Sermons tagged with Kindness

Good morning. How you guys doing? Everybody good? If you are new or if you are visiting, my name is Aaron. I am so honored to get to serve as one of your pastors. And can we just take a second? Like, that was incredible, right? Can we just take a second and thank our worship team? Like, a lot of times, we see what happens on Sunday morning, but we don't see all of the prep that goes into, like, making sure that we set a good environment for worship on Sunday morning. And they knock it out of the park every time. And matter of fact, I'm really nervous about my job at this point because I'm not needed anymore, right? So I'm excited to be sharing with you today. I do want to clear the air about something. This is the first time I've really gotten to talk to you since the new setup. And if you remember a couple of weeks ago, our loving pastor blamed, if you do not like this, it was my idea, right? You remember that? And truth, it was my idea. But if you do not like it, it's because I was gone and his execution of my idea was terrible. So no, truthfully, the reason this became an idea is because I got tired of every single week leaving my coffee cup underneath my chair. And so I was like, hey, if we have something to set it on, we'll be good to go there, right? Hey guys, again, I'm really excited about today. We're continuing our series 27. It's a journey through the New Testament. It's just a broad overview of a lot of the books. And the heartbeat behind it is to honestly just create some hunger to go and check it out, go and read it. And today, we're talking about Colossians, which has easily become one of my favorite books. And to get our minds going in the right direction, I'll tell you a story of several years ago. I was serving at a church, and I had never taught. I had never preached on Sunday morning. At this point in time, I was just the pretty face on staff, and I was there to make the staff pictures better. It's similar to today, right? But no, so I was never somebody who taught, right? Except there was this one time they figured, hey, maybe he's more than a pretty face, and they let me teach. And so what happened after that, there's a part of the responsibilities, whoever teaches that Sunday, to call and follow up with anyone who responds to the gospel. At the end of the message, we would give a gospel presentation, and so my responsibility was to call people the next week. And I can remember a phone call that I had the very next day. I knew that I was unprepared for the phone call, but I had no clue how much of a bumbling idiot I really was until I got on that phone call. Because the goal was to just kind of tell her, okay, here's some next steps. Here's what your life should look like. Here's what the Christian life looks like. And I'm going to be honest, like I have no flipping clue what I said to that girl, right? Like I remember, like at some point I talked about Genesis and I may have talked about dinosaurs. I have no, I'm pretty certain that I am the only pastor to ever talk someone out of following Jesus. Like that's what happened. But really the whole goal was to just say, hey, here's what your life should look like. Here's the decision you made, and here's how it impacts and affects your life. But as you think about that, isn't that a great question? Have you ever wondered that? Like if you were sitting down having a cup of coffee with somebody, and you were trying to tell them, hey, here's what your life should look like as a Christian. How do you answer that question? Because we're told throughout all the New Testament, right? Like from this point forward, go and impact the world. Make a difference in the world around you. And yes, we do know and we've heard these things that say, read your Bible, pray about what it says, and then live it out. But can we just be honest? There's been a lot of times that I read this and I have no clue what to do with what it says. And then what KT talked about last week, right? It was just reflecting the love of Jesus. And that's great, man. That's an incredible, incredible thing that we need to remember. We need to let resonate. But there's a lot of times that I wonder, what does that look like? Like in today's world, what does it look like to love myself and simultaneously love someone else? Have you ever thought about that? Because if we can be honest, church today, Christian world today, it kind of has the same vibe as, like it's a-life version of telephone. You remember that game that you played as kids? Like, your teacher would get all the students up, and you'd stand them in a long, single-file line, and then she would whisper a phrase or a sentence to the very first kid, and then he would whisper it to the next, and they would whisper it to the next, and they would go all the way down the line until the very last person, they repeated what it is that they heard. And everybody's like, no, that's not what I said, except the teacher. It's like, wait, how in the world did you get there? It feels like that's kind of where we're at today with Christianity. Like generation after generation, person to person, these things have been kind of added to. And a lot of it is based on what the world needs at a particular moment. A lot of it is based on maybe an understanding or misunderstanding of scripture. But we put into the gospel, we put into Christianity, this is what Christianity looks like. This is what your life is supposed to look like to the point where we stand here like, well, who's right? Because that's the one thing everyone has in common. They're all right, but somehow all different. Like we're all convinced that this is the thing. And Paul's heartbeat behind his letter to the church in Colossae was, here's the life I want you to live. His heartbeat early on in chapter one, he says, hey guys, here's my prayer for you. My prayer is that you would live a life worthy of the Lord, that you would be knowledgeable of God's will, and that you would live a life that produces fruit. You would live a life that creates change in the world around you. That's his heartbeat. That's the purpose of Colossians. But what's amazing to me is that he doesn't start his letter with the do's and don'ts, which is what you may expect, right? He doesn't start his letter with, hey, all right, so now that you're a Christian, you gotta stop doing this because that's not very Christ-like. Now that you're a Christian, you definitely gotta quit doing that. Can you imagine if someone sees? He doesn't start with modifications to our behavior. Where Paul starts is with your belief. In this letter that he wrote from prison, he's writing to them to instruct them, to give them the Christian blueprint for life. And he doesn't start with what they do, but he starts with what they believe. I would recommend go and read through 1st Colossians, right? Like I'm from Kentucky, so it took me about 15 minutes., you'll do it in one, right? But read it nice and slow because it is probably the fullest expression of Jesus and his deity and supremacy. He goes through and he just talks about it. He articulates beautifully how Jesus is the son of God. He was there at the beginning. He was through him, all things are created. And for him, all things are created. I was really hoping. I was really hoping that that's where the rest of this book was gonna go. Because like that's, man, that comes from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount where he says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness because then you'll be filled. What he's saying is, hey, you're hungry. Like you're chasing all of these, and you're hoping for fulfillment. You're hoping for joy. You're hoping for a full life, but you weren't created for those things, and that's why you keep coming up. That's a great message, but that's not where Paul goes. He talks not just about Jesus and him being God, his deity, not just about Jesus being ruler over all rulers, ruler over all authorities. He's the Lord of lords and the King of kings, but he also talks about Jesus and his sufficiency. This is what he says in Colossians 1, verse 21. He says, once you were alienated and hostile in your minds, expressed in your evil actions, that's what we would call non-Christian, right? This is what he's defining right now. You were alienated and hostile in your minds, expressed in your evil actions, but now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him. If indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard. Paul, in a book where he is trying to tell them what life to live, he says, first, you have to understand the gospel. He defines a clarity and the simplicity of the gospel. What Paul just told them, he says, it's his body, it's his death, it's his resurrection, and it's his presentation of you. All you do, it is your faith. In a book that is designed to tell them how to live, he says the key to all of this, the key to the life that you're hoping for is not in the life that you live, but first in the hope and faith that you have. What Paul just said was you became a Christian. You became a Christian when you put your faith in Jesus and his actions. See, what was happening at Colossae at this point in time before Christianity came to the scene, like all of the religions and all of the ideologies and everything that existed before, Christianity came in and it started to merge and blend with. People were saying, it's not just Jesus, but it's Jesus and this. For them, it was this thing called asceticism, right? Like it would be severe depravity, right? Like you would deprive yourself of something or you would even cause physical harm to your body to make up for the evil actions. It was Jesus and that. It was Jesus and this idea of philosophies built on elements not built on Christ. It was the elements of the world. It was Jesus and Jewish tradition. Jesus and, and it was this and thing, and it began to muddy the waters. And what Paul is saying to these guys, hey, listen, if you want to live this life that you're asking about, if you want to live this life that you have been called to do, you first have to understand the clarity and simplicity of the gospel, because a convoluted gospel confuses direction. Anytime that we add to the gospel, it just confuses where to go from there. It confuses what to do from there. We cannot live the life that we've been asked and called to live. The way this plays itself out today is you have this word repentance, right? Like if you've been in and around the church very long, you've heard this term before. What tends to happen? I believe wholeheartedly that reading throughout the scriptures, you see two different types of repentance. Paul just talked about one. He said, you were alienated from Christ because of what? Your thinking. And your thinking influenced your actions. Your actions expressed what you think. You have Peter, just after Christ, burial, resurrection, and then ascension. Peter stands in front of the masses and he says, you killed Jesus. It was what you did this, so repent. He wasn't saying, you can't go back and undo that. What he was saying and what Paul is saying, a repentance that defines Christianity is what you believe to be true about Jesus. What Paul says to these guys, the life that you live, first has to be a repentance of what you believe to be true about Christ. Do you believe him to be who he said he is? Do what he said he did, and we'll do what he said he would do. The other repentance happens from that. The other repentance is a lifelong journey. It's what we call sanctification. It's the tugging and pulling and molding of the Holy Spirit working on creating you, morphing your desires, pulling you from the life that you left and towards the life that Christ is calling you to. What we tend to do, both of those are necessary. One is necessary for Christianity, belief, faith. And what we have a tendency to do is take the two repentance and we just blend them together. And so it's not just Christianity is not just a faith in Jesus. It's a faith in Jesus and this. It's a faith in Jesus and this belief. And honestly, most of the time, those beliefs are, they're proximity related. Like where you grew up, they scatter all over the states. Where you grew up, it's plausibility structuring. Like what you believe is possible is largely based off what you've been exposed to. And what happens is we elevate the non-essentials to the status of gospel. And Paul says you will never live the life you've been designed to live if we do that. Because it has you working from the wrong position. If we don't understand the gospel for what the gospel is, it has you working for a position with Christ instead of from a position with Christ. It has you working with the effort to earn Jesus instead of walking in life in Christ. Paul actually uses a word that he says, it holds you captive. Let me read for you in chapter two. I'm going to start in verse four, and then we'll pick it up on screen in verse six. I'm saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable. For I may be absent in body, but I'm with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ. So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live in him, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught and overflowing with gratitude. Here's the warning. Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on elements of the world rather than Christ. This word captive is a strong word. It's saying there's a restriction from where you want to be. Like we have the desire to move and live and go and do this, except absorbing these beliefs, lifting things up, trying to earn what has been freely given. It holds you captive. You know this, like nothing, nothing good is gonna come from captivity. Nothing good is going to come from presenting non-essentials as gospel. Like we could all sit down, right? We could have a cup of coffee and we've all probably got our story. Maybe you yourself or you know someone who has been involved and hurt by legalism. Because what happens with these beliefs is if you don't adhere to them, if we don't fall into them, it's, you're wayward. You've lost, he's kind of lost sight of what's good. He's not quite where he needs to be. And suddenly, because of not something that Jesus defined, it's just these ideas that have blended. And you're not good enough anymore. Some of you know this. I grew up in the church. My father was a pastor. And I can remember one week in particular. I don't quite remember how old I was. Maybe 10, 11 years old, something like that. But it was after worship, we were all sitting down, and after my dad had got up to preach, maybe two minutes within his message, he looked right back at me. I remember I was sitting, it was to his left. It would have been like you, right there. That's where I was sitting. I remember it, because he said, hey, Aaron, I need you to stand up and go home. Now, I got in trouble when I was a kid. I never knew I got in that much trouble. He stopped church to say, hey, listen, you got a whooping coming. That's what was going through my mind. I got whoopings as a kid. That's how I'm such a productive member of society. But I remember I was sitting in church and he stopped the service and said, Aaron, I need you to stand up and I need you to go home. And the entire trip, I'm like, oh, no. And you start cycling through all the things. Like, what'd I do? Well, I did that. Did he know that I did that? Like all of these things start happening, right? But what I came to find out later, he sheltered and guarded me well from that. What I come to find out, what I can remember now is as I stood up, there was another guy who was standing up before me. And what he was doing is he was parroting and mocking my father. Every sentence, he would echo it like a toddler who's spoiled and not getting what they want. He was standing in church. My dad knew something was about to happen. And what he came to tell me later, it was shortly after that, there was a family, probably about four to five families, that circled around my father, almost like a schoolyard fight. And they were trying to push him out of the church, trying to remove him from any type of leadership. They're claiming just heretic, claiming non-Christian, claiming all of these different things, simply because he was going to allow someone who had been divorced and remarried to become members of the church. We've all experienced where you know somebody, maybe you yourself. Like we don't, people don't walk away from the church because of what they see in Jesus. People walk away from the church because of what they see in people who claim Jesus. And it creates confusion. It creates hostility. It creates an uphill battle of worthiness that we will never, ever reach. And Paul says, don't let somebody take you captive. Don't let someone convince you that Jesus isn't enough. You will and you should. I'm gonna say this again. Please hear me. You will and you should live a different life. After receiving Christ, you will and you should live differently than you did before, but it's in response to Jesus, not to earn Jesus. And if we do not understand that, if we live with an effort, you can't focus on what Jesus has asked us to focus on because I'm trying to be good enough. I'm trying to earn. I'm trying all of this other stuff. And listen, Grace, I got to tell you, that is not something I've seen with you. Just to be very honest and very transparent, our last year here for my wife and myself has been such a breath of fresh air, of people who love because they love. They love because of what Jesus has done in their world. There's no expectation of anything. I mean, don't be a jerk, but like still, but even like grace, I do not think, I do not think that Paul would look at you and say, hey, stop. I don't think he would do that. But I do think he would look at you and say, hey, you don't have to earn anything. You are God's child. You are holy and dearly loved. You are worthy, not because of your actions, but because of your faith in Jesus' actions. So live in the freedom and joy that Jesus offers. Live in light of the gospel you have put your faith in. Live a life that Jesus has asked you to live without the weight of earning. That's the place where you can walk into who God has asked us to be. It's fascinating to me. It's fascinating that over half of his letter, like he didn't put numbers like chapters and stuff like that, but it's sectioned out into four different chapters, two chapters. In a letter where he's trying to tell you how to live your life, he says, first, understand your belief. And then he says, now go and do this. Chapter three. Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion. I don't know if you are reading through your Bible or like you're thumbing through or whatever, but if you are, underline that word put on, right? If you're not just writing on the person's neck in front of you, like you need to remember that. Like put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a grievance against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you. And I'll read verse 14. I don't think it's up there. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity, and let the peace of Christ to which you were called in one body rule your hearts. I love that word put on. Paul talks about this often in multiple letters. He says it in Romans. He says it in Corinthians a couple of times. He says it to the church at Ephesus. He uses this phrase, put on, which put on simply means to clothe yourselves. I love that. When that happened, it changed everything. When I realized he was saying clothe yourselves, because that's something we all understand, right? The intentionality that goes into deciding what it it is you're gonna wear. Some of us clearly think about it more than others, but like the intentionality, every day we wake up and we what? We clothe ourselves. There's laws that make you do this, right? Like we clothe ourselves. You go and you decide this. This is what I want to be wearing when people see me in the world. And he says, clothe yourselves with compassion, gentleness, humility, patience, and kindness. This is what Paul says. He says, live a life that reflects the life you placed your faith in. This is what he just described. This sounds remarkably close to what Jesus said, right? He says, it's this way that people are gonna know that you're my disciples. Hey, when you live this life, people are gonna identify you with me by the way you love one another. In a world where commandments mean everything, in a world and in a season of life where they needed the step-by-step direction, Jesus said, hey, I give you one, one command, one thing to do. This is what I want you to do. This is how I want you to follow me. Love others. What Paul tells us is that in order to love others the way that Jesus has called us to love people, you first have to understand fully how loved you are and that you have nothing to earn. And living a life of that love, it changes things. It creates and produces fruit. I have seen the church. Legalism hurt people. I have seen the effects of terrible theology. My entire family split from the church. My parents got divorced when I was maybe 15, 16 years old. And of course, how can you go back to the very place that tried to get you removed from the very thing you just did? Everyone. Gone. I have also seen, you have also seen, a lot of you are here today and consistently coming back to grace because you have seen what a life in a church that reflects the love of a Savior does to a person's heart. It pulls you in. It was the love of our Savior that drew you in. And Jesus said, hey guys, here's what I need you to do. Do you want to change the world? Draw them in with love. And this, you guys are all smart people, but I know for me, this made such a difference. Just the context of which Paul is talking about right now. He says, clothe yourselves with compassion. Compassion is not just seeing someone and having a sadness about their lot in life, but it's seeing someone and you feel such a hurt, like your insides turn and you're not okay with it. So you feel this and it moves you into action. Compassion. Clothe yourselves with kindness. Kindness is simply lending someone else your strength. You see someone dealing with something, I lend them a part of me to aid them. Humility. Humility doesn't necessarily mean thinking less of yourself. I think in this context, it means thinking more of others, not in terms of value, not in terms of how awesome they are at stuff. Maybe we can say it like this, thinking of yourself less. Like we don't see helping someone and being there for someone as beneath us. We think more of them and we move to help. We move to serve. We move to love. And then gentleness. Gentleness is the difference of catching a softball and a bubble. It's like you have the grip and you have the strength and you have the capacity to catch a softball. You can grip it and it won't fall, but you understand that in some situations, the gentleness of catching a bubble is what's needed for people. Patience is the tricky one. Because patience kind of, the way we think about it, the way I think about patience is I'm sitting there, okay, come on, let's go. Just don't cuss. Just don't cuss. That's not patience. Patience means moving at someone else's pace. And not sitting and waiting. Hey, come on, let's go. Walking with. Jesus. Paul. Jesus said, do you want to change the world around you? Clothe yourselves. How different would your world look? How different would your day-to-day look if every day you got up, you went in your closet, you got dressed, and maybe you have to do what me and Jeff do, right? Like you go and check with your wife if you match, and you just go back and put on whatever they tell you to, right? Like so maybe you go through all of that. You intentionally decide what you wear. You get ready to walk out your door, and you stop at your mirror right before you walk out the front. You look at it, and you say, okay, today, when people see me, they're going to see compassion. They're going to see someone who's not okay with seeing someone hurt. When they see me, they're going to see someone who's not above stepping in and helping out. When they see me, they're going to see someone who is not angry at consistently waiting, but walking along with. Listen, please, how different would your world look if every day you picked one and you clothed yourself? When people see you, they identify you as compassionate. Jot it down, right? Like, whatever it may, put your Bible, jot it down somewhere. Put it on something you have to look at every single day. Gentleness, kindness, compassion, patience. What is it that would change? How different, let's just not, let's take it beyond us right now. How different would the world perceive Christianity if people who claim Jesus reflected him? How different would your world look? How different could our world look if we live the life that Jesus has asked us to live? And intentionally, wear compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, and humility. Let's pray. God, thank you. Thank you so much, Lord, for your, well, compassion, gentleness, kindness, humility, and patience with us. God, I thank you for the writing of Paul that just, it frees us and allows us to step into the joy and freedom that we have in you, Jesus. And I ask, Lord, that you would just guard and protect our hearts and that you would help us to daily choose to wear something about who you are. That we would be intentional, Lord, about living a life that is a reflection of you. God, I think this is what it means when it says to trust you with our souls, but also trust you with our life. We're choosing to live a life that we are rested secure in because of who you are and asking you to do the same thing in the world around us, God. Help us to be a reflection of the life you have created us to live. Help us to be a reflection of the life that you lived because we do not just trust what you can give us. We trust who you are, Lord, to the point of we will put all of our faith in you and we will adopt your lifestyle as our own. Thank you, in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, well, good morning. Good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I hadn't gotten the chance to meet you, I'd love to do that in the lobby after the service. Now's not a good time. I'm busy. Happy Mother's Day for those to whom it applies. As we were singing that last song, I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life. I think that's an excellent song for Mother's Day. I think about my wife, who's an incredible mother. I think about the mom that I got to grow up with. I think about the kids that we have and share together and see God's evidence, the evidence of God's goodness all over my life. And hopefully for Mother's Day, that's something that you get to reminisce and think about too. Hopefully you have a great mom. Hopefully you've gotten to experience being a mom if that's something that you want to experience. But I also know that for others, Mother's Day is hard. We had a lot of hard Mother's Days when we wanted the gift of children and we didn't have it yet. And so I always like to just acknowledge that and pray in gratitude for good moms, for good memories, for the blessing of motherhood, but also pray for strengthening for those for whom Mother's Day is difficult for myriad reasons. So if you'll join me in prayer, I'll pray, and then we'll dive into the sermon. Father, we're grateful for good moms, moms that love us,oms that love us enough to get on to us, to keep after us, to not give in. Moms who wake up in the night with us. Moms who are always there, who leave notes in our lunches and who pray with us every morning. We thank you for moms that we've seen read your word and seek you diligently. We thank you for moms who raised us to help see you. And God, we thank you for the gift of motherhood and parenthood. And those of us who have children, God, are so grateful that you've given us that gift. And so we pray that we would be the mom and the dad to them that we need to be. God, also lift up those for whom holidays like this are difficult. Maybe it's difficult because their mom's not here anymore, and that's hard. Maybe it's difficult because they want to be a mom and they're not. And that's hard. Maybe it's difficult, God, because we thought we were going to be a mom and then we weren't. So, Lord, I pray just for special strength, protection, grace, and peace onto those folks. And that, God, those of us who feel blessed by today would see you as the author of that blessing. In Jesus' name, amen. So this is part five of our series called Big Emotions, where we're just kind of looking at different stories and instances in the Bible where we see these emotional flare-ups, these blow-ups and these blow-outs, and kind of just ask, what can we learn from that? Because this blowing up is a very part, it's a part of the human existence. It's something that we all experience. And so earlier in the series, we talked about, I talked about Peter cutting off the ear of one of the soldiers in the garden, and I kind of compared that to when we lash out at people. We just get angry, and we lash out, we're cutting off ears, and we should try to cut off less ears. And we talked about what can we do when we feel like lashing out. And so I thought it would be good to look at the other end of that and say, what do we do when we're the one whose ear just got cut off? What do we do when someone lashes out at us? So the question for today is, what should you do when someone blows up on you? When you are on the receiving end of unwarranted anger, of unjust frustration, of unfair lashing out, what should you do when someone blows up on you? And I thought that this would be appropriate for Mother's Day because what is being a mom if not getting blown up at eight times a day because you had the audacity to suggest that now might be a good time to brush your hair or not wear Crocs with a church dress or not get out of bed at 630 to make Mother's Day breakfast. Not that any of those things happen in our home, but with your children who are less good than ours, I'm sure that they blow up at you. And I can only imagine, you know, right now we've got a seven-year-old daughter. John is two. He doesn't really know how to blow up at anybody. He just clenches his fist really tight and you can just hear, he screams and you can just see this visceral anger coming from him, which is great. And, but Lily knows how to blow up. She's seven, but they're seven-year-old blowups, you know, like they're not, they don't really sting a little. I bet the 17-year-old blowups are rough. I bet those, I'm not looking forward to those. And then something tells me that the older your children get, the worse those instances become. And I also know that on the other end of the spectrum, I've talked with enough people, with aging parents, that sometimes as parents get older and older, their filter is just used up. It's just used up. They don't have a new one. There's no replacement. You can't get one from Amazon. It's just gunked up and they've tossed it aside. And they can say things that aren't so nice sometimes. And that's tough. It's tough when someone blows up on you. It's tough to be on the receiving end of unfair anger. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was going to pick up my dad at the airport. And I was at the airport and just kind of started to, I was near the terminal, so the traffic kind of starts to funnel in and slow down and whatever. And this cab, like a literal taxi cab, I don't even know, like, what are you guys even doing anymore? Like, who's using cabs? And not, why does it even exist in Raleigh? I don't understand this. It's like, it's like, it's like seeing the yellow pages on your front door or something. Like, didn't we, didn't we cover this? Anyways, cab comes blowing past me, swerves into my lane, like, and, and, and like slams on his brakes. Like he's mad at me. And I'm like, what in the world's going on with this guy? I have no idea. I did not see him anywhere in my rear view. I was not aware. I didn't even think that I had changed lanes recently. He just decided he was mad at me. He gets in front of me and I'm like, whatever. So I, I actually, I didn't even need to be in that lane and he was now going slow to mess with me. So I, I I just went around him like I got to go to the second terminal, buddy. And I look over, and he is aggressively hanging the bird at me. And I don't know how you do that non-aggressively, but this was aggressive. Shaking his fist, yelling things. I literally, like honestly, I'm on the stage, okay? I'm preaching to people. So before God, I have no clue, no clue what I did that upset this guy. And so I just kind of looked at him and went, and kept driving. I don't know. I wasn't mad, but he was really mad at me. So what do we do when someone gets really angry with us and we don't deserve it? We didn't do anything. We don't know what to do. How do we act in those moments? How does God want us to act? And what's really cool is not even how does God want us to act just so that we behave well, but how can we act in those moments that will actually draw people, the people who are angry and the people who can see that anger, that will actually draw them closer to our Father. What can we do in those situations when someone blows up on us? When I was thinking about that, there's one story that comes to mind in the Bible. To me, it's the best blow-up story in the whole Bible. It's one of the biggest ones. I can't think of many others that are like it, if any at all. But it's in 1 Samuel. We see the first part of it in chapter 18, and then I'm going to point us to chapter 19. So Saul is the king of Israel. He's the first king of Israel, but there's this kid named David who's been anointed as the next king of Israel. Normally, Saul's son Jonathan would take the throne from him, but God has used the prophet Samuel to anoint David as the next king of Israel. And then after getting anointed, David does this really annoying thing where he goes down in the valley and he kills a giant that everybody else in the whole country was afraid of, including Saul, and he does it without Saul's armor. And so Saul's a little ticked at him. And then he puts David in his army, and there's this song. This is the English translation of the song. Maybe it sounds better in the original Hebrew. I don't know. It's a pretty dumb song, if you ask me. But it was, Saul has killed his thousands, but David has slayed his tens of thousands. I don't know what the melody is on that. Maybe I should get Roburg to help me out. That seemed to work for you. But I don't, that was the song, right? So there's some jealousy there between Saul and David. And so Saul was a man that was given to what we would probably identify as anxiety or depression, bouts of despair and anger. And one of the only things that could calm him was David coming to the palace and playing the harp for Saul. That would calm him down. And so David's doing that one day, and Saul is just seized with anger and throws his spear at David to try to kill him two times. David dodges both of them and then gets out of there. Then after that, Jonathan, who was David's closest friend in the world, goes to Saul, his dad, and he's like, dude, this is a paraphrase. He says, dude, what are you doing? What's the problem here, man? This guy, he loves you. He serves you. He's a good servant. He's faithful. He's a good leader of men on the battlefield. He's there to play the harp when you need him to. I'm not mad at him. I'm happy that he's going to be my king. You don't need to be mad at him for me. Just like knock it off with David, with hating David. Can you do that for me? And Saul says, yes, I promise I will not try to kill him anymore. Which just as an aside, if you ever in your life have to promise to stop trying to kill someone, you just need to take a look in the mirror. That's all. I'm not going to make a bunch of points about that, but that's a sentence that no one should say. I promise I will not try to kill him anymore. Then we pick up the story in 1 Samuel 19. Turns out Saul's a liar. He just really liked trying to kill David. So here we go. Then a harmful spirit from the Lord came upon Saul, and he sat in his house with his spear in his hand, and David was playing the lyre. And Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he eluded Saul so that he struck the spear into the wall, and David fled and escaped that night. Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him, If you do not escape with spear two times, leaves, gets invited back to the palace, goes back to the palace. He's playing the lyre again to try to soothe Saul. And Saul, for a third time, throws a spear at David. David eludes it and gets out of there. Which, as an aside, I'd just like to point out, this is one of the fundamental differences between David and I. I have a one-spear-throw policy. If you throw your spear at me one time in anyone's house, I'm leaving that house, and I'm not going to trust you around spears again. David has a three-spear policy, much more gracious than I am. So he eludes it for the third time. He leaves. McCall is actually Saul's daughter that was given to David in marriage, and she helps him escape. Later on, we see this poignant scene where David and Jonathan meet in a field, and Jonathan tells David, you're going to have to go until my dad dies. He's never going to stop wanting to kill you, so you got to go. So David, for I think about this 20 year period goes and he just lives in the wilderness with a band of some of his soldiers. And they just elude Saul at various times. Saul chases David through the wilderness, trying to capture him and kill him. And there's actually two really poignant scenes in the wilderness where David has a chance to kill Saul and he doesn't. There's one where they're in the En Gedi, the caves on the edge of the En Gedi plain, which is in the southern part of Israel, close to the Dead Sea. And Saul's army must have been close because David and his men were hiding in a cave. And Saul, now at my house, when someone says they have to go to the bathroom, we say, do you have to go to the bathroom or the bathroom bathroom? Saul had to go to the bathroom bathroom. So he goes into a cave to take care of business. While he's in there, just so happens, that's where David and his guys are. And David's guys are giving David the eyes like, dude, you could totally kill him right now. And David realizes this. But he says, shame on me if I harm the head of the Lord's anointed. So he takes his knife and he cuts off an edge of the robe and Saul leaves. And once he's a little ways off, within shouting distance at least, David feels terrible that he even did what he did. And he goes out and he gets Saul attention, and he shows him the robe. And Saul feels so bad about the grace and forgiveness that David shows him that he decides, I think I'm going to be done killing David for a while. And he goes back to the palace. It wasn't long before he started hunting for David again. This time, David and a guy named Abishai snuck into the tent at night, and Saul's laying on the ground asleep with all of his men around him asleep as well. And Abishai looks at David, and he says, let me strike him with the spear. It will only take once. It will not take twice, which is a really, like, it's one of the cool lines. Like, I only need to do it once, man. I won't need two on this one. I'll get him. And David says, no, shame on me if I touch the Lord's anointed. And then in a battle between some of David's forces and some of Saul's forces, Saul ends up being killed. And the person who takes Saul's life, David actually takes their life for being willing to do that to the Lord's anointed. So what we see from David is that although Saul blew up on him, had completely unjust, unfair, unwarranted anger at David, David always, his whole life took the high road. His whole life honored Saul. Never once did he raise to meet Saul where he was. And so if we're going to ask, what should we do when someone blows up on us, when we are the object of unwarranted anger and frustration, I think we can look to this example of the life of David and see what he did, and we can mimic those things in our own life. And what's really helpful about this is I think that there are three really important New Testament passages, verses or passages, because some of them are two verses. I think there are three really important New Testament passages that honestly, every Christian, if you're here and you call yourself a believer, you should have these memorized. You should be able to say these off the top of your head. These should be things that show up in your life that you think of often enough so regularly that you can quote them. You might not know where they're from. You might not know how to find them. You might have to type them into Google to figure out the reference like I did this week, but you should know them. You should know what to type into Google. And so I want to look at three verses that display three behaviors that David displayed in this story about his interaction with Saul. So let's look at three things that were true of David and try to make those true of us. The first thing we see in this story is that David was slow to anger. He was slow to anger. And I know he was slow to anger because David could have, by all accounts, by all accounts, he was a better warrior than Saul. By every measure, he was superior to Saul. When Saul is in his house and potentially drunk and throwing spears at him, David could have very easily taken that spear out of the wall and gotten his vengeance on Saul right there. Now, you might say, well, he couldn't do that. There's guards. He could have been killed. Yeah, maybe, but what we know is that he didn't raise up in red-hot anger and do what some of us would do if somebody tried to hurt us. He kept his cool. He was slow to anger, which is really not the typical response in the human experience, right? That's why James writes this verse to remind us to do it. In James 1, 19 and 20, he says, does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. This is one that we should know. This is one that we should have memorized. This is one that we should remind ourselves of, particularly when someone is blowing up at us. Because human nature is not to stay calm and stay down here. Human nature is to rise and meet the anger with anger, isn't it? You guys who are married know this. You know this. You've had those fights, those days, where you look at each other and you're just mad at each other. You're just mad. And finally, one of you goes, what are you mad about? What are you even upset for? And the other one says, I don't know. You're mad at me, and I don't know why you're mad, so I'm mad at you. Well, I don't know why you're mad. So I'm mad at you. And then you kind of go back and forth. You're like, what was the first thing that made us mad? And nobody knows. And like, can we just agree to just kind of set the arms down and slowly back away from this one? Are we done here? We're like, yeah, we're done here. But that's typical in human interaction to meet anger with anger. I remember years ago, very early on in our marriage, Jen and I were at each other's throats about something. I don't remember what. But as we were talking about it, she gets really upset. She storms up the stairs, slams our bedroom door. Now, what did I do? Did I, because of my maturity and wisdom, think to myself, she's probably overreacting, but I'm going to let her stay up there and simmer because we don't want to say words in anger. And, you know, I'm sure that she'll kind of calm down. She'll realize maybe that was a little bit too much, and she'll come and apologize and tell me I'm right. That's probably what I need to do. No, I did not do that. I did not do that. Instead, I thought, I'm going to go upstairs. I'm going to tell her that she does not need to be slamming doors in our house. So I go upstairs, and I open that door, and I start getting on to her for the way that she's expressing her anger. And she, again, I don't want to talk to you right now, and leaves the room and goes into the guest room and slams that door. Now listen. Here's what I know. I don't know what we were fighting about. But if I make that sweet woman act like that, it's my fault. I was wrong. I don't know what we were fighting about. I know I was wrong. That's what I know. Now when she went into the second room and shut that door, did I leave her be? No. Because I wanted to poke it. So I walk up to the guest bedroom and I open that door. And I said, you know, I can open this door too. I can open all the doors. I don't know what happened after that. Things just kind of went red, I guess. It was just a blur. That's what we do, isn't it? Someone's mad at us. Oh, I'm going to get mad at you. Some cab driver hangs you the bird, you're like, hey man, forget you. You know, like whatever. Your kid snaps at you, you've had a stressful day, you meet them there and you snap at them. Your spouse, your co-worker, your parent. That's what we do, isn't it? Someone's angry with us, we raise to meet that anger. Well, James tells us, don't do that. Don't do that. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. It's important to be quick to listen and slow to speak too, because in those moments when we're frustrated, we have things that we want to say. But if we'll calm down and listen, we'll probably learn new information that may change what we want to say, that may help us be slower to anger. So when someone's angry with us, wisdom says, I'm going to be quiet, I'm going to be patient, I'm going to listen, and I will not meet anger with anger. This is what David does. The second thing that David does is David was quick to forgive. He was slow to listen and quick to forgive. He moves to forgiveness very, very quickly. We see no evidence whatsoever in any of the texts that David was ever angry with Saul or that David could not forgive Saul ever through the rest of his life. We see David offer Saul quick forgiveness, which is right in line with what Jesus teaches Peter in Matthew chapter 18. When it says that Peter came up to him and said, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me that should I forgive him? As many as seven times? And Jesus says to as many times as you need to. Forgive again, forgive again, forgive again, forgive again. And it feels pretty generous for Peter to ask that. How many times, when my brother commits the same offense against me, how many times should I forgive him? Up to seven, which makes sense. Your friend comes over to your house, he gets too rowdy, he breaks your new TV. You forgive him that one time. How many more times should I forgive him? Seven? That's a lot of breaking TVs. And Jesus says, no, as many times as you need to forgive them, forgive them. The way that I think about it is, as many times as we hope God forgives us, forgive other people that many times. When someone offends us, when someone lashes out at us, when we are the object of someone's unfair anger and unfair frustration, we should as quickly as we can move to forgive that person. Because holding that grudge is only going to hurt us. It's not going to hurt them. Now, I will also say this. Last year at Lent, during the Lent season, I did a sermon on forgiveness. And I basically just preached to you from the perspective of my good friend, whose husband was having an affair on her, and she had to really learn what forgiveness looked like because they had five kids, and that was really, really tough. And one of the things that she said that was super helpful, if you're a person who's struggling with forgiveness or wants a more robust explanation of forgiveness and what it looks like, then I would encourage you to go back and listen to that sermon. But one of the things she said that I found very helpful and others have commented to me too that was very helpful is forgiving someone does not mean that you have to trust them again. And so I would say this to you. If the person who is blowing up at you is making a habit of that, if they do it regularly, if it's not just a one-off that you can ascribe to a set of circumstances that are no longer true, but you have someone in your life who's blowing up at you again and again and again, you should be slow to anger in those situations, and you should be quick to find a path to forgiveness in those situations. But let me tell you what David did not do. He did not go back into Saul's palace again. He did not make himself vulnerable to a spear the fourth time. He did not trust Saul again. Did he forgive him? Yes. Did he honor him? Yes. Did he give him grace? Absolutely. But did he put himself back in that home? No. No. If you have someone in your life who is habitually blowing up at you, it is perfectly good and wise to remove yourself from that situation until something changes and you feel like you can trust that that's not going to keep happening. As we talk about what do we do when someone blows up on us, it's... I'm mostly talking about people who aren't our spouses. If it's our spouse and they do it all the time, if it's our brother or sister or friend or mom or dad and they do it all the time, that's a separate sermon. But what I would say to that separate sermon is, it's okay to not put yourself back in a situation where someone's going to blow up at you all the time, where you feel like you're just around a ticking time bomb. We should seek to forgive, but we don't have to trust and keep putting ourself in a place where that is going to happen over and over and over again until we believe that something is going to be different. The last thing David does is David was a conduit of grace. He was a conduit of grace. He was connected to God's grace. He was pouring grace out onto others. Back in the fall, I did a series called The Five Traits of Grace, the five characteristics that make us who we are, The five things that we want every partner to exhibit. And one of those things is to be a conduit of grace. To be attached to the grace of God so that the grace that we receive flows out onto others. This is the verse that I think of when I think of this. This is probably, if you're going to memorize any verse at all, if you don't know any of these, start with this one. Start with this verse. Put it on your mirror where you get dressed. Put it on your dashboard if you get angry in the car. Put it next to where your emails are if those things make you angry. Whatever sets you off, whatever stokes your fire, just put this verse so that you can see it. And it's super easy to memorize and it's super impactful. For from his fullness, John says, we have all received grace upon grace. From God's fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. From the fullness of God's grace that pours out on us, we have all received grace upon grace. When we think about a couple of weeks ago on Palm Sunday, I did a sermon about the earned wrath of God on us for placing his son on the cross and that Jesus on the cross exhausts the wrath of God for his children. When we think of the wrath that we don't have to experience because God poured it out on Jesus instead of us, that's grace. And God knew, as I said, God knew that we were going to cheapen the blood of Christ by presuming upon the grace of God. He knew that we were going to do that. He knew what you were going to do after you prayed the prayer and after you accepted Jesus as your Savior. He knew that you were going to move through that awful season of your life that you'd like to forget. He knew that and he forgave that. He knows what lies ahead and he's forgiven that. When we think about the grace that we feel every week when we come to church and we sit here and we sing the songs and we have this voice in our head that reminds us of who we are and what we've done and where we've been and that if the people here knew what I was capable of, if the people here knew what I know, then I would have to find a different church to go to. And yet God chooses me and God loves me and God blesses me and he's given me grace upon grace. When we realize that, that that God is so good to us, that that God is so patient with us, that that God will watch us go through years where we don't have quiet times, where we're not praying to him, where we're not seeking him, where everything about our Christian life is compulsory and cursory. He will watch that zombie walk through life and still try to breathe spiritual life into us at all times, calling us back to him. He is excited every time we come home. He is excited every time we utter the words, dear God, and we begin to pray. He is thrilled in his heart every time he hears your voice praise your creator. When we receive from his fullness that much grace, it is very easy to pour grace out onto others. And this is what David did. He had grace for Saul. I think he understood Saul's plight. I think he had patience for him and his depressions and his moods, even in understanding his desire for his own son to be on the throne. And one of the best pictures of grace we see, maybe in the Bible, but definitely in the life of David, is once Saul has passed away, David has ascended to the throne. Anybody who's watched the History Channel or read any books about old kings and kingdoms knows that once a king takes over, one of the first acts of orders of business is to kill everyone associated with the bloodline that preceded him so that there's no threats to his throne. And there was no one left that they knew of, but then one day somebody found a relative of Saul's. It was a nephew or a cousin or something, I can't remember which. Named Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth, it says, had a disability. And that's important because that made it more difficult for Mephibosheth to earn money and provide for himself. So he was a person who needed help. And they brought him to David, expecting David to kill him, to put him to death, to be done with the line of Saul and move on. Instead, David, learning who he was, had mercy and grace on him, made a seat at his table for him, and invited Mephibosheth to live in the palace and dine with him and be with him and considered him a family member for the rest of his life. That was how David showed grace and honor to Saul. That's the kind of grace that we're to show to others. The grace that says, I'm not saying I did this in the moment, I'm not trying to give myself credit, but the grace that says, you know what? It would be super stressful to be a cab driver. I don't know how they do it. I went to Chick-fil-A and Home Depot the other day. I was about to lose my mind, and that's like five minutes away. I don't know how they do it to be a cab driver. And you know what? I bet I did something inconsiderate that I wasn't even thinking of. So I'm going to give them them that. Somebody cuts you off in traffic. They're probably in a hurry. They probably need to get where they're going. Or, if this helps, life would be really hard to be that dumb. So I'm glad that God didn't make me that dumb. Whatever you need. We offer others grace. And I'll tell you who's the world's best at offering other people grace. It's Jen, my wife. She will do this all the time. We will be in traffic. Someone will cut me off, cause me to have to slam on the brakes. Our children are crying. We're terrified. And I'll say, my gosh, can you believe that person? And she'll say, now, Nady, because she calls me Nady. If you want to call me Nady, too, you can. It'd just be weird. She says, now, Nady, you don't know. His wife could be in the passenger seat in labor right now. And we just need, tell me I'm lying. And we just, we don't know what's going on in their life. I could be walking down the road, I promise you. I could be walking down the road and some guy could just come up to me and dog cuss me in front of my family. And then I could get out of the situation and walk down there and be like, can you believe that guy? What a jerk. And she'd be like, now, lady, you don't know what's going on in his life. His wife may have just left him and his parents may have just passed away. You don't know. That kind of grace. And when we remind ourselves of God's goodness and grace to us every day, it is easy to pour that out onto others. And I say start with that one, memorize that one, because if we're full of grace and we're offering other people grace, can't we be more quick to forgive when they mess up? Can't we remember that hurt people hurt people and just assume that they're hurting and maybe actually help them get to the bottom of their hurt rather than piling on and making them feel shame for blowing up in a way that they regret? If we're full of grace, won't we be slow to be angry? Won't we stay here longer? Because we're trying to see the best in them and we're trying to give them the benefit of the doubt in the situation. I think if we just abound in grace that it takes care of the rest. And then the amazing thing that happens when we do this, when someone blows up at us unfairly or unjustly, if we do what this says, when someone blows up on you, be slow to anger, quick to forgive, and abound in grace. When we do that, what are the people around you going to notice? What are your children going to pick up on? It's the easiest thing in the world to match anger for anger. It's the easiest thing in the world to lash back out. It's the easiest thing in the world to let someone say something nasty to you, say something mean to you, to have a server who's curt with you, one of those servers who acts like they don't even want to be there that day. It's perfectly human to let them walk away and then you venture frustration to the people around you. But what if you meet them with grace? What if you're slow to anger when other people would meet? What if you're quick to forgive when other people would hold on? What if you're abounding in grace when other people would abound in suspicion and doubt? Then not only have you brought that person who blew up at you a little bit closer to Jesus, not only do you bring yourself closer to Jesus, but you bring the people around you who see that and who marvel at that closer to Jesus too. Simply by being someone who, like David, is slow to anger, quick to forgive, and always abounding in grace. Let's pray. Father, would we in this way be more like David? And so be men and women after your own heart. God, when we are the subject of unfair anger, unfair frustration, when people treat us in ways that we don't deserve to be treated, would you help us to be slow to anger? Would you help us to stop and to listen? Not meet frustration with frustration? Would you help us to be quick to forgive where we can, to give us an earnest desire to find a path to that forgiveness? And God, more than those things, would you help us be people who abound in grace, who walk in this acute awareness of the grace and the love and the mercy that we have from you. Let us be people who walk in an acute awareness that from your fullness we have received grace upon grace, and let us freely and excitedly and happily give that grace to those around us, even when those around us treat us unfairly. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning. Good to see everybody. Thank you for being here on Palm Sunday as we catapult into Easter. Easter is just about here. It feels like this year is going by so very quickly. And I love Easter. This Palm Sunday is part five of our series, The Table, and we're going to be looking at the Last Supper, the most famous of Jesus's meals at the table. And then next week we get to Easter. For me, Easter is my favorite holiday. Easter is victory holiday. Easter is when Jesus wins and death loses its sting. Easter, to me, for a Christian, is the best. It's the greatest holiday. I know Thanksgiving is great, and I know that Christmas is fantastic, but for me, from a spiritual perspective, Easter is the one that I most enjoy celebrating. Although Christmas is tough because Christmas is pretty good, and one of the things I really like about Christmas and the celebration of Christmas is how understated it is, how understated the arrival of Christ is. I know that's funny, but when it's understated in the Bible, not understated in our culture. Okay, sorry about that. That's less than clear. That also should have been read as a joke. But no, no, no. The arrival of Jesus is incredibly understated. And as a people, I think we are drawn to humble, understated things. When you consider it, the entire Old Testament points to this coming Messiah. God sends his son to earth to reconcile us to him. We're going to talk about that more in a little bit. And Jesus shows up. And when he shows up, when this great Messiah shows up from heaven, we would expect him, I think, to show up like he does in Revelation 19 with just armies of angels behind him and trumpets sounding. And in he thunders to the world. And that's not how he arrives. He arrives as a helpless baby to a nondescript mom in a nondescript town in a nondescript country. And it's just like, ta-da, he's here. And I think that's a really neat part of the Christmas story, and it's a really neat part of how our God works. Our God is remarkably understated, leaving us often to find the impact and the largesse of the things that he does. Similarly, I believe that the Last Supper is every bit as understated and significant as the arrival of Jesus himself. This is Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday launches us into Holy Week. Palm Sunday signifies the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem. If you've read your Gospels carefully or closely or paid attention over the course of your life as you've interacted with the stories of Jesus, you'll find this peculiar thing that Jesus does whenever he performs a miracle. It feels like he's always like, okay, I'm going to heal your leprosy, but don't tell anybody. Okay, I'm going to heal your mom, but don't tell anybody I did it. And you're like, why is he doing this? This is weird. Isn't the point to tell other people about Jesus? Because Jesus knows that if too much fanfare gets out, that certain things are going to be set in motion that cannot be undone that will lead to his crucifixion. So when he goes into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he is knowingly setting in motion the wheels of events that will lead to his crucifixion. That's what Holy Week is. On Friday is the crucifixion of Jesus. It's called Good Friday. We're going to have a service here, and we're going to reflect on that. But I wanted to take some time this morning to reflect on what the Last Supper was and why it is so very significant. Because I think the Last Supper, this last Passover meal, the institution of communion together, again, is every bit as understated and significant as the arrival of Jesus himself. And I want to tell you why I think this, and I want that to allow us to kind of reflect on the significance of what the Last Supper represents. So before I continue, let me just read you the account of the Last Supper from the Gospel of Luke. It's in all four Gospels, but we've been going through the book of Luke, so I'm going to read from the Gospel of Luke in chapter 22, verses 15 through 20. He said, And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant of my blood. We'll stop right there. It's easy to just be reading this story, to read the Gospels, get to chapter 22, read this part. They're having dinner. They break bread. He says, this is a symbol of my crucifixion. If you continue to read the story, by the way, one of you is going to betray me, and then move on. But I want us to understand what's happening here. Because, again, the Passover, the Last Supper, immortalized by Da Vinci, is one of the most significant, impactful nights in all of the Bible, what he's talking about here. Do you understand that the whole Bible points to this night, to this weekend, to this death, and to this resurrection? Do you understand that the whole Bible points to the illustration of bread and wine that Jesus is using here? Even the night on which he chose to do it, they're celebrating Passover. Passover is a Hebrew celebration that is a celebration and reminder of the grace that God gave them when they were in Egypt to set them free from slavery. If you turn to the very beginning of your Bible in the book of Exodus, what you find is that God's chosen people are slaves to the Egyptians. And that God raises up a man named Moses, and he gives him the instruction, go to Pharaoh and set my people free. Pharaoh does not like this idea. God sends 10 plagues to change Pharaoh's mind. And the last one that he sends to break his will and to change his mind once and for all is the death of the firstborn son by the angel of death passing over Egypt. And the plague is this one night, the angel of death is going to pass over the nation of Egypt. And if you do not have the blood of a spotless lamb painted on your doorpost, on your doorframe, then that angel of death claims your firstborn son. If you do have the blood of a spotless lamb painted on the frame of your door of your house, then that blood is sufficient for the death and your firstborn son is not claimed. That is a very clear picture of the death of Jesus on the cross. I'm not going to go through the whole thing and make you work with me, but if you were to be a Hebrew person at that time and you heard that you needed to sacrifice a lamb and put its blood on your doorpost, you would paint it in the top center and you would paint it at about the height of your shoulder on the two frames. And that would form the shape of a cross on your door, the blood of a spotless lamb. What was Jesus called years later? Behold, the lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world. We just sang about the lamb of God. Jesus is the lamb of God who was sacrificed, who died a death so that we don't have to. And even though they didn't realize what they were doing when they were painting the blood on the doorframe, they were painting a picture of the crucifixion of Jesus. They, without knowing it, were pointing you to this and pointing all of history to the cross. They were painting a picture of what Jesus is depicting in the Last Supper, and then they go into the desert. And in the desert, some scholars say they could have been about 500,000 strong. However many it was, it was too many to feed off of what they could find to eat in the desert. So what did God do? You know. He sent manna. He sent the daily bread. He sent the daily sustenance for what they needed. He sent them enough for that day. We hear echoes of this in the Lord's Prayer. When the disciples look at Jesus and they're like, you pray different than anybody we've ever heard. Will you teach us how to pray? Jesus prays in part. Give us this day our daily bread. Give us our manna. Give us what we need for today. Give us the Jesus that we need to get through today. Give us the grace and the peace and the mercy and the love and the kindness and the persistence to get through today. What happened in the desert, in between Egypt and Israel, every day is God providing enough for that day. It is a picture of his provision of Jesus later. Manna is most closely associated with bread. It is the picture of the bread that Jesus would break at the Passover meal. It's a picture of who Jesus was. In the book of John, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. When you eat of me, you will hunger no more. He says, on the living water, when you drink of me, you will thirst no more. Jesus says, I am the bread of life. I am all that you need. And then as I was thinking about this and just, and there's more to do, I just don't have time to tie together all the symbolism in scripture that points us to the Passover meal and what that symbolizes. But even as I was thinking about last week's sermon on the feeding of the 5,000, there was five loaves of bread. And Jesus took them and he began to break them. And he began to feed everyone who was there, maybe about 20,000 people. And I wonder if there is a point, like bread number one. This one's good for about 3,500 folks. Oh, that one's done. And then he goes to the next one. I doubt that. This is just a guess. Okay, this is just a hunch. This is not in the Bible. This is just Nate talking to you. I wonder if he didn't take the first bread and break it, put it in the basket and the second one and break it and put it in the basket and the third and then the fourth and then he got to the fifth. And I wonder if that was the one that just kept breaking. I wonder if that was the one that had enough. And I wonder if the first four loaves weren't a picture of the Old Testament sacrificial system and the temporary sacrifices that we make. They only work for a little bit and then they run out. And then if that last piece of bread wasn't a picture of Christ being broken over and over and over and over and over again for all the people there so that they had more than what they needed. Even if it didn't go that way. And he dispersed the breaking equally over the five. It's bread being broken over and over and over and over again for all who were there so that all could have their fill. It is a picture of the crucifixion. Of Jesus. The bread of life being broken for us to give to all who have need. So much so that there is plenty of Jesus left over to go around for everyone. All of the Bible points to this night that is a picture of what happens in the hours to come. What I want us to understand is that what's symbolized here at the Passover meal, at the Last Supper, our entire history points to this singular act. Our entire history, the entire history of the world culminates and points to this singular act. What happens, what Jesus is depicting there in Luke 22 when he says, this is my body that's broken for you. Speaking of his body hanging on the cross. This is my blood that's poured out for you. Speaking of his blood that is spilt from the cross. All of history points to that singular act. It is the denouement of human history, what we see happen on Good Friday and then subsequently on Easter Sunday. And this Passover meal is a picture of it. Not only that, but all of our human history and all of our present traditions point back to what happened on the cross. So all of human history points to the singular act. And then everything that happens from then continually points us back to what happens on the cross. We're going to celebrate baptisms next week. Those are made possible by the cross. We're going to celebrate communion this week. That's made possible by the cross. Everything, everything, everything in history points to the crucifixion of Christ. Which begs the question, and it's really what this morning needs to be about, why is the crucifixion worth all of history's focus? Why is this one singular act worth all of the organization and the pointing and the pictures and the imagery that we find in the Old Testament pointing us to the crucifixion? Why does all of history reflect back on and reliant upon the crucifixion? Now, I know that we're in a Bible-believing church, so this seems like an obvious question. Why is the crucifixion such a big deal? And many of you know the answers. But I did think it was worth taking a Sunday as we barrel into Easter to reflect and to consider what is won for us at the death of Christ? What exactly happened on the cross? I think for many of us, if not all of us, we go to this place in our mind, well, that's how we're saved. And that's fine. That's a good start. But I would encourage us to reflect much more deeply on what is actually happening in the death of the Son of God on the cross. I'm not sure that you can make an exhaustive list of all the things that the crucifixion does, of all the things that it wins, of all the things that it stands for, of all the things that it symbolizes. I'm not sure that you can exhaust that list, so I'm not going to attempt to do that. But I do have for you this morning three things that I think that the crucifixion does for us. The first is the crucifixion exhausts God's wrath for his children. The crucifixion exhausts God's wrath for his children. Now, this is not something we talk about a lot. It's not polite dinner conversation, God's wrath. How have you experienced God's wrath in your life lately? That's not something that we do. And we don't really like to reflect upon it. Matter of fact, I have some people in different Bible studies and just in different conversations that I'm in, in and around church, who almost have a problem with God's wrath. Where we'll see passages in Scripture that indicate that God's angry with sinners, that God does have wrath for us, and they'll kind of ask a question, which is it? Do we serve a God of love or do we serve a God of wrath? And you just kind of have to go, yeah. No, you take 40 years and figure it out. But let's talk just a little bit about the wrath of God so that we can see that it is an earned wrath. I happen to believe that the Bible is true and that we can trust what it says. And if we will accept that the Bible is true, then what it tells us is that there is a perfect creator God. And that that perfect creator God, out of His goodness, created us so that we might experience Him. He literally said, what we've got going on here, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is so good that I'm going to create a whole race of people so that they can share in this. And so he created the earth. And at the very, very beginning of the Bible, we see that he created the Garden of Eden, and he put Adam and Eve there. And when he was done with creation, he looked at it and he says, it is good. It is very good. It is perfect. This is exactly what I wanted. And we learn later that in that perfect utopian world that God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. That in this perfect place, all that God wanted was to be with us and all we wanted was to be with him. And it was everything that God had intended. And God was perfectly happy to live, to exist in this way with us for all of eternity. The only rule was from God, I get to be God and you don't. That's it. I get to be God, you don't get to be God. As long as you're good with that, we can exist like this. And Adam and Eve said, yeah, it's not going to work. We need to be equal partners here. And when we sin, that's what we say. You realize that's what all sin is? Any sin you've ever committed, all you're doing is saying, for now, you're a wise, trusted advisor, or you're a father figure I resent, whatever you want to pick. But you are not God. I am. I'm going to make my own choices. That's all sin is. So we collectively, at different times in our life, look at the creator of the universe who placed us here to experience a relationship with him, and we said, nah, I'm like you. I'm as good as you are. I'm going to follow my own rules. I don't trust your rules for my life. And when that happened in the garden, everything broke. They corrupted God's perfect creation. When sin entered the world, creation broke down. Things entered into creation that God did not intend for his creation. Things like cancer and abuse and hurt people who hurt other people and on and on and on the list goes. That was not in the Garden of Eden. That was not what God intended. When we sinned, when we declared that we were God too, we broke it. And we broke that relationship with him. The one thing that God wanted for us to be with him, we broke that. And God looked at us in love and he knew that we cannot fix this. We are powerless to repair that relationship. So what does he do to repair that relationship? Genesis chapter 12. He enacts this grand plan through the line of Abraham to bring us a Messiah who will die a perfect death on the cross so that we don't have to. He will be the blood of the Lamb on our doorframe so that we do not have to die. So that we might be reconciled back to Him. He says, I created a perfect world. I made it just for you. I made it so that you could experience relationship with me. You messed it up. You can't fix it. I'm going to fix it at great cost to myself. And then we do one of two things. Either we never at all accept that gift. I heard a quote from Ted Turner years ago. This is a very loose paraphrase because I don't remember it wholly and it wasn't worth looking up because I can get the point across to you. He basically said, why did Jesus die for me? I never asked him to do that. I don't need it. When we in our life do not become Christians, do not at any point express a faith in Christ and a gratitude for his death on the cross for us and a repentance of the sins that necessitated that death. We are essentially saying what Ted Turner said. Who's this Jesus guy? Why did he die on the cross for me? I didn't need that anyways. Now tell me that an all-powerful, perfect God who created us to exist in relationship with Him, who built a bridge back to Him at great cost to Himself, you explain to me why He shouldn't be rightly offended at that disgusting attitude. And then for the Christians who have accepted the love of Christ, who have accepted His sacrifice, understanding that it covers over our sins, what do we do to inflame and deserve the wrath of our God? We cheapen Christ's blood by presuming upon God's grace. With every willful act of reclaiming the God role in our life, with every willful act of reclaiming the God role in our life, with every determined break from God's will and choosing our will, with every knowing sin that we commit, we cheapen the blood of Christ by presuming upon the grace of God. I know I shouldn't do this, but I'm a sinful person. God has forgiven me. I'm good. I've prayed the prayer. I've repented. I go to church. I believe in Jesus. I know I shouldn't do this thing, but also I know that I'm good. God's got it. As if we're at some corporate dinner and we opt for another glass of cheap wine because we know that God is footing the bill. Every time we willfully sin and act discordantly with God's will in our life, we cheapen the blood of Christ that he spilled on the cross because we presume upon the grace that it signifies. And you tell me, if you're in heaven watching us trample the blood of your son with our willful sin, would you not be just a little ticked? Would you not be just a little annoyed? So yes, we serve a wrathful God. But yes, that wrath is earned. But, this is the beautiful part. When Jesus is hanging on the cross and he utters, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It is in that moment that our earned wrath is poured out on his son on our behalf so that we don't have to experience that. God's wrath is exhausted in that moment on his own son so that we live life exempt from God's wrath, only experiencing God's love. This is why it's so puzzling, I think, for Christians when we encounter the wrath of God in scripture to be told that it exists because we don't experience that God. We experience a loving God without acknowledging that the wrath that he has for us was already poured out on his son so that we don't have to experience it. So what does the crucifixion do? It saves you. Sure, fine, use that language. But what it really does is it exhausts the wrath of God for you so that all that's left for you from the God of heaven is love. So we can sing our songs and so we can live in peace and so that we can be reconciled back to him. That's what's won on the cross is we don't experience God's wrath. People who never come to faith do and it's terrible. But lest we make the cross, as we often do, about our personal salvation project, which is not its intent, let us also acknowledge what else the crucifixion does. Because the crucifixion reconciles all of creation. It reconciles all of creation back to God. I love Romans 8, and I quote it often when it says that all of creation groans together for the reconciliation of us back to our God, for our adoption as sons, for the forgiveness of sins. All of creation groans to be reconciled back to the perfect utopia that God intended. When we get the call that someone is very sick, that someone found a lump or a mass somewhere, and the results of the scan come back and it is not good. That is creation groaning for a return back to Eden, for the return of the King. That is creation groaning for Jesus to come make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. When a marriage breaks down and children are left being shuttled back and forth, that is creation groaning for the way things are supposed to be. When a husband is abusive and a wife feels that shame, creation is groaning. When the leaves fall off the trees and die, and winter is barren, and the days are short, creation is groaning. When COVID sweeps through and shuts us down, creation is groaning. It is telling us, this is not right. This does not feel right. When tragedy strikes and we're sitting in the middle of it, creation is groaning with you for the reconciliation of God's children to himself, for the forgiveness of sins and the restoration of Eden. Creation is groaning for the promises in Revelation. And those groanings are only fulfilled through the cross. Through Jesus reconciling not just us back to our God, but creation back to its creator. On the cross, we are promised that those things will not always be true, which begs us to discuss the last thing I want to say about what the crucifixion does, which is the crucifixion gives us hope for the future. We're told in Romans 5 that we have a hope that will not be put to shame. And if you have lived life for any amount of time, you know that everything you hope in eventually puts you to shame. Everything that you've ever placed your hope in has hurt you. Everything that you have ever placed your hope in has let you down. Except God. There are times, I will admit, when He feels like He has let you down. But what we have in the crucifixion is the promise that ultimately he did not. Do you understand that if we don't have the crucifixion of Jesus and the subsequent resurrection, that all there is is careening through life from tragedy to tragedy? Do you understand that if there's no crucifixion, then all we have is Ecclesiastes, where the wisest man in the world at the time wrote, with much wisdom comes much vexation. The smarter I get, the sadder things are. Do you understand that if we don't have the crucifixion, that all there is, it's just eat, sleep, and be merry for tomorrow we die. If today happens to be a good day, well then bucko, buddy. Good job, because tomorrow's going to stink. If there's no crucifixion, then when we lose a loved one, it's just goodbye. That's it. Death is final. It wins. It will claim us all. And we live with that cloud over our head for our whole lives. And the best we can do is stave it off. But because of the crucifixion, when we lose a loved one who knows Jesus, it's simply goodbye for now. And frankly, I don't know how a hurt world, how a lost world makes sense of tragedy without the crucifixion and the hope that one day these sad things will be made right and untrue. How do you cope with what happened in Nashville without the crucifixion? How do you watch your dreams crumble around you in the marriage that you thought that was going to work and hasn't without the crucifixion? How do you deal with miscarriage and loss and illness without the crucifixion? How do you find any hope that anything gets any better without the crucifixion? Without the promise that one day our God will be with his people and his people will be with our God and there will be no more sin and no more crying and no more death anymore for the former things have passed away. How do you have hope for that without the crucifixion? That's what's won there. That's what the crucifixion means. It's not just our personal salvation project. It exhausts the wrath of God. It reconciles all of creation back to Him. And it gives us a hope that this world can't touch. We asked earlier why our entire history looks to this moment and it's simply this. Our entire history points to this singular act because our entire future relies upon it. Everything in human history is marshaled to focus us on the cross because all of the hope of the future of humanity rests on the cross. So when we celebrate communion, that's what we celebrate. In just a little bit, I'm going to pray, and then the elders will come forward, and we'll move into a time of communion together. And when we do that, remember these things. Remember that as you break that bread, that it symbolizes Christ's body breaking for you on the cross. As you dip it in the wine, that symbolizes his blood poured out for you on the cross. And that on that cross that day, the wrath of God, the earned wrath of God was exhausted on your Savior so that you might experience the love of a good God. And that on that day, there is a promise made that one day He will reconcile all of creation back to Himself exactly the way He intended. And that on that day, the pain that you feel right now, the hard things that you are walking through right now will be anathema. They will be no more. It is done. There is a hope that you can cling to. So I'm going to pray, and as I do, I would like for you to pray too. Pray with me or pray on your own. But allow God to prepare your heart to take communion. Carry to that communion table whatever it is you need to carry. Carry to that communion table whatever brokenness it was that you walked in here with this morning. If you walked in here in a good space, if life is good, if you're in a sweet season, then praise God for that sweet season as you break the bread that earned you that season. If you're in a time that makes you need hope, then break that bread for hope. That God sees you, that God knows you, that God loves you, and that God has made promises to you and that you can hope in those promises and that they will not be put to shame. As I pray, spend time preparing your heart for communion, and then I'll give you some instructions as the band comes up. and over again in my life. I know that the chances are high that I will presume upon your grace this week. And the week after that. Thank you for loving me anyways. For pursuing me anyways. Thank you for loving us despite our willful disobedience. Thank you for exhausting your wrath on your son on our behalf so that we might experience your love. I pray that we would walk faithfully and gratefully in that love. And God, to those who need it most, for those who are hurting, I pray that communion this morning can be a symbol and a reminder of hope. That not all days will be like today. It's simply creation groaning for you. And that in your perfect time, in your perfect way, you'll send your son back to get us and make all these wrong things right and make all these sad things untrue. Thank you for everything that was won on the cross. Give us a fresh gratitude for it that we might walk in that. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning. Good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Happy New Year. If I had known that worship was going to be that good, I would have prepared a better sermon. So we just had the best part of the service already. And let me just say to you, if coming to church more regularly is one of your New Year's resolutions, I am rooting so hard for you. I am happy for that. And we are doing everything we can to make it worth your while and enriching and good to get up and get ready and come and hopefully be pushed a little bit closer to Jesus when you left than when you were when you came through the doors. And I would also say this, if that is a New Year's resolution for you, and so grace is the place that you're choosing to do that, if you get a couple weeks in and this just ain't cutting it, man, this is not doing it, can you just please go visit another church before you just quit church? Because there's a lot of great churches in the area, and some of them are probably hitting notes that we're not. And I would really love to see everybody involved in a church family. It's such an important part of life. So I would just throw that out there to you. This series that we are focused on now for this month is called Known For. And we're going to be talking about this idea of reputation and what we're known for. So in week one, to be known for, and then we're going to say, what do we want our faith, big C church, Christianity, and our culture today, what do we want it to be known for? And so if you're a praying person, you can be praying for me for that fourth week, because there's things I want to say that I shouldn't. There's things that I need to say that I'm going to be scared to, and I'm going to have to find a good balance there because there's a lot to say about how Christians posture themselves in our current culture, and I want to talk to Grace about how we can be on the right end of that, helping Christianity in our culture. But that begins with focusing first on ourselves and on our reputations. Now, everybody, I would think, is known for something. Everybody has a bit of a reputation, right? I think when we think of people who are known for things, that maybe we think of people who have lived bigger lives than most of us. Politicians or athletes or celebrities or authors or people who influence in some way, but I would argue that everybody's known for something. I mean, if you think about it this way, what would you say your dad's known for? When you think about your dad, what do you think of? What's your mom known for? When you think about your best friend, your husband or your wife, what are they known for in your circles? Right? Something comes to mind. When you think about your favorite co-worker, what are they known for in the office space? When you think about your least favorite co-worker, what are they known for in the office space? In this office space, it's youth ministry is what they're known for. That was the joke of me making fun of Kyle, our student pastor, just in case you guys didn't catch on to that. He's the worst. He's getting married in six days. Yay, Kyle! Everybody is known for something. You're known for something. You're known for something by your acquaintances, kind of concentric circles of concern. By your acquaintances, you're known in certain ways. By your close friends, you're known in certain ways. And by your family, you're known in certain ways. And so the question that I would put in front of you this morning, and it's a good question to consider at the beginning of a year, the time when we do New Year's resolutions, What are you known for? What is your reputation? And I think those concentric circles of concern are important to consider because it's really easy to be known for certain things, to put on a good face with your acquaintances, with the people that you interact with at work sometimes, with your neighbors that you see sometimes, with your friends that you hang out with when you want to. We can put on a good show for those kind of outer edge people, right? And then our friends who may text with us more, call us more, interact with us more, they kind of know us a little bit better. I was 17 years old, and I had this really incredible experience at camp. And I was really moved towards Jesus. I grew up in the church, but God kind of got a hold of me, just reinvigorated me, and I was really just, it was one of those spiritual highs, right? And my dad was, he was the chairman of the board growing up. He was a big church guy. All my memories are church memories, and I was so proud to tell him, Dad, I'm really going to choose Jesus. I'm really going to push after him. He totally changed me while I was there, and he looked at me, and he said, that's great, son. Be nice to your mom. I was like, dang you. He just crutted on my spiritual high, but he was right. Our families know us best. We can't fake it with our spouses. We can't fake it with our kids. They grow up in our homes. They see us at our best and our worst. What are we known for in our families? And so then I would ask you, what do you want to be known for? What would you hope to be known for? When people hear your name, what do you want them to think? Your kids growing up in your house, what kind of stories do you want them to tell about you? When your coworkers talk about you behind your back when you leave the room or when you're in the meeting, what do you want them to say? When your friends that you play tennis with or you do trivia night with or you do whatever neighborhood stuff with find out that you're really involved in your church, what do you want them to think? Do you want them to go, yeah, that checks out? Or do you want them to go, really? Him? Huh. What do you want your reputation to be? Now, some of you could be like my wife, Jen, who's not here this morning. John's got a little bit of a fever, so we're kind of tending to that. So I can say this and not embarrass her. She's got a pretty good reputation. If you know Jen, you know that everybody calls her Sweet Jen. She doesn't have a lot of work to do on how she's perceived by the general public, nor does she have work to do with how she's perceived by me. She's got a pretty good name in our house. And so maybe that's you. And as you think about your reputation and you think about what you want to be known for, God and his goodness and you and your humility have done a good job in actually making a good name for yourself. And so we just need to continue there. That's great. But maybe you're like me. Jeff, what are you laughing at, man? Yeah, maybe you're like me and Jeff. And you've got some rough edges. You have probably a good reputation. You're known for positive things. People think of you well, but there's also some parts about you, and you know them, and they know them, that, man, you'd love to shave off. I know for me, I think I'm known at all three levels of my life. I think I'm known for being loyal, being honest, hopefully for being a good and loving friend, being present. But I can also be known to be gruff and grumpy. And if I'm being honest, one of my least favorite things about myself right now is I can get into moods that begin to affect the tone and tenor of everything around me, whether it's at staff or an elder meeting or at my house or with my friends. And I don't like those moods, man. I don't like being that grumpy sometimes. I don't want to be known for that. And maybe you have some things in your life that you don't want to be known for either. So as you move into this year, I would ask you, what do you want to be known for? And there are others of you who may just feel like no matter what you do, you're known for your mistake. You're known for screwing up. You're an addict, and you'll never not be. You're a cheater, and you've just got to live with it. You've made a big, huge mistake. And you feel like that when everybody sees you, all they see is that mistake, and all they'll ever see is that mistake. And I just want to tell you that it's never too late to rebuild your reputation. I told you guys at Christmas Eve, and I've mentioned stories about him before, about my pawpaw. And I hesitated to share this because it's, first of all, I don't want to talk about him all the time, and second of all, this is his business, it's not ours, but he's in heaven now, and I don't think he'd mind too much. I think when you get to heaven, you get a lot of grace for people's humanity. But I told you guys, he's my favorite person that's ever lived, and that's true. I've told you I have glowing memories of him and how present he was and how much he loved me. But his name was Don. Don also grew up real poor in South Georgia, I guess in the 30s. Had a daddy that was abusive, had a dirt floor. And then he had kids in the 60s and 70s, and he raised them. And he raised them like a man without a good daddy, without Jesus, would. And he had a temper, and sometimes it got the best of him. So the kids who grew up in that home did not know him like I knew him. But at one point, he came to know Jesus. And I don't know that he did it intentionally, but he began to rebuild his reputation. So that now, I don't know that part of him. I don't know that side of him. I never experienced it. And his children all have fond memories of him, all love him, all continue to mourn him. It's never too late to choose a new reputation. So the answer to that question, what reputation do you want to have, if it feels impossible to you, it is not. By God's goodness and through your humility, you can begin to work towards it. And there are others of you who fall into this camp. I'm not going to linger here long, but it is worth saying. There are some of you in here who have a good reputation. You have a good name. And that's good. And people think highly of you. And that's good. But you got a secret. You got some stuff going on in the shadows. And if people found out about it, you wouldn't have that good reputation anymore. So you look good, but you're not. And you know it. Maybe this can be the year that you finally leave those shadows behind. You finally leave those in the past. And you finally walk as the person that everybody believes you are and that God created you to be. And maybe it's possible that God in his goodness and his love for you has kept those things in the dark for you to give you opportunity to move away from them and be who he wants you to be this year and moving forward. I pray that none of us have stuff going on in the shadows that could ruin what everybody sees in the light. But if we do, let's be done with that too. But as we consider this question, what do you want to be known for? Not what are you known for, what do you want to be known for? I think it's actually way more important to ask the question, what does God want you to be known for? What does God want you to be known for? If you're a believer, if you're a Christian, if you're a child of God, which means to be someone who is a Christian, you believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God and he came to earth. That he did what he said he did. He died on the cross and he rose again on the third day. And that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. He's going to come back one day and he's going to make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. If you believe those things about Jesus, then you are a Christian. You are a child of God. And what does God want your reputation to be? What does he want you to be known for? And that might sound like a little bit of a silly question, but I actually believe, based on the counsel of scripture, that this is an important question, that it matters to God deeply what your reputation is. I think it matters to your heavenly father very much how you're known with your friends and in your co-workers and your good friends and in your family. I think it matters to your heavenly father very much how you're known with your friends and in your coworkers and your good friends and in your family. I think it matters to him a lot how you're known. And I don't just think that intuitively because as I was thinking about it this week, of course God cares what his children's reputations are because don't you care what your kids' reputations are? Doesn't your heart fill with pride when the teacher says, you've got a great kid here, they're doing wonderful? Isn't it filled with shame when your teacher says, your kid is terrible, I wish they weren't in my class? We want our children to have good reputations, not just because they're a reflection on us, but because we want them to have a good name. So does God care about the reputations of his children. But again, it's not just intuitively that I believe this. It says so in Scripture. In Proverbs 22, verse 1, it says, God says if you have the choice between great wealth or a good name, choose a good name. I do not have that choice. I get to choose a good name or nothing. It's not an either or situation for me. But if you do have the opportunity to choose wealth or to choose name, choose name, choose reputation, choose standing, choose favor. That's how important it is that you have a good reputation to God. It's so important, in fact, that in the New Testament, when they start to name church officers, things for people to do within the church, they make reputation one of the requirements. In the book of Acts, there's this scene, I believe in chapter 6, where they had to choose deacons, people to do the ministry of the church, kind of think church staff, because the disciples were getting, they were trying to focus on prayer and teaching, and they were getting so caught up in the daily needs of the church, they could no longer meet them. And so God instructed them, go and choose seven men to be deacons and to meet the needs within the church. And there was two requirements to be a deacon. One was to be faithful and filled with the Spirit. The other one was to have a good reputation in the community. God didn't want anyone in leadership in his church that wasn't well-known and well-thought-of in the community in which they were serving. And then to further that, to choose elders, Paul writes to Titus, when you're choosing elders, when you're choosing the leaders of your church, among the things that I want to be true of them, that God wants to be true of them, they need to have a good reputation amongst outsiders. There's another place where God says in 1 Peter, God says through Peter, that Christians are to be a good example, to set a good example, to have a good reputation amongst the Gentiles, amongst non-believers, so that they can find no fault in you. Your reputation and what you're known for matters a lot to your God. So what does he want you to be known for? Well, this is an interesting question, because there's so many instructions about this all over scripture. There's so many different times in scripture where we are told what he wants us to do and who he wants us to be. I think of Philippians 4, 5 when it says, let your reasonableness be known to all people. So God, and I think this is interesting and worth pointing out, God wants his children to be thoughtful, reasonable people. I don't think that we often associate that with a Christian trait, but it is. We need to be thoughtful, reasonable people. And let me just kind of put a finer point on that. If you learned everything you needed to learn in your life by the age of 33, and you don't have any new opinions since then, and no new information has entered your brain since then, you're not being a thoughtful, reasonable person. Or you're a freaking smart 33-year-old. You really nailed it. God calls us to be thoughtful, reasonable people. In the Beatitudes that we're going to focus on next month in February in a series called Blessed, he calls us to be meek, to be peacemakers, to hunger and thirst for righteousness. In different areas of the Bible, he gives us different lists of characteristics that we are to pursue. In Galatians, he tells us that we will be known by our fruit, either the fruit of an evil life or the fruit of a life filled with the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I think you can make a very strong argument that God wants his children to be known for those fruit. And then in Ephesians, we get kind of a seminal passage of what is the picture of what a Christian should be? What is the picture of what God wants us to be? Read with me in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 6. Paul writes this, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. So Paul kind of lays it out there in Ephesians. Be humble, be gentle, bear with one another, be loving, be patient. And we see these kinds of verses over and over again through scripture. And the reality of it is, it's really hard to wrap your mind around all the things that God wants us to be known for. I grew up, I don't have any memories of my life without church. We were there every time the doors were open. My parents were highly involved. I went to a Christian elementary school and high school. I went to a Bible college. I went to seminary. I've been in ministry for 20 years. And I don't think I could get 50% of all the characteristics that are listed out in the whole of Scripture as to what God wants His children to be. It's a lot there. So when you ask, what does God want us to be known for, that's a tricky answer because it gets long. And it can be confusing and intimidating, which is why God boiled it down for us. And the more I thought about this, the more I thought there really is a simple answer here for all of us. What does God want us to be known for? God wants his children to be known for loving well. That's what he wants you to be known for. What does God want you to be known for? He wants you to be known for loving well. And I didn't put a person there, loving him well, loving your neighbor well neighbor well. Loving your spouse well. Loving your church well. Just loving well. To be an excellent lover. That's why we're told in scripture that God tells us that we should love him with all our heart, soul, mind. Amen. And that we should love our neighbor as ourself. And then he says, on this rests the whole law and the prophets. The entire Bible. All the commandments in the Bible are summed up in those two, love God well, love others well. And then Jesus makes it even easier. He tells the disciples this new commandment I give you towards the end of his life, love others as I have loved you. And then John, 30 years later, writing his letters to the general church, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, basically says, if you say you know Jesus and you do not love, then you are full of it. Now that's a loose paraphrase, but the spirit of it is there. He says you're a liar and the truth is not in you. What does God want his children to be known for? He wants us to be known for loving well. And if you think about it, it makes sense. How can I love someone well if I'm not humble? How can I love someone well if I don't bear up their burdens? Well, if I don't bear up their burdens, if I'm not patient with them, if I don't listen to them? How can we love people well if we are not reasonable and we will not listen to what they say or what they think? If we're not open to new understandings and new ideas. How can we love people well if we're not meek but we're just brash all the time? And so the reality of it is there's a lot of different characteristics that a lot of us need to work on, but what God wants us to be known for and what I want you to be known for in 2023 is to love well. And that looks different in different seasons of life, but I can tell you this. If you have a spouse, God wants you to love them well, to respect them deeply, to serve them, to live for them and not yourself. God wants you to choose them. God wants the people who see your marriage to go, man, they love each other so much. He serves her so well. She honors him so much in the way she talks about him. That's what God in your marriage, if you have children in your home, God wants for your children to look at your marriage and say, that's what I want when I grow up and I'm not going to settle for anything less. So what do you want to be known for? What does God want from you this year? He wants you to be a good husband and good wife. He wants you to be present for them. If you have kids, if they're at home, what does God want for you there? He wants you to love them well. He wants you to be present with them. He wants you to get off your phone and turn off the TV and get on the floor and play with them. He wants you to listen to them. He wants you to be interested in them or feign interest the best way you know how. When the Bible says in Isaiah that you will run and not grow weary and walk and not be faint and will soar on wings like eagles, I think he's talking to parents who have seven-year-olds and have to watch the seventh thing of the day. What does God want you to be known for? He wants you to be the person in the office that people come to and share with. He wants you to be the consistent one. He wants you to be the one that will listen to other people be human but will not run down your boss or their coworker just for the fun of it. He wants you to be the one that exists above that fray. He wants you to be the one who honors him in all that you do, who loves your co-workers well. He wants you to be the one in your friend group who loves well, who points people towards Jesus. He wants you to be the one in the neighborhood that's the most patient with the other kids, that's the most giving and hospitable with your time. He wants you to be known for how well you love. And I wondered why this was so important to God. And why is reputation so important that we're going to spend four weeks on it? And this occurred to me, and I'm going to throw this out here. You guys try it on. You see if you agree with this, because it's going to come up every week. I'm going to remind us of this. We're going to tie back into these two ideas. Into one, that God wants us to be known for loving well. And then this idea too, that there is nothing more persuasive than a name. I don't think there's anything in life more persuasive than somebody's name. And here's what I mean. Think about recommendations that you get from people. Some people you get bad recommendations from, some good. There's somebody who was in one of my small groups a couple years ago, and in that small group we were sharing about this experience we had with sushi in New York City. And if you want to hear about it, I'll tell you about it, because it was amazing. It was the best food I ever had in my life. It was a great meal. And we were kind of telling them about that. And he pipes up and he says, oh, yeah, I know where to get great sushi. I said, really, where? He goes, yeah, there's this place in Boone. It's the best sushi in the world. And I'm like, Boone? Five hours from the ocean, Boone? Like that Boone? Hill country of App State? Where they're still nailing chicken fried steaks? Like that boon? That place? And I said, did you mean like best in, like boon? Or like Western North Carolina? He's like, nope, the world. Better than like New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo? Like the place where they invented it? Better than those places? Yes, way better. You'll never have better sushi. And in that moment, I realized I will never listen to you again in my life. That dude could tell me, dude, I tried this great barbecue restaurant down the street. I will never, ever go there. I do not trust. Now, he can tell me about other things. This book is good. These things are nice. But if he tells me about food, you can shove it, buddy. I've got this other friend who I've been really close friends with him for 30 years now. And I trust his recommendations on TV shows and movies and podcasts and books so much that he doesn't even have to talk me into them anymore. He can just text me the name of a show and I will just go binge all 12 seasons of it right there. Like I know it's going to be good. He doesn't even have to do anything. If Tyler tells me I should do this, I will because I trust him. Over time, he's built a good reputation of taste and I know that it's not to let me down. There is nothing more convincing than a name. And where this becomes particularly important is when we are trying to reach a lost world. I've mentioned this to you before, but if you are a believer, the only reason God doesn't snatch you right into heaven the very second you come to faith is so that on your way to that eternity for which he created you, you can bring as many people with you along the way as possible. The only reason you still draw breath is so you can bring as many people to eternity in heaven with you as you go as is humanly possible. If there was anything else to do, if that wasn't true, he would just snatch you right to heaven just as soon as you accepted him. Why wouldn't this place with so much pain and hurt and whisk you right up away to heaven immediately so you can begin to experience paradise with him? Why wouldn't he do that unless he's leaving you here so that on your way to that place that he's preparing for you, you can bring as many people with you as possible. That's why you're here. And if you want to bring other people with you, what could be more persuasive than a good name? What could be more persuasive than someone who claims to love Jesus and then loves them like they actually do love Jesus? Because in our culture, in 2023, your neighbors and your coworkers and your friends who do not embrace Christ, maybe they've outright rejected him. Maybe they're one of those people who say that they've accepted Jesus, they believe in him, but they're good and they don't really prioritize their faith at all and it makes us wonder if there is genuine faith there. If you have people in your life like that. You know, in the past, we talked about evangelism, this act of sharing our faith and pushing people towards Christ and hopefully seeing them come to faith. In the past, we were told about how to tell people about Jesus. 2023, guess what? They've all heard of him. It's very likely they have a reason. Can I tell you it's pretty likely it's a good reason? That deserves a thoughtful response? Are those people that you know who do not embrace faith, are they more likely to be won over by a theological argument? By digging into the science so that you can try to disprove atheism? By sending them to a blog post or a website or a case for faith by Lee Strobel? Or are they most likely to be won over by a name that's loved them for years? By someone who says they love Jesus, who says they love others, and in your marriage, and in your relationship with your children, and in your relationship with them, they see it. I'm not saying you're faultless, but I'm saying what's more convincing to the outside world than someone who actually practices what they preach and walks what they talk and has a good name that can be trusted. So that when that name says, hey, my church is pretty special to me, I'd love for you to come too, That actually carries some weight, and they go, because they think there's something different about this family. And I don't know what it is, but if it's their faith, then I want to understand that. A good name gets your foot in the door when you say, yeah, I do actually have a faith. I do believe in Jesus, and let me tell you why. If you have a good name and a reputation that supports that statement, they're going to listen to you with a lot more attention than if you don't have a good reputation with them, if the video does not match the audio. So I believe that God cares deeply about your reputation and what you are known for because a good reputation is more persuasive than anything else on the planet. So I hope that 2023 will be a year that you choose to ask yourself regularly, what am I known for and what do I want to be known for? How am I loving? Am I loving well? Am I being lazy? Am I being sloppy? Am I being selfish? Or am I being someone who loves like Jesus loves? Understanding that as we love in that way, there is nothing more persuasive to those around us than a consistent love of Christ and love of them. And please understand that the only way, you're not white knuckling your way to good love. You're not doing that. You have to wake up every day, spend time in God's word, time in prayer. You gotta pursue him. You gotta seek him. You gotta have friendships in your life that feed you spiritually. You gotta talk about Jesus to your children and to your friends've got to focus your eyes on Christ, the found love, and that love will be noticed. And people will come to faith because God is using you in their life. I went this year at Grace. We're back open. This is hopefully the first normal year we've had in three years. We're ready to run. We're ready to do ministry. We're ready to go. I want to see a lot of new faces at Grace. I want to meet a lot of your neighbors. I want to meet a lot of your coworkers. And listen to me. I don't want to do that because of church growth. And the people who know me best know I don't give a flip about church growth for the sake of church growth. I don't care about that. Can I just tell you this? Here's what I realized last year. If we just stay this size with this size staff and you guys all just keep coming, my life is so easy. But I want to see new faces here. Because new faces mean you're out in your community and you're sharing about your faith. New faces mean that you're trusted. New faces mean that you have a good name and you're using it to bring people to eternity with you. I want to see a lot of baptisms this year. Because baptisms mean people have been awakened to or have come to faith. I want to see the way God moves in our church this year when we are people who focus on loving well. I want this to be a year where we reach our community well, and I think that's done through building a good reputation. So we're going to take the next three weeks. I'm actually excited about this series because often in a series we'll have kind of a list of topics, reputation, faith, grace, love, whatever it is. And I'll kind of hit those and then move on. But this time we're going to spend four weeks in what we're known for and really deep dive into it. And I'm excited at the opportunity to do that. And I hope that you'll come along with me. And I hope that people will come to love your Savior because of how well you have loved them. Let's pray. Father, we always say that we love you, but we acknowledge that we love you because you first loved us, because you first cared for us, because you created us, because you created us to share yourself with us, and that you have designed for us and purposed us for in eternity. God, I pray that we would bring as many people as we can with us on our way there. Father, for those who feel like their reputation is tarnished, I pray that you would give them a vision for a new one and a belief that if they simply love you and love others well, that that will change. God, for those with secrets or rough edges, would you move us away from those and towards you? Would we embrace your goodness in our life? Would we embrace the firm foundation of love that you have given us and walk in that love and trust you alone and not other things to bring us happiness and joy. But would we lean into you more this year and in doing so be a magnet for those around you and God for those that you're using with good names already. Would you just keep on giving them energy as they go. Father we pray at the beginning of this year for a lot of new faces in this church so that we can have the opportunity to love on them and see them come to know you and that because we love them well, they open their eyes to how much you already love them and they come to love you too. It's in your son's name we are able to pray all these things. Amen.

We'll be right back. I don't know about you, but when you hear the word revival, we often think of reviving the city, which is what we prayed for, reviving the community, the people around us. God, let's see your spirit move and people come to know you in amazing ways. And that is what revival is, and that is the revival that God brings. But as Aaron alluded to in his prayer, he also revives individuals. He also breathes life into dry bones. And so if you are here this morning and your spiritual health, you personally, your soul, is in need of revival, God does that too. And as you sung and you prayed and sung for revival, just know that I have prayed for you this morning that God would revive our spirits, that God would breathe fresh life into us. And that I pray that prayer for myself often. So just know that though God does revive communities and cities, that he breathed life into us as well, and he revives us too. And if that's you, be encouraged this morning. I also wanted to mention before I jump in that the reason the church looks the way it does in the lobby is not just because it's summertime and we're encouraging you to go on vacation. You walk in, it's like, why are you here? You should be at the beach. But since you're not, here's some beach for you, which is also great. But tomorrow starts Summer Extreme. It's the first day of it. It goes for three nights, Monday through Wednesday. And we really hope that you'll come and hang out with us, even if you are not signed up to help or your child's not signed up to be a part of it. Just come see the madness one time and have a chance to kind of hang out with everybody. And I'll tell you this, there's a meal before it starts, which is my favorite time of night. And on Wednesday, I don't want to brag or try to make a big deal out of this, but I'm going to be cooking burgers on the Blackstone for everybody who comes. So come get a free burger. I'll put in a word for you right now. If Aaron and Julie can hear this, they're so mad at me, but I don't care. Come have dinner with us and hang out. All right. Now, as we look to finish the series in Peter, this week is part two of a two-part sermon that, you guessed it, I started last week. So I would tell you if you're watching online or catching up online or via the podcast or however it is you consume the sermons, I would encourage you to pause it here and go listen to last week's so that this week's makes more sense. Now, for those of you in the room who either you were here last week and you just forgot what I said, which I don't blame you. I forget what I preach about half the time. Or you were here this week, but you weren't here last week. Just by way of context, this is what we talked about so that we can arrive at verse 8 this week. It's a two-part sermon in 2 Peter 1, verses 5-8 that I said kind of gives us all that we need for life and godliness and points us in the right direction and tells us why we're running it. And it's a really, really important passage to me. And I hope that God makes it an important passage to you as well. So last week, we agreed that biblically speaking, the apex value is love. That's what we are to go for. We looked at Paul summing this up in Corinthians 13, where he says, now these three remain, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. And then we looked at Jesus's capstone of a new commandment. All the other commandments are fine, but I'm going to give you a new one that encapsulates all of them. Go and love others as I have loved you. Go and offer Christ-like love. And so we agree that we are supposed to pursue love as believers. But the problem is that telling a new believer to go and offer love as Christ offered to us, sacrificial Christ-like love, is like telling a crawling baby to go and run a marathon. There's some steps that have to happen along the way. There's some things that we need to build to so that we even have the capacity to offer Christ-like love. And Peter lays out those building blocks for us in verses five through seven. He says, for this reason, make every effort to add to your faith, knowledge, to knowledge, virtue, to virtue, self-control, to self-control, perseverance, to perseverance, godliness, to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. So there's these things that we have to build to before we have the capacity to love. And the encouragement at the end was to go and, like Peter says, make every effort. Go from here and make every effort to build towards the capacity to love others as Christ has loved you. That was the admonishment as we went last week. And one of the things that I love about the Bible and about the Christian faith is whenever we're told to do something, we should start doing these things, we should stop doing these things, we should embrace these virtues, and we should shun these vices, we're always in Scripture given a reason why. And the reason is never because God said so. And the amazing thing is, it very well could be. God can make the reason for everything he asks us to do because I said so. And we would go, well, you're creator God, you're all powerful, you're in charge of the universe. We are not because you said so is sufficient for us. let's go. Because God said so should be sufficient and yet still in his goodness, he never leaves it there. Whenever you look at what scripture asks you to do, at what God requires of us, you never have to look very hard for the why. Why does God want me to do that? Why is that what's actually best for me? It's always very clear in scripture when God asks us, when Jesus instructs us to do something, when we say why, why is that what's best for me? You can find that answer very quickly. And that's what verse eight does for us. So if we go, okay, I'm supposed to go from here and I'm supposed to go pursue, make every effort to have the capacity to love others as Christ loved me. That's what I need to do. I need to go pursue the capacity for Christ-like love. Why do I need to do that? Well, verse eight tells us why we need to do that. And I would sum it up in this way. I would tell you that this is the why. This is why it's best for us to pursue the capacity to love as Jesus did. If we pursue love, our deepest desires will come true. If we simply pursue the capacity to offer Christ-like love, our deepest desires will come to fruition. Now, I know that that sounds an awful lot like the health and wealth gospel that I tell you all the time that I hate and is not true. It is a trick of Satan. It ruins faiths and it shipwrecks Christians. It forces people to walk away from it when we have this idea that if I just go to God, everything's going to work out. I won't experience any tragedy. I'm probably going to make a little bit more money than I used to. I'm definitely going to get this promotion. If I'll just dedicate myself to God, then he'll give me the things that I want. And so I know that when I say, if we simply pursue Christ-like love, then he will give us our deepest desires. I know that sounds like I'm doing health and wealth, but I promise you I'm not, and here's why. First of all, what I'm saying is biblical. Second of all, I can say that if we pursue love, we will see our deepest desires come to fruition because I'm pretty sure I can guess what yours are. I don't know how you would word it or what you would say are your deepest desires in life, but I bet 1A and 1B, I bet for one, it's I just want to know when many years from now, when I'm facing death, when it is imminent, when I'm on my deathbed and I'm thinking back on my life, I want to know that I loved well. I want to know that I have family in my life who love me and are grateful for me. I want to know that in those waning years, I am surrounded by people who love me because I have invested my life in loving others. I want to know that I will love well. And so clearly, if we spend our life loving as Christ did, that will come to fruition. The other thing, 1B, that we all want to know, that we all deeply desire at the end of life, thinking back on life, what is it that we most want? I would be willing to bet that we all want to live a life that matters. That in our waning years, as we reflect back on the life that we led, that we will want to know and feel good about the life that we led. Did I invest it in the right things? Did I accomplish what I was supposed to accomplish? Did my life make a difference? Did it matter at all or will I fade into oblivion and no one will ever think of me or remember me again? Did I live a life that matters? I mean, this is what a midlife crisis is, right? And if you haven't dealt with one, it's coming. It's when you get in the middle of your life and your head's been down since you were in your 20s and you've just been making your path and making your way and figuring out life and getting independent. And then at some point or another, you pull your head up from all the work and you go, wait a second, I've built this whole life around myself. Is this even what I want? Is this the life that I wanted to build? And I've talked with enough people who were in their later years of their life to know that when you get to that stage, you think about, have I loved well and have I lived a life that matters? That's what we all want. We all want to live a life that matters. I remember when this really clicked for me. I was 18 or 19 years old, and I was at a Sunday night church service at my church. Remember when churches used to have Sunday night services? That's when pastors were good, man. We're lazy now. I go to this service, and there was a summer camp that we went to at my church called Look Up Lodge. And the director of that camp, the speaker of that camp, was a guy named Greg Boone. And we had invited Greg to come and to speak that night at our church. There was probably about 500 people there. And what Greg didn't know is that it was really a service to honor him because we were just grateful for the profound impact he had made on the youth of the church and the families of the church and the church as a whole. And so at one point or another, there was some boys up in the front that Greg had discipled, and I could explain the whole thing, but there's high school guys in the front of the room with candles, and everybody's got a candle in their seat. And Pastor Buddy gets up, and he says, if Greg Boone has touched your life directly through his ministry because you've been to look up Lodge and God has used him to impact you, I'd like you to stand up. And so me and all my friends and all the youth group leaders and parents and volunteers stand up. And before you know it, all 500 people are standing up. And then the boys walk down the aisle and they light all the candles and the lights are off in the room, but the room's totally illuminated. And Greg is able to visibly see the impact that his life has had in one space. And I remember in that moment, I was very moved by it. And I prayed, God, I don't ever need to see the room. I don't ever need to see the candles, but just let me live a life that could fill up one of these places. That's all I want. And I know that for my friends, it resonated with them too, because what you see in that moment is purpose. What you see in that moment is a life that mattered, that God was using, and that's a common desire that we all have. Now, some of you would never be as audacious to say, God, I want to know that I could fill up a room with the people that I've impacted. Some of you, our vision is as small as our family is, and that's fine, but the thing that we have in common, no matter how big or how small our vision is for what we want for our future, is that we want it to matter. We want it to count. And that's why I love verse 8 so much. Because it promises us that it will. It promises us that there's a way that we can ensure that our life will matter. That at the end of the day, when we're sitting there in the waning years of our life and we're reflecting back on a life lived, we can know that we know that we know that our life will matter, that at the end of the day, when we're sitting there in the waning years of our life and we're reflecting back on a life lived, we can know that we know that we know that our life was impactful and used by God. It can safeguard us against that fear. There's that, I love, it's a D.L. Moody quote where he says, one of the greatest tragedies in life is for a person to spend their life climbing the ladder of success only to get to the top and find that it was propped against the wrong building. How do we insure ourselves against that? Verse 8. Other versions say ineffective or unproductive in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's really very simple. You want to live a life that matters? To know that we're investing it in the right things? Then pursue these things. Go and do what we talked about last week. Pursue the capacity to love as Christ loved. Pursue these things. Make every effort to pursue them. And when you do, you will build a life that matters. God will use that person in incredible ways. When we commit ourselves to pursuing the virtues laid out for us in 2 Peter 1, verses 5-7. The promise is, if you commit yourself to those things, Jesus says, God says, Peter says, I promise you that your life will matter. And so the bottom line is, if we pursue Christ-like love, we can be certain that our lives will matter. And here's what I love about this truth is it's really just a focus on the fundamentals. We don't have to map it out. We don't have to think about the ministries that we're going to start or the people that we're going to disciple or the folks that we're going to share our faith with. We don't have to think about the things that we're going to build and this grand strategy for down the road. All we have to do is focus on the fundamentals. All we have to do is focus on these virtues, and God will use us as we pursue those. It reminds me of my experience, it feels like a lifetime ago, as a high school football coach. You guys may not know, but for three years of my life, from 2007 to 2010, I was a high school Bible teacher and school chaplain for Covenant Christian Academy in Loganville, Georgia. And it is every bit as fancy as you think it is. We had a cafe gym notarium that everything happened in. It was one of those schools. And the first week that I was hired, I'm starting out fresh. I was 26 or 27 years old, and I mean, I looked great. And we had a new science teacher named Coach McCready. Coach McCready is one of my favorite people I've ever met in my life. I love him very dearly. He was a recon Marine in Vietnam, and he was a tailback for Auburn in the 60s. He was the toughest man I've ever met. He's the only person I've met that I've been instantly scared of as soon as we started talking, and he was wonderful. So he comes to my classroom and he says, hey, Coach Rector. And I'm like, I don't even coach anything here. He goes, hey, Coach Rector, you got any experience in football? I said, no, sir. And he goes, I want you to come practice anyways, baby. I was like, okay. So I text Jen. I'm like, I got to go to practice. Coach says I have to go to practice. I'll be home late. So I go to practice and I'm out there watching the boys. They're practicing. They're doing whatever, and there's this guy off in the corner, and he's kicking a football, and he's not doing a very good job at it. And I've played a little bit of soccer in my life, so I said, hey, coach, I don't really have a lot of experience blocking and tackling, but I know how to kick things. You want me to work with that guy over there who clearly needs it? I can teach him how to kick things. And he's like, and he puts his hand on my shoulder and he goes, Coach Rector, congratulations. You've just become my new special teams coordinator, baby. It came with a free shirt and the whole deal. It was great. And we get out there and I become part of the staff and we're talking about strategy and all the other things. And this team was terrible. They were awful. The previous year, they were two and eight. The team they beat was the same. They beat one team twice who was just, they had like three children running around out there. And this is rinky-dink small-time football. This is eight-man football. It is not a big deal at all, but it's the best we could muster in our private school league when we were two and eight the year before. And we also, from the previous coaching staff, inherited this big, huge playbook, right? Like a wristband with the flap and like 75 different plays that you have to call in from the side. And these kids are trying to figure it out and they don't know what direction to run. Their shoulder pads don't fit and the pants are too small. But we got 75 plays. And these really complicated, intricate defenses and the whole deal. And nobody knew what was going on, but it was very clear that the previous regime had focused heavily on strategy, right, and not so much on fundamentals because these guys were terrible at everything. And so Coach threw it all out. He said, we don't need any of these plays. And the quarterback's like, that's all I know, Coach. He's like, don't worry. You're not going to have to learn that much. And I'm not kidding you. We reduced the whole playbook. We had two defensive formations that each had one play, blitz or don't. That was it. That was it. And if you don't know what that means, somebody laughing will explain it to you later. That was it. Those are the two options. Everybody go for the quarterback or everybody kind of hang out. That was it. That was all you had in two formations. And then we reduced 75 offensive plays to 12. And coach said, and everybody was like, coach, don't you think we need more? We're going to get a little predictable. Don't you think we're going to need more plays in this? He says, nope. All we need to do is block and tackle, baby. We just need to teach the boys to block and tackle and we'll be fine. Everything else take care of itself. And that's all we did in practice. We blocked and tackled. We ran those 12 plays. And that first year we made it to the playoffs. And then the three years after that, Coach McCready won back-to-back-to-back state championships. You know why? Because he had a great special teams coordinator. But also because we just focused on the fundamentals. Let's just learn to block and tackle. That happens on every play in football, and the results will come. Let's focus on the fundamentals. And so to me, there's a correlation there between the way that he coached and the way that Peter is coaching us. Don't worry about strategy. Don't worry about the 75 plays. Don't worry about the future and your grand plans and your big vision. Don't worry about that. You just focus on faith and knowledge and godliness and brotherly kindness and perseverance and self-control and virtue and love. You focus on those things and God will take care of how he uses you. You focus on those things and God will take those people and put them to work. You focus on those things. Don't worry about strategy. Don't worry about how big the ministry is. Don't worry about what you're supposed to start or what you're supposed to stop. You focus on these characteristics and we are promised in Scripture that we will live a life that is productive and fruitful of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are promised a life that will echo in eternity because of how we invest it now. And what could be a better investment of a life than one that matters for all eternity? The other thing that I love about this passage is it's not the only place that promise is made. That, hey, if you just simply focus on these things, then I promise you you will be effective and productive. I promise you that when you get to heaven, you'll hear the words that every Christian longs to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. This isn't the only place that promise shows up. The other place it shows up that I can think of is in John chapter 15, when Jesus is talking to the disciples and he calls himself the vine and then the branches. And he says this, I am the vine, you are the branches, whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. It's the same thing. Don't worry about plans. Don't worry about ministries. Don't worry about all the things you're supposed to do. Don't worry about all the things you're supposed to learn. You abide in me. You focus on me. You stick with me. You walk with me. You abide in me. And I promise as you do that, the results will take care of themselves. You will bear much fruit. God will use you in incredible ways if we simply abide in Christ. And the question becomes, well, what do I do to abide in Christ? And that's such an important question. And I was actually reading this passage this morning. And what he says prior to this is, abide in me. And the way that you abide in me is to obey my commands. And what was Jesus' command? To go love as I have loved you. It was a singular command. How do we abide in Christ? How do we promise that we will be fruitful? We love as Christ loved us. How do we love as Christ loved us? Well, we go through Peter and we build these virtues. We make every effort. These two passages are intricately connected to one another and they promise us that we can live lives that matter. But here's the other thing I would tell you as we pursue these lives that matter in God's kingdom and for all of eternity, that if you commit yourself to these character traits, if you commit yourself to being able to offer Christ-like love to people around you, sacrificial, selfless love to people around you. God will change those desires about how you're going to matter. He will change your plans. He's got a different path for you than you do. I saw this meted out in my dad, who when he started in his career, his goal was to be a millionaire by the time he was 40. And somewhere in there, as he pursued these character traits and fits and starts, God changed his heart and his goal became, before I retire, I want to have given away a million dollars. It changes you. And where it changed me is really the rest of the story about the candles. Because the rest of the story is, I went and I worked at Look Up. I worked for Greg because I wanted those candles. And when I got to Look Up, I met a man named Harry Stevenson. Harry was the maintenance director at the camp. Harry unclogged toilets and cut grass and felled trees and cleaned up hair clogs from the girl campers. Harry had a very humble job. Harry, from my 18, 19-year-old brain, was doing very little to impact the kingdom. There would be no candles for Harry. Greg was the guy. Except that, Harry discipled Greg. When Greg didn't know what to do in his marriage or in his family or in his ministry, he went and he talked to Harry first. Harry was the one who welcomed us. Harry was the one who led a Bible study that changed my life forever. Harry was the one that recommended to me a book called Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray that's one of the best, most formative books I've ever read all about these promises. And Harry was the one that when I looked at him the very first time I met him short guy, balding, deep piercing blue eyes and a mustache. And the way that he looked at me and the way that he smiled at me, I could see it in his eyes and I don't know how to describe it, but I knew in that moment this man loves God and this man loves me. I just knew it. And I've not met very many people with those eyes. That when you see them, when they look at you, there's something else happening there. There's some other kind of grace there. And you know this person loves God and they love me. And I didn't catch it at the time, but I was reflecting back years later. And I realized life is not about the candles at all. It's about the eyes. It's not about the rooms that we could fill with the people that we've impacted. It's about what it's like to be in our presence as we are conduits of God's love. And somewhere in my life, I shifted from wanting to be like Greg to just wishing I was a little bit more like Harry. And I'm so far off from it. Frankly, it would be a lot easier for me to try to be like Greg. But God, in his goodness, has shifted my desires to want to be like that person that simply loves. And I promise you, I promise you, that when Harry is in heaven one day, the people who are going to come to him and want to hug his neck are legion. I promise you that his life has mattered in ways that will echo in eternity. And it's because Harry simply pursued these values and these virtues. And God has used him in incredible ways to love others all along the way. And one of my favorite things about our Christian faith, if you're here and you're a believer, about our shared faith, is that God in his goodness offers us the joy and peace of purpose. If you're a Christian, you don't have to wonder, why am I here? What's my life for? How should I invest myself? What should I do? What's the best investment of my time? Where should I put my efforts? We don't have to worry about that. We don't have to be frantic about that. We don't have to get to 60 years old and wonder if we're doing it right. We don't have to get to 80 years old and wonder if we're doing it right. We don't have to keep getting older and wonder if we've already done everything right. God tells us what to do. Pursue Him. Pursue love. Make every effort to have the capacity to offer the love of Christ to other people. And I promise you, I promise you, I promise you based on Scripture, based on 2 Peter, based on John 15, based on the promises of Christ that you will have a life well lived. So my prayer for you is that this passage in 2 Peter 1 would take hold in your heart and possess a place of prominence in your life. It's a passage that I come back to regularly. It's a passage that every time I read it, I smile. Every time I read it, I want to talk about it and I want to tell people about it and I want people to understand the truth from it. And so I know that not everything I've said over the last two weeks, we're just going to follow in lockstep. I know that we've got life and we've got to move on from here and you're going to forget the things I said, even if you thought that they were good. But my hope is that this passage has made enough of an impression on you that you'll revisit it again, that you'll come back to it over and over again, that you'll be affirmed. If I simply choose to pursue love, if I simply be who God has designed me to be. It's not about how I behave, it's about who I am. If I'll simply let God create, work me into who he wants me to be and love other people well, I will have no regrets as I fade into eternity. I hope that this passage can mean for you what it means for me and that God will bring you back to it with a more fullness of understanding as we go from here. And I hope and I pray that you all would be people who go live lives that matter and that they matter because you love well, because you've pursued him earnestly, because you've made every effort. Let's pray. Father, we do love you. We do thank you for the joy and peace of purpose. We thank you for taking the stress of the unknown away from us and not having to wonder what we should do or where we should go, but that you make it very simple for us. Help us to be people who pursue the capacity to offer love as you've offered to us. Make us, God, people like Harry, who when other people interact with us, they know that we love you and that we love them. Let other people feel your love as it channels through us. And God, for those in this room whose spirits need revival, would you please revive them? Even in this song, even as we close, I pray that we would leave here with more of a desire to be close to you than what we entered with. God, I pray that our hearts would be softened towards you. They would be softer than they were when they entered into this place. God, I pray that as we leave here, we would have a stronger desire to know you, to love you, and to love others than we did when we came through those doors. And I pray that your spirit would remind us of it and hold us fast to it, and that those desires would not fade as we do your work for others and on ourselves this week. It's in your son's name that we ask all these things. Amen.