Sermons tagged with Sin

Oh, hey there, pals. Don't you just love this music? It's nostalgic, isn't it? Takes you back to a simpler time, when you were a kid, and things were light and fun. I love times like that. I'll tell you what else makes me feel nostalgic is those old Bible stories. The ones that we learned in Sunday school or maybe just picked them up somewhere along the way. I love the heroes David and Goliath, Noah and the Ark,, Jonah and the whale. The list really does go on and on. And I wonder, pals, how long has it been since we heard those stories? I bet it's been a while. And if we could tell them again, I wonder if we would find out that those stories aren't really kids stories at all, but they were meant for grown-ups all along and that there's still lessons we can learn from them today. Let's find out together. Speedy delivery. For me? Thanks, mailman Kyle. Oh, this week is David and Goliath. Well, good morning. It's good to see everybody. Thanks for laughing along. Don't worry, we're not going to show you the full minute and 40 second version of that for the next 10 weeks. We can shorten it, but we'll let you watch it a couple more times. Thanks for being here this morning. Those of you who were able to make it in person, thank you. Watching online, wherever you are. I am excited about this series because I love these old stories from the Old Testament that many of us, as I said in the video, picked up when we were kids. Many of the stories that we're going to be telling over the next 10 weeks or so are stories that most, if not all of you could tell. I'm sure everyone in this room can tell some version of David and Goliath that wouldn't be wildly inaccurate. But the thing is about these stories that I'm willing to bet has probably been a long time since we've heard them, since we've read them for ourselves, since we've mined them for fresh details with a different perspective. And when you do read these stories and you look at the details of them and you look at the humanity of them, I think what you see is that the Bible really is unflinching in the details. That we teach these stories to kids. Here's a little secret in ministry. We teach these stories to kids because 1 Samuel 17 with the narrative story of David and Goliath goes over a lot better in the elementary school classroom than does a detailed theology mind out of Romans 8. Okay? So usually we teach kids stories because we put volunteers in there for the history of the church, and a volunteer just needs a story to tell because that's way easier to do than teaching theology to four-year-olds. So we tell stories, but make no mistake, these are not kids' stories. These are stories for everybody. And when you get into the details of it, you learn real quick, these are stories for grown-ups. So this morning, I get to tell you my favorite story to tell. It doesn't mean I'm good at it. It just means I really like this story of David and Goliath. So to set the scene, we're in 1 Samuel chapter 17. 1 Samuel is the ninth book of the Bible. It's sandwiched between Ruth and, you guessed it, 2 Samuel. So if you want to pull out the Bible in front of you and just kind of read along as I read, you're more than welcome to do that or grab your Bible at home and do the same thing. But the author of Samuel sets the scene at the beginning of chapter 17 and he says the Israelites and the Philistines are at war with one another. They're out for battle. The Philistines lived on what is now the coast of modern day Israel. So there was always tension and infighting and this battle between Israel and Philistia is pretty regular and pretty common. Eventually Israel wins because you've never heard of Philistia before and we all know where Israel is. But in this time they were big rivals. And so they assembled at a valley and drew up a battle line and the Philistines are on one mountain and the Israelites are on another mountain. And they're basically waiting for the other to get tired of waiting and come into the valley and give up the advantage. Neither army is going to go down into the valley and then try to fight uphill to a fortified enemy. So they're both just trying to wait the other party out. And in the midst of this steps a warrior named Goliath of Gath. And I'm going to read what scripture says about Goliath. This will not be on the screen, but I'm going to read what it says about Goliath and then try to sum it up for you because there's words like cubics and shekels and things like that, and we don't know what those are. So this is the description that we are given of Goliath. I'm in verse 4. Okay. So let me just paint a picture of what this actually describes. If you do the research and you look up the conversions and you try to figure it all out, I'm going to give you numbers that are in the middle, more conservative. Okay. Goliath was very likely between nine and nine and a half feet tall. Okay. That's really tall. That's almost a basketball goal tall, or it's about a foot and a half taller than a goal that I can dunk on. So however you want to think about that. I also instantly regret claiming that I can dunk on an eight-foot goal. I haven't done that in 15 years, and neglect and old age might have something to say about dunking on an eight-foot goal. So nobody put me to that. I'm crying uncle on that bet right now. But he was about nine, nine and a half feet tall. We'll call him nine feet tall. And if you're nine feet tall, just go with me on this, because I don't know. There's no guesses. But if you think about Shaq or a defensive lineman or these big behemoth dudes that we know of, and they weigh about 400 pounds or 350 pounds, and they're six feet tall, Shaq's seven foot tall. I don't know how much Goliath weighed, but 450? Five? 550? I don't think he was a skinny guy, nine feet tall and stocky. He was a heavy dude. And his armor, it says, if you add up all the shekels for his helmet, for his, for his breastplate that was made of chain mail and his bronze greaves, clocked in somewhere between 225 and 250. So that's like going to battle. I give my son John a ride on my shoulders and then you give us a piggyback ride. All right. That's what that's like. He goes into battle with an extra 250 on him. And not only that, he can walk down that hill apparently with ease. So he's walking down the hill. He's nine feet tall. He's somewhere around 500 pounds with an additional 250 pounds of armor, which makes me think that maybe Goliath was closer to 600, 650 pounds because of the ratios. Anyways, he is a walking giant tank. He's a bad dude. And it says that he's the champion. And when this tank gets down into the valley, this is what he says in verse 10. And the Philistine said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard the words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Now here's the challenge that he gives. And we see it in the verses above 10. I just can't read the whole chapter to you. But in the verses above 10, Goliath says, send me a man to fight. And it'll be winner takes all. You send me your champion. I'm the champion of the Philistines. Me and him will fight to the death. And if he wins, then all my brethren and all the people I'm fighting with and their wives and their children, we will be your slaves and servants. But if I win, if I defeat your champion, then all you guys up there on that hill and all your wives and all your children are our slaves and servants. So let's go. Who wants some? And this is what tells you that Goliath is a bad, this is how you know he was a bad dude. First of all, he comes down there and he says that to them. He says that to the Israelites. There's a whole army arrayed. They've been in a lot of battles. These are not new soldiers. They've all put their sword in something before. And he says, any one of y'all, come fight me. And if you win, then you win. The whole thing. Let's go. And all of them avoid eye contact like a kid in geometry class that's just been asked a question by the teacher. just straight down to the ground. They were afraid and greatly dismayed. When an entire army of men encountered another warrior, all of them and all their machismo and all their might and all their hoorah and all their battle cries and all that toughness, when push came to shove, they looked at Goliath and went, I think I'll just stay on the mountain. They were afraid and greatly dismayed. But what we don't think about that I actually think is pretty interesting is the response of the Philistines. Because if you're in the Philistine army and some dude walks out from amongst your ranks and goes down into the valley and yells up at the enemy, hey, if you got anybody who can take me, then you can have all them and their wives and their children as slaves. If you're in the Philistine army and you hear a dude do that and you think you can take him, are you going to let him say that for you? I'm not. If I'm in that army and somebody walks down and they say, hey, if anybody up there can defeat me, you can have Jen and Lily and John as your servants. If I can take him, no way. Not a chance I'm letting him say that for me. And let's just be real clear as I stand up here and be tough guy. Nate, I could take no one in either army. Probably in thumb wrestling, no way. But for the sake of argument, the Philistines just let him do it, which means they were just as scared of Goliath as the Israelites were. You got two full armies who don't want to mess with this guy. And the Bible says that he comes out every day and he offers that taunt every day for 40 days. It's interesting to me that the number 40 pops up in this story too. You've heard me say before, and my Bible scholars know, that the number 40 is pretty significant in Scripture. I don't know why. I'm not going to make any guesses. I just know it's significant, and here it is again in the story of David and Goliath. So while Goliath is coming out every day and challenging the Israelites to a one-on-one fight, there's this kid back home with his dad, Jesse, named David. And Jesse has some sons who are in the army, notably, and we'll see him in a minute, the oldest brother, Eliab. And so Jesse loads David up with cheese and grain and bread. And he says, I want you to take this to your brothers and to their commanders, which is interesting that the ancient world was into charcuterie. We thought that we invented it, but it was cheese and grains and bread. It was clearly arrayed on a nice wooden tray, and they all took pictures of it before they ate it, and it was great. So he takes that to his brothers, and while he's delivering it, he hears Goliath again. Goliath comes down. He does his daily taunt. And all the men of Israel are terrified. Except for David. David's response is different than the rest of their responses. Look at verses 24 and then 26. All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid. Then there's 25 and then in 26 it says, Okay, look at David's response. Every man there, again, hardened warriors, sees Goliath every day for 40 days and walks away dismayed and in terror. What are we going to do? What are we going to do? David, a shepherd boy, who we don't know how old he was, maybe between 14 and 16, so we'll call him 15. He could have been 12. I really don't know, but we'll call him a 15-year-old kid. Comes to the battle lines with his charcuterie, and he hears Goliath, and he sees him for the first time. And everyone else's response to Goliath is, please don't hurt me, Mr. Goliath. And David's response to Goliath is, who's that guy? Who does he think he is? You guys hear what he's saying? He's defying God. He's in trouble. I love that David's response to seeing Goliath for the first time in a sea of warriors is, who's that punk? Who does he think he is? God's going to be ticked. I would not want to be that guy. And then what follows, and I love this, is his oldest brother's response. Listen to what Eliab says to him. It's what every older brother in the history of mankind would say. It's also what all of us would say to David if we were in those battle lines and heard a punk 15-year-old saying this. Now Eliab, his oldest brother, heard when he spoke to the men, and Eliab's anger was kindled, yeah, no kidding, against David. And he said, why have you come down and with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil in your heart, for you have come down to see the battle. I love it, I love it. I love it. And you got to kind of read stuff into the Bible sometimes to pull out the details and make it come alive. This is his oldest brother of eight sons, his youngest brother, who is the shepherd. He has the lowest job, the easiest job, the least respected job in the family. comes to the battle line with meat and cheese and then says, who's this punk? And his brother's like, shut up. Who are you? How are you here? Who's watching those three sheep that you tend in the wilderness, that big important job you're doing? Who's doing it now? Get out of here. You're just here to see a fight that's gross and disgusting. These men's lives are at stake. Go home. It's a totally reasonable response. But I think David's response here, the first time he encounters Goliath is the most interesting. And I think it kind of tips our hand to the question that underlies this entire story. This whole story begets this question. What made David different from all of Israel? What was it about David that upon encountering Goliath for the first time, he responded completely differently from his entire nation? What is it about David as we move through the story and we see him make different statements? What is it about David that makes him act and talk like that? What is it about David that gives him this sense of calm and confidence that God's going to take care of things. What makes David different? A lot of people, and it's how I was taught when I was growing up, would say it was his faith. David had bigger faith than everybody. He had more faith than everyone in Israel. He had more faith than all of his countrymen. I don't think that's true. Samuel was still alive during this battle. You want to tell me that 15-year-old David had more faith than Samuel? Maybe, but I don't think so. How about the praying widows in Israel who had been seeking the presence of God on behalf of the army for days and hours on end. He had more faith than them. He was a better Christian in our vernacular than everybody in the whole country. He had more faith than everyone at 15. Maybe, but doubtful to me. So let's hang on to that question. What makes David different? As we move into kind of the next scene of the story. So he's on the front lines and he says, who does that guy think he is? What's going to happen for the person who kills him? They're like, you know, King Saul, who by the way, is head and shoulders above everyone else, the Bible says, and therefore is the most likely candidate to go and take on Goliath. And lest you think that this was an army full of guys who just weren't skilled fighters, that they didn't really have a champion, they had Joab and they had Abner in their armies. And we see later their exploits, that they are great warriors and great fighters. David's mighty men, the people who have become David's mighty men are no doubt in this army at the time. So let's not pretend that there aren't capable fighters in the army. There's just a bunch of scared fighters in the army and David is not. So David goes to the guy who should be picking the fight and taking the challenge. And he says, and he goes to Saul and he's like, hey, I'll take care of your Goliath issue. I noticed you got this giant, seems really annoying. I'm gonna handle it for you. Just cool. And this is the conversation that they have. Saul asks him, why should I let you do it? And David's response to me is remarkable. I'm going to pick it up in verse 34, and then verse 37 is going to be on the screen when we finish. And Saul said to David, go. And may the Lord be with you. Good luck, kid. Now here's what we miss in this passage that we just breeze right through. Because the point of the passage is, David said, God's been with me before. He'll be with me now. Except you missed the fun part. Look at this. Read it again. Saul says, why should I let you, why do you think you can defeat this giant? And David casually says, well, I don't know if you know this, I'm a shepherd. And so when I've been out in the wilderness and a lion or a bear would come and take one of the sheep, I would take my shepherd's staff, my stick, and I would chase down that lion or the bear, and then I would hit it with my stick. And it would drop the sheep, and I would take it home. And then if he arose against me, if the lion bowed up and wanted a piece, then I would grab him by the mane and beat him with my stick until he died. And I've done that multiple times because the Lord has delivered them into my hands. And I don't see any reason why this giant would be any different. And listen to me, if you don't think that's a big deal, go to the zoo. It's like an hour and a half. It's a wonderful drive. It's really worth it for your kids. Go to the zoo. Go to the lion's exhibit and choose a stick, any stick you want. Do research about it beforehand and buy one on Amazon for maximum density and flexibility so it doesn't snap the first time you hit the lion. Do whatever you want to do. Jump in the habitat and hit it, and then you see what happens. Hit a girl one, see what happens. And then David says, the Lord has delivered those into my hand and this giant will be no different. And I love the humility there of David. Takes no credit at all for it. If I did that, if I killed a lion with a stick, I would take a picture of the lion and me with the stick. And I would put it on 14 different colored t-shirts. And it would say, I killed this lion with this stick. And I would wear it every day. And I'd be Nate, the lion killer. But I'm not. I'm just Nate. I've killed zero lions. He's so humble about it. He gives the credit right to God. And Saul says, okay, all right, go ahead. And then there's that famous scene where he tries to put his armor on David. And David, if we had to guess based on archeological data, because I wanted to know the height comparison, so I did the research one time, 5'4", 5'6". Saul was probably closer to six foot. Saul's armor is not going to fit David. Saul has grown man strength. That strength you have when your wife has your first baby, your strength grows by 10. It just happens. It's old man strength. It's just a thing. David didn't have that yet. He's just a 15-year-old kid who later we hear is ruddy in complexion. He was a good- kid and ruddy, we think, some Hebrew scholars indicates ginger, redheaded. So for my redheaded friends, you and David, y'all are pals. So he tries on the armor, it doesn't fit. He's like, no, I'm good. And he goes to battle in the equivalent of a t-shirt and jeans. On his way, he goes down to the brook and he grabs five smooth stones. And there's a lot of ideas about why he grabbed five smooth stones. Goliath had five brothers, so it was one stone for each brother. Maybe, I don't know, it's fine. He was being prepared. I've heard pastors make this a lesson on preparedness. Even though you have faith, do all the work. I don't think that's true, which is nice because I don't like to do all the work. So he just, he got five stones and I don't know why, but he got them and he goes. And by the way, the sling that he's using is a leather strap with a pouch in the middle of it. You put the rock in there and you sling it around and then you let go of one end of it and the rock comes flying out at 90, 95, sometimes a hundred miles an hour or more. And this weapon, the sling was a common weapon and is the precursor to the bow and arrow in ancient battle. So it was not uncommon to have slingers as units in your army. So David had a sling and that's what he was going to use. So he goes into battle with Goliath. And this is where the good stuff happens. He goes down into the valley and approaches Goliath as Goliath is there issuing his daily taunt. And when Goliath turns and sees him, he responds in A, the most predictable way possible, and B, the stinking scariest way possible. Look at what Goliath says in verse 42 when he sees David. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. And the Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come at me with sticks? Which is a fair question. And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. That's ancient smack talk. I don't know if you know that or not, but that's ancient trash talk. The large tank of a man, Goliath of Gath, turns and he sees a 15-year-old snot-nosed punk walking at him. And he says, this, this, this is what you're sending me for your country? This, this kid? What am I, a dog? Are you going to hit me with your stick? And David's like, it's worked before. You're going to hit me with your stick? And then he says, I am going to kill you. And then I'm going to watch the birds of the air and the beasts of the field pull apart your carcass. And we're going to have a party. It's going to be great, David. Let's go. To which 100% of us, if we were in David's shoes and Goliath said that to us, would immediately lose control of our bodily functions and scamper back up the mountain just as quickly as we could. I'm sorry, Mr. Goliath, there's been a big misunderstanding. I've got to tell you, from up there, you really look a lot smaller, and this is a huge mistake. I don't know what I was thinking. My bad. Listen, the one advantage David has over Goliath is that he's very likely quicker. So just go back up the mountain. That's not what he does. David's response is epic. And I get chills every time I read it. Verse 45 and 46, then David said to the Philistine right away, he responded, you come to me with sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your big fat head and I will give the dead beast, I will give the bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. You done boogered up, Goliath. You've been defying the wrong God for too many days. And it's time to pay the piper. Goliath says, what am I, a dog? Are you going to hit me with your stick? And David, unflinching, unflinching, he says, you come at me with weapons that man made for you? I come at you in the name of the Lord God Almighty, and he's not happy. And I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to cut your head off, and then this army is going to run down the hill and kill everyone in this army. And then we're going to have a party while we watch the birds pull their carcasses apart. How do you like them apples, big fella? Goliath, it turns out, liked those apples as much as you would expect and enraged, charges at David to kill him. David, in this moment, as the story goes, puts the rock in his pouch, whips the sling around, and sinks it right in between the eyes of Goliath as he charges. And I know that he charges because the Bible tells us that after he got hit in the front of the head, that he landed on his face. He fell face first in a big dusty thud, I imagine. And how else could he fall face first unless enraged at David's response? He just grabbed his spear and started to yell and charge directly at David, who couldn't have been further away from me than the back of the room. And David calmly, confidently, puts that rock right between his eyes. And then David did what he said he was going to do. He walks up to the shield bearer, and he says, give me Goliath's sword. Give me the sword. He takes the sword. He cuts off the head. I bet that took a few swings. And then the armies of Israel rush down, killing the armies of the Philistines all the way back to their village. And when David gets done with that, he carries the big, fat, ugly head of Goliath into Saul, and he says, here you go. I told you what God would do. That's the story of David and Goliath. But the question remains, what made David different? What was it about David that at every turn allowed him to respond differently than everyone else around him? And really the question is, is there anything that David did there that we could possibly emulate in our life? And I said that I doubt that the answer is that he was the most faithful. I really think, and this is my opinion, you chew on it, you do with this what you like, but my opinion is that what made David different was his perspective. David's perspective made him unique amongst his peers. It was David's perspective that made him unique amongst his peers. And here's what I mean by perspective. The armies of Israel, they would gather every day and every day Goliath would come down and he would challenge them. And they would look at Goliath, and they would look at themselves, and they would go, that problem is too big for me. That is, my skill cannot handle that, my ability cannot handle that, my just natural genes cannot handle that. I cannot take that guy. I cannot overcome this. I cannot climb that mountain. I cannot get past that obstacle. I cannot solve that problem. I cannot fix that situation. I can't do it. I'm not big enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not bright enough. I'm not young enough. I'm not old enough. I'm not enough. I can't handle that. It's bigger than me. So I'm scared and I'm dismayed and I'm going to avoid it. That was their perspective. David's perspective was, you are nothing compared to Almighty God. See, everyone else, when they looked at Goliath, they saw a problem and compared it to themselves and knew that they weren't enough for it. But when David saw Goliath, he compared the problem to God himself and thought, oh my gosh, God is overwhelmingly going to destroy you. He is so much bigger and mightier and smarter and capable than any one of us are. God is sovereign. He is all knowing. He is all powerful. And what he wants to happen will happen. So Goliath, you're in trouble. Everyone else, when they saw Goliath, compared Goliath to themselves and got scared. And David saw Goliath and compared him to God and had faith. His faith didn't come from just doubling down and being more determined that he was going to love God and trust God more. His faith came from his perspective. When he encountered lions and bears in the wilderness, he didn't think, I'm going to take down this animal. I've got what it takes. He thought, I think God wants me to have that sheep. He's on my side. I'm going to go get it. When he saw Goliath, he didn't think, I think I could put one between his eyes. I think I'm a pretty good shot. I've done this a couple of times. He thought, God has helped me before and he will help me again. God is not happy with that. He's bigger than Goliath. He's going to handle it. And if you think about it and you go back to the story, what else could it be besides perspective? The very first time he sees Goliath, who's this guy? He goes to Saul, how are you going to kill him? Well, you know, God's done this stuff before. He'll do it again. And then he's down on the battlefield in the heat of it, and he says, you're going to come at me with man-made weapons? I'm here as God's representative. It doesn't matter what weapon I use. At no point did David compare Goliath to David. It was always a comparison to God. And God wins every comparison. He made sure of that when he sent Jesus to conquer death and sin. And if that's not the biggest victory in the history of the universe, I don't know what is. He's already proven to us that he overcomes everything. And if this sermon sounds familiar to you, it's because I did it five years ago with most of the same jokes. I didn't have charcuterie in there, but the rest of them. And it was about my fourth or fifth Sunday at Grace. And we put rocks underneath all the seats. And then we had markers up front, which apparently in five years, my preparation has slacked. I'm sorry, you have no rocks under your seats today. Just this one. And the encouragement was to get that rock and whatever you have going on in your life that feels too big for you, as cheesy as it is to say, whatever your Goliaths are. If it's raising your children, if I had these rocks today, I would write Lily and John's name on them. It's too big for me. I don't know how to raise kids that love Jesus and want to hang out with me who I respect. I don't know how to do that. Maybe it's your career. Maybe it's an illness that you or your family is facing. Maybe it's a tough decision or a broken relationship or just a big task that you've got in front of you and it just feels too big. Or maybe you're in a period of grief and you don't know how you're going to pull out of it and how life is going to feel the same and the sun is ever going to shine bright enough again. Maybe you just don't know, but everybody's got something in their life that when we look at it and we compare it to ourselves, we know that we know that we know that we are inadequate for it and that we cannot overcome it. And whatever that is, I would encourage you to take something that can remind you of that. I did five years ago. I took and I wrote grace on this rock. It was five weeks into being a senior pastor. I knew and still know it's far too big for me. I don't know how to lead a church. I don't know what we're supposed to do all the time. And every day I see this rock. It sits on the shelf right above my computer screen. And every time I see it, I'm reminded, yeah, this place is too big for you, man. So just worry about following God and God's going to handle the church. Just worry about pursuing him and loving people well and treating people right and having a heart for God and letting him inflame it more and more. Most of the time when I pray before my sermons, I'm really not praying about my sermons. I'm just praying that God would fill me up with a desire for him. It's just a weekly reminder that God, I want to want you more. That if we do that, if we just pursue him, God's going to take care of everything else. So the big problems in our life that feel insurmountable, that keep us up at night, that stress us out, that give us anxiety, maybe part of the problem is we're just comparing those things to ourself and admitting our inadequacy, when what we need to do is compare those things to God and admit His supremacy. And what we don't need to do in these moments when we feel overwhelmed is just double down on being better Christians. I've got to have more faith and then everything's going to work out. No, that's not fair. You need to change your perspective. And when you change your perspective and you have the perspective of David and we compare these things in our life not to ourselves, but to our Father, that brings us a peace and a confidence that in turn builds our faith. A few minutes ago, Aaron made the great point that David declared that he would always worship God. Even in the valleys, he would worship God. We said your praise will ever be on our lips. The only way we can possibly mean that is if even in the most dire of circumstances, we compare those circumstances to God, we have the perspective of David and we know, somehow we know that God is going to make a way. And so even though we don't feel the emotion of crying out in praise, we will go through the act of crying out in praise in faith because we have the perspective that God can handle whatever comes up in our life and we hand it over to him and we exist in that peace. And because we exist in that peace, our faith grows and we want to worship God more. So I hope that moving forward, when you remember the story of David and Goliath, that you won't think of a young man that had more faith than the rest of the country, but you will think of a young man who had a different perspective from everyone around him, who had the wisdom to compare his problem to God's ability, and that you'll be reminded to have the perspective of David. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the stories that you've chosen to share with us down through the centuries. Thank you for the bravery and courage of David. But God, I pray that we would always be well aware of where that bravery and courage and faith came from. That it came from comparing his obstacles to you instead of himself. I pray that you would give us the strength to do that. That we would see through your eyes our sin that we don't think is possible to overcome. Maybe be convinced for the first time that it is possible to overcome that. That we would see our grief, our desires, the decisions that we have to make, our careers, our children, our marriages through your eyes and know that you are more than capable of piloting us through any circumstance. And God, thank you for overcoming death and sin for us and winning the greatest victory that could be won. It's in the name of the winner of that victory, Jesus, that we pray these things and we praise you. Amen.

Sometimes in life, we simply need to pause. We need to stop and sit and rest and think and reflect. In these moments of rest, often what we need most is for God to refresh us. We need Him to speak to us and breathe fresh life into us. We need for God to move and restore and encourage. This is why we observe Lent. It is a moment for us amidst all the busyness of our years to pause and focus on Jesus. Lent reminds us of what Jesus has done for us, how much he loves us, and how he relentlessly pursues us. So let us together right now be still and set our collective focus on Jesus, asking him to speak to us in this holy pause. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. Thank you for joining us for Easter. Everybody looks great in their Easter best. I really do like all the bright colors, and I am of the opinion that Easter is the greatest day in the Christian calendar. It's the greatest holiday. Christmas acknowledges the arrival of our Savior, but it's Easter that acknowledges and signifies the victory of that Savior, of Him doing what He came to do, And it is right and good to be together in church and celebrate this victory. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning. As I was thinking about Easter, I was also thinking about the power of images and how when we see a picture or we see an image or we see a logo, it often carries with it a great amount of emotion for us or at least information from us. There's things that we can see, images that we can see that will immediately conjure up from us stories or nostalgia or emotion or things that we'd like to share or things that make us laugh or whatever. And I think that there is this really remarkable intrinsic power in images. To help you understand my point, I have some for us this morning. Here's a very famous one that all of us have seen before. When we think about images, when you see Mickey Mouse ears, what does it make you think of? It may send you back to your childhood when your dad was wearing short shorts and he took you to Frontier Landing or whatever it is. That's what mine was, mosquitoes and the whole deal and hotlines and everything. And it goes back to my childhood in the 80s. And now more recently, it goes back to taking my daughter Lily. We went earlier this year. We went three years ago. I have great memories there. So when I see those ears, it conjures up with me pages and pages worth of memories that I could share with you. And I'm sure that you do too. Maybe it's just annoyance at Disney World and you don't like that place at all and you wish it would quit showing up in your life. That could be it, but you've got something there with just that image. And there's another, here's another one. Let's look at this one. That's not even a picture, but we all know what that is, right? That's coffee. And when you see that, I don't know where that takes you. It takes me, when I think of coffee, I think of being quiet and being relaxed, often studying, having a book, or just staring out the window in silence. The older I get, the more things I see that make me want to sit somewhere and be still and stare out the window in silence. Maybe it's because I have two young children, but that's what I think of when I see coffee is maybe it takes you to after dinner, to a little dinner and dessert or whatever. But maybe you are a person who has coffee paraphernalia all over your kitchen or your office and coffee is a part of who you are and you feel very seen right now, whatever this image means to you. Speaking of feeling seen, some of you will feel seen with this next one. Yeah, we know what that is. That's the Vince Lombardi trophy. That's the Super Bowl trophy. Now, for some of us, it conjures up memories of great, great success. For others, like me, I'm a Falcons fan, it's great pain that is in that image. For others of you Browns fans, that image means nothing to you. You might not even know what that is. I don't know if you do or not. I probably had to explain it to you. And then lastly, there's this, which is known the world over for excellence, victory, and championships. We can all wholeheartedly agree that Georgia Tech's the greatest at everything. That's such an easy joke because Georgia Tech's the worst. They're the worst at everything. They're the NC State of Georgia. Anyways, whatever the image is, whatever the image is conjures up for us emotions and stories and experiences. And I was learning about the power of visual learning and what images do. And they have this remarkable ability to package and compartmentalize for us knowledge and stories and so much other information that's represented in just that image. And it's funny because God created us that way. He created us to be people who don't learn as well by seeing or by reading or by hearing, but by experiencing and by seeing something and by having an image or an icon that immediately takes our mind to a thing or to a place and immediately begins to unpack all the details that go into that image. And I was thinking about the power of imagery this week because I believe that God designed and created for us an image to last until Jesus comes back to remind us maybe of the most important part of the Bible, which is Easter. It dawned on me that baptism is the image of Easter. The act of baptizing someone is the image of Easter. And so when we had some folks in previous months reach out and say, hey, we think we might be interested in being baptized, I asked them if they would do it on Easter. I mentioned before that the early church would only baptize people on Easter because of the imagery, because of what it meant, because of the symbolism laced into baptism. And so I thought, what better way, what better way to acknowledge Easter than to celebrate Easter than to have baptisms on Easter and talk about the symbolism of those baptisms within, or the symbolism of those baptisms within the act of them themselves. And so as we gather for Easter and we are reminded what it's about, let's also acknowledge that God created for us an image of Easter that we ought to be reminded of as we go throughout our Christian lives and our Christian walk. Baptism is so important, as a matter of fact, that Jesus himself started it. Jesus only started two traditions. The church has a lot of traditions. We're observing Lent right now as a church. I hope that that's been a spiritually nourishing season for you, and I hope that the Lord has spoken to you and moved in your heart and drawn you closer to him. I hope that observing Lent this year has been spiritually beneficial for you. And many churches have many different traditions. Some of you, you're here with friends or you're here with family and your church has different traditions that our church isn't observing this morning. And either I'm sorry for that or you're welcome. I'm not sure how you feel about the traditions that you're not currently experiencing. But the church has a ton of traditions. But only two of them were started by Jesus. The first is communion. Communion celebrates the Last Supper and the breaking of bread and Jesus dying on the cross, which is encapsulated by the image behind me. But the other tradition that he started was baptism. When he left, when he went back up to heaven, his final instructions to the disciples were to go into all the world and make disciples and to baptize them in the name of the Father and great deal to God. And I would argue that it matters a great deal to God because the very act of it, the very image of it is itself a symbol of Easter, which is the greatest victory that is ever won. And this isn't just my idea. I didn't just conjure this up reading scriptures and piecing things together. This comes from Paul himself. The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Romans. And in that letter, it says this in chapter 6, beginning in verse 3. So Paul says, in our regular rhythm of faith to remind us of the miraculous victory of Easter. And he walks us through it. And in a few minutes, we're going to have the opportunity to baptize in this service two of our kids, and then in the next service, two of our adults. And I'm very excited about that. And when we do it, when we baptize them, we're going to put them under the water. And when they go under the water, that is a picture of the death of Christ. They are buried with him in death, Paul writes. And so that takes us back, it should take us back to that Friday when Jesus hung on the cross, when hope was lost, when the disciples scattered, when Mary was brokenhearted, when no one knew what to do. And it takes us to the Saturday in that poignant moment before they come back out of the water. It takes us to that sacred Saturday where hope was lost and confusion reigned and disappointment ruled the day. And they didn't know what to do. And they didn't know what to do about their Savior. And they didn't know if he was going to come back. They didn't know what was coming on Sunday. So Saturday they just sat in their sadness and in their depression. And in that moment when they disappear and you can't see them, right before they come back up, that's Friday and Saturday in the baptism imagery in the Easter story. But the story doesn't end there. It doesn't end on that sacred Saturday. It ends on Sunday when Mary goes to the tomb to look for Jesus. And it's that passage that Jordan read to us a little bit earlier in the service. And in that passage, it has to me what is the greatest sentence in the whole Bible. When Mary goes and she's looking for Jesus and the tomb is empty and there's an angel there who looks at her and he says, what are you doing? Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is risen. He's not here, Mary. You're not gonna find him. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you, that's the greatest sentence in the whole Bible. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen. Because without that sentence, without that sentence, nothing else matters. Do you understand? Nothing else in all of Christendom, nothing else in life matters without that sentence. When we have Christmas, we have the arrival of the Savior. That's good. We should celebrate that. That's hopeful. And that's a fulfilled promise that people clung to for thousands of years. But on Easter at the empty tomb, when Jesus conquered sin and death, that is the greatest victory ever won. That is the greatest sentence in the Bible. And if that sentence isn't true, then everything else fades and nothing else matters. All of Christendom and all religion and all faith is just babbling morality without that sentence, without the reality of the resurrected Jesus and the empty tomb where he conquers sin and death finally. And so when we see the baptized person spring up out of those waters, that's the moment that they're capturing. They're capturing the empty tomb. And it says that they are raised to walk in newness of life. And it reminds us of the victory that Jesus won that day. It reminds us of why this is the greatest holiday. It reminds us of the import of that sentence because in that empty tomb, in resurrecting, in raising to walk again in newness of life, Jesus accomplished for us victory over death and victory over sin. Jesus made it true that old prophecy, oh death, where is your sting? I'm reminded of this old gospel song that's ripped out of the scriptures that says, oh sin, where are your shackles? Oh death, where is your sting? Hell has been defeated. The grave could not hold our king. And when we baptize someone and we pull them out of the water, that's where the moment goes. It's to someone springing forward in newness of life. It's to victory over death. Do you realize, do you realize that this, one of the reasons that this is the greatest day on the Christian calendar is that this is the day that conquered death. This is the day that gives us hope. This is the day that we celebrate, that we cling to, that we hope for, so that when we watch someone we love slowly drift into eternity and eventually we say goodbye to them, because of Easter, we say goodbye for now, but not goodbye forever. Because of Easter, we can hold their hand and we can pray with them and we can know with certainty that they really are going to a better place and that they are waiting for us there. Because of Easter, death has no sting. What hurts about death is missing someone for a little while. What hurts about death is not having them in your life, is not being able to pick up the phone and call them like you used to. But what hurts about death is not the finality of it because Jesus took that away when he raised up out of that tomb. And we celebrate that victory when we raise someone up out of the water. That Easter is the greatest victory of all time. And it gives us incredible amounts of hope. And it takes away the fear of the one thing of which we are all the most fearful, which is what happens when we die. And because of Easter, because Jesus died on the cross, because he was buried, because he rose again and was raised to walk in that newness of life. We know that one day we will go to the marriage supper of the Lamb. We know that one day we will be in heaven with Jesus for all of eternity. We know that one day we will see those that we loved again. We know that one day we will be united with our Savior and we can set down the burdens of hope and faith because Jesus will be right there in front of us because of Easter. And not only in that moment where Jesus sprung out of the tomb, where we come up out of the water, not only is there victory over death, but there's victory over sin as well. Sin has no shackles on us anymore. So not only is there hope for the future, for what will happen one day, but there is hope for right now because scripture teaches us that when we are a new creation, that we come up out of the waters to walk in newness of life, that what that newness of life means is we are no longer shackled to the sins that we carried before we knew Jesus. I preached a couple of weeks ago about repentance, and what I said is that after Jesus, after the Holy Spirit, after we know him, after we become Christians, then repentance is possible. Before that, scripture tells us that we are slaves to sin, that we have no choice but to sin. But with the miracle of Easter, it doesn't just give us hope for the future. It gives us hope for the right now, that the sins and the things in our life that we don't want there anymore can actually be defeated. And we find that hope in Jesus. Easter reminds us of that hope. And it reminds us that we're not chained to the sins that we once carried anymore. So not only does Easter point us towards a future hope, but Easter points us to a present hope, victory over death and sin, future and present. And so, in a few minutes, as we do the baptisms, let's see in these baptisms the picture of Easter. When they go under, let's take ourselves to the Friday and to the Saturday and to the waiting and to the confusion. And let's know that that's just God putting to death your old self. And when we see a raising to walk and newness of life, that that is the victory of hope for all of eternity. That is the victory that Jesus has already won and he's going to come and claim again someday. But as you move through life, as you go through Easter, as you attend other services, as you go to other churches, and some of you back to your own churches, my hope for you is that whenever you see a baptism, that it will carry you right back to Easter, right back to this day, right back to the victory that Jesus won for you and for me, and that it will fill you with a hope, not only for the future, but for the present as well. And let's see baptism for what it is, a picture, an image of Easter itself, of the greatest victory ever won and the greatest day on the Christian calendar. Let's pray and then we're going to baptize some people. Father, thank you so much for the miracle of Easter. Thank you for what it is, for what it represents. God, I pray that as we think of Easter and we think of the images that surround it, that it wouldn't just be bunnies and eggs and pastels and baskets and flowers and all the rest, but that the first thing we would see is your victory. The first thing we would see is how you love us. How you sent your son to die for us and how he resurrected on the third day. God, may we be moved with each baptism that we see with the power and the efficacy of Easter and all that today represents. I pray these things in your son's name. Amen.

Sometimes in life, we simply need to pause. We need to stop and sit and rest and think and reflect. In these moments of rest, often what we need most is for God to refresh us. We need Him to speak to us and breathe fresh life into us. We need for God to move and restore and encourage. This is why we observe Lent. It is a moment for us amidst all the busyness of our years to pause and focus on Jesus. Lent reminds us of what Jesus has done for us, how much he loves us and how he relentlessly pursues us. So let us together right now, be still and set our collective focus on Jesus, asking him to speak to us in this holy pause. Good morning. We'll be reading from Matthew chapter 6 this morning. This, then, is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you get to be the senior pastor here. Congratulations to Tar Heel fans. Please be humble about it, lest you become unbearable to your Christian brothers and sisters. That was a heck of a game last night. Yes, yes. That's good. That was some very tepid applause there. I know you feel bigger than that, but you're being humble as we speak. We have been going through our Lent series. This is, I believe, part six of the series, and I hope that you have been keeping up with the devotionals, as I say, every week and reading and being encouraged by those and by the other folks in the church as you've gone through those. This week, we arrive at the topic of forgiveness, and we've been kind of walking through that all week. Hopefully, as you've read the devotionals, you've thought about forgiveness in your own life. I think when we arrive at the topic of forgiveness, we can't help but wonder, do we owe some forgiveness? Whenever I encounter that topic of forgiveness, whenever I see the word, whenever I'm challenged by scripture, whenever I'm talked about how God has forgiven me so I should forgive others, I immediately think, who in my life am I holding a grudge against? Who am I withholding forgiveness from? And I would bet that most of us, when we hear that idea, begin to think about who in our life have we had to forgive? Where have we had a difficult path to forgiveness? Is there anybody in my life that I need to work towards forgiving now? And so with that in mind, I wanted to kind of talk about the challenge of forgiveness and the instructions that we find in the Bible concerning forgiveness. And the best place, I think, to start is with the very words of Jesus. We're going to allow Jesus to frame up our discussion on forgiveness this morning. The Bible in the Old Testament, New Testament, all throughout it has a ton to say about forgiveness. But again, I think if we can go to Jesus and read his very words and what he has to say about it, that that's the best framework for the discussion that you and I need to have about forgiveness as we rest on that topic this morning. So I would first look at two different passages, two different things that Jesus says about forgiveness that are really in harmony with a lot of other teachings throughout scripture about forgiveness. The first is the one that Jacob just so eloquently read a few minutes ago. I don't know if you've noticed it before. Most of us know the Lord's Prayer, and you identified that as the Lord's Prayer as soon as he started to read, right? But in Matthew, when Jesus finishes the Lord's prayer, which is where Jacob was reading from, he does a little bit of commentary. He has some comments to make about it. And we read those this morning, but I'm not sure if we heard it or if you've paid attention to those before. So I would call our attention back to the way that Jesus comments on the prayer that he just prayed. Because part of that prayer is, Father, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. At least that's how I memorized it growing up in the King's English. But sometimes forgive us and then help us forgive other people. So Jesus says this after that in verse 14, for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins. So this is a pretty stark and interesting teaching. And I'll be honest with you, I don't know how this works theologically necessarily and intertwines with the doctrine of salvation. I just know that when, that Jesus himself says that if we will not forgive other people, then our Father in heaven will not forgive us, which is pretty stark. That leaves us very little option, right? So forgiveness immediately we see is required. It is not optional. And then later in the passage, or later in that same book, Jesus is having a conversation with his disciple Peter. And Peter asks about this forgiveness. Surely by now Peter knows that forgiveness is not optional, that if we do not forgive other people in our life, then God does not forgive us. And that seems like a place that we don't want to be in. But Peter asks, certainly there has to be a limit to the forgiveness that we are instructed to offer to others. But to that, Jesus says this in Matthew 18, verses 21 and 22. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times. Some translations say, but 70 times seven. And see, we need to give Peter a little bit of credit. He says, Jesus, how many times should I forgive someone for sinning against me, for wronging me, for harming me? Up to seven times? Which feels very generous, if we're being honest about it. Someone slaps you in the face seven times in a row. You're just going to keep forgiving them? A business partner steals from you. Maybe you can forgive them once. You're going to, up to seven times, you're going to do that? Your neighbor backs into your mailbox. One is a whoopsie, but three, come on, man, knock it off. Like seven times is pretty generous. And Jesus says, no, no, not seven times, but up to 70 times seven, up to 77 times, which is a figurative way of saying as often as they require it. No, you forgive others as often as they require your forgiveness. And when we look at these two teachings from Jesus on forgiveness, these two statements, we have no choice but to conclude this, that unlimited forgiveness for the Christian is not optional. If you're here this morning and you wouldn't call yourself a believer, I would say that the good part of that is that you don't have to forgive anybody if you don't want to. You can just hold grudges, which may be nice. But for the believer, unlimited forgiveness is not optional. And I think that that's important to say out loud and to acknowledge. Because so often, we Christians have a habit of kind of viewing instructions that we're given as things that maybe we're supposed to do. Maybe we can try to do. Maybe one day I'll get there. Maybe one day I'll work up to forgiveness. Or we will think of it as optional. Someone hurt me. I don't want to forgive them. I don't need to. That's in the past and we've never done the work to do that. Or someone did something to us and we have every right to withhold our forgiveness from them. And so we do because it hurts so deeply. And what the Christian ethic is on this is to say, hey, we're instructed to offer unlimited forgiveness, and it is not optional. Now, to some of us, to many of us, that sounds like a challenge. That sounds difficult. If you think about some of the people who have hurt you in your life, some of the things that would require your forgiveness, to simply pithily say, well, God tells you to offer unlimited forgiveness, it's not optional. That's tough. And so I thought it best to have this conversation kind of in light of different groups of people in life that we will feel called to or pressed on to forgive. So I've got three categories of folks, three categories of situations that require forgiveness from us. And I want to talk about how we should kind of address those things because some are different than the others when we get into forgiveness. So the first and maybe the easiest category of people to forgive are those who have apologized and sought restitution. Your neighbor backs into your mailbox. They knock on your door. They say, hey, I'm so sorry. I just knocked over your mailbox. That's my bad. How can I pay for it? Okay. If you withhold forgiveness from your neighbor in that scenario, you've got issues, right? Like you've got problems. Someone stole 50 bucks from you 10 years ago. You still haven't forgiven them. Simple, everyday offenses. Your spouse said something that had a bad day. Just yesterday, I was kind of just being snippy in the morning, and Jen just looked at me. She goes, are you grumpy? Like, did you wake up grumpy? And I'm like, yeah. Sorry. I'll fix it. And, you know, thankfully, I got a little bit more chipper, but I had to apologize. Sorry. Sorry I woke up. I don't know why. I had slept eight hours. It was a great night. I had a great night last night, a good day. I don't know what my deal is, but I'll fix it, right? So there's sometimes just these run-of-the-mill things. Someone wrongs us. They apologize and seek restitution. And the right thing to do is to forgive them and move on. And if in these scenarios, you can't simply forgive them and move on, that's a you problem. You should do that. If you are holding grudges and can't just forgive people when they apologize to you, listen, I sent that email and you shouldn't have been copied on it. And I know I said those negative things about you in front of our coworkers, and I'm very sorry. and I will not do that again. Okay, that one stings a little bit, but still, you're a grown-up. Get over it. Forgive. So in these situations where someone has wronged us, but they've apologized, admitted their fault, they're seeking restitution, we should forgive. And we all know that. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought like, yeah, that's pretty easy. You're all adjusted adults. If you can't do that by now, you need a different sermon. Okay, this isn't for that. Let's just suck it up and forgive. The second one is a little bit more challenging. The second one is when we are tasked to forgive those who do not know they need to or simply refuse to apologize. That's a little bit more difficult. When someone has wronged you and they refuse to apologize for the wrong or acknowledge that it was wrong, and yet you find yourself in a position where you need to forgive them. Spouses get into a fight. They argue. They each say hurtful things. They go to their separate corners of the room, and they sit there like children with their arms folded. I mean, are you going to forgive him? I'm not going to forgive him until he says he's sorry. Okay, well, you sure are teaching him a lesson. Congratulations on being a grown-up. I always say in those situations that children are concerned with whose fault it is, and grown-ups are worried about making things right. So as adjusted adults, as people who love Jesus, we seek to make things right. Now, it's more challenging when someone has hurt you and they won't admit it. They refuse to admit that that was their fault. They refuse to admit that what they did was wrong, but we need to find it in ourselves to forgive them. It's a more difficult task, and yet we should simply extend forgiveness. Another one that I thought of this week is, you know, in this category too, is when people don't know that you even need to forgive them. When people don't know that they've hurt you. And so when you forgive them, you just forgive in silence and they'll never know that you forgave them. And I don't know if this is appropriate for me to share or not, but one of the difficult things in my position is when people choose to no longer be at grace, when people choose to move on from grace. The longer they've come to grace, the more difficult it is when they choose to leave. And I understand that we're not all going to go to the same church for our whole life. Like, I get that, and not everybody leaves poorly, and not everybody hurts when they leave, and some people leave really, really gracefully. But sometimes people leave, and as they're leaving, they say things that hurt. They say things that are insensitive to me, and they'll hurt my feelings. And I understand that I operate in a world where most of the people around me don't think I have those. But I do. I do have feelings. I don't have as much as you all. That would be rough. But I have some. And sometimes they get hurt. But they don't know that they hurt me. They don't know that that's difficult for me. They don't know that I haven't forgiven them. They don't know that I need to. And I'm not going to call them up and say, hey, you hurt me. I just want you to know you hurt me, but I forgive you, so we're good. So I just have to forgive in silence. We don't get any credit for that. But God calls us to forgive nonetheless. And in both of these situations, those where people have wronged us, they've apologized and sought restitution, and then those where people have wronged us and they don't know they have or they refuse to admit that they have, I think it's very helpful for us to refer back to Jesus' instructions and say, to the Lord's prayer, and say, Father, forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Forgive us our debts. Forgive us our sins as we forgive the people who have sinned against us. It's this reciprocity. It's this awareness of the more I focus on Christ, the more I allow the reality of his forgiveness to wash over me. The more I see myself as the happy recipient, undeserving recipient of his grace and of his goodness and of his mercy and of his kindness and of his forgiveness, the easier it is for me to be a conduit of that forgiveness to others. When I reflect on what God has forgiven me of, the fact that he has forgiven me before I even know that I needed to admit fault. Before I was willing to admit that I had wronged him, God in his goodness still offers me and extends to me forgiveness as soon as I'm ready to accept it. And so particularly for these first two categories, when someone's wronged you and apologized, or when someone's wronged you and they haven't apologized yet, but it's your run-of-the-mill average amount of frustration or hurt, it helps us to reflect on Jesus and who he is and how he's loved us and how he's forgiven us and say, yeah, how could I possibly hold a grudge in light of all that love? And so in most situations where you need to offer forgiveness to someone else because they've wronged you, in a vast majority of them, 95% of situations that require our obedience, My official pastoral counsel to you would be, just suck it up and forgive them, man. Figure it out. That would be my counsel to you. Now, I might arrive there in a gentler way. I might say it like, well, you know, and we'll pray about it and wait for you to call me back and realize that's what you need to do. But at the end of the day, the advice would be just suck it up and forgive them and move on. God forgave you. You forgive other people. He empowers you to forgive. We have no right to hold grudges. We've all messed up. Let's move on. But there is a third category where I would never, never give that clumsy of advice. And it's really where I want to spend the bulk of our time today because I feel like it's probably the most helpful for us. And that's those of us who have this group of people to forgive. Those from whom you have every right to withhold your forgiveness. If there is somebody in your life who has hurt you so profoundly and so deeply that you have every right to never forgive them. No one could come to you with an argument and say, you know they deserve your forgiveness, right? Because they don't. No one could come to you and be like, you know, you just need to kind of eventually, it's been 20 years, eventually you got to figure out how to suck it up and forgive. No, no, no, you don't. No, you don't. I have a very good friend who used to be married to another really good friend of mine. Their names are Kevin and Lacey. They live in another state, so I can use their names. If you know Kevin and Lacey, just shut up about this. About seven or eight years ago, Lacey had invited me and another friend of mine, Tyler, to their house to surprise Kevin for his 40th birthday. And we went up for a couple of days to celebrate the birthday. And it was a little weird. There was a little bit of tension. But Kevin and Lacey also had an adult daughter who was engaged. And then five children aged like 10 to 12 and younger. So the oldest was like 10 or 12 and then they had four younger ones and one of those was adopted. So their life was crazy. So to go to their house and for it to feel a little bit crazy or a little bit stressful wasn't totally out of the ordinary. So I didn't really have any red flags going off. It just felt a little tense, right? So we spent a couple of days there, Tyler and I do, and then we hit the road to drive back to, at the time I lived in Atlanta, so we're driving back to Atlanta. And we get about 45 minutes away, and Lacey calls me. I answer the phone, and she said, hey, her voice was shaking. She said, hey, can you come back? I said, sure, what's up? She said, I think he did it again. Three, four years prior to that, Kevin had admitted to an affair with a friend of theirs. And, you know, we kind of all walked through that together, and they had sought restitution and made things right and worked on their marriage, and she had extended forgiveness and yada, yada, yada. But when she said, I think he did it again, I knew immediately what she meant. So we turn back around, go back to Lacey's house. She kind of explained why she thought what she thought. We get into Kevin's computer and read text messages, and she's right. It was a woman in their church small group of all things. And they had made plans in a couple of weeks to tell their families because she had three young kids too. They had made plans to tell their families and somehow existed in this fantasy world where everything was eventually going to work out okay. They just had to get over this difficult challenge at first. But Lacey had figured things out too soon. So Kevin had gone over to her house, picked her up, and they ran off together. And we didn't know where they were, and he wasn't answering his phone. But see, Kevin and Lacey only had one car and Kevin had it. And they only had one bank account and Lacey, they had one bank account and Kevin had moved everything to his business account. So she had no car, no resources and she had five kids. And I spent the next two days convincing my friend Kevin to let Lacey have a car and a couple thousand dollars. And I sat in that house as Lacey gathered up the kids with some close friends of hers and explained to them that sometimes people make poor choices and your daddy's been making poor choices. That is pain. That is hurt. That is being wronged. And I would never, never look at Lacey in those moments and say, you know that offering unlimited forgiveness is not optional, right? You're a believer. And yet that's still true. And I don't know everyone's story, but I'm confident that we have some Lacey's in this room. Some women who have been hurt in that way. Some men who have had to walk through that pain. I know in a congregation our size, we have people who grew up in abusive homes. We have people whose parents victimized them. I know that we have folks in our midst who have walked through being a victim, who have been abused by a parent or by a grandparent or by a spouse or by a partner, and your hurt is deep, and that wrong is big, and that chasm is wide. And what I wanted to know when I was looking at the topic of forgiveness is, what do we tell those folks? How do we help you, those of you with the deepest hurt and the deepest lies and the most challenging path to forgiveness, what can we offer you? So frankly, if your issue is someone hurt my feelings or someone hurt me and they apologize and they've sought restitution but I'm choosing to hold this grudge, figure it out. Figure it out. Forgive them. But for those who sit in profound hurt, what do we do? How do we even start towards forgiveness? The thing that kind of played in my head as I thought about deep hurt is kind of this question, is how could the father look at his victimized children and instruct them to forgive? How could our good heavenly father take Lacey, pull her in, hug her and hold her and tell her, you know, eventually you're going to need to let go of this. Eventually I'm going to move you to a place where I'm going to ask you to forgive Kevin. How can God do that? If we've been hurt in that way, how can we hope to do that? And listen, listen, listen. If you're like me and the path to forgiveness in your life, you're lucky, you're blessed. It's never been that difficult. When I think of, gosh, what are my challenges in forgiveness? They're not a lot. I've not had to walk the road that Lacey's had to walk. So if that's you, I would still encourage you to lean in to what we're talking about this morning. I would still encourage you to listen to what I'm about to share with you that Lacey told me this week, because you might find yourself one day in that room when your friend's life is falling apart, and you might want to counsel them well, or God forbid, you might walk through this too. And let me also say this. Last week, talked about repentance, walking away from the things in our life that don't need to be in our life and walking towards Jesus. If you are doing things that have the potential to require someone to forgive you the way that Lacey is working to forgive Kevin, please stop doing those things before they require the forgiveness that you do not want to force on anyone. But I picked up the phone this week realizing my ignorance, realizing I have not much to offer for deep hurt. And I called Lacey. And I basically asked her that question. How can the Father look at you and love you and yet still push you towards forgiveness? How have you processed forgiveness over the course of the last seven to eight years? What would you say to this topic? And it really, it kind of made me sad. I'll just be honest with you guys. We talked for about 45 minutes, and at the end of it, I realized how badly I wish that I would write sermons several weeks out because it would have been so much more beneficial to have Lacey here and to let us just have a conversation and let you guys listen to it and listen to her perspective. And I told her that. I said, I wish that we could just play this phone call for the people of grace, for the folks in the church. I wish that they could hear these come out of your mouth and not just me bloviating for 30 minutes trying to repeat what you said that was so, so great. I wish you could hear that conversation. But since you can't, I wanted to share with you some of the more helpful things that she shared with me about how she's moved through this profound season of hurt and tried to walk in obedience to offering unlimited forgiveness in the way that she is called to do. And so a couple of things that she said about forgiveness were particularly insightful. And I wanted to share those with you as well, particularly those of you who are walking through profound hurt. And you could say, I have every right to withhold forgiveness from this person. Okay, a couple things for you to know. First, that she pointed out to me, forgiveness does not require trust or affection. To forgive someone, you don't have to reinstitute them into the position that they were in. You don't have to drum up some artificial affection for this person. Lacey has forgiven the other woman, the woman that was in her small group that claimed to be her friend that Kevin left her for. She has forgiven her. She feels no affection for her and she feels no calling to do it. So if one of the things holding you back is, I don't know how I could ever like that person, I don't think you need to. Forgiveness looks like loving somebody. Biblical love, we're instructed, is that we should love others as we love ourselves. How do we love ourselves? We want what's best for ourselves. So how do we love others? To offer biblical love to someone else is to simply desire what is best for them. It is possible to desire what is best for them without actually liking them. Last night, I desired that Duke would win because it's a more interesting story. It was best for Coach K. I do not like the man. I don't have any affection for him. It was just an interesting story, right? We can want what's best for someone without having feelings of affection towards them. And if that helps you get over that hump, so that's good. We also don't have to reinstall them into trust, right? If you have a business partner who steals from you, you can forgive that business partner. You do not have to go back into business with them. If you do, the next one's on you, man. That's your bad. We do not have to reinstall trust. If someone cheats on you, you can forgive them. You do not have to go back and stay with them. So if that's helpful for you, just understand that forgiveness, as I understand it, does not require a reinstatement of trust or affection. It's simply wanting what's best for them and moving on. This one was helpful too. Forgiveness doesn't get to be an arrival. For deep, profound hurt like that, someone lied to you for years, someone hurt you in an incredible way, it doesn't get to be an arrival. Lacey told me she kept expecting to kind of cross this finish line, that she would have one day where God had worked in her heart, with through enough prayer and enough counseling and enough time and enough space that she would be able to say, okay, he's forgiven. I'm moved on. That's done. Except the ripple effects of his actions show up again and again and again in her life. The weekly task of just coordinating the kids with him, where to pick them up and where to drop them off and what are you going to pay for and what are going to pay for, and all the crap that you have to deal with when there's a divorce now, and you have to shuttle kids around, and it's just fresh aggravation every week. Right now, she's got a couple kids going into college, and she has to fill out all of that paperwork on her own, and it's difficult when there's two different parents and two different families, and she's experiencing fresh frustration at the reality of her divorce because of choices that he made and she didn't. That's fresh frustration that she has to then forgive him for again and again. One of the most profound things she ever said to me as we were kind of talking through it, and I was asking what are the hard parts, she said one of the hardest parts is watching your kids grow up alone. Because they do that thing that they do and they make you smile or they make you laugh. And you get to look over at your husband or your wife and you both acknowledge what they just did and you get to experience that intimate joy together that no one else gets to see. And now she has to do that alone. That requires fresh forgiveness. And so it made me think that maybe this is what Jesus was talking about. When he said, no, no, no, not seven times. As many times as they require it. Because maybe Jesus understands that profound hurt has ripple effects. And they show up again and again and again and again. And if you're not prepared to offer ongoing forgiveness, then you're not yet prepared for forgiveness. Because those ripples show up over and over again in your life. And so if you're facing profound hurt like that, just understand, you don't get to cross the finish line. It's more of a mindset of forgiveness. And really the thing that she said that I wanted to finish with is she said, you know, Nate, this would all be impossible without Jesus anyways. She said, I don't know how people walk through hurt like this without Jesus and then try to forgive without Jesus. He's the only reason I can even ever forgive. And she said, in this really funny way, everything that's happened has pushed me more to him, has pushed me closer ever forgive without him. And it reminded me of this verse in 1 Corinthians. And I thought, oh, how appropriate and how much sense does that make in the context of forgiveness when he says to Paul, Jesus says this to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in your weakness. Or rather, that's God the Father saying that to Paul. We are insufficient to offer the forgiveness that we need to for some of the offenses that have been committed against us. It is only through Jesus that we are able to offer that forgiveness. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. It is only through him that we are able to forgive. So if you're one of those people who's carrying that profound hurt, just know that I don't believe you will ever find true forgiveness outside of Christ empowering you to offer it, compelling you to offer it. And when we do that, and when we allow Jesus to empower and compel us towards forgiveness, I think this really great thing happens. By empowering us to forgive, Jesus untethers us from our hurtful past. By empowering us to forgive, Jesus untethers us from our hurtful past. Lacey described it like this. She would just be going through her day, having a perfectly fine day, and then she would see something. She would see a store that Kevin liked to shop at, or a place that they used to go to, or just something that would trigger her and remind her. And then instantly, because she was holding all that hurt, and because she had not yet moved to a place of forgiveness, it was like there was this tether attached to the back of her head that would just jerk her attention into years in the past and jerk her right back into that hurt of those days following the decisions that he made. And she said it was terrible to go through days not knowing when or how my attention was going to be jerked back into the past and I was going to experience that pain fresh. And so really and truly, and we know this about grudges, and we know this about hurt, and we know this about pain, when you are walking through life carrying hurt, when you are walking through life carrying anger, when you are walking through life holding a grudge, that's not hurting them. It's not hurting them for you to be angry at them, not nearly as badly as it's hurting you. And so when Jesus empowers us to forgive, he cuts that tether and he gives us the freedom to walk forward into our future, not being constantly jerked back into our painful past. And I think that there is some freedom there. He unburdens us from the hurt and the pain that we carry every day. And he says, here, let me take that from you so that you can walk in freedom. And so I would say to you this, very carefully, very gently, if there is deep and profound pain in your life, if forgiveness for you is hard, and that person or those people have no right to ask it of you, okay. But when you're ready, Jesus offers you freedom from that hurt. When you're ready, Jesus offers to untether you from that past. When you're ready, you can move into a more free and loving future where you can't get snapped back into your pain at a moment's notice. But it requires you to forgive. It requires you to offer that. But when you do, you find a freedom in Jesus that you can't find anywhere else. I don't know how deep your hurt is, but I do know that life is better when you're not holding it. I don't know how hard forgiveness is for you, but I do know that the reason the Father would hold you and call you to him and say, you know that I'm going to ask you to forgive that person is not so that you can be morally right and morally exemplar and so that he can push you into this uncomfortable situation just so that you feel like a good human. He's telling you to do that because he loves you and he knows that freedom and love are going to be found on the other side of untethering yourself from that. He holds his victimized children and encourages them towards forgiveness precisely because he loves them and wants them to experience the freedom of life on the other side of that pain and he knows he's the only one that can make it go away. Which incidentally is why if your pain is in the first two categories, and I flippantly say, just get over it and forgive, because the same promise is extended to you, that Jesus will empower you to do it and that you will walk in love on the other side of it. So I would encourage you this morning, wherever you are on the spectrum, however you've been hurt, if it's possible to forgive, do it. Allow Jesus to empower that. If you're not there yet, if you say, I hear you, Nate. I know, I understand. Hopefully you don't disagree with what I've said. I haven't said anything clumsy. But you're simply not there yet. It's okay. Maybe just pray this prayer. And say, Father, I know you call me to forgive. I'm not ready. Will you please work in my heart so that I want to forgive? Just pray that prayer. I know I'm supposed to forgive. I don't want to. But I'm asking you and giving you permission to work in my heart to change that so that I do. And just take that step towards forgiveness. But I hope and I pray that as I pray in a second, that if there are people in your life who have hurt you, who you do need to extend forgiveness to, maybe just take a second while I'm praying right now and go ahead and offer that. And let's move out these doors free from some of the pain that we carried in with us this morning. And if you can't do that, let's take a step. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for modeling forgiveness to us. God, we know that we have offended, that we have hurt, that we have trampled with our actions, and yet you offer us unlimited forgiveness. So God, first, I pray that we would be grateful for that and overwhelmed by that. Second, Father, I pray that in turn we would offer forgiveness to others. And Lord, I pray in particular for those who have walked through deep hurt, through a hard betrayal, through abuse, through manipulation, through whatever kinds of awful things we people can do to one another. God, I pray that you would give them the courage to take a step towards forgiveness, to simply maybe even just pray that you would help their heart move, that you would soften their heart. Father, if we do offer forgiveness and obedience to your instructions, I pray that you would meet us there, that we would find you there, and that we would experience a peace there that maybe we haven't had in a long time. In the meantime, God, thank you for loving us so well. In Jesus' name, amen.

Sometimes in life, we simply need to pause. We need to stop and sit and rest and think and reflect. In these moments of rest, often what we need most is for God to refresh us. We need Him to speak to us and breathe fresh life into us. We need for God to move and restore and encourage. This is why we observe Lent. It is a moment for us amidst all the busyness of our years to pause and focus on Jesus. Lent reminds us of what Jesus has done for us, how much he loves us and how he relentlessly pursues us. So let us together right now, be still and set our collective focus on Jesus, asking him to speak to us in this holy pause. Good morning, my name is Nate. I get to be the pastor here. I've got a couple of things for you before I just dive into the sermon. The first thing is that Kyle, who did our announcements, is engaged, man. Yeah. That's right. And she's pretty okay. He's getting older. This is right. No, in all honesty, I can't say much, Kyle. I can't say much. I'm so excited for you. I was sitting over here trying to think about what to say. And I just started like tearing up as I thought about all the things because you guys are perfect. So I'm excited and the church is too. The other thing, let's move away from that quickly so that I can actually preach a sermon. The other thing that I want you to know, and I wanted to say it during this part of the service, not during the announcements, because I actually want you to know about it if you're catching up throughout the week or if you're listening on a walk or whatever it is. I want the whole church to know about this and be prayerful in this. At the end of this year, 2020, what is it, two? Goodness. At the end of 2022, we're going to have three spots available on the elder board. So we're going to spend the rest of this year nominating and naming up to three new elders. And I feel like this is a really big deal because we only have eight elders, including me, max. And so we have an opportunity, or in addition to me, I'm the ninth, Max. And so to put three people on the elder board is a big deal. It impacts the culture of the church. It impacts the culture of the board. And I happen to feel that the people who go on the board are of the utmost importance because I'm trying to constantly remind the elders, this is not Nate's church. It's Nate and Jen's church as much as it's your church, as much as we are partners here and we care about the things that happen here. But this is not my church to lead. This is the elders' church to lead on behalf of the partners of grace. I have been asked to steward grace, but under the direction and leadership of the elders. And the elders, again, represent the wishes of the partners. And I would argue that there is no single portion of grace that has a greater impact on the health, integrity, and character and fitness of the church than to have a board that is healthy and fit and integral. So it's important who goes on that board. So if you are a partner, you're invited over the next month to submit people to be considered to be an elder. The process is we take a month to submit names. We take two months for our nominating committee to kind of talk to those folks and vet those names. And then we take a month for the elders to discuss the people that get there. And then we present them to the partners for a partnership vote. I'll say up front, I don't nominate anybody. I try the best I can to stay out of the process and just receive the people that are nominated by all of you guys. And then we discuss all of that. But I don't want to get too deep into the weeds. I just want you as partners to prayerfully consider who you might nominate to be an elder if you feel led to do that. If you look at the Grace Vine this week, there's a link there. If you scroll down, this announcement is in there. There's a link where you can go to the elder page and there's an online form. We have some forms that you can fill out in person if that's your preference. We just don't have them yet this morning because I oopsied this week and forgot to do that. But we'll have them next week on the information table. So please prayerfully consider that. Now for this week as I get into the sermon finally, sorry for such a long preamble, we're talking about repentance. We've been moving through Lent and kind of pulling different Lenten themes out each week through the devotionals and through the sermons. As I've said each week, I hope that you're being ministered to by those devotionals. I've really, really enjoyed reading through those every week and love all the voices speaking into grace. This week we focus on repentance. And as I got into studying repentance, I was taken aback, honestly, by how often repentance shows up in Scripture. It's all over the Old Testament, this call to repent, to throw off our sinful ways and to move towards God. It's all over the New Testament. All through the Gospels, Jesus calls us to repentance again and again. All of Paul's letters call us to repentance. A lot of the general letters call us to repentance. The end of the Bible, Revelation calls us to repentance. We're called to repentance throughout the whole of Scripture. And as I read that, and as I saw that, and as I studied it, I honestly, I'm not saying this to make a joke. I'm not saying this to make light of anything. I genuinely felt a prick of conviction that I have been your pastor now for five years. Next Sunday is five years, and I have not preached on this. It is to your detriment that I have not. No, it doesn't mean that we haven't talked about the idea of repentance in the service, but I have not slowed down and focused our collective gaze onto this issue that comes up over and over and over again in scripture, and I do sincerely apologize to you for that. I believe I have shortchanged you in not discussing this. And if it is not a part of our regular Christian life, then we have shortchanged ourselves in how we are applying the Scripture. So this morning, I want us to sink in and talk about this principle, this act of repentance. To do that, it's important that we're all on the same page and that we understand what it is. Because repentance can be one of these churchy words like sanctification that we say sometimes and we hear church people say, but if we asked you to say what it was, you would feel very uncomfortable about that. Now, half of you in the room probably know a good definition that I would agree with, which by the way, if I would agree with it, that makes it good. Sorry that that snuck in there. That sounds arrogant. But you would probably have a good definition. But half of us maybe not. So for the sake of the sermon and for the sake of the conversation this morning, we're going to define repentance this way. Repentance is to turn away from sin and move towards God. Repentance is to turn away from sin and move towards God. The word literally means to turn 180 degrees. So the idea of repenting is I'm moving this way. I'm committing this sin. I'm suffering from this addiction. I have this habit. I say these words. I hate this person. I'm moving towards sin and I realize it's sin and I stop. But I don't just stop moving towards that sin. I turn and I move back towards Jesus. So there's an action in repentance. Repentance is not a mindset. It's not a place of sorrow that we reach, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. It requires action of us to actually move away from what we are doing and back towards the Father because, I don't know if you've ever thought about it this way, but it is impossible to be actively sinning and not also actively drifting away from God. If there are things in our life that ought not be there, if there are things in our life that God would tell us, hey, I don't want that to be a part of your life, then that's sin. And to keep it in our life is to actively and intentionally choose to move away from God. And so when we repent, we acknowledge that that is sin, and we stop it, and we move back towards God. So that's the definition of repentance. As I studied this, I also thought it would be worth kind of detailing, and this is my thought, okay? This is me. You guys are adults. If you're Christians, you have the Holy Spirit. You read the scripture. You decide what it means to you. But for me, I actually see in scripture two different kinds of repentance. I see in scripture kind of a call for what I'm thinking of as initial repentance and then a call for ongoing repentance. So in scripture, I see these calls to initial repentance and ongoing repentance. And I'm going to tell you what I mean. We see a picture of initial repentance in Acts chapter two. In Acts chapter two, Jesus has died. He's come back to life. He's appeared to the disciples. He's ascended up into heaven. He's told them to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, the Holy spirit. And they don't really know what that means. And Jesus told them, just sit in this room and wait until the Holy Spirit comes, and then you'll know what to do. And they're like, all right. So they just sit around in this room and they wait. And they wait, and they wait. And then one day, at what we call Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends on them like flaming tongues. And they go out on the porch and they begin to preach the gospel. And everybody who's there hears the gospel in their own language, in their own tongue. And it's important that we note that the people who are there are presumably the same people who days earlier insisted that Pilate crucify Jesus and kill him on the cross. It's the same crowd, right? And so what is Peter preaching to them? He's preaching to them this message of, hey, you know that guy that you killed? That was Jesus. That was the son of God. That was the Messiah who came to take away the sins of the world. That was the one that Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel had been prophesying about for all those years. All those scriptures that you learned growing up, he was the fulfillment of those things and you killed him. So, whoops. And then their response is, oh no, you're right. What do we do? How do we fix this? How can we be in with God? What we would think of, probably, as being saved. How can my relationship be repaired with God? And Peter answers them this way in chapter 2, verse 38. And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is an invitation to what I'm thinking of as initial repentance. And before I go on to explain that as an aside, I'm so glad that this morning the Lord laid on my heart a passage that speaks about baptism because we have Easter coming up. And I think at Easter we're going to have the opportunity to baptize at least two folks. And the whole service really is going to be wrapped around those things because baptism is a picture of Easter. You understand? It depicts the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus. It's a reminder of that. It is the oldest of church traditions, and the early church would only baptize on Easter. So if you are one that the Lord has been pricking your heart towards baptism lately, would you please reach out to me? And let's make this Easter one of the most special ones that you've ever had in your life by moving you through the rite of baptism. But Peter calls them to repent and be baptized. And I think an interesting question is, repent of what? Perfectly repent of all your sins? If you need to be right before Jesus, then you need to perfectly repent of all your sins and be baptized and move forward? Well, certainly that can't be the case because no one can repent of their sins perfectly. It occurred to me this, this is true, not even Jesus can perfectly repent of sins because you have to sin first to perfectly repent. Jesus does not know repentance. So literally no one has ever repented perfectly of their sins. So this can't be the instruction of Peter. I think, and again, this is me thinking, that this initial repentance, that what Peter is calling them to repent of is repent of who you thought that Jesus was that you crucified. That guy that you killed, repent of who you thought he was and believe that he was who he said he was. Repent of thinking that he was a teacher or a prophet or an insurrectionist or just some guy or just a carpenter. Repent of those things and believe that he was who he says he was, who is the divine son of God incarnate who came to live a perfect life to die on the cross for you and for me to gain our citizenship in heaven, to secure us a seat at the table for the marriage supper of the lamb for all of eternity. And so I would invite you this morning, if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you wouldn't yet call yourself a Christian. You have an invitation to the exact same initial repentance that the people in Acts got called to. And I would invite you this morning, if the Spirit so moves in you, that you would repent of whoever you thought Jesus was when you came in here. A historical figure, a humble teacher, a prophet on par with Muhammad or Confucius or Buddha. Repent of who you thought he was and accept that he is who he says he is, the divine Son of God who died on the cross for you and for me to secure your seat in all of eternity and to rectify your relationship with your Creator God. That's who Jesus is. And if you didn't believe that walking in here, you're invited into the initial repentance of walking away from who you thought Jesus was and walking towards who we now believe him to be. That's the initial repentance. But I think after that repentance, that's the moment when our salvation begins. The Bible teaches salvation as a process. So when you're saved, are you saved? Are you secured? Are you going to heaven? Yes, but your process is also ongoing. It reaches its completion in our glorification as we enter into heaven. So yes, that begins the process. But then as we enter into this process of salvation and sanctification that is secured for us, that is guaranteed for us, that we will experience in glory, God continues to call us to ongoing repentance as a portion of our Christian life. And he calls us to repentance in verses like this. I'm gonna read it again. Ed did a great job of reading it as we started, but in Romans chapter 2, do you suppose, oh man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness them that God has enough grace to cover over all of your sins. And no, that doesn't mean that you should just go on sinning so that God's grace may abound. That means that you need to realize his grace as kindness and understand that his kindness and his goodness and his grace and his overwhelming patience with you is designed by God and bestowed upon you by God to lead you into a position and a posture of repentance over and over and over again. God's kindness leads us into repentance. We need to be people of ongoing repentance because we are people of ongoing sin. Because we are people that no matter how far we go, there will always be things in our life and in our heart that don't belong there. John Owen, one of my favorite authors, writes about sin that the only way to win the battle against sin is to die fighting it. Otherwise, we just give up. So we are meant to be people who are a people of repentance in an ongoing way. And I think one of the reasons that we don't talk about this as much, and one of the reasons that we get confused about repentance is because we kind of equivocate it with some other Bible terms. We equivocate it with conviction and with confession, I think. That we kind of lump all those together and we make them all mean the same thing. I'm convicted about this sin. I've confessed this sin to God. I'm repenting of this sin. And I think sometimes we equivocate those things and make them mean the same thing, but they are all a part of the same ongoing process of repentance, but they are very different things. So conviction is feeling badly about your sin. Confession is agreeing with God that what it is is sin, and repentance is to actually do something about that sin. Conviction is that prick from the Holy Spirit that we get. Hey, that doesn't belong in your life. Hey, God doesn't want you doing that. Hey, It's really unbecoming to talk to people in that way. Maybe you should think about doing something about this anger issue. Maybe the way you treat your wife, maybe the way you take your husband for granted, maybe that's not holy. Maybe this pattern or practice or habit in your life is not something that pleases God. That's the prick of the Holy Spirit. That's the beginning of conviction. That's where repentance starts. But then from conviction, we're called to confession, where we confess our sin before God, which basically means to agree with God that it is sin, to agree with God that the thing that we're doing that we now feel guilty about is actually sin and is something that doesn't belong in our life. That's confession. And the good news is that 1 John 1, 9 teaches us that if we confess our sins, that God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So again, I'm not talking about repentance as we earn our salvation. Our salvation is secured. The process begins at that confession, and then we begin to move towards glory as God works to sanctify us, and we work in ongoing repentance. But the idea of repenting requires us to actually do something about it. To illustrate this, I'm going to share this thing about me, and I don't want to share it, all right? This is the very first example that I thought of when I thought of this sermon, and I needed a good example to illustrate this point. And I went to Jen, and I was like, here's what I got so far. I don't want to share it, but I can't think of anything better. And she's like, yeah, think of something better. But I couldn't. I couldn't. I snore like bad. I snore a lot. And I do want to tell you this because A, it's embarrassing, and B, some of you love me and you want me to not experience any displeasure in my life. And so you have advice for me. You have a device or you have an uncle or you have a husband and this worked for them and you're going to want to tell me about it. Okay, but I just, I'm not in a place in my life where I'm ready to receive that. So if you could just respect my privacy during this time, that would be great. But I snore. And when I snore, it makes it hard for Jen to sleep. And when it's hard for her to sleep, it's hard for me to sleep. And I feel bad about it. When we go on family trips, like my sleeping accommodations are sometimes annoying because I snore. And it's a real issue. And every now and again, we'll come to this place where she's like, you should really, like our life and marriage would be better if you would take care of this. And I say, you're right. I agree with you. I've been pricked by you, the Holy Spirit, of my conviction. I confess, I agree with you that it is wrong. It does not need to be a part of my life. And I am sorry that it has gone this far. And then what do I do? Nothing. I go to sleep and I snore. Do I get the devices? Do I like eat well and run and try to get in better shape so I don't snore as much? No, I don't do anything. I agree, I'm pierced with conviction. I confess and agree this is wrong, but I don't do anything. I don't actually take any steps. And listen, if your process ends with confession, then you're just sorry. If your process of conviction ends with confession, then you're just sorry. Do I mean that in the double entendre way of you're sorry that you did this and you're sorry as a human? Yeah, yes I do. I do mean that, let's be very clear. Because you're stopping short of repentance. You're stopping short of action. Sorries don't mean anything. Sorries mean I'm ready to start the path of repentance. Falling on our face before God, you're right, I'm convicted. This doesn't need to be in my life. Give me the courage to get rid of it. That's great. But that's the starting line, man. What are you going to do after that? What are you going to actually do about it? What actual steps are you going to take to make sure that this sin cannot exist and cannot grow in your life? And the other thing is, if we stop at sorry, eventually our hearts get seared. You can't sit in sorry year after year after year and still mean it. Once you sit in sorry long enough, and you who have had crippling and debilitating and ongoing sin throughout your life, you know that I'm telling you the truth. Once you say you're sorry enough times, you stop meaning it and you can't bring yourself to say it because you know that it's as empty as your intentions. And that thing that used to prick you is scarred over now. And that's seared. And we don't experience the conviction that the Holy Spirit has for us. Because we've learned how to mute his voice out of our life by stopping at sorry. When we stop at sorry, we just see our own consciences, and we short-circuit the repentance process. So we have to actually do something. And I work very hard to preach here that it is not human effort that God is looking for. It is the power of the Holy Spirit in us. It is not human effort. It is focusing our eyes on Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. I preached a sermon in Colossians in February talking about if we want to put on the new self, what do we do? How do we overcome the old self? Will we focus on Christ? And all that is true, but when it comes to repentance, the rubber meets the road and you got to do stuff, man. So think of it this way. The Holy Spirit empowers, but we act. The Holy Spirit empowers us for repentance. Before you knew Jesus, repenting was impossible. The only thing you could possibly repent of was who you thought Jesus was and then move in faith and the Holy Spirit breathed life into you and now it's possible to repent of all the other things in your life. That's what Romans is talking about when it says that we are no longer a slave to sin. Now we have the option to repent. So the Holy Spirit empowers us to repent, but it is us that must take the action. It is us that must produce the activity of repentance. If that's true, then what does it mean to repent? What does it mean to actually repent of a sin? And this is the part, honestly, that I'm most excited to talk to you about. So if you've tuned me out because my word salads have just gotten confusing up until this point, then pay attention now because this is important. How do we actually repent? By taking steps to make it as darn near impossible as we possibly can to not allow that sin to on-go in our life. How do we repent? By taking actual action steps to remove temptation and distraction from our life that will cause us to commit that sin again. Not just white-knuckle discipline of, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to do that, but to figure out why you do that, to figure out when you do that, to figure out what triggers you to do that, and to remove those things strategically from your life. If your issue is looking at things on your phone that you shouldn't look at, saying another prayer and saying another I'm sorry and doubling down on how much you mean it isn't going to do anything, and you and I both know it. So invite some accountability into your life. Have a scary conversation with someone who will meet you with grace, I promise. Take action steps to reduce your screen time on that phone. Let someone else put a passcode on your phone so you can't get to the apps that tempt you. Do whatever it is you have to do, but take the steps so that that can't tempt you anymore. If you struggle with anger or anxiety to a point where it cripples you and it begins to be harmful to the people around you, if you struggle with those things, go to counseling. Don't just pray, God, please make me a happier person. Make me a more patient person. Please don't let me be angry. God's gonna answer your prayer by going, great, here's a wonderful counselor to help you figure out why you're angry all the time. Go to counseling. If your marriage is rocky, yeah, start praying with your husband or your wife. But also pray that God would find you a good marriage counselor so that you can work those things out. If we want to move away from a bad marriage, we have to move towards a good one. If we want to move away from anger, we have to move towards peace. Take the steps that are necessary to get that sin out of your life once and for all. If it's an addiction that hounds you, shed some light on the dark corners of your life. Tell people about your addiction. Ask them for their help. Get the things out of the house that you're addicted to and refuse to bring them back into the house until you know you can handle them responsibly. Take the steps that you need to take to move away from the sin that is in your life that is entangling you and causing you not to live the life that God wants for you, not to be the person that God created you to be and is experiencing this stunted Christian life here that God does not want for you because we keep the sin in our life. Get rid of it, man. Take the steps. Do what it takes. Don't just be sorry. I don't care if you're sorry. And sometimes, eventually, according to Isaiah chapter 1, God doesn't care if you're sorry either. Do something. Let's take some steps and move away from the sin that hounds us. When we do this, when we repent, if it's true that sin pushes us further away from God, then when we repent, we are choosing a pursuit of his presence. We are choosing to be obedient to what Peter writes as he reiterates Leviticus, be holy as God is holy. We are choosing to pursue holiness and we are pursuing the very presence of God. To repent is to move away from sin and to pursue the presence of God. And my Bible in Psalm 16 tells me that in God's presence, there are pleasures forevermore. the full so that when I pursue the things of Jesus and when I pursue holiness and when I move away from the things that have been dragging me down for years, that I'm actually going to begin to experience the life that God always wanted for me. The rewards of repentance are intuitive. What would it be like to finally walk without guilt for that thing? What would it be like to finally be the person that everybody else around you thinks you are but that you know you're not? What would it be like to finally live a life free of this sin? That's the reward of repentance. The reward of repentance is the presence of God. And here's the thing that dawned on me this week. Repentance affords us the opportunity to begin to experience the fruits of our salvation here and now. Here's what I mean. Salvation is a process. Salvation is not completed until we are glorified in heaven forever. You are secured. I'm not preaching against that, but the salvation process goes on throughout the rest of your life. And in heaven, one day you will be glorified in your new body and you will experience the presence of God. And if we repent, and if that repentance takes us closer to the presence of God, then you have a very real opportunity to begin to bring heaven down into this place to experience flashes and moments of what heaven will be like here in this place when we walk in the goodness and the gifts that God gives us. When I sit with my family and we're all smiling and we're all happy and Jen and I can't believe the blessings that we are experiencing on this sunny day on the floor of our living room, I've got to believe that that's just a taste of what heaven is like. And when we repent and we move into God's presence and into the good things that he gives us in our life and away from the things that would seek to thwart these good things in our life, I have to believe that we are experiencing the presence of God and the pleasure of God and just a small fraction of the eternity that awaits us when our salvation is complete. So when we repent, it affords us the opportunity to begin to experience some of the fruits of our final salvation here and now. I want you to see desperately because it can be a scary thing to repent. If I take the steps I need to take to be serious about this thing in my life, I'm going to be ashamed. Some people are going to think differently than me. I'm going to give up some freedom that I don't want to give up. I'm going to have some accountability that I don't really want to have. And so there's some things about repentance initially that could bum us out. But I've experienced this in my own life and I know that it's true. Greater joy awaits us on the other side of genuine repentance. I don't know what else to tell you, man. On the other side of genuine repentance is a joy that's so much greater than whatever it is that's dragging you down. So I pray that grace will be full of people of repentance. Will be full of people that the Holy Spirit convicts. That we move to a place where we say, yes, this stuff does not belong in my life. Will be full of people who confess and say, yes, God, you're right, I'm sorry. But full of people who don't stop at sorry, but allow the Holy Spirit to empower you to actually move away from things. My prayer as I got up to preach was that God would soften even the hardest of hearts, and that those of us who have soft hearts, that God would cradle those two and usher them into a gentle repentance. Because there is so much greater joy found walking away from sin and towards our God. Maybe that's why we're taught in Romans that it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. Because he knows what waits for us there. Let's pray. Father, Father, I pray that we would be people of repentance. Give us eyes to see the things in our life that don't belong there. Give us ears to hear your spirit as he convicts us. Give us tenderness in our heart as we confess. And God, empower us through your spirit to move towards you, to leave behind the things that drag us down and to move towards you who gives us life. God, give us the courage, the conviction, the desire to repent, to name the things or the thing that doesn't need to be in our life right now and offer it up to you. And ask you for the power to move away from it and give us the courage to take the steps that you lay out before us. That we would not be people who simply stop at sorry. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.

Sometimes in life, we simply need to pause. We need to stop and sit and rest and think and reflect. In these moments of rest, often what we need most is for God to refresh us. We need Him to speak to us and breathe fresh life into us. We need for God to move and restore and encourage. This is why we observe Lent. It is a moment for us amidst all the busyness of our years to pause and focus on Jesus. Lent reminds us of what Jesus has done for us, how much he loves us and how he relentlessly pursues us. So let us together right now now, be still, and set our collective focus on Jesus, asking him to speak to us in this holy pause. I'm reading from Matthew chapter 4, verses 1 through 4. Then Jesus was led by is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. We are starting our new series this morning called Lent, A Holy Pause, and I have been very excited for this Sunday and for this series. Excited since about this time last year. So excited that this week on Tuesday, Jen and Lily and I fly to Disney World to spend a few days down there. We're very excited about that. And some folks in the church know that that's what we're doing. And so this morning I've gotten a lot of like, are you excited? And I'm like, yeah, I'm so excited. And they're like, yeah, Disney World is going to be great. I'm like, oh, I'm talking about today. Like, I'm excited for this series. I'm excited to launch this out today. And I don't know how you guys work, but when I have something that's big on the horizon, it's kind of all I think about and focus on. And then I get on the other side and the dust clears and I'm like, okay, now what's next? So this afternoon, I'll be excited about Disney. But right now, I'm excited about this series. And I would tell you that this series really started, the idea of it started last year at Lent. Last year at Lent in a staff meeting as the Sunday before Ash Wednesday was approaching, which is the beginning of Lent, we said in a staff meeting, hey, we should observe Lent this year. We should try to like, let's challenge the church to fast and do that this year. And I thought, oh, that sounds like a good idea. That's something that we haven't done at least since I've been here. So that's a good idea. Let's do that. And they're like, well, it needs to happen quick. So Nate, let's make a video. I'm like, all right. So we made plans for me to show up the next day and do a video that we were going to email out and challenge the church to fast because like Wednesday was the next day and we had to start. And I showed up that day and when on video days, I shower and I do my hair and I shave. So I have to look good for them. On non-video or meeting days, I just wear sweats and like a hat, you know, like it's very professional over there on a random Tuesday. And so I showed up not dressed for a video. And at the time, our worship pastor, Steve, was like, what are you doing? And I said, we're not doing a video today. He said, okay, why? And I was like, I don't want to do this half measured. I don't want to do it quick. If we're going to observe Lent as a church, I want us to mean it. And so we started thinking through how we wanted to approach this series. And so what I get to share with you this morning, and I guess this is why I'm so excited to do it, is really the result of a year's worth of reflection and prayer and learning and discussion. And I feel like I get to kind of introduce that and share that with you this morning. I would say this too about what I'm going to share with you this morning. This morning really technically is not a sermon, okay? In a sermon, I think you open up the Bible, you read it, you talk about what it says. The point of a sermon is for us to open up Scripture and let it speak to us. And so this morning, I don't have any verses. I will refer back to the ones that Carter just read for us, but this is really more of a message from me to my church. And I'm thinking of it as we approach the series almost like an epilogue to set it up so that we understand what it is that we're doing and why we're observing Lent in this way and what our hopes are for it as we move through the series. You're probably also wondering why I have random things up here with me. This is a stack of Bibles. This makes coffee. This is the coolest thing that you'll ever see in your life. This is an ashtray boot lamp because of course it is. This lamp down here still works. This is a boot and then this is a horse and it's my favorite thing that I own. Incidentally, it's Jen's least favorite thing that I own. But I have these things in my office. And I have them in my office because they're from portions of my family. And they all mean something to me. This stack of Bibles I've referenced before, this is my papa's Bible. And this is my dad's Bible from the 70s. And this is my Bible from high school and college. And I have a preaching Bible. It's in my office right now. But these sit just above my computer screen every day. And every time I look at these Bibles, I'm reminded of the spiritual heritage that came before me. I'm reminded that part of my papa's story was that he was not a believer, was that his daughter, my mom, accepted Christ at the age of eight and drug her parents to church, and they became believers because of the ministry at that church to children. And my papa is a guy who was very imperfect, Typical 60s dude in the South. Racist, probably abusive, and all those things. But God reached him and changed him. So by the time I got to know him, he was one of the most gentle, charismatic spirits I have ever met, to know Don was to love him. But God got a hold of him as an adult and changed him. And then my dad grew up in a broken home. The only reason that my dad knew that he was really loved by a man in his life is because his granddad stepped into the void and loved him and made him feel loved and appreciated. This is my great-grandfather's. This belonged to the man that made my dad feel loved. And so, yeah, it's awesome because it's a lamp and an ashtray with a boot, for sure. I would have it if it didn't belong to him. But because it does and did, it makes it all the more special. And it's important to me to see these things. This is my mama's coffee maker. This is what she used to make coffee in growing up. And in the waning years of her life, I would go over every other Monday to her house. There were Mama Mondays. I had special mugs made. And we would just talk for an hour, hour and a half, two hours. And she, I've spoken about her before. You know, she was never out front, never outspoken, always just loving quietly, but lived a life of tremendous import and impact because of the way she quietly served God. And there are other things too. There's a lamp that my late father-in-law built for me, that if I went to the store looking for lamps, I would not choose this one, but he made it for me, so it's in my office, and it's the first thing I turn on every Sunday morning. I have something cross-stitched, an old gospel hymn about fathers and sons that my dad got from my mom when he became a dad for me, and he gave that to me with tears in his eyes when we had John. That's in my office. And I keep all of these things in my office because they remind me the shoulders that I stand on. That's in my office. And I keep all of these things in my office because they remind me the shoulders that I stand on. They remind me that I didn't just float into grace out of a vacuum, that I come from somewhere. And that a lot of the reason that I know scripture, a lot of the reason why I can prepare a sermon in the length of time that I prepare a sermon is not because I'm not studying scripture and learning new things, but it's because I've been learning scripture my whole life. Why have I been learning scripture my whole life? Well, because he got saved when he was an adult and he committed himself to it. And then his great grandfather loved him and kept him in church and he committed himself to it, and he taught me the Bible, and then I stayed locked in in high school and college and learned those things. I'm here because I stand on shoulders, and we all stand on shoulders. We have previous generations that poured into us, and we're better off for it. And we're foolish and ignorant and prideful if we can't acknowledge that some of the comforts and successes that we have in our life, the blessings that we have in our life, we have because we stand on shoulders. Because we are tethered to previous generations. And I bring this up because it's not just true of me personally and you personally, but it's true of church. Grace Raleigh stands on shoulders. We come from a rich, deep spiritual heritage that goes all the way back to millennia, to 33 AD. And you could argue even before that, that as a church in 2022, any church, we must acknowledge and recognize that there are relics all around us. There are family heirlooms all around us that remind us that we stand on shoulders too. And see, I think this is important for us as Grace Raleigh to think about because we're an independent church. We're non-denominational. And I think that there are great benefits to that in our congregation, in our partnership. We have Catholics and Methodists and Presbyterians and Baptists and Christian Missionary Alliance and Pentecostals and Church of God and people who are very far from God and have absolutely no spiritual heritage whatsoever. And then this is it. And we're just all here in a melting pot of backgrounds. And it's really wonderful and diverse, and I think that that's a positive thing for us. It's also positive to me that no one who doesn't sit in our fellowship every week can tell us what to do. There's not some office in Rocky Mount that can dictate to us who we can hire and where we can go. There's no one who can tell us what we can and cannot believe who does not sit amongst us each week. And I think that is tremendously valuable and I'm happy about that. But I think that one of the potential downsides of being an independent church is that we can sometimes float along week to week, month to month, year to year, untethered to the traditions that came before us and forgetful of the shoulders that we stand on. Neglectful of the traditions and the heritage and the writing and the theology and the hymns and the blessings and the liturgies and the prayers that served the church for generations before Grace Raleigh ever showed up, for millennia before we ever showed up. And that when we do this, we make a great mistake to just rely on our wisdom and our new things and our fresh perspectives without relying on the wisdom that has been passed down to us through the centuries by forgetting the shoulders that we stand on and never reaching back to look at where we came from and consider how to implement and acknowledge that in our worship. And churches actually commit this sin a lot. I've seen plenty of times over my life and my church career, churches that make the mistake of throwing out the old in favor of the new. In church world, young families are the sweet spot, man. That's what you want. If your church is growing in young families, then your church is growing. If your church isn't growing in young families, then it is slowly dying. That's just how it goes. And so what churches do to reach young families and to feel vibrant and to feel like they're growing is they tailor things to the sensibilities of young families. They tailor the worship to what the younger generation wants. The sermons are about topics that apply to the younger generation. The sanctuary is set up in a way that will apply, that will appeal to the newest generation. And sometimes in all of that change and in the forgetting of the old, a brave, a brave older person from a previous generation will raise their hand and say, can we just maybe like do a hymn? Can we, can we decorate in this way? Can we put this up? Can we, I would love to hear sermons out of this. I would love to hear sermons about this. Do we have to, every year, do we have to do a parenting sermon? Like I'm done with that season of my life, right? And so usually I've seen that older generation will be met with something to the effect of, it's not about you anymore. It's about reaching them. So tithe, pray, lead, but also pipe down. Because we're not here for you. We're reaching young generations and that's what you need to be excited about. And I've seen it happen over and over again. And I think it's a great sin of the church. I think it's incredibly foolish for a young pastor, for young leadership to take a church and to set the older generation off to the side and say, we need your finances, we need your support, but we really don't value your wisdom and we definitely don't value your preferences. So if you could just kind of pipe down, we're going to move on. And we end up sacrificing the wisdom of the old on the enthusiasm of the new. And we forget about the generations that came before us. And it's just a constant, what's the next song? What's the cool way to do a sermon? What kind of stupid lights do we need to make it feel more awesome in here? And we just keep moving down the road of what's most relevant, and we forget about the generations that came before us. And God forbid that grace ever become a place where we don't value the wisdom of the generations who have preceded us. If you are of a generation that has preceded me, and you feel disregarded in this space, and you feel like we don't listen to to you or that you are not important to us, I hope that you will please tell me that. Because the last thing I want to do is get involved in that pattern of sacrificing the wisdom of the old in sake of reaching the new. Because here's the other thing. If you listen to the generations that came before you, you're going to reach anybody with a heart. You're going to reach anybody that Jesus is trying to reach. You'll be more effective in ministry than if you just cater a dog and pony show to the sensibilities that are the freshest and the newest. So my hope here at Grace is that we would not do that. The way that I phrased that this morning is let not the enthusiasm for the new cause us to forget the wisdom of the old. And I think in the way that we form a service, in the way that we worship, in the way that we approach even designing a Sunday morning, that we have done that. I'm guilty of that. And I realized that slowly over the course of the year. That for centuries, there were whole liturgies and some of you come from backgrounds with more liturgical services where you stand and you read. If the word of God is being read, then you stand and you read it together where the service will end with a prayer or a benediction, or there'll be a portion of the catechism that's read at different parts. And it ties us back to the shoulders that we stand on in the generations that came before us. And there's good, rich, deep wisdom that we find there. And we haven't really incorporated that in what we do. And in doing so, we've just kind of floated along untethered to the generations that came before us, which is really a shame because in grace, as I enumerated a little while ago, we have so many different rich traditions that have so much to offer in our space and in our worship that we simply disregard for the way that we are comfortable, for the way that we've always done it, or for whatever my sensibilities might be as we construct a worship service. And we disregard the centuries of church history and the rich faith and tradition and hymns and prayers and blessings that they have left for us. And I believe that there's something beautiful in these traditions. And I want to be intentional as well as the staff and the elders as we move forward. I want to be more intentional about reaching back, about including those blessings. I want to get us to a place, I'm not going to do it this morning, okay? We're going to ease into this as a church together, but I want to get us to a place where we're willing and look forward to standing and reading something together, standing and reading scripture together, or a short blessing together, or something like that. I want it to be more a part of our worship because when we do that, it tethers us to the shoulders that we stand on and it reminds us that we are not independent, that we do not exist in a vacuum, that the blessing and that the things that we have now are because of where we come from and we ought to acknowledge that and we find a depth and a richness there that I believe will bless our souls. So because we desire to embrace and acknowledge our rich spiritual heritage, we are observing Lent. Because we want to tether ourselves to those who came before us, because we want to acknowledge that we sit on deep wells of wisdom, we are going to very intentionally observe Lent as a church. And we're going to do this for reasons that I'm going to talk about in a second, but also because of the way that it does tether us. Lent, how many of you, let me pause and just ask this, how many of you grew up in a tradition that observed Lent and you have regularly observed Lent in your life? Okay. That's not me. That's not me. Baptists don't think we need to observe anything except for baptisms and tithing. So we didn't observe Lent. And it's always been kind of mysterious for me. So even in the last year, I wanted to wrap my head around, okay, if we're going to observe this in a serious way, let me understand it a little bit. So for some of you, this will be a refresher. For some of you, it's new information. But when basically put or defined, Lent is a 40-day fast designed to focus our hearts on Jesus and prepare them for the miracle of Easter. That's what Lent is. It's a 40-day fast designed to focus our hearts on Jesus and to prepare them for the miracle of Easter. That's why this series is subtitled as A Holy Pause. Because especially now, as the world opens back up and our schedules begin to be filled up again, we're as busy as ever. We're going and we're going and we're going. And many of us, some of us have the luxury to get up and sip a coffee and sit down and have a nice, easy morning. But most of us are shot out of our bed like a cannon because we have things that are screaming for our attention. And we just, we go and we go and we go, and then we fall down exhausted at the end of the day. And then we get up and we go and we go and we go. And we're busy and we're busy and we're busy. And it's good for us as humans because we were designed to do it, to just stop and pause and breathe and reflect. Similarly, as a church, we can get harried and hurried, so focused on the pandemic and should we or should we not wear masks and what are the decisions that we need to make about that and we've got a worship pastor to hire and what are we going to do this ministry and that ministry? And we're planning this thing and we're moving and we're doing this. And we've got this objective coming up and how our finance is doing. And have we found a building yet? And there's all kinds of things that consume those who are in church during the week. And it's as good for us as well as a church to just stop and pause and focus our hearts on Christ and ask the Spirit to move in our individual and collective hearts as we prepare for Easter. So a big part of this series is inviting you into a space where we just pause and we worship and we listen and we pray and we fast. And it tethers us to these previous generations because Lent first shows up at about 300 AD. It's the first time it was written about by the church fathers and intentionally followed. No doubt it was happening before that as well. It just got actualized around 300 AD. And they chose a 40-day fast because they wanted to model it after Jesus' 40-day fast in the desert before he began his earthly ministry. That's why we had Carter read that particular passage, because the 40-day fast from Lent is modeled after Jesus's 40-day fast, which incidentally, for those of you that care about these kinds of things, the number 40 is incredibly significant in Scripture. I learned, somebody even texted me yesterday, and I did not know this, three separate times in Moses's life, he fasted for 40 days, either in preparation to something or in response to something. We know that the flood, the rains lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. We know that the Jews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. We know all of these things. And then Jesus fasted for 40 days as he was tempted in the wilderness. So I can't pretend to know what 40 means. I just know it's a significant biblical number. And so when the early church saints chose a length of the fast, they chose 40 days. They realized that it's pretty untenable to fast for 40 days for most mortals. So they started making these weird rules. You can eat fish on this day and Friday, like have a goat if you want. I don't know all the different meat rules, but there's different ones, right? And then they said, you know, we need to, we can't do this all the time. This is getting old. We need to be able to take a break. We need to be able to break fast. So first, some traditions picked two days, and it made Lent last eight weeks. And they're like, that's too long. Let's do it shorter than that. So let's just take one day and make it last six weeks. So Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which is this Wednesday, March the 2nd, and it ends on Easter. And technically, you're allowed to break your fast, whatever you're fasting from, on Sundays. Although some church fathers say, essentially, suck it up. All right, don't do that. That's cheating. But that's up to you to decide, depending on what it is you give up, if anything. But that's why it's a 40-day fast that lasts six weeks, if you're trying to do the math in your head. You get to take Sundays off. But that's what we're going to do as a church. And everyone's going to be invited as we do this. Everyone's going to be invited and challenged to fast from something. And I'm not going to talk about fasting too much because the whole sermon is about fasting next week. So I'll simply say this, that the purpose of a fast is to abstain from something in your life that you use and desire regularly so that when you are abstaining from it and something is triggered and you know that, oh, I wish I could have that thing, you take your desire for that thing and you turn it to Christ. It's a pause where you stop and you go, let me take this desire and turn that desire to my Savior and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to me and work with me during this season. It is an intentional foregoing of something. And if we fast and we just grit our teeth and bear through it and we just think about how much we want food and just don't eat food and we get to the end of the day and be like, eh, I won, that's not really the point. The point is to take the desire of food and let it turn your eyes on Jesus. That's the point, okay? But it doesn't have to be food. It could be wine or bourbon or social media or TV or screens or whatever it is. But I would invite you to consider fasting from something. I would also invite you, if you didn't already, to grab the devotional booklet that we have out in the lobby. I'm really excited about those because we began to ask people to write on certain topics back in the fall, and we have compiled them, and they're available to you for free. Carly over here has done them at great effort and really, really put in a lot of time, worked a lot of overtime to get those things done. The people at the printers know her by name. And we are very grateful to her, and we're grateful to those who wrote. But it begins, you can grab one now. The intention is to begin it this Wednesday, and then there's a devotion every weekday all the way up to Easter. And the way that the series works is each week there's a topic. This upcoming week is fasting. And so every week as we look at the topic that's associated with Lent, we're asking the question, how does this point me to Jesus? How does fasting point me to Jesus? The next week is stillness. So we say, how does stillness point me to Christ? How does forgiveness, how does generosity, how does sin and forgiveness point me to Jesus? And so that's the question we'll come back and answer every week. And so the devotionals are written so that you'll read about that topic as we prepare our hearts for that Sunday. And what I really love is it's over 30 different folks from the church who have written these things. So it's not just my voice. It's not just the staff's voice. But it's the collective voice of the collective wisdom of the church that gets to speak into everybody every day. So I hope that you'll take one of those devotionals and that you'll follow through with it as we move through the season. And I would really invite you to take the next two days and prayerfully consider whether or not you want to do this. Ecclesiastes tells us that it's better to not even make a vow to God in the first place than to make one and then break it. So I would encourage you, don't walk out of a service with an incredibly compelling message and decide, yeah, I'm definitely going to do this thing, and then get into week two and peter out and nothing ever happens. But prayerfully consider if this is something you want to commit yourself to. Prayerfully consider if it is what you might fast from. And then share that with somebody. Maybe it's the person who knows your next step of obedience. And prayerfully consider reading the devotion every day and partaking in the same wisdom that the rest of the church partners are taking in that day. And let's be mutually encouraged by that. I would challenge you to consider participating in Lent this year for those reasons. And I will also say this. For this series in particular, and I honestly hope that this happens more and more, but for this series in particular, I would love it if we could decentralize the sermon. In church life, as you kind of go through the rhythms of church, the sermon is really kind of the main attraction of the Sunday morning. It's kind of the worship can be really good and the sermon's really bad and we'll say it was okay. But really, it's kind of sometimes all about the sermon. And I don't love that at all. I never do. I think that gives these words too much weight. And frankly, it gives me too much weight. I've got plenty, as it is. We need to decentralize the sermon and not look to it to encourage us spiritually as much as all the other elements around us. So for this series in particular, I hope and I pray and have been fervently praying that Jesus moves in your heart, that he does something in your heart, that this is a time of spiritual renewal for us as individuals and for us as a church, and that it happens by simply slowing down and pausing and inviting Jesus into our life and into our thoughts and into our habits for this six-week period leading into Easter so that when we get to Easter, it might be one of the more worshipful, holy, wonderful Easters that we've ever experienced. And I'm talking about sermons in this context because let's let our daily devotional move the needle on our spiritual health. Let's look to that to inspire and enliven us. Let's come expectant of good worship, which it really was this morning as we sung full-throated and mostly maskless. It was really a great and joyful sound in here. But let's come expectant, expecting to be moved by worship. Let's expect God to move in the daily habit of having our devotion. Let's expect God to move in the uncomfortable discipline of fasting, and let's allow the sermon to simply be a supplement to those things, but not the thing that moves us. Let's let God's Spirit move in us through all the other myriad ways that he is trying to speak to us and get our attention as we move through this series together. And let us as a church invite Jesus to speak to us as we turn our attention to him daily. Let us consider how he might move us, how he might grow us, how he might call us back to him. And let us expect that as we move through this season as a church that it will be a profound time of spiritual renewal and restoration for us. And let's look forward to moving out of this season and celebrating a wonderful and holy Easter together as we give God the next six weeks to prepare our hearts for that. I'm going to pray, and then we're going to sing a song, and then as an added element at the end, we're going to have the chair of our board, Brad Gwynn, he's going to come up and share a closing prayer for us as we go into the Lenten season. So let me pray. Father, you are good to us. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for loving grace. Thank you for blessing this place. Lord, we turn our hearts to you collectively and expectantly, eagerly asking you to speak, eagerly asking you to move, eagerly asking you to heal what is broken and what is hurt. Inspire us, God, to serve you, to love you, to be moved by you, to hear from you. God, I just pray that these next six weeks as a church, seven weeks as a church, are just some of the most special in memory. Not because of what's said or what's done, but just simply because of how you move. We invite you into this space to do that, to draw us near to you. We invite you into our hearts to draw us near to you. And God, I just ask that you would do amazing, unexpected things in our hearts and in our lives as we observe Lent like so many of your faithful bodies and churches that came before us. It's in your son's name we pray all these things. Amen.