Sermons tagged with Love

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

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

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

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

Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks so much for making grace a part of your Sunday morning, a part of your January. I've enjoyed diving into this Ephesians prayer with you this month. This is the third part in our series called Rooted, where we're looking at a prayer by Paul over the church in Ephesus that we find in Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14 through 19. In the first week we looked at the act of salvation and how that's Paul's first priority in prayer for everyone that he encounters. And we talked about shaping our year around a similar priority for everyone that we would encounter. Last week we talked about the importance of going deep and developing deep roots in Christ. And this week, I want to give you what I believe is one of the most important ways that we can do that. One of the most important steps we can take in our life to intentionally develop deep roots. And I'll just say up front that this sermon is, I'm not sure that it's a sermon. Next week is a sermon. Next week, I'm going to light your faces on fire. Next week, I'm preaching. This week, I'm talking. This week, it's as if I can't sit down with every one of you over lunch or a drink and just casually discuss our faith and our journey and spirituality. But I have been able to do that with some of us and some friends outside of church. And we've had some frank discussions about small group, about conversations, about what really helps and what really drives growth. About what moves us and stirs our souls and about how we can connect ourselves to things that do that more so that we can pursue God with more fervor and more earnesty and with more depth. And so what I want to do this morning is kind of share with you a thought that I've been having for probably the last three or four months about something that I think everyone who's a Christian needs to do. And I honestly think, I know that this is, well, I was going to say this is kind of optimistic, but only if you think my other sermons are impactful. So maybe it's not optimistic at all, but I think that this could be the single most impactful one for you this year if you hear what I say and you agree with me and we take steps to do what we're going to talk about. So with that preamble, let's look at the prayer. Now this week is a little bit of a departure from the prayer because I believe in the middle of the prayer there's this almost parenthetical phrase, this parenthetical claim or reminder that Paul makes who writes the prayer. And so we're going to look inside that parenthesis today and wonder why does he say that and what does it mean? What are the implications for us? See if you can find it with me as we read Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14 through 19. established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know the love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. That's the prayer. Next week we get to the climax of the prayer. What does it mean when Paul prays that we would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we would be filled with the fullness of God? I've spent two solid weeks trying to wrestle those phrases to the ground, and I'm excited to share with you next week. But before we get there, in the middle of this prayer, there's almost this just parenthetical reminder. And I know on the screen it says something different, but it says all the Lord's holy people. But in this NIV, apparently NIVs are different too. Who knows? I can't win for losing. But this, it says along together that you would have the strength to comprehend. And then here's a comma together with all the saints. What is the love of Christ that He doesn't have to include that little along with all the saints in the prayer. You can read the prayer without that. And it still means the same thing. He's still hoping for the same thing. He still wants the same thing for the church in Ephesus. He still wants the same thing for you and for me. Nevertheless, he pauses in the middle of it to almost remind them that there is a big C church. There are other believers going on. It's not just in Ephesus. It's not just about you. He pauses to remind them parenthetically, I believe, in the prayer, along with all the saints. He pauses to remind them that Christianity is inherently communal. This faith, if you're here and you call Christ your Savior, then the faith that you and I share together is inherently communal. It was always, always, always intended to be lived out in community. And I know that this is true because the communal nature of the Bible jumps off the page when you read the New Testament. I want to take you to Acts chapter 2. If you have a Bible with you, turn to Acts chapter 2. We're going to be looking at verses 42 through 47 for just a little bit of context of what's happening when we read these verses. This is the very beginning of the church. This is the genesis of what you and I understand as the church. This is when worship in the Jewish culture and this culture moved away. They departed from the synagogue. They departed from the sacrifices. They departed from the old ways and they started figuring out a new way to meet and to gather and to be the church. The context in Acts chapter 2 is that Jesus has come to earth. He's lived a perfect life and he's died a perfect death. He resurrects himself from the dead. He spends 40 days with the disciples and then he ascends heaven, and he says, I want you to go hang out in this room until you feel like you know what to do. And so they're hanging out in this room going, gosh, I don't know what to do. Do you know what to do? They're like going, I don't know what to do at all. So then they just hang out in the room, and then the Holy Spirit descends on them in tongues of fire. This is the event of Pentecost. Now they feel like they know what to do. They go out on the front porch. They preach the Word of God. They tell the story of who this Jesus was that we just saw killed and then resurrected. They tell his story. And everyone present hears it in their native tongue. This is the gift of tongues that we see in the New Testament. And thousands of people are saved. They say, what do we need to do to be saved? We agree with you. And Peter says, repent and be baptized. The fundamental repentance of Christianity. Repent of who you thought Jesus was. Acknowledge who he is. He's the Lord and Savior of the universe. And be baptized. And then they did that. They were added to the church. So now the church is a couple thousand people strong. And they're going, what do we do? In verses 42 through 47 of Acts chapter 2, we see what characterizes the early church. We need to know that what we have, what we see in here is called descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes the early church. It does not prescribe for us everything that we are to do. One of the things you'll see in here is that they sold everything they had and they shared it in common. They lived literally communally like that. The reason they did that is because the church in Jerusalem was in a time of significant poverty. There was a huge disparity between some of the people in the church. And so they helped those who were in need. The church in Jerusalem was in such a tight spot that if you carefully read Acts and you study the life of Paul, what you'll find is that as he was going from place to place, he was also asking these churches in Ephesus and Galatia and Thessalonica for money so that he could take that money back to Jerusalem to support the saints there. So just keep in mind that what we see is not prescriptive. We should do everything here. It is descriptive. We should take the principles from here and apply them to our church. So if you want to know, is grace doing the right thing? Is grace the kind of church that Jesus would recognize if he were to show up here? What you do is you go back to the litmus test in Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47, and you read it. So we're going to read it together, all the verses, and then we're going to look at, to me, what jumps off the page of my head. Those who were being saved. Here's what jumps off the page to me when I read that. There's lots there. I could do a whole series on those verses. I just might one day. I've preached out of this passage a bunch of different times at this church and my previous church. This is home base for community in the church. But whenever I read this passage, what jumps off the page to me is that Christianity was never intended to be a solo exercise. Christianity was never, ever intended to be a solo exercise that we do on our own. It was never, listen to me, it was never intended to be a private faith. This idea that we don't talk about our faith or that we don't talk about our spirituality because my spirituality is between me and God. No, it is not. It was never intended to be just between you and God. And if you say that, how do I say this nicely? You're wrong. You're wrong. Our faith was always intended to be communal. It was never supposed to be a stoic solo exercise. That's private between me and Jesus. You won't find that kind of faith anywhere in the Bible. I'm not saying that the occasional solitude isn't important. We see all the time where Jesus goes off by himself to pray. But he prays so that he might come back and be ministered to and minister to. The times of solitude are to improve us for our times of community. Christianity was never intended to be a solo exercise. If you read the New Testament, you can't help but conclude that that's true. I would defy you to read the New Testament and not come away with the distinct impression that my faith is to be lived out in community with others. At Grace, we ardently believe this. That's why our mission statement is connecting people to Jesus and connecting people to people. Because we simply don't believe that you can become everything that you are in Christ. That you can grow to the fullness of what he wants for you. Developing your gifts, walking in maturity, being rooted and grounded in love. Oh. Who was going to tell me? I saw you two laughing and I was like, oh, were you doing it? Oh, geez, old Pete. How long? How long was that there? Since the lights came on? Okay. Well, listen, you guys have been paying attention great. So good job. And that also makes me feel better because I saw Taylor and Wes laughing, and I thought, oh, no. I know I checked my fly before I came up here. What was I talking? Solo. That's where I'm at? Thank you. Let's pray. Let's go home. We're having BLTs today. I'm excited. You can't read the New Testament. That's so great. No one's going to remember anything I say. That was the bug sermon. Yeah, it was the bug sermon. All right. All right. Let's get ourselves together. Christianity was never intended to be a solo exercise. We cannot read the New Testament and not see the communal nature of our faith jumping off the page. One of the places that we see it show up over and over and over and over again in different ways is in the one and others. I know that if you've spent any time in the New Testament, you've seen the one another commands. We should love one another. We should forgive one another. We should encourage one another. We should outdo one another in honor. We should show humility to one another. We should show hospitality to one another. We should be welcoming to one another. We should confess our sins to one another. Over and over and on and on, we see these all through, especially the New Testament. Jesus has some commands for us. Paul has some commands for us. And the other general epistles have some commands for us. The other authors, it's all over. It's universal. There are these one another commands. And I've spent a lot of time in the last several months thinking about these one another's and the implications in the church. One of the studies that I've written for us for our discipleship pathway that we're going to start to use and deploy in August of this year. That's the goal as we try to build some other stuff up. There's a whole eight-week study that I've written on the one and others and how we can be obedient to them. If you Google it, depending on which list you click on, there's 56 or there's 72 or there's however many, but there's more than 50 one another commands in the New Testament, showing us that Christianity is inherently communal. And as I look at the one another commands, I see them in concentric circles of possibility. I see some that you can do for everybody, some that you can do for a few, and some that you can do for a core. And so I want to look at those today and talk about the implications of this as we ask, how can we leverage Christ's community for our personal growth and for the growth of others as we seek to be obedient to the one another's admitting that our faith is inherently communal? And I promise that all of this will make sense as we move through it. So if we look at the one another's as concentric circles in which we can be obedient to them. The first set that I want to look at I'm calling church one another's. Church one another's. These are one another's that we can do for everyone at the church. Anyone that walks through the doors, we can be obedient to these one another commands for everyone in the whole church. If you have your notes, if you have a bulletin, today was a really great day to have a bulletin because I have all of these detailed in your bulletin for you so that you can have the examples and so that you can know I'm not making these up. I even gave you some references. In the church one another's, I put love one another, honor one another, welcome one another, and then just a few more, show hospitality, have fellowship, live in harmony. To love somebody, now certainly that's an intimate thing, but to love someone the way that Christ loves us, we love them sacrificially, we love them wanting what's best for them. I can love everybody who walks through these doors. I can love anybody in the way that I want what's best for you. I can try to love you sacrificially if I need to. I park far away. I don't know if that counts. We can love everybody here on a Sunday. We can welcome everybody here on a Sunday. We can all do that. We can show hospitality to anyone who walks in these doors. There's some one another's that we can do with everybody. But there's some that if we're being honest, we really can't do them for, we can't be obedient to those one another commands for everybody in the whole church, especially not in an effective way. And for those, I'm thinking of those as small group one another's. Small group one another's. That's the next concentric circle. I think of things like forgiving one another and bearing with one another, comforting one another, caring for, encouraging, instructing. If we look at those and we think about what they require, this admonition to forgive one another. Certainly, we can forgive people at the church community level if they've done something wrong or committed a sin or made a misstep or whatever. We can forgive. But I would just mention that that sort of forgiveness isn't really challenging. If you did something over there to offend your kids or your spouse or your friends, and I don't really know about it, I just heard about it, it's really easy for me, being separated from that situation, to go, I forgive you. God restore you. At the small group level, these families that we do life with, when they do something boneheaded and we have to forgive them, that's a little bit more challenging. So that one another and the challenge to that one another shows up, I think, at a more intimate small group level than it does at the whole church level. I love this one, bearing with one another. That literally means putting up with one another. You don't have to bear with somebody until you spend one night a week with them and their picadillos and their quirks and their questions and the way they go about their things, right? You guys who are in small groups, which is most of you, you know there's people in your group you have to put up with. If you can't think of anyone, someone's thinking of you. They just have quirks. They just have ways about them. But we love each other and we offer each other grace. And those things are okay here. We have to bear with one another in those small groups in ways differently than the general mill you. I put comfort one another there because it's one thing when someone offers an impersonal, I'm praying for you. When someone just gives you a hug and says, looks like you needed that. When someone says, I hope this works out well for you. That's fine. But when it comes from a friend, it means more. When it comes from someone who actually knows what you're walking through, it means more. And all of these reasons are reasons why we need small groups. They're reasons why we say, if you're not in a small group, you're not experiencing everything God has for you. We need to be in those groups. If you're here and you're not a part of a small group, I know that Kyle gave a pitch beforehand. It was very good. I would really love for you to prayerfully consider joining a small group. I just, I've been doing ministry now for 20 years. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone flourish spiritually who never walked alongside other people in their church. I know I've never seen anyone get connected and stay connected to a church without a group of friends at that church. And we need the connectivity of small groups. We need these groups. We need them to connect us. And so if you're not a part of one, I really hope you'll prayerfully consider being a part of one. The other thing I would mention is if you look through the catalog at the information table, and you can call that table whatever you want. There's two tables out there. One has coffee, one has paper. Go to them. But if you look through that and you don't see one that works for you, would you email Erin Winston? She's essentially our associate pastor. Pastor in charge of small groups as well. Will you email her? Because she might know about some that aren't on there that would be a good fit for you. We'd love for you to join a small group because we can't be obedient to all the one another's on the church level. But even as I say we'd love for you to join a small group, I would also admit that there are some one another commands for which small groups are simply inadequate. And those one another's, the deepest core of one another's, I'm calling intimate one another's. Intimate one another's. These are one another's that cannot be done at the small group level. And I think, I think one of the great sins, and this is where I'm just kind of talking with friends now, I think one of the great sins and errors of the church over the last two decades is insisting over and over again that the small group provide for these kinds of one another's when it is simply not equipped to do it. I think one of the great sins of the evangelical church in the last 20 years, and there's a lot, so I'm going to say one of the great mistakes, not one of the great sins, because I'm not going to put this on par with other ways that we've screwed up. One of the great errors we've made is putting all this pressure on small groups to help with these one another's for which not only are they not equipped to help, but it would be wrong if they did. One another's like confess your sins to one another. Not bear with one another, but bear one another's burdens. When's the last time in your small group that someone just kind of lowered their head and shared in a moment of weakness, hey, I'm angry. I'm angry all the time. And I don't know why. But I do know that it's causing me to treat my family in ways that I regret. I do know that my kids don't get to see who I want them to see. I know that I'm not the husband for my wife that I need to be. And I don't know what's making me so angry. But I'm pretty sure I should go see a therapist about it. Will you pray for me and walk with me in this journey? Will you help me and come alongside me? When's the last time in your couples group, in your men's group or your women's group, somebody said something that vulnerable? What space do you have in your life for a conversation like that? When's the last time in a small group somebody confessed their sin by saying, you know, I have a co-worker that I'm attracted to. And I know that I shouldn't be. And I know that I shouldn't indulge it. And I haven't. But I'm skirting the line. And I just want to say it out loud here so that you guys can help me. Anyone saying that in your couples group? No. And here's the thing. If you say that kind of stuff in your couples group, stop it. You're making people uncomfortable. Don't do that. That's not the place. That's not the place. But do you see what I'm saying? You can't truly confess your sins in a small group. You need a different space for that. Here's what else you can't really do in a small group. We're told that we should bear one another's burdens. Well, do you know what I know? I can't bear your burdens until you tell me what they are. And nobody's telling each other what they really are in small group. And I'm not sure that we should. That's not a condemnation of small groups. But no one in small group is saying, you know what my burden is? I feel alone. I feel like I don't have anybody who knows me. I don't know what to do. I need friends. I need people that I connect with, who see me for me. You're not going to share that in a couples group. But we can't be obedient to the one another of bearing one another's burdens unless you trust me enough to tell me what they really are. Unless you trust me enough to say, man, I'm struggling. I am depressed. My life is a dark cloud. I have thoughts that I shouldn't. I'm not sure what to do or where to go. Sometimes I don't want to be here. Listen, there's a reason that the room is so quiet right now. It's because everyone in here knows that our souls need spaces like that where we can talk about those things. And we also know, those of us in small group, that it is not adequate for that. So my suggestion to you, what I want you to do in light of that truth, is to understand this. Everyone needs a second place. A sacred space. Everyone needs a sacred space. And I call it a second place because to me, I think everybody needs to be in two groups. Everybody should be in two small groups, especially, and listen to me, leaders and elders, especially leaders and elders. Because if anyone's going to start confessing junk in your small groups, it's not going to be you. Because Tom Hanks taught us in Band of Brothers that crap goes downhill, not up, right? You leaders, you elders, you can't share in your groups what you need to share sometimes. You more than anybody need two groups. But we all need two groups. And I know that that feels audacious for me to tell you that you need to be in two small groups. Like, Nate, I'm barely holding it together. I can barely get to my one small group on time. And a lot of times we just pretend that the kids are sick so we don't have to go. Like, it's a lot. If you're laughing, you've done it. I heard Liz Roberg very loudly. I know it sounds like a lot, so here's what I want to offer you. That second small group, that sacred space, it can and should look unconventional. If you get together once a week trying to have that level of depth of conversation, it's going to exhaust you so much that you're going to quit very quickly. It needs to look unconventional. It needs to be a small group of people. As I was preparing the sermon, I realized that I have one, which is really nice. So I don't have to feel convicted like you. I'm doing it. Yay. The last Thursday of every month, I meet with a current elder and a former elder. We get together at somebody's house. And when we walk into that space, we take off all of our hats. I'm not a pastor there. They're not elders. We are men who want to grow spiritually. We are men who want to encourage one another onto good works. We are men who want to create safe spaces for confession. We are men who want to bear with one another and open that up to one another. And in that group, once a month, we ask two questions. What's God showing you? What's he teaching you? This is a good spiritual check-in question because in that is the implication of, I'm assuming you're reading your Bible. I'm assuming you're praying. I'm assuming you're listening. What's God teaching you? And sometimes the answer to that question needs to be nothing. I haven't been pursuing him, but I'm here. Great. There's space for that. But we ask, what's God been showing you? What's he been teaching you? And then we ask, where are you struggling? What's been harder for you? That's a space to say I'm angry. That's a space to say my marriage is really on its last leg. That's a space to say I feel really underappreciated in work or in my relationships or in my marriage. It's a safe space to do that. And here's what I've learned about those spaces. That all that they require is trust and respect. All they require is trust and respect. I think we're wired to think that spaces like that, that allow conversations like that to confess sin and to bear our burdens and to show what we're actually carrying and to actually be vulnerable and go deep, that those require deep friendships. And I don't think that's true. I was in an environment a month or two ago where there was just different people in the church, different guys in the church that I had had some really interesting conversations with. And I wanted them to be able to talk to each other. And so we found a night that worked for us. We got together at somebody's house and everybody had, the job was for everyone had to come with one question, one question that you want to hear an answer from, from everybody. And two of the guys had never even met each other. All three of them, I knew all three of them better than they knew each other. And two of them had never even met before. But because there was respect there and because there was trust there that you want what's best for me, once we started answering questions, they started ripping each other apart. The very first answer. The very first answer, I asked a question, somebody answered it, and somebody else looked at them and went, what does that even mean, man? That's just a platitude. Let's get to the bottom of that. They were not best friends, but there was trust and respect, and so we were able to go to levels that were deeper than normal conversations can go. You need a second space. That second space requires people you trust and respect. And now, here's a little bit of pushback that I think you could be offering in your head. If we were talking, I think these are the things you would say to me. First of all, you'd say, Nate, this feels a little like a one-sided conversation. I'd say, yeah, I'm sorry. But you would, there are some who think, I have that. I have that. I have my friends that I can call and I can have those conversations with when I need them. That's great. I'm so glad that you do. One of the big mistakes we make with those kinds of friendships is that we are not intentional enough with them. We wait until the warning light is on to pick up the phone instead of having those conversations regularly for maintenance. You follow me? I heard one pastor say that the reason to work on our marriage and talk about our marriage consistently is because we have a tendency to not want to talk about it until it's shattered on the floor in front of us. If you have those friendships in your life, men or women, that you can pick up the phone and you can have an intimate conversation with and say, hey, here's why I need prayer. Here's why I'm struggling. Here's what's going on. That's great. Just become more intentional with them. Talk with those two or three or four people. Pick a space monthly or quarterly where you can ask those two questions. What are you struggling with? What's God teaching you? Don't just let them idle and not take advantage of them. We need them in our lives. And I see good Christian friendships. Grace is really, really good at developing connections. I see friendships here abounding. You know what I'll tell you? After seven years of being your pastor, I do not see grace excelling at strategically using those friendships to leverage us towards spiritual growth. I see those friends existing as mechanics in our life that we call when the light comes on. But I don't see us very good at regular maintenance. So the assignment for some of you is to reach out to the friends that you have, the acquaintances that you have that you trust and respect, and get something on the calendar. Pick a rhythm, monthly or quarterly. Find a time to do it. Spouses prioritize it for one another, and it shouldn't be your spouse for obvious reasons that I will not go into. You need a sacred space this year where you can be obedient to all the one another's. You need small group. We should stay in small group. Some of you who've been coming here the last three to five years, you started coming to Grace. You got connected in a small group. Your kids now look forward to coming to church because their friends go to church. You look forward to coming to church because your friends go to church. It's what's kept you connected and rooted at Grace, and that's wonderful. So we need small groups. We can't just all go into our own inclusive, intimate groups of three or four that we never invite anyone into ever. So we need both things. So for some of you, you have rich, deep friendships where there's trust and love and respect. Please begin to intentionally leverage those for your spiritual growth rather than letting them idle by. For others, you're thinking to yourself, perhaps, yeah, man, I want exactly that. That sounds great. My closest friends are not believers. I don't know where I'm going to find that. First, start praying for it. I bet there's more opportunities than you think. Second, and I mean this sincerely, email me. Email me and say, hey, I want what you were talking about. I don't know where to look. And here's what I'll do. If I get two or three of y'all that email me in, I'll email y'all as a group and go, why don't y'all get coffee? And we'll figure this thing out. If you want that, you don't have it, you don't know where to go, pray about it. Let me know or somebody and let's start pursuing this together. If you do this, if you begin to leverage your friendships with the people that you trust and respect for your spiritual growth and for their spiritual growth, I believe that 2024 will be a hugely spiritually impactful year for you. And that's why I think this may be the most important thing I say to you this year. As a pastor, as someone who cares about your spiritual health, find those places where you can go deep. Don't leave your small groups. We need small groups. But find a sacred space. And when you find it, be consistent in it. And if you find those and you start doing this, would you let me know? I want to hear the good stuff that happens in there. I hope you'll do it. Next week we're going to come back and wrap up this prayer and I'm very excited to share with you what's there. Let's pray and then Kyle's going to come up. Father, I thank you for friendships. I thank you for community. I thank you for the power of what it is, what it can do, what it means. Lord, we are adept here at making friends and connections. But God, would you convict us to take those deeper? Would you convict us to go further? Would you give us spaces where we can bear one another's burdens and we're willing to share what we are bearing? Would you create spaces where we can confess the sin that we struggle with, where we can shine light on the dark shadows and the corners of our life? Father, would you give us these spaces where we can flourish, we can know you, grow closer to you, be deeply rooted in you. So that we might know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge and that we might be filled with all of your fullness, Father. Give us a sacred space. In Jesus' name, amen.