Sermons tagged with Anxiety

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

We serve a God who's working through time to bring about His will and ultimately our good. We see the evidence of His sovereignty in the book of Genesis with the life of Joseph. To know and understand the story of Joseph is to get a glimpse into the very heart of God and to be assured that we can trust His plan. Last week, even though Joseph was sold into slavery, we saw that he chose to trust God and honor Him in his service to his new master, Potiphar's wife, attention that eventually forced Joseph to make a decision to run from temptation, even though running ultimately landed him in an Egyptian jail. A prisoner once again, we wonder together, will Joseph still choose to believe in his God and that in the end, he has a plan? Well, good morning. It's good to see you. My name is Nate. I get to be the pastor here. If I hadn't gotten a chance to meet you, I would love to do that after the service if you're not afraid of me. Thank you also for joining us online and to the people in the back right of the room, there's other rows. So you guys don't, you don't all have to sit there every week. Just, I'm just throwing that out there. There's other places if you're also not afraid of those. This is the fourth part in our series where we're moving through the life of Joseph in the Old Testament. We find the life of Joseph in basically the back third of the book of Genesis, the very first book in the Bible. And I've said from the beginning a couple of things. First of all, that the story of Joseph to me is one of the most sweeping and stunning portrayals of the sovereignty of God that I think we find in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament. I love the story of Joseph. And because it's a big, long story that points to the sovereignty of God, we are approaching this series not as seven individual sermons, but as one big long seven week sermon. So we stop and we make points along the way that are applicable to us and that help the text come alive to us. But really we're driving to the end of this narrative and the end of the series as we get to week seven and hopefully see the story in a light that maybe we haven't thought of it before. Because it's one big long sermon, and I've said that from the beginning, this week in particular highlights that. So I would tell you if you're watching online or listening online and it's not Sunday morning right now and you haven't heard week one, this would be a good place to pause and go listen to week one and then come back and listen to this. Now I know that it's ambitious of me to assume that you're willing to listen to 60 minutes of Nate in one week, but if you are, then it would be worth it to listen to week one before you consume this. If you haven't heard week one and you're just, this is fresh for you, don't worry, I'm going to bring you along, but it's going to resonate more if you really drill down into the life of Jacob like we did in the first week. So that's just an upfront for you. I'm going to assume a couple things of your knowledge of Jacob when we get to his portion of the sermon today. But like we said last week, Joseph is accused of sexual harassment in Potiphar's house and is subsequently thrown in jail. Potiphar's wife kept trying to seduce Joseph. Joseph wouldn't have it. Eventually in this scene, she grabs a hold of him. There's no one else around and he chooses to run away. And we spent a lot of time last week on what it means to run away from our temptations. He runs away and he leaves behind his outer garment because she had a hold on it and it was the only way for him to get away. And then she lets out a cry and she falsely accuses him of accosting her. When Potiphar hears this story, the master of the house, he's enraged and he has Joseph thrown in jail, which is a good place to acknowledge this idea that just because we're obeying God doesn't mean our life is going to immediately go better. Joseph chose obedience, and his life immediately got worse, circumstantially. So simply choosing to walk in obedience sometimes makes our life more difficult. Obedience is a long-term decision. It's not a short-term decision. But Joseph chose obedience. He chose to honor his God, and it lands him in jail. He gets thrown into like the royal jail where the prisoners of Pharaoh are thrown in as well. This becomes important a little bit later in the story and in this week's sermon. But he gets thrown in that jail. And when he's in the jail, he's again, Joseph has these patterns in his life where he has these dreams, right, early on that his brothers are going to bow down to him and his father and mother are going to bow down to him. And then he's sold into slavery and he's brought low. And then he ends up in Potiphar's house and slowly he ascends to second in command in Potiphar's house. And he's in this unprecedentedly high place for a Hebrew person to be. And then he gets thrown in jail and he's brought low. And spoiler alert, okay, if you don't know the story, we're gonna get into the details in the future. But then eventually he gets out of prison. He's put in Pharaoh's house where he rises to prominence again. And so Joseph's life is this constant ebbing and flowing of being brought high and then being brought low. And in these low moments being faced with the decision, am I going to choose to honor God or am I going to resent him because he's disappointed me in some way, because he's allowed these things to happen to me? And so as he's thrown in jail again, he chooses to honor God, he chooses to obey him, and his life gets harder. And again, he's faced with, do I honor God or do I do my own thing? And this is what we're told in the text at the end of Genesis 39, beginning in verse 21, which in the ancient world was kind of employee-employer relationship. And it's understandable to see that someone could rise to prominence there, but you don't really expect someone to climb up the ranks in jail, right? So much so that they're now entrusted with everything, that whatever prisoners, whatever task the jailer gave Joseph, he didn't worry about it. Joseph had total integrity. I'm sure there were systems that he could have taken advantage of. I'm sure there were things that he could have gotten away with, but his integrity wouldn't allow him to do it. And so he garnered more and more trust, even within the prison system in Egypt, which to me is remarkable. And often when we think of the story of Joseph, I know that I do this and you might as well, and maybe this is one of the things you're picking up on as we move throughout the story together, that it seems like at every turn Joseph chooses to honor God. So then in turn, God continues to honor Joseph. But one of the things that stands out to me in the text is every time I read it, every time I get to the next portion of the story where he's brought low again, what you'll notice is that God's favor always precedes Joseph's behavior. This passage starts out, but the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. So it's not that Joseph went to jail and then in his uncertainty and disillusionment, he says, you know what? I'm just going to choose to trust and obey God. And then God is there with the favor. It's important that we understand that Joseph's obedience was a response to God's favor. God's favor is not a response to Joseph's obedience. Do you see? We don't win God's favor. We don't win God's blessings by how we behave. One of the things I said in week one at the end of it is that God's commitment to his promises are not contingent upon our behavior. That works both ways. We don't lose God's promises with bad behavior, nor do we gain them, we see in Joseph's life, with good behavior. They're simply there. God's favor simply rests on us. God's love and concern for us simply rests on us. God has a plan for us and a way that he wants to use us and things that he's gifted us to do and people that he's placed in our life. And the spirit works in our hearts in mysterious ways. And he does all that despite our behavior. So we can't look at the life of Joseph and teach, look, if you honor God, God honors you. That's not the lesson. Because at every turn, God's favor precedes Joseph's behavior. So God's favor simply rested on Joseph's life. Which is why, as I was trying to plan to preach this, when we wrote the series out, when I wrote the series out months ago, this week was gonna be a lesson on obeying God where we are. Wherever you are, serve God. And I think that's a fine lesson, but I wasn't happy with it. And so Tuesday, I went on a walk. I've never done this before, but I left the little office complex and I walked all the way down to the end of the street where it stops in the woods and then I got scared and I came back. I went on a walk and I was just thinking and praying about this passage and what's going on in the life of Joseph, and it occurred to me something that's worth reflecting on. Joseph is brought high over and over again in his life because God has favor on him, because God has a plan for Joseph, because God has a plan for Joseph that echoes throughout the centuries, that is seen far beyond even what we're going to arrive at a place in chapter 7, it's going to be like, or in the seventh week, and we're going to go, oh my gosh, that's amazing. Look at how God was taking care of his brothers. But no, no, no. Look at how God was taking care of his people. And look at how it's a picture for what happens all time. So yes, God is showing favor to Joseph because he has a plan for him, but it's at this point worth stopping and reflecting on the life of his father, Jacob. Because listen to me, Jacob had that same favor. Remember? Jacob enjoyed the same favor that Joseph did. Jacob came from the same line. God had the same plan, was going to bring about the same things, was going to display his sovereignty in the same ways and in the same favor that Joseph had. And they didn't have it because of how they acted. They had it because God promised them something. And God keeps his promises. That's what his righteousness is. And so it occurred to me as I was thinking about the difference between Jacob and Joseph and kind of reflecting on their lives, that Jacob, his dad, was a person of strife. The father of Joseph, Jacob, was a person of strife. If you'll remember his story, at every turn he is scheming and he is planning and he is controlling and he is stressed and he is anxious about bringing about the life that he wants. He wanted his father's blessing. He wanted to be a claimant of the promises of Abraham. He wanted to be the one through whom the blessings would flow to future generations. He wanted to be the top guy. He saw the life that he wanted and he did everything that he could to bring it about. Even though, even though before he was born, God spoke to his mother and said, in you are two nations and the older will serve the younger. The younger will rule over the older. These promises were made before Jacob was ever born. God knew what his plan was and how he was going to bring it about. And yet Jacob chose to either not open his eyes to those promises or not trust those promises or not trust God's favor. And he spent his entire life scheming and planning to try to bring things about in his own life, and all it caused him was strife and stress. He wants his father's blessing, so he schemes up a way to get the birthright from his brother, and then he schemes up a way to get the blessing from his father that required him to lie to his dying father on his deathbed, which is a despicable thing to do. Then he has to flee to a family member where he's then deceived by Laban. And then he has to work for 21 years to be able to go out on his own. And on the way out, he has to lie and cheat and steal again. He's still a deplorable person. And then at the end of the narrative, we see him, he's going to be reunited with his brother Esau, who is coming for him. And he schemes again on how to mitigate the anger and the wrath of his brother Esau so that maybe he won't get murdered by him. And we see throughout his whole life this striving and this anxiety and this stress and this sense of control and scheming and how can I bring about the things that I want? And then at the end of his life, or at the end of the story, about halfway through his life, he wrestles all night with someone that I said humbly is possibly Jesus. But we can disagree on that and it's fine. And Jesus renames him Israel. And he says, you have striven with man and with God. And Jacob realizes that he's seen the face of God. And in that moment, he realizes all the striving that I've been doing to bring things about in my life were things that God was going to make happen anyways. If I'll just get out of the way and let him do it. And so what we see in Jacob and Joseph is two men upon whom the favor of the Lord rested. Two men with whom God had made plans, to whom God had made promises, who he had gifted, who he had blessed, and who he loved dearly, and he cared about what happened in their lives. But the contrast is that while Jacob was a person of strife, that Joseph was a person of peace. Jacob was a person of strife. Joseph was a person of peace. When you read the narrative about Jacob, you see stress and anxiety and control and worry and all these things leaping off the page and scheming and lying and manipulating and kind of being a jerk. And when I read the story of Joseph, I don't see any of that springing off the page to me. When I read the story of Joseph, I see remarkable peace and humility. I see a man that's never shaken in his faith. I see a man that seems to not worry too much about his circumstances. I see a man who humbly chooses to serve God at every turn in his life. If you continue to read down through chapter 40, and we'll talk about this in just a minute, there's two prisoners in the prison with Joseph, a baker and a cup bearer. And they go to him and they say, we've had some dreams. We've heard that you can interpret dreams. Will you tell us what they mean? And Joseph, instead of puffing himself up, says, aren't interpretations of dreams, don't those belong to the Lord? Sure, I'll listen to what you have to say, but listen, it's not me doing this. At every point, he gives the credit to God. Last week, we talked about the temptation with Potiphar's wife. And she comes to him and she tries to entice him and get him to commit sin with her. And what's his response? I've been blessed in so many ways. How could I possibly sin against my God in this way? He's humble. He's obedient. He gives God the credit. A few chapters over, we're going to see that he's brought to Pharaoh. Pharaoh's had a couple dreams and he says, I've heard you're good at interpreting dreams. Let me tell you about my dreams. And in front of Pharaoh, where he could take credit again, he could say, I'm the guy. He says, don't dreams belong to the Lord? You can tell me your dreams. Let's see what he says. With Joseph, we see this profound peace. We see this profound joy that exists through his whole life, that runs like a stream through his whole life. No matter the ebbs and the flows, as he's brought high and he's brought low, we see this stream of joy and peace that runs through the life of Joseph. And it absolutely relates to the song that we sang a few minutes ago, that we're going to have joy and we're going to sing whether we're brought high to the mountain or low to the valley. And we see this displayed in the life of Joseph. That he's this person of incredible joy who in every moment simply chooses to trust God and honor God in the moment. And know that even though I don't know how this is going to work out, it will. God loves me and cares about me. So I'm going to control the things that I can control and I'm going to love him the best I can now. And this point, I was actually, I got done with the walk and I came back and I talked to Kyle. He was sitting in his office and I was all excited. Listen to what I just thought about. I think this is really fun. And I was telling him about it. And he made this point, and I think it's a great one. That Jacob's striving prohibited his joy. If the same favor rested on both of them, if God's sovereignty rested on both of them, if God had plans for both of them that he was going to bring about regardless of their behavior, then Kyle's point was the same joy was available to them the whole time. That if you can put yourself in the place of Jacob and imagine the relief that he felt when he realized, oh my gosh, I've been striving with God my whole life and I don't have to try so hard. If you can imagine the joy and relief that he felt when he met his brother who didn't want to murder him, who actually wanted to forgive him. If you can imagine how relieving and joy-filled those days were for Jacob, the disappointing thing is that joy was available to him for his entire life. And he lived half of his life without the joy of the Lord because his striving and his control and his anxiety and his worry and his scheming blinded him to the peace of the Father and prohibited him from experiencing the joy of the Father. And you contrast that with Joseph, who saw it the whole time, whose peaceful nature, whose trust in God, whose belief that God would come through, allowed him to be joyful and calm and peaceful in the moment, no matter what happened. And what you see, really, as you juxtapose their two lives and acknowledge that the same favor rested on both, is you see what it really means to trust God. I'm not talking about believing in God. Believing is an intellectual exercise. Are there enough facts in my head that I can willing to put my faith behind God? That's an intellectual exercise. And actually, every time we see the word belief in the Bible, in the original text, it means trust. And to trust is to rely on something fully, knowing that it will hold me up. There's belief mixed in there, but trust is really an action. And the difference between Joseph and Jacob is that Joseph trusted God and Jacob didn't. He may have believed in God, but Joseph trusted him. Because Joseph trusted God, he was a person of peace. Because Joseph trusted God, there was a river of joy that flowed through his life, irrespective of the circumstances that surrounded it. Because Jacob did not trust God, he merely at times when it was for him, chose to believe God. He was a person of strife, arrested with anxiety and worry and scheming and stress. And so where the rubber meets the road here for us this morning is for us to reflect on this question. Are you Jacob or are you Joseph? In your life, in the things that matter to you most, are you Jacob? Are you a person of strife? Or are you Joseph, a person of trusting peace? When I think about this for me, I think about grace. When the pandemic started and we can't meet in person anymore, and I lead an organization that it kind of matters whether or not we meet in person. That's a pretty big part of what we do. I got really worried. And I became Jacob. And I schemed and I stressed and I controlled. Who's coming? How do we reach out to them? How do we make our online product better? How do we keep people engaged? We just had this great campaign. We had a ton of people coming. How do I keep 330 people coming online every week? This is so challenging. I haven't talked to so-and-so in a couple of weeks. Are they gone? And then the other people would, I would talk to so-and-so and they said, yeah, I saw so-and-so this week. And I would go, do they still go to Grace? Do I need to call them? And every day I would just think about Grace. How do we hold it together? How do I keep this church where it is? And I made myself feel like, without realizing it, that it was all on me. And I Jacobed the heck out of that situation. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you, it made me miserable. I didn't realize it. It made me miserable. And poor Jen, it made me grumpy at the house. She put up with some stuff. It was not good. And somewhere around four months ago, I wouldn't have used this language at the time, but somewhere around four months ago, I became Joseph about grace. And I finally realized, you know what? God loves this church. I don't know why. I don't know why he does. He just does. He loves us. And if you've been here for any number of years, you've seen him see us through time and again. God loves this place. And if he loves this place, he has a plan for this place. And if he has a plan for this place, he's going to execute it regardless of what I do. So I can keep trying to Jacob the situation and fix it and figure out what we need to do and stress out about it all the time. Or I can be Joseph. I can trust that God cares about this place and has a plan for this place that he's going to bring about regardless of my behavior. So the best possible thing I can do is to rest easy in the sovereignty of God, to choose to trust him with the church and simply humbly obey Jesus whenever the opportunity for obedience is presented to me and quit worrying about the things that I can't control. And it brought peace. Parents, with your children, are you Jacob or are you Joseph? Do you stress out about who they are and how they behave and how we can augment this behavior so they don't embarrass us in public? Do we stress out about where they're going to go to college, if they're college, what kind of decisions that they're making? Do we stress out about every little thing and be a helicopter parent and stress and scheme and worry and control and be anxious? Or are we Joseph? Do we trust and acknowledge that, you know what? God loves my kid way more than I ever could. And because God loves them, he has a plan for them. And he has a design for them. And he has promises for them. And the best thing I can possibly do for my child is to step out of the way and be Joseph and try to simply obey Jesus in the moment when the moments present themselves. But to be people of peace about our children. About your career, are you Jacob or are you Joseph? Are you constantly trying to scheme and align yourselves with the right people and form the right relationships and do the right thing and impress the right person by putting that right time stamp on the email early in the morning or late at night? Are we constantly trying to figure out how to advance ourself in our career? Or are we Joseph? I know that God loves me. And I know that he cares deeply about who I work around and what I do and my witness for him as I work with my coworkers. And so I know that if I work hard and honor him, that he's going to do with my career whatever it is he needs to do. Many in our church are facing retirement. We've recently retired. We're thinking about it. Are you Jacob about that or are you Joseph? Are you trying to control every aspect of it and think through it and plan it all out and map it out and know exactly what's going to happen or can you acknowledge, you know what, I think God loves me and he cares deeply about what I do in the rest of the years of my life. And he's going to direct me to the right place if I trust him with him. In our relationships, in our marriages that we might be trying to save, in broken relationships with friends or with family, are we Jacob or are we Joseph? Are we people of strife or are we people of peace? Are we people who are trying to arrest control from God or are we people who trust God enough to give him control? And if you are a person who's answering over and over again, gosh, I'm Jacob. I'm Jacob and I want the peace that you're talking about, but I don't know how to get it. What do I do? I would simply tell you that our peace is found in Jesus. This is why I think Paul writes in Philippians 4, 6, and 7, be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and petition and with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the God of peace who transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in who? In Christ Jesus. If you're anxious, if you're controlling, if you're worried, if you're not trusting God with things, what does Paul tell you to do in the letter to the Philippians? He tells you, And you know how he's going to do that? By giving you more Jesus. By pointing you towards Christ. Hebrews writes the same thing. Run the race that's set before you. How? By focusing your eyes on Christ, the founder and perfecter of your faith. Jesus says the same thing in John 15. Abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit. Don't worry about all the other things. Don't worry about all the scheming. Don't worry about everything else that I'm going to do in your life. You focus on me. You abide in me. And I'll abide in you. And because of that, everything's going to work out. You're going to bear much fruit. If we want to be like Joseph, and we want to walk away from being like Jacob, then we need to acknowledge that our peace is found in Jesus. And our anxiety and our desire for control should be a reminder to us that we simply need more Jesus. That we simply need to follow him harder. That we simply need to press into him more. That we simply need to let go of something more. If you want to test this, trust him with something that's stressing you out in your life right now. Just this last week, I had a conversation with a couple in the church that I knew was going to be a hard conversation. And I had been stressed out about it for a while. The conversation happened the day after I stumbled on this lesson and this comparison of person of peace, person of strife. And I thought, all right, I'm gonna preach to myself here. Normally, when I go into a difficult conversation or a meeting, I have thought through, Jen will tell you, I have thought through every scenario. I've had every conversation in my head already. I hate being unprepared. I like to have thought through what's gonna happen so that I don't respond emotionally. I respond reasonably. I like to know that there's nothing that's going to happen that I'm not expecting. But for this one, I just chose to be Joseph. And I said, God, I know you love me. I know you love them. I know the results of this conversation matter to you. And that was good. And I went into the conversation trying to honor God with what we talked about, and so did they. And we would all tell you, the results of this conversation were far better than any of us thought they would be going into it. And the Holy Spirit was present with us that night, and he met with us that night. If this is a difficult concept for you, pick one thing that's stressing you out in your life and hand it to Jesus and watch him come through. Because here's what happens when we're people of peace and people of strife. Strife and peace permeate. Strife and peace, they bleed out onto other people. They act like my four-month-old son, John, right now. John permeates, man. He is a drool monster. Like, he wakes up. First of all, he's just drooling like crazy. I don't know what's going on in there. Jen picked him up in the living room the other day and was holding him up and smiling at him. And I saw what she couldn't, which was a bead of spit glimmering in the sunlight through the window that landed square on her forehead, and I died laughing. That is John. I did not even get her a towel. I was laughing too hard. Not only that, not only does he drool constantly, the kid wakes up, and the only thing he cares about in life is how much of his hand fits into his mouth. That's the only thing that matters to him. Nothing else. He doesn't care about a single thing else. It's just how much of this can I jam in here? And it's all he does. And it gets his hand all slobbery. So he'll wipe it on your face or he'll grab you. You'll pick him up. I picked him up yesterday. I picked him up when I was holding him and put him down and my forearm was wet from his leg, from drool that had run down and somehow his legs are really chubby. They had gotten in places and just to touch John is to have drool on you. It just is. I don't know how it happens. It just permeates. Strife and joy work the same way. When you're a person of strife and stress, it permeates, man. It bleeds. It gets on everybody around you. It gets on your spouse and it changes their days. It gets on your kids, it changes their days. It gets on your coworkers, it gets on your friends. Strife bleeds and permeates and has ripples on everyone around you. And so does peace, particularly in a world of so much strife. Normally, when people of strife are around each other, their stress starts amping everyone up, right? We kind of get into a frenzy. You're complaining about this, and I'm complaining about this, and life stinks together, and then we get all worked up about everything. But to be a person of peace that actually calms those waves of strife, well that has a calming effect on everyone around us too. To be a person of trust and for people to see this trust that Joseph had, regardless of circumstances, well that begins to bleed on other people too. So I thought it worth it to pause at this point in the story and acknowledge this idea that the same favor rests on these two men. The difference in their life is how they receive that favor. Jacob's striving made him blind to it. Joseph's trust helped him to see it. And it gave him peace and joy for his whole life that it took Jacob 40 years to experience. And so in our lives and in our situations, which ones do we want to be? Now, as Joseph is in jail, eventually Pharaoh gets angry with his cupbearer and his baker, and he throws them in jail too. And they're under the care of Joseph. While they're there, they have some dreams. And they go to Joseph and they say, we've had some dreams. We've heard that you're a good, good at interpreting dreams. Can you tell us what they mean? And Joseph again says that I'm not good at it. God is, but let's see what you got. And they tell Joseph his dreams. I'm not, their dreams. I'm not going to detail those for you. Those are in the text and you can read them if you like. I hope you will. But they say, these are our dreams. What do they mean? And he looks at the cupbearer and he's like, great news. You, here's what's going to happen. In three days, Pharaoh is going to call you back to service and you're going to serve him. And he's going to restore you to your former position. You're going to go out of prison, back to your former life. Everything's going to be good. And the cupbearer is like, that's great. What's mine mean? And Joseph's like, not as good of news. You're going to get called out of here in three days as well, but when Pharaoh calls you out of here, he's going to hang you, and you're going to die in three days. And as they're leaving, Joseph looks at the cupbearer, and he says, don't forget me. When you go, and Pharaoh restores you, remember me, that I might get out of this pit. I know I'm doing great here in jail. I don't love it. So remember me to Pharaoh that I might get out of here as well. And chapter 39 ends with the somber news that everything that Joseph said would happen did happen, except the cupbearer forgot about him. And we're going to pick up the story next week and spend the whole week on the very first sentence in the next chapter. And it may just be the best part of this whole seven-week series. So I hope that you can come for it, and I hope that we'll get to see you for the hootenanny. Let me pray, and we'll carry on next week. Father, thank you for the way that you speak to us out of Scripture. Thank you for the way that you speak to us through circumstances. Lord, I just pray that... I pray that we would be sensitive to those things. God, give us ears to hear. We know, we know and we've seen over and over again that the same spirit that speaks to Joseph, that spoke to Jacob, that speaks to me, speaks to us. So God, speak to grace and move in grace and press on the hearts of grace for what you would have us do and where you would have us go. Give us the faith to trust you even when we can't fully see the results of that trust yet. Give us the peace that comes from trusting you. Let us this week, those of us who are Jacobs, experience just a taste of the joy that comes when we trust you with a stressful situation and watch you come through in the way that only you can. Father, help us to trust you in all things, to acknowledge that you care about the details of our life even more than we do, and that you have a plan for us that is better than any we could ever come up with. Help us to walk in trust of you, and in turn, walk in peace and influence the people around us. It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.

We serve a God who's working through time to bring about His will and ultimately our good. We see the evidence of His sovereignty in the book of Genesis with the life of Joseph. To know and understand the story of Joseph is to get a glimpse into the very heart of God and to be assured that we can trust His plan. But to understand Joseph, we have to understand his roots. We have to know the promises made by his grandfather, Abraham, and tested by his father, Jacob. This week, we begin our journey through the life of Joseph by seeing where he came from and learning why he was the favored son. Only by looking at the origins of Joseph can we see the full depth of God's commitment to his children and begin to trust that no matter how unclear the future may seem to us, he has a plan. Well, good morning. It's good to see you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for watching, excuse me, online, if that's what you're doing. I feel compelled to say that was just a really great song. Yeah. I've not heard that song before, but I needed it. And just to be transparent, there are times if you come to grace long enough, you've probably figured out that I'm in the habit of kneeling and praying before I get up to preach. And there have been weeks that just between God and I that the prayer has been, God, just tether me to you. I feel myself wandering, and just draw me near to you. Use this sermon to preach to me as I preach to them. And he answers those prayers, man. He tethers you to him and he's good that way. So if that's your prayer, pray it hard and he'll be faithful. This week, we get into a series that I have been very, very much looking forward to since whenever it was that we planned to do it back in the summer. The story of Joseph in the Bible is, no surprise, one of my favorite stories. But I really mean it this time. I mean, you guys have a pastor that loves the Bible. You know, that's probably good, right? We can accept this. I love the story of Joseph. And as we said in the intro, it's this sweeping and stunning depiction of the sovereignty of God. And I'm not sure outside of Jesus himself and God's plan of redemption in Israel and sending his son and in birthing the church outside of the grand story of history. I don't know that there's one single story, particularly in the Old Testament, that is a more stunning and perfect example of the sovereignty of God. So for seven weeks, we're going to go through this story of Joseph together. And because I believe that there are points along the way that are worth sinking into, there are elements of the life of Joseph and the lives that preceded him that are worth understanding and sinking into and making points out of and all the things, I believe that this whole story is marching towards a larger point that we're going to make on week seven. So I want you to understand about this series that it is, this is one big, long, seven-week sermon. I'm not approaching these sermons like I normally do, where I come in, I tell a story, or we find some text, or I pick a topic, I talk about what the Bible says about that, or what text means and then I give us an application and so what and then we go home and we do the thing. That's a normal standalone sermon. I'm not going to encumber myself with that this week, this series. This series, I'm simply going to tell you the story. We're going to pause at one point and do a whole sermon on one sentence and one verse because I think it's so profound that we should stop and think about it and consider it together. And then it's kind of parenthetical to the series. And then we'll pick up every week and we'll go along. And we're so committed to this that the little intro that you just saw that was voiced for us by Carly Buchanan, she did a great job. And for those who don't know, Carly's actually on staff with us part-time. She does all of our graphics and social media and is in charge of the Grace Vine and all that stuff and contributes mightily in meetings. So she's actually a really valuable member of the team to us and we are grateful to Carly and the hard work that she's doing. But every week, she's going to record like an update. So each bumper video is going to be like previously on to kind of catch us up with the narrative so we know where we're at. So I would tell you up front in this series, please commit yourself to all of them, whether it's in person or whether you're watching online or whether you find yourself needing to catch up, please find a way to stay consistent because week five won't make sense without week three or four. Likewise, we're working on generating a reading plan. I just realized this morning in my excitement, that's the excuse that we'll go with, in my excitement for this series, I failed to make sure that we produced a reading plan and I'm sorry, but we'll have one out tomorrow. It'll be online and I would love for everyone to be reading through this with us. The other reason you should read these stories too is like this morning, we're going to talk about the life of Jacob. That's a lot of chapters. I'm going to tell a lot of his story. I'm just telling you this right now. I'm going to get some details wrong. I don't want to. I've gone back and reread everything that I'm going to tell you today twice. I'm still going to mess it up. There's a lot of details. I'm sorry about that. But go read the Bible yourself so that you know what I'm messing up and what you should believe. We need to be doing that the whole time as we go through this series. But like we said in that video, to understand Joseph, to understand the sovereignty that we see in his life, to understand his status as the favored son, to understand his position in history and in the history of Israel and in the narrative of the scope of scripture, we have to understand his roots. We have to understand his father and his great-grandfather and who they were. So we're going to look today at the life of Jacob, the father of Joseph, and learn about him and some of the promises that God made to Jacob that are renewed promises that he made to Abraham that we will get to. But as we look at the life of Jacob, I feel like there is, whenever I read the story of the life of Jacob, there is this driving question to me as I read through who he is, which is simply, why does God continue to bless this guy? Jacob's the worst. You're going to see. He's the worst. He is a conniving, scheming jerk. He's a terrible human for most of his life. And yet God continues to bless him. At every turn, he gets exactly what he wants and what he needs. And I always read the story like, God, he's not doing any of the things. There's no fruit of the Spirit in his life. He's not repenting. He's not going to church. He's not even calling you God. Like, what's the deal? He keeps getting blessed. And so for me, the driving question as you go through the life of Jacob is, why does God choose to continue to bless this guy? Jacob's story begins in Genesis chapter 25, and we're going to go through into the 30s this morning. But his story begins in Genesis chapter 5. In Genesis chapter 5, his mom, Rebecca, is pregnant with twins, and they seem to be quarreling in her womb a lot. They're active, right? And she's praying about it. God, what gives? I got two babies in here, and they are really going to town. Like, what's going on? And God speaks to her, and he gives her a really significant sentence and prophecy and promise from God that you have two nations inside of you and the older will serve the younger. And that's a big deal. It might not seem like a big deal in the 21st century for a younger sibling to be more successful than an older sibling, but in the ancient world, that was a huge deal. In the ancient world, the eldest son, he was the heir to whatever tribe or fiefdom or clan they had developed. He was the heir. And we'll see in a minute when we start talking about birthright exactly what that entails. But to be the firstborn son was a big deal. And there was a birthright that went along with that. So for the younger to serve the older is kind of a radical thing. So for God to say that up front matters because that's not how it would typically go. So then we see the birth of Jacob. Jacob's born second. His brother Esau is born before him. And we're told that Jacob comes out of his mother's womb, from birth. Certainly in the English, it means something different, one would hope. But in the original Hebrew, it means he cheats or cheater. And boy, did this guy live up to his name. What we know about Jacob and Esau is that Esau was what we would traditionally refer to as a manly man. He was a hairy dude. He liked to be outdoors. He liked to hunt and fish. He liked to gut animals and cook meat and do the whole thing. He just stunk all the time. We'll see later. Later, his father, well, I'm not going to spoil the story for you, but he was a stinky dude. That was Esau. He was just rough and tumble. Jacob was more of a homebody. Jacob liked to cook. I identify with Jacob, all right? So I will defend him. But he liked to cook. He was his mom's favorite son. Esau was his dad's favorite son. And that was kind of the dynamic of the home. And one day, it's the Bible says when they had grown, the Hebrew Midrash, Hebrew tradition holds that they were about 15 years old, but that's word of mouth. So they were, at least in their adolescence, could be college age. They had grown up. And one day Esau comes in from a hunt. He bursts in, Jacob's at the stove cooking stew, and Esau is so famished and so hungry that he says, if you don't let me eat some of that stew, I'm going to die. Can I please have some stew? Which to me, in my head, always, just take it easy, Esau. Why don't you just relax? All right, you're not going to die. Like eat a granola bar or something. You don't need the stew. Go pick some berries. Like I think he's being dramatic, but who knows? I'm going to die if you don't give me some stew. And so Jacob sees a moment here that he can take advantage of, which Jacob is really good at seeing these moments. And he said, sure, I'll give you some stew for your birthright. And they kind of argue back and forth a little bit. And then finally Esau's like, fine, whatever. You can have my birthright. I don't care. Just give me some stew. So he sells his birthright for some stew. Now a birthright in the ancient world was the firstborn son has the birthright from the father to when the father is dead or incapacitated or absent for a long period of time due to a travel, the eldest son, because of his birthright, steps into the father's position of authority. And when the father eventually dies, gets a double portion of the inheritance. So it's kind of a big deal to have the birthright. And Esau's like, fine, whatever, take it. I just want the stew. And it's my contention that there's more going on here than Jacob's simple desire for more money when his father dies and Esau's simple rejection of the authority that his father has. I think that there's more going on here because later on in the Bible, in the New Testament, we're taught that because Esau despised his birthright, that God loved Jacob and hated Esau. That's strong language. And I almost chose to try to like soften up hate so that we could understand that a little bit better. But I thought, no, I'm not going to walk back with the Bible says about how God felt. He loved Jacob. I loved, and Esau, I hated, because Esau despised his birthright. So there's something more going on here than Esau simply deciding that he didn't want to be materialistic or authoritarian. And what I would contend with you is happening here. You guys are adults, you know your Bible, you decide whether or not you agree with this. But what I would contend with you is happening in this moment is Esau's kind of rejecting his inheritance. And when I say that, I mean his spiritual inheritance. Because when you were growing up, your parents told you about your grandparents. Your grandparents told you about your family. You knew what your family believed. Your family had values. These are things that are imparted on you. And in this culture, this word of mouth, oral tradition culture, you were told about your family. Jacob's grandfather was Abraham. And Abraham, all the way back in Genesis chapter 12, and I talk about these promises all the time. If you've heard me preach enough, you ought to be able to recite these promises to me. In Genesis chapter 12, Abraham was promised that. Abraham, we're certain, communicated those promises and that heritage to Isaac, his son. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. It stands to me to reason that Jacob and Esau, by the time they had arrived at this scene in their late adolescence or early adulthood, knew good and well the promises that God had made to their grandfather Abraham and knew that what that meant is because God made those promises to Abraham, those have to flow through our family line. So in Jacob's mind, whoever has the birthright, whoever is acknowledged as a firstborn son and gets the blessing of the father is going to carry these promises from God. And I want to be the one through whom all the descendants come. I want to be the one that has a claim on this land. I want to be the one whose one of my descendants will bless the whole earth. I want to be great. I want those things. I want to be the participant and the claimant in the promise. And so I'm going to find a way to get the birthright. And when Esau flippantly sold it for stew, to me, what he said is, fine. I don't really buy into the promises to grandpa anyways. You can have them. And in that moment, he was flippant. And Jacob saw something, not a God that he wanted to honor, but a future that he wanted to lay hold of. And so he got it with some stew. Later, at the end of Isaac's life, he's dying. He's on his deathbed. He's got days or weeks to live. His eyesight is failing him. And he calls Esau in and he says, the time has come for me to bless my sons. I'm going to die soon. This is a paraphrase. Go out, kill me my favorite game and make me my favorite meal so that I can enjoy it one last time and then bless you. And Esau dutifully, yes, father. And he takes off and he leaves. He goes out into the wilderness to kill what he needs to kill and cook what he needs to cook. Meanwhile, Rebecca hears this and knows what's going on. And she goes and gets her favorite son, Jacob. And she says, Jacob, listen, your dad just told Esau to do this. He's out in the woods. You go get one of the goats that we have in our pen. You go get a goat. You kill it. You make his stew. You strap that goat skin on yourself and you march into your dad's room and you get that blessing. Which Jacob always gets a bad rap for what he's about to do and he deserves it because it's horrible. But it was his mom's idea, man. She was scheming and conniving too. I mean, where do you think he got it? We're going to meet his uncle in a minute. It runs in the family. Which is why, this is just an aside, just general advice. Look out for mama's boys. Okay, you don't know what they're planning. You have no idea. You got to be careful about mama's boys. So Jacob does what he's told to do. He goes and he kills a goat and comes back. He makes a stew. He straps the skin on himself and he goes into, listen to this, listen to this. I really do want you to picture this. If you've ever had what I now, it's incredibly painful, but it's also an incredible privilege to sit at the bedside of someone who is slowly dying. If you've ever done that, that's who Jacob is going in to lie to. That's who Jacob is going in to deceive. Imagine the jerk you have to be. And because I'm preaching, that's as strong of language as I can use. Imagine the jerk that you would have to be to walk into this room and to lie in this way. Look at what he says. I'm in Genesis chapter 27, beginning in verse 18. So he went into his father and said, my father, he said, here I am. Who are you, my son? So already Isaac doesn't know who's who. Jacob said to his father, I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Now sit up and eat of my game that your soul may bless me. It's me, Esau. I did what you told me to do. Now sit up and eat and give me the blessing. Sign the paper. Do it. He's very much got an agenda. And then listen to this. But Isaac said to his son, how is it that you have found it so quickly? He answered, because the Lord, your God, granted me success. What a jerk. He says, Esau, this happened a lot more quickly than I thought it could. How did you have such success in going out and killing the game and making it and bringing it here? This is so much faster than I anticipated. And Jacob deceives him and plays on his heartstrings because the Lord your God delivered them into my hands. The Lord your God was good to me. You were right about this God guy all along. And as soon as I stepped foot into the wilderness, this thing just walked in front of me and I shot him true and I skinned him and cleaned him. What a deceptive little conniving weasel. He said to Jacob, He still doesn't know. He still thinks he's being duped. So Jacob went near Isaac, his father, who felt him and said, And he did not recognize him because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. So he blessed him. Now time out. Jacob, to deceive his dad, strapped on goat skin and fur to his own hands and arms. And when Esau reached out, or when Isaac reached out in his blindness and felt goat skin, he said, yep, that's Esau. That's a hairy dude, man. Like I'm a hairy guy, all right? I got plenty. If you put Jen in a blindfold and have her touch a goat, she's not going to be like, that's my Nate. Like, he's hairy. There's no spiritual point there. It's just remarkably hairy. Anyways. And he said, are you really my son Esau? And he answered, I am. Still, Isaac doesn't believe him. Still, Isaac is being so careful and thinks he's being duped and he triples down on the lie. He says, are you sure? He says, I am, of course, I'm Esau. Then he said, bring it near me that I may eat of my son's game and bless you. So he brought it near him and he ate and he brought him wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, come near Esau. And he smelled him, which apparently Esau smells like a dead goat. And he said, yeah, you're Esau. And he kissed him. And he blessed him. And in the blessing that follows, he gives everything to Jacob and nothing to Esau. And Esau comes back from the hunt and he prepares and he goes to his dad. And his dad, Isaac, is brokenhearted and they both weep. And he says, I can't give you anything. I've already given it all to Jacob. And Esau is rightly incensed with anger and decides in his heart that once my father passes away and when the mourning period has passed, I'm going to murder my brother and claim this. See, Jacob did whatever he had to do to lay his hands on the future that he wanted for himself, even if it meant betraying his brother and his father. And so he did. Rebekah again finds out about this and tells Jacob. And so Jacob then flees to go to Uncle Laban's tribe, his camp, because they were all nomadic. So he flees to go be with Uncle Laban. On his way there, he lays down. And while he's sleeping, he has a dream. In Genesis chapter 28. And this dream is Jacob's famous ladder. And as he's sleeping, he sees a ladder, and it's going up to heaven, and angels are going up and down this ladder. And God is at the top of it, and he begins to speak with him. And we're not going to put this on the screen, but I want you to hear what he said to him. He says in verse 13, Now he's making an extra promise to him. The other promises are promises that he's reiterating from Abraham. He's re-upping and offering them to Jacob. The ones that he lied to get from his dad, the ones that he connived to get from his brother in the birthright and in the blessing, the future that he's been trying to lay a hold of, now God is promising it to him by re-upping on the promises that he made to Abraham. They're the exact same promises he's now making to Jacob. And then God doubles down on it and he says, behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. So Jacob has spent his life conniving and scheming and lying and cheating to lay hold of the future that he desired for himself, to be the one through whom the blessings of God flow. He finally gets to a place where he has what he wants. He's laid hold of the future that he's wanted for himself, but it's cost him his home. And so now he has to flee to his Uncle Laban's. He has to start over. And he has to start completely over and go start from ground zero to try to pursue this life that he's chosen for himself. And his brother, who's bigger and stronger than him and an incredible hunter and very good outdoors, is on his tail. He is scared and he is anxious. And in that fear and anxiety, God appears to him in a dream. He re-ups on the promises that he made to his grandfather, Abraham, which again, why does God choose to continue? Why is God promising him this? He's a jerk. He just lied to his dying father to get that blessing and then God affirms it. And then he says, and I promise you, I'll protect you. I'll bring you back here. Now, how would you respond to that from God? I would wake up and get on my knees and say, God, you are so good. Thank you. I really do genuinely think I would respond with profound gratitude. God, thank you for caring for me when I deserve it so little. That is not Jacob's response. Jacob's response we see in verse 28. He doubles down on the whole thing. Then Jacob made a vow when he woke up, is when he made the vow, saying, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father this guy. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you, God. We'll see. I tell you what, if you keep those promises and you bring me back here, and, oh, by the way, if you feed me and you clothe me, because you didn't, I don't know if you did this on purpose, God, but you didn't mention that in your promises to me. So if you do everything you said, plus clothing and shelter and food, then you bring me back here. Then at that point, I will give you the gift of me calling you my God. Jacob still doesn't get it. But God is consistent in his promises. So he makes it to Laban's camp, house. And when he gets there, he immediately sees Rachel. And Rachel is stunning. He is immediately captivated by Rachel's beauty. Now, don't worry about it that that's his cousin, all right? It's just different. It's like Mississippi. It's just different in the Old Testament, okay? Don't worry about that. It's like distant or something. And so he goes to Laban and he says, I want to marry Rachel, but I can't afford to pay the dowry. What's it going to take for me to earn the right to marry your daughter? And Laban says, work for me for seven years and you can marry her. And the Bible says that those years went by in a flash because of his deep and abiding love for Rachel. He was really, truly infatuated by her, and it went by speedily because this is his goal. So he worked for seven years. The problem is, after he's worked for Laban for seven years, Laban acknowledges, man, God is with this Jacob guy, and my profits are doubling. I can't let him go yet. I need him to keep working for me. So on the night of the wedding, they have the big celebration. They do all the stuff. Jacob goes back to his tent. It's probably safe to say he was less than sober upon his arrival at his tent. They present his bride to him and they do what married people do on their wedding night. And he wakes up the next day to roll over and give a kiss to his new bride, Rachel. And he sees Leah, Rachel's older sister, who the Bible really hilariously describes as weak in the eyes, which is apparently the Genesis author's way of saying she was not much of a looker. Jacob, he didn't like her. He liked Rachel. But now he's with Leah. So he just got out Jacobed by his uncle is what happened. So it runs in the family. Laban, Rebecca, Jacob, it's all a whole thing. They should all be on Jerry Springer together. So he goes to Laban. He's like, what gives? This is not the deal. And Laban's like, well, too bad. You already did married stuff with Leah, so now she's yours. And he's like, okay, well, what do I have to do to get Rachel? He's like, seven more years. Okay, so he worked for seven more years. Into the seven years, Laban's true to his word. He marries Rachel. Everyone's happy. So then he goes to Laban, and he's like, I'm ready to go out on my own. I'm ready to go make a name for myself and go fulfill these promises. He's still got pictured this future that he's claimed for himself. And he says, can I go? What do I need to do to be able to go? And Laban says, work for me for seven more years. We'll divide up the herds in this way and then you can go. I don't have time to get into how he did it, but Jacob devised a scheme to basically take all the biggest and best sheep and goats and cattle and everything from Laban on his way out and leave Laban with all the weak sisters of the poor. He had nothing left when Jacob left him. He robbed him of everything, and they go out into the wilderness. Twenty-one years after he laid down and God reiterated those promises, now he's back out, and he feels like he can finally pursue the life for himself that he wants and finally lay hold of the future that he's been fighting so valiantly for. As he leaves, word reaches him that his brother Esau knows where he is and is coming. And Esau, in these last 21 years, has amassed for himself a good tribe and a lot of fighting men. And he's coming for old Jacob. Jacob is scared. Again. He divides up his camp. He splits them in two so that if Esau encounters one or the other, maybe he'll only lose half of his stuff. And he separates himself from his wife, from his wives and his children. His wives eventually have children. We're going to talk about them next week. And so they're on their way back home, back to Canaan, and Esau's coming. So he divides them up and he spends the night by himself. And as he's spending the night, we're told that a man came to wrestle with him, to quarrel with him. Essentially, a man attacked Jacob while he was sleeping. And scripture says that they wrestled all night long. And as morning approached, the man who was wrestling with him said, you gotta let me go, day is about to break, I have to leave. And Jacob wouldn't let him go. And so the man that he was wrestling with touched his hip, we believe dislocated his hip. And after he did that, he said, you got to let me go. And Jacob said, I'm not letting you go until you bless me. You bless me and then you can go. And then they have this conversation. You're going to see verse 28 on the screen. He says, and the man, he's wrestling called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him, Please tell me your name. But he said, Why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered. So Jacob, the night before he meets Esau, is wrestling all night with a guy. For some reason, Jacob is compelled, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And the guy says, what's your name? And he says, Jacob. And he says, your name is no longer Jacob, but Israel. Because you have striven with man and with God and you have prevailed. And yes, that Israel. Jacob is the man for whom the country is named. Jacob is the man whose 12 sons, one of whom is Joseph, become the 12 tribes of Israel. In that moment, his name is changed to Israel from Jacob. And Jacob names the place Peniel because he says, I have seen God face to face and have survived. Many scholars believe that who he was wrestling with was really angelic and potentially Jesus. And my way of interpreting the Old Testament scripture is whenever you see an opportunity that it looks like Jesus might have come on the scene, just decide that that's what happened because that's a way cooler way to interpret scripture. And he said he saw the face of God and he said he had now striven with God. So Jacob wrestled with Jesus until I think, until Jesus renamed him Israel. And in that moment, when Jesus says this, when the man that he wrestled with says this, I think it was this enormous light bulb moment for Jacob. His whole life, he had been striving against man to lay hold of the future that he wanted for himself. He schemed against Esau. He schemed against his father, Isaac. He schemed against Laban. At every turn, he even made a deal with God when God appeared to him in his goodness and restated the promises. He was scheming with God. And his whole life, he saw what he wanted, and to get it, he was fighting against man. And what he realizes after he spends the night wrestling with who I think was Jesus, he realizes, oh my goodness, I've been fighting against God this whole time. Not just last night, but my whole life. I will take you back to the promise that God made to Rebecca. There are two nations in your womb, and the older will serve the younger. From the very beginning, before Jacob existed, before he came out clutching his brother's heel, before he lied for the birthright, before he lied for the blessing, before he deceived Laban for riches, before he did any of that, God had already decided that he was going to be the one through whom the promise ran. He had already decided on the future that Jacob would have. God had already made up his mind about that. And his whole life, Jacob invests all of his energy and all of his anxiety and all of his efforts and all of his talents and all of his time in trying to lay hold of this future that he wanted that God was already bestowing on him. And in this moment, I think he finally realized, oh my goodness, I've been fighting against God this whole time. My fight was not against Esau. It was not against Isaac. It was not against Laban. I was struggling with God. And if I'll just step out of his way, he's going to do what he wants to do anyways. And then I can experience the joy of being with him and watch him bring about these things. And in that way, I think there's a little bit of Jacob in all of us. I think all of us, if we could take a step back and look at what's bringing us the most anxiety, look at what's causing us the most stress, look at where we invest most of our thought and most of our efforts in trying to lay hold of the future that we want for ourselves or our family. Is it possible that in that striving, we, like Jacob, are really striving against God? Is it possible that if we'll just let go and trust Him, that He'll bring about the things for us that he wants that are what's best. And that if we'll just trust God's future instead of the one that we are trying to lay hold of and control all the uncontrollables and we'll stay up at night thinking about and putting all of our effort and our times and our talents and our energies into, if we'll turn that into an effort to trust God and walk with him and stand in His love where there is no fear? Is it possible that what we'll find is for a big portion of our life we've simply been striving against God, not against the things that we think we're striving against? This is why it should be important to us the answer to our question. Why does God choose to bless this guy? Because God's commitment to his promise is not contingent upon Jacob's behavior. God's commitment to the promise that he made to Abraham of land, people, and blessing, and the promise that he doubled down on for Jacob of land, people, and blessing, and to bring you back to this place safely is not contingent on Jacob's behavior. When God in heaven is watching Jacob be a jerk to his dad and lie in the bedroom to his dying father who can't see him and triple down on the lie, God in that moment doesn't consider rescinding his promises and removing his blessing because of Jacob's bad behavior. There's this really prominent scholar named N.T. Wright. He writes a whole book on justification and in that book he defines God's righteousness as his commitment to his promises. If you were asked to define what does it mean that God is righteous, it means that when he says he'll do something, he does it. He's committed to his promises, and he made a promise to Abraham, and he's not going to cut off his promises because Abraham had a jerk of a grandson. He's going to be patient with that jerk of a grandson until he wakes up one day and sees that I'm your God too, and I've been watching out. I know that you think you've been taking care of yourself the whole time, but it hasn't had anything to do with you, Jacob. It's been me. And as soon as you want to put your faith in me, I'm here. I'm not going to connect these dots for you because I want you to do it. But his promises to you are not contingent on your behavior either. And that's a pretty darn good thing. The tough part is, as believers, we walk around sometimes like it does. And it doesn't. God has made you promises too. God promises you a future that you want to lay hold of too, eternally. And his interest and commitment to keeping those promises is not contingent on how you behave. Jacob goes on from this moment where I believe everything changes. And he meets his brother Esau. Esau is excited to see him, has mercy on him and is gracious with him. They have a sweet reunion. And Jacob, if you look at the text, man, he starts acting totally differently than he had any time in his life in those chapters that follow. And he goes back to the land that was promised to his grandfather, that was promised to him. And he begins to live his life. And this assurance that God is looking out for him and a trust of God's promises, finally seeing the future that he wanted to lay hold of for himself. And he and his sons, one of whom is Joseph, begin to live their life in the land of Canaan. And that's where we'll pick up the story next week. Let's pray. Father, God, you're so good, but you're so big. You love so much. You're so mysterious, and you're so wonderful, and you're so patient. God, for those of us who have been striving against you, would we realize it? And would we stop it? God, I pray for each of us as we are on our journeys of knowing you, of working out our salvation with fear and trembling, of understanding what it is to have faith and cling to you and walk with you and be drawn to you. No matter where we are or what we're going through or how far or near to you we feel, I pray that you would draw us in. I pray in this series more than anything else that we would simply be drawn into you each week. That through the story of these saints of old that we would see their humanity and we would see your love and we would know that that love is reflected on us and we would know that your sovereignty still rules over us and that we would simply be drawn into your grandeur and into your love and into your plan. Draw us near to you as we come together for these next seven weeks, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.

We always talk about the stories of Moses and Abraham and David and Paul. We know all about the boys, but what about the girls? Why don't we talk more about the people in the Bible who are like me? It turns out the girls of the Bible are pretty awesome. And when we take the time to learn their stories, we will be amazed at what God can do with someone who is consistently, humbly, and lovingly faithful. Well, good morning again. Thank you again for being here. This is my first Sunday back after having a kid, so I'm really grateful to be back in the saddle. I mean, I didn't do anything. Jen was primarily responsible for birthing the child. But yeah, so it's been a heck of a two weeks. For those who haven't seen, this is a picture of John. This is our boy. Yes, yes, I know. But before we go overboard with how cute he is, I am of the conviction that no child is actually cute until they've been alive for about three months. At the three-month mark, they become cute. At the newborn stage, they look like angry aliens, so we don't have to pretend like he's exceptionally cute, all right? But he's got blonde hair. He's a good-looking kid. We are excited about him. And I also wanted to thank Kyle for jumping in and preaching for us for two weeks. We had a plan leading into this series where we kind of acknowledged, you know, Nate, you're probably going to have to miss a couple of weeks somewhere in this faithful series because your baby is due. And I said, yeah. I said, so listen, when she goes into labor, I'm going to text you and you're teaching for the next two weeks. And he was like, all right, got it. So we had this plan in place, but neither of us expected to implement that plan almost three weeks prior to the due date. So he got the text on Friday morning and had to preach Sunday and I think did a remarkably good job. So thank you, Kyle, for doing that. And I'm glad to be back with you preaching about faithful women of the Bible. The woman that we're going to look at this morning is someone that I would be willing to bet that even though most of us probably know who she is, we might not know her name. It's a woman named Jochebed. And I had to actually look up what her name was, shamefully, because I know her story, but I didn't know her name. Her name is Jochebed, and Jochebed is probably the greatest mom of all time. If she's not the greatest, she's in the goat conversation. She's on the Mount Rushmore of moms, I think. And this isn't all the time the case, because sometimes excellent parents have children that just in their adulthood, they struggle. So it's not a one-to-one thing, but a lot of times you can tell the quality of a parent by the kids that they produce, right? And Jochebed produced some really good ones. From what we know, she had at least three children. She may have had more, but we know of three of them. One of them, her son, was a guy named Aaron. He was the first high priest of the nation of Israel. His staff was in the Ark of the Covenant. He is the one who performed a lot of the miracles that got the Israelites free of Egyptian enslavement. He instituted a lot of the religion that we still follow today. He had a profound impact on Israel in the Old Testament and continues to impact how we understand God to this day. I mentioned him in a sermon a couple of weeks ago when we were in Hebrews talking about Jesus as the great high priest. Aaron's a big deal. She had a daughter named Miriam. And most of us probably don't know about Miriam, but she was the first priestess in Israel. In a time when we didn't really know a lot about priestesses or that they even existed, but she was the first priestess in Israel. She actually wrote a praise song that's included in scripture, making her the first included female author in the Bible. And the praise song was just for the women of Israel. Men were not supposed to sing it, and it was about the conquest at God's faithfulness at the Red Sea, how God parted the sea and then defeated the armies of Egypt for them. She wrote that song, and it's included in the Bible. Those two kids are Jochebed's kids, and they did some really good stuff. Even if the third kid was a screw-up, she's still doing pretty good, right? The third kid was Moses. You may have heard of him. Even if you're here this morning and you wouldn't call yourself a believer, you're not really a church person, or you're listening or watching online, you wouldn't call yourself a church person. When I say Moses, you at least know who that is. You at least know, oh, that's a big deal Bible guy. Yeah. He freed the Hebrews from slavery. He led them through the desert. He established the religion. He came down with the Ten Commandments. It was the law of Moses. He wrote the first five books of the Bible. All three of these people, Aaron, Miriam, and Moses came from Jochebed's house. And so I want to know, what was she doing? What kind of Kool-Aid was she serving that produced these three incredible people that we still remember 6,000 years later? What was happening in her house that produced these types of adults. And I think if we can get some insight into that question, if we can get an answer there, then we can certainly apply that in our homes to our children, but I think that we'll pull out of it something that we can apply to all of life. So if we want to learn what it was like to grow up in Jacob's house, we don't have a ton of text. We don't get a lot of insight into her as a mother or as a person, really. We just get really one snippet at the beginning of Exodus in Exodus chapter 2. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there. If you don't, there's one in the seat back in front of you. Or if you're at home, there's one on your phone. If you're in person, don't look at your phone. That will distract me. I'll think that you're totally bored and now you're on Twitter or something. So look at Exodus chapter 2. We're going to pick it up right at the beginning. Now what's happening here before I read the verses? The Hebrew people are slaves to the Egyptians. And someone, one of Pharaoh's advisors, got in his ear and was like, hey man, these Hebrews, there's a lot of them. We think that when they were wandering through the desert, archaeologists and theologians believed that it was somewhere around 500,000 people that made up the Hebrew nation. So this Egyptian advisor said, hey, there's a lot of them. We're a little bit worried if they continue to grow at the current rate that they could be so strong that if they decided to rebel against us, there could be an insurrection that we wouldn't be able to stop. So we need to do something about this burgeoning Hebrew civilization within our borders. We need to do something about this population. And so what they decided to do is to kill all the boys two years and younger, and the midwives, the ones delivering the babies, were instructed, if you deliver a baby boy, you have to kill it right away. This is just evil stuff, but this is what they did. And so there's a woman named Jochebed, and she's about to have a son. And this is a snippet that we get of her story in that context. In Exodus chapter 2, I'm going to pick it up in verse 1. It says, Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. That's just a tribe within the nation of Israel. This is the action that she took. And then if you continue to read the story, what you learn is she goes down to the river with this new boy, this three-month-old baby boy in a basket, and she sets it in the reeds. She sets it in the river, presumably the Nile River. And she sends her daughter, maybe Miriam, up as a lookout to see what happens to this basket. And somehow or another, she knew, I would presume that she knew the general schedule of the princess, of Pharaoh's daughter, and knew that she came out to bathe in the Nile River. And so she timed it up just right so that when she released Moses, that this basket would be encountered by the daughter of Pharaoh. And she had her daughter looking out to make sure that this is what happened. And sure enough, Pharaoh's daughter saw the basket. She had her servants grab it. They opened it up. There's a baby inside. She's moved by this and is compelled to adopt the baby. When she adopts Moses, they didn't have formula back then, all right? So she couldn't just mix something up and feed it to him. So she needed a woman who was capable of feeding a child at the time. So she tells her servants, go to the Hebrew people, find a woman who's able to feed a child right now and ask her to wean this child for me until they're off of it and then return. So they go into the Hebrew encampment and who do they find? Jochebed. Oh, what do you know? I can feed a kid. So she gets her son Moses back and gets those moments with him, those special months and probably years with him until it's time for him to be adopted officially into the palace by the princess of Egypt. The rest of the story from there, he grows up in this royal society. He learns how to lead. He gets the best education possible. He's exiled into the wilderness for 40 years. God speaks to him out of a burning bush. He comes back. He leads the people into freedom. That's the story of Moses. But as we look at the story of Jochebed here, can you imagine? Can you just imagine? Those of you who are parents, can you imagine having a baby? The moment John was born and they placed him on Jen's chest, I knew good and well, and it's not hyperbole, and you dads know what I'm talking about. I knew good and well I would die for that kid. Can you imagine taking the thing that is most precious to you in the world, putting it in a basket, and floating it down the river? Just releasing it and hoping that it works out. Having no control over what happened, having done all that you could do, and then setting this child in a basket and letting it go down the river. Can you imagine watching that basket like Jochebed did? But as I think about this story and the lessons that we can learn from this story, what I realized was the wisdom of Jacobad was that she did all that she could, and then she acknowledged it wasn't enough. She did all that she could, everything possible, and then she acknowledged, and that's still not enough. I think it's noteworthy that she got a basket, she wove it, she got the best bulrushes, and she put it together. She made it just for her kid. She made sure it was perfect. Then she coated it with bitumen and pitch. She made it waterproof. She took extra special care. She observed the schedule of the princess. She sent her daughter as a lookout. She did everything that she could. She controlled every detail that she could. She didn't just find any old basket. She didn't just set it in the river at any old time. She did everything that she could, but then at some point or another, she acknowledged something that I think we struggle so mightily to acknowledge. I've done everything that I can, and now I have to acknowledge that that's not enough. There's some mystical intersection between our effort and God's actions, between our effort and God's responsibility. And I think the lesson from Jochebed as I think about it more and more this week is yes, she did all that she could. Yes, she had faith, but she was able to accept this reality that there is a gap between our efforts and God's actions. And that in that gap, you have to admit, my efforts, my abilities are going to fall short. If she would have just sat there holding on to the basket and never released it, she would have waited too long and would have missed the opportunity. If she would have waited in the river with that basket up to the princess, she would have ruined it by being present when she found him. And if she would have given him to her daughter and said, walk the baby to the princess and ask, she would have ruined the opportunity. I can also imagine her waiting too deep into the river, holding on to the basket, refusing to let go of control, and I'm also going to acknowledge that at some point that's not going to be enough. It reminds me of this proverb that I've always loved. Proverbs chapter 21, verse 31. It says, the horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord. We can do everything we can to get the horse ready for battle. We can sharpen the sword. We can make sure the saddle's just right. We can know where the enemy is. We can approach the way we're supposed to approach. We can do everything we're going to do. But the battle belongs to the Lord. I can do the prep work. I can do everything I can do. But at some point or another, I have to hand the results over to God. And one of the reasons I love this story of Jochebed and the picture of her releasing that basket down the river is because as I was thinking about it one day, it occurred to me, isn't this just what parenthood is? Isn't parenthood just that moment over and over and over again where we've done everything we can and then at some point or another we have to release? A lot of you guys know this part of mine and Jen's story. We wanted a long time to be pregnant. We waited eight years to be pregnant and it was a hard eight years. And then when we finally did get pregnant, we found out about eight or 10 weeks in that we had miscarried. And that was hard. Maybe the hardest thing we've ever walked through as a couple. So when we got pregnant with Lily, I prayed so hard, God, please protect this child. Please don't let us walk through that again. Please, God, you've got to take care of us. And I would have done anything. I would have gotten three jobs. I would have never slept. Jen would have done anything. We would have put her on any diet, literally any injection. Whatever we can do to try to protect this baby that's growing inside of her, we will do it. But the reality is there was nothing we could do. We could do a couple things. We would be careful about a couple diets. But the reality was we had to pray. God, this child is yours. We believe you care about them and that you care about us. So we trust you with this pregnancy. And it occurred to me that this is what parenthood is. God, there's nothing left that I can do. I'm impotent here. But you care about us and you care about them, so we trust you. There was another reminder as we were having John during the process of labor and of waiting until it was really time to have the child. You know, there's contractions and things start to pick up in that process. And somewhere in that process, in the middle of the night, Jen's blood pressure began to drop and John's heart rate plummeted. And the nurses tried to pretend like it wasn't a big deal, but four of them rushed in there and started going really fast and dropping things and cussing. And one was trying to make light and like, like uneasy jokes. And me and Jen are scared. We're looking at each other. Our eyes are big. We don't know what to do. I can't even get near her to hold her hand because she's surrounded by nurses that are moving her around and they're giving her shots to try to do this and that and the other thing. And there's about 20 or 30 minutes where we were just scared. And all I could do is pray. And I was reminded of the story of Jochebed. We've done all that we can do. Now we pray. Now it's in the Lord's hands. And this is a picture of parenthood. One day, you do everything you can. You get them ready. You try to protect them. You try to choose the right school. But one day, you're going to let go of their hand, and they're going to walk into kindergarten, and you're not going to be with them for eight hours, and you don't know what's going to happen. One day, you entrust them to other dumb middle schoolers and the things that they're going to say and the stuff that's on their phones. There's coming a day, parents, many of us have experienced it already, where you watch them drive off. They drive away from home for the first time. They're 16 years old. They got their license. You can't control what happens in that car. You drop them off at college and hope they make wise choices. You walk them down the aisle and see them walk into a life that you won't live. You watch them have kids and wish them the best of luck. But parenthood is nothing if not a continual releasing of a basket down a river. Saying, God, I've done all that I can do. Now I trust you. And it's important to me to point something out here. And if I don't point this out, this could come across as like clumsy, ham-handed advice. Just trust God with your kids. Just trust God with the things in your life. Don't worry about it. Trust God. No, listen, she did everything that she could. She chose the perfect basket. She covered it with bitumen and pitch. She timed it out. She sent the lookout. She controlled everything that she could control. And so for your kids, because some of us are walking through some really serious things, and it would feel really clumsy to go, well, just trust God. We had a child this summer. It broke my heart to think about it. I think that they were four while they were walking through this. He choked on something really bad at dinner one night, really, really badly. Scared everybody in the family. Moms and nurse scared them to death. It traumatized him so badly that after that moment, he could no longer eat. He couldn't be convinced to put anything in his mouth and eat and swallow because he was scared of it. And they got treatment for it, and they did all the best things that they could. And eventually, eventually, he's able to start drinking smoothies, and then eventually, he was able to start eating things. And then, I was talking to his dad a couple of weeks ago. Then finally, they would give him something for dinner. And he was like, I can't eat that. I'm going to choke. And he's like, I saw you eat six chicken nuggets like an hour ago. So you're squared away, pal. Like then it became a thing where he was trying to get out of certain meals. But for a while, it was incredibly scary. And it would be super clumsy of me as a pastor to pick up the phone and call this couple and be like, I know that your child's having a hard time swallowing anything and is losing weight at a dangerous rate and is close to starving themselves, but just trust God with it. That's clumsy advice. Do everything that you can do. Get the best baskets. Get the best treatment. Call in the best experts. Go to the best practices. Get the best people associated with your children. Put in all the effort. Put in all the prayer. Rally all of your resources to do the best thing that you can do by your child. But be like Jacob and acknowledge that there's coming a moment where my efforts stop and God's actions begin. Do not hang on to that basket for too long. And do not trick yourself into believing that you can control the things that you can't control. So it's not just clumsy, trust God and everything will be okay. We don't just grab any old basket and throw the kid in the water anytime we want. Do everything that you can do, but acknowledge that there's coming a moment when you can't do anymore. And in that moment, choose to be like Jacob and trust God. And you know, I'm preaching about this, and sometimes I don't love to do parenting sermons because it doesn't hit everybody in the room. It hits a portion of the room. But I think that this one actually works for everyone because releasing things to God isn't just a practice for parenting. It's a necessary practice for all of life. This idea of preparing the horses for battle, but the victory is the Lord's. That's not just for raising children. That's for everything in life. Maybe you're in a marriage right now that has seen better years. Maybe it's getting really hard. And you want more than anything for this marriage to be fixed. You're not sure if your spouse is in it with you, but you want more than anything for this marriage to be fixed. This principle applies to that situation. Do everything that you can do. Get the best counseling that you can have. Have the hardest conversations that you need to have. Do the most introspection that you can do. Own the most in the relationship that you can own, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to admit that there comes an intersection with my efforts and God's actions, and you're going to have to trust that relationship to him. You're going to have to float that down the river and quit trying to control everything and trust that whatever needs to change in their heart, that God is going to change it if he's going to change it at all. With our careers, with what we want in life, with our goals, that interview that we really want to nail, the job that we really want to get, the account that we really want to close, the company that we really want to work for, the career that we really want to have, whatever it is that we're yearning and striving for, do all the work. Make the best possible basket, but at some point or another, trust that God cares about your career too and float it down the river and let him do with it what he's going to do. Those of us with aging parents, this is a hard reality. How do we take care of them? How do we do the right things? How do we know what to do? How do we know what to say? How do we know when to be forceful and when to back off and be respectful? How do we know when to take over? Do everything that you can do. Do everything that you know to do. But at some point or another, let go of the basket and let God take control of it. This applies, I think, to every area of life, to our finances, to our relationships, to everything that we do. Do everything that you can do. But just acknowledge, just know that at some point there's coming a time when your efforts will fall short and we will need God's actions to come in and trust those things to God. And if you're somebody who struggles with this, if you're anxious, just know that holding onto the basket too long could be the worst possible thing for it. If we go back to parenthood, think of the people that you know that have tried to control their child for too long and then release them into college and what happens? Because you couldn't release them sooner. Think about the people who probably should have put a little bit more bitumen on the basket. Maybe you should have picked a better basket. Maybe you should have been a little bit more thoughtful before you just slung that thing down the river. There's a downside to not doing everything that we can do. There's a downside to hanging on too long and to tricking ourselves into believing that we can continue to control things as we drown in the river ourselves and pull our basket of whatever's dear to us down with us. But I remember a couple years ago, I guess it was about 2018, we bought a house in April or in February of 2020. Praise God, because we couldn't buy a house right now. We started looking in 2018 for a house, and Jen was looking every day. I am convinced that between 2018 and 2020, there is no one who knew the North Raleigh real estate market better than Jen Rector. Not a soul on earth. I'm telling you, we'd be sitting there after dinner, and I'd be on my phone looking at Zillowow and I'd be like, oh, this house looks good. And she'd go, where is it? I'm like, it's over on like Diamond Hitch Trail. And she goes, oh, is that the green one or the brick one? I'm like, geez, the green one? She goes, yeah, it's got a great outdoor space, but I don't know about that kitchen. Okay, well, I guess we'll check that one off the list. Like she had this thing memorized, man. And we began to get concerned that we weren't going to be able to buy a house in North Raleigh because we really love this area. We really love North Raleigh. I didn't want to move to the outskirts. We really love it here. It was important to us to stay here. But it was really hard to find a house that we could afford and that we actually wanted. And we had a lot of conversations about, gosh, I'm not sure that this is gonna work out. Jen would be anxious that we're never gonna be able to buy a house or whatever. And one day it occurred to me and I just told her, I said, listen, I believe that God brought us to Raleigh. I believe that he actually cares about where we live. I believe that where we live matters to him and the community that he places us in matters to him. And because of that, we can trust him with this. Because we know that God cares about where we live, we can trust him with finding us a house. So we still did everything that we could do, but then one day he brought us a house that for us was perfect, is perfect. And I'm glad he did because no kidding around, if we would have waited another year to try to keep looking for this perfect house, I don't think that we could get into a house right now. And that's the encouragement that I would give you this morning. The thing that you're anxious about, the thing that you're trying to control, whether it's your kids or your career or your relationship or your finances or the things that you won't let go, that you're just latched onto this basket and you can't seem to release it to God or acknowledge that there's a place where your efforts need to stop and God's actions need to begin. If you're in that place, I would ask myself this question. Does God care about this? Does God care about this thing? If he does, then I can trust him with it. Does God care about this thing? If he does, I can trust him with it. Does God care about my kids? Absolutely he does, so I can trust him with them. Does God care about my marriage? Yes, deeply. It matters tremendously to him, so you can trust him with it. Does he care where you live? Yes. Does he care about your career? Yes. Does he care about your relationships? Yes. Does he care about your finances and your aging parents? Yes. He cares about all those things. So if God actually cares about this thing that matters so much to you, then I want you to know that you can trust him with that. His wisdom is greater than yours. His providence is better than yours. His strength is mightier than yours. His vision is further than yours. I think we have a lot to learn from the example of Jochebed. I don't know that this is the reason that she raised three incredible children, but I would be willing to bet that it's a big part of it. We all of us, especially those of us who are anxious, those of us who worry, those of us who stay up, worrying about all the different things that could possibly happen as we try to keep adding the perfect amount of bitumen and pitch and finding the perfect basket before we are willing to release it down the river to God. Let's acknowledge that this releasing, this principle of Jacobad, it really brings with it great peace. There is an incredible peace to watching something float away from you, knowing good and well, I've done all that I can. Have you done everything that you could? Yeah, I've done everything that I could. Now I'm giving it over to God. And what he does with it, I'm good with. There's an incredible peace to that. If we struggle with anxiety this morning, maybe what we need to do is finally release it and let the peace of God wash over us, knowing that if he cares about it, then he will take care of it. And in that way, I think we can all learn from the example of Jacob. Let me pray for us. Father, we love you this morning. We thank you for who you are and for what you do for us. Lord, I pray for the parents in the room. We struggle so mightily with relinquishing control of the children that you've given us. Would we acknowledge that we just simply can't control every detail? We're going to have to trust you in the conversations and in the spend the night parties and out on the road and at college and at school. We're going to have to trust that you care about those children too and that you will direct their paths. For those of us with other concerns, be it our finances or our careers or our relationships or our marriage, God, would we just be comforted by the fact that you care about those things too? Would we have the faith and the humility of Jochebed to do everything that we know to do, but at some point or another understand that our efforts are going to fall short and we need to entrust these things to your actions. Give us the strength and the peace to do that even today, Father. It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.

We always talk about the stories of Moses and Abraham and David and Paul. We know all about the boys, but what about the girls? Why don't we talk more about the people in the Bible who are like me? When I read the Bible, I see story after story of women who are amazing. I see the courage and hope of Miriam and the boldness of Mary Magdalene. I see the consistent and quiet obedience of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Ruth and Naomi teach us of love, loyalty, and perseverance. Esther becomes a queen who uses her power to save her people. And Deborah becomes a judge and general who defeats the oppressors of her nation. It turns out the girls of the Bible are pretty awesome. And when we take the time to learn their stories, we will be amazed at what God can do with someone who is consistently, humbly, and lovingly faithful. Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be the lead pastor here. Thanks for joining us in person here at the First Service. Thank you for joining us online. I've had more people, maybe than ever, who have said to me this morning, oh, you look nice. What's the occasion? And I guess the occasion is that my shirt is tucked in because this shirt just needed to be tucked in, and that's what I wanted to wear today. I had no idea. I'm wearing literally the exact same thing I wear every week for four years, but I tucked it, so I guess that makes a difference. I'll have to remember that in the future. I am very excited about this series because we get to focus on some people in the Bible that we don't often stop on. We're going to focus on the women of the Bible because I think that we have some really profound lessons to learn from their faith. I was very grateful to Erin, our children's pastor, for opening up the series last week by telling the story of Esther. If you missed that, I would highly encourage you to go back and make sure you caught it because she did a great job with that story. This week, we're going to be in the New Testament in three of the four gospels talking about one of the women who may be one of the most underrated figures in the Bible. I think she's even an underrated Mary in the Bible. We all know Mary, the mother of Jesus. We know her. I think she gets her proper adulations. We probably know Mary Magdalene and the things surrounding her, and we've learned about her before. But maybe we haven't thought to focus on Mary of Bethany. Or maybe we just don't know that it's Mary of Bethany that pops up in these ways in Scripture. but I think she is one of the more underrated people in the whole Bible, if not maybe the most underrated person in the whole Bible, and we're going to learn why today. My point today isn't to show you that Mary's underrated and to have you leave and go, yeah, she really was, she's really great. My point today is to help you think through something that I think comes out of one of the stories that Mary is involved in. And this story actually points to what I believe to be one of the most haunting truths in the whole Bible. For me, I grew up a church person. My memory doesn't go back further than my church attendance. And some of us are like that. Some of us have found God more recently than that. But what I typically assume on a Sunday is that most people listening are church people. And for church people, this story from Mary of Bethany is really, to me, is really haunting. And it's something that we want to deal with. It's one of the stories that kind of freaks me out and makes me worry just consistently in my life. So I want to invite you guys into that anxiety with me so that you can be riddled with it for the rest of your life as well. So that's what we're going to do this morning. The story that highlights this, and she shows up three major times in the Gospels, and we're going to eventually highlight all three, but the one I want us to focus on is found in Matthew chapter 26. So if you have a Bible, you can go ahead and turn there. This is six days before the Passover on which Jesus was arrested. So roughly, this is the night before the last week of Jesus' life. And if you've ever read through your Gospels, which I would highly encourage you to do, if you've ever read through your Gospels, you know that the pacing of the Gospels is kind of, it plods along, it moves at a pretty good pace. But then when we get to this last week of Jesus' life, beginning with the triumphal injury, triumphal entry, I guess that's another name for the crucifixion. If you actually start there, it slows down and takes its time. We get a lot of details about the last week of Jesus's life. And so the night before the triumphal entry, when Jesus is riding into Jerusalem through the Eastern Gate on a donkey, a symbol of peace, They're laying down palm branches in front of him, receiving him as a king. He knows that he's going to die. Nobody else with him knows. We're going to talk about this a little bit more in a second. The day before this happens, Jesus is at what some scholars believe to be his favorite place on earth. He's in Bethany. He is at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Many scholars believe that these were the closest things that Jesus had to besties. It wasn't the disciples. It was Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. They lived in this little town called Bethany. They all lived together. And just for perspective, it's kind of neat to think about it. I've seen it and it's neat to pull it together. If you were to go to Jerusalem right now and go to where the temple is, where the temple mound is, and understand where it used to face in the time of Christ, and if you were to put yourself in the Holy of Holies and take a step out and walk through the curtain that used to hang between God and his people, if you would walk through that curtain and face out, what you would see is the eastern gate and the walls of Jerusalem. On the other side of that gate is the Mount of Olives with the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed the night that he was arrested. You can see it from the Temple Mount. If you go over that hill, if you go over the Mount of Olives into the next valley, that's where Bethany is. So this is where Jesus is preparing to enter into the gate the next day. And so he's having dinner with everyone. Mary and Martha and Lazarus did what you should do. They were hospitable to him. They were throwing him a dinner, and they know that he's about to enter into Jerusalem. And at this dinner, while they're reclining at the table, Mary goes and she gets a vial of spikenard or oxnard. It's a very, very powerful perfume. We're told that it was worth about a year's wages. And we don't know that Mary and Martha and Lazarus were extravagantly wealthy. We don't know that they were poor. We don't know a whole lot about their socioeconomic status. But what we know is that this perfume was worth a year's wages, whatever that means to us. I thought about trying to summarize it, but I don't know enough about the median income in Wake County. So whatever that is, that's what it was worth, okay? And she empties the whole bottle out. You could just take a dab of it and put it where you want to put it, and that would do the job for the day, but she empties the whole bottle out on the feet of Jesus. And in some accounts, it says that the disciples were indignant. In others, it says that Judas was indignant. And he was, in any case, the ringleader. And he's thinking to himself, how can this woman do this? How can she do this? How can she open up this bottle of perfume and pour it all out on the feet of Jesus? Doesn't she know how many people we could feed with that? Doesn't she know if she would be willing to sell that for Jesus instead of being showy in her offerings here, doesn't she know how many people we could feed, the good that we could do? And Jesus, knowing that this thought existed in the room, addressed it. And he says this in Matthew all, in another gospel, we're told that Judas was a thief already and he was skimming off the top. That's why he was really mad. He could have pocketed some of this perfume money. And that's really why he was mad. But he says, you will always have the poor, which is a really interesting thing to say. We could do a whole sermon on what that means. But you won't always have me. And then he says something really profound that nobody else in the room understood yet. He said, she's preparing me for my burial. See, he had told the disciples, I'm going to go to Jerusalem and they're going to kill me. And then I'm going to be buried. And then I'm going to raise on the third day and I will have conquered sin and death and everything's going to be good. He had told the disciples this. And after he would tell the disciples this, they would kind of lean in and go, what do you think he means by that? He's not really, no one's going to kill him. He's not really going to die, right? But Mary believed him. Mary understood him. As a matter of fact, what's profound about Mary, and we see it in this moment, that she prepares him for burial. This isn't just an offering to a savior. This isn't just, I love you and you're in my house and I want you to have this extravagant gift. This is, Lord, I know that you are about to die for me. I know what's about to happen. These yahoos don't. I understand what's about to happen and I want to do my part to love you and to prepare you for the road that you're about to walk. What I want us to see is that Mary, she knew who he was and what he came to do. And I would contend with you, and I mean this, I've thought this for years. I'm deadly serious about this. I would contend with you that she was one of two people alive who understood both who Jesus was and what he came to do. I think the other person is no longer alive at this point. I think the other person is John the Baptist. I think the only two people in Jesus's life who knew who he was and what he came to do were her and John the Baptist. Some people knew who he was, but they didn't understand what he came to do. And some people didn't even acknowledge that he was who he said he was. And this should cause us to ask questions. Why was it that when Jesus comes down, when he condescends, he takes on flesh, he walks among us? Why was it that so very few people, maybe it was more than two, maybe it was four or five, maybe there's more that are not recorded, or maybe you could look in the text and make an argument that somebody besides those two did, but very few people knew who he was and what he came to do. And if that's true, why is that the case? It's so funny to me because I've heard over my lifetime people say, if God's real, why doesn't he just come down and tell us? He did. And then we wrote a book about it. And then we formed a religion around it. Like he did. And nobody believed him then. Why didn't they believe him? This question should concern us because I want to know that if Jesus were to walk through these doors this morning that I would go, that's the Messiah and I would fall at his feet. I want to know that that's true. But how can I know that's true when everybody missed it? If anybody, if anybody that was a contemporary of Jesus should have known who he was, if there were any group of people that when Jesus came on the scene should have been the ones waving the flags and pointing the fingers and saying, this is the Messiah, everyone look, come worship him. If there's any group of people who should have done that, it's absolutely the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the religious leaders of Jesus's day. They were the pastors. They were the theologians. They were the professors. They were the ones who knew the Bible. To become a Pharisee, I'm not going to get into all the details of it, but to become a Pharisee, you had to effectively memorize the entire Old Testament, the Tanakh, the 39 books that we have today. You had to effectively memorize those if you wanted to be a Pharisee. You had to know it inside and out. If you were a Pharisee, you knew by memory every messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. You knew them by heart. You could rattle them off. You knew exactly what the requirements were to be the Messiah. And yet the Messiah showed up, the one that they had been waiting for for generations. He comes to the door. He says, I'm the son of God. And the Pharisees say, no, you're not. And they should have been the ones to identify him. They should have known. They should have seen. And I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but the Pharisees were so certain that Jesus wasn't Jesus that they killed Jesus in the name of the Jesus they thought they should believe in. Do you understand that? They were so certain that he wasn't God that they killed him in the name of the God that they thought they were embracing. They missed him. And that terrifies me. Because the Pharisees are church people. The Pharisees are small group leaders. They're greeters and ushers. They teach Sunday school. They have their quiet times. They know their Bible. The Pharisees are me. They're pastors. The Pharisees didn't have a memory that went back past their church attendance. They're the church people and they missed Jesus. Why did they miss him? The Pharisees were blinded by their need for affirmation. I think the Pharisees were blinded by their need for affirmation from the Savior. I think that they had some expectations. He's going to come from the line of David, so they're watching a particular line of David. He is certainly, if he's going to be the leader of Israel, he is certainly going to come up through our ranks. We're going to know about him. We're going to see him trending on Twitter when he's eight years old. We're going to know about this kid, right? And we're going to watch him. We're going to watch him go through the educational process. We're going to see him flourish as a Pharisee. We're going to see him rise to the top of our ranks. He's going to come through the system and he's going to tell us that we've been right about him this whole time. He's going to show up and he's going to tell everybody else that even though we're this backwoods country with no future, he's going to tell everyone else that we've been right and that our God is here and that we are important. They were blinded by their need for affirmation, by their certainty that when the Messiah shows up, he's going to point to us and he's going to tell us that we've been right this whole time. He's going to point to us, and he's going to say, well done, good and faithful servant. You have led my nation well. I am so glad I entrusted them to you. And instead, he called them a brood of vipers and whitewashed tombs. And when he did that, they couldn't possibly believe that this was the Son of God, because when the Son of God shows up, he's going to tell us that we've been right and he's going to point to everyone else and say, you should listen to them more. They had a perfectly built theology of who the Messiah was going to be and when Jesus showed up, he didn't fit into their theology so they rejected him. And they didn't see him for who he was. They were blinded by their need for affirmation. The disciples, though, they knew who Jesus was. The disciples knew that Jesus was the Son of God. And if anybody should have known what he came to do, it was the disciples, right? See, everybody thought, everybody in Israel thought that when the Messiah gets here, he's going to ascend to the throne of David. He's going to sit on an earthly throne. He's going to raise Israel out of obscurity into international prominence, throw off Roman rule, and establish us as the international power of the world. That's what Jesus is going to do. He's going to be a king and a political leader and he's going to throw off our oppressors and we're going to show them. But the disciples, the disciples walk with Jesus every day. The disciples were with Jesus when people were clamoring around him, trying to usher him into Jerusalem to throw off King Herod and take over the kingdom, they saw Jesus vanish from the crowd so he couldn't be made king yet. They watched Jesus perform miracles and then say, don't tell anybody that I did that because Jesus wasn't ready for the hassle that was going to come from word getting out about his arrival. He knew that people wanted him to be the king and demurred and pushed away from that because they didn't understand what he came to do. So surely the men who ate and slept and breathed and walked and ministered with him for three years knew what he came to do. But they didn't know. They barely even knew that he was the son of God. In a minute, we're going to get to the story about raising Lazarus from the dead. And it's not the reason that Jesus waited two days and allowed Lazarus to die so that he could go and perform the miracle to raise him from the dead. It's not the reason that he did this, but a big reason that we see in scripture is Jesus allowed Lazarus to die so that he could raise him from the dead so that the disciples would begin to believe more in who he was. We see this scene that's unforgettable to me when the disciples are on the Sea of Galilee in the middle of the night and the sea starts to get incredibly rough and the storm is brewing and a bunch of old school sailors are scared for their life that they're about to drown. So it was pretty serious out there. They're so scared that they go into the hold of the ship and they wake up Jesus and they say, you got to do something. We're going to die. And Jesus walks up to the deck and he says some choice words to the disciples. And he looks out at the storm and he says, peace, be still. And the wind died down and the waves stopped and the rain subsided. And he went back down in the hole and he went back to sleep. And when he left, the disciples looked at each other and they said, who is this man that even the wind and the waves obey him? They did not yet know who he was. They hadn't fully accepted that he was the Messiah, the Son of God. They didn't get it yet. And even the day after this, this story that we're looking at in Matthew, after they have dinner in Bethany, they wake up the next day and Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the donkey as a peaceful conquering king. And they're following behind him. And they're arguing who gets to be the secretary of defense and who gets to be the vice president. Thomas, you definitely have to be the secretary of agriculture. Nobody cares about that. That's what you have to do. They're arguing about who gets to do what. So much so that James and John's mom is following behind Jesus. And I swear to goodness, if I were a disciple and Donna, my mom, was with me, she would have been the one asking this question. I love moms like this. But James and John's mom leans into Jesus and she's like, when you sit on your throne, can my boys sit next to you? Can they have a prominent spot? And he says, woman, you don't know what you're asking for. They still thought he was going to go sit on David's throne. They don't know that he's claiming a heavenly throne. They don't know that he's about to conquer sin and death and Hades. They don't know that he's about to deliver us into eternal life. They don't know. They misunderstood him. They couldn't see him. They don't understand that he's going, this is a coronation for a burial. They don't get it. Just like the Pharisees were blinded by their need for affirmation, I believe that the disciples were blinded by their aspiration. The disciples were so blinded by their aspiration, by their personal goals, by what they thought Jesus was going to do for them, that when he showed up, they couldn't see him. They were so certain that this is Jesus, he's the Messiah, I'm going to follow him. And see, they had already washed out of the educational system. I'm not going to get into the details of it, but just by the fact that he found them plying a trade, that he found them building things, that he found them fishing, that he found them collecting taxes, just by the fact that Jesus found them plying a trade tells us that they washed out of trying to become Pharisees. And so now here comes this teacher, this Messiah, the Savior of the world who believes in me and he's going to elevate us and we're going to show the Pharisees who we are. We're going to be a big deal as he ascends into international prominence. We're going to write his coattails right into importance. They were so focused on their aspirations, on what they thought Jesus was going to do for them. Because I'm following Jesus, because I'm doing it well, because I'm beating all the other disciples, because I'm the first one to answer, he's going to be proud of me. He's going to be impressed with me. He's going to give things to me. He's going to bring me with him as he ascends. They were so blinded by their aspirations that they couldn't possibly accept that this person they think is going to sit on the throne is actually about to die. They couldn't see it. And what I think is haunting is that both the disciples and the Pharisees were blinded by their selfish expectations. The two groups who should have known who Jesus was, who should have seen him for who he was, who should have believed in him, who should have understood why he was there, are the two groups that messed it up the most. And I think it was because of their selfish expectations that blinded them. It kind of works like this. Some of my golf buddies may know what these are. There's these glasses that you can buy that they sell to golfers. They're called golf ball finding goggles, I think. They're very aptly named. You put them on and they're all blue. All you can see, they turn everything blue except for white. White like glows incandescently. If you've ever spent any time at all golfing, then you have also spent time in the woods wandering around like a moron looking for the ball that you hit. Happy to pick any ball and go back out onto the fairway. With these glasses, you can put them on and you can't see anything except for everything's blue and golf balls glow white. So you can see those, you can get them as they're supposed to help you find your ball. I've never used them before. I don't lose golf balls. I'm just straight down the middle of Fairway 260 every time. I don't need them. But other people do, and I think maybe they work. But I think that the expectations that the Pharisees and the disciples had worked similarly to those goggles. That once they put those glasses on of their expectations, that the only way they're going to see Jesus is if he fits into their narrow-minded theology, is if he fits into their narrow expectations. If Jesus acts and behaves exactly as they're expecting, it's the only way that they could possibly see him. And because they insisted that Jesus had to fit into the boxes that they had created for him, they missed him. And this should haunt us. If you spend any time as a church person, this should concern you. And we should begin asking ourselves this question, is it possible that we have our own blinding expectations? Is it possible that we have expectations of who Jesus is and how he would behave and what he's come to do and what it's going to look like when he shows up in our life and what it's going to look like when he sends someone into our life to speak truth to us and what it's going to look like if he were to walk through the door or what it's going to look like to do his ministry or what it's going to look like to have his character or what it's going to look like if he were to walk through the door, or what it's going to look like to do his ministry, or what it's going to look like to have his character, or what it's going to look like when he comes back. If we have some expectations that are so rigid and so dogged, is it possible that they're actually blinding us to who he really is? Is it possible that if Jesus showed up in our midst, if the second coming of Christ happened right now, is it possible that we wouldn't recognize him for who he is? The Pharisees didn't recognize Jesus because he came from some backwoods city and he had a bunch of rednecks that were following him around. It didn't come from an educated background. It wasn't anybody that general society respected. And if Jesus showed up in the woods of Appalachia and came over here to us with his redneck followers, would we point at them and say, that can't possibly be Jesus because look at who's following him. They're not educated. They don't know anything. They're not as smart as us. They're easily duped. They're easily fooled. That's not Jesus. I feel sorry for those people. Tell me Wake County wouldn't think that. Tell me we wouldn't be that arrogant. And so it haunts me. If the second coming happened right now and Jesus showed up, would I see him? Or do I have on glasses that only allow me to see him in my way? Are we so rigid in our faith and in our expectation of Jesus that we really think that we've cornered the market on understanding him? Do we really think that the Catholics don't know anything, that they're totally wrong about everything? Do we really think that the charismatic people, the ones who actually raise their hands and participate in worship, do we actually think that they're so far off base that their Jesus isn't our Jesus? Do we actually think that when we come into grace every week, we are just nailing it? Nate is exactly right about all his theology, and everything he says is true. Man, listen, 40-year-old Nate is so embarrassed by some of the stuff that 30-year-old Nate taught. I'm just trying to say stuff now that 50-year-old Nate doesn't make fun of. I think differently about so many things now than I used to. I would even tell you I understand less now than I used to claim to understand. I'm worried that some of our theological rigidity and certainty would actually cause us to miss Jesus if he showed up and defied some of our expectations. I'm worried that some of our expectations and aspirations would actually cause us to miss Jesus. If Jesus showed up in my life, surely he would heal us. Surely we would be safe. Surely my children wouldn't run into issues that are difficult. Surely this couldn't happen to my family. Surely I would get the promotion. Surely he would shield us from this pain. And so I carry around that truth that the people who were supposed to see him didn't. And it makes me wonder, and it should make you wonder, how then did Mary do it? How did Mary see what the others didn't? Why wasn't she blinded with expectations that blinded the others? What was so different about Mary? And I think the only way to answer that question is to look at the stories where we see her. Besides this story where she anoints the feet of Jesus, we see her two other times. The most prominent one is in John chapter 11 when her brother Lazarus is sick and they send word to Jesus, your friend Lazarus, you love him, he's sick, come heal him. And Jesus waits two days and allows Lazarus to die and then comes to Bethany. And when he comes to Bethany, Martha sees Jesus and tells Mary, Jesus is here, the teacher is here. And Mary runs out and says to Jesus what you think we would all say to Jesus. She says this, John chapter 11 verse 32, Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Yeah, that's a pretty fair statement, Mary. And I wish we could get into this story. I really do. We just, we don't have time. Jesus wept with her. That's an amazing thing to have a savior who weeps with us. And then he raises Lazarus from the dead, not to just depict raising someone from the dead because he loves Lazarus, but to show us in yet another way what he came to do, to deliver him into eternity, to conquer death and sin itself. That was a picture of the resurrection that was to come. And it is a picture of what happens to our souls when we know Christ. It's a picture of salvation is the resurrection of Lazarus. And he knew that Mary didn't understand that. But what I want to point out is when she runs to Jesus and she's ready to confront him, does she stand face to face with him and say, you did not meet my expectations? She fell at his feet. She fell before him. And it's an interesting posture because the other place we see her is that famous story with her and Martha, right? Jesus is coming over to the house. Martha's scrambling around, getting everything ready. Mary's sitting at his feet, listening to him. Look, it says this in Luke 10, verses 38 and 39. Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. She encounters Jesus. Martha's rushing around trying to impress him with all that she's doing for him. She simply sits at his feet and takes him in, listens to everything that he teaches. And then we see her in the story that we're highlighting today. Interestingly enough, in this story, where is Mary? At the feet of Jesus. There's something to that posture. All three times we see Mary, she's at the feet of Jesus. In sadness because she's going to lose him, in uncertainty because she doesn't know how this resurrection thing is going to work out, she's at the feet of Jesus. In adoration when he shows up to teach because she wants more of him, because she wants to understand him, she's at the feet of Jesus. And even in frustration and disillusionment, when he has disappointed her and she doesn't know what to do with it, what does she do? She falls at the feet of Jesus. It's a humble posture. It's a posture of adoration. It's a posture of subservience and submission. And what I believe, based on the life of Mary, is that her vision was enhanced by her selfless affection. She saw Jesus for who he was and understood and accepted what he came to do because of her selfless affection for him. All she wanted was more Jesus. She didn't want to bustle around and try to impress him. She just wanted to soak him in. She didn't want to accuse him and point a finger at him and confront him. She just wanted to understand, so she fell at his feet. She knew that it would look crazy for her to pour out that whole bottle of perfume, but she understood what he had really come to do, and so she was preparing him for burial. And what's interesting to me is, in at least two of these stories, Jesus did not meet her expectations. Do you understand the significance of, he let her brother die. And she shows up to do what we would do, is point the finger and say, how'd you let that happen? And even though Jesus is, even though her experience with Jesus didn't meet up to her expectations of Jesus, she allowed her affection to shape her expectations and just fell at his feet. She, even though Jesus did not meet her expectations, she fell at his feet undeterred in affection. It's interesting to me that the only other person I think alive who knew who Jesus was and what he came to do was John the Baptist. And John the Baptist walked through that same disillusionment where he thought that when Jesus shows up, you're going to get everybody out of prison. So he sent a messenger to Jesus and he said, are you going to get me out of prison? That's kind of the deal when the Messiah shows up and Jesus quotes the passage back to him and he says, but you're not getting out of jail. Blessed are those who do not fall away on my accord. Their affection for their Savior was so great that it had room within it to adapt their expectations to who he actually was. Mary's affection for Jesus was so deep and so profound and so abiding that it gave Jesus the space to be who he actually was. Everyone else was trying to limit him with their expectations. Mary's affection for Jesus was so generous that she was willing to adjust her expectations to who she actually encountered. And I'm so fearful for us that when Jesus doesn't meet our expectations, that we are too rigid in them and we refuse to wrap our expectations around the person of Jesus and who he actually is. And instead we walk away from him because that can't possibly be my Jesus because he does not fit into my box and I cannot see him through these glasses. My hope and prayer for us is that our affection for our Savior will be so great that it will make room for him to show up however in the world he wants to show up. That it will make room for him to show up in our life in whatever person he decides to show up in, to show up in whatever ministry and in whatever truth and in whatever sermon and in whatever prayer and in whatever song that he wants to show up in. And if you've been a Christian who's paying attention for any amount of time, you know good and well that Jesus shows up in your life in the most unexpected of ways. And if we have expectations that are so rigid that we refuse to accept the ways that He shows up, then we'll be like the Pharisees and the disciples and we'll miss Him. Or we can be like Mary and have an affection for Jesus that is so great that it wraps itself around anything that he does and adjusts our expectations to who our Savior actually is and allows him to show up in deep and profound ways in our lives. I hope that's what we will do. Let me pray for us. Father, we do love you. I pray that we would love you more. God, I want to know that if you were to show up right now, if the second coming happened and this Messiah figure walked into our life, God, give us the discernment to know if it's him. When you show up in our life, give us the affection for you to allow you to show up in whatever form you want to take. May we not be so rigid in our expectations of you and what you're going to do for us and how you're going to build us up and how you're going to affirm what we've always thought. May we not be so rigid in our expectation that we don't make any room in our heart for who you actually are. Give us eyes to see you, Jesus. Give us ears to hear you, Jesus. Give us an ever-increasing affection so that the only place we want to be like Mary is at your feet. Help us see you in all the ways that you make yourself known to us. It's in your name we pray. Amen.