Sermons tagged with Promises

Thank you very much. Well, good morning. It's good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. There you go. Now they can see me on video. Isn't that so much better? If you are joining us online, thank you for doing that. And I would just say gently for those who are joining us online, if you're doing that consistently, there is nothing quite like worshiping together as a family. So if you can get here and worship with us, do that because it's a sweet, sweet time, and it's my favorite part of the week, every week when I get to worship with you guys. We are in the third part of our series called Traits of Grace, and these are kind of five distinctive characteristics that make grace, grace. I am a firm believer, and will wholeheartedly share it with whomever is curious that grace is not, we're not nailing it as a church. Okay. We haven't like figured out how to do church the right way and all the other churches are doing it wrong. Okay. They're, they're worse than us. You guys are the good Christians who've really figured out how to love Jesus well. And the other churches are apostate and we should pray for them. Like we don't believe that. We believe that there are plenty of churches in the city of Raleigh that are doing wonderful jobs, pushing people towards Jesus and making disciples. I would even say that there's got to be plenty of them who are doing better than us. But you guys are here this morning. So we're going to make the best of it together while you think about a better church to go to next week. But there's plenty of great churches doing plenty of great things, and so I think it's important for churches to figure out what is it that makes us us? What has God wired us to do? A few weeks ago, we talked about being kingdom builders, and I kind of left you guys with the question of what is your good work? Ephesians 2.10, for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we might walk in them. And so we asked, what is your good work? And I think similarly, it's wise for churches to ask, what is our good work? Every church is supposed to make disciples, but how would God have us go about it? How has he uniquely wired and gathered and impassioned us to do it? And as we were having the discussion about what makes grace, grace last fall, we came up as a staff and then as elders with these five traits. So we've talked about the fact that partners at grace are kingdom builders. Then we talked last week about how partners at Grace are conduits of Grace. We stay connected to Jesus and we pour out all the love and all the goodness and all the grace that we receive from Jesus onto others. We are conduits of Grace. And so this week we arrive at the third trait that we feel like we are at Grace. And I realized this morning as I was reviewing and preparing that I didn't put this in your notes anywhere. So I don't know if this is going to be unofficial or something. I hope I haven't done something wrong and now this one doesn't count. But we are people of devotion. That's the third trait of grace. We are people of devotion. And when I say devotion, obviously that can mean multiple things, but it really means what it meant back in 1985. We are people who have devotions. You have heard me say many times, if you've been at grace for any period of time, that the single greatest habit that anyone can develop in their life, a lot of you can finish this sentence, is to get up every day and spend time in God's word and time in prayer. That is the most important thing, the most important habit that any single one of us can develop at any point in our life. And I believe that to be true, and we hit on that to be true, and we remind you of that all the time, because I also try to remind you that I am not enough. You can't come listen to me talk for 30 minutes a week and know the breadth and the depth of the God that's waiting for you in this text. You can't listen to whatever I choose to pick out and talk about just this little tiny snippet within here and somehow hope to understand the whole book. That's just not how that works. So it takes more than 30 minutes a week. It takes more than just one small group a week, which we'd love to say is an hour a week talking about spiritual things, but really it's about 45 minutes a week talking about whatever the heck and then about 15 minutes of good spiritual conversation. If you're in a small group, you know what I'm talking about. So that's not enough. We've got to spend time in God's Word, and we've got to spend time in God's presence through prayer. So when we thought about what are we at Grace, what do we want partners to be at Grace? We want to be people of devotion. We want to be people who develop that habit. And as we think about it this morning, I don't know about you, but I feel that when God is speaking to us, he often speaks in stereo. When someone will ask me, hey, how do I hear God's voice? How do I know what he's saying to me? How do I discern God's will for my life? I often will say, one of the first things I'll tell him is, God speaks, when he speaks to me, he speaks in stereo. He tells me from this source and this source and this source and this source, and it just kind of continues to come up in my life. And one of the themes that has been coming up for me in my life before the summer, but in particular the summer, you guys gave me the great privilege and rest of not having to preach in the month of July to just kind of settle and work on some other things in the church and allow God to refresh me a little bit. And it was wonderful. And one of the things that I brought out of there and that seems to continue to come up in my sermons that I'm preaching like when I preached on the law a couple weeks ago and I've seen it come through in themes these last couple weeks and then really we're hitting on it again in my Tuesday morning men's Bible study. I have a men's Bible study that meets on Tuesday mornings at 6 30. We meet that early to keep out the riffraff. The only thing the only thing prohibiting you from being there is laziness. So come on and join us. We're not any nicer there either. This is as nice as it gets. But I see this theme in my life and I've seen it in what we're learning at Grace and I thought it worth highlighting this morning, which is simply the beautiful simplicity of abiding. We talked about this last week. We're conduits of grace. And we looked at John 15, where Jesus is speaking to the disciples, particularly four and five. And he says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me and I in you, and you will bear much fruit. And we talked about this idea of all I have to do is stay connected to Christ, and he's going to produce the fruit in my life that I need to produce. I don't have to think about that. I just focus on abiding in Christ. And I think that there is this beautiful simplicity to that. Because we can make Christianity really complicated, can't we? It can be really challenging and difficult. It can be intimidating to look at this Bible, to open it up, to come to service on a Sunday and the pastor says, turn to Malachi. You're like, I've never even heard of that name in my life. I don't know where that is, right? Just to learn just the names of the 66 books, to learn how to find them all, that there's 37 or 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament, to learn all, what are all the sins? What are all the things I'm supposed to do? What are all the things I'm not supposed to do? Who are all the people? And how old was Paul? Did he live to be 900? Or is that some other guy? Like it can be a lot. And one of the things that I have a heart for is adults, people who have already gone through life and made a bunch of decisions. And in your 30s, 40s, 50s or later, you decide this is when I want to get serious about my faith and you start trying to learn Bible. And you don't have the background that I've been learning about this since I was old enough to talk. But it can feel like a steep bell curve when you're trying to learn faith and taking it seriously. So I love the beautiful simplicity of really what God asks us to do, which is to simply abide in him. Just simply, you just, just, just focus on Jesus. Just pursue Jesus. Just love others like Jesus loves you. Just do all that. The rest of this stuff, if you focus on abiding in Christ, the rest of this stuff, the rest of Christianity, the rest of life will take care of itself. Just focus on abiding in Christ. And this is, this is an attitude that we see throughout scripture. We're going to look at two other places today where it's pared down and it's made just this simple. One of my favorite pictures of this in the Bible is in the book of Hebrews. In the book of Hebrews, there's Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1, obviously follows. I don't know if you know this. You have to go to seminary to know this, but chapter 12 of Hebrews follows chapter 11 of Hebrews. And in chapter 11 of Hebrews, we have this really famous passage that's called the Hall of Faith, where the author of Hebrews lists out all of these heroes of the faith and the acts that they performed by faith. And then when we get into 12, and I'll read it in just a minute, but when we get into 12, we see it begin, So it's this idea that we're on the playing field of earth as those in heaven who have come before us are now watching us in real time, which I think is a really cool thought. And here's what the author of Hebrews says. He says, Because we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off the sin and the weight that so easily entangles and run the race that is set before us. And it's language, I think, that we can identify with. It's language that inspires. We're kind of like, okay, I'm on the playing field. I'm supposed to run this race. I'm supposed to live my life. I'm supposed to do the things that God wants me to do. How do I do that? Well, I throw off the sin and the weight that so easily entangles. I need to run in such a way that I can do what God wants me to do, that I can be who God wants me to be, and I need to get rid of all the things that don't help me run my race. And this, again, is an idea that is replete throughout Scripture. It shows up again and again and again. Paul tells us that we are to fight the good fight. He says that he fights the good fight. He tells us that in this race, we are to run as the one who's trying to get the prize, that we are supposed to cling to our faith. We are told to live a life worthy of the calling that we have received. Jesus tells us that other people should see our good works and so glorify our Father who is in heaven. So all throughout Scripture is this simple admonition that we need to live a life worthy of the calling that we've received. We need to run the race. We need to be who God created us to be. We need to determine what are our good works and how do we walk in them. And you can rephrase all of that and we say we need to be good Christians. We need to grow in our faith. We need to move towards Jesus. And we can identify with this. This is, to me, inspiring. It's easy to understand. Yep, I'm running a race and I do that by throwing off the sin and the weight that's so easily entangled. So I got to stop doing those things so I can do the things that God wants me to do. And sometimes, I think more often than not, that's where we stop. I'm going to try really hard at running this race. I'm going to try really hard to be a good Christian. I'm going to try really hard to be a good dad and a good husband and a good friend, a good employee or employer. I'm going to try really hard to be a good citizen. And I'm going to do that by throwing off the sin and the weight that so easily entangles. And we act like the next verse doesn't exist. How are we supposed to do that? By looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Even in Hebrews, where it uses this language about running our race, doing better, being good Christians, being who God's created us to be, it tells us, it gives us the answer right there. How do I do that? How do I run my race well? By focusing my eyes on Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. How do we produce much fruit? By abiding in Christ, by focusing on Jesus. And so I call it the beautiful simplicity of abiding because there's this thing that happens. When I decide that I want to be a better father or a better husband or a better pastor or a better human, there's a lot of growth that needs to happen in all of those areas, except for husband. I'm nailing that one. When I decide I want to be better at those things, I think our tendency is to go, okay, what do I need to do to be a better husband? And we identify things and we run and I'm going to do more of this and less of this. What do I need to do to be a better wife? I'm going to do more of this and less than this. What do I need to do to be a better mom? I'm going to do more of this and less of this. And we try to white knuckle our way to better, right? That's the American way. I want to be better at these things. I'm going to focus on those things. I'm going to come up with a plan, and I'm going to do it. And Christianity says, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Just focus on Jesus. Just focus on God. Just focus on abiding in Christ, and I'll take care of the rest of it. So here's how this works practically. I do have a lot of room to grow in being a husband. You know the most effective way for me to be a better husband to Jen? It's to pursue Jesus. It's to wake up tomorrow and say, Jesus, I want to honor you today as I seek to be Jen's husband. How do I honor you in that? How would you have me be a good husband today, Jesus? You want to be a better employee? You want to move up the ranks? You want your career to progress? You can spend a lot of time thinking about the best thing to do and the best person to please and the best way, the best jobs to go for or the best tasks to complete or the right people to make friends with or whatever it is you do to progress in your field. Or you can go to work every day, focus on Christ, and you can say, Jesus, how can I honor you today in my work? How can I honor you today in these meetings? How can I honor you today in these tasks? And then you honor Jesus. And you know what happens? Everything else works out. I was talking in my Bible study group about this idea. Just honor Jesus in what we do. Just pursue Jesus in what we do and let him handle the results. And they said, well, what does that mean practically? I said, for my sermons. My job is to be diligent on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday so that when I stand before you on Sunday, before God on Sunday, I know I've given my best effort. I've honored God in my preparation. I've honored Jesus in my prayer life as I approached sharing this with you guys. And I know that I've done the best that I could in the week that I was given with the time that I was allotted. And I'm honoring Jesus as I give this to you. If I can say that, what happens as a result of the sermon is completely out of my hands. I have nothing to do with that. I don't worry about that. I worry about where my heart is as I prepare, and I'll be the first to confess. Listen, I say that, and that sounds lovely, like how Nate, he's worked diligently on sermons, and he's prayed through them, and he's ready to present them. Yeah, most of the time, sometimes, y'all, I'm winging it, and I sit down, and the very first, y'all are singing, and y'all think things are good, and I sit down, and I'm like, God, I'm so sorry. I dishonored these people. That wasn't worth showering for. I can't believe that I did that to them. So sometimes I don't do it. But on the weeks that I do, then I preach the sermon, and I wash my hands of it. Now it's between you and the Spirit. And somebody in my Bible study said, well, wouldn't that be a great way to approach life? And I was like, yeah, yeah, it would. We should do that with everything. We should do that with how we lead people, with how we love people, with how we be good parents. It's the beautiful simplicity of abiding in Christ. We focus on him, and then he takes care of everything else. And I think that this is a radical message in a culture that wants to try so hard at everything, that wants to have a to-do list for everything, for all the things in life. I'm going to find a way to tackle it, and I'm going to white-knuckle my way to better. And really, the beautiful simplicity of abiding means that we try hard at pursuing Jesus. That's it. That's where we try hard. Christians, you want to know where to put your efforts? You want to know what you need to wake up thinking about? What you need to be consumed with? How you get better at life? How you do all the things that matter? You want to know how to do that? You want to know where to put your efforts? You want to know what you need to wake up thinking about? What you need to be consumed with? How you get better at life? How you do all the things that matter? You want to know how to do that? You want to know where you should put your effort? Put it in pursuing Jesus. And waking up every day and spending time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. Put it into pursuing Christ and everything else will take care of itself. And there's a lot of ways to pursue Jesus, okay? We do it through worship. We do it, I believe, through godly community and spiritual conversations. We have transparency and vulnerability. We ask good questions. We share pieces of ourselves. We pursue Jesus through his service, through doing his work. Jesus says whatever we do unto the least of these, we do unto him. So we pursue Jesus by helping those who can't help themselves. But I think the primary way that we pursue Jesus is through devotions. One of the primary ways we pursue Jesus is by waking up every day and spending time in God's Word and time in prayer. I think it's the fundamental way. I think one of the most frustrating things to me about trying to get in shape and fit into your old mediums. I've got one on underneath this that I have to wear a baggy shirt over it because if I don't, I'll just bring shame on my family. I can't wear this polo in front of other people in public. I used to be able to, there was a time, but when you go to get in shape, you can, you can exercise 30 minutes a day, right? And exercising to me is the easy part. That's, that's, that's the fun thing to do. That's fine. That's good. I can put in a podcast or a book or something like that. That's kind of the easy discipline to gain on. You know what the hard part is? Eating like a rabbit, man. That stinks. Eating salads. That's not fun. I don't like eating right. I just don't. I like eating wrong. Very wrong. But unless you do both, you'll never be in good shape. You won't be in good health. And you can exercise all you want, but until your diet changes, your body really doesn't. And you really don't get that healthy. You can exercise all you want and go to church and do all the things and go to Bible study and have the conversations and serve sometimes and give of yourself and tithe. You can do all the exercise you want, but until your diet changes, your spiritual health won't really either. I believe that our pursuit of Jesus begins here. And that when we do that, when we begin it here, then God handles everything else. This is actually affirmed in the book of Psalms. The very first Psalm, the one that Parker read earlier in the service, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. And then look what happens. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. David says, blessed is the man who doesn't waste his time with frivolous things, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. His delight is in God's word. And on that law, he meditates day and night. How can you meditate on it if you don't know it, if you haven't learned it, if you haven't poured yourself into it? He prays over it. He pursues Jesus in it. And because of that, he's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season. And all that he does, he prospers. The man that David is describing in Psalm 1 did not set about to prosper. That's not the point. He set about to know Jesus. He set about to know his God, to know his law, to know his word. And the happy side effect of that was that God blesses him along his way. I want to be careful when I say that. God's blessings look different than what you think blessings might be. So I'm not preaching that if we get up every day and read God's word that we're going to have all the things that we want. That's not how that goes. But what I am saying is if we get up every day and we spend time in God's word and time in prayer, then we will become who God wants us to be. That's the blessing. And I believe that becoming the people that God has created us to be is the place of greatest peace and contentment and happiness that we can find in life. If you've ever had a season where you were moving, you were doing exactly what God wanted you to do, you know there's no greater peace or joy than that. I had lunch with somebody this week, catching up with them after a long time, and he shifted careers and got a new job. And I said, how's it going, man? And he said, God has affirmed over and over and over again that I am doing exactly what he would have me do, and I have never been happier. It's remarkable how that works. When we walk the path that God has laid out for us, lo and behold, that's where joy is found. I think Psalm 16 tells us something about there being a fullness of joy in the presence of God. And I feel like that's a joy and a peace worth having. So I would also mention to you that nothing worth having is gained by default. Nothing in this life that we have that we really value is gained by default. If you have a good marriage, like a good one, you worked hard at that, Joker. You didn't just fall into that. Unless you're like, if you've been married for like two years, you're like, my marriage is pretty good. We haven't had to work that hard. Okay, forget you. All right. You don't count. Talk to the rest of us in 10 years, rookies. If you have a good marriage, you worked hard at that. You've intentionally spent time together when the kids made it difficult. You've intentionally chosen each other when life tried to prevent it. You've had hard conversations. You've said hard things. You've heard hard things. But you're stronger for it and you have a good marriage and you worked at it. If you have kids who love you, if you have adult kids who love you and want to spend time with you, you worked hard at that. That was not easy. That did not happen by default. If you have a career that you like, that you're proud of, you worked hard at that. That didn't happen by default. If you have good, rich, deep friendships, you've prioritized and valued them over the years. You've made them important. You didn't just default into those. Why would we think that we would default into a good, healthy, vibrant relationship with Jesus? We have to work at it. We have to make time for it. So do that. Prioritize it. Make it happen. Find a time when you can spend time in God's Word and spend time in prayer. If you don't know what to read, ask somebody. Start in Proverbs. If you don't know the Bible at all and you want to read it and you don't know what to read, start in Proverbs. You don't have to know anything about anything for Proverbs to make sense. Totally out of context, just start reading it. It's great. Read a gospel, read the book of Mark. It goes very fast and it points you with Jesus very well. Or just pick up and read something you've been curious about, but start doing it. Make it a habit. Be consistent in it. Trust me when I say that there's no greater habit that anyone can develop than that, and do it. Whatever you're currently doing first in the morning isn't as good as this. And if what you're doing first in the morning is sleeping an extra 30 minutes, it's definitely not as good as this. Just hit pause on that other stuff and engage with God first and then go about your day. I do it when I get into the office. I get into the office. I tend to be the first one in the office because I'm the hardest worker on staff. And I have a kid that starts school early and I have to drop her off every day. So I get here early. But the office is quiet and that's when I have my time. That's when I'm able to pray and read God's word and get ready to prayerfully approach my day. Pick a time when you can do it too. Make it happen. Prioritize it. Value it. Last week, I said that we needed to abide in Christ and we're going to talk about how to do that. And I said that when you came back this week, I was going to light some of your faces on fire and really convict you. So here's the convicting thing. What I'm about to say, I'm not saying to you if you're new. If this is the first time you've ever heard a sermon that's imploring you to have a devotional life, then I'm not saying this next thing to you. If it's the second time, maybe the first time you weren't paying attention, or I just did a bad job with it, whatever it was, I'm not talking to you either. But if you've heard this sermon before, I've preached it plenty. Maybe not from this angle, maybe not in this way, but I've preached have devotions. I've preached that a bunch. I've joked around. I'm going to do it one day. I'm just going to walk up here on stage and I'm going to go, hey, good morning, Grace. It's good to see everybody. My name's Nate, one of the pastors here. You should read the Bible more. Let's pray. Because that's all you need because you know that I'm right. You know that we need to do this. So if that's you and you still don't have habit, as your pastor, as someone who cares about you, let me just ask you, how many more times will you need this sermon? How many more times? How many more times are you going to sit in this room or a room like this and hear this sermon and go, yeah, Monday, I need to. How many more? Can this one be it? Can this one do it for us? Because there's some people in this room who already do this. They've got a rich, vibrant devotional life, and they've been sitting in here, and they've just been cheering me on. Yes, do it. Please. It's the best. And I want all of you to cheer this sermon on every time you hear it from now on. Next time you hear this sermon, listen, I don't want it to convict you one little bit. I want you to sit in those seats feeling great because you know it's true. And now you're the cheering section because I'm never going to stop preaching this sermon. I'm going to preach it once or twice a year for the rest of my days as long as God gives me a stage to preach on to push people back into God's word and to push people back into prayer. But at Grace, as our partners, when I preach this sermon again, I want you to be the biggest cheerleaders. And I never want it to convict you again. Because I want you to hang in there and develop this habit. And I'll tell you this, okay? Just give you a little pastoral advice. Some of you, gosh, I hope, as a result of this, are going to wake up tomorrow, you're going to read your Bible. And it'll be something that you haven't done in a while. And that's great. You'll set your alarm. You'll make your coffee. You get your vibe all right, exactly where you want to be. This is good. This nice fall weather. This is great. I'm going to have the best quiet time. And you're going to open up your Bible to wherever you've decided to open up your Bible. And maybe, maybe God parts the heavens and the angels sing to you and Shekinah glory shines down directly on your head. Maybe. What's probably going to happen is you're going to get a little something out of it that's encouraging, that speaks to something in your life, or maybe nothing at all. You'll pray. If you're not used to praying, you'll pray for about two and a half minutes. You'll be like, I'm all out. Kind of run out of stuff to pray about. That's okay. And maybe it doesn't feel like the heavens parted and Shekinah glory shone down on your noggin. But I tell you what, if you get up tomorrow and you spend time in God's word and you spend time in prayer, I can promise you this, you'll have a different day than you would have had otherwise. You have a different mindset going into that day than you would have had otherwise. And if you do that several days in a row, I don't know when the heavens are gonna open and words are gonna leap off the page, but I can tell you this, if you do it several days in a row, you're gonna have a different week. And if you can manage by God's goodness and grace to hang in there and string together a couple of weeks like that, three, four weeks, you're going to have a different month. And if you start stringing together months, you're going to have a different life. And that's what we want for you at Grace. That's why we want you to be people of devotion. So let's pray that God gives us the strength of conviction to do that so that we know the only thing we need to try hard at is pursuing Jesus, and he'll take care of the rest. Let's pray. Father, we love you so much. We thank you for your word, for the way that you've chosen to reveal yourself to us. I pray that you would give us a heart for it, that you would give us a passion for it, that we would love your word, that we would love this text. God, make it exciting to us as we dive into it. Let us start to piece things together and understand where people go and where they fit and how you're revealed in your word. Let it excite us about you. God, create in us such a hunger for your word that we wake up looking forward to it. Create in us such a hunger for your presence that we desire to pray every day. May we be refreshed in your presence. May we be refreshed by your word. And God, may we become increasingly people of devotion. In Jesus' name, amen.

I wonder, pals, how long's it been since we heard those stories? I bet it's been a while. And if we could tell them again, I wonder if we would find out that those stories aren't really kids' stories at all, but they were meant for grown-ups all along, and that there's still lessons we can learn from them today. Let's find out together. Speedy delivery. For me? Thanks mailman Kyle. This week, Gideon. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. And if I hadn't gotten a chance to meet you yet, I would love to do that in the lobby after the service. Right now, while I'm preaching, probably wouldn't be an appropriate time, but after that would be great. As a pastor, I often find myself in conversations where questions like this are asked. Questions like, hey, people talk about being able to hear from God. I'm not sure that I can hear from God. How do I hear God's voice in my life? How do I know his direction? How do I know what God wants me to do? Sometimes that manifests itself in questions like, hey, I've got this job opportunity. We have this opportunity to move. We're trying to make a big decision about this or that or what to do with our children. How do I know what God wants me to do? Sometimes this conversation will take on the shape of, hey, I've been a Christian for a while, and I just feel like I'm in a rut, and I don't really know how to get it back. What do I need to do? How come I'm not grown further in my walk yet than I have already? Why is it that I feel behind? Or sometimes it's conversations with people who are new to the faith or relatively new to the faith. And they just kind of feel like they're not getting traction. It's not taken off for them. What is it that I need to do so that I can grow in my faith? And I think that to be a Christian for any amount of time is to, at some point, to have asked those questions or questions like them, or at the very least, to feel this sense of, gosh, I thought I would have grown past this by now. I thought I would, I see other people talking about this rich, deep faith, and they seem to hear from God, and they seem to have this courageous faith that other people would seek to emulate, but no one would seek to emulate me, and I don't know how to get from where I am to where they are, but I know that I'm not content here. If that's you, and if you've ever had a thought like that, then Gideon's your guy. Gideon may be the most relatable story in all the Bible. Gideon, I find to be a character that resonates with me and with us as I tend to go through it very, very much. Because in Gideon, what we see is we see typical Bible hero stuff. By the end of the story, he's threatening kings and he's conquering armies and he's sitting on, he wasn't on the throne, but on the magistrate seat, I guess, as the judge of Israel. And he judges Israel for 40 years and he's the unquestioned leader of the country right underneath God. And so that's typical Old Testament hero stuff and none of us can relate to that. You're not about to rule over the United States for 40 years, although it may go better if some of you did it. I don't know. But we're not about to do that, right? But the beginning of Gideon's story, he's timid and he's fearful and he's characterized by doubtful hesitancy. The beginning of Gideon's story, we can relate to very much. And so as we go through this story, there is this overarching question that becomes very important to us if we feel like we can relate to Gideon in any way, in his fear and in his timidity and in our uncertainty of how to live out our faith. The overarching question, I think, over the narrative of Gideon is simply, how does Gideon move from doubtful hesitancy to confident clarity. How does Gideon begin with this rickety, secondhand, doubtful, timid faith and move to a place where he is the judge of Israel for 40 years, moving and acting with confident clarity? Because the guy at the end of the story barely resembles the guy at the beginning of the story. So the question becomes, how does that happen to Gideon? To discover this, we should look at the story of Gideon. I love the story of Gideon. I know that I say I love all the stories that I tell you, and it's true. I do. But this one in particular is special to me because I had the chance to go to Israel in 2013. And I've always loved the story very much. And in the story, they go to a brook and some soldiers drink from a brook. And when I went to Israel, they take you to that brook and they say, this is the stream of Gideon and this is the field of Gideon. And in the crease of my Bible, I have grass from the field of Gideon that I'm not going to pull out because I'm afraid I'll break it, but I'll show it to you after the service. But I've got grass in here from Gideon's field next to the brook that shows up in the story. So when I get to tell the story of Gideon, I get excited because you could say that I get giddy about Gideon. That one just occurred to me. Where's Kyle Tolbert? Is he in this room? That was just for you, pal. That was it. I don't care if anybody else laughed, buddy. That's great. You guys don't know this, but after I preach or after Kyle preaches, we have about 30 minutes where we talk about each other's jokes and how they were like, we'll always make one joke just for the other person. Just so you guys know, it's a little inside baseball. Probably shouldn't do it. I don't know why I'm talking about it right now, but we do and it's great. So I'm excited to tell you the story of Gideon. When we pick up the story, we're in Judges chapter 6, and we find Gideon in a wine press milling out grain. And you might wonder, why is Gideon in a wine press using it for something that it was not intended for, hiding out from whomever? Well, that's because in the verses preceding it, we learn that the Israelites, God's people, were being oppressed by the Midianites. And that oppression didn't look like just coming in and taking all the way over. That oppression looked like just waiting for the farmers to till their land and produce their crop, and then just going in and taking whatever they wanted, taking all the wealth and all the fruit and all the vegetables and all the livestock back to their cities to use as they saw fit. So they had subjugated the Israelite people. And Gideon, he is experiencing this subjugation. And this is in the period of the judges. I explained this last week, so I won't belabor it this morning, but in the period of the judges, God himself was the king of Israel. He ruled over Israel, and they followed God, and they obeyed him, and they followed his laws, and they acknowledged him. And God would appoint a judge to serve as a judge, a magistrate, kind of a one-person supreme court, and rule over the different disputes that would come up in the land between families and between tribes and individuals. But occasionally, Israel would forget that God got them there, would forget that God was their God, and they would start to live by their own rules and do their own thing and not really care about who God was and what he thought. And they would say, God, your hand over us is kind of annoying. Would you please remove it so that we could just do whatever we would like to do? And God would say, okay, I will, but you're going to have to experience the consequences of your actions. And because he moved his hand of protection from the Israelites, because their actions and their attitudes and their devotion basically said, we're not really interested in your rules or your hand of blessing over us. So if you could get out of our way, that would be great. God said, okay, I'll get out of your way. And then sure enough, the Amorites and the Midianites and the Amalekites and the various ites from surrounding cities and towns would come in and they would oppress Israel until Israel would cry out and be like, God, we forgot about you. We're so sorry. These people are really bumming us out. Could you come in and save us? And God would appoint a judge and raise them up and they would overthrow the oppressors and they would live in peace again until they forgot about God. And so the cycle continues. Judges, before it gets really, really bad, that we meet Gideon. And we see him in the wine press in chapter 6. And an angel of the Lord appears to him, and it's pretty clear that Gideon's not yet sure that this is an angel of the Lord. It appears to him, and he says, and an angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, the Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. Which is a really interesting comment. Because as far as we know, Gideon was neither mighty nor did he possess any valor. He's just a dude, tread and grain in a wine press. But the angel says, The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. This guy and an oppressed people who's never fought a battle in his life and is by no means mighty and does not seem to display any courage in any way. And so it's like, what are you doing, angel? Like, are you making fun of Gideon? Are you being sarcastic here? Because if you are, that's a good one. But I think what's happening here is that the angel knew because God had told him. The angel knew who Gideon was going to become. The angel knew who Gideon was. The angel knew the path that Gideon was about to walk and what he would be as a result of walking it. So he called him what he knew he wasn't yet, but knew he would be, O mighty man of valor. And Gideon's response to me is one of the funnier responses in the Bible. Now the Bible's not really known for its jokes, so when I read it, you're not going to fall over laughing at this, but the honesty of it is interesting. Chapter 6, verse 13. So the angel comes to Gideon and he says, the Lord is with you, almighty man of valor. And Gideon says, are you sure? Because I'm down here. I'm treading this grain in this wine press. You sure about that? Because if God's with us, like our fathers say he is, then why are we oppressed by the Midianites? If God's with us, then what am I doing? And why has the God who's promised us that he's going to protect us, why has he forsaken us? Which I think it's interesting as an aside to see Gideon blaming God for decisions that he and his people made. Gideon, brother, God didn't forsake you. You forsook him. God didn't take his hand off of you. God didn't take his hand of protection off of you. God didn't take his blessing off of you because he just got tired of you. You didn't want it there. So he removed it. And now you're living in the consequences of your actions. And I think it's a good lesson for us. It's not the point, but I do want to make it. Sometimes in life, we walk through hard times because broken things happen in a broken world. People get sick. We lose people too soon. Tragedy strikes. It's not fair and it will never make sense on this side of eternity. And sometimes those things simply happen because this world is broken. But a lot of times things happen because we did them. A lot of times things happen because we kind of said, God, your hand on my life is uncomfortable. Your control and sovereignty over my life is uncomfortable. I don't like it. I'd like to be able to do whatever it is I want to do. So if you could kind of leave me alone for a little while, I'm just going to do my thing. And God says, okay. And then we get to the end of the consequences of those choices. And like Gideon, we're like, God, why have you forsaken me? And like Gideon, he didn't forsake us. We forsook him. So I thought it was worth it to pause. I have a note in my Bible from years ago when I first encountered this story in this Bible. It's interesting how Gideon shifts the blame there to God for something that Israel had done. But to his better point, if God's with us, why am I here? If God's actually good and he actually promised us this stuff, then what am I doing in this spot right here? Why am I down here? And I think that's a question that all of us can relate to at some point in our life. If God's so good and if he's so loving, then why am I down here? Whatever down here is. And so the angel responds to him. And the angel says, the Lord is with you. I promise he's with you. You can go in confidence. And so Gideon says this in verse 15. Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the Lord said to him, But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man. And he said to him, If I have now found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. There's a lot going on there in those verses. But the first thing we see I think is very interesting. The angel doubles down and says, no, no, no, you're the one that God is going to use to save Israel. And Gideon says, but why me? My father's tribe, clan, is the smallest in all of Manasseh, and I am the youngest of all the brothers. You couldn't have picked a less significant person to lead your charge than me. No one's going to follow me. No one's going to believe me. I am not a mighty man of valor. I've never done any of this stuff before. You've got the wrong guy. But the angel doubles down and says, no, no, no, you are the one. God has chosen you. And so now Gideon realizes he's hearing from God. He's being told to walk in a direction, but he does so timidly. And he says, okay, I need to make sure that you're an angel from the Lord. I need to make sure that I think I'm hearing, that I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing. Will you stay here? I'm going to go make us dinner. And I need to see a sign. I need something so I know that this is the direction I need to move in. And so he goes back to his house. He leaves the angel under the tree. He makes some dinner. There's some hotcakes or something involved. And he serves dinner to the angel. And the angel takes his staff and taps the dinner. And the dinner catches on fire. It was baked Alaska, and he didn't know about it. And so he's like, man, this is amazing. I can't believe this. That's a neat trick and a pretty clear sign from God. Okay, I believe you, and I trust you. I'm in. What would the Father have me do? And the angel says, do you know? Now, this, the following dialogue is a loose paraphrase of scripture. It's in Judges 6, you read it. The angel says, you know those gods that the Midianites erected in the middle of town to kind of snub their nose at everyone and say like, hey, we're the boss now. Like those idols mean that, that's from that Tom Hanks movie. I'm the captain now. That's what those idols mean. Like we're in charge here now. Don't mess with us. We got you. And Gideon's like, yeah, I know the ones. And he goes, listen, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take your dad's bull, the biggest one. And then I want you to take a young bull from your dad. And I want you to go and tear down the idol in the middle of town and then I want you to sacrifice the bull to our God. And Gideon's like, now what now? Because that, friends, is poking the bear. That is walking into the middle of town, these idols that the Midianites constructed in the middle of town to make everybody know we are the boss now. It is not you. Our God is superior to your God. We've got a handle on the situation. Go and tear it down. What do you think is going to happen when Gideon tears it down and the Midianites wake up and they see that it's been torn down? Do you think they're going to show up in the middle of Gideonon City and be like, all right, guys, now come on. Who did this stuff? Fix that idol for us. You guys are the best. That's hilarious. That's not going to happen. They're going to be mad. They're coming for blood. And Gideon's tribe knows that. So they wake up in the morning and word starts to spread. Oh my goodness, somebody tore down the idol. Who was stupid enough to do this? What in the world? We got to figure this out. And so they figured out it was Gideon. They go to Gideon's house. And they're there with their pitchforks, man. They're crying out to Gideon's father. Give us your son Gideon so that we can kill him so that we might mitigate the anger of the Midianites when they come crashing down the hill to come make us answer for this stuff. We've got to be able to show them that we did our part. Please don't hurt us. They're terrified of the Midianites. And Gideon's dad gives this impassioned speech about who they are and they're the chosen people of God and that they need to band together and that they can defeat the Midianites. It probably was a really cool speech. I'd love to see it in like an HBO or Netflix series, this big climatic moment where the tide turns, it shifts. And the people who came to kill Gideon by the end of the exchange are now ready to follow him into battle. Yeah, let's get them. No more. It's Braveheart crying freedom, right? So then word goes out throughout all of Israel. We have a leader now. His name is Gideon and he's going to face off against the Midianites. Send all your fighting men. And as that cry, as that call is going out to the nation of Israel to send Gideon your fighting men in Manasseh where there's going to be a face-off, Gideon gets nervous and he goes to God in prayer. And this is part of the story that you guys may know. It's the most famous part of the story. He goes to God in prayer and he says, God, if you really want me to do what I think you want me to do, if I'm meant to lead these men after a lifetime of never leading a single fighting man in my life, we see no evidence in the text that Gideon had even fought, besides the fact that he had brothers, so he probably got into a couple scraps. But we see no evidence that he was a soldier of any kind. And so he says, God, if you really want this guy who's not a soldier, who's the youngest of all the brothers in the smallest tribe and one of the smallest clan in the smallest tribe, if you want me to lead the people of Israel, I need to know that I know that I know. So please, can you do something for me? I'm going to put my fleece out when I sleep. I'm going to put this lambskin out in front of my tent when I sleep. And if I wake up in the morning and the ground around the fleece is bone dry, but the fleece has dew on it and is wet, I'll take that as a sign from you that I'm supposed to lead these men into battle in your name and that you will give us the victory. So Gideon goes to sleep, wakes up the next day, pokes his head out of his tent, feels the ground around the fleece and it's bone dry. He feels the fleece and it's soaking wet. He's got a sign. God showed him. Ride into battle, mighty man of valor. But that's not what Gideon does. Gideon does this. In Judges 6, verses 39, Then Gideon said to God, Let not your anger burn against know why you picked me either. I'm a total drag. But if you could just do that do trick again, but this time the old switcheroo, then I would certainly know that this is what you want me to do. And so it happens. The fleece is dry, the ground is wet, and Gideon knows that this is what he needs to do. And so he goes and he leads. And it's worth noting at this point in the story that Gideon, he's frightened out of his mind. He's scared senseless. He is timid. He is doubtful. He is hesitant. He does not want to step forward and do this. He needs assurance from God at every turn. And he is right and good to be terrified. He would have been terrified to pull down the idols and have to face off with his townsmen and know that he's going to have to go to battle. And now a call has gone out to make him the general of all the armies of Israel. And he's never led a single person before. He knows he's wildly inadequate for this task and he is scared. But he steps. And it's worth noting that terrified obedience still counts. Terrified obedience? God, I don't know what's going to happen here. I don't know what's on the other side of obedience. You're asking me to jump over this fence. I don't know what's on the other side of it, but I know that this is what you want me to do, and I'm scared senseless, God, that I could take this step of obedience, and it could cost me this friendship. It could cost me this relationship. It could cost me money. It could cost me experience. It could cause animosity between me and my wife or me and my husband. It could cause me to take the wrong step with my children that there's going to be ramifications for for decades to come. God, I'm terrified of taking this step. And yet terrified obedience still counts. I would say it's probably the most forming kind of obedience. Some obedience is easy. You get lunch with your friend and you say, I really, I've got this decision to make. I really don't know what the Lord wants me to do. I'm trying to just discern. I feel like God wants me to move in this direction, but I just want to be sure. It's this new job. I get a lucrative signing bonus, better hours, more flexibility, 40% more money, and I get stock options. I just don't, does God want me to take this step? Yes, yes, he. Take the step. Take the step. And then you take us out to dinner. Alright, take the step. That's easy obedience. Some obedience is hard. Some obedience terrifies us. Moving six and a half hours away, taking your one year old away from their new grandparents with a wife who's not sure about whether or not to go. That's scary. That's scary obedience. But scary obedience is some of the most formative obedience. And so it still counts. And we're all called to it at some point. So Gideon decides to obey. He's going to be the general of the Lord's armies. And 32,000 men show up from all over Israel. It's like an act. We don't know. I searched the text. We don't know how many men the Midianites had. And by this point, they had partnered up with the Amalekites because they see that there's a revolt going on in Israel and they're trying to thwart it. So 32,000 fighting men show up and God looks at that and he tells Gideon, listen, that's too many men. If you guys go into battle and you win and people hear about it, they're going to think that you did it, man. And they need to know that I did it and that you had nothing to do with this. That's too many guys. Go to them and tell them that if anybody's scared, then they can go home. So Gideon goes back to them and he says, if any of you are afraid, if you're trembling, if you've been forced to be here against your will, if you don't want to go, if you don't want to fight, then you go home. No harm done. No one's going to hold it against you. Go home. It'll be fine. 22,000 men leave, leaving 10,000 behind. Which, if I'm one of those 10,000 men, and let's be honest, I would not have been. I'd have been like, all right, we'll see you later on the first chance. But if I'm one of those 10,000 men, I'm going, I made the wrong choice. But we're stuck here now. Let's rush to death together, boys. And God looks at those 10,000 men and he goes, yeah, Gideon, I'm sorry, buddy. That's too many. We need less than that so that people know I'm the one who brings victory. So he says, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take your men down to this brook to get a drink of water. There's going to be two kinds. There's going to be lappers who put their face in the water and lap it up like a dog. They just hoover it right in like some animals. And then there's going to be scoopers who keep their eyes on the horizon and scoop the water and drink from their hands. All right? I want you to keep the scoopers and send the lappers home. The lappers are weird. We don't need them anyways. The scoopers have their eyes on the horizon. They're good soldiers. Let's keep them. So that's what Gideon does. And when he's done with this winnowing process, there's 300 men left, 300 scoopers. And he's like, okay, God, what's the plan? God says, here's what I want you to do. Arm all 300 men with a clay pot and a torch. And I want you at night to go to the camp and surround the Midianites and the Amalekites. And when you give the signal, everyone's to shatter their pots and scream a sword for the Lord and a sword for Gideon. And then you're going to win. There's at least 30,000 men in this camp. But this is the plan. And God in his goodness to Gideon says, if you need a sign, because I know you're that kind of guy, if you need a sign, you don't have to ask for me this time. Take Pura, your servant, and sneak down the hill and listen at the camp of the Midianites and I'll give you a sign. So that's what Gideon does. He says, he could have gone right then, but he takes the sign from God, and he goes down, and he sits next to a tent, and at that tent, he hears some Midianite soldiers talking to one another, and one of them says, I just had a vision, and the soldier says, what was your vision? And he says, there's a man named Gideon. He's an Israelite, and he's going to come down, and he's going to kill us all. And upon hearing this vision, Gideon does this in Judges chapter 7 verse 15, as soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, arise for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand. There's so much to learn from that response. We can make the whole sermon that response. What was Gideon's response to the good news from God? He worshiped. What should be our response when we get good news from God? We should worship. What should be our response when we struggle to know what to do? We should worship. What should be our response when we're sad and we're down and we're low? We should worship. What's our response when we're at peace? We should worship. He turns and he worships God. And then he goes to the men and he says, let's go. God's given the Midianites into our hands. So they go down and they surround the Midianites and the Amalekites and all 300 of them and at Gideon's signal, they light their torches and they bash the clay pots and there's this great clamor and they yell a sword for the Lord and a sword for Gideon in unison. And the Amalekites and the Midianites wake up, they come out of their tents and they look. And as far as they know, in total darkness, they're surrounded by 300 torches. And on the other side of those 300 torches are the 32,000 fighting Israelite men who have come to destroy them. And so they wake up and they just start fighting whoever they can see. They start to fight each other because they can't recognize who's in their army and who's not. All they know is that there's an invading force trying to kill them in the middle of the night and they start killing each other. And listen, I know that might sound crazy, but even though I have never been a part of hand-to-hand combat, which I know is surprising news, but I've never been a part of hand-to-hand combat, but I have watched a lot of Viking and medieval shows, okay? And I've seen this happen a bunch of times. So I can tell you from pretty good second-hand knowledge, based on the way that the director chose to depict it, that these are incredibly chaotic scenes. And often I watch them and I wonder, they don't have uniforms. They're not wearing flags. How do they know who belongs to who and who's fighting for who? So they rushed out of their tents and all they know is that guy has a sword and I don't know him and I'm going to defend my life. And if anybody tries to escape, we presume that Gideon's army just kind of steps over. It's like, no, no, I don't think so. And then they kill that person. They just kind of wait until they defeat both armies at once. The Midianite king escapes, gets out with a small contingent, and Gideon goes to chase him. The Midianite king goes, and he goes through intentionally territories that are favorable to him, that are going to let him pass through their land without hassling them. But when Gideon tries to go through their land, the kings of those lands are like, hey, buddy, you can't bring your army through here, all right? We don't want to have to support you and your whole crew, so you've got to find another way around. And Gideon, without missing a beat, without waiting on a sign from God, says, hey, listen, listen, listen, listen. We're going to go, listen to me, we're going to go and we're going to kill him. And if you don't let us stay here, when we get done killing him, we're going to come back and kill you. So what do you want to do? And the kings go, we're sorry, Mr. Gideon, you just please use all the land you need. And he goes and he kills the Midianite king and he overthrows the oppressors. And scripture tells us that he faithfully judges Israel for 40 years. And the question to me is how did he go from this fearful timidity in the wine press to this confident courage on the field of battle? Because those are two totally different dudes, man. Those are two totally different guys. The guy in the wine press that talks to the angel, oh yeah, if God is with us, then where is he? Because I don't see him and I'm down here hiding out from everyone because I'm scared. The guy who needs a sign from the angel, who needs two signs from God, who needs to feel good about attacking, like the guy who's needed God's pushing all along the way and can barely hear him and barely obey him. By the end of the story is threatening kings and moving decisively and with confident clarity at hearing the voice of God and acting on the instructions? What changed for Gideon? He experienced God. He experienced God. At the beginning of the story, we get some insight into who Gideon was. He says, if God is here, if he's up there, then why am I down here? And then, I don't know if you saw in the text, he calls him the God of our fathers. If the God of our fathers is real, he didn't call him my God, the God of my fathers. See, at this point in Gideon's life, I would surmise he had only heard about God. Other people had only told him about who his God was and what he did. God was an experience of other people, of the people who came before him. God was not someone that he had personally experienced. He was still their God, the God that he had heard about. And I think this is so important because for so many of us, for so many years, God is the God that other people talk about. God is the God that Nate gets up and preaches about. Jesus is the Savior that other people sing to, that other people experience, that other people cry out to. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit that guides other people, that speaks to other people, that convicts other people. But we haven't personally experienced those things, and we kind of wonder when it's going to be our turn. And I think so many of us can relate to Gideon because to Gideon, God was someone that other people talked about. And to so many of us, so often, God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are things and gods and people that other folks seem to experience and talk about. But we haven't experienced them. And so we talk about them like I talk about Viking battles, secondhand from what I see. And so I think what changed with Gideon is that he experienced God. He walked in terrified obedience. God shows up and says, hey, I want you to go tear down those idols, but I can't, I'm gonna get killed. Just trust me, do it. Okay, can I please get a sign? Yeah, I'm gonna burn your dinner. Okay, I'm gonna go do it. And he does it. And he does it in the middle of the night because he's fearful of the ramifications. But God's faithful to him. And instead of having him be killed by the mob, the mob now wants to follow him. And then all of Israel is coming to follow him and Gideon says, God, are you sure I'm the guy? Are you sure I can do this? And he gets a sign and then another sign and with timidity and fear he steps out and he says, okay. And then God widows down his army to 300 men. And he says, are you sure, God, I need to do this? Yeah, I'm sure. And those 300 men conquer 30,000. And then we see him walking with confidence. Do you see this transition that happens in Gideon? This man who hasn't experienced God and doesn't recognize the voice of God and isn't sure if he can trust this voice of God becomes a man who, without blinking, recognizes God's voice and walks in confidence that God will do what he said he was going to do. So what happened to Gideon, what moves him from this doubtful, timid hesitancy in his faith to courageous clarity in his faith is nothing that he did. It's not following the rules better. It's simply walking in obedience to God. And in taking those steps of faith and walking the path that God called him to walk, he experienced the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God and the reality that God is one who keeps his promises. And Gideon learned the lesson that as long as I step in the path that God has laid out for me, nothing can happen to me that God doesn't want to have happen to me. He will keep his word. He will be faithful to his promises. And the same invitation is extended to us. Quite simply, if we want to experience God and grow in our faith, we need to obey. We need to take a step of obedience. In a few weeks, I'm going to do a whole sermon on the fact that at Grace, we define discipleship and spiritual growth as taking the next step of obedience. So I won't belabor that point now except to say that we believe that everyone has a next step of obedience that's been placed in front of them. And I would contend that if we feel weak in our faith, if we feel timid in our faith, if we feel like our faith hasn't progressed to where it should, if we feel like God is someone that other people talk about, but that we haven't experienced that maybe, maybe, maybe it's because we haven't been taking those steps of obedience, the easy ones or the fearful ones, to watch God come through for us. So we train our spiritual ear to hear the voice of God, to see him in circumstances, and know that's the way that he wants us to walk. And so for all of us, in light of the story of Gideon, as we move from timidity to courage, as we sing, I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God. As we sing in a few minutes and we say over and over again that God makes us brave. Let's understand he makes us brave by our obeying him, even when we don't know what's on the other side of obedience and trusting that when we get there, God will take care of us. So God, even though I'm scared and even though I don't know how it's going to work out and even though this is a really difficult step for me to take, I'm going to take it and I'm going to trust that you're going to be there for me when I get there. And I'm telling you, the more you do that, the easier the step gets the next time. Not because you've got it figured out and you're great and you're awesome, but because you know that you can trust your God to come through when he says he's going to come through. And so we become brave as Gideon became brave. I don't know what your step is. I have no doubt in my mind that with this many folks in a room, some of you, your step is right here. You know good and well what God would have you do. It may be terrifying. Terrified obedience still counts. Maybe it's to have a conversation that you've been putting off and dreading and avoiding. Maybe it's to mend some fences and offer forgiveness in a place where you're not quite ready to do that yet. Maybe your simple step of obedience is to actually set the alarm 30 minutes early and get up and spend time in God's word and time in prayer like we talk about all the time. Maybe your next step of obedience is to actually turn around and invest in your spouse and invest in your marriage and double down on it instead of finding small ways to escape it whenever you can and see what goodness comes from God in that. Maybe it's to be present for your kids and not try to avoid them so much. Maybe it's to take a step and begin to trust God with your finances and give generously. Maybe it's to deprioritize some things that are getting too much of your time. I don't know what your next step is, but I know that you have one. And I know that if you take it, as happened to Gideon, you will experience God in the taking of that step. You will experience him come through for you. You will walk with bravery as you take step after step, and you will become the person who God has created you to be. So, grace, go from here, mighty men and women of valor. Go from here, wise men and women of grace and patience, kind men and women of goodness and mercy, and obey God and let him make you brave in that step. Let's pray. Father, thank you for being the one constant that we have, the one thing that we can count on, the one constant in our life that will absolutely never, ever let us down. Lord, I pray that you would make clear for those who can hear me what our next step of obedience is. God, what would you press on us that we need to do? What step would you press on us that we need to take, God, and give us the courage to take it? Let us embrace the fact that terrified obedience still counts. You'll take it, and it is sometimes the most formative obedience. God, as a church, make us brave. As a church, give us the faith to take the step of obedience that you lay out in front of us. Let us move as one as you seek to impact corners of the community of the city of Raleigh and Wake Forest and the surrounding towns. Make us brave as individuals so that we might be brave as a church and so walk in your might and in your truth and in your identity and serve you well as we go. It's in Jesus' name we ask these things. Amen.

I wonder, pals, how long has it been since we heard those stories? I bet it's been a while. And if we could tell them again, I wonder if we would find out that those stories aren't really kids' stories at all, but they were meant for grown-ups all along. And that there's still lessons we can learn from them today. Let's find out together. Speedy delivery. For me? Thanks mailman Kyle. Today, Samson. All right. Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. It's been a minute since I preached. The elders were kind enough to allow me to take the month of July off from preaching. And as I said last week, thank you so much for being a church that lets me do that. I'm sure that as I converse with people and continue to process what the month allowed me to do, one of the things that I'm coming out of July with is a profound gratitude for you. I'm so grateful that I get to be your pastor and that I get to be in this place. It is one of the most profound joys of my life. So thank you for letting me serve you in this way. As we jump back into the series, Kids Stories for Grownups, it's kind of born out of this idea that there's these stories. If you grow up in church, there's these stories that we learn all along the way, right? David and Goliath and Noah and the Ark and Jonah and the Whale. We hear those stories and then when we grow up and we still sit in church on Sunday mornings, we don't talk about kids' stories. We talk about important theology and Romans and things like that, but we don't revisit the kids' stories. Sometimes when I put Lily to bed, my six-year-old daughter, she'll ask me for a Bible story, and I love telling Lily Bible stories. I love telling Bible stories to anyone, especially if they haven't heard them before. And it's funny how I'll remember the stories that I liked when I was a kid and I'll think, oh, I'll tell her about Noah and the ark. Oh yeah. I mean, the animals are cute, but like the whole world dying. That's, I don't think she's ready for that yet. So let, not that one. And then, well, maybe I'll tell her this one. Ooh, that's a, that, that, that, that, um, the holy war is, is tricky right now. Let's, uh, let's, let's wait on that one. And then, well, maybe I'll tell her this one. Ooh, that Holy War is tricky right now. Let's wait on that one. And you kind of realize, my goodness, these are not intended for kids at all. These are intended for adults. And there's no story to me that personifies that better than the story of Samson. When you read, when you're a little kid, if you grew up in church, and this isn't everyone's experience. Not everyone grew up in church, and I understand that. And maybe if you didn't grow up in church, you've heard of Samson before, and you know he was like superhuman, like Bible Hercules, that was him. But when you're a little kid and you grow up in church, especially if you're a little boy, Samson's the best. Samson was the Hercules of the Bible. He accomplished things of superhuman strength. He killed 1,000 people with the jawbone of a donkey. And when you're eight, that sounds amazing. When you're 41, you're like, but why did he do that? What's the matter with Samson? That's awful. And when you revisit this story, you realize this guy was a jerk. And I'm saying he was a jerk because it's church and I'm on the stage and there's children in the room. But that's not the word I want to use. I would like to string together more colorful words to describe who Samson was. And so when you go through the story of Samson, overshadowing everything is this constant why. Why did God use him? Why is he in the New Testament referred to as one of the heroes of the faith? How? Why? Why does God continue to use him and bless him? This doesn't make any sense. And I'll just tell you up front, the goal for this morning is not to answer the why question. The goal for this morning is to see what we can see in the life of Samson and how God interacts with him and how that might inform how we interact with God and how God pursues us. But we're going to take a stab at that as we go. But the story of Samson is not the story of a hero of the faith to me, or at least not what you would think it would be. We pick up Samson's story in Judges chapter 13, where we learn that there is a, and I would encourage you to grab a Bible. There's one in front of you. Judges 13 through 16 is where we're going to be today. If you're at home, follow along there. But just double check me and make sure I'm not making this stuff up because it's going to sound like I am, but I promise you I'm not. His life was just nuts. So in Judges chapter 13, we pick up Samson. We learn of a woman who was married to a man named Manoah, and she was not able to have children, but she desperately wanted some. And so she's praying to God that God would allow her to have some children. And this is what God says to her. In Judges 13, verses 3 through 5. Okay, so there's a couple of things going on there. First of all, you see that he can't, no alcohol, no touching unclean things. You cannot cut his hair ever. It's a Nazaritic vow. He was going to make a vow of the Nazarite. And that just means someone who is set aside intentionally and purposefully from birth to be used by God. And so the vow incorporates no alcohol, no haircuts, no touching unclean things and following God's law. So before Samson is born, God goes to his mom and says, I'm going to give you a son and your son is going to be used by me. He's going to take the Nazaritic vow and he can never drink and his hair can never be cut. And I am going to use him to overthrow the Philistines. At which point it's helpful for me to explain that what is going on in the period of the judges. As we read the book of Judges, we're in an era of Israel called the Judges before they had kings. So it's after they wandered into the desert, they've established themselves as a nation, or rather God has established them as a nation. And now they do not have a king or a ruler, rather God is their king. And in his rule, God appoints a judge to sit and do just that, to settle disputes, to help people figure things out, to say you're right and you're wrong and you have to pay them punitive damages and all those things. He appoints a judge during peaceful times to keep everything harmonious. But the role of the judge was also at times to overthrow the other tribes oppressing God's people in Israel. Because the cycle of the judges is God would establish them and freedom and they would be in charge of themselves. He's their king. They would have a judge and they serve him well and in peace. But eventually they would forget about the blessings of God. They would begin to make their own choices, follow after their own gods and go into a stage of rebellion against God. And to get their attention, God would allow them to experience the consequences of their actions by removing his hand of blessing from his nation of Israel. And they would get oppressed again by the Midianites or the Amorites or the Philistines or some other ites until they would cry out to God, we've messed is, I'm going to give you a son who will take the Nazaritic vow, and he is going to become a judge over Israel and will begin to overthrow the Philistine oppressors. That's the promise God makes to this woman. So she has a son. They name him Samson. And we don't know a lot about his childhood. When we see him come on the scene, he's walking back and forth to this village that was, I guess, a neighboring village to where he was, except it was a Philistine village. And one day on his way, it says a young lion attacked him. And it says that the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he ripped the lion apart with his bare hands. So this is where we see Samson's gift from God is this kind of superhuman strength. And while he's in this village, he meets a girl. And he goes back to his parents, and he says to his parents, hey, I've met a woman, and I want her to be my wife. Will you please make the necessary arrangements with her parents, which fellas, if only it were that easy, right? So they say, and this is the response. I love this response. You can find it in the text. When he says, I want to marry this woman over here from this Philistine village, his parents are troubled because he's supposed to marry an Israelite girl. He's supposed to marry a Jewish girl. That's kind of part of the deal. When you're part of the Jewish faith, you don't intermarry with other faiths. You stay with your faith. This is something that's really important to God and the Old Testament. It's really important to Samson's parents, but Samson doesn't care. And so their response when he says, hey, I've met this Philistine girl and I'd like to marry her. Can you make the arrangements? His parents' literal response is, Samson, have you considered your cousins? That's the response. Now imagine some of you have kids that are of marrying age. Let's say they bring them home and you guys are talking and that person goes off to bed or they go to the restroom or whatever it is and you lean over to your child. How bad would that person have to be for you to say, have you considered your cousins? Like what about your family at least? They didn't want to marry her, but he did. And for whatever reason they allowed it. You get the impression that Samson's not the kind of person that you can say no to, so they make the arrangements. And he's on his way to the village for the marriage celebration. It's like a seven-day celebration. It's like a seven-day long wedding reception, which is my nightmare because I hate wedding receptions. But there, which I'm sure no one's surprised by that. Like, I didn't see that one coming, Nate. Yeah, I don't like dancing. All right, they're the worst. So it's a seven day reception to go to for a wedding. And on his way there, he passes by the lion that he killed, except now it's a carcass and some bees have built a hive in it. And there's some honey in there. And so he's like, well, that looks nice. And so he scoops some honey out and he eats some of that honey, which seems like an inconsequential thing, except it's a violation of his Nazaritic vow. He's not supposed to touch unclean things and that was dead. So it's unclean. So Samson already is pretty cavalier about the vow that he made to God, that his parents asked him to make to God, and about his fidelity to this God that's empowering him to rip lions apart with his bare hands. And he gets down there, and at the reception, he's been assigned 30 companions. They've chosen 30 men from among the town to be his companions, to be his friends, which that's 30 is a lot. It's a large wedding party and also does not sound very fun. Like, hey, to celebrate your wedding, here's 30 people that you're going to spend the week with that you don't know. But that's how they did it. So those are his companions. And on the first day of the celebration, he says, hey, I'll make you guys a bet. I'll bet you that I'll give you a riddle. And if you can solve it, then I'll give each one of you a set of clothes. And if you can't solve it, then each of you, all 30 of you, has to give me a set of clothes. And apparently, this was a pretty high-stakes bet, all right? There was no Old Navies. We're not running to the store to buy shorts for $12. Clothes were very expensive. They were handmade, and having one or two sets was a pretty big deal in life. So betting 30 of them is a pretty large gamble, except, and you can read it, it's kind of a dumb riddle, honestly, but it's a riddle that's impossible to solve. The answer to the riddle is this carcass that has honey in it down the street, but you're never going to guess it. So it's a totally impossible riddle. And now you're just going to beat your heads against the wall for seven days. And then I'm going to take all of your money. This is great. So he's made a jerky, impossible bet to his new friends. So as the celebration goes on, the 30 companions are really putting pressure on Samson's fiance to tell him, hey, figure out what the answer to this riddle is and tell us. Like, he's going to come in here and embarrass all the Philistines ever. So you got to figure it out. You got to figure it out. So she's pressing on him to figure it out. He won't tell her. He won't tell her. Finally, on the seventh day, he tells her. So she goes and she tells the guys, and then the guys publicly say, hey, we got it. And they give him the answer to his riddle. And he's so incensed and so angry that they used his fiance to figure it out that they came about it in an unfair way. They didn't just figure it out on their own. They had to cheat to win and now they've won and now he owes them 30 sets of clothes. So Samson, in his rage, goes into town and murders 30 people, and then takes their bloody clothes and goes and pays off his bet like that. What? He just goes into town and kills 30 people, and then takes their, I'm sure, blood-stained clothes and goes and gives them to the people to pay off the bet and then storms away. Samson's evil, man. That's crazy. That's maniacal. That's like the first three murders, okay. But then 27 more. Are you kidding me? That's so bad. So after a period of time, I don't know what kind of cooling off period you need after 30 murders, he goes back to the father of the bride and he's like, okay, I'm ready to take my bride now. And the father of the bride's like, oh, you were, you were so angry that I didn't think you wanted anything to do with the family. I gave her to one of your companions. I have another daughter if you'd like to talk about her, which seems like a totally reasonable response. I just did a wedding this weekend. I went to rehearsal on Friday morning, and then the ceremony was yesterday afternoon. If in between the rehearsal and the ceremony, the groom murdered 30 people associated with the bride, I would just assume that the wedding was off. Like, I don't need a confirmation email on that one. I'm just not going to go. So it's a reasonable response. And Samson is so mad that he then goes, the Bible says, and he captures foxes, 300 of them, we are told. And he ties their tails together and he puts a torch in their tails and he sends them through the fields of the Philistines. Now, I'm not an animal lover, okay? You guys know this about me. That's still crazy. That's still wildly evil to just do that to animals and burn down all the crops of the whole city. These farmers didn't have anything to do with Samson. Just the huge impact that would have on that town. Now, yes, God has raised him up to be a judge and to overthrow the Philistines, but like this? When the Philistines hear about what happened, they send an army after Samson. Samson's cornered, and all he has is the remains of a donkey, so he grabs the jawbone of the donkey, and he starts fighting, and God's spirit was with him, and he slayed a thousand Philistines that day. Now, it's wild to me that after the first, like, 20, he didn't grab one of their swords and make it a little easier for himself. He's like, no, I'm riding with this jawbone, man. It got me here, so let's go. And he kills 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. And in the aftermath of that battle and that life lived so far, we have these verses that kind of sum up this place where the story pauses. And he was very thirsty. No kidding, Samson needed some Gatorade. And he called upon the Lord and said, you have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant and shall I now die of thirst and fall at the hands of the uncircumcised? God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore, the name of it was called Enhachor. It is at Lehi to this day, and he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years. How about that last sentence? I bet you didn't see that coming, did you? This guy that just murdered 1,030 Philistines and burned down their crops and in no way at any point in his life has honored God or seemed to care about him at all. Doesn't care to marry a Hebrew girl like he's supposed to. Doesn't care to honor his vow like he's supposed to. doesn't care to try to be tempered and measure in his character at all like he's supposed to, and then, great, let's make him the judge of Israel for 20 years with God's blessing. What in the world? How can God use Samson? How is that allowed or fair or right? You know, I don't know. But at this point in the story, when you see who he is, you see his stripes, and yet he ruled Israel peacefully for 20 years that God gave him. I can only conclude that it's because God faithfully uses the profoundly broken. He faithfully uses the profoundly broken. We see this over and over again in Scripture. Moses was a murderer. David was an adulterer. Noah was a drunk. And on and on it goes. But we, all of us, ought to be grateful that God faithfully uses the profoundly broken. Because there is not a person in here who isn't. There is not a person within the sound of my voice who has not been at different times in their life for different reasons profoundly broken. Scripture says that God's law is a mirror that we hold up and essentially see our ugliness and therefore need for God. You cannot be a Christian and walk with God for any period of time and not be well acquainted with just how sinful you are. And not at some point be disgusted with what's in here and what you're capable of. Every one of us has walked through a season and gotten to the other side of it and turned around and thought, who was that person? If you have never been profoundly broken, I have good and bad news for you. You will be, and it's for your better. So lest we look at Samson and think it's unfair that God would use him, let's be reminded that God faithfully uses the profoundly broken, those wandering far off, those who do not seem to have a life that's in harmony with the faith that they claim. God still uses those people, and we ought to be grateful for that. We sang, all three songs that we sang up to this sermon were about that. It was about God's pursuit of us, how God doesn't give up on us. This God of revival, pour it out, pour it out. There was no one in need of revival more than Samson, and God continues to faithfully use him. And I've told you guys before, I tell you as often as I can, Ephesians 2.10, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we might walk in them. God has a plan for you. God has a purpose for you. God designed you and intended you to be used and deployed in his kingdom. Who cares if it's in a big way or a small way? They don't matter, but it's in a way. God intends to use you and he will continue to use you despite your brokenness, despite your rebellion, despite your wandering. And the other reason, the other thing that we see in God using the profoundly broken is the fact that he is a God who keeps his promises. He promised that woman before she ever had Samson, I will use him to overthrow the Philistines. He made a promise. And we serve a God that keeps his promises. That's what this means. That's what that tells us. That's what that reminds us of. The cross is a symbol of the fact that we have a God who keeps his promises. There's a scholar named N.T. Wright who defines God's righteousness. If you want to say, what does it mean that God is righteous? How do you define God's righteousness? It's his commitment to keeping his promises. The cross is a reminder that God keeps his promises. That's why I say that to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who 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. That he kept those promises and he's going to keep the ones in the future. God made a promise to that woman. And so despite Samson's best efforts, he keeps it. He keeps his promises to you too. We pick up the story 20 years later. Samson's in Gaza. And in Gaza, he goes and he sees a prostitute and he's like, yep, she looks nice. And he goes and he lays with her. They find out that he's there. They want to kill him. He leaves. He rips the gates off the hinges of the town and he throws them into the ground. I don't know why he does it or why it's in the Bible. It's just kind of showing off. Look at this thing I can do that God lets me do. So he just does the gate thing. And we all probably have gifts that God gives us that we've misappropriated somewhere. That's definitely one of them. But the casual nature in which it's written tells me that this was not the first time that Samson went to see a prostitute. If you think that just because it's the first time it shows up in Scripture that it was the first time he did it, then I think that you are stupid. From there, he meets a woman named Delilah. We often think that Delilah was a prostitute as well, but there's nothing in the text to indicate that, that I saw. So she was a Philistine woman. And you guys know how the story goes. The Philistines saw that they were in a relationship and the officials come to Delilah and they're like, hey, we'll pay you a lot of money if you'll figure out what the secret to his strength is so that we can subdue him. She's like, all right, I'll figure it out. So she goes to Samson. Samson, if you love me, if you trust me, if you really want to be with me, you know, all the things, then will you please tell me the secret to your strength? And after a little bit, he relents. And he says, sure. If you get seven fresh bow strings and bind me with them, the strength will leave me. I'll have none of it and I'll be easy to subdue. But don't tell anybody. I added that last part because it makes sense for him to say that. He goes to sleep that night. She gets seven fresh bow strings. She binds him with them. And she tells the Philistines, I've got him. He's in big trouble. And they come in and she says, Samson, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. And he breaks the bow strings like they're nothing. And he takes out his assailants and he defeats them and he's not arrested. And then she goes to him, and this is remarkable. And she says, Samson, you've embarrassed me in front of my friends, okay? You told me that it was bow strings, and it wasn't. And now, don't I look like an idiot? I have no idea about this exchange. Why, Samson was like, yeah, yeah, I mean, that's fair. I did lie, but you also tried to have me murdered, so. So he's like, you're right, baby. I'm so sorry. Here, let me tell you the real secret. Weave my hair into a loom and then that's going to get me. So that's what she does. Falls asleep. She weaves his hair into a loom. Samson, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. He breaks out of there and he defeats them. The assailants are defeated and he's not arrested. And she again, Samson, man, I'm so mad at you. I've got a bone to pick here. You've embarrassed me in front of my friends again. What are they going to think? She presses on and presses on him, and Samson says, okay, fine, listen. If you cut my hair, it's never been cut. The Spirit of the Lord will leave me. I will not have any strength. I'll be like a baby. Which I can only guess. Like, why would Samson tell her that? She's done the other two things to him that he said, and he knows what's going to happen. She's going to do it. The only reason can be that after 20 years of Samson doing what he wanted in the spirit of the Lord being with him, that he started to think he was the man. And he forgot he wasn't. And he forgot he was reliant upon God for that strength. And so he said, yeah, you know what? Forget it. Yeah, cut it. See if I care. I'll be fine. So he tells her. And she cuts it. And they come in. Samson, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. And they take him because he has no strength. And they pluck his eyes out and they put him in a mill grinding grain to live out the rest of his days like livestock. And he is brought low. And it's at this low point that my favorite verse in the story occurs. If you just read the story yourself, my guess is, like I did the first several times, you're going to miss this verse, but I want us to stop and look at it at this low point where his head is shaved, he is bald, he has broken every vow that he's ever made, his eyes are plucked out, he has been forced to live out his days like an ox in a mill. And he was supposed to be the leader of Israel. We get this gem of a verse at the end of chapter 16. But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. Just this little pause. Just this little transition in the story. Yeah. Yeah, God says they shaved his head. They didn't scalp him. That hair is going to grow back. And my promises are still true. And I'm still here for Samson to call on whenever he decides he needs me. And I love that verse because it reminds us that at our lowest, God still sees a future for us. At our very worst, at our very least, at our bottom of the barrel moment, whenever that is and whenever it occurs, wherever we are, God still sees a future for us that we have not forfeited. He still envisions a purpose and a plan for us that our sins are not too great for. At our lowest, at your lowest, God still sees a future for you that's better than the one that you would imagine for yourself and it's better than the one that you deserve. While Samson was milling, they came in and got him. There was a large festival going on wherever the Philistines had festivals to their God. And we're told that he was placed in between two pillars for the people to gawk at. He was the entertainment. Look at the mighty Samson. Look at the one who's killed thousands. Now look at him. Look how pathetic he is. And he's placed between two pillars, and on the top of this roof was a couple thousand Philistines, and in the courtyard was a couple thousand Philistines. And Samson asked the girl next to him, can you place my hands on the stones? I just want to feel them. And he cries out to God right as a last act in Judges 16, 28, then Samson called to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once. Oh, God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes. So there's like some positive and negative there. Oh, God, please be with me this one last time. Like he remembers. He remembers what he was supposed to do. He remembers that it was God who provided him the strength. And so he cries out to God. But then he tacks on to the end of it, so that I may avenge my two eyes. Not like, so that I may avenge you, God, not so that I may bring judgment on the Philistines, not so that I can be your servant once again, but so I can get them back for me to the very end. Samson, jerk. But he cries out to God, and God blesses him. And it's interesting to me, and I missed this, we're going to go back and get it, but it's interesting to me that God only allowed Samson to experience the full consequences of his action once his betrayal was complete. Did you catch that? That hair that Samson allowed Delilah to shave was the last thing tethering him to his God in any way. It was the last acknowledgement, either implicit or explicit, that Samson was tethered to God in any way. It was the last symbol of his fidelity to a God that he had long rebelled against. When he scooped up the honey out of the carcass, he doesn't care about his vow. You're trying to tell me that Samson never had wine? When he's sleeping with the prostitutes, he doesn't care about his vow. When he's marrying the Philistine woman, he doesn't care about his vow. Nothing in his life shows that he cares about his God and fidelity to his God at all, except his hair. It was the one thing tethering him to his father. It was the one symbol in his life that God still mattered to him. And when Delilah shaved it, he said, yeah, you can have that too. And his betrayal was complete. And it's just interesting to me that God did not allow him to experience the full consequences of his actions until he had completed his betrayal. This is not for everybody what I'm about to say, but for some of us who think we've been getting away with things and that we'll never really have to experience the consequences of those actions. Maybe God is just giving us enough space to see if our betrayal will be complete. As he continues to pursue us, and we continue to make rebellious choices. When I saw it as I prepped, I paused. And so I wanted to pause here too. And just submit that to you for you to consider. Now from the life of Samson, what do we learn? What do we see? What can we take from that? I think we're tempted to look at Samson and to look at what he did and to say like, I'm not capable of that. I can never do those things. I'm not going to murder 30 people and sleep with a bunch of prostitutes. I'm not going to do all that stuff. Know what? I would say you're probably right. But here's what Samson did. Samson did whatever he thought he could get away with. Samson did whatever he wanted that he thought he wouldn't have to suffer the consequences for. You've done that, right? We've all done that. Had seasons of life where, you know what, we're just going to do, I'm just going to do whatever I want to do that I think I can get away with. And in that way, we're all like Samson. Because of that, I think we need to acknowledge this morning that a rebellious life is built on small rebellious choices. A life of rebellion is built on small rebellious choices. Look at the progression of Samson. He just wanted to marry the girl he shouldn't marry. He wanted to break that rule a little bit. It's just scooping the honey. It's not that big of a deal. Everybody likes honey. It's got a little sweet tooth. Who cares? It's all going to come out in the wash. I'll just give this impossible riddle and take their money. I'm taking advantage of them. But, you know, everybody does this sometimes and then it's murder and then it's theft and then it's sleeping with people that he shouldn't, and then it's a total betrayal of all of his fidelity to God until one day he breaks the last tether. And he ended up with a life of rebellion, but that life was built on small rebellious choices. I'm going to cheat here. I'm going to lie over there. It's just small lies. It's not that big of a deal. I just need to save face in front of my boss. Just a little flirtation there. I'm out of town. It's not a huge deal. I'm never going to see this person again. We're not going to actually do anything. I don't think I really need to go to church. I'm just going to hang back. I'll catch it online when I can. Not this week. Not small group this week. Not reading my Bible this morning. I'll start that next week. This week's busy. A full life of rebellion is built on just small, inconsequential, rebellious choices, where before you know it, this is just our MO. And here's what I would say based on the life of Samson, that a life of rebellion will always come crashing down around you. A life of unrepentant rebellion will always come crashing down around us. We cannot continue to take these rebellious steps. We cannot continue to move away from God, to wander away from him, to have these seasons where we just don't have any faith and we have very little fidelity to the one that is faithful to us. We cannot walk like that forever and not have that life come crashing down around us. So when I look at the story of Samson, to me, it's a story that's very confusing, very tricky to understand, but also it's a story that's incredibly sad. Because when I look at Samson, I think of the life that could have been. What joys did God have stored up for him that he could have walked in? I think of what if Samson had believed the Psalm of David that would come generations after Psalm 1611 that says, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. What if Samson had chosen a life of obedience rather than rebellion? What if he would have trusted, yeah, I want these small joys now, but God, I know that you have a much better plan for me. I know that that's who I want to marry, but God, I know that if I follow your plan and your path, that in your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hands there are pleasures forevermore. I know that the life that I envisioned for myself could never be the life that you have for me. And when I look at the life of Samson, I wonder what goodness did he forfeit? What did he give up? What kind of peace could he have had with the family? What kind of peaceful reign could he have enjoyed? What kind of children could he have had around him? What kind of goodness could he have built in a community of nurturing and loving? Kindness. What did he miss out on by choosing that life of rebellion? I think that we each have a choice too. We have a choice to live a life of small rebellious choices. Or we have a choice to live a life of faithful obedience to the God who is faithful to us. I would put to you in reflection on the story of Samson, which are you going to be? Which life will you choose? Because that life can begin to be built this week. If you, up until this very morning, have lived a life of rebellion, let the hair on your head begin to grow back. God still has a plan for you. God still has a purpose for you. Anytime you want to choose him, you can. He's there. He's waiting. Many of us live a life where we try to straddle the fence. Seasons of rebellion followed by seasons of repentance and obedience. Get off the fence. Let us take the story of Samson as a sobering warning to choose a life of obedience where there are pleasures forevermore, where we'll sit at the right hand of the Father and experience the fullness of his joy. Where from his goodness we have all received grace upon grace. This week we looked at a life of rebellion and we see the results of that. Next week we come back and we talk about Gideon who lived a life of fearful and faithful obedience. And you're going to find out exactly what happens for those who choose to build their life that way. But for now, I would press on you. Which will you choose? You can start building an obedient life anytime. Let's pray and then we'll worship together and close out. Father, you are so good to us and patient with us. Lord, if there are people who hear me, who have wandered, who have left you, who have allowed you to be faithful to them while they are not faithful to you, would you bring them back? God, if there are people who hear me who have lived a life of rebellion, God, would you pull them back to you before they experience the full consequences of their actions? Would you save them in their wandering? Could this morning be a marker for them? Where their hair begins to grow again? And God, would you strengthen those saints who are living lives of faithful obedience? May they experience the depth of joy that you promise us when we walk there too. It's in your son's precious name we pray. Amen.

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

Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and it's good to see you. Thank you for coming on a holiday weekend. I always like to tell the folks that come on a holiday weekend that God does love you more than the people at the beach right now. You've made the wise choice, and God will not forget this. Before I just dive into the sermon, obviously it's been a very heavy week. We found out in the ways that we find out on your phone or on your TV or from a text or whatever that there was another school shooting, that the uniquely American problem happened again. And I can't speak for you and the emotions that you went through. I could guess at some of them. But I went awful quick to anger this time. And I think one of the things that angers me the most is the hopelessness that you feel for anything to actually change, for us as a country to actually do anything that matters in any way, that can give parents who send kids to school or people who go to grocery stores or people who go to church. Our strategy now as a country is simply to hope it's not us. That's our whole plan. And that's enraging. And one of the things that angers me most is the way the church seems to respond to this when it happens. And I have a lot of thoughts about what church should do, what the body of Christ should do in the wake of these tragedies. And I almost scrapped a sermon this week to share those thoughts. But I feel so strongly about them that I do not trust myself to stay in my lane and address it. I don't trust myself to get up here and not tell you what I really think. So I don't think it would be wise for me to do that. If you would like to get a beer, I'll tell you everything, I think. And I'll buy. But one thing that I do know, one response that the church should have is to be the light that beats back the darkness. Because this is a week, to me, the word that I kept feeling was despair. What can we do? What's going to change? What do we expect ourselves to do as a country when this happens again? Because it will. And you just feel this sense of despair sink in when you realize the answer is nothing. But that's not the whole answer. I was reminded this week of a quote that I share every Easter. It's one of my favorite quotes. It's from Pope John Paul II who said, for we do not give way to despair, for we are the Easter people, and hallelujah is our song. And so what the church does in moments like these is we cling to hope. We cling to the hope that Jesus will keep his promises, that he will return one day and he will make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue, that he will rectify things like this, and that there is coming a day when we will no longer get news like this. When tragedies that happen like this that cause the national conscience to weep, there's coming a day when this won't happen anymore. And that's the day that Jesus keeps his promises. So as Christians, we do this. We gather and we sing praises and we honor our Jesus and we declare him in the public square and we agree with the world that this place is broken but that we have a savior who will fix it. And so we are the light and the darkness. We are the army that beats back despair. So let's pray. Let's pray for our country. Let's pray for the families in Uvalde. And let's pray that maybe we won't have to wait for the return of Jesus for something to be different about these instances and their occurrences in the future. Let's pray. Lord, we know that you are brokenhearted this week too. We know that we are brokenhearted about this tragedy because it has been shoved in our faces, but God, I cannot imagine the tragedies you see meted out across the world on a weekly basis that must be so heavy on your heart. So God, we just first pray that Jesus would come. We cry out with the martyrs in Revelation 6 and say, how much longer, God? But until that day comes, God, give us strength to cling to you. Make us your lights in dark places. Make us your army that beats back despair. Help us to love. Help us to help others mourn. Help us be voices of reason in our different circles of influence that ultimately point people back to you. And God, we just lift up these families in Uvalde. The mamas and daddies with empty beds and bedrooms. God, the police officers that know now that they made some great mistakes that they have to live with. God, I just pray that you would pick them up too. Lord, we don't know what to pray. Everything we say feels inadequate. But we ask that you would be there, that your children would be seen, and that your light would be noticed. Your word says that you are close to the brokenhearted and that you comfort those who are crushed in spirit. So would your spirit act in Uvalde to surround those people? And God, would your spirit act in the leadership of our country to do what we need to do to protect our children in the future? Move and stir, God, in ways that only you can so that we don't have to live in fear of things like this. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen. Admittedly, transitioning to a sermon after that feels a little silly, but we're going to do it together, and in like two minutes you won't even notice, okay? So, Peter. We're in the book of Peter, and this week, we're looking at 1 Peter 5, verses 1 through 11, and I'm just going to work through that text. This is going to be a good old-fashioned sermon. We're just going to read a part of the Bible, and we're going to go, what's that say? And then we're going to talk about it a little bit. So, you have a Bible in the seat back in front of you. I would highly encourage you to pull that out if you did not bring one with you. If you're looking at your phone, I will assume that it is the Bible app and not somebody you were texting. But we're going to look at 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 1 through 11. And as is my habit, I open up the passage or the topic that I'm going to be addressing that week, typically on a Monday, and kind of look at it and begin to pray through, okay, God, what do you have for us in this passage? What do you want grace to know from here? And as I read the passage this week, I thought it was incredibly appropriate because the passage on the whole is addressed to the elders of the church. Now there is one sentence in there about how young people are supposed to act, and we'll talk about that sentence. But on the whole, this passage is Peter closes up this letter. This is the very end of 1 Peter. So it's the very end of his letter. So he closes it up with some summary advice. And most of this advice is directed towards the elders of the church. And when you see the word elders of the church in the New Testament, that means the leaders of the church, both in official office and de facto leaders of the church. And I thought, well, this is perfect timing to take a passage that addresses the leaders of the church, not necessarily the older people in the church, but those who are older and more mature in their faith in the church. It's interesting to me that this passage came up on a holiday weekend, and we even kind of put out on social media that if you're the kind of person who comes to church on a holiday weekend, then this is the kind of sermon for you. Because in this passage, we are addressing the elders of the church, the leaders of the church, and many of you are leaders within grace. And I don't get the opportunity to do this very often, to kind of say, hey, grace, those of you who lead, those of you who are on committees, those of you who are elders, those of you who serve in children, those of you who lead in any capacity, when we lead at grace, here's what's expected of us. Here is the kind of leaders that God wants to install into his church. So we're going to take a morning and address those of us who are leaders within grace. A couple things about that. There's some of you who are sitting there thinking, well, great, I'm not a leader here. I'm not a leader anywhere. This does not pertain to me. And you may be right. You may not be a leader. You may not lead here yet. You may not feel like you have influence outside of here. But some of you, some of you are wrong about that. Some of you are right. And if you're right about it and you're not leading yet, I would just say, keep being the kind of person who comes to church on holiday weekends and pretty soon you're going to be leading in the church. So pay attention because the goal, one of the things that we're supposed to do as we grow in our faith is lead the church in certain ways. Now, I don't mean positions and roles of leadership, but I do mean that we become people who have influence, whose example other people look at. And so if we go through our entire Christian life and we go to the same church for 25 years and we're never at any point looked to as a leader for anything, no one ever follows our example for anything ever, then we're probably not growing and living out our faith the way that we need to. So even if you don't feel like you're there yet, if you stay consistent and faithful, God gives us opportunities. And so I think this can be helpful to tuck away and say, when I have an opportunity to lead, this is what I want to lead like. Now, some of you who think that you're not leaders in the church, you're simply wrong because you are. Because I would actually define and frame up leadership in this way. If people are paying attention to your example, then you're a leader. If people pay attention to your example, if there's someone who looks at you and because of the way you act, they think that's the way that I ought to act as well, then you're leading in the church whether you like it or not. My sweet wife right here would never, ever, ever call herself a leader. She doesn't like the idea. She doesn't want to be in positions of leadership. She hates it. I'm talking about her right now. I'm going to hear about this later. But she teaches the fourth and fifth grade kids. And if you've been in the fourth and fifth grade for the past three or four years, then you've watched Miss Jen, and you've watched how she's interacted with your parents and other people's parents and other people in the church, and they've looked to her to learn, in part, how they ought to behave and carry themselves in the public square. If you serve in kids ministry, you're leading in the church, whether you like it or not. If you're on a committee, you're leading, whether you like it or not. If you're somebody in small group who speaks up often, if you can be counted on to give your input every week, you're leading, whether you like it or not. So many, many, many of you are leaders within grace without holding official office. And some of you are leaders within grace and you do have that office. You're on staff. You're an elder. You serve on a committee or you chair a committee or you help with volunteer efforts or whatever. So many of us in this room are currently leading and setting an example and exerting influence over the church. And if you're not doing it yet, you will. So as we accept that, what does God want from us as leaders? How does Peter tell us to lead? Before I answer that question, I do want to honor the text. There is one sentence about how young people are supposed to behave in the church, and it's in verse 5, and it says this, likewise, you who are younger be subject to the elders. And then it goes on, and we'll read that verse, the rest of the verse in a minute. But I take that to mean you who are younger in your faith, heed the advice and the wisdom of the people in the church who are older in their faith than you. Listen to them. Learn from them. Ask them questions. Don't think that you have it all figured out. Don't immediately dismiss them as old and antiquated and you have the right way to do all the things. Because the church gets better when we respect our elders. I'm talking specifically to the people who are younger than me. The church gets better, I'm just messing around, when we respect our elders. When we actually listen to the generations that came before us. And I know that's true, and I've experienced it being true recently, because of the way that the cross behind me ended up getting up on this stage. Back in the fall, months ago, the fall in autumn, not the fall of man in Genesis, but back several months ago in autumn, I got an email from an older lady in the church. And she's part of a small group that's populated with some of our older folks. It's like Chris and Karen's age. I'm just messing around, sorry. You know, Lucy Goosey on Memorial Day. Really and truly some of our older people in the church, they're in a small group. It's a great small group. They've been meeting for a long time. And most of them, I think maybe all, none of them come, but they all watch online every week. They're still just being very cautious and I don't blame them. Well, one of them emailed me and she said very sweetly that she really thought it would be great if there could be a cross on the stage and laid out all the reasons why she thought it would be great if there was a cross on the stage. And I responded to her and I said, you know, I agree with you. I looked at some ways to do it. Didn't really have a great way to get it done. So I just didn't do it. Now, you know, we're going to be getting a new space, so what's the hassle? Why bother with it? And I just kind of sloughed it off, right? Like, I understand we're pro-cross here, but we've got a lot, we've got cross in our logo and everything, so let's just relax about the cross, which seems like a really wonderful pastor response. And I mean, I said it nicer and more eloquently than that in big and long email and whatever, and I sent it off to her, and I didn't hear back. And then in February, to open our series in Lent, I preached a sermon, and in the sermon, one of the things I said was that we were acknowledging that we're standing on shoulders of the generations that came before us, and that this church wants to be a church that listens to all the voices in the church, that God forbid there be a generation of people who feel like they have aged out of relevance and that we no longer listen to them anymore. I would hate for Grace to be that place. So then I get another email. Hey, you remember what you preached? And I'm like, man, she's at it again. And she said the whole small group agrees with her. Now listen, call me a pessimist. I've been told plenty of times. Oh yeah, yeah, I think this and a bunch of other people do too. Oh yeah, who are the bunch? Well, my wife. Anybody else? But I'm sure they would agree if I talked to them. Yeah, okay, so let's chill out with whole small group language, right? And I was kind of skeptical. But I could tell it was really important to her, so I called the small group leader, an old elder of ours, who I have a good relationship with, and I said, hey man, what's the deal here? What do you think I should do? And his wife took the phone from him. And she said, you need to listen to us. Now they said it in a much nicer way than this, because these are two of the kindest people that I know. But they essentially said, you just shut up and do it, all right? Like you said you wanted to listen to the older generation. Here's your chance, big dog, do it. And I'm like, yeah, it cost me very little to do this. We need to do it. So I reached out to Greg Taylor, one of our great partners, and I said, let's inlay a cross in there, and we did. And honestly, it looks great. It was funny. We debuted it on Easter, and people were coming up to me, and they're like, hey, can we please keep the cross up there? Is that just for Easter? I'm like, yeah, no, Greg worked on it for like 20 hours, so it's going to stay up there. And in the weeks subsequent to that, Jen and I are standing over here worshiping, and she leans over to me, and she goes, it looks so good. It makes this room so much better. And it does. And I emailed the whole small group, and I said, guys, I am so sorry for being obstinate and stubborn and not listening to you. You made the church better. Thank you for your grace and putting up with me. And they were very kind and they are very gracious to me. But the church gets better when we listen to the voices that came before us. We should not slough them off. We should not dismiss them as antiquated, as not understanding, as not really getting it. We should hear some value in their years and in their experience and apply it to our lives. Our marriages would get better. Our small groups will get better. Our children will get better. Our relationships and our families will get better when we listen to the voices that came before us. Now, most of the passage, as I said, is addressed to the elders in the church, to the leaders in the church, to those who exert influence in the church. And I think I laid out the case that that's going to be most of you. So what does God expect from his leaders? And as we think about leadership at Grace, what do we expect from our leaders? So what does God ask of his leaders? The first thing that he asks is that we lead for the sake of others, not ourselves. Lead for the sake of others, not yourselves. I'm going to read you the verses that kind of lay this out, starting in verse 1. He writes, This may be to me the most crucial element of effective leadership. It may be for me the biggest responsibility that anyone with influence carries. That we acknowledge that we carry that influence not for ourselves, but for the sake of those that we serve. We're put in a position of committee chair, sitting on a committee, or being an elder, or being placed on staff, or being placed in a volunteer role. We're placed there not for ourselves, but so that we can serve the people that we have influence over. And sometimes it's really easy to see how people will use their leadership to be domineering and make it about themselves. I have a good buddy whose son Miles is six years old and he's playing on his first little T-ball baseball team or whatever it is. And he was expressing some frustration the other day because the coach will only put Miles in right field. He never puts him in any other positions. And my buddy's kind of, he's ticked. And he's like, listen, Miles isn't the best one out there. He might be the worst one out there, but he's also six. And this is teaching him to hate baseball, which is fine for me because sooner later, you learn to hate baseball. It's super boring. But it just makes me so mad, because that coach is making just this tiny little modicum of leadership over a bunch of six-year-olds. You're doing it because no one else wants to, dude. Like, we've all made the mistake, and now you've fallen on the sword. But it's going to his head, and his whole goal is to win ballgames. So. So I got to put the best players in the best places because if I don't win this six-year-old baseball game, I'm not going to be easy to live with this Saturday. Like, come on. It's silly. And so sometimes it's easy to tell when people in positions of leadership are doing it in a domineering way, are making it about themselves and what they can get out of it and not about others. But sometimes it's a lot more subtle than that. And I know for me that this lesson came home to roost over COVID, specifically in the summer of 2020 and coming out of 2020 into 2021. I realized during that season, and I'm going to be vulnerable with the Memorial Day crowd here because no one's going to keep up with this online. Let's pick it up next week. I realized during that season that my primary motivator in doing sermons and preparing sermons, whether I liked it or not, and it had always been this way, and I would have never admitted it to you, but I would have said, yeah, that's there, but I keep my eye on it. But really and truly, for all of my preaching career, dating back to when I was 25 years old and started preaching at Covenant Community Church, my primary motivator in preparing and presenting sermons was I want to impress you. That's it. I want you to think I'm good at it. I want you to think I'm smart. I want you to think that my insights are good. I want to show you something you haven't thought about before in a long time. Show you something fresh. I wanted to, you know, learn to raise my voice when I'm supposed to and lean in when it matters and all the stuff that you learn to do. And then my primary motivation was to just be impressive. Dating all the way back to when I first started. God gave me influence. He put me on a stage and he winds me up and he lets me go. And my primary motivator in that was that I would be exalted. That I would get to walk through the lobby a hero for this wonderful message that I just gave. And I was really good at pretending like, oh, thank you, thank you. But I loved it. And then COVID happened. And when COVID happened, I'm in this room preaching to that camera with one other person here. He's sitting at the soundboard not even listening to the words that I'm saying, just trying to make sure technically everything's going well. So I'm literally preaching to nothing. And we would record on Thursday. Sunday would come around. I'd sit in my living room and watch it, which felt super weird to sit in your own living room and watch yourself preach with your family expecting them. Are you getting anything out of this? Is this changing your life right now? No adulation, no good jobs, no attaboys, very little feedback. And the thing that I wanted from the work that I put into the sermons wasn't there anymore. My motivation to prep and to be sharp and to be ready and to do well, it wasn't there anymore. And so I kind of walked through this season of lifelessness and didn't really understand what was going on. And honestly, I thought more in that season. It was the first time in my life I asked the question about myself, like, is this really what I want to do? Do I really want to be a pastor for the rest of my life? Because this job's weird, man. But somewhere in there, the Holy Spirit kept working on me. And I don't remember the day or the time. I just know that profoundly it happened kind of coming back from we spent that holiday with Jen's family for a longer time and ended up losing her dad right before the new year. And when we got back from that, there's just this switch. And I just remember, maybe it was the Holy Spirit, I don't know. But I just remember thinking, why don't you just try to help them and not impress them? Why don't you just try to be helpful and not impressive? Why don't you quit worrying about if the sermon is the best sermon that they've ever heard on this particular topic? Why don't you quit stressing yourself out about that and just try to be helpful with the topic or with the passage that's been presented. Just serve God's people. And when I started thinking about it in that way, it was like a switch went off. It was like life got breathed back into my body. It was the joy of being a pastor came back. The desire to prepare and study returned. Before that, the sermon felt like the weekly test that I had to pass. You guys gonna keep paying me? Is this good enough for you? And then after that, it became the thing I was excited about. God, how do I get to help your people this week? How can I encourage the folks this week? How can I serve grace this week? What can I show them this week? I would have never done a sermon like this a couple years ago because this is listy and pointed and boring. But as I looked at the text and what we could learn from it and what we could gain from it, I was convinced that this is the most helpful thing I can do is to say, what does God expect of his leaders? More of you are leaders than you think you are, so what does God expect of us as we lead? And what's our leadership culture going to look like here? It feels like the most helpful thing to do. So where you are in your leadership, both here and in the areas outside of the church where you exert influence? Have you made it about yourself and what that influence can do for you? Or have you made it about how you can use that influence to be helpful to others and serve them? And I don't share that with you to be able to say, look at me, I've arrived at pure motives as a pastor. It's going to be smooth sailing from here. No, I'm sure I'll preach a sermon when I'm 50, if the Lord lets me do it that long, and I will have unraveled all kinds of messiness in my 40s that I need to repent of. I just don't know what they are yet. But to encourage you, if you feel like you're in a dry season in your leadership, if things don't feel like they're going, if the joy that you used to have and the things that God has you do, if that's not there anymore, maybe, maybe he's pruning you and rewiring you to get you to a place where your service isn't about you, it's about the people that you get to help. So when we lead at grace, we lead for the sake of others. We do not lead for the sake of ourselves. The other thing that God asks of his leaders is to lead while clothed in humility. Lead while clothed in humility. He says this down in verse 5. Likewise, when you were younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you. So now he's back talking to everyone. With humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. You know, you guys are smart adults, most of you. And we know what humility is. I don't need to get up here and try to define humility for you in a clever way. You know what it is to be humble. The easiest definition that I've heard that you've heard too is humility is to think, is not to think less of yourself, it's to just think about yourself less. I think that's a good example in humility. Humility isn't to falsely claim that things are not true of you. I have to walk knowing that I'm like off the charts attractive. And for me to deny that is not humble, that's just dishonest. And that's the cross that I have to bear. You have those things you have to be honest about too. But as I thought about humble people, the people in my life who are the most humble, that I want to be more like, the Ron Torrences and the Ginger Gentries of the world. And I think of Jen's dad, John. What are those people who are remarkably humble folks, what do they have in common? I think it's this. I think humility says, I am willing to serve and learn from anyone. The people I know who are the most humble walk through life with this attitude. I am willing to serve anyone. No one is beneath me. No one is too small for me. No one needs to clean up after themselves. I can do it. There is no position. There is no piece of volunteering that I can ascend to where that is too small for me. I'm an elder of the church now. I will not hold babies. No, that's not what humility says. I'm the senior pastor. I deserve all the best things. No, that's dumb. That's not what humility says. I've arrived at this point in my company. I've arrived at this point in my life. I don't have to deal with the small things anymore. Yes, you do, big fella. Because humility says there is no service, there is no act of service that is too small for me. There is no person who is too small for me to serve. And that's the easy one. To me, the harder one is there is, I also have something to learn from everybody. Because I don't know about you, but sometimes it's possible that I can get to thinking I'm pretty smart. I've kind of figured stuff out. And I see somebody who doesn't have as many years or doesn't have the experience, and I see them making these mistakes, and they're mistakes that I probably made too, and I just write them off like I got nothing to learn from them. Or I see people who have their life organized in ways that I would not organize my life. And because of that, I write them off like I have nothing to learn from them. And that's a huge mistake. That's not what humility says. Humility says that the greatest of us can learn from the least of us. That those of us who have the most to offer and the most to share and the most wisdom, that the people in this room who we would all love to hear from on certain issues, those are also the people who think that they can learn something from anybody in this room. So when I think of humility, I think of people who go through life believing, not just trying to convince themselves it's true, but believing that they can serve anyone and learn from anyone. If we maintain those two attitudes, it's going to be hard to go through life arrogantly. Another thing that God asks his leaders to do, and this one's important, is to lead watchfully. To lead watchfully. This is the verse from this passage that you've probably heard before in verse eight. It says, be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. A lot of us have probably heard that verse before. Whenever there's a sermon done on the enemy, on Satan, that's usually the go-to verse, is that he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And so as the leaders of God's church, we are to lead watchfully. And what's interesting to me about this verse and this passage is normally in the past when I've read it or when I've encountered it, you kind of just encounter it and it makes me think of me. Watch myself. Take hold of myself. Just know that the enemy is prowling around and that his schemes will disrupt my life and ruin my life if he can do it, so guard myself. But in the context of the larger passage, it really feels more like he's telling the elders of the church, hey, watch the flock, watch your people, lead watchfully. Know that Satan does not like what's going on here. Know that Satan does not like when families show up here. Know that Satan does not like when new people come here or when folks get more involved. He does not like that. He is not for it. And we as the elders and leaders of the church need to be watchful. And I think of the time I went on safari in South Africa. And you're driving out through the plains and the hills and whatever. And there's the way that all of the dumb Americans look at all the fields. There's a way that we look at it like, oh, look at the rhinos. That's super fun. And there's a way that the tour guide watches the fields. And his eyes are a thousand yards beyond yours. His eyes see all kinds of potential danger, and I don't like the way those elephants are acting over there. I think we might be able to see something over here if we go over there. They're looking at 10,000 things that your eyes can't see and are not trained or affixed to. You think of a captain on a boat that's looking out on the horizon for all the potential dangers and we're just looking at the person skiing in the back, right? That is how we are to be watchful over God's flock. Everybody here is the church attends and we do the things and we interact with lives and we ask questions and how are things going and what's going on with so-and-so and how's your family and I haven't seen in a little while, whatever it is. Those of us who are leaders in the church need to have the thousand, need to be looking out onto the horizon and see all kinds of dangers and evils that are waiting up for us for the sake of the flock. And what I think of the most, to put a point on it, is that old adage that we go back to whenever we talk about this passage. Who does the roaring lion devour? Well, the ones who have fallen away from the flock. The ones who are weak. The ones who are hurt. The ones who are slower. The ones who have wandered off. And so for us as leaders to lead watchfully, we look at the fringes of the church. We notice, listen, listen, listen. We notice when families start to dip in their attendance. I haven't seen you in a few weeks. Leaders, that's a red flag. We need to reach out to them. Hey, how you doing? Everything okay? Do you wanna go grab some lunch to grab coffee? Do you want to grab a beer? That's how we be watchful. We talk to somebody and it doesn't seem like things are super good in their marriage. We got to keep our eyes on that. Whatever it is, they're not coming to church together. It doesn't seem like they're talking very much. I don't know how things are doing. They look like they're stressed. They look like life is hard on them right now. Okay. Then they're on the fringe. They're out there on their own. Leaders. We need to be watchful of that. When families start to disengage from church, it could be that the preaching is terrible. I will accept that as one of the motives. It is more likely that the enemy is driving a wedge in their life. It is more likely that they have things going on under the surface that you don't see on a Sunday morning in the lobby, and that those things are bubbling up in such a way that it's demotivating them to come to church. And they're wandering off and they're on the fringes of the flock, leaders. It can't just be me reaching back out to them and calling them and saying, hey, we missed you. We have collective ownership of that to lead watchfully, seeing the dangers that are approaching people and families before they even see them and actively doing something about those dangers. Lastly, God calls us to lead with consistency. Lead with consistency knowing that at the proper time Jesus will give you rest. Here's what Peter writes. Resist him firm in your faith, starting in verse 9, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. So Peter says, once you're doing all these things, leading with humility, making it about others and not about yourself, when you're leading watchfully, actively looking over the flock where God has assigned you, once you're doing that, keep doing it. Stand firm. Don't stop. Don't waver. Don't give up. Don't give in. Continue to cling to the faith in weeks like this when it is difficult. Continue to be the light in dark places. Continue to beat back despair in the lives of others. Continue to reach out to other people and bring them back into the fold. Continue to reach out to people when you feel like you are faltering so that they might bring you back into the fold. But stand firm. Stay consistent. Hold on tight. And God, in His goodness and in His grace, will let you rest when it's your time to rest. God in his grace and his goodness will send Jesus for you when it is time to send Jesus for you. But until then, Christians and leaders, we cling to our hope. We serve God's church well. We serve it with humility and we serve it with selflessness. So my encouragement to you is if you are a leader at grace in any capacity, if you become a leader at grace, lead well. Lead with humility. And let's lead as hard as we can, as faithfully as we can, as selflessly and consistently as we can until Jesus says it's time to stop. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for these words from Peter. Lord, I pray that you would choose people at grace to put in positions of influence who embody these things, who are humble and who are not self-serving and who are watchful. God, make me these things more and more. Lord, we are so grateful for this place where we can come, where worship is sweet, where we get to see our friends, where we get to be recharged and rejuvenated. So God, we just pray that you would protect this little place, that we would be good stewards of the souls that you entrust to us, that for all the new people who come in, God, we would welcome them with open arms. For the people who have been here, God, we will watch after them and reach out to them. We ask that you would make grace all that you want it to be, and that we would serve you well in the midst of that. In Jesus' name, amen.