Sermons tagged with John

Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. It's good to see all of you. If I haven't gotten a chance to meet you, I would love to get to do that after the service. This is, as Kyle said, the second part of our series called Grace is Going Home. This is going to culminate in Pledge Sunday on March the 1st. And so the idea is that we're going to kind of spend five weeks thinking, dreaming, praying, talking about this. We're going to have the rhythm of the business meetings or the informational meetings over the course of the next five weeks. And then on March the 1st, what we're asking everyone to do is to bring a sealed pledge card with you. So those are in your seats today. Those are very likely going to get emailed or mailed out to you maybe in the middle of this week or next week if you'd like them to come to your home if you can't be encumbered with carrying that to your car. I understand. If it were me, I would be nervous that I would bend the corners and that it wouldn't be perfectly flat when I had it at my house, and I would prefer it show up in an envelope. So I totally understand that. I'm like that. But what we're asking is that even if you can't be here on March the 1st, that you, if you want to participate, would mail yours in and we'll keep those. And then we are on March the 1st, Tom Ledoux, our finance guy, is flying in from Florida. I've asked him specifically to bring a briefcase so it looks very official. And he will be totaling those up and we'll just see what God is going to do here. We'll find out how he's moved in our hearts. So that's how that's going to work. And if you want to take one of those home and begin to pray about that, that's fine. I also want to be very clear that if you're new here, you're just coming into Grace, and you're not yet sure if this is your home, or if you've been here for forever, we don't want anybody to feel any pressure. I don't want it to feel awkward for anyone as we go through this, but hopefully this is something that if we call grace home, this is something that we're excited about. So that's what we're going to be looking at for the next five weeks. You may be wondering, what in the world am I going to preach about for five weeks? Am I just going to do like giving and campaign and vision for the next four weeks? That would be a real bummer. I don't want to prepare for that any more than you want to hear it. So that's not what we're going to be doing. For the next two weeks, actually, we're going to be answering what I believe is the greatest question facing grace. I believe that we're in a new season as a church, that we have new things to think about, new dreams to form, a new direction to go in. And so that as a church, collectively, we have a question facing us that, as I think about the church, I believe that we are posing this to God, whether we realize this or not. I think that this is the best thing to be asking God right now as grace, which is simply this, Father, what would you have us do in hell? I think that's the greatest question facing us right now. I think that pursuing a permanent home is the first step to walk in obedience to answer this question, but that really isn't the point of the campaign. That really isn't the point of the next five weeks. The point of the next five weeks, honestly, is to answer this question and have us move as a culture and as a church into what God would have for us in health. The reason I think that this is the question facing grace is that for many years, I don't know exactly how many, I wouldn't try to make a guess about that, but for many years, by necessity, the mission of grace has been grace. The mission of our church has been our church. The leaders of the church, the core of the church, those who have loved grace over the years, really our goal has been to get grace to a place where it was simply healthy, was to survive. By necessity for many years, the focus of grace has been turned inward on grace, going, how do we get healthy? How do we put the right structures and the right leadership in place so that we can be in a position where we are thriving? So for many years, the mission of grace has been grace. And now, in God's goodness, He's brought us to this place of health. He's brought us to a place where as a church, we are thriving. And I don't want to be gross about it, but by almost any statistical measure that you would look at a church and measure it, we're doing well. God is blessing us. And so we sit now in a place of health for the first time in a while. And instead of scrambling to get healthy and try to thrive one day, I think that we need to acknowledge as a body of believers that call this place home, that we are healthy, that we are thriving. And because of that, the question becomes, Father, what would you have us do in this health? On this foundation of health that he's built here, what would he have us do? And I believe his answer to that question is actually biblical. I believe it's the same for every church. And I believe that Jesus really gives us the outline of this answer in what's become known as the Great Commission. If you have a Bible, you can turn to Matthew chapter 28. This is the last chapter of the gospel of Matthew. The gospels tell the story of the life of Jesus. And at this portion of the Gospel, Jesus has been crucified for our sins. He has come back to life, risen from the grave. He has ministered to people for an amount of days. He's ministered to the disciples, set them about their task, and now he's going back up into heaven. And these are the final instructions that Jesus leaves for the disciples. These are the marching orders from God himself to his church. Jesus came, he stayed for three years, not only to die for our sins, but to establish his kingdom on earth, which is the church. And these are the marching orders that he gives to the church. He says, beginning in verse 18, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And it continues teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And then he says, I will be with you always. So if you were to ask Jesus, what would you have churches do in health? What do you want for your healthy churches? What should they set about doing? I think what he would tell us, I think his answer based on this passage, and not just this passage, but what he says over and over again about his kingdom, and what Paul and the rest of the New Testament, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, what he teaches us about God's kingdom and what we see in what's called the general epistles or the general letters after those from the other New Testament writers, I think what they would all say is that what God wants for his church is to grow in depth and in breadth. I think what Jesus wants for us, if we say, God, what would you have us do in health? I think Jesus would say, I want you to grow deep and I want you to grow wide. I want you to grow in your spiritual depth, in your walks with the Lord, in your intimacy with God. I want a church that is full of mature, seasoned, loving, obedient, compassionate, gracious believers. And I want a church that reaches out into the community and grows wide. I think a healthy church is growing in both of those directions. So often churches do one well and not the other. They go deep. They teach the scripture. Everyone there is mature. The problem is they don't reach out into their communities and share the love of Christ with those in their different circles of influences. Other churches are great at reaching out, but not so great at growing deep. And I think that Jesus's answer to what would you have a healthy church do is to grow both in depth and in breadth. That's why in that verse, I highlighted, make disciples, grow deep, of all nations. Why? Everybody. And really, this is the goal of every church, and this is what we're going to talk about for the next two weeks. This week, we're going to talk about growing deep, and next week, we're going to talk about growing wide, and how we want to do that at at Grace and what the biblical model is for those things. So today, what we're really asking is, as we focus on growing deep, is God, how would you have us make disciples at Grace? What does it mean to be a disciple? How would you have us make disciples? And really, this is the goal of every church. Every Bible-believing church ever says that their goal is to make disciples. They say it in different ways. If you've been in church world at all, you've heard mission statements of different churches. You've heard it preached about a bunch of different times. Some churches just come out right and say it. They're very direct. Our goal is to make disciple-making disciples. Other churches will say, know God and make God known, or dominate the community with the love of Jesus Christ. Love your neighbor, love Jesus, and live faithfully, or connecting people to Jesus and connecting people to people. Churches say it in different ways, but the goal is to make disciples. That's what we all want to do. Every church shares that in common. It is like the white whale of all ministry. It's what everybody is going for, but here's the secret of church world that you may or may not have figured out already in your adult life. Churches tend to be not very good at it. It is really hard to make disciples. And the more conversations I've had with other pastors, not me because I'm excellent at it and my church never fails at anything, but with other pastors, what I learn is that this is a hard process. It's a difficult task. In my last church, I was there for seven years. When I started there, it was a church of about 11 or 1200. By the time I moved on to here, it was a church of about 2000. They kept me in the corner. I did nothing. And none of that growth has anything to do with me. So I'm not bragging. I'm just telling you, that's the season of the church that I walked through. And during that season, we would go to conferences with other churches that were similar in size and oftentimes larger. And I can't tell you how many times at these conferences, we had our little breakout sessions and you discuss all the things that are happening. And I would sit around a table with other people who were small groups pastors, or if you have a conservative church that's adult education pastor, some churches call it a discipleship pastor, whatever you want to call it. My job was to think about the discipleship process at my church. My job was to answer the question, when someone walks in that door for the very first time and they are far from God, but they're spiritually curious, what systems and programs do we have in place to move that person from spiritually curious to spiritually mature disciple, walking with the Lord, reproducing themselves and making disciples? That was my job. What's the process? Someone comes in, they don't even know if they're a believer yet, but they're curious. What do we do as a church to take them from spiritually curious to elder of the church? That's what we do. It was my job to think about that process. And I would sit around the table with other people who their entire job was to think about that process too. And we would talk about the different things that we're doing, the different structures in our church, how we do small groups, and what discipleship means, and all of those things. And inevitably, somebody would ask, what are you guys doing to make disciples? I never really heard that great of an answer. Very few churches had a good answer for that. I thought I had a good answer. It will surprise you none to know that I just bowled right in there with what we were doing, thinking this was the greatest thing in the world. But after seven years of doing it, what I realized is it seemed good on paper, but we're not really producing disciples. And it's kind of a discouraging thing to think about. It's not that the church isn't making disciples, it's just that it's inefficient and ineffective, and there's no systematic way to do it, and it gets messy, and it gets difficult. And so I've spent a lot of time thinking about when we commit to something at Grace, how do we want to make disciples here? What should that process look like? And because I've thought about that a lot, and frankly a lot and listened to whatever I can consume, I've tried my best to think through, well, what are the reasons that it struggles? What are the reasons that I see that churches so often struggle to produce disciples in a meaningful and in an effective and efficient way? And I think that so many churches struggle because our definition of discipleship is unclear and our expectations around discipleship are unrealistic. I think so many churches struggle because our definition is unclear and our expectations are unrealistic. Now, what I mean is, when I say our definition is unclear, I mean our definition of both the process, what does discipleship look like, and of the actual term. What does it mean to be a disciple? I think we're unclear about the process. Y'all, I have seen so many different discipleship programs, right? I remember one, and it's a good program out of a church called Twelve Stone near where I'm from, and it's called Joshua's Men. And it's this beefed up three-year study. You sign up for it, and you go like every week at the same time, and you go through this curriculum, and there's a guy that leads you, and there's like groups of six to eight men, and you go through this curriculum, and at the end of it, you're a disciple. And I just thought, what a corporate America way to approach discipleship. What a bunch of dudes getting in a room. We want to make disciples. What do we need to do? What do we need to know? How do we need to learn? What are the blanks we need to fill in? How do we systematize this nebulous relational thing? Joshua's men. And it works sometimes, but not all the time. Most of the time, people crap out. Very few people make it through all three years, right? Or I want to be discipled, and so we'll look for that one person that we're going to have coffee with every week. And we sit down and we say, will you disciple me? And they say yes, and then we don't know what to do from there. So you just get into a small group, and we get into a small group, and we're not sure if discipleship is happening. I've seen so many programs and so many efforts that I think we're unclear on the process. What does it take to produce a disciple? And I know that we're unclear at Grace, because over the past, I would say, year and a half, two years, I've had multiple conversations with people here who have wanted to meet with me. And when they meet with me, they say, hey, I'm looking for someone to disciple me. I'm looking for someone to mentor me. I'm ready to take the next steps in my faith. I'm ready to grow in my walk. What do I need to do? Who do you think I can talk to? Who would you recommend? Do you have, like, just a bank of disciple makers that you can just, like, plug me into? Do you have, like, a catalog I can talk to? Who would you recommend? Do you have like just a bank of disciple makers that you can just like plug me into? Do you have like a catalog I can choose from? And I'll have other people who will come to me and they'll go, hey, I'd love to disciple somebody. Do you have any young people who are just clamoring for it? And what those conversations tell me is that I have not been clear about our process at Grace. And so I wanted to try to bring some clarity this morning to both what the process is and what the definition of it is. Because on Tuesday, we had an elder meeting. And at the elder meeting, I just brought up the point, I think that there were six elders in the room. And I'm not being overly flattering. I mean this with all sincerity. I love our elders. I have a great amount of respect for our elders. I would put our elders up against any other, not that it's a competition, but I just think we have some really capable, smart people in that room, and I'm grateful for them. And to those people, I said, if I asked you guys to define discipleship, what are the chances I would get if I set each of them down, all six of them that happened to be there that night, and I got to talk with them individually and ask them, how would you define discipleship and what a disciple is? They all agreed that I would get six very different, likely meandering, probably unclear, lacking precision, lacking concision answers about what discipleship is. They would all be different versions of right. They would all wander there eventually. And these are people who love the church and who are committed to the idea of making disciples, but collectively as a group, we didn't have a concise way to explain it. And I think in so many places, the definition of what a disciple is and what discipleship, the process is, is unclear. So I wanted to try to bring some clarity to it for grace and come up with a new way for us to think about as we seek to become disciples and make disciples, which are God's instructions to us. About a year and a half ago, I went to a conference. It was a pastor's conference out in San Diego. It was a guy named Larry Osborne that was putting on the conference. He's got a big, huge church out there. He's in his mid-60s. I love the way this guy thinks about ministry. And he gave me a definition of discipleship that I had never heard before. I had spent most of my vocational life thinking about it, studying it, learning about it, trying to frame it up. And he gave me a definition that was so simple that it totally changed the way I thought about discipleship. And I've been waiting to kind of spring it on you and make this how we think about it at Grace. So this isn't from me, this is from him, but this is what he said. And this is how I want to define the process of discipleship at Grace. Discipleship is simply taking your next step of obedience. That's what discipleship is. Now, you're adults, you love Jesus, you can poke that and prod that, and you can think through that, and you can take it home and work it out and see if it makes sense to you, but to me it makes perfect sense that discipleship is simply taking your next step of obedience. That's what it is. We are on that course. It's a process of simply taking our next step of obedience. And with every step, we get closer to God. With every step, we sacrifice more of who we are and accept more of what God wants. With every step, we admit more and more that I am not the Lord of my life, that God is the authority in my life. So with every step, we are getting closer to God. So being on the course of discipleship simply means taking our next step of obedience. And if you think about it, this is what Jesus taught the whole time. In the scriptures, our love of God is irrevocably coupled with our obedience to him. Look at what Jesus says in the Gospel of John in two different places, a chapter apart. I love the happenstance of the references of these verses, 14, 15, and 15, 14. He says, if you love me, this is Jesus speaking, if you love me, keep my commandments. And the very next chapter, if you are my friends, do what I command. It's not complicated. Jesus wasn't trying to shroud discipleship in mystery. He wasn't trying to make spiritual growth difficult or hard to grasp or understand. He wasn't even trying to make it for the spiritually elite. He just said, if you love me, you know how I know? You obey me. You know who my friends are? The people that are close to me? The people who obey my father. In Mark that I'm going through with my men's group, his mom and his siblings show up to try to stop him from teaching because they thought he was crazy. This was early on in his ministry. And he's in the middle of teaching and they say, Jesus, your mother and your brothers are here. And he said, my mother and my brothers are those who obey the will of my Father. Jesus himself couples our love of God with our obedience to him. So discipleship is simply walking, taking steps of that obedience. John, the disciple, was, I would argue, the closest disciple to Jesus. I don't know that he was like the best believer. I have no idea to measure that. But relationally, he seems closer to Jesus than anybody else who is living. And at the end of his life, he wrote letters to the churches. And in the second letter that he wrote to the church, in 2 John 6, verse 1, he says, and this is love. He's talking about if we say that we know Jesus, but we don't have love, then we are liars. And then he defines love. This is love, that we walk in obedience to his commands. It is one thing to say that we love God. It is one thing to say that we believe. It is one thing to say that we love God above all else, heart, soul, and mind, amen. That's another thing to walk in obedience. That's why I'm increasingly convinced that what it means to be discipled is to simply take our next step of obedience. And here's what this means, and I love this. This means that discipleship is for everyone. Discipleship is for all of us. I think if you're in the church, sometimes you've heard the word discipleship. You may have been here long enough to have heard that word or been in Christian culture long enough to have heard that word but not really know what it means. I think some of us see that something like far off, that it's like the spiritual equivalent to buds training for the seals in the Navy, that it's like for the military elite, that it's for Christian black belts, and that's not the deal. Disciples are not people on mountainsides who don't talk to anybody but Jesus and just like eat grass. That's not what disciples are. Disciples are not unattainable figures like Elijah or Abraham. Those are pictures of disciples, but those are pictures of people who have been walking and taking steps of obedience for their entire life. But discipleship is for everyone. Has it ever occurred to you that the disciples were disciples before they were Christians? You ever thought about that? When Jesus goes to Matthew, the tax collector, and he says, hey, I want you to follow me. And Matthew puts down his instruments and he leaves his table and he follows Jesus. I don't think he yet fully understood that this is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. And one day he's going to die and I'm going to place my faith in that death so that it covers over my guilt and God accepts me and my relationship is restored. Matthew didn't know all that, but you know what he did do? He took a step of obedience. He said, okay, I'm going to follow you. Peter and James and John, when they put down their fishing nets, they didn't yet know the full magnitude of who this man was that they were following. I would argue that they weren't even yet believers. They simply took a step of obedience. And so what that means for you today is, even if you're here this morning and you wouldn't yet call yourself a believer, discipleship is still an option for you because it's simply an invitation to take your next step of obedience. And everybody has one of those. Your next step might be, okay, I've had some nagging questions about spiritual things for a long time. I'm going to take the step to begin to learn about answers to those questions. Maybe you've been gathering and learned some information about those questions. And maybe your next step is to get more serious about what it might look like to take on a faith. Maybe your next step is to accept Christ. Maybe it's to get baptized. Maybe your next step is to have that hard conversation that you've been needing to have. Maybe your next step is to confess something to your spouse or to someone you care about. Maybe your next step is to finally get locked into the discipline of waking up early and spending time in God's Word and spending time in prayer. Everybody's next step is different, but here's the thing about the Holy Spirit. I don't have to stand up here and guess at what they might be until I hit yours because he's already telling you. If you're a believer, we all have a next step of obedience at all times. So discipleship is for everyone, and it always beckons, and it always invites. It is not for the spiritually elite. It's for everybody. And if that's the process of discipleship, if that's what it means to be being discipled, then this is how we define a disciple at grace. This is actually something that I talked over with the elders. This is not my definition. This is our definition. The one that I presented to them at first, they said was too absolute and exclusive, and I came around to agreeing with them. So this is a result of a group think of not just me, but the leadership of the church. And what we believe that a disciple is, and how we want to define it as grace, is a disciple is one who is increasingly walking in obedience to God. A disciple is someone who is increasingly walking in obedience to God. Have you taken more steps this year than last year? As you progressed last year, did you continue to progress or did you stop? A disciple is one who is increasingly walking in obedience to God. At some points, we get off the train. At some points, we stop walking in obedience. At some points, we get into a bit of a spiritual rut, but when we get back onto it and we begin to take those steps again, then we are walking in discipleship again, which means that at grace, what we want to do, if we want to make disciples like Jesus told us to do, then what we want to do is constantly be showing ourselves and one another what our next step of obedience is, constantly encouraging one another to take those next steps of obedience and define a disciple as someone who is simply walking and increasing obedience to the Father. That's how we want to define those things. So that's how I want to bring clarity. If we say that one of the reasons that churches struggle is because we're unclear, I want to do what I can to bring some clarity to how we think about the process and the definition of the term at grace. But I also said that our expectations are unrealistic. I think what we expect around discipleship is something that doesn't always work in adult life. I think often we get locked into the single mentor paradigm is what I'm calling it. Often in church we get locked into the single mentor paradigm. We look at the way that Jesus discipled the disciples. And because the disciples had one person that was pouring into them for three years, then our expectation of discipleship is that we'll find this one spiritual mentor that we look up to in every way in life and that will sit under them and they'll teach us. It's this life-on-life model where they followed Jesus around and lived with him. It says, foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head. So the disciples just followed him around couch surfing for three years. I know it's crude, but it's true. That's life-on-life discipleship. We can't in our culture really mimic that. But we still exist in this single mentor paradigm that as adults, we're supposed to find the one person to follow and pour into us. And I've even said things. You've heard pastors say things like this before. I've said it. We see the model of it with Paul and Timothy. I've said before, everyone needs to have their Paul and everyone needs to have their Timothy. Everybody needs to have someone who's pouring into them and everybody needs to have someone that they're pouring into. This kind of single mentor paradigm. The problem is, in 2020, that's not very effective. With the staff this week, the full-time staff, Kyle and Steve and Aaron, in our staff meeting, I said, which of you have ever gone to someone and asked them to disciple you? And because there are people who care about their walk with the Lord, because it matters to them, all of them said, yeah, multiple times. And I said, how'd that go for you? And they said, eh, it was all right. I said, how many of you have had somebody come to you and ask you to disciple them? And they all said, yeah, we've had that before. How'd that go? They said, I don't really know what to do. I had somebody this week that I had coffee with, and he shared with me that years ago, there was a group of guys who were in their 20s, and he was in his 30s or maybe early 40s, and they went to him and they said, hey, will you disciple us? And he said, sure, and he started meeting with them, and then they didn't know what to do. We have a lack of clarity around the process. Our hope and our desire is to find the single mentor that can lead us for the next however many years and guide us through all things in life. And the truth of it is, that's a really rare find, particularly in adulthood. It's not impossible. It's not bad. It's great. And it happens. But if any of you have ever had someone that you said, yeah, I feel like that person discipled me, I would be willing to bet that nine out of 10 of us in the room, it was in high school or in college. I feel like I've discipled people, but they were always in high school or in college. It's a unique season of life that allows for that. But as adults, finding a single mentor to lead us in perpetuity becomes an ineffective thing. And I think hoping for that and expecting that is one of the reasons that we fail to make disciples. So instead of that, I want to propose to you guys the idea of seasons, topics, and communities of discipleship. Seasons of discipleship, topics of discipleship, and communities of discipleship. And here's what I mean. If you think about the disciples, if we understand discipleship as simply taking our next step of obedience towards God, yes, Jesus was the mentor. He was the guy pouring into those. He was the chief minister to the disciples in those three years. But do you mean to tell me that during those three years, the community that they had together of accountability and of encouragement and of challenge didn't help some of them take their next steps of obedience? Do you mean to tell me that as Jesus put different things in front of them, as he put different steps of obedience in front of them, go two by two and go into the surrounding towns and teach what I've taught you and perform the miracles that I've performed, do you mean to tell me that they didn't lean on each other to be encouraged towards that obedience? Do you mean to tell me that that wasn't a community of discipleship? I would argue that the disciples discipled the disciples. I think that's what they did. Furthermore, Jesus only spent three years with them. They had the rest of their lives to live. If you believe some research, they were at the latest in their early 20s when Jesus ascended into heaven. They had a long way to go. Who discipled Peter for those remaining years? Who discipled James and John? They did. They continued to encourage one another to take their next step of obedience towards God. So we want to have communities of discipleship here. We want to have topics and seasons of discipleship. I believe in seasons of discipleship because I believe that God puts people in our path for a season that we learn from during that time, and then at some point or another, that season's in, and each of you move into your next phase. We see that in Jesus's ministry and the disciples' ministry. We see Paul enter into John Mark's life and disciple him for a season. We see Paul disciple Timothy for a season. We see Paul and Barnabas work together for a season. I think that there are seasons of people in our life and things that God wants us to work on, and I believe that there are topics of discipleship. A great example of this is the small group that meets this afternoon. This afternoon, Steve, our worship leader, and his wife, Lisa, start their marriage small group. It's going to last for about six weeks, and then after that, they may continue to meet and discuss other things. But for those six weeks, absolutely what they are doing is discipling those couples in marriage. It's a topic of discipleship. What they're going to do is show them how to take their next steps of obedience in their marriage. It's a community of discipleship because it's 16 to 20 people who are getting together every week, and they're going to encourage one another in that direction. It's a season of discipleship. It's not going to go on forever. It's going to happen now, and then move on to another thing. I want us to reshape the way we think about discipleship, to move away from the single mentor paradigm. We might find that, but discipleship can happen outside of that. And start looking for people and communities and opportunities that can encourage us to take our next step in obedience to God. This is why we have small groups shaped up the way that we do. We sign up for our small groups every January and every August. And part of the design of that is to give you easy in-ramps and easy off-ramps. You try a small group for a semester. It works for you as a community of discipleship and a season of discipleship, maybe even a topic of discipleship then. And then the next semester, you do what seems most helpful to you. So maybe we stay in our small groups in perpetuity, and that becomes a community of discipleship for years to come. And maybe we shift into a different group. But our small groups are structured in such a way that we can move into and out of whichever groups are going to help us along our path the best. Which is again why I want us to start thinking about discipleship in terms of seasons and community and topics. And as we think about, man, I wish somebody would disciple me. If you're thinking about meeting with someone, if you're thinking about approaching someone, if you see someone and you respect some of the things that they do, I would encourage you to think in terms of a question, to think in terms of a topic. Don't go to someone and say, hey, would you disciple me? That's weird for everybody because we don't know what to do after that. But you may notice that this lady loves her husband in a way that I have not seen. So you might go to her and you might say, hey, I see the way that you love your husband. Will you teach me to be a wife the way that you are? It's a topic. It's an easy expectation. She can disciple you in that for a season. You may look at somebody and you may see the way that they run their business or the way that they orchestrate their career. And you may go, hey, listen, I see the way that you honor God, but you still achieve success. Will you disciple me in what it means to be a godly professional or a godly entrepreneur? That's a question. That's a topic. That's a season. You might, as a couple, go to another couple and say, hey, we see your kids. They're in college or they're adults and they seem to have their act together. We'd love to have kids that look like yours. Will you tell us your secrets? Can we have dinner at our house and you'll just tell us, we'll ask you questions about being parents. That's discipleship. It's a topic. It's a season. And if you do that, those things might morph into ongoing relationships of long-term discipleship, and that's great. But for those of us who are seeking to grow, I want us to start to think in terms of topics and seasons. For those of you who would seek to make disciples, your goal and your job is to simply help them see their next step of obedience and give them the courage and the ability to take it. And if someone does come to you and say, hey, would you disciple me? I would encourage you to try to get them to reframe the question in, what do you want to know? How can I help you best? What specifically do you want to get out of this to make sure it's fruitful for everyone? So at Grace, let's make disciples. Let's be disciples. Understanding that means we are a people who are committed to increasingly walk in obedience to the Father, that we are constantly thinking about our next step. I'm going to begin incorporating next step language in my sermons and pose to us what's the next step of obedience for us. What's your next step of obedience here? We want to see that language show up in our small groups. Small group leaders, as you shepherd the people who are in your groups, disciple them. Your job is to think for them. What is their next step of obedience and how can I help them take it? People who volunteer in the children's ministry every week, those kids that you love so much that you see once a month or every other week or however often it is, you're thinking actively for them. What is their next step of obedience and how can I help them take it? If you volunteer in the student ministry, if you pour into anybody in this church or anybody in your life, if you have kids, you are the chief discipler of them. Let me encourage you to shape up your parenting in such a way where you're thinking, what is their next step of obedience, Father, and how can I encourage them to take it? And in doing those things with clarity, let's be a church that grows deep. Let's be a church that is full of disciples, that is full of kind, generous, loving, knowledgeable, gracious believers who can all say that we are increasingly walking in obedience to our God together. Let's pray. Father, we love you. We thank you for loving us. God, I pray that Grace would be a church that makes disciples. Help us, God, from the leadership, to the partners, the volunteers, small group leaders, small group members, from people who would consider themselves on the periphery and even considering, help us all to take steps of obedience towards you. God, make us good at making disciples. If nothing else, God, if we stink at everything else as a church, I pray that this would be a place where if you come here, you will grow in a deeper knowledge of you. Father, for those of us who are facing steps of obedience that are difficult, please give us courage. Give us a faith to believe that even though we can't see what's on the other side of that step, even though we might fear bad consequences on the other side of that step, that ultimately, God, what you have for us when we take that step is better. Help us trust that you came to give us life to the full. God, build at grace a church of disciples that love you and help other people towards you. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here at Grace. I'm thrilled to be here this morning to be able to kick off our joy series that we're going to be going through throughout December. To start out, we're going to be in John 1. And so I tell you that right now because I would love for you to be able to open up your Bibles with me if you've brought them or if you can get the one out of the back of the seat. We're going to be reading out of John 1. And as you're turning to that, I wanted to make a quick shout out to my younger brother, Jay, who's also a student pastor and who is also preaching at his church this morning. And so I say that one to say, Jay, we're thinking about you and we're praying for you. But also as a public service announcement to you that if you leave and you say, man, that sermon was not good, then I assure you, you can go to his church's website and listen to his recording tomorrow and it will be much better than what you have this morning. Anyways, let's go ahead and let's jump into scripture. We're going to be reading that light so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. Let me reread 6 through 8 real quick. Let's pray real quick. God, thank you for bringing us here this morning. God, thank you for allowing me to come and just get to share my joy in you. Allow that joy to radiate through me, and please speak through me this morning and into the hearts of the people who are here. God, we love you so much. Amen. So just a quick background before we really jump in and before we really dive into these verses, I want to give a little background behind the John that is being talked about in here. This is not the titular John of the actual book. This is talking about John the Baptist. John the Baptist is someone who's also referred to as or known as John the Forerunner. He was basically the forerunner for the Messiah that he was actually prophesied about saying there will be a man who comes. He will come and he will make way for the Lord. He will make way for the light for Jesus. This man, he's going to come and he is going to make it known that Jesus was on the move and that Jesus was on the way. He lived in the woods. He was kind of a gross dude. He ate bugs. His entire purpose, his entire life's mission and life's goal was just preaching to these people. What was he preaching? He was preaching, get ready, get prepared, repent, because the Lord is coming, Jesus is on his way, and he is about to rock everyone's world. He was Jesus' cousin. He had a similarly miraculous birth, just as Jesus had. He had all of this awesome stuff. He had these things that made him special, so he should be in the Bible, right? He had a miraculous birth. He was prophesied for that literally people hundreds of years before had said, this guy is going to come, and he's going to signify the coming of Jesus. And all of these things are incredible. Maybe more notable than all of those things is that Jesus himself said, John is the greatest of any man who's been born of a woman. That there is no one greater than John. And that is high praise. That is the highest praise. That is coming from Jesus' mouth. And you think about it, it's like, that makes sense, right? There's a lot of special and there are a lot of miraculous things. But what I think is that Jesus said that not simply because he was somebody who was prophesied about, not simply because he was one who came and fulfilled a prophecy and had this miraculous birth and experienced these miracles, but because he was someone who understood his calling and understood his life and how he stacked up against Jesus and his entire life was motivated by that. I think what made him so great and why he was so notable and noteworthy and standoutish in Jesus' eyes was because he understood the claims of seven and eight. He came as a witness to testify concerning the light so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light. And so I stand here this morning with my ultimate goal and my ultimate message being that I think that it is attainable for us to be seen in the light and to be seen in the light of Jesus' eyes as the same type of person as John the Baptist. No, we are not going to be the named fulfillment of prophecy. And no, we are not. Most of us probably didn't have this miraculous birth, but every single one of us can live that passage out. Every single one of us can live the calling of John's life, of that we realize and we understand that we are not the light. But boy, do I know the light. And I think why John stood out in this time was because I think better than any person who walked the earth prior to Jesus's death and resurrection, I think John understood why Jesus was there. And when you understand why Jesus is there, how could you do anything but proclaim what he was coming to do? This man that you've been looking for, that you've been searching for, this king that us Israel Jews, that we have been searching for and that we've been excited to come and so ready for so he can come and save us. I'm here to tell you that he's here. And I think John knew that he wasn't meant to be an earthly king like a lot of people thought. I think John understood that it meant that he was going to solidify our eternal home in heaven. And that meant that he had this joy in Christ and this passion for Christ that allowed him to preach in such a way that as he preached in the back of these woods and ate these things that all of these people, thousands of people in Israel had to come and hear what he had to say. Because he had a message worth hearing and he was preaching it out of the joy that he had found through knowing and understanding that message. And so when he was asked, when people came to him and he said, are you this person? Are you this light? Are you the savior that is coming and the king that is going to come and save us? He said, no. There is one that's coming that is far greater. And I guarantee you, I promise you, he is going to be far more than anything that you could ever understand. And so now, repent, give way to him. John was a huge deal. He was a biblical hero. But what I'm here to tell you is I think at his base, he understood that he wasn't the light and that he understood who the light was. And because he came in contact with him, it changed his life forever. And it built up this joy in him where he had to let it out to everyone he possibly could. As I was thinking about this, and as I was thinking about John and his life and what that looked like, and as I was thinking about how that connects to our life and maybe what it looks like in our life, I was reminded of an episode of one of my favorite shows. Now, if you ask any of my students, if you ask any of my friends, if you ask my small group, if you ask my family, hey, what do you think the over-under for how many sermons it'll take Kyle to come to a TV or to a movie reference? Every one of them would say probably one, and it'll be within the first two minutes. I love TV. I love movies. I watch it all the time. I make way too many quotes and references. I've got students up here laughing because they know it. I've got small group people that I see in the back laughing because they also know it. Yeah, hey, I got a fist bump in the back, so I know I'm saying something that someone agrees with. They would all say one, but hey, I'm here to tell you. I mean, hold your applause, but I'm here to tell you that it is now my third sermon here at Grace, and this is only going to be my first TV reference. But I just think it's perfect. This reference is going to be from a show called The West Wing. I don't know how many of you guys have seen it or know of it or whatever. It's an older show. It's a show that's on Netflix that I have watched. I'm actually currently re-watching it on Netflix because I just think it's that good and because, as previously stated, I love watching TV. In this particular, well, let me give you a background behind what the West Wing is. If you don't know what the West Wing is, it is basically giving a peek behind the curtain at what the West Wing of the White House looks like, of the offices and the president and the president's staff and them working and running a country. And this particular episode that I'm thinking about is actually a flashback episode. And so we know that these people are in the White House, that there's a president,b Bartlett, and then he has this staff that is working, and they've done this. This episode in particular is a flashback that talks about how the staff came to be on staff for President Bartlett. And so it opens up with this guy named Josh Lyman. He's basically, he is running the campaign for this other presidential candidate named John Hoynes. They basically have it sewn up. This guy is going to be the next Democratic presidential candidate. He's got the whole thing sewn up in the bag. Everyone else is a far distant second, and they know that it's going to happen. It opens up, though, not really as exciting, as joyful as that sounds. This opens up. They're sitting in a circle, and Josh is going off and arguing and fighting against all of the other people that are at this table. And it ends with John Hoynes. The candidate walks him out and says, Josh, dude, you've got to chill out. You've got to get off of my back. You've got to get off of these people's backs. To which Josh says, sir, I don't know what we're about. I don't know what we're for. I don't know what we're against. I don't know what we believe in. All I can really tell is that we're for winning and that we're against losing. And you see the guy who is destined to become the chief of staff to the president, one of the highest jobs that you can hold in this country, and yet you see in his face, you hear in his voice the discontent, that it's not enough because he's working for this guy that he doesn't see is the real deal. That conversation ends, and one of Josh's dad's old buddies comes up to him. His name is Leo. He says, Josh, can I talk to you for a minute? So they walk outside, and Leo says, Josh, I'd like for you to go see a guy named Jeb Bartlett speaking in Nashua in a few days. Josh is like, why would I do that? Like, not only, like, I know that he is a presidential candidate, but I'm already working for a candidate. And not only am I working for a candidate, I'm working for the candidate, right? I'm working for the candidate who is about to win. Why would I go and check out this guy who has absolutely no way of winning? And Leo says, I just think you should check him out. If not for me, just do it because I'm an old friend of your dad's. And he walks away. And you see in Josh's eyes, and you see this glimmer of hope that this is probably a task that is not going to produce any fruit. He's probably going to go, be like, all right, I did it. You're welcome, sir. But you can see that there's some type of intrigue because what you realize is he realizes this could be the real thing, that just in case I want to go check it out. And so he books a trip to go there. On his way there, before he goes, he hits up New York City. He hits up this guy named Sam, one of his buddies who's working in this law office. Basically, Sam is this brilliant lawyer that what he does, in probably his words, he works for the bad guys and makes sure that he insures the bad guys to where they don't lose money if they skimp in ways when they buy boats and ships in case they have some type of oil spill or whatever. Like, not good dudes. Like, can we all agree? Nods all around the room, not good dudes. And so you can see within Sam's life before Josh comes into it that Sam is pretty discontent as well, right? He's not happy there. He doesn't really want to be there. It's basically just a job. It's a law firm that's about to make him partner. Josh shows up. They go get a hot dog, 9.30 a.m. I don't know why I said that, but it's a funny fact, and so I said it. They go, and basically Josh says, man, I'd love for you to come work for us. You're a great writer. Come write some speeches. Come be a part of our campaign. Make it better, and you can work for the next president of the United States. Sam pretty quickly turns him down. And you understand that, right? Like, you understand, like, he's got a life in New York. He's got a job who pays really well in New York, and he's happy, and he's satisfied there. Or he may not be happy, but he's satisfied there. And that makes sense until you see, until you peel back the curtain as to why he really turned him down. He says, Josh, Hoynes isn't the real thing, is he? The guy that you're working for that's about to be the president, he's not the real thing, is he? Josh stumbles and he fumbles around for his words until finally Sam cuts him off. He's like, dude, what are you doing, man? What are you doing? And Josh, I don't know. Before he leaves, Josh says, hey, Sam, I'm going to see this guy speak in Nashua. If I see the real thing, do you want me to come and tell you? Sam says, you won't have to because you've got a terrible poker face. So Josh heads over to Nashua. He listens to this man. He's sitting in this like half-filled VFW room with these old families that are there, and he's giving this speech. Josh is chilling, whatever. At the end of the speech, they take questions. Someone raises his hand. He stands up. He says, Mr. Bartlett, I voted for you three different times. And you have continued to choose to hurt me and my family and my crops and what I do. You are taking money out of my pocket. How whatever he can to where even if he's lying, he's telling them what they want to hear because he needs their vote to win a presidency. But instead, he stands up, he says, you know what, you're right. I got you pretty good there. And I'm sorry that you lost money, but I am standing here and telling you that I did what I think is right. My goal was not about the money in your pockets, but to make milk more accessible to all people. He stands in front of these farmers and tells them, yes, I have made movements that have hurt you, that have taken money from your pockets, but I'm telling you that I stood up and I did what I believe is right. And if you're asking me to tell you something different now that I'm standing here in front of you, I'm not going to do it. And if you don't think that that's a value that you want in your presence, then do not vote for me. He stood up for what he believed and for what he knew was right in his eyes instead of telling these people what they wanted to know. He wasn't running an election. He wasn't being a politician. He was just being someone who said, I want to stand up for what I think is right. And it pans to the back of the room to Josh. And he doesn't go and talk to anyone. He doesn't go and talk to Leo who invited him. You instead just see a guy who just looks up and you see just this wonder and this awe in his eyes as he's listening to this president talk. And he's like, are you kidding me? This is it. This is the real thing. This guy's not trying to win an election. This guy's trying to do the right thing. And if he can do that, he would love to win an election so he can continue to do what he thinks is right. He realized that he had spent all of this time with John Hoynes just trying to win an election. And now here is this guy standing up for what he knows is right. Speaking truth to that power, standing up for his convictions. And you can see in his face that his life is about to change. Just in his face and just in the joy of his face, you can tell this guy's all in. So what does he do? He goes right back to New York. He's so excited that he forgets where Sam works and he forgets the name of the law agency. And so he's standing out in the middle of the pouring rain on this payphone and he's talking to the operator saying, ma'am, what are some of the law agencies? I don't know how to call. I want to call ahead, but I can't remember his law agency because he's freaking out because he's so excited. He goes, but ma'am, you've got to help me out. I just saw this guy and I just, you got to help me. He can't get the words out because he's so overjoyed that he's finally found the real thing. When he finally finds Sam's law office, Sam is sitting there with his clients and he's sitting there with the rest of the people that are on the staff. Josh comes up to the window. He knocks on it. Sam looks up and you see Josh grinning ear to ear, soaking wet, doesn't say a word, points at his face. And Sam knows that is joy. That's what I'm looking for. That's the face I was looking for. And that's how you're going to get me to come with you. He stands up. He walks out of the room. And that is that for Josh and Sam working for President Bartlett. And this was a flashback episode, so we already know how it goes. We know that their life becomes fixated on getting this guy elected. And that once he becomes elected, you're able to see over and over again that because they love this man and because they believe in this man, because he's the real deal, they are happy and proud to say, I serve at the pleasure of the president. Now this is a human and worldly example, but is that not what it looks like to be someone who believes this passage? This is the real deal. I've experienced this, and because of that, I am overwhelmed with joy and excitement. And I'm so passionate about this now that I have to let people know. Josh had seen the real thing. And because of that, his joy was uncontainable. He had to let it out. He had to let his buddy know. He had to let the world know of who this guy was because this guy was the real thing. And it was unmistakable. There was no way to of passion and the type of joy that John had experienced and why he had made such an impact in Israel. Oh my gosh, look at this Jesus that I get to tell you about. I cannot wait to tell you what he's going to do for you. And I think that is where the impact came from. Because he himself was not the light. He came only to be a witness to the light. And I believe that this is what our lives are meant to look like. Not only do I believe it, I think that throughout the Bible, everybody is caught like there's just this huge, giant call of your life should reflect Christ. Your life should build up Christ. Your life should make Christ known. Your words, your actions, everything should make Christ known. In John 20, 21, Jesus says to his disciples, one of the last things he says before he's raised up to heaven, he says, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. The Father has sent me. I'm going back up to heaven. You are now my body. It is now your turn to go and be a witness to me. Unlike John, guess what? We've got the rest of scripture. Unlike John, who is so overjoyed and so impassioned by this is the Jesus that is coming, this is the Jesus who's coming to win, this is the Jesus who's coming to save, we have the joy and the passion of this is the Jesus that we live in. Not simply the expectation of the light that is to come, but as the result of the light that has come. The joy that John was promising through Christ has now been seen. It has been delivered to us and we live in a time where we are able to point to Christ in all of who and what he was and is. We're able to see his life on earth and be able to read and say, oh my gosh, look at the way that he loved. Look at the way that he served. Look at the way that he healed. We look at his death and we realize that this death, that his ultimate reason for coming was to die for us, that he took our sins and he said, I am making a way for you to enter into eternity with your father and with my father because I'm going to die for you. He was raised to life signifying the end of death for anyone who would believe. And he was raised up to heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, constantly, every day, every minute, every hour, interceding for us with the Father, that we forever have access directly to the Father because of Jesus. This joy is no longer living out of the expectation of who will Jesus be, but the reality of who Jesus is forever. And so I ask you, how much worse should our poker face be? How much harder should it be for us to contain this joy? John the Baptist was called to witness, and he witnessed the light. Not in the way of Josh going to Sam in the first time, where he knew it was out of obligation. He knew it's what he should do. Sam immediately saw through that. He could tell that Josh didn't truly believe what he was asking him to do. No. How did John the Baptist do it the way that Josh did it the second time where all it took was one look to see that something about Josh was different because he had encountered the light. John the Baptist encountered the light and he was never the same because of it. And just as he was called to witness to the light, so are we. And so this Christmas, I urge you to seek after this joy. If you just started coming to church or if you've been around church for a while but you've never truly found or experienced this joy, I ask that you would pursue that over anything else this Christmas. Pursue the real thing. And if you have found it, allow this to serve as a reminder to how good, how great God is, and allow this Christmas season that every time you think about, you get so overjoyed at the fact that we are celebrating not only that Christ is coming, but that Christ has come. And let this joy radiate from your lives in a way that is unmistakable. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for all that you are. God, the more I learn about you, the more overjoyed I am because I just realize how far from you and how distant from you that I should be, but because of all that you've done, because of your love and because of your sacrifice, that God, I'm able to have access to you and to your Father. Lord, I pray that our lives radiate your joy, that as we witness, it's not out of obligation, but it's out of a joy and a passion of something that we cannot hide. God, we love you so much. Amen.

Good morning. My name is Nate. I'm one of the pastors here. For the unindoctrinated, for those who haven't been a part of the series the whole time, what we've been doing for our intros for every sermon is we have a song that is loosely about heroes because the series is called Obscure Heroes. So if you're like, why in the world are they playing that song? That's why, because adults aren't in charge and we think that that's funny. So that's what we've done. I do have to tell you that my sermon in no way fits with that song. In fact, it is very far out of place. It's why I woke up on Monday of this week. I knew what sermon that we had planned in the series. And I woke up on Monday and I thought, I don't want to do that sermon. That's a hard one. That's a heavy one. It talks about like pain and grief, and that's not like summertime fare. Like we're going to do some stupid song to start off the sermon, and it's supposed to be just light and fun. And so I had myself convinced that I didn't need to do the sermon. And then on Tuesday afternoon, I had, or maybe Monday, I can't remember, I had lunch with another pastor in the area, actually, because they talk to me sometimes. And I said, hey, man, this is what I'm thinking. I'm thinking that I'm going to bail on this, and I'm going to do this instead. What do you think? And he's like, well, what would you talk about? And I kind of told him and he goes, I don't know, man. Sounds like you need to pray about it. People need to hear that. And I thought, darn it, you and the Holy Spirit. So I knew that I needed to do this one. It's a heavy one. It's a hard one. But my hope and my prayer is that it's exactly what some of us need, and that it's exactly what we need to hear. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray. I'm just going to pray that this would be a good time and that God's Word will be taught transparently and correctly, and that maybe we can take some comfort out of what we look at today. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for a place where we can have fun. We also thank you for your word. And we understand that life isn't always fun. And it's not always sunshine and lollipops, God. And in those moments, you show up too. And so we just ask that your word would be used to bring comfort to us today as some of us hurt, as some of us grieve, as some of us recover from those things or face those things. Lord, just be with us and in this time today. In Jesus' name, amen. So I want to look today at the story of Eli. We find Eli at the beginning of 1 Samuel. We're going to be specifically looking at a story out of 1 Samuel chapter 3. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there. If you don't, they have free ones on your phone, so you can use those too. Eli was the high priest. Now this is a time in Israel when Israel didn't have a king. They came out of Egypt, led by Moses. They wandered in the desert. Then Moses passes away. Joshua is named the leader. He leads them into Israel. They conquer what we know as the modern nation of Israel. They divide it up amongst the 12 tribes. And now they're living in these territories with God as their king. They have no king. And so the high priest is the mouthpiece of God to the people. So he's the big dog in Israel. He's the guy. If you're the high priest in Israel, you're the most powerful man in the country. And so that's Eli. Eli is the high priest. Now Eli had two sons named Hophni and Phinehas. And they were jerks. Hophni and Phinehas were spoiled, rich kids that were privileged, that took gross advantage of their privilege, okay? Their dad is the most powerful man in the country. I would assume that there was some wealth that went along with it, though I don't know that. I can't back that up with paperwork, but it seems reasonable to make that guess. And they took advantage of their dad's position in their position. They used it to take advantage of women. They threatened, they would steal food from the temple and when the priest tried to stop them, they would threaten to beat up the older priest. Like that's what they did. They were deplorable jerks, okay? And God had decided that he could not trust the priesthood to these two. Because the idea is when the high priest passes away, the next priest comes up was generally his son and it stayed in the family. It was this legacy that the priest would leave behind generation after generation. But there's also this boy named Samuel. Samuel's mom was a woman named Hannah who had a hard time having kids. She went to the temple and she begged God for a kid and she says, if you give me a son, I'll give him back to you. And so that's what she did. She was blessed with a boy named Samuel. And then she gave Samuel back to the temple just as soon as he was old enough to eat food on his own. And he was raised in the temple as like a disciple of Eli. And one night Samuel's asleep and he hears a voice crying out to him. So he wakes up, he assumes it's Eli. He goes into Eli's room. Hey, Eli, what's up, man? And Eli says, I didn't call out to you. Like, go back to bed, kid. You're crazy. So Samuel goes back to bed. This happens a couple more times until finally Eli says, Samuel, that's the Lord speaking to you. Next time you hear that voice, you need to say, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. And so that's what he did. The next time he heard the voice, Samuel said, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. And God told him something. And it was bad news for Eli. So the next morning, Samuel wakes up. And Eli comes and finds him. And he says, tell me what God said to you last night. And Samuel demurs, oh, it was nothing. It was no big deal. It was just about, you know, some cattle and stuff. Don't worry about it. And they kind of keep going back and forth. And finally, Eli says, you tell me what the Lord said or everything that he said that's going to happen is going to happen to you instead. So Samuel, we don't know how old he is, 8, 10, 12 years old. It was terrifying to have to say what he was about to say to Eli, the most powerful man in the country, respected high priest. He didn't want to say it. But under threat, he agrees. And so he tells Eli, the Lord has told me that your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, cannot be trusted with the priesthood, and they're evil in his eyes. So he's going to have them killed. He's going to let them die, and the priesthood is going to be taken from your family. Now, that's the worst news I think any person can receive. It's got to be the worst news. You are going to lose your children. You're going to attend your children's funeral. And the legacy that you want to leave will not be left. I am taking your kids and I am taking your legacy. There is not a more painful thing. I'm convinced after being in the pastorate, after seeing enough life to form this kind of opinion, I've seen these funerals enough times, there is no deeper sadness that I have seen than for a parent to survive a child. I think that's got to be the worst. It breaks my heart. And Eli's just told, you're going to lose both your sons, and you will leave no legacy. I'm going to entrust the priesthood to somebody else. Now, if you were Eli, and you just received that news as the high priest, how would you respond? What would you think? What would you want to say? I know for me, I would want to shake my fist and say, God, that's not fair. That's not right. I serve you, God. I've dedicated my life to serving you. I know that my sons aren't the best, but they're going to come around, God. I pray about them every day. They're going to get there. Just give us a little bit more time, God. This is not fair. This isn't right. I've devoted my life to you, and you're going to let this happen to me. Isn't that what you would say? Isn't that what you would feel? Wouldn't you feel that it was unfair? You have to imagine, and we don't know this to be sure, but don't you think that there's a really good chance that Samuel continued to pray or that Eli continued to pray for his sons? That Eli continued to pray, God, I know that they're not walking with you right now. I know that they're living in sin, but man, they're going to come around. Just please be with them. Please don't forget about them. Don't you think that he hadn't given up hope on them? And then he finds out, I'm going to let them die. And I'm going to take your legacy. Wouldn't you want to shake your fist at God and say, this is not fair. Give me a little more time. And what Eli says is to me one of the most faithful statements in the Bible. If you look, 1 Samuel 3, verse 18, when Eli hears this news, this is his immediate response. It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. He's God. He created this. He's the Lord over everything. I trust him. Let him do what seems best to him. Would that be your response? When you take your place, and we've all had them, when you take yourself to your place of deepest grief, is what you were thinking in that moment, the Lord, it is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. So how was Eli, in the face of this kind of pain and anguish, able to respond like that? I think that he understood some principles that we see more pointedly in the New Testament that can help us understand maybe how Eli was able to have this kind of faith and the choices that he was making even in that moment. In John chapter 11, there's one of my favorite stories in the Bible. Of course, I say that about all the stories that I teach. I really like the Bible. I'm sorry. In John chapter 11, we meet this family, Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And we, the historians believe that these were Jesus, the closest thing that Jesus had to besties, okay? These were his closest friends. These were probably his vacation friends. They wanted to go down to the beaches. This is, they probably went together. He loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus. They lived in a town called Bethany, and that's affectionately known as Jesus's favorite place on earth. That's probably where he felt home and safe. And he's a couple days' journey away, and Lazarus is sick. He's going to die. So Mary and Martha send word to Jesus, hey, our brother's going to die. You should come take care of him, because they know that he has the power to heal. So Jesus says, okay. He gets the message. He waits for two days, and then he travels to Bethany. And while he's traveling there, Lazarus passes away. And Mary and Martha are ticked, rightfully so, because they know that Jesus waited. He should be here by now and he's not. What's he doing? And so as he approaches Bethany, Mary runs out to meet him. And she asks him the question that we would ask. Jesus, why didn't you come sooner? We told you that our brother was going to die and you could have come and done something about it and you didn't. Why didn't you come sooner? And if you're paying attention and you're empathizing and you're thinking about your own life, this is the question that we all ask too. Whenever we experience loss or grief, we lean in with Mary and we say, yeah, Jesus, why? Because here's the thing. Mary knew that Jesus had the power to prevent her brother from dying. She knew that he could have swept in at any moment and healed him. She knew that he could have prayed a prayer from two days away and healed Lazarus and that he didn't need to die and that he didn't need to go through this pain. She knew that he could have stopped it and that he chose not to. So she leans in and she says, why'd you do that? And if you've ever prayed for someone to survive that didn't, then you've asked that question too. If you've ever prayed against a diagnosis, you've asked that question too. If you've walked through a divorce or abuse or an irreconcilable situation, then you lean in with Mary and you've asked that question too. Jesus, you could have stopped this and you didn't. Why? And Jesus' response is not what we would expect. It's the shortest verse in the Bible. It may be the most profound, John 11, 35. As soon as she asked him that question, you could have stopped this and you didn't, Jesus. Why not? He says, or the Bible says, that Jesus wept. Jesus wept. And when I imagine that moment, I don't imagine Jesus as standing coldly back from Mary and looking at her as they just stand and weep together. I imagine Jesus as grabbing her shoulders and bringing her in and embracing the sister that he loved and weeping with her. And when you think about the times in your life when you've hurt the most, that's what you need more than anything. You need people to weep with you. You need people's presence. Have you ever sat with somebody who was hurting? You sat with them at a loved one's funeral. You sat with them in the hospital while they hoped against hope. Have you ever sat with somebody who was hurting? You sat with them at a loved one's funeral. You sat with them in the hospital while they hoped against hope. Have you ever sat in the middle of someone's pain and racked your brain for the right thing to say? And you can't come up with anything because there's nothing to be said. There's nothing to be said. And if you remember your own pain and the way that people ministered to you, it was never what they said. You don't remember what people told you. You remember that they were there. Because words don't help. I think Abraham Lincoln said it best. I love the letter. It circulates just about every Memorial Day that he wrote to the mom who lost five sons in the Union Army that year. And he said, he said, I feel the weakness of my words and any attempt to beguile you from the pain that you must feel. He's admitting that his words are impotent. In fact, usually the only things that are said there that we remember are the dumb things, right? I've heard people say before when someone's endured loss, like, well, God must have needed another angel in heaven. Don't say dumb crap like that. No, he doesn't. God can make any angel he wants. He doesn't need to take someone from you so that he can have another one in heaven. That's silly. It's not helpful. That's what someone told us when we had a miscarriage. Get away from me. It's not helpful. The only thing that we remember is people's presence. When we walked through that, Jen and I did together, I remember her Uncle Edwin, four separate times, called me as the dust was settling to see how I was doing, to encourage me, to tell me that he loved me and that he was praying for me. He didn't have to do that. He's not even my biological uncle. He's Jen's, but he cared for me and he kept calling. I don't remember what he said. I have no idea. But I remember that he showed up. When we are hurting, what we need most is people's presence. So when we hurt, Jesus doesn't offer us words because words don't help. He weeps with us. He offers us his presence. And the truth of it is that we have a God who weeps with us. We have a God that when we hurt, he embraces us. He holds us and he weeps with us and he feels our pain with us. He doesn't give us words to try to explain what we're doing because let's be honest, when you're in that moment and you're asking Jesus, why'd you let this happen to me? Why'd you let this happen? You could have stopped us and you didn't. Listen to me, I'm being honest. I was thinking about this this week. If Jesus sat you down and explained to you exactly why he was letting this thing happen in your life and told you all the reasons in light of history and in light of eternity and with the proper view of time and keeping his promises and how it all works out one day, if he explained everything to you and somehow you were able to understand it, would it make that moment hurt any less? No. When we ask Jesus, why'd you let this happen? What we're really saying is, I need you to make this better. I need you to fix this because this sucks. That's what we're saying. And Jesus knows that words are not going to fix it. So he weeps with us. And he weeps with us, I believe, not just for the pain that we're walking through in the moment, but because he knows that we're going to struggle to understand. He doesn't just weep for our pain, but also because we're going to struggle to understand. He knows that we are not going to understand what's going on around us and that we can't. And that hurts his heart. Several months ago, I think it may have even been last year, we woke up on a Friday. Friday is family day at the rector House. I have that one off because technically I'm working right now. And so on Fridays, we get up and we try to protect that for our family. And we got up and we told Lily this day we're going to go to the new park. To her, Sassafras behind Crabtree is the new park, which is amazing. One of the things we love most about Raleigh is the parks. They're incredible. Back home, they're all dumpy. You need a tetanus shot before you go to the park. So here, it's great. And so we get in the car. We load up. We go to the new park. We get her out of the car. She's excited. Lily excited. Yes. And you put her on the ground. And she runs down the sidewalk to go play at the new park. Comes around the corner. And what she finds is that there's a makeshift chain link fence around the whole park and not a soul there. And we looked online and we realized they're repairing the ground. They're replacing the flooring for the park. Can't play that day. Jen and I are brokenhearted. And we're looking at the disappointment on our little girl's face and it's hurting us. And we had taught her this thing. So I think she was two years old at the time. And when they get fixated on something, it's just all that they can think about. And so we had taught her to be patient. So she would see something and she'd be like, mommy, chips, chips. I want chips, mommy. Give me the chips, chips, chips, chips. And we'd be like, oh my gosh, stop it. So we'd pick her up and I'd look at her and I'd go, Lily, sweetheart, you can have the chips in a little bit, but not right now. I need you to be patient. Can you be patient? And she would repeat back to me, I'd be patient. And for us, that was like our first parenting win. Like the first time she said it, we were like, okay, I think that she will survive. I think we can do this. So we were so happy that she understood what it meant to be patient. And so we get down there, and Lily's up against the fence, and we have to say, oh, sweetheart, we're not going to, we can't play on the playground right now. They're working on it. She doesn't understand what's going on. And I'll never forget, it broke my heart. She's up against that chain link fence. It's like from a dang movie. And she turns around and she looks at me and she says, it's okay, Daddy, I'll be patient. Golly, man. Jen and I started crying on the spot. No, baby, you don't understand. Like, it ain't happening today. And there's nothing we can say to help her understand. She's two. She can't process what's going on. I think that sense of helplessness that we felt in the face of her pain is pretty similar to what God feels sometimes. Not helpless, but just the fact that he knows. I can't explain this to you. Oh, sweetheart. I can't make this better for you right now. It's just not how it's going to work. And I know that answer is going to cause you more pain. And I'm so sorry about that. And it'll get better if you're patient. But you're probably going to have to be patient for longer than you realize. I don't think that God weeps with us just because we're hurting, but because he knows that we're going to have to choose faith. We're going to have to choose him when it doesn't make sense. The story that illustrates this to me is in the book of Matthew, I think around chapter 11. John the Baptist is a prophet that prepared the way for Jesus. And John the Baptist, he was a brave man, he was a man of courage, and he spoke truth to power, and he said the wrong thing to the king, and it got him thrown in jail. And he's been in jail for a little while, and he begins to get this sense that he's going to die there, that they're going to execute him. And so he sends message to Jesus. John the Baptist had disciples. He gathers his disciples around, and he sends the message to Jesus, and he tells him, go ask Jesus, are you the one who is to come, or should I expect someone else? He's saying, are you the Messiah, or have I gotten this wrong? Don't need to keep waiting. And he's referencing a passage in Isaiah that was a prophecy about the Messiah. And he knows that Jesus knows his Bible, and that when he hears this question, he's going to know exactly what John the Baptist is talking about. Because there's a prophecy in Isaiah that says, when the coming one arrives, the one who is to come, when they arrive, the deaf will hear and the blind will see and the lame will walk and the prisoners will be set free. And so what John is asking Jesus is, are you the guy? Because when the guy gets here, the prisoners are supposed to be set free. And I'm still here. And I'm going to die here if you don't do something about it. So are you the guy? Same as Mary. You can do something about this. Are you going to? Same as us. God, it feels like you could prevent this. Are you going to? And Jesus responds to John the Baptist. He tells the disciples, you go tell John that I am the one who is to come and that the blind see and the deaf hear and the lame walk and the prisoners are set free, but John the Baptist will not be. And then he says, blessed are those who do not lose faith on account of me. Blessed are those who are not offended by me. Because he knew. This is going to be painful news for John the Baptist, and I am not meeting the expectations that he has for me, and I am not going to do the thing that he is asking me to do, that it is within my power to do, and he's not going to understand why I'm not going to do it and he's just going to have to choose faith. And blessed are those who in the face of pain choose faith. Because it's hard. Because we don't understand it. Because Romans 11 tells us that God's ways are higher than our ways. And that there's going to be some things that almighty God, all-knowing God, all-wise God does that we can't possibly understand. And sometimes the choices that he makes are going to be choices that don't make sense to us, that don't seem fair to us, that make us angry because it seems like he could have prevented it and he chose not to and we don't understand. And in those moments, it is up to us whether or not we want to respond like Eli. It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. And that's a tough thing to say. But here's the deal. When Eli says that, understanding the principles we look at in the New Testament, understanding that we have a God that weeps with us, that offers us his presence because words really aren't what we need. They're not going to fix it at the end of the day. Eli understands that. He understands that sometimes God allows things to happen that seem like he shouldn't let them happen, that we're praying against and he allows them to occur and it frustrates us and we lean in with Mary and say, why'd you do that? And God weeps with us because we hurt and we're not going to understand this pain on this side of eternity. And Eli looks at all of that and he says, it is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. And I really believe that choosing faith in the face of this pain really comes down to two questions. Do we choose to believe that God is good? Do you believe that God is good? Do you believe that the God of the universe who knows you, created you, do you believe that he is good? And then do you believe that he will keep his promises? Do you believe that God is good and do you believe that he will keep his promises? Do we trust Romans 8, 28 that says, we know that all things work together for the good of those who love him are called according to his purpose. Do we trust that to work out in eternity? Do we trust that one day when we can understand everything, when we can see as God sees, when we get into heaven, when we're on the other side of this life and we look back on everything, do we trust that if we could understand it like God does, that we will go, okay, I get it now. You are good and I love you and thank you. Do we trust that that's true? Do we trust the most hopeful promise in the Bible in Revelation 21 that one day God will be with his people and we will be with our God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore? Do we trust that promise? If we choose to believe that God is good and we choose to believe that he will keep his promises, then we can respond like Eli and have faith in the face of pain. And listen, when we miscarried, and I learned about that after trying to get pregnant for a long time, I went home and I got on my knees and I prayed through tears. And I said, Lord, you're good. Let you do what seems good to you. And can I tell you this? I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it. I said it because I was supposed to, because I'm a pastor and I wanted to be a good soldier and I wanted to say the right thing, but I didn't believe that for a second. I was mad, man. I didn't believe a good God would do that. But I said it. And over time, I believed it. And I still do. And I was listening to a song this morning that says, what is true in the light is still true in the dark. And even if we don't feel like we believe it, we can still choose to trust it. We can still choose to respond to pain with faith like Eli. And so I hope that for those of us facing pain, we'll choose to respond with faith. I hope in a kind and gentle and empathetic way, as we see people around us hurting, we can encourage them towards faith, even when it doesn't make sense. I hope that we won't try to help people make sense of their pain, because even Jesus didn't try to do that. He just offered his presence. And I hope that as we move through life and face pain again that we'll remember the message of Eli. It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. Let's pray. Father, you are good. You are good even when it doesn't seem like you are. You are good even when we don't understand how. You're good when you don't do the thing we want you to do. You're good when it doesn't go the way we want it to go. You're good when we are disappointed. You're good and patient as we shake our fists at you. God, you are good. I pray that you would give us the faith to believe that when it's hard. I pray that you would continue to be patient with us as we learn what it means to be faithful. We thank you for being a God that weeps with us, that is close to the brokenhearted, that comforts those who are crushed in spirit. And I pray particularly for those this morning who are struggling through some pain, that you would be close to them, that they would be comforted by your word. And that somehow, God, if they know you, you would give them the faith of Eli. And that one day they would be able to really believe what they say. It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.

Good morning, I'm Doug Bergeson. Wait, wait, you've got to be kidding me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it just a few months ago when Kyle Tolbert, our youth pastor, came up here to speak? And before he uttered a word, before a single word, good or bad, was out of his mouth, you were applauding him. What do I get? I'll tell you what I get. I get bubkis, nada, nothing. Let me tell you something. It's not lost on us, those of us who are asked to speak in the middle of July, but never ever at Christmas time, and for sure not at Easter. It's not lost on us that we're not on God's A-team. We get it. We're not stupid. So given that, it might be nice if you tried to be a little bit more encouraging and supportive. So let's try this again. I would not have done that. You know, the Bible's very clear that we're to test and approve what we hear, to be discerning about what's being taught, not just to accept it willy-nilly. And here you all are already clapping for me, and you haven't the faintest idea what I'm going to say. Come on, people, you're better than that. Anyways, hopefully it's obvious that I'm just goofing around, as I'm not only thrilled to be here, but I feel immense privilege to be sharing this morning. And just for the record, far from expecting applause, my desperate and sincere prayer and hope is that God will make what I say clear and useful to you all. I'm really excited about this new sermon series that we're starting. In the past, when I've been asked to speak, I've always kind of hemmed and hawed, wanted to think about it. But when Nate called me this time and explained that the new series was going to be on the obscure heroes of the Bible, I was, for some strange reason, I was enthused, and I immediately jumped at the chance. A big part of it might be that it's just different than the norm, and different is sometimes really good. Mix it up a little bit, move off the beaten path. But more than simply serving as a nice change of pace, there's a much more consequential reason for studying these obscure heroes. They have a lot to teach us. Now, there are plenty of times when I wish the Bible was easier to understand and didn't avoid so many questions that I'd like answers to. Wish that it explained a whole bunch of things better. A little less ambiguity and mystery would sometimes be nice. But in response to that wish, I've heard it said that God, whose Spirit inspired every word written, must have included what He thought was important, what He thought we needed to know. So rather than worrying about the stuff that wasn't included, we'd be much better served paying attention to the things and those people and those events that God did include in his word to us. And that brings us back to our sermon series. God saw fit to tell us about these characters and their stories. And for that reason, we are not going to ignore or gloss over or relegate these heroes to a footnote any longer. Instead, we're going to exploit them for all their worth and see what they can teach us, what they can reveal to us, how they might strengthen and encourage us. The Apostle Paul said it this way, for everything that was written in the past, even obscure heroes that maybe we've never heard of, was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. As I said, I was surprisingly enthused when Nate called me. Not only was I pumped for the series, but one name immediately popped into my head and I knew that was my guy. That was who I was going to talk about, Gamaliel, the great Pharisee and teacher of the law, and what he wisely concluded when confronted by the incredible boldness and defiance of Peter and the other disciples in the earliest times of the Christian movement. Now, how many of you have heard of Gamaliel? You don't have to raise your hands. You know, just wink or smile as I look around the room. Nothing but a sea of blank, expressionless faces. That's perfect. But before we get to Gamaliel, I need to set the table a bit for you, provide the backdrop to help explain why what he does, what he acknowledges is so valuable to me, that his was the first name in all the Bible that popped into my head. In other words, I need to make sure that we're on the same page with respect to one significant foundational point in order for us to see why Gamaliel, who himself is not even a believer in Jesus Christ, is a hero for us today. The key foundational point is to identify the overarching story of the Bible. Some of you are probably going, oh, sheesh, we're not going to be out of here until Tuesday. Not to worry, not to worry. It's not that daunting a task. In a nutshell, the opening chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, reveal that God's loving intent was to provide all that we, His creations, need. Our job, our part of the bargain, is to trust that He is both able and willing to do that on our behalf, and for us to resist the temptation to want to decide for ourselves what's best. The rest of the Bible is just a long and involved telling of our incredible struggle to trust in God rather than ourselves, as well as the remarkable lengths God goes to to make it possible for us ultimately to place our full and abiding confidence in Him. Now, most of you are probably familiar with the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The garden was a fantastic place. Those two have a great life. It's a really sweet setup. There's only one rule, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, growing up in church, I didn't fully understand the significance of the boundary God established for humankind. My general sense was, you know, God likes rules. He's kind of a stickler about rules. And Adam and Eve got in pretty big trouble because they broke one of them. Well, as I've later come to understand, what actually happened was a much bigger deal than simply breaking a rule. What actually happened struck at the very heart of God's intent for creation. In allowing them to eat from any tree but the one, God was establishing the critical boundary for Adam and Eve and for every human since. God was saying, if you want to enjoy all of the good of my creation and live in my kingdom, you have to trust that I and I alone know what's best for you. And even more than that, you have to trust that I'm both able and willing to provide it to you. And so the questions that's faced Adam and Eve, as well as you and me, is do you believe that? Are you convinced that God knows what's best for you and that He is intent on providing it at all times and in all circumstances? When Eve first faced that question, the fate of all humanity hung in the balance. And what did she decide? Well, it turns out Eve wasn't completely convinced that God could be trusted. And she decided and felt the need to trust in someone else. Eve, that's who she decided to trust. She just trusted in herself instead. And now the serpent was cunning and planted the seed in Eve's mind that although God was certainly able to provide what was best for her, He wasn't willing but was holding something back. The serpent said, come on, Eve, you won't die. God's only worried that if you eat that fruit, you'll be like Him and be able to decide for yourself what's best, then you'll be your own God. And that has been humankind's struggle ever since. In the last book of the Bible, Revelation, it wasn't a question of God was willing to provide for his people, but if he was even able. Written at a time when Christ followers were just undergoing terrific persecution, with their very lives at stake, the facts on the ground were so difficult and so dire that only a nut job would conclude that somehow God was still in control and still in charge. And into that terrifically difficult and stressful situation, the Apostle John shared a vision of being transported up to the throne room of heaven where God sort of pulls back the curtain for a second just to show what's really going on behind the scenes. The message, no matter how things look from your perspective, I am God and there is no other. I have your back now and I have it for all eternity. Nothing can ever separate you from my loving care. Your faith and trust are well placed. God is asking each of us, do you believe, are you completely convinced that I'm both able and willing to provide the very best for you? That's the central question running throughout the entire Bible, and it's the central question of our human existence. But our struggle, our temptation, is to say in all different ways, well, God, to tell you the truth, in this particular area of my life, or in this particular relationship, or in this circumstance at this particular time, I'd like to have a say. I'd rather decide for myself what's best for me, what will make me most content, most comfortable, most safe, most fulfilled, most affirmed, most successful, most happy. After all, wouldn't I know better than anyone else what's in my best interest? That's exactly what Eve did. That's exactly what I do. And that is the root of all sin, a failure to trust in God's promise. We're just not entirely convinced, not enough to give up complete control. A famous passage from Proverbs that many of you probably know by heart is, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. But that's not easy. Our world and our culture constantly bombard us from every conceivable angle with arguments that God, even if he does exist, is neither able or willing to provide what's best for us. That life demands we take charge and we're better off when we do. Non-stop appeals to be our own little lords of our own little lives. Now we're going to do a little audience participation here for just a minute. I'd like you all to close your eyes. Alan, keep your eyes closed. Okay. Imagine that you're on the seventh floor of an office building. You are alone, and it's dark. An electrical short circuit has knocked out the lights and started an intense fire, which has engulfed the entire floor and will soon breach the room you're in. The smoke coming in under the door and through the vents is overwhelming, forcing you to drop to your knees. Your eyes are burning and you're beginning to cough uncontrollably. You can open your eyes now. Suddenly, off to your right, you hear a violent pounding on the outside of the far wall. Then the blade of an axe comes crashing through and soon the shape of a firefighter appears in the opening and he shouts, come on, follow me, I'll get you out. Wouldn't he be surprised if you yelled back, oh, thanks, buddy. I'm good. I got this. Of course, no one would do that. No one trapped and on the brink of perishing would respond that way. We would not only listen to the firefighter's commands, we would literally cling to him. We would follow his every word because we implicitly trust him. Not only does he know what he's doing, but he went to great lengths to find and rescue us. And it's plain as day that we desperately need his help. My illustration borders on the ludicrous because we'd never do that. Yet that's what we say to God all the time. I'm good. I got this. Now maybe some of us hear this illustration and say, that's not me. I'm good at trusting. My faith is rock solid. Maybe that's true, at least on the surface. But even for those of us who trust God fully in most areas of our lives, I bet that there are little nooks and crannies. I appreciated you using that earlier. Little pockets where we don't. A relationship, a decision, a priority, a behavior, perhaps, for which we're not convinced God's preferred course of action serves us best. So we plot the course by our own wisdom. We decide for ourselves what's best. And when we do that, we forfeit some portion of the abundant life that God so desperately wants for us. Sadly, doubting God's promises, not being fully convinced that he is both able and willing to provide the best for me in all of life's situations, happens far more than I even recognize. The decision to trust in my own judgment is typically very subtle. So subtle, in fact, that I don't even realize that I'm doing it much of the time. I'll share an example from my own life, but first I have to give you some context. Twenty-six years ago, we moved down here from New Jersey. I quit a really good job on Wall Street. We sold our dream house that we only lived in for two years. We left our beautiful little town and all our friends. We had a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a newborn. We moved for a lot of reasons, but chief among them was my concern that it was all too consuming and that only over time does the true cost of that kind of investment in one's career become apparent? And by that point, it's often too late. The damage has been done. I believe back then, as I still do today, that wherever your treasure is, wherever you invest most of your time, your energy, your ambition, that's where your heart will ultimately be found. And I knew that for me, I couldn't keep doing that job in that city for very long without it, for all practical purposes, becoming my treasure and stealing my heart. Okay, so we did everything they tell you not to do all at the same time. Moved to a different part of the country, changed careers, sold houses, bought houses, had another baby. Deb had just turned 33, and I was 35. The plan was that I would invest our modest nest egg in the financial markets to support our new downsized life, and we'd live happily ever after. Now, fast forward 15 years. I'm meeting Jeff Hancock, who is Grace's teaching pastor at Carolina Ale House. I think it was on a Wednesday afternoon because that's when they had their specials. It's true. Jeff and I had a relationship built largely on a strong and abiding shared love of beer and for the places that happen to serve beer. Is there any stronger foundation for a friendship? Nevertheless, that was ours. So we'd get together every so often. And that particular afternoon, as soon as I sat down, Jeff asked if there was something wrong. And I started weeping and began to share with him how I was in the midst of suffering what for me was a breathtaking financial loss in the futures market. How I couldn't sleep, how it had stolen all of my joy, how it affected all of my personal interactions, including my most cherished ones with my wife and kids. Excuse me. With the child in college and two in high school, how it jeopardized everything Deb and I had planned. That loss was wreaking havoc in my life. Now, I shared with Jeff that afternoon that, yes, I was obviously sad to have lost so much of our nest egg at such a critical time. Yes, I was sorry for my stubbornness, my stupidity. Yes, I was sorry for my arrogance not to respect the markets. All that was true. Yet the reason I was weeping, what most undid me, was what the loss revealed about where I placed my trust. How it betrayed the fact that much of my confidence, my security, and my hope was wrapped up in our little nest egg, and that the notion that I trusted God was clearly not true, if not a bald-faced lie. And that is what makes it so tricky, because a lot of the time our struggles to trust are in those gray areas, things which in and of themselves don't strike us being all that bad or sinful. Nevertheless, we are not doing what God is asking us to do, to trust him with everything and in every situation. We simply aren't convinced that his way is always the best way. In answer to his question, do you believe that I am both able and willing to provide all that you need, we are saying no, not always. In the example I just shared from my own life, my answer was clearly no, I'm not completely convinced. In addition to trusting you, I would like my nest egg back. When we worry about things, even very serious things, we are wrestling with the question, will I trust God with my crisis? Is He capable to handle it on my behalf? Once again, our worrying says no, as it reveals that we're simply not convinced that God can handle the situation, or at least not to our satisfaction. According to the Bible, worry is the opposite of trust. When we choose not to forgive someone, contrary to God's clear desire and instruction, what are we doing? In not so many words, we are saying, I don't believe that God knows what's best for me. What about how we spend our money? I like to think that I include God in those discussions. But what I really do is only involve him in the discussion about the small portion that I might realistically earmark for charity. Concerning the other much bigger chunk, the 80, 90, or 95%, I say, wait just a second, God. Stay in your lane, buddy. I gave you some. This over here is for me to decide what to do. Scripture encourages us to confess our sins to one another, even and perhaps especially the deepest, darkest, and most shameful ones. My immediate response is to say, no, thank you, over my dead body. No way can that possibly be in my best interest. We're encouraged as believers to always be prepared to share why our hope is in Jesus Christ. I don't do it. I don't want to offend this person or turn them off. I don't want to be thought a weirdo or a creep. I'm a confident person generally. I'll share my opinion on almost any topic with almost anyone. But for some strange reason, I don't trust that God will have my back if I share my faith. God says be thankful at all times and in all circumstances. But I don't want to always be thankful, and there just so happens to be things in my life that I'm not thankful for. Yet having a spirit of appreciation and thankfulness is one command of God's that I've come to acknowledge clearly leads to joy and abundant life. I think of the people I know who are most pleasant and encouraging to be around, the ones that are most nutritious for me. Almost without exception, there are people who live life in a spirit of thanksgiving. The old saying is true, it's not happy people who are thankful, it's thankful people who are happy. Ironically, even knowing this, there are still times when I choose to defy God's good intent for my life and instead choose the way of the woe-is-me, self-pitting grumpus. Now, I could go on and on, but if each of us took a deep dive into our motivations for doing some things and not others, for worrying about things over which we have little control, for habitually engaging in certain behaviors or responding in certain ways, for placing so much importance on what others think, we would understand more clearly that, at least in those instances, we're not fully convinced that God always has our best interests at heart or that His way is always best, that He is completely trustworthy in all of life's circumstances, that He is intent on giving us life to the full, the life that is truly life, if only we would trust. And that, at long last, brings us to our hero, Gamaliel. What he offers is a simple proof, evidence to bolster our conviction that the God we worship deserves our full confidence and trust. I've never been a fan of belief for belief's sake. Don't care how sincere it might be. In other words, if I'm going to believe that God always has my best interest at heart and is able and willing to provide it to me, I want it to be true. More than that, I need to be convinced that it's true if I'm ever going to fully trust in it. Otherwise, as we've seen this morning, I'm going to succumb to the temptation to lean on my own wisdom and judgment. This is where the battle lines are drawn and the war for my trust is waged. And this is where Gamaliel's cool logic and reasoning come through in the clutch. Now let's go to the story in the book of Acts and jump into the action. Our story takes place in Jerusalem, not long after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The Christian church is in its infancy and growing rapidly. The Jewish establishment is nervous and on edge. The disciples, Peter and John, have just healed a beggar who had been crippled from birth. Everyone was amazed, and when Peter saw their reaction, he said, men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if it's by our own power or godliness that we had made this man walk? You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in the name of Jesus, the man you see and know was made strong. It is in Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. While they were still speaking, the Jewish leaders, none too pleased with Peter and John's message, arrested them and threw them in jail for the night. The next day, they were brought before their rulers and elders and teachers of the law who questioned them about the healing. By what power or what name did you do this? And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, replied, Let me interrupt our story for just a second to point out what remarkable change can happen in the hearts and minds of ordinary men and women when convinced of God's truth and imbued with His Spirit. Just a short time ago, these same disciples were the gang that couldn't shoot straight, timid and wavering, untrusting, unreliable, and unconvinced. Now look, there's hope for all of us. Now back to our story. The Jewish leaders were astonished by the courage of Peter and John, especially when they realized they were ordinary unschooled guys and weren't sure what to do as they had to admit that the healing was a fantastic, outstanding miracle which they couldn't deny. And they couldn't really punish them because everybody was running around praising God because of that miracle. So they issued some threats and ordered Peter and John not to speak about this Jesus. However, even after the imprisonment and threats, the disciples continued to preach, teach, and heal until the high priest and his associates could not stand it any longer and arrested them again. But that night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail in order the disciples to go back to the temple and tell the people the full message of this new life. When all the rulers assembled the next morning and sent for Peter and John, they were surprised to learn that although the jail was locked and secure, nobody was inside. The Bible says they were puzzled by this. I love the understatement. I bet they were puzzled when they later learned that the men were back in the temple court preaching and teaching. They went and got them, but not by force for fear of what the people might do. The high priest again questioned them, and now reading from Acts 5, 28 through 39. This is the high priest. We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, he said. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood. Peter and John and the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed them, men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago, Thudas appeared, claiming to be someone, and about 400 men rallied to him. He was killed, and all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too wasailed, and the apostles were let go. And now here, for you all this morning, is the $64,000 question of the day. If Gamaliel, the wisest and most esteemed teacher of the day, could be here with us this morning, is there any doubt that he would conclude if their purpose is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men. You will only find yourselves fighting against God. Well, it hasn't been stopped. There has been nothing like it in all of human history. No other power or movement or belief system has come close. Down through all the centuries, across every people group and culture on earth, and reaching the furthest corners of our planet, God has been on the move, faithful to all his promises. The prophet Isaiah wrote about God's faithfulness this way. and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. And that's why Gamaliel is a hero to me. His wisdom and insight remind me again that God is true to his word always and is going to do what he promised to do. If I'm going to trust God completely and not rely on my own wisdom, but surrender control in all areas of my life, not just some of them, I need that assurance. Our God is both able and willing to provide all that we need. My hope and prayer for all of us this morning is that the words of the Apostle Paul might be our words. I know whom I have believed, and I'm convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. Thank you. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for loving us. Thank you for all these people who carved out time on a hot Sunday morning to come to know you better and to worship you. Lord, thank you for pursuing us. Obviously, forgive us for all the times that we are trust wavers. We're simply not convinced that you're completely trustworthy in all of life's situations. Thank you for the hope that you give us through your son. And it's his name we pray. Amen.

All right, well, good morning. It's good to see all of you. I know those lights hit you, they're bright, goodness gracious. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here, and it's so good to see you. Thanks for being here for the second service and for the last part of our series in John. When we started the series in February, this is, I think, 12 weeks, so it's been one of our longer ones, but I hope that you've enjoyed it. I hope, and my prayer for you has been that you now, as we leave the series, feel a little bit closer to Jesus than you did when we started, that you know him better than you did when we started. I know that there are some themes from the book of John that I will probably always remember that stuck out to me as we went through it as a church this time around. I hope that you can relate to that. Originally, when we had planned the series, we wanted to end it on Easter. At the end on Easter Sunday, that'd be the resurrection story. That's the end of the story of Jesus. Boom, we're done. It's a nice, clean, tidy ending. But as I was studying the book, there's a story in John that's unique to the book of John. It's not in the other gospels, Matthew, Mark, or Luke. It's just in John almost as an addendum. And it's the restoration of Peter. And it's to me one of the most hopeful, life-giving, inspiring, restorative messages and stories that we find from the life of Jesus. And so I thought if it's good enough to be an addendum for John, then it's good enough to be an addendum for grace. And so we came back one extra week in John to look at this story of the restoration of Peter. To appreciate the story, we need to understand what goes into this moment. Eventually, we're going to get to John chapter 21. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there and we're going to be at the end of that chapter. If you don't have one, there's one in the seat back in front of you. If you don't like that option, there's a free one on your phone just seconds away. All right. To understand the story at the end of John, we need to understand who Peter was and what's going on in that story. Peter was kind of the de facto leader of the disciples. Many people think he was probably the oldest disciple. He was, some believe, the only one with a wife when they were called. He was a little bit further on in life than the rest of the disciples were. Peter was one of these guys that would always talk first and think later. He was a ready, fire, aim kind of guy. He's my people. I understand Peter, right? When Jesus walks on the water, what does Peter do? He jumps out of the boat. Well, shoot, I'm doing this too, right? Peter always just said things with confidence and everybody around him was like, well, I guess that's right. Jen asked me, my wife asked me sometimes, like, how do you say things with so much confidence? Like, how do you know that to be true? And I'm like, I don't. I'm just saying it. And people seem to go along with things. That's Peter, man. I can relate to him. He just always the first to answer, always the first to have the idea, always out front, kind of regardless of consequences. One of my favorite stories to kind of illustrate the character of Peter, one day Jesus decides, he gathers the disciples together and he says, hey, you guys, I'm going to wash your feet today. Which is like, that's the lowest of the low job. That's like the summer intern as the servant job. That's what you do. And so Peter, responding with some pomposity, with some piety, says, no, Jesus, never. I can never let you wash my feet. I will never let that happen. And Jesus looks at him and he says, okay, Peter, but unless I wash your feet, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And then Peter immediately does a 180. Well, then don't stop at my feet. Wash my head and my hands as well. Like that's Peter, okay? And so at the Last Supper, right before Jesus is arrested and tried and crucified, the last time they spend some good time together, Jesus looks at Peter, the leader of the disciples, and he tells him, before the rooster crows in the morning, you will have denied me three times. And Peter's response is what you would expect Peter's response to be. Never, Lord. I would never deny you. I would not do that. And Jesus says, you're going to. And Peter says, this is a loose paraphrase, agree to disagree, which you never want to agree to disagree with Jesus. You're not in a good spot when that's what you choose. So they leave. Jesus goes and he prays. He brings Peter to pray with them, but Peter falls asleep. John falls asleep. James falls asleep. And then Jesus gets arrested, and he's taken off to the courtyard of the high priest, a guy named Caiaphas. And three weeks ago, we talked about this in the crucifixion story. It was in the courtyard of Caiaphas where Jesus is put on trial, and there were two disciples that actually followed him there. The rest of the disciples dispersed. They ran away. They started worrying about their own necks, and so they ran away to hide so that they wouldn't get arrested too. They figured if they're arresting Jesus, then they're coming for us next, right? And so they all dispersed except for two disciples, Peter and another unnamed disciple, make it to the courtyard of Caiaphas' house. And it's in this courtyard that Jesus was put on trial, that he was falsely accused, that they told lies about him. The one person who's ever existed who deserved this treatment least was getting this treatment. They were blindfolding him and punching him and saying, who hit you, Jesus? You're a prophet. Prophesy about who hit you. And then Jewish tradition says that they were ripping out his beard. So he's beaten up and he's in a moment where he is incredibly loved. This is a man that Jesus has followed every day for three years. He loves this man. He cares for nothing on earth more than this man, and now he's watching him suffer in this way. And Peter's around a campfire as this is happening. And when he gets there, the Bible says there's a servant girl who looks at him and says, hey, don't you know him? Aren't you like in his little group? And Peter says, no, I've never met the man. That's one. A little while later, somebody else says the same thing. Hey, haven't I seen you with him before? Peter says, no, I don't know what we're talking about. I've never met the man. That's twice. And then the Bible says about an hour after that, someone really begins to press him. Hey, aren't you from Galilee? I can tell by your accent, you have to know that man. And Peter gets emphatic. No, I swear I've never met him. And then it says that this is actually, there's this passage in Luke. That's to to me, one of the most intense passages in Scripture. It's something that you may have read before, but we kind of gloss over it. But look at what it says in Luke. Chapter 22, verse 60, it says, But Peter said, Man, I do not know what you are talking about. That's the third time. And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And then verse 61, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? The time when Jesus most needed people around him who loved him. You are his leading disciple and you just denied him three times because you're scared. And his bloody face turns and looks you dead in the eye. Peter remembered the saying of the Lord how he said to him, before the rooster crows you'll deny me three times. And he went out and he wept bitterly. Can you imagine how Peter must have felt? He had betrayed his Jesus. He had let him down. He had denied him. He had told Jesus over and over again, you can count on me. For three years, Jesus had been prepping him and training him and grooming him to take over the church, to step into his ministry. He was to see Jesus and to help lead the church after Jesus' death. And in the moment when he most needed him, he betrayed him and he let him down. And Jesus turned and looked at Peter. You cannot imagine that eye contact. It says he went away and he wept bitterly. I love this story because I so identify with Peter. And to me, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, then you can identify with him too. If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, then the good news is that you don't have to feel bad about any of this. You can just take it all in and watch us as we squirm and feel bad. But if you're a believer, then you know this feeling too. If you're a believer, then you know what it is to feel like you've betrayed Jesus, don't you? Has there ever been a time in your life, maybe in a corporate setting, maybe around some clients, maybe with some new friends that you've made, maybe with some old buddies where you kind of fall back into who you used to be, where you took that part of your identity, your Christianity, and you kind of tucked it away back here and kind of didn't wear it on your sleeve for that week or for that night or for that season because you didn't really want them to know who you were associated with? Have you ever in your life tucked away your identity as a believer because you were kind of ashamed and embarrassed if people were to find out that that's who you were because you had not been acting that way? Can I just tell you? I hope that you don't get too disappointed in me for this, but I've been doing ministry for about 20 years. There have definitely been times in my life when because of how I had been acting or what I had been saying or doing or whatever it was, I kind of tucked away my identity as a pastor. I didn't really want to share it with the group of people that I was with. So when Peter betrays Jesus and denies knowing him, I can relate. When we get this sense of betrayal, I've let my Jesus down. To be a Christian is to be familiar with that. I think we've all had different times and different seasons where we feel like we've let Jesus down a little bit. Maybe we've told him. Maybe we've been moved in worship. Maybe we've been moved by a sermon, probably at another church, and we decided that what we were going to do, we were going to start a new discipline. We were going to start a new thing. We had been moved to conviction. And we say, yes, Jesus, I'm going to get up and I'm going to read the Bible. I'm going to get up early. I'm going to make time for you. I'm going to spend time in prayer. I'm going to spend time in your word. That's going to be a discipline in my life. And so we get up and we start to read it. We're following along, but maybe we don't really understand it. We don't hear the angels audibly sing. And so we think we must be doing it wrong. Or we wake up and we kind of do the drop and flop. Like, Jesus, you just show me what you want me to read. And it turns out that because Psalms is in the middle and it's the longest book in the Bible, that God wants us to read Psalms like a lot. So we just, we read that, right? And we don't really know what's going on or what's happening. And for whatever reason, we fall away from that discipline. And then we've told Jesus for however many times, this is going to be a part of my life. And then we fail. And we betray him and we let him down. Or we tell him that we're going to start to give. We understand that believers should give generously, that we should be conduits of God's generosity to us, that we're stewards of the resources that he gives us, and that we should be generous to those that we think Jesus would want to help and serve. And we commit to do this, but things come up and then we don't, and we fall away from that discipline or from that commitment. And we hesitate to even make the commitment again because we messed up the last time, and we don't have much reason to believe that we're going to do better the next time. Right? Or we have things in our life that we don't want there. And so we tell Jesus, I'm done with that. I'm drawing the line in the sand. I'm not going to do that thing again. I'm moved. I'm convicted. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for who I am. I don't want that to be a part of my life. I don't want that to be a part of who I am. Jesus, I'm done with that. I'm moving on by the power of your spirit. Please allow me to be done with that thing. And we move away from that thing. And then three days later or weeks later or maybe months later, we fall back into the thing. So I wonder this morning, have you ever felt like you've betrayed Jesus? Can you relate to Peter? Aren't you glad that in the moment of the height of your betrayal, Jesus isn't looking you in the eye? I think we can all relate to Peter in this moment. The good news is that it gets better. But I think that we can all relate to this idea of letting Jesus down, of betraying him and feeling what Peter must have felt when God looked at him and he went away and he wept bitterly. Which, by the way, when you're confronted with your sin, that's the appropriate response to go away and to weep bitterly. That's a good and right response. And I don't believe that God would steal that response from Peter. I don't think that God would go to him and say, hey, you don't need to do that. I think that's the good and right response when we realize who we are. But he goes away and he weeps bitterly. And then we pick up this story in John chapter 21. In John chapter 21, Jesus has died, he's resurrected, he's appeared to the disciples a couple of times, and then in John chapter 21, he appears to them while they're fishing. And it's interesting to me that they're fishing. Because if you think back, my Bible scholars in the room, you know the answer to this. At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, when he's calling the disciples, and he goes to this guy named Simon, son of John, and he renames him Peter, and he says, come and be my disciple. What was Peter doing? He was fishing. For three years while he followed Jesus, what did he not do anymore? Fish. Why? He had a new job. His new job was to follow Jesus. His new job was to be in ministry. His new job was to do what Jesus did, to go around telling people about Jesus, to cast out demons and to perform miracles and to teach the people of Israel about the Messiah that was now here. That was his new job. And so for three years, he hadn't done his old job. He walked away from that because that wasn't him anymore. But after Jesus dies and Peter is walking around with this shame because he let his Jesus down, what does he do? He goes back to his old job. He disqualifies himself. Peter should have been leading the church. Peter should have been gathering the disciples together and saying, hey, this isn't over. Jesus has risen from the dead. We need to continue to serve him. We need to continue to build his kingdom. We have a purpose. We're not done, guys. But instead, what does he do? He gets back in the boat. What I want us to see is that Peter allowed his shame to shrink his vision of what Jesus wanted him to do. He allowed his shame, he allowed what he had done and how badly he felt for it to shrink his vision about what Jesus wanted him to do. Jesus had purposed him and prepared him and groomed him to lead his church. It's what Jesus wanted him to do. It's why he was working with him for three years, why he was putting up with all of his Peter-isms so that he could lead the church. And Peter, because he felt bad, because he felt shame, he walked away from that. He disqualified himself, which in all honesty is the exact same thing that we would do. Would you look at Peter after he betrayed Jesus at the height of his need and go, yep, you're still the guy. You should still lead the church. Would you still want that guy to be in charge of everybody? Would you still want that guy leading the council of the disciples like he is in Acts along with James? Is that what you would still want? Wouldn't you think that Peter would need to enter into some sort of probationary period? Okay, you're good, Peter, but we're just going to keep our eye on you for a minute. Wouldn't you do what Peter did? Wouldn't you step away and kind of slink away quietly and be like, I'm so sorry that I messed up. I understand. I don't even expect you to reinstate me anymore. I'm just going to fish and I'm going to love on you the best I can. Wouldn't you expect that of Peter? Doesn't that seem like the fair human reaction? Don't we do that to ourselves? When we mess up and we know who we are, we know where we come from and we know the we bring into every room, and we know the things that are hiding in the corners and the shadows of our life. When we know those things, don't we do what Peter did and disqualify ourselves? Don't we allow our shame to shrink our vision for who we are and what God created us to do? Can I just tell you that I think the Bible teaches that every one of you who are believers were created, and the non-believers too, we're just waiting for you to get on board. You were created with a purpose and with a set of gifts, with the sole intention of building God's church. With the sole intention of going to heaven one day and on your way there bringing as many people with you as you possibly can. That's the only reason you're alive. It's the only reason you walk on the face of the earth. The Christian life is a progressive revelation of just how true that is. Hopefully you realize now it's more true than you did five years ago and hopefully more than 10 years ago. The only reason you're here, the only reason that Jesus doesn't snatch you into heaven the instant you are saved is to leave you here so that you can bring as many people with you as possible on the way. And I believe that God has imbued each of you with a set of gifts. I believe that God has uniquely prepared you in your life through the circumstances that you have walked through to be effective at reaching other people. And I believe that God has a big vision and a big plan for how he wants to use you in his kingdom. I believe those of you who have jobs that you are the pastors of those teams. That God has put you there to be a light in the dark places, to encourage the other light that is there and to cast light on those who might not know him yet. That simply by watching you, they may give glory to the Father who is in heaven. Those verses are all over scripture. But what do we do? We know our past. We know who we are. And so we allow our shame to shrink our vision of who Jesus created us to be. We excuse those things away. If I said that, I would never be believed. They're going to think I'm a hypocrite. Maybe we want to start a devotional with our kids at the house. Maybe we just want to start exposing our children to Scripture in the home, but then we have that thought, yeah, buddy, but you don't even read the Bible every day on your own, you hypocrite. Well, start then, and then start the Bible study, man. God has these things that I believe He wants us to do, that He's purposed us to do, but we back off of them because of our shame, because we know who we are. And then we just exist in these little holes. God, I'm not going to do that thing. I'm just going to be a fisherman. I'm just going to work in sales. I'm just going to work in accounting. I'm just going to have my job. I'm just going to do my thing. I'm going to go to church and be a good Christian. But that work that you have to do in the kingdom, that's for other people who haven't messed up. And listen, if that's true, if the only people who get to do ministry and get used in God's kingdom are those who have never let Jesus down, then the church would be run by four-year-olds, man. We've got just a slight upgrade here. But that's what we do. We allow our shame and how we feel about ourselves to shrink our vision about what God wants us to do, which is why Jesus's response to Peter is so amazing. Look at what Jesus says in John chapter 21. I'm going to read you the whole conversation and then we'll talk about it a little bit. Jesus had shown up. They were fishing out on the Sea of Galilee. And that's louder than normal. They were fishing out on the Sea of Galilee. They had been out all night. They hadn't caught anything, right? And then Jesus appears on the shore after they bring the nets in. Still not catching anything. And they don't know it's Jesus. It's just some dude. And he's like, hey, cast your nets on the other side of the boat, which is ridiculous. It's almost like making fun of them. The boat's like 12 feet wide. It's not going to make a difference when they put them on the other side of the boat. But for whatever reason, they listen to the guy, they do it, and then they catch more fish than they've ever caught in their life. 30 years later, 30-plus years later, old man John still remembers that they caught exactly 153 fish that day. That wasn't a big deal to John. They pull in the fish, they go in, they have breakfast together, and then Jesus sidles up to Peter for a conversation. This is the first one-on-one conversation that they have had since Peter's betrayal. And let me just ask you before we read the conversation, what would you expect Jesus to say in that moment? What would you expect the conversation to be? Put yourself in Peter's shoes. You did that to Jesus. You've betrayed him. Put yourself in your own shoes. Take yourself to the place where you feel like you've let Jesus down the most. And right after letting him down for however many upteenth times you've done it, he comes up to you. He sidles up next to you and he puts his arm around you and you and him have a conversation. What do you expect him to say? I would expect him to go to Peter. I would expect him to come to me and say, hey, are you sorry? Right? Jesus is good. He's gracious. I don't think that we would expect Jesus to just come down hard on us. We don't know that in his character. But I think we would expect him to put his arm around us and look at Peter and go, hey, Peter, are you sorry for what you did? Isn't this what we do with our children? When Lily messes up, I've got a three-year-old daughter named Lily, when she messes up, which is more frequently lately because she's three, and apparently that's what three-year-olds do. And she hollers and she gets mad. What do I do? I pick her up and I hold her right here. I calm her down. And I say, Lily, are you sorry? And she says, yes, Daddy. I go, okay. And I put her down. I say, go tell your mom you're sorry. We forgive you. Isn't that what we do? Isn't that what we would expect Jesus to do to us? Hey, are you sorry? And then we would expect to go, yeah, I'm sorry. And we would expect to hear him say to Peter, okay, you're forgiven. Because he's Jesus and that's what he does, right? You're forgiven. That's what we would expect. But look at what happens. Verse 15, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Do you love me more than these fish? I see you've gone back to fishing. That's an interesting choice. I didn't know that you had a new career now. Do you love me more than these fish? Do you love me more than what you're doing? Interesting question. He said to him, yes, Lord, you know I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my sheep. Verse 17, he said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to somebody put it, you done boogered up, son. He messed up bad. He felt terrible. And he walked away from what God called him to because he felt like he had disqualified himself for messing up. And Jesus goes and he finds him. And we would expect Jesus to say, Peter, are you sorry? That's not what he says. He says, Peter, do you love me? Do I still have your heart or has this sin taken it from me? Do you love me? He says, yes, of course I love you. He says, good. Feed my sheep. This is a remarkable statement. Because in John 10, Jesus paints himself as the good shepherd. And he says that the sheep are his flock or the church or people who believe in him. His sheep are the Christians. And so the shepherd looks after the Christians. And so what he's saying is, Peter, for three years you watched me do ministry. You watched me tend to my sheep. And I told you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. I told you that one day I won't be here. When I'mores you. He doesn't just forgive Peter. He doesn't say, are you sorry? He says, do you love me? I know you're sorry. Because if you love me, then of course you're sorry. And then we would expect him to say, okay, you're forgiven, but sit over here in this probationary period. I'll keep an eye on you for a couple years and see if we can trust you again. That's not what he does. You're forgiven. You're restored. Go and do the thing I created you to do. Go and be the person I created you to be. He says, Peter, you may have disqualified yourself. You may have shrunken back from my plans for you, but I have not. I still have plans for you. I still want you to do these things. You are reinstated. You are restored. And he does it three times. I love the symmetry of those statements. How many times did Jesus deny Peter? Three. How many times did Jesus ask Peter if he loved him? Three. It's like he's saying, Peter, without even saying the words, Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. You're forgiven. Go and work. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Then you're forgiven. Go and be who I created you to be. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Okay, good, because that's three times that you said that. It's three times I've forgiven you. You can say it as many more times as you want to. I'll forgive you and restore you all those times. Now go and be who I created you to be. And I believe that he says the same thing to us this morning. I believe that he asks us the same question. Do you love Jesus? Grace, do you love Jesus? However mired in sin you might be, however much shame you might bring into the room, whatever might have happened in the past, whatever habits you bring, however many times you've made a commitment that you didn't keep, listen, put all that aside and let's just ask you grace. Do you love Jesus? Then go and be who he created you to be. Go and do the thing he purposed you to do. Say, but Jesus, I've done this and this and this. I'm not qualified. I used to be an addict. I used to do this thing. I'm mired in this right now. And Jesus says, listen, listen, listen, I'm not worried about that. Do you love me? Because if you love me, it means you're sorry. And if you've shrunk away, it means that you feel shame. And Jesus says, go and be the person that I created you to be. Go and do the thing that I intended for you to do. Quit disqualifying yourself. Quit feeling the shame that is not from me. And just answer the question, do you love me? Then go and do the thing that I purposed you to do. Go and feed his sheep. Go and build his church. Go and use the gifts that he's imbued you with. Go live out the reason that he leaves you here. Go and run your race. What I want you to understand this morning is Jesus is far more concerned with what he wants you to do than what you have done. He's already taken care of what you have done. He's removed that from you as far as the east is from the west. Because of that removal, you are free and have the freedom to operate in his love. And if you love him in return, then go and do the thing that he created you to do. Go and be who he created you to be. And that's where I would leave us at the end of the series in John with that simple question. After all the 12 weeks, after everything that we've experienced, after all that we've seen of Jesus, after what we know of him and how he loved us. Do you love him? Does he have your heart? If he does, grace. Go be who he created you to be. You're not just forgiven, you're restored. Let's pray. Father, we sure do love you. You sure are good to us. God, we can't fathom this idea that you would not just forgive us, but that you would restore us. Lord, if there are folks in here who walked into the room carrying a little bit of shame, God, if we are certain that if we could see you face to face, the first thing you would express in us is disappointment. God, I pray that you would take that from us today. That we would see that we are loved, that you care about us, that we would identify with Peter, not just in his betrayal, but in his restoration, that we would feel your arms around us, that we would simply respond to that question of, do we love you? Give us the faith to believe that you forgive us. Give us the eyes to see ourselves as you do. And give us the courage and the strength to go live out and be the people that you created us to be and do great things to the folks here at Grace. It's in your son's name we pray all of these things. Amen.