Sermons tagged with Theology

All right, I see no one paid extra for the splash zone this morning, but I feel like I should like just stand down here and preach, but no, it's good morning. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here at Grace. As most of you probably know by now, the month of July, our head pastor, Nate, is actually taking a sabbatical. It's something that was afforded to him as he has spent diligent, full-time service to this church, ministering to all of us so lovingly and so well for seven years. And so he is taking some time during the month of July to refresh and recharge spiritually in all other ways, spending time relaxing with family, on vacation, all of those things. And so I'm super happy for them. I'm super excited that he's getting the opportunity to do that. And honestly, I'm really excited for us and what that means for Grace, because you know he's gonna come out of that time ready to run in August, ready to run alongside of us in August as he comes back spiritually, recharged, and re-energized. But that also means is I get to preach this morning, which is really cool. Yeah, like cool. All right. I wasn't fishing, but I am thankful for it. I will say, like, I am mostly very excited about it. We're in our series 27, and in 27, we are going through a different book of the New Testament each week. Now, the reason why I'm mostly excited is because I think that there's a small part of me that thinks that Nate might have set me up for failure for this. Because as we talked about this series, we knew that he was going to be on sabbatical. And so there were a lot of voices, a lot of people talking, discussing, hey, what should this series look like? How should we do this series? All this stuff. And one of the main things that Nate made very clear is, hey, don't worry about us going in order. We're not going to go in order all the way through the New Testament. Just choose books that you're going to love and that stand out to you in your preparation. Awesome. Thanks so much. Man, Nate's the best. He doesn't want to be holding us to a certain book. He wants us to pick the book. And then Nate decides for the first four weeks, he's going to do the first four books in order of the New Testament. So while we know in his office that he has decided we don't have to go in order, now you guys are coming ready for an Acts sermon, and I'm hitting you with 1 Thessalonians. And not only did he set me up for failure, but he also knew if there's rioting in the building because I go out of the order you guys are ready for, he's gone. He's on sabbatical. He doesn't have to worry about it. So if you will, please bear with me, and please put down your, you know, whatever pickaxes that you're going to come to me because I'm breaking out of order because I am this morning going to peel off the Band-Aid and we are going to jump into the book of 1 Thessalonians. Now, one of the distinct things about the New Testament, as a lot of you guys know, 13 of the books are attributed to Paul and to Paul's ministry, the Apostle Paul. He wrote these letters to these different churches in these different areas, and they were all named after the areas in the people that he's writing to. And those are, and they're all written by Paul. And so for a lot of this series, we're going to be bringing up this guy named Paul, the Apostle Paul. Now, the thing about Paul, he was not a big fan of Christians. He persecuted them. He wanted to kill them. He thought like, hey, like get rid of this ideology of Christianity that you think exists because this is not, this is not it. You're wrong. You're completely wrong. I'm not having it. Until God kind of hit him literally in just this, he blinded him. I don't know what else to say. I don't really know what word I was searching for, but he blinded him and sent a Christian to go spend some time with Paul, teach Paul the truth, and then literally God opened Paul's eyes, both literally and figuratively, to the gospel that, hey, Paul, you're right that I am God, but you're wrong about who Christ is. This Jesus who came and lived, came and lived because I sent him as my son from heaven to earth to live a perfect life and to die a death signifying the death of all sins of the people who believe him. And he was resurrected from the dead, just as you've heard people tell. And that resurrection signifies that all those people who would believe in him and believe in Jesus as king and trust him as their Lord and Savior, that they are raised to life as well. That when God looks at them, they don't see the imperfections of their lives and of their walks in their life, but they see the perfection of Christ and the holiness of Christ because they have entrusted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And once the Lord told Paul that, Paul's life was then about one thing and one thing only, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everything that Paul did, when you read about his ministry and acts, when you read about his ministry and read his writings to each of these different churches as we're gonna go through, he has one goal and one goal only, and that Paul's ultimate goal was to share the gospel to all people and call them to repent and live a life reflective of that gospel. It's the only thing that he cared about. I want to make sure everyone I come in contact with knows who Jesus is, and I want to make sure everyone that I encounter not only knows who he is, but will give their hearts to that Christ and give their lives to the ministry of that Jesus, just as I have. And that's a lot of what 1 Thessalonians is. That's the goal of 1 Thessalonians is Paul writing to the people in the church of Thessalonica, some as reminding himself and just reminiscing on his time there, some to say, hey, like I'm so excited that this is taken, and some to say, hey, continue and press on. That is the goal of this. But as I was going through each one of his letters, as I was going through each book in the New Testament, man, what really jumped out to me about 1 Thessalonians is outside of clearly this being the goal, as it so often is in Paul's writing, I think that he just gives a really, really excellent description of exactly what that looks like. I think that's super valuable, because I don't, if you're like me, there's times where I hear sermons, or there's times where I'm reading through Scripture, and it is abundantly clear what Scripture would have me do. It's abundantly clear, okay, yes, I do love God. Yes, I know that I should go and tell more people about Jesus. Yes, I know I should minister to these people. I know I should make disciples. I should do all of those things. But sometimes I feel like it's a lot harder through Scripture to find, okay, so what exactly does that look like? And I think we find a pretty excellent description of what it looks like when we read the book of 1 Thessalonians. And so before we jump in, I want to give you a little background, a little history. So Paul and one of his ministry partners named Silas, you can find in the book of Acts, Acts 17, where they spent some time in Thessalonica. They go and join their community and start preaching the gospel, telling people who Jesus is, telling people, hey, this Jesus who came and walked on earth died for you so that you could have eternal life, so that you could have this eternal relationship with God the Father, all this stuff. And boy, was it effective. I mean, as they were preaching the gospel, the Lord was just taking hold of the hearts of the people in Thessalonica. And man, I mean, there was, it was like wildfire the gospel was spreading in the area. And it's incredible to read about. It's incredible to see. I mean, literally, it's like, it's like, you know, one of those church revivals where you see the Lord clearly moving. But in this case, it wasn't necessarily a revival because these people are coming alive for the first time. This entire city is hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time. And so it would be more of just a vival, I guess. They're becoming alive for the first time. I don't know. I don't know words like that, but that seems right. But it's incredible to read about how the Lord was moving, but then that brought some consequences as well because there were still Jewish people in the area who, like Paul was prior, was not happy about Jesus taking over, wasn't happy to hear that there were these two guys that were spreading these claims that they felt to be inaccurate, and so they started persecuting the people and kind of looked like seeking out Paul and Silas to the point that the Christians felt, the Christians and Paul and Silas all felt so distinctly worried that they ended up smuggling them out of the city at night one night because they were like, hey, if they find you, I think they might kill you. And so it is best for you and it's best for everybody if you can go ahead and leave, if we can get you out. And so they got out, they got out safely, and they got out knowing, hey, we know that a lot of people love Christ and give themselves to Christ, but man, Paul is really pretty downtrodden about the fact that he had to leave. As you read in 1 Thessalonians, there's a bit, especially on the early part of 1 Thessalonians, where he's really upset. It kind of takes on this flavor of, some of you guys probably know this, when you were a kid and your parents let you know that one of them got a new job in a new town or a new city and you were going to have to move, which meant, hey, all of these relationships that you've built, all of these friends that you have that you dearly love, you're not going to be able to see them much anymore, and you don't really have much say in that matter. You're just not going to get the amount of time that you hope to get with these people that you love. And that's kind of how Paul starts off this writing, just kind of really sad and really upset about the fact that he was having to be pulled out of this place with these people who he had really grown to love and adore. Not only that, but he got to see the way that Christ had begun moving in that place, and that excited him, but he just, he almost felt like he was leaving them when they needed him most to really learn, and to really learn from him and imitate him what ministering to other people looked like, and establishing roots where they had built a foundation of Christ. And so he just kind of felt like he got the short end of the stick on that and was really upset. So what he did is he sent another ministry partner named Timothy to go check in on him. Timothy, go spend some time with these people. First and foremost, let them know that I am praying for them every day. I pray that the Lord is continuing to move in their hearts, move in their lives, move in their city. But man, I also just pray that soon enough I get to come and see them again, to see my friends, the people that I love so much, once more. Let them know that, please, and spend some time with them. See how they're doing. See how the church is doing. See if the gospel is continuing to move, and report back to me. And so he does. He goes, he finds out, and he comes back. And the response is really positive. It's really good and exciting news that while obviously there's still issues going on in Thessalonica, but the gospel has just absolutely taken off. Where a foundation was set and where Paul had ministered to these people and showed them Christ, they were building upon that foundation and continuing daily to bring more and more people into the faith under Christ. And not only that, but it was moving outside of the city walls as well. I learned actually in researching that Thessalonica, how it is set up, it's actually kind of a, it's a trade town. So a lot of people in the rest of Macedonia and all over those nations, and also in the Roman Empire, all congregate to Thessalonica to do trading. And so while there is this there's this vival happening amongst the Thessalonians, as the gospel is traveling and hitting and encouraging so many people in this city, it is also moving outside of those city walls because as people are coming in for trade consistently, those people that are there are spreading the gospel to them as well. I actually read in a William Barclay commentary. This is really cool and really interesting. He basically said that you cannot understate, you cannot downplay how important the Christianity expanding outside of Thessalonica was for Christianity becoming a world religion. That's how important Christ taking over the hearts of the people in Thessalonica was. One of the main reasons why Christianity spread worldwide. And so you can imagine how Paul wrote to these people in response to this. First Thessalonians is in response to Timothy coming and telling him this unbelievable news. And as you can imagine, he writes just completely joyful and absolutely elated, which we've been there too, right? You've got, I mean, a lot of you guys are parents. You've raised kids that are still alive, which is like unbelievable to me, but good job for y'all. But you have kids and you have people in your life that you love and that you invest so much time and energy in. And so when you see them do well, when you see them do the thing that you helped them be able to do, get to that next step, get to that next point in life, when you see them come to know Jesus Christ for the first time, there's nothing better, right? There's nothing better, one, because somebody that you love is doing well. But two, there's just a pride in knowing that, hey, I had some small part to play in people doing well. But two, there's just a pride in knowing that, hey, I had some small part to play in people doing well, people getting to know Christ, Christ being shed and spread, Christ being spread through the nation and into other nations. And so that's how he writes. He reminisces on his time there spent with these people, building relationships, growing to love them, being a part of the culture, being a part of the community, and sharing the gospel through them, saying, hey, like, I'm so happy that I was able to minister to you in this way, and I'm even happier that the Lord is moving now, and that you guys are imitating the way that I ministered to you guys, and now you're ministering to other people in the same way, and it's effective, and I am so happy to hear it, and I think what that does is it opens up the door to asking a question. The question is, how did Paul minister to the people in Thessalonica? Okay, this is awesome. Paul ministered to these people. So many of them started giving their hearts and giving their lives to Jesus, and now they're doing the same thing that he did, and it's continuing to work incredibly well. And I think that 1 Thessalonians does an excellent job of telling us exactly what. And so as you go through, I think the whole book does a good job of sharing that, of sharing that directive, of giving, of saying, hey, this is exactly how it was done. I think in particular, chapter 2, verses 5 through 8, does a really excellent job as to making something that seems a little bit inaccessible very accessible, not only for the people in Thessalonica, but I think for the people in this room. It's a very doable strategy of ministering to people that we can emulate. And so we're actually going to start, we're going to start in verse 7, and then we're going to go backwards, because as we've established, I'm not going in order. So if you will, please just read with me verses 7 and 8. Let me read that one more time. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves because you have become very dear to us. We came and we brought you the gospel, but we brought you so much more than that. We brought you our whole selves. We gave you ourselves. I think it's a pretty excellent summation to say that Paul ministered gently and sacrificially through genuine relational love. He didn't share the gospel from a distance. It's not some guy who rolls up into this community during the day, sets up a pulpit, and preaches throughout the day, sharing the gospel, and then goes back to his place away from everybody afterwards. He immersed himself into this community. He built relationships with these people. He chose to serve them and love them well and intently. He goes after them, becomes a part of them, and builds through relational love these relationships and these friendships with these people so that they know without a shadow of a doubt that this person cares about me, that I am loved by this person. What's he doing? He's showing the love of Christ to these people so that he can share with them the gospel of who Jesus is, and they're going to be willing to hear it. I think what he realized is that we should strive to present the truth of Christ through imitating the love of Christ. We hear a lot about what it looks like to share the gospel, and I get a ton of questions about how am I supposed to do that. Like, I don't really think I'm meant to be Paul and go with a couple guys to different nations and different cities and preach to them until I'm thrown in prison and then write letters to them. But clearly what Paul is saying here, because Paul echoes a lot in his time and in his writing, I am ministering to you in this way and I am calling you to imitate and minister to other people in this way. How am I calling you to share the gospel? The same way that I'm sharing the gospel with you. I'm coming, and I'm going to be a part of your lives. I'm going to build friendships, and I'm going to love you well. I'm going to love you out of the love of Christ that I have received from Christ, and through that, through me loving you like Christ, I am going to share the truth of Christ with you in a way that is impactful, in a way that is meaningful, and in a way that you are going to be willing to hear from me because you know that I only genuinely care about you. He actually goes a little bit deeper in verses five and six. And so, hey, like, we're disciples of God. We could have come in and told you, hey, these are the things that you need to know. These are the things that you need to do. These are the things that you need to figure out so that you can be saved. But instead, he said, hey, that's not, that wasn't our goal. Our goal wasn't to share the gospel in this impersonal, in this formal, impersonal way. It was to share the gospel as personally as possible. Now, the wording of the greed part, I want to go dive into that a little bit, because as I kind of told you, he's a little bit repetitive with the things that he says throughout, and I think that is probably because they're important. Paul thought it was very, very meaningful and a very useful tool of ministry to, when he went into Thessalonica, not to establish a church and be the head of that church, not to be a guy who, what he did is, hey, I'm bringing you the gospel. I'm kind of going to be the minister here, and so please pay me, bring me food, give me shelter, so that I can bring this good news to you. Instead, Paul talks pretty distinctly about that he got a job in Thessalonica as soon as he got there, because he wanted to work amongst the people. He wanted the people in Thessalonica to know, hey, I care only's awesome that you're doing ministry and that that's your full-time job, but he's kind of saying all of you guys, y'all are doing it the way that he would do it. Y'all are doing it the way that he's calling here. That's how, I think that's ultimately maybe the thing that stuck out most to me in this is this is a message for the people of the church that aren't working in the church. I have to work hard to make sure I don't do that. I have to go out of my way to make sure that my students know that, hey, I'm going to minister to you and I'm going to love you while you're in this building, but I'm also going to go outside of these walls to make sure I'm a part of your lives, ministering to you, getting to know you so that you know without a shadow of a doubt that, yes, sure, this is Kyle's job to do this, but the only reason he's actually doing it is because he loves me, and he wants me to know the gospel. But you guys aren't beholden to those things, and I think that what Paul is saying is, y'all are doing it right. That's the way that he would call us to minister. And what I think he realized is that there is a purity of intention when you have nothing to gain from the people you are specifically loving and pouring into. How pure is your motivation when as you're building relationships and as you're building upon foundations of relationships, when you're loving people well, going out of your way to serve people, that you're asking of nothing in return, to where they know that you're only doing that because you care about them, just in the same way that you know that the only reason you're doing that is because, hey, the Lord loves this person, and so do I, regardless of who they are. And I think what I love about this is that this is a message that I, like, this is something that I see people in this church do really well. I think this is certainly something to be like, yes, I need to do this, whatever, but like, I see this all over, all over the place in this church. I got a buddy, Preston, that comes to the church that he's maybe one of the best possible, like, friend makers that I've ever met. Like, when I watch him in conversation, I'm just like, gosh, man, like, that dude genuinely cares about everything that everyone says to him. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know if he's just trying to be like Jesus or whatever, or if he's just, well, you know, like, I don't know what it is, but I'm just so taken aback at how good he is at making people know, hey, you are my friend and I care about you. And recently we had a conversation. He said there was a guy in his office who obviously was his friend because he's been around Preston and that's what Preston does. He makes friends. And he was like, hey man, like, I just seem to notice you really care about people a lot. And you honestly seem to be a lot more content than I am with life. You don't seem to get quite as upset about stuff. You love people well. And I just kind of want to know what's your secret. I want to be more like that. I want to understand how to do that better. That opened up the door for Preston to be able to tell him about Jesus. That door doesn't get opened if Preston is just trying to give him the gospel but not give him any part of himself. But Preston gave of himself, built this relational foundation that that guy wanted to ask Preston that question. I think about my buddy Logan, another guy who comes to the church. He, two of his best friends are two people he served in the Navy with. Neither one are believers, actually. But Logan has loved them well and has built that friendship to a point that he's able to share the gospel with them, and they're not going to be turned off. They're willing to listen. Not only that, but they love him so much that they want to support him in whatever the way they can. So he's actually, he hosts every other Monday night, he hosts this film watching group where the point of it is to watch this film and then talk about how it relates to the gospel. And guess who's on Zoom every single week from all over the nation? Those two guys. They want to be a part. They want to talk about film, and they listen. They get to hear about the gospel every other week on Monday night where outside of that, they don't hear it at all because they have a friend that they love and want to support a cool thing that he's doing. They hear the gospel because Logan has loved them and has loved them well and has built that relationship to that point. My wife, Ashlyn, she rules. I don't know if I've seen more tears than watching her go from two offices, one in Garner and one in Cary, to just being in Cary. The people in that Garner office, there were just so many tears because Ashlyn is the friend on staff, on staff with those people who's going to always consistently love them well and encourage them, point them back to Jesus and be a light in their life. You don't know how effective you are at that until you leave and you find out that the response is everyone being so upset. She had a mom say, hey, I know we live in Garner, but we're going to be there in Cary. I can't stop crying. My daughter genuinely says that Miss Ashlyn is her best friend. We're going to stick with you. That happens because Ashlyn loves very well. She's got a person in the office who just, in the carry office, who just experienced a tragedy and reached out to everybody, said, hey, this happened. Please don't ask me about it. I'm not ready to talk. A week later, guess who's, guess who walked in, whose door she walked in because she wanted to talk? Ashlyn. Because Ashlyn, she knows that Ashlyn loves her well and is going to point her to Jesus and point her towards the light. And finally, I look at, I look at Karen and Chris. I know Chris isn't used to being praised on a Sunday morning, but since Nate's gone, we're just gonna, we're gonna break all the, we're gonna break all the molds here. But I mean, their, their youngest daughter is my age, graduated in 2011, and they right now have decided, you know what, we're tired of having all this stuff, we want to have somebody come and live with us. They have somebody from, a soccer player from South Africa currently living with them, a college student, which like, I don't know, can't be like insanely fun, and't be insanely easy. I mean like super nice dude, but like, you know, they've been living with a lot of freedom for a long time by themselves. And so they're just hosting kids over at their house all the time, college students, just college dudes, just rolling up, soccer players, probably acting a fool. I don't know. I'm just kidding. Definitely not acting a fool. I know you're not, bro. But I mean, how easy is it? How easy would it have been for Karen and Chris to love them well by supplying them with Chick-fil-A coupons so they feel like they have some other food? To bring them some candy, bring them some extra clothes, whatever, and just check in on them every once in a while. But what they recognize and what they realize, in the same way that Paul knew was incredibly important, is if I want to truly impact the people that are around me, then I need to truly be a part of their lives. I need to truly build relationships with these people built on a foundation of the love of Christ, loving them well, encouraging them well, and that is a true and ultimate way to make a gospel impact. And that is where then the door is open to truly not only share the love of Christ through your actions, but share the truth of Christ in your words, and to truly share the gospel to the people around you. And in Paul's writing, Paul kind of says the same thing. He's like, guys, I want to encourage you in this, but you're doing it really well. Actually, I want to read it because I think it's beautiful, and I think that the simple way that I want to encourage you, Grace, who does this so well, is the same way that Paul encourages the people of Thessalonica. So if you will, please, let's read verses, or 1 Thessalonians 4, 9 through 10. Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you. For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, be able to show and share the gospel to so many other people. So my simple question for you that I want to close on is this. Who and where can you do this more and more and continue to do it more and more? So I want to close this morning in a prayer, but I want to, it's kind of a specific prayer. Ashlyn, my wife, she wants to be as helpful as possible in my sermons, and sometimes she feels like, I gotta like, you know, she feels like she's unhelpful. I'm like, Ashlyn, you're great. Just you loving me is very helpful. But she knew kind of what I was talking about this morning, and she was reminded of a song, it's actually by Casting Crowns, throwback, called The Bridge. And this song, I think, just does an absolutely beautiful job of just giving the same encouragement and the same prayer that we pray as we try to share the love of Christ so that we can share the truth of Christ. So if you will, we're just going to pray, and I'm going to pray over us these lyrics from this song. Bow with me. With love, we earn the right to speak your truth. It's not just what we say, it's what we do. I want to be a bridge, God, that leads to you. So reach through me and let them see, Lord, let them see. Lord, let us love like this. Let us share the gospel like this. Not formal, not impersonal, but as personal and as loving as we possibly can. We love you so much. Amen.

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

Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Jordan, it is interesting to me that you think profundity is what's required to get up on the stage when they parade me out here every week, falling woefully short of the bar. This is the third part in our series called Big Emotions, where we're just kind of looking at times in Scripture where we see a blow-up or a blow-out or people with with just big overwhelming emotions because that is so much a part of our life. That is something that we experience just as we go through life. Sometimes our emotions are too big for us and they're overwhelming. And so this morning I wanted to take a look at big emotions in our prayers and what happens and how does God respond when big emotions creep into our prayers, when our prayers really become cries. And to do that, I want us to think about prayer together. It's really, when you consider it, one of the more interesting passages in the Bible, one of the more interesting interchanges that Jesus has with his disciples. They're following him around. They're watching him do ministry. And at one point, they look at Jesus and they say, hey, Jesus, will you teach us to pray? Now, this is a really interesting question coming from the disciples. And many of you have probably considered this before. The disciples knew how to pray. They knew how to pray. They had prayed their whole life. They had gone to synagogue every week, maybe daily at different points in their life. I don't know. They had seen a ton of people pray. They knew how to pray. They had prayed many prayers before, but there was something different, so different about the prayers of Jesus that they had to stop him and say, can you teach us to pray like you pray? Because that's different than how we pray. And Jesus responds by sharing with them the Lord's prayer. You guys probably all know it. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. And so in that, Jesus gives the model of prayer to the disciples and to us in perpetuity. And if you break that down, I've always been taught prayer and I've taught prayer this way in church, in youth group, in camps, in different places, in men's groups, small group, when we talk about prayer, something that's always been really helpful for me is the acronym ACTS. And you guys have probably heard this before. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. So the way that Jesus opens up the prayer. When we pray, the first thing we should do is adore God. God, you're great. God, you're good. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. God, you are wonderful for this. God, you blow me away for that. And when we do this, it really puts us in the right posture for prayer, you know? It really reminds us who we're talking to. I had a Bible teacher in high school who was also my soccer coach, who was also my administrator because I went to a small school. And when he would pray in class, he would say, okay, everyone, let's pray, bow your heads. And we would bow our heads to pray, and he would wait 20 or 30 seconds. And so finally, I asked one day, Mr. Dawson, what are you doing? Like, that's awkward. Why do you make us just sit there in silence? What are you waiting on? Because it's almost like, does he want us to pray? Like, should we? And he told me what he was doing. He said he was taking his mind, whenever he would pause before prayer, to Isaiah chapter 6, where the throne room of God is described. And it says that God is on his throne, and the train of his robe is filling the temple with glory. And there's these six-winged angels flying around him saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And it's just so overwhelming that he cowers in a corner. And Mr. Dawson said that when, he said, when I pray, I like to take myself there to put myself in proper posture before God to remind myself when I pray, where am I going? I'm going to the throne room of God, the King of the universe, and I'm addressing the creator of the universe. That's a serious, somber thing. That's a place for humility. That's a place for penitence. This is why when we teach our children to pray, we teach them to bow their heads and close their eyes. It's a sign of reverence. It's a sign of respect for knowing who we're talking to and where we're going. It's why I encourage you as much as you can to kneel when you pray. Because it's hard to put yourself in the posture of kneeling and not feel humble, at least a little bit. And so Jesus says we should start with adoration. We should adore God. We should praise him. And then we should go to confession. What are the things, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. How have we trespassed against God? What attitudes do we bring into this day and into this prayer? What sins do we carry with us that yet remain unconfessed before the Father? What do we need to confess to God before him? And then we move into this time of thanksgiving, praising Him. God, thank you for your goodness in my life. Thank you for my family. Thank you for a church that I love. Thank you for the rain. Thank you for the day, whatever it is. It's John's second birthday today. Thank you for a great two-year-old son and for friends watching him in the nursery right now. Thank you for all of those things. We praise God for things. And then, suffocation. Then we ask for what we need. And you guys know, and you've heard this, that the tendency when we pray is to skip act and go straight to S. Skip all the other stuff and just go, dear God, I really need blank. I really need you to show up here. I really need this to work out. I'm really worried about this. It's all the I need, I need, I need. And there's a place for that in prayer. But the way that Jesus teaches us prayer, it follows this pattern of first putting ourself in the proper place and then confessing our sins, which remind us of the humility we should carry into the throne room. And then thanksgiving, let's acknowledge all the blessings God's given us in our lives before we ask him for more, and then in that proper mindset, say what we need to say. That's kind of the proper way to pray. But sometimes we pray when our emotions are too big for propriety. Sometimes we pray prayers that become cries. And the emotions that we bring into that moment are too big for acts. I've shared with you guys before that the first time Jen and I got pregnant, we miscarried. And I'm not in the business of doing comparative pain for miscarriages and who has the right to the most sorrow. But for us, the pain was particularly acute because we had been praying for a child for years. For years. We had struggled mightily. Our moms and grandmas were praying for babies. We had the church around us at the time praying that we could have a baby. We knew that's what we wanted to do. On my mama's deathbed, a few years before we got pregnant, the very last thing she did for me was direct someone to the top of her closet to get a stuffed animal that she made to give to my child when we had them. She went ahead and made it, and I think my sister finished it up for her so that we would have that to give to our first child. So when we got pregnant, we were elated. And then we went to the checkup for eight weeks, and the baby wasn't there. I don't know how long it took me to pray after that. But the first time I did pray, it wasn't Acts. The first time I prayed, it didn't look very much like our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It looked a lot more like God. What in the world? What the heck? I would say different words if I weren't on this stage and there weren't children in the audience. That's how I felt, and that's how I prayed. What are you doing? Because we, and we're not entitled to this. None of what I'm about to say really matters, but to us it did. Jen's a school teacher. She loves kids. She's teaching in a Christian school, leading people towards you. We still have relationships with some of the kids that she taught in those days. I was a school teacher. I taught high school Bible. And then I worked at a church. We had made good choices. We were good Christian people. We had checked all the boxes. We had done all the things. And there was people who were living lives way more rebellious than us who were just tripping accidentally into family. And then we get pregnant and then you take it? No, I'm not praying acts. I'm not following the pattern for this one. There are some prayers that we pray that become cries. When we hear of the terminal diagnosis and we go to the Father and we say, really? This one? Him? Her? Why not me in your jacked up economy? Why them? There's a girl in our community. She's a young woman in our community. Just last week or two. She battled cancer for five years and came to it a week or two ago. Beautiful family, young kids. I don't know when that husband is going to pray again. When he does, those prayers will be cries. We've all prayed prayers like that. Where we're walking through what feels to us like the dark night of the soul and we don't have time or patience for propriety. We just go to our God and we are raw and we are real and we cry out, what in the world? How is this right? How does this make sense? As parents that send their kids to school in that private school in Nashville, what do those prayers sound like when they start to pray again? We've all prayed those prayers that are so big and so raw and so emotional that they become cries. And so I think it's worth it to look and see how God handles these prayers in Scripture. Because we get to see some. God in His goodness left them for us in His inspired Word. And so what I want to encourage you with today is, I know that we've all prayed those prayers. If you've never prayed those prayers, I'm so happy for you. I hope you never do, but I think you will. And what I want us to know as we look into the scripture this morning is that God is not offended by our prayers that become cries. I don't think God in his goodness and in his grace and in his mercy is offended when I look at him after the deepest pain that I've felt up to that point in my life and I go, what in the world? That's not fair. That's not right. That doesn't make sense. I don't think God gets offended by those things. I don't think he's so small that our broken hearts offend our God. And I actually think that there's grace and space for those prayers because we see them in the Bible. We actually see Jesus pray one of these prayers, a prayer that is so raw and so real and so emotional that it becomes a cry. This prayer is recorded in all four Gospels. We're going to look at the account in the Gospel of Luke chapter 22. Beginning in verse 39. And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, speaking of Jesus. And the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, this scene, many of you know it, Jesus has just left the Last Supper with the disciples. He's instituted communion. He's told them, my body is going to be broken for you. My blood is going to be spilled for you. He knows what is going to happen. He knows when he gets done praying, he's going to be arrested. And he knows that when he's arrested, he's going to be tried. And after he's tried, he's going to be flogged and beaten, and he's going to be hung on a cross and left there to die and then face death and hell. He knows that. And so he brings the disciples with him, and he says, remain here while I pray. And he goes off a distance, one would assume, so that they couldn't hear him. And it is interesting that they all ended up hearing him, because there's nothing in the text to indicate that Jesus subtly knelt and clasped his hands and said, my Father who is in heaven. No, these prayers from Jesus that we see, in Luke it says he knelt. In another gospel it says that he fell with his face to the ground. And the disciples are a stone's throw away and they can hear him clearly. And then he gets so intense in his praying that sweat begins to mix with his blood, which we know is something that can actually happen in moments of incredibly intense stress in our lives. So the prayer that Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane was not, Dear God, if there's any other way, would you please point me in that? It wasn't that. It was Jesus on his face prostrate, God, Father, please don't make me do this. Please, is there any other way? Is there anything else I can do? I do not want to bear this. I do not want to be on the cross and hear you and see you turn your back on me. I do not want to say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I do not want the crown of thorns in my head. I do not want the nails in my wrist. I do not want to do this, Father. Is there any other way? Please, please take this cup from me. That's a prayer becoming a cry. That's Jesus sidestepping propriety and crying out to his heavenly father. And in there, he finds what we should find when we pray like this. No matter how deep, no matter how raw, yet not my will but your will be done. Please give me the strength to accept your will. So I know that God isn't offended by those prayers because his son prays one to him in full view and vision of the disciples. And then he tells us about it in all four gospels. And that made me wonder, where else in the Bible do we have prayers that are raw and real and emotional? Where else in the Bible do we have prayers that have become cries? And of course, I went to Psalms. And I just started reading them and flipping through and finding them, these things where people are just raw. I am weary unto death. I want to die. Take my life. And I put them in your notes, Psalm 142 and Psalm 13 and Psalm 77. I think of Hannah's prayer in the temple when she's praying so earnestly and fervently for a child that Eli the priest thinks she's drunk. I think of the book of Lamentations, which is a whole book of tough, raw prayers. And I was going to kind of bounce around between those prayers, but then I was reminded of another psalm that's really dear to my heart, Psalm 88. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you to turn there. I encountered Psalm 88 when I took a trip to Israel several years ago. One of the things most groups do when you go to Israel is when you're in Jerusalem, you go to Caiaphas' house. Caiaphas is the high priest that had Jesus arrested, had him tried, and had him murdered. And in the basement of Caiaphas' house is this makeshift small dungeon. And a portion of the dungeon is a cylindrical room that they would tie ropes under the shoulders of the prisoner and lower them into this pitch black, dark room. Now there's stairs that lead down, but in Caiaphas' day, in Jesus' day, that was not the case. They lower you in and they pull you up when they're ready for you. And most people believe that this is where Jesus spent the night after he got arrested, waiting on his trial before Pilate the next day. And when you go to Jerusalem, you can go down into that cell. And our guide pointed us to Psalm 88. Psalm 88 was written by the sons of Korah, we're told. But it's also believed by scholars to be a prophetic messianic psalm. And many scholars believe that this is meant to be the prayer that Jesus prays after he's arrested. If it's not the prayer that he prays after he's arrested, Jesus knew the scriptures, he knew the psalms, this could very well be a psalm that came to mind that he quoted. But when I picture Jesus arrested and alone and reading, crying these things out, it brings fresh meaning to it for me. And when we listen to it and read it, I think you'll be taken aback by how very real it is. So I'm going to read a good portion of it. Beginning in verse 11. Is your steadfast love declared in the grave or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? And then verse 13, They surround me like a flood all day long. They close in on me together. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. My companions have become darkness. That's a real prayer. That's not a prayer you pray in church in front of other people. That's not how we teach our kids to pray. We see accusations in this prayer. You have caused my friends and my loved ones to shun me. It is your wrath that beats against me and waves and covers me. The person crying out to God in this psalm feels the darkness closing in in such a way that they don't know if they will see the light again. My companions have become darkness, he ends with. And that's it. I am grateful to God for choosing to include in his Bible and his inspired word prayers that are that raw and that are that real. Prayers that show us that when our emotions are too big for propriety, that our God can meet us in those places and hear us. He appreciates those prayers so much so that he recorded them and fought for them and protected them down through the centuries so that we could see them too. So when we pray them, it's okay. When we need to cry out to God, we can. He's not offended by those prayers. He hears those prayers. He welcomes those prayers. And here's what else happens when we cry out to God, when our prayers become cries, when we lose all sense of propriety and we're just trying to figure it out. Here's what else happens when it's literally the dark night of our soul and the darkness is closing in around us and our life is falling apart and our children are making decisions that we don't understand and our husband is making decisions that we don't understand and everything that we thought was going to happen, this future that we had projected is not going to happen. This person that I love is not in my life anymore and I see reminders of them all the time and I don't know how I'm going to put one foot in front of the other. I don't know how I'm going to do it. When we pray those prayers, this is what happens. If we look back at Luke 22, there's a verse that I skipped. Verse 43. In the middle of his praying, and there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him. In the middle of Jesus crying out, Father, please don't make me do this. Please let there be another way. God says, son, you're going to have to walk that path. But he doesn't make him do it on his own. He sends an angel to strengthen Jesus in the dark night of his soul. And I can't help but believe that God will send angels to strengthen you too. When you pray those prayers, I think God sends his angels to strengthen you as well. And I don't know what those angels look like. Maybe it's a hug. Maybe it's someone's presence. Maybe it's a text or a phone call or an email. I know in our family it's cardinals. Maybe it's a southern thing, I'm not sure. But we believe that when a cardinal shows up in your view, that that's a lost loved one who's just stopping by to say hello. Just to check in on you. And so sometimes God sends cardinals just when we need them. Another big one in our family is Mallard Ducks. You know that we lost my father-in-law a couple years ago. And Mallard Ducks were really special to him. And I can't tell you all the cool places where we've just kind of looked and there's a duck there that doesn't belong there. And it's just God kind of reminding us that he loves us, that he sees our pain, that he walks with us in that pain. Maybe, for some of us, God's using this morning to strengthen you, to buoy you. I hope so. Maybe this is just what you need. My hope for all of you is that you never need this sermon and you never have to pray those prayers. But my suspicion is you have a better chance of dodging raindrops on the way back to your car in a downpour than you do of living a life without tragedy. And so I think all of us, at some point, need this sermon and this reminder that when our emotions are too big for propriety, God can hear those prayers too. And in the hearing, in those moments, he sends his angels one way or another to strengthen us. I just got done reading a book. It's actually Beth Moore's biography. I would highly recommend it. One of the best books I've read in a couple years. And in it, she was talking to someone who faced incredible tragedy. And she asked her, how is it that you have kept going through these years? And she said, God opens my eyes every morning. I have no other explanation than that. There are nights that I went to sleep and I did not want to wake up and God opens my eyes. And so I get up that day and for us today I use the breath that's in my lungs and I praise him and I go. We will all in different times and seasons and for different reasons and in different ways walk through dark nights of the soul. But when we do, we can cry out to God. And when we cry out to God, He will hear us. And when He hears us, He will send His angels to strengthen us. I'll finish with this verse from Isaiah, and then I'll pray, because it's one of my favorites. We're taught in Isaiah that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and that he comforts those who are crushed in spirit. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. You're big, you're good, and you're gracious, and we are broken. We need you so much, and we have no right, we have no right to pound our desk and shake our fist and demand answers from you. We have no right to do that, and yet in your goodness, from time to time, you allow it, and you hug us, and you weep with us. I lift up the people today who might have recently prayed prayers like these, and I just ask that you would strengthen them, that they would feel your presence, they would feel your goodness, they would feel your love, they would be strengthened by you. Father, buoy us and tether us to you. God, we also thank you that Jesus did drink of that cup, that he did die for us, that he did conquer death and sin and hell for us so that we don't have to. And God, we look forward to a day when we understand things just a little bit better. But in the meantime, may your presence and your love be ever enough. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Good for you for being here today. It's Super Bowl Sunday. Do we have anybody here who particularly cares who wins, feels very stridently about the Eagles or the Chiefs? No one's willing to admit. Okay. All right. I saw one fist up indicating neither team, but go your team, Kay. I will be cheering for them tonight on your behalf. This is literally, in my opinion, the worst weather possible. It's almost freezing and it's raining, but it's not cold enough to actually have anything fun happen, so we just trudged through it together, and here you are. Thanks for being here. This morning, we are appropriately talking, based on the weather, appropriately talking about mourning and grief and sadness. As we go through our series, The Blessed Life, where we're looking at the Beatitudes that come at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus's first recorded public address. And he opens up that address, that sermon, with a list of nine blessings in the book of Matthew. You find them in chapter five, and then the following sermon in five, six, and seven. And when he opens up with these blessings, he's speaking exactly to where the Israeli people are at the time. And he says, if this is you, then you're blessed. And so last week we opened up the series and we talked about that word blessed. And it's important that we define that and understand what it means to be built, to be blessed by God. And what it means very simply is to be fully satisfied, is to have all that you need, to be lacking for nothing, which when you think about it is a pretty profound definition of blessing. Because we can be in all different stages and all different instances in life, in all different situations, we can have plenty, we can have a little, we can be hurting, we can be exuberant, and in that moment we have all that we need, God says we are blessed. So this morning we look at one of the blessings, and it's probably the blessing that I find to be the most counterintuitive. It's when Jesus says this in Matthew chapter 5 verse 4 very simply, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. When this blessing is recounted in Luke, it says blessed are those who weep for they will laugh. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. And I don't know what you think of when you think of mourning, people who mourn. And maybe my perspective as a pastor is a little bit different than others. I don't know. I don't have another perspective. But there's things in life that we are sad about that cause us to grieve, right? The loss of a relationship when you're in middle school or high school. The person you like doesn't like you back. That's devastating. This causes us great mourning and teenage angst. We know about this. The loss of a job, the loss of an opportunity to get a promotion. Something bad happens to your kid and you mourn that. There's a little bit of sadness. There's different degrees of sadness and mourning. But what I think Jesus is talking about here, where my mind goes, what I think is implied in the Luke version of it, blessed are those who weep, what I think of is this deep, soul-aching sadness that there really are no words for. If you've lived life long enough, you have walked through a grief like that. Or you've walked with others or seen others as they walk through a grief so deep and so profound that words fail you. What do you say to parents whose eight-year-old had an adverse reaction to a prescription drug that they were given for a simple illness and it causes them to die and you have to do their funeral, what do you say to those parents? What do you say to people who are young who lose their parents way too early in a profoundly sad way. What do you say? What do you say to people who sit in the midst of the wreckage of their marriage? Sometimes because of decisions they did not make, and now they are grieving not just their marriage, but the future they had always envisioned for them and their kids. What do you say in the midst of that grief? What do you say to the wife with three kids under five who just lost her husband? What do you say when your friends have miscarried for the third time. When I think of mourning, grief, sadness, that's what I think of. Those times in life when the sadness is so profound, the ache is so present, that words fail you. And it would feel altogether stupid to hug them and say everything's going to be okay. Because it just doesn't seem sufficient. What do we say in those moments? Well, here's what Jesus said. That you're blessed if you're there. Because you will be comforted. Now, all those situations I just listed out for you are situations that I've been in. Situations I've seen. Situations I've walked with other people through. And it never occurred to me in those moments, nor will it occur to me in the future moments, to say to them, you know what, I know you're hurting right now, but you are blessed because God's coming for you. And yet, this is what Jesus says to a grief-stricken people, to dads who can't afford to feed their children, to a society in which the average age of death and infant mortality rate were respectively incredibly low and incredibly high. They knew pain and sorrow and grief. And Jesus says to them, you're blessed for you will be comforted. How is it that Jesus can say that to those people? How is it that Jesus can say that to us in the midst of our grief and our pain? And how is it that mourning can be a blessing? That in our mourning, we can see that we actually have all that we need. I think one thing that is helpful for me, it might not be helpful for everyone, but one thing that is helpful for me based on the Luke iteration of the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount, there are blessings and then there are woes. There are woes to counterbalance those blessings. So when Luke records it, he remembers that Jesus says, blessed are those who weep, for they will laugh. And then later when he gets to the woes, he says, woe to those who laugh, for they shall weep and mourn. And so he introduces kind of this cyclical nature of life. There will be seasons of mourning and there will be seasons of laughter. There will be seasons of celebration. There will be seasons of sadness. And so what we see in life, what we see in Ecclesiastes, what we see in the biblical text over and over and over again, and what we know experientially is that morning is as natural as morning. Morning in life is as natural as morning in the day. What we know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that 18 hours from now, if Jesus doesn't come back and stop it, morning's coming, right? I don't know if I did the math right. I'm just throwing out 18 hours. You might disagree. I don't know when sun rises tomorrow, but technically speaking, if we don't have any more UFOs invading our country, Lord knows what's going on there. As long as Jesus doesn't come back, in 18 hours, it'll be morning. It's coming. There's nothing we can do about it. Whether we can see it or not, like today, whether we want it or not, unless Jesus stops time or returns and breaks the cycle, morning is coming. And in life, until Jesus returns, until he breaks in and breaks the cycle, mourning is coming. So when we mourn, when we hurt, when life is hard, we ought not be surprised by that. We ought to just think, it's my turn. This is inevitable. Everyone mourns. And I think it's really important to point this out. It's one of the large reasons. I had nine blessings to choose from. I chose this one, and it's one of the big reasons I chose to spend the morning highlighting mourning and the fact that it is cyclical and inevitable and will happen. Because as long as I am your pastor, I will do whatever I can from this small stage to beat back the idea that once we sign up for God's agenda, that he gives us a get out of grief free card. There is this pernicious idea in Christian history that when I begin to follow God, everything else is going to go okay for me. I'm going to close the sale and I'm going to avoid the big hurts and I'm going to avoid the big things and the raindrops of grief will miss my head and my family's heads. And yeah, sure, I mean, I'm going to have to go through some sadness at some times, but it's not going to be too bad. He'll never give me more than I can handle. The Bible has nothing to say about that. Nowhere does Scripture indicate that following God is a get-out-of-grief-free card for his children. And it's an incredibly damaging thing to teach otherwise. Because what happens is we find ourselves in the midst of mourning and we think, my God has betrayed me and let me down. Because he's allowing me to hurt this much. And what right and good theology says is, no, no, no. God never promised that those things wouldn't happen to you. But he does make a lot of promises to us in the midst of that morning. One of my favorite ones, it's one that I mention in funerals when I do them. It's one that buoys me that I am reminded of. There's a passage in Isaiah that says, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and he comforts those who are crushed in spirit. It's this idea that when we hurt the most, God is closest to us. When we are crushed in spirit, when we are weeping, when we are mourning, when it's that soul ache is when God himself sees us most and clings to us hardest. I can't ever hear that verse without thinking of the dynamic, and maybe it's because we're in the season where we have young kids. I can't ever hear that verse without thinking of the dynamic of how a young kid, when they hurt, runs to mama or runs to daddy, right? How the only thing they want in the world is the shelter of their parents. Jen was able this week to see this play out in real time. Lily was involved in a spelling bee, and it was an off-campus spelling bee. So Lily, or Jen had to take her to another school. Jen is my wife, by the way. Lily's my daughter. They're not just two random people I talk about. So Jen was taking Lily to the spelling bee, and they get there. And the way that this thing was set up is they gather all the kids together, and they take them into the classrooms, and the parents sit in the gym. And they just silently watch these double doors. And it's grades one through eight. And as it's your kid's turn, you don't know what's happening in the classroom. As it's your kid's turn, they spell and you know, they get it right and they stay in the classroom or they miss it and they have to do the walk of shame in front of all the parents. They come trickling through the double doors, dejected, and everyone knows you're not very smart. And then here they come. And so the parents are just sitting there staring at the doors. I'm, I'm at the house hanging out with John, who is my son. And, and just, I can't get enough. I'm just texting Jen nonstop. I'm on, I'm on the edge over here. I can't take it. What's going on? What's going on? Who's coming out? She's giving me live updates. Oh, but someone like someone's been defeated from our little school. Uh, the, the, this little boy, this little girl, they've come out. They said, Lily's hanging in there. It's round 15. She's fighting hard. I'm like, go, Lily, you know. But as these kids come out one by one, they come through the door. And what do they do? They're scanning the room for their parents. And they run to mama, and they hug mama. And the first kids who get out, they're fine, you know. They didn't have high expectations for the day. They're good. Let's hit the road, mom. Maybe there's a Shake Shack down here. But the kids who lasted longer, man, they were in it, right? It gets stressful in that room, first grade for two and a half hours spelling words. They start to hope. Lily wore her gold shoes that morning. She thought she was going to win. And so gradually they start to come out. When they hug mama, they're crying, they're hurting. They're releasing the stress of the day, the disappointment, maybe a little embarrassment. And the only one in the world who can comfort them is their parent, right? They're hurting. They're mourning. And sure enough, Lily comes out of there. She looks around for Jen, runs to her. They cry together. Lily cries because she's disappointed. Jen cries because she's a mom. And she sees that she has a different perspective on the pain than Lily does. She has a different perspective on the disappointment that Lily does. And she cries mostly because she just hurts for Lily. And after a minute or two, classmates start to gather around, and everyone gives their condolences, and then one little girl tells Lily very happily, they have cake pops here. And then suddenly, the spelling bee fades, and we're cake pops and grilled cheese at Zaxby's, and the world is right. But this is what we do when we hurt. We come through the gym doors and we scan the horizon for our Heavenly Father. We're drawn to Him. And He's drawn to us. And He sees us in those moments. And then, in those moments, when we need him, when we need his arms to wrap around us, when our soul aches, and we will never be too big, and we will never be too tough, and we will never be too manly, or whatever other stupid adjective we could put there to need our heavenly father to wrap his arms around us. We will never be beyond that. And when we hurt the most, He offers Himself the most. He comforts those who are crushed in spirit. He is close to the brokenhearted. And when He is close to us, do you know what He does? John 11, 35, He weeps with us. He holds us and he weeps too because his perspective on our pain is a little different. Because he knows that we don't really understand what it is we're walking through, but he sees it for what it is. And he holds us and he comforts us. This is what Jesus does in John 11, 35 that I mentioned. His best friend Mary has lost her brother Lazarus who's very close to him too. And she weeps to Jesus, why'd you let this happen? And he doesn't answer her, he just weeps with her. I will never get over the idea that there is an all-powerful, divine being who spoke the vast universe into existence, who knows who I am, and he knows the hairs on my head, and when I weep and when I hurt, he weeps with me. He is that intimately involved in our lives. Whether it's a small hurt or a big one. He's there. And what I find interesting about the way that God comforts us is that so often if you say, well, how does God wrap his arms around me? I think so often he does that through his other children, right? So often God comforts us by sending his children to be the ones who are the vehicles of that comfort, to wrap their arms around you, and maybe to say everything's going to be okay, and maybe just to say, I know it seems like everything isn't going to be okay, and I don't know what to tell you, but I'm here and I love you. And I'm pretty sure God loves you too. And let's just let that be enough right now. So often when we hurt and it says that God is close to the brokenhearted and he comforts those who are crushed in spirit. How does he do that? By sending his children, his hands and his feet into our lives to comfort us. And what's so amazing about this comfort when they offer it is that the best comfort, and you know it if you've been through it, the best comfort when our soul aches only comes from people who have walked that path too. Many of you know that part of our story is that in 2019, Jen's dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he fought that battle hard until the end of 2020. And it was in early December of 2020 that we were about to have a service and I got a call just before the service. Jen's uncle was down there with her dad in Athens and outside of Atlanta. And he called me and he said, hey, it's time. You need to get the family down here. And I said, okay. Did the service. Went home. Jen was packing up the kids, getting things ready. And in our scramble to get out of town, there was a knock on the front door. And it was her friend Lisa. She had heard that it was time to go. And she came over. And she knocked on the door and she hugged Jen. And I don't know exactly what she said, but it was not much. But she essentially just said, I'm so very sorry. And they hugged and they cried. And Lisa left and we went to Georgia. Now what makes that hug and those words so profound from Lisa is that she had just walked through that with her own mother. So when she looked Jen in the eye and she said, I am so very sorry. She knew exactly the path that Jen had walked for those previous two years. The ups and downs and the good phone calls and the bad phone calls and the hoping and the praying and the staying up at night. She knew all that. She knew how terrible that was. And she knew how terrible the next few weeks were going to be and what we were going to see and witness and walk through. She knew that. And all of that went into, I'm so very sorry. And those words brought Jen better comfort than the dozens, if not hundreds of people, including me, all along the process who had hugged her tearfully and said, I'm so very sorry. Because if you haven't walked that path, that's great. I'm glad that you're sorry. I know you are. I appreciate that. I received that. But you don't know. So when someone who has walked that path of grief, who's been through that divorce, who's been through that dejection or disappointment, who has experienced that loss, can look you in the eye and say, I'm so very sorry. It carries a different weight. And so it occurs to me that one of the things that makes us blessed when we mourn is because when we get to the other side of that mourning and we are comforted and we have all that we need and we move through it and our heart and our soul heal in whatever way they can, that we will also get to be the hands and feet of Jesus as God himself comforts his hurting children down the road. So you could almost say, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted and comfort. That in the midst of your mourning, it is cold solace. But the reality is for the rest of your life, you will be able to offer empathy and tears that will mean more to people because of the path you've walked than any other empathy and tears they might get. The hardest thing I've ever walked through from a mourning perspective is our miscarriage. The first time we got pregnant, the time before Lily, we miscarried. And before that, as a pastor, and I'm also just ridiculously pragmatic and stupid sometimes, as a pastor, when I would hear that couples had miscarried, my honest, dumb thought was, oh, well, that's too bad. They'll have another one. Which is just mind-numbing, but I was also in my 20s. I just hadn't experienced enough life to know that that's not what a miscarriage means. It's the loss of a dream. It's the loss of hope fulfilled. It's incredibly devastating to walk through that. Particularly if you've tried really, really hard to get pregnant. Particularly if it's not your first one. And in some ways I'm glad that we have walked through that because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt it has made me a better pastor for couples who are walking through that as well. And I would never again cheapen that grief by trying to move past it and look ahead. But I can hug them and look them in the eye and know their pain and say, I'm so sorry. And so in that small way, through our grief, God allows Jen and I to be blessings to others when the time comes. And so part of the blessing of mourning is knowing that in this cycle of weeping and laughing, when other people enter into a mourning phase, we can walk with them and be used by God to bring them comfort. And here's what's really interesting about the comfort that he brings us when we are hurting. When he brings a person along, when a song shows up in an unexpected place, when we are scrolling and we just happen to see something that touches us, whatever it might be, whatever that temporal comfort is that he gives us, that temporal comfort is intended to point us to our eternal comfort. This comfort that God offers us as we hurt is temporary. It's a salve. It's a balm. It's a band-aid. It helps our scarred souls, but it does not fully heal us. It is a temporal comfort intended to point us to and remind us of the eternal comfort that we cling to. As I was preparing this sermon, I sat down with Jen and I just said, listen, you've been through profound grief and I feel like I have not. What do I say? What do I talk about? I actually pitched a couple of ideas. I said, here's what I was thinking about saying. And she looked at me and she was like, those are not helpful to me. All right, cool. Well, then what should I say? And she shared this verse with me and told me that this is something that sustained her and continues to sustain her. And I think that there is tremendous power to this idea. And honestly, she said, it's that Hebrews verse that talks about hope being our anchor. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's a good verse. Googling off to the side. Which verse is this? It's one that had not stuck out to me before, but it is now one that I will never forget. But it says this in Hebrews chapter 6 I want us to hold on to is this idea that this hope anchors us. It anchors us. And one of the things that she kind of pointed out to me is that that cycle of mourning, that cycle of weeping and laughing, of mourning and celebration, of times of plenty and times of little, That's inevitable. Those things are artificial. Life ebbs and flows around us. But the thing that keeps her anchored, that keeps her steady, that keeps her pointed at God is the hope that she clings to. Whether life would seek to buoy you in exuberance or drown you in sorrow. There is an anchor that holds us there in the middle, and that anchor is our hope in Jesus. That's what our hope is placed in. The anchor is the hope, and the hope is placed in Jesus. In Jesus doing what? In Jesus doing what he says he's going to do. I say all the time that to be a Christian means to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He's the son of God. He did what he said he did. He died on the cross and he rose again on the third day. And that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. And the way that I always say it, and it's particularly applicable this morning, is that he's going to come back one day and he's going to make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. In the midst of our mourning, and for that matter, in the midst of our celebrations, the comfort that we have in each scenario reminds us of the eternal comfort that Jesus has promised us. That one day he's coming back. And one day he's going to break the cycle. There's not going to be any more weeping and laughing. There's only going to be laughing. What God's promise is and what our hope is, is that one morning there will be no more mourning. There will be a day that breaks at some point in the future. We don't know when and we don't know how long we have to wait, but there will be a day that breaks. And when that day breaks, the only mourning that's left is the next day. There will be no more mourning with the children of God. And one of the great solaces we have is that if our grief is related to loss, the loss of a loved one, if they know Jesus, they are experiencing that mourning already. And so in the midst of the ebbs and flows of life, when our soul aches, we can hold on to that anchor of hope that reminds us of who Jesus is and what he came to do. That reminds us that Jesus promises us in Revelation 19 that he's gonna come back and on his thigh is gonna be written righteous and true and he's gonna conquer death and sin once and for all and there will be no more mourning. Revelation 21, I love to remind you of it. There is coming a day where God will be with his people and his people will be with their God and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things, the things that bring you grief, the things that scar your soul, the things that make your heart ache, that make you wonder if you can go another day. Those things will never happen again because they will have passed away. That is the promise of Jesus and that is the hope that anchors our souls as we go through the ebbs and flows of life. And as Christians, that is our greatest hope. That is our greatest encouragement. That is what we cling to. I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes that I share every Easter. I believe it's Pope John Paul II who says, we do not give way to despair for we are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. Because Jesus died and rose again on the third day and conquered sin and death and promises us a day, promises us a morning where there will be no more mourning, we believe that he will come again and do what he says he's going to do. And so what we can say for sure, when we find ourselves in the depths of despair, when we find our friends drowning in sorrow, is that we can whisper into their ear, hang on, cling to the hope that one day things like this will not happen anymore and that one day you will be healed and that one day, because of the hope that Jesus gives us, you will be reunited, you will be restored, you will be made right. So how is it that Jesus can say, blessed are those who mourn? Because he knew what he was going to do. And he knew that one day he would take away all of that mourning and make sure that for eternity we exist in joy and laughter. And so we cling to that hope in Christ. Let's pray. Father, I just pray for those right now who hurt. Those of us who are walking through a season of mourning and hurt and grief. I pray that they would feel your presence. That they would feel your love. That they would feel your comfort, that your church would serve them well. God, I pray for those who are in seasons of joy and celebration. Would we honor you well in those? Would we use those seasons to comfort others when we can? Thank you for the hope that you give us in Jesus. God, if there's anyone here today who doesn't know you, who hasn't yet professed a belief in your son, who hasn't yet claimed that future that you promised, I pray that they would. Even right now as we pray and sing and finish up, stir our souls and our hearts to you. Bring comfort to those who need it. Give the rest of us eyes to see that need. And give us the strength as we need it to cling to that anchor of hope. That one day you're going to come get us. And you're going to make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. In Jesus' name, amen.

I felt like maybe I should dance a little bit at the end of that. Good morning, everybody. Like I said earlier, my name is Nate. It's so good to see you. If you are here when it's 39 degrees and raining, you really want it. So I'm glad to see you. I really do appreciate your being here. A round of applause for yourself, I guess. That was fun for those watching at home. We are in the middle of a series here at the beginning of the year called Known For, where we're just thinking about what are we known for? What is our reputation? In the first week, week one, we looked at ourselves. What are we known for? What do we want to be known for? And then most importantly, what does God want us to be known for, which is our love. And then last week, we talked about family. What does God want your family to be known for? What do you want your family legacy to be? And then next week, we're going to look at what does God want his children to be known for? Our faith in our culture, within the American culture, what does God want his children to be most known for? And how can we as individuals and as a church contribute to building that reputation in our culture that frankly does need to be rebuilt. And then this week, we're going to look at grace. What do we want grace to be known for? This church, right? And we talk about this a lot. We talk about what's our vision and what's our focus. I open the service by reminding us that we do everything that we do to connect people to Jesus and connect people to people. In the fall, in September and October, we did a new series called Five Traits of Grace where we said, hey, if you're a partner of grace, if you're someone who calls grace home, here are the five things we want you to exhibit in your life and be building towards. And we believe in those things so much that we actually have scrapped our material for Discover Grace, our kind of our newcomers class, and we placed it with talking through what those five traits are. If you come to Grace, here's what we want to try to build you into spiritually. Which, speaking of Discover Grace, that's going to be the first Sunday in February. It's where you can just find out more about grace, who we are, what makes us tick. If you want to become, you probably think of it as a member. We don't have members, we have partners, because real quickly, members tend to consume and partners tend to contribute. So we ask for partners of grace. If you want to become a partner, then that's how you do it. You can attend that class and there'll be some stuff to fill out. Or you can just come find out more about who we are. Or I would say if you've been coming here for a really long time but you've never been to one and you're curious about what happens there, you're welcome to come. There are snacks involved. You know you have to sign up. You can just come eat snacks and say hey to everybody and leave. I don't really care. But that's going to be in two weeks. So sign up for that if you want to do that. There's plenty of ways that you can sign up for that. But as we thought about reputation for this week, what do we want grace to be known for? And I kind of meditated on that as a pastor, thinking about the reputation of a church. My mind immediately went to Revelation chapter 2 and 3. Now, some of you know why I instantly thought of Revelation chapter 2 and 3, the Bible scholars in the room. Others of you are thinking, why Revelation, weirdo? Well, here's why. Because yes, Revelation is about the end times, and we did a series on that a little while ago. And in that series, I skipped over chapters 2 and 3, because I said chapters 2 and 3 are kind of parenthetical to the discourse in Revelation where Jesus kind of takes a break and he writes seven letters to seven churches. And in those letters, he tells those churches what they are known for. When I think of you, here's what you're doing well. Here's where you can improve. So when I thought about what does God want the reputation of his church to be, individual small little churches, I thought what better place to go than the one place in the Bible where he addresses seven of them and says, here's what you're known for. And some are good, some are bad. There's only one that gets totally good marks, and that was a church that was being persecuted the entire time. And so they were just bearing up under that persecution, and Jesus praises them for that. But there's another church, probably the most famous church in this discourse, the church in Ephesus, where Jesus tells them that they are known for a lot of things, but there's one thing in particular they're not known for, and they need to get their act together again. This is what Jesus says through the disciple John in the book of Revelation as he addresses the church in Eph false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake and you have not grown weary, but I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, therefore, where you outside in, you're doing a bang-up job. You're doing, the words that we would use, you're doing great ministry. You're doing great ministry. You're firing on all cylinders. Everything's great. Your Sunday morning services are good. You're really ministering to people well. You got things cranking in small groups. Children and students is going really well. Your care is really good. You are doing ministry well. You are executing church well. And on top of that, you have really good theology. You don't let bad theology get into that church. You guys are really nailing it there. You're executing church at a very high level. Good job. However, you have, in that execution, fallen away from the things you did at first because you've fallen away from your first love, which is to be Jesus. And you're no longer doing the stuff that you used to do that poured out of a love for Jesus. So you need to refocus yourselves and start doing the things that are fueled by the love of Christ. See, they stopped doing the very deeds that can only be done when they are fueled by a focus on and love for Jesus. They lost their way. They started doing the business of church well. And if you think about church, you can do a lot of church and you don't need Jesus' help at all, right? We have very sophisticated marketing strategies now. We have people in the church who are marketers. We could form a group and we could find out how to do a social media blitz and we could send out mailers and we could get people here. We could have more butts in seats. This row would be so full right behind the Turnburgs there. It would be great if we marketed. It would be fantastic. There are strategies with children. There are things that you can do. You can put on a song up here. You can play songs three in a row together with good transitions and excellent thoughts in between. And you can do all that without Jesus. And I hate to admit this, but it's true and you guys know it's true, so let's just all fess up together. I can preach without Jesus. I can just get up here and get worked up about stuff and tell funny ha-ha jokes and then we can all leave and everybody will be like, I guess that was good, and we'll just all go home. I can do this without having to pray about it. And I know that because I've failed you over the years and done that a couple of times. It's possible for churches to lose their way and start to execute ministry with excellence, forgetting their first love. And then they stop doing those little things that are only done, that are only fueled by a love for Jesus and his love for us. And so as I thought about grace, and I thought about what our reputation is, I thought, you know, in some ways, it's kind of like the opposite of the church in Ephesus. Because I do think that we love pretty well. And I do think that we stay focused on Christ. And it's almost like, hey, at grace, how's your Sunday morning service? Well, there's a poll. And sometimes, sometimes our sound just cuts out. Sometimes, we've been in here when Aaron just like bailed on a song. He's like, we gotta restart this. This is garbage. And then we just, we start again, you know. Sometimes it doesn't go exactly as we want it to go. But man, those people love each other. What if we were known for that? How's your children's ministry at Grace? Well, listen, we've got the best children's pastor. She loves those families really, really well. But, you know, hallway's a little tight, and sometimes there's just random grown-ups back there, because it's the only place we have restrooms. We do our best. And, you know, if you've got a kid in kindergarten to third grade, you're going to have to walk through the rain past the aquarium store down a dark hallway. I don't know why the hallway's always dark. We have lights there. We still turn them on on Sundays. But let me tell you something. The volunteers back there, man, they love your kids. It's the same faces that show up every week, and they love our kids. How's your small groups ministry? Well, Nate keeps saying he's gonna do better at it and then he doesn't. But we always have room for more people and we always find uncommon community there and we love well. When I think about grace, I think about a church that does love well. Now, are we just going to let everything else go? No. We're going to pursue excellence in everything. But we're going to stay focused on loving well. And it just kind of made me think, like, what if we were known for how well we loved? What if that's what we were known for? As a church, when people come in and out of this place, when they visit for one time or they visit for a month, as you talk about church with your friends who don't live here, as people who have moved into grace and then maybe they had to move away, different part of the state or different part of the country or whatever, what if the way that they remember grace is how well we loved? Because I'll tell you, that's all I've ever wanted to be known for. I grew up in church. I've seen a lot of church. At a young age, I began to become aware of what kind of goes on behind the scenes sometimes and how that can hurt people and how egos and agenda can come out there. As a member of a church staff, frankly, I've been a part of a church that lost its way. Started executing ministerially very well, but took our eyes off of Christ. And so all I've ever wanted in leading a church is to lead a church that loves well. All I've ever wanted in leading a church is a church that every week we focus on Jesus. We declare him. Every week our prayer for you is that you leave this room a little closer to Jesus than you were when you walked in. All I've ever wanted to do is be a part of a church that loves well and loves authentically. We say what we mean, we mean what we say. All I've ever wanted to do is be a part of a church that if you start to serve more, if you start to get a peek behind the curtain, if you become an elder or a committee member or you serve during the week and you see us do our day-to-day stuff, that what you find out is there's nothing going on back there that ain't going on up here. It's just an authentically loving place. And what's so great is the church that hired me wants exactly that too. I think that's why it's been such a good marriage for nearly six years now. And so when I think about the church that I've always wanted to be a part of, I hope very sincerely that it's the church that you've always wanted to be a part of. That it's a church that we can say about ourselves, you know what, whatever else is true, we love well. We always focus on Jesus. And we always love one another well. Before the service, the worship team kind of gathers, and we just kind of talk through the service, and then we pray. And Aaron says, is there anything we should pray about? And I said, yeah, today feels weird. Today feels weird. I won't tell you why. It's just family stuff. Kids are sick and yada, yada, yada. But I'm coming in here with my hair on fire this morning. Erin Winston, our children's pastor, she's coming in here with her hair on fire. Things just kind of, they just kind of felt weird this morning and we just stopped and we prayed as a worship team, God, would the things that matter to you go really well this morning? Would the things that don't matter to you, would they not matter to us at all? Would we not care about them at the end of the day? And at the end of the day, God, would you just focus us on you? We want that to be our prayer every week. We want to love Jesus and love others really well every week. And so I thought, you know, it's one thing to make the point that we want to be a church that's known for loving well. Sure. That's great. I don't think any of you would disagree with that. I'm not going to make more arguments that that's what we need to do. If you don't want to be a part of a church that's known for how well it loves Jesus and loves others, then this ain't the place. But if you do, I thought what I would do is now use the rest of my time this morning to give you some practical ways to love others. What can a church practically do? How can we put meat on this bone? What can we actually do to love others well as a church and to build our reputation in the community and in the people we serve as a church that loves well? And so actually what I've done is I've come up with a list. And if you've been here for a while, you know I don't like listy sermons because listyy sermons are disengaging and boring and frankly, lazy in their preparation. But this one needed a list. And then I went extra pastor on you and I alliterated it. How about that? Each point starts with the same first two letters. Point number two, just know that when I get to point number two, I'm really proud of both of those words that I was able to think of them and make them mean what they need to mean. Okay, this is where unusually listy and alliterated today, but let's go. Let's go through our list. Now listen, here's why I don't like listy sermons, because you can't remember a list of five things. All right, no one's going to leave here and commit them to memory. The whole series I did on the five traits of grace, I'd be surprised if any of you could list more than one of them. So I know you're not going to remember all these. So my encouragement on the front end of the list is that you maybe take one and think, yeah, I can lock onto that and I can do that. And that's how I can love others well while I participate in grace. So let's go through the list. How can we love well? How can we build a reputation of loving well as a church? Number one, unselfish attendance. Unselfish attendance. Here's what I mean. Here's what I thought about it. I, for almost 20 years now, have been getting paid to go to church. I don't know if you realize that, but pastors, we get paid to be here. And I don't really know what motivates people to go to church. I was trying to think about that this week and I just had to be honest. I don't know. I have to go. So I don't, I haven't walked in your shoes. I don't know why you got up and showered and braved the elements. I assume you showered and then braved the elements to come in today. But I would imagine for many of us, if not most of us, we're kind of thinking about ourselves. I want to go to church because I'm going to get something out of it. Because God speaks to me there. Because I kind of get some Jesus. See my friends, and that's good. I'm not saying that that shouldn't motivate you. I'm happy that motivates you if it does. Maybe we're serving somewhere. Maybe we want to just see our friends. Maybe church or our people. I've talked to some folks who have kind of fallen into the habit of over COVID watching the service online, but every now and again they come back to church because it's like those are our people. We miss them and we love them. Maybe it's to participate in corporate worship. That's my favorite part of every Sunday morning service is just standing right there and getting to sing. Getting to worship with the rest of you guys. Hearing my church praise my God. Maybe it's like an obligation. You kind of feel like you just need to do it. I got a big sale coming up this week and I'm going to need a big man's blessing so I'm going to go and check the church box. Maybe it's for your kids. I don't know. But I would bet that there's some sort of, and I use this word but I use it because it's accurate. I don't use it to be derogatory. There's some sort of selfish motive to come here. And it's okay. Church should serve everyone who comes. But can we also add to that some unselfish motives? Can we begin to think about what it looks like to come for other people as well? A great example of this happened this morning. Some of y'all got here and it was raining. And there was people out there with umbrellas walking you to your car. My hope is that they prioritize the mamas with babies and maybe the older ladies who aren't quite as quick as they used to be and the dudes that are about their age. You just stood there and laughed at them and watched them walk through the rain without offering them umbrellas. That would be ideal out there. But I was out in the lobby as the first song started taking care of something, and I saw Phil over here, our head usher, who I give a hard time for his huge ego about being our head usher. He's out of control, man. He's soaked. His hair's soaked. I fist pounded him. I was so excited. I saw how wet he was and how much he had just been out there just serving people without ever being asked to. Nobody asked him to grab an umbrella. He just did it. And I fist pounded him really hard. And he was like, that stung really bad. My hand's freezing. Also, Phil's a sissy. But Craig Holiday was out there. He grabbed an umbrella. And one of my favorites, Kyle and Ashlyn, now Ashlyn Tolbert, yes, they got married last weekend. They got back from their honeymoon last night, decided to come to church. He's not even being paid for this. He's not on the clock. He got here and then said, I gotta get an umbrella and just immediately started walking people in. All that is unselfish church attendance. Say hey to somebody you don't know. Long time grace people, I'm being serious about this. If you come to church and the only people you talk to at church are your people that you already know, they're the only people you acknowledge or shake hands with, that's a little selfish, isn't it? Let's reach outside of our circles. We're small enough that we know new faces. Let's say hey to them. Let's make sure they feel welcome. Unselfish church attendance looks like serving in the children's ministry so that mamas and daddies can sit in here and experience what God has for them in the worship service. It looks like inviting people to sit next to you that you might not know. To me, this is going to sound weird, one of the things that unselfish church attendance is, is singing loud. I can do this. When Aaron lays out and he's not singing and it's just our voices, which is always really beautiful to me, I sing extra loud. If you sit around me, you know. That's the penalty for getting here late. You got to hear my voice. But I'm singing loud to make space for you to sing too if you don't want to sing so loud. When we come to church on Sundays, let's not just think about our experience and what God has for us, but let's think about ways that we can be used by God even while we're here so that the folks who come here can feel loved every week. The next one. The second thing we can do to love well is to offer untethered inclusion. How about that? I'm telling you. Untethered inclusion. One of the ways that I think about grace, and I've thought about it like this from the beginning, and it's not something that I articulate a lot, because frankly, it wasn't something that I was totally comfortable with. But the more I think about it, the more I embrace it. I really think about grace as kind of a triage unit for those who have been hurt by church. We all know, we all have stories of people who got used up and spit out and burnt up at church. Of people who did get behind the scenes and find that there were egos and agendas involved and those hurt. Of people who served faithfully at church and then hit a rough patch or a hard time and the people they thought were close to them abandoned them. Or maybe they watched leaders fail. Or maybe they watched elder boards disappoint. Or maybe they watched their kids be mistreated. Or any number of things that churches can screw up. But here's the thing. We're not above any of that. Matter of fact, we're going to do something this year to hurt somebody in this room. And I hope when it happens that we're the first ones to see it and apologize and make it right. So I don't want to pretend like grace is some bastion or oasis where we do everything perfectly. But we try. We try really hard to be authentic and to love well. And one of the ways that we can do that is to make this a place of respite and rest for those who have been hurt by church. Does that make sense? Untethered inclusion means you come here and we're going to include you in everything we do. We're going to love on you. We're going to invite you to things. We're going to fold you into small group. We're going to talk to you on Sunday morning. We're going to treat you like you give the most, like you serve the most, like you love the most, and we're just going to let you rest. Our inclusion of you into circles and pockets in the church has nothing to do with what you give to the church or how you serve the church. I've been a part of churches in the past where everybody was just made to feel like a cog in the machine, right? We're reaching the community for Christ. We're doing this. We're going to go plant this thing. We're going to go do this thing. And what's your part that you can do? And the people in the church who were valued the most were the ones who showed up the most often and served the hardest and gave the most. And I just don't think that's the way that God wants his church structured. I just don't think that those in leadership in the church should care the most about the people who do the most for them to scratch their back. I think our inclusion and our love of other people needs to be untethered to whatever service they're offering the church. So we love without expectation of reciprocity here. It is untethered to any other requirements. We're just going to include you and love you. So if you have been hurt by church, come and rest here. I've had meetings with people where I'll go out to lunch with a guy and he'll say, yeah, you know, I used to play an instrument back in the day. I used to play for churches. I got burnt out on that, so I don't do it anymore. And I'll tell them. You can ask them. I'll tell them. All right, I'll give you a year. I will not tell Aaron on you so he doesn't come after you. I will not bring it up again. I will not ask you to serve in that way for a year. At the end of the year, I'll just check on you. See if you want to serve. And I mean it. And we'll let people come here and we'll let people rest. Now what I would say to the people that are resting, resting is not retirement. At some point or another, we've got to get to work. But if you need rest, you can rest here. Because we're going to offer you untethered inclusion. Next thing we're going to do to continue to build a reputation of love is we're going to offer unforgettable care. Not required care. Not bare minimum care. We're going to offer unforgettable care. Last year, somebody brought a gentleman to our attention who lives in Capitol Towers. He's confined to his wheelchair. He can't even get out of his wheelchair on his own, so he sleeps in it. And he lives in an apartment over there. And we were told that he would want to come to church with us, and so we made some arrangements to come to church. It was very easy to do. But there was two people in our church that wanted to go see him and meet him. And so they went to this man's apartment. And I can only imagine what an apartment would look like when the sole occupant of it cannot get out of his wheelchair. But I'm guessing to say that it was not tidy is probably the most generous description of the way that it looked. Those people cleaned that apartment for six hours on their own. No one asked them to do that. They just saw a need and they met it. That's unforgettable care. That man will never forget what they did for them. I have seen in our church unforgettable care offered time and time and time again. People who don't just meet the minimum requirement of, yeah, I am praying for you, but who actually show up and do the thing. You know what Stephen ministry offers? Unforgettable care. To walk with you in life in a way that you'll never forget the time Jesus put that little angel in your life to walk with you through that hard part. So every church has opportunities to care. All of us will have opportunities to care at some point or another, and my challenge to you is when you do, offer care that is unforgettable. And do it because your desperate hope is through offering that care, they will see Jesus in how much you cared. The fourth thing we can do to continue to build a reputation of love is offer uncommon community. I think it's one of the things that defines grace. Uncommon community. At the first Sunday of the year, well, that we met, because the first one was the first, and we didn't meet because, you know, we chilled out. But on the 8th, we met. And I got into a conversation with somebody afterwards who wanted to talk about the Christmas Eve service. They're like, man, listen, I got to tell you. He said his brother-in-law was in town. He lives in South Carolina. So his brother-in-law was in town. And after the service, which he praised and thought was good, and I said, which one did you come to? And he said, the 330. And I said, oh, that wasn't even a good one. The five was way better. And he said that after the service that his brother-in-law was like, man, what's the deal with this place? He's like, what do you mean? He's like, the people are incredible. The service was great. Sermon was good. Worship was good. But the people are unbelievable. I've never experienced community like this. And my buddy was just like, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's cool. We love each other here. It's really great. He's like, no, no, no, I've never experienced anything like it. And he's like, I know, we feel really lucky. And they just kind of moved on. Two full days later, brother-in-law's still at his house, grabs him, pulls him aside. And he's like, no, listen, man, I'm not kidding. What's the deal with that place? I've not been a part of church for a while. I want to be involved in a church like that. How can I find what you have? That's you guys. That's the people. And I thought this week, how do I describe what that person experienced on a Christmas Eve service, the community that he saw, and put that into replicatable behaviors that we can do moving forward. And I don't know. So here's the thing, okay? Here's the really smart thing I'm going to tell you so that we can continue to have uncommon community. Just keep really liking each other is the thing. This church here is a church that's built on friendships. I would be thrilled to have lunch with anybody. I don't know if I want to take an eight-hour road trip with anybody in here, but I'd be thrilled to have lunch with anybody in here, talk to you, get to know you. I see rich and deep friendships in this church. I see the way new people are incorporated. I'm so proud of how well we love each other and how much we really do genuinely like each other. And so maybe that uncommon community beyond just liking each other a lot comes with being intentional about spending time with each other outside of church. Just, you know, being like friends. But whatever it is, whatever's there, that's what makes grace go. It's not me. It's not the worship. It's the people. That's why we have Big Night Out. We're doing another one. March 24th. First one in three years. Mark your calendars, baby. It's going to be a big one. Where's Doug Funk? Is he in here? Hey, Doug. We're doing your retirement party, baby. We were supposed to have a retirement party in 2020, and then the Lord sent COVID, and we didn't get to do it. But we're going to do it now, man. It's going to be really fun. March 24th, we're going to hang out. And when we hang out, we go somewhere. We go to Compass Rose or somewhere like that, and the owners say, do you just want us to reserve the whole space? And we say, no way, because we want other people from the community to come and see our community. And we want to invite them into it. We want you to invite your friends so they can look around and be like, you guys all like each other. Yeah, we do. We're pretty tight. At Grace, we want to continue to have an uncommon community that comes from having a genuine affection and appreciation of each other. And then finally, you can't make this list of what we can do to build our reputation of loving well without noting this. We need to be a church of unbroken focus. Unbroken focus on Jesus. I quote this passage a lot, Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off the sin and the weight that so easily entangles and run the race that is set before us. As grace, we are running a race. We are doing our part. It is our time on the field. We are going and we are loving and we are trying hard. How do we run our race well? Throw off the sin and the weight that entangles? 12.2, by focusing our eyes on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. We forsook all things for the sake of the cross. Guys, none of this, none of this is possible without Jesus. Nothing that we do as a church is possible without Jesus. And I hate to break it to you, we don't have any strategies here. We did a campaign a while back. We did it all wrong. We had no strategy. We just thought, well, you know, if it's important to God, we'll raise the money. If it's not, we won't. It'll be all right. We're going to do another one. We're going to have the same attitude. There will be no strategies. We have no strategy for church growth. We have no strategy beyond just loving well and loving Jesus. That's all we got. We're just going to do it every week. And none of these things are possible, unselfish attendance, offering untethered inclusion. None of this is possible if it's not fueled by Jesus. What was Ephesus guilty of? They lost sight of their first love, and because they lost sight of their first love, they stopped doing all the little things they did at first that can only be fueled by a love of Christ. So this is the one. I told you there's going to be five and just pick one. You can't do all of them. Everybody has to do this one. Everybody has to do this one. We can only be a church that loves well if we have an unbroken focus on our Savior. On a personal level, on a corporate level. I'll say it again. I always say it. There's nothing more important that we can do in our whole life than wake up every day and spend time in God's Word and time in prayer. We need to pursue Jesus on our own. We need to come every week and we need to celebrate Jesus. We need to walk out these doors and be determined to show people Jesus. And in those ways, we will love in all the little ways and we will do all the little things that the church in Ephesus forgot to do that will keep our eyes focused on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. And we will be a church that is known for exactly what God wants us to be known for which is loving others as Christ loved us. So that's my commission to you. Let's continue to be a church that's known for loving well. Let's do it by leaning into those things that I mentioned and by never forgetting to keep our eyes focused on Christ in a way that is unbroken, in a way that is consistent, and in a way that is urgent. Trusting that love to fuel all the other things he wants us to do as a church. Let's pray. Jesus, we love you. I pray that everything that happens here would draw us more close to you. God, I pray that a desire for you, a desire for your spirit, a desire for your son, a desire for your word would burn in all of us. That we would be fueled by it, that we would wake up because of it, That we would love well because of it. And that that love that we have for you would spur all of these little things that conspire to make this church a place that's known for loving well. God, would you use grace however you see fit? Would you use this little church with our little community and our friendships to advance your kingdom? And would people who come here week after week, whether it's their first week or their hundredth, would they leave this place a little bit closer to you than when they came? Would they leave this place with a greater desire for you, Jesus, than what they walked in here with? And will you just give us a heart to repeat that every week? We love you and we need you. In Jesus' name, amen.