Sermons tagged with Father

All right. Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. That was, I think, maybe the loudest I've ever heard you guys worship, and I think that is wonderful. What a good morning. And listen, the week after preaching a sermon on politics, I did not expect there to be zero empty seats in the room. I thought maybe we'd thin the herd a little bit, but you guys are back to more, which is why this week I'm gonna tell you who I'm gonna vote for and why you should too. I do have, I do need to say something to my NC State fans, friends. Last week, you know, I started out, I said, mean thing. And Phil, our head usher, he's back there. He's not nice. He came up to me in the lobby and he said, so what was that funny little joke you made last week? I said, I don't remember, Phil. I don't know. It slips my brain. But congratulations, NC State, on your overtime victory over a 14 seed. We'll look forward to next weekend. This is our second part in unity. We are unified in our laughter at NC State. Isn't this wonderful? This is, I'm sorry, I'm done. I'm done, I'm sorry. I'm a Georgia Tech fan, okay? I got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Thank you, Easley. Do I have to preach still? What's happening? All right. So this is part two of the Unity Sermon, and we're pulling this out of John chapter 17 as we've been going this spring through the Upper Room Discourse found in John chapters 13 through 17. They're the final words or final thoughts of Christ to his disciples before he's arrested and tried and buried and rises again on the third day. And we get to come back next week and celebrate Easter. A quick word about the Good Friday service. It's just the second time that we've done it since I've been here. But Aaron and I have worked on how to format it. It looks a little bit different than a normal service. The whole idea of it is to let the weight of the crucifixion and the sacrifice rest on us so that we're spiritually prepared to celebrate on Sunday the greatest holiday of the year. So I hope that you can make it to that. So we looked at the prayer last week, and we acknowledge it's called the high priestly prayer because Jesus is praying over the disciples before he dies and ascends into heaven about 43 days from then. And they're the ones that are left with the keys of the kingdom. They're the first group of pastors and elders to oversee the church. And as he's praying for them, Jesus also prays for us. So I want to remind you of those verses this week found in John chapter 17. We're just going to look at verse 20 and 21 this week. Jesus prays this, my prayer is not for them alone, meaning I'm not praying God just for the disciples. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. So that's you and I, that's the church, anybody who believes in the work of Christ. And I made the point last week that unity is Jesus' biggest priority for his church. Last week I said it was his only petition in that prayer for us. But this week, the way to think about it is unity, according to this prayer, is Jesus' biggest priority for his church. And when I say church, I mean Big C Church. I mean all the Christians who have ever lived, no matter our denomination, no matter our background, Big C Church, unity is a huge priority for Jesus. And I questioned last week why it's not a bigger priority for worldwide Christians. And I know it's not a huge priority because we have so many denominations, and we're going to get into that in a little bit. But we take, I take Jesus's petition for unity amongst the believers very, very seriously. And because of that, last week we said, let's look at the biggest threats to that unity. And so last week we acknowledged that in the United States in 2024, the climate is so divisive, it's begun to sneak into the church, that politics, our political leanings and persuasions, can sometimes allow us to separate or judge the faith of other believers, if they don't have the politics that we do, and how that is disunifying. That's not good for the church. The other thing I mentioned last week that would seek to divide us is our beliefs. What we believe about all the things. Because in theology, in Christendom, there's some things that you would consider primary issues. The deity of Christ, the sonship of Jesus, the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the nature of sin, the doctrine of salvation. These things are primary issues. But there's other things that are secondary or even tertiary issues. What do we believe about baptism? What do we believe about communion and what we should do? What's our policy on church discipline? What does it mean to be ordained? What does it mean to be a church member somewhere? All these things are secondary and tertiary issues about which the body of Christ does not agree. And thinking about all of that and Jesus' call for unity, I was able to take a trip in February. In February, well, at the end of last year, I reached out to an old acquaintance of mine. This guy has a pretty unique story. His name is Brad, and Brad is a genius. Not like, that dude's a genius. Like, no, legit genius. And he went to the Air Force Academy and got a master's degree in aerospace engineering. He was literally a rocket scientist. He showed me the title of his thesis, his master's thesis. I understand two words in it. And he grew up with the Southern Baptist, loosely associated with Southern Baptist. And then in college, kind of found his way into the Episcopal Church. And then in the time in his service in Colorado, he joined the church, is what it's called when you become a Catholic. He joined the church. He converted to Catholicism. And in that, he decided to pursue being a priest. So he left the Air Force as a captain, and he went to school at the Vatican, and he went to school for like seven or eight more years and became a priest. And now he's a priest and a pastor in a parish in Birmingham, Alabama. And because of his spiritual journey, because of how thoughtful and well-read and intelligent he is, I wanted to talk to him. Because I just wanted to hear what he thought, and I understand his story and everything that went into it. So I reached out to him after having not spoken with him in at least a decade. And he was very gracious and he welcomed me. And one Friday in February, we sat at his house for nine hours and talked. And it was a good, fruitful conversation. He was an incredibly gracious host. And I was so grateful for his time because he's far more educated than me. But there was a part of the conversation that Brad and I had that really did make me pretty sad. He's, I don't know the title of it, but within his diocese district, he's the representative of the Catholic priests in this effort to unify with and learn from the other denominations. So he sits on a council with a Methodist person, Baptist person, Presbyterian person, Catholic person, and they kind of come together and try to find ways that they can work together as faith and be unified together. And I think that's wonderful. And because I knew that I had this sermon coming up and because I had been thinking about this idea of unity, I asked him specifically about that and what he had learned in his time doing that. And in that conversation, he told me that he was actually pretty excited recently because the Catholic Church was getting very close to achieving unification with the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church is the Catholic church in England that broke off from the Catholics years ago for, you know, reasons that we don't need to get into right now, students of history. And he said that they were very close to achieving unity, but that right before they actually unified, that the Anglicans shifted their views on a couple things, on views of women in ministry and a couple other secondary, tertiary issues. And so they couldn't unify. And I said, well, what does it mean to you to be unified with the Anglican Church? And he said, well, it means that a Catholic priest could give Anglican Mass and that an Anglican priest could give Catholic Mass and celebrate the Eucharist together, take communion together. And I said, well, can't you just not agree on a couple of those secondary issues and still agree in the personal work of Christ and celebrate communion together? And he said, no, it doesn't work like that. I said, why not? And he said, well, because in my understanding, to take communion with someone, implicit in that is that you agree about everything with them. You have shared beliefs in common, and that's part of what makes it so powerful. And I said, well, if you've got two entities that are seeking unity, but they have differing beliefs, then one of those two entities is going to have to leave their beliefs at the door to be able to get under the same umbrella. And he said, yeah, that's right. And I said, well, whose responsibility is that? And he eloquently and thoughtfully said, not ours. That's a more basic version of what he said. He used a lot more words. But he basically said, when people are ready to shift to the way that we think about things, then we'll be unified. And listen, I want to be very careful here. As I said, Brad was a wonderful and gracious host. We talked about a lot of very interesting things, and I learned a ton. And he is one voice in the Catholic Church. I'm very aware that I could talk to myriad other Catholic priests, and the conversation could have gone a bunch of different ways. So I don't think that he speaks for all of Catholicism, but this is what he said in our conversation. And it just made me very sad that that was the standard for unity. And so I said, well, could you take communion in my church? If you happen to be visiting on a weekend and you came on a Sunday where we were having communion, could you partake in communion with us? And he said, no, that would be scandalous. Yeah, that's what I said. Gosh. And I said, okay, why is that? And he said, well, do you guys believe, and there's a doctrine in the Catholic faith and in some other areas of Christianity called transubstantiation. It's the belief that when you partake in communion that the bread and the juice or the wine becomes the literal physical body of Christ in your body. It's something that they hold to. And that's fine. We don't hold to that. And so he said, do you believe in that? And I said, no. And he goes, well, then we couldn't because we don't have all the same shared beliefs. And that would be pretty scandalous of me to do that as a priest. I said, okay. I said, what if the elders and I sat down and we changed all of our beliefs and we got right in line with what Catholicism teaches about communion? Could you then participate with us in that communion? And he said, would that communion be administered to me by a priest who's under the authority of a bishop who's under the authority of the pope? And I said, no, it would just be me, and I'm under the authority of Brad. So that's all you're getting. And he said, no, I could not. I could not do that. And my account was just kind of sunk. And he said, you're quiet. I said, yeah, it just makes me really sad that someone who loves Jesus as much as you do would feel like you're not welcome to take communion at my church. It makes me sad to think that anybody who believes in the work of Christ, that he is who he says he is, that he did what he said he did, that he's going to do what he says he's going to do, it makes me sad that anybody who believes that would feel not welcome or out of place to take communion here with us. And so, reflecting on that conversation, on what that bar is for unity, that we have to believe all the same things, I remembered something that I said offhand in a sermon in January. And that when I said it, I thought, oh, that hasn't come out of my mouth before. Let me think about that some. And it's kind of been rattling around in my brain ever since. And I thought about it on the flight home from Birmingham. It's just this idea. We can never be obedient to the high priestly prayer if we insist on a homogeny of doctrinal thought. We can never be church, never ever be, not in these walls or in the big church. We will never be obedient to Jesus' high priestly prayer of being one as he and the Father are one if we insist on a unanimous belief about all the things on a homogeny of doctrinal thought across every church, on the whole world, on the whole planet that's ever existed, we have to agree on primary, secondary, tertiary ideas. We just, if that's the level, if that's the standard, then we just can't achieve unity. And to help us think about this, I wanted to bring up the whiteboard and do a little exercise with you guys. Plus, it's been a little while since I did the whiteboard, and it's time. It's time to do the whiteboard. Thank you, Harris. Last time we did this, thank you, sir, on a communion Sunday, while I was praying, they carried the whiteboard off the stage, ran it into the TV, and then knocked the wine glass off the table and chattered during the prayer. So we're looking for redemption this time around. It's going to go much, much better. But to help us think about what unity in the church could actually look like, and to think about what I think is the impossible task of bringing everybody under the umbrella in the same agreement about all the things. I want to do this exercise with you. This exercise, actually, believe it or not, the first time this thought occurred to me, what I'm about to share with you, changed my spiritual life because I began to look in more places for beauty, and it breathed wind into my sails, and so I hope that maybe it can do that for some of us this morning. But I want to think of all of Christendom in a pie chart. I know that's a terrible circle. And I know that those of you in the back can't see, but you're going to get the point. That's actually not that terrible a circle. I'm not ashamed of that at all. That's pretty good. And so this is all of Christendom. This is all the Christians currently alive. If we think about how they divide up into what denominations, let's say that this is roughly Catholic. That's a big chunk. We know that's a big chunk worldwide Catholic. There's a lot of them. Then let's make a sliver for Anglican. Then let's make a sliver for Orthodoxy. Then let's make a sliver for Orthodoxy. And then let's make a sliver for kind of Desert Fathers Asian Orthodoxy. So we're going to, that's what those are. Okay, and then that leaves us a lot of space for the Protestants. Okay, this big, big Protestant. And this is only,, it actually should be more like this. I did actually research this, but then I thought I'm not going to refer back to a paper and try to draw a perfect pie chart. I think you guys can get the gist of it. So then you've got the Protestant faith, but within the Protestant faith, so let's say you've got Baptists, okay? That's one. And within the Protestant faith in America, that's the biggest chunk. But then you've also got Presbyterians, okay? You've got Methodists, you've got Lutherans, and then you've got like Church of Christ, you've got Pentecostals, Holiness Movement, and then you start to really like subdivide, non-denominational, inter-denominational, all the smaller percentages, whatever we're missing. So this is what worldwide Christendom looks like. But we're not done there because each of these slivers has their own sliver. It's important that you see this faith and get it exactly right. She's like leaning past me, I'm sorry. So even within Catholicism, and I don't know them all, but there's like, you know, the Jesuits and then there's the Franciscans and then there's other orders of monks and things like that where the beliefs are just a little bit different in there. And then each of these slivers, like the Presbyterian sliver, PCUSA, there's been a divide in the Methodist sliver. There's been a divide, like they kind of break off and do the different things. And for my background, where I grew up, you have Southern Baptist is one sliver, but then you've got Independent Baptist, Primitive Baptist, American Baptist, and on and on with the Baptists. That's just inside the Baptists. So there's really a lot of slivers. Then here's what occurred to me. This, in the whole pie chart of Christendom, this red right here, that's my sliver. That's where I grew up. Each of us was born into or saved into a sliver. Each of us was born into or saved into a piece of this pie. And here's what happens when you're inside your piece of the pie. Okay? Now, if you can't relate to this, you did not grow up in church. This is my piece of the pie. And when I was growing up, when I was in school, when I was in seminary, we thought this sliver right here, gosh, I'm so lucky we have cornered the market on right. We're so good. We've nailed all the theology. Isn't that good for us? Listen, I would have never, when I was 20 years old, I would have never dreamed of taking over a church with a Presbyterian background unless it was to reform each and every one of you. Which my plan is slowly working. We thought people outside, like other Protestants, like in this area, they're probably okay. They're probably Christians. I can remember having conversations in church circles. Hey man, do you think Catholics are really Christians? And do you know what the answer was? A dead serious. You know, I think some of them probably do have a genuine faith. I think some of them probably can be Christians. What? You know what I found out that some groups of Catholics call Protestant Christians? Separated brothers and sisters. How generous of you. That's okay. Jews call you God's stepchildren. And so you begin to think that what's inside your sliver is the most right of all the slivers. And everything else outside of that can't be right. They're all wrong about different things. I was doing this one time with somebody and I showed them this and I jokingly said, well, you know, they're too liberal and they're too liberal. They shouldn't even be in the pie chart. And they go, I agree with you. And I was like, ooh, that's not the point of what we're talking about. I grew up thinking all the right answers for all the things, all the beliefs, but all the secondary and tertiary issues existed in my sliver that we had cornered the market on right. And somewhere in 2020, I realized that I had been doing this my whole life. And I realized how ungracious that was. And what I realized is, each one of these slivers, every single one of them, has beauty to offer us, has wisdom to offer us. I don't know which sliver you grew up in or were saved into. And when I say saved into, what I mean is, if you became a Christian later in life and then you started going to church, that particular church begins to inculcate you with their theology and all the history and everything that's gone into it. And you might not know it, but that's a theology that you've now kind of been saved into because that's going to be the background that you get. And about four years ago, I made the decision to start learning from other backgrounds and I found so much beauty there. Last year I had sabbatical in July and one of the things I did is I went to other churches. So I was thinking about change and and I made, I made the decision to go to one church that was way more conservative than I've ever been or would ever be. And I made a decision to go to another church that was way more liberal than I've ever been and than I think I'll ever be. And I went to the conservative church and I had a terrible attitude. I was judging everything. This is stupid. That's dumb. Oh, yeah, shocker, just men ushering. Yeah, I get it. And I'm just kind of going through the checklist in my head, right? And at the end of the service, the band got back up to play, and I saw something really cool. As the church was worshiping together, there was about 500 or 600 people in this room in the middle of July. And I looked around the room, and there was a ton of teenagers. I saw a bunch of three-generation families, grandparents sitting with grandbabies and kids. And I watched these people raise their hand in worship. And I listened to them, and their worship was boisterous and exuberant. And I thought, shame on you, man. Shame on you. This doesn't need to be for you. But it's for them. And it works for them. There's beautiful things here. And these people are getting closer to Jesus as a result of their involvement here. You need to support things like this. And I saw beauty there that day. Then a week or two later, I went to another church down the road, far more liberal than I am. And I expected to go in there and just kind of get some feel-good nonsense, you know, because of liberals. And what I found was a people who had a deep appreciation of God's Word. They honored it. The homily was so good and so thought-provoking that I had lunch with that pastor two or three more times after that because I had questions for him. And I learned some things from them. And we have and can find beauty in all these things. I know I've inadvertently and hopefully not disrespectfully picked on Catholicism a little bit, but I will tell you this. For 1,500 years, they were the watchers on the wall. There is no church without the Catholic Church. They were the ones who watched the things through all the years until the Great Reformation. They are the theological shoulders on which we stand. And even if you've never stepped foot in a Catholic church, we have a great deal sitting here in an interdenominational church in 2024 to be grateful for to our Catholic brothers and sisters. We learn liturgy from the churches of the apostles, from the Presbyterians, and from the Lutherans. We learn high church and sacred spaces from our Presbyterian brothers and sisters. We learn low church and church polity and church governance from our Baptist brothers and sisters. We learn about the spirit from our courageous Pentecostal brothers and sisters. There is beauty to be found in each one of these slivers. Except the church, historically, has done this. Rather than looking for beauty, we often look for battles. Rather than look for beauty, we often look for battles. And we want to tell other Christians why they're not Christians anymore. There's an article that came out this year that a president of a seminary wrote about one of the most famous, helpful pastors in the country. And he said, yep, this was inevitable. So-and-so has shipped off from Christianity. They have lost their faith. Why does he get to declare that? We want to pick these battles. We want to tear down other Christians for not being Christian enough. And I can't help but wonder what that must look like to a watching world when an entire denomination of people has a huge conference to decide whether or not women can be in ministry. And because they decided they can't be in authority in churches, several big churches get kicked out. And now their pastors are on CNN asking why they got kicked out. And the world is watching this. And is it any wonder why people who don't go to church look at church in our culture and go, I don't want anything to do with that. They can't even be nice to themselves. This is why Jesus says, he prays for our unity. Why? So that the world may believe. Because a disunified church looking for battles, looking to pick on things with one another, looking to get into theological arguments and make you believe everything the way I believe it and get under our umbrella or we can't be unified turns off a watching world. Which is why one of the reasons I love grace so much. I was joking around with Aaron Winston, our children's pastor, when I was thinking about this sermon, that grace is like the Statue of Liberty of churches. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. We'll take all flavors. We have somebody from almost every mainline denomination in this thing. We are very well represented. And one of the things that I learned in taking the job is we are not non-denominational, as if these things don't exist and don't matter. We are intra-denominational. We are people who are determined to remain in unity and in fellowship together despite a lack of unanimous agreement about all the things. And that is to our good that serves us. And this ethic of being a church that does not insist on a homogeny of doctrinal thought predates me. This is what the founding members laid out. This is the statement of faith that I found when I got here. It's actually on our website. I'm going to read you the first two paragraphs of the statement of faith if you'll indulge me a little bit. Now, I've reworded this because it was a little bit clunky and Presbyterian, so I had to make it flow a little bit. But this has been approved by two separate elder boards, and so I know that it is a reflection of who we are. But this is the opening two paragraphs of our statement of faith, and I want you to reflect on it in light of this idea of unity in the church. At Grace Raleigh, there is a great deal about the Christian faith that seems clear to us and foundational to all that we believe. However, there is also much of God's nature, purposes, and plans as revealed in the Bible and borne out in human history and in our lives that retains its mystery and lies beyond our full comprehension on which we don't all agree. This lack of universal agreement is acknowledged and embraced through the makeup of our church family itself. As a church, we have Presbyterian roots. While a senior pastor grew up in a Baptist context, our church body consists of almost every mainline denomination in the country. We believe this diversity strengthens us and makes us more effective as we seek to build God's kingdom on earth. Because of this, this is important, we try to be as generous as possible about where we draw lines and distinctions and allow for a variety of opinions and assertions on a variety of topics and teachings within the Christian faith. We hope to maintain a commitment to the holiness and authority of Scripture while erring on the side of grace as we apply it to our lives. That's our statement of faith. That's your church with those sensibilities. And I'm proud to be a part of a church like that, that holds things open-handedly. You know, with some degree of regularity, I'll get someone to ask me in passing conversation, in a meeting, in an email, hey, what's Grace's stance on blank? Someone asked me recently what our stance was on the rapture. I said, we don't have one of those. We never will. But I get asked that with some degree of regularity. And it's usually the same answer. I don't know what Grace's stance is on that. I don't think Grace has a stance on that. I've not seen anything written. I know what my stance is, maybe, but it's probably different than some of our elders. And I don't think I could speak for the elder board on this issue. And I would say, if it's not in our statement of faith, we do not have an opinion on that. We don't have a stance, a collective body of believers stance on that. And that's on purpose. Why? So that we can remain unified as a church. Because at Grace, we do not insist on a unanimous belief about all things. In fact, here's our goal. Here's what we seek to do. When I think about being a pastor, knowing I want to invest my life in this place for as long as the Lord will allow me to do it, this is what I dream of. And this is what the elders want to build as well. We seek to build a corner of the kingdom unified, not by a unanimous belief in all things, but by unanimous belief in the saving work of Jesus Christ. We understand. And we're not going to try to get everyone in this room and watching online and who will be here on Easter to agree about all the things. But when we take communion at grace, it doesn't mean that we agree on what communion means. It doesn't mean that we agree on how to define baptism. It doesn't mean that we agree on all the secondary and tertiary issues and all the lines that we're supposed to draw. It doesn't mean that. What it means is we have a unanimous belief in the person and work of Jesus Christ, that he is who he says he is, that he did what he said he did, that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. If you believe that, you are welcome to take communion here, and it is a show of unity to do so. And as we move forward as a church and we continue to grow as a church, we've got to maintain this as one of our guiding ethics. That's so important to us, it leads our statement of faith online. So here's what we're going to do. In a few minutes, I'm going to pray. And then Kyle's going to come up and he's going to guide us through communion. As we do that, it is a very intentional show of unity under the banner of Christ. And one of my favorite things to do is to sit right here in this front row on communion Sunday and look at all the people who walk by me and be grateful for you and marvel that you're. And wonder why you choose to listen to me sometimes. I love Communion Sunday because I get to see the body of believers. I get to see my church. And as you guys look at each other to your left and to your right, as you stand in line and you look at the other people who are taking communions and you come and you take it from the elders and you take communion yourself, know that besides you, you have brothers and sisters in Christ. And to have fellowship with you and to love you and to worship with you and to go to church with you, we don't need to believe all the things about all the things. We just need to believe in who Jesus was and what he did. And under the banner of Christ, we're going to bring as many people possible with us as we go see him. That's what we're going to do as a church. So let's let communion this morning be a thing that solidifies our unity and our commitment to one another as people under the banner of Christ who treasure the fact that we come from all these different places and all these different places have beauty to add here. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this morning, for the way that you love us, for the way that you care for us. God, we are sorry for the way our churches divide and break and crack. God, I pray that there would not be a spirit at grace that seeks for disunity and division, but that we would champion holding things with an open hand, that we would be a people who would learn from all the shoulders that we stand on, not just a subset of the ones that we encountered first. Lord, we lift up the other churches in Raleigh this morning and around the world who are celebrating Palm Sunday, getting ready to celebrate Easter. We pray that our voices would go up as one next Sunday morning and that heaven would delight in the praise of your people here. Lord, make us stronger as a church. Unify us under the banner of Christ, our love for him and our desire to see other people come to know him. God, we love you and we need you. And we trust you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, Grace. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for making us a part of your Sunday morning. Before I just launch into the sermon, a couple of things. First off, NC State has been the butt of many of my jokes, so I need to stand up here and take it like a man. Well done, NC State. Good job. We'll look forward to your disappointment in the first weekend of the tournament. And then we've got more, far more importantly, we've got two rows of students over here. They just did a, what, Kyle, what was the weekend called? I don't even know what it's called. Great. That's perfect. That's what we're preaching about this morning. Pay attention, kids. This is for you. That's right. That's right. Because they knew. They're in a preaching schedule. That's great. So they've had a great weekend. God's been doing some cool stuff there, so it's great to see them. This morning, we continue our series. I forget what part we're in, six or seven, of our series called Final Thoughts, where we're looking at the Upper Room Discourse, which is this collection of things that Jesus said from chapter 13 in John all the way through chapter 17. It's the last things he said to the disciples before he was arrested and tried and crucified for me and for you. And so we arrive at the end of it in John chapter 17 with what's famously called the high priestly prayer. And this is a fantastic prayer. It's hugely important and we can't miss the context of it because Jesus is praying over the disciples. Now it's 11 men because Judas has left to betray him. It's these 11 men who are going to be leading the church. They are in charge of making sure that the message of the gospel goes into Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, to the corners of the globe. These men are in part the reason why we sit here on a separate continent 2,000 years later. And so Jesus has been training them for three years. And here's the catch. They still don't even yet know what their job's going to be. They still think, and I don't have time to get into all the context of it, but they still believe that in a little bit, Jesus is going to ascend to the throne and they're going to be the vice president and the Secretary of State and the Secretary of War and agriculture and all the rest they think they're going to be important in this Israeli government that Jesus is going to set up they still don't understand what he really came to do and one of the things he came to do is to train them to lead the church so right before he dies and initiates that process, he prays over them to God. And John, one of his devoted disciples, captures this prayer. And here's what's remarkable about this prayer, and here's why every Christian ought to know it and read it. Because at the end of this prayer, do you know that Jesus prays for you and for me? He prays for us. He prays for the church, for those who would believe according to the words of the disciples. And because our Savior prayed for us, we ought to spend some time there. We ought to know this passage, be familiar with it, and know what Jesus' petition is. So I'm going to read the portion where he prays for us. It's longer than I normally read in a sermon because I've been in services before, and I believe that when someone reads a large swath of Scripture that it's noble to do that, it's also disengaging and hard to listen to. So I don't do it very often. But this morning, we're going to read the whole part where he prays for us, all seven verses, and then we're going to come back to verse 21 for the bulk of what we're going to be talking about this week and next week. But look at what Jesus prays for us. Beginning in John chapter 17, verse 20. My prayer is not for them alone, meaning the disciples. I'm not just praying for the disciples is what Jesus is saying. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. That's us. Brought to complete unity. We could spend 12 weeks in that prayer. But I want to draw your attention to the beginning of it. I want you to notice what Jesus prays for us. I want you to notice what he asks God to do in us. And I want you to realize it's his only petition in this prayer on our behalf. He says this in verse 21, that all of them, Father, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also prayer before he prays in Gethsemane, that he prays for the church. He prays for all of those who would come to believe in his name from the message of the disciples. And in that prayer where he prays for his church, he makes a singular petition. Jesus's unity is Jesus's only petition for his church. That we would be one as he and the father are one. Unity is Jesus' only petition for his church. It's the only thing he prays for. He prays that others would come to know. He prays that we would know their glory. But the first thing he prays for and the only petition he makes that he asks of God is that we would be unified. That we would be one. And then Paul echoes this in Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4. If you have a Bible, you can turn over there with me. I have mine marked, so I'm cheating. I'm definitely going to beat you to it. But in Ephesians chapter 4, he talks about it in verse 3 and then down in verse 13. Paul writes this, make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. And then he gives them some more instructions and caps off that section, verse 13, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. So what we see, based on what Jesus teaches us and what he prays for, would they be one so that the world may believe in me? And then what we see in Paul, would they be one so that they might be mature? Is it this idea of unity, unification in the body of Christ, big C church and little c church, what we see is that unity is essential to evangelism and maturity. It's essential to evangelism and maturity. The church can never be as effective at reaching a lost world when we are not unified. And according to what Paul writes, we will never reach a state of congregational spiritual maturity if we cannot find ways to be unified in this congregation. It's amazing to me how important unity is to Jesus, how many times it shows up in the Bible. David even writes in the Psalms how lovely it is when brothers dwell in unity together. It's amazing to me how common the message of unity amongst the body of believers is in the Scripture and how little we talk about it. Myself included. I've preached here, I'm finishing seven years. I don't know how many Sundays I've sat in John 17, but it's not been enough. And I don't understand why this message for unity isn't something that all Christians take very, very seriously. It's a command of Jesus. It's his only petition for his church, that we would be one and that we would be in him. And so if unity is that important to our Savior, then we need to talk about it. So we're going to talk about it this week and next week, and we're going to talk about it and frame up the conversation like this. I want us to think about, and this is what I've been thinking about, what are the biggest threats to that unity in the church? What do we see in the church dividing us, causing us to section off, causing us to judge Christian brothers and sisters as right or wrong or godly or not? And so the first thing I see that's a threat to our unity as a church, and when I say as a church, I mean Big C Church, but I have to talk specifically about Grace, because we don't have any say in any other churches. What I see as a threat to the unity of our church, one of them is our beliefs. The insistence through the decades and through the centuries that all Christians think the same thing about all the things. This is why we have so many different denominations. Why we are fundamentally disunified. We're going to talk about that next week. The other thing that threatens our unity as much as or more than anything else in America in 2024 is politics. So we're going to talk about that this morning. And I know that when I say that, the air goes out of the room. I've just stuck my face in the wood chipper, and we're going to see how this goes. I know some of you, this is your first time. I hope you've watched online before and know that we don't do this every week. Some of you brought your parents today. Great. Have fun at lunch. As they encourage you to find a new church. But I think that the disunity in our culture has gotten to such a fever pitch that we have to talk about it. And just so you know, everything that I'm going to say this morning, I've run by the elders. We started talking about it in the fall. I told them I knew that we were going to need to do this in 2024. The response was not enthusiastic. And then a few weeks ago, once I finalized my outline, I sat down with them at an elder meeting and I went through it with them. I've only done that with one other sermon in my tenure here. And I finished and they all said unanimously, that's a good message, church needs to hear it. And I said, great. So I'll have a job in May. And my least favorite elder, Doug Bergeson, looked at me and he grinned because he can't help. And he says, well, there's a lot in the delivery. And then what I saw this morning, he just walks up to me and stuck out his hand. He goes, good luck. And then walks away. Okay. There's two big reasons I feel like we need to talk about this as a church. The first is a personal conviction of mine that when there's something that enters into the national conscience of import, something that matters, like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey entered into our national conscience. We were all thinking about them the whole time during the football season. That's not really important. I don't need to address that in church. But when there's something of import, of weight, that enters into the national conscience, something that we're all thinking about as we go throughout our weeks, something that we're all talking about, something that to various degrees we're all aware of. Some of us are really, we have a lot of political opinions. We feel very strongly about what we believe and what our ideology is and why we believe it. And we're very involved and we watch, we consume all the news and all the podcasts. That's great. Some of us hate it. We just put our head in the sand because we want to avoid it because we wish it wasn't so divided and tough right now. But wherever we are, we're all thinking about it. And to me, as a pastor, it's my conviction that when something of weight enters into the national conscience and I don't address it, at best I'm negligent and at worst I'm cowardly. So we have to talk about it. And we have to talk about it because we should all be asking this question, and I know that we are. How should a Christian navigate the divisive climate of 2024? How should a Christian navigate this divisive climate of 2024? And we've heard this said in plenty of corners, and I don't think it's inaccurate, that this is one of, if not the most, divided time in our nation's history. There's been other times in our history where we've been divided. Obviously, the Civil War was pretty divisive. The era of Martin Luther King and the Vietnam War, I did not experience that, but I understand America was divided then. But I'm not sure that our country has ever been more ideologically divided. So extreme, so combative, and frankly, so judgmental of the side that's not you. We saw this in COVID. We saw it play out where we make everything political. There's a worldwide pandemic. It's a health and science issue. And how long did it take us? How long to run to our corners and begin to lob grenades at the other side for not thinking what we thought about how this should be handled? How long did it take us? Weeks. Before we kind of figured out, okay, who's going to be on what side? And what do I need to do to align with my side? And then we begin to judge the other side for not being as smart as us about science. And I remember in COVID, me personally, but I think you guys can relate. Thinking that everyone who took their mask off before I did, everyone who started going maskless in public was a right-wing lunatic. And everybody who wore their mask a little bit longer than I thought was necessary was a flaming liberal. That's what we thought. Sides had a uniform in COVID. It's ridiculous. I've lived this one out personally. Talk about how everything's divided and we assign politics to everything. The first few years I was here, I drove a Nissan Leaf, okay? And I got made fun of viciously for that. And here's the thing, I should have, all right? If you drive a Leaf, you're a nerd, okay? Deal with it. I did. But do you know that because of what I drove, and I drove it to save money, by the way, which I did. $220 cost of ownership in three years. It was worth it. But do you know that because of what I drove, people assumed I was a Democrat? Because of the car I drove. Not anything I said or preached. Not because of which news channel I consumed from, which that's a dead giveaway. They thought because of what I drove, I was a Democrat. And if you drive a Ford pick-em-up truck, people probably think you're a Republican. And if that pick-em-up truck is a Ranger and it's more than 20 years old, you are definitely a libertarian. 100%. Our culture is crazy divided. And I've been watching as a pastor for years. And I'm telling you, the way the church has behaved in that division grieves my heart. And we're talking about it in church because that divisiveness has begun to creep into the church. And since it's beginning to divide the church, we have to talk about it in the church. And here's how I know it's entered into the church. Because of this one question that we've heard, that we've asked, that we've been asked. How could you be a Christian and vote for blank? How could you possibly be a Christian and vote for blank? I told Laura, the lady running our slides this morning, that I left that blank open for her. She was free to put whatever she wanted there. She really wussed out. How can we be a, how could, this is, we asked this. How could you be a Christian and vote for him or vote for her? How could you claim to have a faith and back a party that is not aligned with your faith according to what I think your faith should be? How can you be a Christian and be happy about that policy, be happy about that ruling? How can you be a Christian and be sad about that policy or that ruling? Where what we do, and this is so important, is we begin to judge people's faith by their politics. The way that we think about politics should flow from the way that we think about our faith, that they should matter and be related. But where we get into trouble is when we start to judge the faith of a Christian brother or sister based on their politics and guys I'm telling you judging a Christian by their politics makes no more sense than judging my politics by my car it's foolish and we should be bigger than that. But we hear it over and over and over again. And so I would say this to us this morning as a church. If my politics cause me to question or cut off a Christian brother or sister, then I hold my politics too tightly. If I hold my political ideology so firmly that I judge the faith of a Christian brother and sister who doesn't vote like I do, or just overall intelligence, then what that tells me is that I'm holding my politics too tightly and I need to recalibrate. And listen, I know that this happens in this church because you have confessed it to me. Because I have had conversations with you on both sides where you will say something to me, you know, I love so-and-so, I just have a hard time understanding how they could vote that way. And it causes me to question them sometimes. On both sides. And that's damaging to the church. That's damaging to our unity. Can I just tell you? I've had the privilege of talking with plenty of folks from Grace about political issues who disagree with me a lot. But in that disagreement, and in our conversations over beers or dinner or whatever, you know what I have found about the side that thinks differently than me? That they love Jesus. That they know their scripture. That they're thoughtful in their vote. And that they deserve just as much credit for their ideas as I do for mine. There's this damaging way in the world where we frame up the side that doesn't vote like us as ignorant or silly or stupid or uninformed. And it's so funny to me how both sides think the other side is deceived and that they're the ones that know the right ways. We both think that of each other. Can we, this year, as believers, give people who don't vote like us the benefit of the doubt? Can we assume about them that they've put as much thought into their vote as I have into mine? That their vote is actually reflective of Christian values that they love and hold dear? And we just play those things out differently? Can we this year at Grace give the other side the benefit of the doubt? Let me tell you the biggest reason that we should do this. It's actually because of something that Jesus says in his prayer. I'll refer you back to John chapter 17, this time in verse 14. He says, I have given them your word and the world has hated them for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. He's talking about the disciples. And he says, they are not of this world any more than I am of this world. And I have a note in my Bible off to the side that just says citizens of heaven. And I think that's such an important principle for believers to understand. Once you are saved, once you accept Christ as your savior, once you believe that he is who he says he is, believe that he did what he said he did, believe that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. Once you do that, you become a citizen of heaven. You are not of this world anymore. I brought this up in January to plant a seed of this idea in the congregation that we are citizens of heaven because I knew I was going to come to it in March when it came time for this. Guys, we are citizens of heaven. We are not citizens of the United States of America. We are, but that's beneath our ultimate citizenship. We are aliens here. We do not belong here. We are sojourners. The only reason God doesn't snap us right up to heaven once we become a Christian is so that we can take as many people with us along the way as is humanly possible. It's the only reason we're here. But we are citizens of heaven. We are not citizens here. Listen to me. This is so important. The church is above partisan American politics. We're above it. Politics are beneath us. Do you understand? The church is above that. We exist above the fray. We ought not get mired in silly Facebook debates and arguments with people that only lead to anger and are not productive. We're above that, church. We're citizens of heaven. Our fidelity is to God. Our nation is in eternity. This temporal stuff, see, to people who don't believe, to people who don't have a faith, politics is a huge deal because it's how you bring about change and it's how you affect the world and it's how you form it into what you want it to be. But we skip a step, guys. We're not going to American politics. We're not looking at the president of the Supreme Court or the Senate or the governor or any of that to bring about the will of God. We're looking to God to pull those levers. We serve something higher. And when we get mired in the divisiveness of the world, in the grenade throwing and in the lobbying and in the attacking and in the judgment, we forget who we are. And I'm not saying this to upset anyone or to offend anyone, but maybe it can help us frame up the way we think about ourselves and what our relationship to politics ought to be. And listen, I'm not saying that Christians shouldn't have political opinions. I have a ton. I'm not going to say a single one of them from here. But I'd love to talk with you about them. I'd love to have a conversation. I get so much from talking about different ideas with people. I love it. Be as interested as you want. I have nothing to say to you about that. Be as disinterested as you want. I have nothing to say to you about that. My goal this morning is not at all to tell you how to vote or to even get you to think about your vote. My only goal this morning is to get us to think about how we think about people who don't vote like we do. So here's my prayer. And here's what I want to invite you into with me. Let's all pray that in 2024, grace can be an oasis of unity and a desert of division. Let's make it our prayer that this place, we don't get to impact Big C Church, but we can decide who we want to be here. That grace will be an oasis of unity and a desert of division. This is actually something I'm proud of Grace about. We are a purple church. We have people on both sides. And we play nice together. And I'm so grateful for that. But I think that we have strides to take. I think that we have room to grow. And I want to know that the people of grace, as we're interacting in the community, as we carry ourselves through the rest of this year, and guys, it's only going to get worse. It's only going to get worse. The division and the disunity and all the lob throwing and all the garbage, all the crud, it's only going to get worse. What if, as that happens around us, we can be this oasis of unity that sees ourself above the fray, that understands that we are citizens of heaven first, loyal to our Savior before a country. And we're actually unified. And we actually love each other. And we refuse to allow the divisiveness out there creep into here and disrupt what God wants to do with us. So in 2024, please pray with me that grace will be an oasis of unity and a desert of division. Thank you for listening and for not walking out. If you have questions about anything, I'd love to get an email and have a conversation. I'm going to pray and then in a show of unity, we're going to shout out to God together. Let's pray. Father, we are sorry for where we have allowed our political ideology to color the way we think about your children. And Father, we ask that you would remove that sin from us. Father, I ask that you would remove it from me. Lord, the enemy and the world would seek to distract your church by dividing us with small fights and squabbles. Would you remind us, God, that we don't belong here, we belong with you, that we are citizens of heaven, and that we are above what's happening now. Help us be agents of peace and unity in our various circles of influence. Help us to be beacons that shine above the fray as this is going to be a hard year for our country and for our communities. God, unite us under you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Hi, good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Before I dive into the sermon, a couple things about worship. First of all, Carly B. killed it on that last song. That was great. Yeah, I don't know where she is, but good job, Carly. Her last name is Buchanan, so we call her Carly B. around here. And then the second thing, I just want to let you in on something. And I feel like this is an important matter to bring to the church. Aaron's back there. He knows what I'm about to talk about. I don't know if you noticed during the second song that Carly and Aaron were smiling and looking at me, and I was laughing. Here's why, and I feel like we should all weigh in on this as partners. If you're not from the South, I don't care what you think about this. One of my favorite things about hymns, I'm just totally, this has nothing to do with anything. I'm just telling you a story. One of my favorite things about hymns is how liberal the writers are with apostrophes. In hymns, they'll apostrophe anything, right? And one of my favorite ones is victory. Not victory like an obnoxious carpetbagger. Victory like a southerner. You know what I'm saying? Like victory. It's best in Victory in Jesus, that old hymn. So anyways, last week we're singing that song that we sang, the second one. What's that called, Aaron? I'm not telling. And there's victory in there. There's the word victory in there, but you sing it victory. You know, you sing it like that, but it's not apostrophe. Now it's bummed out. And then like two slides down, we apostrophed flowers, the E in flowers. How do you even, flowers, how do you even say that? That's not a thing. How are we going to apostrophe flowers and not victory? So it just made me mad. And I told Aaron and Carly last week, and I didn't know we were singing it this week. So it comes up and they're both giggling at me and I'm grinning at them. Anyways, now you know too, and we can together peer pressure him to fix the lyrics. So there is an apostrophe and victory as the Lord intended. Okay, let's get started. Actually, these words don't mean anything to you because I know that I'm the boy that cries excited. I know that. I'm excited about everything that I get to preach. I know that I say that to you. I'm really excited about this. This is a sermon that I knew I was going to preach as soon as we planned the series. I knew that we would arrive at this passage, and I've been very much looking forward to diving into it with you. So if you have a Bible with you, and I hope you do, go ahead and turn it to John chapter 13. This is the beginning of the Upper Room Discourse. You'll remember that this is a series called Final Thoughts. These are the final things that Jesus shared with the disciples before he was arrested and tried and crucified. And so it's just Jesus and the disciples in the upper room, and he has some final thoughts for them, and they're in John chapters 13 through 17. So the back half of John chapter 13, after washing their feet, Jesus starts to share with them. And if you look at verses 34 and 35, I'm not sure that you could definitively say what the most important and profound words of Christ are in his whole life. I don't know that there would be an agreement among scholars or pastors or believers as to what are the most important, most profound words Jesus ever spoke. But I know that you couldn't have that conversation without talking about what we find in those verses. I believe that what Jesus says here is so profound and powerful that hyperbole is lost on the import of these verses. So I want to look at them and read them with you. If you're a believer, I hope these are well-trodden verses for you. I hope you already almost know them before I even say them. And I hope, if you have your Bible with you, that you'll grab a pen and that you'll underline these verses. And that you'll highlight some of the phrases. We're going to spend the whole morning in these two verses, and we're going to look at three profound statements that Jesus makes in this compact section of text. And I hope that you'll take a pen and you'll underline and you'll mark. I hope that you'll make notes for yourself in your Bible. I've learned from a young age that if you show me a Bible that's falling apart, then I'll show you a person who isn't. So let's beat up our Bibles. Let's mark in them. Let's scratch in them. And let's note this passage together. John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35. This is Jesus speaking. A new command I give you. Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. That's a well-worn passage. This is a passage we ought to be familiar with. This is a passage of which the profundity cannot be overstated. It's so profound and stuck with the disciples so much in their memory that 30 years later, when two people who were in the room, Peter and John, when they write their epistles, when they write their letters to the church to be spread throughout the church and read throughout the church, they both included this maxim in their instructions, in their brief instructions to the church. In 1 Peter 4, 8, Peter says, above all else, love one another dearly. After everything's said and done, love one another dearly. John, in his three letters, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, over and over and over again, if you say you believe in God and you do not love your brother, then you are a liar and the truth is not in you. He brings it back to love, back to love, back to love. Even Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, was not in this room, did not hear this teaching personally, but heard it proclaimed by the disciples after him. When Paul writes his letter to Corinth, he ends it with that famous love passage. And he says, now after everything is said and done, in eternity, these three things remain, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these? Love. We cannot overstate the importance, the efficacy, and the power of love. And this is what Jesus commands us here. It's how he opens his closing remarks. And so if it's so powerful and effective that everyone who's ever followed Jesus has reminded the people that they lead of this command, then we ought to look at the command and examine it and pick it apart and seek to understand it. And, I think, let the power of it wash over us. So the first portion of the text I want to point you to, a profound statement, is when he says this, a new command I give you. A new command I give you. Underline that in your Bible. Here's why this is profound. We know, because we have the benefit of hindsight, that Jesus is God. We understand the deity of Christ. They did not. They did not yet understand the deity of Christ. Certainly not the way that we do. You remember that when they're on the Sea of Galilee and Jesus is sleeping in the hull of the ship and the wind and the waves are crashing, that they go down and they wake Jesus up. And he says, peace be still. And the storm calms. And he goes back to sleep, a little bit annoyed that his nap got interrupted. And the disciples looked at each other. And they said, it's in the text. And they said, who is this that even the wind and the waves would obey him? They still do not understand the deity of Christ. In this moment, they understand loosely the deity of Christ, but not like we do. And so when Jesus says this new command I give you, he is placing himself solidly in the Trinity. He is placing himself as God because a new command has not been given for 4,000 years. 4,000 years ago, Moses walked down the mountain with two tablets of stone with a lot more than 10 commandments written on them. If you read the text, you find it was the 10, but then they were covered front and back. There's 630 some odd laws in the Old Testament based on Mosaic law. Nobody in Israel since then had given a new commandment because nobody had the authority to do it. Moses gave the commandments from God himself. God himself wrote on those tablets and gave them to Moses, and no one had questioned it since then. No one gives new commandments. That's not a thing that you can do unless you're God. So when Jesus says this, he's claiming that he is God. And I don't know how to help us understand how radical what he's doing is, but the only thing I can equate it to is our Bill of Rights, our Constitution. No citizen can just decide, I'm going to add an amendment. I hereby declare, and then add an amendment. As a matter of fact, we'll test this out. I'd like to add one right now. I hereby declare as an amendment to the United States Constitution that daylight savings time is stupid and abolished. I woke up an hour and a half late this morning. I should have only been a half hour late. But daylight savings time. It's stupid. And likes it. And nobody needs it. We're long since agrarian. All right. Nebraska can keep it if they want it. We're squared away. Thanks. But that doesn't do anything. I don't just get to add amendments willy-nilly. There's a whole process. If we can't add amendments to a document that some guys wrote 200 years ago, you definitely can't start adding commandments that God wrote 4,000 years ago. But Jesus does. And he says it's a new one. And this commandment, one of the things that makes it so radical, is that this commandment serves as a summary for all the commandments. This commandment serves as a summary for all the commandments. It's not that Jesus is saying, you don't have to worry about any of the stuff that you've been commanded previously. Go be adulterers. Go murder people. Knock yourselves out as long as you're loving people on the way. You're good. That's not the idea. We get a glimpse of the idea earlier in Christ's life when someone says, what's the greatest commandment? And the response is, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. These are the greatest commandments with promise. On these hang the law and the prophets, meaning the entire Old Testament. And so what Jesus says in that statement is, basically, if you'll focus on loving God and loving others, the commandments will take care of themselves. It's not that you won't be walking in obedience or you'll be walking in disobedience to them. It's that you will automatically obey them by default. And so Jesus is being even more succinct here with this new commandment to love others as I have loved you and saying, as a matter of fact, just love others as I have loved you. Because if you're doing that, if you are loving the people in your life as Jesus loves us, you will by default be loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Because you cannot love as Jesus loved if you're not fueled by Jesus. You will by default. you're not going to have an affair. You're not going to go around murdering. You're not going to steal. You're not going to say unkind words. You're going to outdo one another in hospitality. You're going to be generous. You're going to be humble. You're not going to be greedy if we simply love other people as Christ loved us. It's the command that summarizes all the other commands, which makes it such an impactful command. And here's why it takes walking with Jesus to love like Jesus. Because Jesus loved in superhuman ways. That's the second big one I want you to underline. Let me just say it real quick. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. That's the new command. Now here's why this is so radical. Have you ever been betrayed? Have you ever let someone into your life? Made yourself vulnerable to them? Given them the power to hurt you? And they have? Which, by the way, I think is vitally important to live vulnerable lives and have people invited into our life who do have the power and the capacity to hurt us because they know us that well and we love them that much. That's okay. That's a good thing. But have you ever done that with somebody who then betrayed you? Who used that exposure to hurt you? I know I've not experienced terrible betrayal, but I've tasted it. I've let people in, shared things, been vulnerable with them, and then that ended up getting used against me. That ended up getting turned towards me. That ended up with them judging me and not loving me. And that's hard. I shared years ago about when I did a sermon on forgiveness about a dear friend of mine whose husband had been having multiple affairs and it all blew up in their face one day. She had five kids under the age of 10. That's betrayal. I've never experienced betrayal like that. But I've tasted what it is to let someone in and then watch them hurt me. And if you've experienced betrayal too, let me ask you a question. If you could go back to when that person who hurt you entered into your life, and there was some sort of divine whisper that came to you and said, hey, just so you know, if you let this person in, they will hurt you. They are going to betray you. They're going to let you down and betray your confidence. If you somehow knew that at the very beginning of the relationship where they entered your life, if you knew it, how differently would you treat them? How much would you let them in? Would you let them in at all? When I think of the people who've hurt me, I go back to those places. If you were to ask me that question, hey, if you knew at the beginning that they were going to hurt you if you let them in, what would you do? I wouldn't be their friend. I wouldn't let them in. If my life forced me to be around them, I would be very guarded. I would have treated them completely differently. How would you treat the people in your life who have hurt you if you knew at the onset that they were going to do that? Would you have loved them differently? Would you have not let them in? Would that relationship have looked different? Something occurred to me as I was thinking through this passage. Immediately before Jesus starts this teaching, do you know what happened? He washed the feet of the disciples. And then he said, one of you is going to betray me. And then it comes that it was Judas. And he looked at Judas and he says one of the coolest lines in the Bible, what you're about to do, go and do it quickly. And Judas goes to betray him. Don't miss this. Jesus knew. He knew when he invited him in. When he called Judas to be his disciple. He knew. He knew he was going to get betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. He knew that. He knew who Jesus was when he walked up to him and he tapped his shoulder and he said, I want to invite you into my life for three years. I want you to spend every day with me. And I know what you're going to do at the end of those three years and you don't even know it yet. Jesus knew, man. And here's what's amazing. Nobody else did. We have no indication whatsoever from the text that Jesus treated Judas any differently than any of the other disciples. When they're sitting around the table, and Jesus says, one of you is going to betray me, nobody went, it's Judas, isn't it? I knew. I could tell. Nobody did that. Because Jesus treated them all the same. You understand that? He loved them all the same. For three years, he loved Judas with the same consistency and compassion and tenderness that he loved John. Polar opposite of a disciple. Is that not remarkable? How could you do that? How could you walk every day with someone who was going to betray you to be killed? Not just hurt your feelings like a little sissy, but betray you to be killed. Was gonna be the one who kissed you on the cheek to identify you to the guard of the high priest so that they could arrest you and beat you and kill you. And you love them the exact same as all their peers. Right before Jesus was betrayed, he washed Judas' feet. His grimy, sandaled, third world feet. So that he could go collect his betrayal money with clean toes. He had the freshly minted, humble love of Christ on his feet when he went to cash his check. And that's how Jesus loves Judas. Now here's what's important. You are Judas. I am Judas. We have, all of us, betrayed Christ in word and thought and deed. All of us have trampled on the grace of Christ. All of us have presumed upon his mercy. All of us have cheapened the blood of his sacrifice with our actions and our attitudes and our words. All of us. We are Judas. And yet, knowing the betrayal that you would bring, Jesus loves you anyways. That's the reckless nature of the love that we just sang about a few minutes ago. He continues to pursue us. He continues to come after us. He knows you're going to betray him in word and deed. He knows that you're going to trample on his death. He knows that you're going to cheapen his blood. He knows that and he loves you anyways. And you push him away and you betray him and you act in a way during the week that you won't act on a Sunday morning or you won't act on small group or you'll watch things that you're not supposed to watch. You'll take in things that you're not supposed to take in. You'll foster attitudes that you know he doesn't love and that he doesn't approve of. But he died for those anyways. He knew that you were going to betray him over and over and over again and he died for you anyways. He went anyways. He washed your feet anyways. He loved you anyways. That's how Jesus loves. So when Jesus says, go and love as I have loved you, that's what he means. Go love other people like I love Judas. It's not fair. They're going to hurt you. Okay, that's how I loved. They're not going to reciprocate. You're going to feel foolish. Okay. That's how I loved. It's going to cost something from me that I'm not going to get back. Okay. That's how I loved. That love is so powerful and profound that loving like Jesus is only made possible by walking with Jesus. Loving like Jesus is only made possible by walking with Jesus. We just spent two weeks on abiding in Christ. Two weeks on what it means to abide in him. If we are not abiding in Christ, there is no possible way we can love like Jesus loved. And what's interesting is the promise of abiding is abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit. What's the fruit of abiding in Christ? This kind of love. Sacrificial, reckless love that overcomes betrayal and humanity and hardship. This is the fruit of abiding in Christ. And here's what's remarkable about this fruit. Here's, not only does loving others as Christ loved us keep us in line with all the commandments, not only does it keep us attached to him and abiding in him because it's the only possible way to love like that, but it also becomes our defining marker. This is the third remarkable statement that we find in these verses. The third one, underline this. By this, everyone will know you are my disciples. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples. Love, we are told, church, is to be our defining marker to the world. And it's interesting to me how off the mark we can get. I remember one time when I missed the mark really, really badly. I was 15 years old, and we were hosting at our house Thanksgiving or Christmas for my mom's family that year. And we were a teetotaling house. No alcohol at all, ever. It was demon's liquor. And my aunt came over with, at the time, her roommate, Molly. And they brought with them a bottle of wine. And we didn't have a corkscrew in the house. We didn't have a wine opener. And so my mom said, son, will you go next door and borrow a corkscrew from our neighbor? And I, in my misguided 15-year-old piety, said, absolutely not. We don't drink alcohol in this house. And we're not starting today. Not doing it. God help my parents. I must have been impossible. Don't worry. Have you met Lily? I've got it coming. I'm going to walk the path. I refused to go. And my mom, I think probably a little misguidedly proud of me then, and now she's as ashamed of this as I am, didn't make me. I just said, well, looks like we're not doing it today, Indiana. And they put their bottle of wine back in the car. Now, Deanna and Molly had walked away from the church at that point. And as I reflect back on my actions that day, I'm so ashamed that I thought that the defining marker for my faith that day needed to be my piety and my holiness and the rules that I followed and the things that I did and didn't do. And we get really misguided at church that the best Christians are the ones who have the best grasp on their behavior, who do the things they're supposed to do and don't do the things they're not supposed to do, and the best knowledge of Scripture. We tend to judge someone's faith not by how well they love, which is what Jesus says the defining marker should be, but we judge the faith of others by how well they've reined in their behavior and how much they've learned about scripture. And don't get me wrong, those things are important. God is a God of holiness. He does want us to press towards piety, but the press towards piety, the press towards holiness, the press towards righteousness, the press towards having a guilt-free conscience should be in a desire to love as Jesus loved, not in a desire to prove ourselves and our holiness to others. And what kind of damage, what message did it send to my aunt that day? Rejection? Judgment? Holier than thou? It was a singularly unloving act to not just go get the stupid corkscrew. And instead, they felt judged. There's no way my actions turned them on to the church. There's no possible way I did that and they're like, you know what? I see Jesus in that boy. I want to know that Jesus because I want to start telling other people where they're screwing up. But isn't that historically what we look to to define spirituality. When Jesus says, the defining marker of your faith, how I want the world to know you, is by your love for other people. It ought to be our defining characteristic. And I'm not going to wade too deeply into these waters this morning because I don't have time and it's messy. But I would simply ask you, as you think about where church sits in the culture of America, is that our defining characteristic? Is that what the outside world would say that we are known for? It is, however, one of the things I am proud of grace for. Because I do think there are spots and moments where we do this really, really well. And what we see when we love really well is that love is actually the greatest apologetic. Love is the most compelling argument for Christ, especially in a culture saturated with church. If there's somebody in your neighborhood, if there's somebody you work with, if there's a friend that you have on your tennis team or wherever you go, and they don't go to church, let me tell you something. It's not because they haven't heard about it. It's not because they don't know. It's not because they haven't heard the name of Jesus and they're just waiting to be told. They know. And let me tell you something. The people that you know who don't go to church, can I just tell you, they have a reason. And can I tell you this? It's probably a good one. So the greatest apologetic to a culture of people who have on purpose turned away from the church is to love them well. It's more convincing than any book. It's more convincing than A Case for Faith by Lee Strobel, although that's a great one. It's more convincing than any argument or TV show. Showing them the love of Christ compels them towards Christ. I think this is the way I put it. Loving someone in the name of Jesus compels them towards Jesus. Loving someone in the name of Christ like Christ loves compels them towards Christ. And here's why I think it can be so effective and so contagious. I heard this story a couple of weeks ago, and I was so proud when I heard it. In the fall, we had the Addis Jamari, one of our great ministry partners doing great work with the orphans in Ethiopia, had an event last fall. And whenever there's an AJ event, Addis Jamari, it's like 75% grace people, at least, right? And so one of our partners invited some friends that they used to work with to come to the event and see what AJ does. And the friends that they invited are a part of a church in the kind of way that there's a church where you're on their membership role, which is, and you have to remove your letter and stuff like that, which is, I don't understand. I don't understand it. I got a, germane to nothing, I got a letter early on in my tenure here that someone who I had never met was requesting removal of their letter from this church to this other church down the road. And I just wrote them back and I was like, consider all letters moved, ever. You don't have to ever ask me this again. I don't know what this means. So some churches had their letter for like 20 years, but they don't really go. I haven't been since their kids went around. They're kind of cold to church. But they came to this AJ event. And after spending an evening around grace people, they pulled my friend aside and they said, there's something different here. You guys actually like, you like each other. You guys see, everyone knows everyone's name. You seem to get along. This is not like churches we've been around. We want to find out more about your church. So they did. They went to dinner. They told them a little bit more. And I've gotten to spend some time around them. And they say that they're wanting to start coming. They may be watching online. Hey. But it wasn't an argument. It wasn't an invitation. It wasn't a book. It wasn't a moment of conviction. It was an exposure to a group of people who want to connect people to Jesus and connect people to people. It was an exposure to the love and the community shared in the church. And they said, I want to be a part of that. That is a compelling love. The challenge, church, is not simply to love each other that way, but to love everyone that way and to be obedient to this new command. Can you imagine with me the power and efficacy of a church that is zealous about loving as Christ loves. Can you imagine how contagious that faith would be? Can you imagine how exuberant our worship would be every Sunday? Can you imagine how much better I'm going to have to step it up to preach to you because you've been preaching to yourself the love of Christ every day and loving everybody in your neighborhood? Can you imagine the power of a group of people who comes together and takes seriously this new command that Jesus gives us and says, you know what? Everything else is fine. It'll take care of itself. I'm going to focus on the loving. And we took steps to abide in Christ, to walk with him, and we let him produce the fruit in our lives, which is this love. And we love everybody the way that Jesus loves Judas and loves us. Can you imagine what God could do with a church of people like that? I asked you earlier, what do you think the Big C Church is known for? What's our defining characteristic? And I don't know where you went and I don't know what you thought, but here's what I do know. We don't have any say over what other churches do, nor should we, by the way. We barely deserve say here, I question it. But we have say over who we are and over what we do. And wouldn't it be amazing if when people heard the name Grace Raleigh in our community, if the first thing they thought was, that church loves well. What if that were our defining characteristic? Let's make it so, Grace. Let's be Christians who love well. Let's be Christians who make that our identifying trait over and above all the other elements of our faith. And let's watch what God can do with a church of people who love like him. Let's pray. Father, we love you because you love us. We can never hope to love like you without you. We thank you for your reckless, sacrificial love. For watching your son suffer and die the way that he did. So that you could claim souls to heaven that would betray you and trample on you over and over again on our way there. God, if nothing else, would we sit humbly and graciously in the reality of your love for us? And as we do that, Father, would it please compel us to go love others in your name? We ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Thank you, Mikey. I have prepared some dazzling things, so you guys should be duly excited. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I haven't gotten the chance to meet you, I'd love to do that in the lobby after the service. And as I always say, thank you for making grace a part of your Sunday. Mikey's right. We are launching into a new series called Final Thoughts that covers what theologians refer to as the Upper Room Discourse. It's found in John chapters 13 through 17, the back half of 13 and through 17. I'm going to tell you more about what that is and why it's so important. It should matter to every Christian. But for now, if you have a Bible, go ahead and open it to John chapter 13. We're going to be to the back, the last few verses in 13 and the first seven verses in 14 today. So open up your Bible and get there. We are going to be in this series. It's going to carry us to Easter. So my hope is that you'll bring your Bible with you on Sunday, that we give you some things that are worth noting down, that are worth highlighting, that are worth underlining and notating, and that you can kind of carry this series with you in your Bible. Now, this is what I'm thinking of as our spring series. And I know that it doesn't feel like spring because it's Super Bowl Sunday and we're in the dead of winter. But for me, every year as your pastor, this is my, believe it or not, my eighth spring with you guys, which I know time flies and we haven't even been having that much fun. It just goes quick. Every spring in the weeks preceding Easter, we sit down as a staff knowing that what we want to do is put a series in the plan that's going to be focused on the person and work of Jesus Christ. And the purpose of which within the series, the purpose of the series is to begin to prepare the hearts and the souls and the minds of the church to celebrate Easter. Easter is the greatest holiday on the Christian calendar. I know that Christmas gets a lot of attention, and it should, but Easter is when the victory is won. And so Easter is the most holy of holidays, in my opinion. And in the liturgical Christian calendar, it's all set up to get us ready for Easter. And so the purpose of each of our spring series is to prepare our hearts, minds, and souls to celebrate Easter together as a family of faith. And so we tend to do that by focusing on the person and work of Jesus Christ. In the past, we've looked at Hebrews that compares Jesus to other things and says he's the greatest. Last year, we did the table where we looked at Luke, this gospel of hospitality, and said that ministry happens around tables. And then we've looked at the life of Christ through the gospel of John. We've looked at the parables before. This year, we're going to look again at what's called the Upper Room Discourse. Again, it's found in John 13 through 17. And John is my favorite gospel. John is a unique gospel. The other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are referred to as synoptic gospels. They all follow the same kind of timeline and they cover roughly the same events. Whereas John wrote his last and covered the life of Jesus much differently than the others. And the detail that we find in these chapters is not found in the other three gospels. What we have have in the Upper Room Discourse is the longest, nearly unbroken recording of the words of Christ just to his disciples. So we have the Sermon on the Mount, and in Luke it's the Sermon by the Sea, where we see the teachings of Jesus. Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, it's a prolonged big box of words that Jesus uses to teach the masses. But here in John 13 through 17, what we have is this nearly unbroken discourse. It's not a dialogue, it's a discourse. It's almost a monologue. Very few times the disciples deign to interject. And in it, what we have is the final thoughts of Christ. Because when he's done with this discourse, when he's done with the unity prayer in John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer, he gets the armed guards of Caiaphas, the high priest, come. They arrest him. He's taken to Caiaphas' house. He's put through a kangaroo court. He's arrested, beaten, crucified. And then he raises on the third day, and then we have the book of Acts where we see what these disciples do. But before he goes, he has some final thoughts for these young men that he's training up to build his kingdom and to build his church. He has some final instructions for them, some things he wants to communicate again intimately for just his disciples. Most of the time when he's communicating with them, especially at length, he's doing it when there's other people around. He's doing it for a big audience. This is just for his disciples. I don't know if you realize what's about to happen. These are the young men to whom he is entrusting the keys of his kingdom. He came here. He lived a perfect life. He's about to die a perfect death. But he stayed for 33 years. He had a public ministry for three years. Why did he bother having a public ministry for three years? Why didn't he just come, live a perfect life, die a perfect death, and then bring us to heaven with him? Because he needed to leave behind the disciples to build his church. Which is what happens in Acts. And to do that, he trained them personally, intentionally for three years. And he's about to give them the keys to lead this kingdom. And he is their plan. There is no plan B. He is the plan and the way through whom he intends to reach the whole world. He is placing in the disciples trust and hope that one day, 2,000 years from now, there can be a group of people that gather in Raleigh, North Carolina, a city that did not exist and a continent that was virtually unknown back then. And he's going to trust them to spread the word of the gospel all throughout the corners in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So the thoughts that he has for the disciples here are profound. They're remarkably important. I have been fascinated for years with the upper room discourse and the things that Jesus thought was important to share in the final moments of his life. Now for a little context of what's happening here. The disciples are confused and dismayed. They've been following Jesus for three years. They entered Jerusalem the better part of a week ago. And they've been watching Jesus' ministry. And they've been watching with a certain expectation. Hopefully, you've heard me say before on stage, if you've been in my men's group, you've definitely heard me say this. But hopefully, you've heard me say before that there was only a few people. I think there's really only two people in Jesus' whole life who really knew who he was and what he really came to do. And I would argue, just for fun, that that was Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist. I think those are the only two people in the life of Christ that really understood who he was and what he came to do. Everybody else, including the disciples, misunderstood who Jesus was and what he came to do. They put expectations on him based on a poor interpretation of Old Testament prophecies that he simply did not ask for. You see, they thought Jesus came to be an earthly king and establish an earthly kingdom. They thought that when the Messiah showed up in this context in the first century A.D. or last century B.C., however you want to phrase it, that he would show up. In this case, Israel is a far-flung province of the Roman government, the Roman Empire. They thought that this Jesus person, this Messiah, when the Savior arrives, he will overthrow the king. He will sit on the throne of David. He will rise Israel to international prominence, throw off Roman rule, and be the king of kings and lord of lords. And we're going to have an Israeli empire that's going to dominate the whole earth. That's what the Messiah is going to come to do. And the disciples believe this so much that a week ago, before this conversation, a week ago, Jesus is coming into Jerusalem in what's called the triumphal entry. And James and John and the other disciples are behind Jesus arguing about who gets to be the vice president and the secretary of war and the secretary of agriculture in the new regime. They still didn't know what was going to happen. But over the course of the week in Jerusalem, they began to suspect that things were not what they expected them to be. Something seemed amiss, afoot, if you will. They could sense things moving towards a climax, but it wasn't the one they expected, but they still weren't sure what was going to be happening. And Jesus keeps dropping these hints. I'm going to tear the temple down and rebuild it in three days. He keeps dropping these hints that he's not going to do what they think he's going to do. And it's all kind of coming to a head. And in the midst of that tension and those expectations, at the Last Supper in the upper room, that's why it's called the upper room discourse, Jesus addresses his disciples in an intimate and sometimes clear way. Jesus was remarkably unclear. He liked to mess with us in that way. Because of that, because of the context of what is shared here, I would say to you that Christians should have deep interest in the upper room discourse. If you're here today, you call God your Father and Jesus your Savior, whether you're here for the first time or the thousandth, whether you ever intend to come back. One thing I can tell you for sure is if you call yourself a Christian, which I always say is to believe that Jesus is who he says he is, that he did what he said he did, and that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. If you believe those things, then the upper room discourse should be of great import to you. It should matter a great deal to you. So here's what I want to challenge you to do, Grace. During this series, first of all, I'd love you to commit to being present with us on Sunday morning if you can be. If you can't be present with us on Sunday morning, try to keep up with us online because I believe that every one of these weeks is important because they're all reflective of the words of Christ. Second, I hope that you'll read it. I hope that you'll spend time on your own steeping in John 13 through 17. And I hope that at some point, preferably early on in the series, that you'll read it straight through as it was presented and as it was intended. Take 15 or 20 minutes. For some of my friends, maybe 30 or 45. I don't know how you are. It's sounding out words. But take a few minutes and read through. You know what I'm talking about, Kentucky, right? Read through John 13 through 17. When you sit in the front, Rob, you're right there, buddy. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't help it. That's right. It's okay, buddy. Take some time between now and Easter. Read it all the way through. Let it wash over you. Then go back and read it bit by bit. I'm sure it's broken down in our reading plan that you can follow and read along if you want to. But take some time to do that because this Upper Room Discourse ought to be of great import to us. It's a hugely impactful text. And my prayer is that God will use this series to move you closer to him. and maybe change the way we go about some things in our life. The first thing I want to point out to you is really kind of parenthetical to the sermon. This is not what I'm talking about this morning, but just the way that it opens up, I think, is so profound that I wanted to at least point it out, and then we'll move move into the sermon and we'll focus, like Mikey said in the announcements, on that statement that Jesus makes, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. We're going to get there. But before we do, a little bit of context within the conversation of what they're talking about can be found in John chapter 13. I'm going to start reading in verse 33. It's not going to be on the screen. I did not tell the production team about these verses. So if you want to read along with me, please do. If you'd rather just listen, that's fine too. But John chapter 13, verse 33, I'm going to read through 14.1. So we know what's happening here. Jesus says, my children, speaking to the disciples, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me. And just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now, where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you. Love one another as I have loved you. So you must love one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. We're going to come back to that verse. That's a whole sermon. We're going to spend a whole week there. So I'm not just glazing by it. Simon Peter asked him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus replied, where I am going you cannot follow now, but you will follow later. Peter asked, Lord, why can't I follow you now? I'll lay down my life for you. And Jesus answered, will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you'll disown me three times. And then verse 1. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. So Jesus has got the disciples assembled. It's an intimate circle now. We don't talk about this a lot, but there was not just when we think about Jesus and the disciples, we think about Jesus and the 12 disciples, but really there was probably 100 to 120 people traveling around with Jesus at any given time. So the moments of intimacy between just Jesus and his disciples were not as common as you might think. So it's just them now, and they can sense something's up. And he tells them, boys, you can't come with me. You can't come with me to Caiaphas' house. You can't come with me to the dungeon where I'm going to be held overnight. You can't stand with me while I'm being beaten and being spat upon and being blindfolded and hit and being demanded to prophesy who hit me. You can't be with me when they drive the crown of thorns into my head or the nails into my hands and my feet. You can't be with me when I do that, and you can't be with me as I die and I go. You can't be with me in those places. But you can come in a little while. And then, because the disciples, you've got to understand, are completely and totally dismayed and confused by this. They do not know that in a few hours Jesus is going to die on a cross, that he's going to raise himself from the dead, and in doing so is going to conquer death and sin for all time. They do not know that he is making a way into a perfect eternity in heaven with him and with his Father. They do not know that. They do not know that they are going to be left to be the leaders of the church and to bring as many people as possible with them to heaven on the way. They do not understand that yet. What they think is that Jesus is supposed to be the king of Israel and they're going to be with him as he rises to prominence. And so when Jesus starts talking about this stuff, where I'm going to go, you can't come, they're like, wait a second, that's not the deal. The whole reason we've been doing the whole bread and fish thing and sleeping on rocks for the last three years is so we could come with you. So you're kind of breaking the agreement here, Jesus. He says, where I'm going to go, you can't come. And Peter, you're about to deny me three times. I know you don't think you will, but you're going to. All of this confuses and dismays them. To which Jesus, as he launches into the upper room discourse, opens it with, let not your hearts be troubled. Do not worry. Do not be anxious. Don't let your hearts be troubled. His first words out of his mouth to his confused and dismayed disciples are those of comfort and of peace and of healing. And so it occurs to me, and again, this is parenthetical. That's why in your notes, it's literally in parentheses. And on the screen, it's literally in parentheses. This is not the point of the sermon. I just couldn't breeze past it without making the point. Worry and anxiety are not God's will. To carry constantly worry and anxiety are not God's will for you or your life or for the people around you. If you feel confused and dismayed and anxious and concerned and worried, that is not from God. That is not something that God wants you to feel. That is not his will for you. This does not mean that we can't be anxious and that we can't be worried or that we can't be concerned. But what I want you to know is that when we feel those things and they are pervasive and we live in a pandemic of anxiety, those things are not from God. Those things are not his will. And I believe us, I believe whether it's through counseling or conversation or prayer or devotion or small groups or service or whatever it might be, that God gives us every tool that we need to overcome the enemies of worry and anxiety. But what we see reflected in the heart of Jesus is that he doesn't just launch right into instructions for them without first comforting them and making sure that they felt peace. And he has that same desire for you and for me. I don't want to guilt anyone who walks with those things, but I do want you to hear your pastor say from stage that those things are not God's will for you. And he gives you the tools to begin to combat those because he is ultimately a God of comfort. Now, let's look at what else he says. John place where I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and you have seen me. I don't know about you guys and maybe no one can relate to this, but when I read those words, I'm going to prepare a place for you. In my father's house, there are many rooms. When I was a kid, I learned at many mansions, which sounds better. I don't want a condo, God. I'd like a whole, you know, whole place. In my father's house are many rooms. I'm going to go there. I'm going to prepare a place for you. If it were not so, I would have told you. I don't know how far back into your memory church goes, but for me, I don't have memories without church. And so I don't know how to describe it other than when I read these words, it feels in a way that I'm already going home. It feels like this warm blanket of these familiarly trodden paths, and I just love returning to them. When I read those words, I'm going to prepare a place for you. If it were not so, I would have told you. It already feels like welcome home. And this is the idea that we get where this is the whole place where we get the idea that Jesus is preparing a place for us, that there is a home in heaven for us, be it an apartment or a mansion. When we get there, we're not going to care at all. And it's also where I believe that I've done funerals before and I've lost loved ones. And for the ones that are hospitable, for the ones that love to have people around, it always occurs to me that they're going to go and they're going to work with Jesus to begin to prepare a place for us. This passage is the reason I believe that when I get to heaven that my papa will be there and he will have a fried catfish and creole spread out waiting for me and there's going to be a big dinner. Now I can't back that up theologically. I don't know for sure that's going to happen, but it doesn't hurt me to think it. So Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us. And here's what I love. Here's what I love. He says, I'm going to this place. I'm going to prepare a place for you there. Talking to the disciples and in turn, anyone who ever believes in him. And he says, you know the way to where I am going. And Thomas interjects. And Thomas gets a bad rap. Thomas is referred to as doubting Thomas. But I just think Thomas was the guy who was willing to say what everybody else was thinking, Thomas. And I got a lot of respect for that guy. Because I try to be that guy. And sometimes it doesn't work out. You got to be careful when you think you're thinking what everybody else is thinking. And then you throw it out there and people are like, we were not thinking that you jerk. Cool. Sorry. But Jesus says, I'm going to go to this place and you already know the way there. And Thomas goes, I don't, I don't think we do. And to that Jesus says, yes, you do. Because I am the way. And I am the truth. And I am the life. And no man comes to the Father except through me. And in that sentence, in that phrasing, what Jesus does is extend comfort and assurance and an invitation to Thomas. Thomas says, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know where you're going. We know he's talking about heaven. He says, I don't know how to get there. And Jesus says, you do so. You've known me for years. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I'm the only way you get to the Father. From now on, you know the Father because you know me. Don't you see that what Jesus is doing here is, first of all, he's assuaging Thomas' concerns and fears. He's comforting him, and he's extending him an invitation into eternal life with him and the Father. This verse, this statement, I am the way, the truth, and the life, as Jesus intended it, was an invitation into fellowship and eternal life with him. It was a statement of comfort and assurance and welcoming. Which is why how the church has treated this verse historically makes me really sad. For some of you, what I'm about to say, you will not be able to relate to at all. You don't have a church background, or if you do, they didn't talk about this in your church. And listen, you're lucky if you can't relate to what I'm about to say. But some of you can relate to exactly what I'm about to say. Because in the evangelical conservatism that I grew up in, this verse was used as a virtual cudgel to play whack-a-mole against world religions. It was used as a weapon to knock doubting middle schoolers back in line. Do you understand what I'm saying? We would refer to this verse, how do we know that the Muslims are wrong? Because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through me. So they're out and we're in because we believe in Jesus. Some middle schooler raises their hand in youth group, I'm not sure if I understand. I'm not sure if I believe. Well, you better believe because Jesus tells us right here in John 14, upper room discourse. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. And the way that I've seen this verse used in the last couple decades of church history is as a weapon to keep people out and to win arguments rather than an invitation extended to invite people in. It's the last nail that we drive into the coffin of apologetics to prove that we have an airtight argument against all comers that don't believe in Jesus. And listen, you can use it that way if you want to. If you want to reduce this verse to that, you can. If you want to take from this verse what Jesus is saying and make it mean the Muslims aren't in and the Buddhists aren't in and the Confucians aren't in and the Hindus aren't in and the Pantheists aren't in and the Atheists aren't in, and the Hindus aren't in, and the Pantheists aren't in, and the Atheists aren't in. They're all out, and we're all in. Praise God that we're not going to burn. If you want to use it that way, you can. But frankly, you look like a tourist wandering around Gatlinburg taking pictures with an iPad. You can do that if you want. You can take a picture at Ripley's with your iPad if you want to, but you look stupid. The iPad was invented for other uses. Can you take pictures with it? Sure. But you're probably over 65 if you're doing it. I'm just saying. Technically, it will do that. That is not the purpose for which it was intended. Technically, if we want to, we can use that verse to draw lines between us and others, between out and in. But I simply want to point out to you that when Jesus made the statement that became the verse, that is not what he intended. Jesus was not attempting to draw lines here. Jesus was not giving us a way to tell people whether they were in and out according to how we understand theology. He was not attempting to set up an apologetic fence so we would know who to include and exclude. Jesus was offering comfort and an invitation to Thomas. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And the people of the early church believed in this statement so ardently. And those around them in the cultures in which they were surrounded, in Ephesus, and in Rome, and in Corinth, and in Thessalonica, they believed in this principle so much that did you know that the early Christians, the first few generations of Christians after Christ were not called Christians. They were called the believers of the way. The followers of the way. Every now and again you'll see the church of the way. This is why. It's a stupid name for a church, but it's where they get it. And when Jesus said it, it was an invitation, not a weapon. When we use this verse as a weapon, we are more concerned with winning an argument than saving a soul. We can repeat this verse as a defense of the faith and as a way to draw lines between us and them. But when we do that, I think it belies an underlying desire that has more to do with being technically right than winning people over to our Jesus. It shows me that we're more concerned with drawing lines than inviting people in. This is such an important concept that when we get to the unity prayer, I'm going to spend a whole Sunday morning talking about the sins of the church and our insistence on looking at other churches and other Christians and other denominations and telling them, you're not Christian enough. You need to be Christians like us. When Jesus nowhere does that. But for this morning, in our corner, in our small corner of the kingdom that God has entrusted to us at Grace Raleigh, let's not use this verse as a weapon to draw lines, as a cudgel to defeat world religions, as an apologetic staple to win the argument. Let's use it for what it was intended, an invitation to us and to everyone we've ever met to come to know Jesus. See, I believe, based on Romans 1, where Paul writes that God has revealed himself as nature so that no man is without excuse. Based on Romans 1, I believe that Jesus has, when he says that verse, you already know the way. I believe that's true of every person that's ever existed. And that what evangelism looks like for a Christian is to help people see that Jesus has been showing up in their lives since the day that they were born. And you already know the way. And he desperately wants to know you. And he is the truth and the life and he is the way by whom you come to the Father. He's going and he is preparing an eternity for you. And he desperately wants you to join him there. He wants you to join him in eternity so badly that he condescended and took on sin and hell and death for you. And he endured the most painful death that mankind has ever invented so that he could go and pray. He made a way so that he could prepare a way so that you could follow the way until we are there for all of eternity. That's the invitation that Jesus extends to us in this verse. That's the comfort he offers to Thomas. Thomas, you already know the way. I've been working in and speaking to your soul since the day that you were born. You've been lucky enough to walk with me for three years. You know the way. And I believe that when we share the gospel and the good news of Jesus with our friends and our brothers and sisters who don't believe yet or may even believe something different, I believe that Jesus has revealed himself to them, that there's something in them that knows the way. And when we extend the same invitation that Jesus does, we move them a little bit closer to seeing that Jesus has been speaking to them for their whole life. So I want to plead with you to use this verse. I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through me. I want to plead with you to use it as an invitation, not a weapon. As a welcoming end, not a dividing line. I think it's a much more rich and frankly textually consistent way to understand that passage than to pluck it out of its context and use it as a weapon. So what do we do with this? What's the takeaway here? Whenever I think about a sermon, I think about the so what. What's the so what? Okay, that's true. I have a better understanding of that. I see it in this context of Jesus extending this invitation to Thomas. What am I to do with that? Well, Jesus answers this question for us. If we were to ask Jesus, I believe you, that's true. Now, what would you have me do with it? He answers this in John chapter 14, verses 11 and 12. So if you just look down the page in your Bible just a little bit further, verse 11 he says this, Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do greater things than these because I am going to the Father. What are we supposed to do with this realization that Jesus is the way? That he's extended an invitation to us that we are to in turn extend to others. But verse 11, he tells us, he says it plainly. Believe in me. Believe in me. What are we supposed to do with the revelation that Jesus is the way? Believe in him. Have faith in him. Two things occur to me here. The first is just how much I love the symmetry of scripture and what Jesus teaches. Because those of you who were here for the first Sunday of the year on January the 7th, well, I guess it was the second Sunday of the year, but the first one that we observed this Sunday, for the first service of the year on January the 7th, I preached about the Ephesians prayer, and I preached about Paul's opening desire. What does he pray for his churches? That through the power of God, through the movement of the Spirit, that Christ would indwell their hearts through faith. The riches of God, the power of the Spirit, that Christ would indwell their hearts through faith. What's his first prayer and priority? For everyone that he encounters, that they would know Jesus. That in our words, they would be saved. What does Jesus want us to do in light of the revelation that he is the way, the truth, and the life. He wants us to be saved. He wants us to believe him. It's also Jesus's first prayer and priority for anyone that he meets. You know what's so wonderful is I've had some conversations since that first Sunday of the year with some people who are beginning to express the faith, who had faith, but it was young and immature and brittle and maybe never took hold, and then they left the faith because of questions that they had. But now God has been moving in their hearts. Jesus has been revealing himself to them. They're coming to recognize him as the way, and they've articulated to me, we believe, but we want to believe more. We want a stronger belief. And so, if you were here that Sunday, and you heard me encourage you, pray for your children that they would know God. Pray for your family that they would know God. Pray for your friends and your loved ones that they would know God. He's answering those prayers. Keep praying them. And we come back to the very beginning of this series. And what's the point this morning? Believe in God. That Jesus' first prayer and priority for everyone that he encountered, like Paul, was that they would be saved. That they would know him. So the first thing we do is we continue to pray that prayer for ourselves and for the people around us. The second thing we do, and this occurred to me as we were singing. The disciples say, what are we supposed to do with this? And Jesus says, believe in me. Does it occur to you that they already did? They already believed who he was? A few weeks prior, he told people, if you want to go to the kingdom of heaven, you got to eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. And everybody was like, that's weird. We're out. And they left. And he looked at Peter and he says, what about you? Are you guys going to leave? And Peter says, you are the Christ, the Son of God. You have the words of eternal life. Where are we going to go? We believe. We don't understand all the time, but we believe. We're in. And then he teaches this to the disciples. I'm going to go someplace. You can't come yet. You will be able to come. I'm going to prepare the way. We don't know the way. Yes, you do. You know me. I'm the way. That's how we do it. What should we do in light of this? Believe me. Trust me that I am who I say I am. That I did what I said I did. And that I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do. And it's moving to me that to a room full of people who already believed, Jesus' first petition to them was to continue to believe. And to you, most of whom already believe, Jesus' petition to you is to continue to believe. Because if you've believed for long enough, you know that there are battles and scars and hurts that would seek to rob you of that belief. And Jesus says, continue to believe. Through the ebbs and flows of life, through successes and failures, through sin and through victory, continue to believe. With that belief in place, with our assurance of the invitation of Christ being the way intact and understood. We're ready to approach the rest of the lessons that Jesus has for us in the Upper Room Discourse. I hope that you'll be a part of the series and that God will use it to prepare your hearts to celebrate Easter. I'm going to pray and then we're going to move into a time of communion together. Jesus, we love you. We are moved by you. We are in awe of you. We are unworthy of you. God, I pray that if anyone here doesn't know your son, that they would come to know him. That the people in this room and listening to my voice would recognize where Jesus has already been moving in their hearts, would recognize that he's already been speaking to them, he's already been showing up, and that there is a part of them, a part of their soul that already knows the way. Would they just see that for what it is? Father, would we use your words not as a way to draw people in and out of your kingdom and your will, but would we use your words as they were intended as an invitation for others to recognize that Jesus has been working in them all along? And God, would we see even this year people come to know you through our extension of that invitation? Would you give us the faith to continue to pray for the salvation of those we love the most? And God, would you give those of us who already believe the strength to continue to cling to that belief, trusting that you are the way? It's in your son's name we pray these things. Amen.

My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. It's so good to see you. Thanks again so much for making grace a part of your Sunday morning. It's such a blessing when you are. Last week we wrapped up a series in a prayer out of Ephesians that we're making the prayer for 2024. And next week we're going to launch into what's going to be our spring series. It's going to carry us to Easter called Final Thoughts. It's going to be a look at what's called the Upper Room Discourse found in the second half of John chapter 13 all the way through John chapter 17. And you'll not be surprised to know that I'm excited to go through that series with you guys. I've been doing a lot of reading and studying there and I'm'm looking forward to sharing that with you. Right here this morning, we're taking a break between series to do an update Sunday. As many of you know, hopefully all of you know, we're in the midst of a campaign to build a permanent home for grace. We do not own this space, believe it or not, as nice as it is. It's not ours. But it is our goal and our hope and our belief that God wants us to have a permanent home. So we have four acres right around the corner on Litchford on which we intend to build about a 16,000 square foot building that's out there. You can take a look at it if you want. We believe it's God's desire for us to take steps of faith to be able to build on that land and move into a permanent home from which we will minister to serve the community and hopefully draw closer to God together. And I'm going to give you an update on where we stand with that at the end of the service today, because of course I'm going to wait to the end of the service. In the meantime, I also wanted to take this morning in the sermon to talk to you about the subject of giving, which I'm sure is very exciting for everyone. Yes, no one wakes up excited to hear a sermon on giving. As a matter of fact, we kind of cringe at the idea of the sermons on giving. And I've known that I was going to need to do this since the elders at the end of last year were like, hey, man, it's been a minute since you talked about giving. And I've known that I was going to need to do this since the elders at the end of last year were like, hey man, it's been a minute since you talked about giving, and we think that's an important thing to teach the people of God about. So we need to try to work that in. And I knew that they were right, but I haven't done a sermon on giving, I think in three or four years. As a matter of fact, the last sermon at Grace that was done on the idea of giving, tithing, stewardship, generosity, whatever you want to call it, was done by Doug Bergeson, one of our elders. And one of the reasons I've waited so long to preach one on giving is because his was so good, I wanted you to forget it before I had to preach one and you compared it. But like I said, it's been three or four years since I've done a sermon on giving. And it's not for the reason that you probably think it is. It's not because I don't, I'm shy about the topic. It's not because I don't want to put in front of you things that scripture says about it. As a matter of fact, my thought in leading you guys, and I've tried to lead this way since I was hired in 2017, is to be of the mindset that this room is full of, for the most part, smart adults. For the most part. This room is full of reasonable, spiritually mature people. For the most part. This room is full of reasonable, spiritually mature people for the most part. And I need to lead you in that way. So it's not that I'm shy about giving in its relationship with the church. You all know that if you don't give to grace, then grace doesn't exist. That's how it works. You guys are aware of real life. You know that if you're a partner of grace, we need you to give to grace. That's not a secret. Now, there's misconceptions about giving sometimes, and so we may not know all the details. And when I say that, I remember back at my previous church called Greystone, we had a couple of guys who were general contractors, and they, for a while, were helping us with some of our facilities. And so we were walking through the auditorium one day, two of the general contractors and me and the executive pastor, and they looked at us and they said, so how do you guys, like, get paid? And we said, you know, the church allots us a salary. And they go, but do you, like, do you make money on commission? And we said, what? And they go, like, if you invite a family and they start to give to the church, do you get a cut of that? And I said, no, but I'm going to do that at my next church. But I'll never forget it because I thought it was funny. We laughed. No, that's not how it works. It's a set salary, yada, yada, yada. So I know that not everybody understands all the mechanics, but you know the bottom line that if you don't give to the church, the church doesn't exist. That's just how it goes. So we don't need to be shy about that. And I would say two things. One, if this is your first time with us, this is not a typical Sunday, an update Sunday, and me talking like this is. But me talking about this, it's a special, specific Sunday. And two, if it's a turnoff to you that I'm talking about giving in the church, I don't know how to give you a longer break. You're just going to be mad at me. But we need to talk about giving. And the reason that it's been a while since I've used Sunday morning to focus on it is this. I think of Sundays, and there's more ways to think about them than this, but rudimentarily, I think of Sundays as either strategic Sundays or spiritual Sundays. Spiritual Sundays push the needle forward spiritually. They challenge us. They encourage us. They inspire us. They draw us closer to God. We leave here desiring God more. We leave here desiring to know Jesus more deeply. We leave here with hopefully our roots deepened a little bit. And spiritual Sundays are what I want to do every Sunday. You guys will remember, I'm not sure if it was last fall or fall before last, when we said, hey, we're not doing announcements anymore. And some of y'all made fun of me. And then we didn't start doing announcements again. We just started taking some time to tell you what was going on in the church. But the reason we did that is because we felt, Aaron and I did, that they disrupted the spiritual flow of what was happening in the service. And we didn't want to keep doing that. We wanted the service to be spiritual in nature and spiritual in focus, and for you guys to leave focusing on that, we didn't want to denigrate it with bringing it down to this practical level, but we had to accept and acknowledge that the Sunday morning time has to do some things for the church body that can't all be 100% spiritual all the time. And so we've accepted that and we've reinstalled announcements and that's fine. But in that ethos is a desire for every Sunday morning to be a spiritual encounter for you with your creator so you leave here feeling a little bit closer to him and more desirous of him than you did when you entered. So there's spiritual Sundays, but then there's also strategic Sundays. Strategic Sundays are Sundays that are necessary to inform you guys, to direct us, to point us to a place, to bring you along, and it's something that's needed in the life of the church at the time. And that's how I've kind of thought about giving sermons. Is that from time to time it's necessary to talk about giving because we need you guys to give so that we can do God's will. Because giving allows us to go and to serve God. Giving allows us to go and to build God's kingdom. Giving allows us to accomplish spiritual things. But as this sermon was coming up, and I was kind of wrapping my head around what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it, it was really impressed upon me that I was very wrong in the way that I thought about the approach to those Sundays. And I wasn't wrong intentionally. I never made a conscious decision to relegate giving as a strategic topic rather than a spiritual one. I just somehow did it, thinking if we focus on spiritual things, that the other behaviors and practices will follow that are necessary. So let's just keep having spiritual Sundays. And how I've shortchanged you guys is by failing to realize that a Sunday spent talking about giving is very much a spiritual Sunday. Giving is a spiritually impactful act. And in fact, I would say the spiritual value of giving is diminished when we regard it as a means to an end. Giving doesn't allow us to serve God. It is serving God. Giving doesn't enable us to do God's will. It is God's will. Giving doesn't make spiritual things possible. It is a spiritual thing. It is what's best for us. It is what's good for us. God desires us to grow in our capacity to give. It is a spiritual discipline that is just as important as any other spiritual discipline. I said it this way. Learning to give is just as spiritually impactful as learning to repent. Learning to give is just as spiritually impactful as learning to repent. And that word repent there there I kind of labored over what to put there just consider it a placeholder for any spiritual discipline on which we would all agree We need to pursue post salvation Once you accept Christ as your Savior once you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart that he is who he says he is He did what he said he did and he's gonna do what he says he's gonna do We would all agree that there's a series of spiritual disciplines that we need to into our life. We need to learn to forgive. We need to learn to pray. We need to learn to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and be students of scripture. We need to learn how to show mercy, how to show grace, how to be kind. And we need to learn to be generous and to give. It's so on par with the other spiritual disciplines that in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 6, my men's group pointed out to me this week, Jesus puts giving on a spiritual plane with prayer and fasting, saying it is just as important for his people to give as it is for them to learn to pray, as it is for them to learn to forgive, as it is for them to learn to repent. So the act of giving is a spiritual act. It progresses us in our faith. The act of giving moves us closer to God. It deepens our desire for him. And we'll see in a minute that it grows our gratitude for Him. So really, it's to my detriment and yours that I don't talk about it more often. Because it's a spiritual act that makes our lives richer and brings us closer to the Father when we do it. Now there's any number of places I can go in the New Testament to show you how it's a spiritual act and what its benefits are for us. Why? Because when I say it's a spiritual act, in part what I mean is it's what's best for us. God tells us it's what's best for us, which seems counterintuitive because we kind of have a mindset in life that we're supposed to get all we can, can't all we get, and sit on our can, right? Like that's what we're supposed to do. We get everything we can, we keep it, and then we let it grow. That's what we do. So it seems counterintuitive that the best thing for us would be to have a mindset to begin to give part of that away. And yet God says it is best for us. God says he makes it very clear he wants us to be generous people. So I want to talk to you about two reasons, two things that it does for us when we give, two ways that it's spiritually impactful. There are myriad more, but these are the two that we have time to focus on this morning. I would first take your attention to Matthew chapter 6. If you have a Bible, you can turn there. You're going to see verse 21 on the screen, but I'm actually going to read a little bit prior to that, beginning in verse 19. Jesus says this in the Sermon on the Mount. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourself treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal. Listen, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. That is such a concept. Such a rich verse. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. In my men's group on Tuesday morning, we're going through the book of Matthew, and we arrived at chapters 6 and 7 on Tuesday. And there is so much to talk about that as I was reading for the morning, I thought we probably should have only read one chapter because there's just so much detail here. And despite there being so many things to discuss, we spent the entire discussion in this verse. What does that mean and how do we live that out? Where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. I've heard since I was a little kid, show me your calendar and your checkbook, and I can tell you what you care about. And it's absolutely true. And so what we see from this idea of where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, is that our passion goes with our giving. Our passion follows our giving. I think sometimes we wait to be passionate about something, and then we expect our giving to follow that passion. No, our passion will go where our giving goes, wherever our treasures are, wherever we spend our time and our talents and our treasures, our passion will follow that. And here's how I know that that's true experientially. A few years ago, Lily, she just turned eight, so she was four or five. She was on a four and five-year-old soccer team, and I agreed to coach it, which was an egregious error that I will never make again. I hated almost literally every second of it. We had several kids from the church also on that team, and so my small group would basically sit on the sidelines with their Yetis in their lawn chairs laughing at me as I screamed at their child to please pay attention to the game. Just literally laughing out loud at me the entire time. I hated it so much. I'll never do that again. If John asks me to coach his team when he's five, I'm going to tell him to kick rocks. So Lily, last spring, had her first soccer season in like real soccer. It was YMCA soccer. It like counted. They don't keep score yet, but I do. And she did okay. The coach was this lady named Heidi, and I really developed a respect for Heidi. She did an excellent job with the girls. I thought she approached practice in a really respectable way. And then she had an assistant coach named Jamie, who's just a really nice, friendly guy. I loved his demeanor with the girls. And so at the end of the season, I stayed out of it. I kind of would help Coach Lily a little bit and holler at her to get in the right spot. But that was it. But at the end of the season, Heidi and Jamie came to me. And Heidi said, you know, she had two daughters on the team. She was like, my oldest daughter is going to be playing at a different level now. I can't coach two teams. Jamie's going to be the head coach. Can you be his assistant coach so our girls can continue to play together? And I said, okay, I've got a couple caveats. Because she started talking about, we'll give you access to the portal. And I was like, I don't want access to any portals. I don't want any login information. I don't want to go to a single website. I'm not doing that. She's like, we'll send you the spreadsheet for playing time. You will not. I will not open it. You figure that out. It doesn't take two people to figure out how to make 10 girls play the same amount of time. All right? You do that. If you make me do it, I'll just sit lily. I'm not even going to think about it. And I'm like, I'm not. Like, I'll be at practice. I don't care what we do at practice. Don't ask for my input. So I'm just there for the name, okay, just to get our girls to play together. I'll play along. That's how I approach the season. But every Wednesday, Heidi and Jamie start texting. What do you think the girls need to work on tonight? And darn it if I didn't have some thoughts. And then we'd go, and the girls are running drills, and I'm like, ah, you're doing this wrong. So I'm going over there to help them. And then on Saturday, I can't help but interject a little bit. I'm telling you, by the end of the season, by the end of the season, Jen will attest to this, I'm on the sideline. You can hear my voice over the whole field the duration of the game, hollering at our girls to get into position and to move up and to push back and to attack and to yada, yada, yada. Like, I'm all in. When there's a timeout, I'm running out on the field, and I'm high-fiving the little girls. I love those little girls. Whenever they would do something great, like new, like, oh, look at that. She had a flash of this is really great. I would always turn and find Mom and Dad and celebrate that with them. By the end of the season, I loved them. I loved coaching. I was texting Jamie and Heidi during the day with jokes and thoughts. And at the end, they're like, can you help us next season? Yes, I'm all in. I can't wait. I thought about how excited I am for soccer season the other day, right? And it's because, I don't think it's because I'm like sports dad. I don't really care if Lily plays or not. It's because it was fun. It was fun to get to know the girls and to celebrate with them and to get to know the families. Like it was a good time. My passion followed my time. My passion followed my giving. Jen and I give to some nonprofits. I get a lot of emails, updates, nonprofits. I don't read hardly any of them. But if I give, I read. Not because I want to see what my money's doing, because it's not a lot. The answer is not much, buddy. But because I'm genuinely interested in those ministries and I want to know what's happening and I want to know that they're thriving. When we give of our time and our talents and our treasures to the things of God, our heart for the things of God grows. If you want more passion for the church, if you want more passion for the things of God, for organizations that are building God's kingdom, give to those things. And our passion will go with our giving. The other thing we see that I would highlight in the New Testament is in 2 Corinthians 9. On the screen you'll see verses 11 through 12, but I'm going to keep reading because I think the verses that follow that are really interesting as well. Verse 11. Listen. Verse 15, this is amazing. You know what that indescribable gift is? The opportunity to be generous. Thanks be to God for the indescribable gift of the invitation into generosity. That's a remarkable statement. Now, a little context around that passage, that group of verses. The church in Jerusalem was struggling financially. Jerusalem was stricken with poverty. And so the church in Jerusalem had great needs and needs in the community around it and not the means to care for them. So in Paul's missionary journeys around Asia Minor, he takes up love offerings to be taken back to Jerusalem on their behalf. And so in this passage, he's petitioning the church in Corinth family and use it for somebody else that needs it. And you'll experience the gratitude that happens when we're invited into giving. And that gratitude will be multiplied by the recipient who will then turn in praise to your God for providing them what they needed. That's why it's an indescribable gift when we give out of our wealth, out of our extra, out of our surplus. It makes us more grateful for what we have and for what God has invited us into, and it doubles when the recipients get it and they turn in praise to our God as well. This is why I say that not only does our passion go with our giving, but our gratitude grows with our giving. Our gratitude for what we have, for the opportunities that we've been given. It grows with our giving. The more, as it would seem in these verses, the more we give, the more we experience of this indescribable gift, the more we experience of what it, the goodness of what it is to be a conduit of God's generosity to others. He's been generous to you, not so that you might hoard it, but so that you might direct it into different places. And listen, he doesn't need, listen to this, this is super important. He doesn't need to give you money so that you'll give money to the other things. He can find ways to get it directly to them. But what he's doing by funneling it through you is inviting you into the process of generosity that you might be blessed. It's an indescribable gift. And I love the way it starts out. He has made us rich that we might give. And I don't think that everybody in the room is rich. And I don't even have a good working definition of that. If we wanted to compare us to the average family in Honduras, we're all rich. If we want to compare us to the average family in Manhattan, we're not. So it's a sliding scale and I'm not here to define it. But what I do know is some of us have the means to give and that we should do it. Some of us might not feel like we have the means to give. Things might be tight, but we should still give. So I can say this with no hesitation, with no qualification. If you are a believer, it is God's will that you would be someone who would give. If you are a believer, then a step of obedience that God calls you to take unequivocally is to be a person or a family that gives of your time, talents, and treasures. That's without question. We are certain that God wants us to give. And again, he wants us to give because our passion goes with our giving and our gratitude grows with our giving. He wants us to give for our sake. In light of that, the reality that God calls us all to be people who give generously. I would say a couple things about what that means and the reality of that. The first thing I would say is this, and it's so important to me that I wanted to put it on the screen so that you could read it with me and we could be certain that it was covered. The New Testament does not mandate giving 10% or giving to our local church. So I'm aware that any time I preach a sermon on giving, it can be viewed as and is unavoidably in a yucky way self-serving. I get that. Which is why I have never once preached to you at Grace or to anyone to grace. I'm trying to get you, if you do not have a habit of it already, to experience the goodness and the indescribable gift of giving. Because when we give, it grows us in our spirit. It brings us closer to the Father. It helps us know Jesus more. We find him in his service. I ardently believe that giving is what's best for you. So I'm pleading with you to give, but I'm not asking you to give to grace. The other thing is, I'm not asking you to give 10%. 10% is an Old Testament number. It's not a New Testament number. We can find nothing in the New Testament that compels us to give 10%. That's where we get the word tithe. And that's why we try not to use tithe around here because we don't believe that that's a New Testament thing. We would tell you, and most people I know who have a good theology of giving would say that 10% is a good starting point. But sometimes we really can't afford 10%. Give 5%. Some of us have been giving, and I say this delicately, we've been giving 10% for years comfortably. It's time to pray about ramping that up. 12, 12 and a half percent, 15%, 20%, whatever it might be. But here's the other thing I would say is that when we see giving show up in the New Testament, it's almost always like it was in Corinthians, to give to the poor, to give to the needy, to give to those in need, to the have-nots. It's almost always in reference to giving to those who have less than you. That's where we see it in the New Testament, and that's why I'm certain that we need to be giving. Now, here's what I would say about grace, just to be honest and transparent about this as well. I would genuinely hope that if you partner with grace, and for those unfamiliar with our terminology at grace, we have partners, we don't have members, because members tend to consume and partners tend to contribute. So if you're a partner of Grace, we hope that you would partner with us financially. And the way that I would say it is, if you have been touched by what happens here, if your marriage and your family is made stronger, if your faith is made deeper by what's happened at Grace, then we hope that you would consider partnering with us financially. And I would also tell you, because giving is about giving to those that have less than us, 10% of everything that is given here to the general budget goes to ministries happening outside the walls of Grace, and that is how you can actively participate in giving to those who are in need. And I will also tell you this. We would love to see, just because it's indicative of health, we would love to see our top-line budget number grow, to have more money received this year than we received last year. And the reason that the elders, when I say we, I mean the elders, the finance committee, and the mission committee want to see that number grow. And we want to see it grow not so that we can redo the sanctuary. That's just putting makeup on a pig. That's not even worth it. We don't have computers that we want to buy or new speakers. We don't want to give extravagant raises to anyone but me. We don't have any other things that we want to do. And obviously I'm just kidding about that. We want to see that 10% that we give away grow to 15 and 20 and 30 and 40% of our budget. We want to collectively be conduits of grace. We spend the same amount in virtually every ministry that we have since I got here because we want that number to grow so that the percentage of what we give away can grow. That's the heart of the elders and of the finance committee. So I hope that you would consider partnering us in that way, but I will not tell you that you have a biblical mandate to do so. My heart for you, quite simply, is that you would see giving as a spiritual exercise. And if your family is not one that gives, it's okay. We want to invite you to start doing that. If there's other people or institutions building God's kingdom outside the walls of grace and you're passionate about them and you're compelled to give, start there. Give to them. Give to where your heart leads you to give. Be prayerful before God and ask him where he would have you funnel his resources. And do it. And watch your passion go with that gift. And watch your gratitude grow with that gift. But step into that. If you are someone who's been giving comfortably at a certain rate for years, prayerfully consider if you're married with your spouse, where God might have you direct more. And in that way, we can be obedient to this biblical command to give, and we can grow in our wisdom and in grace and in our faith deeper roots in Christ as we learn this new spiritual discipline of giving. I'm going to pray, and then I'm going to update you on where we're at with the building campaign. Father, thank you for the indescribable gift of providing us with resources that we might be used to funnel those to others. God, I pray that you would make us conduits of grace. Lord, for all of us, I pray that we might consider what you would have us do in light of this. Who and to what and to where you would have us give? Give us courage and faith that you will provide for us what we need. And God, for those that take steps to begin giving for the first time, I pray that they would see very quickly their passion grow towards your things, your heart, your places, and that they would see their gratitude grow as well. Lord, we ask all these things in your son's name. Amen.