Sermons tagged with Obedience

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.

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

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

Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. Thanks for making grace a part of your Sunday. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If you have a Bible with you, go ahead and open it up and turn it to Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 through 19. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you. We have been spending the month of January in this prayer, this prayer that Paul prays over the church in Ephesus. And I've mentioned that he prays similar prayers over the other churches that he helped to start or founded, and then ministers to through letters and through visits as he continues his life. So this prayer is indicative of what I believe Paul prays for all of his churches. We've got a lot of work to do today. This Sunday we arrive at this two-fold petition at the end that we would know the love of Christ and that we would be filled with the fullness of God. And it's pretty much the whole point of the series. Today is what I think about when I think about this prayer. So my prayer today is that God would give me clarity of thought with what to share and how to say it, because this represents for me like four or five years of thought that I really want you guys to get today. So let's get going as we finish up this prayer. I'm going to read one more time with feeling the whole prayer all the way through, and then we'll focus on verses 18 and 19 and really kind of dig into Paul's request and what he's asking for and what it means. Verse 14, And so we arrive at the climactic request, the climatic petition of the prayer where we see here in verse 18 that he's saying, because you're saved, first of all, the very first thing he prays in verse 14 and 15 is that you would be saved through God's goodness, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that Christ would indwell in your hearts through faith. That's that you would be saved, that you would be a Christian, that you would know Jesus. Now that you know Jesus, you're rooted in his love. We talked about those deep roots and how important that is to anchor our faith. We talked about how the communal nature of our faith along with all the saints, but now that he's established those things, he punches. He gets to the thing that he's really asking, and what he's really asking is this twofold petition that you would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, and that you would be filled with the fullness of God. That's what he's praying for in this prayer. That's what he prays over them. That's what he prays over you. So this morning, we have to wrestle to the ground what it means to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, and to be filled with the fullness of God. We have to talk about what that means, which is a really difficult task. When I'm studying, and I'm in particular studying a verse, I really want to understand a verse. One of the places I'll go is a series that a pastor from Minnesota named John Piper does online. He's retired now, but I think he still does some of these. There's a ton out there. I think it's called, and I should have done my research on this, but I think it's called A Look in the Book. And it's just, it's a black screen with a verse on it, and he's not in the video. It's just his voice in the video, and he just explains the verses to you. He's circling this and drawing lines over here and making notes at the bottom and references to other things. If you are one who enjoys Bible study, if you want help in understanding different passages, Google John Piper, a look at the book, and there's so many verses that he walks through. It's such a helpful resource. That may be the most helpful thing I say to you this morning. The rest of this may be garbage, but hopefully not. But I went and I was, and I was, he did, he does a series, like a 10-part series on these verses. And so I was watching the one where he explains the knowledge that surpasses understanding and the fullness of God because I wanted to see what he had to say about it. He's one of the most theologically deep and professorial pastors I've encountered in my life. And so I wanted to know what he thought. And he made a great point that we're going to make up front here. This is him from that video. He says, the phrasing itself, talking about the verse, admits that we are over our heads in attempting to rationally understand these things. If in the verse, Paul says that the love of Christ surpasses knowledge, and then it's kind of this nebulous, wispy phrase filled with the fullness of God. What does that mean? It's intentionally nebulous. It's intentionally difficult to grasp because it's bigger than we can comprehend. We cannot rationally understand these things, but rather we must experientially understand God and Christ if we are going to understand what Paul is talking about here. And so that's the first thing I would point out to you if we're going to say, what is the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? What is that? Well, I think the best way to approach it is to say this, a true knowledge of Christ comes from experiencing him, not simply learning about him. A true knowledge of Christ comes from experiencing him, not simply learning about him. I think about it this way. I don't want to brag, but I've been in the ocean a few times. I've been in the Atlantic and in the Gulf. I've been in the Pacific. I've seen where the waters of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean meet off the southern coast of South Africa, which I'm just bragging there. But I have seen it. I've swam in the ocean. When I was a kid, my grandpa lived in Florida. He had a sailboat, and they lived off the intercoastal, and so we would go up and down the intercoastal and look at Christmas lights and stuff, and one time, we went out in the ocean, sails up and everything. I got horrifically seasick and realized I'm a sissy, and that's just my life. I just have to deal with that. So no more sailboating for me. But I've been around the ocean, not as much as some of y'all. Some of y'all have beach houses, you love the water, you've got a boat, you're out there. You'll never find a Salt Life sticker on any car that I own. But I have been there, and I do like it. However, I don't know anything about the ocean compared to a sailor. I don't know anything about the ocean compared to a fisherman who does it professionally. Those guys with the thousand-yard stare, and you look at them, and you're like, those eyes have seen some things. They have some tales to tell about the sea. I don't know the ocean like they know the ocean. They've lived in it. They've experienced it, the good and the bad and the ugly. They know it. We can read about it. We can learn about it. You can learn facts. We can Google pictures. We can look at it from the beach. But until you've lived in it like they've lived in it, you'll never understand the ocean like they understand the ocean either. Jesus works the same way. When we walk with Jesus, we abide with him. When we pursue him day in and day out, we have a lifetime of walking with him. We know him in a way that you can't get to know him by simply listening to sermons or simply reading about him. We should do those things. But those things are introductory things. As we grow to know who Christ is with a knowledge that surpasses understanding, it's an experiential knowledge. These people we know who have been walking with Christ for decades and just seem to have a peace that we don't have. Those people have walked with Jesus. They know him in the way that Paul is describing here. So the question then becomes, if we know Christ through experiencing him, then we have to ask, and I hope you're already asking it in your heads, how do we experience Christ? How do I do that? How do I allow Jesus to show up in my life? I think we experience Christ by this. We experience Christ by taking steps of faith that allow him to show up in our lives. We experience Christ by taking steps of faith that give him the opportunity to show up in our life. I think of a trip I took to Honduras somewhere around 2010. I was a school teacher at the time, a high school Bible teacher and a chaplain. Those were some very lucky kids. And I took the senior class to Honduras. And while we were there, one night, one of my students, this girl named Allison, a really sharp, bright girl, wonderful parents, she kind of came to me and she said, I'm just, I'm really struggling with my faith. And I said, okay. And she said, I just, I'm having a hard time believing in Jesus sometimes. I just, I just kind of feel unsure. I don't want to let anybody down, but I just have some doubts and some struggles. And first of all, that's a wonderful conversation. I think every Christian needs to have that conversation at some point, probably multiple times throughout your life. That's a healthy thing to want to work through. And so we talked about it a little bit, and I said, Allison, I know that this is going to sound funny, but tomorrow we're going to go to this village and we're going to give rice out to the women of the village. And they really need it. So they're going to be really excited to get it. And I'm not going to position you inside the truck where you're grabbing the rice and you're handing it to another student and they're working it down the line. I'm going to put you at the end of the truck handing it out to the ladies. Because Jesus says that whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. And I just kind of believe that if you look those ladies in the eye that Jesus will meet you there. I believe you'll see him as you do his work. And she said, okay. Okay, I'll try it. So that morning, I prayed for her that she would encounter Christ in the service that afternoon. And sure enough, the next night, she came back to me with tears in her eyes, and she said, I saw Jesus. I saw him. I can't explain it. I still have questions, but I believe he's real. Thanks. She made space for him to show up in her life. She said, hey, I need you here. I need to see you today. I need to encounter you today. She made space. She took a step of faith, and he showed up. I can't tell you how many times I've thought, I've had like a nagging sin or a nagging attitude, something that was in my life that I know didn't need to be in my life, but it didn't feel like a big deal. And I got kind of comfortable with it. It was kind of like John every day, my son John, he's two and a half. Every day he grabs a different toy and that's his toy for the day. He's just, there's no favorites. It rotates. It's totally unpredictable what it's going to be. Today it's a puzzle piece of zebra. That's what it is. Great. Tomorrow it'll be something totally different. It'll probably belong to Lily and cause a fight in our house for the entire day. Sometimes we have sins like that that we just kind of carry around. They're just our little pet sin. Not that big of a deal. I'm going to pick a different one, whatever it is. We'll have that. And we don't even want to get rid of it. But I can't tell you how many times I've prayed, God, would you work in me to want to not want to do this? Would you work in me to want to repent of this and get it away from me? And how almost always the same day I pray that prayer, something happens and I get disgusted with that part of myself. And I get so sickened by it that it becomes very easy to just move away. It becomes very easy to repent. And that's nothing more than creating space for Jesus to show up in my life. If you feel like you need to encounter and experience Jesus, pray that he'll show up somewhere. Take a step of faith and make some space for him to show up. Make some space for him to show up in a relationship. Make some space for him to show up in the waiting. Make some space for Jesus to show up in different ways, and he will. And it will deepen your faith, and you'll begin to grow in this experiential knowledge of Christ. So that doesn't wrestle that to the ground all the way, but I think it gives us at least some handles around what it might mean to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. But we still need to understand what it means to be filled with the fullness of God. And I'll be honest with you, I did a bunch of research on that phrase. I did more research on that phrase than the last time I did that much research on anything was when I preached through Revelation for you guys. Other than that, I don't think I've ever done this much research, just trying to get to the bottom of what that meant. But nothing I could find, not even St. John Piper, nothing I could find was sufficient. Nothing I could find made me go, yeah, yeah, that's how I want to explain this to them. Nothing helped me. The one thing that was pointed out that I thought was really helpful and interesting was that being filled with God means there's no part of you left untouched by his goodness and grace. When a container is filled with something, that something touches every part of that container. So to be filled with the fullness of God means that he has touched with his goodness and his grace every aspect of your life, your thought life, your prayer life, your anxieties and your worries, your successes and your failures, your values, your checkbook, your calendar. Do people still have checkbooks anymore? Your credit card and your Venmo account. To be filled with God truly means that he has touched every aspect of your life, which also begats this reality that being filled with God is a gradual process. It's something that takes a lifetime. Because when God hasn't touched a part of our life, it's not because he doesn't want to. It's not because he's not trying to. It's not because he's not telling us that he would like to be involved there too. It's because we're not letting him. Either intentionally or unintentionally, when God hasn't touched a portion of our life, it's not from lack of effort or desire on his part. It's from lack of effort or desire on our part. So it's a progressive thing. I think, honestly, that being a Christian is just to grow in a progressive revelation of the parts of you that God has not touched yet. To grow in a progressive revelation of things that I have not given over to the Father. Through His goodness and grace and His mercy, the Holy Spirit will just show us the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. That's why we say that at Grace we're step-takers because everybody has a next step of obedience that God is beckoning them to take. And it's just going deeper and realizing parts of our life that we have not given over to him yet. But as I tried to wrestle this to the ground and was coming up empty with a good scholarly explanation to offer you guys, I just kind of hit the reset button and thought, well, what is it about the prayer that moves me so much? What is it that I love so much about it that it's on the wall of my office, that I pray it over my family, for myself, that I pray it in every situation, that I pray it over you in every situation that you're in? Anytime God brings to mind somebody while I'm praying, this prayer is what I pray for them. So what is it about this prayer that's so powerful for me? I thought maybe if I could share that, that would be helpful for you as we seek to understand what Paul's praying for here. And for me, the power of the prayer is in the simplicity of the petition that we would know God. The power of the prayer is in the simplicity of the petition that you would know God. That's what he's praying. That's all he's praying. The whole time in a bunch of different ways that you would know God. First thing out of the gates, what's he praying? That you would know Christ. Along with all the saints that you would understand his love that he has for you, that you would be filled with the fullness of God. This whole time through, all Paul is praying is that you would know God. And I pointed out in the first week that I find this remarkable because he's praying for a church that he founded, the success of which he earnestly desires. He wants that church to be successful. He wants that church to grow. He wants that church to impact their community. And yet he does not pray for success. This church is in an era of persecution, high infant mortality rates, low average lifespans. These people knew tragedy. Certainly, I would bet a lot of money or Chick-fil-A sandwich, I bet you Chick-fil-A sandwich, that Paul was acutely aware of suffering happening inside the church. Somebody sick, somebody experiencing grief or loss or persecution. I would bet that Paul knew of specific instances where people were hurting, and yet he does not pray for safety. He does not pray for security. He does not pray for health. He does not pray for circumstances. He does not pray for success. He doesn't pray for any of those things. And I think that speaks volumes because all he does pray is that they would know God. That's it. That's all he wanted for them, that they would know God as if it's a light that shines so brightly that the brighter it gets, the more everything fades away. When I stand up here on Sunday, these lights are in my face. I hate them, but it's part of the deal. They're at like 40% right now. They were so bright a few weeks ago, I couldn't see any of you. I forget, I think it was the rooted sermon. I couldn't see any of you. It was so distracting for me. I was in my head the whole time. These lights can get so bright that everything else fades. And if we have in our hearts a burning desire to know our creator, that light begins to burn so brightly that everything else just kind of fades in importance. There's really nothing else that matters outside of pursuing God. It is the apex pursuit in life. Success doesn't matter. Relatively speaking, health doesn't matter. Failures don't matter as long as they bring us to a place where we know God more deeply. And my prayer for you is that that light will burn so brightly in your life and in your mind and in your conscience that everything else will begin to fade in comparison to knowing God. And this is biblical. Paul talks about it, David talks about it, and Jesus talks about it. In Philippians chapter 3, verses 7 and 8, Paul says that he considers everything rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing God. David says in Psalms, better is one day in your courts, Father, than a thousand elsewhere. This is a king that has experienced the highest highs that life has to offer, and he says you can keep a thousand of those days if I can spend one of them with you. Jesus in Matthew chapter 13 describes the kingdom of God as something that you sell everything that you own to go claim because of the surpassing value of knowing God. It is the chief desire of Paul. It is the chief desire of God himself that you would know him. And it should be our chief desire that burns so brightly in us that everything else fades away. That's why this is the prayer that I pray for you. That's why this is the prayer I pray over the church, for myself, and over my family. And when I pray it, it sounds like this. This is what I pray. I put it in writing so that maybe it will help you as you pray, but this is the thought that's in my head whenever I pray for anyone or anything. It's this, Heavenly Father, would the events of this circumstance conspire to draw them into a deeper knowledge of you? Whatever the situation is, whatever's happening, my first thought, dear God, with the things that are about to happen to them, to this family, to that place, would those events conspire to bring those people to a deeper knowledge of you? Towards the end of last year, many of you know one of our great partners, one of the great people of grace had a stroke. And we did not know how he was going to be doing. Praise God, he's doing a lot better. But as soon as I heard it, I dropped to my knees and I prayed. And I did not pray that he would be healed. I did second. I did not pray first that his family would be okay. I did not pray first for his safety or his health. The first thing I prayed was, God, would the events surrounding this circumstance somehow conspire to draw him and his family into a deeper knowledge of you? This is an awful thing that's happened. And we don't have to make it a good thing, and we don't have to pretend like it happened because God has a lesson to teach us. I don't think that's how it works. I think cruddy things just happen in a broken world. And when those cruddy things happen, we ought to remind ourselves to say, God, I care deeply about the circumstances and the people in them. But before that, would you please use them to conspire to draw him and his children and his wife into a deeper relationship with you? Would you use this opportunity to show up and show off, Father? I think it's such an important prayer to pray in success and in failure. And I think it's such an important prayer to pray because it does this. I'm going to read this slowly because I think it's important. This prayer brings peace and purpose in suffering, patience in waiting, perseverance in trial, and humility and gratitude in success. When we pray that prayer, God, whatever happens here, whatever's going to happen, would what we take out of it be a deeper knowledge of you? When we pray that prayer, it imbues our suffering with purpose. It imbues our waiting and our grief with purpose and peace. Some of you are in moments of waiting. You're in a season of your life where you're praying for a prayer to be answered and it's not yet and so you're waiting. Some of you are in a season of trial. It's difficult. It's trying. It's hard. Some of you are in seasons of grief. I want you to know, if we pray this prayer over them, those are holy seasons. Those are holy moments. I know that you're hurting. I know that you want the thing. I know that the wait is tough. And I know that it seems unfair. But that's a holy place where God is shaping you. And he's beckoning you. And he's drawing you into a deeper faith in him. Whatever the outcome is of your waiting, it will be a marker in your life when God showed up. So we do not always pray away those things because they're holy moments. And I don't want you to be so drugged down in your waiting and in your hurting that you miss God's drawing in the midst of that suffering. Similarly, when we pray this prayer in the face of success, it begets humility and gratitude. When we sell the company, when we get the job, when our kid wins the thing at the place, when we make the sale, when life goes really good, our very first response should be, God, this success is great. It's really fun. Thank you. Would the events of this success conspire to bring me to a deeper knowledge of you? Whatever happens, however it goes, whatever we decide to do, whatever the next thing is, as I celebrate this God, and maybe even sometimes look to a new reality because of the opportunities that you've just brought me, as I do that, God, would you not let me lose sight of you? Would the events of the circumstances of this success conspire to bring me to a deeper knowledge of you? That puts the success in its proper place, which is simply a positive experience to be used by God to draw you close to him. If you have the success and it doesn't bring us any closer to the father, then the success has no point. Nobody cares. And they're not going to talk about it at your funeral. I know you think they will. I do funerals. We do not talk about your business success at your funerals. Yeah, it's going to hurt. It's going to be hard to walk through. But God, I pray that I would grow to a deeper knowledge of you through it. Yes, this is great. This is wonderful. It's a good thing that happened. But God, let me not lose sight of you. Let it help me walk in a deeper knowledge of you. So I hope and I pray that you'll make this your prayer in 2024. I believe Jordan told you at the beginning of the service, we have magnets on the table right out there. You can put wherever you want to see them. It says one per family, but if you're lingering for like 10 minutes and there's still a bunch and you want a bunch, grab a bunch. Nobody cares. I hope that you'll make that your prayer for yourself and for your family this year. I hope that this prayer will be pressed into your conscience the way that it's been pressed into mine and that it will be your abiding prayer for your family and for your children and for your friends and for your loved one and for your church for the rest of your days. And I hope that the desire to know God will burn so brightly in all of us that everything else will simply fade as we pursue him. Let's pray together. Father, I don't know what's going to happen this year. The way it's shaping up, it's probably going to be nuts. Lord, would you use the things that happen in our lives and around our lives to conspire, to draw us more closely to you? Father, would the desire to know you burn so brightly that everything else fades? Would we be people who desperately want to know and experience the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? Would we be people who invite you into every part of our life so that we may be filled with your fullness and your goodness and your grace and your mercy. God, we make that our prayer over grace this year, our prayer over our families, our prayer over our friends and loved ones. Help us to know you more, God. In Jesus' name, amen.