Sermons tagged with Obedience

All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here at Grace. I wanted to say a special thank you to, I think, the one person that was near this side of the room that clapped when someone said I was preaching. Thank you. all the way back to the beginning. This morning, we look at the Lord's commission of Isaiah to become a prophet. Isaiah, this prophet who, as we learned last week, his words and his ministry was one of the cornerstones of faith for generation upon generation of people. And so this morning we have the opportunity to look at his commission, look at his call into that ministry that was so beneficial for so many people. And so if you would like to read along with me, we're going to be in Isaiah 6. And before we get into it, one reason why I'm somewhat drawn to the story is not simply because, wow, what a beautiful thing to see a call of someone, but it's truly a narrative. It's a story. It has a beginning, a middle, an end, and it's a pretty unbelievable and pretty glorious story at that. And so what I would like for us to do, because we're going to read this together, what I would like for us to do, if you can commit to this, would you mind throwing on your imagination caps for me? Because as we read this, I think that this story possibly can take on a deeper meaning and maybe a more personal meaning if we allow ourselves to put ourselves within the shoes of Isaiah as he is being called into obedience. So do you mind doing that as we read through this? Can you at least do your very best this morning when it's cold and a little bit yucky outside to lean into imagination? All right, sweet, thanks. I see none of your heads nodding, so I imagine that's because your imagination caps are far too heavy for nods. So let's go ahead and jumpalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim. Now, pause real quick. Seraphim is a form of an angel. It is one of the angels of heaven and one of God's angels. So just a quick clarification there before we continue to roll. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings. With two wings, they covered their face, and with two, they covered their feet. And with two, they were flying, and they were calling to one another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. Now, to pause again, Isaiah has been invited into, this is a vision, but I think the experiences and the feelings are completely real. Isaiah has been invited into the throne room of God, into this room where the presence of God is overcoming and overwhelming the entire space. The same glory of God that these seraphim are singing fill the entire earth. He is experiencing that full weight of that glory inside of a room in the presence of God. So, And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord God Almighty. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it, he touched my mouth and he said, See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. I told you this was a pretty wild and glorious story, huh? He is able to be in the presence of God and experience the full and utter weight of his glory. He hears the voices of angels. He's overwhelmed and overcome by that glory, and he's redeemed in that glory. This is a big and a wild story that even as we try to put on our imagination hats, it's hard to imagine what anything like that would be. But if we take a closer look at what he's experiencing, I think it's a story that becomes a bit more familiar. Ultimately, he comes face to face with God's glory. He's face to face with the glory of God. And because of that, he feels the crushing weight of the sin that led him to fear the wrath that was before him. I cannot possibly be in the presence of this much glory, of this much perfection, because I'm unclean. I'm sinful. He was fully anticipating his life just being done and over, experiencing the full wrath of God. But instead, he was met with God's glory, God's mercy, and God's goodness. He's offered a forgiveness and he's offered redemption that he could have never earned. And he's offered now the ability to live in connection and the ability to abide with God. He experienced the gospel that all of us cling to in our own faith. The gospel that says that in light of the glory of God, our sin is too great to ever get to know him, to ever get to experience him, to ever get to experience anything outside of the wrath of God and eternal separation from him. But the Lord offers us forgiveness instead. Out of the goodness and the love of God, he offers us, he offered us Christ and his perfect death, life, and resurrection. And this is the same gospel that Nate talked about last week that Isaiah already foreshadowed. That through Isaiah's life as a prophet, he penned and spoke and told of this great king that was to come that we know to be Jesus. And as this king comes, he comes to save and to redeem. And so ultimately, Isaiah didn't simply foreshadow the gospel that our hope and salvation rests upon. He experienced the full glory of it. He experienced the full glory of God and was met with the mercy and goodness of God that allowed him to be in his presence and allowed him to know him and to abide in him. And so this is important. It is only after experiencing this redemption that the Lord turns and calls him into his ministry. And so, if you will, we're going to read back into verse 8. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, Here I am, send me. Notice there's an exclamation point there. So ultimately it's more of a like, who can I send? And Isaiah seemingly in his excitement says, here I am, send me, send me God, I'll do it. I'll do it. Hey, if I get to do it for you, I'm gonna do it. I'm in, let's do this thing. I imagine it kind of similar to like a football player, like at the end of like a big arousing halftime speech of like, you know, screaming like, the who can I send out there? That's going to give us two quarters. You know, that kind of thing that you either have experienced or watched in a movie. It's like, I got this coach. You know, and then you go out into the glory and the whatever. But with our imagination hats still on, I want you to take a second to imagine what Isaiah might have been thinking. Because we don't know. Ultimately, this story doesn't give us the thought process that Isaiah is going through. It doesn't tell us what he was anticipating. It doesn't tell us, hey, I bet God has blank for me. But if I'm thinking about it, then I'm, if I'm in Isaiah's shoes, I'm probably starting to compare this interaction and this experience maybe with Moses's, you know, Moses, he didn't get the throne room of God. He just got like a bush that was on fire. You know, like awesome. Moses, super happy for you that the Lord revealed himself through a bush that was on fire, which is cool, I bet, probably. But the Lord brought me into his throne room. And so if Moses got to free an entire people from slaves, from slavery, then I imagine that probably what the Lord has in store for me is just a little bit grander and just a little bit better. You know, I don't know what that means. I don't know what that looks like. Maybe it means bringing Israel to prominence, whatever it looks like. But I bet he's probably like, man, not only does he have something great for me, but man, because of how awesome I'm going to be at this, because I've said yes, because I've said, hey, send me God. I'm the one. I'm your guy. I bet I got some blessings coming. I bet he's going to bring, I bet he's going to reward me for this and it's going to be awesome. I can only say that because normally when I obey, that's kind of what I'm looking for. What good is going to come my way if I can say yes to God? But if any expectations of grandeur entered into his head, they were immediately put to rest because the Lord continues. The Lord does not simply say who, the story does not end with him saying yes, with him saying send me. The Lord then asks him what he wants him to do and what he wants his life to be about for the rest of his days. And so we're not going to read the rest of the passage, but I want to just give you a brief look inside what God calls Isaiah to do. Essentially this, tell the people of Israel, tell your people, the people that you live amongst, tell the people of Israel that they have strayed too far from me to save their land and that I will send them into exile and continue to bring this message to them until they have been scattered and the cities lie in ruin. My words through your prophecies will lay a seed for future generations, but this one is lost. That's not great. That's not quite freeing an entire nation from slavery. It's honestly kind of the reverse. It's kind of the opposite. It's, hey, your words are going to kind of send people back into the exile that I originally saved them from. Your role here is to bring terrible news to people who are uninterested in listening to you. And you're to do so until all of them have been scattered into exile and it is a direct quote, until the cities lie in ruin. Yikes. If it's Kyle in that situation, I might have responded with, oh, did I say here I am, send me? Because what I meant is, here's Nate right over here. You should send him. He's awesome. He's a great dude. Awesome beard. You'd love him, God. And here's him. Send him. He's awesome. He's a great dude. Awesome beard. You'd love him, God. And here's him. Send him. He's perfect for this. I'm not interested in that. Sounds terrible. It sounds awful. It's like, not only does it sound like I'm going to become unbelievably tired and weary as I try to say yes to this every day, but all of the people that I'm bringing this to are not even listening. I don't even get to see any fruit from my labor. I don't even get to see on the other side what the Lord is going to do as I say yes and as I obey what he is calling me to do. And look, we already talked about it. Isaiah's ministry was great. Isaiah's words and the prophecies of Isaiah were, like I said, the cornerstone of a faith of generations of people. Generations upon generations of people held to the promises that Isaiah brought to these people who would never hear him. And so we know that the Lord did unbelievable and great things through Isaiah, but here and now, the whole entirety of his calling was simply tell people of the destruction of Israel and any hope that you speak to is being saved for the generations to come, what he's telling them is, hey, look, you're not going to get to say anything of hope to these people. And all hope that it will ever come as a product of you obeying me is going to come in generations that you will not get to experience. So I'm asking you to live a life of obedience where you won't get to see or experience any or nearly any fruit or joy. And yet, Isaiah receives this seemingly joyless and seemingly fruitless call to abide, and he chooses to answer it faithfully. We know because there's not just six books in Isaiah that he didn't walk away. He didn't point to Nate and say, hey, he's your guy. Remember the beard thing that I said? He stepped up and he said yes. And so the question that I'm left asking when I read and I encounter this story is this. What compelled Isaiah to abide? What compelled him to say yes with seemingly little to no reward on the table? What sustained him to continue to say yes even as times got hard and he was overcome by weariness? When it was difficult, when it was frustrating, when he didn't see any joys or any fruit coming from his obedience, how was he sustained? How did he continue to abide? What compelled Isaiah to abide? The more I thought about this question, the more it brought up a different question for me that I think helped me to understand maybe why he was compelled. And that is to ask the question, what compels someone to be a parent? What compels someone to become a parent? And what compels someone to wake up every day and continue to walk into the obedience of being a parent? Because let's give this timeline. Right now, I'm getting to just walk through a lot of different things you know I work with kids and students so I get to experience parents of of those children I have I am a I am a person myself that has parents and so I get to see them continuing to be parents it's also a fun and joyful time as friends and family are having children or or are announcing I mean, we have like four or five babies coming in October. So like, it's been fresh on the brain. I promise you, I'm not like using this as like our like, hey, we have an announcement for you. I'm not doing any of that. But because in light of so many people becoming pregnant and so many people having children that are in and around our lives, I've just been thinking a lot about this and a lot about this question of what compels them to become parents. And then separately, what compels someone who is a parent to continue to walk in the obedience of being a parent. And so as a timeline, you've got, you find out, you and your husband, you and your wife, you find out we're pregnant. There's excitement, there's popping balloons that have a specific color in them, pink or blue, you know. Gender reveal parties is, you know. I saw no one seemingly understood that, and I was like, well, yeah. It's like, oh, yeah, you pop balloons? Yeah. Different than when I was younger. But your excitement and all of that, it instantly and immediately turns to kind of thinking and dreaming, all right, what's this going to be like? What's this kid going to be like? You're anticipating, man, I think these are probably universal, so I'll just give a couple. Probably going to be a huge Atlanta Hawks fan. And it doesn't matter how little Trey Young passes the ball, we're going to support him as long as he's there. Me and my son or my daughter that I'll have. You know, we're going to pull as hard as we can against Boston sports teams. We don't like them, and my kid's not going to like them, you know, because if the Lord gives me a child, that's what they're going to be like. They're going to love ping pong. We're going to both cry watching Bluey because of how moved we are by it. And the child's going to hopefully be as much like Ashlyn as they possibly can be. Because otherwise, uh-oh. But as silly as some of those are, like, in all seriousness, every parent-to-be, I know it. I've talked to you. I've heard your experiences. Every parent-to-be has anticipations and has expectations of what life is going to be and the joys and the blessings that are going to come on the other side of life with a child. But here's what else I've learned. It doesn't take very long of being a parent to realize that almost all of your expectations were wrong. A child's a lot different than you ever thought it would be. And if we're being honest, oftentimes it's a lot less full of blessing than it is just incredibly difficult and oftentimes incredibly thankless to be a parent. We anticipate the glory and the joys and many days we're met with something that's much less glorious and much less joyful. I see based on like the age of the parents there's like bigger nods and less big nods but we know this. We've experienced this. Even those who didn't have kids we we know how we were growing up. And we know that we sometimes were the reason why it was a lot more difficult for our parents than probably they anticipated. And yet, parents, as each day comes, they continue to serve and to love their kids. They continue to step into the obedience of their call to be a parent, even while knowing and being completely aware of the fact that it might be incredibly difficult and you might not experience a single reward for that day. And so I ask again, what compels you to be a parent? Clearly it's not the hope of what's to come and the joys that each day brings. Because if it were, on those difficult days, you would just throw in the towel and be like, well, this isn't what I was anticipating. And since the only reason I'm doing this, the only reason I'm compelled to do this is what it brings for me, I think I'm done. But you don't do that. Day in and day out, you love and you serve your child regardless of what comes of that day. The answer seems to be pretty universal. I'm sorry, I lost my place. Here we are. The answer seems to be universal. What seems to be the truth that I have continued to understand and I've continued to hear, regardless of the age of the parent or the stage of life they're in, is this. What compels you is your child. What compels you is your children. It's that first moment that you encountered them. That first moment in the hospital when you held that baby in your hands and you looked at him face to face and you experienced the depth of a love that you never knew was possible or could exist. And in that moment, you were just so overcome with that love and so unbelievably just mind-blown that you could ever have been a part of something so beautiful and so magnificent. A love that doesn't feel like you deserve it, but nonetheless a love that is wholly and completely yours. And as you gaze upon the face of that child for the first time in every time, all hopes of future glory, future blessings, future joys, all anticipations of what this kid is going to be like and what my life is going to be like while I have this kid, all of those things fade away because there is no hope of future joy that could ever compare to the joy that is in this love that I have for my child. And so regardless of how good or bad, how easy or how difficult, every day I am compelled to love and serve my child. Because I have been given a love by their existence that is different and deeper than any love I've ever experienced before or after. And that love is what compels you the first time, the 50th time, every time. And as you know, especially in the parents in the room, as you know and understand, yep, he's right. I know the exact depth of that love. I think if we turn that around, what we know and what we recognize and what we understand is that it's a similar experience to what Isaiah experienced. Because Isaiah experienced the fullness of God's love and the depth of God's goodness. The creator of the universe made a way for Isaiah to be in his glorious presence, free was the glory and the goodness of God that compelled Isaiah to abide. And not only that, it sustained him in his obedience in good times and in bad. The glory and goodness of God both compelled Isaiah to abide and sustained him in the obedience and good times and the bad. If I can borrow and switch up a quote that I read actually this morning on a t-shirt from Timothy Keller, Isaiah may not have seen the fruit of his obedience, but he saw God, and that was enough. And so, as we come to a close, my question for you is this. What compels you to abide? Like Isaiah, are you compelled by the goodness and the glory of God to continue to walk into obedience? Or are you compelled by the blessings and the joys that you hope come as a product of your obedience. Just as anyone who has been a parent for any length of time knows, you can't lean on anything except for the love of your child because there's too many tough and too many difficult days and there's not going to be enough rewards each day to sustain you. Anyone who has been a Christian or who has walked with Christ for any length of time knows, you can hope and you can anticipate and you can expect as much as you want. But almost never does life turn out the way that you anticipate. And unfortunately, maybe, at times, it's a lot less glorious. At times, in our obedience, we don't get to see their fruit. As we try to share Christ with a friend, they never want to come to our church. We don't get to walk them into the salvation that we were hoping would be our call. Sometimes the blessings we hope will come as a result of our obedience don't come. We don't get the job that we prayed for. Another month comes and we're not pregnant. Sometimes we still feel the weight of depression and anxiety. And if we are compelled only by the product of what God gives us, if we abide, then we'll simply find ourself wanting and weary and probably just compelled to walk away. But instead, if our affection is set upon the glory and the goodness of God, and our hope is rooted in our salvation in Christ, then like Isaiah, we can declare, here am I, send me in any circumstance. And when we do so, we enter into the will of God, his good, pleasing, and perfect will, and the eternal joy that he offers us freely. And so I just want to, I'd like to just close with a send off. Grace. Seek the glory of God and marvel at his love and the goodness of his salvation today, tomorrow, and every day you're given. Let's pray. God, nothing compares to the goodness and glory and love that you've given us. Lord, I just come to you now and say I'm sorry that I looked for more because there's none to be found. Lord, as I take steps of obedience, as I grow in faith, as all of us walk in our faith, allow us to rest our hope not in what you have in store for us, but the fact that you have forgiven and redeemed us and that we can have an eternal connection and relationship with you and compel us to abide. We love you. Amen.

All right. Good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I hadn't gotten a chance to meet you, I'd love to do that in the lobby after the service. First things first, to my Wolfpack friends, no jokes this morning. Well done. That was a fun run. You guys should have enjoyed that. I hope you had fun. I'm sorry it ended with an 8'11 buzzsaw yesterday, but that was a good run, lots of fun. I tried, just so you know, I pulled out, I have one shirt that's Wolfpack colors, a black and red flannel. I pulled it out this morning, and I'm fat, so I had to switch it out to the big boy shirt, but I was with you in spirit, I promise. Also, before I jump into the sermon, I don't normally do this, but there's something coming up I want to tell you about, and I want to tell you about it because of what's been going on, excuse me, kind of behind the scenes in discussions with our missions committee and on our elder board. So you probably heard Aaron say a few minutes ago something that we say regularly, which is 10% of everything that's given goes to ministries happening outside the walls of grace. It's our conviction to be generous as we ask you to be generous. And so the missions committee, which predates me, that was here before I got here, is the group of people from the church with a heart and experience in missions who determines where that 10% goes. They determine who we partner with. So we have three local partners and three international partners, and they're the ones that make sure that we're partnering with the right people in the right ways. And one of the things that they've been talking about, and one of the things that the elder board has been talking about, and so as two separate bodies, we've been talking about this together, is how can we get the partners of grace, you guys, more involved with our ministry partners beyond just passively giving and seeing 10% of that go to ministries outside the walls of grace. And so we've been actively looking for opportunities for our partners, church partners, to get involved with our ministry partners outside the walls. And so we've got that opportunity coming up next Sunday. Addis Jamari is one of our ministry partners that we support. They're doing wonderful work with families and orphans in Ethiopia. The thing that's near and dear to my heart is poverty is so pressing there that when a young family or a young mother has a child, she's very often faced with the decision of, do we give this baby up for adoption because we can't afford it, or do we lose our home or lose something else? Do we keep this baby because we're not sure that we can feed it? Which, to my knowledge, no one in faced that choice that's an excruciating decision and so by supporting them we're able to provide those mothers the resources they need to to keep their babies at home and not have to give them up for adoption which is a huge huge deal so to that end as we seek to continue to support at a story there's a trip this summer some of the teens are going and beyond the teens we have three adults from our church who are also going and so there's a fundraiser for that trip and it's a trip this summer. Some of the teens are going. And beyond the teens, we have three adults from our church who are also going. And so there's a fundraiser for that trip, and it's a way to get involved. There's a barbecue next Sunday. Wes, where is the barbecue? It's at Falls River Slim Club. That's right. Okay, so Falls River, the Greenway Club over at Falls River. There's a barbecue. You can go there. You can get some food. You can take it home, watch the Masters. You can also contribute food to that, and you can just show up and volunteer. It'll probably be a good place to hang out. There's more information about that in the Grace Vine, and you can talk to Wes after. He's one of our elders, and he happens to be married to the lady running the joint, so he knows more answers than I do. So I just wanted you guys to be aware of that as an opportunity for us to begin to partner with our ministry partners. Now, as Mike alluded to, this morning we are starting a new series called The Treasury of Isaiah. I am particularly excited about this series because I think this series was Jen's idea. Jen's my wife. I think it was her idea back in the fall when I was asking her what we should talk about, and she said you should do some stuff out of Isaiah. And that's tough because Isaiah is 66 books. It's a book of prophecy in the Old Testament. It's got all the themes of prophecy in it, and it's 66 books long. And if I tried to preach through the book of Isaiah, you guys would probably find another church, and I would probably find a new job. So I don't think that's what we can do. But there's so many wonderful, rich texts in this book that what this series gives us an opportunity to do is to dive into those and begin to learn them and see them and appreciate what they are because we don't often spend time in Isaiah on a Sunday morning. So we're going to do that for the next seven weeks. Now next week, I'm going to work to give you an overview of the role of a prophet and prophecy and what it is. And we'll look at a big sweeping view of the messianic prophecies in Isaiah, the prophecies about Jesus. But before I can even do that, I have to jump into this text in Isaiah chapter 1. If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, I hope you're bringing your Bibles, I hope you're marking them up. This is a mark-up passage. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you. In Isaiah chapter 1, we have these nine verses in Isaiah 10 through 18. And I know that I say that things are my favorite, but this is, and I mean this without equivocation, my favorite passage in Isaiah. In Isaiah. Okay? Maybe in the Bible, but definitely Isaiah. And I'm not even interested in approaching the rest of the book before we talk about this because I love the deep conviction of this passage. This passage kicks you right in the teeth. If you didn't come for that this morning, I'm sorry a little bit. But we see God speaking to his people in this passage about as harshly as you see him speak. And I'm the kind of person that needs you to do that to me or I'm not going to listen. So I love this passage. I love the conviction of it. I love the challenge of it. I love the relief of it. And in this passage, we find the very nature of the gospel. So my hope and prayer is that this passage can become for some of you what it has been for me for so many years. This is a hugely important passage. For just the slightest bit of context before I start to read it, this book is written to God's people, to the Hebrew people, to the Israelites. It is written to them at a time when they are spiraling morally away from God, when they have lost their way. And the role of the prophet Isaiah is to convict God's people. And that will become a very clear goal of his as we read this text. But God's chosen people, they have every reason to be following God. They know are they to me, says the Lord. I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and of fattened animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of your blood? Listen. your worthless assemblies, your new moon feasts and your appointed festivals. Listen, I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you. Even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Yo, God is big mad at his people. He's incredibly angry at his people. You can tell it with the way he starts off because he says, hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, you people of Gomorrah. Listen, Sodom and Gomorrah to the ancient Hebrew mind were synonymous with evil. Those cities represented what evil was. It would be like calling a conservative Southern Baptist the mayor of Las Vegas. All right. It's it's when they think of that place, they think of sin and evil and debauchery. And they think of themselves as a shining people city on the hill. We are the chosen people of God. And guys go, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, listen, you sinners. Listen, you evildoers. You've lost your way. And then he goes down and he details for them. Here's what's interesting. He's not mad at them for the traditional sins that we would think of God being angry about. He doesn't say you're debaucherous, you're gluttonous, you're filled with lust, you're sleeping around, you're selfish, you're greedy, you're hoarding, you're oppressing the poor, you're mean and unkind to one another. He doesn't say those things. He actually gets onto them for doing things that he's asked them to do. Did you catch that? Look. He says, God, you asked us to give these sacrifices. The blood of bulls and lambs and goats, they mean nothing to me. God, you asked us to do that, he says, I detest them. They are a burden to me. It wears me out to have to deal with you when you show up on Easter. These are harsh words from God. And the question worth asking, if God is this angry with his people, then why does God hate the very actions he's prescribed? They were told to do those things. There's a whole book, the book of Leviticus, that details in painstaking detail exactly what they're supposed to do. If you've ever tried to read through the Bible in a year, two-thirds of you stopped in Leviticus. And it was because the book of Leviticus is laying out all of these things. When do we offer incense? When do we offer prayers? When do we offer sacrifices? What kind? When? Bulls and lambs and goats. When do we do that? When are the calling of convocation? New moons, new Sabbath, all the festivals? How do we do those? That's all in Leviticus. God has given them in detailed instruction exactly what he wants them to do. And now here in the book of Isaiah, he is raining down fire on them for doing those things. So why is it that God hates the very actions that he's prescribed? Because what God wants is the heart behind those actions, not the letter of the law and the actions themselves. We are told by David that God can despise sacrifices, but a fearful and contrite heart he will not despise. That God requires mercy and brokenheartedness, not sacrifice. God is interested in the heart behind the actions and the motives behind the obedience. He wants to see day in and day out that they actually love him and care for him, not just when they show up at church and go through the motions. I think of it like this, how the people of Israel were acting and what God was frustrated about. When I was in college, I think Jen and I started dating when we were, I was 20. So somewhere around the age of 20, 21. We're dating. And I had not really been in a serious relationship before this. I had been in relationships, but they weren't serious. And I didn't really know how to be in a relationship. I'm still not positive that I do. I think it involves vacuuming. And so we're dating. She knew how to be in a relationship. And she looked at me one day and she said, I can tell something's wrong and I'm kind of probing. And eventually she just says, I just don't feel very special to you. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. You are. So I don't really know how I handled that conversation. But we parted ways. She went back to her dorm, and I went back to my dorm. I lived in an on-campus house named Beulah. She lived in a small women's dorm named Troy Damron, and they were kind of reasonably close to one another. I went back, and I thought, gosh, my girlfriend doesn't feel special to me. I need to figure something out here. So I came up with a plan. I went to Walmart, and I bought a king-size bed sheet. And this is not going where you think it's going. This is a Christian college. So I got a king-size bed sheet, and I lay it out on the living room floor. And my roommates are watching me do this, and I trace out in big block letters, Jen, you are very special to me. Love, Nate. I draw it out, and then I get the Crayola markers, and I'm coloring it in. I went through a whole pack. I was up to like 2 or 2.30 a.m. This is painstaking work here that I do, and then I sneak over to her dorm. We still have the sheet somewhere. I know that we own it. It's somewhere. I went over to her dorm and I tack it to the pillars on her front porch. So it's facing the front door. So everyone who comes out that door, the seven or eight girls that live there, they will see that clearly Jen is special to Nate and she will know beyond a shadow of a doubt what she means to me now. Let me tell you something. That did not get the response I thought it would. It turns out that what Jen wanted was for me, through the little things of day-to-day life, to indicate to her that I cared about her, that she was special to me. What she didn't want was a big, dumb, grand gesture with block letters that would provide sermon illustrations for decades to come. What they were offering God is the block letters. You are special to me, God. Happy? And God says, no, absolutely not. And what they were guilty of doing, and this is why God is coming down on them so hard, is they were going through the motions. They were going through the motions of their faith. They were doing the bare minimum required of them to be seen as in the faith. We're still good. I'm doing my sacrifices, God. I'm coming to the special assemblies. You know, can't make it every week, but Christmas and Easter, I'm your guy. And they were just going through whatever they decided was the bare minimum of what their faith required of them to prove to God and whoever else that they were in. And it's interesting to me that in the corporate world, we now actually have a term for this. It's a new term that we've been blessed with by the Gen Zers called silent quitting, where people who have corporate jobs understand that HR, God bless them, can sometimes make it really difficult to fire your butt when you deserve it. And they realize that they have some job security, not going anywhere, so they make a conscious decision to put in the minimal amount of effort possible that will still allow them to keep their job and collect a paycheck, while fairly clearly communicating to everyone around them, I couldn't care less about this job. Just in it for the check. Doesn't mean anything to me. Now, I know that's a harsh way of depicting that, and I do actually see some positives to it, but I'm not making a joke. I think work-life balance got ridiculous, and the next generation is course-correcting for us a little bit. It's just going to be wonky. Anyway, sorry, that's social commentary. What God is telling the Israelites is, you're silent quitting on me. You're putting in the least amount of effort possible to still appear as if you're a people of faith. But you don't really care about me and what I've asked you to do and where your heart should be. And if you are at all like me, in my old Bible, I had a note next to these verses that said, Dear God, please don't ever get this angry with me. I never want to give God a reason to be this frustrated with me. That he says to me that when you bow your head to pray for me, to pray to me, I will not listen to you. When you come to church, you are trampling my courts. When you get up on Sunday and you put on your church finest and you show up at church, it is a burden to me. I am weary of your hypocrisy when you show up and pretend like you love me. And I want to write, God, please never be this angry with grace. And if you're like me, you're wondering, when and how do I go through the motions? When and how in my faith have I simply been giving God lip service? When and how have I silently quit on my faith? When the things I'm doing are just to be seen, are just to be considered in. I thought about enumerating the ways we can go through the motions. But I really think the more interesting thing to bring up when we consider how we might do this is to think about two things. I know for me, if I want to be honest about examining my life, about when I'm going through the motions of my faith, when I'm giving God the actions but not my heart, is to think through what motivates me when I do spiritual things. When I get up in the morning early to read my Bible? Am I getting up to read it so that I can check a box and say I've been spiritual today? Or am I getting up to read it because I just want to know the heart of God more? Because I'm curious about the scripture and I want to dive in in a fresh way. Do I get up to read it so that my Bible can be on my desk and my daughter can come down the stairs and see it there and I get the good dad award for today? Or am I doing it because I want to pursue the very heart of God? When I listen to worship music in the morning with Lily in the car, am I doing it so that she thinks daddy listens to worship music in the morning? Or am I doing it because that's what sets my heart right for my day? When we go to Bible study, we attend small group. Am I doing that because I want the people around me to think that I'm spiritual and I'm the kind of person who reads my Bible and attends small group? Or am I doing it because I want to be spiritually nourished by my community of faith? When you come to church, are you doing it because you're supposed to and there's somebody that you want to see and you want to keep up appearances? Or are you doing it, are you getting out of the car with the thought, God, speak to my heart and move me closer to you today? When you perform spiritual actions, prayer for a service, prayer before a meal, leading a small group, attending a small group, showing up and partnering and serving with something in the community, what is motivating that service? Is it the way that service will make you appear? Is it how it positions you in the eyes of others? Or is it because you can't help but serve your God? Let me tell you. When we do spiritual things for the way it makes us look to other people, we are going through the motions, and our hypocrisy is burdensome and wearying to God. The other thing that we think about to assess if we're going through the motions. Can I say with authenticity that I'm the same person on Friday night that I am on Sunday morning? Is there one version of me that everyone in my life sees? And you see it on Sunday morning. You see it on Monday afternoon. You see it when my kids are driving me nuts. You see it on Friday night and I've got some freedom and I can cut loose. You see it on Saturday at the tailgate. Am I the same person everywhere I go? Or do I put on different faces for different people to appear in different ways at different times? Because if we are not the same person in all of the pockets and circles of our life, then somewhere we're going through the motions. Either we're faking being like the world, and we don't really mean it, or we're faking being godly, and we don't really mean that. And normally, people who are walking with Jesus and zealous about him don't bother faking it for the world. What motivates your spiritual actions? How consistent is your character with the people that you see? Are there different versions of you? Because if there are, you might be going through the motions too. And this temptation to go through the motions of our faith without meaning it with sincerity, without being properly motivated, is a trap into which the historical church has fallen in over and over again. There is not a single person here who's been a Christian for more than three days who has not at some point gone through the motions. You may be sitting right now in deep conviction, thinking, Father, I've been going through the motions for years. And if you are feeling that, good. I'm not going to disavow you of that. Sit in it. It's helpful. And we should be asking, if all of those things are simply going through the motions, then what things does God want from me? What does he want me to do? What actions does he require of us that can begin to shift our heart towards him and prove to him that we're in this for him? What does God actually want from us? I'm glad you asked because Isaiah answers that question. In verses 16 and 17, he says this, wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow. What does God actually want me to do? If he doesn't want me to go to church and pretend, if he doesn't want me to just do sacrifices and tithe and go to small group, what does he actually want me to do? I'll tell you what he wants you to do. He wants you to stop doing evil. Learn to do right. Defend the cause of the oppressed. Seek justice. Defend the widow and the orphan. Care for those who can't care for themselves. That's what he wants his Christians to do. That's what he wants his children to do. He wants you to go do the things you can't fake. Go do the stuff you have to really mean. And listen, this verse 16 and 17, this resolution, stop going through the motions. Stop faking your faith. Stop being insincere and burdening me with your hypocrisy. Go and do what I actually want you to do. And what is it that he actually wants us to do? It's to defend the cause of the fatherless and plead the case of the widow. It's to pursue justice and correct oppression. And I don't know of sitting with a group of men Friday morning talking about this topic and I became so frustrated with how I was taught my faith because I don't know where we decoupled justice and defending the cause of the fatherless and the widow and caring for those who can't care for themselves. I don't know where we decoupled that from the message of the gospel, but somewhere along the way in our churches, we made it optional and it's not. James tells us at the end of the Bible, true religion that is pure and undefiled before the Lord is to do this, is to take care of the widows and the orphans. Why is it widows and orphans? Because in the ancient world, those two were down and out. If you're an orphan, they did not have orphanages that you could go to that would feed you and care for you until you were 18 and send you to college. You begged in the street until you died. If you were a widow, your husband had died, and you did not have children to care for you and bring you into their home, you begged until you died. There's no social safety net. So when God says care for the orphan and the widow, does he mean specifically them? Yes, and he still does. But what he really means is those who can't care for themselves. That's why in the laws in the Old Testament over and over again, we see this principle of gleaning. When you're plowing your fields, leave the corners of them unharvested so that the sojourner, the alien, the homeless, the oppressed, the marginalized, the widow and the orphan can eat off of your field. That's theirs and it actually belongs to them. And if you harvest all of your field, then you're actually stealing from the oppressed and participating in the oppression. I'm not going to belabor this point too much because we may have a whole series about this coming up. But whenever we see the heart of God revealed, it is always for those who have less than us. When you see the idea of giving in the New Testament, it is almost always associated with giving to the poor. When you see Jesus handle the poor, he says, whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me. When Jesus begins his ministry, he goes to the poor, blessed the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. You see him caring for the oppressed. So if we want to do the things that God really wants us to do, then we have to, in a non-nebulous, very specific way, get involved with caring for those who can't care for themselves. Go to the Ades Jumari thing next week. Dip your toe in it. See what it's like. Start to talk to people in your community and find out how you can be a part of that. This is not a theoretical, metaphoric instruction. This is a literal instruction. That if we are guilty of going through the motions and the thing that God wants us to do is to care for those who can't care for themselves. So let's get active about that. Now here's the thing that I love about this passage. Because you might be thinking to yourself, why is this one your favorite? This is a little rough. Here's why. Because it doesn't end in verse 17. In verses 10 through 15 we have this tremendous conviction. You're going through the motions and your hypocrisy is burdensome to me. I'm weary of you. And then in 16 and 17, we have this very high challenge. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right. Stop being dumb. Learn to be good. Go and do it. What do I want you to do? I want you to care for the poor. Go care for the poor. Go. But then we get verse 18. And verse 18 is the best. And verse 18 kind of, to me, feels like this. Sometimes in my home, my daughter Lily and I can clash. We're very similar. And that means that sometimes our words get sharp. And sometimes there's a little battle of will about whose words are going to be louder. And I win those. But sometimes I wish I hadn't. And whenever we clash, whenever she's gotten in trouble and she feels bad, I always go find her or she'll come to me and I'll pull her alongside of me and I'll hug her and I'll kiss her little head and I'll say, I love you. I'm proud of you. It's going to be okay. You're going to do better. I'm going to do better. Because I don't want it to end with the conviction and the challenge. I want to call her alongside and I want to comfort her. And when I read verse 18, to me it has the tone of God coming alongside us, putting his arm around us, and telling us it's going to be okay. Here's what he says in verse 18. Come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. I love that verse because we experience the conviction of 10 15. And the challenge of 16 to 17 to go make it right. But then in 18, God sidles up next to us, puts his arm around us, comforts us and says, but hey, this isn't all on you. You've messed up, sure. But though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. How does he do that? Through shedding the blood of his own son that's prophesied about later in this book. So that when God looks at you, he doesn't see all the times you've walked through the motions. He doesn't see all the times you've failed to help the poor. He doesn't see all of your shortcomings and misgivings. And he is not burdened by you or weary of you. He sees you clothed in the righteousness of Christ and he is happy to pull you up alongside him and put his arm around you. So really, this is the reason why I love this passage. Because Isaiah 1, 10 through 18 is the gospel. It is the gospel. Do you see this? See, I think a big problem with the American church is that we start the gospel message at verse 18. We start the gospel message at verse 18. We begin it right there. Hey, guess what? Jesus died on the cross for you, so you're not accountable for your sins. Hooray. Just accept him and walk with him. And I think that's the reason why we have people going through the motions in their faith. Because all they need to know is, what's the minimum amount I have to do to stay right with God for that salvation to count for me? What are all the things I can do over here that I'll be forgiven for eventually? What's the minimum amount of the things that I need to believe so that I'm in and God loves me and that salvation accounts for me? And what do I have to do? What's the get in the door price for this salvation? Because we started the gospel at verse 18. But when we do that, we cheapen the power of the gospel. The power of the gospel operates in direct proportion of our realization of our need for it. The power of the gospel resonates more deeply with you the more deeply your own sin resonates with you. The more deeply your own shortcomings resonate with you. And that's why we experience the relief of verse 18 because we have the conviction of 10 through 15. Oh my goodness, God is so angry. And then we have the challenge of 16 and 17. Go and start doing right, but God, that's so hard. And then we have the relief of verse 18. And so what I want us to do now is I'm going to read all nine verses in the tone and inflection in which I think they're intended. And we're going to collectively feel the relief of verse 18 when we get there. And you in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who asks this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing me meaningless offerings. Your incense is detestable to me. New moon Sabbaths and convocations, I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your new moon feast and your appointed festivals, I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you. Even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow. Come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow. Though they are like crimson, I will make them like wool. That's the power of the gospel. The power of the gospel is to feel deeply the conviction in 10 through 15. And if you're here this morning, I've prayed that you would feel the necessary conviction. If you have been going through the motions, in part or in whole, it's not news to God. Confess it to him. If you're challenged by 16 and 17, and you think honestly about your life, and you go, gosh, I don't know what I'm doing for the poor and the oppressed. I don't know what I'm doing to correct injustice. Then let that conviction determine you to find ways to get involved in that. And then, and then, once we've sat in the conviction and we've sat in the challenge, then sit in the comfort of verse 18 and the gift of the gospel and allow that gratitude from his fullness. We have all received grace upon grace. Allow that grace that has been poured out from you from his fullness that it's not all on you to go do all the right things, but that God is already working in and through you and you are forgiven for the times when you've fallen short. Let the gratitude of that motivate the right behaviors and let the things that look like going through the motions be an outpouring of the faith that you've expressed through helping the poor and seeking justice for the oppressed. But we will never do those things if we do not allow God to bring us to a place of tremendous gratitude and comfort of the words of the gospel and the promise that we can reason together and though our sins are like scarlet, he will make them as white as snow. So I'm going to pray. And as I pray, if you need to pray to God on your own, do that. If you need to confess to God that you've been going through the motions of your faith, confess it. If you need to confess to God, I'm not doing anything for justice or oppression, confess it and ask that he would show you what to do. And if you are not overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for the gospel and him covering over your shortcomings, ask God to fill you with gratitude. And if you are filled with gratitude, express that to him. As I pray, you pray, and then we'll have a chance to sing together. Father, thank you for your servant Isaiah. Thank you for the power of your words through him. God, we know that at different times and in different ways, our hypocr forget the conviction, but that we will allow the power of your word to rest on us. Father, I pray for myself and openly confess I go through the motions all the time. But Lord, I pray that you would imbue my actions with a sincerity filled with gratitude. I pray that for the people here as well. God, give us the courage to be convicted and to confess. Show us ways to get involved with what matters most to you. And Lord, would we leave here with just a deep gratitude for your sending your son to cover over our sins. And though they are like scarlet, you will make them white as snow. In Jesus' name, amen.

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

Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. You guys have not gotten the memo. Church attendance spikes in January and February and then begins to dip in March. There's too many of you here. I hope this is a problem we continue to have. Thanks for making grace a part of your Sunday. I've really enjoyed getting to spend the last four weeks in the Upper Room Discourse, the final statements of Jesus to his disciples the night that he was arrested and crucified. And so we are calling this series His Final Thoughts because these are the last things he shares with just the intimate group of disciples. And we find this discourse in John, the back half of chapter 13, all the way through chapter 17, where we get this beautiful prayer of Christ called the High Priestly Prayer. I'm excited to be focused on that for two weeks here in another few weeks. But like Mike, our double-duty coffee guy and announcer guy this morning told us, we spent last week in the concept of abiding in Christ and why it's so important. And last week I said that the invitation to abide in Christ is a gift of simplicity amidst a world of confusion and chaos. That we're all asking ourselves these major questions. Am I making the right decision? And am I being a good fill in the blank, whatever you are. And that when we abide in Christ, the promise there is that Jesus will say yes, that we will do what we are supposed to do and that we will be what we are supposed to be when we simply focus on abiding in Christ. And we left off with this question of that's great, but life is still confusing and chaotic. Life is still very busy. I still have to do carpool. I still have to make the meetings. I still have to make the calls. I still have to do the things. I still have to live a life. So how do I abide in Christ, short of going to a monastery, in my life now? How do I abide? And so that's what we're tackling this week. So this week's sermon, really, if I'm being honest, is more of a seminar. This is intended to be practical and to be applicable to your life. So I would tell you up front that I do not expect everybody in the room to do all the things that I'm saying. Some of us aren't ready for them yet. Some of us have already started doing those things. Some of them it's not new. So I don't expect everything I say and suggest this morning to go, oh my gosh, that's so great. I've never thought about that. But my hope and my prayer is that there can be two or three things that you hear that will change your life because you begin to instill them into your life and it changes the course of your life. So that's my goal for you, that you'd pick up just a handful of things this morning that you can begin to apply in your life right away. As we answer this question together, how do I abide in Christ just day in and day out? How do I walk with the Lord? So to remind us of what we're talking about, I just wanted to start off by reading the passage. It's not going to be on the screen. And we're having some gremlins on the screen this morning. So if all of a sudden it just goes out, don't worry about it. Just keep following along. The only song we have left is How Great Thou Art. Most of you know it. So we'll be all right. If you have a Bible, open to John chapter 15. Read with me verses 4 and 5. This is where we are last week and this week. Jesus is speaking. Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. And we talked last week about how some translators choose the word remain and some choose the word abide. I memorized this passage or got acquainted with this passage with an abide translation, so that's why I say abide. But the concept is the exact same. So here's what I want to do. As we ask the question, how do we day-to-day abide in Christ? What I want to do is I want to give you three guiding principles for abiding in Christ, and then we want to look at how we can apply those guiding principles to the different areas of our life, to our work or our school, to our home, to our friendships, and then to our alone time. So that's where we're going to go this morning. First of the three guiding principles to how can I daily abide in Christ is simply anchor your day in Christ. If you want to abide in Christ, anchor your day in Christ. If you have been here, if you have come to more than four services, you have heard me say at some point that the single most important habit anyone can develop in their life is to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in prayer. It's what I consider a keystone habit. There are some habits that are so fundamental that they begat other habits. This is one of those for us, especially for believers. We need to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in prayer for myriad reasons. But if you're a parent, how are you going to teach your children the scriptures if you don't know them? If there's a verse in the Bible that says, I will hide God's word in my heart that I might not sin against you, how are we going to do that if we don't study the Bible on our own? How are we ever going to become acquainted with God's word in such a way that we can teach it and instruct it and know it and it nourishes us if the only bit of God's word are what we're getting from church every Sunday. It just won't work. This Sunday, I just read you two verses that I read you last Sunday. I'm going to read you one more verse in Philippians. That's the verse eight. Aaron read six, or where did you start? Four. Four through seven. And then I'm going to do eight. All right? So that's five verses or four verses, however the math works there. And then two more right now. That's it. That's all you're getting this week if you're not reading the Bible on your own. So we've got to read the Bible on our own. Similarly, we've got to pray on our own. We have to pursue the presence of God. We have to find a spot, get on our knees, and pray. I think posture is important in prayer. I'm not saying you have to do it. I'm just saying it helps me when I pray. And, you know, I know that some people say I'm not a morning person. I like to do my quiet time later in the day. That's fine. Do it whenever you want to do it. But for me, I anchor my day in it. I've got to start out that way. Find a place, find a habit that works for you and anchor your day in Christ by having a quiet time. If you don't know how to have a quiet time, if you're in a rut, if you need some suggestions, if you just like some more information, I've done a couple of things. I wrote a daily devotion guide. It's on the information table out there. We have two tables. We have a coffee table and an information table. You guys can piece it together where it is. This is just a guide on how much do I read, where do I read, when I pray, what do I pray about, how do I pray. And there's some resources in there. So if you're in a rut, there's some suggestions of some places that you can go and know how to have a quiet time. So I made that for you guys if you need it. And then there's also one of these, a Bible translation guide. There's a bunch of different translations of the Bible. A lot of times I get asked which one's right for me, which one should I be reading? And this is the answer, okay? This kind of tells you there's three major approaches to how translations are done, and I detail those, and that might help you as you decide which one you want to use in your daily study. But the first guiding principle is to anchor our day in Christ. We have to start with a quiet time if we're going to hope to be walking with Christ through the day. The second one is to practice the presence of Christ. If we want to abide in Christ, we have to practice the presence of Christ. I'm stealing this phrasing from a 17th century French monk named Brother Lawrence. I don't know what his actual name was, but when he went to the monastery, he took on the name Brother Lawrence. It's called The Practice of the Presence of God. It is the single best book on prayer I've ever read. I believe for some of you, the thing you're supposed to get from the sermon this morning is to go read The Practice of the Presence of God. You can write that down on your bulletin or type it out on your phone, and then you don't have to listen anymore. As a matter of fact, if you want to leave to just make some space for other people, you can do that. Go get the book and read. It's a phenomenal book, Practice the Presence of God. But one of the things I pulled from that is this idea of being constantly with Christ, just knowing that wherever I go, I'm taking Him with me. And so it taught me this little phrase that sometimes I'm spiritual enough to remember, I am with Christ, Christ is with me. Everywhere we go, if you're a Christian, he tells us in the upper room discourse that he gives us the spirit. We have his spirit with us. Everywhere we go, I am with Christ, Christ is with me. As I go into a meeting at work, I am with Christ. Christ is with me. As I go into my office, as we go into traffic, as we go into the store, as we interact with the slow person behind the cash register, I am with Christ. Christ is with me. Everywhere we go, this should be our mantra. This should be what we repeat to ourselves. We take it into and out. We take him with us into and out of every situation. On the golf course, I am with Christ. At work, I am with Christ. At home, I am with Christ. Practicing the presence of Jesus. A story that kind of brings this home for me that I heard years ago. I heard it one time and I've never forgotten it. And I think I may have told it to you guys before, but indulge me. This is not a true story. This did not actually happen. If it did actually happen, it would be super weird. So it's a fable, all right, but it makes a good point. So there's this church, and there's this one guy in the church who's known just to be a phenomenal prayer. He has a remarkable prayer life. He's incredibly disciplined. He's the guy they always call on for the public prayers. Prayers are beautiful. And he's just this monkish spiritual figure in the church. Everyone respects him. Darn it. Chris Lott is a buddy of mine. He's sitting right here. He's looking at me, and I just edited about four jokes at his expense, and then I lost my train of thought because you had some sort of dumb grin on your face because you knew. Because you knew it. You knew I was thinking that, didn't you? Yeah, that's right. All right, well, let's get back on track, buddy. I don't even know what I was talking about. Oh, the story. The story. This godly guy, the story. Well, sorry. Then the lights were shining off your head. I got distracted again. So some guys from the church said, we want to hear his prayer life. We want to hear. He's such a great prayer. I bet his prayer at the end of the day is phenomenal. I want to hear his prayer at the end of the day. I want to know what his conversation is with God when he closes out his day and goes to bed. And so they decide what they're going to do, and this is how we know it's not true, is they hide in his closet. We're going to hide in his closet. We're going to wait for him to go to bed. So they're in there. They're doing whatever you do when you're hiding in somebody's closet. And then he comes in. It's nighttime. It's 930. It's time to tuck in. And so he does his routine. He brushes his teeth. He does whatever he does. And then they're expecting he's going to kneel next to the bed. He's going to pray. But he doesn't kneel. It's weird. He just gets in. And they're like, okay, I didn't think laying down prayer. But maybe he's trying to prostrate himself like Christ did in the garden. Maybe that's what he's doing. He's going to pray that way. And he gets in, and he pulls up the covers, and he rolls over, and all they do is hear him say, goodnight Jesus. And that was it. Which makes a phenomenal point about an active, everyday, constant prayer life, and obedience to Paul's instructions in Thessalonians, pray without ceasing. So if we are going to abide in Christ, we have to practice the presence of Christ and bring him with us everywhere we go and talk to him constantly. Now, I know some people are actually pretty good at this. Some people are actually pretty good at doing what I just call like kind of sniper shot prayers throughout the day. Just kind of one-offs of God help me here, God help me here, God help me here. And that's great. And then other people are good at the basing foundational prayer where we pray about all the things in the morning. And some people are good at both, and that's really great. But if you are good at one and not the other, then maybe turn the dial on the other and let's see that prayer life start to escalate. But that's practicing the presence of Christ. The third guiding principle, and I think this one's so important, especially now, is consume what draws you to Christ. Consume what draws you to Christ. And I use that word consume very intentionally because I believe we have got to be, if we consider ourselves, if we consider whoever's alive one generation, we have got to be the most consumptive generation of humans that have ever walked the planet. We have to be. We are all day, every day. And the younger you get, the worse it is. All day, every day, taking things in, consuming things, conversation, media, TV, phone, all the time, radio, podcasts, all the time. It's just piped into it. The world has a funnel into our brain, just shoving information in there all the time. I mean, if you think about it, almost, I'm 42, I'll be 43 here in a little bit. So almost 30 years ago, I was sitting in the DMV getting my driver's license. And the DMV has made zero innovations in 30 years. And it's still just as satanic as it was then. It's terrible. It's the worst place on earth. And when you go there, because they have engineered it to make you hate it, it's slow. It takes forever. And when I was waiting two hours to go back a car up into some cones, I, you know what I did for those two hours of the DMV? Nothing. You just sat there and you stared at the wall and you counted bricks and you wondered why it was taking so long, and you thought about your life. You contemplated all the decisions that had led you there. If you wanted something to do at the DMV, you took a book. You took a Sudoku thing or something. I don't think they had invented Sudoku in 1997. But you know what you do now? When you have 30 seconds of dead time, you have 30 seconds of something not entertaining you, don't raise your hand. How many of you at traffic lights grab your phone? He's like, I don't know what to do anymore. And you just grab it because you need something to look at, something to inform you, something that you consume. We are the most consumptive generation of people who have ever existed. We have no dead space in our life. So just as an aside, we should seek silence and stillness sometimes so that the Lord can speak to us. But living in the reality of how consumptive we are, when you do consume things, we need a filter. Is this pushing me closer to Jesus or is it pulling me away from him? Is this inspiring me and increasing my desire for Christ or is it decreasing my desire for Christ? The things that we have that take up our attention every day, we ought to at least assess whether or not they are inflaming us and impassioning us towards Jesus or whether they are blunting and muting that passion so that it fades away. We should at least be aware of that. And I'm not advocating that I think it's possible to just pipe spiritual things into ourselves at all times. But I am certain that all of us have some room to grow there. This is the reason why last year I took social media off my phone. Because I just got tired of the time that I was wasting on it and what I was consuming. There's only so many falling videos you can watch in a row before you feel like this can't be edifying twitter just made me angry now i will admit i have tick tock and i need to take that off my phone because it's too often that i'm not doing anything and then now all of a sudden i'm watching dumb videos we need to at least know what we're consuming what are we filling our brains with when we get in the car, when we go on a run, when we sit down at our office, when we have some alone time, when we're doing yard work? What are we consuming? And is what I'm consuming pushing me towards Christ or pulling me away from Christ? So those are the three guiding principles. Anchor your day in Christ, practice the presence of Christ, and then consume what draws you to Christ. If you apply those three things in your life, you will be abiding in Christ. Now, how do we practically do this? I want to look at work, I want to look at home, I want to look at fun, and I want to look at alone. So, at work, how do we practice these principles? Well, one thing that I do, it's the easiest for me in my schedule, is the very first thing I do when I get into the office most days is I pull out my Bible and I read, and then I kneel and I pray. I'm actually lately been thinking I need to switch up that habit, and I'm just saying this for the parents in the room. I have vivid memories in middle school and high school of coming downstairs every morning, and my mom's Bible would be open on the table next to her chair, and there'd be a coffee mug, usually with some lipstick on it. And there was evidence there that she had been spending time in the Word. And that gave me respect for her when she started instructing me on spiritual things. And I don't know what you think it would be like to be my parent, but it wasn't easy. I'll tell you that. But seeing the evidence. Of her dedication to Christ. Gave me respect. And I listened. And so now I've got a daughter. Who's starting to notice things. And I'm going to try to shift. My quiet times back to my office. At home. So that when she gets up. She can see it too. because I have that memory. So parents, if you've got kids growing up in the house, what do you want them to see? Can they see your devotional habits? But for some of us, maybe it makes more sense to have it at work. A very easy way to anchor our day in Christ at work and to practice the presence of Christ at work is to pray before everything. We park. Pray before you get out of the car. Father, remind me that you're with me. Remind me that I'm representing you. Be with me as I go. If you're working from home, when you do whatever you do to tell yourself, now I'm locked in and I'm working, before you do that, pray, Father, be with me today. Carry Christ with you into meetings. Before you go into meetings, pray over the meeting. Before you do the call, pray over the call. Before you write the report, pray over the report. Before you do anything in your work, pray over it. Give it to God. Acknowledge that he is with me and I am with him. And let me just speak especially to the people in the room who lead other people, to the people in the room with direct reports, bosses. It is, I realized it this week, I had not articulated it before, but it's a big goal of mine because we do have, I think, an unusual concentration of leaders in our congregation. If you're a leader and you call grace home, it is my fervent prayer that the people who work for you would say that their life is better because you're in it, because you care about them and you lead them well. So if you're a leader and you're about to have a conversation with a team member, especially if that conversation is hard or potentially negative or has some conflict or it's critical, please pray before that meeting. Pray before they come into your office. Pray before you pick up the phone. Pray and ask for the Spirit to be with you in that conversation. Practice the presence of Christ in your workplace. How do we practice the presence of Christ in our home? Well, I think it's very similar. One thing, right off the bat, is mom, dad, when you're out and you're working and you're coming home, right? And you know, you know what it is. You're going to open that door. There's going to be a whirlwind of noise. Everything is going to need, everybody is going to need everything from you all at once, right away. You know that routine. Stop and pray. I have a friend who says he, when his daughters were young, he used to pull off the side of the road about a mile short of the house. And he would stop and decompress and take off career hat and put on dad hat and pray that God would be with him before he walked in. And once he felt like he was in the right space, he pulled in the driveway. He was present for his children. He was present for his wife. Stop and bring Jesus with you and that peace into the house. Wake up every day. Spend time in God's word and time in prayer there at your home. Ask yourself, and I think this is a conversation that everybody in the church should have. If you live alone, then you consider it on your own. If you live with other people, talk with them, talk with your spouse. And really ask the question, do we have a Christ-centered home? How often is the name Jesus mentioned here? If we have children still living with us, how often do we talk about faith with them? Did they hear us as adults talking about Jesus? One of my favorite things that I see in my house and that I can brag on because she's not here right now is every morning before Lily and I walk out the door to go to school, I take her to school. I don't still attend. Before we go, Jen grabs Lily and she says, let me pray for you, baby. And she prays. And do you know how non-spiritual I am? Sometimes we're running late. And I'm looking at her going like, yo, the Holy Spirit needs to move you to pray faster. I'm wearing sweatpants. I don't want to walk in that school if they're late. I'm so bad. Every morning, she grabs that little girl, she hugs her, and she prays for her. What a gift to kids to do that. Every night, we do a little devotional with the kids before they, in their beds before they go to bed. We sing them songs. I sing them hym truly the center of your home? And if he's not, how can we make it that way? So that when I'm at home, I'm abiding in Christ. How do we abide in Christ with our friends? Listen, I love friends. Friends are super important to me. I love having a good time with friends. I love messing around with friends. It's great. I think friendships are a gift from God. But how do we abide in Christ in those friendships? And listen, this can be tricky because not all of us, not all of our friends are Christian friends. And that's a good thing because I believe that the most effective form of evangelism is friendship. So we should all have friends in our life who don't know Jesus. We should. But we should also have friends in our life that push us towards Jesus. I learned very young, my dad used to say all the time, you show me your friends, I'll show you your future. It's so true. Proverbs says that. It says if you spend your time in the counsel of the wise, you will become wise. If you spend your time in the council of morons, you will become a moron. It's a loose paraphrase. I explain that in the translation guide out there. And we know that research shows that you become the five people you spend the most time around. We know that. So if we are going to abide in Christ, then we're going to need our friends' help. And if we're going to need our friend's help, then we need friends who are abiding in Christ and who push us in our walk with Christ. And here's what can happen sometimes with friends, even Christian friends, is they'll become, and this is what I call them, they'll become yuck-yuck clubs where you just get together and you don't talk about anything that matters. We're just laughing and swapping stories and making fun of people and telling jokes. And everyone's just laughing and giggling the whole time. And listen, I love yuck yuck clubs. I'm the charter member of several of them. They're fantastic. Or other times people get together and all it is is one big juicy gossesh. And if you don't know what that is because you're not as cool as me, they just gossip a lot about other people. They just get together and eventually it's just going to degenerate into, did you hear what so-and-so did? I was disappointed in so-and-so for this. And we just start throwing names around and talking about other people and it's not productive and it's not good and it's not wise. So listen, what I would say to you is this, if your friends never talk about things that matter, change the conversation or get new friends. If the people you spend the most time with never talk about things that matter, have the courage to change the conversation, to introduce new topics, to actually ask them how their marriage and how their spiritual life is going. Have the courage to change the topic. Have the courage to ask a real question amidst the laughter. Have the courage to cut off the gossip and redirect to another place, or, I'm being honest, get new friends. If you look through your landscape of friends and you see that you don't really have anyone there who spiritually encourages you on a regular basis, then truly, maybe your thing this morning is to begin to pray that God would reveal to you some more friends, some new friends that you can grow with. And while we're here, don't forget what I talked about in January when I talked about the importance of community in the middle of the prayer where it says, along with all the saints, and we talked about this idea of sacred spaces. The one or two or three people we have in our life where we can be completely open and completely honest and completely vulnerable. If we want to abide in Christ, we're going to need those spaces. But I do want to encourage you this morning to consider your friendships. Do you carry Jesus into those as well? Do you find them spiritually encouraging? Are they neutral? Do they push you away? We need spaces where we can go for that. And then lastly, how do we abide in Christ when we're alone? This one's a tricky one. I've been told for a long time that your character is who you are when no one is around. And I think when we're alone, this idea of what we consume becomes incredibly important. When you're alone, and I don't know what alone is for you. For me, alone is the family can be upstairs and I can be in the kitchen with earbuds in. I may as well be alone. I'm listening to a book or a podcast or something or when I'm working in the yard. When you have time to yourself, no one else has any input into you, what are you doing? When you go on your runs or your rides or your hikes or your walks, if you're listening to something, what are you listening to? If you're thinking about something, what are you thinking about? When you're in the car, how do you use that time? You're by yourself, how do you use that time? What do you listen to? What do you think about? When do you pray? When it's the end of the day and the house is quiet and you have your own space, and we all need that, what do you consume? What do you watch? What do you play? What do you listen to? What do you read? In the morning, when you wake up, no one else is around. What does your mind go to? What is it that you want to consume? What is it that you should consume? This is where it's really, really important to know what pushes you towards Christ and what pulls you away from Christ. And this is why I'm careful to throw down standards. You should watch these kinds of shows. You should not watch these kinds of shows. These kinds of books. These kinds of books. Whatever it is. Because it's different for everybody. But what I want to encourage in you is this sense. This filter in your heart. That you allow to be triggered with, this isn't really edifying. I don't really think this is what I need to be consuming. And turn it off, or put it down, or go to sleep, or go on a walk. But we need to be thoughtful and not just consume things by default. So if we want to abide in Christ, remember, we anchor our day in Christ. We practice the presence of Christ. We consume what draws us to Christ. We think about how to apply those principles in our work life, in our home life, in our private life, and in our friend life. And then I would simply say this as we wrap up. No one can be 100% on 100% of the time. No one can be 100% on 100% of the time. I've had seasons where I've been radical about this, where I just kind of look at my life and I realize I'm watching junk shows that I don't need to be watching. I'm reading books that aren't bad, but they don't really help me in any way. They don't help me get better. They're not pushing me towards Jesus. Maybe I haven't been having my quiet times like I should. I've stopped. My podcasts are all news. There's nothing spiritually encouraging there. I'm just not consuming anything that's helping me. And I go, oh my gosh. And I do a whole reset. And I just, and I'm just, I'm reading, I'm reading a book, I'm listening to a book, both are spiritually edifying, I'm having good conversations with my friends, I'm reading the Bible every day, I'm praying like I'm supposed to, and all the dead spaces is just spiritual, spiritual, spiritual. And maybe it's just me, I can't go that long doing that. Eventually, I want to know what Dan Levitard thought of the Super Bowl. Like eventually, I just get curious about other stuff. And there absolutely, there absolutely needs to be space for dead time. To just exist. To just rest. And that's fine. We all need that space. But use that space to rejuvenate you so that you're ready to begin pursuing Jesus again when you wake up, again when you get done with work, again when you get done with this. No one can be 100% on with this 100% of the time, but we all have big steps to take. So I hope this morning you've identified at least one or two that you can begin to apply in your life right now and that your day tomorrow will change. And I hope that you will ask, particularly if you have a spouse, is Christ the center of our home? How do we turn that dial a little bit more? How do we make him the center of our home? So I hope that you'll start doing a couple things this week. I'd love to hear stories about what you guys started and how that's worked for you. But I'm going to pray, and then're going to come up and we're going to do one more song together. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for this great congregation of folks that love each other so well that I love so much. God, I just pray that if we heard things today that made us go, oh gosh, yeah, I need to do that. God, would you help us do it? Would you help us install some of these practices? It's fine that we know about them, God. But help us not be like the person who looks at himself in the mirror and then forgets what he looks like, hears your word and doesn't obey it. But help us to be the people who obey and to do. And God, would you help us to abide in you? It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.

Well, good morning. Like I said earlier, my name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for making grace a part of your Sunday. I'm just stating this for the record. This morning, Jen went to Atlanta on Saturday with Lily, with our daughter Lily. And so I'm solo dadding with our two and a half year old son, John, which means this morning I got us both up, showered, product in our hair, presentable for church, and here on time. So I don't know if the sermon's going to be any good, but that was pretty good, and I'll take it. Yes. Thank you. And to boot, the sermon doesn't even have to be good because worship was so great, I could send you home now, and we've all been ministered to. So that was really good, too. You got one clap, two. There we go. Dang it. Aaron got a whole clap last week for his sermon, and now he's getting clapped for for worship. He's going to get a big head. Y'all don't know what it's like to deal with him during the week, I'm telling you. This morning, we arrive at this concept of abiding in Christ. And I think it's one of the most profound concepts in scripture. It's one that if we can grasp it, if we can instill it in our brain, if we can make it our mantra, it changes our entire life. This concept to me is so profound that when I was originally planning this series, the whole series was going to be called Abide. And we were going to look at what it meant for us every week to abide in Christ. But as I dove into the text, I realized that I wanted to talk about the broader conversation happening around those verses, which is why we ended up with a series called Final Thoughts. I'll remind you it's called Final Thoughts because this series is entirely in John chapters 13 through 17. In the back half of John chapter 13, Jesus has just been betrayed by Judas. They are at the Last Supper. It's the last time he is going to be in the room with his disciples before his death, burial, and resurrection. And before he goes, he has some final thoughts for them in what's referred to in theological circles as the upper room discourse. So in this discourse, Jesus is just telling the disciples all the things he wants them to know before he leaves. So it's worth it for every Christian to look into these chapters to see what Jesus has for them there. This morning, we arrive at the concept of abiding, but to help us understand why this is such a profound concept, I want to tell you about the life of my friend, Tripp. I thought about telling you about my own life, just the details and the stresses, but it feels a little bit self-serving and whiny for the pastor to get up and talk to you about how stressed he is and how much the church demands of him. So we're not going to do that. Plus you guys are really, really great and really don't demand a whole lot. Just show up on time and preach for 30 minutes. But my buddy Trip, he's probably my closest friend in the world, and we talk pretty regularly. And he's a couple years older than me. He's got a wonderful wife named Hannah, who I adore. She's wonderful. And they've got three kids, ages, I think, eight, six, and three. And then they made the decision about six months ago to add a Bernad Doodle to the lot. How do you show that you have money in America today? You have the name Doodle at the back half of your dog, and you have a lot of money if there's a Berna in front of it. It is a huge mammoth of a dog that's really annoying, and it was a terrible choice. And I'm not saying that because of my typical shtick of not caring for animals. I'm saying that because introducing that dog into that family in this season of life was dumb. And he knows it. He regrets it deeply. But Tripp and Hannah, they both have jobs. Tripp is an entrepreneur. He can work from anywhere. And he works very, very hard. But because he's running his own shop, he has to kill what he eats, right? So he's switching hats between being a salesperson, being a marketing person, closing deals, customer care. He's a creative guy. He's basically creativity for hire. He can do videos. He can host. He can help you brainstorm for your marketing thing or for an idea for you. So he's got a bunch of different irons in the fire. And to be a friend of Tripp's is to every, I would say, about 18 months, escort him through an existential crisis in which he questions what he should be doing with his career. It just always happens. And you kind of put his eye on the ball, and then he goes, but it's because he has so many different things going on. In the midst of that, Hannah, his wife, is a VP for a company that works with churches, and not just churches, but also schools and stuff like that, to create curriculum for students and children and for the parents. And her office is 30 minutes away, and her job is very demanding. And so when she goes into the office, she can't really be going back and forth, and sometimes she needs to stay late, which means that Tripp is going to be balancing the kids. And because they each have careers that they deeply care about, I think life is so much easier when there's one career in a marriage where you go, yeah, that's the more important one. For them, it's 50-50. Neither of them takes precedence over the other. So everything in their house, if you've got kids, you know, is highly negotiated, right? You are responsible for putting this one and this one to bed. I will get this one and this one up. If this one wakes up during the night, that's on you. If this one wakes up during the night, that's on me. If the dog wakes up during the night, I'll probably just let it out and hope it runs away. But they have to highly negotiate all these things. You take them to school. I'll pick this one up. And then one of them gets sick. And so when they get sick, they've got to sit down in the morning, and they've got to be like, okay, what are your meetings today? What are the things that I have to move if I'm going to stay home? They have to figure all of this out on the fly, and it is highly tense sometimes. So they're trying to juggle all of that, and I don't know what it is about them, but their kids are sick all the time. And then if one of them gets sick, you know how it goes, parents. They're upstairs down for the count. You should be at work, but instead you're taking care of the kids and the dog for three days on end. And one of their kids, they just got a diagnosis of some pretty strong ADHD. And they've been having some big behavioral things going on with this particular child. And it's been a real challenge, and it's put tension on them and on their marriage. And they're trying to balance that. They also, in their extended family, there's different tensions like there often is, and that's impacting them and how they balance all of those things. And then he's an extrovert. He loves his friends, so he wants to have time for them, but then everybody needs time to unwind and recharge, and so he needs his alone time as well. And for him, when I look at his life, it's just chaotic. And I think that our lives might not look exactly like that, but many of our lives are some version of that. If they're not now, they have been. And I know that I'm biased. I'm in the season of life where I have young kids and nothing ever gets done all the way. You can clean the house, but then this is going to go to pot. You can fix this thing, then the house is going to be a disaster. You can't do all the things when you have little kids. It's a profound season of hustle, I think. But I'm not naive enough to think that life gets a whole lot easier when they're teenagers. I'm sure that's a totally different set of stresses. I remember back to when I was like 26 and married and thought I was busy. If you're under 30 and kidless and we all just laughed, I want you to know we were not laughing with you, okay? Laughing at you. You don't know, man. But even then, even in that season of life, there's stresses and concerns. Am I going to get married? Are we going to have kids? Is this the right career for me? Is this what I want to be doing? How do I manage all of these things? And then when you're older and you have adult kids, am I doing the right, a good job with them? Am I being a good grandparent? Am I stewarding them along well? In life, we have, especially in 2024, so many concerns and things pulling us in so many different directions. I feel like we live now in a culture of confusion and chaos. There's so much stuff going on around us, and it's so hard to know the right thing to do and what to focus on and what to give our attention to in the moment. To that, to that confusion and chaos, we apply this principle that we find in John chapter 15. If you have a Bible, I would invite you to open there. If you didn't bring your Bible with you this morning, there's one in the seat back in front of you. You can open and read along there. I would encourage you, if you do have a physical Bible, I hope you do, to open it up when you get home and make sure that this passage is highlighted for you. This is an absolutely must-do highlight passage. But this is what it says. John chapter 15, verses 4 and 5. By the way, you may notice that I have a Bible that I've not used before. Last week, Gibby preached, Aaron Gibson preached, and when he did, he had a new Bible, and I touched it, and I was like, I have to have that Bible. So now I have a new preaching Bible, and I love it. So anyways, verse 4, Jesus says, Now this is what I get for switching from ESV to NIV in my Bible translation. Because the ESV and a lot of other translations, that word remain there And it actually goes along well with the picture that I use to explain salvation sometimes. But Jesus says in our vernacular, I am the tree trunk and you are the branches. And so the idea is we are, God created us and he attached us to him. We are a sprout off of him. He is the source of life. And that when we sin, when we act against the will of God, when we pretend to be God in our own life and follow our own rules, what happens is we are separated from God. And so the picture is the branch falls off the tree. It is cut off or sawn off. It falls off the tree and it is on the ground and it will surely die because it is no longer connected to its source of life. And when we are saved, what Jesus does is he picks us up and he grafts us back onto the tree so that now we are attached to our source of life. We will continue to live and continue to bear fruit. And in keeping with that imagery, Jesus here says, if you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. If you are attached to me, if you remain attached to Christ, you will bear much fruit. And here's what I think is interesting about that. When a branch, when a healthy branch on a healthy apple tree remains there, it yields its fruit in season. That branch does not get to decide what it wants to produce, when it wants to produce it, or how much it wants to produce. That branch doesn't get to go, you know what? I'm feeling pears this year, and I'm going do it in December just for funsies. It doesn't get to do that. That branch grows apples and that branch grows apples when the tree decides it's supposed to. And that branch grows as many apples as it and the tree are capable of producing no more, no less. So what Jesus is saying is, if you abide in me, if you walk with me, if you remain attached with me, if you walk through every day with an awareness of my presence, if you begin and end your days with me, if you carry me into meetings with you, if you carry me into the workplace, if you carry me into interactions with your spouse and with your children and with your friends, if you abide in me, if you bring me along, then I promise you that you will bear much fruit. Here's why I think that's remarkable. And it's how I want us to think about the invitation to abide. The invitation to abide is a gift of simplicity in a world of confusion and chaos. The invitation to abide is a gift that God gives us of simplicity in a world of confusion and chaos. When it feels like there's so much pulling at us, when it feels like there's so much that we're supposed to do, so much that we're supposed to be good at, so many different irons in the fire or plates to keep in the air, there's so much put on us. Jesus says in the midst of all that, he sweeps it away and he offers us this invitation to abide. And he says, if you abide in me and I in you, if you pursue me and bring me everywhere you go, then you will produce the exact fruit that you're supposed to produce. I'm kind of reminded of Jesus's admonishment of Martha in Luke. In Luke, it might be chapter 10, but I should have looked it up and I didn't. Jesus goes to Mary and Martha's house. And it's a famous story. You probably know it. When he goes there, Martha is scurrying about. We call it bustling in our house. Just bustling. Every day I'm bustling. We bustle in our house. So Martha's bustling around, getting everything ready, making sure that everything's good for Jesus. I mean, if Jesus is coming over to your house, you probably want to be on your P's and Q's. You know, you probably want to look pretty good. So I don't blame her for the stress that she feels at hosting the Savior of the universe in her home. And so she's bustling around doing everything. Mary, meanwhile, is sitting at the feet of Christ, just taking him in, taking in his words, taking in his presence, being his friend. She's being with him. And Martha gets on to Mary. She says, what are you doing, lazy? Come help me. Don't you know Jesus is here? And Mary's attitude is like, yeah, I do know Jesus is here. That's why I'm sitting at his feet. And Jesus says to Martha some version of, Martha, Martha, you're worried about so many things, but only one thing matters. Mary's right. Focus on me. It's this gift of simplicity in a world of confusion and chaos. And I think it helps us a lot as we face life's big questions, as we assess ourselves. You know, this weekend, I had the opportunity to go to two funerals. One of them I led, the other one I attended. And it never ceases to arrest my attention of what's said about people at their funeral. The kinds of things that are always shared. I believe at a good funeral that a close friend or a family member who knew them well will share memories of the person who has passed. That's always my favorite part of the funeral. And they always talk about how that person loved. They always talked about how that person gave. They always talk about the good things. They don't typically talk about accomplishments. And whenever I go to a funeral, maybe because I'm a narcissistic jerk, I always wonder, what would people say about me at my funeral? What kinds of things would they mention? Who would come and what would they have to say about me? And I think about one was a funeral for a mom, one was a funeral for a dad, and so I think about my parents. If I were to share at my mom's funeral, what would I say? If I were to share at my dad's funeral, what would I say about him? And I think it's natural to wonder that and reflect on that and wonder at your funeral, what are your children or friends or family members going to say about you? Will they say everything that you wanted them to say? And I think in our life there's more big questions than this, but as we think about trying to do the right thing, trying to be the person God wants me to be, trying to live the right kind of life, I think we are, at least I am, constantly asking myself these two questions. There's two big questions we're asking ourselves. Am I making the right choice? And am I being a good fill in the blank? Am I making the right choice? Are we sending our kids to the right school? Am I handling this situation with my child in the right way? Am I doing a good job nurturing my child into adulthood as they are now adult kids and I'm trying to shift my role with them? Am I making the right choice in my career? This time, this space that I spend all of my time, a majority of my waking hours, I spend pursuing this career. Am I making the right choice? Is this the right career for me? Am I making the right choice by remaining in my career and not retiring? Am I making the right choice by retiring and not remaining in my career? Am I making the right choice in who I'm going to marry? Am I making the right choice in choosing that now is the time when we want to start trying for children? Are we making the right choice that now is the time that we want to buy the new house? Am I making the right choice in it feels like maybe it's wise to get rid of the old car and buy a new car. But as I do that, how much do I be indulgent and spend? And how much do I hold back and save? Am I making the right choice in those things? Are we making the right choices in who our friends are and how we assign our time and our talent and our treasure? Are we making the right choices? Are we doing the right things? I think if we don't, if you don't wonder that about yourself, I want to meet you and I want to know where you get your peace and your confidence. I think this choice, this question hounds all of us. Am I making the right choices in all of the right places? And then we're also hounded, or at least I am, am I being a good blank? Am I being a good pastor? What more can I do and give? Am I being a good father? Am I being a good husband? Am I being a good friend? Am I being a good acquaintance? Am I just generally kind to people? Yes, of course I am. Are you being a good aunt, a good uncle, a good grandkid, a good grandparent? Are you being a good boss? Are you being a good employee? We're constantly assessing ourselves. Am I making the right choices? Am I doing the right things? And am I being good at the roles that God has assigned to me? All of that reminds me of one of the verses in Ephesians that I like to point out to you often. You can even jot this down in your notes if you're a note taker, but it's Ephesians 2.10. Ephesians 2.10 says, And it carries with it this idea that the Bible tells us that God knew you before you were knit in your mother's womb. So before you were even an idea in the eyes of your parents, God knew that you were going to exist. He knew that he wanted to claim you as his child, and he knew that he was going to imbue you with certain gifts and talents so that, because you're his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. Why? For good works, for the purpose of doing good works, that you might walk in them. So before you were ever created, God knew you were going to exist. He was going to give you gifts and good works to walk in in your life. That was going to be the purpose of your life is to identify your good works. Hey, Father, what is my good work? And then how do I walk in it? Incidentally, parents, this is, I believe, how we are to parent our children. To raise them, to identify the good works that they're supposed to walk in, and to give them the courage and the competence to begin to walk in those good works. And another way of asking, am I making the right choice and am I being a good blank, is to say, do I know my good works and am I walking in them? Because God created us before time to build his kingdom, not our kingdom. We are all of us supposed to be kingdom builders. And so we've got to be asking ourselves, God, am I building it in the right way? Am I doing the right things? And as we wonder that, and likely beat ourselves up for not doing that as much as we think we should, we come back to this principle of abide. Abiding promises. We will be what we are supposed to be, and we will do what we are supposed to do. I love that promise. The promise isn't abide in me and I in you, and you will have the best possible shot at bearing fruit. Abide in me and I in you and you probably won't be disappointed. No. Abide in me. Follow me. Pursue Jesus. Bring him with you everywhere you go. Wake up. Spend time with him in word and in prayer. Carry him through your day. Talk to him. Pray to him throughout your day. Be a person who walks with Jesus, who abides in him. And the promise is you will bear much fruit. And here's the fun part. What fruit? Does the apple tree get to decide what fruit it produces? No, nor does it decide when, nor does it decide how much. You don't worry about what fruit you're going to produce. You don't worry about what it is you're supposed to do. You focus on Christ. You be merry. This one thing I will seek. This one thing I will give my attention to. And by focusing on Jesus, by following him every day, we are assured that we will do exactly what we are supposed to do. That we will be making the right choices. And we will be exactly who we are supposed to be, that we will be walking in, that we will walk as God's workmanship in the good works for which he created us. And we don't have to worry about what those are. All we have to do is worry about abiding in Christ, following our Savior. That's why I say it's a gift of simplicity and a world of confusion and chaos. Where do we send our kids to school? Well, the more you're abiding in Christ, the more clear that answer is going to be. Am I in the right career? The more you're pursuing Christ, the more clear that is going to be. Are we raising our kids the right way? Am I being a good spouse? Am I being a good friend? Am I being a good church partner? The more you abide in Christ and focus on him and invite him into your days and into your meetings and into your going and into your coming, the more you do that, the more certain you will be that you are walking the path that he has laid out for you. He gives us this remarkable gift of simplicity. You don't have to figure out if you're doing it the right way. You don't have to second guess if you've made the right decisions. You don't have to wonder if you're a good fill in the blank. All you have to do is abide in Christ and he will take care of the rest and you will produce much fruit. What fruit? Whatever fruit God has decided you're going to produce. We know the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So I think the fruit that we produce as we abide in Christ looks something like those increasing in our character. I think it looks like us expounding those into others in our life. I think it looks like us being used by God to do His work and build His kingdom. But the wonderful invitation is, hey, hey, hey, hey, you worry about focusing on Jesus, and he'll worry about everything else you're supposed to do. This is why I say, whenever we are evaluating or deciding, we should ask if we are abiding. As a general principle in life, whenever we are evaluating or deciding, we should stop and ask ourselves if we are abiding. I can't tell you how many times as a pastor that I've had a difficult conversation on the horizon. Somebody that I worked with that I was going to have to approach and say some hard things. Somebody with whom there was conflict and it needed to be resolved. Somebody who's disappointed in me and I need to reconcile. And how when those, I don't know about you, but when those hard conversations are on the horizon, I think about them all the time. I chew on them. I stress over them. I worry about them. I think, what angle are they going to take? And how can I be prepared for that? And how can I, I've got to get on to this person. How can I best do it and not demoralize them? Like, I think about them all the time. And I'll come up with an approach. This is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to say. This is how I'm going to attack it. And then something will happen and it will occur to me. Hey dude, have you been abiding? Not in this. Maybe I've had a couple of weeks where I've not been super consistent with my quiet times. Maybe I've been thinking about this conversation so much but I haven't prayed about it. And when I realize that's happening in my life, I put that conversation on the shelf. And I say, I'm not going to have that conversation until I'm prayed up on it. I'm not even going to think about how I want to approach that until I know that I have been spending some time with Jesus. And I put it on the shelf and I focus on my relationship with Christ. And then in that, I begin to pray about that conversation. Without fail, the conversation goes exponentially better than I ever thought it would when I have been abiding before I evaluate or decide. And also without fail. Funny how this works out. I'm always gentler after I pray. I'm always kinder and more gracious after I pray. If you're in your life faced with a big decision right now, what's the right thing to do here? Let me just ask you. Have you been abiding in Christ? Have you been walking with him? Have you been inviting him into your days? If you haven't, let me encourage you to put that decision on the shelf. Set it aside. Pursue Christ. Once you feel connected with Christ, pull it back off and see what he wants you to do. Have you been evaluating yourself? Which usually leads to beating yourself up. Are you someone whose voice in your head is a jerk? Is way meaner to you than anybody in your life? You're not good enough at this and you're not good enough at this and you're not good enough at this and you're failing at this and you're letting them down. If you have those voices, can I ask you, have you been abiding? Have you been pursuing Jesus and abiding him into all of your days? Are you listening to what he has to say about you? Or are you drowning out his voice with your own? Conversely, if you think you're doing great at everything right now, you're not. You abide in Christ. You're not. You need him to tell you. The question now becomes, as we look at this gift of simplicity that Jesus offers in a world of confusion and chaos, the question becomes, okay, Nate, I get it. I need to abide in Christ. I need to remain attached to him. I need to pursue him. I need to make him my singular focus. And everything else will kind of take care of itself. Decisions will become more clear. And his opinion of me is the one that I will adopt. That will all become more clear. I get it. I need to pursue Christ. How do I do that amidst the confusion and chaos? It's not like we get to call a time out on life and just do a spiritual retreat for the next two weeks so we're real connected. You all have stuff to do right after this. So how do we abide in Christ day in and day out in a practical way? That's what we're going to come back next week and talk about. So I hope you can be here for that, and I hope that it will be a tremendously useful and encouraging week next week. This week, I just want us focused on this gift of simplicity that Jesus offers, to simply abide in him. And in doing that, we can rest assured we will be who we are supposed to be, and we will do what we are supposed to do.. Let's pray and then Aaron's going to have some final thoughts for us. Lord, God, I thank you for a room full of people that do want to do the right thing, that do want to become who you created them to be. I thank you for a room full of people who do want to walk in their good works, who do want to build your kingdom. God, I pray that you would instill in us an increasing desire to do that. Lord, I pray that we would abide in you, that we would invite you into our days, that we would bring you along wherever we go, that you would give us your peace that passes understanding, and that you would create in our hearts a stronger and stronger desire for you. Lord, help us to abide, and in doing so, help us to enjoy the fruit that we produce by following you. In Jesus' name, amen.