says, and rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place. And there he prayed. Jesus models this choosing of stillness for us. And that's not the only place it shows up in the gospels. He does it over and over again where he goes away to pray. And without fail, this is not the point of the sermon, but it's just worth pointing out about our Jesus. I marvel at the fact that he would go and pray and be still. And as soon as he would say amen and take a step back towards civilization, he was covered up with people who wanted, wanted, wanted, wanted, wanted. And to me, I don't need anything else to prove to me the moral perfection of Christ than to see his relentless patience and grace with the crowds that swarmed him. Because let me tell you, who would not have that patience? I marvel at that. But Jesus models for us this need to choose stillness. And so I wanted to put in front of you this morning the thought exercise. Let's take a minute, and actually I'm inviting you into this thought with me. You answer this question in your head, not to one another, because that would be distracting to me as I try to preach, but answer this question of what would it look like for you to choose stillness? What would that require of you? What kind of action step do you need to take to choose stillness, to join God in the stillness that he's created for you and invited you into? Is it a quiet car ride? Maybe there's a consistent car ride throughout your week. To work, back home from work, to lunch, something. Maybe there's a daily time when you're in the car and maybe for that car ride, you could choose to put the phone in the center console and refuse to look at it and not be notified about anything and not turn on the podcast and not turn on the music to just drown out the noise, to distract you from the silence, but choose to sit in silence and talk to God and wait on him to speak to you. One of the things that I've tried to start doing with varying degrees of success is that this helps me have a moment of stillness in the middle of my day. When I have a lunch meeting, I usually try to get to the lunch meeting early because I don't like to be the pastor that shows up after the people with real jobs, all right? So I feel like I need to show up early and look good and get a good table for us. And so I'm usually, I've got about 10 to 15 minutes to spare. And I try to sit there and not pull out my phone during that time. And just say, okay, God, I'm here. What do you got? Is there something in this conversation? Is there something in this meeting that I need to listen to or lean into? Is there something coming up? You know, my heart's restless about this. Help me trust you. Whatever it is. it's just a little pocket of stillness that I've intentionally chosen. Like, okay, here I can be quiet and not invite other noise into my life. When I was running, past tense, I would, I looked forward to the runs because I would put in my AirPods and listen to a book. And there were good books. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, anyways, I thought of 12 jokes there that I was like, nope, nope, no, no, can't make that joke. So anyways, they were good books, all right? They were helpful books. But one day I forgot my AirPods. I think I went home from church to run and I left them here. I was like, oh shoot, this is going to be the worst. But I ran in silence with my thoughts and it was great. And so then I started picking one run a week where I'm just going to do this one with just me and God and no other noise. And it was a good time. Maybe for you, you get up early. You go to bed early, earlier than you normally do so that you can get up earlier than you normally do, which I realize is a particularly cruel challenge on Spring Forward Sunday, but let's just consider it. Maybe when we eat lunch in our office, we don't turn on the thing that we normally turn on or read the thing that we normally read. Maybe we just sit and we invite God into that space. What does it look like for you to choose stillness? And as I contemplated stillness this week, it also occurred to me that you don't have to be still to be still. You don't have to be still to be still before God. You can be still before God while you do your yard work. You can be still before God while you go on your hike, while you go on your run, while you fold clothes, while you do the mindless things that life requires of you. We can all choose pockets to be still before the Father, to crowd out the rest of the noise, and to invite him into that space. And to say, speak, Lord, your servant hears. I'm listening. What do you have? And in that silence, as we're told in the psalm that we started with, wait. Wait for him. Focus on him. Wait. Allow God in his time, in his way, to speak into you. Don't rush him. His timing is perfect. He will move when He wants. The Spirit will move when it wants. But we need to choose these moments of stillness because we need to acknowledge that they will not happen by default. They will not happen by accident. God ushers us into them, and we should respond to that. All through the Bible are calls to stillness. The most famous instruction is Psalm 46.10, right? Be still and know that I am God. Just calm down. Just stop. Just quit thinking about all the other stuff. The stuff that your mind is racing on, the things that you can't control. The things that you're anxious about. The unsolvable problems that are keeping you up at night. Be still and know that I am God. Trying to figure out Christianity and all the things and what to believe and where to go and what to do and what's going to please God and how do I even navigate this and am I doing it right? Be still and know that he is God. Let's start there. There's a reason that God throughout scripture invites us into stillness with him. There's a reason that Jesus throughout his ministry intentionally seeks that stillness with his Father. And I think that there are more reasons than this, but the three reasons I would give you are this. Stillness tunes, settles, and anchors our hearts. Stillness before God where we wait for him in silence. Tunes, settles, and anchors our hearts. Stillness before God tunes our heart to his. It aligns our heart with God's heart. It sets us in the morning. It sets us in midday. It sets us in the evening where we are aligning ourselves with God's heart, where we are making space for him to speak into us, where he reminds us that we are his child. The psalmist writes that if we delight ourselves in the laws of the Lord, that he will give us the desires of our hearts. And that doesn't happen. That makes it sound like if we just love the Bible and we love God and we delight ourself in God's laws and he's going to give us what we want. We're going to have yachts and like lots of money and sweet golf course memberships. If we just delight ourselves in the laws of God, then we're going to get all the things that we want. And that's not really how that works. The way that works is the more we delight ourselves in the laws of God, the more we delight ourselves in the presence of God, the more we take joy in the things that bring joy to the heart of God, the more our hearts begin to be attuned with God and beat with God for the same things. And so by delighting ourselves in God's law and in God's love and in God's presence, he aligns our hearts with his so that our will becomes a mirror of his will. And we know that sovereign God brings about his good and perfect will. And then lo and behold, all the things that we want because we've delighted in him and allowed him to attune us to him, they happen. He gives us the desires of our hearts. Why? Because we are attuned to him. Because we are aligned to him. Through making space. Not because we pursued him. Not because of something we did. Through simply choosing to make space for God to speak into us. And I think, for what it's worth, that this is how we be obedient to all the verses that I kind of think of as consistency verses. The instructions in Thessalonians to pray without ceasing. How do you do that? How do you go through your whole day in a conversation with God? Well, I don't know, but I bet it starts with tuning our heart to God. I bet it starts with making some stillness and seeking his presence and setting that as the beginning of our day and setting a midpoint and setting an end of our day. I bet it starts with pursuing the presence of God. Philippians 4.8, you know, finally, brothers, whatever things are true or noble or trustworthy or praiseworthy or of good report, think upon these things. How do we do that? How do we think upon things that only honor God and none of the garbage that doesn't honor God? I don't know, but I bet it starts with tuning our heart to God in stillness and in prayer. I think being still intentionally and regularly is something that begins to tune our hearts to God's heart and makes us grow in who we are as believers and walk in obedience to those consistency scriptures that seem so challenging to us. Stillness not only tunes our heart to God, but it settles our heart before God. You know, there's, this has been for the Rector family a little bit of a stressful week. Not for anything extraordinary, just life stuff, man. Just stuff going on. And it's been stressful. And I went to bed last night thinking about things, and I woke up this morning thinking about things. And I was thinking about everything but the sermon. And I got to my office, and I sat down, and I was having a hard time focusing, and so I just prayed. And it occurred to me, I don't know if it was the Holy Spirit or just me actually drinking enough coffee to think, but it occurred to me, why don't you, like, just for once, practice what you preach and be still for a second? And so I was still. And in the stillness, I was reminded, hey, the things that you care about, I care about too. The things that matter a lot to you, they matter to me. And guess what? I'm God. So I'll work it out, man. And the things that are supposed to happen are going to happen. And you can't control them. So why don't you just rest easy in me? Because I've got a plan. And then it's like, cool. Great. Sorry. Sorry about all that. The last 12 hours were dumb. I apologize, God. And then you can just preach and go and do. When we seek out stillness and invite God into our space and wait and listen, the things that seemed such a big deal, the things that seemed so heavy, God takes from us. It settles our hearts. He says, you don't need to carry that anxiety. I've got it. You don't need to try to solve the unsolvables and conquer the unconquerables. I've got it. Why don't you just be still and know that I am God? When we choose stillness, it settles our hearts before God. It offers us that peace that passes all understanding that Paul talks about in Philippians. When he tells us in prayer and in stillness, don't be anxious for anything, but through everything, with prayer and petition, present your request to God and the God of peace, who transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Where is that found? It's found in stillness before the Father. It tunes our hearts. Stillness settles our hearts. And stillness anchors our hearts. The world will send us a lot of messages about who we are. You're attractive or you're not. You're valuable or you're not. You're successful or you're not. You're loved or you're not. It'll tell us a lot of things about who we are. But in the presence of God, we are reminded, no, no, no, you're my beloved child who I dearly love, who I sent my son to die on the cross for, to rescue you and claim you into eternity with me. I love you so much that I wanted to share my perfection in heaven with you. And even though you're so broken that you can't get here on your own, I sent my son to die for you, to claim you into my kingdom. I love you. And when we sit in the presence of God, he has a way of reminding us, you're enough. You don't have to perform. I love you as much as I possibly could. Yeah, I know you messed up. I forgave that already. Just sit still and be easy with me. He reminds us that we are a beloved child. We are a beloved child of the Father. He reminds us that we're good, that we're clothed in the righteousness of Christ and that we are enough. He reminds us that he has a plan for us. And in experiencing that, we're ready to go out and our cup is filled and we're ready to go out and pour out for others, but we are anchored in the knowledge that God loves me, that God invites me into his presence, that it doesn't matter where I've been, that he always is waiting on me like the father of the prodigal son, anxious for my return, that he is always seeking after me, that he is relentlessly pursuing me with his spirit. And when I sit in his presence and allow myself to be caught and held, I am reminded that he loves me. So stillness before the Father anchors us in the knowledge of his love. It settles our hearts when we are anxious about things. It reminds us of his sovereignty and it tunes our heart with his heart, and aligns our will with his will, and allows us to walk as we are called to walk. I would tell you that I believe it is fundamentally impossible. See what I'm talking about? I mean, they're everywhere. It is fundamentally impossible to flourish in our Christian life if we do not choose stillness. If this is the closest semblance to stillness you get every week, worship and my sermons, and then until next Sunday, you can't possibly flourish in your Christian life. And I'm not saying that to convict anybody, make anybody feel bad about the noise and the clutter that exists in all of our lives. I'm just saying that as a friend and a Christian. How can we possibly grow if we don't seek out stillness, if we don't intentionally choose it, if we don't invite God into that space with us? And then here's the thing, and I love this point that Alan Morgan made in his devotional this week. God creates a stillness and invites us into that stillness because he's waiting on us there. He is waiting to meet us there. He's waiting for us to slow down and to settle down and to calm down and to put everything else away in a stillness that he created, that he invites us into, in which his presence is waiting on us. And unless we allow ourselves to sit in that presence and be tuned and be settled and be anchored, how could we possibly expect to flourish and grow in our love for the Father and in our experience as Christians. So this morning, Grace, I just want to press on us to choose that. And normally, when I press on something, I kind of finish a sermon and I say, so this week, focus on blank. But I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna say, so this week, Grace, let's focus on stillness. I'm gonna say, so for the rest of your lives, all right, as long as you've taken in air, make this a priority. Not this week. Not today. Forever. Make this a priority. And choose stillness. And sit with God. And be comfortable in silence and just sit there and invite him in. So I'm gonna pray and we're gonna sing and worship together. As we worship and as we sing, I wanna invite you to do whatever feels most appropriate to you. Stand and sing if you want to sing. Kneel and pray if you want to do that. Sit in silence and invite God into that moment. And then at the end of the song, we're going to have a chance to be still together before we launch back into our weeks and all the things waiting for us outside those doors. Let's take a minute in worship and then in literal stillness to invite God into this space with us. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the way that you love us. Thank you for sending your son for us, to claim us, to die for us, to love us, to show us, to model for us, and your spirit to empower us. Father, we live such noisy lives. You cannot possibly be pleased by all the access to screens and information and distraction and diversion that we have that cannot possibly make you happy. So God, I pray that we would be people who choose stillness. That we would be people who identify and abhor distraction. And I pray for fresh life breathed into us this week by simply choosing to sit and wait on you in silence. Would you please do that for us, God? Would you meet us in the stillness that you've created for us and invited us into? It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.

Good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here on this cold February morning on Super Bowl Sunday. I hope everybody's got fun plans, or if you don't care about the Super Bowl at all, I hope you have a nice dinner planned for yourself. This is the third part in our series going through the book of Colossians. And this week, as we approach it, I wanted to approach the text with this kind of idea in mind. We're going to be in Colossians chapter 2 and then on through chapter 3 in some different portions of it. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and turn there. And then if you're at home, please turn there. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you. I would also call your attention to the bulletin. The bulletin looks a little bit different this week. There's no place for you to take notes. So note takers, you're going to have to get creative. Instead, I've put a prayer on the bulletin that we're going to pray at the end of the service together. You'll pray silently as I pray it aloud. And by the time we get there, hopefully the prayer makes a lot more sense and is meaningful and is something that you will carry home with you. But we'll talk more about that at the end of the service. If you're watching online, this bulletin is attached to the grace find that you should have received this week. So you can download that if you want to, or you can just email someone on staff and we'll be happy to send it over to you if you find it helpful and want to pray it throughout your week. But as we approach the text this week, I wanted to start here. I'm not sure if any of you have ever tried to eat healthy, okay? By the looks of most of us, this has been an effort at least at some portion of our life, but there have been a lot of times in my life when I have decided that I'm going to begin to eat with some wisdom. I'm going to start to eat well. I'm a person who's had a lot of day one workouts, and I've had a lot of day one diets. Okay, there's more in my future. Maybe tomorrow. Who knows? Not today. It's Super Bowl Sunday. This is not the day to start a diet, but tomorrow is fresh and hope springs eternal. But whenever I decide that I'm going to eat well, right? I'm going to eat responsibly, which is like a rabbit. Whenever I decide I'm going to do that, I feel like I am a person who is at war with myself. I feel like I am two separate people. I am one person who wants to eat well, and I am another person who just loves food so much that he's angered by me who wants to eat well. Because I love food. I don't know about your relationship with food. Mine is probably not healthy. If I know that I'm going to have a certain dinner that night or that we're going somewhere like a restaurant or something like that, I already know what I'm getting and I wake up thinking about it. Like I look forward to it throughout the day. That's how much I love food. For the Super Bowl tonight, we're going to have pigs in a blanket. I'm going to dip them in spicy mustard. I'm going to eat more than I should. I'm already excited about it, okay? That's just how I am about food. So when I decide that I want to eat well, it's really difficult for me. And I don't know about you, but I have certain stumbling blocks. It's pretty easy for me to eat well around the house. I kind of do a good job not snacking when I'm not supposed to. I don't drink the soda and stuff when I'm not supposed to. I drink black coffee and water, and that's pretty much it during the day. That's not very challenging. But what is challenging is when I'm trying to eat well, and my sweet wife on a Friday or Saturday will say, you want to go Chick-fil-A and get a biscuit? Yeah, yeah, I do, okay? I always want to go to Chick-fil-A and get a biscuit. That answer is never no, okay? You ask me, Nate, do you want a biscuit? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. But you just had three. I don't care. You're offering me one. I want another biscuit. I like biscuits in the morning. So that's tough, all right? The other time it's tough is when I go out to eat. Because I'll go out to eat. I'll go to places that I like, and they have food there that I like. And one of the places I think of is Piper's. I go to Piper's because I meet people there for lunch with a lot of regularity. That's kind of my default spot. And they have salads, like I see them on the menu, right? They got grilled chicken and some fruit or some whatever, some balsamic whatever, less delicious thing that they have there. And I know that I need to order it. And I have girded my loins. I'm ready for this choice. And I go in there and I don't even look at the meat. I look at just the salads. I don't look at the other things. But see, here's the thing. This Piper's has one of the best Reuben's in the city. They really do. It's delicious. And that's what I want, right? I want the Reuben. And I've been thinking all day about how I shouldn't have the Reuben. And I've made the decision, I'm going to get the salad. I'm going to eat the thing that I don't want. But then it's like Satan's working against me or God's just giving me a special grace and telling me it's okay. I'm not sure which sign. And the table next to me will receive a piping hot, crispy toasted Reuben. As I'm sitting there trying to muster up the discipline to order my salad. And I look at that Reuben and I look at those fries and I look at that ketchup and the waitress says, what do you have? That! I want that Reuben. I did not want a salad. And I cave, right? So for me to be on a diet is for me to live at war with myself. I bring that up because I think that you'll know that this is true. Those of you who have been a Christian for any amount of time, to be a Christian is to be at war with yourself. To be a Christian, to be a believer, is to know the good you ought to do and yet still struggle to do it. I even think, and this is a sad reality, it should not be the case, and hopefully God can deliver us from this, and hopefully this sermon moves the needle on this a little bit, but I even think that to be a believer is to be constantly disappointed with how spiritually mature you are and how spiritually mature you think you should be by now. Because we know the good things we're supposed to do. We know the kindness we're supposed to show. We know the greed we're not supposed to have and the pride that we're supposed to iron out. And we know all the different things and our hidden sins and the stuff that we look at and whatever it is, the stuff that we consume. We know what we're not supposed to do and we know what we are supposed to do. And we try like heck to be that person, but we are a person who feels at war with ourself because there is the person within us who wants to eat right and there is the person within us who really loves a good Reuben, whatever that might be for you. And they exist at war with each other. I am convinced that to be a believer means to live in a state of tension within yourself of who you know you should be, of who you know God created you to be, of who you know God designed you to be, and yet not being able to walk in that. There's a verse that's super challenging for me where Paul tells us that we should live a life worthy of the calling that we have received. And I don't know about you, but I don't get to the end of too many days, much less weeks, where I look back on that week and I go, yeah, this week I was obedient to that verse. And if we're honest as Christians, it gets tiring to know that that's true. It gets exhausting to constantly fall short. Paul actually describes this tension in one of my favorite passages. It's one of the most human things to me that's written in the Bible, particularly by Paul in Romans chapter 7. In Romans chapter 7, Paul writes specifically about this tension in the Christian life when, in my inner being, but I see in my members another regenerated person as God has rescued my heart and claimed it and one day will whisk me up to heaven. He's given me eternal life and I'm living as a new creature that we're going to talk about more in a minute. I feel in this inner being a desire to live the righteous life that God has called me to live. And yet, also in my body, is a desire to revert back to my old self. It is a desire to revert to who I am without Jesus. It is a desire to indulge the flesh. It is a desire for the things that I used to consume that I know I don't need to consume anymore. That exists within us. And then he exclaims at the end of it, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Who will finally give me victory? How will I finally live the life that I'm supposed to live? And so that's where we arrive this morning. In Colossians, is this age-old question that all Christians face, that Francis Schaeffer, an author in the 20th century, framed up in a book entitled, How Should We Then Live? Meaning, in light of the gospel, in light of what we talked about in week one, the picture of Jesus that Paul paints for the Colossians, remember, they're facing pressure from within and without to go back to rules and aestheticism and to be legalistic and add on more rules than what is necessary so that they can live a righteous life, and then pressure from the more liberal part of their community to say none of the rules matter, how we live doesn't matter at all. You have total grace to do whatever it is you want to do. And so Paul, to that pressure, paints a picture of Christ as the apex of history and the apex of hope, as the connection point and nexus between the spiritual realm and the physical realm, how he is the creator God over everything, this majestic picture of Christ. And so the question becomes, how do we live in light of that picture? How do we live in light of the gospel? I am saved. I am a new creature. God has breathed new life into me. I am no longer a slave to sin, as Paul describes in Romans, but now I have this option to move forward with the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit in me and to live a life worthy of the calling that I have received. Now, how do I do it? How do I do it? That's the question that we come to in Colossians. And it should be a question that matters to each and every Christian. Father, how do I live a life worthy of the calling that I've received? How do I grow into spiritual maturity? What do I do practically? How do I live the Christian life? And it's an important question because it dictates how we pursue God. And to this question, I think we often answer it in the same way that we're trained to answer any other question in our life about how we get better at a particular thing. If you want to get better at exercising, what do you need? You need more discipline. You need to wake up. You need to do it. You need to be more disciplined in the way you pursue exercise. If you want to eat better, what do you need to do? You need to be more disciplined. You want to do better at time management. You need more discipline in time management. You want to be more focused. You want to be more productive. You want whatever it is, however it is, you want to grow and be better. What is the fundamental requirement of that pursuit of better? It's discipline. We need to do better. We need to come up with structures and systems that we follow, and I'm going to white knuckle my way to success here. And the most disciplined people within our field, they achieve the most success. The most disciplined people at the gym look the best in a t-shirt. The most disciplined people, when they go out to eat, they have the healthiest hearts. Like discipline is the root to how we accomplish success. And so, because that's true, and so very many areas of our life, even though we could philosophically talk about whether or not that's true, because we think that's true in so many areas of our life, we also just by default apply that to our spiritual life. If I want to be more godly, then I need to be more disciplined. I'm going to set up more rules, more regulations. I'm going to get up at this time. I'm going to do these things. I'm going to be the type of person that is defined by these things. We focus on our behavior and our self-discipline. And I think when we are faced with the question of how do I then live? How do I become the Christian that God has created and designed me to be? I think that in our culture, our default answer is to attempt to white-knuckle discipline our way to godliness. And here's what Paul says about that knee-jerk reaction that all perish as they are used, according to human precepts and teachings. Listen, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom and promoting self- we be the people that God asks us to be? And their response, it seems, at least initially, was white-knuckle discipline, aestheticism, following the rules. The better you follow the rules, the more God loves you. It's a very simple exchange. That's what legalism says. And so they're just going to be try-hards. They're just going to be do-betters. That's just what they're going to do. And to help them try really hard, they set up all these rules and parameters around their life. And they say, whoever can follow these rules the best is the greatest Christian. But Paul says, that's fine. Set up your rules. Have all your standards. Set the boundaries really far away from the actual boundary. He says, but all those rules and all that, the way that it looks, the way that you're living, just dotting all the T's and crossing all the I's and really, really, really having these policies in life that keep you on the straight and narrow. Paul says, yeah, those have the appearance of wisdom. And I would add in our vernacular, godliness, but they do nothing. They do nothing to stop the indulgence of the flesh that is the reason for the sinning that we need the rules for. For instance, let's say that what you struggle with is pride. Okay, I'm having to make some assumptions here because I don't have the struggle, but if you do, let's say that something that you struggle with is pride and you go, you know what, God, I gotta get rid of this. I gotta be better. I'm gonna be better at being more humble. I'm gonna try to push out my pride. And so we take intentional steps. Maybe we're people who will maybe kind of fish for compliments sometime, or maybe we'll ask people what they thought about something. And really all we want them to do is tell them that we did a good job or that we're good at this or that we're good at that. And there's ways, if you're a prideful person, there are ways to go through your life and get the people in your life to affirm you. And if you are this person, you're exhausting, okay? I've exhausted others. I say that as a friend. That's not a good road to walk. But let's say that you're a prideful person, and so you need other people to affirm you all the time and the things that you're good at, but you realize in light of the gospel and in light of God's word that pride is not good, and so we need to iron this out of our life. So we go, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm not going to ask other people for compliments. I'm not going to ask other people to affirm me. I'm not going to seek my value in other places. And then once you get really good at that and you haven't done that in a couple of weeks and you still feel good about yourself, then what do you do? Boy, I am proud of myself for not needing other people to tell me I'm good. Now we're taking pride in a new thing. What Paul says is there is this part of our flesh that is going to manifest negative things in our life, pride, greed, selfishness, lust, whatever it is. And we can put parameters around those things, but they're going to leak out somewhere. You can follow whatever rules you want to follow. You can white knuckle yourself into some good discipline. I've seen some people who can keep themselves on the straight and narrow for years, but those negative traits that exist within you, those things are going to leak out somewhere else. And I know this because I've met a lot of people who can follow the rules really well, and they're jerks. It's just their flesh leaking out in other ways. So what Paul says is we cannot white knuckle our way to godliness. Discipline, self-control, more rules, more standards. Those do not get us to spiritual maturity. Those do not put us in a place where we can live a life worthy of the calling that we have received. That's not the answer. In chapter 3, thankfully, I believe that he gives us the answer. And I think it's a refreshing one. Because when we try to get to godliness by white-knuckle discipline, just I'm going to be a try-hard, I'm going to be a do-better, what happens is not good. Because if you have ever in your life decided, yeah, I'm going to be a better Christian, and I'm going to do it by taking these steps. I'm going to do it by instilling these standards in my life. I'm going to do it by my own effort and me trying hard. And maybe we pray a prayer, God, I am never going to do this again. God, I am always going to do this moving forward. God, I swear that that will never be a part of my life again. And we make these big promises and we make these big claims. And listen, we mean them. But here's what I know about you. If you've ever promised God that you will never or that you will always, then you have failed. That's what I know about you. If we ever have promised God, I will never do blank. I will always do blank, we have failed in those promises because we can't keep those commitments, because we're broken. Because of Romans 7, the things that I do not want to do, I do, because it's part of our nature to fail in that way. And because that's true, after we make up our mind enough times that God, I'm never going to, or God, I'm always going to, and then we fail, we get to a place where either we just feel like this broken, wretched Christian, and we're thinking, God, I'll never be good enough for you. I don't think I'll ever be good enough for you. Just please let me be saved. Just please let me just hang on until I get to the end of my life. Please usher me into heaven. I know I'll never be who I'm supposed to be. I know that I can't pursue those things, but please just accept me as I am. And we kind of just live this broken down, hopeless Christian life where we feel like we're limping our way to heaven. Or worse than that, we try so hard and we fail so many times that we get so tired of trying that we can't find it within ourselves to do it anymore. And then we conclude, God, your word says that I'm a new creature. Your word says that you will help me. Your word says that you will empower me. And yet I fail over and over and over again. So I can only conclude that you don't keep your word. And then we just wander away from the faith and we give up on God because righteousness is too hard because we've only ever tried it by ourself and we've never invited God in in the way that he needs to be invited in, and our white-knuckle disciplining to try to be better and more godly to pursue the faith that we want so earnestly ends up costing us our faith. So that's not the way. We find the way in Colossians 3. And I would sum it up like this. We grow to maturity by focusing on being rather than behaving. We grow to maturity by focusing on being rather than behaving, by focusing on who we are rather than how we behave. And here's what I mean. In this chapter, we're going to see this idea introduced here by Paul, but introduced in plenty of other places by Paul in the New Testament, of the old and the new. The old you and the new you. The old you is who you were without Jesus. The new you is who you are with Jesus. The old you, the Bible says, was a slave to sin. I had no choice but to do things that displeased God. I had no chance at all. But the new you infused with Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit does have the chance every day when you wake up to walk that day according to the life that God has called you to. We have a chance when we wake up to live today in honoring God and actually finish the day living a life worthy of the calling that we have received that day. We've got a chance. There's a new us. And the new us desperately wants to please God. And so this is what Paul says about old self and new self in Colossians chapter three. This is what he says about being versus behaving. Look at Colossians chapter three, verses five through eight first. Put to death, Paul says, therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idol rules. But here's what we need to do. We need to put to death these things, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, covetousness, anger, slander, all these things. And at first, it sounds like that's a little bit in tension with what he just said. He said, if you want to be godly, if you want to be who God created you to be, it's not about following the rules. It has an appearance of wisdom, but that's not really helping any indulgence of the flesh. And then the very next chapter over, he's saying, put to death these things, which feels like rules and standards that he's giving us, except he's not giving us behaviors. He's telling us to put things to death. Remember how I said that if you follow rules, if you're trying to break yourself of pridefulness and you put rules around your pridefulness and then it just leaks out and into another area of your life. Jesus is, Paul is acknowledging that. See, it's not about trying to follow the rules because those unhealthy things just leak into other portions of your life. It's about actually putting the pride to death. It's about actually putting greed and lust to death in your heart so that in your heart there is no place for them to dwell. And if there is no place for them to dwell, then they will not produce the behaviors that you're trying so desperately to control. So the first thing is to acknowledge that we don't need to put parameters around our old self. We need to put our old self to death. And we do this by focusing on being. How do we put those things to death? This is what Paul says in Colossians 3. I'm going to read verses 12 through 17. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, we live a life worthy of the calling that we have received? In the phrasing of Hebrews 12, verse 1, What the world do I live the life that you want me to live? I think what Jesus would say is, look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Jesus, what rules should I follow in this new life that you've called me to? How do I run the race that you've set before me? Jesus says, just look at me. Just keep your eyes on Christ. This is actually in complete harmony with Romans 12 that tells us that we should run the race and that we should throw off the sin and the weight that so easily entangles us by, in verse 2, focusing your eyes on Christ, the founder and perfecter of your faith. So how do we live the life that God calls us to live? We daily make ourselves aware of Christ's love for us. We daily make ourselves aware of what God has done for us. If we will daily reflect on the fact that Jesus in heavenly form condescended and took on flesh and lived amongst us for 33 years and put up with everything that we have to offer and continues to walk with us and continues to love us and continues to sit at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for you as an individual, leans into God's ears and says, she's good. She's with me. She loves you, Father. I died for her. If we will let that reality wash over us daily, how could we not put to death the pride that exists in us by walking in humility at the love of God that we receive? If we are struggling with anger towards other people and frustration and impatience, how is it possible to spend a portion of your day every day focusing on the reality of God's patience with you? Focusing on the reality that as many times as you've said, God, I will never, or God, I will always, and then you failed, that God has been right there to help you clean up the mess every time. How can we not grow in forgiveness of others when we constantly remind ourselves of how forgiven we are? How can we not grow in patience to others when we constantly are focused on the patience that God has to us? If we will focus on God's overwhelming grace, that he died for us while we were still sinners, that he pursues us while we run away from him, that even though we fail him over and over again, he continues to love us with a reckless love, that God loves us while we were unlovely, that God sees us fully and knows us completely and still loves us unconditionally. If we let those things wash over us every day, how could we not look at other people and be more loving and patient towards them in light of how loving and patient God is towards us? Do you understand that these things that we clothe ourself with in Colossians 12 through 17 necessarily put to death our old self that Paul tells us to rid ourself of. So if we want to get rid of malice, what do we do? We focus on Christ. If we want to get rid of pride, do we put parameters around our pride? No, we focus on Jesus and who he is and realize that we have no right to our pride. If we want to be more gracious people, what do we do? We focus on Jesus' grace to us. Say, Jesus, how in the world do I live the life that you call me to live? Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And Jesus says, focus on me. Focus on me. So I would tell you, if you are a Christian who lives at war with yourself, you do not have a discipline issue, you have a focus issue. If you are someone who struggles with greed, you don't have a greed issue. You have a focus issue. If we try to be more godly and more pleasing to him by focusing on the behaviors that we need to do better, we will fail over and over and over again. But if we can put our focus on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith and let his grace and goodness and mercy and love wash over us daily, then those things will necessarily put to death the very root of the behaviors that we do not like. So again, if we are struggling in our walk with God, we do not have a discipline issue. We do not have a sin issue. We have a focus issue. We need to focus our eyes on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. We need to pursue him more with more urgency. We need to let the truths of how he loves us wash over us more. And those will necessarily put to death the elements of our character that we do not like, that produce the behaviors that we do not want to do. You can think of it this way. Our old self cannot survive where our new self thrives. Our problem is we have a new self and we have an old self and we feed them both the same amount of food. We give in to them both equally. And so they both just exist in this tension and if we ever want to put to death our old self, then our new self has to thrive. And our new self thrives by clothing ourselves in the characteristics of Christ and we clothe ourselves in those characteristics by focusing him and daily letting his goodness wash over us. So it's very simple. How should we then live? How do we get to the end of a single day? Living a life worthy of the calling that we have received that day? By focusing our eyes on Jesus on that day. By looking at him that day. And letting everything else fade away and take care of itself. Because it's that simple, and because that's what we need to do, I wrote a prayer for us as a church. In a few minutes, I'm going to read it and pray it over us as a church and invite you to read it along with me. If you find it helpful, I would love to invite you to put this prayer somewhere where you can see it, where this is a thing that you will pray daily. Put it on your desk, or in your car, or on your mirror. If this is helpful to you, I would encourage you to pray this every day until it's not helpful to you, until the principles of this prayer are so ingrained in you that it is part of your daily prayer. But if we want to live a life as Christians that we are called to live, then I am convinced that this needs to be a fundamental prayer that we focus on very regularly. Not necessarily the words that I've chosen here, but the ethos and the attitude and the posture that's presented in this prayer and the acknowledgments of the truths that are in this prayer that are from Colossians chapter three and other portions of scripture as we seek to live the life that God calls us to live. So I'm gonna pray this over us and invite you to pray it along with me. Father, I know I am your child and that in you I am a new creation. Though I know this, I struggle to believe it. Because I struggle to believe, I struggle to walk as you would have me walk. So Father, help me learn to walk in this new self. As I put on the new self, I ask that you would help me see others through your eyes and so clothe me in your compassion. Help me regard others as your beloved children as you clothe me in your kindness. Remind me of the way you love me when I am unlovely in order that I might humbly love others in the way I am loved. Remind me today, Father, of who I am in you. As you clothe me in these things, let them put to death in me the remnants of my old self. Let your humility drive out my impatience, my anger, and my pride. Let your compassion and kindness suffocate my jealous and selfish heart. Let the way you see me overshadow and obscure the way I see myself. Help's name, Father. Amen.