Sermons tagged with Purpose

Good morning, Grace. If you're watching this, it's because we correctly guessed that we would not be able to have church on Sunday. So this is actually Thursday afternoon right now as I record this. That's why I'm preaching in my hat. Also, last time I preached, I preached in Crocs, so I figured to just round it out, this time I would preach in my hat. If that's okay with you guys, I didn't feel like I had time to go home and shower and do my hair. So if you can put up with a pastor and a hat, I'll do my best to share this morning's message with you on what is for me a Thursday afternoon. Before I dive into that, a couple things, by the way, of announcements that we wanted you to know about. You know, we left off asking the question, how can we be all in at Grace? Well, two ways to do that are, first of all, to join a small group. We say at Grace that if you're not in a small group, then you're simply not experiencing all that God has for you. So I hope that you'll do that. There's a link online. There's a link in the Gracevine. If you're not receiving the Gracevine, let us know. That comes out every week with all the details, all the information about what's going on with the church that you need to know. And you can go to our small groups page online, find the catalog there, and contact a leader. Or if you have questions, reach out to me, and I would love to try to guide you to whatever group might be the best fit for you. Another way to be all in is to attend the Discover Grace class that we are having next week following the service, if, Lord willing, we're able to have services. I'm going to stop assuming that we're just going to be able to meet every Sunday, but hopefully we'll meet next Sunday. I believe it's going to be January the 30th, and we'll have Discover Grace immediately following the service. That's a way for you to become a partner of grace, for you to find out more about who we are, how we tick, what makes us go as a church. There's lunch provided and childcare if you need it. So register ahead of time for that if you can, especially if you're going to need childcare, and we will take good care of you. But if you've never attended a Discover Grace, whether you're new to grace, you've been coming for years, you've never done one, we would love to see you at that one. Now, when we left off, the last sermon that I did was not an easy or a fun sermon because I had to come to you and say, hey, church, I see us sliding into a direction that's not good. And I really kind of called out the whole church, but you guys are so awesome. You're so great. You're so encouraging. I'm sure there are people who didn't appreciate what I had to say the last time I was able to preach. I'm sure that's out there, but the feedback that I've gotten has been universally positive. It's been a lot of folks going, you know what? Darn it. Yeah. I was consuming the church. I reduced it to a product and I need to be all in at grace. And I think all of us to some degree or another, we're a little bit convicted when I just kind of brought up the point that I see us sliding to become consumers of the church. That in our practices and patterns, we've effectively reduced church to a product to be consumed by us when and where and how we want it. And I talked about how that's a shame and that's unhealthy because that's not Jesus's attitude towards the church. Jesus's attitude towards the church is that it is his bride. He died for us. It is his plan to reach a lost and broken world, and there's no plan B. And we talked about if we just became consumers in our marriage, how quickly would those crumble? So why do we think that as the bride of Christ that we can just consume the church and that that identity really should be wholly consuming, not flippantly consumed. And so then I ended the sermon with a challenge of, if you're at grace, if you call this place home, if you consider yourself a partner, then be all in. Be two feet in at grace, two feet in to God's kingdom and what He is doing here. And we left it off with, okay, well, what does that mean? And so that's what this week is. I feel like this is an important part two to that sermon. As a matter of fact, if you haven't seen that sermon, I would pause this right now and go back and watch that sermon and then come back to this one later today or later in the week. Because this sermon really only makes sense if you've heard the last one. And as I thought about how to answer this question for us, what does it mean? What does it look like to be all in? I was reminded of an idea that I presented to you guys, I think it was about three years ago when we were going through the book of John together in the spring. So if this first part of this sermon, if the first half of the sermon sounds familiar to you, that's why. I've preached this idea before. But to help us understand what it means to be all in, I want us to understand this idea or this concept. It's the concept that we are all kingdom builders. We are all kingdom builders. We are all actively building a kingdom. I don't know if you've ever thought of it this way, but every single one of us has time, talents, and treasures. We have gifts and abilities, and we use and leverage those with all that we have to build a kingdom. Now, it may be a small kingdom. It may be a humble kingdom. You may feel like I'm not really doing that. I don't have big aspirations. I'm not trying to build a big, huge company. I'm not trying to climb the corporate ladder or any of those things, but we all have kingdoms, little fiefdoms that we build, whether they're of our career, of our finances, of relationships, of friendships, and they're not necessarily bad, but what I want us to see and acknowledge is that we are all building a kingdom. We are all, all of us, kingdom builders. We leverage everything that we have to build something. There's none of you who are listening, none of us who will listen in the future, none of the children that you're raising that are not kingdom builders. So the question really becomes, whose kingdom am I building? Am I building my kingdom or am I building God's kingdom? And it's through that lens that I want us to view the story of John the Baptist. If you have a Bible there at home with you, you can pull it out and turn to the book of John. We're going to look at chapter 1 and then chapter 3. John the Baptist, to give you some background on him, was a really successful minister, prophet in the ancient world. He was the cousin of Jesus. He was prophesied about as a voice crying out in the wilderness, and it was his job to make it known when the Messiah arrived. It was his job to make it known, hey, Jesus is here. That was his job that was assigned to him by God to build his kingdom. This is how you're going to do it, John. You're going to be the one who introduces my son. And so to gain the credibility to do that so that the people of Israel would actually listen when John said it, he built up a ministry. People followed him. They waited in line for hours for him to baptize him at the Jordan River. They listened to what he said. John had his own disciples. John was essentially an ancient Israel, in our terms, a very well-known and successful megachurch pastor. John would have had speaking gigs and book deals. John had built himself quite a kingdom of ministry. But we get two glimpses, actually get more than two, but two that we're going to look at this morning of how John viewed all of these things. But I wanted us to approach these verses with the knowledge that we all build kingdoms and that John had built quite the kingdom. He was very successful and good at what he did and what he was building. But let's look at how John viewed his kingdom. First, we'll pick it up in John chapter 1. And just as a reminder, John the Baptist is a different John than the Apostle John that wrote the Gospel of John. It's a lot of Johns. But let's look at John chapter 1, and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. So John is there with his disciples, and Jesus walks by, and John goes, hey, that's the guy. That's Jesus. That's the Lamb of God. And the disciples immediately leave John and go and follow Jesus. And I kept reading to the end because we learned that one of those people was the brother of Peter. And we know that he stayed with Jesus. So when I say they left John and went with Jesus, I don't mean they left John and went with Jesus for a little while and then came back to John. I mean, they left John and they went with Jesus. So what's happening here, what we see in this verse is Jesus, in this passage, Jesus shows up and he starts skimming off the top of John's ministry. He starts taking a little bit of John's kingdom. These are not just simply followers. These are disciples. These are young men that he is pouring into and training and teaching. This is his staff. And now Jesus has just taken a couple of them. So Jesus starts to take some of John's kingdom, but we get a glimpse of John's attitude about this later on in chapter 3. Look with me, chapter 3, verses 29 and 30. John says this, So he's telling his disciples, look, the bride is the church. The bridegroom is Christ. The groom is Christ. He's here. And the marriage is complete. I've done my part. I've introduced him. Now it's time for me to step aside. Now it's time for me to fade away. And he says one of the greatest lines in the Bible, he must increase and I must decrease. It's like if you were able to go up to John in the moment and say, John, Jesus has taken your kingdom, man. He's taken your stuff. He's shaving off the top of your kingdom. How do you feel about that? I believe that John's response was essentially, man, I was never building my kingdom. I was always building his kingdom. Those disciples were never mine. They were always his. This following, this ministry, this has never been my ministry. This has never been my following. This has never been my kingdom. It was always his. It was always his ministry. It was always his following. It's my job to simply point the way back to him. And now that he is here, now that I've announced his coming, now that I've handed over the keys of my little fiefdom, my little kingdom to his eternal kingdom, I'm done. I'm out. And what we see from John, and I don't think John understood it at the time, but God mercifully calls him up to heaven a lot sooner than he would have had to go. He gets arrested and beheaded by the king. And it's seen by John as a sad thing when he's arrested, he wants to be freed. But I think God was just bringing him up to heaven a little earlier because his job was done. And I think John got a very hearty, well done, good and faithful servant when he arrived. Because John understood, this isn't my kingdom. This isn't my stuff. God didn't give me the gifts and talents and abilities that he gave me so that I could amass people to look at me. He gave me any gift that he gave me so that I might be used to grow his eternal kingdom, not my temporal one. And so if you ask me, what does it look like to be all in? I would answer it this way. We are all in when we acknowledge and embody the mindset of John the Baptist. When I say, what does it look like to be all in at grace? Because I challenge this, if you're at grace, be all in, man, let's go. What does that look like? Well, it looks like acknowledging and embodying the attitude of John the Baptist, which is to say, I was never building my kingdom. This was never about me. This was always about Jesus. It was always his kingdom. And everything that I've been given by God, it was not to be used to build my own kingdom. It was to be used to build his kingdom. I remember when this light went off for me. I was in my late 20s, and I had just taken over as a youth pastor at my last church at Greystone Church. And I had only been there in a full-time capacity for a couple of weeks, and it was time to take all the kids to summer camp. And so I'm going to summer camp with these kids. I think there's about 150 kids there, and I didn't know them, and they didn't know me. And yet here we are spending a week together, and I've got to prove myself to them. I've got to win them over. I've got to be able to do ministry to them. And listen, I'm beyond this now because I'm not in student ministry anymore, but anybody in their 20s who's a student pastor who tries to tell you that there aren't times when high schoolers can be the most intimidating people on the planet, they're liars. Sometimes they can be. And we got a bunch of kids. We got a bunch of older kids. They don't know who I am. They don't know me from Adam. And they're kind of arms folded skeptical. This is our new youth pastor, huh? Let's see if he's any good. And I know I've got to win them over. And so one day, the first day of camp, it was wreck time, free time. And a bunch of the guys go and they play basketball, the hard top, the black top. And I thought, I can play basketball. I'm serviceable there. Let me just go play with them. So I go down to all the upperclassmen and just start playing ball with them. And for about two hours, we're playing basketball. I was able, I know you're not gonna believe me. Maybe they were all terrible athletes. Actually, some of them were really good athletes. One of them is playing for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays right now. But I was able to hold my own. They wanted me on their team. My team usually won the games, and so we had a good time, and suddenly I'm feeling a camaraderie with them that I didn't expect to feel so quickly. And that's when it dawned on me. It's like God whispered into my ear, because I've always considered myself to be a little bit athletic. I know now that the better word for it is probably coordinated. In my youth, I was coordinated in such a way that I was able to not embarrass myself when I engaged in athletics. I played in college. I played against actual athletes and realized I am not one of those. But I've always known that God made me just a little bit coordinated, and I've always kind of been able to make people laugh. That's just been a thing that I could rely on. And up until that moment on the basketball court with those kids from Greystone, I always just assumed that God made me athletic and funny to get people to like me. I was just thankful that he gave me those wonderful gifts. But in that moment, it was as if God whispered into my ear like, yeah, dummy, this is why I gave you the gift of coordination. This is why I've made you funny. Not to win people over to yourself, but to win them over to me. I gave them to you so that it might open doors so that you can do my work in the lives of people. Now go minister to these kids. Use those gifts, that's fine. But use them to build my kingdom, not your own kingdom. And that's the collective eye opening that I want us to have. That God has given each of us gifts and abilities. He's given each of us time, talent, and treasure. And it is our job to first open our eyes to the fact that he didn't give you your gifts to make you good at your thing so that you can build your own kingdom. He gave you those gifts. He made you funny. He made you caring. He made you smart. He designed you to be good with numbers. He gave you musical talent. He gave you the ability to make friends. He gave you the ability to write and to think and to be magnanimous. He gave you the things that he gave you so that you might get to experience the incredible privilege of being invited in to being a part of building his eternal kingdom and so that you wouldn't experience the devastation of realizing you've spent your entire life piddling around building your own kingdom that no matter how great will end. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. No matter how great of a temporal kingdom we build here on earth, one day Amazon's not going to matter. As we sit here today, the Roman Empire doesn't matter anymore. The Babylonian Empire doesn't matter anymore. These great kingdoms of their day where people were actually successful in building kingdoms that we still read about today, they don't matter. Who cares? So God in his goodness invites us into the incredible privilege of building an eternal kingdom that will echo throughout eternity and matter for the rest of time. Do you understand? That's why he's given you your gifts and abilities, to leverage everything that you have, not to build your own kingdom and draw people and things into you, not to amass your own wealth, not to amass your own followers, not to build your own brand or business, but so that you would turn people to him. He gave you your gifts and abilities so that he might use you to build his kingdom. And so we come back to our question. Whose kingdom are you building? The gifts and abilities, the time and the talent and the treasure that you have, what have you been using it for? Are you using it to build your kingdom or God's kingdom? Are you using it to make your name great or his name great? And what it looks like to be all in at grace is to say, hey, you know what? I have these gifts and abilities. I have this time, talent, and treasure, whatever it is. And I want to apply that to grace in whatever way I can to see God's kingdom move forward through this church. And some of us have special giftings of time, talents, and treasures. And I want that to be acknowledged. Some of us have the special gifting of time. I think of Ron Torrance. Ron is one of our favorite people at Grace. Everybody loves Ron. If you've come to Grace here in person, he has greeted you at the door and he has learned your name and the name of your children. He is a wonderful man. And I'm told that Ron's turning 80 soon. So happy early birthday to you, Ron. I've been told that 80 is the new 70. So, I mean, live it up, pal. It's going to be great. Ron is retired. He has the gift of time. One of the things he does with that special gifting is he comes in on Fridays and he cleans the church. He vacuums the office. He takes out our trash. Do you know, and this is so humbling to me, Ron washes my mugs. If he decides that the mugs on my desk are too dirty, he'll wash them. He'll fold up a nice, neat paper towel and he'll lay them on top of the paper towel. Nice and clean for me when I come back on Monday, and every time I see it, I'm so humbled by that service. But Ron has a gifting of time, so what does he do? He gives it to the church and to other places. There's some stay-at-home moms who have volunteered their time during the week to come in and help Aaron get everything set and ready to go for children's ministry on Sunday. So if you have a special gifting of time, and I do think about stay-at-home parents who have kids who are in school, and so during the day you have this special gifting, this special season of time that has been given to you, I would encourage you and ask and implore you to ask God, God, what would you have me do with this time? You've given me this special gifting of time. Father, what would you have me do with it? This is your time. How can I use it to bring glory to your name? How can I use it to build your kingdom? How can I use it to get involved and do whatever it is you're doing, wherever it is you're doing it? See, if you have a special gifting of time in this season of your life, it's right and good to ask God, what do you want me to do with this? Why did you give me this gift? Some of us have a special gifting of talents. I think about Dylan who plays the drums. You know, God didn't give him rhythm much to his chagrin to get him chicks, right? God gave him that gift of rhythm that he might use it to usher God's children communally into praise together. And what a beautiful thing it must be for God to sit in heaven and watch Dylan use his gifts to draw other people closer to his throne. What a thrill it must be for God, our Father in heaven who created us and loves us, to have given some of us good voices so that they're beautiful to listen to. I wonder how much it pleases him in heaven to hear his children, whom he's gifted in that way, sing out to him as they lead other people into praise to him as well. It's got to be just this special joy that God experiences. If you have been given a special talent, if you've been given a musical ability, if you're exceptionally good with numbers, if you're exceptionally good at gathering people, if you are exceptionally good at something, man, God didn't give you that gift to build your kingdom. He gave you that gift because he's inviting you into being used in his kingdom. And it's worthwhile to ask God, how would you have me use this gift? You might have a special gifting of treasure. I think about some people that I know in my life, and I've talked to other guys and women like this, who are basically saying they're towards the end of their career, and they basically said, you know what, I could retire. We've hit whatever the number is that I set with my financial planner. We've hit it. I'm there. I'm good. I could retire. But, you know, I'm making more money than I've ever made, and I'm trying as little as I've ever tried, so I don't really want to shut off the faucet. You know what I mean? Listen, that's great. That's wonderful. I'm legitimately happy for you that that's your situation, but you now in that situation, you have a special gifting of treasures and resources. And I think it's worth asking yourself between you and God, God, have you given me this special gifting of resources to build my 401k and make me wealthier? Or have you given me this special gifting so that I might get to experience what it is to be a conduit of your generosity to others? Have you given me this special gifting in this season of my life, if you're married, in this season of our lives, so that you might use the treasures that you've entrusted to us to make your kingdom grow in other places. It's worth considering and asking, God, you've put me in this place where I have more than what I need. What would you have me do with this special gifting of treasures? I saw the switch go off in a friend of mine in the last couple of years, and it's been really, really cool to see. A few years ago, we had the opportunity to go over to Ethiopia and visit Addis Jamari, which is a ministry that Suzanne Ward, one of the women who goes to the church, she started it with another lady who goes to another church down the road. Her church is not as good. But they went together and they started this ministry called Addis Jamari, which ministers to orphans and families in Ethiopia. And I've been over there to see it and it's incredible what they're doing. We had the opportunity to take a trip over there a few years ago, and my buddy came with us. And he got over there and saw the ministry and saw the people, and God just touched his heart, and he was so moved by it. And he's in a great situation financially. He's in a position where he was really good at his job, and so he was able to retire early. And then he takes consulting gigs on the side whenever he feels like he wants them, and he does those, and that's a couple extra bucks, and that's great. Well, after coming back from Ethiopia and experiencing God touching his heart in that way, he had the John the Baptist epiphany, and he said, wait, I can get these consulting gigs that I don't need. I don't need that money, but Addis Jamari does. And so now the dude takes consulting gigs, makes the money, and then turns around and he gives it to Addis Jamari so that they can build God's kingdom in Ethiopia. And to me, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing when God's children open up their eyes and see that everything that God has given me is to be used for his glory and his name and his kingdom, not my own. And I know plenty of people who would be listening to this sermon thinking, you know what? I don't have any special giftings of any of those. I am as average as average gets. I would say to you, if that's how you feel, that's fine. But someone else who used to say that to me was my mama, my grandmother on my mom's side. She always felt like she was in the background. She always felt like other people were more gifted than her. She always felt like she didn't matter very much and that her voice shouldn't really be considered very much. She spent her life quietly serving in the background and would have sat in the sermon and felt like, I don't have any gifts or abilities to offer to anybody. But when I preached her funeral, there were 500 people there. Do you know why? Because she loved them well. Because her gift, her ability, was to be an encourager, was to love and to support and to be consistent. Things that might feel so plain and mundane to us and things that felt very unspecial to her. But God used her in so many lives and in so many ways that when she passed away, 500 people showed up to honor her. So even if you think that you don't have much to offer, if you offer it to God, he will double and triple and quadruple whatever impact you think you might be able to make. So as we finish, I would simply finish with this question. What's my next step? What's the next thing for you to do? Do you want to email me and say, Nate, dude, I'm all in. What can I do? Do you want to email one of the staff members and say, I'm all in. I want to help you. Kyle, I want to see the youth group grow. I'm in, what can I do? How can I help? How can we build God's kingdom there? Do you have some musical ability? You need to stick your hand up and go, you know what? I can actually sing. You know what? I can actually play and I've been scared or hesitant, but I think that God's given me this ability so I can use it for him. So I want to do that. Do you have a gifting of time that you can offer? But I think everybody's got a next step. Everybody's got a thing they can do to say, you know what? I'm all in. I'm all in at grace. And listen, it's not about grace. It's about God's kingdom. That's why I shared the Addis Jamari story because he's building God's kingdom outside the walls of grace, and that's wonderful. I'm not trying to get you to invest yourself in grace. I'm trying to get you to invest yourself in God's kingdom wherever he is building it. And also saying that if you believe that God is building his kingdom here, then yes, ply your hand here. Leverage everything that you have here. Leverage your time, your talents, and your treasures here at Grace that we might see God's kingdom advance. But as we think about that, I wanted to put it in very simple terms. And maybe you can talk about this with whoever you're watching this sermon with if that's what's happening. If there's people around you. But I would ask you to prayerfully consider if I'm going to be all in at grace, what's my next step? What's the next thing that God wants me to do to be obedient to what I've just heard? Let's pray. Father, you're good. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for gifting us. I pray that each of us would see that you have gifted and purposed us to be used by you. That we might experience the thrill of building your eternal kingdom. That we might avoid the devastation of spending a life building a kingdom that will ultimately fade away. God, I pray that you would give us courage to take the next step that you're placing on our heart. God, I pray that your Holy Spirit would make that very clear. If there's anybody listening to this prayer and they're thinking, God, I really don't know what to do. I just give them ears to hear your spirit as he whispers into their ears what it is they want, they need to do. Because I know that you will guide us and direct us and show us where to apply our hand. God, be with us as we enter 2022. I pray that you would do amazing things here at Grace. We ask that you would build your kingdom here, God. And we are grateful that we get to be a part of it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning. It's good to see everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be the pastor here as just a little point of order. If you received a bulletin when you came in and you're someone who fills out the notes, I would direct you to the back of the bulletin. In the middle of the notes is a point that starts out. I think the local church is the blank thing to which we are all called. You can cross that out. Okay, I'm not going to get to that. The word there was bigger, so if you really just want to fill it in, there you go. But we're not going to include that. So I don't want to get to that point of the notes and you guys think, oh, no, he forgot it. No, I didn't. I'm leaving it out on purpose. Also, some of you have asked, Nate, why are you wearing your Crocs? Do you have a gout flare-up? No, jerks. I know that you would love that, but I did not. I did not. I also, before I'm telling you why I'm wearing them, have promised my sweet wife that I would communicate to you that she loathes them. They are the least favorite thing of hers that I own, and it is to her great dismay that I continue to wear them every day. I'm wearing these because these are my friend's shoes. These are the shoes that you only see when I am your friend. If you come to my house, and I knew you were coming, if you come to my house and I didn't know you were coming, come on, man, what are you doing? But if I do know you're coming and I'm still by choice wearing these, it's because I'm totally comfortable with you and we're friends. If you invite me over and I'm wearing sweats and Crocs, it's because we're pals, all right? Only my close friends see these because they are shameful. And when I come to church early, I get here early on Sunday mornings, and usually I just throw these on just to be comfortable until I need to put on my church shoes, my preaching shoes. And as I was pacing, thinking through what I was saying this morning, I just realized that what I'm going to say to you this morning is hard. It's hard for me to say. It's going to be hard for some of y'all to hear. And as I say it, I want these to remind me and you that I'm coming to you as a friend. I'm saying these things to you because I love you. Because I feel like Grace is collectively my pal. And so I want you to know up front that I have been praying this week and this morning for courage and gentleness. And so these Crocs are a little bit more gentle than my preaching boots. So I'm wearing these today. Years ago, there was a show called 24. I don't know if you guys have ever seen it. If you have, your life is better for it. But 24 was released, I don't know if you remember this, right on the cusp of like DVD series and then live series. For those of you, I don't know how young you have to be to appreciate series that are on DVDs, but we used to buy whole volumes of series that now you get on Netflix. But 24 is right on the cusp of that. And so when I heard about it, my friends were watching it and they were like a couple seasons in, I think they were on season four. And they had this tradition of every Monday night, they would go over to my one friend's house and they would all watch it with rapt attention and then talk about it during the commercials. And then when it started again, total silence and they were very committed to it. And then they would kind of talk about the episode afterwards. And I really wanted to go to this. I was having serious FOMO, which for old people, that's fear of missing out. I was having some serious FOMO of my friends are having this fun and I can't have this fun because I'm not caught up on the series. So I tracked down the DVDs and got caught up on the series. And I don't know if any of you have had this experience. Raise your hand if you watch 24 on DVD. Okay, you are my friends and you know what I'm talking about. The end of the episode always, without fail, ends on a cliffhanger. And then there's that countdown, the beep, boop, beep, boop. And you're like, no, I got to know what happens to Jack. So then if you're watching the DVD series, it's like play next episode. Yes, of course. And you play the next episode and you just binge that thing. This is when binging started. And it was so satisfying to be able to watch. And this was, let's see, I was probably 19 or 20. So I could watch an ungodly amount of uninterrupted TV at a time. And I mean the word ungodly because it was not spiritual to do what I was doing, but I could watch a ton at one time. And so you power through these seasons, man. And I got through them and I got to go watch with my friend. Now this is the big night. I get to go to my friend's house. There's like 15, 20 of us there. This is great. I'm going to consume this content this way. And as I was doing it, I was like, this stinks because it ended. First of all, I had to watch commercials. That's a bummer. I don't want to watch commercials. I'm into the story. I don't want to hear about Claritin again. And then it ends. There's the beeps. And it's like, let's watch the next episode, guys. And you can't. You've got to wait a whole week. And by the time the next week rolled around, I really wasn't very much into it. And I realized within a couple of weeks, you know what? I don't really like consuming this this way. I like it better on the DVDs. So I waited and just watched it all at once on the DVDs. And I bring that up because this is when content really began to make it very clear that it was a product and we are the consumers. We can watch whatever we want to watch. We have all kinds of streaming services. We have everything available at the tip of our fingers. We can choose the content that we want to watch whenever we want to watch it. This is 24 to me illustrates when it became very clear in our culture that there's all kinds of content out there that we can consume when we want it, where we want it, and when we actually have a desire for it. When we think it's what's going to be best for us, when we feel like it's what we want in the moment, it's right there and we can consume it. I'm bringing that up because I feel like I've seen church become that for many of us too. I feel like in Christian culture, in church people, and then most pointedly at grace, I have watched a slide over the years that the pandemic has accelerated where we are now in ways consumers of church. Church, to some of us, in our mindset and in our families, has become a product that we consume. Sunday morning is something that if I have time, I'll go. If we don't have other plans, I'll attend. If there's not just one more inconsequential thing, and when I say inconsequential, I mean something that we allow to take Sunday morning away from us that isn't gonna matter one little bit in 20 years, then we'll just do that thing and I'll catch up with church during the week. I'll watch it on Tuesday. I'll binge it. I'll listen to the whole series. And it's not easy or fun to say this because normally when I come to you as the church and I say convicting things, I'm right there with you. I always put myself first and say, this is my conviction, join me in it if it applies. Well, this one's different because I get paid to do this. I don't have the perspective that church partners have. But I do have the perspective of a pastor. And I can tell you what I see from my perspective. And what I see from my perspective, as someone who leads a church, as someone who I think is pretty tapped into Christian culture, as someone who talks to other pastors regularly, I see a slide in our culture towards consumerism as it relates to churches. That for many of us, church has become a commodity or a product that I will include in my life when and where I want to, when and how I want to. And I know that none of us would cop to that out loud. None of us would say, yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm a consumer, church is the product, that's how it is. But in our practices and in our patterns, that's what we make it. I'll get to it when I can. I'll include it when I want to. I'll catch up with it on my jog. Revelation really is not very interesting of a series for me. I'll catch it at Christmas. Or, Revelation is super interesting to me. I'm going to totally pay attention to this one. Last one, I wasn't really there for it. I've seen us become consumers in the way that we volunteer, which is less and less, which is a good indicator that in my mind, church exists for me to make my life better. It's a product that's there for me to grab and to consume when I want it. And this is something that I have seen and noticed for several months. And something that I've wanted to put in front of you for several months. But I didn't know the best way to do it. I didn't know how. And I wanted to be really sure when I did it. Because I know that I'm stepping on toes right now. And here's how I've been complicit in it. Is I've allowed that mindset to reduce my role to a producer of content. There are many a week in the last two years when I viewed my role as literally nothing more than just giving you something worth consuming on a Sunday morning and forgetting about the pastoring and the leading that has to happen during the week. I have been complicit in reducing my own role as the pastor of a church to simply producing content that's good for you that you'll choose to consume again. And I'm just, I'm telling you guys, we're wrong about that. It is a dangerous thing when church gets reduced to a commodity to consume. And I'm convinced that that's true and that it's right and good for me to take a Sunday morning and talk about it and that it's worth stepping on some toes because Jesus's attitude towards the church is so vastly different than the attitude of someone who consumes the church. Jesus didn't for one second think that the church was a commodity to be consumed. Jesus for one second was not interested in putting out a product that people would want to come back to. He wasn't interested at all in commodifying and making us comfortable in the way we choose to consume his body. The New Testament does not talk about the church as something to be consumed. It does not talk about the church as if it's something that's optional for us, that we can include in our life when we feel like it, that we can include in our life when we feel like we have time or effort or energy or space. And so for me as a pastor to watch this slide in my church and say nothing about it is a dereliction of duty. It is irresponsible. So we've got to talk about it. Again, we've got to talk about it because as I thought about communicating this idea this week and what passage to use, I was thinking through the New Testament and how the church is talked about and it dawned on me, there's not like a single passage to use because the whole New Testament is about the local church. The whole New Testament assumes that you are a part of the local church. The New Testament teaches us that the moment you get saved, that when you accept Christ as your Savior, that you are now a member of the big C universal church. And it is incumbent upon you to express that membership within the body of the local church. The one book, the biggest portion of the New Testament that's written to an individual is written to a guy named Theophilus by Luke, probably on behalf of Peter. And he writes to Theophilus so that he can understand who Jesus was and what he came to do, which is to begin the local church. The one big major book that's written to an individual to explain things in the New Testament is written so that that individual could understand the local church and how it came about. Then Paul writes letters to churches. And every directive in the Bible that's given is given to us communally. There is nothing, nothing about individual spirituality in here. It all, the whole thing, cover to cover, assumes that you know and understand that you are functioning within a body. That you are functioning within the local church. And so it's difficult to pinpoint one place where this is clarified because it's assumed all throughout the New Testament. And I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but do you realize, and I believe this with all my heart, that the local church, this expression of grace that we sit in this morning, is the reason that Jesus stayed some extra years to do ministry? I don't know if you've ever wondered this, but Jesus was 33 when he was crucified. If all he came to do, if all of his marching orders were to become flesh, live a perfect life, die for the sins of the world, why didn't he just get crucified at 30? Or 25? Or 17? What was he doing? Hanging around, putting up with us? He was building the church. He was training the leaders. He was preparing the world for his kingdom. Jesus stayed those extra years and put up with us so that he could call the disciples to him and train them and show them. He taught them how to teach. He taught them how to perform miracles. He taught them how to cast out demons. He taught them how to lead. He taught them how to love. He showed them how to do ministry to one another. And then he died. And then he came back and he left. And when he left, he said, now go do all the things that I've been showing you to the ends of the earth. Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He said, go and do what I told you to do. And how did they respond to that? They huddled up in Jerusalem. And they said, what do we do? And then they got the gift of the Holy Spirit and they started a church, man. And its numbers grew day by day. Acts 2, 42 through 47, you can find it there. And then the rest of the book of Acts is about the disciples' effort to go and to plant more local churches. All of Paul's life was dedicated to planting local churches. When Jesus left and said, you, I've given you the keys to the kingdom. I've spent these years and I've trained you and now I'm going to leave and you've got the Holy Spirit. Go do my ministry. What did lost and broken world, and there is no plan B. That's not my idea. I stole that from another pastor. I don't remember who. But the local church, this expression, this Grace Raleigh is God's plan to reach this community. And there's no plan B. We have got to do our part. We are a part of God's divine strategy, of God's divine plan. This is not something to be flippantly participated in. That's not the point. There's something bigger going on here. The New Testament teaches us that we are the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We're the body of Christ. We are his different members. We're going to talk more about this next week. But the New Testament also preaches this. And this was one of the more convicting things to think about this week as I think about our attitude with how we approach church. It is admittedly an odd passage to land on for the sermon this morning, but it's Ephesians chapter 5, verses 25 through 32. This is a marriage roles passage. This is usually talked about in weddings. And when we read it, that's where our mind goes. And one day, hopefully sooner than later, I would love to walk through this passage with you as a church body and walk you through kind of how my understanding of this passage has changed over the years. But this is not what I want us to highlight this morning. As I read it to you and you read along with me, I want you guys to pay attention to the relationship between Jesus and the local church. I want you to notice the dynamic that's going on there, and then we're going to talk about it just a little bit. Ephesians chapter 5, beginning in verse 25. He says this in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. and cherishes it just as Jesus does the church because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. The church, Christians, we are the bride of Christ. That is our divine identity. We are the body that he came and died for. We are the body that he's going to come back and rescue. We are the body that he intentionally started. We are the body that was prophesied about in the Old Testament. We are the love of Jesus's life. We are the bride of Christ. And what I'm saying to you this morning is being Christ's bride should be wholly consuming, not flippantly consumed. Being the very bride of Christ should be an identity that is wholly consuming to us, not flippantly consumed. Nothing about that passage and nothing about that role says to us that there's any space whatsoever to simply be consumers of the product that church puts out. No, we are called to be a part of what the church is doing. This is where the whole idea of this series came from when I was thinking about it last fall, is this idea of doing what I can to transition us from sliding towards consumerism and push us back towards being consumed. The church was not created for us to consume it. It was created so that it could consume you. It was created for your whole devotion. It was created for you to be all in. It was created to give you a new life completely separate from your old life and give you something bigger to be a part of that we all long for. Being the bride of Christ deserves our full attention. It deserves our fanaticism. It deserves to consume us. To drive this home just a little bit, I want you to think about something with me. What would your marriage look like if you decide that you were simply going to be a consumer of it? What would my marriage with Jen look like if I decided, you know what, I know she wants to talk about her day-to-day, but I'm not really feeling it. I don't really want to do that. I want to watch football. And also, I've never done this. What would it look like if all the time my interactions with her, I only thought about, well, how does this benefit me? Is this something that I really want to do right now? Why don't I just schedule something over what's happening? What would it look like if in our marriages we simply became consumers and when we were asked to volunteer our time to make the house better, we said, what's in it for me? What are you gonna do if I clean clean the garage? You make meatloaf? All right, I'll clean it. How dead would our marriages be if we became consumers within them? And we saw our marriage as something that just produced a product that was there for me to consume if I wanted it or not. If that analogy holds true, and Ephesians tells me that it does, is it any wonder why some of us just don't feel like our spiritual life is clicking like it should be? Is it any wonder why we just don't feel like we're in sync with God? Is it possible that maybe we don't feel a spiritual vibrancy in our life because we've reduced the things of God to things to be consumed to improve our life when we feel like we need them? You know, it's funny, and it's worth mentioning. Over my years as a pastor, and Grayson at previous church, I've sat down with parents of teenagers, and they've said, we just can't get our kid to come to youth group, and we don't know what to do. And I can't say it, but I think it. Well, if you want to do anything right now, you need to get in the time machine and go back 10 years and quit treating the church like it's something to be consumed for you. You have modeled this method of consumption to your children for 10 years and now is it any wonder that when they get to make their own choices, they're consumers too? Is it any wonder that maybe we don't feel as close to God as we could when we don't treat the things of God as they deserve to be treated. I thought of this as well. Paul is at the end of his ministry and he's writing a letter to Timothy. It's one of the few things written to an individual in the New Testament. And guess what? It's about how to lead the local church. Anyways. In already being poured out as a drink offering. And the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. What a remarkable statement to make. Now I'm about to ask you a question. It's an unfair question. It's a gotcha question. And I'm admitting that up front. So this isn't to make anyone feel bad. This is just to help you think along with me, okay? Did any of us on December 31st, a few days ago, kneel and pray and say, God, thank you for 2021. I was poured out for you like a drink offering. Now, listen, you may have gotten to the end of 2021 and felt like you were poured out like a drink offering. We may have gotten to the end of that year and said, I got nothing left. But were you poured out for the right things? Were you poured out for the things of God? Were you poured out because you were consumed with your identity as the bride of Christ? So, either you're just mad at me and you want the sermon to be over. I get that. Or you're with me and you're okay. I want to be all in. I want to be consumed by the church. What do I do? Well, the very simple answer is this. You give of your time, talents, and treasures. A very simple answer to think about how can I be consumed by the local church is to give of your time, talents, and treasures. And as I was prepping this sermon, I lamented that when I got to this point in the sermon, I've been preaching for too long to really adequately do justice to what that means to give of our time, talents, and treasures. And then it occurred to me, dude, you're in charge of the series. You can do whatever you want. So next week, we're going to talk about that in detail. We're going to come back. Those of you who remain with us are going to come back and we'll go, here's how we can be all in together. Here's what it means and looks like to give of our time, talents, and treasures. But for this morning and for 2022, this is the message and the challenge that I wanted to issue to us as a church. If you're at Grace, be all in. If you're here, mean it with everything you got. You'll notice through this whole sermon, I've not talked about grace as far as what God calls us to. I've talked about the local church. And so I say this with all humility and candor. If you can't be all in at grace because you're not all about what's happening here, that's fine. There are a lot of churches. And with only kindness and love in my heart, I'm admonishing you that if grace isn't it for you, find a church you can be fanatical about. Find a church that you love what's going on there. Find a church that you can be all in, and that you can be consumed by, and you want to pour yourself out for. I hope that's grace, and I hope that what we're doing here is something that matters deeply to you. But if it's not, as just your friend, as a pastor, as a Christian, I'm telling you, we need to be consumed by the local church. So find one to consume you. And this is why I think it's so important to preach this message. And why I wanted to do it at the beginning of this year. Because I know that the cloud of the pandemic still looms over our culture. But I've got to believe that the sun's going to break sometime soon. And I don't want to tread water in 2022. I don't want to just cling on and try to exist this year as a church. I am praying and hoping that Jesus will eagerly and earnestly move in this place. I want to see Jesus show up this year. I want to see children fill that baptistry. I want to just dunk them and I want their friends to be in here celebrating it with them. I want to baptize you guys. I want to see your friends and your family and your coworkers begin to come to church with you and for you to experience the joy of watching them move into a faith because God used you in their life. I want to see you guys take steps of obedience that are far beyond what you thought you would be capable of sacrificing before. I want to see a church with their hair lit on fire for Jesus and begging him every week that his kingdom would come here and that he would move here and that he would do great things here. And that starts with our individual decision to be consumed by the body of Christ and by the identity of being his bride, and then it culminates in a corporate culture of pursuing him and of prizing him and of doing the things of Jesus because we love him and because it's our identity and because we're consumed by him. I don't want to tread water anymore. I want to move. I want to do ministry. I want to see salvations. I want to see people come to know Jesus. I want to see marriages rescued. I want to see children discipled. I want to see hurt people cared for. I want to see people prayed for. I want to see small groups blossom and multiply. I want to see discipleship happen intentionally. I want to see the great friendships that God has planted in this church do more than just make us feel good about ourselves, but point us back towards our Father and enhance our spiritual walks. And how can any, and here, you're all looking at me and I know that you want that too. And how can it happen if we're consumers? If we continue to just slide towards thinking of church as a commodity to be consumed? It can only happen if we say, here I am, Lord, and allow ourselves to be consumed for His purposes. So if you're at grace, be all in. And listen, I say that knowing and being humbled by the fact that we have a bunch of people who are all in. I know that we do. I'm humbled by your service every week. And we have people who have watched online faithfully for two years who simply have health issues that will not allow them to come and be a part of us. And I know you're all in. I know it. And so my prayer has been that the Holy Spirit would be whispering in each of your ears. And if you are someone who is all in, and if you are someone who has been consumed by the local church, that the Holy Spirit would be whispering into your ear right now, and he would be telling you, hey, this is not for you. This is to bring you some help. You don't need to feel convicted by this. Similarly, my prayer for the rest of us is that the Holy Spirit would whisper to us too. And he would be telling you right now how you need to listen. You need to hear this. For the sake of your marriage and your kids, you need to hear this. For the sake of your anxiety and your peace and your joy and your angst, you need to hear this. For the sake of being swept up and knowing how much I love you and experiencing my goodness as being part of a kingdom, part of my kingdom on earth before eternity, you need to hear this. So next week, we're going to come back and we're going to talk about what it looks like to be all in. I hope that if the Holy Spirit is telling you right now, hey, this is not you, that you will pray with me this week. For those to whom it may apply a little more. If the Holy Spirit is talking to you right now and telling you that you need to listen, I pray that you will. And if any of you are mad at me, my door is open. I'd love to chat. But next week, we're moving forward with who we got and we're gonna do some cool things this year. I believe it with all my heart. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the church. Thank you that we are invited to participate in it. Thank you for the way that it wraps its arms around us. Thank you for the way that it is your presence in our life. Thank you for how it trains our children. Thank you for how it strengthens our marriage. Thank you for how it points us towards you. God, we pray that grace would be the church that you want it to be. We pray that we would be consumed by building your kingdom here. We pray that we would understand in our bones what it means more and more to be your bride and to be your body. God, if I've said clumsy things, I just pray that you would grant grace and forgiveness where it's needed. God, we offer you ourselves. We offer you this place. We thank you for creating it. And we just ask that you would give us the faith and courage to serve you and to be consumed by you as we move through this year. It's in your son's name we ask. Amen.

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

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

If you're like a lot of us, then this jar kind of looks like your life as we entered the pandemic. Lots of things in our life that are really important to us, big deals, things that we definitely want to prioritize, but maybe sometimes we have a hard time finding time for, and then other things in our life that are probably important, but maybe not essential, and we'd love to give our time to them, but we probably don't need to make big priorities out of them. But what happens in the end when we get so busy is that we don't have time for everything, right? But then with the pandemic, life, well it kind of hit the reset button. And we spent most of last year with nothing but time on our hands. And now, as we face moving back into what feels like normal, I think that we have this unique opportunity to reassemble our lives. And as we have this opportunity, I thought it would be appropriate for Grace to stop and really think critically about well, what are our big rocks? What are the things in our life that are the most important to us? What are the things that we want to prioritize above and beyond everything else? And what would our life look like if we actually identified our big rocks and prioritized our time around those things? What if we put these rocks in first and made sure that there was space in our life for the things that were most important and then around those things we allowed all the other little things to kind of fill in the rest of our time and priorities? What would it look like if we were to hit the reset button on our life and reassemble it in such a way that we had time and space for what was important to us and we didn't have to worry at all about the other things that just at the end of the day they're not nearly as big of a deal? What are our big rocks And how do we make space for them as we enter into a new normal? Well, good morning. Thank you for being here. My name is Nate. I get to be the pastor here. Isn't it cute in that video how I assumed that we were just charging right back into normal? And then here we are in masks again. Boy, the naivety as we roll into each wave of this is pretty funny, especially to think back. I can remember back in March of 2020 having conversations. Joe, the moderator of our board, called me in between the 8th and the 15th of March, and he said, hey, I think maybe we need to take a break. Maybe we can't meet in person this Sunday. And I was like, Joe, this is a big decision. I don't know if we should do this. And he goes, no, man, I really think we need to. And I'm like, Joe, listen to me. This is not going to be like a two-week thing. This could go well into April. So who the heck knows? But it's good to see everybody. Thank you for doing your part. And this is the last part of our series called Big Rocks, which if you've been here all four weeks or you've watched online all four weeks and you've watched that intro video of me four times in a row, good for you. That's serious partner of the year stuff right there. This week, as we talk about our priorities in life and approaching this fall, we're going to talk about the idea and the topic of community. And if you've been in church for any amount of time, you've heard a sermon on community. If you've been here, you've probably heard me talk about the importance of community. In our mission statement, we emphasize community by saying that grace exists to connect people to Jesus and connect people to people. So you might be tempted when I say that the sermon this week is on community, you might be tempted to kind of glaze over and go, yep, got it. Christian community is important. I'm going to do it. Good. And then start thinking about whatever you've got going on the rest of the day, lunch plans, or if you're me trying to get the grass cut before the thunderstorm start, whatever it is you've got going on, you might be tempted to take your head there when I say that the sermon is going to be on community because we might feel like we kind of get it. But if that's you, I want to encourage you to lean in this morning. Because I hope that what we'll do is I'll leave here or I'll turn off our TVs, wherever we might be consuming this, that we will finish this experience this morning or whenever you're listening, thinking differently about the power and efficacy of community than when we started. I hope that we will be inspired to pursue it as if our lives depended on it. I think the idea of community is incredibly important. And if you read your New Testament, if you read the Bible, the New Testament that starts with the Gospels, the accounts of the life of Christ, and then on to the end of Revelation, if you read your New Testament, if you read the Bible, the New Testament that starts with the gospels, the accounts of the life of Christ, and then on to the end of Revelation, if you read your New Testament and you pay attention, what you'll find is a lot of we's and ours and collective you. Like when Paul writes in the letters that he says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the father. And he says, I pray for you. I thank my God every time I remember you. That's not you as an individual. That's a collective you as the church in Rome or Philippi or Ephesus. The Gospels are written to an audience, are written to a church, are written to a group of people. You find in the New Testament very few personal, singular pronouns. You find very you singular yous. You should do this, you should do that, God did this, whatever it is for just you. You don't find those in the New Testament. What you find in the New Testament is collective we and are. The New Testament assumes that your faith will be communal. It assumes that you have other Christians around you walking in the same direction you are pursuing, the same Jesus that you are pursuing. As a matter of fact, if you go to Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47, that's not in your notes, so you can write that down if you want to. You can turn there if you get bored at some point in the sermon, which is likely to happen. Turn to Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47, and make sure that I'm not making this stuff up. That is the quintessential church passage. There is no pastor who has preached more than two sermons on community and has not based one of the sermons in that passage. It is a quintessential church passage. It describes what the church looked like and did in its very infancy. As soon as Christ ascends and we have Pentecost and Peter and the disciples share the gospel, we see 3,000 people come to faith that day. That's the birth of the church. And then Acts chapter 2 verses 42 through 47 describes what the church did and how it behaved in its infancy. It is the barometer by which all church for the rest of time is measured. And if you read those verses, what you find is collective wheeze. It's communal. The church did this and they committed themselves to the apostle teaching. They devoted themselves to prayer. They met in one another's homes day by day. They were together all the time pursuing teaching, sharing meals, praying together, learning together, pursuing Jesus together. It is a communal activity. Your faith, if you have it, is quintessentially communal, which is why there's a little bit of an issue in evangelical churches with this phrase that we like to use sometimes. Raise your hand if you've ever heard the phrase that Christianity is about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Have you ever heard that? Now listen. Christianity is about a personal faith. It's about a personal belief that God is the creator and author of the universe, that to reconcile his creation to himself, namely you, he sent his son to die in your place, and we place our faith in Jesus' death on the cross, and we place our hope in his resurrection on Easter, that one day we will be united with our God and reunited with those who also have faith in our Jesus, and we have a hope that will not put us to shame. To be a Christian, you need to individually believe that and have faith in that, and one of the remarkable things about Christianity is that our God does offer us a personal relationship with him. But listen to me closely. We must have an individual faith, but your faith is not about your personal relationship with Jesus Christ because your relationship with Jesus Christ is not personal. It is communal. We see it over and over again in Scripture. It is a communal faith. It is not just your business. It is our business as a church. We don't see that phrase, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, pop up in the Bible. We see a necessity for an individually claimed faith. But make no mistake about it, your faith is quintessentially communal. It is, I would argue, it is impossible to grow close to Jesus and have a vibrant walk with him totally by yourself. To take your Bible and a prayer book and to wander off in the desert like these mystical people who have existed before us that we somehow, we look at and we think that they were the ones who had nailed faith. And I don't think any of those existed, but the people who just go off by themselves and just totally ensconced in God's word and in prayer, and it's just them and God. you can't have a vibrant walk with Jesus doing that because loving Jesus requires you to love others. If your love from Jesus does not cause you to pour out love onto other people, then you are not expressing the love that Jesus has lavished on you. You are bottling that up. You are keeping that to yourself. To live a non-communal faith is fundamentally self-centered. And we miss out on who Jesus is by not lavishing his love on others in the same way that he loves us. John tells us in his letters at the end of the Bible that if we love Jesus, then we will love others. The Christian faith was not designed to live alone. I think that there are parts of Jesus that you find in loving other people. We cannot come to know Christ in the way that he wants to be known if we are trying to do it void of loving others and serving others and doing his work. This is why the mission statement at Grace is connecting people to Jesus first, but also connecting people to people. Because your walk with God will not be as vibrant and as healthy as it can be if it is void of community as you share your faith. So community and our faiths is vitally important. It's why I think that community is God's primary tool for tethering, comforting, and sustaining his children. Community is God's primary tool for tethering his children to him, for comforting his children in their time of need and for sustaining them in their walks and in the commitments that he's led you to make. Now, I would offer you a caveat here. I need to, if you have notes, if you're a note taker, please write this in your notes. Community is God's primary tool dash outside of heaven. It's God's primary tool this side of heaven to tether us and to sustain us and to comfort us. Because he tethers us with his son. He sustains us with his spirit. He comforts us with Jesus as he weeps with us. But these things, this community I'm going to show you is the way that God gives himself time to work in your life to bring you to a place where you're walking with him. It's the way that God the Father throws his arms around you in times of trouble. It's the way that God comes beside you and sustains you when your faith and your commitments are faltering. So I do not at any point want to replace the work that the Holy Spirit and God the Father and Jesus are doing in our lives and moving in us, but I do want us to see that community is often the tool that they use to work powerfully and effectively in our lives. I say that it's the primary tool for tethering, for kind of keeping us attached to the faith, even at times when we might be wandering off. With that in mind, I'm going to share something with you that I really am not sure that I'm all the way ready to share, because if I share it and then I don't do it, I'm a failure and a quitter. But last week, I committed with some friends of mine to run a half marathon at the end of February. I committed to do this because I'm fat now, and I need to. Somebody asked me before the service, why is your shirt tucked down? Like, are you being serious today? I'm like, no, no, I'm fat. I need to be able to blouse a little bit for the camera, you know? But I'm sharing that with you because if you know me well, you know that I've got a group of really good buddies. One guy I've been best friends with since I was five years old, so we've been friends for 35 years. And then there's eight of us total. We've been friends together, all of us, for at least 20 years. And we talk on this app called Marco Polo. It's probably for high school girls, but we love it and we use it to talk back and forth. We talk every day. And so there's eight of us and we legit, we talk every day. Whatever's going on in the world, whatever's happening in sports, whatever's happening in our lives, we talk about it. Just this morning, I was watching my friend, he dropped his daughter off at college yesterday and was telling us how emotional he got about it. And I'm in my office getting emotional about Lily starting kindergarten tomorrow. And if I talk about it for too long, I'm gonna get emotional in front of you. So we talk about stuff all the time. And then we have different threads for different topics. You know, different things that some of us may wanna talk about, but not everybody does. Anyways, we've got one for exercising. I can't tell you the name of it. There's a cuss word in it, but we've got one for exercising. And I started it. I started it back in January. I was like, guys, I'm fat now. I think I want to start eating well. I think I want to start exercising. Is anybody with me? And seven of them were like, yeah, let's do it. My one buddy, Tim, God bless him. He does not care. And I wish I could be more like Tim. But the rest of us were in there. And so we're encouraging each other every day, right? But eventually, I just stopped caring. I kind of fell off the wagon. Having a nine-month-old or an eight-month-pregnant wife will do that to you. And then so will having an infant and a three-month-old. It kind of takes you out of your regular rhythm. So it's been more difficult, and I kind of just lost my desire to do it, and to the point where they were daily talking about their workouts and the stuff that they're doing and yada, yada, yada. And I would just skip. Like, I wouldn't even listen. I would just fast-forward to the last one, hit play, skip to the end of that one, and so that those didn't show up as new, because I don't know. You people that just leave notifications on your phone, I don't know how you live with yourself. So I would have to go and just skip all the way through it, right? Ignoring it. And then I even became the devil on the shoulder of the people. They would share sometimes when I would listen, like, I didn't do anything today. I've been eating like crud lately. I just don't feel good about myself. And then I'd go out there and be like, come on over. It's great over here. There's barbecue and sweet tea. This is wonderful. Just buy larger fishing shirts and you're good. Like you can just let it all hang out. It's really, really great. It's good over here. But somewhere in that week and a half ago, my buddy got on there and he said, hey, I found a half marathon in Greenville and I think it would be fun if we would train for it together and try to run it together. And something about it, I don't know what it was. I don't know. I had some weakness that day and I said, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Like it caught me on a good day. And I said, let's do this. Let's do it. And they were all very surprised that I was into it. But now I think there's five or six of us who are going to do it. And I'm only a week and a half in and I'm just a slow lumbering mess. As a matter of fact, if you live in my neighborhood, Falls River and then Bedford or whatever, and you see me running, can you just do me a favor and avert your eyes? And we'll just both pretend like that never happened. Do not honk at me or wave. I do not want to know that you saw me. I'd just like to live in this world where no one can see me lumbering down the road. But it's been fun to get back to it and to begin to train and begin to exercise and share that with my buddies. And I feel more inspired now to do this than I have in a long time. And I really think it might stick. So barring injury, which is more of a factor than it's ever been in my life, Lord willing, I'll run that thing in February and I'm looking forward to doing that. I share that story because I believe that this is what Christian community does with us for the church. To be a Christian for any amount of time is to go through a season of wandering. It's to go through a season where I was once committed, I once cared very much about my spiritual health, I was once very consistent in going to church and going to small group and reading my Bible and praying on my own, and I can remember seasons of vibrancy in my life, but now I'm just, whatever you want to call it, I'm in a rut, I'm wandering off, I don't feel it right now, I just am not, I'm going through some things and I just not sure that I can really connect with God. I'm not really sure that's a thing that I want. To be a Christian is to have gone through a season of wandering and probably not just one. And what community does is it keeps us tethered to our faith, even in times when we're not necessarily very committed to our faith. I didn't leave that thread because I like my buddies. I wanted to know what they were talking about. I wanted the community there. Even though I wasn't engaged in what they were engaged in, even though I wasn't pursuing what they were pursuing, I didn't want to totally detach myself because I thought maybe one day I will. Plus, I want to know what my friends are talking about. I don't want to have FOMO. So I stayed in there. And then one day, because I was tethered to that group by the community in that group, something caught me right. And I said, yeah, I'm going to make that choice for my health or for my children. Church community does this too. As we're going through a season of wandering, maybe we're not feeling faith right now. Maybe we're not super committed to it. Maybe we're not doing the things in private that we know we ought to be doing, but we keep showing up because we love the people in our small group. We keep showing up because we love to serve on Sunday morning. We keep showing up because that's our community and we don't want to miss out and those are our people. And then one day when you're at church or your small group or you're having a conversation or one day God speaks to you. He shows you something. You have an experience that moves you. Something catches you right. And that's what clicks and you re-engage in your spiritual life and you begin to pursue Jesus again. Our community tethers us to God in a very real way. Don't raise your hand, but I would ask you, those of you who are Christians, has there been a season of your life where if you didn't have Christian brothers and sisters who loved you and who just accepted you, not who came after you and got onto you and tried to convict you for the decisions that you were making, but who simply loved you, have you had seasons in your life that if it weren't for your Christian community tethering you to your faith, that you would have walked away from it entirely? Yeah. Or you're not being honest. God places us in community because he knows there will be times when we wander, and when we do, he's tethering us about this wandering at the end of his book. he writes this, my brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this, whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. Not only do we have brothers and sisters who love us as we begin to wander and tether us to our faith and kind of draw us back to God as God works on our souls to soften them back to himself. But we also have the opportunity in Christian community, in church community, to be the one that pulls back a wandering brother or sister. To be the one who just consistently loves, who just consistently shows up for, who just consistently says, I'm not here to judge you. I'm just here to love you. I'm here to enjoy you. Not a project friendship, deep, meaningful friendship. When we express that with one another, when we express the kind of community that I've seen at Grace, we are used by God to tether people to their faith and draw them back towards him. You are a tool in his hand used to draw back a wondering brother or sister by simply maintaining community with people even if it feels like they're wandering. So those of you who have wandering friends, which, has there ever been an easier time than now to wander away from the church? Continue to love them. Continue to be that tether that lets them know anytime you want to come back, we're here, we love you. And you can be a brother or a sister that is blessed according to James as we do that. The community here is absolutely a huge way that God keeps us tethered to him and to our faith. Community is also an enormous tool in the hands of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit as they seek to comfort us. We're told in Psalms that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted, that he saves those who are crushed in spirit. It's this idea that when we're at our lowest, God is at his closest. I've preached from stage many times, John 11, 35, the miracle of that verse. It's the shortest verse in the Bible that says that Jesus wept when he met Mary in her sorrow at the loss of her brother Lazarus. Jesus' response was to weep with her. And we get to preach and we get to claim and we get to know that we have a Jesus who weeps with us. And that's wonderful. But have you ever thought about how he does that? Have you ever thought about how God brings himself close to the brokenhearted? Will he bring his presence and his spirit close to the brokenhearted? Yes, absolutely he will. And he will speak into difficult times. Just yesterday, I was sitting on my porch swing and we've had a difficult couple of days and I felt pretty stressed. And I was just sitting there in the rain because that's what I love to do. And it was a good storm yesterday. And there was just this moment where God spoke some encouragement into my life. And it instantly gave me a peace. And so God will absolutely do that and comfort us in that way. But have you ever considered that the church community itself is also how God wraps his arms around us? Have you ever considered that our church community crying with us is also how Jesus weeps with us? Have you ever considered that that might be why Paul tells us to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn? Because that is the expression of the very body of Christ hurting with those who hurt. Jen told me as I was talking through this sermon with her, she said, you got to tell the Lisa story. And I'm actually glad she's not here. Jen's not here this morning, because we'd be a sobbing mess. But if you've been going here since the end of last year, at least, then you likely know that in December of 2020, December 29th of 2020, just to cap off a real humdinger of a year, we lost Jen's dad, John, to pancreatic cancer. That's who our son is named after. And so in the months prior, Jen had been down there a lot. They're located in Athens. Jen had been down there back and forth a lot. And at some point she came home. After Thanksgiving, she came back with me and we were home. And John has a brother-in-law named Edwin who's a doctor. And Edwin and Mary stayed with John. And Edwin told me, Nate, go back home, take your family. We don't really know what's going on with John. But when you need to be here, when it's time for family to be around him, we'll call you. I said, all right. So we came back. We were back for about a week. No, it was just a couple days. It wasn't even a week. And it was the Sunday of December 6th. And at the time, we weren't meeting in person because we'd had a COVID flare up, and so we were just chilling out for a little bit. And so I had to come that morning on December 6th, and we did a live service. So we had worship worship and then I was to preach, right? And five minutes before the service started, my phone rings and it's Edwin. And he says, you need to get down here. So I said, all right. So I called Jen. So we need to get down there. I'm going to go ahead and preach this sermon. And then we'll hop in the car and we'll go home. Let me tell you something. I have no idea what I preached December 6th. I have never been less present for a sermon in my whole life. If you watched it and got something out of it, the Holy Spirit is good, okay? Because my mind was not on that sermon. And I got done and things felt so urgent that I literally, and I never do this, I just pulled off my mic and everything. I set it down. I got right in my car and I drove away. Steve was still playing. The band was still going. Folks were still here. I just got in my car and I left. And when I got in my car, I texted Steve and Kyle because they were both here that morning. And I said, hey, I'm so sorry for leaving so quickly. Here's what's going on. We got to head home. And I go home. I get Jen and we're scrambling to get out the door. We scrambled to get out the door so quickly that to pack for this trip, I just opened up the biggest suitcase I have and dumped all my dirty clothes in it and then grabbed clean clothes and threw them in there, zipped it up, and we headed out the door. I can do laundry where I'm going. I don't know how long I'm going to be there. But that's the kind of urgency that we were trying to get out the door with. In the middle of that, somebody rings our doorbell. And we're like, who's ringing our doorbell on a Sunday morning? And we look, and it's Lisa Goldberg, Steve's wife. And she's at our door, and clearly Steve had called her or texted her and told her what was going on. And see, Lisa's mom passed away of pancreatic cancer a few years prior. Actually, right before, right as Steve and Lisa were moving here to become a part of Grace. And she knew the road that Jen was about to walk. So Jen goes and answers the door. And Lisa has a little gift bag prepared for her and hands it to her and just gives her a hug and starts crying. And Jen was telling me about it this week, and she said she can't even remember Lisa saying any words. Maybe I'm sorry. They just hugged for a really long time. And then we got in the car and we left. And that hug and those tears meant more to Jen in the following weeks than they did in the moment. Because in the moment, she didn't know the hell that she was about to walk through. But Lisa did because she had walked it. And so that provided her with comfort as she walked through that period. You can't tell me that that morning wasn't Jesus coming to our door and wrapping his arms around my wife. He did. That's how he weeps with us. That's how he comforts us. That's why he tells us to weep together. Because when we do those things, we're the hands and feet of God. We're the hands and feet of Jesus wrapping ourselves around people who are hurting. That's how God expresses his love to us. That's how we express ourselves as the body of Christ. He places us in community so that our community can comfort us when we need it. So that he can be close to the brokenhearted. So that we can experience having a God that weeps with us. That's what community does. And it also sustains us. And this is my favorite. Community sustains us. There's this great picture in Exodus. Exodus chapter 17. I'm just going to tell you the synopsis of it, but the story is in verses 8 through 16. I'm going to be a mess. David, can you go get me a tissue? Do you mind doing that? Thank you, sir. Oh, Wes is on it. Thanks, Wes. That's why Wes is an elder, because he does things like that. Oh. That's why Cindy's a resting elder. Thank you. All right, give me a second. I'm sorry. Especially if you're watching online. You're just going to watch me turn my back. All right. Does anybody else need some of these? I saw a couple of tears out there. In Exodus 17, there's a guy named Amalek who's brought his armies against Israel. Moses is the head of the nation at this point. Joshua is his general. Moses is too old to lead people into battle. And so Moses tells Joshua, you go down into the select some men, go down into this valley and you fight Amalek. And as you fight him, I will be up here and I will have my hands raised to God. And as long as my hands are raised to God, then you will win the day. And Joshua says, okay. So he goes down and he begins to fight Amalek. And as he's fighting Amalek, Moses is on the top of the mountain with his hands raised. And as his hands are raised, then what he said comes true. And God is with Joshua and Joshua is winning the battle. But battles are long and Moses is old. And I guarantee you, he had lived a life of shepherding for 40 years. If you wanted to have a hold your hands over your head contest, he would crush everybody in this room. But at one point or another, no matter how strong you are, you'd get fatigued. And he needed to take a rest and let the blood get back in his shoulders. And when he would rest, the army would begin to be defeated and the battle would go towards Amalek. And so he's in this struggle of trying to hold his hands up, but not having enough strength to do it. And they're losing the battle if he can't hold his hands up. So what happens? Well, his brother Aaron and his friend named Hur, H-U-R, are next to him and they find a rock and they put a rock behind him and they tell him to sit on it and then they stand. I love this picture. They stand next to him and they hold his hands up so that he doesn't have to anymore. That's the best picture of community in the Bible. Because each of you, your husband, your wife, your friend, your Christian, your son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, if you're a woman in this church who's married and you have children, you've got a marriage that you're holding up, that you're offering to God. You've got children that you're trusting to God. You've got concerns in your own life. You've got your own faith that you need to carry. You've got your own stresses and your own anxieties and your own worries, and you're facing those battles. And life is long, and I don't care how strong you are. At some point or another, your hands get tired. At some point or another, you think, I don't know if I can do it with this marriage. I don't know if I have the energy it takes to make this thing go. I just don't know if I can pick my hands up anymore. I don't know if I can continue to love these kids the way they need to be loved. I don't know what to do. I can't pick my hands up anymore. I don't know if I can walk in faith. I just can't see it. I have so many questions. God's disappointed me in these ways. I just don't know if I can keep doing this anymore. And when you're on your own, you're right, you can't. This is why we're placed in community, for our friends to come up beside us and grab our hands and say, hey, buddy, I got you right now. I will fight for your marriage right now. I will hold your hands up and fight for your faith right now. I will stand beside you and hold your hands up for your children and for your business and for your health and for your love of Christ right now. I will stand in this gap for you, and I will be the strength that you don't have. That's what community does for us. Our friends come alongside us, and they hold our hands up, and they give us the energy and the strength for the battle that we can't fight right now. And that's what community offers to others. This is why I think that community, this side of heaven, is the most powerful and effective tool that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit use to tether us to him, to comfort us, and to sustain us in our faith and the commitments that he's led us to making. And I'll end with this because I think this is important. Community is a choice. It's a choice. That kind of community, that kind of community where someone shows up at your door just to wrap their arms around you because they know what you're about to walk through, that kind of community that grabs your hand and holds you up when you can't do it, that kind of community that loves you when you're wandering and keeps you tethered to your faith so that you can wander back. That kind of community, that doesn't happen by default, man. We don't just stumble into that. That kind of community we show up for. Sometimes in small groups, I'll talk about it in a second, we sign up for. And then we let the Lord do his work in bringing us together and knitting lives together. We have to choose that community. Just last night, some friends of ours had a birthday party. And our childcare fell through, and so we had to figure out what to do. And so we decided that Jen was going to go to dinner, and they were going to go to drinks afterwards. Jen was going to go to dinner, and then when she got home, I was going to go and have a drink or two with our friends and then come back. That's what we decided we were going to do. Well, Jen stayed at dinner until like 9.15. I needed her to be back at like 6.15. Do you think, listen, I don't know how well you guys all know me. You think I wanted to go anywhere at 9.30 on Saturday night? No, I was in my gym shorts with paint on them and a big baggy t-shirt and Crocs and I was unshowered. I didn't want to go anywhere. But I also knew that I couldn't get up here today and preach about community if I wasn't going to prioritize my own. So they got Saturday night and ate and I showed up just how I was dressed. And we had ourselves a grand old time over at, I think, Tonic in Wake Forest. We have to choose community. It's not always convenient. You're not always going to want to go to small group. You're not always going to want to prioritize it. Parents of elementary and middle school age kids, you'll never be in a busier season in your whole life. It's so hard right now to prioritize small group. Do it. Community is a choice. It's an essential tool that God has placed in our life to bring us closer to him, to experience his love of us. In a minute, I'm going to talk more about small groups. But I want to encourage you here at the end of the sermon to sign up for them. If you're not in one, join one. Step into this community and let's begin to pursue it together and let's let God use this place to further connect us to him. Let's pray. God, thank you for you. Thank you for how you love us. Thank you for who you are. God, thank you for our friends. Thank you for the people who love us, who we get to share life with. Thank you for our brothers and sisters who draw us back in our wandering. Thank you for the ones who comfort us. Thank you for the ones who sustain us and hold up our hands when we are too weak to do it. God, give us the desire and the conviction to choose community. To choose to live our faith with those around us. Remove any obstacles that we might have, whether fabricated or real, and knit us together, God, as a church family, that we might love one another well, that we might express your love for one another well. That we might support and sustain one another well. It's in your son's name we ask these things. Amen.