Sermons tagged with Suffering

The Yo, good to see everybody. Thank you again for being here. This is the sixth part in our series going through the book of Revelation. I have really very much enjoyed going through Revelation with you all. And honestly, you guys have been more enthusiastic about it than I expected because Revelation can be a slog. It can be tough. We just took three weeks working through the tribulation, talking about the wrath of God and all the mechanics of the tribulation best we can. And to me, that feels tedious, but you guys have been incredibly supportive and incredibly kind. And it seemed like y'all have enjoyed going through this with me. As folks have asked me, how is Revelation being received? I say, it seems universally good. However, no one's going to tell me it's bad. No one's going to email me and be like, just so you know, really are looking forward to when this series is over and we can talk about something else. So that might be out there. And if that's you, I'm so sorry. Thank you for hanging with us. But for those of you who have enjoyed this, thanks so much for the encouragement because it's been really, really neat to get to go through it with you guys as a church. This morning, we arrive at Christ's return, the return of Christ. And I said last week that this needs to be the best sermon that I've ever preached in my life, to do adequate justice to the grandiosity of what's happening in Revelation 19. This will not be the best sermon of my life. I just wish that it could be, okay? So let's temper our expectations now. This is a B minus, all right? But in this sermon, we arrive at Jesus' return, at kind of the culmination of God's wrath, the final nail in the coffin. I said we've been walking through the tribulation. We've kind of looked at it through three different lenses. We looked at it in the first week to understand the wrath of God that's poured out in the tribulation, and we defined it. We defined it that week when we looked at Revelation 4 and 5, and Jesus steps forward as the Lamb of God, qualified to open up the seals and begin to open up God's wrath on his creation. We said he's beginning the seven-year process of tribulation. Now, what is tribulation? Well, we define that as the seven-year process of God pouring out his earned wrath on his creation and reclaiming what is rightfully his. And this week, he reclaims it. This week, he does the last part of the tribulation. Then we looked at kind of the flow of it, the seals and the trumpets and the bowls, and then we looked at the figures of it, and we'll talk a little bit more about the beast, the Antichrist, today. But where we're at in the narrative of Revelation is we're at the end of the Tribulation. God has poured out his wrath. We've had this great battle. There's been a great earthquake. God has sent darkness onto the kingdom of the Antichrist. And then he sends his son to finish up the work. He sends his son to answer the voice of the martyrs that cries out in Revelation chapter 6, the fifth seal. The voice of the martyrs below the throne of God that say, how much longer, God, before you avenge our death? You know who killed us. You see us suffering as your children. How much longer will you let this keep going? And we talked about in that week how we cry out with the martyrs, that every time something in our life happens that seems difficult or hard to understand or seems unfair, every time there's a school shooting, God, how much longer are you going to let this go on? Every time we lose someone too soon, God, how much longer will you let this world be broken? Every time we see something that we can't understand, we cry out with the martyrs and we say, God, how much longer, oh Lord, will you put up with this? And when he begins to open up the seals and begin the process of tribulation, he says, no more. And when he sends his son Christ, when we see Jesus in Revelation 19, that is God putting the final nail in the coffin of evil and saying, now I will make all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. Now I will rectify things. Now I will restore creation. Now I will answer the groanings that Paul talks about in Romans chapter 8 when we are told that all of creation groans for the return of the king. When we're told that we yearn inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters to experience eternity in the marriage supper of the lamb, we wait for this. We long for this. This is the hope that persists in our faith and keeps us anchored to our savior because we believe that revelation 19 is going to happen one day, that he's going to come get us, and that when he comes back, you guys have heard me say this before, he's not coming back as the Lamb of God. He comes back as the Lion of Judah. And we see this description in Revelation 19, beginning in verse 11. So if you have a Bible, you can read along with me. I love this description of my Jesus. Every time I read it, whether it's out loud or just in private, I get chills. I love this picture of him. And I don't know, I don't know if everybody can relate to this. This may just be silly. This may just be me being a dummy, and that's fine. I'm familiar with this territory. It's not unfamiliar. But when I read this passage about my Jesus, that part of me as a little kid that loved to see the hero win in movies, that teenage boy that loved to watch Braveheart win, that loved Gladiator and seeing Russell Crowe's character stick it to him, that little boy that loves Star Wars, that loves to see the hero win against evil, against all odds, that part of us, and I'm sharing that with you because I think that God lays that in us intentionally. I think we love the hero because the hero is a shadow of this reality that Jesus becomes. We grow up learning to love when the day is saved and when the hero makes an appearance because God wove that, I think, into our hearts to appreciate the appearance of his son when that hero returns and appears once and for all. So it's with that preamble that we'll read the description as Jesus comes back to reclaim his creation. This is the description of him that John records. Chapter 19, verse 11. And behold, a white horse. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty on his robe and on his thigh. His name is written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Gosh. That's Jesus, man. That's Jesus. That's our Savior. When we think of Jesus, when we pray to him, when we sing to him, when we think about him, when we think about being reunited with him in heaven, I believe that it's our tendency to think about the gospel of Jesus, to think about the crucified Christ. And I don't think that's anybody's fault. We have four gospels. We spend time there all the time. I revisit a gospel every spring with you guys. We focus on Jesus at Easter. We focus on Jesus at Christmas. And we see the teachings from Jesus come out of the gospel. And so it's right and good to think about our Jesus as the crucified Christ. It's right and good to think about our Jesus as gentle and lowly. We're actually reading a book, as the staff right now, called Gentle and Lowly, and what it tells us, and I did not know this, but that the only time that Jesus is ever asked to describe himself in scripture, or rather the only time that he actually does it, he describes himself as gentle and lowly. And I think that when we think about Jesus, we think about a humble Nazarene from the country. And that's fine and that's well and good. But that's Jesus in human form. Revelation 19, that's Jesus. You understand? That's who's waiting on us. That's who's coming to get us. That warrior king written on his robe and on his thigh, king of kings and Lord of lords as a callback to Isaiah so that we know exactly who it is. And when you read through this passage, it's unbelievable to me how rich it is with allusions to other parts of scripture so that there is no doubt about it that this is Jesus coming from the very beginning. It says that he was called faithful and true, capitalized. This is a deity. This is Jesus coming. And then it says that only he knows his name, which is, that's Exodus chapter three and four, when God refuses to share his name. That's a throwback to that. And then he says that he was called the word of God, which John is referencing his own writings at beginning of John, the gospel, when he says that the word was with God in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God through him, all things were made without him, nothing was made. And then at the end, king of kings and Lord of lords. John, in this description of Jesus is weaving together all of the scripture to point us to our savior. This is the Jesus, the one who has fire coming out of his eyes and a sword coming out of his mouth with which to strike down the nations. The one who rules with the rod of iron, who has the armies of heaven arrayed in linen, following down as he thunders down to conquer the beast and the dragon and the antichrist. That's the one that sits at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for you. That's the one that rules for all of eternity. That's the one that we pray to. And that's the one who's coming to get you. So I want to at least take some time this morning to encourage you. When you sing to Jesus, when you pray to him, when you think of him, when you anticipate meeting him, anticipate the conquering Christ. Anticipate this Jesus. Anticipate the warrior king coming down to settle the score. Anticipate the lion of Judah coming down to wreck shop. To once and for all sweep evil off the face of the planet. And when you do that, when you focus on the conquering Christ, to me, it really caused me to think about this a lot this week, that the conquering Christ renders the crucified Christ all the more miraculous. The conquering Christ, Christ conquering renders Christ crucified all the more miraculous. Because this description in Revelation 19 with a robe dipped in blood and a sword coming out of his mouth and a rod of iron that he rules a nation with, he's gonna tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God with all of heaven's armies arrayed behind him, thundering down to wreck shop. That Jesus hung on the cross for you. That Jesus walked away from all of that, condescended to take on our form, walked with us for 33 years, nurtured disciples to birth a church that would become his true kingdom that he's coming back to rescue so that you and I can sit in here 2,000 years later. He did all that, meek and mild. And when he describes himself as gentle and lowly, yeah, you're not kidding, man. Because look who he is in earth and look who he could be this whole time. This description, this guy, this God, this warrior king, he hung on the cross for you. Not just some sage from the hills of Israel. God condescended for you. He chose to hang on the cross. So I love that moment with Pilate. He's like, are you really a king? And he's like, don't worry about it, Pilate. If I wanted to, this whole place would be smashed. At any moment in Jesus' life, he could have called down these armies and just crushed anybody who opposed him. Caiaphas, the high priest, is sitting there thinking he's got Jesus right where he wants him, and Jesus is just thinking, you have no idea who I am. He dies, he's separated from God. Satan thinks he's got Jesus right where he wants him. Jesus says, you have no idea who I am. Christ conquering, to me, renders Christ crucified as all the more miraculous. And when I think about my Jesus, this is who I think about. He comes to get us and to take us back up to heaven and to start off eternity. And when he comes to get us, he takes us back, we're told, to what's called the marriage supper of the Lamb. He's defeated the beast. He's defeated the Antichrist. He locks them up. It begins the thousand-year reign. We're going to talk about that next week. There's an encore of evil, and then Jesus once and for all throws them in the lake of fire, and that's it. But he comes down. He captures the beast. The armies conquer. He takes his children, he wipes evil off the face of the earth, he purifies his bride, and then we have the marriage supper of the Lamb. And I feel bad for how I'm covering the marriage supper of the Lamb in this series. Because I'm not gonna do it justice. I'm not gonna adequately cover it. And I'm not saying that in this series. Because I'm not going to do it justice. I'm not going to adequately cover it. And I'm not saying that in this way of false humility, like, oh yeah, I'm really not doing that good of a job with it. Like, no, I'm not. We just don't have enough time to sink in to everything that's here and even all the symbolism in the marriage supper of the Lamb. But a simple way of thinking about it is the marriage supper of the lamb is the greatest celebration feast of all time. It is the greatest celebration feast that ever was and ever will be. And this should hit home with us. Because what do we do? What do we do when we want to celebrate? I got a little bit of good news last week. Such good news that I went straight to the butcher's market. I bought myself a big old ribeye and I had that for dinner when the kids went to bed. I had myself my own personal private celebration feast. When your team wins, what do you do? You have a feast. When something good in life happens, when you graduate, you have a feast. When people come into town, what do you do? You have a feast. What are we going to do this week? We're going to get together with friends and family. We're going to reflect on the blessings that God has given us, and we're going to have a feast. This is what we do to celebrate. When your kid gets married, and you celebrate kind of transitioning into that season of life. This one has passed. We've formed a new family. What do you do? You get all your friends together and you have a feast. This is what God is doing. It's the greatest celebration feast of all time. In the days of old when kings would conquer and they would come back from conquering another king, what did they do? They feasted. And Jesus is bringing us back to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Why is it called the marriage supper of the Lamb? Because Jesus is getting married. Who's he marrying? Us. The church. His bride. We see throughout Scripture that the church is referred to as the bride of Christ. We see in Ephesians that God purifies his bride. He prepares us. We are made pure for Jesus so that we might marry him in eternity. I don't know how all that works out. It's a word play, but we are made pure by our savior. How are we made pure? By the crucified Christ hanging on the cross. He died for us. He covered over you in righteousness, made you good, purified you, prepared you for this very moment, for the marriage supper of the Lamb, where the church and Christ are united for all of eternity and perfect bliss. And so it's right and good to have a feast to celebrate the marriage. And this feast, man, it's going to be a good feast. The ones that you've lost, they're going to be there. I don't know for certain. I can't find it in Scripture. But I'm pretty sure they're going to serve catfish at this feast. Because my papa is going to be there. He loves catfish. And I know he's got some waiting on me. Your loved ones are going to be there too. Your dads are going to be there. And your moms. And the children that you never got to meet because you lost them too early, they're going to be there. All the saints who have come before us, all the saints that you've loved, they're going to be there. And listen to this. They're going to be the best versions of themselves. They're not going to be sick. They're not going to be unhealthy. They're not going to be unwell. They're going to be the perfect versions of themselves. They're not going to have all the brokenness that hurts us sometimes. Do you understand what I'm saying? Your dad, who you loved, but man, that guy had a temper. In heaven, he doesn't have a temper anymore. He's just love. He's just all the best parts of him. The people who we love, who made it sometimes hard to love them. Jesus has prepared those brides too. Their brokenness is wiped away. And they love you with purity. And you're made perfect too. All the crap in your life, all the stuff that you wish wasn't true of you, all the things that you hope nobody finds out, all the brokenness that spills out of you and hurts the people around you when you don't want to hurt them and you hate that side of yourself, that side's gone at the marriage supper of the Lamb. You're made perfect there. You're made your ideal self there. You're made your eternal self there. And you can love other people finally with the purity that God loves you with. We see the best versions of the folks we love. I am convinced of this. We finally walk in the best versions of ourself and don't have to wonder what it would be like to not have to walk through life as a selfish, egotistical jerk. That one's just for me. I don't know what your thing is. That feast is going to be remarkable. And everybody's going to be there. And Jesus is coming to take you to that. And I think that's pretty great. And as I thought about these things this week, the triumphant return of Christ and the marriage supper of the Lamb and all that it represents and what Jesus really won with that victory. What does it mean for us? Yes, evil is smited. Evil is gone and all the wrong things are made right and all the sad things are made untrue. All that is very true and God wins once and for all and that part of us that loves a hero gets to see the actual hero come storming out of the clouds. He wins those things for us. We see our God claim victory and that's great. But there's something else that occurred to me too. I was prepared. I knew this was going to happen. We're not even to the hard part yet. Jeez, old Pete. Something else occurred to me as I kind of asked the question, what has Jesus won? And what are we celebrating at the marriage supper? And I was reminded of this idea that I have long carried with me, but I've not heard too many other people talking about it. I've actually never heard a pastor talk about this. It doesn't make it a unique idea. It's just one that I've not heard other people mention. And maybe it's because pastors aren't supposed to say things like this and the other ones know better and yours doesn't. But I've long carried with me this idea that faith and hope are burdens. Faith and hope are hard. We celebrate faith and hope in our belief system. We're told that the greatest of all these things is faith, hope, and love. We celebrate faith and hope. We want those. We name our children faith and hope. They are good things. But I, in my life, in my most honest moments, experience them often as a burden, as something to be carried, as something to be chosen. Because faith is a belief in things that you can't see. Faith is what we choose when facts fall short of certainty. Do you understand? There's things that we can know about the universe and about our God and about scripture and about the claims and about life. There's things that can be scientifically proven and broken down and rendered as factual. And then there's what we choose to put our faith in. Then there's certainty. And when facts fall short of certainty, we fill that gap with faith. Whether you're a Christian or whether you're an atheist, there's no way to be totally certain of what you think's going on in the universe. So when we reach the end of facts and we have to arrive at certainty, we fill that gap with faith. So faith is a choice. We choose it. We exercise it. We learn it. We let God speak into it. We let him strengthen it over the course of our life. The longer you walk with God, hopefully the stronger your faith gets, but it gets stronger because it's been tried and it's been tested and it's been a burden that you've chosen to continue to carry. Hope is a burden. Hope is a belief that one day something can be true that I want to be true. Hope, to even have hope, is an admission that right now things are not the way that I want them to be. Right now things are less than ideal. Right now things are not what I want, but I hope, I believe that one day the things that I want can be brought about. Hope is an admission of a shortfall. People who are not yet parents and desperately want to be hope that one day this can be true of us. We, as believers, we read scripture, we hear the stories of Jesus coming down out of heaven, and we hope in that day. We place our faith in that day. We believe that there's going to be a marriage supper. We place our hope in that. We place our hope and our faith in the idea that our prayers are working, that they get to God, that they are powerful and effective and they're not just bouncing off the ceiling. But sometimes, life makes hope heavy. Sometimes life makes hope heavy. When you lose someone too early and your Bible teaches you that your God could have done something about it and you have to be confronted with the fact that he just simply didn't. In that season, you choose hope. And in that season, it's heavy. And sometimes, when life gets hard, and when faith and hope become burdens, and they become heavy, we see people put them down and walk away from them and say, I can't carry this faith anymore. I don't know how to believe in a God that would let that happen, so I'm gonna set down this faith. I don't know how I can still cling to hope when I've been disappointed in these ways, so I'm going to set down this hope. Sometimes faith and hope get heavy, and they get hard to carry. When you grow up in church, being taught a simple faith, and then you become an adult adult and there are things that happen in your world that just don't align with what you were taught when you were a kid and you have to learn how to find this new faith. You have to cling to it and you have to hope and you have to choose hope and you have to find ways to make what you were taught and what you're experiencing mesh and you have to find a whole new way to understand scripture and understand God and to understand how he speaks to you. In those moments, faith can get hard and hope can get heavy and we have to choose them. And I am convinced that the Christian life is simply a series of the decision to choose faith and to choose hope in Christ over and over and over again until we make it to the finish line. My prayer as I prayed before I preached this morning was that if there is anybody in here that's carrying heavy hope that it would get lightened just a little bit today. That we would have the strength and the faith to continue to carry it for a little bit longer. Just get down the road just a little bit further. Because sometimes faith and hope get heavy. And I hate that we don't talk about that as much because we should. And if that's true, if I'm right that they can be burdens, then one of the best things that Jesus wins when he comes sweeping out of the sky is on this day, he lays to rest faith and hope forever. And he says, here, you don't need these anymore. You don't need faith and hope anymore. Maybe that's why Paul writes in Romans 8, he says, for in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. When Jesus shows up, we don't need hope anymore. When he shows up, we don't need faith anymore. There's no more gap between facts and certainty. There's just Jesus. There's no more hoping for one day. There's just Jesus. One day has arrived. Do you understand that when Jesus sweeps down out of the sky, that he lays to rest for us for all eternity, faith and hope. And he says, you can set them down, weary traveler. You're here now. Let's feast. And I think that's a remarkable blessing. Because to be a Christian is to believe that one day these things will be true. To be a Christian is to believe that one day God will set all the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. One of my favorite songs in the world is this song called Farther Along. Farther Along, I like the version from a guy named Josh Gerrels, and it opens up. And he says, I wonder why the good man dies and the bad man thrives and Jesus cries because he loves them both. And the chorus is, farther along, we'll know all about it. Farther along, we'll understand why. And it's just this acknowledgement, I think, that faith and hope are hard. Faith and hope are hard, but one day, I won't need those anymore. I can lay that and everything else down at the feet of my Savior. And on that day, when Jesus comes back, there are no more one days. On this day, Revelation 19, marriage supper of the Lamb, on that day, there are no more one days. It is one day for all eternity. There's no more wondering, there's no more hoping, there's no more struggling, there's no more pain. Because on that day, he puts an end to waiting on one day. And I kind of wonder now if that's why Paul didn't say what he said in Corinthians. When he gets to the end of talking about all the spiritual gifts and he says, but now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these, Paul says, is love. And I've always read and accepted that teaching, and it's made sense to me. Love binds. Love is the very nature of God. Love is what unites us together. It makes sense to me that love would be greater than faith and hope. But now I wonder, in light of what I've thought through this week, if maybe love isn't the greatest because when Jesus comes back and lays faith and hope to rest, that love is the only thing that exists for all of eternity. Maybe love is the greatest because it's the only thing left after Revelation 19. And we live in an eternity of perfect love that God designed us for, finally. As I was thinking through this sermon this week, I was pacing in the lobby. And as I was out there, just kind of walking back and forth, thinking through these things, asking myself the question, what has Christ won for us? I noticed on the information table, a bracelet, like a little ringlet. And I picked it up and I saw an inscription there. And I thought, oh, what is this? God, are you talking to me? Let? Speak, Lord, your servant hears. I'm working on the sermon. There's a bracelet here. You've got to be working in this. So I reach over, and on the bracelet, it just says, it is well with my soul. Also, if that's your bracelet, it's right out there. It just said, it is well with my soul. And I thought, oh, I love that song. But that's not really helpful. Okay, God's not speaking. And I just kept pacing. And I got done and I kind of had a fully formed idea. And sometimes on Tuesdays when I get a fully formed idea, I get a little bit excited about the sermon and I'll go and I'll tell Kyle because Kyle's always up for a conversation. I said, Kyle, I got it. Listen, I told him about this idea of faith and hope being burdens and that Jesus is going to put those to rest for us. And Kyle started to get a little teary eyed. And he said, he said, that just reminds me of my favorite song, my favorite line from my favorite song. And he quoted me these lines from it as well. And I was like, oh my gosh, God is speaking. I'm just dumb. I always say God speaks in stereo. And Kyle quoted these lines. And he started crying. And I got misty, and I knew that this is what we were supposed to share, and I knew that we were supposed to end the service today with it as well. Because in these lines, we see the author of this song admitting what we've just talked about today. The faith and hope are burdens, and so it is well with my soul. We often sing this song in a response to grief as an admission that I am going to choose faith and hope even though it's heavy today. Now let's sing it looking forward to the day we can lay those things to rest and Jesus has won the final victory and forever we will say it is well with my soul. Stand and let's sing together.

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

We serve a God who's working through time to bring about His will and ultimately our good. We see the evidence of His sovereignty in the book of Genesis with the life of Joseph. To know and understand the story of Joseph is to get a glimpse into the very heart of God and to be assured that we can trust His plan. Last week, Joseph's story reached its incredible conclusion in an emotional reunion with his brothers. Now we reflect on everything that happened in Joseph's life and all we have discussed in previous weeks. We will marvel at the sweeping and stunning sovereignty of God as we ask together what it means for us today to continue to believe that He has a plan. Well, good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. My name is Nate. If we haven't gotten the chance to meet, I'd love to meet you afterwards between the service and the meeting that I have to go to, but I'd still love to meet you afterwards. If you're watching online, thank you for doing that. If you're catching up during the week, we are grateful that you are doing that as well. This is the last part of our series in Joseph, going through the life of Joseph, and I hope that you guys have enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed kind of diving into the story and getting to preach it every week. I love the stories of the Old Testament. I love trying to help them come to life and taking time to go through them and see that there's really so much there for us to learn from that points to things that are relevant to us today. Just for my own curiosity, by show of hands, those of you who have heard most of these sermons and been in here or watched online for most of these sermons and seen the bumper videos, how many of you have picked up on the fact that it changes every week, that there's different words being said every week? Not very many of you. Some of you are like, wait, what? Yeah, we rewrite them every week to catch you up with the story. And we were joking as a staff, wondering if anybody knew that we were actually doing that. And my bet was no, and I was mostly right. So there we have it. We're not doing that for you ever again. We're just going to make the same bumper videos. And you're just going to have to be stuck with them. So sorry. As we finish this week, I'll remind you that last week, we really, we reached the end of the story, right? We reached the end of the narrative. We had moved all the way through, and Joseph was finally reunited with his brothers. His father was told that Joseph was alive. Jacob was told that Joseph was alive, and he was going to go down and meet him. And he looked, and he said, when he saw all the workings of God, he said, it is enough. And we kind of talked about the profundity of that phrase and everything behind it. And so the whole time that we've been moving through, I've been saying, this is really one big long seven week sermon. And so this is the part of that long sermon where we reflect on all the things that we just learned and saw. And it just occurred to me, I'm going to have to take my watch off. The Falcons are about to start playing, which means my friends are going to be texting like crazy. It just went off and something happened in the game already. This is actually why I had this installed. I'm watching the game as I preach there this morning. That's not true. And that joke was given to me by Kyle before the service. So thank you, Kyle. It worked great. Everybody seemed to love it. Yeah, it was very good. It's very good. Part seven. This is the part where we watch and reflect on all that we've learned. And we ask, what does this mean for us? What's the overarching point of the story of Joseph? Not just what do we see when we drill down into the individual details, but as we move through the whole story, what is it that we learn and how does that impact us? And that, to me, what we learn from the entire story of Joseph is probably my favorite thing about the story. As it was said in the intro video there, that this is the most sweeping and stunning depiction of the sovereignty of God, I think, that we find in the Bible outside of Jesus himself. And so I want us to see the story of Joseph the way that I look at it and see it now. To help us do that, we first look at this summary verse from Joseph. This is in Genesis chapter 50. The family has moved down. Pharaoh has given them the land of Goshen. That's where they're living. And Jacob's life is coming to an end. Their dad is about to die. The brother's father is about to die. And the brothers kind of start to murmur and realize, hmm, dad's about to pass away. And when he does, the gig may be up. Joseph may still be mad at us. He may still be harboring some anger against us. So there's a chance that once dad dies, he's going to let Benjamin stay alive and he's going to kill us for revenge. And Joseph catches wind of this thought. So he calls the brothers to him and to ally their fears, to help them just relax and know that he has nothing sinister planned. Joseph says this in Genesis chapter 50, verse 20 to his brothers. And this is a great summary verse that many of us have probably heard before. He says this, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. Now, many of you probably heard that verse before. You meant it for evil, but you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. But I think put in its proper context, in this big narrative of the life of Joseph, to know exactly what his brothers did, that Joseph had those dreams and the brothers did exactly the exact opposite of those dreams and sold him into slavery and they meant it for evil. But Joseph, now presumably 20 years later, knows that that was God working and that God meant it for good. So for Joseph to say that, what does he mean? How does he know that God meant it for good? How does he see God's plan come to fruition? What are the layers behind God meaning it for good? And all of the implications of the story of Joseph and what kind of plan and for whom was God weaving it exactly? And so to do that and to think through really all the repercussions of the plan that God had for Joseph throughout his life and the story that we just looked at, I want you guys to think about something with me. This is going to be handy for me to use as we go throughout the sermon today to kind of refer back to this. But I don't want you guys to take out your phones because then you might just stay there and I'll get real discouraged. But think about looking at your map on your phone or on your computer. You pull up Google Maps or Apple Maps or whatever it is you use, and you zoom in on one particular property. Maybe it's your property. That's all you can see on the screen is just your house. And then imagine pinching it or zooming back or whatever it is and pulling back, and now you can see most of the city. You can see where your property sits in relation to the rest of the city. You can see the streets that surround your community, the different shops and restaurants and different things and schools that are in your community, and you kind of realize that your house exists within the broader context of this community, and then zoom way out until you can see the whole country. And realize that this one house exists in this community, which exists within this country. And you could zoom in on any different portion of the country and find your own community, find a different community. And then within those communities, you can find your own house or another individual house. So it's kind of the same idea that's working on three levels, right? At the home, and then at the community level, and then at the country level. And I bring that up because I think it's helpful to think of Joseph's story as a home within a community, within a country. I think there are layered truths to the story of Joseph and layered evidences of God's plan. And here's what I mean. When we read the story of Joseph, we've said all along, he has a plan, he has a plan, he has a plan. Each one of the voiceovers that we wrote for the videos ended with the phrase, he has a plan. He has a plan. Each one of the voiceovers that we wrote for the videos ended with the phrase, he has a plan. Each week we leave ourselves in a place where Joseph has to choose to continue to cling to the belief that God has a plan. And so this week, I want us to see the multifaceted levels of that plan. So the first one is God has a plan for his child. What do we see when we look at the story of Joseph? We see that God has a plan for his child. God has a plan for Joseph as an individual. God gave him those dreams when he was young. He said, your brothers and your mom and your dad are going to bow down to you one day. God knew that in his arrogance, he was going to go tell his brothers. He knew that in that arrogance, he was going to get thrown into a pit and sold into slavery. And God knew that he needed to plant Joseph for Joseph's own sake, that he needed to be associated with Pharaoh. But if you go back through the whole story, there's no way to get a nomad from Canaan into the court of Pharaoh in Egypt. So how's he going to do that? So God enacts a plan. And part of that plan is to let Joseph be a snot-nosed brat so that his brothers don't like him. And then they throw him into the pit. And they're going to kill him. But Reuben whispers, maybe let's not do this. Maybe let's just sell him into slavery. I don't know this or not. This is total conjecture. But what do you think are the chances that the Holy Spirit whispered into the ear of Reuben, hey, why don't you sell him into slavery instead? What do you think are the chances that God was present in that moment to change the mind of his brothers to what he needed them to do? His chances are pretty good, personally. He sells them into slavery, the exact opposite of the dreams that he was given. How could this possibly be the case? He's been promised that this is going to happen. He's been promised, he's claiming the promises of his great-grandfather Abraham that were passed down through his grandfather Isaac, through his father Jacob, and now bestowed onto him as the firstborn son of his beloved wife. Joseph is going to live out all of these things, except now he's in the back of an ox cart on the way to Egypt, and it feels like none of those things are going to come true. But God was working in the details of that plan. God sent him down there. He gets down there. He's still got to get him associated with Pharaoh. How's he going to do that? Well, he gets bought by Potiphar, a royal servant. So that when Potiphar's wife would eventually accuse Joseph of sexual harassment falsely, and he gets falsely imprisoned, he doesn't end up in the general population prison. No, he ends up in the royal prison with royal prisoners who are associated with Pharaoh this whole time. Even though it doesn't look like that the dreams are going to come true, even though it doesn't seem like God is with Joseph this whole time, God is working his plan and his child. He interacts with the cupbearer. The cupbearer goes to Pharaoh two years after that interaction. He's swept up into Pharaoh's court. He's put where he needs to be. He's got the preparation that he needs. He's had time to age and mature. He's got experience and leadership already when he rises to prominence in jail and when he rose to prominence at Potiphar's house. And now he's ready to step into his role as the secretary of agriculture for the most powerful nation in the world. Number two in command right behind Pharaoh. He's done this before. He's interpreted the dreams before. He was ready for his moment. And this whole time, God has been working his plan. Do you see? To get Joseph into that place. That was his plan for his child. And throughout the whole plan, there was plenty of circumstances where Joseph could look around and say, God, this plan ain't working, man. The things that are happening in my life are not what I expected based on the plan that you gave me. So we just had to trust that God had one. And so we see this whole time that God has a plan for his child. And we talked about when he rose to prominence last week, I said, the story could end here. When he's in charge, he's got his sons. He names them Manasseh and Ephraim. And it means the Lord has provided it for me in my time of trial. Like that story could have been done there. It's good. It's done. But the story is about more than God's child because God has a plan for his children. Joseph is the house. He's the child. But if you zoom out, you see that God has a plan for his children, for his community, for his people. God has a plan for Joseph's family. Last week, we saw in the verses, we saw in the passage a couple of verses where Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and he says, don't worry, I'm not angry at you. You intended this for evil, but what you think you're the one who sent me here, it wasn't you, it was God. And he sent me here to preserve many lives. And so what we also see, this kind of pulled back layer of the story, is that God wasn't just preserving the life of Joseph to get him where he needed him to be, but he needed Joseph to be there because he needed to protect his children. He needed to protect his people. He needed to protect the offspring of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Because we learned in week one, God made promises to Jacob and God's commitment to his promises are not contingent upon our behavior. Remember? And so God made a promise to Abraham that you're going to have the land of Canaan. You're going to have so many descendants, it's going to be like the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore. And you're going to have one descendant that's going to come and bless the whole earth. That's the plan. And so God keeps his promise to Abraham. He gives him a son, Isaac. He keeps his promise to Abraham through Isaac, giving him a son. He keeps his promise to Jacob by showing him favor until Jacob finally realizes you've been wrestling against God your whole life. Just relax and enjoy God's favor. Joseph figures out to enjoy God's favor, even when it doesn't make any sense. And he looks around and the plan doesn't make any sense. He's just hanging in there and trusting that God has a plan. And now God's put him in this place where he can provide for everybody. And the whole time he's not just doing it to provide for Joseph. God is doing it, I think, because he knows the descendants of Abraham will not survive a seven-year drought in the land of Canaan. They can't do it. When the brothers came asking for grain the second time, they were in year two of the famine. Now this is conjecture. I don't know this for sure. But when are they going to run out of money to feed a small clan of people? When are they going to start? How many more trips to Egypt can the brothers make before they have to start choosing who gets grain when they get home and who doesn't? They have no idea the famine is going to last seven years. They've probably got a year or two left before they've got to start asking some really hard questions questions because if there's nothing growing on the ground, then there's nothing that their flocks can eat. And if there's nothing that their flocks can eat, then they have no way to make money. And if they have no way to make money and there's nothing on the ground and they have no flocks left for them to eat, then what are they going to do but perish? So God, to protect his children, not his child, his children, takes one of his children and places him in a place where he can, according to Joseph, preserve many lives. And so in the story is God keeping his promise to Abraham and preserving the promise to the community, preserving the promise to his children to keep them where he needs them to be. They are brought down, put in one of the most fertile places in Egypt, the land of Goshen, and they are told to live there and flourish there. So when we pull back from just Joseph, we realize that God was working a plan for his children this whole time too, for all of Joseph's family. The brothers had no idea that they were part of this plan, but they were. They were just pawns in what God was doing. Then you pull back even further at the kingdom view, and you realize that God has a plan for his kingdom. What he's working in the life of Joseph, those individual details and the ebbs and flows that we've followed over the last several weeks, he's not just working for Joseph's benefit. He's not just working for his children's benefit. He's working for his kingdom's benefit. We're in Genesis 50 this morning. When you flip the page to Exodus chapter one, what do you learn? You learn that 400 years after Joseph had passed away and Pharaoh had forgotten about them, Moses is on the scene. That's how the stories are linked together. And by the time Moses comes on the scene in Exodus chapter 1, theologians believe that there was between 500,000 and 600,000 Hebrew people living in Egypt as slaves. I have to believe that for some reason, God didn't believe that this family from Abraham was going to make it in the land of Canaan on their own. He had to believe that there was no way they were going to grow to what they needed to be to be able to conquer the land of Canaan and possess the kingdom that he had promised them that they would possess. So what does he do? He takes his children down to the most powerful nation in the world and he incubates them for 400 years where they can grow and develop culture and develop a faith and develop a way that they interact with their God so that when Moses comes on the scene, who by the way, another stunning view of God's sovereignty, God plucks Moses out of Hebrew slavery and puts him in the palace of Pharaoh where he gets the best education in the world. He's exposed to leadership his whole life. He grows up, he's haughty, he goes out into the wilderness and gets humbled, and then he's called in Exodus 3 and 4 back to Pharaoh from the burning bush to go lead his people out into Canaan because now they are finally ready to go live where I want them to live. None of that happens if Joseph isn't sold into slavery when he's 17 years old. None of that happens if Potiphar's wife doesn't falsely accuse him. None of that happens if Joseph doesn't get chosen to go interpret the dream for Pharaoh. None of that happens if Joseph isn't placed as second in command to help preserve the line and bring them down and incubate them. God is planning things on such a bigger scale than Joseph would ever acknowledge or imagine. And so we go from the house to the city to the nation where God's really enacting his plan. We've been saying this whole time, he has a plan, he has a plan, he has a plan. And we've been spending most of our time focused on his plan for Joseph and what it means for him. But as we finish the story, we need to peel back and say, what does it mean for God's children? And then we pull back even more and say, what does it mean for God's kingdom? What is it that he's doing on this huge eternal scale that he's enacting through the life of Joseph? And suddenly we begin to see God's sovereignty woven all throughout the story, understanding that he's in every detail, that he's allowing and disallowing all the different things to bring about the future that he once brought about. And the great part of Joseph's story and seeing God's plan on that scale is realizing that if God has a plan for Joseph, that he has a plan for us. If God had a plan for his children then, then he has a plan for his children now. If God had a plan for his kingdom then, he has a plan for his kingdom now and still. And as Christians, and this is the great part, this is the part that I want us to sink into. As Christians, we have to understand that we are still in the land between, right in the middle of God's plan. We slowed down and we looked at one phrase that Doug did such a fantastic job with, the fact that Joseph had to wait in prison for two years and that land between promise and fulfillment and the already and the not yet. And God, I know that you told me that this would be true, but it's not true yet. And so I wait on you. If you are a Christian, that is where you are. And the promise that Jesus died on the cross for you and that one day he's gonna come back and get you. That's where we find ourselves, in that land between, in that land between promise and fulfillment. All Christians live there. And we cling to the truth and to the promise that God still has a plan. And his plan, by the way, is, was, and will always be Jesus. That's his plan. That's what we cling to. As a matter of fact, what I would tell you is that the story of Joseph ultimately points us to Jesus. It's the whole reason that it's there. I've just been waiting for six weeks to build it up so that we could point ourselves collectively to Jesus because he's God's plan. He was God's plan here in Genesis 50. He's God's plan in Matthew chapter one. He's God's plan in Revelation 19. Jesus is God's plan. And that's what we sit in the middle of. God's plan from the very beginning was to send a Messiah through the line of Abraham. We go all the way back to Genesis chapter 12. We get out of what's called the prehistoric narrative to kind of set up the story. Genesis 1 through 11 basically set up the story for us to focus on Abraham and hear the promises that God gives Abraham. And the promises are land, people, and blessing. One of your descendants will bless the whole earth. All the way back in Genesis chapter 12, God knew what the plan was. And the plan was to establish a nation, establish a faith, let them come to the realization again and again and again that they desperately needed a king, they desperately needed a savior. The plan was to send Jesus in the flesh to live amongst us, to stay here for 33 years, to be crucified, to raise himself from the dead on the third day, conquering death and sin for all time and giving us a hope that we can cling to that Romans tells us will not put us to shame. That was the plan. And then one day, he's going to come back. And when he comes back, he's going to have righteous and true on his thigh, and he's going to take us home with him. That's the plan. It's always been the plan. It's what we cling to. And so right now, in this life, for a little while, Paul tells us, we will endure hardship. And right now, in this life, we're going to look around sometimes, like Joseph did on his way down to Egypt and go, God, this doesn't feel like the plan. None of my circumstances make any sense to me with what I thought I was promised. There's going to be times when, like Joseph, we're falsely accused and we're thrown in whatever version of prison awaits us. There's going to be times when we feel like God promised us something or that something's supposed to go our way and instead we're going to languish for two years waiting for that thing to happen. There's going to be times when the plan doesn't seem like it's going how it's supposed to go. And in those moments when the plan doesn't seem to be making much sense to us, it would help us to not be so focused on our own house and to take a step back and say, God, what are you working in the community around me right now? How is what I'm walking through affecting the children, your children that I'm around? How is it affecting my church? How is it affecting my community? What's the bigger thing going on here? And this is what I mean. Many of you guys know that part of mine and Jen's story is that we struggled for a long time to get pregnant. And then when we finally did, we lost our first child. We had a miscarriage. And at the time, here, looking at my house, God, how could you let this happen to us? We serve you, we love you, we do good things, we don't have secret sins. There's a bunch of people who are way worse than us and they're just like slipping and having children. We can't have any. That's not fair, God. But then I pull back and I look at the community. And what God knew that I didn't is that I was going to be the pastor for a lot of people who struggle with infertility. And he knew that it was going to make me a much better pastor to be able to mourn with them and hope with them and pray with them. He knew that Jen was going to have the opportunity to comfort a lot of women along the way. And so it was a hard part of our plan, but I think it was absolutely a part of God's plan. On another level, I believe that one of the reasons that it took us so long to have children, and now I'm going to be in retirement when John graduates from college. I believe that one of the reasons that it took us so long and that we are older parents with younger kids is because I think that he knew where we were going to be and what we were going to do. And he wanted us to have children of a certain age so that they would make friends with children of that age so that we would have friends of a certain age so that he could build a community with us and for us. I think it all works. Now, do I pretend to know where God is interjecting himself and diverting our plan towards a particular path that we might not see the end of and when it just really is coincidental and then God's working within those circumstances to bring about his goodness and our joy. No, I don't know how to tell you the difference between those things and when they're happening. But I know that God has a plan. And I know that sometimes we have a hard time seeing it because we're so focused here that we can't pull back to here and see what's going on in our community. And then when that still doesn't make any sense, we pull back to the eternal view. And we trust that God still has a plan. That one day Jesus is going to come back. And he's going to restore creation to itself. This is what Romans 8 tells us, that all of creation groans with the beginnings of birth pains for the return of the king, that creation groans, that when someone gets cancer, that's creation groaning. When abuse happens, when divorce happens, when we lose a loved one too early, when things happen that don't make sense, when we see a school shooting, that's creation groaning. That's our very nature saying, God, this isn't how it's supposed to be. And God is in heaven and he says, I know. And I'm coming. And until I do, just trust me. Trust that I have a plan. This trust is the fundamental Christian trust. That even when things don't make sense, even when we don't understand them, even when we can't explain our faith, we still choose it. Because we trust that our hope will not be put to shame and we trust that Jesus is going to do what he said he would do. That trust in Jesus is the fundamental Christian trust. And what we know and what's amazing about our Jesus is that at every level of the plan he is working. He's working in his child. He is working in his children. He is working in his kingdom. He's working in his child and that he's near us. In John 11, it says that Jesus weeps with us. He's working for his children. In Romans 8, where it says that Jesus is the high priest, that he sits at the right hand of the Father and he is interceding for us. And it says that again in the Hebrews. He's working for his children and then he's working for his kingdom when he's waiting for God to say, yeah, now's the time. And he comes back and he gets us. And he delivers us into that sweet moment in Revelation 21 where it says that God will be with his people and we will be with our God and there'll be no more weeping, no more crying and no more pain anymore for the former things have passed away. That's the plan to get us to that moment. And your job is to take as many people as you can with you as you go to that moment. And your job is even when I don't, I look around and I'm on an ox cart on my way to be a slave and none of this makes sense. It's to still hold fast and hold firm and hold true and steady to Jesus, trusting that Jesus is God's plan. And if I just cling to this, even when I don't understand it, that one day it'll all make sense to me. That when we get to heaven, we'll look around at everything and we'll go, yeah, this was a good plan. And we'll be very glad that we clung to it. That's the story of Joseph. The story of Joseph points us to that plan. I hope that you'll go back and read it. That you'll read it again thinking about the layers and see different details that you didn't see before. I hope that you'll never think of Joseph the same way you did before we started this series seven weeks ago. And here's the really fun part about where we end this series talking about God still having a plan and that we sit in the middle of it and we are awaiting the fulfillment of that plan. You know the very next thing we're talking about? The end of the plan. Revelation starts next week, where we skip to the last chapter of the book, and we find out how it ends so we don't have to be so stressed about the middle part. And it's just pretty cool to me how even as I sit up here and I say every week, God has a plan, God has a plan, God has a plan, that I believe his plan was to weave these two stories of Joseph and then the account of Revelation together to prepare our hearts for what we're going to begin to dive into next week. I hope that you'll come back for that. I'm very excited to share Revelation with you guys and for us to walk through that as a church. And as we finish up this story, I hope that you'll never, ever read Joseph the same way again. And then I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray and we're going to have communion. And I'm excited about doing communion together with you guys in light of what we just covered. And I'll tell you why in a second. Let's pray. Father, you have a plan. You have a plan for your child, for your children, for your kingdom. We are grateful to sit in the middle of that. God, if there is anyone here who does not have the hope of that plan, who does not have the hope of a coming Savior to rescue them, would they place their hope in you just this morning? Would they cling to that hope and never let go? God, for those of us who look around and feel like maybe our circumstances don't really line up with our expectations, would you give us the strength and the faith and the courage to cling to you and to cling to your plan and to trust it? God, I pray for our church family as we go throughout our weeks. I pray that you would draw us near to you, that we would hear your spirit speaking to us, that we would feel moved and directed and guided by you, that we would have a heightened sensitivity to your timing and to your plan and be grateful that we are a part of it. Help us to be more obedient followers of you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning. My name is Nate. I am the senior pastor here. If I didn't know any better, it would seem like your senior pastor guilted you into attendance this morning. This is great. Thanks for being here. I hope we keep it rolling. We are resuming our series today called One Hit Wonders, where we're looking at different passages in the Bible that we don't often get to stop at or pause at or focus on. And this morning, we're going to be in a passage at the end of Habakkuk. We'll be right back. Habakkuk. Very few people know where it is. You're probably going to have to get your table of contents involved. There's no shame in that. It's one of the minor prophets towards the end of the Old Testament. So join us in Habakkuk. What we're going to find there, I think, is a passage that is tucked away and little known, but it really brings to me a lot of hope and a lot of faith, sometimes when we need it the most. But as we approach that passage, I'm reminded of these rites of manhood that I would hear of as a kid growing up. You hear about these different tribes across the globe that have different tests for children to become adults. They throw you into the wilderness for a few days, and if you come back with like 10 beaver pelts, then now you are a man. There was the Maasai tribe I was reading about this week out in Africa. They don't do this anymore because it's illegal, but for generations, what they would do is on your 10th birthday as a little boy, they would send you into the savanna with a spear, and you had to kill a lion and bring back proof of this kill, which is an insane test for a little boy. But in the Messiah's defense, if a 10-year-old can do that, dude's a man, okay? I believe them. That's a legitimate test. But you've heard about these rites of passage and these tests of manhood or adulthood before, right? And I actually think, I bring that up because I think that there is a test for our faith in the Bible. I think that there is actually a test that all believers at some point in their life must go through, must experience, and must come out the other side as proven and mature. And I'm arguing this morning that we find that test in the end of Habakkuk chapter 3 and verses 17 through 19. So read them with me, and then we're going to talk about why I think this really is suchber verse. This is a difficult thing to be able to say. So I'm going to contend with you this morning that being able to authentically claim this passage is the mark of mature faith. Being able to authentically claim this passage, Habakkuk 3, 17 through 19, to be able to say this out loud to one of your friends, to be able to say this out loud to God himself, To me, to be able to authentically claim this verse, claim this passage, to say it out loud and to mean it, is the test of a sincere and a mature and authentic faith. And if we look at the verse and the context in which it comes, I think you'll see why I think this. Because the picture that Habakkuk is painting here follows three chapters of devastation. Three chapters of the nation of Israel being laid low. Three chapters of the consequences of their action resulting in poverty and death and famine. Three chapters of hopelessness. And so here at the end, he's saying, even in light of all of that, in light of all the devastation that we just experienced, in light of where I find myself now, and listen to this, even though the fig tree will no longer produce and the olive crop fails and there are no herds in the fields, what he's saying is, even though the present looks bleak and the future looks bleaker, even though today stinks and tomorrow looks worse, I don't find any good reason to hope in a good and bright and hopeful future, even though that's true, yet I will choose to find my joy in the Lord and find my strength in him. Do you see the power of that statement? And for many of us, we know what it is to feel like the present stinks and the future doesn't look much better. We know what it is to look around and think to ourselves, though the fig tree does not blossom, though the olive is not going to produce a crop, though the things that I relied upon are no longer there. We've walked through those moments, right? And I'm not talking about small disappointments. I'm not talking about little fissures in our life that upset our otherwise peaceful existence. I'm talking about the hardest of times. I'm talking about my dear friends in the church who they have some good friends who are in their early 30s, I would presume, and have young children, and she has been battling cancer for months, if not years, and has recently found out that her body is so riddled with it that she will not survive this. That's today stinks and tomorrow's not looking good either. That's hard. That's what Habakkuk's talking about. I've mentioned before my friend Carla Gerlach who lost her husband at the age of 30, my college roommate to a widow-maker heart attack with three children under the age of five. That's sitting in the middle of a present that stinks and looking towards a future that doesn't feel very hopeful. We know what it is to walk through these difficult times. That's raising a child and then watching them make decisions that hurt us so much and not knowing what to do. That's experiencing a parent with dementia or with a difficulty that has now been imposed upon you and you have to love them and carry them through it. I've seen that happen over and over again in our congregation as some of us age and take on the role of caretaker of our parents, that's a difficult spot. That's in the middle. What Habakkuk is talking about is how we feel in the middle of a divorce, in the middle of finding out about infidelity, in the middle of getting the call about the difficult diagnosis, in the middle of the difficult relational thing that we don't know if we're going to see through it. It's how we feel in the days and months after we lose our job or after someone hurts us deeply. That's what Habakkuk is talking about. And so what he's really saying in this passage, to put it in our language, is that even when God disappoints me, I will choose to find my joy and strength in him. Even when my God disappoints me, I will choose to find my joy and strength in him. I debated on that word disappoints because you could say, even though I'm disillusioned by, you could say even though I'm confused by, even though I'm let down by, even though I don't understand my God right now, I will choose to find my joy and strength in him. And where the rubber meets the road on that is when as a believer, you know that God is good and you know that he is sovereign and you know that he is loving and you know that he is all powerful and you know that he could have stopped this thing if he wanted to, but he didn't and you don't know why. You know that it's in his power to cure that cancer. You know that it's in his power to prevent that heart attack. You know that it's in his power to heal this person, to mend that relationship, to see this thing through. You know he can do it and he didn't. And you're left with, but why, God? Why didn't you do that? It's a feeling we feel whenever there's another shooting. God, you could have stopped this, and you didn't. Why didn't you? It's a feeling that Mary felt when Jesus let her brother Lazarus die. And she wept and she said, why didn't you get here sooner? And in that moment, when we're disillusioned by our God, when we don't understand why he let this happen, and there's no words that anybody can say that can comfort us, to choose in that moment to say, God, I don't understand you, but I trust you. God, I don't understand you, but I find my joy in you. And God, I don't understand why you let this happen, but I'm going to lean on your strength to get me through the season of disillusionment and confusion and disappointment. To be able to do that, to be able to choose that despite the confusion and disappointment that we're walking through, to me that is the test that produces a mature and authentic faith. To me, when you've been forced into making that choice, is when your faith becomes sincere and mature and authentic. And listen, there's some middle ground there. I've talked to people walking through this season. There's some middle ground there. There's some people who will say, yeah, life stinks and it's really hard right now. And God, I don't know if I trust you and you could have fixed this and you didn't and I don't know why. And they, even though they love God, they trust God, they still follow God and believe God, they are not yet prepared to say, and I will find my joy and my strength in him. They're not there yet. There's a middle ground where you don't understand what God has allowed, where you know you trust who he is, but you're not yet ready to fully embrace the reality of it. You're not yet ready to fully say, even though I find my joy in you, I rejoice in you, and I find my strength in you, and I know that you will make me walk in high places. There's a middle ground there. And if you are in that place, that middle ground, between God, how could you let this happen, and not quite ready to say, I want to rejoice in you again, this sermon is specifically for you. And the reality is we all face these tests. We, all of us, if you are a Christian, at some point or another, is to be disappointed or disillusioned by God and to feel that he has let you down. It's to go through this test. And the Bible is very clear. It's very open with us. We should see it, right? This shouldn't be a surprise to us. The Bible is honest with us that this test is coming. I could share with you myriad verses, but I've gotten just three here for us to consider this morning. In Proverbs, Solomon writes, He speaks of this test that's coming. The fire burns the gold and the purity rises to the top and there's something to this in the way that the Lord tests us as well. Peter writes famously, 1 Peter 1, verses 6 and 7, He says, on the vine, that today looks bad and tomorrow looks worse. And even though that happens, I will rejoice in the revelation of my Savior, Jesus Christ. I will look forward to the day when he returns and he makes the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. I will cling to that, even though I don't understand God, even though he doesn't make sense to me, even though I would do it differently if I were God. I will choose to trust that in eternity I will understand him, That if I ever possess the capacity to understand what God's doing and why he allows things to happen in this way, I'll sit back and I'll go, you're right. You were good. And I love you. He allows these tests to produce in us a perseverance that will result in glory and honor, praise and the glory and honor of the revelation of Jesus Christ. And then Peter writes at the end of that same book, 1 Peter 4, verse 12, I kind of like this one a lot. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. Don't be surprised when we walk through the test. Don't be surprised when life is hard. Don't be surprised when there's a season and you look around and you go, God, where are you? When you relate to the Psalms where David writes, how long, O Lord, will you hide your face from me? Where are you, God? I cry out to you, and I do not see you. Don't be surprised when those trials come, and we look around, and we say, this isn't right. This isn't fair. God, you could have done something about this. He says, don't be surprised as if this is something unexpected. The reality is the test happens. And I want you to know this too about the test. Our father doesn't delight in testing his children. He simply knows that a fallen world will test us. Our God in heaven, our good father in heaven is not up in heaven looking at your faith going, hmm, they seem to be doing pretty well. How can I tighten the screws to see if they really mean it? What can I do to make them to kind of poke and prod them and see if they really mean this or if they're going to fade away? He's not up in the heaven tightening the screws. He doesn't take delight in watching you squirm. That's not what he's doing. He simply knows that in a fallen world, his children will be tested. And he weeps with us. And he offers us his presence. And he offers us his hope. And we're told that those who hope in the Lord will soar on wings like eagles, that we will run and not be weary, that we will walk and not be faint. We're told things over and over again. We're told that God is our refuge and our strength. We're told that we can trust him, that he is our ever-present help in times of trouble. We're told that he is close to the brokenhearted, and he comforts those who are crushed in spirit. We're told blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. We're told over and over again throughout Scripture that God is close to us in our brokenness, that when we are in the middle of this test is when God is closest to us if we will only be able to feel him, if we'll only have the ears to hear him and the eyes to see him and the heart to know him. We're told that the test comes. And it doesn't come because our God delights in testing us and watching things be hard. The test is coming because this world has fallen. Because in a fallen world, people get cancer. In a fallen world, sin begats abuse, begats divorce, begats pain, begats generational scars. In a fallen world, people die too soon. In a fallen world, people get addicted. In a fallen world, we have to watch our parents become people who no longer know us. And those things will test our faith. Those things will make us look at God and say, couldn't you have done something about this? Because of that, I think it's important for us to think, I actually think it's important for us to remember the story of John the Baptist who had this very moment. John the Baptist was this great prophet. He was the last of the great prophets. And he was the one to announce Jesus as the Messiah who was to come. He was the one to introduce Jesus to the people of Israel. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. And subsequent to that, John the Baptist is arrested. He's being held in prison by Herod, and he is going to die. And he sends one of his disciples to Jesus. And he asks Jesus, are you the coming one? Are you the coming one or should we hope for another? And we have no reason to know this, but this is a reference to Isaiah 35, which is a messianic prophecy, a prophecy about the Messiah that is to come. And he calls in that, in Isaiah 35, Jesus is referred to as the coming one or the one who is to come. And it says that when he arrives, that the blind will see, that the deaf will hear, and that the lame will walk, and that the prisoners will be set free. John the Baptist is a prisoner. And he sends a messenger to Jesus to say, hey, are you the guy? Because your word promises that when the guy shows up, I'll be let out of prison. Or should I hope for another? And Jesus tells that disciple to go back to John and say, go and tell John that the blind do see and the deaf do hear and the lame do walk and the prisoners will be set free, but you won't be set free, John. And then Jesus says, blessed are those who don't fall away on account of me. Blessed are those who have expectations of me that I don't meet. Blessed are those who are confused by my actions and my choices, and still choose to trust that I am sovereign and that I am good and that I love you. John the Baptist walked through this very test. All saints walk through this very test. Because of that, I think it's important for us to think of our faith as a clay pot. Think of the faith that you have as a clay pot. If you grab clay and throw it on the pottery wheel and start to form it, you can make it into a thing. I don't know anything about pottery. I've seen it in enough movies and TV shows that I feel like that's what you do, right? You slam it down and you press the pedal and it spins and you can make it into a thing. You can make it into a bowl or a pot or a vase, right? And if you just take the wet clay and you form it into a shape, it's there and it's real and it exists and it's not not clay. It's not not pottery. And you could probably even hold stuff in it if you wanted to. It could probably even serve a purpose. But that piece of pottery is not finished until it goes into the kiln and it comes back out of the fire. That pottery is not hardened. It's not mature. It's not ready to serve its purpose. It's not ready for use. It's not trustworthy until it comes out of the kiln formed and fashioned and fired. And after a couple decades now of being in ministry and being in church my whole life and watching people's faith and watching how it grows and how it fades and how sometimes it seems to go away and sometimes it seems to come back and then sometimes it seems to move into maturity. I am certain of this. Our faith isn't as mature as it could be until we walk through that fire. Our faith is most trustworthy when it's put into the kiln and it comes out the other side hardened and authentic and mature. Our faith, to me, isn't yet mature, isn't yet strengthened, isn't yet completely trustworthy until we've been put in the fire and we've been forced to choose God when sometimes it doesn't make sense to choose Him. And say, but even so, in the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we trust that God will protect us from this fire, but even if he doesn't, we will declare his name. Please understand that the test is not, the fire is not the circumstances that we find ourselves in because those will come and go. To me, I firmly believe that the fire is that moment, it's that season when we question, can I really trust this God? It feels like he let me down. Can I really trust him? Can I choose? When faith isn't easy, when faith doesn't come naturally, when faith isn't fun, when faith is a choice, will I then choose God? When it doesn't make any sense to me, will I trust his wisdom over my own? Will I trust that in eternity, when I can look my Savior in the eye, that I will understand the way that he ordered his creation? I really do think that that's the test of genuine faith. And there's something to that fire, too. And that picture of gold being purified through it. You know, the reality is, as hard as it is to hear, the fire burns off the impurities, right? And so what we find usually when we go into these crucibles and we go into these tests, and the real test is not the circumstances around us, but having to choose God in spite of our confusion. The real test is choosing Him anyways. And allowing some of our impurities to be burnt off. Acknowledging I've been carrying expectations from God for a long time that he never gave me. I've lived, and I know that this is hard, but I've watched it happen. I've lived in myopic faith where my assumption is that by my actions I can control him. And God, I've been good, so you should order the universe to not harm me. That person was so good. They were such a good man. They were such a good woman. They went too early. God, how can you let that happen? That assumes that God pres think the fire forces us to see that maybe we've built a myopic faith. Maybe he's opening our hearts to a grander vision of eternity in his kingdom. Maybe we open ourselves up to God, what did I bring into this test that doesn't belong here? So that when we emerge from the other side, we can authentically claim Habakkuk 3, 17 through 19. This is why James writes in the first chapter of his book, Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you endure trials of any kind. For we know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, and perseverance, when it takes its full form, will leave you perfect and complete, not middle space. When you find yourself in the fire, take heart in knowing that your Father is shaping you into a saint who can claim Habakkuk 3, 17 through 19. If you find yourself in that sacred middle ground and that land between God, you've disappointed me. I believe in you. I want to. I want faith, but I can't yet find my joy in you. If you find yourself there in that fire, take heart. You are in the midst of your test. And when you grab onto God and you choose faith, you will come out the other side persevering. You will be perfect and complete, not lacking anything. You will have a fire-tested faith that was hardened through experience, and you will be able to use your faith as a blessing and beacon to others. To this day, the people whose faith I respect most are the people who have walked through this fire and chosen God anyways and now use that to help walk other people through their test. So if you've been through the test, if you've been forced to make that choice, forced to choose faith, you know how formative that is. You know how solidifying that is of your faith. You know that that season of life, no matter how difficult it was, if you have a sincere faith now, is one that you look back to and flag as the time when I really moved into maturity. You know that that instance, that season of life, anchors your faith now and now so that when things happen around you, they are not near as difficult to deal with. Those of you who have not yet walked through that fire, you will. And when you do, remember those words of Peter. Don't be surprised by this. We all walk through this. Choose God. Choose to find your joy and strengthen him. And for those of you in that middle ground right now, who know God and trust him, but are not yet in your heart at a place where you feel like you can worship him, where you can find your joy in him. God has grace for that. God doesn't rush that. God loves you and is closest to you as you walk through it. My hope and prayer is that we will be heartened by that, that we will be encouraged by that, and that we will be a faithful of people who have chosen God and have mature, authentic walks with him that will stand the test of time, that will be perfect and complete, not lacking anything. Let's pray. God, you're good. Even when we don't understand how you're good, you are. Even when we can't see a hopeful future, God, we know that you do. Lord, I pray specifically this morning that you would be with those who are in the fire. I pray that they would feel your comfort, that they would feel your presence, that they would feel your peace, that they would feel your love. God, fill us with your spirit so much so that even though we don't understand how or why, God, that we would still trust in you. Give us the strength of faith to find our joy and strength in you. Be the one who strengthens us even as we walk through the fire. It's in your son's name we ask all these things. Amen.

This is our summer series called One Hit Wonders. And I have an explanation for what the series is and why we're doing it. But really, the most honest, transparent thing to say is this is really just a vehicle so that we can stop and highlight some of the passages that we don't pay attention to as much sometimes. That's really what it is. To pull these passages out of the Bible that maybe in a normal sermon series we wouldn't normally hit. This morning we're going to be in the book of Micah, which if you have never looked for the book of Micah in your Bible before, now is probably a good time to start, okay, because it's a hard one to find. So you're going to need a few minutes before I get there. So if you have a Bible, open to Micah chapter 6. If you don't know where it is, I was trying to think of helpful ways to tell you that, and there are none, okay? It's just like most of the way through the Old Testament, probably use your table of contents if you need to, and good luck. But we wanted to, for the next six or seven weeks, take some time to highlight some of the passages that we just don't get to talk about in church as often. And so this morning, like I said, we're going to be in Micah chapter 6. As we approach Micah chapter 6, I wanted to tell you about a friend of mine. This is a friend of mine who grew up in North Georgia. I'm just going to grab a name out of the air. We'll call him Alan. Alan grew up in North Georgia. In his late teens, early 20s, I'm unsure of the exact timing, small town, he's driving around one night and doing something he shouldn't do, speeding or whatever. I forget the details of the story. But the fuzz gets after him, right? The law catches him and the blue lights come on. And here they come after Alan. And Alan thinks, maybe I can outrun these guys. Maybe I can duck away and not get in trouble because my parents are going to be mad. I think the story goes, pulls into a driveway and thinks he's hiding out. The officer pulls up behind him. He knows good and well who it is. The officer knows good and well who's driving this car because, again, it's a small town in North Georgia. He gets out of the car and he pulls his pants up likey police officers did, you know. And he looks at him and he says, son, you done boogered up. Which I just love that phrase. That's just such a good southern phrase. Son, you done boogered up. And you know it. Like you know you're in trouble. You messed up. You know you messed up. And now you know that there's going to be consequences. And I bring that up because I think we've all felt like that. Oh, man, I done boogered up. I think that we know people who have messed up. We have people that we probably could have said that to in our lives. And I think the tendency there, when we mess up real bad, is to try to figure out what can we do to make it right. I think of a husband who's messed up in some significant way. He's just been drifting away from the family for a while. He did one big dumb thing. He's not paying attention to the kids. He's a grump whenever he comes home. He's selfish in the way that he spends his time. Something, some way that a husband can mess up and we're all capable of messing up. Wives are not. Wives are great and we just need to try to get on board with them. But husbands mess up and when we mess up, I've been in so many conversations with guys after they've messed up and they think to themselves, what can I do to make it right? What can I do? I've boogered up. What can I do so that my wife knows I love her? Should I give her a day at the spa? Like a girl's trip? This is really bad. Do I buy her a new car? Like a hundred roses spread throughout the house? Like is this what I do? Do I buy her jewelry, like something big and nice? Like, what's the grand gesture that I can do that when she is the recipient of it, she will go, oh, he loves me. Everything's good. You're forgiven. That's what we're looking for, right, is that grand gesture. But here's the thing. Here's the thing about marriage when we really mess it up. And when the husband comes to me and he says, what can I do? What can I buy her? What can I give her? What big extravagant thing can I do for her? I always say like, dude, she doesn't want a day at the spa. She wants you to do the dishes. She doesn't want a hundred roses. She wants you to cut the grass without complaining about it. She doesn't want a big grand gesture. She wants you to get up with the kids when you don't have to. She wants you to offer to do bedtime and bath time. She wants you to clean the kitchen. She wants you to do these small, consistent behaviors that spring from a sincere love. And you know what she wants? She wants you to be a good husband, man. You don't get to act however you want for a month and then spend a bunch of money at the end of the month and be like, see, we're good. Grand gestures are never in a real relationship. In a relationship where we genuinely love one another, where the other person matters to us, grand gestures are almost never the thing that communicates the love that we feel for them. And the truth of marriage and the truth of relationships is that when we mess up, what we really need to do to make it right is just small, consistent, simple behaviors over time that flow out of a sincere love. Show them. Don't tell them that you love them. Don't tell them. Don't make some big promise, some big commitment. I promise I'm going to get up every day and I'm going to do this and I'm going to come home and I'm going to do this. Don't do that stuff. Just start doing it, right? And I'll just throw in this little tip. I don't like to give tips for my marriage because I don't like to set myself up like I'm some sort of good husband here, But this one I think I've learned. If you'll be consistent with these little things over time and do the dishes and get up with the kids and show on a daily basis that you love her, the pressure's kind of off for the big grand gestures. You don't have to do those as much. Now, if you can do both of them, I would imagine that's really firing on all cylinders. I have not experienced that. I try to invest in the little things, you know. But the grand gestures aren't really needed as much. And you know what's interesting to me is that that's how we as people work. Just give me the consistent things. Just show me that you actually love me. Just be a good husband. Just be a good friend. Just be a good wife. Just be a good son or a daughter. That's what we need. And what's interesting to me is that God is no different. If we think about our relationship with God, to be a Christian for any amount of time is to come to the conclusion that we've done boogered up. We've messed it up. I've disappointed God. I ought to know better by now, and I'm still doing this. I didn't even know I was capable of becoming this version of myself, and now look at me, I feel shameful. To be a believer is to come to a conclusion at some point or another that we have let God down, that we have messed up. And I've talked with people. I've felt these emotions. What can I do to show God that I love him? I get on my knees, I'll pray, I'll commit. I used to work at a summer camp, man. And the summer camp, I got to the point just callously and skeptically. At the end of the week, we would do a campfire, right? And there's a campfire and we sing songs and we've been pumping these kids, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus all week. And it's good. And the things that happen at camp are wonderful are wonderful and life changing and I trace a significant event in my spiritual formation back to the first time I went to a particular camp. So I think that they're incredibly effective in the lives, in our spiritual lives. But these campfire moments where these kids come forward and they make these big grand promises. I'm going to go home and I'm going to break up with my boyfriend and I'm never going to talk to them again. I'm going to make a bunch of new friends and I'm never going to do this. You're just kind of sitting there as a counselor and you go, I made that promise. You're going to fail. You're not going to do that. But it's our tendency to want to try to find these promises to make to God, to make this big grand gesture. God, what do you want from me? What can I give you? What do you ask of me? I want to show you that I love you. And this is actually the same place that the ancient Hebrew people found themselves. When we get to the book of Micah, I'm not going to give you all the background to the book of Micah for the sake of time and your interest level. But what I will say is that God's people, the Hebrew people, the Israelites, were far from him. They had been wandering from him. They had thrown off his rules. They had thrown off his reign and his sovereignty, and they had begun to live by their own rules. And because of that, they were suffering in their sin. And by the end of Micah chapter 6, these prophets would try to shake them and get their attention. And by the end of Micah, they had gotten, Micah had successfully gotten their attention and they were ready to repent. They're ready to come back to God. And so they go to God and they say, what do you want from us? We've messed up. We've done, boogered up. What do you want from us? And that's kind of, that's the questions that we see in verses six and seven. So I want to read those to you first. We be right with God. They realize they've messed up. They want to fix it. God, what do you want from us? What can we do? Can I offer you oil of a thousand rivers? Do you want a hundred calves that are a year old? Do you want my firstborn, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Now they're getting into hyperbole. Whatever you want, God, I'll give you. Whatever grand gesture, whatever I need to do, whatever promise. You want all my money? You want me to stroke a check for everything in my bank account? I'll do it, God. Just tell me that you love me and that we're good. This is the place of desperation that they've reached. And it's a place, again, as believers, that I believe that we are familiar with. God, I've messed up. I've become someone that I didn't know I could become. What should I do now? How do I make this up to you? What do you want from me? Whatever you want, I will do. And I love God's response in verse 8. You know how you can make it right with me? You know what you need to do so that we can be good? I'll tell you. Verse 8, he has told you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. I'll read it again because it's worth it. He has told you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. I love this passage because it distills down so much the complication of scripture. You know what God wants from you? You know what he wants you to do? He wants you to seek justice. He wants you to love kindness. He wants you to walk humbly with him. Really, at the end of the day, God wants what we want when someone has messed up with us. He wants us to just simply show him that we actually mean it, that we actually love him. He doesn't look for a big grand gesture. God asks for simple behaviors born out of sincere love. And if I had the notes to do over again, I would put the word consistent in there. So if you're a note taker, put that in there for me so I feel better about things. God asks for simple, consistent behaviors that are born out of a sincere love. If we want our wives to forgive us and to know that we mean it, be better husbands. You want God to forgive you and know that you mean it, be better children. He doesn't need the oil from a thousand rivers. He's got all the oil he could want. He doesn't need your bank account. He's got a big one. He doesn't need your time and your energy and your talent. He created everybody, and he can use a donkey to speak to people. He does not need me. You want to show God that you love him. You want to know what God wants from you. It's simple, consistent behaviors born out of a sincere love. And I really love the simplicity of this truth. I love how resonant this is and what it does for us in our thinking about our spiritual life because I think it's entirely possible for someone to be new to the faith and be intimidated by it. This is a thick book. It's a complicated book. It's hard to know everything in here. I would bet if you're a student of the Word, if you listen to sermons regularly, I very much hope that you regularly encounter things that you did not know before, that you had not heard before. I think it's part of the Christian experience for there to be a spiritual question that we can't answer because we don't know the Bible well enough, or to learn something about Scripture and see it be incongruent with another part of Scripture and not know how to harmonize those things. And so I think that Scripture itself can be intimidating. I think that the idea of living a Christian life can be intimidating. The idea of being spiritually healthy can be intimidating and it can be big and it can be confusing. And sometimes it's hard to know where to begin. And for those of us that feel like that, kind of mystified by the whole Christian life and all the learning from us that it requires, this verse is incredibly helpful because it takes everything that we're trying to piece together and distills it down into the simplest form. Listen, just seek justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God. Just do those things and the rest of it will help make sense. Seniors, as you go into your own lives and you make your own decisions for what you want your faith to be and how you want to live that out. You will have any number of messages coming from the world about what it should look like and how it should be shaped and what you should believe and what you should think is right and who you should affirm and who you should do all these things for. Listen, if your faith seeks justice and loves mercy and walks humbly with God, you're on the right track. For the rest of us confused about our faith sometimes, intimidated by what it means to be a Christian and not really sure, is this a sin? Is that a sin? Is this right? Is that wrong? How do I do this? What do I do there? Do this first. Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. I think the opposite is true too, the way that this simplifies things. Some of us have been walking with God for a long time. Some of us know the Bible very well. And some of us have the tendency and the mindset to kind of get entrenched in the details, to get mired in the details and in the dogma and how it all pieces together in a good systematic theology. And we like to deep dive into books and parse out individual words and sentences and tenses and understand what does this mean in context and this and how does it relate to this. And we can fire off all those things and do those studies. And listen to me, those studies are valuable. They're good. They're profitable. They're beneficial. They build us up. They're helpful. It's good to understand the Bible on a granular level like that. But if that's the only place that we live, is on that granular level, if that's the only place we go and we get mired in the details, sometimes we forget about the themes of the Bible and the whole purpose of the Bible. And this verse kind of helps to pull us up out of that and help us give a 30,000 foot view of the Bible and go, I need to seek justice. I need to love mercy. I need to walk humbly with my God. And it helps to pull us down. If our heads are in the clouds and we're confused, it helps to bring us down and center us. So this verse is a wonderful, settling verse. We love it so much that we have it displayed in our home to remind us consistently that these are the things that we need to champion in our house. Because they're so vital, because Micah in this book, in his message to the Israelites and then in turn to us, highlights these things as vital practices, seeking justice and loving kindness and walking humbly with God. I believe it's worth our time to think about this morning what it means to actually do those things. What does it mean to seek justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with God? And so as I thought about justice, and some translations, mine says that you should do justice. Other translations say that you should seek justice. And so as I thought about it, I thought of this idea. I don't think that what he's telling us to do is to seek justice for ourselves. I don't think that we should do justice for ourselves. I don't think that we're to seek out our own justice. And justice is someone getting what they deserve. Whether it be a warranted punishment for a sin committed or whether it be a right wrong. Someone's been treated unfairly and we're trying to right that wrong. And I think more often than not, the type of justice that we're supposed to seek for other people is not punitive justice. We shouldn't be trying to punish them, but we should be trying to restore people who have been mistreated. And this idea of seeking justice, again, is not for us. I don't think the message of seeking justice for yourself is really congruent with the gospel message. Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, that we're to reciprocate evil with kindness. So I don't think it's really congruent in the gospel message that we should in 2021 be running around concerned about our own justice. I think the heart of God is that we would seek justice for others. And so here's the thing about justice. And this is for me, okay? This is something I thought of this week. So try it on with skepticism. This is not gospel truth. I didn't get this from some smart pastor or theologian. I made it up, okay? So you try that on for whatever it's worth. If it fits in your life, good. If not, it doesn't hurt my feelings. But here's what I think about justice, particularly as we seek it for other people. Justice always flows downhill. If we're going to seek justice for others, we can really only seek it for those that don't have the voice or influence or power that we do. We don't seek justice for people who have a greater voice or influence than us. If Jeff Bezos is wrongfully imprisoned, he doesn't need your help. He doesn't collectively need our help. He's good. We can't get him any resources or voice or influence or power that he doesn't have access to. He's fine. But we have a girl here named Jen Taylor who's involved in a ministry called Refugee Hope. There's a whole community of refugees that live behind the Falls Village Shopping Center over there on Falls in the News. And on July 11th, we're going to actually have a whole Sunday dedicated to highlighting our ministry partners, and we're going to get to talk to her, and I'm really excited about that. But those people who live in those apartments, they don't have the voice and the influence that Grace does. If we want to seek justice, we seek it for people like them. A really easy application of this, because you might think, I don't have voice. I don't have influence. How do I seek justice for other people? An easy way to do this is when a kid's getting bullied. Right? We're on the cul-de-sac or we're at the park or we just happen to notice and we see some older kids picking on a younger kid. Nothing riles me up more than watching a kid get bullied. I used to be a teacher and there was a kid getting bullied in my class and I sent him to the office to get something I didn't need and I laid into the girls that were making fun of him and they cried and I felt better. Maybe someone needed to seek justice on me after that moment. But we can insert ourselves there. That kid's not getting treated fairly. I want to let them know that that's not okay to do. This community of people isn't getting what they deserve. I want to be an advocate to get them what they deserve. I have a friend who started a ministry. He became aware of a trailer park community that was 85% Mexican immigrant. And the children were English speakers and the parents were not. And it was really hard for them to make their way in society. And so they got involved simply by bringing a turkey for Thanksgiving one year. And that developed into a multi-state ministry called Path Project, where they go and they partner with these people and they get adults in there to teach the adults English as a second language. They teach them to go into the schools and be advocates for their children so that they can seek justice on their own behalf. And that's what godly justice looks like, is using our voice to bring about fairness for someone who doesn't have the voice or the influence that we do. That's seeking justice. And I say that because if we're growing in our walks with God, if our hearts are beginning to beat more like his, then we will be people who regularly seek justice for those who don't have the voice that we do. And I think it's important for us to point that out in church because I grew up in church. I grew up in church in the South. I know what institutional religion looks like. And I have watched over and over again people in the church choose to use their voice to try to convince victims that they're not victims instead of trying to help the victims that are being hurt. If we're growing in our heart with God, we will be far more interested in helping victims than we are in trying to convince them and others that they're not actually victims. And if they'll just suck it up, if they'll just take ownership, if they'll just do what I did, then they'll be okay. That's not what the heart of God says. And I don't want to be a part of a church that is more interested in trying to convince others that they're not actually suffering than they are in actually doing something about the suffering. So we need to be a church that seeks justice, that leverages our voice and influence to help people who don't have the voice and influence that we do. As we seek justice, we're also told to love kindness. And I don't have any great insight to you on what kindness is. You're grown-ups. I think you'd get it. If you don't know what kindness is, just go talk to my wife. She's really nice. She'll tell you. We know what it is to be kind. But what I wanted to think about as we think about this idea of kindness is that kindness is most helpful, it is most effective where it is least warranted. Kindness is most effective where it is least warranted, right? We know this. It's really easy to be nice to someone who's nice to you. Again, my wife, Jen, she just drips kindness. And I have watched people in my life who I know are not kind people, and they are just butter in her hands. They just respond with kindness to her because that's how she acts towards everyone. It's really easy to be kind to someone when they're kind to you. But what about being kind to people that we don't have anything to gain from? Right? We've heard this before. You can tell someone's character by how they treat somebody they have nothing to gain from. What about when I don't need anything from you? I don't need you to like me. I don't need your money. I don't need your support. I don't need you to play my kid in the game. I don't need you to give my kid a good grade. I don't need this sale to go through. I don't need anything you have to offer me. There is nothing. You are literally bankrupt in my economy. You have nothing that I need. And yet we'd be kind to that person anyways. What about when someone is unkind to us and we feel like they don't deserve our kindness? Isn't that when kindness is most effective? When someone's been unkind to you, when everyone around you is telling you, yeah, you can be a jerk back to them, you need to put them in their place, and we choose to respond with measured kindness anyways, isn't that a more effective kindness? And when we are kind in these incredibly effective ways, I'll tell you, it makes an impact. When I was six or seven years old, I went with my church at the time, Grace Fellowship Church, to my first overnight summer camp, Word of Life Camp down in Florida. And I was newer to the church and young, and most of the kids on the trip were a little bit older than me. And so I was pretty intimidated by the whole deal, right? And so it's the classic scary moment of getting breakfast on the first morning and looking at the cafeteria and going, I don't have any friends here. I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, that terrifying moment of where in the world am I going to sit and how's this going to go? And so I just find a seat, sit down in the middle of the table somewhere. And I'll never forget the pastor's wife, a woman named Jody Hoffman. She comes and she sits down across from me. Which, as soon as she did that, I felt more important. I felt valued. I felt seen. I felt like this breakfast was going to be okay. Because here's the pastor's wife sitting down with me. And I remember at the time, even at six or seven years old, having the wherewithal to acknowledge this as kindness. She's not sitting here because she wants to. She's sitting here because she knows I'm alone and I'm scared and she wants to be kind to me. And now she's going to make conversation with me even though she doesn't know how to do that. And listen, that in and of itself is a remarkable act of kindness. I'm the pastor. I love your children. I want my hugs when they get here, and I want my high fives when they get here. I don't want to have breakfast with them. I don't want to do that. She sat down and she had breakfast with me. Not only that, I was so nervous about this breakfast and not messing it up, that somehow or another when I reached for something, I knocked over my milk. I knocked over my milk directly into her tray of French toast. I felt terrible. I'm scrambling. I'm apologizing. I'm near teary-eyed. I'm so, so sorry. I'll get you some more French toast. And she calms me down. She puts her hand on the table. She says, Nathan, it's okay. Calm down. It's all right. It's all right. I said, no, I'm so sorry to ruin your breakfast. And she said, I actually, I like milk on my French toast. And I'm like, you do? Yeah. Sometimes at the house I do this when there's no one else around. I like to, I like eating my French toast like this. Really? She goes, yeah, look. She takes a bite of it. That woman sat there and ate milky French toast for a whole breakfast so some dumb six-year-old wouldn't feel bad about himself. That's remarkable kindness. It's remarkable kindness. And listen, I promise you this. Here's what I promise. She doesn't remember that. I haven't talked to Jodi in years, but if I could talk to her this morning and say, do you remember the time at Word of Life that I dumped milk on your French toast and you ate it anyways? I promise you she had no recollection of that. That was probably the third milky French toast she ate that week, okay? She's just that kind of person. She's that kind of nice. It meant nothing to her than just being kind in the moment. But here we are 35 years later and I remember it and it stands out as this mark of kindness that someone treated me with. That kindness when it's least warranted is most effective. Maybe there's someone at your work who's not being kind to you. Maybe your boss is running your rag and maybe there's a co-worker who's not treating you with the respect that you deserve. Maybe you're kind of getting run over there and it's getting frustrated and you want to stand up for yourself, but you keep being kind because of your witness and because that's how you're wired. And let me tell you something, even if that person isn't responding to your kindness the way you wish they would, the people around you see it and they're going to tell your story for years. We have an opportunity to be kind to people that we get nothing from. They're going to remember that for years. My father-in-law, you know I like to brag on him. He lived in a community where they had a joint landscaping service. People who would come around and cut the grass. It was part of their HOA. It was part of the deal. He doesn't have to pay them anything. He doesn't owe them anything. He can't get any more or less service out of them without going through this big contract or whatever. He's got nothing to gain from being nice to these guys, yet every time they came, he would have a cooler full of drinks and fruit to refresh them on the summer days. They knew when they got to his house. You don't think they remember that house? Do they remember the people who worked there? When we have opportunities to show unwarranted kindness, it is incredibly effective. And lastly, God tells us that we should walk humbly with him. We're to walk humbly with our God. And so I was thinking through, how do I explain this humility? How do we walk humbly with our God? And the only conclusion that I could reach is that the deeper you go, the more humble you become. The deeper you go with God, the more you walk with him, the more you know him, the more your heart beats like his, the more humble of a person you become in your faith. I actually think of it like this. A few years ago, reading a book, I came across like this, a bell curve. And the idea of the bell curve was the ignorance of expertise, and I thought it absolutely applied to what we're doing. So we created this for you today to kind of take a look at. I think that this is how we get to humility. I think at the beginning of our Christian walk, we have this ignorance of beginning, right? We're just starting off. We don't know the whole Bible. All I know is that I'm a sinner in need of God and Jesus' sacrifice, and I'm putting my faith in that, and I'm going to kind of trust the people around me to show me the way. I love these people. I love the church people who are in the ignorance of beginning. There's no pretension. They're willing to ask any question. These are the people that always ask the good questions in Bible study. I love having these people in Bible study. Those people in the middle, arrogance and familiarity, they're bummers in Bible study. I don't want them anywhere near my Bible study. They know all the answers. They know everything. They're really, really smart. They can answer all your questions for you. But the ones at the beginning, man, they got the great questions. And they're not arrogant at all because they don't think they know any more than anybody else. Then what happens is we start to learn a little something. Start to piece some things together. We come to church often enough. We've got our Bible kind of scratched up and marked up. And then eventually we get to this arrogance of familiarity where we know enough to start being able to answer questions. People are coming to us asking us questions. What does the Bible say about this? What do you think about this? We start to teach it to others. And we start to be pretty confident in this theological system that we've built up, that this is going to have all the answers for life, and I've got the answer if you'll just come to me and ask me. This is where I lived in my 20s and most of my 30s. I hope that I'm on the other side of that now. I hope I'm not an arrogant jerk about my spirituality. Maybe I am, and this is exhibit A, but I hope not. And I think people get stuck there. People get stuck there because they quit learning and growing because Christianity for them is an intellectual exercise of how much of this can I understand and how much of this can I explain to other people and how many answers can I know and am I going to be the one in my circle of friends that people come to for advice? This becomes a place where Christians get stuck. We get caught up with theology and knowing the Bible and this intellectual knowledge never becomes a heart knowledge that we actually live out. And let me tell you something, that place, the arrogance, familiarity, that's a dangerous place. I'm very tempted to go off on denominations and things going on in our church and in our culture. The American church right now precisely because of this, because of people and leadership who have never moved past the arrogance of familiarity. It really gets us in trouble. But I just happen to believe that the more you know of God, the deeper you go, the more about his character that you learn, the more sincerely and honestly you read the Bible and let it rip you open and respond to that, the more humbly we approach God and spiritual things that we eventually arrive at this place of the humility of expertise. And the humility of expertise, we know how much we don't know. So we're not arrogant about the peace that we do. And the humility of expertise, we remember who we were when we had the arrogance of familiarity. We remember how we were teaching other people that you ought not do these things. How we were raising our kids telling them you shouldn't be like this. You shouldn't have that attitude. You shouldn't do this thing. Knowing good and darn well that we did those things. And the arrogance of familiarity to get to the expertise of humility. We know that we've walked through a season where we were the biggest hypocrites around. We're coming to church acting like we've got everything together. We're teaching a Bible study, telling everybody this is what the Bible means, this is what we have to do. And we know good and well that we're not living it out in our own private life. We know good and well that we've become a person that we can't identify anymore. That we've slipped so far into sin that we didn't even know we were capable of that. And yet, in our arrogance and in our hypocrisy, God continued to bless us. He continued to use us. He continued to forgive us. He continued to restore us. He continued to be there every time we cried out for him and said, God, this is the last time I'm going to need you. I'm not going to do this again. And he loved you and he rushed in recklessly with his grace, even though he knew you weren't going to keep that promise either. We've received that love enough times that we've moved into this place of humility because we know who we were and we know who God forgave. And how could we possibly judge other people? How could we possibly think that we're more than somebody else or that we're better than somebody else or that we know more than them because we've seen God forgive us? We know what we walked through. How could we not want to offer that forgiveness and understanding and empathy to others? Really and truly, I don't think we ever get to the humility of expertise if we don't begin to practice seeking justice and loving kindness. I think the way that we get stuck there is just to be satisfied with knowing the things that we know and never learning anything else. Knowing the things that we know and not feeling encumbered with expressing the other sides of ourselves. I have watched people over the years get their heads full of Bible knowledge and it turned them into more of a jerk. Because now I'm right and I don't need you. It's incredibly sad to me when that happens. And I would say to you this, if practicing your faith doesn't cause you to trend towards Micah 6.8, then you need to rethink how your faith is practiced. If as you grow, as you go to church, as you go to small group, as you learn more about the Bible, as you grow in your faith, if it does not trend towards seeking justice and loving to show kindness and walking in humility with God because you know who you are and where you've come from and you want to offer that same love to other people, if it doesn't trend in that direction, you need a new faith, man. This is a hard one for me, okay? It's a hard one for me. I don't know if you guys have pieced this together yet. I do not love kindness. That does not come naturally from me, okay? Any kindness I show is a direct result of the Spirit's hard and arduous work in my heart. But if our faith doesn't grow us and move us into a place where we want to seek justice for others, where we want to leverage our voice for those that have a smaller one, where we love showing kindness more than we love reciprocity, then we need a new faith. And if over time as we grow with God, we don't walk humbly with him because we know who we are and what we've been forgiven of and we want to offer that to others, if we don't walk in that, then we're not growing how we should and we should change how our faith is practiced. You know, right now, as we come out of COVID and things start to feel normal again, right? There's a lot of talk in church world about what does churches look like? And what everybody knows, what every pastor in America knows is essentially we've got to rebuild the church. Okay. February of 2020, for those of you who are around, was like one of the all-time highs of grace. We had record attendance for years prior to going back to years prior to that record attendance. People, you guys were enthusiastic. We had people coming out of our ears. It was super fun. We finished up a building campaign. I don't even know if you guys know that we're still doing that. We're still in the middle of a building campaign. It ends February coming up. I'm going to highlight it in the fall as we kind of make the push for the home stretch, but it's entirely possible for you to have been coming to this church for like a year and this be news to you. It's just kind of been quietly going in the background with faithful folks and it's been amazing. But we're in the middle of doing that. We were really, really humming. And then COVID hit. And within a couple months, I realized very quickly, oh, we're not going to see February numbers again for a while. Might not ever. And that's all right, too. But we're going to have to rebuild this church. We have to rebuild volunteer teams. All of our volunteer teams need new people. All of them. All of them. Most importantly, children and AV. Greg and Laura Taylor, I think we have to pay them to keep them on retainer now. They volunteer so much. We need volunteers across the board. We're going to have to rebuild the church. And as we look to rebuild the church, you know, I pay attention to pastor things, to conferences. I watch videos of guys teaching about growth strategy and yada, yada, yada. And there's all these strategies out there. There's all these things. You develop a goal, and then the goal gives you a vision, and then the vision gives you a strategy. Your strategy gives you tactics, and the tactics give you results. Gross. Gross. Get it away from me. I don't like any of that garbage. Because here's what I think. You give me a church that lives this out. You give me a church that seeks justice and loves showing kindness and walks humbly with God, you can keep your tactics. You're never going to hear me get up here and be like, if you'll just invite one person, and that person invites two people. I hate that stuff. Share your faith. Talk to your friends. Seek justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. If we have a church full of people who do that, we're going to need a bigger building. And listen to me, I mean this with absolute authenticity. More than I've ever meant it. I don't give a rip about growing this church. I don't care about being in charge of a church that's growing and has more people coming. That's not the point at all. The point is to care for the people that God sends us, to be good stewards of the souls that walk through that door that call grace home. And we're not going to be good stewards of them if we've got some stupid strategy to get their butt in the seat and then nothing to take care of their soul after that. I don't care. But if we'll seek justice and we'll love kindness and walk humbly with our God, we'll be ready to care for the people that he sends us. That's what matters to me. If we'll live out this verse, God's going to do cool things with grace because you've been faithful to him. What can happen in this church if we embody that verse? What can happen in your life if you embody that verse? What kind of stories will people be telling from you 35 years from now if you'll simply do these things? What kind of richness and joy and peace can you experience if we'll simply follow God's advice and distill our faith down to these simple practices? I want us to be people who seek justice, understanding that it flows downhill, and use our voice not to convince people they aren't victims, but to help them in their pain. I want us to love kindness so much that we show it when it's least warranted. And I want us to be people who have the grace and honesty to walk humbly with God and empathetically with others. And if we do that, I think God's going to do amazing things in our lives and the life of our church. Let's pray. Father, you are overwhelmingly good to us. You love us recklessly and unconditionally. You forgive us again and again and again. You restore us in the middle of our arrogance. You seek us in the midst of our ignorance. God, I pray that you would draw us into the humility that comes from walking with you, From praying to you. From talking to you. God, I pray for these seniors as they leave their homes and they go to become the people that you designed them and created them to be. Would they be people who whatever else happens to them would seek justice and love, mercy, and walk humbly with you as they learn and try on and exercise their new faiths? Father, for the rest of us, would we be a church, really and truly God, who just does those things? Would we be a church who just seeks you out and then seeks to show your love to other people? Would we be a church that's just characterized by simple, consistent behaviors that spring out of a sincere love for you? We just ask that you would give us a deeper love. Even as we finish and sing here this morning, enlarging our hearts to you and what you're doing in our lives. It's in your son's name we ask all of these things. Amen.