Sermons tagged with Joy

Well, once again, welcome to Grace. Thank you so much for making us a part of your Christmas plans. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If you are here with small children, I've got my eye on you guys already. If you are here with small children, don't worry. This is going to be very brief. It'll be like 10 minutes, tops, okay? And then we'll get back to the music to cover up all the noise they're making. So if they can just try really hard right now, they're going to make it. I promise. I knew probably in August or September what I wanted to talk about at the Christmas Eve service. There's a verse tucked into the end of the Christmas story that I've always loved. And I'd be willing to bet that the moms in the room who know their Bible, and I don't mean, if you don't know which verse I'm talking about and you're a mom and you feel like you know your Bible, I'm not impugning your Bible knowledge. I'm just saying that women tend to notice this verse, especially moms, way more than men. But it's a verse that I've always loved and it it's always fascinated me, and I've always wondered about it, and I've always wanted to preach out of it. And so I decided that I, but I haven't known what to preach, because it's a mysterious moment. But I decided I would put it on the docket for this Christmas Eve, and just hope that somewhere in the months in between, that something would dawn on me that was worth sharing with you. But before we get to that verse, I want to read you the preceding verses in the Christmas story. The famous Christmas story is found in Luke chapter 2. It's the one that we do Peanuts Christmas, your kids' Christmas pageants do this one. Luke chapter 2 is the famous Christmas story. And so I'm going to read you a good swath of that beginning in verse 11 all the way down through verse 20 so that at the very least we've told the Christmas story today. Luke chapter 2 verse 11. The angels have appeared in the sky, and we pick up the story there. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God is saying, and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning the child and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things pondering them in her heart. Verse 20, and the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. I've always loved verse 19. That Mary treasured up these things, pondering them in her heart. Because here's this probably teenage girl who's been told by an angel that she's going to carry and then bear the Messiah. And she's got her faithful husband, Joseph, with her, who's been told by an angel the same thing. And they've gone through this nine-month journey together, and it's just been their secret. And then she has baby Jesus. She has Jesus in that manger. And let's be very clear. In a few minutes, we're going to sing Silent Night. That night was not silent. That's a bold-faced lie. And the baby's crying. And Mary and Joseph share in this moment together. And then shortly after, angels appear in the heavens to shepherds that are keeping watch over their flock by night nearby in the hills surrounding Bethlehem. And at first it's one angel who just tells them what happened. And then once that angel tells them what happened, then all of a sudden the sky, I assume, is lit up with a multitude of angels that are praising a heavenly chorus over Jesus. And the shepherds go, let's go see this kid. This is a big deal. Let's go. So they leave their sheep. I don't know where they leave their sheep. It doesn't matter. They go to the manger. They clamber in, and they tell Mary and Joseph, you're not going to believe it. They told them all that they had heard, right? You're not going to believe it. We're in the field. Some angels appeared. They said, Jesus is here. He's the Messiah. This is amazing. And everyone's making this big fuss over Jesus. It's this big, huge deal. Except Mary doesn't join in. She doesn't say anything. It simply says she watches everyone and she listens to everyone and she treasures these things up in her heart. It's as if the moment for Mary was too rich to cheapen with words. It's too much of a moment. I don't want to weaken it with the words that I use. It's too special. I don't want to bother to try to articulate what I feel. And I've always wondered at that moment, what was it that Mary was treasuring in her heart? What was that moment between her and God? What must it have been like to be Mary then? And as I've always wondered that and put it on the schedule and was thinking about it more, I was listening to a book. Listening to a book by a, I think he's a priest named Richard Rohr. And he said in that book something that had never ever occurred to me. He said that Mary is the archetype of what it means to receive Jesus and give the gift of Jesus. What that means in our terms is that Mary is the apex example of what it means. She's the picture and the model for all time of what it means to receive Jesus and then to give him and share him with the world. She received Jesus as a gift from the Holy Spirit. It was from no other place. Mary received the gift of Jesus and then, through no small effort, shared the gift of Jesus with the world. To me, it's an amazing way to think about Mary that had never occurred to me before. And because of that, it also occurs to me that I wouldn't pretend to speak for all the joy that Mary had in that moment and everything that she was pondering up in her heart and that she was treasuring. I can't speak to all of it, but I'd be willing to bet that a portion of the joy that she was experiencing was from watching other people find joy in the gift that she offered them. This Jesus has brought me so much joy. Since having him, he's brought me so much joy. And now I get to share him with you, and I see him bringing you joy too. And I can't help but imagine that that moment that Mary found to be too rich to cheapen with words was entrenched in this sense of, I have received the Savior, and now I have shared him. And my joy is watching you find joy in him. And if that's true, and if that's what Mary was, isn't that what all Christians should be? Isn't that what Christianity is? The people who have received the gift of Christ and now spend the rest of our lives offering that gift to others, hoping that they find the same joy in him that we do? Isn't that the role of all Christians? Aren't all of us, if we are believers, to be like Mary? Now listen, I know that not everyone in this room is a believer. You came to be nice to your family and not put up a fuss and wear like the button-up shirt and all the stuff that you don't normally wear, and we're so glad that you're here. But if you're here and you're a Christian, then isn't our job to be who Mary was? To be a people who receive the gift of Jesus, offer that gift with joy, and then take great joy in what it is to see others experiencing the joy that they found in Jesus? And if that's what Christians are supposed to do, then isn't Christmas the perfect time to do that? Christmas every year when our whole culture slows down and focuses on a holy holiday, a Christian holiday, all our whole culture for what we know slows down, focuses on Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, the reason for the season every year. And every year isn't Christmas an opportunity for we Christians to share our Jesus with the needing world and watch them hopefully meet Jesus and experience the joy that we have found in him as well. I can't help but think of the band and the tech team that have worked so hard on all the songs today. The rehearsals and the time spent and the effort that they put in. What must it be like to stand up here during the energy of Drummer Boy, which was great. It was a great recommendation I made, by the way. What must it be like to be up here having put in in that work, to try to share with you their giftings that God has given to them, and then hear you sing to their God with joy. And now because of their work, now because they've done what they can to give you their Jesus, you are enjoying their Jesus and celebrating him too. What must that feel like? I'll never know, because they'll never invite me to sing up here on a Christmas Eve service. But this is what Christmas offers us the opportunity to do. So my hope and my prayer is that around your trees and around your tables and around your living rooms when you go from here and you do your things and you wake up tomorrow and you do more things. That those of you who are Christians, those of you who have received Jesus, will watch others find joy in him too. I hope that what happens around your tables and what happens around your rooms pushes people closer to Jesus and that they see him too. And if you're here this afternoon and you've not yet received Jesus, you don't know him, I've been praying for you. I've been praying that what we share in the service and that the joy that you see here would nudge you closer towards this Christ that has been offered to you too. I've been praying for you that the joy that you experience in your families around rooms and around tables would be a joy that's contagious for you and will encourage you to take one step closer to this Jesus that is offered you. So as I reflect on the Christmas story and on Mary and pondering up all these things, treasuring these things in her heart, I can't help but think that that's what we all Christians should do, is be conduits. People who, like Mary, receive the gift of Jesus and then give the gift of Jesus and then take joy in watching others find joy in our Jesus. So we hope that this service does that for you. I hope that your family celebrations do that for you. And I hope and pray because there is no greater joy than watching a child that you've raised come to know Jesus in a sincere way and they find joy in the faith that you share with them. Then praying for an adult child who may have wandered, who re-engages with Christ and accepts that gift anew and finds joy in their relationship with him. I hope that happens for you. I pray that happens for you. There's no greater joy than when you've shown your Jesus and offered your Jesus to people who don't yet know him and they make decisions to come to know him. That's the joy of Mary. That's what's being pondered up in Luke chapter 2 verse 19. And so I hope this service and your festivities encourage everyone to push, to find joy in Christ, and I hope that you get to experience some joy of people in your circles finding joy in Christ as well. I'm going to pray, and we're going to sing a couple more songs, and then we will let kids, you go probably open presents. I don't know, I don't want to speak for your parents, but hopefully you get a present. All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you for the gift of Jesus. We thank you for who he was and who he is. God, I pray that we could be more like your servant, Mary, who received the gift of Jesus and then offered him to those around her. God, I pray that you would show up in our family celebrations and our gatherings, that you would bring a unique joy there that's contagious to everyone around. Father, for those in the room that might not be close to you, that might even be far from you, I pray that something would happen in this Christmas season that would bring them just a step closer to the love that you offer and to the Jesus that you offer. Father, be with us as we continue to worship. Be with us as we go, as many of us go and potentially travel from here. Keep us safe. And bring us back here in January to continue to learn more about you and who you are and why you love us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I haven't gotten the chance to meet you, I'd love to do that in the lobby after the service. Just right up front, I've been getting a lot of flack this morning for going halfsies on my Christmas spirit. I understand that. But listen, I tried on everything last night, and I am doing you a public service by not wearing those bottoms. All right? This is for you. It's not for me. I'd be more comfortable in those, but I made a decision for the betterment of the church, and I would appreciate if you could respect that choice. Now, we are in part two of our series called Twas the Night, where we're looking at the story of Christmas, largely based in Luke chapter two, and we're looking at it from different perspectives within that story to see what we can learn from them and their experience within the Christmas story. And so last week, we looked at Simeon's reaction to Jesus and the innkeeper's reaction to Jesus. We juxtaposed those and kind of learned a bit from those two perspectives. Next week, we're going to look at Joseph and his humble, quiet, consistent obedience and what we can learn from that. And then Christmas Eve, we're going to look at Mary. There's this verse tucked away at the end of the Christmas narrative, towards the end of chapter 2, that I really, really love where there's this joy that's almost, words would cheapen it, this joy that Mary experiences. So we're going to look at that verse for Christmas Eve, and I'm very excited for the Christmas Eve service and message that we get to share with you that day. Today, we're going to look at the Christmas story from the perspective of the wise men. Now, I'll give credit where it's due. Aaron Gibson and I went on a little retreat in September to go ahead and plan out the Christmas series and figure out what we were going to do. The idea for this morning and what we're talking about this morning comes from him. So if it's good, tell him so. If it's not, let's just assume that there was an issue with the delivery and he needs to choose a better messenger or just hold his good ideas and preach them himself. But this morning I want to look at the perspective of the wise men. Now we don't read about the wise men in Luke chapter 2. We see them in Matthew chapter 2. And I'm actually not going to turn to either of those today. I'm going to be in John chapter 6. So if you brought your Bible like I've been asking you to do, you can go ahead and turn to John 6. If you don't have one with you, there's one in the seat back in front of you. Please excuse me. I've been, I got a sinus infection that turned into a cough. I've been fighting it off for a week. I'm not contagious, but I am on about four different cough suppressants. So if I say something crazy, that's why. We see the wise men in Matthew chapter 2. And I like to point out, I don't know why I like to point out, I just do, that the wise men were more than likely not actually at the manger scene. The nativity scene that we have that we put in our houses and everything. We went to a live nativity at another church last night. Did a phenomenal job. The wise men were more than likely not there. Okay? Their story is they saw a star and they were told by God to go follow that star. And I think this is worth pointing out and amazing. It's not the point, but it's something that I didn't want to just blow past. That the wise men are even involved in the story of Christmas. Because I'll get into why later, but they're from very far away. They are not from Israel. They are not Hebrew people. They are not descendants of Abraham. It is very, very unlikely that the Jewish tradition had made its way to wherever they called home. And yet, without any religious infrastructure at all, without any holy texts at all, they somehow recognize the voice of God, the God that we worship, the God that Mary and Joseph worship. They heard that voice, identified that voice, and were obedient to that voice. When we read the Bible, the narrative focuses way down on Abraham's family and then on Israel and what happens in Israel, as if God's scope of evangelism and love and care and speaking isn't worldwide all the time. And we get these little glimpses throughout scripture like Melchizedek in the Old Testament that it's actually true that God is speaking outside of Israel to those who will listen. It reminds me of Romans 1 where it says that God reveals himself to all men in nature so that no man is without excuse. Somehow, some way, these wise men with no no religious structure at all, heard the voice of God, identified it, obeyed it. They go to Jerusalem. They're following the star. The star leads them to Jerusalem. They get to Jerusalem, and this is all in Matthew 2. You can check me if you need to. I would always encourage that. But they get to Jerusalem where Jesus is not there. He's either in Bethlehem or he's in Nazareth. He's not in Jerusalem. And they go to Herod, the king, because they don't know where else to go. And they say, hey, we're here to worship. The Savior's been born. We're here to worship him. Do you know where he is? And Herod is threatened by this because he knows somewhere in the annals of his brain that when this Messiah comes, he's going to be the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And Herod erroneously thinks he's going to try to sit on my throne, to which Jesus is like, I'm not interested in your throne. That's very small potatoes. Don't care. But Herod thinks he's going to try to take his stuff. And so Herod responds with an edict to kill all the boys in Israel aged two and younger, which is one of the more horrific evil edicts that we see in the whole Bible. Herod was evil. And I have a two and a half year old son. I can't imagine what it would be to be one of the soldiers that had to carry out those directives. Awful, awful stuff. But he says this, Herod does, to kill all the baby boys, age two or younger, we're told in Matthew 2, because of the timing of the journey of the wise men. What this means is, more than likely, the wise men were following that star for two years. Could be more, could be less. Could be a year, could be nine months. We don't know when the star appeared. And the star could have appeared two years in advance of Jesus' birth. And then they showed up at the time. We don't know that for sure, except for when they appear, when they go in to see Joseph and Mary, it says that they entered into the house. Not the manger, but the house. So they're probably in Nazareth, meaning Jesus is probably a toddler by this point. At which point they give him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And Johnny, my two-year-old, has just been beating me up for myrrh this Christmas. So they were on point with those gifts. But it took two years to get where they were going. I want you to imagine that. They're from very far east. We do not know where. India is possible. China is possible. Iran, Iraq, one of the stands. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan. One of the stands could be. And they journeyed for two years. Based on a voice of God that they heard that said, follow this star. Maybe they were nomadic people and so journeying wasn't a huge deal, but they're still rearranging their whole life. A lot of scholars believe they were just wealthy individuals and they brought their caravan with them. We don't know how many wise men there were. We just know that there was more than one. We usually say three because of the three gifts, but that's really not indicative of the total number. And so they load up, presumably on camels, and they travel for maybe as long as two years. And this was the point that Gibson made that I thought was a really interesting insight. What if you could talk to the wise men on that journey? What if you could ask them, hey, guys, where are you going? You know what their answer would be? We don't really know. Where are you going? We're not sure. Well, how do you even know where to go? God, do you see that star? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, God told us to follow that one. Are you getting any closer to it? Not really. No, it just stays right there. We just kind of walk during the day and hope at night, still in front of us. When are you going to get there? Like, how long is this journey? Yeah, I couldn't tell you. I don't know. We're just walking. I think that's amazing. To go to the wise men during that journey and say, where are you going? Not sure. How do you know where to go? God told us to follow that star. When are you going to get there? We don't know. I don't want to be too critical, but I'd be willing to bet that very few people in this room have that kind of faith. And yet, when we look at the journey of the wise men, I believe all of us have that faith because that faith is the Christian faith. I believe that the wise men personify this statement. The Christian journey is following God in the midst of uncertainty. The Christian journey itself is to follow God in the midst of uncertainty. It's to not be able to see the whole path and yet take the steps that are illuminated in front of us. Isn't this what we were taught when we were young? If you grew up in church, you heard the Psalm. I think in either 109 or, you heard the psalm, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And I was taught at ages, you know, three, four, five, six years old, when you're in the woods and it's dark, you're outside and it's dark, and you have a lantern or a lamp next to you, how many steps can you see? Just a couple. You can't see the whole path. You can't see the whole trail. And so I carry, you carry with you, if you grow up in church, you carry with you this understanding, this intellectual, this mental consent that yes, God is never going to illuminate the whole path for me. It's always going to be just a couple of steps. He's never going to give me all the clarity I want. He's just going to give me the clarity I need to take the next step or two of obedience. And this is what the wise men personify. Could they see the whole path? No. Did they know where they were going? No. Had they heard of the nation of Israel before? No, nobody knows. Maybe, maybe not. They didn't know who they were going to find or what they were going to do. They were just going in obedience, taking the next step. Today, we can see the star, so today we're going to follow it. Are we going to get there tomorrow? Maybe, don't know. The Christian journey is to follow God in the midst of uncertainty. It's to not understand everything and yet choose to follow him anyways. I think maybe the best depiction of this in the whole Bible is in John chapter 6. In this discourse, this dialogue that Jesus has with Peter. I think it's a remarkable dialogue. We're going to pick it up in verse 66. And the verse is preceding. Jesus is teaching the people in the synagogue at Capernaum. And he's telling them. And he tells them in about three or four different ways. But he's telling them, if you want to follow me, you have to eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. If you do not eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, then you have no place with me and you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. That's what Jesus teaches. It is a weird, cultish, cannibalistic teaching. It's weird. And he gives them no context. See, we know, we know that what Jesus is talking about is communion. We understand that. If you don't know what communion is, it's the tradition where we break bread and we dip it in the grape juice or the wine or you sip it or however your church or your tradition does it. So we know that Jesus is, that's an allusion to communion. But they don't know that because they've never experienced communion. And Jesus says, unless you cannibalize me, you cannot be a part of me or enter into the kingdom. And then people started to leave and go, yo, dude, that's really weird. And we pick the story up. John chapter 6, verse 66. Now I'd pause there because that could be confusing. When we think of disciples, we immediately think of the 12 disciples. But what we know is that there was probably as many as 120 people that were constantly following Jesus everywhere. And we know this in part because in Acts, when they go to replace Judas as a disciple, they ultimately named Matthias to be the 12th disciple, the replacement disciple for Judas. And one of the requirements to be eligible to be that disciple is to have been with them from the beginning. So Jesus has disciples outside of the 12. The 12 is like his inner circle. The three, Peter, James, and John are like his inner, inner circle. But then there's other disciples on the perimeter that are following too. And when he says this, the disciples on the perimeter begin to leave. We'll pick it up in verse 68. Do you want to go as well? Verse 68, Simon Peter answered him. And listen, I love these words. I don't have a tattoo. If I get one, it'll be these words. Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and I have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. I love that answer. I love it so much because it's so very human. It's so very honest. Jesus says this incredibly hard teaching that does not make sense to anyone. And people who have been following him for months and years leave. And he looks at his inner circle. And he says, are you guys going to leave too? And Peter responds, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Now this is just my interpretation of the subtext here, of what's laying under these statements of Peter. There seems to be an implicit agreement of Peter with the ones who left. You can see the tension in Peter. Listen, Jesus says, are you going to go too? And I paraphrase this response as going, listen, what you just said is weird. It's weird. I do not want to cannibalize you. I don't want to drink your blood. That's weird. That's cultish. It doesn't make any sense. I hope I don't have to do that. Jesus, you make absolutely no sense to me right now. And frankly, it's weird. But here's what I know. I know that you are who you say you are. I know that you're Jesus. I know that you have the words of eternal life. You have claimed to be the Holy One, and I believe you. And because I believe you, and because I trust you are who you are, where else am I going to go? I'm in. Jesus, this doesn't make sense to me. I don't follow it. That's not how I would have done it. I think this is weird, but you're Jesus. I know that you are. I believe you. I trust you. I'm in. I love that sentiment from Peter. Because frankly, if you haven't gotten to that point in your faith where you've had to choose to to follow Jesus even when he doesn't make sense, then I would tell you gently and humbly that I believe your faith still has some maturing to do. Because everyone of faith, everyone of faith comes to that moment where Jesus doesn't make any sense to them. That shouldn't have happened. That man is a good man. Why did that happen to him? My father was a good man. He shouldn't have died, and he did. That child never did anything, and God allowed them to get leukemia and wither away. Why did he do that? If Jesus is who he says he is, then why are these things true in my life? I've been living my life according to the standards of God, and I want the blessings that other people have who don't live like I do. I'm a good person. Why can't I have what I want? Jesus, this doesn't make any sense. Jesus, you could have healed this person that I love. I know you could have. And they love you? It doesn't make any sense. I told you guys a few weeks back, a friend of mine, 40 years old, two kids, died. Jesus, you could have prevented that death. You didn't. And so at some point, we find ourselves in the position of Peter saying, Jesus, you don't make any sense to me. And I don't see the whole path here. But I'm going to choose to trust you because I know who you are. Because I'm a Christian. And being a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God. He did what he said he did. He lived a perfect life, he died a perfect death, and he raised on the third day. And he's going to do what he says he's going to do. He's going to come back one day to claim his people and to make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. To be a Christian is to believe that. And so Peter says, you don't make any sense to me right now, but I'm a Christian, so I'm in. I was thinking about this this morning as I was going through things. Can you imagine the light bulb moment that communion was for Peter? Can you imagine him sitting around that table as long as one to two years after this exchange with Jesus? Because this is towards the beginning of his ministry. So as many as two years later, Jesus is sitting around the communion table, or Peter's sitting around the Passover table about to observe the first communion. He doesn't know what communion is. Jesus breaks the bread and tells them to eat it. And he pours the wine and he tells them to drink it. And Peter goes, oh, and he still doesn't know what it is because the next day Jesus actually dies for him. And he's like, well, this stinks. Everything's over. And he wanders back and he goes to fish. And then the resurrected Jesus shows up and makes him breakfast. And he's like, hey, do you love me? Yes. Do you love me? Yes. Do you love me? Yes. Okay, go feed my sheep. You're reinstated. Go do it, Peter. What a light bulb moment for Peter in this moment with no context. Because Jesus doesn't explain it. He does not explain the cannibalism. He just drops it on them. You still going to follow me? You still trust me? Great. And then he goes. And for two years, he doesn't come back to it and address it. And then one day he's at a table and he breaks the bread and Peter goes, oh. God never gives us the clarity we want in the moment. But he always gives us what we need. And if we stick in there, we get light bulb moments too. And both of these stories, the story of the wise men just following the star, okay, that's what I'm going to do. The story of the disenfranchised disciple. You make no sense to me, but I'm in because I know who you are. Highlight what I believe is God's fundamental ask of all humanity. God's fundamental ask is simply that we would trust him. God's fundamental ask of people from the beginning of time is that we would trust him. Just listen to me. Just trust me. Just hear my voice and respond in obedience like the wise men do who don't need a religious apparatus to discern the voice of God and be obedient to it. Just follow me like that. Isn't that what he asked of Adam and Eve? Hey, there's a tree. Don't eat it. Just trust me on this one. And they didn't trust him. Isn't that what he asked of Abraham? The father of his children is in Ur, the land of the Chaldeans, probably the Sumerian dynasty. And God appears to him. God speaks to him. I don't know if he appeared to him, but he speaks to him. And he says, I want you to pack up your stuff and quote, go to the place where I will show you. To this place called Israel that Abraham's never heard of, the land of Canaan at the time that no one's ever heard of. And he meets someone there named Melchizedek, who is the high priest and the king of a city called Salem that would later become Jerusalem, who has heard the voice of God and is obeying him outside of any religious apparatus, outside of the focus of the narrative scripture, of the narrative text of the gospel, just out there obeying God. And Abraham goes to him, not knowing where he's going, arrives, and God's just illuminating one step by one step. Just trust me. Just trust me. Just trust me. Then he gives him a son. He says, I want you to go sacrifice this son. Three days journey away on a random hill. And he gets up the next day and he goes. And he's at the bottom of the hill, and a lot of scholars believe that Abraham did not know how he was going to walk back down that mountain with his living son, but he believed that he would. And so he went. Just trust me. Just trust me. Just trust me. Moses, wandering the desert for 40 years, stumbles upon, as a shepherd, stumbles upon the burning bush. This is in Exodus chapters 2 and 3, two of the greatest chapters in the Bible. And God appears to him in the burning bush, and he says, I want you to go to the most powerful man in the world, and I want you to tell him to let my people go based on zero authority whatsoever. And Moses is like, okay, I've got questions. And he asks him five clarifying questions. What's your name? Why are they going to believe me? I have a stutter that seems like an issue. No one's going to listen to me. Five different questions. Five times, God says, don't worry about that, trust me. Don't worry about that, trust me. What's your name? Don't worry about that, trust me. I have a stutter, don't worry about that, trust me. Just trust me, just trust me. How's it going to work out, God? I'm not going to tell you. Just trust me. Just trust me. Just trust me. All through scripture. David, anointed king. You're going to be the next king. You're the chosen one. Man after God's own heart. As probably an adolescent kid. He waits 20 years before he ascends to the throne. God, when's it going to happen? The current king's trying to kill me. Just trust me. Just trust me. Just trust me. Why did God wait so long to give the Ten Commandments? He could have, he could have, once Adam and Eve broke the rules, he could have said, okay, here's the new rules. He waits generation after generation after generation, a couple thousand years before he says, fine, here's the rules. What I'd really like for you to do is trust me and obey me without the rules, but since you need rules, here are the rules. And then Jesus shows up and he says, we don't need those rules anymore. Love God, trust him. Love God, trust him, be obedient by loving others. Just trust me, just trust me, just trust me. Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus could have sat down with the disciples and we, especially those of us who are business and strategy minded, would, those of us, like I'm business and strategy minded, those of you, we would think that the best possible thing for Jesus to do would be to recruit the disciples, test them for a few months to make sure they're all the way in, and then bring them into a meeting and sit them down and say, all right, boys, listen, here's the deal. And for Jesus to lay out every step of the strategy, doesn't that make so much sense? Hey, I'm going to be here for about three more years. The whole time, I'm going to show you how to do ministry. I'm going to show you how to love on people. I'm going to teach you this new rule of loving others the way that I've loved you. I'm going to show you what it is to love people. And then you guys think I'm going to be a physical king. I'm not. I'm going to be an eternal king. I don't care about that throne. It's small potatoes. I don't need it. So quit trying to make me be king. This is the kind of king I'm going to be. I'm going to be an eternal king. And at the end of the three years, after I've shown you how to live and love perfectly, I'm going to have given you all the tools to build what I'm going to call the church. What's the church, Jesus? Well, let me explain to you what the church is going to be. He could have explained all this. And he could have said, at the end of three years, I'm going to be arrested and it's going to be an unfair trial and I'm going to die. You should watch me die. And honestly, you should celebrate it because it's ushering in the next part of the plan. That's how I'm paying for you guys to get to heaven. It's an okay thing when I die. And don't worry about it because I'm going to be buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea and I'm going to be raised on the third day. You guys can come hang out with me if you want. And then I'm going to stick around for about 40 days and I'm going to go into heaven because my job's done and I'm going to hand you the keys to the kingdom. So the next three years of your life, pay attention, write down notes, ask me all the questions you need because I'm going to give you this thing. Tell me that doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't he do that? It makes so much sense. It makes sense to us because we're stupid. That was not the way that Jesus did it. He didn't tell them the plan. He didn't explain to them the death. He let them believe he was going to be an earthly king. He illuminated one step at a time. Go into this city and perform these miracles. Go over there and tell them about me. Follow me here and listen to my teaching. Now you can answer, now you can ask me questions. Take this bread and eat it. He never illuminates the whole path. He never explains everything to them. He just beckons them to trust him. And God has the same ask of you. Trust him. Hang in there. Believe him. Be like Peter. And those moments when your faith doesn't make any sense, where something happens in your life that doesn't have a nice, neat, satisfying box to put it in and categorize it and explain it to others and justify it, when that happens, when something outside of your boxes and your theology and your understanding, when that happens and tears it down, and we sit in the midst of confusion and uncertainty, Jesus, why'd you let that happen? Why did it turn out this way? Why am I struggling with this? Why won't you rescue me from that? When we sit in that uncertainty, no, God designed and intended that uncertainty. He's never, ever given anyone the full path. He's never, ever illuminated more than a couple steps for anyone in their life. He simply beckons us to trust him. And I love that word and that concept of trust because it has so many tendrils, doesn't it? Don't just trust me with your faith. Trust me with your family. Do for your family what I think is best for them. Not, not what you think is best for them. See, when we trust somebody, what we do is we choose their judgment over our own. When I trust the finance committee, I trust their expertise over my expertise, which is none in that area. When we trust someone, we choose them over ourselves. So God says in every way, choose my expertise over your own, and I promise you it will work out. Simply trust me. Trust me with your morals and with your values. Trust me with your money. I've asked you to give a bottom line of 10%. Be generous people and give. Trust me with that. It's going to be best for you. Trust me with your children. Trust me with your marriage. Trust me with your career. Trust me with your priorities. Trust me with your calendar. Trust me. Just believe me. Trust me. Take the steps I'm illuminating for you. And I promise, I promise, I promise it will be better for you. The more we can trust God in the midst of uncertainty, the more light bulb moments we get like Peter sitting at communion going, this is why God, okay. And tell me that doesn't strengthen faith when you have those moments. And here's what happens when we choose to trust God in the midst of uncertainty. We make that a pattern in our life. God rewards our trust with a full life and perfect eternity. God rewards that trust with a full life and a perfect eternity. I chose that phrase full life there on purpose because one of my favorite verses I've said to you before, John 10, 10, the thief comes to steal and to kill and to destroy, but I have come, Jesus is speaking. I have come that you might have life and have it to the full. Jesus says he came to give us the most full life possible. Not the wealthiest life. Not the healthiest life. Not the most comfortable life. I'm reminded of that quote from, I believe it's Chronicles of Narnia, where they're talking about the Jesus figure, Aslam, I think. And they say, is he safe? And the response is, oh, no, he is not safe. But he is good. Jesus invites us into that goodness. Do you trust me? Do you trust me? Do you trust me? Because if you do, if you choose my judgment over yours, he will give us in this life the most full life possible, the best life we can imagine if we'll simply trust him. The problem is we hold back parts of our life because we think in our judgment, with our values, with our morals, and with what we do, that we can make little pockets of our life better and more comfortable and more enjoyable than what Jesus can do. No, no, no, I'm not going to trust you with that because I like what I'm doing right here. And Jesus says, if you'll just trust me and hand me that too, I promise there will be a more full life around the corner. I promise you there will be a deeper peace, a deeper happiness, a deeper joy if you'll simply hand that to me too. So here's my question for you this morning. Where can you trust God more? Where are you holding back from him? What are you keeping to yourself and not choosing to be like the wise men and humble, faithful, consistent obedience? Where are you going? I don't know. When are you going to get there? I'm not sure. How do you know where to go? I'm just following God. Where can we choose to trust God more and trust his judgment over our own? And I would also encourage you, if you're one who's sitting in the midst of uncertainty, Jesus, this is happening in my life and I don't understand it. You could fix it and you're not. And honestly, Jesus, it kind of makes me frustrated with you. Okay. Be like Peter. Are you going to leave Jesus because of it? No. You're the son of God. You have the words of eternal life and I believe you. Where else am I going to go? And I promise you, you'll have your aha moment if you trust him. And you'll usher in a full life and a perfect eternity. So this morning, let's trust God like the wise men did and just take the step of obedience that's in front of us. Let's pray. Father, we love you this morning. We love you always. We trust you. Help us to trust you more. God, I'm reminded of the simple prayer, I believe, help my unbelief. Lord, if there are those who are sitting in the midst of uncertainty, who feel disillusioned like the disciples that thought cannibalism was a part of the deal, God, would you give them the faith of Peter to hang in there, to trust you, even when they're not certain and don't understand everything they feel like they need to understand. God, for those of us who are holding back parts of our lives, who are choosing our judgment in places over yours, would you give us the strength and the faith to trust you, to believe you? That things are only going to be better when we hand them to you? Would you give us the remarkable faith of the wise men who journeyed to an unknown place for two years simply trusting? And as we do that, as we take those steps and as we trust you, would you help us to see you? Would you show up in those places and reassure us? In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for joining us this November. Whenever I'm supposed to come up without a bumper video, the video that we played between the last song and the sermon is called a bumper video. Whenever I'm supposed to come up during a prayer and there's not a bumper video, I'm always terrified that I'm standing on the stage at the wrong time. There was a time at my old church where I was the host. I had Haley's job. They paid me for it. She does it for free. And I was in the front row, and I thought that the guy gave me the nod. You know, just this is it after this. And I was like, okay. So I come up, and he's standing back looking at me, and he goes, and he just strums the next song and goes, and I literally just walked up and looked at him in horror and then walked off the other side of the stage and sat down over there. And that was a congregation of like 700 people and they were all laughing at me. And I deserved it. That's germane to nothing. I'm just inviting you into the fear that I still fear, feel when I'm standing right here as Aaron is praying. Thank you to Kyle, our student pastor, who stepped in for me last week and did a phenomenal job as he continued on with the series. I appreciate that, man. We are in a series called The Songs We Sing, looking at some of the songs that we sing as a congregation, finding them in Scripture, allowing Scripture to imbue them with a greater meaning for us. And it's been really, really fun to move through this series, hear you guys responding, hear you guys singing, know that these things are connecting and that these songs can have deeper meaning for us. I continue to believe and emphasize that getting together and singing together on a Sunday morning as a body of believers is the most important thing that we do on Sunday mornings together. So I'm glad that we're continuing to do that. This week, we're looking at a song called The Battle Belongs. Next week, I'm preaching on a Christmas song, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, kind of to transition us into the Christmas season. So I'm looking forward to sharing that with you guys next week. But this week, as I said, we're focused on a song called The Battle Belongs. It's one that we've sung around here for a while. You probably know it, but in case you don't, I'm just going to read you the chorus. This will not be on the screen, so you'll just be forced to pay attention to me. But the chorus goes like this. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees with my hands lifted high. Did you guys think I was going to sing this to you? No way. Oh, God, the battle belongs to you. In every fear I lay at your feet, I'll sing through the night. Oh, God, the battle belongs to you. This song comes directly out of, I think, two stories in the Old Testament. Now, as we sing this song, there's songs about you guiding me through the shadow and through the valley. That comes from Psalm 23. There's words about his ways being higher than our ways. That comes from Romans 11, that if God is for us, who can be against us? That comes from Romans 8. So there's different lyrics in the song that come from different places in scripture, but the heart of the song itself comes from two fantastic stories in the Old Testament. Now, if you spent any time at all at Grace, you know that I love my Old Testament. I love my Old Testament stories. It's a really, it tends to be a more entertaining read than the New Testament once you get past Acts, right? So I love the narrative stories of the Old Testament. So if you have a Bible, the one I'm going to focus on primarily today is in 2 Chronicles chapter 20. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you. 2 Chronicles can be hard for some of us to find because maybe we don't have a lot of experience there. It's in the first third of the Bible. There's a lot of pages in 1 and 2 Chronicles, so you're bound to find it if you thumb through a little bit. If you see kings, you're gaining on it. And if you see Ezra or Nehemiah, you've gone too far. All right. So Chronicles chapter 20. And in Chronicles chapter 20, there's a guy who's the king named Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah. By this point in history, the kingdom has split. After David, we have Solomon. And after Solomon is the king, we have Rehoboam. Rehoboam was a cruddy king. He was a jerk. He was a dummy. And so Jeroboam took the northern kingdoms referred to for the rest of the Old Testament typically as Israel. And Rehoboam kept the southern kingdom typically referred to as Judah. For the rest of the lines of those kings and those stories are told in 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles. The northern tribes of Israel had no good kings. They all did what was right in their own eyes. They all betrayed God. Southern Israel, depending on who you talk to, Judah had between three and five good kings. As I kind of dug into the research, in my opinion, they had three good kings. We're going to talk about two of them this morning. One of them was Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat, 2 Chronicles chapter 20, receives word that the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Ammonites and the Meubites, I don't know how to say the last one, Meubites, were gathering together to attack him. Clearly, they felt like they had seen a weakness and they were ready to exploit it. Now, Judah is not a geopolitical player. They're just trying to carve out their place in the world. They're by no means a superpower. They're not scaring anyone. And so these three tribes assemble against him and decide now's the time we're going to strike. We're going to come in and we're going to conquer Judah. We're going to conquer Jerusalem and overthrow Jehoshaphat. And so word of this planned attack and the three tribes uniting against Jehoshaphat gets back to him., these three tribes have amassed against you. They're coming in to take over. They probably have the advantage. What do you want to do? His very first reaction is he was afraid. After he processes the fact that he's afraid, what should I do? He prays. He prays and he assembles all of Judah. Everyone from the different towns, the different tribes in Judah, come to Jerusalem, fast with me. Implicit in fasting is praying. Pray with me. Let's seek the face of the Lord and what we should do. So that's what they did. All the people of Judah gathered in Jerusalem. And they got on their hands and their knees and they cried out to God and they said, what do we do? God, what do we do here? We're going to be attacked. What should we do? And so they respond in prayer. And God answers them in this way on down the passage, verses 15 through 18. And he said, We say the battle belongs to the Lord. That's where it comes from. It's from the high priest reassuring Jehoshaphat, don't worry about it. Do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. This battle's not yours anyways. This battle belongs to God. Verse 16. And here's the scene. Jehoshaphat gets word that the Moabites, Ammonites, and the Miites are coming to attack them and overthrow them. He's scared. He prays. He gathers the people of Judah to pray with him. Father, what would you have us do here? At the end of the prayer, the high priest says, the Lord has directed me. And you're supposed to do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. This is not your battle. This is God's. Go out and align yourself for battle. And the instructions that follow are, lead with the Levites and let them sing worship. Lead with worship and lead with praise. And that's what they did. He fell on his face. He praised God with all the people. And it's important that we understand that worship isn't just singing. Worship can be praying. Worship can be a posture. Worship is living a life of sacrifice. Worship has a large definition. And so he falls on his face. If you're hearing these instructions, he falls on his face with the rest of Judah and they pray to God. And then the next morning they get up. They're not fearful. They go out to the battle lines. They put in front of them the worship pastors, which has to be the worst possible idea, right? Like if we needed to defend grace, would you want Aaron and Greg to do it? Or would you want people with like military experience? I'm just asking the question. I don't think you would want me to do it, but they're not the tops on the list is all I'm saying. But they put the skinny jeans and the beards out in front. This is who we're going to lead with. By the way, all these jokes, none of this is my insight. These are all Aaron's jokes. I'm stealing them. This is a sermon he's done before, this part of it. So I'm authorized to use these things. I mean, just so we're all clear about how tough I am, I raked for like 45 minutes last week. My arm was sore for a day, and I got a blister on one of my fingies, even though I was wearing gloves. All right, so that's what we're dealing with here. But they put the worship leaders out in front, and they praise God. And as they praise God, God incites a riot in the camp of the three different tribes. They conquer each other, and they walk away dismayed. God's army doesn't have to fire a single arrow or throw a single spear. The battle is won because it belongs to the Lord. There's another wonderful example of this, and I believe it's referenced in the chorus when it says, everything I lay at your feet. And I think the most descriptive example of this is in 2 Kings chapter 19. It's a story of Hezekiah. Hezekiah was another one of the good kings of Jerusalem, or yeah, of Jerusalem and of Judah. And what's going on here is that Hezekiah receives word that the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, is sweeping through the Middle East and is storming towards Jerusalem intent on conquering it. And this isn't three random roving tribes that happen to exist around you, Moab and Amman. It's not those places. This is Assyria, the precursor to the Persian empire. This is Sennacherib, a name that strikes fear in everyone that hears it. This is a big deal. And Sennacherib on his way deploys basically propaganda in Jerusalem. It's a letter that he sends that he writes to the people of Jerusalem that says, hey, you're going to want to get out of Dodge because I'm coming to wreck shop. And if you're still there when I get there, you and your family's going to die, just so you know. And someone takes that letter and they hand it to Hezekiah. And this is Hezekiah's response in verse 14. Verse 19. The propaganda letter is brought to King Hezekiah. Hezekiah knows. If Sennacherib wants Jerusalem, he's going to take it. They have as much chance of defending Jerusalem from Sennacherib as my daughter Lily has defending her Reese's peanut butter cups at Halloween from me. I'm going to win that fight. And so what does Hezekiah do? He doesn't do what you think he should do. What he should do is assemble the generals right away. Assemble the quartermaster right away. Assemble the treasurer right away. Whoever's in charge of agriculture, how we're going to feed the people, get them in the room. He needs to assemble the cabinet right away. How do we defend Jerusalem? Someone start boiling some oil. I saw that on Netflix one time. That seems to be a thing you should do when you're defending the city. Get everybody together and let's come up with a plan to repel the Assyrian army. That's what we need to do. That's not what he does. He takes the letter. He goes to the temple. He lays it down at the feet of the Lord, and he prays. And he says, God, this is an affront to you. What would you have us do? His first response is to pray. And similarly to Jehoshaphat, God directs Hezekiah, don't do anything. Don't fire an arrow. Just watch, and I'll win. And the next morning, he incites a riot in the camp of the Assyrians. They rout each other, and they walk back to Assyria licking their wounds. God's armies didn't have to fire an arrow. Because they're good kings, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah responded in prayer to everything that came their way. And so, of course, when I read these stories and I reflect on them, and I think about these were put here over a thousand years ago for us today. What is it that I should take from them? I think there's myriad applications here. But the biggest one to me is to simply ask, is this what I do? Is this what we do? When I encounter a situation that gives me pause, is my reflexive response to pray? When I'm fearful, like Jehoshaphat was, is my first response to go and pray, or is my first response to go and plan? I don't know about you, but when I'm in a stressful situation, when I feel disappointed or when I feel overwhelmed or when I feel like there's a big task in front of me, the very first thing I do is come up with a plan that I believe in. As soon as I have a plan that I can work, I feel very comforted in life. So the first thing I do in stress is I sit down, I think it through, I make a plan, and then I begin to work the plan. The problem is, prayer didn't precede that plan. It didn't follow that plan. It's just my plan. And I'm not, certainly didn't bring anybody here to make you feel bad about your prayer life. So I'll let you join in judging me about mine. And if it applies to you, fine. But when I read these passages, I can't help but ask myself, how much of my parenthood is prayerless and just reflexive? How much of my marriage and my love for Jen is prayerless and just a representation of my effort? How much of my career? How much of my interactions with others? How many of my important, maybe even difficult conversations? How many small groups in Bible studies have I led prayerlessly just going into them on my own? Is it my reflex in times of stress, in times of trepidation, in times of challenge, in times of fear, in times of uncertainty? Is my reflex to pray or is it to plan? Is it to seek the face of the Lord? Or is it to call a friend? How much in your life, this is where I'll put it on you, how much in your life, in your coming and in your going, as you enter into situations, as you face new situations, when you get phone calls, as you respond, how much in your life do you stop and you pause and you lay down at the foot of God and you say, God, I need you here. I'm not big enough for this. How much of that do you do and how much of it do you just take on yourself and charge right ahead without ever once stopping to pause and pray? I've joked often, and I will do it one day, that one day I'm going to give a sermon on reading the Bible. And I'm going to come out. I'm going to say, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. You should read your Bible more. Let's pray. I'm going to do that one day. Because I genuinely think that when I come out here and I tell a group full of Christians who in your heart love and seek out God's word, when I say, hey guys, we should read the Bible more often, that the Holy Spirit can take it from there. He doesn't need me to talk for 29 and a half more minutes to make that an effective message. I'm probably just going to mess it up. That's enough for the Holy Spirit to go and work. And similarly, this morning is simply that. Hey guys, pray more. Pray more reflexively. Pray more regularly. And grain it into yourselves. Let the Holy Spirit work it into your psyche. Pray more. Because here's what happens when we pray more. I was reflecting as I was preparing. If we can be more like Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah, if we can be people who respond in prayer and not panic or plans, what can happen for us? Because remember, everything that God tells us to do, he tells us to do because it's best for us. So why is it best for us to stop at every moment, every day, and pray multiple times a day? Why is it better for us to pray and consider more? Here's what I think. Prayer provides perspective, place, peace, and priorities. Prayer provides perspective, place, peace, and priorities. Not for nothing. That's the greatest alliterative sentence I've ever written in my life. I'm going to graduate now as a pastor. I've reached the mountaintop, I think. Prayer provides us with perspective. It puts things in their proper focus. I have a son, John, he's two and a half, and he's in that season where every time we go up the stairs, it's an adventure, right? And you always ask him when you're about to go up the stairs, you don't want to upset his delicate sensibilities. Johnny, do you want to hold my hand? You want to do it yourself? And he usually says, I do it myself. Okay. And so he uses the wall and the railings and different things, and he takes the steps one at a time. And I'm right behind him. If he falls, I'm going to catch him. It's going to be okay. But he likes to say, I do it myself. And then I let him do it himself. Listen, every time we go into a situation or circumstance or a scenario, and we do it prayerlessly, what we've just done is we've looked at God and we've said, I do it myself. Do you need help with your career? No, I got this. I'll do it myself. Do you need help in your marriage? No, I got this. I'll do it myself. I can hold your hand. I can guide you through this. I can show you the way. No, it's good. I'll do it myself. This big goal in your life, I'll do it myself. Reconciling a relationship, I'll do it myself. Raising your children, I'll do it myself. Every time we enter into anything prayerlessly, we are saying to God, I'll do it myself. Thanks. When we don't pray, we make ourselves too big and God too small. When we don't pray, when we don't pray about whatever it is, about a health issue, about a relationship, about a career, about parenthood, about our marriage, about trying to transition into being adult parents of adult kids, and that relationship is different, and I don't really know what to do with my hands anymore. I just need to know I need to give them some space. When we approach that prayerlessly, we make God too big and ourselves too small. We forget who we are and who he is. But I want us to actually acknowledge and admit that that any time we approach anything, whether it's just a small sales meeting, a regular business meeting in our place of work, a board meeting or an elder meeting, when we approach a small group, when we approach a delicate conversation with our spouse or with our kids, when we sit at our desk or wherever it is we sit on Monday morning and think about the week ahead, when we do any of those things prayerlessly, we make ourselves far too big and God far too small. And we say to him, I've got this. I'll do it myself. God in his goodness climbs those stairs right behind us, but he's willing to hold our hand and walk us up there if we'll reach for him in prayer. So not only does prayer give us perspective, but prayer puts everything in its proper place, right? Because when we pray, here's what we admit, whether we consciously acknowledge this or not. God is in charge. I am not. This situation is in his hands. When we pray, that's what we acknowledge. God's in charge. I am not. This situation is in his hands. God's the creator of the universe. I'm not the creator of the universe. He's in charge. I am not. And this situation is in his hands and better off for it. When I think about this, that prayer puts us in our proper place, I'm reminded of Genesis 1. Genesis 1.1. God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And I love to ask the question, why does the Bible begin that way? I don't think it just begins that way because that's where the story begins. I think it begins that way because it sets up the fundamental relationship throughout all of Bible and all of life. God is the creator. We are the creation. This is it. All sin in our life is getting confused about that relationship. That's all it is. God is the Lord. I am not. God is the creator. I am the created. All sin in our life is when we choose to ignore that and say, no, no, no, I'm more important than him. That's it. And so what prayer does is put us in our proper place. What prayer does for us in a humble, quiet way is what God had to do for Job in a bombastic way in Job chapter 38. When Job's tired of life, he's tired of suffering and goes to God and he's like, hey man, you owe me some answers. And so in Job 38 and on, God gives Job those answers, but they're not the ones he wants. He says, Job, you've forgotten your place, pal. You don't know who you are and who I am. You've forgotten. And then Paul reiterates this in Romans 11, when he says, who can understand the mind of God? His ways are higher than our ways. And so when we humble ourselves in prayer, particularly when we bow on our knees if we can, it puts everything in its proper place. You are God. I am not. You're in charge. I'm reliant on you. The situation is bigger than me. It is not bigger than you. I know that you know my kids better than I could ever know them. I know you love them more than I could ever love them. So I'm trusting them with you. Tell me what my part is and I'll do it. Often your part is to hang back and sing worship music and let God do the dirty work. I know that you know my wife better than I'll ever know her and that you love her more than I can ever love her. So can you just show me what my part is in loving her? Can you just help me with that? God, I know that my career, for whatever reason, is important to you. I don't know why it's important to you. I don't know what the end game of it is. I don't know what you would have me to learn or gain there, but I know that it matters to you where I work, who I work for, and how I carry myself in the workplace. I know that matters to you, God. So I'm going to trust you with it and walk in the steps that you would lay out for me. When we pray, it gives us the proper perspective and it puts everything in its proper place. And then, when everything's in its proper place, prayer gives us peace. It offers us peace. I love that in worship, sometimes the Holy Spirit does things like this. In worship, Aaron referenced Philippians 4, 8. Finally, brothers, whatsoever things are true, noble, of good report, honorable, godly, trustworthy, think upon these things. And he was right. That verse is preceded by two verses that tell us what we should do in times of worry. Philippians 4, 6, and 7. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, through prayer and supplication, and with thanksgiving, present your request to God, and the God of peace, who transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So Paul writes in Philippians, don't be anxious for anything, which for most dudes, it's like, okay. And for most women, it's like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm anxious about you saying that. Be anxious for nothing. But in everything, through prayer and petition and with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And what will happen when in everything we present our request to God, when in everything we pray, when in every circumstance we reflectively fall on our feet and say, God, what would you have us do? What happens when for everything we present our petitions to God and we have the proper perspective with that thing and who God is and we put ourselves in our proper place and we put God in his proper place and we put the situation in its proper place, then what happens is we are given the peace of God that passes all understanding and he guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Prayerful people are able to walk in a peace that no one else can understand. Why? Because that peace is guarded by God. Because they walk in an understanding that God's got this and I don't and it's okay. The people in your life who pray the most are probably the most peaceful. They have the hardest feathers to ruffle. Now some of my friends are the most anxious and the most prayerful. Those things go hand in hand for them. But at least they've learned to reflexively pray. But when we are people of prayer and we're assured of perspective and place, we can't help but feel peace that follows that. I remember very vividly coming to Grace in April of 2017. And when I got here, I made this point before, I will not belabor it. Things were comically bad. We were going to shut the, if they didn't hire a senior pastor in April, they weren't making it out of May, no doubt about it. And no one who was here at that time would argue that. And I remember getting here and finding out more about how dire it was and going, whoa, well, this is career suicide because no one is going to look at the resume of a guy who's been a senior pastor exactly one time and ran it into the ground in six weeks. That's lifelong small group pastor territory. And then when I get old, they make me care pastor. That's what that is. But in prayer, I honestly, like I wasn't nervous. I wasn't worried. I didn't even really care because it was out of my hands. I knew that God loved this place. I knew that God cares about me and he cares about the people who call this place home. And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is where God wanted me to be. And so I literally thought back in April of 2017, well, God, you brought me here on purpose. I know you did. It was either to grow it or to kill it. Either way, it's what you want. Let's ride. Let's see what happens. Now, we still don't know that he didn't bring me here to kill it, but so far, it's been to grow. So far, he's walked alongside us, and he's shown up again and again. Whenever we sing that song, Evidence, those are the kinds of things I think about. When we put things in their proper perspective, and we put ourselves in our place through prayer, we can be given the peace of God through prayer. And once we are walking in the peace of God through prayer, when we reflexively go to pray, we can pray with the proper perspective. It gives us the right perspective from which to pray. Because if I want to kneel down and pray for my children, John and Lily, I need to first acknowledge, God, you know them better than I'll ever know them. You see their entire future laid out in front of them. I don't know what they're going to do today. Hopefully, shut up, because we have a seven-hour drive. But I don't know what they're going to do today. You know what they're going to do in 30 years. I don't know how to best love their little hearts and souls. You knit them together. You know them intimately. So it inclines me with that admission to say, God, how would you have me pray for my children? God, what should my heart for Lily be? God, how can I best pray for John? And so when we walk in prayer, it inclines us towards his wisdom and we begin to blanket our prayers with this question of what is wise to pray. Not reflexively, what do I want to pray? What do I feel like praying? What do I want most in the moment? But God, because I know that you know this situation, you know me, you know the other people, you know everything happening, you know them intimately, because I that you know way more than I do about all the things what God is wise to pray. And that question begins to mature our prayers. When I pray for Sunday mornings, I never ever pray that the sermon would be good. I've never once prayed that I would do well. I think that's the wrong perspective. I pray and I write it every week to the elders. Every week to the elders I send out, let's all on these days, let's pray for this thing together. And Sunday has never changed. The prayer for Sunday is always, would the service be exactly what God wants it to be? Good, bad, or ugly, would what happens in here be what God wants to happen in here? When I pray for the band, when we have our pre-service meeting at 915, and sometimes I'm asked to pray over that, I always pray, God, would you help us to care about the things that you care about and not care about the things that you don't care about? Which is code speak for, if the host messes up, but it doesn't detract from the spiritual point of the service, who cares? If the basis starts with the wrong note, don't get bent out of shape about it. God doesn't care about it. You shouldn't either. Let's pursue the throne and praise God together. God, help us to care about what you care about and not care about what you don't care about. The more we walk in prayer, the more we keep the perspective in place right, the more peace we experience. And in that peace, we begin to pray wise prayers. God, how can I pray in accordance with your will about this? So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to invite Aaron and the band, Greg, back up. Back up. And instead of me finishing my sermon on prayer in prayer, I'm going to invite you to a time of prayer. I'm pretty certain if you're a thinking person that at some point during this sermon as I've talked about, hey, in this situation do you respond in prayer? Have you offered that up to prayer? Have you been trying to do this prayerlessly or with your own plans? I would be willing to bet that God has brought something to mind for you. That there's something or someone or some things in your life that probably do need some prayer. And maybe you haven't given them the prayer that they need. Maybe there are things you've been praying for very regularly for a long time, but you just want to lift them up again. So I'm going to step off the stage, and I'm going to give us all some time to pray. Lift those things up to God. Your children, your spouse, your loved ones, the family you'll see this Thanksgiving, that career thing that's just been eating at you, the bills that you don't know how you're going to pay, the health issues of you and your loved one that are just driving you nuts. Whatever it might be that God's brought to mind, take a few minutes and pray for that. And as you pray, Aaron's going to sing over us a little bit, and then at some point he'll invite us to stand. And we'll close out singing The Battle Belongs. And we'll let that be our battle cry that reminds us that our very first reaction, our very first reflex, no matter what's happening in our life, should be to go to God in prayer. Let's pray together, silently.

Wow, that was awesome. Good morning, everyone. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here. I'm very sorry. I don't understand how this mic thing works, so we're going to figure it out together. Like I said, my name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here at Grace, and man, I'm really excited to be up here this morning. I'm really excited to have the opportunity to be a part of this series, a part of just getting to highlight different songs that we sing and maybe hopefully make them a little bit more valuable inside of our hearts when we sing them in the future. I think the only way I could be more excited is if instead of preaching, Aaron would have asked me to actually sing the song. But as Aaron continues to remind me, no one wants that, Kyle. And so until the Lord decides to change my singing voice, we'll settle with talking here. You know, as I began to prep and study and go through this song and these lyrics, a couple things came to mind. The first thing that came to mind is that, man, this song comes directly out of Philippians 2. I tell you that is the cue. If you want to go ahead and read with us, you can go ahead and find that and open up to Philippians 2. But I was really encouraged by that because we had been going through Philippians as great students not long before I was asked to preach through this. And so as I read these words, I'm like, man, there's something just supremely familiar about these words as I read them. The second thing that I oddly started to think about and be reminded of is of a time recently within the past, like it's been a month or two, when I had the opportunity to play a round of golf. To give a little background, Chris Latta, who's a partner here, had basically had, I guess, a card, the ability to bring three other players to play in this, like, best ball style golf tournament. And that was really exciting for me because I love and cherish my opportunity to spend time with Chris and then also with Nate, our pastor, and Aaron, our worship pastor, as that is who Chris reached out to. But there was a bit of trepidation that came with that as well because I don't play golf. And I've learned over the years as we talk and as I tell people I don't play golf and have them tell me, yeah, I don't play golf either, that normally when people say they don't play golf, what they mean is, yeah, I don't really play golf anymore. I used to play a lot, but now, you know, I just, I have so much going on and so I don't really get to play very much. Or it's like, you know, I only really get to play like once or twice a year, so I don't play often. And so their definition is then, yeah, I don't really play golf. What they're saying is, I don't play golf much, so don't expect too much. When I say I don't play golf, I mean I have no idea how to play golf. And I let Chris very candidly know that. Instead of like, you know what, I'm just going to do this. Northridge seems pretty awesome. I like those guys. Let's just roll it out. I made it very clear to him, I don't know what I'm doing out there, and you should find someone else, but he assured me it would be totally fine, and so we went out there. And I've got to be honest, as we went up to the first hole, knowing all of the things that I just told you, I still walked up with a driver and put that ball down and had in my head just this glorious moment of where, even though I have no idea what I'm doing, I'm about to absolutely launch this golf ball. And then I'm going to turn around and I'm going to like do something cool with the club and all the guys are going to like uproar us applause. And for some reason, everyone else out there is going to randomly be watching and they're going to go crazy. And so I get up and I do it. I take my practice swing, which probably looked incredible. And then I rear back and I absolutely, I mean, I smack that ball. I smack a good, maybe at maximum one centimeter of the top of that golf ball. And I launched that thing about three feet forwards on a slow roll. Like to give you a better understanding, if I hit my exact first shot right now, it would not have rolled to Harris's foot on the first row right here. Like it was ugly and it was terrible. And I have to be honest, it did not improve too much after that. I kept going and I kept trying and it kept, like that just kept happening. I kept swinging and feeling like, man, it really feels like I should be hitting more of this golf ball and it really feels like it should be doing more things that it's doing. But I just couldn't figure it out. And so shot after shot, a bit of frustration kind of came over me. And which sounds silly because why would you be frustrated that you're doing a bad job at something you don't know how to do? But truthfully, that was not my frustration. My frustration more came with the fact that as I continued to swing and as I continued to hit and as I continued to watch three guys who, like, I know they're not professional golfers, and some of you might be like, you're trying to do what they're doing. For me, they're hitting the ball, and when they hit it, it goes, like, up in the air, and that's awesome. And, like, it's times where it's going straight, or they're doing, like, these crazy turns, and it's going left or right. And I'm just mind-blown by the whole thing, and I'm just like, man, like, you know, I never knew how incredible it was to watch a ball go up in the air until you've never watched any of your balls go up in the air. And what frustrated me is I'm watching these guys and I have right in front of me, this is what I should, this is, this is what it looks like to do what I need to do. But I have no idea how to get there. I have this goal of looking and hitting like this person, swinging like Chris or like Aaron or like Nate to where I can put a ball in play and everyone goes, all right, that was good enough. That's all I wanted. But I had no understanding of how to do so, regardless of how much I racked my brain and how many times I tried to watch all of the, like every part of the swing, I just couldn't figure it out. And it was frustrating. I wasn't improving it at all. I was taking zero steps forward towards the goal of just being able to hit a golf ball okay. And I just couldn't figure it out. I had no idea how to get better. I had no idea how to improve, how to move forward, until the guys, as they watched, they do understand golf a little bit more, and they understand what I was having a hard time grasping, that to hit a golf ball well is broken down into fundamentals of different parts of a swing. That it's not about, hey, you have to be perfect at every single front or else nothing works. It's simply about, hey, there's steps that you have to take. There's fundamental properties of what you need to do when you're swinging. And so, at one point, when I went up, I was encouraged by one of them, hey, I see that you're lifting your head when you're swinging. When you're going through, you're lifting your head. And when you do, your club comes up and you hit the top of the ball and it rolls to Harris' foot. And that's not what we want. And so I said, okay. And so they said, look, Kyle, don't think about anything else. Don't try to do everything exactly perfect. Do everything natural and as natural as it can feel to you. Keep your head down the whole way and just see how that goes. And I did it. And then I was shooting under par golf for the rest of the round. Obviously, that's not true. It did not change and impact everything about whatever, but there was improvement. I hit the ball kind of somewhat where it was supposed to be hit on the club. It went forwards. It went a little bit farther. And so for the rest of the day, instead of me going like, well, here's this thing I'll never be able to do, so why am I, like, what's even the point? I'm just frustrated every time I swing. They're helping me out, and they're saying, hey, this time, just spend most of your time just focusing on this one simple step of holding your arm in this way, and swinging everything natural and normal, but do it this way. They broke something that was big and hard and difficult down into these fundamental aspects, because what they recognize and what they realize realize because they've learned how to play golf is it takes small steps forwards and understanding what it takes to take those small steps to be able to get to that ultimate goal. And so by the end of it, it wasn't great, but I hit a couple shots that like genuinely went up in the air and it was awesome. I do recommend, I do recommend the ability to hit a ball up in the air and forwards because it feels kind of cool. We didn't, it wasn't useful. I think the best shot I hit went right in the water, but man, it made my heart feel good. You know, I mean, there was a genuine Nate goes, Kyle, yes. I'm so sorry that went in the water, but awesome. You was a great day for me. But I think that probably all of us have had similar experiences to this. I don't know that all of us have had the same experience of golf. I hope that your experience with golf is better than mine was for most of it because that was rough. But we have the experiences of maybe it's starting a new job. and part of that is to shadow someone who's doing that job. And it's like, how in the world can I ever do any of the things that that person's doing? This is completely overwhelming. And so every day you show up to work in the shadow of how incredible this person is. And so every day you feel like a failure because even though you're trying your hardest, you have no idea how to get to where that person is. Maybe some of you, I've been here, have tried to get in shape. And so you go to classes or you watch workout videos and you're watching and you're like, I don't even understand why I'm classified as human and you're also classified as human, you know? Like, I look at you and you look nothing like I do and you're doing all these things and you're smiling and talking to me and I'm like throwing up over here and deciding if I should have like just stayed in bed this morning, you know? Like, I, there's no way to get there. And when we experience those experiences, there's a couple things I think that it's easy to feel. One is hopeless. Just feeling completely hopeless in the approach or in the pursuit of this goal that seems completely unattainable, and we don't even know how to even make strides towards it. So every day we just feel lesser than because we don't know what we're doing. Or we take the cynical approach, and we go, you know what? I don't see any possible way I could ever get there, so what's the point? I'm not even going to try, which is kind of maybe my approach to golf, but we'll see. But you've probably experienced one of those two feelings before in your life. And when we come to a song like this, and when we come to a sermon, when we come to a song that asks of us to be more like Jesus, sometimes my approach is like, yeah, okay, cool, awesome. I'll put it on the to-do list. Thanks, Kyle. Thanks, Nate. I'll definitely be more like Jesus. That's awesome. I think sometimes to be told or to be called to be more like Jesus feels like you're trying to tell me who has no idea what he's doing or how to be good at golf and saying, hey, the way that you'd be good at golf is by playing like Tiger Woods. That is completely foreign to me. I have no idea what that means or what that looks like. I couldn't play like Chris Latta. And he's awesome, but he's not Tiger. It's like one step down. But as any teacher or any coach or any supervisor has ever taught us before as we try to learn something new, it starts with taking that first step. It starts with understanding those fundamentals. And so, this morning, as we try to get a somewhat of an understanding of what it may look like or mean to look more like Jesus and to make our lives more like Jesus, I think what's important and what's vital is for us to break that down and go, okay, so who was Jesus? What is an attribute of Jesus that maybe I can take that step and pursue? Because I know that if I go, hey, here's all of the things that Jesus was, and I wake up every morning and say, all right, time to do this, that I'm going to finish the day probably doing very little, if any of it, and I'm just going to feel completely overwhelmed and completely hopeless for the next day. But maybe if we just grab hold of one attribute and say, what if we just clung to this one? What if this morning, what if this week we just thought about being more like Jesus in this way? I think we'd find that it's more approachable. And what's really cool about this song, and what makes this song so perfect for this series, a series where we're trying to grab songs and figure out where we can find them in scripture. When we look, that first verse that we sang, you guys will hear it again because we're going to sing it again. That first entire verse that we sang is almost a word-for-word version of something that we find in Philippians 2, verses 5 through 8. And so, if you will, if you have it open, you can read along with me, or otherwise you'll be able to read it on the, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. This is the first half of a passage of scripture that people somewhat commonly refer to as the hymn of Christ. It's this glorious passage that basically just outlines the sacrifices that Christ made on our behalf so that we could know God, so that we could know Christ, and we could have a relationship with the Father. It's a glorious depiction of the gospel and what we know is true about the gospel, but I would say more pointedly, the hymn of Christ highlights Jesus's radical humility for the glory of God and for the sake of humanity. If you take a closer look at those verses, it outlines Christ who is in heaven on the throne with God, who instead of clinging to that, instead of clinging to that glory, instead of clinging to that power, instead of clinging to that comfortability of being able to be in heaven as God, did not consider it something to be clung to, but instead he left heaven to come to earth and become a human, which is worse. And in doing so, did not do so so that he could take up the throne of Israel and be the king of the world to make Israel the most powerful nation and he could bring all of the power and all of the glory to himself, which is what he deserved and which is what he had every access to be able to do because as much as he was human, he was also God. Instead, as Paul writes, he became nothing. Living a life as a servant. Moving from place to place, basically homeless. Loving and serving every person he was possibly able to come into contact to. Not to heighten his power, not to grasp upon the power that was rightfully his, but in order to elevate and uplift the people that were around him, ultimately to the point of death. In humility, recognizing and understanding that he is the only person who's ever lived a life on this earth that was ever worthy of not experiencing death. The only person. And yet, being the person who gives his life so that every other human who does experience death and does experience eternal separation from God doesn't have to experience it and can have a relationship with the Father through Christ's sacrifice. It is this beautiful and incredible and amazingly powerful set of verses. But for those of you who've opened it up in your Bibles, what you see is that this is not a passage that just stands alone by itself. Even those who were able to just look at it on the screen, you see that it's verse 5, which means that there are verses before it. Some of you who are reading along with me also might have realized that we only use the last two words of verse 5. I tell you all of that to say that as beautiful and as powerful as these words are by themselves, they are placed in Philippians for a very specific reason, a very specific context. And when we understand that context and when we understand the reason why these words were written, I think it helps us to outline an attribute of Christ. The context for that beautiful depiction of Christ's humility in the gospel and throughout the story, entire story of the gospel, the context of that is so that Paul can say, hey, here's your example for how you should live your lives in humility. Here's your example for what this looks like. Not building up and gaining your own power or building up your own kingdom, not working and walking in selfishness, but instead looking to the needs of others above yourselves, elevating other people and serving other people above yourselves just as Christ did. Christ, who was also fully God, made himself lesser than to elevate everyone that he came in contact with, to serve and to love them as well as he possibly can. And in the same way, Paul says that's the way that we should live our lives as well, in that style, in that kind of humility. And so, because we have these verses that were pulled directly from to write this song that we sang this morning and that we're gonna sing again later, what I think that we're able to surmise is this, that when we sing, make me more like Jesus, we are asking God to replace our pride with the humility that defined the life of Christ. Lord, I've seen all of the ways that your son lived in humility while he was on earth to the point of death. And in the same way that Paul called the believers of the Philippians, I know he calls me to live in that style of humility. Not in selfish ambition or vain conceit, but elevating people and lifting them up. And as I went through this, I began to think about, okay, what are some examples of what that looks like? What are some things where I can go, hey, here's an awesome way to be humble. Here's an awesome way to do this. And the more I thought and pondered and processed, the more I came to realize that what I was thinking more about is people whose lives are marked and defined by this level of humility, whose lives look like Philippians 2, 3 through 5. And I thought of a friend, Ron Torrance, and I told him, be aware, be ready. I understand the position that I'm putting someone in by elevating them and uplifting them about how humble they are. And they probably are completely uninterested in hearing their voice or being lifted up. But I think it's valuable for the church. And so I'm asking him to allow me some grace. But Ron is someone who has given a lot of his life to this church and to the people of this church. And now he's retired and he has every right in the entire world to be able to show up to church and to just have people love him. To be able to go find his buddies, find his friends, find the people he's closest to, get here a couple minutes early, have some conversations with his friends, sit down and just enjoy his service. Maybe what he actually deserves is everyone to go and find him and to ask how he's doing and check in on him because he's the best and he's given so much to this church. He's completely entitled to be loved and served by everyone in this church the best that they can. But instead, instead of leaning on that entitlement, instead of leaning on what he deserves and what he has earned the right to do, instead, he comes here every Friday, every Friday morning. He clears out every trash can because he wants there to be a brand new trash bag in every trash can for Sunday morning. Then he goes around and he cleans the windows. Then, I was here this Friday morning trying to do something that I'm paid to do, and he's got a leaf blower, and he's blowing all of the leaves away from all of the sidewalks. His full intention when he comes on Friday morning is to say, you know what? I want to serve everyone the best I can, and what that looks like for me right now is to make this look as nice as it possibly can for whoever's going to walk up in here on Sunday morning. Ron's retired, and he has lived a good life for the Lord. He's earned the right to not have to do any of those things. He's earned the right for people to do that for him. And yet, come here on Friday morning, you'll see him every Friday morning. And then it comes Sunday. And he's already made the place as beautiful as it can be for you, for us, for me. And instead of going and finding his buddies and spending time hanging out and chatting it up with the people he's closest with, his goal and his purpose on a Sunday morning is to interact with as many people as he possibly can, to make sure that if you're here, that your hand is shaken and that you're told good morning and that you're asked about any detail of your life that he may know to make sure that you know that you are valued and that you are welcome and that he is happy that you're here. His goal is to serve you by making you know how valuable you are in this space. If by no one else, then by him. He has earned the right for all of us to just come find him in his seat where he has a recliner and we just sit, go and shake his hand. But that's not what he does. Almost to the chagrin, I would imagine, of his closest friends and his family, he's bouncing around to make sure that every single person is loved, is encouraged, is welcomed. I know Ron cares about me when I talk to Ron. Just this morning, I wasn't planning on saying this, but just this morning, Ron opened the door for me. He said, I don't know who the greeter is, but you know. I'm like, yeah, man, awesome. He's not on greeter. He's not supposed to be a greeter every week, but he basically is, so why not? And I think that that's valuable to us. I think that's valuable to this church. Those are small acts that go a really long way for us every single Sunday to uplift us, to encourage us, and to allow us to walk into a space that looks nice. And, you know, I wanted to figure out and put together a way to then go from, to transition from that into this impassioned plea to this is why you should not only be happy that there are people like Ron that exist, but why you should strive in your life to be someone whose life is marked by that same humility. That you can be someone like that that exists by simply allowing Christ to take over your heart and allowing your life to be defined by the humility that defined the life of Christ. And the more I tried to think about what that impassioned plea might be, I just came back instead to this simple thought that if I asked every one of you right now, if I had time, there's too many. I can't walk up to each one of you individually right now because there's kids that are going to go crazy in a second. But if I did, and I said, hey, who is that person or who are those people in your life that you have in your everyday life that you feel like their lives are defined by Christ-like humility? You probably all have them. You have people that you can think of. And so then my second question is this. As you think about that person or those people that you know, what kind of status do they hold in your mind and in your heart? Where do you find them in your heart? Who are they in your life to you? Who are those people to you? To me, they're the people that I know if I need help with something, if I need an extra set of hands, I know I can reach out to them. Not because I know that they've got nothing going on and they're sitting twiddling their thumbs being like, man, I really wish I could help Kyle move something right now. But knowing that their time is valuable and I'm sure there's plenty of ways they could be spending it, but knowing it that their life is marked by a Christ-like humility. And ultimately, they're looking for the joy of the opportunity to be able to help me out and serve me in whatever way I need. They're the people I know I can reach out to, and they're going to help me in whatever way they can. They're also the people that are the ones I want to reach out to, and I want to talk to or talk with when I've got something serious that I need to talk about. When it's more than simply just standing or sitting and hanging out and laughing and joking around and having fun. But instead when it's, I really need someone to listen to what I've got going on. I really need someone who I know when I walk into this conversation that they're only going to be locked in on what I have to say, knowing that they're not going to consistently just be frustrated, that they want to be able to say more and they want to get more words in and they want to be heard, but simply will be totally okay. Totally okay knowing, hey, you might not have a huge role in this conversation, but I'm going to sit here and I'm going to listen because I care and I want to hear what you have to say. Those are the people, the people whose lives are marked by humility, those are the people that I'm going to go to, that I'm going to reach out to because I know that they're going to be there for me in whatever way I need. Because I know that even though their time is precious, even though they're interesting and they have thoughts and they have things to say and they have all of that stuff, that when they weigh the two, when they weigh what they have versus what I need. Every time, they're going to do what they can to serve me, to put their needs aside, and to serve and to love me best. And so they play a pretty vital role in who I am. Do y'all have those people? If you do, if you have those people, you know the joy of having those people. If you have people like that, then you know that you get to understand something about humility that I don't know that we understand until we've experienced, and it's this, that humility is encouraging and life-giving to everyone it touches. It draws people in by lifting people up. I'm gonna read it again. Humility is encouraging and life-giving to everyone it touches. It draws people in by lifting people up. If we've experienced people whose lives are marked by humility at work, in our family, through friendships, then we know that this is true. We know the great and utter joy of what it means to have someone like that in our lives. And so if you do, if you nodded when I asked if you had those people, here comes my question. Why in the world would we not want to be the reason that someone else could experience that joy? Why wouldn't we want to be the reason why someone gets to understand and recognize that, hey, just because I know you, just because we are friends, that means that a lot of my goal in our friendship is my ability to encourage you and to give you life and to elevate you and uplift you and draw you in by lifting you up. Why wouldn't we want to provide that joy for someone else? To experience a Christ-like humility that blesses the hearts of the people around us and serves the hearts of the people around us. I think not only do we seek to live lives that are marked by this humility because it benefits them from a humanly approach, I also think that when we serve others in humility, that we reflect Christ. I'll say that again, when we serve others in humility, that we reflect Christ. I'll say that again. When we serve others in humility, we reflect Christ. I don't think that the only reason that Paul put an entire beautiful poem about Christ's humility next to a call to Christians to live lives of humility. I don't think he just does that to say, hey, here's the example. I think he also does so so that we can recognize and that we can realize that if we allow God to shape our hearts and when we allow Christ to move in and through us, to live more like him in humility, that when we do so, we are reflecting Christ to people who need to experience Christ. And I think that's significant. And finally, it's weird to talk about because it's like, why am I ending on something that's valuable for us more so than for other people in a humility sermon? But I'm going to. Not only is there so much joy to be given by living lives of humility, but man, there's so much joy to be gained. If you will, I want to close this morning by getting to read the entirety of the hymn of Christ. We started the first time at verse five and we went through eight. I want to read it in its entirety this morning. I realized that I only put the second half up for the words. And so if you do have your Bibles out, that might be the place to do it. But if you will, just hear this, because I want you to hear the joy that comes through living a life that is changed by the humility of Christ and that reflects the humility of Christ. So if you will, we're going to read verses 5 through 11 together. Here's the new part. gave him the name that is above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee should bow. In heaven and on earth and under the earth, in every tongue acknowledge that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Christ's life of humility led to his exaltation that seated him at the right hand of God. And our humility, as it says, that we can get down on our knees and we can proclaim that Christ is Lord, that we can give our hearts and say, I know I am not enough, nor will I ever be enough, but because of Christ's humility, I will give my heart up to you, God. Take all of me for all of you. Allow me to live a life that in some small sliver of a way is marked by the humility of Christ. And when we do so, we are exalted. In Matthew, right out of the words, right out of God, of Christ's mouth, in Matthew 23, 12, it says this, for those who exalt themselves will be humbled. Get this, those who humble themselves will be exalted. When we humble ourselves before the Father, then we can be exalted with the Son. And man, when we're exalted, when we've experienced having a debt paid that we did not owe and recognizing and understanding how little that makes sense and how unbelievable the grace of God is, when we understand the humility of Christ and the sacrifice that he made in his humility for us, also that we could be exalted to where when God looks at us, he sees Christ, I think it becomes a lot easier to live a life that's marked by humility. So, as we sing again, we sing asking God to make us more like Jesus. Maybe as we sing, we can pray and asking God this week in humility, how might I be able to do that? Will you pray with me? Lord, we love you so much. We're thankful for your son, his ultimate humility and sacrifice, and that because of that, we are exalted for eternity. God, I just pray that that sinks into our hearts so much so that we live our lives with something that looks even close to similar to that type of humility. Lord, we love you so, so much, and we are so thankful for you. Amen.

Well, thank you very much to the band. You guys are doing a great job lifting your voices to the Father. I say it all the time, it's my favorite noise in the world to hear my church praising God together. In a few minutes, we're going to sing, the song is going to be sung over us and then we're going to have a chance to sing it together called The Blessing. The song is taken right out of Numbers chapter 6 and it reminds me of the cultural blessings that we have all over the world. A lot of different cultures have a lot of different traditional blessings. One of my favorite ones is the traditional Irish blessing. You guys may have heard this before, but it says, may the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hand. I like blessings like that. I like traditions like that. I like hopes and prayers for one another like that. And so when I came across this song and I opened the scripture to find where it was, I loved it so much. I was actually talking with a friend of mine this week and was saying that we were going to be talking about the blessing this Sunday and it comes out in Numbers chapter 6 and he's like, oh yeah, I know it. I know it. He used to go to a church where a pastor would finish every sermon with this blessing. And I think it's so great because if you look at Numbers chapter six and we're going to leave the lights down so you don't have to pull out a Bible or try to participate. We don't have any notes to take this morning. I just want us to understand this song that we're about to sing together. But if you look in Numbers chapter 6, there's really no context for this. In the preceding verses, we're talking about what to do in a Nazaritic vow. So I know that some of you guys were wondering about that. It's in Numbers 6, so you can read that later this afternoon. And then chapter 7 is offering at the tabernacle for consecration. But sandwiched in between those two topics, really germane to nothing, is just this wonderful priests. So he says, go and tell the leaders of the people. Go and tell the spiritual leaders that when my people are blessed, when you would bless them, here's how I want you to do it. It is the traditional blessing of all traditional blessings. This is the one. And so the first little part there is very simple. The Lord bless you. It's okay to wish blessing upon one another. It's probably better for me to desire your blessing over my blessing, but it's okay for me as your pastor to pray that the Lord would bless you and your families, and I do. And so when we say that the Lord bless you, what does it mean to be blessed? May you sit in the Lord's favor. May you be prosperous physically and emotionally and spiritually and relationally in all the ways. Will the Lord bless you with rich friendships, with good family. May the Lord bless you with good health or quick healing. May the Lord bless you with peace and emotional stability and a life of kind of simmering joy. Would the Lord bless you? Would the Lord see favor on you? See you favorably and move you forward. And so it's right and good to pray for one another that our families, that your families would be blessed and would be prosperous in all the ways that are good and holy. And I love that next part, the Lord bless you and keep you. What does that mean? Well, to me, it reminds me of Psalm chapter 21, verses seven and eight. And it reminds me of this Psalm because this is something that my wife, Jen, prays over Lily every day before she goes to school. She prays out of these verses. Let's look at Psalms. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forevermore. So this idea of the Lord keeping us means he's got us. He's going to protect us. He's going to walk with us. His presence will always be with us. And we love that phrase in our house, and you're going and then you're coming. And you're going out and then you're coming back in. And everything that you do and everywhere that you go and every place you arrive and every place you arrive back to, would the Lord be with you? Would he be walking with you? Would you feel his presence? Would you never feel alone? Would the Lord bless you and keep you? Would he hold you tight? And then we have that great phrase back in Numbers. If we look at the verse again, we have that great phrase, make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you and then the Lord lift up his countenance to you. So I thought a lot about what does that mean and why is it significant for the Lord to make his face shine upon us, for him to lift his countenance to us. And the image that kept coming back to my mind is what my face does when I see my two-year-old son, John. My face does it with Lily too, but there's something about a toddler that just brightens everything. There's also something about a toddler that ruins everything. So you take the good with the bad, right? But if you've ever been talking with me in the lobby or in here, and I hear his voice say, Daddy, or I turn and I see him, you know you just ceased to exist to me. It just happened right there. There's no one else in the room. There's nothing else happening. I turn and I smile and I crouch. He's everything. Everything else fades. If you have children, you've looked at them like that too. Where your countenance turns to them. Where you raise it up to them, where everything fades and they're the only thing in your universe. I can only imagine what that feeling is like with grandbabies. If you don't have children, but you have grandparents that you love, you have a mom or a dad that you love, you have a friend that you don't get to see all the time, it's the thing that your face does when you see them. It lifts and it brightens and everything fades and you're the only thing in the world. This is what it means when God lifts his countenance to us. When God turns his face to us. Everything else to God fades and it it's just you and him, and he's right there. So the Lord bless you. May he prosper you in all the ways that are important, in all the ways that are holy. May he keep you, be with you, and you're coming, and you're going, and walk beside you. And you're actually going to see Psalms, that phrase, show up in the song that we sing, in the blessing. The blessing is not just numbers. It's like a compilation of blessings from numbers and from psalms and from Deuteronomy. The Lord keep you. He go with you. He protect you as you go in your comings and in your goings. And then we pray that God would shine his countenance on you. To take it a step further, I would pray that you would feel the warmth of his face. That you would feel the warmth of his love. That you would believe that he turns to you and that his countenance delights and raises when he sees you and when you're brought to mind. And then this interesting thing happens in the song. So the first two, I don't know what they're called, verses or stanzas or whatever, I don't know songs, but the first two parts you'll see are just this two times. We'll sing it through. And then we start to move into other portions of the song. And there's a portion of the song where we sing out of Psalm 21. And we say, the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you. But we're also going to say, in your coming and in your going, in your presence, he is with you, he is with you, he is with you. And then we're going to sing, he is for you, he is for you. He is for you. And that's from Romans chapter 8. If God is for us, then who can be against us? And then we're going to get to this part that we pull out of Deuteronomy that it says, well, He blessed you for generation and generation for your children and their children and their children. And this blessing is prayed not only over you, but over all of your descendants and over your family. So it really becomes this beautiful, powerful blessing. So I want to invite the band back up. If you guys can come get in place. We're going to do something with this song that I hope can be special to us. As we start the song, I want you to hear this song as a blessing over you. And I want you to sing this song as a prayer over those you love. So for the first part of the song, we're going to invite you to just remain seated. Sit there and let this song be sung over you as a blessing in the mode of God through Moses to Aaron. The way it was supposed to be spoken over God's people. Let it be sung over you and receive it and personalize it. Let it be sung over you that the Lord wants to bless you, that he wants to keep you, that his countenance is shining on you, that he is with you, that he is for you in your comings and in your goings. Make it personal. And then you're going to be invited to stand and sing. And when you sing it, make it a prayer. And think about those who come after you. Think about those that you love. And pray that God, as you sing, would bless them and keep them, that his face would shine upon them, that he would be with them, that they would know that he is for them. So let's hear it as a blessing and then let's stand when Jordan tells us to and sing it as a prayer.