Sermons tagged with Faithfulness

Thank you. Hear the word of God from the Gospel of Luke. she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. Thank you, Bill. Good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. My name is Nate. I get to be the pastor here. Before I just dive into the sermon, I had a couple preliminary thoughts I just wanted to share with you real quick. If you've been a part of Grace for any number of years, you know that we tend to, at the end of the year, give not necessarily more generously, but we tend to give generously at the end of the year. Our year-end giving is usually pretty good. And so one of the things that we've done since I got here is we do a Christmas offering and we say, hey, as end of the year giving comes in this year, we're going to allocate that to these projects and to these ministries and things like that. Well, this year is a little different in that we are pushing to the end of our building campaign that we launched back in, I guess, February of 2020. We had pledged Sunday on March the 1st of 2020. I announced the pledges on March the 8th of 2020, and then the world ended. And that whole time, we've actually been running concurrent to the pandemic. We've been doing a campaign, and you guys have been so faithful, and God has been so good that we are actually in a really good spot. Now, I sent out details about that this week. So if you didn't get an update email from me on the search for the worship pastor and our search for a building and how the campaign is going. If you didn't get that this week, please let me know. All that means is you're not on the list that you need to be on. If you're watching at home or catch this later, fill out a connection card online and let us know. Fill out a connection card here in the service and we'll make sure and get you on the right list so that you can get those updates. So as we look towards the end of the year, basically what we're asking with end of the year giving is this, either designate it for general offering or designate it for the building campaign. If money comes in undesignated, we will by default put that towards the general offering. And then in the new year, depending on what comes in, the missions committee will make decisions about how we want to allocate those to other ministries that we support. Just as a reminder, we give 10% of what we bring in to missions. And this year it's actually been a little bit bigger. This year we've actually given about 12% to ministries going on outside the walls of the church. And that's something that we're really proud of and hold close to our hearts. The other thing I was going to share with you, I have to be careful how I do this, is last week, you know, Kyle preached. Kyle preached so good that about 15 minutes in, at first I was like, dude, this is great. He's crushing it. Good for Kyle. I love this. And then about 15 minutes in, I was like, yo, Kyle, like, chill out, man Like I have to preach next week. I don't have, I don't have that much on Mary right now. So just, let's just take it easy. He did so good. And the whole experience was fantastic. I texted Kirk and Kyle on Saturday and said, hey, you know, I don't have any responsibilities in the service. So I'm actually going to come to the service with my family. I'll get there about 930 9.45. And so last week I had the opportunity to just wake up, help Jen get the kids ready, come to church together, drop our kids off with some folks who really wanted to hug on John and squeeze his big fat baby cheeks. And then Lily went next door with her friends, some folks that care about her. And then I got to talk to my friends and we sat in the back, which I love sitting in the back. I'm jealous of you guys. Yeah, that's it, Scotty. Like, I love sitting back there, and we sang songs. We snuggled up a little bit during the sermon. I sat next to my wife. I was ministered to by the sermon, ministered to by the songs, particularly that last one. And I left here with my heart just full of Jesus. And I thought to myself, that was great. That church is so fun. You guys who just get to show up and don't have to do anything and be ministered to, you don't know how good you got it, man. So just for the record, I'm very envious of you guys. I almost, I considered this week quitting my job just so I could come to church with my family, but I have no marketable skills. So I'm here until the Lord chooses otherwise. Okay. This week, yes, thank you. Thank you, Elaine. For those watching online, there was thunderous applause. This week, we are in part two of our series called Renewed Wonder, where we simply are focusing on looking at Christmas through the eyes of a child. That's why we're doing lighthearted things. That's why we had Christmas Kyle come and do the announcements. But truth be told, we would make Kyle do that no matter how lighthearted the series was. We're decorating cookies after the service. I hope you'll do that. That's for children and adults, too. I'm particularly excited about next week, Christmas Jammy Sunday. Can't wait to see what you show up in. This is going to be very, very fun and very, very festive. Yes, Mike, even you, buddy. This is going to be great. So I'm really looking forward to that as we kind of just look at Christmas through the eyes of a child and just the wonder and the grandeur that comes with Christmas. And so that's what we're doing in the series. And then the sermons, we're looking at the Christmas story through the eyes of different characters within the story. So last week, like I said, Kyle did a great job of looking at Christmas to the eyes of the shepherds. And this week, we want to look at Christmas to the eyes of Mary. What must it have been like for Mary to experience that first Christmas? And what can we learn from her experience? And what about her experience can shape the way that we approach Christmas this year? So as we think about Christmas through the eyes of Mary, it would probably be good to get some context on her, to understand who Mary was and what kind of person that she was. And we really, we don't know a lot. We know that she was from Nazareth. So that makes her pretty simple. Nazareth was a very small town. There's very little archaeological evidence that Nazareth even ever existed. It's just very, very small. It doesn't mean it didn't exist. It just means it's so small that there's not very much there. It's in the north of Israel. It's in the hill country. Like when Jesus is introduced, one time we hear somebody say, can anything good come from Nazareth? It was like the Mississippi of Israel. Just nothing good came from there. So, sorry, that's a Georgia joke. I don't know what the North Carolina, is it West Virginia? Is that who we make fun of in North Carolina? I always make fun of Mississippi. Tennessee, yeah, that's good. We'll go Tennessee. Thank you very much. She was a simple girl from Nazareth. She was probably, culturally, because she was engaged, she was probably 13 to 15 years old. I know that sounds weird for us, but in that culture, typically men had to grow up and establish themselves and have a career and be able to pay a dowry and be able to prove that they could support a wife. So it's reasonable to think that Joseph was probably closer to 30 and that Mary was probably closer to 15 or so, which sounds super weird to us, but then that was how it goes. So she's betrothed to Joseph. To them, engagement was tantamount to marriage. You're essentially married already. You're just waiting for the ceremony, and then you go move in with the groom and his family. So she's getting ready for that. We know that Mary was a young girl of faith. She knew her scriptures. She prayed to God. She clearly listened to the Lord. And that's important because it tells us that when the angel shows up in the passage that Bill read to us and starts to talk about this Messiah figure that's going to come, she knows who that is. She's been told about the Messiah her whole life. Just like we're waiting on the second coming of Christ that we talked about in Revelation for him to come down out of the clouds and rescue us. So she was waiting on the first coming of the Messiah. So when the angel begins to talk about the Messiah, she knows who that is. She was a young girl of faith. And that's important. But she was a simple girl with a simple faith and a very simple life, and I doubt seriously that she had any visions of anything larger than that. And it's to this girl that the angel appears. And I'm going to finish up the passage that Bill began to read because these are the details that he gives Mary about what is you're going to have the Messiah. You're pregnant. God did it. You're all right. And you're going to carry this baby to term and you're going to have the Messiah and he's going to be called Jesus and he's going to be the Lord. He's going to be the most high. He's going to sit on the throne of David. And when we think about Mary and we think about her role in Jesus's life, we only get snippets of her in scripture. And I wonder how in depth we go in our thought process about her, right? Because I always think of her as just, look how lucky she is. Look how fortunate she is. She was favored, we're told. And I saw one author this week as I was kind of reading up on Mary, who just made the point that Mary was favored then so that we could be favored with the son now. And I think that's a pretty great thought. But Mary, God just plucked her out of obscurity and said, yeah, you're the girl. She wasn't expecting it. She wasn't asking for it. At no point do we have any record of Mary praying a prayer and saying, God, you know, I know you're going to bring a Messiah. I don't know how you plan to get him into the world. But if it's through a teenage virgin, I'll sign up for that. So if that's your plan, God, just consider me. She didn't expect that. And I wonder how much we've thought of how much it radically changed her life and the trajectory of her life to be told that she was going to give birth to the Son of God. The angel didn't tell Joseph until after Joseph and Mary had the conversation. So now Mary knows, I've got to have this super tough conversation with my fiance that I'm pregnant and it's not him. And he's got to believe me that it was God. That's a tough conversation. She's got to carry this baby to term. She's got to raise this baby. You ever think when one and a half year old Jesus is sitting at the table in his high chair and he reaches for the butter knife and he's not supposed to touch the butter knife and he's not understanding. No. And Mary wants to slap his hand. She's got to stop and be like, is this okay? Can I hit the Savior? Is that a thing? I don't know what to do. Is that too hard? Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. Can you imagine losing your patience with infant baby Jesus, with Messiah Jesus? When my kid won't sleep, I will walk into his room and sometimes the passage does not get put into his mouth as gently as possibly. Sometimes it's possible that I mutter things in the middle of the night and give him unkind instructions. What if you're married? What if that's Jesus and you lose your patience with baby Jesus? Like it's just a totally different way to think about motherhood. How about when they're on a play date and one of the other moms leans over and she's like, I tell you what, you're Jesus. He is just so well behaved. He's like a little angel. And Mary's like, well, actually, he's in charge of the angels. And then all the other moms are like, that Mary, she's got rose-colored glasses on about her kid. She does not see him realistically. She thinks way too highly of him. Joseph disappears from the gospel narrative. Because culturally he was likely older than Mary, and because this is a time in which the life expectancy is not very high, we presume, a lot of scholars presume, that Joseph died. That somewhere in there that Jesus lost his father. So Joseph experienced the loss of his earthly father and then we have James, the half-brother of Jesus, who writes a book in the Bible and gives us evidence that at some point or another, Mary remarried. So Jesus was a stepson. So for the stepchildren in the room, I think that's pretty cool. Jesus knew what a blended family was and felt like. Can you imagine being Mary and trying to be a mother of Jesus and a mother of these other kids and love them equally and fairly and feeling that weight of importance your whole life? Like I think that we think, oh, what a blessing that Mary received to be able to have the son of God. But part of me thinks like, but was it all the time? Because it was, had to be pretty stressful. Had to be pretty difficult at times. And in this way, the one thing that I've been thinking this week, the one phrase that's kind of rung through my mind is, how did Mary experience Christmas was this idea that Jesus happened to Mary. He just happened to her. She wasn't looking for him. She didn't pray for him. She didn't expect it. She didn't know. There wasn't a prophecy that this is how Jesus is going to come. She just, she didn't know. And all of a sudden, this angel shows up and says, you're going to be pregnant. You're going to have Jesus. And it's going to radically change your whole life. And I think of Jesus happening to Mary, like the Kool-Aid man just bursting through the wall, right? Like, I don't know if you're old enough to remember in the 80s and 90s, Kool-Aid had this great ad campaign with the Kool-Aid man, this oversized pitcher filled with red Kool-Aid, and these kids would be sitting around playing a game and one of them would be like, I'm thirsty, and then the Kool-Aid man would just barge through the wall and be like, I got some Kool-Aid. I don't know what he actually said, but that's the implication, is now you will thirst no more. There's a Kool-Aid man here. I think there was a Saturday Night Live sketch about people sitting around being like, I'm thirsty. And the Kool-Aid man like broke through the wall. And there's this big, huge opening that's plenty big enough for the Kool-Aid man, like right next to where he broke through. And the people are like, you could have just, could just use the door, man. Like knock it off with crashing through these walls. But that's how Jesus shows up in Mary's life. Just a Kool-Aid man just crashing through the wall, announcing his presence. I'm here. And listen, it radically changes everything in her life. It radically changes her priorities. It radically changes the purpose. She had plans for her life. Forget them. She had goals for her life. Rethink them, Mary. Those of us who have walked through spiritual deserts, which is everyone who's been a Christian for more than 60 days, Mary couldn't do that. She had to be on her game all the time. She's raising the Savior. There's no wandering around for you. When Jesus showed up, he radically changed her life. He happened to her. And he changed everything. And in the middle of this, in her wrestling with this, we pick the story back up. She's now brought Jesus to term. She's had him in a manger, right? They go to Bethlehem, they go to Jerusalem, they end up in Bethlehem, they have Jesus in a manger which looked, we think of it as a sort of like barn or stable, but it's really probably more like a cave that they were in in the hills of Bethlehem. And when Jesus is born, the angels appear to the shepherds. The shepherds go and they go decide to visit baby Jesus. This is what Kyle preached about last week. And so that's where we pick it up this week when we look at Luke chapter 2, I noticed something that I had never, ever noticed before in the Christmas story. It says the shepherds see the angels, they hear them, they're told that the Messiah has been born. They're like, this is great, let's go meet him. They go to the manger where Mary and Joseph are. And when they get there, they tell everybody what the angel said. And it says, need it explained to them. They're not wondering. And then you got Mary and Joseph. They know. The angels have told them personally. They showed up in their house and said, hey, here's the deal. So those people know, which leads me to the conclusion, and you guys can follow me here or not. This is just me thinking, okay? So you buy it or not. But it leads me to the conclusion that we've got a little bit of a DJ Khaled situation going on here. Now, here's what I mean. I was in Times Square a couple years ago by myself. I dropped Jen off at the hotel, and then I went to Times Square by myself because I love being in Times Square at night. It's one of the most special places on the planet. I think it's so cool. And I'm just taking it all in. And I noticed people start to just kind of flock. There's a ton of people there and people just start to flock to this one street on this one side of Times Square. And they're like three and four people deep. And I'm like, I wonder what's going on over here. So I go over there and I kind of make my way up on a wall and I'm looking down on the road and everybody's looking at this car and waving at this one car. And I asked, there's some random couple next to me. I'm like, what's the deal? What's going on? They go, we don't know. We think that's DJ Khaled. And I'm like, cool. There he is. I saw him. You know, and if you'd have told me 10 minutes ago, hey, just a heads up, buddy. Well, DJ Khaled's about to pass the street right here. You can go get a good seat for it before everybody else knows. I'd have been like, I'm good. I think we'll let somebody else see DJ Khaled. I still don't know what he looks like. He could be here and I wouldn't know it. As a matter of fact, Deej, if you're here, we're always looking for volunteers in the worship team. We're actually hiring, so let's talk, man. I don't know where your life's at. That'd be cool. But the thing that happened was it was just a commotion. There was just a bunch of people. And then there was some people walking this way and then other people started this way. And then it occurred to me, Mary and Joseph are here on holiday. They're here for a census. They're here for Passover. Do you think that they're the only ones that couldn't get a room in the end? You think they showed up so late? The whole country is descending on Jerusalem. You think the whole country got there before Mary and Joseph did? No. There was other people around. There was other people who couldn't stay in Jerusalem and had to stay in Bethlehem. Which, this is beside the point, but Joseph, get it together, man. You got a pregnant wife. You can't make reservations. You know you've got to go. You've known for a year. You've known for 10 years there's a census coming. You can't make a reservation in Jerusalem. The level of not planning from Joseph here baffles me. They're the people who are in group C when you board Southwest. That's Mary and Joseph. It's the only airline I know that before you can get on the plane, you have to line up in order of personal responsibility, right? And then the C's are in the back. But there's a bunch of people around. And there's lights in the sky, And then there's shepherds who just left their flock moving through the city. And it seems to me, all those who gathered, all those who are around, it seems to me that there was a commotion and that they've all moved towards this manger. And they're craning and they're trying to see what's going on. And then the shepherds tell everybody, this is the Messiah the angels just told us. This is what they said. He's going to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is Emmanuel, God with us. And they say that. And the crowds are like, okay. What does that mean? What's that going to look like? And what's cool about that is Mary knew. Mary could have told them. She could have made it so that they didn't have to wonder. And instead, we get this response, which is, I think, my favorite verse in the Christmas story, Luke 2, 19. It says, but Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. That's just a mama's joy right there. That's my baby. And I get to be his mama. And he's the savior. He's the Messiah. He's the one we've all been waiting on. He's the one you grew up longing for. He's the one your soul needs and you don't even know it. And she knew. But for some reason, she didn't tell him. She held that one here. She treasured that in her heart. She said, this moment is between me and you, God. And she pondered, she weighed those things for the rest of her life. And I love that moment. Because in that moment, Mary knows something that nobody else knows. Mary understands something that the rest of the world doesn't understand yet. All those crowds gathered, and what's the with the baby and the shepherds who came over and they were told they don't really fully understand it yet. She's had nine months to ruminate on this. She understands something that the rest of them don't understand. And I'm convinced it's this. Mary knew that Jesus was going to happen to them too. She knew. Just stick around. You'll learn who this is. You'll figure it out. How, Mary? I don't know. I don't know how he's going to tell you. But stick around. And Jesus is going to happen to you too. Whether we're paying attention or whether we're not, she knows. All these people wondering, who's this baby? She knows in her head. You'll know. You'll learn. He's going to happen to you just like he happened to me. And here's the part about this that I love. In this moment, in this moment of confidence that Jesus is going to happen to you too, Mary exists in blissful, confident ignorance. Mary exists in blissful, confident ignorance. And here's what I mean. She knows that Jesus is going to happen. She knows that this little boy is going to grow up and he's going to become the Messiah and he's going to sit on the throne of David. Does she know how that's going to happen? Not a chance. Does Mary know that this little boy is going to grow up and at 30 he's going to recruit 12 disciples and he's going to give them the keys to the kingdom and that he's going to be crucified on a cross and she's going to watch him die and that in three days he's going to resurrect and defeat hell and death for the rest of time and win us for eternity and that one day he's going to watch him die. And then in three days, he's going to resurrect and defeat hell and death for the rest of time and win us for eternity. And that one day he's going to crash down out of the clouds on a white horse and be called faithful and true. And he's going to take us all up to heaven because he came to establish an eternal kingdom and not an earthly kingdom. Does Mary know that? No, no chance. She just knows he's Jesus. And that God sent him and that he's going to take care of things. Does Mary know how Jesus is going to show up in the lives of those gathered around wondering what does all this mean? Does she know how Jesus is going to happen to them? No. Does she know that 33 years later, those same crowds and the children of those crowds might be the same ones gathered around Pilate's governor's mansion when Jesus is about to be crucified, yelling, give us Barabbas and crucify Christ? She doesn't know that. She exists in blissful, confident ignorance. Jesus is going to happen here. How, Mary? I don't know. I don't know, but he is. He's going to show up. When? I don't know. I don't know what to tell you, but he's going to happen. And I love that thought so much because if we'll pay attention, Jesus will happen to us too in big and small ways. If you pay attention, Jesus will happen to you too in big and small ways. See, what we know about Mary is that she was faithful. What we know about Mary is that she listened to God. What we know about Mary is that she knew her Scripture. She was listening. And Jesus happened. And so what I know about us and what Mary knew about us is that if we'll listen, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, Jesus will happen to us too in big and small ways. And I think that's an important delineation in big and small ways. He will happen to us in big ways because when Jesus shows up in our life, make no mistake, he Kool-Aid mans that joker. He shows up and he wrecks shop. He rearranges everything. He totally changes your priorities. He totally changes your heart. You had these goals for your life? No. These are your new goals for your life. You had these plans for yourself? No. I'm going to make these plans for you. You have these priorities? You hold these things precious? Forget them. They're nothing. Hold these things precious. When Jesus explodes into our life, he radically changes our hearts. He radically changes everything. Our lives look completely different once he's bound through the wall. And I think that part of our problem sometimes is that we're the Saturday night live actors going, hey, Jesus, do you think maybe you could just use the door? Do you come in like a, is there like a small Jesus? This one's making a lot of demands, pal. I think that sometimes because we hold on so tightly, we don't let Jesus happen to us the way that he could and the way that he wants to. Mary simply said, when she found out that she was going to have Jesus, she said, I'm your servant. Do whatever you're going to do. And I think some of us, and when I say us, I mean us, tend to think like, Jesus, I'm pretty squared away. But I'd love for you to have some say in these areas. That's not the deal that Jesus makes. He explodes into our life and he radically changes everything. And he doesn't ask us for permission before he does it. And Mary knows that Jesus is going to happen to us. Jesus also happens in small ways. Continually through our life when we need him most. In moments when we desperately need him to happen. I remember being in Honduras years ago. When I was a teacher, I took a class of seniors to Siguarapeque, Honduras. And one of the things that we did there was hand out bags of rice to some of the folks in the village. That's not a critical term. It was literally a village in the hillsides of Saguarapeque. And there was one girl that we took with us named Allison. And Allison was this really sharp, bright girl who I really liked a lot. And she told me one of the nights that we were there that she was really struggling with her faith. I'm just not sure if I believe it. I have so many questions and I kind of don't know what to do. And we talked about it for a little bit and I just let it be. And then the day that we were handing out rice, it's predominantly older and younger women who are in the line for the rice. And we've got like this chain. I'm in the back of a truck and I'm picking up boxes. I'm handing the boxes to somebody and they're picking up bags and they're handing bags and they're handing bags and then they're handing them to the people. And it just so happened that Allison was at the end of the conveyor belt and she was the one actually handing the rice to the women. And I was paying attention to her that day and I saw her face light up in a way that I had never seen before. And I saw the joy of connection that she was having with the women to whom she was handing the rice. And it was this spiritual moment. And so I pulled her aside after dinner that night and I said, hey, listen, I know that you're having questions about your faith, but I watched you come alive when you were helping those women today. I watched a joy in your eyes. And she started to cry. She knew I was right. And I said, I just want you to know that that was Jesus. Scripture tells us that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me. And you were serving Jesus today. And he showed up for you. So you might not always have all the answers that you want for your faith, but you can cling to Jesus. And today you found him. And it resonated with her. She's a nurse in Denver, specifically at a hospital in a low-income area so that she can continue to serve the least of these. She's dedicated her life to that service because Jesus showed up for her that day. And this Christmas season, some of you, you need Jesus to show up. You need Jesus to happen to you. Some of us in big ways. Some of us, we need to quit asking Jesus to simply walk to the door we provided and let him come in and wreck shop. Some of us, we need Jesus to happen in small ways. Some of us are like Allison, we're struggling with our faith. We don't know what to do. We don't have all the answers. And if maybe Jesus could just show up here, if Jesus could just happen here, that would be what we needed to see a clear path forward. Others of us, we have things going on in our families. We're facing a difficult Christmas or we're facing a tight Christmas or we're facing a stressful Christmas or it's just a hard season of life and we need Jesus to show up. I can remember a month or two ago, I was in a place where I was just feeling really discouraged. And I prayed one morning. I was like, God, listen, man, if you're handing out, I didn't say listen, man. I don't say that to God. I try not to anyway. Sometimes I do. God, I'm sorry. But God, if you're handing out encouragement, I'll take some. I could use it. I need Jesus to happen here. That was a Sunday morning. I won't go into the details. But for the next three days, encouragement after encouragement after encouragement that I didn't expect. And Jesus happened to me that week. And some of you need Jesus to happen to you too. And whatever situations you're in, and whatever stresses you're carrying and burdens you're bearing, you need Jesus to happen. And so my prayer for you this week, that in this place, in grace, this month, and this season, that Jesus would happen here as we move through Christmas season together. And my prayer for you is that Jesus would happen to you. And for some of you, my prayer is that he would happen in really big, life-changing, earth-shattering, priority-changing ways that you didn't anticipate that scare the heck out of you. But I hope that Jesus shows up big time in your life. And still for others, I'm praying that Jesus will happen to you in that small way that you need him so desperately to happen. But let's make our prayer at Grace this season that Jesus will happen here and Jesus will happen in our lives. Join me in that prayer. Father, you're good to us. Thank you for your son. Thank you for Christmas. Thank you for how it focuses us on you and your goodness and on your son. Jesus, we invite you into this place. We pray that you would happen here. We pray that you would have your way here. Give us the faith and the courage to not stand in your way. Give us the wisdom to know that your ways are better than our ways. Give us the courage to overcome any fear we might have about handing things over to you. But let us, God, pray courageous prayers and invite you into our life in a big way. And Father, for those of us who need Jesus in the little ways, for those of us who are struggling, who are hurting, who are stressed or anxious, God, I pray that Jesus would happen in those spaces too. Even this week, God, even today, would Jesus happen to us. It's in his name we ask these things. Amen.

The All right. Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be the pastor here. If you are going to miss that Revelation intro, that's the last time you get to hear that music, let me know and I'll send you the clip. You can use it as your alarm clock on Mondays just to really face the week. This is the last part in our series moving through the book of Revelation and it's been a good series. I think it's been good for the church. I think it's been good for our small groups. I've heard that we've had some really good, robust discussions in those, and it's been fun for me to get to tackle this book on your behalf. And sincerely, I appreciate your trust and belief in me as we've walked through this together, and I've kind of served a little bit as a guide through the book of Revelation. By way of review, as we finish up the series, I thought it would be worth it to kind of recap all that we've learned and talked about as we arrive here at the final week. So in the first week, we're setting the scene. It's Revelation chapter one. John arrives. He's given a vision while he's on the island of Patmos. An angel comes and gets him and says, write down the things that I'm going to show you. And in that first chapter, we see this remarkable reunion between John and his savior, Jesus, his best friend, Jesus, who he served and spoken about and longed for for years. And we see that the greatest promise, no matter what else we encounter in the book of Revelation, the greatest promise in the book is that one day we will meet our Savior face to face. That one day we will meet Jesus too. And after we meet Jesus, after we see his face, whatever happens after that is going to be okay. That's the greatest promise in Revelation. In week two, my dad preached and we looked at Revelation 4 and 5. Remember, we skipped the letters to the churches in 2 and 3. We're going to tackle those in a series to be named later. Revelation 4 and 5, God sits on the throne. That's the important part. God's in control. And then Jesus steps forward as the Lamb of God, worthy to open the seals and begin the tribulation process. Remember, we define the the wrath of God and how even though we kind of shy away from it in the 21st century church, it's important. It's important to lean into. It's important to acknowledge. And we actually want a God that's capable of that. And then for the next two weeks, it was kind of academic. I pulled the whiteboard up here one week. We went through the events of the tribulation, the seals and the trumpets and the bowls and God's wrath being poured out and what order that comes and the different views around that. And then we kind of looked at the figures of the tribulation, the antichrist and the false prophet and the dragon and the witnesses and the 144,000 and kind of decoded some of those things within the book. And then last week was probably my favorite week where we look at the return of Christ and what that wins us. How he conquers evil once and for all. He conquers Satan once and for all. He makes all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. And we also kind of reflected on the idea that when Jesus comes, we can finally lay down our faith and our hope. Those things are no longer needed because we're looking at our Savior face to face. And so this week, we arrive at the end of the book, at the end of the series, and I almost titled this morning's message, It Begins, or The Beginning, because this is where eternity begins. This is where the temporal world stops in Revelation 22, and eternity begins, an eternity that I want us to see this morning, for which we were created. So we arrive not necessarily at the end today, but at the beginning. As we do, there's a couple more things in Revelation to look at, namely the millennial reign of Christ. The millennial reign of Christ is discussed in Revelation chapter 20. So Jesus has just come down. He stormed down on the white horse. He has the troops of heaven, the angels of heaven arrayed in white linen behind him. They conquer the armies of the antichrist, of Satan, of the false prophet. They conquer the dark kingdom. They take the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth, the antichrist and the false prophet, and Jesus binds them and throws them in the lake of fire forever. And now all that remains is to deal with Satan. How is Jesus at the end of time going to deal with Satan? We find this in Revelation chapter 20. Now just a caveat about this sermon. It was a holiday week, all right? So I wrote this basically in my head during the 24 hours I was in the car this week with a six-month-old, which means I didn't produce notes for Kyle to put in there, which means that Scott back there, who's in charge of the slides, has the easiest job ever. And Carly, who's in charge of printing your notes, had an easy job because there's nothing there. So it's entirely up to you to write down what you want to write down and to follow along as you want to follow along. I would encourage you to grab a Bible. Grab the one in the seat back in front of you and be looking at Revelation 20, 21, and 22. I'm going to read the first four or five verses from each of those chapters as we move through, and they will not appear on the screens. If you're at home and you're watching, grab a Bible so we can go through it together and interact with the text together. But we see the millennial reign in Revelation chapter 20 in the first three verses. John writes, So if you keep reading, what you find is that after Satan is bound and thrown in a pit for a thousand years, that at the end of that thousand years, he is released and allowed to tempt the people on the earth who are alive at that time. For just a little while longer, he pulls away some people from Christ. And then Christ once and for all binds him and throws him in the lake of fire with the Antichrist and the false prophet. So around this, there are a lot of questions. Namely, the biggest one to me is, why in the world would God bind Satan, put him in a pit, make him stay there for a thousand years, and then let him out to tempt people one more time, just one last hurrah from Satan, like God's doing a favor to an old buddy or something, and then throwing him in the lake of fire. Why does God do that? Listen, I don't know. To me, this is one of those mysteries of revelation. I have literally nothing for you. You can research it and read about it, and people make guesses, but in all honesty, as is often the case to me, a lot of the guesses, and in fact, for this one, all of the guesses out there really don't hold intellectual water for me. I see them. I can see how they might be thought of as reasonable, but I can also very easily, to me, poke holes in them. And so I thought it not worth sharing with you the different guesses because they're all bad ones. So I would say, I don't know. It's a mystery on this side of heaven why God chooses to order things in that way. I continue to believe that if in my elevated body, if in my new heavenly body I get at the marriage supper of the lamb, I have the mental capacity to understand this and God deigns to explain it to me and I even still care once I'm in heaven, which I definitely won't. But let's pretend that in heaven while we're amidst this perfect joy, we say, hang on a second. Why'd you do that thing with Satan where you released him one last time? If God were to explain it to us and we had the mental capacity to grasp it, I think we'd all go, oh, thanks. And then we'd go on with our joyful day. By the way, I haven't said this yet. It's important to point out. Part of the reason that heaven is so joyful is because there's no dogs or animals there. It's fantastic. No more hassles, no more cleanups, no more messes. It's really, it's a wonderful place. I know it says lion lays down with lamb. That's figurative. There's no animals in heaven. I'm certain of it. I'm sure your dogs are all there. All right. I'm sure they are. Except for my first dog, Maggie. If they have an afterlife, Maggie's in hell, that dog is. What was I preaching about? So we don't know why God chooses at the end of the millennial reign to allow Satan loose for a period of time and then throws him into the lake of fire. And I'm not going to pretend to offer you explanations because they don't make sense to me. There are also views about the millennial reign. And we're going to get in the weeds just a little bit. And if this doesn't interest you, I am sorry. But there are some people who showed up with questions this morning about the millennial reign. And so this needs to be discussed. So we will move quickly, but there's kind of three traditional views about the millennial reign. They are called amillennial, postmillennial, and premillennial, and they're questions about when does God return? When does Jesus return? Does Jesus return after the millennial reign? Does he return during the millennial reign? Does he return before the millennial reign? And so we're going to basically group them like this. There's premillennial, which says Christ's return is before the millennial reign, that Christ comes back like he does in 19. He conquers Satan. He throws them in there. It's literally a thousand years where he reigns on earth and Christian ideals flourish and Christians flourish and God's kingdom flourishes. And then at the end of those literal thousand years, Satan is released. He tempts some people and then Jesus conquers them once and for all. Amillennial and postmillennial believe, and this is where it gets tricky, that you take chapters 19 and 20 and you lay 20 over chapter 19. See, premillennials believe that first chapter 19 happens, which is the return of Christ, the big war. He comes out of heaven and he conquers the beast. And then chapter 20 happens, which is the millennial reign. So premillennialists read this literally and say that these things literally happen. Christ, after he binds the beast and throws him in the lake of fire, then he reigns for a thousand, he binds Satan, then he reigns for a thousand years, then he loses him. It's a literal thousand years. The amillennial and postmillennial view think that you take chapters 19 and 20 and you lay them over top of each other and that they are different ways of describing the same events. Do you remember in week one when I said when you're interpreting Revelation that sometimes it's linear and sometimes it isn't? And how do you know when it is and it isn't? You just study really hard and you make a good guess. So some people have studied really hard and they've made this guess, that 20 lays over 19. In which case, the millennial reign of Christ, the thousand years, is figurative language for a long time. And we are in the middle of that. The millennial reign comes between the two comings of Christ. The Christ as crucified Savior that we read about in Scripture. And then the Christ as returning conqueror that we talked about last week. That in between those two comings of Christ are the millennial reign. And it is I fall in? Probably the latter, the ah or the post, the figurative meaning of the millennial reign. But as my father is listening to this sermon, he will vehemently disagree with that. So there are, I would say there are smart people on either side, but there's not necessarily based on me and my dad being on the two different sides. You'll have to pick which one of us is dumb. But there are good arguments to be made for either side, and it's really not that important which side you choose. The important part is, in the end, Jesus wins, and he binds Satan, and then we move into an eternity that's briefly described in Revelation 21 and 22. In Revelation 21, and you can look at verses 1 through four, we have a passage that I've shared a lot from this stage, that I refer to a lot in my preaching. It's a passage that I think is maybe the single most encouraging and hope-filled passage in the Bible. It's one that I use to comfort others with. It's one that I use to comfort myself. It infuses itself into my preaching and into my thinking over and over again, so much so that I can vividly remember that in the interview process and talking with the elders, when they were asking me about my worldview and my theology and all the different things and my approach to the Bible, I referenced this passage tearfully in my interview with them because it, over the years, has come to mean so much to me. And I thought it worthwhile before we read it this morning to tell you how I encountered this passage and the hope that it can bring in the most dire of situations as we prepare ourselves to look towards eternity. About, I think it was about eight years ago, I was at Greystone Church outside of Georgia, or Atlanta, and I was the small groups pastor and a couple other things, and one of the other hats that I wore at that church was I was the care pastor. Thank you. There it is. Right. Yeah, we were short-staffed. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. That'll probably never be my title again anywhere I go, but it was my title there. And I got a call one day, and it was a couple who had just recently started coming to the church, and they had an eight-year-old son named Landon, whose name I'll never forget, who had passed away. And it was an incredibly sad circumstance. Landon had an infection. He was sick. Went to the doctor, got some antibiotics, took him, went upstairs, I think take a bath or something, and they found him dead. He had had an allergic reaction to the medicine that he took, and they didn't know it. Incredibly sad situation. So sad, in fact, that a few days after the funeral, I was driving somewhere, and I called Jen, and she said, what's wrong? And I said, I don't know. I just, I feel heavy. And Jen goes, Nate, those are emotions. And I was like, well, then you can keep these. These are terrible. I hate this. It was a hard time. And so leading up to meeting with the family and doing the funeral, I called my pastor growing up, a man named Buddy Hoffman, who's no longer with us. I wish he were so I could talk to him about being a pastor. But I called Buddy. I said, Buddy, this has happened. I'm going to have to do this funeral and meet with this family. This is way out of my depth. I don't know what to do or what to say. What do I do? And he says in his typical, very blunt, forthright, buddy nature, he said, Nathan, just don't say anything stupid. And I laughed and I said, yeah, man, that's the goal. That's what I'm trying to avoid. That's why I'm on the phone with you. And he said, well, in times like this, so often people try to say things when they shouldn't. Sometimes your presence matters way more than your words, so really lean into just being quiet and being there. And then when you share scripture, be careful what you share, because it can often ring hollow in times of deep grief. And I agreed with him because I think of when something terrible like this happens, when we lost our first child due to miscarriage and somebody would quote us Jeremiah 29 11, I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, prayers to prosper you, not to harm you, plans for a hope and a future. Listen, listen, listen, that's true and that's good, but that doesn't help my pain, right? And if part of God's plan was to take a kid from me, then I don't really want to be a part of that plan. You know what I'm saying? So those verses can ring hollow. And I didn't want to say those to this family, Romans 8, 28. You know, for we know that for those who love him, that all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. That's good and that's true. And that means that in eternity, it's gonna work out and we see it working out. That's what Revelation is about, is affirming Romans 8, 28. But in the moment, boy, that doesn't really bring a lot of comfort to a grieving family. And I said, I agree with you. There's verses that ring hollow. so what do I share? And he said, I always use Revelation 20, Revelation 21, verses one through four. This is the hope that we cling to. And this is why these verses have infused themselves into my preaching and into my thinking and into my prayers and why I still use this passage at every funeral that I do because I believe it's maybe the most hope-filled passage in all of Scripture. And it says this. John writes, I love this part. That, remember last week, I said that hope and faith were burdens and we cling to our hope and our faith. That is the hope that we cling to. This is the event that we place our faith in. That Jesus' death on the cross won us this. That one day, God will be with his people and we will be with our God and he will wipe every tear off of our face and there will be no more weeping and no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things have passed away. And if you've heard me do a funeral, you've heard me say what the former things are. In this moment, the former things are death, pain, cancer, birth defects, difficulties, abuse, estrangement, broken homes. The former things are the brokenness of other people that spills out and breaks the people around them. The brokenness is gone is this idea that hurt people hurt people because nobody's hurt, so nobody's getting hurt. The former things are all of the things that cause you stress and anxiety and pain and discomfort now. There's coming a day where those things are no longer present. Those are the former things. And it hearkens back to this promise that we see in Revelation chapter 1 that we highlighted in the first week, that one day we will be with our Savior face to face. One day we will sit in the very presence of God. He will be with us and we will be with him. And in that day when that comes, the former things, the things that cause us pain now. The things that are difficult now. The things that made this week tough. The things that have made these last two years tough. The things that you came in here worrying about now, the scars that you bear from the people who have come before you, all those things have passed away and we walk in perfect joy. This is why I love this verse because this verse acknowledges the former things and it doesn't seek to cheapen those things. It doesn't tell Sean Weldon who lost his son Landon that this thing doesn't matter, that this thing doesn't hurt. Don't worry about it. God has a plan for this thing. It says, no, no, no. This is one of the former things, man. And if you can cling to your faith and your hope through this, it will become a former thing and you'll see him again. So I find this passage to be uniquely and tremendously hope-filled. And it inaugurates the eternity that we are going to share in together. The holy city comes down. We are a part of the new Jerusalem. We are a part of the new heaven and the new earth. Some people believe God creates an entirely new heaven and new earth. Some people believe he replaces this one. I believe it doesn't make a bit of difference. But Revelation 21 inaugurates the eternity following the marriage supper of the Lamb, the greatest celebration feast of all time. And it ushers us into this beginning of life. Not the end of time, but the beginning of eternity. And this eternity is described, I think, the best in chapter 22, verses 1 through 5. In 21, there's a description of what the new heaven and the new earth is going to look like. And if you remember in week one, I read you a portion of that description where it talks about the jewels that adorn the walls and sit at the base. It says that the city is like gold and the streets are like glass. And we're gonna see a description of a crystal river flowing from the throne of God. And it describes it as this remarkably beautiful place. And that's well and good. And I don't want to cheapen or dismiss the remarkable beauty of heaven. But what is more compelling to me is the peace that we find there, is the tranquility of life there, is the provision of God there, and the perfect peace that we rest in for all of eternity. And I think that's better captured in these verses, in chapters 22, verses 1 through 5, where John writes this. Through the middle of the light that we need. His kingdom knows no night. His kingdom knows no darkness. The tree of life is on either side of the river. It provides for us in season all that we need. There is nothing left to do but to enjoy God and His perfect love and the people that we are there with forever. And what I want you to focus on this morning and what I want you to remember from this series is that this is what we are created for. You understand? What we see in Revelation 21, what's described in Revelation 22, that's what you were created for. Hear me, you were not created for this place. You were not created for this world. You were not created for your current body. You were not created for that. You were created for what is described in Revelation 21 and 22. You were created for eternity. It's why you have a soul that will outlive your body. It's why you have a soul that will pass into this next life without the broken shell that it inhabits right now. It's why your soul longs for eternity. It's why there's something inside of you that says there's gotta be more than this. It's why the people who have accomplished the most on the planet get to the end of their rope of accomplishment and say there has to be more than this. It's why nothing in your life ever fully satisfies you. It's why I believe this to be true. Perfect happiness is not possible this side of heaven. To choose one road towards happiness is to fundamentally disallow another road to happiness. And we are therefore incapable of perfect happiness on this side of heaven. And that's why we are incapable of it, to remind us that on that side of heaven, we will walk in perfect happiness for all of eternity. Because we were created for that eternity. We were designed and purposed for that. We long for it. Paul writes about this over and over again in the things that he says and in the things that he writes to the early church. Particularly in Romans 8 where he says the whole earth groans for this eternity, pressing against the shell that we are in, waiting for our perfect bodies. And I think that this is why Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 4, verses 17 and 18. You don't have to turn there. You can just listen to me because these are famous verses. We refer to these often. These are funeral verses. These are grieving verses. But I think that Paul writes them because Paul was aware of this idea that we were not created for this place. We were created for eternity. So he writes this in chapter 4, verse 17 of 2 Corinthians. I'm going to pick it up in 16. Paul calls all of the pain that we endure in this life light momentary affliction. And just so you know, he's addressing a persecuted church. And the verses that precede this, he's talking about the harm that faces them, the death that faces them. He's talking, he's in, if you want to look historically, he's in a time period where the life expectancy had to be somewhere in the 40s or maybe as late as the 50s. He's looking at a high infant mortality rate. He's looking at people who have lots of kids and are very used to some of the kids not making it to adulthood. These people know what loss is. They know what pain is on a level that most of us in this room are not even close to being acquainted with. So before we think that Paul is being flippant with our pain that we walk through, let's be clear. No, no, no. He's being flippant with way worse pain than what we walk through. And he still calls it light and momentary affliction. And he says it is not worth comparing with the glory that we will experience on the other side of eternity. The pain that we experience in this life is not worth comparing. It's just preparing us for the weight of glory that we will experience on the other side of eternity. I've mentioned this before, but you've likely forgotten it, and it stands out to me. When Lily, my daughter, was I think about three years old, we were putting her to bed one night. And as we were trying to put her to bed, she insisted on jumping on her bed. And we told her, no, you can't do that. Stop jumping on your bed. And she tried to do it. And I had to be stern. No, stop jumping on your bed. You're not allowed to jump on your bed. She lost her mind. She was so bummed that she couldn't jump on her bed. I mean, she screamed and she cried and she kicked and she wailed and she flailed. And it was the biggest deal in the world to her. And, you know, in that moment, would it have been easier to just say, all right, listen, kid, just jump on the bed for five minutes and then go to bed, right? Of course it would have. But the Rubicon had been crossed, man. I had planted the flag and I had to defend it. You will not jump on this bed. I will cry with you all night before you jump on this bed one more time. Like it is not happening. So she's losing her mind over and I won't let her, I won't let her jump on the bed and whatever. And while it's happening, after she settles down, she goes to sleep. I think to myself, that's so dumb. She treated it like it was the biggest deal ever. She's not even going to remember it in the morning. Two days later, that thing never happened. When she's an adult, it's not even a blip on the radar screen. It's completely and totally inconsequential to who she is as a human in every way that she didn't get to jump on her bed that night. It does not matter. And then I started thinking about all the things when you become an adult that mattered so much when you were younger that when you're older, it's like, who cares? Remember how much you cared about homecoming? And then 20 years later, it's just a waste of money. It was silly. Remember all the things that mattered so much in elementary school? Then in the light of adulthood, they just, who cares? It makes me wonder how often in this life we're wailing and flailing and ticked off and upset and hurt. And God's in heaven going, you're just trying to jump on the bed, man. When you get here, it's not gonna matter. Quit getting so dang worked up. It makes me wonder how often we just wanna jump on our bed. It makes me wonder all the things that we get so worked up about that cause us so much anxiety that just spike our blood pressure. We just got done with a week-long trip driving to two different cities with a six-month-old. So I had some chest tightness this week and it got pretty stressful. And it makes me just, if I see that through the eyes of God and in light of eternity, how utterly ridiculous it was for me to waste one ounce of energy on getting frustrated at a six-month-old for crying. And when I read through the Bible, the more I walk with God, the more of Scripture that I see, the more times I expose myself to Jesus and the Gospels, the more times I read Paul, the more times I see the nature of God and begin to ask, why did he do this? And why did he direct in this way? And why doesn't he give us more of this? The more I conclude that God himself is far more concerned with eternity than we are. And that the problem is not trying to figure out all the things that are happening in this life and how to make sense of them all. The problem is not focusing enough on the next life and looking forward to that and seeing this life through the perspective of eternity the way that God does. Because when we read through scripture over and over and over again, it's very clear to me that God cares way more about what happens after Revelation 22 than he does about what's happening right now. He's just trying to get us there. So as we go through this life, I think it could be helpful to have reminders of eternity. And maybe that's what joy and pain are. I would argue this morning, if we had notes, this would be a thing that showed up on the screen that I would encourage you to write down. But I would note this morning that all joy and all pain are simply reminders that we're not yet where we belong. All joy that we experience and all pain that we experience are really simply reminders that we are not yet where we belong. Thanksgiving was this last week. If at your Thanksgiving table there was pain, because maybe someone wasn't at that table this year who was there last year. Maybe we hoped that there would be a baby or spouse or at least just a boyfriend or a girlfriend or something at the table this year and there wasn't and that caused us pain. Maybe there's strife in our family. Maybe one of our family members just isn't who they used to be. And because of myriad circumstances, when we sat around our table this week, there was pain for us. That pain is simply a reminder that we're not yet where we're supposed to be. That pain that we experience, that's a former thing. It will pass away. So we let pain remind us that I'm not intended for this place. I'm holding on for the next place. Likewise, joy is a reflection of the perfect joy that we will experience in heaven. If we sat around the Thanksgiving table this week and there was particular joy there, there was richness of friends and richness of family and richness of relationships. If there was a new seat at the table, if there was a new baby at the party, if there is a pending birth to celebrate, if there was a new relationship represented there, if there was reconciliation, if maybe this was the first time we've been together as a family since we had to start wearing the dumb masks, maybe that's what got us together and that's what brought us joy. That joy that you experienced this week is just a reflection and a smudgy window of the pure joy that's waiting on you in eternity. It's just a hint of the joy that's waiting on us in the future. And so I think we would be wise to allow all pain and all joy simply remind us that we are not yet where we are supposed to be because God did not intend us for this life. God did not design us for this life. God designed us for the next one. And in Revelation chapter 22, chapter 21 and 22, we see those things begin. That's why I actually like the following verses in 2 Corinthians. The ones that follow the light and momentary affliction and they are preparing us for this eternal grace. Because they acknowledge that we were not made for this place. I'm going to read to you just kind of a selection of them from 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Paul writes, He's talking about what we talked about, the former things, that we weren't made for this world, we were made for the next one. So if in this tent, sometimes it's uncomfortable, if in this life, sometimes we feel pain, those are groanings that are reminding us that we were made for the next life. And then he goes on down in verse six body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage. And we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. Scripture acknowledges, that. It is right and good to hope for that. It is right and good to remind ourselves that there is perfect joy where the former things have passed away waiting on us and we cling to that hope. And I said in week one that this mysterious book of Revelation really is the greatest book of hope that we have in Scripture and I hope that you've reached that conclusion on your own as well. So I would finish the series with this encouragement. Cling to your faith. Cling to the hope that this is true and that one day these things will be realized. Cling to your faith and cling to your hope and take courage, Christians, because we know how this story ends. Let's pray. Father, thank you for telling us how the story ends. Thank you for not making us wonder that. Thank you for the book of Revelation, for the vision that you gave John. Lord, I pray that you would give us a heart to understand the important things there. That you would give us a heart to respect the mysteries, to wonder in awe at all the things described. More than anything, God, I pray that we would see that you acknowledge that some things in this life are tough. Some things in this life are the former things that we're walking through right now. But that God, you offer us a hope and a future. So Lord, I pray that we would cling to that. I pray that we would be of good courage. That no matter where we are, no matter what we're doing, we would live to please you. And that nothing that could happen to us in this life could wrestle away from us the hope and the faith that we have in you. God, we look forward to the day that we can spend eternity with you when Revelation 21 and 22 come to pass. We thank you for this book. We thank you for the series. God, I ask that it would push us closer to you and that it would more deeply entrench us in the hope that we find in you. It's in your son's name I ask these things. Amen.

The Pretty epic, huh? I mean, looky there. The sermon is half as good as the video. Y'all are going to leave here with your hair on fire. This is great. Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. So thanks for being here. I thank you for watching online or catching up during the week if that's what you're doing. This is clearly the start of our series in the book of Revelation. I have been studying and prepping for this as far back as the summer because Joseph was a fun series. I loved doing Joseph. I love narrative series where we're just telling stories and seeing what we can learn from the story. The prep time on a Joseph sermon is about two and a half or three hours. The prep time on the Revelation sermon is 10 times that for each one. So you got to start those early. But because I've been doing so much studying, I'm very happy to tell you guys that I have all the answers for you. I'm going to tell you very clearly what happens in the book of Revelation. You can't ask me a question that I won't be certain about. And this is going to be a very productive time for the church. So I'm very much looking forward to it. Revelation, for some of us, has a lot of baggage. For some of us, it doesn't have very much at all. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in the 80s and the 90s. And when you grew up in a Baptist church in the 80s and the 90s, Revelation was a big deal. I don't know if you guys realize that or what your church contexts are, but there was a season in church life when having strong opinions about the tribulation and the rapture was just a part of church. I actually talked to a church one time in a former life. I was a teacher at a private high school, and one of the churches was a small country Baptist church. And they said, hey, we're looking for a pastor if you know anybody. And I said, okay, well, you know, I'll keep my eyes out. And they said, but we're only going to hire people if they believe in a pre-trib rapture. That's a non-negotiable for us. And I started laughing. He's like, why are you laughing? I'm like, oh, you mean that? Like, that's really important to you. And they're like, yeah, absolutely. Well, are you not pre-trib rapture? Because if you're not, I don't want you teaching my daughter Bible. I'm like, rapture is not coming up. All right. We're not covering that in 10th grade Bible. Don't worry about it. I wonder how many of you though have had, like, when I say pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, 1260 days, the four beasts, the man, the eagle, the lion, the ox, the 144,000 Jewish males from the tribes. How many of you know what I'm talking about? You've heard those things before. Okay. And then I won't ask the rest of us, how many of you are like, I got no clue, man. Like, no idea on this. You don't have to raise your hand. But yeah, so like, how do we approach like that wide of a swath of information and knowledge about this book? Because there's some of us that have been a part of really in-depth Bible studies and there's some of us who we've avoided it all together. So in thinking about how to approach the book of Revelation for these next seven weeks, I really thought it was worth noting the tendencies that we kind of tend towards as we approach the book of Revelation. Because again, some of us are very experienced with it, and some of us have never opened it because it's scary or intimidating or whatever. So as we begin, I kind of wanted to begin the series with this thought as we think about how do we approach the book of Revelation. I would contend that most people either overcomplicate or oversimplify Revelation. Most people in their approach to it have a tendency to either overcomplicate it or vastly oversimplify the book. And what I mean is we can overcomplicate it so that we miss the forest for the trees. We can overcomplicate it so much and drill down on things so much and ask so many questions about it. When is the rapture actually going to happen? Because of this verse, I think it's going to happen in the middle of the tribulation. When is the tribulation? When's that going to happen? Are there Christians going to be on the planet during this part of the tribulation? When is the tribulation? When's that going to happen? Are there Christians going to be on the planet during this part of the tribulation? Are people, can you still get saved during the tribulation? What are the four creatures and the beasts and the angels and which angels have which wings and what do they represent and what's going on with the dragon trying to eat the baby and all these different things? what is the mark of the beast? Is it the vaccine? What is all that stuff, right? And so we can kind of drill down and the answer is no, stinking no, that's not the thing. The vaccine is not the mark of the beast. Anyways, we can get so concerned in drilling down on these details that we kind of miss the message of the book. And the thing about all those details that we'll talk about in a little bit and throughout the series is many of them are really not knowable. So to try to figure out what is the creature that comes out of the abyss that has a tail like a scorpion and stings you and it ails you for five months? Is that an attack helicopter or is that a scorpion? I don't know. And you don't either. And there's no way to know. So let's stop worrying about it, right? So we can overcomplicate it and get so mired in the details of the book that we miss the message. But we can also oversimplify it. I had somebody in my men's Tuesday morning Bible study who he's involved in a study in Revelation right now with another small group. He's cheating on me with another small group and it's hurtful. But he said, we were talking about Revelation and he waved his hand and he goes, Jesus wins. That's all you need to know. And listen, that's true. And this is a man who clearly he cares about Revelation and I don't mean to disparage him, but in that moment of just going, meh, Jesus wins, I would tend more towards that camp in my own interpretative approach of it, but that's not enough either. What happens when we overcomplicate or oversimplify the book of Revelation is that both approaches cheapen the message of the book. Both of those approaches really end up cheapening the message of the book in general. If we get so caught up with the details that it matters to us deeply who the 144,000 are and we search through the Bible to try to piece that one together, and we miss the overarching message of the book because of it, then we cheapen the message of the book. If we just dismiss it and say, listen, Jesus wins, that's all you need to know, then we cheapen the message of the book as well because there's a reason that Revelation exists. There's a reason that God called John up to heaven and gave him a vision of what's going to happen at the end of time. There's a reason he told him to write it down. There's a reason that people have died for the preservation of Scripture over the centuries. There's a reason that this book was canonized, was put in the Bible as part of every Bible that's ever been printed. There's a reason that God ends His revelation to us with this book. There's reasons for that, and so it's worth studying. And I would contend that the book of Revelation matters very much to God. And I would actually base it on the way that he starts the book. This is John writing it. Revelation chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. Listen to this. This verse, particularly the third verse, tells us that revelation is important to God. This book is important to God. And it says, blessed are those who read aloud, because this was a letter. It was written to the churches. And so there wasn't a bunch of copies. Gutenberg hadn't showed up yet. So there was just one letter and one person would read it aloud. So it's basically blessed are those who read it, blessed are those who study it, blessed are those who invest time in it. So God says that we will be blessed by doing this. And, you know, I was talking to Erin Winston, our great children's pastor, I think a year and a half or two years ago when we were talking about series ideas. And she just mentioned to me that she can't remember Grace having ever done a series in Revelation. And I thought, well, goodness, our church needs to know about this. Our church needs to know this book. We need to kind of demystify it and walk through it and see what we can learn from it. And we wanted to do it for a long time, but then the pandemic hit and this didn't feel like what I wanted to do strictly over video, right? I wanted this to be in person because some of the stuff that we have to talk about in the book is hard. That's not this week, but it's coming. And so I thought that it would be worth it to do this series together. And it'd be worth it to not overcomplicate things, to try to train ourselves to focus on the message of portions of it, rather than get mired in the details, but also get into it enough that we feel like we can understand it. So as we approach Revelation, we do need to do some background work to really understand why it was written. It was written by John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was in exile on the island of Patmos about 90 AD is what we think, is when we think it was written. So about 60 years after the death of Christ. He's the last living disciple. All the other disciples have died a martyr's death. He is the last stalwart of the disciples and the bastion of the early church. John really lived a remarkable life. And so God calls him up to heaven and shows him a vision and he writes it down and that becomes Revelation. And what we need to understand is that Revelation was written to bring hope to a suffering church. Revelation was written to bring hope to a suffering church. To be a Christian at this point in history is to take your life into your hands. To be a Christian is to put yourself and your family at risk. It's to go into the catacombs, into underground graveyards, to have your Easter worship service because you cannot be seen in public doing this because you will be killed. It's to know friends and loved ones who have been dipped in tar and used as live torches to light the path into Rome. It's to watch your friends and loved ones get taken and thrown into the gladiator arena with animals that rip them apart. It is a tough time to be a Christian. And so John wrote this letter to them from God to give them hope, to encourage them, to help them hang in there, to help them see a path to a better day. And so when reading Revelation, we can never separate our understanding of it from how the original audience would have understood it. We can never make it mean something that it wouldn't have meant to them. But that also means that it's right and good for us to approach it, mining it for hope. That's the best reason to approach Revelation. It's not necessarily to know what's going to happen at the end of times with great detail, but to cling to the hope that the book offers us throughout it. This is why I love Revelation. If you've heard me preach any messages for any time at all, you've heard me say things like there's coming a day when Jesus is gonna make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. You've heard me talk about Revelation 18 and 19 where he comes down with righteous and true tattooed on his thigh. He comes back not as the Lamb of God, but now as the Lion of Judah and he's coming to wreck shop. You've heard me talk about that because I take great solace in that in my personal faith. You've heard me talk about Revelation 21 when God will be with his people and we will be with our God and there'll be no more weeping and crying in pain anymore. You've heard me talk about that because it's in Revelation and it's hopeful and it's what we cling to. So when we read it, our top priority, our first priority ought to be to mine it for hope and to let it encourage us in our faith. That's far more important than some of the other details. And it's important enough to dig in and to see how it might offer us hope the same way it did the early church. As we seek to understand and interpret the book of Revelation, a couple rules of thumb for us as we walk through it together. The first is, it's not completely linear, but sometimes it is. It's not completely linear, but sometimes it's linear. And when I say linear, what I mean is just event after event from start to finish. The gospels are linear. The gospel of Mark starts at the beginning and moves through the story of Jesus to a crucifixion and then ascension. That's linear. It's just, it's all happening on the same timetable, right? Well, Revelation's not like that. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it moves through and it moves, this event happens, and then the very next thing he talks about is the event that follows the one that he just described. But sometimes he jumps. He says, I turn and I saw. And I'll show you in a second what I'm talking about. He says, then I turned and I saw, and it's something else is going on. And the thing that he's talking about over here happened before the thing he just got done talking about. Or it happens years after the thing he just got done talking about. And then in the next chapter over, he's going to talk about the stuff that happens in the middle. And then the next chapter over, he's going to talk about stuff that happened before that. So sometimes it's linear. Sometimes it's not. So you just have to know as you're reading it that he's not presenting us from chapter 1 to chapter 22 all the things in order. Another thing you should know is that it's not completely literal, but sometimes it is. It's not completely literal all the time. Sometimes it's figurative. Sometimes it is literal. Sometimes the words that you're reading are actually going to happen. They're descriptive of a thing that really will take place. Sometimes you're reading it and it's figurative language to describe to you in the best way that John can what it will be like. Or because God is intentionally using powerful imagery, it's a picture of other events that have already happened. So as we're reading it and as we're studying through it, and there's a reading plan that will be, it would be on the, is it on the table this morning, Kyle? Okay. It's there and it'll be online as well beginning tomorrow morning. I hope that you'll read through Revelation with us. I hope that you'll be talking about it in your small groups together. But as you read and study, we need to be asking ourselves as we look at the text, is this literal or figurative? Is this linear? Is this happening in order? Or have I jumped back or to a different place? We'll need to know this as we read. Now, some examples of where it's figurative and nonlinear or literal and linear are easy to find. So I'm going to read a passage from Revelation chapter 12. You don't have to turn there. You can just listen to my words as I read. This is a famous scene in the book of Revelation. Just listen. I don't know what diadems are. I think maybe crowns. Cool. Let's just go on to the next thing, right? What's going on there? Well, what's happening there is that John is neither being literal, nor is he being linear. Most scholars agree, and it's not certain, so I don't say it with certainty, but most scholars agree, believe it or not, that this is a picture of Christmas. What if I preached that this December 25th, right? What if I made that the Christmas message? Boy, that would be something. Most scholars believe it's a picture of Christmas. It's figurative. It's powerful imagery that God is using to drive home a point. And that in this depiction, the woman very likely represents Israel. The baby is Jesus. The red dragon is Satan. And Satan is trying to thwart Jesus, thwart the efforts of God. But God rescues Jesus back up to his throne, which means God's throne and Jesus' throne. And then Israel is nourished in the wilderness, which could be a reference to their exile in Egypt as slaves, or it could be a reference to the flight of Mary to the wilderness once Jesus is born and they have to go to Egypt for a couple years because Herod is trying to find and kill baby Jesus. The tail sweeping a third of the stars out of the heaven down onto earth, that's a reference to the fact that when Lucifer was kicked out of heaven and became Satan, that he took a third of the demons with him. So this isn't linear because it's Christmas. This happened 90 years before John even wrote it. And certainly not in order with the other things going on in the book. And it's not even linear within its own depiction because it's talking about fleeing to the wilderness and it's talking about the demons falling from heaven, which happened thousands of years before any of this stuff and the rest of the story was ever happening. And then the 1260 days at the end of it is a reference to half of the tribulation period that Revelation divides in half often in months or in days. So it's literally, as far as the time frame is concerned, it's covering thousands of years in a paragraph. It's got a ton going on there. And it didn't literally happen. It's figurative imagery. So that's neither literal nor linear. But sometimes Revelation is those things. Listen to Revelation 21. At the end of the book, John is given a vision. He's carried to another place where Jerusalem begins to descend. A new Jerusalem begins to descend out of the sky. God is setting it Its length the same as its width. And measured the city with his rod. 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall. 144 cubits by human measurement. Which is also an angel's measurement. Which is nice to know. If you're measuring in cubits. You're measuring as the angels do. So well done. The wall was built of jasper while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, then sapphire, a gate, emerald, onyx, chameleon, chrysolite, beryl, and he goes on and on. And then he says, and the 12 gates were 12 pearls, each of the end of the book. It happens at the end of the story. It happens at the end of time. We can read that, see where it's happening in the book, and know that that's how it's going to happen in time. And it's literal. That's not figurative speech about the specific jewels that are going to be the foundation of the wall or the way that the city is going to look or the size of the city. That's a literal interpretation. So again, as we read, we need to ask, is what's happening here, is it literal or is it figurative? Is it linear? Is it happening in the order in which it's presented? Or in its proper context, should it go in another place? When I was explaining this to Jen this week, she was asking how I was going to approach it, and I was kind of walking her through portions of the sermon. And Jen, she's my wife, for those of you who don't know her, not just a lady I talk to sermons about, but that would be cool. I have one of those. When I told her what I was going to do and how it sometimes is literal, sometimes linear, and sometimes it's not, she said, yeah, but, and she's asked the question that you guys all should have by now. She goes, yeah, but how do you know? How do you know when it's supposed to be one and not the other? Well, that's the tricky part. And the only possible answer to it is you have to work hard. How do I know when it's literal and when it's figured if you have to study? Listen, some books of the Bible are really easy to understand. Proverbs. You don't need to study Proverbs. Just read Proverbs. And it says that we should consider the ant and work even when we don't have to. There's no mystery going on there. That's pretty simple. When it says whatever you do, get wisdom, that's simple. Revelation, not simple. If you want to understand it, it takes hard work. It takes discussion. You have to read a lot of sources. You have to listen to a lot of people. There's no easy path to understanding Revelation. I can't stand up here in seven weeks and explain it to you in a way that will make sense and get everything right. I just can't do it. And people who claim that they can are dumb. They're just being intellectually dishonest. Which is why I think it's important for me to kind of share this idea with you, not just for this series, but as you encounter Revelation as you move throughout the rest of your life, which is simply when it comes to Revelation, be cynical of certainty. When it comes to the book of Revelation, when it comes to who you're listening to and what you're reading and how you're talking about it and how people are presenting ideas to you in whatever form you would consume them, we are wise when it comes to Revelation to be cynical of certainty. Now there are some things in the book of Revelation that we ought to be certain about. Jesus is there. He's in heaven. God is sitting on his throne. He's surrounded by angels. There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. Satan's going to be dealt with. People are going to be judged. We're going to be called up there. Like there's things that we can be certain about, but there's other things you simply can't be certain about. And for someone to present you information in a way where they are certain, where they don't even acknowledge that there's other theologians, there's myriad other views of this particular passage or this particular idea, and they don't even acknowledge that those exist, well now, I don't know if I believe you about anything. I was listening to a pastor that I really like a lot. He's been one of my go-to guys for years. And his church did a series in Revelation last year. And I thought, oh, well, shoot, I'm just going to listen to his and then steal it. That'll really cut down on the prep time here. This is going to be great. But as I listened, he got to a portion, I think it's in chapter four, where there's these four creatures, these four beasts that are really mysterious. And one is like a lion, one is like an ox, one is like an eagle, and one is like a man. And there's this incredible description of them. And the same four creatures are described in Ezekiel, in an Old Testament book of prophecy, with stunning accuracy and similarity to the four creatures in Revelation. There's very little doubt that both authors, that both John and Ezekiel saw the same four creatures. Now, what are they? And what do they represent? I don't know. But the pastor that I really liked when I was listening to him, he said, well, the ox represents this, the lion this, the eagle this, the man this. Does it not? And then he moved on. And he said it as if he was certain of it. And he said it as if there was no other possible explanation than the one that he just shared. When the reality is we only see them in Ezekiel. We only see them in Revelation. Very little explanation is offered about them in either place. So to presume that we know who they are, what they are, what they represent, and why they exist is not fair. It's not intellectually honest. The most intellectually honest thing to say about them is, they're pretty cool. That's it. They matter a lot to God. They're going to be neat when we see them. They're probably going to be scary. It's going to be awesome. What do they represent? I don't know and neither do you. And don't act like you do. We can make educated guesses. There's plenty of room for that. But we ought to be cynical of certainty as we move through this. And I'm saying that, hopefully, not for your benefit in this series, because hopefully I don't get up here and start teaching you things with certainty that I don't understand. Hopefully I'll teach them honestly and present the sides that exist and are merited. But I say that to you as you move throughout your lives and as you encounter other Revelation studies. Be cynical of certainty. So that's how we want to approach the book. I told you that we would mine Revelation for hope. And there's an incredible space to do that in the first chapter of Revelation. And that's where I want us to focus as we finish up the sermon today. I will also say this for those who know your Bibles well. Chapters 2 and 3 in Revelation are the seven letters to the seven churches. They are wonderful letters. They're hugely important. They're incredibly informative for us, not just of the ancient church, but what our modern churches ought to look like. They're a hugely impactful portion of the book of Revelation. They are so important and so impactful that we're going to skip them. Because I'm not going to reduce them to a week and preach them to you like that. So we're going to skip them. I'm going to set them aside. At some point in the future, we're going to come back and we're going to do a seven-part series as we move through those letters together. But if you know your Bible well, and next week we just open up and we get to chapter four, and you're thinking, why didn't we do the seven letters to the seven churches? That's why, because they're too important to reduce to a week. And Revelation would get too boring to expand to 14 weeks. All right, so we're going to do those later. But as we look at chapter one and we begin to move through the story, I wanted to bring us to what I believe is maybe one of the most poignant moments in all of Scripture. And we find it towards the end of the first chapter. We're going to start reading in verse 12. This is John writing. He says, And these are the words of Jesus now, which will always show up in red during the series. and I have the keys of death and Hades. I get chills every time I read this. John is swept up into heaven. He's told, you're gonna see some stuff, write it down. And he looks and there's someone who is white like snow, who is shining in brilliance, who has a voice like raging waters. And he sees him and he's so terrified that he falls on his feet. He falls at his feet. He collapses in fear. And we learn from those words in red that it's Jesus. And Jesus places his hand on John's shoulder, presumably. And he says, Behold, I am the first and the last. I have died and yet I live. Other translations say the Alpha and the Omega. And I have the keys to death and Hades. I've conquered them. Which is a remarkable moment. But it's more remarkable when we reflect on who John was and what John did. Do you understand that John calls himself in his own gospel the disciple whom Jesus loved? You should probably be pretty certain of your standing before Christ if you want to go around touting that nickname. This John is the John that was the disciple whom Jesus loved that may have been, some scholars think, as young as 10 years old when he was following Jesus. He was so close with Jesus. They were such intimate friends that at the Last Supper, Jesus was close enough to John that he was able to whisper in John's ear that Judas was going to betray him before anybody else did. He was able to communicate with John that closely at the Last Supper because John was, of course, next to Jesus because he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. When Jesus was hanging on the cross dying, when he's watching his savior and friend die, Jesus looks at John and Jesus only said a few things on the cross because you had to push up on the nails to do it. And he looks at John and he says, will you care for my mother? John, this is your mother, Mary, now. That's quite the commission. Can you imagine Jesus himself putting the care of his aging mother in your hands? And if you yourself knew that the end was near and that someone needed to care for your aging mother, who would you choose? Your most intimate and trusted of friends. And John went on from that moment and he cared for Mary. He went on from that moment and he led the church and the council. He saw them through this conversion of Gentiles, this difficult period in the book of Acts. He preached the gospel. He spread the word about his friend. And this whole time, he was promised by Jesus. You see it in the gospels when he tells the disciples, where I'm about to go, you can't go. And they said, we want to come with you. He goes, you don't understand. Jesus is telling them, I'm going to die and I'm going to ascend into heaven and you can't come with me. but where I'm going to go, I'm going to prepare a place for you and it's going to be great and you'll be with me there one day. Do you understand that John, he clung to that hope. He trusted his friend Jesus. He trusted his Savior and he spent the rest of his life caring for the mother of Christ. He spent the rest of his life proclaiming the message of Christ. He spent the rest of his life building the kingdom of Christ. But John eventually ended up as the head of the church in Ephesus, and there he discipled a man named Polycarp and Erasmus, who were the early church fathers that we begin now the church history that leads down to us. John is the linchpin in this. He watched all 11 of his friends, all 11 of the disciples die a martyr's death. And now he's an old man on the island of Patmos writing the last thing that he's going to write. And he's missed his friend Jesus. And he's looked forward to seeing his Savior again. And he spent every day living for his Savior. Every day building the kingdom for his Savior. Every day pointing people towards his Savior. And when he gets to heaven, he sees a figure that he doesn't recognize and he falls to his knees. And out of that figure comes the voice of his Savior, Jesus. Out of that figure comes the assurance that John has waited for and longed for his entire life. Out of that figure rushes the peace that only Jesus brings. He gets his reunion moment. He gets his welcome home. And it tells us that meeting Jesus is the best promise in the whole book. Meeting Jesus face to face, hearing his voice, seeing his eyes, feeling his embrace, that is the best promise in the whole book, man. There's other stuff that happens. We get to be with God. We get to spend eternity. There's going to be loved ones there. It's going to be perfect. There's no more weeping or crying or pain anymore. We're going to experience all of that. It's going to be an incredibly peaceful, joyful existence. But none of it, none of it is better than seeing Jesus in person. None of it is better than your welcome home moment. When he hugs you and he says, I've prepared a place for you. And he invites you to the marriage supper of the Lamb. I was thinking about it this week. What it would be like to finally meet my Savior. And how I would probably feel compelled to say I was sorry. And how he would probably just say, don't worry about it. I've covered over all those sorries. And how we would be compelled to say, I'm sorry, Jesus, I should have done more. And he would say, that's okay. I did enough. I did it for you. And I've thought about that moment when the burdens of hope and faith don't have to be carried anymore. When we can cast those things aside because our Savior is looking us in the eye. After all the stresses and all the struggles and all the triumph and all the worry and all the anxiety and anything else that we might experience, the loss and the pain and the sufferings and the joy, whatever it is, after all of it, we as weary travelers will end our spiritual pilgrimage in heaven at the face of Christ and he will say, welcome home. And maybe he'll even say, well done, good and faithful servant. But that's the best promise of the book. That if we believe in Jesus too, that one day we will see our Savior face to face and we can rest. And if you love Jesus, and that's not the part of heaven you're most excited about, I don't know what to do for you. I hope this series can change that. But more than anything else, as we move through this book, that's what we cling to. That Jesus is there waiting for us. And we'll get that reunion moment too. Where we get to meet our Savior face to face. Now, before I close, I never do this because if I tell you guys that I won't be here for a particular weekend, then what I've found is you don't come, which is mean. That's just mean to whoever is preaching that's not me. But I'm going to tell you this time that I'm not going to be here next weekend. I've got a bunch of my buddies I've talked about before. A bunch of us turned 40 this week, so there's going to be seven of us in a cabin in North Georgia making questionable decisions. We planned this back in the spring before I knew that this would be week two of Revelation, which is a week I'd rather not miss. So when I was thinking about who should I get to preach it, Kyle's great, Doug Bergeson's great, we've got plenty of folks here who would do a fantastic job with it. But there's one person who I know that knows more about the book of Revelation than anybody else I know. I'm not saying he knows the most about the book of Revelation, just more than anybody else that I know, and that's my dad. So dad's going to come next week and he's going to preach Revelation 4 and 5. And you'll get to see half of the equation of where all of this came from. To give you a literal picture of how deeply he loves this book, I wanted to take you to Israel with us. Dad and I had the opportunity to go to Israel, maybe about 2013. And we did the tour. We're up in Galilee. We were there for a whole week or eight days or something like that. And we get down to Jerusalem and we're in the Garden of Gethsemane. And from the Garden of Gethsemane, which is where Jesus prayed the night that he was arrested and then crucified, you can actually see the walls of Jerusalem, and you can see the Temple Mount. And so this is what you see from the Garden of Gethsemane. And you can see in kind of the bottom right-hand corner of the portion of the wall is a gate. That's the eastern gate. And when we were just walking along and we saw that, my dad said, that's the eastern gate. And I said, oh, cool. And then I looked at him and he was crying. And I said, dad, why are you crying, man? It's a gate. And he says, that's the gate that Jesus is going to walk through when he returns. And it moved him. And he doesn't get moved to tears very often. But he was moved by that. Because one day Jesus is going to come back and he's going to walk through that gate. And he knows it. And he believes it. And he knows his Bible. And he knows it so well and he believes it so much that it moved him to tears. So I couldn't think of anyone better to come and teach us a portion of the book of Revelation next week. So I hope you'll come. I hope you'll be kind to him. I hope he tells you some stories about me that make you laugh and like me a little bit less. And just you're thinking, oh, he must be an experienced teacher and have done this before for Nate to be asking him to do this here. No, he's an accountant. He's taught Sunday school a bunch of times, and I think it's going to be really, really great. So I hope that you'll give him a warm welcome when he's here next week and know that I'll be beaming from ear to ear watching him online with my buddies. So with that, let's pray, and then I've got an announcement for you guys, and we'll worship some more. Father, thank you so much for who you are and for how you love us. God, thank you for this book of Revelation. I pray that we would see clear and simple messages coming out of it. God, I pray that you would give us wisdom as we move through it. Give me wisdom as I teach it. Wisdom that I have no business having. Maybe just a special blessing for these next few weeks. God, I pray that we would always find the hope in it. That we would always see the justice in it, that we would always see the good news that we can cling to, God. Be with us as we go through the series. I pray that it will enliven our hearts to you. I pray that it will increase our passion and desire for you. And I pray that it will give hope to folks who might need it really badly right now. We pray all these things in your son's name. Amen.

We serve a God who's working through time to bring about His will and ultimately our good. We see the evidence of His sovereignty in the book of Genesis with the life of Joseph. To know and understand the story of Joseph is to get a glimpse into the very heart of God and to be assured that we can trust His plan. This week we remember the dreams God gave Joseph as a teenage boy. The promises that one day his family would bow down to him. Joseph's life has seen remarkable twists and turns since those fateful dreams. But now we will finally watch them come to fruition as the story of Joseph arrives at its hopeful conclusion. Joseph will finally see that he was right to believe being here. Thank you for joining us online, if that's what you're doing. Thank you to Doug Bergeson last week for carrying the torch and doing such a great job on that idea about the land between promise and fulfillment. The only correction I would make if you were here last week is that he said that I assigned him only one verse out of the whole story. That's not true. It was just part of a sentence. It wasn't even a whole sentence in the verse. That's all he got was just that fragment there, but he really did a bang-up job with it. And this week, we pick the story back up. And I've said the whole time that this is a, it's one big, long seven-week sermon. We're driving and have been driving to what we want to talk about next week as we reflect on God's sovereignty in the overarching story of Joseph. So this week, we're going to move through the last part of the narrative together. It's a lot to cover. There's a lot of ground to cover and a lot of story. So this is the least sermon-y sermon of all seven of these sermons, okay? Because we're really just going to spend a lot of time in listening to the story, moving through the story, connecting to the nuances of it. And then we're going to end in a place that left me weeping on a bench outside of Starbucks. I'll explain that to you in a minute. And hopefully it will encourage us to, and then we'll be ready to come next week and reflect on these last six weeks and everything that God did as he wrote the story of Joseph and the profound impact it had on everybody around him. So last week, you'll remember that Joseph was left languishing in prison for two years. He interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker. He told the cupbearer, you're going to be reinstated. He told the baker, you're going to be executed. And those things came true. And he asked the cupbearer to remember him to Pharaoh when he got out of there. And the cupbearer forgot about Joseph. And so he was in prison for two full years after that. And that's what we talked about last week was that two-year wait between promise and fulfillment, which is really a much longer wait between promise and fulfillment. Because when we pick up the story this week, we'll learn that he's 30 years old, which means it's been 13 years since he had those dreams that we talked about in the second week and in the video that we watched just here before the sermon. So we pick the story up in Genesis chapter 41 with Joseph still in prison. The cupbearer is out. He's free. He's forgotten about Joseph. Two years later, Pharaoh starts having some dreams. Pharaoh starts having some dreams and he can't figure out what they mean. He's assembled all the magicians. He's assembled all the philosophers, all the priests of Egypt. He's brought them to the palace. He shared with them his dreams and no one can interpret any of them. And he said, is there anyone who can tell me what this means? He felt that they had profound meaning. And the cup bearer, the light bulb goes off. He's like, oh yeah, I know a guy. I got a guy who can do this. And he tells Pharaoh about the Hebrew in prison who can interpret dreams. And so Pharaoh says, let's go, bring him here. I'm going to do some loose paraphrasing during the storytelling, okay? But it's in the Bible, I promise. Chapters 41 through 45 is what we're going to cover today. He says, well, bring him to me. Let's just, let's try it. Worst case scenario, I'll just throw him back in jail, right? So he brings Joseph to him and Joseph comes up and they shave his head and they get him all ready to be presentable to Pharaoh. And he goes in and Pharaoh addresses him. And he says this to him in Genesis 41. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I've had a dream and there is no one who can, I've been having dreams that no one can interpret. I hear that you can interpret dreams. And Joseph's response to me is pretty remarkable. He says, it's not me. Interpretations belong to God. And this is by no means the point of the sermon, but I thought I would be remiss if I did not make this point. So this is parenthetical to the sermon. I'm going to step over here. I'm not preaching about the thing I'm preaching about anymore. I'm just making this point and then I'll move back. After years of proficiency, Joseph still doesn't claim interpretation as a skill. After years of being good at this thing, he still doesn't claim it as a skill. And it makes me think to myself, what are the things that I feel like I'm good at or gifted at or gifted to do? And how long have I been doing those things? So long that now I forget that God has gifted me to do some things and it's not my skill that I developed. It's not my thing that I do. If you would believe that I have an ability to communicate, I forget that that ability is not a skill that I have. That's something that God gave me. It is his gift to allow me to communicate, and that gift can be taken away at any time God wishes. It is not my skill. And it makes me wonder about us, after years of proficiency at closing the deal, at charming the right people, at having the right amount of empathy, at having good insight, at being able to give good and wise advice, after years of proficiency at being discerning, at being professionally effective, how many of us have begun to think of those things as our own skills and not gifts from God? I won't belabor it. I just thought it worth pointing out and questioning. So Joseph says, yeah, go ahead. Tell me your dream, and I'll do the best I can to listen to God and to interpret it. So Pharaoh shares his dreams with Joseph. He had two dreams. He says, in this dream, I see seven fat plump cows coming out of the Nile. Now, for those of you who are not Egyptian geography experts, the Nile is the heartbeat of life in Egypt. It's the river around which the whole civilization is built. So he says, I saw seven plump cows come out of the Nile and they began to feed on the grass right there on the banks of the river. But then after that, I saw seven skinny, starving, impoverished cows come out and they ate the fat, healthy cows. And then I woke up. And then I went back to sleep. And when I went back to sleep, there was seven stalks of wheat, big and strong and healthy. And after those came up and came to fruition, there was seven stalks of unhealthy wheat, of dried and shriveled wheat that it says, the Bible says, was blighted by the east wind, which sounds really bad. And those unhealthy stalks of wheat ate the healthy stalks of wheat. And Pharaoh says, what does that mean? And Joseph tells him, he said, here's the deal. Here's what's going to happen. In Egypt, there's going to be seven years of plenty. You're going to see your crops flourish like they never have before, and it's going to be great. But immediately following those seven years of plenty, there's going to be famine. There's going to be famine for seven years. And so you need to get ready for it. And he says, Pharaoh, and I thought this was an incredible detail. He says, the doubling up of the dream, the fact that you had the same dream in two different ways, the doubling up of the dream means that it is fixed by God and it will happen. Now, if you've been paying attention this whole series, where does your mind just go? It should have gone to week two when Joseph had his dreams as a boy, as a 17-year-old kid, when he has one dream that his brothers are going to bow down to him, and then he has another dream with stalks of wheat where his family is going to be bowing down to him. The first one is his brothers with the stalks of wheat. The second one is the sun and the moon and the stars are bowing down to him. So somehow, somehow Joseph, if he says this to Pharaoh because of the doubling up of the dreams, this is a fixed thing that God will bring about. If he says that to Pharaoh 13 years later, you can rest assured that somehow, some way, through 13 years of turmoil, Joseph had clung to the belief that because God gave him those dreams and because they were double dreams, that those were still going to come about. I would have long ago left those be. I would have long ago thought that's not true. That's not going to happen. I would have let go of those things. But I can't help but believe that because Joseph told Pharaoh that the doubling up means that it's fixed by God and it will happen, that Joseph believed the same thing about his dreams. He still clung to that faith and to that hope. I don't know how. And so Pharaoh responds. He believes Joseph. Everyone there is awed by what Joseph says and does. And Pharaoh says, what do we do? And Joseph says, you need to find a guy, man. You need somebody in charge of this. You need a secretary of agriculture. You need someone who watches all the fields and all of the empire, who can be in charge of gathering it. And for the next seven years, you need to store one fifth of the grain that you harvest in this country. And then when we enter the seven years of famine, we'll be able to sell off that grain to the surrounding nations. We'll be able to feed ourselves. We will thrive and we'll get rich while everyone around us suffers. And Pharaoh's like, this is a great plan. Let's do this. So then he talks with his advisors. Who do we think should do this? And he looks at Joseph and he's like, you seem smart. Why don't you do this? And so in an instant, Joseph, once again, goes from being brought low in prison to being brought high. Except this time, he's the second most powerful man in the world. And that's not an exaggeration. Egypt is the most powerful nation in the world. It's the superpower. And Pharaoh says to Joseph, you're in charge. And he looks at all of his other servants and all of his generals. Whatever he says to do, you do it. We're going to figure this out. We're going to get through this. He has the wisdom to lead us through this. And he bestows on Joseph a house and wealth. And he even gives him a daughter that he can get married to. And so Joseph is risen to prominence and he's pulled out of obscurity yet again. And here's God's favor on him and interpreting the dreams. And he's raised to second in command over all of Egypt. And not only that, but he's given the daughter of a priest named Potipharah, which sounds like a girl's name, but it's not. It's a boy's name. So he has a daughter and his daughter marries Joseph. And with the daughter, Joseph has two sons. And the Bible, the narrative pauses to tell us about the two sons and to tell us what Joseph chose to name them. And I think it's significant enough for us to pause and take a look at that too. If you pick up the story in Genesis 41, verse 51, it says, Joseph called the name of the It's pretty profound faith to move through Joseph's story, to finally be blessed with a family and with children that we're sure he always longed for, and to immediately name them Manasseh and Ephraim, which means my hardship is done, and then God has made me fruitful in the land of affliction. He turns and he gives praise to God. Look at the favor that rests on my life. Look at the joy that I get to experience right now. Look at the way that God has worked. And his story comes full circle. And he's the favored son. And then he's the slave. And then he's elevated to Potiphar's house. And then he's falsely accused and thrown in prison. And then he's elevated in prison. And then he's elevated to Potiphar's house and then he's falsely accused and thrown in prison. And then he's forgotten, he's elevated in prison and then he's forgotten about it. And now he's elevated finally into Pharaoh's house, second in command over all of Egypt, second most powerful man on the planet. And he turns and prays to God. And he says, look at how my story has come full circle. And he gives praise to God in what he names his sons as reminders of his journey. And the story could end right here. Joseph exists in prominence. He sees them through the famine. He incurs wealth. He sees them in the years of plenty. He incurs wealth and sees them through the years of famine. And if this story were just about Joseph, this would be a perfectly fine place to end it. His brothers, even by now, figuratively, everyone is bowing down to him. You could even make an argument that those dreams have come true. And this would be a fitting and satisfying end to the story of Joseph. And he and his wife and his sons lived happily ever after as he oversaw Egypt for the rest of his days. But the story's not just about Joseph. And God's plan was never just for Joseph. And so there's more to the story. If you flip the page to the next chapter, chapter 42, the narrative takes you back up to Canaan, where Joseph's family was. His father, Jacob, also called Israel, and his 11 brothers. And Jacob looks at the oldest son, Reuben, and he says, hey, we're hungry. We don't have anything to eat. We're in a famine. I heard Egypt has some grain. Load up the boys, go down there, buy some grain and come back. And so they go down there. They head out, 10 sons of Jacob, but Jacob doesn't allow Benjamin to go. You remember, if you've been following along, that Benjamin is the son of Rachel. Rachel is Jacob's favored wife. This is a good reason why you shouldn't have two wives. Because then one's going to be the favorite. It's going to be a real bummer for everybody. There's some terrible family dynamics going on in Jacob's house. You'll see more in a second. It's remarkable. But Jacob got tricked into marrying Leah, who apparently had weak eyes. And this is bad in the Old Testament. We don't want to marry all you girls wearing glasses. Sorry, you're out of luck. He married Leah, and Leah immediately had many sons for Jacob. But he didn't really love Leah. He loved Rachel. And it took Rachel a long time to get pregnant, which is something that comes up in the Bible over and over again. And then Rachel had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin. And Joseph, as far as Jacob knew, was dead. So all he's got left is Benjamin. He's the youngest of the sons as well. So he's got a special place in his father's heart. So he tells Reuben, take your brothers, go down there. You're not taking Benjamin. He's staying with me. And Reuben says, okay, sounds good, pops. And they go down. They go down to Egypt to buy the grain and they get their passport stamped. They receive like the visa for whatever they need to do. They go through all the paperwork and they end up in the office of, wouldn't you know it, Joseph. That's who you have to talk to. And when they came in to where he would receive people, he recognized them immediately, but they didn't recognize him. He looked like Egyptian royalty. He didn't look like a nomad from the hills of Israel. So they didn't recognize him at all. And they say, we're 12 brothers. We're here. We need to get some grain to go back to our dad who's up in Canaan, a little bit north of here. We'd love to buy some off of you if that pleases you, master. And Joseph treats them in a way, and I'll just say this up front. At this point in the story, Joseph starts doing some things to me that just feel like, why did he do that? Like, why did he behave like that? Why did he treat them this way? Even if you understand what he's trying to get at, which is ultimately to see his brother and to see his father, it seems odd that he would choose this course of action. And I did a little bit of research and read about it. Why do people think that Joseph acted in this way? And the bottom line is people have some ideas, but they were flimsy to me. So I'll just say, I don't know why Joseph acts this way, but this is the story, and so this is what we're going to tell. And so Joseph begins to treat his brothers roughly, the Bible says. And he begins to accuse them, you're spies. You're not seven brothers who came down here innocently to buy grain. You're spies, and you came to see the nakedness of the land. You're going to try to attack us. You're going to try to manipulate the situation. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. We promise that's not us. That's not what we're doing. We're just, we're 12 humble brothers. We've lost one brother. There's one other brother who our dad loves and he's back home and it's just us 10 dudes. And we're just here to try to get some grain and go back home. We, we, we mean nothing by it. We would not seek to do that to you. And, and Joseph continues to press them. No, you're lying. You're spies. And they go back and forth. And Joseph says, okay, I'll tell you what. We're going to see if you're telling the truth. You're going to go home and you're going to fetch this younger brother that you say you have. And you're going to bring him back to me. And if you can bring him back to me, then I'll trust you and believe you. And we can continue to do business. If you can't bring him back to me and you show up here again, I'm going to kill you because I know that you're spies. And just to make sure that you're going to go get him and come back, one of you is going to stay here as my prisoner until they come back. You're going to leave him as a deposit on the life of your other brother and of yourselves. And so they talk amongst themselves and they decide that Simeon was going to be the one to stay behind. Simeon was clearly the second least favorite brother. That would have been a tough conversation. He's going to stay behind and be thrown in jail. And the rest of the brothers are going to go back and get Benjamin. So that's what they do. Simeon hands himself over and the brothers pack up and they head home. Before they headed home, Joseph went to his steward and he said, take all the money that they paid us for the grain and put it back in their grain satchels. We don't want their money. And the steward says, all right, so he does that. So on the way home, the brothers discover that their money has been returned. They open up the grain to look at it, probably just to stare at it and look at the grain and we did a great job. But then they see the money in there and they're freaked out. Oh no, that guy, that master, they don't know it's Joseph, but Joseph is going to think that we stole this money. We're in a heap of trouble. So then they get all worried and stressed out about that. They eventually get home. Dad says, how's it go? And they told Jacob everything that happened. The guy down there spoke roughly to us. He accused us of being spies. It was really pretty difficult. It was stressful there for some minutes, but he sent us home. Simeon's down there. He's in jail. We got to take Benjamin back to this guy. This guy wants to see Benjamin for some reason to believe us that we're not spies. And then we can get Simeon out of jail and we can come back and we can be one big happy family again. And oh, by the way, for some reason we found the money in our sacks of grain and we don't know what to do about it. We think we might be in trouble when we get back there anyways. And Jacob gets ticked at him. Jacob says, why did you tell that man that you have a brother? What'd you do that for? And they're like, what'd you want from us? How were we supposed to know that he was going to ask us to come back and get our brother? And so they go back and forth about it. They say, dad, let us take Benjamin. We'll go back down. We'll get Simeon. Everything will be straightened out. We'll come back. We'll have the food that we need. It'll be good. And Joseph or Jacob says, no, absolutely not. Can't do it. And Reuben, the, comes up with this idea. He says, listen, I swear on the life of my sons, I will go and I will get Benjamin for you. And if I don't come back with Benjamin, you can kill my two boys, which is one heck of a promise from a dad. And then can you imagine being a grandfather that's like, deal. Yeah, I've always found those two annoying anyway. They're my least favorite grandsons. But even at that, with that kind of guarantee, Jacob says, no, absolutely not. We're not discussing it. And so we turn to chapter 43. In chapter 43, they're hungry again. They're out of grain. And Jacob says, boys, it's time to go back to Egypt and get the grain. And Judah says, I mean, okay, dad, but we got to take Benjamin with us. Nope, can't take Benjamin. They go back and forth about it. Judah swears on his life. Dad, we need this. We've got to go do it. We can't show up without him. We'll bring you back Simeon. And Jacob is angry. And he says, you boys have already cost me the life of my son Joseph. And now I've also lost Simeon. And you want to heap this grief upon me. You're going to lose Benjamin too. And when you do, it's going to kill me. And you're going to have to carry my gray beard down to Sheol, which is what they explained the afterlife to be at that time. But Judah gets him to relent and they take Benjamin and they go back down to Egypt. But before they go, Jacob knew the art of the deal a little bit and he sent them with a bunch of gifts and all the finest things from the land. He sent them with double the money to pay for the first grain and then buy another thing of grain to kind of grease the skids a little bit to keep this guy happy down in Egypt. And so the boys go. They get back to Egypt, and they find Joseph's steward and Joseph says, oh, or the steward says, oh, it's good to have you back. Joseph would actually like to have a meal with you guys. And they're like, oh no, he's gonna kill us. He's bringing us to his house. He's gonna put us to death. He's not gonna believe us. He's gonna take our money and that's the end of us. And they're really nervous and they even told the steward, listen, we hope that he's not mad. We found money in our sacks on the way back. We didn't take it. We don't know how it got there. We've brought double here to pay for the grain that we took the first time. And the steward actually responds to them and says, the Lord your God put that money in those sacks himself. I have received the payment for what you took. You're good. And so maybe they could begin to sense that something was up with us. So the next day they go into Joseph's house. Now they're in his personal chambers, personal house. And they're having a meal with him. And as Joseph goes to prepare for the meal, he looks and he sees his brother Benjamin, but Benjamin still doesn't recognize him. And so Joseph continues to play dumb. And he looks and he says, is that your youngest brother? Have you brought him with you? And they said, yeah, this is our youngest brother Benjamin. And scripture tells us that Joseph was so moved with warmth, it says, that he had to go back to his chambers and weep for a little bit and compose himself before he could come back out. And when all the food was served, everybody received a great portion, but Benjamin got five times the portion of everyone else. And they had this big feast and they were merry. And Joseph began to press on them a little bit. He said, you mentioned a father, an old man back where you're from. Is he still alive? And they said, yes, he's old, but he's alive and he's longing to see his son Benjamin again. So we need to get on the road. And Joseph says, okay, you guys can go ahead. And when they go ahead, he tells the steward, put the money back in their sacks again. And this time I want you to take my silver cup and I want you to put it in the youngest one's bag. I want you to put it in Benjamin's bag. So the steward does as he's asked. The next day, the brothers leave. And after they had been gone for a little while, Joseph again gets his steward and he says, I want you to chase them down. I want you to find that cup and I want you to accuse them of theft and bring them back. I want you to arrest the one who stole it. The steward's like, all right. I wonder how many times the steward had to do things like this for Joseph. Like, was this weird or was this just normal? Anyways, he tracks the brothers down and he comes to the brothers and he says, what have you done? We have given you nothing but good and you repay us with evil. And they're like, what are you talking about? And the steward says, one of you stole something that belongs to Joseph. And they said, go through our bags, arrest whoever did it. And so it was discovered that it was in Benjamin's bag and the brothers are beside themselves. This is the very thing that cannot happen. So the steward arrests Benjamin, brings him back to Joseph's house and the brothers pack up and they go back to Joseph's house because they got to figure this out. And in chapter 44, you see this impassioned plea from Judah who goes to Joseph. And he says, he says, please understand, we didn't do this on purpose. We are simple shepherds and farmers. We are just trying to get this grain back to our family. I know you think we stole this cup. We didn't. And I know that you think it was Benjamin that stole it. He didn't. And please, I'm begging you, if you keep Benjamin here and we have to go home and tell that old man that you asked about that his son Benjamin is in prison and is probably dead. He is going to die on the spot. His life is intertwined with the life of Benjamin. And he is too old and he loves him too much. And his heart cannot bear the news that he would have lost his son because he's already lost his brother. And that broke his father's heart. And he can't take it again. So please, Lord, take me and put me in prison and let Benjamin go home. And it was at this point that Joseph was so moved that he just broke down. And we pick up the story in chapter 45 and I want to read to you what it says because I think it's so powerful. And he wept aloud so that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? But his brothers could not answer him for they were dismayed at his presence. So Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please. And they came near. And he said, I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And listen. God sent me here, but sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. We're going to remember those verses next week. He tells his brothers, don't feel bad. Because earlier in the story, when he was first accusing them of being spies, Reuben muttered to his brothers, you guys understand that this is punishment for what we did to our brother Joseph, right? We reap what we sow. Now we're finally getting punished for that terrible thing that we did. And Joseph heard them and he understood them because he didn't need an interpreter. And so here, as they reconcile and he reveals himself to them, he's saying, don't worry, don't carry guilt about that. What you intended for evil, God worked for good. What you thought was gonna be terrible for me, God was working the whole time. You think you sent me to slavery in Egypt? You didn't. That was God pulling the trigger. It's the same realization that Jacob had. It's been God pulling the strings all along. And then the scripture says that they hugged and they kissed each other and they wept. And then they sat and they talked about all the things. I don't know that there's a conversation in all the Bible I would rather get to hear than to sit in that room and listen to Joseph and his brothers catch up and tell all the stories about all the things in Canaan and for them to hear all the things that happened to Joseph over the years. What a sweet, sweet reunion that must have been. And what a picture of the incredible sovereignty of God as he wove those things together to bring that day about. Shortly after this, word gets out to Pharaoh and the palace that those men who keep coming back here for grain, those are actually Joseph's long lost brothers and Pharaoh's overjoyed. And he goes to Joseph and he says, bring your family here. Go get your father, bring the whole clan down here. I'm gonna give you the land of Goshen. It's this really fertile, good, vibrant land. Your family can live there. They can have it. No one's going to mess with them. We'll give them the protection of the sovereign nation of Egypt. Go get your dad. And he gives them wagons and he gives them riches to go back. It's basically, he says, here's a bunch of U-Hauls. Go load up everybody and bring them back here. And so the brothers go, and they're overjoyed. And they get back to Jacob, and they tell him the good news. They say, your son Joseph, he's alive, and he's second in command over all of Egypt. And it says that Jacob was numb, and he couldn't process the news. And so they brought him near and they repeated to him, Joseph is alive and he's waiting for us to come and see him. And it says that Jacob looked out and he saw all the wagons and all the riches and all the gifts, and he believed his son. And he said some incredibly profound words in response to all of this. At the end of his life, after all the striving and all the stress and all the worrying and all the wondering, he looks out to the news that his son is alive and that he will see him again. And he says this, and Israel says in Genesis 45, 28, it is enough. My son Joseph is still alive and I will go see him before I die. And this week, for just a weird set of reasons, I was doing my sermon prep on a bench outside of Starbucks at North Hills, and I read the whole story to get a sense of it. And when I got to this phrase, when I got to Jacob at the end of it, looking out after his whole life of striving, and he could see God's provision, and he understood the story, and he understood the plan, he said, it is enough. And I wept. I put my head in my hands like a crazy person in public and I just cried on the bench. Because it's enough. Because how remarkable is it for Jacob to have gone through everything that he went through? All the ups and all the downs and all the hopes and all the dreams and all the strivings and all the realizations and all the healthy times of faith and all the impoverished times of faith, all the arid times and all of the fruitful times. All of the striving and wondering about his sons and the grief that he had gone through and lamenting the loss of Joseph and probably wishing he'd have done things differently and all the stress about sending Benjamin down and how is my family going to survive in the midst of a famine and all the worries that a man would have carried with him throughout his entire life as he went through all of those griefs and all of those trials and to arrive at the end of it and look at the blessings of God and see how he wrote the story and say, it is enough. And I didn't just weep for Jacob. I wept for us too. Because there's coming a time in all of our lives when we will collectively say, it is enough. It's good. If you're struggling with infertility, there's coming a time when you will say it is enough. We struggle. And I look at John and Lily, and it's enough. If your marriage is going through lean years, and it's a struggle, and it's hard, but you trust God with it, there will be a day where you say, it is enough. All the struggles and all the trials of raising kids and hoping that they turn out right and running the business and working out the things and all the things that stress us and keep us up at night. All the things that keep us worried. All the financial situations and should we move or should we should we do this, or how do we handle this situation, or our kid has crippling anxiety, and we don't know what to do, or I've struggled with depression, and I don't know what to do, all the things that stress us out over all the years, God is in heaven, and he is sovereign, and he loves you, and he has a plan for you, and there will be a day coming in this life or the next where you say, it is enough. And there will be all these little it is enoughs all along the way. Where you look at your situation, you look at your life and you go, this is good. I understand God's plan now. It is enough. But there's one big one coming at the end of time, which is what the whole next series in Revelation is about, where Jesus returns and makes the wrong things right and the sad things untrue, and we say together, collectively, it is enough. And this is so beautiful, because it's the hope that we cling to. It's the one that won't put us to shame. It's the ardent and fervent belief that keeps me clinging to what I do and keeps me believing in church and keeps me believing in faith and keeps me believing in Jesus that one day, even with all the stuff that doesn't make sense, right? Even with all the human suffering, even with early diagnosis that don't make sense to us, even with losses that don't seem fair, even with all the things that we go through that just don't make any sense to us and we can't fathom that God would let that happen. What we'll know is that one day we will be in heaven before God and his throne and we will see Jesus face to face. And on that day, in that place, we will say, it was always enough. And this is enough. That's the promise of faith. That if you believe in Jesus, one day you'll say beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is enough. Let's pray. Father, you're enough. You're everything that we need. Father, I know that you have a plan for us. I know that you didn't stop weaving stories together when you wrote Joseph's. You didn't stop making plans for your children when the Bible was finished. But you still do those things today. So Father, I pray that for those who are in a time of plenty, that as good and blessings abound, that they would look around and be grateful at your provision. God, for those who are in lean times, who are in uncertain times, would they cling to the truth that you have a plan and that that plan is enough, that plan is good. God, for those of us walking through hard times, will you just give us the strength to cling to you? To have a faith that surpasses understanding? Will you help us to trust in you, God? It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.

We serve a God who's working through time to bring about His will and ultimately our good. We see the evidence of His sovereignty in the book of Genesis with the life of Joseph. To know and understand the story of Joseph is to get a glimpse into the very heart of God and to be assured that we can trust His plan. Now Joseph remains in prison after being falsely accused by Potiphar's wife. We learned last week that God's favor rested on Joseph, which resulted in his being in charge of the other prisoners. Two of the prisoners under his care were Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker. These two men had dreams that Joseph was able to successfully interpret. In exchange for the interpretations, Joseph asked that the cupbearer would remember him to Pharaoh so he could get out of prison. But the cupbearer forgot about Joseph, and so he remains a prisoner. Joseph must once again choose to trust God and cling to the hope that he has a plan. Morning. Thanks for being here and online. It's great to be with you all. My name's Doug Bergeson, and I'm a partner here at Grace. It's been one day shy of exactly a year since I last preached, so I hope I'm not too rusty. I was asked to speak this past April, but had to decline as I was having a full hip replacement. I only mention that because, and I didn't anticipate it was going to be dark, but if you had seen me spring up on stage, you would have reacted, wow, what quickness, what energy, what, for lack of a better word, cat-like agility. Though I looked like a janky, wrinkled, liver-spotted 64-year-old on the outside, on the inside, I'm now literally bionic, mostly titanium and advanced ceramics. So I just thought that was important for you to know. But getting back to not having preached for a year, I am clearly not the only one who was worried that I was going to be a little rusty. Now, I need to be careful here. I'm flattered and privileged to have been asked to speak. However, over a seven-week sermon series covering 26 chapters in the book of Genesis, Nate has asked me to speak on one verse, Genesis 41.1. Not one chapter, one verse. What's up with that? Now, not what I'd call a ringing endorsement or an unwavering vote of confidence, right? 26 chapters over seven weeks, and I get one verse. Not that anyone would be petty enough to count, but in a series in which Nate will preach on 872 verses, I've been asked to preach on one. And to be perfectly honest, that's not even that good a verse. This is what it says. When two full years passed, Pharaoh had a dream. You tell me, am I overacting? I don't think so. Thank goodness I have a phenomenally large ego, or else I might have been easily devastated by such an obvious slight. A lesser, weaker person, perhaps one humbler and more grounded, probably would have been. Frankly, I don't know what to say about this verse. I don't have much to add. So, and I know this is a little unusual, I'll read Genesis 41.1 one more time, and then I'm going to ask Steve and the band to come back up and lead us in worship for the remainder of the time. Now, for those of you who know me, when I said I had nothing to add, you immediately knew I was kidding. I always have something to add, even when I don't. However, this morning, I hope and pray I do have something to add and that it's helpful. In preparing for this morning and thinking about what I might have to add, I ran across a quote from Howard Hendricks who was a former pastor and professor of theology who passed away several years ago. Hendricks said, it is not too difficult to be biblical if you don't care about being relevant. It's not difficult to be relevant if you don't care about being biblical. But if you want to be both biblical and relevant in your teaching, it's a very difficult task indeed. So as we continue this week to move through one of the greatest stories in the Bible, Joseph from the book of Genesis, That is my goal, to be both biblical and relevant. And to begin, I'd like to open us in prayer using the Apostle Paul's words from his letter to the churches in and around Ephesus, written while he was in prison. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may know him better. Amen. Those two words, wisdom and revelation, are going to be key for us this morning. Wisdom, according to the Bible, is acknowledging and submitting to the fact that God is God and that we are not. And revelation is the process by which God makes something known that was previously secret or unknown. Although God can reveal things to us in other ways, such as through nature, the primary way he chose to reveal things to us is through his written word, the Bible. Now, for most of us who call ourselves Christians, that's not a very controversial statement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. The Bible is God's revelation to us. In fact, most Christians I've met or read or listened to hold the Bible in high regard and would make that claim without question. Yet it is also my experience that many of us, including me, who make that claim, take our eye off the ball a little bit and lose sight of just what it means for the Bible to be God's revelation to us. How do we take our eye off the ball? How do we lose sight of what it means for the Bible to be God's primary way of communicating and revealing himself to humankind? Well, we do it in a variety of ways. One popular method is by making Scripture primarily about us. How do I lead a good life? How do I raise my kids? How do I handle this or that problem? How do I have a God-centered marriage? Et cetera, et cetera. Now, don't get me wrong. Those aren't bad things to seek and to want to know. They just aren't the primary things, the first things we need to know. Another way we lose sight of what it means for the Bible to be God's revelation is when we make it say what we think it should say or what we want it to say. It's an easy and not uncommon thing to do. Happens all the time in churches. We interpret things a certain way, emphasize some things at the expense of others, ignore or downplay the historical, cultural, literary, and or biblical context of a passage to shape its meaning. When we do that, we read Scripture through our lens rather than God's. And that's not okay. Not if we profess the Bible to be God's revelation, God's word to us. This is no small point. What makes scripture the most valuable thing we will ever read is that it is God telling us about himself. This is who I am. This is what I'm like. This is what's important to me. This is how I operate. This is what I intend to do, and this is how I'm going to do it. It is God's take on things, his revelation, his perspective, his lens. The Bible is also history, but not any old history, not history for history's sake, but a very special history for, again, it's God's take on history, what he deems important, what he thinks we should know. And that is what gives Scripture authority over our lives. It is God's revelation of himself, his purposes, and his plans. Given that, the first question we should always ask ourselves when we read the Bible, the very first question is, what is this passage revealing to me about God? I'll say that again. When we read the Bible, the first question we should be asking ourselves is, what is this telling me about God? My favorite commentary series is the NIV application commentary. As I can't say it any better, I quote, there is nothing more fundamental to biblical revelation than the picture of God that it offers. If we set aside the picture of God affirmed in the text, we have lost our last foothold of authority, unquote. So, despite having been given only one verse, the reason I was still so excited to preach and so looking forward to this morning is that the story of Joseph has few, if any, equals in so clearly and powerfully revealing two giant things we need to know about our God. The first is that he's going to do what he intends to do, what he says he's going to do. And the second is that he's going to do it his way, not our way. Now let's turn back to our story and see the picture of God that it reveals and what it might mean for us today. As a quick recap, way back in time, long before Joseph, humankind had fallen into sin and self-destruction by choosing to reject their creator, the one and only true God, and the world was a complete mess. God began his magnificent plan to forgive, redeem, and restore fallen humanity by choosing one guy to whom God made a most lavish and unconditional promise. To this one guy, a man named Abraham, God promised land, a multitude of descendants who would become a great nation, and that through Abraham's offspring, all peoples in the world would be blessed. The remarkable promise was affirmed to Abraham's son Isaac, and again to his son Jacob. And this is where we are introduced to Joseph, the 11th of 12 sons born to Jacob and Jacob's absolute favorite. We meet Joseph when he is 17 and quickly learn that Jacob's unconcealed love and favor for Joseph, evidenced in part by a fancy robe, have poisoned the waters between Joseph and his older brothers. It probably didn't help that Joseph had given an unflattering report to his father about his brothers and the crummy job they were doing tending the flocks. And if that wasn't enough dysfunction for one family, and apparently it wasn't, Joseph thought it might be a good idea to share with everyone two separate dreams he had which both foretold of a time when the entire family would bow down to him. Scripture matter-of-factly states that his brothers hated him all the more. Imagine that. So the next time Joseph visited his brothers in the countryside, they conspired to kill him. At the very moment they were deciding Joseph's fate, a caravan of merchants heading to Egypt approached their camp. And the brothers had a brainstorm, kind of like a V8 moment. Rather than kill Joseph and deal with all that guilt, why not just sell him to these merchants and make a little cash to boot on the side? As an aside, the text seems to imply that you feel better about yourself and a lot less guilty if you simply sell a sibling into slavery rather than actually killing him. Just something to think about for those of you not getting along with all your brothers and sisters. Anyways, that's what they did. They sold Joseph, and they took his fancy robe, dipped it in goat's blood, and convinced their father that Joseph had been torn to pieces by a wild animal. The story continues with remarkable twists and turns, wild ups and downs for Joseph. He's first sold into Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh's captain of the guard. And when his new master sees that the Lord is with him and gives him success in everything he does, Joseph is put in complete charge and entrusted with all that Potiphar owned. But when, out of loyalty to Potiphar and fidelity to God, Joseph refuses the repeated advances of Potiphar's wife, she falsely accuses him of assault and he is thrown into prison. But once again, the Lord is with Joseph, this time prompting the prison's warden to eventually place Joseph in charge of the entire prison and all of its prisoners. Later, when the chief cupbearer and the chief baker both offend Pharaoh and are tossed in jail, they are attended by none other than Joseph. While in custody, both officials have disturbing dreams the very same night. When he heard the cupbearer's dream, Joseph explained that in three days, the cupbearer would be restored to his former position. And Joseph asked that when that happened, for the cupbearer to please remember him and plead his innocence before Pharaoh. Upon hearing such an upbeat interpretation for the cupbearer, the chief baker asked Joseph about his dream and was told that in three days Pharaoh would cut off his head and impale his body on a tree. Not as upbeat. Three days later, everything happened just as Joseph had said, and now, starting with the last verse of Genesis 40, we come to today's scripture. The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph. He forgot him. When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream. So just halfway through our story, it's becoming increasingly clear that what God is revealing to us about himself, what he deems of tip-top importance for us to know, is that he's going to do what he says he's going to do no matter what. And he's going to do it his way, not our way. So that begs the question, the big question for us this morning, what is God's way of doing things? What does His way look like in practice? For starters, not like anything you or I would dream up. Steeped in mystery and far beyond our full comprehension, God's way uses people and circumstances which make little sense to us and which we would never choose. Operating according to his own timetable, God could pretty much care less about ours. Actively at work in all human decision and action, both good and evil, God's way by its very design frustrates and confounds human wisdom, intuition, and preference. And as an added kicker, not only won't we necessarily understand how God is at work in any given situation, oftentimes it won't even be obvious that he's working at all. Today's scripture may be short, but it is packed with significance as it illustrates God's way in action, focusing on the following three short snippets of text. The cupbearer forgot, two full years passed, Pharaoh had a dream. We see three defining features of God's way of doing things. All three are inextricably linked, all are shrouded in mystery, all are beyond our full understanding. And all are woven together in a way that ultimately and inevitably accomplish what God wants done. The first snippet of text, The Cupbearer Forgot, highlights the upside-down, counterintuitive nature of how God works. My first reaction is, what? The cupbearer forgot about Joseph? Are you kidding me? How is that helpful? Joseph did everything right. How is that fair? Yet almost without exception, we see in the story of Joseph and throughout all of Scripture, God's overwhelming preference to use people and circumstances that defy the odds and confound human wisdom and logic, devastating and demoralizing turns of events, great sorrows, constant obstacles and roadblocks, deeply flawed characters, good punished while evil seems to thrive, conflict, jealousy, forgotten obligations, in parentheses, see cupbearer. The list goes on. of the crummy circumstances that God seems to relish. Although we don't know all the reasons, Scripture does explain that God operates this way to humble us and to disabuse us of any notion that we deserve the credit, to make it perfectly clear that it is He who is responsible. He is the one in charge, and it is He who is at work. In 1 Corinthians 1, two full years past, illustrates what might be the most vexing and frustrating feature of God's way of doing things, his timing. It's now been 13 years since Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery. By all accounts, Joseph has done the right thing at every turn. It's even been obvious to those closest to him and in the best position to know yet here joseph still sits in prison and now when the tides of fortune finally appear to be moving in joseph's favor and he at last has an important advocate to plead his innocence before pharaoh the cupbearer completely forgets about Joseph, who then remains in prison for two more years. It's enough to want to pull your hair out, particularly if you're Joseph. But again, rather than being the exception, Joseph's experience with God's timing is more the rule in Scripture. Over and over again, we see periods of waiting, periods of silence, periods of struggle and sorrow, periods of absence and denial, periods of the wilderness, periods in exile. These occur on a grand global scale, as well as in the smallness and intimacy of individual lives and families. In the Bible, God reveals himself to be both a promise maker and a promise keeper. But just as we see with his magnificent promise to Abraham, which won't reach its complete fulfillment for another 2,000 years in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Bible is really a story of the land in between. That time between promise and fulfillment, often very long. This is where the story of Joseph takes place. This is where God operates. And to further compound the mystery and complexity of God's timing, just as with his promise to Abraham, many of God's promises unfold over time, with some elements fulfilled sooner, while other elements of the very same promise must wait. We tend to focus on the ending and are anxious for its resolution. God, on the other hand, is all about playing the long game and is infinitely more patient, knowing that to achieve what he has ordained and promised, there is simply no substitute for the land in between. If given the chance, we would skip right past this land, avoiding its mystery, its uncertainty, its challenges, its obstacles, its disciplines, its heartbreak, disappointments. It's waiting. We hate wandering in the wilderness. I'm sure Joseph did too. Yet God's redemptive purposes don't happen without it. It's in the land in between that God shapes and changes us, redeems and refines us, preparing us for and moving us towards the ultimate promise fulfillment that will be eternity within. The third and final snippet of text is Pharaoh had a dream. And as we'll see next week, the dream prompts the cupbearer to finally remember Joseph. Was that just lucky that the Pharaoh had this dream? A coincidence? A bit of good fortune finally for Joseph? Not according to the Bible. This might be the most mysterious feature of how God operates. The scripture reveals that God sustains his creation and is involved and exerts his sovereign influence and control over all things. In so doing, God moves all of history steadily, inexorably, towards his appointed end. To be completely candid, even as I speak about it this morning, I struggle with this notion that God is involved in exerting his influence and control in and over all things. On the lighter side, I've been around church long enough to have heard the story of the person who, when going to Bible study on a rainy Wednesday morning, was late and praised God that a parking spot opened up right near the front door just as they pulled up. Isn't God great? Oh, all I can do is roll my eyes. Really? I don't want to be overly cynical, but come on. What about poor Sally who got there early and had to park all the way around the block and is now stopping wet? Was God judging her? Does he not favor and love her too? Is God really involved to that level of detail? But on a more serious note, what about all the terrible and tragic, unfair and absolutely evil things that happen in the world and sometimes in our lives? How can a just and loving God be involved in those things too? Now my go-to default answer has always been to ascribe all the bad things to the fact that we live in a fallen world, a world in which, for the time being, God accommodates the presence of evil and everything doesn't happen according to his will. But when I read the story of Joseph and reflect on the full testimony of scripture, I know my default answer is too simple, a bit too cut and dried. Our tendency is to want to attribute to God only the good things that happen and give him a pass on the bad things, explaining them away by saying it's a fallen world. However, God doesn't ever ask us for a pass. He doesn't need or want a pass from us. We might not intend to, but when we think he needs a pass, we shortchange and underestimate his mystery and his sovereignty. Rather than needing a pass, the story of Joseph affirms the picture of a God who is in control of all things and uses his influence in all things, even very bad and sinful things, to advance his redemptive plan. Very early on in the Bible, God is revealing that there is no human choice or decision that can derail what he intends on doing. In fact, we see God using those sinful choices to further rather than frustrate his plans. Scripture leaves the clear impression that more than simply allowing bad things to happen to Joseph, God is actively orchestrating, arranging, and in a sense, cooperating with those things. Joseph is only 17 when he is sold by his brothers, and he is 30 before things start turning around for him. Yet all those intervening events, conspiracy to murder, sold into slavery, framed and falsely accused, wrongly convicted, imprisoned, forgotten, all are woven together to bring us to this point in our story. The Bible teaches both God's sovereignty as well as human responsibility for our thoughts and actions. Now, if you find that difficult to reconcile, how can God be involved and in control and yet hold us accountable? If you can't tell where God's influence ends and human responsibility begins, if you find it even a bit frustrating that you can't fully understand or that it seems unfair, Scripture has a clear and consistent answer for you. Tough. Tough. I am God and you are not. It's of ironic, as we like to think we live in the age of science and enlightenment, but how enlightened are we really? As difficult as this idea might be for us to wrap our minds around, our modern minds around, it wasn't for Genesis' original audience, the Israelites. They didn't struggle with trying to figure out when, where, how, and if God intervened in human affairs. They did not think things unfolded naturally and that only on occasion, if at all, God might supernaturally intervene. Rather, they understood that things only happen naturally, like rain in its season, because God ordained it. In their worldview, nothing happened independently from God's cause and effect. Events and decisions were never either natural or supernatural, but always both and. Our way of looking at the world would seem odd and naive and perhaps even heretical to the Israelites, as if there was some dividing line between the natural and divine. They wouldn't spend much time trying to figure out if God was involved in a particular situation or not because they knew he was always involved somehow, some way. That doesn't mean that God and nature are one. They're not. But only that God is involved all the time. So we see in these three short snippets of text, the cupbearer forgot. Two full years passed. Pharaoh had a dream. God is revealing the mysterious and confounding methods, means, and timing of how he goes about accomplishing his purposes and plans. Reflecting on this, I was reminded of a Hertz car rental commercial from the 1990s. It opens with two businessmen, one an executive and his junior assistant, hustling out of a crowded airport. The boss says to his assistant, we've got to move fast, Kirby. I hope you've booked Hertz. Kirby replies, not exactly, but this company is fast. The boss asks, as fast as Hertz? Not exactly, but they do have a special place to pick up the car. Like Hertz? Not exactly, but it'll be waiting. Under a canopy with the keys in it? Not exactly, but they do have a special place to pick it up. Protected from the weather? Not exactly. The final scene is of the two men in their suits running to their car in the pouring rain. And the boss asks, counting on that promotion, Kirby? No, not exactly. I still love that commercial, even though I messed it up there, and have adapted it to the story of Joseph and what it means about God's way of working. Are we always going to understand what God is doing in our lives and how he's doing it? Not exactly. Is God concerned that everything makes sense to us? Not exactly. Does God care if everything seems fair? Not exactly. Does God want everything to go smoothly for us, avoiding obstacles and challenges that might confuse and discourage us? Not exactly. Doesn't God prefer to use mostly A-teamers, people who seem to have their acts together, rather than the weak, the flawed, and the foolish? Not exactly. Does God care if we're super busy or in a big hurry and have important things to do? Not exactly. Is God involved in control of only the good things in our lives? Not exactly. There is a sweeping passage from the book of Isaiah which captures in poetic language what the story of Joseph reveals and affirms so powerfully through story. Reading from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 55. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. He says, So God's thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. They are higher, better, eternal. And God's word that goes out from his mouth will not return to him empty, but will accomplish all that he intended and achieve the purpose for which he sent it. So when God says he's going to do something, he's going to do it. So why is this so important? Why should this matter to us today? Because God still works this way. Seeing the mysterious and perplexing way he operated in the life of Joseph, we should not be surprised when God operates that way in our lives. Why is this important? Why should this matter to us today? Because we live in the land in between. God's redemptive plan is ongoing, still somewhere between promise and fulfillment. I was raised in a church which taught that once you placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, that you were saved, sort of past tense, and you were pretty much good to go. I've since come to believe, based on a fuller reading of scripture, that's not really true. More accurately, I'm in the process of being saved. While now free from the penalty of sin, which Jesus bore on the cross on my behalf, the fullness of God's promise still lies in the future. When not only will the penalty of sin have been paid, but the very power and presence of sin and death will be vanquished, and we will be resurrected to new life. But for the time being, we are in the land in between, and God is still working in all things for good as he moves all of history towards his appointed end. Why is this so important? Why should this matter to us today? Because it frees us to trust in him. When we finally stop trying to fit God in a box that we can understand, when we stop foisting our expectations and preferences on him, when we finally accept the fact that we won't understand what he's doing most of the time, why he's doing it, or how it might possibly be good or redemptive, it's actually easier to let go, easier to trust, easier to rest in the knowledge that God's got this. In closing, we will never understand God's ways, how he operates to accomplish his purposes, but we don't need to, as he is always faithful and always true to his word. And like so many people of faith down through the ages, we can find great comfort and confidence knowing and trusting in that. Even Jesus' disciples had no clue what was happening or why at the end of Jesus' ministry and were completely overwhelmed and distraught at his death. Only later were they able to look back and understand that God was in control all along. The disciples explicitly acknowledged this when they prayed the following words. Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. God, they only did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. In just a minute, the band is going to come back up here to perform a song, Promise Keeper. It's an absolutely gorgeous song, and as our closing prayer, and I'd like to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes, I'm going to read a few stanzas of unfolding, with everything I've seen, how could I not believe? You are a promise keeper. Your word will never fail. My heart can trust you, Jesus. I won't be overwhelmed. I'll see your goodness in the land of the living. I'll see your goodness right here, right now. You know the ending before the beginning, and I know that you have worked all things out. Amen. Thank you.