Sermons tagged with Patience

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

It's good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. This feels like a danged reunion after not seeing you guys for three full weeks. Three weeks ago, I showed up and I said, hey church, let's kind of get our button gear about church a little bit. And then God gave us two weeks off just to see if we would really mean it. So here you are. These are the ones. This is great. I have been so thrilled to get to preach to you guys again this week. I'll mention it later, but I got sick in the middle of the week and thought I had COVID. I do not. Three COVID tests later, I'm certain of it. But I had to call Kyle on Thursday and be like, I don't think God wants me to preach in 2022 like at all, because you might have to go this week. But I got lucky. It was just strep. So here I am. Before I dive into it, it's just strep. You take antibiotics, you're good the next day, nobody cares. And what do you want it about a sore throat for? So it's just strep. It's great. Before I dive into that, I wanted to remind you guys after the service today is Discover Grace. It's a class with me, which, who could turn that down, for about an extra hour where I just tell you more about who Grace is, who we are, what makes us tick, why we do the things that we do. If you want to join the church, become a partner, we have partners here, not members, because members tend to consume and partners tend to contribute. And we're looking for folks to contribute to what God is doing here as we band together and build God's kingdom through Grace Raleigh. So if you'd like to participate in that, just stay in this room. It'll be immediately following the service, which means if you're here and you're not going to be a part of Discover Grace, get the heck out of here, man. We've got things to do. No, congregate in the lobby or outside if you can stand it, but we're going to try to get started in here so that those folks who participate with kids can get their kids and get them home for lunch. The other thing is that I've been touting now for three weeks. I don't even know if it's worth the wait. It's a special announcement that I have for you guys. Just something I wanted to share with the church. Two years ago, February of 2020, when we were naive babies and didn't know what pandemics were, we did a campaign series called Grace is Going Home. And I kind of put in front of you as the church that at that time for 20 years, now for 22 years, Grace has never had its own permanent home. We were founded in 2000 and have always rented our space and kind of moved from space to space. And we've kind of been a church of wanderers and wonderers, wondering when we would find our home. And we believed in 2020, at the beginning of it, that God was moving us to find and step out in faith and pledge towards a permanent home. And you guys as a church pledged $1.5 million, which I was blown away by. And at no point did I expect that to actually come in, but it was a very nice gesture that we made there at the beginning of the pandemic. And then the pandemic hit and remember the bottom fell out and everything's the worst and nobody knows if we're going to have any money or we're just going to be trading Bitcoin for the rest of our lives. And it was a little perilous there. And so we just made a decision as a notary board, we're not going to mention it. We're not going to ask people for it. We're not going to send out letters and say, hey, here's what you owe. Here's what you pledged. If you could kind of honor that, like we didn't do any of that stuff. We just kind of mentioned it a little bit. And then at the end of years, we would say, hey, if you want to give more, because sometimes people do that at the end of years, you can give towards the campaign. And so the announcement is that as of the end of 2021, the end of December 2021, we have $1.5 million available to us right now to go get whatever land or building we need to get. I never, never thought that was possible. I can remember being in elder meetings and we said, how much should the campaign be? And I said, I think our goal should be 1.25. That felt high. I was expecting about a million to come in because that's what experts say will happen. But I'm the one that has to drive the train on this thing or so I thought like a dummy.'s the Holy Spirit doing all the work, and he didn't really have to do anything except get out of the way. And the elders were like, let's do 1.5. And I'm like, you're stupid. You're dumb. It's easy for you to say that because you don't have to stand up here and ask people for it. Why don't we just do 2 million? Let's see what happens. We should have. We should have done that. But we did 1.5. I never thought it would come in. Then we hit the pandemic. Never thought it would come in. Our campaign is not even supposed to be done until the end of February. We have two more months. Well, one more month on this now. But I told the elders going into the end of 2021, listen, whatever we get at the end of 2021, let's just take that from God. That's what we need. He's going to provide for us what we need to build where and when he wants us to build. And so after 2021, we're done talking about it. We're done asking for it. There's still some pledges out there that are lingering that I'm sure will come in. I have heard, and I know that there are some of you who will give, but you're waiting until we identify the land or the property. That's okay. I understand that. So I expect more to come in to that end once we find where we're going to go. But guys, we're done. We did it. Campaign's over. We got what we need. Now we just wait for God's direction on land and where to go. And that could be a minute, just being honest with you. That probably won't be this year. Okay. We've had a team of good, sharp people, the best people in the church at this particular thing, looking for commercial real estate for us. They have not stopped looking for the duration of the pandemic and all the stuff, all the office buildings and churches and stuff that we thought was going to come available because of the pandemic, that ain't happening. Ain't nothing out there. So we're looking and we'll see, but we're happy to wait until God makes it clear that we're supposed to move. But the thing I'm most proud of about this is this. We did this the right way. We raised this money as a church with, listen to me, no discernible strategy at all. We didn't have a dumb thermometer in the lobby. We didn't send out trinkets in the mail. We didn't keep you guys updated on, hey, we're at third base now. Let's make that final stretch. No, we didn't do any of that dumb crap. We just prayed. And we just believed that God, if this matters to you, you'll make it happen. And guess what? It mattered to him. This place matters to him. I like to say that God likes grace. I don't know why he does. He just does. He likes this place. And he's going to take care of us. And I'm very proud of the course that we charted through it as a church and the way that you guys responded to it. And I will say this too, the course that we charted is not at all a testament to my leadership. It's a testament to the leadership of your elders. Because when we started this journey, I was all about doing it the way the consultants say you need to do it. I was 100% behind sectioning off the givers in the church, me going and meeting with the people who had the highest capacity to give, doing a silent campaign before the campaign, and doing it the professional way that you're supposed to do it. I was all about that. And I took that to the elders, and the elders gave me really strong pushback. That's not right. That's not a good fit for grace. That wouldn't go over well here. I wouldn't do that. And I like, listen, I'll just tell you guys in the elder meeting, sometimes we get a little pointed. We will, um, we will say direct things to one another. And there was some direct things said in those meetings. And I pushed pretty hard. I believe I may have told one of the elders to go frolic in the forest with the animals if that's how they thought we were going to do it. It's possible that I said that. But through the elders' pushback, the Holy Spirit worked in my heart too, and I became convicted that the way we needed to do it is to just let him do his work. And so I am so grateful to our elders for charting the course for grace. That was the right course and the God honoring course. I am proud of our partners for honoring God with your pledges. And I am just overwhelmed with God's goodness to us and how he brought us to accomplish that goal with no strategy in a pandemic when at times there was zero people or 40 people a week even using the building that we're pledging to build. It's pretty cool. So let's pray and thank God for that and then we'll dive into this series. Father, you are so good to us. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for caring about us. Thank you for pursuing us. Thank you for reminding us, God, in myriad ways that you love us, that you care about this place, that what happens at Grace matters to you. God, I just pray that when the right spot becomes available, that you, through your spirit, make it abundantly clear to every person involved that that's exactly where you want us to be. And Lord, I just pray that we would be patient for you to move there just like you moved in this campaign. We trust you with all of our hopes and our dreams and our future, and we pray that what we hope and want for grace is exactly what you hope and want for grace. May your will be done here. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Our new series is called Colossians. It's creatively titled after the book that we're going to study. If you have a Bible, you can go ahead and open there. It's towards the middle of the New Testament. It's just a short four chapter book. So maybe a little tricky to find, but hopefully you'll find it and read along with it on the reading plan and those things. I'm going to confess something to you about this series because I think it's actually kind of funny and informative for how I kind of arrived at some conclusions this week. But when you plan a, when you plan series, when we plan series as a staff, we kind of, we'll approach a season, the January to Easter or Mother's Day or whatever. And we'll kind of look at that season and we'll think, okay, what are the series that we want to do in here? And there's always one or two that I know I definitely want to do. And so you take the series that you really want to do and you put those where they need to be. And then you kind of see what your time blocks are and what you have space to do otherwise. And so I knew I wanted to start out the beginning of the year with this series called Consumed. And I knew that I wanted to share with you guys what was on my heart about our need for being consumed by church. And then the others were going to be consumed by community and consumed by making disciples. I didn't get a chance to get to that, but we'll get to those topics in the spring. And then we were able to do a response to what does it look like to be consumed by the church. That was on video that we did, I think, last week. So if you haven't seen that, I'd love for you to watch that one. So we knew we wanted to take January. We wanted to do consumed. And then I'm not going to get into too many details about it, but we've got a Lent series coming up that I think is going to be eight total weeks, maybe seven. I'm not quite sure. I forget. But I'm very excited about that and all the things that we're going to be doing. And we've known since Lent of last year that we wanted to really hammer home Lent and focus on that as a church this year. So you can go, everyone's going to be challenged to fast from something. You can go ahead and begin to prayerfully consider what that might be for you if that's something you want to participate in. So I'm very excited about that Lent series. And so we knew where we needed to place that. And that left us with four weeks here in February to do another series. So I'm looking at the staff. I'm like, okay, we got four weeks. We need a series. What do you want to do? So I've been listening in the fall. I was listening to the book of Colossians with John every morning. I'd get him up. I'd feed him his bottle, and I'd turn Colossians on on my Bible app and then just read Colossians to both of us. It's four chapters. We've got four weeks. How's that sound? Everybody's like, yep, sounds great. Colossians is a good book. Cool, let's go. And then we started jokingly referring to this as the filler series, the series in between the two ones that we actually care about. And we would never tell you that because every series is important, but that's how we were joking about this particular series. Even the graphic, Carly sent it to me and I think the graphic looks really good. Carly didn't love it. She was like, here it is. I know this isn't a big deal series. So what do you think? I'm like, that looks great. That's fine with me. I think it looks really, really good. So even to that, we're focused on Lent, right? So this week I dive into research on our filler series. I'm like, okay, God, what do you got for us in Colossians? And I just couldn't help but chuckle, even just 30 minutes into research and reading and praying, at just how very relevant and necessary this book is for us, at how very rich and good I think it's going to be for us. I'm so excited about what I get to preach to you this morning that I'm a little bit emotional about it. I'm afraid I'm going to cry at times that don't make any sense, so I'm going to try to keep it together. But I'm really excited to share with you this message of Colossians. I think Colossians is tucked away in the New Testament and is typically relegated to Bible studies sometimes. And that we don't really study it very often. And we might not even be super familiar with what it is and what its message is. And the more I have gotten into it, the more I thought, gosh, this is going to be so good for grace right now. So God in his goodness, and maybe in those mornings when I randomly landed on Colossians, the Holy Spirit was preparing my heart for the series that he knew he wanted us to do in February that is anything but a filler series. But one of the things that first tipped me off that this would be a good series for Grace right now is the background on the church in Colossae. Paul didn't start this church. Somebody else was running this church. Paul was actually in prison and he got a letter from the person who was running this church. And the letter basically said, hey, Paul, we're doing great. Our folks love God. Our folks are all in. Our folks are full of faith. They're standing up to persecution. Like we've got a really good spirit here. And I thought that feels like grace to me. We're doing a good job. The reaction to, hey, let's be all in was so good and was so encouraging. And it made me so proud in our campaign. It made me so proud. I feel like we're doing pretty good. I feel like we've got a good spirit here. I feel like we've got a good thing going. But the leader of the church told Paul, but they're facing tremendous pressure that I'd like you to speak to. And the pressure was essentially to fold into old ways of legalism or to transition into new ways of liberalism. So there was forces being exerted on them from outside the walls of the church and sometimes from within the walls of the church to recede back into legalistic Judaism, where your spirituality is measured by your ability to follow the rules. The better you follow the rules, the more spotless your life is, the more spiritual you are, the more God loves you. That's how we gain favor with God and respect for man. There's legalism following the rules well. Or this slide to liberalism. Actually, none of those rules really matter. They're not important. Those were never actually meant to be rules. Do whatever you want, no matter what, and God loves and accepts you all the time. Which is probably a bad synopsis of liberalism, since I do ardently believe that God loves and accepts you all the time, which is probably a bad synopsis of liberalism since I do ardently believe that God loves and accepts us all the time, but it's doing away with any sort of standards that we need to hold in our life and just embracing every ideology that comes along. And I thought, well, that's pretty similar to grace too. Frankly, that's really similar to any church, particularly in the Southern United States. Every church in the Southern United States right now faces that tension from within and without. There are some people that want to drag us back to legalism, right? My parents grew up in Southern Baptist churches where all the skirts had to be below the knees, where you weren't allowed to be seen at the theater, where you weren't allowed to go dancing or play cards or gamble or any of that stuff. And I don't go dancing, and I don't play cards because those are boring, but I gamble sometimes because that's fun. We don't do that stuff anymore. But every now and again, there's a part of us that wants to go back to that familiar legalism, that we've got to follow the rules better. We have to decide. We have to draw lines in the sand. This is a sin and you can't do that and you can do this. And we want to put up barriers around our behavior and define people's spirituality by how well they follow the rules. That's a comfortable, natural place for the human instinct to go. And if we don't watch it, some of us will always slide towards legalism. In the same way, we're in a culture now that's trying to tell us that none of those rules really matter. All the trains get off at the same station. Everything's really the same. It's you have your faith and we have our faith and yada, yada, yada. We don't really need all those standards. There's a push on the church to let go of some of our tenants so that we can be more acceptable to our culture. And so like the Colossians, we are a church that's doing good, that loves God, that has a heart of faith, but exists under some pressure to go liberal or to go legal. And so Paul writes to encourage the church in Colossians. And in his encouragement to the church in Colossae, I think we can find a lot of encouragement to this church here in Raleigh. And so the question becomes, well, if Paul is writing them to then encourage them in their faith, how does he do it? What does he write to them? What's the first thing he points to, to encourage them in their faith? And I thought about, well, if it were me, if I wanted to encourage our church or any church, or if I'm Paul and I was trying to encourage that church, how would I do it? How would you do it? Would you like me do it strategically? I would probably want to talk to the leader of that church. What's going on? What kind of things are they facing? The legalistic crowd. What kind of rules are they really caring about? The liberal crowd. Where are they coming from? What's their ideology? What are they trying to do? And I would have wanted to directly address those arguments. Like an attorney, let's just break this thing down. Let's address all their arguments. Let's build out a nice rebuttal here so to give them a good foundation to stand on. Let's do this thing strategically, right? Well, Paul didn't do it strategically. Paul did it very simply. And it's so simple and it's so pure and it's so powerful that it convicts me that maybe as a pastor, I don't do this enough for you guys. But Paul didn't choose to encourage them strategically. He didn't choose to figure out where they were and kind of read the tea leaves and try to hit them right where their heart was. He just did it very simply. Paul encourages the Colossians by pointing to Jesus, plain and simple. He encourages the Colossians by pointing to Jesus. And when I say this, what I mean is he begins in chapter one, verses one through 14 are really kind of this preamble. He says, hey, you know, I think my God, every time I remember you, I think of you in my prayers. This is what I pray for you. The prayer in Colossians looks very similar to other prayers and the other letters that he's written to the church that are basically, hey, I just want you to know God more than anything else. I want you to know God, grateful for your faith, grateful for your testimony from your church. And then he gets into how he wants to encourage them. And this is what he writes. And this is verses 15 through 23. I'm going to stop a couple of times and talk about some things, but keep your Bibles open. I think this passage is worth reading. It's such a sweeping and stunning portrayal of Jesus. And you know, it's funny that I've come back to this because a few years ago in the spring, we did a series in Hebrews. And I said that Hebrews had the most incredible description of Christ in the Bible. And I preached it to you guys. And I got an email from Brandon Reese right over here, who was in the men's group. And he said, that's a great picture. There's an equal one to it in my mind in Colossians. And so now here we are two years later, and now we're talking about that depiction of Jesus in Colossians. And I want you to read it with me, and we'll kind of digest it together. This is what Paul writes, beginning in verse 15. I'm going to take a break there. I want you to understand what's going on here. What Paul is saying is Jesus was present at creation. He's agreeing with the gospel of John that says, through him all things were made and without him nothing was made. He was present at creation. All of creation hinges upon him. All of his existence now rests upon him. He is saying that all things belong to him, that he is the reconciliation. And if you read this, what you really find is that this is what Paul is saying, that all, everyone who's ever lived has held Christ, whether you realize it or not, as the epicenter of your history and the epicenter of your hope. Which means for every person who has ever lived, all of your understanding of your past hinges on Christ and all of your hope for your future hinges on Christ. That's what that means. Even if you go all the way back to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the first thing they learn is that God created them. How did he create them? Well, according to Genesis 1 and John 1 and Colossians 1, he created them through his word, Jesus. He created them through his son. So Adam and Eve, with a brief two-day history they had, looked back to the creation of the earth with the hope that it was Jesus who actually did it. Their history hinged upon Jesus. And then when they sinned and they fell and suddenly they need reconciliation and forgiveness, their future hope for that reconciliation and forgiveness without them knowing it hinged upon Jesus. And then over the course of the Old Testament, God begins to shed some light on exactly what that future hope is going to be on the Messiah. And we see whispers in Jeremiah and Isaiah and in the prophets as they kind of shed more light on who this Messiah is going to be and what this hinge of history is going to come to do. And then Jesus shows up in the gospels and he personifies God's goodness and loveliness. And we'll talk about that in a second. And he lives a perfect life and he dies on the cross for our sins. And so all of history to that point culminates in the death of Christ as he fulfills his divine nature to do that for us. And then we move forward into the church era. And now as people who exist in 2022, we look back on the death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ as a hinge of history. All of our history is contingent upon him. And then we look forward to, as we preached in the fall, revelations, when Jesus comes down in Revelation 18 and 19 to come back and rescue his church and to take us back up to heaven with us. He is the hope of our future. So for every person who has ever lived, Jesus is the epicenter of your history and he is the epicenter of your hope. Jesus is the confluence of heaven coming down onto earth and earth experiencing heaven. He is the nexus of the spiritual world meeting the physical world. Jesus sits in the middle of everything. Everything. There is nothing without him. Whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we admit it or not, whether we comprehend it or not, Jesus sits at the hinge of all history, of all creation, of all love, of all majesty. And that's the picture that Paul is painting to the church in Colossae and to us is this grandeur of Jesus. And he doesn't stop there. I love this next sentence. I think it's verse 19. For in him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. We'll pause there again. Much of what I'm about to say comes from this book that Kyle recommended to the staff called Gentle and Lowly. And I can't recommend it to you highly enough if you're a reader. If you're not a reader, become one. It's good. And read Gentle and Lowly. But I love that phrase in verse 19, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. What does that mean? This is a clumsy explanation, but it's the best that I can do. I can only try to size it up like this. Do a little mental exercise with me. And just picture in your mind, I don't know how you're gonna do it, just figure it out. Picture in your mind how much you think God loves you. Just how much you think he loves you. And try to wrap your head around that for a second. How much grace do you think God has for you? Wrap your head around that for a second. Grace for your humanity and for who you are and loving you despite of your faults. How much mercy does God have for you? Willingness to look over times you've slighted him or things that you've done. How much compassion does God have for you in your sin and in your hardships? Wrap your head around those things. And then let me tell you this. It's more than that. It's more than that. And now wrap your head around that new reality. But it's more than you can fathom. It's more than that. Wrap your head around that new reality, and guess what? It's more than that. Wrap your head around that reality, and it's more than that, and it keeps going. We cannot comprehend the love and the grace and the mercy and the compassion and the goodness that God holds in his heart for us. It is beyond human comprehension, and I am convinced that the whole Christian life is an exercise in expounding our understanding of how much God loves us and has mercy for us us and then realizing that's not nearly enough to capture how he loves us. And that overwhelming love, that overwhelming goodness, that overwhelming grace and compassion that we cannot fathom is personified, listen to me, is personified in the person of Jesus. That's what it means when it says the fullness of God, all of his grace, all of his mercy, all of his compassion, all of his love was pleased to rest on the person of Christ. And if you want to know how much does God love me, look at Christ crucified and answer the question for yourself. If you want to know how much mercy and compassion does God have on me, look at Jesus weeping with Mary and know that that's the compassion that he has for you. If you want to know how much grace and mercy does he have for me, look at Jesus with the adulterous woman as he defends her from the death penalty and know that that's the compassion that Jesus has for you. If you want to know how much Jesus forgives you, look at him telling Peter to forgive 70 times 7, which is as many times as is necessary, and know that that's God's forgiveness for you. If we want to know how God feels about us and how much he loves us, look at the person of Christ on whom his fullness is pleased to dwell and know that that's how much God loves us, that that's the compassion that he has for us. That that's the grace and the mercy that he offers us. That's what it means when it says that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell on him and then he finishes up this description of Christ in this way. In verse 21, He says, Why did God send the culmination of all history, the fullness of his love and compassion? Why did he send that down here? To get you. To come and get you. To reconcile you back to him so that he can experience eternity with you. Listen to me. Why does Paul choose, when he needs to encourage the Colossians to hang in there, when he needs to encourage them to stay pure in their faith, what does he do? He points them to Jesus in the stunning depiction of Christ. And why does he do that? This is why. Because Jesus is the embodiment of God's earnest yearning for you. Jesus is the embodiment of God's earnest yearning for you. I don't know if you think about God's love for you in this way, but God loves you. God desires you. God chases after you. God sent his son to win you. And then he left the Holy Spirit to nip at your heels whenever you run from him so that you would turn and accept his embrace. He is coming for you. He desires you. He is yearning for you. He does not sit back and wait for you. He pursues you. So he sent Jesus to come and get you. And he left his spirit to keep the chase going until you finally give in and give up and say, God, I'm yours. Because that's what he longs for. I told you this week I had strep. On Tuesday, I began to feel a little sick, and so I realized with all the COVID junk going on, I should probably mask up in the house and try to stay away from the kids. Wednesday felt like garbage. Thursday was the worst. Literally, I never get sick ever. I've never been as sick as I was on Thursday in my adult life. But by Thursday afternoon, I got some antibiotics, so Friday I was right as rain, baby. It was great. But on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I'm in the house, and I'm with my kids, but I can't touch them. I'm an affectionate guy. I pick up and scoop up Lily all the time. I pick up and scoop up John all the time. I love holding my babies. And there was one night, I think it was Thursday, Jen was laying with Lily singing her songs and I was standing in Lily's doorway with my mask on just waving at Lily in the bed and she waved back at me and she said, I miss you, Daddy. And I had to go cry in my bedroom. I yearned for them. All I wanted to do is scoop them up. All I wanted to do is pick up John and eat those fat baby cheeks. Is grab Lily when she got home from school and make her tell me about her day. She doesn't do it, so I say, tell me three good things that happened. That's all I wanted to do. All I wanted to do is scoop up my kids, man. And it was like this weird quasi-torture sitting in the house looking at them and not being able to scoop them up. If that's torture for me for three days, knowing good and dang well I'm going to get over this and I'll pick them up again, what must it do to our Father in heaven to watch us and so desperately want to pick us up and to hold us and to cherish us and for us to hold him at arm's length. Because Lily waved back at me and said, I miss you. And I knew that she wanted to hug me as soon as I was able to do it again. How much more would that crush your parent heart if you waved at your kid and they said, I miss you. And they said, if God yearns for me the way that I yearn for my children, if God yearns for you and the people you love the way that you yearn for your children, the way that I yearn for mine, how much must it hurt his fatherly heart in heaven to watch his children run from him, begging them, please just stop running. Please just turn around for a dang second and let me hold on to you. I sent my son to catch you. I left the spirit to keep up the chase. How much must it hurt his father's heart to not be able to hold his babies, to not be able to embrace his children, for us to run from him and to wander off from him. When all he wants is for us to be with him. When all he wants is to hold us. When all he wants is his son or his daughter to talk to him. And tell him about our days. Y'all, God, he yearns for us. It's all over the Bible. Jesus says it like this. He says he leaves the 99 sheep that are safe to go get the one who's lost and wandering. And I think that we make such a mistake about how we view the gospel and the love of God in our life. I think that sometimes we have this attitude that God's like, you know, take it or leave it. I sent my son, he died for you. It's there if you want it. It's yours if you don't want it. You don't have to spend eternity for me. Take it or leave it. I sent my son. He died for you. It's there. If you want it, it's yours. If you don't want it, you don't have to spend eternity for me. Take it or leave it. Guys, take it or leave it isn't yearning. Take it or leave it is not what we see in the Bible. Take it or leave it is not what we see pouring out of scriptures and shouting at us through the book of Colossians. What we see in the Bible is a father in heaven who earnestly in his guts yearns for you, who wants you, who loves you. And now for some of us, you've never known that love. You've run from it your whole life. You've never accepted Christianity. There's things about it you can't get your head around. And so you're still running. And I'm begging you that you would let God catch you today. I'm begging you that you would let today be the day that you would embrace your heavenly Father. But there's others of us who have been caught, but after we've been caught, there's been the wandering. And in our wandering, sometimes we feel so badly for what we've done that we think God must be disappointed with us. He can't be yearning for me anymore. And so we keep ourselves at arm's length from God out of a sense of guilt or shame. And to you, I would simply ask, if God came after you when your soul was fundamentally opposed to him, why would he not continue to pursue you when your soul feels actual guilt of your sin? If God chased you down and yearned for you and pursued you before you were his child, then how much more does he still love you now that you're his child? Why would he ever stop loving you? Listen, when God forgave us, when you accepted Christ, he forgave you for all of your sins, past, present, and future. He already knew you were going to go through the season of wandering when he chose to save you. He doesn't love you any less. As a matter of fact, God's, I believe, primary emotion as he looks at you in your sin is not anger, but pity and compassion because of what you're giving up to be away from him when he just wants you close to him. Listen, if you've never known Jesus in your life, God yearns for you and is chasing you down. If you have doubts and you're not sure about your faith, God yearns for you and will chase you down through those doubts. He's still after you. If you are wandering away, God yearns for you and is chasing you down. If you're holding on to pet sins that you're not sure you want to give up yet, God is going to chase you through those sins and he will chase you down and the Holy Spirit will nip at your heels until we give in and allow him to embrace us. If you are experiencing incredible victory in your spiritual walk right now, good. God loves you and yearns for you on a deeper level than you can still ever imagine. God loves you and yearns for you deeply. And that's all that the church in Colossae needed to know to be encouraged in their faith. And so my prayer for you this morning is that you will walk out those doors knowing in your guts that God loves you more than you thought he did when you came in here. And as I thought about the best way to finish up the service this week, I was reminded of this song called Reckless Love. Because in that song, there's lines of, there's no walls he won't kick down or lies he won't tear down coming after me. There's all these things that God will do to come after us. But the part about the song I like is that it's called Reckless Love. And when it first came out, there was some kind of dumb arguments about whether or not it was really appropriate to use the word reckless because we didn't want to accuse God of being careless or thoughtless or somehow errant in his love for us. But that word reckless doesn't mean mistaken. The word reckless implies this. When you offer your love to someone, when you expose yourself, you make yourself vulnerable to them and they reject you. That hurts. You take that personally. I don't care who you are. And there's only so many times you can offer your love freely and wholeheartedly to someone and have them reject you before you start to guard yourself against it. And the love you offer isn't as much or it isn't as pure or it isn't as grand. Or even maybe you wall yourself off to it entirely because you just can't stand the pain anymore. We learn self-protection. God's recklessness is that he has no self-protection. God's recklessness is you can reject him as many times as you want to and he will never stop coming after you. It doesn't matter how many times we hurt him, he's gonna continue to come after us to get us, to claim us. And so we should sing and marvel at this reckless love. So I'm gonna pray and then we're gonna sing together, but I would invite you to experience the song however you wanna experience it. If you wanna stand and sing, stand and sing. If you wanna sit and you want the lyrics to wash over you, let them do that. If you wanna kneel at your seat and pray, pray. If you wanna come up here to the front and pray and have me kneel over you and pray with you, I'll do that too. However you wanna experience this song, you experience it that way, but I'm gonna pray, the band's gonna come up, and then we'll finish with that song together. Father, boy, you are good to us. We thank you for your love for us. We thank you that you pursue us. We thank you that you sent your son as the personification and embodiment of your earnest yearning for us. I simply pray, God, that we would be more certain of your love for us as we leave than we were when we showed up. God, we are your children. We are your sons and your daughters. I pray that we would let you love us like that. May we please quit trying to perform. May we please quit insisting that we get our life in some semblance of order before we come to you. May we please tear down all the roadblocks that exist between you and us and just allow ourselves to feel your overwhelming and reckless love for us. It's in your son's name on whom all of history and hope hinges that we pray. Amen.

The Yo, good to see everybody. Thank you again for being here. This is the sixth part in our series going through the book of Revelation. I have really very much enjoyed going through Revelation with you all. And honestly, you guys have been more enthusiastic about it than I expected because Revelation can be a slog. It can be tough. We just took three weeks working through the tribulation, talking about the wrath of God and all the mechanics of the tribulation best we can. And to me, that feels tedious, but you guys have been incredibly supportive and incredibly kind. And it seemed like y'all have enjoyed going through this with me. As folks have asked me, how is Revelation being received? I say, it seems universally good. However, no one's going to tell me it's bad. No one's going to email me and be like, just so you know, really are looking forward to when this series is over and we can talk about something else. So that might be out there. And if that's you, I'm so sorry. Thank you for hanging with us. But for those of you who have enjoyed this, thanks so much for the encouragement because it's been really, really neat to get to go through it with you guys as a church. This morning, we arrive at Christ's return, the return of Christ. And I said last week that this needs to be the best sermon that I've ever preached in my life, to do adequate justice to the grandiosity of what's happening in Revelation 19. This will not be the best sermon of my life. I just wish that it could be, okay? So let's temper our expectations now. This is a B minus, all right? But in this sermon, we arrive at Jesus' return, at kind of the culmination of God's wrath, the final nail in the coffin. I said we've been walking through the tribulation. We've kind of looked at it through three different lenses. We looked at it in the first week to understand the wrath of God that's poured out in the tribulation, and we defined it. We defined it that week when we looked at Revelation 4 and 5, and Jesus steps forward as the Lamb of God, qualified to open up the seals and begin to open up God's wrath on his creation. We said he's beginning the seven-year process of tribulation. Now, what is tribulation? Well, we define that as the seven-year process of God pouring out his earned wrath on his creation and reclaiming what is rightfully his. And this week, he reclaims it. This week, he does the last part of the tribulation. Then we looked at kind of the flow of it, the seals and the trumpets and the bowls, and then we looked at the figures of it, and we'll talk a little bit more about the beast, the Antichrist, today. But where we're at in the narrative of Revelation is we're at the end of the Tribulation. God has poured out his wrath. We've had this great battle. There's been a great earthquake. God has sent darkness onto the kingdom of the Antichrist. And then he sends his son to finish up the work. He sends his son to answer the voice of the martyrs that cries out in Revelation chapter 6, the fifth seal. The voice of the martyrs below the throne of God that say, how much longer, God, before you avenge our death? You know who killed us. You see us suffering as your children. How much longer will you let this keep going? And we talked about in that week how we cry out with the martyrs, that every time something in our life happens that seems difficult or hard to understand or seems unfair, every time there's a school shooting, God, how much longer are you going to let this go on? Every time we lose someone too soon, God, how much longer will you let this world be broken? Every time we see something that we can't understand, we cry out with the martyrs and we say, God, how much longer, oh Lord, will you put up with this? And when he begins to open up the seals and begin the process of tribulation, he says, no more. And when he sends his son Christ, when we see Jesus in Revelation 19, that is God putting the final nail in the coffin of evil and saying, now I will make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. Now I will rectify things. Now I will restore creation. Now I will answer the groanings that Paul talks about in Romans chapter 8 when we are told that all of creation groans for the return of the king. When we're told that we yearn inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters to experience eternity in the marriage supper of the lamb, we wait for this. We long for this. This is the hope that persists in our faith and keeps us anchored to our savior because we believe that revelation 19 is going to happen one day, that he's going to come get us, and that when he comes back, you guys have heard me say this before, he's not coming back as the Lamb of God. He comes back as the Lion of Judah. And we see this description in Revelation 19, beginning in verse 11. So if you have a Bible, you can read along with me. I love this description of my Jesus. Every time I read it, whether it's out loud or just in private, I get chills. I love this picture of him. And I don't know, I don't know if everybody can relate to this. This may just be silly. This may just be me being a dummy, and that's fine. I'm familiar with this territory. It's not unfamiliar. But when I read this passage about my Jesus, that part of me as a little kid that loved to see the hero win in movies, that teenage boy that loved to watch Braveheart win, that loved Gladiator and seeing Russell Crowe's character stick it to him, that little boy that loves Star Wars, that loves to see the hero win against evil, against all odds, that part of us, and I'm sharing that with you because I think that God lays that in us intentionally. I think we love the hero because the hero is a shadow of this reality that Jesus becomes. We grow up learning to love when the day is saved and when the hero makes an appearance because God wove that, I think, into our hearts to appreciate the appearance of his son when that hero returns and appears once and for all. So it's with that preamble that we'll read the description as Jesus comes back to reclaim his creation. This is the description of him that John records. Chapter 19, verse 11. And behold, a white horse. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty on his robe and on his thigh. His name is written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Gosh. That's Jesus, man. That's Jesus. That's our Savior. When we think of Jesus, when we pray to him, when we sing to him, when we think about him, when we think about being reunited with him in heaven, I believe that it's our tendency to think about the gospel of Jesus, to think about the crucified Christ. And I don't think that's anybody's fault. We have four gospels. We spend time there all the time. I revisit a gospel every spring with you guys. We focus on Jesus at Easter. We focus on Jesus at Christmas. And we see the teachings from Jesus come out of the gospel. And so it's right and good to think about our Jesus as the crucified Christ. It's right and good to think about our Jesus as gentle and lowly. We're actually reading a book, as the staff right now, called Gentle and Lowly, and what it tells us, and I did not know this, but that the only time that Jesus is ever asked to describe himself in scripture, or rather the only time that he actually does it, he describes himself as gentle and lowly. And I think that when we think about Jesus, we think about a humble Nazarene from the country. And that's fine and that's well and good. But that's Jesus in human form. Revelation 19, that's Jesus. You understand? That's who's waiting on us. That's who's coming to get us. That warrior king written on his robe and on his thigh, king of kings and Lord of lords as a callback to Isaiah so that we know exactly who it is. And when you read through this passage, it's unbelievable to me how rich it is with allusions to other parts of scripture so that there is no doubt about it that this is Jesus coming from the very beginning. It says that he was called faithful and true, capitalized. This is a deity. This is Jesus coming. And then it says that only he knows his name, which is, that's Exodus chapter three and four, when God refuses to share his name. That's a throwback to that. And then he says that he was called the word of God, which John is referencing his own writings at beginning of John, the gospel, when he says that the word was with God in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God through him, all things were made without him, nothing was made. And then at the end, king of kings and Lord of lords. John, in this description of Jesus is weaving together all of the scripture to point us to our savior. This is the Jesus, the one who has fire coming out of his eyes and a sword coming out of his mouth with which to strike down the nations. The one who rules with the rod of iron, who has the armies of heaven arrayed in linen, following down as he thunders down to conquer the beast and the dragon and the antichrist. That's the one that sits at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for you. That's the one that rules for all of eternity. That's the one that we pray to. And that's the one who's coming to get you. So I want to at least take some time this morning to encourage you. When you sing to Jesus, when you pray to him, when you think of him, when you anticipate meeting him, anticipate the conquering Christ. Anticipate this Jesus. Anticipate the warrior king coming down to settle the score. Anticipate the lion of Judah coming down to wreck shop. To once and for all sweep evil off the face of the planet. And when you do that, when you focus on the conquering Christ, to me, it really caused me to think about this a lot this week, that the conquering Christ renders the crucified Christ all the more miraculous. The conquering Christ, Christ conquering renders Christ crucified all the more miraculous. Because this description in Revelation 19 with a robe dipped in blood and a sword coming out of his mouth and a rod of iron that he rules a nation with, he's gonna tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God with all of heaven's armies arrayed behind him, thundering down to wreck shop. That Jesus hung on the cross for you. That Jesus walked away from all of that, condescended to take on our form, walked with us for 33 years, nurtured disciples to birth a church that would become his true kingdom that he's coming back to rescue so that you and I can sit in here 2,000 years later. He did all that, meek and mild. And when he describes himself as gentle and lowly, yeah, you're not kidding, man. Because look who he is in earth and look who he could be this whole time. This description, this guy, this God, this warrior king, he hung on the cross for you. Not just some sage from the hills of Israel. God condescended for you. He chose to hang on the cross. So I love that moment with Pilate. He's like, are you really a king? And he's like, don't worry about it, Pilate. If I wanted to, this whole place would be smashed. At any moment in Jesus' life, he could have called down these armies and just crushed anybody who opposed him. Caiaphas, the high priest, is sitting there thinking he's got Jesus right where he wants him, and Jesus is just thinking, you have no idea who I am. He dies, he's separated from God. Satan thinks he's got Jesus right where he wants him. Jesus says, you have no idea who I am. Christ conquering, to me, renders Christ crucified as all the more miraculous. And when I think about my Jesus, this is who I think about. He comes to get us and to take us back up to heaven and to start off eternity. And when he comes to get us, he takes us back, we're told, to what's called the marriage supper of the Lamb. He's defeated the beast. He's defeated the Antichrist. He locks them up. It begins the thousand-year reign. We're going to talk about that next week. There's an encore of evil, and then Jesus once and for all throws them in the lake of fire, and that's it. But he comes down. He captures the beast. The armies conquer. He takes his children, he wipes evil off the face of the earth, he purifies his bride, and then we have the marriage supper of the Lamb. And I feel bad for how I'm covering the marriage supper of the Lamb in this series. Because I'm not gonna do it justice. I'm not gonna adequately cover it. And I'm not saying that in this series. Because I'm not going to do it justice. I'm not going to adequately cover it. And I'm not saying that in this way of false humility, like, oh yeah, I'm really not doing that good of a job with it. Like, no, I'm not. We just don't have enough time to sink in to everything that's here and even all the symbolism in the marriage supper of the Lamb. But a simple way of thinking about it is the marriage supper of the lamb is the greatest celebration feast of all time. It is the greatest celebration feast that ever was and ever will be. And this should hit home with us. Because what do we do? What do we do when we want to celebrate? I got a little bit of good news last week. Such good news that I went straight to the butcher's market. I bought myself a big old ribeye and I had that for dinner when the kids went to bed. I had myself my own personal private celebration feast. When your team wins, what do you do? You have a feast. When something good in life happens, when you graduate, you have a feast. When people come into town, what do you do? You have a feast. What are we going to do this week? We're going to get together with friends and family. We're going to reflect on the blessings that God has given us, and we're going to have a feast. This is what we do to celebrate. When your kid gets married, and you celebrate kind of transitioning into that season of life. This one has passed. We've formed a new family. What do you do? You get all your friends together and you have a feast. This is what God is doing. It's the greatest celebration feast of all time. In the days of old when kings would conquer and they would come back from conquering another king, what did they do? They feasted. And Jesus is bringing us back to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Why is it called the marriage supper of the Lamb? Because Jesus is getting married. Who's he marrying? Us. The church. His bride. We see throughout Scripture that the church is referred to as the bride of Christ. We see in Ephesians that God purifies his bride. He prepares us. We are made pure for Jesus so that we might marry him in eternity. I don't know how all that works out. It's a word play, but we are made pure by our savior. How are we made pure? By the crucified Christ hanging on the cross. He died for us. He covered over you in righteousness, made you good, purified you, prepared you for this very moment, for the marriage supper of the Lamb, where the church and Christ are united for all of eternity and perfect bliss. And so it's right and good to have a feast to celebrate the marriage. And this feast, man, it's going to be a good feast. The ones that you've lost, they're going to be there. I don't know for certain. I can't find it in Scripture. But I'm pretty sure they're going to serve catfish at this feast. Because my papa is going to be there. He loves catfish. And I know he's got some waiting on me. Your loved ones are going to be there too. Your dads are going to be there. And your moms. And the children that you never got to meet because you lost them too early, they're going to be there. All the saints who have come before us, all the saints that you've loved, they're going to be there. And listen to this. They're going to be the best versions of themselves. They're not going to be sick. They're not going to be unhealthy. They're not going to be unwell. They're going to be the perfect versions of themselves. They're not going to have all the brokenness that hurts us sometimes. Do you understand what I'm saying? Your dad, who you loved, but man, that guy had a temper. In heaven, he doesn't have a temper anymore. He's just love. He's just all the best parts of him. The people who we love, who made it sometimes hard to love them. Jesus has prepared those brides too. Their brokenness is wiped away. And they love you with purity. And you're made perfect too. All the crap in your life, all the stuff that you wish wasn't true of you, all the things that you hope nobody finds out, all the brokenness that spills out of you and hurts the people around you when you don't want to hurt them and you hate that side of yourself, that side's gone at the marriage supper of the Lamb. You're made perfect there. You're made your ideal self there. You're made your eternal self there. And you can love other people finally with the purity that God loves you with. We see the best versions of the folks we love. I am convinced of this. We finally walk in the best versions of ourself and don't have to wonder what it would be like to not have to walk through life as a selfish, egotistical jerk. That one's just for me. I don't know what your thing is. That feast is going to be remarkable. And everybody's going to be there. And Jesus is coming to take you to that. And I think that's pretty great. And as I thought about these things this week, the triumphant return of Christ and the marriage supper of the Lamb and all that it represents and what Jesus really won with that victory. What does it mean for us? Yes, evil is smited. Evil is gone and all the wrong things are made right and all the sad things are made untrue. All that is very true and God wins once and for all and that part of us that loves a hero gets to see the actual hero come storming out of the clouds. He wins those things for us. We see our God claim victory and that's great. But there's something else that occurred to me too. I was prepared. I knew this was going to happen. We're not even to the hard part yet. Jeez, old Pete. Something else occurred to me as I kind of asked the question, what has Jesus won? And what are we celebrating at the marriage supper? And I was reminded of this idea that I have long carried with me, but I've not heard too many other people talking about it. I've actually never heard a pastor talk about this. It doesn't make it a unique idea. It's just one that I've not heard other people mention. And maybe it's because pastors aren't supposed to say things like this and the other ones know better and yours doesn't. But I've long carried with me this idea that faith and hope are burdens. Faith and hope are hard. We celebrate faith and hope in our belief system. We're told that the greatest of all these things is faith, hope, and love. We celebrate faith and hope. We want those. We name our children faith and hope. They are good things. But I, in my life, in my most honest moments, experience them often as a burden, as something to be carried, as something to be chosen. Because faith is a belief in things that you can't see. Faith is what we choose when facts fall short of certainty. Do you understand? There's things that we can know about the universe and about our God and about scripture and about the claims and about life. There's things that can be scientifically proven and broken down and rendered as factual. And then there's what we choose to put our faith in. Then there's certainty. And when facts fall short of certainty, we fill that gap with faith. Whether you're a Christian or whether you're an atheist, there's no way to be totally certain of what you think's going on in the universe. So when we reach the end of facts and we have to arrive at certainty, we fill that gap with faith. So faith is a choice. We choose it. We exercise it. We learn it. We let God speak into it. We let him strengthen it over the course of our life. The longer you walk with God, hopefully the stronger your faith gets, but it gets stronger because it's been tried and it's been tested and it's been a burden that you've chosen to continue to carry. Hope is a burden. Hope is a belief that one day something can be true that I want to be true. Hope, to even have hope, is an admission that right now things are not the way that I want them to be. Right now things are less than ideal. Right now things are not what I want, but I hope, I believe that one day the things that I want can be brought about. Hope is an admission of a shortfall. People who are not yet parents and desperately want to be hope that one day this can be true of us. We, as believers, we read scripture, we hear the stories of Jesus coming down out of heaven, and we hope in that day. We place our faith in that day. We believe that there's going to be a marriage supper. We place our hope in that. We place our hope and our faith in the idea that our prayers are working, that they get to God, that they are powerful and effective and they're not just bouncing off the ceiling. But sometimes, life makes hope heavy. Sometimes life makes hope heavy. When you lose someone too early and your Bible teaches you that your God could have done something about it and you have to be confronted with the fact that he just simply didn't. In that season, you choose hope. And in that season, it's heavy. And sometimes, when life gets hard, and when faith and hope become burdens, and they become heavy, we see people put them down and walk away from them and say, I can't carry this faith anymore. I don't know how to believe in a God that would let that happen, so I'm gonna set down this faith. I don't know how I can still cling to hope when I've been disappointed in these ways, so I'm going to set down this hope. Sometimes faith and hope get heavy, and they get hard to carry. When you grow up in church, being taught a simple faith, and then you become an adult adult and there are things that happen in your world that just don't align with what you were taught when you were a kid and you have to learn how to find this new faith. You have to cling to it and you have to hope and you have to choose hope and you have to find ways to make what you were taught and what you're experiencing mesh and you have to find a whole new way to understand scripture and understand God and to understand how he speaks to you. In those moments, faith can get hard and hope can get heavy and we have to choose them. And I am convinced that the Christian life is simply a series of the decision to choose faith and to choose hope in Christ over and over and over again until we make it to the finish line. My prayer as I prayed before I preached this morning was that if there is anybody in here that's carrying heavy hope that it would get lightened just a little bit today. That we would have the strength and the faith to continue to carry it for a little bit longer. Just get down the road just a little bit further. Because sometimes faith and hope get heavy. And I hate that we don't talk about that as much because we should. And if that's true, if I'm right that they can be burdens, then one of the best things that Jesus wins when he comes sweeping out of the sky is on this day, he lays to rest faith and hope forever. And he says, here, you don't need these anymore. You don't need faith and hope anymore. Maybe that's why Paul writes in Romans 8, he says, for in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. When Jesus shows up, we don't need hope anymore. When he shows up, we don't need faith anymore. There's no more gap between facts and certainty. There's just Jesus. There's no more hoping for one day. There's just Jesus. One day has arrived. Do you understand that when Jesus sweeps down out of the sky, that he lays to rest for us for all eternity, faith and hope. And he says, you can set them down, weary traveler. You're here now. Let's feast. And I think that's a remarkable blessing. Because to be a Christian is to believe that one day these things will be true. To be a Christian is to believe that one day God will set all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. One of my favorite songs in the world is this song called Farther Along. Farther Along, I like the version from a guy named Josh Gerrels, and it opens up. And he says, I wonder why the good man dies and the bad man thrives and Jesus cries because he loves them both. And the chorus is, farther along, we'll know all about it. Farther along, we'll understand why. And it's just this acknowledgement, I think, that faith and hope are hard. Faith and hope are hard, but one day, I won't need those anymore. I can lay that and everything else down at the feet of my Savior. And on that day, when Jesus comes back, there are no more one days. On this day, Revelation 19, marriage supper of the Lamb, on that day, there are no more one days. It is one day for all eternity. There's no more wondering, there's no more hoping, there's no more struggling, there's no more pain. Because on that day, he puts an end to waiting on one day. And I kind of wonder now if that's why Paul didn't say what he said in Corinthians. When he gets to the end of talking about all the spiritual gifts and he says, but now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these, Paul says, is love. And I've always read and accepted that teaching, and it's made sense to me. Love binds. Love is the very nature of God. Love is what unites us together. It makes sense to me that love would be greater than faith and hope. But now I wonder, in light of what I've thought through this week, if maybe love isn't the greatest because when Jesus comes back and lays faith and hope to rest, that love is the only thing that exists for all of eternity. Maybe love is the greatest because it's the only thing left after Revelation 19. And we live in an eternity of perfect love that God designed us for, finally. As I was thinking through this sermon this week, I was pacing in the lobby. And as I was out there, just kind of walking back and forth, thinking through these things, asking myself the question, what has Christ won for us? I noticed on the information table, a bracelet, like a little ringlet. And I picked it up and I saw an inscription there. And I thought, oh, what is this? God, are you talking to me? Let? Speak, Lord, your servant hears. I'm working on the sermon. There's a bracelet here. You've got to be working in this. So I reach over, and on the bracelet, it just says, it is well with my soul. Also, if that's your bracelet, it's right out there. It just said, it is well with my soul. And I thought, oh, I love that song. But that's not really helpful. Okay, God's not speaking. And I just kept pacing. And I got done and I kind of had a fully formed idea. And sometimes on Tuesdays when I get a fully formed idea, I get a little bit excited about the sermon and I'll go and I'll tell Kyle because Kyle's always up for a conversation. I said, Kyle, I got it. Listen, I told him about this idea of faith and hope being burdens and that Jesus is going to put those to rest for us. And Kyle started to get a little teary eyed. And he said, he said, that just reminds me of my favorite song, my favorite line from my favorite song. And he quoted me these lines from it as well. And I was like, oh my gosh, God is speaking. I'm just dumb. I always say God speaks in stereo. And Kyle quoted these lines. And he started crying. And I got misty, and I knew that this is what we were supposed to share, and I knew that we were supposed to end the service today with it as well. Because in these lines, we see the author of this song admitting what we've just talked about today. The faith and hope are burdens, and so it is well with my soul. We often sing this song in a response to grief as an admission that I am going to choose faith and hope even though it's heavy today. Now let's sing it looking forward to the day we can lay those things to rest and Jesus has won the final victory and forever we will say it is well with my soul. Stand and let's sing together.

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

Have you ever wondered if it was all worth it? All the emails and phone calls, special projects, late meetings, early mornings and out-of-town trips? Frantically shuttling bodies back and forth and cobbling together another meal just to check that off the list. Have you ever wondered if you have the balance right? Have we worked hard enough? Have we played enough? What will our children remember about us? Have you ever wondered if you've done it right? Is it possible to even really know that? Did we give our passions and energies to the right causes? Have we given ourselves to the things that matter the most? Or in the end, is it all just favor? Hey. That music trails off for a while. I didn't really want to step on it. But good morning. It's good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be the senior pastor here. If I haven't gotten a chance to meet you or if you're watching online, thank you so much for making us a part of your Sunday morning. This is the last part in our series called Vapor, where we've been moving through the book of Ecclesiastes together and kind of pulling out some of the themes. And we've said all along that we've saved the dreariest book of the Bible for the dreariest month of the year. February has done its part for sure. Hopefully it'll finally stop raining and we can get some consistent sunshine. I think somebody told me it was going to get up to 76 degrees today. That's unheard of. That's amazing. I'll find a way to get outside. But as we finish up this series, it's important to remind you of something that I've said all along while we've done the series, which is that these are not four standalone messages. These are four messages that are meant to be one big long message. It's four parts of a whole. And so we need all of them and they build on each other. And we've been kind of getting to a place where we could culminate in this week. I've said the whole series that if you look at the realities of Ecclesiastes and face them with courage, that you'll come out the other end with a lot of things, but one of the things is a deeper desire for Christ. And so this morning, we're going to talk about how we get to that place. If you read the book of Ecclesiastes, and that's all we have. Imagine we didn't have the Bible. All we have is the book of Ecclesiastes. That's a pretty depressing book, right? If that's all we have, we don't have any hope beyond that. We don't get the book. We don't get the New Testament. They don't talk about Jesus. We don't see the other books in the Old Testament that talk about a promise of a Messiah and tell us more about who our God is. And we don't get to see the character of God revealed in those stories in the Old Testament, if this is all we have, if Ecclesiastes is it, then this is a tough book. That's a stark reality. Actually, what we learn in Ecclesiastes is, if Ecclesiastes stands alone, then fleeting joys are all that there is. If all we have is the book of Ecclesiastes, if that's all we can go on, then what we have to admit is fleeting joys are all there is. Most of the things we chased are going to be a waste of time. They're going to be vapor. We're going to spend our whole life chasing things, and we're never going to catch it. So chasing after the wind is like trying to grab smoke, right? In that life, in that chase that we're probably wasting, then we're going to experience pain. There's going to be hard days. There's going to be sad times. There's going to be a time for mourning and for death and for weeping and for loss. That's going to happen. And then last week, we talked about these joys that are God's gift to us to look around in our life and see people that we love, to look at our days and look forward to how we get to spend our days and to honor God. Those are God's gifts to us. And if all we have is Ecclesiastes, then that's it. That's all there is. Those fleeting joys. And really and truly, the people who say, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die, they're right. We should all just be Epicureans. If this is all there is, if Ecclesiastes is all there is. There's one little hint in Ecclesiastes that there's more than this. It's in chapter 3 when Solomon tells us that God has written eternity into our hearts. It's this inclination in us that there has to be more. And I think that after you read Ecclesiastes, that's really how you're left feeling. It's the way that I feel when I get an appetizer at a fancy restaurant, right? I like to go out to eat. I don't know how readily apparent that is as you look at me, but I like to go out to eat. I like it a lot. It's one of my favorite things to do in the world. One of the things I miss the most in the pandemic is going out to eat with my friends. I love doing that. And if you go to like a normal run-of-the-mill place like Olive Garden and you get the calamari appetizer, they're going to bring you this big basket, right? I like calamari. I don't know if you guys do, but I like calamari. They're going to bring you a big basket, and it's going to have a whole cup, like an extra ramekin, and you can just bring more, more of this sauce, the sweet and sour sauce or whatever it is. And if you don't watch it, you can load up on calamari, right? You can load up on this appetizer. But when you go to a fancy restaurant, when you go to one of those big deal downtown restaurants, and you see that they have calamari on their menu for the competitive price of $18, you think, I'm going to be the big dog. I'm going to do something for the table. Watch this, guys. Go ahead and get that calamari started for us, right? Look at me. And then they bring to the table, you've been there, you've seen it, they bring to the table the sample size, right? It's like, it's a rectangular plate. It's this long, it's thin. If your appetizer arrives on a plate shaped like this, you paid too much for it. Just a blanket policy. And they set that down in front of you. And there's four different, like there's two rings kind of just laid gently on each other with some cilantro over the top of it. And there's four of those. And you're like, thank you for these bites. I would like more bites, please. Like this is it? Everybody gets a taste of calamari? And then that's done. There's got to be more to it, right? I think this is what Ecclesiastes makes us feel. We finish it. You read it. You confront the realities. It ends with this sentiment. That's a wonderful sentiment. The end of the matter is this. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. So best case scenario in Ecclesiastes, you keep your head down, you honor God, and you hope that more good things happen to you than bad things happen to you. There you go. Kind of feels like someone just put a few pieces of calamari in front of you and you go, is this it? There's got to be more to it. And that's why I wanted to spend this week saying there is. There are 65 other books. Ecclesiastes exists within the canon of Scripture. And when you lay it against the messages in the other books, then you can really see that I believe Ecclesiastes is designed to point us to our need for Jesus. Ecclesiastes, I think, is designed to point us to our need for Jesus. That we finish reading Ecclesiastes and we go, gosh, there's got to be more than this. There's got to be more than just putting our head down and trying to be good people and hoping that not too many bad things happen to me and that I'm wisely investing my life. There has to be more than this. And there is. The more than this is Jesus. That's the more than this. So Ecclesiastes is there so that we read it and we absorb the messages of it and we let the stark realities hit us and we let those go. We let those say to us there must be more and that more is Christ. And here's how I know that this is true. I think that Ecclesiastes serves as a really great preamble to my favorite chapter in the Bible, Romans chapter 8. If you were here a few summers ago, you know that we did eight weeks in Romans chapter 8. It is, to me, the crescendo of hope in the Bible. It is a remarkable chapter. And I believe that Ecclesiastes, maybe better than any other book outside of Romans, lays the groundwork, lays a preamble for us to really be hit with the grandeur of Romans chapter 8. There's a particular portion of it, chapter 8 verses 18 through 30, that I think reads like portions of Ecclesiastes and then finishes with the hope that Ecclesiastes just leaves us wanting for. And so that's what I want to do this morning is look at Ecclesiastes as a lead-in to Romans chapter 8 and see what truth there is in Romans chapter 8 and how Jesus is this more that we've all been yearning for. So read with me. If you have a Bible, you can read along. If not, it'll be on the screen. It's going to be a long passage, but I think it's worth reading all of it. Verse 18, Listen to this. Now hope that is seen is not hope for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. And then on down to 28, this is so good. Ecclesiastes is all over that passage. Look at how Paul starts it. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. The sufferings of this present time. That's ecclesiastical. That's what Ecclesiastes says. That no matter what you do, you're going to suffer. No matter what you do, it's going to sometimes feel like chasing vapor. The reality of this life is that it's hard. There are seasons of difficulty and grief and pain. The reality of this life is that divorce exists and cancer is a thing and that secret sins eat us alive and that people disappoint us and that we disappoint ourselves and that we lose people that we don't want to lose, that we watch people who are better than us go through pain that we don't feel like they deserve. It's we turn on the news and there's another school shooting. We turn on the news and there's another riot. That's the suffering. That's what Ecclesiastes acknowledges. And that's what Paul acknowledges in Romans chapter 8. But he immediately buoys it, balances that out. I consider that the sufferings of this present time, all that stuff we talked about in Ecclesiastes, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. So then he starts talking about this glory that's going to be revealed, this hope that we look forward to, this thing that's the future, the more that Ecclesiastes leaves us wanting for. But if you go down through the passage, you see these connections. It says that creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. And then it says that we know the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. Groaning for what? Groaning for Jesus. Groaning for what we groan for. For the adoption as sons and daughters. For the glory of God. We talked about this. This creation groaning. We talked about this in the second week. We talked about that everyone walks through pain. And I said that pain is not punitive, that God is not tightening the screws on us because we misbehaved or we didn't do enough or because we don't love enough. He's not punishing us. Pain is the result of a fallen and broken world. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. It was perfect. It was exactly as God wanted it to be. But Adam and Eve sinned and they broke God's rest and they were separated from God. And then we come along in that sin, continuing to be separated from God. And we have this profound sense, just like Ecclesiastes says that eternity is written on our hearts, we have this profound sense that everything's not okay, that there has to be more than this, that it has to be different, that certainly, God, you look at what happens and it grieves your heart too. That's creation groaning, don't you see? Ecclesiastes was just describing the groanings of creation. That's the earth itself crying out for the return of God, for Jesus to come and make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. There's this picture in Revelation, I believe it's in chapter 6, where the voices of the martyrs are under the throne of God. The martyrs are under the throne of God, people who have died for their faith, and they basically say, how much longer, God, before you go make things right? That's how we feel when we lose someone too soon. That's how we feel when we try really hard to have a kid and we can't. That's how we feel when terrible things happen that we can't explain. It's ecclesiastical. It's creation groaning. When is this going to get better? And then it says, and I love this phrase, especially those of us who have the first fruits of the Spirit, those of us who have eternity written on our hearts, those of us who know Jesus, who are believers, who call God our Father and Jesus our Savior, it says that we, us Christians, because we know there's more, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption of sons and daughters. We groan inwardly when creation, when these hard things happen. We groan inwardly when we watch our friends walk through difficult times, and we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters. We yearn for that. That's part of being a Christian, is in the midst of hard times to say, come, Lord Jesus, please, don't make us wait any longer. That's why when I watched my father-in-law pass away a month ago, I looked on him with a degree of jealousy because his eager yearning is done. His groaning is over. And now he has the glory that Ecclesiastes leaves lacking and that Paul alludes to in verse 18 and that we're going to talk about here in a minute. But this first part of that passage, 18 through 30, it's ecclesiastical. It's the same themes and things that Solomon brought forth there. And it points to something. He concludes it in a lot the same way that Solomon concludes it, Romans 8, 28. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. So, so far, it's pretty similar. So far, Ecclesiastes says, life is going to be hard. There's going to be some groaning. This is not going to feel right. You just need to understand that that's part of the deal. And then Romans, or Paul says in Romans, there's going to be suffering. Creation's going to groan. You're going to feel this eager yearning in yourself. You're going to feel that things aren't right, that there has to be a little bit more than this present reality. You're going to feel that in your bones. And his conclusion is, but we know, even though you feel that, we know that all things work together for the good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose, which is strikingly similar to the way that Solomon concludes Ecclesiastes, which is to say, the end of the matter is this, all has been heard, fear the Lord and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. It's the same conclusion. These things, life is going to be hard. We're going to groan together for this better eternity. And so the best we can do right now is to just love God and hope for the best. Except Paul doesn't stop there. Paul doesn't stop there. He follows it up. Here's what happens when we love God and we hope for the best. on it this morning, but what I believe is that if you choose God, then he chooses you. And so if you are here this morning and you're a believer, then God has chosen you. If you say, God, yes, I'm in, I need you, then he chooses you too. And in choosing you, he's going to adopt you so that Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. We are invited into this heavenly family. But the real word I want us to look at is that word justified. That word justified is an amazing word. Those whom he foreknewed, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified. Justified is an incredible word. Because the reality of the condition of our souls is that we are guilty before Almighty God. We have sinned and offended him in myriad ways. Some known, some unknown, some before we knew who he was, and then we've been washed and we are grateful, some long after we knew who he was, some yesterday, some this morning. The reality of our souls is that we stand guilty before Almighty God. And there is nothing that we can do to fix it. And the penalty for that guilt is death, is eternal separation from God. We will never re-enter into the rest that he created us for. We will never experience the glory that Paul talks about as he's comparing it to the sufferings of this present time. When we are guilty before God, we do not experience the glory of being with God. And truly all there is, is this life. And truly all we can do is eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. And we are guilty. But Jesus condescended to become flesh, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross for us. And at the conclusion of that death, when he rose to life, Romans 8 tells us that he goes back up into heaven and he sits at the right hand of the Father and he is interceding for you. He has leaned over to God and he has said, I know that they were guilty. I know that they offended you, but I died for them. They're good. He justifies you. He makes you not guilty in the heavenly court of law with his death. Do you understand that with his death, that the way that he justified you is if you go back to your very worst day, if you go back to just the bottom of whatever your barrel was, that he died for that day. And he looks at that day and he says to God the Father, they're good for that day. I've paid the penalty for that. You can declare them not guilty. I've clothed them in my righteousness. You don't have to look at that day anymore. You can look at my perfection clothing them. They are justified. And to me, what's even more amazing than that is, think about the worst day you got coming up. Think about your potential to fall off the wagon and make poor choices and find yourself at the bottom of another barrel. Think about the wandering that you do after you accept Christ as your Savior. And know that Jesus died for that day too. Know that Jesus justified you for that day too. That he looks at the Father and he declares you not guilty for all the days. That's an amazing reality to me. And here's what's even better. If you want to be justified, I don't know if you are or you're not, but if you want to be declared not guilty of your sins and justified before Almighty God, all you have to do is believe in that justification. All you have to do is believe what I just told you, that you stand guilty before God and that Jesus came and lived a perfect life and he died for you. And in that dying, he justified you. He looked at your worst day and he said, it's all right. You're not guilty of that. And he looked at your worst potential and he said, it's all right. You're not guilty of that. I've got you. Now walk like you're justified. And then he says this. He doesn't stop with justification, which would be enough. That's what Jesus' death won us. But he says those who are justified are also glorified. This is the glory that Paul is talking about in verse 18. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth the glory that is to be revealed to us. And then the whole passage talks about yearning for that glory, for the redemption of our bodies, for the return of creation, that the creation groans, yearning for this perfect eternity. And then he says, Why? Because Jesus died for you and justified you, and now you're going to be glorified. He has got you, and one day you're going to end up in this perfect eternity. And that's what glorification is. And that's the hope that we have. That's how we can say it's all going to be okay. Because we don't have to admit that somehow it's going to make sense in this life or this world. But we know as Christians that one day our labor will be over and our souls will find rest in God and we will be in a perfect eternity with him. That's our hope. That's not vapor. That will not put us to shame. And if we want to know what that glory is like, the Bible tells us. In another one of my favorite passages, Revelation 21, 1 through 4. John writes this, city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and the death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Ecclesiastes is done in Revelation 21. That's the end of the Bible. It's the new heaven and the new earth. It's a picture of the perfect eternity that is waiting on us, that Jesus has won for us, that he justified us to qualify for, and then we will be glorified into that eternity. And in that eternity, there is no more weeping or crying or pain anymore. There's none of the bad stuff. In Ecclesiastes, that passage, there's a time for mourning and there's a time for laughing. In heaven, it's all laughing, man. There's a time for death and there's a time for birth, not in heaven. In heaven, it's all births. It's all building up. It's all celebrations. It's no pain. The former things, the things that make our souls groan, the things that Ecclesiastes forces us to confront about this life, those things have passed away. Those things are no more. There is no pain, and there are nothing but happy tears in heaven. That is the eternity that Jesus has won for us. It is the glorification that Jesus died to justify us so that we would qualify for that glory. It is the hope that we hold on to. It is the thing that we know for certain is not vapor. It is the time we know for certain that pain will not hurt. It is that pain will not happen. It is the time that we cling to, that we hope for, so that finally all the things in this life that don't make sense, that we can't piece together, that we don't understand, that seem inconsistent and would tempt us into losing our faith or becoming embittered. It's in this glory in Revelation 21 that all those questions are answered, that we see the very face of God, that we understand all the things that we've struggled with. It's in that moment that we no longer have to fight against ourselves and our demons, in which we can no longer relate to Romans 7, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. That is the hope that we cling to, Christians. And when we cling to that hope, we don't have to make sense out of everything. When we cling to that hope, we don't have to understand how it's fair that John was so good and we lost him early. When we cling to that hope, I don't have to understand how my college roommate passed away at the age of 30 and left behind small children. I don't have to understand that because there's coming a day when it's going to all make sense. And so our job is to cling to it with patience. That's what Paul says, that if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. So we look to our Jesus. We desire him more. Come, Lord Jesus, today. And while we wait, we are patient, and we cling to the one thing that isn't vapor. And what we find there in the presence of Christ is true joy. In fact, true joy can only exist in the presence of Jesus. True joy can only exist in the presence of Jesus. Joy that is not fleeting. Joy that is immutable. Joy that doesn't go away. Joy that's not impacted by circumstances. True joy can only exist in the presence of Jesus. So that is where we go. We go there now while we can, and we wait on an eternity while we are there all the time. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your son. Thank you that he covers over our worst days. That he covers over the worst in us. Jesus, thank you for coming and for dying. We know that when the time came, you didn't want to. But you did anyways because you love us. God, I can't imagine what it was to watch your son do that. But you led him for us. And we are grateful. I pray that we would, all of us, lean more into him. If there's someone here today who doesn't know you or watching or listening who doesn't know you, I pray that they would believe in that justification, that they would want it for themselves, that they would know you today. God, thank you for the message of Ecclesiastes. Thank you that it points us to the rest of the work that you did. God, give us the patience and the perseverance and the hope to continue to cling to your promises. It's in your son's name we all pray. Amen.