Sermons tagged with Commitment

All right. Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thank you for joining us on this October Sunday. If you're joining us online, Alan Morgan is working the camera. He's an expert at it. So you're in for a great experience this morning. Thank you for joining us in that way. This morning, we get to wrap up our series, Gentle and Lowly, where we've been going kind of through the book by a pastor named Dane Ortlund called Gentle and Lowly. I hope that it has been a good experience for you. I hope that you exit this series more desirous of Jesus than you were when it started. The whole idea has been to acquaint us with Jesus and to acquaint us with our Savior and his heart for us. And so it's very appropriate that we would wrap up the series this morning talking about God's unfailing, unending, unyielding, unwavering love for us. A few weeks ago, Erin Winston, who I affectionately refer to as Winnie the Boo, and I would invite you all to call her that. She loves that name and has never asked me not to call her that, especially publicly. She preached and did a great job. And she talked about God's yearning for us, how he yearns deeply for us with a love that we cannot comprehend. And I had small group after that and talked with my small group after that. And, you know, we were trying to process this idea of God's love for us and why it's so difficult for us to simply accept that God loves us. And so as we close this morning, that's where I want to land the plane in gentle and lowly is talking about God's love for us in this chapter. I believe it's 19 in the book. He loves us to the end. He loves us forever. He loves us unyieldingly. And I think, and this is where I want to sink into this morning, we have a hard time as people processing the type of love that God offers us. Because in our lives, as we interact with others, as we have loving relationships, excuse me, as we have loving relationships, we enter into and out of love. And there's things that we learn about love and about relationships in our life that operate counterintuitive to how we experience God, because his love is unique. What he offers us is different than anything we've ever experienced in life. And so to get us on the same page, as we approach this thought process about God's love, I want us to understand how we experience human love in our lives, right? So one of the principles that we understand in our life about love is because it has to be earned, it can be lost, right? Isn't that our experience? Because love has to be earned, it can be lost. Very few of us experience anything in our lives that's unearned love. I'm married. I don't know if you guys knew that about me, but I am. And next year in July will be 20 years for Jen and I. Right. I'm old. Like I can't even, I'm in a young couple small group that I'll talk about here in a minute. I'm just young couples adjacent. I just have young kids, but I'm old now. We will have been married for 20 years. And here's the reality about us and about you if you're married. Love at first sight's not a thing. Hollywood made that up. That doesn't happen to anyone. If it happened to you, you got duped, okay? You thought it was love at first sight. It wasn't. And they didn't love you back, all right? And you just stumbled into that. Good for you. I'm happy that you're experienced. That's not a real thing. You earn it over time, right? We show up and we're consistent. And over time, we deserve that love. We reciprocate that love. I have a really good friend in my life, a guy named Trip. And I would say unabashedly that Trip and I love each other very much. We care about each other a lot. We talk every week. Sometimes Jen will tell me, if you'd quit talking to Trip so much, you could write more sermons. So we talk a lot and we check in on each other's marriages and I know everything about him and he knows everything about me and we care about each other deeply. And this is beside the point, but I hesitate to say this publicly, but I think I've got a book in me and I want to write about friendship, about adult male friendship, because men are bad at being friends and we need better friends and we need to be better friends. This is something to me that cuts very deep. I love my friends. I treasure them. They're some of the greatest privileges in my life. But here's what I know. I have this friendship with Tripp because I've shown up over the years. Because when he calls, I answer. When you call during the afternoon, voicemail. Voicemail. We'll just see. How important is this to Emil really? Let's see if he's willing to text me about it before I just stop what I'm doing. When my buddy calls, 3 o'clock, I'm going to answer because that's not usual. What's going on? Is everything okay? There are those people in our life that we love that much that we show up for them. But here's my point. That love is earned over time, showing up for them, answering the phone, being there. And here's what I know. If I stopped doing that, if I went absent on my friendships, if I stopped answering the phone and I stopped participating and I stopped engaging, it might take months or years, but eventually I would lose that friend. Because our experience in life is that love is earned over time, over consistency, over showing up, right? And if you stop showing up, what happens to that love and that friendship and that affection? It fades as our attendance does. So here's what we know about love in our life and our human experience. Because it has to be earned, it can also be lost. I had someone explain to me years ago this idea that when we're in a relationship with someone, there are boundaries around their love. They love you within these boundaries. And here's how I know this is true. I wouldn't ascribe to you a love for me, okay? I'm not saying that you're here this morning because you love Nate, but some of you have some sort of affection for me and you trust me as your pastor, but you do that within boundaries, right? If I show up next week and I preach about politics, now I'm outside your boundaries. You don't have that affection for me anymore. Yeah, right. So there's boundaries that I have to stay in to continue to earn your affection. This is true in all of our lives. In our marriages, there are boundaries. I love you unendingly. But if you adopt these behaviors, those are outside the bounds of love. In friendship, I love you. But if you go outside the bounds of love, that's done. And so that's how we understand what love is and what relationships are. First of all, it's earned. Second of all, if it can be earned, it can be lost. And if that's true, once love is lost, it must be regained. We have to earn it back, right? We have to rebuild trust. We have to rebuild love. We have to rebuild the relationship. And here's the other thing that we know about this. Regaining love takes longer than establishing it. Rebuilding trust takes longer than it did to establish it in the first place. I don't know how long it took me to convince Jen to fall in love with me. It's probably a couple of days. I mean, I imagine I was pretty cool at Toccoa, you know, like I imagine it's pretty quick. But if I did something to break her trust, it would take me longer to reestablish that trust with her than it did to get her to fall in love with me in the first place. I've heard from therapists that it takes an average of two years for a spouse who has cheated and broken trust to regain trust with their spouse. So in a marriage, which we would describe as the most loving environment possible for us outside of a parent and child, it takes on average two years to regain trust once it's broken. So what we know and what we experience about love in our lives is it takes longer to regain it than it did to establish it in the first place. You follow? So here's what we do and here's why I make these points. And I think these three points are important. If I have to earn love, then I can lose it. If I lose it, I have to regain it. And if I'm going to regain it, I have to engage myself in a long, slow process of rebuilding trust that takes longer than it did to establish this love in the first place. This is our experience with human relationships. But God's love flies in the face of that. God's love does not operate that way, which is why we have such a hard time processing and receiving it. So to those principles, let me show you what God's love says. So first we start, I must have to earn it. Nope. 1 John 4, 19. I have a lot of notes and I also have my favorite point that I've ever made in a sermon here at the end. You'll know when I get there. I won't have to point it out to you. No, we don't have to earn it. We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4, 19. Last week, I talked about the love that I experienced when my children were born. And they were laid on the chest of my wife. And I looked at that greasy space alien and loved them with my whole heart immediately. This is how God loves us. And here's what's tricky about this. We have parents. And if you have good parents, they love you no matter what. I have great parents. They love me no matter what. But there's been times when they've been disappointed in me. There's been times when I've stressed that love. There's been times when I've wondered about that love. Have I pushed it too far? And so even if we have wonderful parents who love us very much, we still don't have an experience in this life to equivocate God's love for us, which is an unyielding, unbuilding, unwavering love for us. We are still loved like a newborn baby placed on our mother's chest. We love God because he first loved us. What that means is before you were born, God loved you. As you were introduced into the world, God has loved you. As you've meandered your way through life and stubbed your toe and sinned and rejected him, God has loved you. As you've embraced him, God has loved you. As you've wondered, God has loved you. As you've clung to him, God has loved you. In such a way that's unwavering and unchanging. There is nothing you can do to be more loved by God than you are right now. There's nothing you can do to be more loved by God than you were yesterday. There's nothing you can do to be more loved by God tomorrow. Because he loves you and we reciprocate that by loving him back because he first loved us. So this idea that love has to be earned, which is our human experience, is not true of God. We do not earn it. We do not deserve it. He just does. And so then we take the next step. I can lose this love like I've lost others. Nope. John 13 one, because I can lose other loves because if I go absentee on my buddy trip, because if I operate outside the bounds of love within my marriage, I can lose that too. Because I can operate outside the bounds of what you guys prescribed for me as your pastor, I can lose that affection. Because I can lose love in my life, it must be true that I can lose God's love. Because that's how love operates. No. John 13, 1, on which this entire chapter is based. It was just before the Passover festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, listen, he loved them to the end. That's the sentence on which this entire chapter is based. He loved them to the end. He loved them forever. He loved them despite everything. Do you understand there are no boundaries on God's love for you? There's no behavior in which you can engage that would stop him from loving you. There's no dark night of the soul that would cause him to withdraw his affection for you. This is how Jesus loves. He loves us to the end. So this human experience that we have where love has to be earned and then it can be lost. And when it's lost, it has to be regained. That's not true of God. That's not how he operates. He's not waiting for you to qualify for his love again. He just loves you. He loves you with no bounds. This idea for me really hits home when we think about the boundaries around the love in our life. You love me as long as I stay within these borders. As long as I don't make those mistakes. As long as I don't disappoint you in this way. You love me. And this is true of all of our relationships. Because it's not unfair to draw those borders. We can't love a spouse who consistently betrays our trust. Who consistently hurts themselves and harms the family. We can't love a spouse that puts our children in danger. We can't love a spouse that betrays us consistently. So we have to have those borders for self-protection, right? God doesn't have any borders. He's willing to be hurt by your rebellion over and over and over and over again and still love you boundlessly. So even though our experience in life is once I earn love, I can lose it. Not with God. We can't lose that love. And then here's the other thing we do because we think we can lose that love is we assume that we have to earn it back. I must now, because I've acted in a way that God would reject and I've disappointed him, he must have withdrawn his love from me. So surely, like every other relationship in my life, I have to re-earn it. I must now slowly earn it back. Nope. Luke 15, 20. The prodigal son. This is a wildly amazing story that we wax over far too easily. For those not familiar with the prodigal son, or maybe you can't tell it off the top of your head. I'll go fast. There's a young man. His dad's very rich. And he goes to his dad and he says, I'd rather have your money than your presence. So can you go ahead and give me my inheritance so that I can enjoy it now while I'm young and I can leave this place? It's a very disrespectful request. And the dad, in his love and graciousness, says, yeah, sure, here. Gives him his inheritance. And he goes off into the city and he spins it on exactly what you think he spins it on. Indulgences of any kind you can imagine. And he comes to the end of his rope. He has no money left. And he's laying in a pigsty and he remembers how his dad's servants are treated. And I love this part of the story. He conjures up within himself a speech. He's going to go back to his dad, but he's going to re-earn his dad's love. And he's going to admit to his dad, I don't deserve to be your son anymore, but if I could just be a servant, I would be happy because they're treated better than I am now. Can I just be your servant? I don't need to be reconstituted to love. I don't need to be restored. I don't deserve that. I've broken your trust and you couldn't possibly give that to me. Can I just be your servant? It's a speech he prepares. And then he gets up the next day and he goes. And as he's approaching his father, this is what happens. Look at the verse. So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son. He threw his arms around him and he kissed him. The dad that had every right to accept that speech. Yeah, you're right. You don't deserve to be my son. Yeah, you're right. Like maybe you can be my servant. We'll see. I'll put you in the charge of so-and-so and let's see how it goes. Isn't that our human experience with love? Don't we agree with the son that he needed to earn his way back? That's not what the father did. He ran. He threw his arms around him. He demanded no apology. He demanded no repentance. He demanded no reconstitution. Instantly threw his arms around his son and kissed him and gave him a robe and gave him slippers and threw a party for him. Instantly. And that's a picture of how our God loves us, but because of our human experience with love, we refuse to accept it. We can't comprehend it. That that's not a story about some guy that lived thousands of years ago. That's a story about you. And every time you go to the Father, it's a story about how he receives you. But because of our experience with love, we can't comprehend it. And we kind of treat embracing love from God like my children treat getting into the pool. I have one child who's very hesitant to get into the pool. Toe in. Maybe that's good. Then they hold the rail. Then they're up to their ankles. And I'm at the bottom of the stairs, annoyed. Come on. Get in. I'm in. It's fine. You have a higher tolerance for this than I do. Let's go. And then they're just inch by inch. Right? I've got another child who at the Lifetime Pool back when we were rich and I had a fancy gym membership. I don't have that anymore. When I were members at the Y. They would jump in before I was ready. Like I would be, this is the edge of the pool. I'm over here just being in the pool. And I look over and they're just jumping off the ledge. And I would dive under the water. This happened multiple times. I dive under the water and look at them under the water where they can't breathe and their mouth is open. And they're smiling, laughing. This is fun. And it's like, do you not understand? You're, if I don't, you're going to die. Like if I don't dive in and get you, this is the end of your life. You only get to be three years old. That's it. And I picked them up and they're laughing. Some of us re-engage with God's love like a child that's scared of cold water. And we assume that we just have to tow our way into it and gradually walk back in. When God's love actually invites us to jump in before he's even ready. Because here's the thing, and this is why that illustration resonates with me. Dad's in the pool either way. You want to tow your way back in? You don't have to, but he's right there saying, come on, I got you. You want to jump in two feet? You want to dive in? Dad's in the pool. Come on. I got you. You can jump in. God's love for us is different than any other relationship we've ever experienced. It's so different and it so blows us away that what I would assert to you this morning, and this is one of my favorite points I've ever gotten to make, is that God's love is a Brazilian steakhouse. Write it down. And there it is. I sent the notes off to Carly, and I said, because Carly's doing the notes this week because Gibby's not here, and she was like, please make them short. And I sent them to her, and I said, they're neither short nor uncomplicated. I'm very sorry. And she goes, I don't care. I just want to know what this Brazilian steakhouse thing is. At my last church, periodically, when we would achieve certain goals, we would do celebratory lunches at this restaurant called Fogo do Chão. Raise your hand if you've been to Fogo do Chão. You're my friends. You're my friends. Fogo do Chão is the most magical place on earth. Nothing will ever exist that's better than Fogo do Chão. It's a Brazilian steakhouse. Brazilian steakhouses do this. I've actually gone to Brazil to work with an orphanage, not to go to a steakhouse. But as an ancillary benefit, I did go to a steakhouse. And they're replete throughout Brazil. This is how they work. And at Fogo, you have this thing that looks like a coaster. And on one side, it's red. And on one side, it's green. And when it's green, listen to me, they just bring you meat. Just more of it. And they don't stop. I don't know if you're comprehending what I'm saying right now, but it's unbelievable. And the first time I went, I had this coaster and I was like, do you mean if I just go like this? They just keep bringing me the meat. And they're like, yes, sir, we will keep bringing you the meat. And do you know what they did? They kept bringing me the meat. And if you don't leave Fogo to chow with a headache and the meat sweats, you're doing it wrong. Don't go to the salad bar. Don't eat a single bite of cheese or a vegetable at all. Just sit down with bread and your green card. I went with somebody one time who licked it and stuck it on his head. Just green. And he made such a display of himself that the waiters were taking notice of what happened there. And at the end, he had eaten so much that the waitress said, Sir, I don't think you could possibly be interested in a dessert, could you? And his response to her was, ma'am, do I look like a quitter to you? One of the best lines ever. But I just remember going to Fogo de Chão, and I couldn't believe, I love steak, and I couldn't believe that they just keep bringing me filet mignon or picante or top sirloin or whatever. They just keep, it just keeps coming. Would you serve? There's skewers that they carry. Sir, would you like some of this? Yes, I would. Thank you. It seems like you're out of space on a plate. Bring me another plate. Just keep serving the meat. I couldn't believe that this was a real place. Here's my point. God's love is so extravagant and so counterintuitive to anything else that we've experienced in life that I believe we have a hard time comprehending and appreciating it. In every other experience in life, I go to a steakhouse, I give you $55, you bring me a steak, that's the portion that I get, I'm done, that's the exchange. Not at FOGO. It's all that you want for as long as you want it. And that's our experience with God's love. In every other relationship in our life, for sometimes necessary reasons, there are boundaries around the love that we experience. There are limits on how many times we can be forgiven. There are expectations of our behavior to earn that love. And for the most part, rightly so. But God's love for us is so different and so unique that it defies every other experience of love that we have in our lives and is wholly overwhelming and is unfathomable. And if there's nothing else that we take away from this series, I want it to be this. God's love for you is unlimited. It is unyielding. It is unwavering. It is unrelenting. It is unstoppable. He loves you fiercely. So this morning, here's the invitation. His arms are open wide, inviting you to jump in. Let me ask you this. What would your life be like? Bless you. What would your life be like if you truly believed that God loved you? What would your life be like if you truly believed that the creator of the universe has an unbounded affection for you that you can never interrupt? What would it be like if you woke up tomorrow morning knowing that you were as loved and as affirmed as a son or daughter of the king as you ever were? What would it be like if you woke up tomorrow morning and you didn't need anyone else's affection? You didn't need anyone else's approval. You didn't need anyone else to tell you that you were good enough because you knew that you knew that you knew that God loves you, that he affirmed you, that he has purposed you, that he has destined you. That he has assigned you these children to love. That he has assigned you this wife or this husband to love. That he has assigned you this workplace to go to and to be a minister in. That he has assigned you these things and he did that because he loves you. And you don't have to go earn it. He just does. What would tomorrow morning be like if you woke up and jumped two feet in into the pool with your heavenly father who loves you deeply and unyieldingly? Let's pray. Father, please convince us of this. Please show us this. Please help us rest in the reality of your love. Please help us accept what is so counterintuitive to us. That we do not have to perform for you that we do not have to put on for you or execute for you that we can even disappoint you and your arms are still open you still run to greet us you still love uscely. Would we this morning as we leave and as we sing and as we go experience just a little tinge of that relentless love that you have for us? Help us to accept it, to appreciate it, to embrace it, and to live in the reality of your love. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, Grace. My name is Erin, and I get the privilege of being one of the pastors here. And thank you for being here this morning, whether you're joining us online or whether you're here in person. We are just grateful that you chose to carve a little bit of your Sunday out to spend it with us. This morning, we are actually continuing in our series, as Mikey kind of reminded us, in Gentle and Lowly, where we've actually been looking at the character of Christ. We've looked at his compassion. We've looked at his humanity. We've looked at him as our gentle priest. And last week, we looked how he is our intercessor, as well as our advocate before the Father. And this week, we're going to jump ahead. We're now in chapter 18, and today we're actually looking at his yearning bowels. That one took a minute to sink in, didn't it? For those of you all that giggled and or wanted to laugh but chose not to, may that middle school boy that lives inside of you remain there forever because they bring such joy and interest to life. And for those of you that the yearning bowels may have brought up unfortunate thoughts of explosive bowels, I apologize on that front as well. And I hope that in this morning I can erase those visions from your head. And you can't blame me for today's topic. Nate holds that one firmly on his shoulders because he's the one that picked up the book and went through chapter by chapter and decided what he felt is what Grace needed to hear. So he's the one that chose that y'all needed to hear about yearning bowels today. But in actuality, if you dig into the chapter, what the chapter is about is about God's yearning love for us, about his tender and his compassionate heart that reaches in and grabs us in the depths of our sin and wants to pull us out. And as I read this and I continue to read over this, I have to admit, and I stand before you very transparent as one of the pastors and say, I struggle with this. And I struggle with what this says. I know it to be theologically the truth but I have moments when I look at it and say hmm there's a God that loves me down to the depths of his being to his core. He loves me that much and I struggle with And I ask sometimes, how is that truly possible? For those of you that know me, this next statement will not come as a shock, but I am a people pleaser by nature. And for as long as I can remember, I've sought the approval of others. It's just who I am. It is part of my wiring, I truly believe. If you go into all the personality tests and you look at all the things, like I'm a helper. I don't know all the numbers and letters. I just don't. But that's just who I am. That's how I'm wired. I also think environmentally there was an impact. My dad was in food retail. We moved a ton when I was a kid. I was in four different elementary schools before I hit fifth grade. So I spent a lot of time trying to fit in, trying to find new friends, trying not to be labeled as, you know, the new girl. That's not something I wanted to carry. I just wanted to fit in and be part of a group or like just a little cluster. The other thing is, is that I didn't in those elementary years have a foundation in God's love for me. I grew up with parents who were believers, but we were also a family that were Christers. For those of you that don't understand that terminology, we went to church on Christmas and Easter. That was my exposure to the church. Good or bad, again, that's just what it was. I also had a brother who played travel hockey, so we were always on the road. These were choices that my parents made, and I don't hold any of it against them by any means, but I think it helped to form who I am and how I continue to do. Because from childhood and even into adulthood, my world's been marked by a lot of striving. This striving to be accepted, this striving to prove myself, to somehow earn a place. And then after I became a Christian, that striving also fell into, I think, and shaped how I viewed God. I knew that I loved him. I knew I believed in who he is and who he says he was. I knew that what scripture said about him was 100% true, but I still doubted sometimes that he could love me the way that he said he did in scripture. Because y'all, I knew I'm messy, I'm stinky, I carry lots of baggage. I carry lots of shame, lots of regret for my past. And so for me to think about that kind of love hitting home for me is hard sometimes to wrap my head around. And so as I was continuing to prepare, Nate and I have met a few times. And again, this might be shocking to you all. He came to me a couple times and said, you have too many words. You need to parse it down just a little bit. But he challenged me to find one thing, just one thing that out of this chapter and out of what I've studied, that I would hope that you guys would walk away with. And so, Nate, I apologize ahead of time because in looking for my one thing, I may have veered off course from what we had talked about originally. So this is what we've got, though. But he challenged me to think about one thing for you all to walk out of here with today as we talk about God's love for us. And the thing that hit me somewhere in all of this was from John chapter 13, verses 34 and 35. And what that says is, a new commandment I give you, love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. And by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Y'all, when I read that, when I went back to it and I read over it and I read over it again, and it hit me right in the face. How is it that we can love others if we don't believe that he loves us? He states in that commandment, he wants us to love others like he's loved us. But if I doubt or if I don't believe in the love that he's given me, how then in turn can I give that love out to others? And I think that's why our world today is starving. It's starving for the kind of love that Jesus offers to us. This love that's real. It's not a political correctness or tolerance. It's not a kind of love that is social niceties, but it's the kind of love that is rooted in stays, forgives, it heals. So when he says for us to love others the way he's loved us, he's not asking us to try to do better. I think what he's doing is he's inviting us to be transformed. Transformed by the love that he has for us first. Because see, we can't love others like Jesus until we trust that we're loved by Jesus. This is it. If you hear nothing else I say today, this is it. That we ourselves can't love like he asks us to love others until we trust that we're truly loved by him. And this love that he has for us and is asking us to give out to others, it's not a cautious love. It's not a distant love. But it's a love that is actually drawn into our need and our messy. Which that's the part that I think for a lot of us is scary, right? So when we're at those places down deep, and this is where I said before, I have messy, I have lots of background baggage, right? But that's the place that Jesus wants to meet us and dig in, in that place of sin and love us all the more. So in those places where we feel the most unworthy or the most unlovable, the most ashamed, he wants to meet us there. We have to learn how to wrap our heads around that. And I think that there's a lot of us in this room that may be like, yeah, well, he extends that to others around us. I've seen it. I've seen it. I've seen that love extended to other people, but he's not going to give that to me because, you know, not after what I've done, not after the fact that I have yelled at my children for the 10,000th time, not after I have attempted and yet failed one more time to quit alcohol or drugs or pornography. Or after I have had the abuse that I have in my past. He can't love me there. He can't. And so instead of resting in his love, what we do when we put up that wall that says he can't get into those down, dark, dirty places with us is we start striving to earn love in other places. We have somehow to prove to others around us that we're lovable, that we're worthy of the love that he has or that somebody else has. I'm lovable. If I just keep doing, if I keep striving, if I keep somehow, somebody's going to think that I'm worthy. But when we doubt, when we doubt, when we strive, it doesn't do us any good. And in actuality, it makes us poor lovers of the people around us. He calls us to love others the way that he's loved us. But if we're striving to get that love from other people and from other places, then we are in a place where we have no capacity to give love if we're always striving to try to grab it from something. And when we doubt that we're loved, we tend to withhold our love from those around us. Because you know what? It took me an awful lot to feel this little bit of love that I've got right now. I'm not ready to give that up. And so we hold on and we're not doing a good job in loving other people. And so when you look at how Christ loved, we go back to where he was when he gave this commandment. He's in the upper room. It's the night before he's to go to the cross. The night before he makes the sacrifice of his life where he takes on your sin, my sin, your neighbor's sin, past, present, and future. So that we can have a relationship with him and that we can in turn be with him forever. So it's the night before he's getting ready to do that for us. He's sitting in a room with his 12 best friends and he knows already that Judas is about to betray him. He knows that Peter will deny him and he knows that by the time that the sun rises, all of the disciples will have scattered. He knows that. And yet he makes a very conscious choice to kneel down and to wash their feet. Y'all, if that was me and my humanness, that would not have been my response. Think about it. I might've been angry. I could have been, you know, or like, like, just not going to talk about this. You're going to be hateful, ugly people to me here in about 12 hours. I'm done with you. But that's not how he chooses to respond. He chooses with love and action. He chooses to serve when it is the least deserved. And he chooses to move towards those who are failing him. He knows it. And that's what he does for us too, right? He moves towards us in those places where he knows we're going to fail him, where we're not doing what we feel or what we should be doing. And then he continues on and he says to them, as I have loved you, so you must love one another. So he's just knelt down. He's just given them that love that they didn't deserve, that love that met them in this place of complete and total failure. And he says, have to receive it before you can give it because love starts with receiving before it becomes doing. We get that backward all the time in our humanness. We get that backward all the time. When we're not anchored in his love for us, all we end up doing is making ourselves exhausted making ourselves defensive and disappointed I said before that I am a people pleaser and one of the things that people pleasers do so beautifully is they put others before themselves quite often to your detriment. Many of you guys know that my parents passed away within 17 months of each other, and sandwiched in between there, there was lots of running back and forth to Pinehurst, lots of hospital visits, lots of taking on responsibility and helping my dad and aunt. There was a whole litany of things that I could add in there. In there also, I was trying to be a good wife. I was trying to be a good mom. I was trying to be a good pastor here at Grace. And I can stand before you and tell you I failed miserably at all of that during that period of time. It wasn't pretty. I was short with my family. I know I let people here down. I let my coworkers down. It wasn't pretty. And I know it. And I was constantly running. I had my kids later admit to me that there were things that they didn't tell me during that time because they didn't want to add anything else to my plate. And as a mama, for those of the other mamas in the room, you know that just breaks your heart to think that they just can't come to you. I just was not a good human at that moment or during this time. And I can also admit to the fact that I would get phone calls periodically from my dad after my mom had passed. And I remember seeing his name pop up on the screen and literally just staring at the phone and in moments dreading answering it. I love my dad to my core, but I knew to answer it there would be questions and he was very needy at those moments and I didn't have anything left to give. I was done. I was exhausted. I did answer it, by the way. But still, in that moment, there was always that thought and that hesitation as I looked at the screen because I was like, oh, no. And the thing is, I neglected myself, and I realize now that we can't, you can't pour out what you haven't first received. I was working from an empty cup, a very empty shell, because I was running myself absolutely ragged. And this goes back to the fact that we can't love like Jesus if we don't trust that we're loved by Jesus. If I'm not filled up by Jesus because I trust that he loves me, I am not loving others well. And I think that there's a lot of us in the world like this today. And I think that this emptiness or this constant striving and this constant motion trying to earn something, trying to pour ourselves out from empty cups is why the world can feel like it does sometimes, where we're living in this place where we're quick to divide and quick to assume things and slow to forgive. And we see that often sliding into the church as well because the church is made up of a lot of humans, right? And it slides into the church as well. You don't need me to tell you that. You all have seen it at some point in time. All you have to do is look online. And it makes you sad. And I think back to what Jesus said about his disciples loving others. And I wonder to us too, if we classify our followers, ourselves as followers of Jesus, what would it be like if the people of Jesus were known not for being right or righteous or all the things you could add there, but for being rooted. Being so secure in his love that we freely give out our love to others. That we are so rooted in his love that we no longer compete, but we serve, that we're so rooted in his love that we no longer compare ourselves to others, but we celebrate each other, and that somehow when we're so rooted that we no longer condemn, but we just choose to forgive and to offer grace. Because I think then the world will start to take notice. And the world's going to recognize us as Jesus followers by our love for one another. Our love, this love that is so rooted deep inside of us, is meant to be living evidence of who he is. It's meant to be that living evidence to the rest of the world that he is real and he is love. Not our striving love, not our performing love. That's not the kind of love that we need here. What we need here is that secure love, the love that is flowing from a heart that is rooted and anchored in grace. And I know some of you all are now looking at me going, okay, that sounds really good. And you've not met my mother-in-law or my father-in-law or whoever it may be, my coworker, my brother, my sister, whoever it may be that says, and you're going, but loving like Jesus is going to be really hard in those circumstances. Yeah, it is because we're human and we run out of patience and we run out of kindness and we run out of, in a lot of cases, just run out of ourselves. But I go back to that commandment that he gave us. And I don't think he gave it to us to be impossible. I think he gave it to us as a reminder and an invitation to draw us back to him and to remind us that that same love that he gives and that same love that saved us is now going to be the love that empowers us to love others. And that that love and that grace that he met us with in the middle of our messy, stinky mess is now going to be the love and grace that helps us to meet others in their mess. It's an invitation and a reminder that even with those that are super hard to love, we can't work it up sometimes. We can't just walk into the situation going, I'm going to love them better today. I am. I'm going to love them better today. It doesn't always work that way because our ability to love doesn't come from some sort of willpower. I truly believe that it comes from being willing to be loved. I had the opportunity last week to hang out with some sorority sisters. We did this the year before. It's just a sweet time. We get to reconnect. This year, my old roommate got to join us, and I was so excited. I had not seen her in probably seven or eight years. And Shelly and I got to actually room together again on this trip, and we spent many nights just chatting and talking and catching up. And I asked her about her sister and how things were going. Shelly had a sister who about 15 years ago had a brain tumor, multiple surgeries, etc. Left her sister with basically some traumatic brain injury. She had short-term memory issues. Long-term memory was very much intact. Her physical ability is very much intact. So she could live somewhat independently. It was always nice just to have some people around to check on her. And about seven years ago, she moved up to be close to Shelly and her family. Lived a couple houses away, so very involved in her life, constantly looking after, checking in on her, and all the things. In 2022, her sister caught COVID, and because of her compromised health, landed her in the hospital for a great deal of time. It accelerated some of her decline. And because of that, she ended up in a rehab facility. And Shelly's comment in all of this to me was, I don't understand why it's her and it's not me. There was a lot of guilt in that respect. And, you know, we talked about it, and she's a believer as well. And I'm like, I don't have an answer for you on that one. There isn't an answer for why it's her and not you. And then she went on to say that one of the things recently that Amy has started to do is that every time they go to visit, Amy just looks at her and says, God has been so good to me. And it's at every visit. And Shelly looked at me and she said, I don't know how she can say that. After 15 years and all she's gone through and all the struggles and all the things, I don't know sometimes how she can say that. But this time I knew I could look at Shelly right in the face and go, I know exactly why she says that. Because of you. You are her personal representative of God's love. You who shows up and loves on her unconditionally. You who takes her out. You who does all the things for her and with her. To her, you represent God's love. So when she says, God has been so good to me, she can say it because of the way that you love her. And I hope, Grace, that we can be that to other people as well. Nate often states that we can't be the big C church, but we can be Grace. And we as individual people can impact, we can work on ourselves, we can impact our families, we can also then impact this body and the communities around us. And so when you think about Shelly and you think about her willingness to love so unconditionally the way she did. I think about us and myself. This is me talking to myself too. But what would it be like if we chose to believe the best about one another because we know that that's what love does? What would it be like if we showed up for people who were hurting? Even when we didn't want to because their hurting is hard. But we did it because we know that that's what Jesus would do. What would it look like if we were forgiving before it's earned? Because we know that that's what grace would do. And what would it be like if we had all the patience with those that are just new or learning? Because again, we know what grace and love would do. Because I think every act of love then becomes this small reflection of the greater love that we've received. Because we can only do that, however, when we're sure of his love for us. And when we're secure in his love, we stop striving to earn it and we start living to spread it. And so today, I don't believe in my being that this is an invitation for us to walk out these doors and try to love better. I don't think that that's what this is. I think what this is is an invitation to us to let ourselves be loved deeper. To receive his love for us. All that Aaron and the team sang about. How much he loves us. That's what we have to receive first. And when we truly trust that we're loved by him. Freely, fully, without any condition. That will be the moment that we will turn and love others like he loves us. So we can't love others like Jesus until we trust that we're loved by Jesus. And so what is it, Grace, that you guys can do this week as you walk out these doors to root yourself deeper in the love that he has for you today? And will y'all pray with me? Thank you. Thank you, Lord, that you love us. Thank you, Lord, that you give so freely of your love. We just ask that we are willing to receive that, that we put down ourselves, that we quit striving to earn our love from someplace else and quit striving to earn your love. But somehow, by staying rooted in you, that we learn how very deeply you love us. That down deep in our core and our soul, that you love us that down deep in our core and our soul that you love us that much and by doing so challenging us to then take that love and spread it to those around us thank you Lord for your love thank for your son. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.

Well, good morning, Grace. I am Erin. I get the joy and privilege of being one of the pastors here, and I'm excited to be here this morning. And I'm very grateful that you all chose to join us this morning as well, whether it's here in person, whether you're joining us online, or maybe catching up later this week. Thanks for taking just a little bit of time out of your morning to come hang out with us. And before I jump in to where we're headed this morning, I felt like I needed to make a confession just to be completely transparent with y'all. And that is, is that as Nate mentioned up here, Exodus 18 is about leadership. And I don't feel at all qualified to stand up here and talk to y'all about leadership. None. Zero. And I know that is a fantastic way to earn your trust this morning. But yeah, so as I sat down and I started to read over this chapter, and you will see it later today, it's blaringly obvious that the chapter is very much about leadership. And I, in my stubborn existence, said, no, I'm not preaching on leadership. So let's see what else, Lord, that you can teach me that I could possibly bring on Sunday morning. And so I did, and I went through it, and I found a couple things. And then I had some conversations with some of my trusty advisors, namely Aaron, Nate, and my sweet husband, Harris. And all three of those conversations, each one of them said, sure, those are great things that you could talk about, but whatever you do, don't discount leadership as something that you may actually have something about which to say. And I was like, really? Because here now we stand in this place where, as Nate always says, if you start to hear things in stereo, you need to pay attention. And so, all right, Lord, let's do this. So I went back to Exodus 18 and I sat down with it and I read over it again and I'm like, okay, so how am I supposed to approach this? And so like, here we go. Like every modern day person does. I Googled Exodus 18 just to be curious, right? What do all these other people say about leadership? And so what hit me in this, this blaring, I don't know. It was just, it was so very obvious is all of these take charge individuals that had really, really strong opinions about what leadership looks like and I know that those of you all that know me would not exactly say that take charge type of leadership is how you would describe me I'm not Nate ish and so let me let me give you a kind of an example a little bit of an example about the difference between my leadership style, possibly, and Nate's leadership style. When Nate first got here, post-Summer Extreme, I had a meeting with the leadership team to kind of debrief all that we had been doing. And he was like, can I sit in? I'd really like to kind of just hear what you guys have to say. And I may have a question or two. Come on, we'd love to have you. And so he joins our meeting. And I promised you within about 10 minutes, he had taken over the whole meeting. He's standing at the whiteboard. He's got stuff happening. And I just kind of sat there and I let it all happen. But I also knew in my heart that that's not how it had to stay. So the minute the meeting ended and then the very, like the next day I walked in and mind you, remember we hadn't been working together, but a few months and I had to walk in and on his office door. And I'm like, can we have a conversation just, just briefly? And could I ask you to please, sir, never cut my feet out from underneath me in front of my team again? And he just looked at me. He's like, Aaron, I'm so sorry. And he was absolutely leveled in that moment. And he now, we laugh about it now, but he will also tell you that as a brand new senior pastor, that was an amazing lesson in leadership for him. And in turn, it was for me too, because I realized that like, I let him take over the meeting. I let him do it. But I also knew that I had to do something later to kind of figure all of this out and make it right somehow. So maybe now that you've seen the two different styles of leadership that we kind of have, maybe I should change my confession just a little bit. I am going to talk about leadership today and I don't feel qualified to talk to you all about the traditional type of leadership that we think of. One that is take charge, one that is bold, one that is pretty upfront and very directive. But I do feel like I have a different perspective on leadership. And it's a perspective that maybe somebody else in this room might find helpful. Because as you look at me, I'm one that people would look at and go, yeah, she's not exactly what I would call like a natural born leader. And I think that's how a lot of us think of ourselves also. And you know what? That's okay. And I think though Exodus 18 has lots to teach us as we slow down and as we actually look at it and as we peel it out. Because what we're going to see is there is a strategy for strong leadership, but it's a reflection of a servant-hearted posture. And so that's kind of where I landed for our day today is that leadership is not about position. It's not about a title that you hold. But it is all about your posture. And I'm hoping that as we end our day today, what we see is this beautiful picture of a leadership that God has outlined, one that starts low and raises us up. And so just to kind of, before we hit 18, a little background for you where we have been. We are in the middle of our summer series on the life of Moses. And in the journey of the Israelites, we're really only about two to three months out of their captivity from Egypt. I'm not 100% sure, but I felt like we should have been further along in this journey, seeing as we've been hanging, like it's been at least eight weeks, right? We should have been further along, but we're not. And last week, Kyle talked to you all about a battle with the Amalekites. So it was all this great excitement. And then next week, we're actually going to, or two weeks from now, when Nate gets back up, we're going to start to see Moses and God and the Mount Sinai and all that happens with the Ten Commandments. And it gets super exciting and adventurous again. But Exodus 18 is going to possibly feel a little underwhelming. And only because it's quiet. But the part in here that's so cool, as we peel back the layers to see, is that what's happening underneath the surface is God is taking and molding his chosen leader. And he's showing the Israelites as well what it is to be this strong, humble leader who is focused on his posture and not his position. And so if y'all want to follow along, I am going to read certain verses. I am not reading the whole passage. But we are in Exodus 18. We're going to start in very first verse where it says, Jethro was the priest of Midian and the father-in-law of Moses, and he heard of everything that God had done. And so here you have the father-in-law. He's in Midian. He's out here listening and hearing about everything that's been happening to the Israelite people with Moses in the lead. And I promise you what's going on in his head is he really and truly wants to hear it for himself. And he has a great excuse because he has Moses's wife and kids with him. Most likely they were sent there for safekeeping during all the things that have been happening in Egypt, et cetera. And so Jethro's like, you know what? I'm going to take them home and I'm going to get to hear firsthand about everything that's happening because he was just super curious. And so that's what he does is he packs up everybody. He heads that way and he sends ahead a message to Moses that he's coming and he's bringing his wife and his kids and they're coming for a visit. And in verse 7, you see Moses. It states, Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and he bowed down and he kissed him. And they greeted each other and they went into the tent. So remember who Moses is at this moment. Moses has just led a nation out of slavery. Moses has just stood toe to toe with Pharaoh. Moses has gotten to partake in the parting of a sea. You could say that like he's got miracles and momentum on his side at this moment. But when Jethro shows up, he doesn't walk out of his tent in some sort of like kingly robes. He doesn't walk out or have somebody else go out to meet his father-in-law. No, no, no, no. Moses walks out and what does he do? Moses bows and Moses honors. And I bet that's exactly how all of y'all greet your in-laws, right? Just saying. I wish it was, but moving on. So he bows and he honors his father-in-law. And then they go inside this tent and he tells them of all of the things that have happened over the last two to three months. All of the journeys, all of the hardships, all of the things. But then he keeps pointing back to all that God has done and how faithful God has been in the moments and how totally great God has been and that he's shown up exactly when they needed him to. And in turn, you see how Jethro responds to these stories from Moses. Because all of a sudden, you see Jethro rejoicing, you see Jethro worshiping, and you see Jethro offering sacrifice to Moses' God. And it's all because in here somewhere, Moses hasn't asked him to do this, but Moses' testimony has inspired him to do this. The person of Moses and all that he just went through, et cetera, has inspired Jethro's response. That is posture. There's a beautiful example of Jesus and his modeling of posture as well. If you go to John 13, you see Jesus and his disciples in the upper room. It's the last supper. It's that moment before he knows he's headed to the cross. They're having dinner together. Jesus has all the power. Jesus has all the authority. And you could even say, like Moses, he has the miracles and the momentum, right? He has all of those things. He could have demanded something from his disciples. But instead, he stands up. He takes off his tunic. He wraps a towel around his waist. He kneels down and he washes the feet of his disciples. And then he says to them, I have set an example for you that you should do as I have done for you. This is what leadership looks like. This is what leadership, especially in the kingdom of God, looks like. It's not about where you sit at the table, but it is about how you serve at it. Your posture is about your heart's orientation. And that's what God, you know, God is always so focused on our heart. That's where our posture is. It's our orientation toward God and toward our people. It's humility, it's consistency, and it's how we serve both in the seen and in the unseen. And I know right now there are plenty of you in this room that are looking at me and going, I am not a leader. This sermon doesn't apply to me at all. And I'm going to call you out on that. Because here's the thing. If you have kids in your home, you're a leader. If you have kids and they're adults, you're still a leader. If you serve anywhere in your community, you're a leader. You serve at your kids' schools, you are a leader. You serve in grace, any one of our number of positions, you are a leader. And for those in here that are in high school or middle school, you are leaders as well. You play on sports teams or you are dancers or whatever it may be. You are leaders. People are watching. They're looking to see what it is that you're doing. And I will also put one out there and I'm going to put an asterisk by it, and I'll clarify it later. But if you stand and sitting here today or other, if you profess to be a Christ follower, you are a leader. So hold on to that thought. We're going to come back to that one. So let's keep reading. So you've had Moses and Jethro. They've had this meeting. They've now had dinner. And the next morning, Moses gets up. Then verse 13, it states that he took his seat to serve as judge for the people. And they stood around him from morning until evening. So he's dusted himself off. Hey, great. I'm so glad you came to visit, but I got work to do. Because, you know, Moses loves his people. And so Moses is the, and remember I said the Ten Commandments haven't happened yet. And so Moses is the one that right now knows all the things. He knows all of God's rules. He knows all of God's decrees. They have this one-on-one communication happening. The people don't. They're relying on Moses. And so every bit of little squabble or problem that they have, they're taking it to Moses to solve. It is ancient Israel's version of Judge Judy. Can you imagine spending all day hearing all of these people come to you and just gripe about their problems? And so it's got to be exhausting. I know if I was Moses, I would tune out somewhere in like hour two and be like, yeah, and say, okay, and move on. But so Moses's heart though, y'all, he loves his people. He wants to make sure that they have what they need. And he doesn't know any other way to do this at this moment, right? This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And so he's doing that. And Jethro, his father-in-law kind of is standing outside this tent watching all of this happen. And finally, Jethro, his father-in-law, kind of is standing outside this tent watching all of this happen. And finally, Jethro, in verse 17, it states that Jethro basically looks at Moses and he says, hey, what you're doing is not good. Now, he's not attacking Moses' motives here. He knows Moses' heart is in the right place. And he knows why he's doing what he's doing. But he's like, you can't sustain this. You can't keep doing this day in and day out all by yourself. You're going to collapse at some point in time. And so he says to him, what you're doing is not good. And again, we do this too, don't we? Like our good intentions get to us sometimes, but your good intentions can lead to burnout as well. You got the big heart. You can do too much sometimes. And so here Jethro has this moment of courage to be able to say to Moses, like, hey, it's not working. And why I state that about courage is stop and think about this for just a second. First of all, Jethro is his father-in-law. How often do you all listen to your in-laws? But then on top of that, Jethro is an outsider. He's a Midianite. He's not an Israelite. And Moses is who? He's the handpicked leader of the Israelites who are God's chosen people. And it was God that picked Moses for this position. And so like in this moment, Moses had a lot of different ways he could have responded because of his position, right? I have a one-on-one relationship with God. And guess what? From this point, like we've been talking, he's been telling me exactly what it is I need to do. Thank you for the advice, but I don't need to hear it. That's just one way. He could have shut Jethro down. There's just a lot of different ways that because of the position that Moses held, he could have chosen to respond. But because of the fact that Moses leads from his posture, that didn't happen. Instead, he doesn't shut Jethro down. He turns to Jethro and he focuses in and listens to the words that he has to say. The other thing that's probably interesting to note in this moment between Moses and Jethro is that the Israelite camp is watching everything that's happening. Moses is their leader. So their eyes are always on him anyway. But they're learning so much about how to live their lives as well by watching how Moses chooses to lead his. And so when you call yourself a leader, the other thing you do really and truly have to remember is that people are not just listening to your words or to'all, but I distinctly remember this a lot when I had children. You heard the phrase, often more is caught than taught. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. How Moses responded wasn't some place of haughty attitude. It wasn't pride. It wasn't ego. It was none of that which spoke. But what spoke is he humbled himself and he stopped and he turned and he listened directly to what it was that Jethro had to say. And so as Christians, this is the asterisk that I was going to come back to. If we call ourselves Christians, we have a whole lot of eyes that are looking straight at us, whether we want them or not. People are looking to see how you're going to respond to pressure. They're looking to see how you treat others who aren't like you. They're looking to see how you choose to treat others who might be in positions below you. They're looking also to see how you respond and react and how you do things when you think no one is watching. Because I promise you, there's some out there that are wanting to catch us in a trap. And it's just so important for us to remember that our message and our walk need to come in a line together and the thing to remember too is is that holding a position without posture is super fragile there was a recent example of this and most of you all have probably heard about it, but for those that haven't, there was a concert that happened recently, and in this concert there was a kiss cam. And they went around and they were picking up various people in the audience, and the kiss cam, big jumbotron, landed on this very attractive couple standing. Man's got his arms around this woman. Well, when they realized that they were the ones on the jumbotron, the woman like ducks this way. The guy literally dives out of the camera's view and the lead singer of the band makes the comment of, oh goes they're either having an affair or they're just really shy well come to find out because you know social media is so quick on figuring out who these people were come to find out he was the CEO of a company she was the head of people is what they called it so basically human resources and they were but not to each other. And so now their affair has been exposed and is blasted all over from millions of people to see. And needless to say, he is no longer the CEO, and she is no longer in charge of human resources. And so here's the thing, position or yes, position without posture is super fragile and it will crumble. Give it time and give it just a little bit of correction or otherwise it will crumble. But the thing is, is that if you have your posture, then you actually are making space for growth to happen in yourself as well as in those people whom you lead. And so if we go back to Jethro and Moses and where they are in this story, Jethro has given Moses this, you can't do this alone. But then in turn, because Moses is listening, Jethro feels called to say, hey, I have a solution for you though. Let's talk about what this might look like. He tells him to go and select capable godly men. He says to teach them all about God's decrees and to appoint them as officials and then to delegate. It's time to let them have some of this work. And so he's telling him basically it's time for you to build a healthy, sustainable, multiplying community slash let's multiply yourself. This is what it looks like. This is a beautiful picture also of spiritual maturity. Because inside of this moment, you don't ever see fear. You don't ever see insecurity on Moses's part. You don't ever see power grabs either. You just see Moses as a humble leader saying, I like this. Let's put this in place. Let's raise up other leaders. And y'all, that's Jesus's way of doing it too. It's called discipleship. It happens in both places. I was fortunate enough to be raised by a dad who was one of those beautiful natural born leaders. And so I got to watch his life. And I have all kinds of what we used to call Sawyerisms about leadership and management and all the things. But one of the things that my dad did exceptionally well was something that he called successor planning. And so to him, it was his years of management, the people that he managed, part of your performance appraisals always included a section that said, who is it that's taking over your job when either you leave or you get promoted? Who is it that you've identified? And how is it that you're empowering them and equipping them and training them up to be able to get there. It was part of what they did. They checked in on it periodically as well. And so this is that picture of you've got these people reaching down, right? And then he says, you're hoping that there's somebody up here that's targeted you as their successor as well. So now you have another pipeline of somebody who's speaking into your life and who's training you and who's giving you the tools and all that you need and equipping you and empowering you and saying, go, go, go, go. So you've got this beautiful picture of reaching down to help somebody else up. In turn, somebody's doing the same thing for you. It's discipleship in action. In the corporate world, like my dad called it, it was successor planning. But it's the same concept. But it's not about fear and it's not about insecurity. Because see, the thing is with all of us, we like control, right? We like control. We like to hold on to the power. And somewhere in there, we're afraid that if we train and coach and give it away, that it's not going to get done the way we want it to get done. I had an example of this one, and y'all can laugh at me later, but I'm going to tell it anyway. I was talking to my brother, and he was discussing the idea of loading the dishwasher. And you all do not know my brother nor my sister-in-law, but it's an interesting dynamic in their house. And needless to say, Zach knows them. Can you tell? So needless to say, my brother will load the dishwasher. My sister-in-law comes behind him and rearranges it and puts it the way that she feels that it's supposed to be. Okay, can I ask a question? Is it still going to get clean, whether it's loaded my brother's way or my sister-in-law's way? It's still, in the end, the product is, it's still going to come out clean dishes. But somewhere in there, my sister-in-law is not ready to release that control. And so for those of y'all that have kids in the house and you're exhausted, give them a vacuum. Tell them to go vacuum. It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be pretty. You're not going to have those beautiful lines like you might like, etc. But you've released it. You've let go of the control. And somewhere in there too, those little people are now very excited because they got to help. You're starting to empower them and equip them. Those are the things we have to remember to release the control because the thing is is that leadership that doesn't release can't reproduce. We are all expendable. There's somebody else that could easily take my job. As a matter of fact, Kyle's getting ready to do it. I just thought about that. But hey, there's somebody else that can always take your job. So the thing is, is that you're expendable. So what is it then that, why can't we all just let go of that control? And why can't we speak into the lives of other people around us and raise them up so that they can in turn help us to multiply our influence? So I think, yeah, let's just land this. I got Kyle in my head now, so let's just land this. Here's the thing, though, about leadership. Leadership is something straight up that is not something, I say. It's not something that we're appointed to. It's actually something that we live. As you look at especially leadership in the kingdom of God, it's not about the position, right? It's not something we're appointed to. It's about how we live. It's not about power because there's nothing in the story of Moses and Jethro that shows you any kind of power. It's all about your posture, that of having your heart directly in line with that of Christ and that of the people that you serve. It's not about commanding any kind of attention. The spotlight's not on you, but we're hoping it's about inspiring worship, inspiring a response from those people. And it's not about being the hero, but it's actually about raising up the heroes. So are you in your space where you lead? Things to think about is, are you leading from a place of posture or position? Are you holding on tight? Or are you lifting others up? And are you preaching with your words? Or are you preaching with your life? Because this world, y'all, it doesn't need any more loud leaders. It just needs humble ones. It needs ones that want to be present. It needs ones that have a servant heart. And you know, here at Grace, inside of our teams, we have some amazing leaders. We have lots of people who like to help out, like Aaron and Er in the story last week. We have people who lead from up front. But I will also tell you, we can always use more leaders, especially ones that are more like Moses, who are actually willing to lead like they live. And so maybe that's what God's calling you to today, that you take a step out to step into more of a leadership type role. That tomorrow morning you call Kyle and say, hey, Kyle, guess what? I think it's time for me to go speak into the lives of some of the kids at Grace, whether it's in Grace Kids or Grace Students. But I think it's time for me to do that, to reach down to lift somebody else up. Or maybe it's time that you call me on Monday and say, hey, I think it's time for me to lead a small group. I think it's time. I've got something that I can do. Because I want to be able to speak into the lives of those around us. So think about what your next steps are. Because the thing is, is that to serve in God's kingdom, you don't have to be perfect by no means. You just need to be willing. You just need to be humble. You just need to have your heart aligned with Christ. Because again, influence doesn't come from your position, but it comes from your posture. So today, I hope that as we walk out these doors, we let our lives preach more than our words do. Will you all pray with me? Lord, thank you. Thank you for this beautiful example that you give us of what it is to be a humble, servant-hearted leader. One who looks at you before speaking, one that seeks your heart for your people. We just ask that as we walk out of here today that we remind ourselves of the places where we lead because we do. We all lead someplace. So remind us of those places and give us what we need to be able to begin the process of empowering and equipping and raising up those that are coming behind us. And Lord, thank you for loving us. And we love you. Amen.

Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. It's so good to see everybody. I've got a lot of people sitting in seats that they don't normally go in. I don't know what you're doing over there, Zach, DJ, Laura, what in the world? I'm totally distracted. And just, I need to give you a peek behind the scenes before I just dive into the sermon like there's nothing happening in my life. I know I'm jovial now. This is serious. Yesterday, my sister-in-law, Jen's sister, Lauren, was in a really bad car accident and has just a lot of broken bones and is currently in surgery. The doctors say that she will recover and walk again, which is just a wild sentence to hear about your sister-in-law on a normal Saturday. So Jen was doing something yesterday afternoon, got home, grabbed Lily, and fired down to Athens, Georgia. So she's down there. So I've got John. Normally on a Sunday morning, I get up at 5, I shower, I come into the office, I'm locked in at 545, I run through the sermon, and I just kind of steep it and I try not to let anything distract me and I just focus on that. And then at about 930, I come over here and I glad hand you guys and pretend like I'm not trying to think about my sermon. But I'm just focused on that for most of the morning. This morning I was getting John ready, right? And so just all the scramble of that and getting a toddler ready and kind of run through my sermon, juggling Bluey and Lucky Charms and then coming back and trying to go through it. And then at 9.20, I'm like, okay, I'm ahead of the game. This is really good. It's time to go to church. I've got plenty of time. And I go to get all my things, and I'm like, I don't know where my car key is. I can't find my car key. And so I just start frantically looking for my car key and at 935 I called our good friend Anna Johnson and I was like, hey I think I need a ride to church. You have a car seat. She had pulled in the parking lot. She was like, all right coming to get you. And so she came around and as we pulled up I said, Anna park front and center because this is a great look for me to show up with you at church while my wife is out of town. So when I say, I don't know what's about to come out of my mouth, it's honest. All right. And if you're sitting there thinking, is this an elaborate way for him to excuse a potentially terrible sermon? Yeah, that is. All right. It's June. Ride with me. In one way, I'm completely frazzled and off center on the sermon and I'm just really hoping and praying that the Lord will order my steps and my thoughts because I want to do justice to this passage because it's one that I love so much. In another way, and I'm reminded of this by the Holy Spirit from time to time, God's been preparing this sermon in my heart and in my head for 20 years. I love this passage. I love where we are. We are at Moses and the burning bush. And I love it so much that we're going to spend two weeks here. We're going to look this week at the five excuses of Moses and how we can relate to those. And the next week we're going to come back to what God says his name is, I am, because that is an amazing statement worthy of camping on for a week. As we arrive here this morning, what I want to bring to mind is something that we talk about often at Grace, and it's intentional. A few years ago, a good friend of mine was kind of pressing me. What do you want for Grace? What do you want to produce at Grace? What do you want to be about? I knew, based on past church experiences, what I didn't want to be, but he was pressing me into what do you want to be? What do you want grace to be? And that's how I arrived at that phrase that we use here all the time, kingdom builders. At grace, I want to produce a church full of kingdom builders. We have five traits at grace. If you leave, if you go out those doors, on the wall, over the glass windows and over the doors are the five traits of grace. People of devotion, step-takers, partners, conduits of grace, and kingdom builders. Those are all out there. That's who we want you to be. And the apex of that is to be a kingdom builder, someone who builds God's kingdom. And the idea is simply this. We acknowledge at Grace that we all spend our lives building a kingdom. The question is, whose kingdom are you building? Are you going to waste your life building your little fiefdom? And maybe you're really good at it, and you leave an inheritance and a legacy that lasts for a generation or two. But eventually it will pass away. Are you going to invest your life building your kingdom? Or are you going to invest your life building God's kingdom? And so at Grace, the goal is to have a church full of kingdom builders. People who understand that every gift, every talent, all the time, all the treasure that I've ever been given is to be leveraged to help build God's eternal kingdom, not my sorry temporary one. That's what we try to press on you over and over and over again. And it's my desire to have a church full of activated kingdom builders who understand that every gift they've ever been given is to be used to build God's kingdom, not their own. It's why I so often return to Ephesians 2.10 that says, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we might walk in them. And so the idea here is when God knit you in your mother's womb, he had for you good works for you to walk in. Just like he had good works for Moses to walk in. And it's your job as an adult to find those good works and to faithfully walk in them. Parents, it's your job to help your children identify their good works and encourage them and inspire them to walk in them with trust and fidelity to their God. This is what we talk about at Grace all the time. And when we talk about kingdom builders, I'm talking about things big and small. Some of us have big God-sized dreams that we don't dare give breath to because we're afraid people might judge us or that it's impossible and we shy away from it. Others of us have small God dreams right now of just repairing our marriage or a relationship or just growing in our own faith or just getting to a place where we can actually reliably and dutifully disciple our own children. I don't know what the size of your dreams are and I don't know what God has placed on your heart, but here's what I do know. And here's what I am certain of that. God has given you something that he wants you to do. God is pressing on you to take a step of obedience, to build his kingdom, whether that's through generosity, whether that's through a relationship, whether it's realizing that you have been placed in your workplace to be a pastor there, not to forward and advance your career there. That's secondary to your primary role of being a missionary and a pastor in your workplace. Maybe it's simply to prepare your marriage, to repair your marriage. Maybe it's to start a ministry. Maybe it's to start a small group. Maybe it's to start a Bible study. Maybe it's to volunteer somewhere and get involved in a nonprofit. I don't know what God is pressing on each of you to do, but I am certain that he's pressing something somewhere. And so this morning is only going to work if you can lock into that. If you can lock into what that is, and you can ask God, God, what are you pressing on me to do? What should I think about? What should I consider? What's my next step of obedience? What would you have me start? What would you have me stop so I can start? What would you have me do? What conversation would you have me initiate? What neighbor would you have me reach out to? What Bible study would you have me start? What nonprofit would you have me volunteer with? This sermon only works if you're willing to lock into what God has for you to do to build his kingdom. I kind of feel a little bit this morning, this isn't completely true because I do think it's universally applicable if you'll tap into it and let it be, but I kind of feel this morning that this is almost an old school Marine recruitment tactic. I've heard stories of a guy that signed up for the Marines and there was an assembly at a school and the different armed forces, armed services came and they presented, this is why you should join the Army. This is why you should join the Navy, the Air Force. And they kind of did, this is awesome. You get to fly planes. You get to do this. You get to do this. You get to do this. And the Marine goes last. And the Marine comes up, and a lot of you guys know how this story goes. The Marine comes up, and he says, I've been watching you all. There's three, maybe four of you that have what it takes to be a Marine. If you think that's you, I'll be at my desk. That's it. That's the talk. Who has the most recruits? The Marine. Right. That's what I feel like this morning is. This sermon is not for everybody. Some of you are not ready for it. You're just not. That's okay. But some of you are. And if it's you, I want to press you this morning to answer God's call and to step into the obedience to which he is calling you. So let's press in together and learn from the example of Moses at the burning bush. goes out. Remember, as a young man, he walked out of the palace one day, and he saw Egyptian guards beating some Hebrews, some of his brethren, and he went to their defense, and he was so angry and virulent in his defense that he ended up murdering the two guards that were beating the Hebrew people, and so he had to flee. And he went to a place called Midian, and Midian had a priest named Jethro, and Jethro had seven daughters, and one of them was named Zipporah, and Moses married her. And he spent 40 years in the desert as a shepherd, long gone from his previous life in the palace. And one day he's shepherding, and an angel of the Lord appears to him, and there's a bush that's being burned but not consumed and he walks up to it. And in the subsequent reading, what you'll find is that the bush tells him, take your shoes off. You are on holy ground. And he realizes that he's in the very presence of God and God asks him to go do something. God, in our vernacular, we would say, God says, this is how I want you to go build my kingdom. Go and do this. And he tells Moses, I need you to go to Pharaoh, and I need you to tell him to let my people go. And I know that I alluded to this last week, but I want us to be on the same page as far as this ask, because it's a ludicrous ask, right? For some farmer to come, some shepherd from the wilderness to come into the most powerful palace in the world and walk up to the most powerful man in the world and say, I need you to let your slaves go. Let's understand that it's not just slaves and it's not just the ego of that, but this is his very economy. This is how he gets things done. If he lets the Hebrew people go, it's not just, well, that was a possession that we had and now we don't have it anymore. If he lets them go, it's, this is my workforce. This is how I get things done. This is how I pay the bills. This fundamentally changes the foundation of my country. So it's a pretty big ask. And God says, I want you, Moses, to make that ask. And Moses, in this discourse with God, offers five excuses. And I think that they're, I think that they're wonderful. I think it's a really a delightful discourse if you read it and you open your mind to what it must have been like to be there. And I think that we have this discourse with God, whatever you say, whatever, whatever is in your heart that God is calling you to do, however, God wants you to build his kingdom. And here's what I would say about being kingdom builders. One of the reasons we phrase it this way is some churches are, they're the orphan church at this church. We care for orphans and that's wonderful. At this church, we do prison ministry at this church. We do missions missions. At this church, we do children's. At this church, we do outreach to the unhoused. Whatever it may be, some churches have a specific thing that they funnel everyone to. And that's wonderful and good. And I would not deride any of those. Those are always choices between better and best. But at Grace, what we said is, I don't want to direct you where I think God wants you to go. I want you to walk with God and go where he would have you go. And if you can build his kingdom from here, wonderful. If you need to leave this church to go and build God's kingdom elsewhere, good. Be a kingdom builder. So that's our heart. And I don't know what God is calling you to as he seeks to use you to build his kingdom. But I do know that whatever is in your head and whatever you think it might be, we have some of the same excuses that Moses has at the burning bush. And so here's the first one in verse 11 of chapter 3 after God has told him what he wants to do. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? Who am I that I could possibly do this? I'm nobody, God. I'm a shepherd. I've been a shepherd for 40 years. No one's going to listen to me. You've got the wrong guy. And this is our natural instinct too. I know somebody who's very dear to me that every time they think of an idea of what God would have them do, they have this voice in their head that probably needs some counseling that pops up that says, who do you think you are? You're not going to do that. You're not going to follow through with that. You're not actually going to do it. And so I would be willing to bet that even as I pressed upon you, what's your thing? What does God want you to do? How can you tomorrow begin to build his kingdom? What steps of obedience can you take? For many of us in this room, our very first thought, if we even had the guts to identify that and say it out loud, speak it to ourselves, I bet for a lot of us the very next thought was, who do you think you are? Who am I that you would send me to do that? I'm not going to, that person's not going to listen to me. No one's going to come to my Bible study. I can't be a pastor in my workplace. They know who I am. And we begin like Moses to disqualify ourselves. So it's helpful to look at God's response when he says, who am I? And God said, I will be with you. And this will be a sign that it is I who have sent you. You have brought the people out of Egypt. You will worship God on this mountain. He's like, I'm going to be with you. I will come back here. And so if God is calling you to something, he will be with you in it. But that's Moses's first excuse. So Moses says, who am I? And God says, it doesn't matter who you are. It matters who I am. I'll be with you. Don't worry about it. God swats it aside. And Moses says, okay, I've got another one. Here's my other excuse. Here's his next question. Verse 13. I'm just going to read straight through so you guys can get a sense of the passage. And God said, I will be with you. And this will be a sign that it is I who has sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. Verse 13. Moses said to God, suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you. And they asked me, what is his name? Then what shall I tell them? And then this won't be on the screen, but verse 14 is, this is where we're going to spend all of our time next week. It's maybe the most amazing verse in Scripture. God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me to you. This is where we get the name of God. I am. And that's what we're going to talk about next week. This name of God is so powerful that 4,000 years later, Jesus is being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane by 300 guards of the high priest. And they go to him and they say, are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he says, I am. And those words knock over all 300 guards. These are powerful words. God says, I am. But let's look at what Moses is asking. Okay, okay, all right, all right. I'm going to go back to my people. I'm going to go to the elders of the Hebrews. I'm going to say, God has sent me from Midian here to free our people, and I need your support as I go to Pharaoh and begin to negotiate our release. When I do that, God, this is something you think is possible, which is ridiculous. When I do that, who should I say sent me? What is your name? We're going to talk about God's answer to that next week. But here's the point of Moses' question for this week. Moses is asking, God, will you put your name on this? Will you put your name on this mission? Is this something you are behind? Is this something you are supporting? Am I doing this in your name or am I doing this in my own name? And when we feel that God has directed us to build his kingdom in a certain way, it is right and good to pause and say, God, are you putting your name on this? Because if God's name is on it, then he will see it through. But if God's name is not, then it is on us. And that is not good. So before we take a step of faith and obedience and walk, we need to be sure that God's name is on it. A few weeks ago in FAQ, I was talking about how can we be certain that we have heard from God? How do we know that we know that we know? And I said, you can test him sometimes. Look at what Gideon did with the fleece. God, make this wet and the ground dry. Okay, God, that was a neat trick. Make this dry and the ground wet. Okay, God, thank you. Now I know that I know that I know that your name is on this project and you want me to go do it. It's good to ask if God has put his name on something before we go. I remember at my previous church, and this is one of those moments where I hope that no one from my previous church is listening to my sermons because it's a little bit disparaging and I don't mean it to be. It's just a good illustration of this. My senior pastor was a guy named Jonathan who gave me tremendous opportunities and is still supportive to this day and is really wonderful as a human. And we, at the time, were running three services, 9.30, 10.30, or 11 and noon or something like that. Yeah, 9, 10.30 and noon. And so we were redlining. And those were pretty full. Noon wasn't very full, but we were redlining as a church. And we had some people who wanted to come, but we had a lot of them in the service industry. And so they weren't able to make it to Sunday morning because they were paramedics or nurses or servers or whatever. And Sunday morning was difficult for them. So Jonathan got the idea, let's do a 5 p.m. service. Let's have a Sunday evening service for folks that have to work on Sunday mornings or just would rather come to that. Betty and Steve Rock would love that. They would be the first to sign up. They bug me about it every week. Sorry, Beth. We're not doing it today. And he said, let's do this. But I don't want to preach it. That's too much work. And I don't want our band to have to do it. That's too much work for our volunteers, which about the second point, he was right. About the first point, come on, man, just go preach. But he didn't want to preach it. So he said, we're going to show a video and I'm going to be too tired to run it. So Nate, you be the campus pastor for the 5 p.m. service. You make it go. Recruit people to set up pipe and drape to make the auditorium smaller for the amount of people that are going to be there. Recruit a band, run it, recruit all the volunteers. You're the campus pastor of that service. You be in charge of it. You make it go. It was a big task. And as he and I were talking about it, I remember one day in his office, I looked at him and I said, I just need to know one thing, Jonathan. Do you feel that this is something that God has directed you to do? In today's language for this sermon, I would say, has God put his name on this to you? Has I am sent you? Because I knew that it was going to be discouraging and I knew that it was going to be hard and I knew that it was going to be a tough sell. And I knew that I was going to have to lean on some relationships and some friendships to make this thing go. And I didn't know if it was going to be successful. But I knew that if God put his name on it, that it was going to flourish. And so in those moments of discouragement, I needed to know that Jonathan felt that God had put his name on this and sent him to do it and said, yes, go and execute this thing. Because in those moments of discouragement, I could lean on that moment. That's what I needed. And so I asked him, is this something that you feel strongly God has asked you to and directed you to do? Because if it is, I can have confidence as I walk into it. And his response was, well, let's just see if it works. And I knew it was doomed. I gave it my best effort. We lasted 10, 12 weeks and we folded up the tent. God's name wasn't on it. It's important to say who is sending me? Whose name is on this? We need to know that. And so God says, my name's on it. I am. We're going to talk more next week about what that name means. But he says, you have me. You tell them I am sent you. I'm putting my name on this mission, on this instruction to go build my kingdom. You go. And so Moses says, okay. And you would think that this would be enough. That Moses says, who am I to go? And God says, don't worry about who you are. You worry about who I am. And Moses says, well, I don't have the ability. And he says, I'm going to supply you with the ability. And God says, well, who should I say, send me? And he says, yeah, I will send you. Okay, put my name on it. You're good. You should think that would be enough. But Moses has another excuse. In chapter 4, verse 1. After this whole discourse, this I am, I'm going to give you the power. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. Moses' response, because he's human, is, what if they do not believe me or listen to me and say the Lord did not appear to you? Moses says, no one's going to believe me. No one's going to listen to me. I'm going to go and I'm going to say, hey, God sent me and you guys have been in these moments. Or someone tells you that God has told them to do a thing and because we're jerks, our skeptical minds go, did he? So Moses says, I'm going to go and say that I'm doing this in your name and no one's going to believe me. I'm a shepherd from Midian. No one's going to buy this. What do I do? And God's response is really amazing. God says, do you see the staff in your hand? Moses, we presume, based on the text, is holding a staff. And he says, yeah. And God goes, throw it down. Moses threw it on the ground and it became a serpent. And God said, pick it back up. Moses bends down and he grabs the serpent and it becomes a staff. And God says, that's nothing, buddy. I've got a lot more of these in my back pocket. If anybody needs proof that you're with me, I'll give you a sign when you need it. You're fine. It's this little wink. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to show you. And I believe that God is still in the business of doing these things. I believe that God is still in the business of winking at us. He may not turn your staff into a serpent and your serpent into a staff, but he will show you. If there's something that you think God wants you to do and you're trepidatious about it and you don't even dare breathe it and speak it out loud because it makes you so nervous and it makes you so worried. If there is something that you believe God is pressing on you to do and you're not sure if you should do it, God will give you those staff moments. He will give you those winks where he tells you that he is with you. I've had so many of those at Grace, so many of them. It's not very many times that I've been brought to a place where I'm thinking about maybe I need to quit. This is too hard. This is too difficult. Maybe I just need to get out of the way so they can get a real pastor that actually cares about others and things like that. Thanks. Maybe I need to get out of the way. Maybe I'm not in the right job. Maybe I need to quit. I'm just so discouraged. And the very next day, God turns a staff into a serpent. He encourages me in this uniquely God way. And I go, okay, all right, we're in. I remember, I guess it was last week, I mentioned Memorial Day is very special to me at Grace. And so I always preach on Memorial Day because of how grateful I am for what God has done on Memorial Day. It was the first year that I was here. And when I got here in 2017, it was a bad scene. To say it was a dumpster fire is actually a disservice to dumpster fires. It was really bad. If they didn't hire some poor schlep in April, they were not going to make it out of May. It's just where we were. We were in debt. It was bad. And at the time, we were looking week to week at offering. And when I got here and I saw the finances, I just said, I just made it my prayer, God, please don't let us go into any more debt over the summer. Please just let us get through the summer because the summer is bad giving months, just typically at a church. I said, just let us make it through the summer without accruing any debt. And then maybe we can start to chip away at it in the fall. That was my prayer. And we were coming to the end of May. Memorial Day is the last weekend of May. And we needed, I don't remember the numbers, so just go with me, but I think we needed about $11,000 a week to stay afloat. I have no idea what it is now. Probably $47,000. That's how much we need every week. Just give it. But we needed like $11,000 to stay afloat. And that particular week, we needed $13,000 to come in. And again, don't quote me on these numbers, but these are approximate. We need $13,000 to come in just to not go into debt and be able to pay our bills in May. And I remember praying that week, God, please allow $13,000 to come in, which on its face is an absurd prayer because Memorial Day in church world, we all know it's one of the lowest attendance attended and lowest giving Sundays of the year, Memorial Day and Labor Day. So the idea that we would need to bring in whatever it was, 15, 10 to 20% more on a particular week. That was a holiday weekend where nobody comes and nobody gives was an absurd prayer. It was a miracle in and of itself, but I remember praying it. God just let $13,000 come in. And we get to the Tuesday. Tuesday is when I learned what the giving was from our finance director, and I'm just refreshing my email, waiting for it to come in to see if God delivered on this prayer. And I got the email and I frantically click on it and $13,000 did not come in. $28,500 did. It was the largest Sunday of giving of 2017 until December. It was amazing. And I saw God turn my staff into a serpent. And then my serpent into a staff. And he said, I'm here. I got you. I'm with you. Let's go. You're in my hands. And there have been other moments. And so now what I say about grace, Aaron Winston likes it when I say this, God likes grace. I don't know why. He just does. Look at us. Who would have thought? He just likes us. And he's just rooting for us. And he's with us. And he shows up in these amazing ways when he turns our staff into a serpent and our serpent into a staff. And if God is calling you to do something and you have a moment's hesitation about it, I'm certain if you pray for it and if you look for it, he will turn that staff into a serpent for you too. And he will turn that serpent into a staff. Just give him a chance to show up and wink at you. But once he does, walk in faith. Once he does, walk in courage. But don't be like Moses, because Moses saw that cool trick and he's like, yeah, great. But how about this? Fourth excuse. Exodus 4, 10. Moses said to the Lord, I mentioned this last week, Pardon your servant, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue. This is a legitimate gripe. We talked about last week that scholars believe that this probably indicates that he had a speech impediment of some sort, that Moses more than likely stuttered or had some other thing that kept him from speaking eloquently. He was not silver-tongued. He was not charming. Moses was not the guy. There's some people that when you go to dinner and they sit on a certain side of the table and you're on the other side of the table, you're bummed out because all the fun's down there and I have to talk to stupid matt down here you know it's just a bummer you want to be with this guy moses wasn't that guy moses for the sake of this illustration was matt sorry matt that's what you get for sitting on the front row pal he wasn't eloquent he wasnspoken. And how is he supposed to go in to the most powerful man in the world and make these negotiations? How is he supposed to do this? God, you've called me to this thing, but it's not in my skill set. That's not what I'm good at. You want me to be like Chief Shepard? We can talk about that. You want me to go negotiate with the most powerful man in the world? I'm not silver-tongued. I can't do this. So he says, I'm not qualified. I don't have the skill set for that. And I would be willing to bet that if there's something that God is pressing on you, something you need to start, something you need to stop, a conversation you need to initiate, a relationship that you need to patch up, a step of obedience that he wants you to take, I'd be willing to bet that for a lot of us, we kind of go, we disqualify ourselves. We go, I don't have the right skill set. God, you've got the wrong person. Those are not where my talents and abilities lie. I don't think I can do this. That's what Moses said. And you know what God said to Moses? Hey, pal, I made you. I made your mouth. I made your brain. I'll give you the words. Don't worry about it. And later we see, I'm also going to give you your brother Aaron, who is silver-tongued and is good at doing it. I will put, not only will I give you what you need to do to get this done, but I will put people around you who can help you get this done. This is an amazing thing that God does as he sends us to build his kingdom is not only does he give us the skill set that we need to get it done in his goodness and in his grace, but he also surrounds us with the right people who supplement us where we are weak. I can't tell you how blessed I feel in the decisions that we make as a church that at every decision, at every turn, every big thing that we we do, I am surrounded by people both in my elder board and in my friendships and in my advisors and on our committees who are smarter than me about that particular area. They're not smarter than me in general, okay? I'm not willing to concede that. But they're smarter than me in that particular area. And we lean on their expertise and they advise us, God, I am weak here. I can't guide the church in this way. Great. Here's five people to surround you that know more than you about that, and probably are, in reality, smarter than you. You should listen to them. God does this. He doesn't just equip us for what he calls us to, but he surrounds us with the right people that we can lean on and trust as we walk into that. And so that's Moses' last excuse. I don't have the skill set. And God says, I know. I do. I made you. I'm calling you to this. I've put my name on it. I've winked at you. You can go. I've got you. And then we get to Moses' final excuse, which is frankly hilarious. Exodus 4, 12 and 14. Now go. I will help you speak and will teach you what to say. This is what God says to Moses. But Moses says, pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else. Now we're just at the heart of it, right? Like the rest of it was smoke and mirrors, you know? When you ask your kid to do something and they give you all the reasons why they can't do it. And you're just like, yeah, you just don't want to do it. You're just being lazy. Like, yeah, I know. And then they have to go do it. All the smoke and mirrors are gone. Now we get to the heart of the issue. Oh Lord. Fine. I hear what you're saying. Please send someone else. Like I'm comfortable. I've got a life. I'm fine. I don't want to upset the apple cart. I'm used to this. I've been a shepherd for 40 years. This is normal to me. This is what my life is. I'm old. I'm in my sixties. I'm like really old. You know, we're just coasting until the retirement home at this point. When you hit 65, like you're just waiting, right? I'm good. I'm comfortable. Please don't make me do this. Which is what we say. God, my relationships are good. My life is good. My life is comfortable. Don't make me upset the apple cart. Don't make me be the weird one at work. Don't make me be the weird one in the neighborhood. Don't make me rearrange my, I'm 40. Don't make me rearrange my life around those things. That's not how I set things up. God, please, God, send someone else is what we tend to say. And this is the first time this happens, and I think it's amazing. Verse 14, then the Lord's anger burned against Moses. And he said, what about your brother Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He's already on his way to meet you. He'll be glad to see you. So Moses says, I want to have. I've placated you. I've put my name on it. I've given you a sign. I've assured you that I'll be with you, that I created you, that I'll give you the words to speak. I'm even bringing your brother Aaron to go with you. Go do the thing you're supposed to do. And whenever I read this, my thought is, may the wrath of God never be kindled against me because after all the assurances in the world for the thing he wants me to go do, I still have the response of, oh Lord, please send someone else. No! You go do it. You do it. You do it. I don't know what God's pressing on you. I don't know what he would have you start or have you do. But here's what else I know. Or here's what I do know. Moses, from this moment at the burning bush, goes on and becomes, this is true, one of the most known figures in human history. You understand, every tribe and every nation and every tongue virtually that has ever existed from this point on knows the story of Moses. They know who he was. They know what he did. Moses had no idea at the burning bush that the first five books of the Holy Bible would be called the books of Moses. He had no idea that he would bring God's law down from Mount Sinai and give it to the people and that that law would echo through the centuries for Jesus to satisfy it. He had no idea that in eternity he was going to appear with Jesus at the transfiguration on top of a mountain thousands of years later. He had no idea that God is going to use him in Revelation as one of the two witnesses. He had no idea what was in front of him. All he knew is that he needed to do the next thing that God asked him to do. Very quickly, I want to tell you this story because I think it's relevant. I'll try to go fast because we're at the end of our time. I have a friend who was on staff with me at my last church at Greystone, a guy named Jim Hollinsworth. Jim was the associate pastor, executive pastor there. And one Christmas, his small group received something from a sort of co-op that provides things for people in need. And there was a stack of papers of families that were in need and they needed some Christmas gifts that year, much like we do with the tree that we do every year. And him and Melinda at Small Group picked up a piece of paper and there was a family on it that happened to live in a particular trailer park down the road. And all of the families that their small group picked were located in that trailer park. So Jim and Melinda said, gather your stuff and we'll go drop it off. We'll be fine to do that. And so they go to drop it off. And I was talking to Jim this morning because I wanted to get the origin story right. And he said they felt his word was icky going the first time which makes sense but they went anyways and they dropped off these gifts and they dropped off this gift with a single mom and it happened to be in a trailer park where the population was 95% Mexican immigrant and they made they made a good connection with this mom and they kept in touch and so they just followed up to see how she was doing, see if she needed anything in January. And through conversation, one of the things she said is, you know, my kid's going into middle school. I don't speak English. They're struggling academically, and I don't know how to help them. Can you help them? And Melinda said, sure. And so she started showing up at the community center and tutoring this kid after school a few days a week. Well, that kid's friends found out. Another mom started sending more kids to Melinda. And then Jim started going. And then they got a volunteer to start working with them. And then it grew and it grew and it grew. Within a couple of years' time, it became a ministry known as the Path Project. They bought a trailer in that trailer park. They served out of there full time. Melinda quit her job to do this full time. Jim went halftime at the church to give time to Path Project. And then there were more needs and an after-school program and then ESOL for the parents so they could go be advocates for their children in the schools. And then this remarkable thing happened. The company that owned that trailer park reached out to Jim and he says, I don't know what you're doing, but I will give you a free trailer in any trailer park that I own across the country because crime is down, graduation rates are up, rent payment is up. Things are more consistent. This is across the board better for the community. Can we do more of these? Then you fast forward five years and I'm in a gala where things are being auctioned that I can't afford at all. I'm just watching rich people compete with themselves to support Path Project. It's amazing. Jim does it full time. They're nationwide. He didn't have the skill set. He was not a fundraiser when God called him to do this. There was not a vision in there in Jim and Melinda's mind that we're going to go nationwide with community centers and trailer parks to do after school programs and ESOL and offer haircuts and just general hygiene. That was not in their mind. All they did is take the next step. They didn't know at their burning bush what God was going to do. They just knew that they needed to buy some gifts for this family. And then while they were there, they needed to talk to her. God is pressing on you to do something. And maybe it's so big, this is what excites me. There's somebody in here. It's not everybody, and I don't know who. But there's something in your head that's so big that you're scared to say it out loud. You're who I'm preaching to. Do it. Take the step. Do the thing. Let this be your burning bush. Allow God to push you into obedience. Ask him if his name is on it. Watch him turn staffs into serpents and serpents into staffs. Let his assurance wash over you. And when it comes down to you admitting that you need to do it, don't be like Moses and say, oh Lord, please send someone else. Just go do the thing and let's see what God does with a church full of kingdom builders that he is enabling and equipping for his ministry. The last point is simply this. If God is calling you to something, he will equip you for it. If there is something God is pressing on your heart to do, do it. And let's see what happens. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for stories like Jim and Melinda's. Thank you for Moses. Thank you for keeping for us a record of this discourse at the burning bush. For us to see how you give assurances, how you wink at us, how you put your name on things. How you give us the skills that we lack and how you provide for us the people that we need. God, I pray that this can be a burning bush moment for some people in here who will go and do the thing, who will start the ministry or reach out to the people or begin to take the steps. God, make us a church full of kingdom builders, full of people who seek to allow their lives and their time and their talents and their treasures to be used by you to further your kingdom. Give us a distaste for our own such that all we want to do is build yours. Equip us to go, point us in the direction, and wind us up and sustain us as we run towards you. Use us, Lord. Make us kingdom builders. In Jesus' name, amen.

I'm laughing with Aaron because after the last week, my name is Nate, I get to be the pastor. After the last week that I was here, I went to him and was like, hey dude, we're using that bumper a lot, can we get that shortened down to maybe 15, 20 seconds and go ahead and get to it? And he was like, yeah, I'll work on that. So I came up here and I was kind of getting ready and obviously obviously I'm jet lagged and stuff. I've been in Istanbul for a week. And I looked up and there's 10 seconds to go. And I go, this is the week you shorten it? And he goes, yep. And just smiled real big at me. Like it's his personal joke on me this morning to be caught off guard. But excuse me. Like I said, I spent the last week in Istanbul working with some Iranian pastors, and I'm going to tell you all about that, but I've had a lot of people ask about my safety. I'm so glad that you're home safe, which is a kind thing to think and to say. There was no real danger in Istanbul. As a matter of fact, for those of you who don't know, the president arrested the mayor of Istanbul. That's his biggest political rival, and so the youth took to the streets to protest and demonstrate and riot and there's a pretty heavy police presence I was just hoping that Jen didn't stumble upon the New York Times while I was over there luckily she did not but the second night of the planned demonstrations they were going to be in this place called Taksim Square and so we went down there early in the afternoon just to see it there's police barricades and SWAT vehicles everywhere with like crowd deterrent guns on top and things like that. And we thought that's pretty cool. And so then we went and we had dinner and it was probably about nine o'clock at night. And I looked at my traveling partner, Rue, and I said, Rue, do we do this smart? We're about 20 minutes south of Toxum at this point. And I said, Rue, by walking, should we do the smart thing and get on the subway and go back to our hotel? Or should we do the fun thing and go watch democracy die in Toxin Square? And he was like, he got his twinkle in his eye and we walked to Toxin. I was really hoping to grab a sign and protest as well. But apparently protesting and riots are a young man's game because it was like 930 and there was 20 people in the square and some getting off the subway. They were all younger than me. So I went to bed and I think the thing got really fun at about 11 o'clock. So I missed it, but I tried to go see it while we were there. But safety was never really an issue. The reason that I was there was through a friend of mine named Anaruda Sin. who goes by Ru. And so what I'd like to do this morning is rather than preach to you a sermon, what I'd like to take the morning to do, if it's all right with you, if it's not all right with you, tough. I mean, you can leave, but that's it because that's what's going to happen. But if it's all right with you, I'd like to just share about my experience over there and give you guys some takeaways of what I took away from it. Because I've just come back feeling incredibly full and incredibly blessed and profoundly humbled. And so I thought it would be better than preaching to you. And preaching, the point of preaching is to inspire and convict a change in hearts and minds for a change in that person. That's why you preach. But sharing is just to say, hey, I had this experience and I want you to hear about it. And I know that many of you will ask and many of you will want to know. And many of you did ask before the service, hey, how was the trip? And so I said, it's great. I'm going to tell you all about it. So if you have any questions for me after the service today, if you want to know more about who I went with or you want to know more about what's happening there, I would love to talk with you about that. And if it's too much for a lobby conversation, let's go out to lunch and we can talk about it more because I feel a tremendous passion for what I got to participate in. But a few years ago, I got to be friends with a guy who was introduced through a mutual friend to Roo. And Roo trains church pastors across the world in underdeveloped countries. So where I was exposed to him first was when he was training pastors who have churches in sub-Saharan Africa. There was a room full of about 60 pastors from about 10 different countries, and Roo was training them on how to build disciples and send them out to plant churches. And when you're talking about planting churches in underdeveloped countries, particularly in persecuted countries, which is who we're working with now, what you, what, how we would think of those churches is small groups. They meet in the home. The leader is considered a pastor. Some pastors can have two or three or four small groups. Tom Sartorius would be a remarkably successful pastor in underdeveloped countries because he has about eight small groups that he's in and lead. So he'd be great at that. But that's kind of the setup there. And so it's not quite the same as training up someone to go get hired at a church or to go plant a church the way we think about it. It's train up someone who can be a spiritual guide for 12 to 20 people and their children. So that's the process. And through that process, Roo, his network of churches plants three to 500 churches a year in India now for work that he started 10 years ago with no churches. So it's a remarkably effective way to spread the gospel in God's kingdom in these unreached people groups. And so a few years ago, Roo left the organization that he was working with to start his own organization to plant churches, not just in underdeveloped countries, but in persecuted countries. So now he works exclusively with pastors who lead churches in countries in which it is illegal to lead that church. And so a few weeks ago, he told me that he was going to fly to Istanbul and he wanted to bring me with him just as an exposure trip, just so I could see it and be blessed by it. He wanted to bring me with him. And so I had the opportunity to go and not help train. That's way too, that gives me self-aggrandizing. I did not help do anything. I was able to watch them get trained. And it was a group of seven Iranian pastors. Four of them brought their wives. Two of them brought their moms. We called them the grandmas and they were incredibly wise and incredibly wonderful. And so I had the opportunity to go over and watch him work with these pastors. And by the way, this is a ministry that is led by Summit Church. So there's a guy named Nathan, and I think his story is amazing. At the end of the service today, I'm going to show you a video, a message from one of the pastors to us that's translated by Nathan. I will not be able to show that to you online. We're going to actually cut the feed for the safety of the pastor in the video, and then we'll show it just here in-house. But in that video, you'll see the Iranian pastor, a guy named Yahya, and then you'll see Nathan. Nathan fled Iran when he was 19 years old due to religious persecution, came over to the States, and began a social media account and has a huge social media presence in the Persian world where he spreads the gospel to Iran and to the Iranian diaspora all throughout the world. And he has a huge following. And at one point or another, he moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and he began to, he was a part of Summit Church. And then he loved J.D. Greer's sermons. That's a pastor over there. He loved his sermons so much that he started to retool them in Farsi and make the illustration something that Iranians could relate to and then preach them online and develop even more of a following doing that. And so then he went to Summit and he was like, hey, I'm doing this with your sermons. Is this okay? And they said, yes, of course it's okay. And he goes, by the way, I know a bunch of pastors that I'm still networked with, but they really need training. What can we do for them? And so they brought him on staff to help solve that problem. And then him and his boss, a guy named Chris Watkins, one of the missions pastors over there, started looking around for people who knew how to train pastors in underdeveloped, persecuted countries. And they found Roo. And now Roo has partnered with them to do what they're doing. And I got to tell you something. After being exposed to what Summit is able to do on a global scale, I've never cared about church growth. Not my thing. I care about church health and doing it the right way. But now I'm coming back and I'm like, y'all, we got to get in the building. We got to grow because we got to make a bigger kingdom impact. Invite your friends. Send out mailers. Let's make a video. Let's go. We've got to make a kingdom impact. Let's move it. I'm all about church growth. We're going to do some stupid Father's Day giveaway this year with a four-wheeler and a grill or something. So that's who I was with. So the first morning, I go into the room and I meet these pastors. And it was an incredibly humbling experience. Because every single one of the people in that room are risking jail time to do what they do. If their local authorities find out that they're having underground Christian services in their home, they can be arrested. If the wrong group of Muslims find out, and this is not a big if. This is not like me taking a chance going to Toxum Square on the 1.5% chance that somebody gets mad and punches me. It's not that kind of risk. It's a legitimate risk that if the wrong group of Muslims find out in their neighborhood what they're doing, they will beat them repeatedly until they stop. Or they will just murder them. And no one will care that that's why they were murdered. One guy told a story, Mikael. He said that they were talking about times that the Holy Spirit had guided them. And Mikael said that he had a neighbor that was harassing him and his family and his kids so bad, his wife and his kids so badly, that in the middle of the night he had to move away because he was fearful of what this neighbor might do. And he's so grateful that the Holy Spirit moved him to move on that night because the very next night, a lynch mob of Muslim men within the community stormed his house and burned it down in an attempt to kill him and his family. That's a real story that happened. And he told it like I would tell you I'm going to McAllister's for lunch today. And nobody in that room batted an eye. Nobody in that room said, oh my gosh, man, are you okay? I didn't know that. Like, if we share that story in an American small group, like the rest of the night stops and that's what we focus on. You share that in a group of Iranian pastors and they just go, oh, yeah, same. One guy made a joke. I couldn't believe this joke. And it crushed in the room. Everybody's laughing. This guy, Farh, was really funny. He said that he was sharing the gospel with somebody and the guy showed up at his house one day and was angry and he said, if God is real, how come my dad is dead? And Farood said, that's no problem. Mine's dead too. What else you got? It's just a joke he made. And it crushed like the whole room was dying laughing. They just live in a different world than us. Every one of them. They wake up every day. They kiss their wife and they kiss their kids. And the husband and wife don't know if they're going to see each other again for a while. Every day they could go out and the wrong person could find out what they've been up to and they will get arrested. And they'll be in prison for six to 18 months. And when they're in prison, they're away from their job. They're away from their family, they're away from their kids, they're away from their wife, they're away from their life, and they don't know what's going to happen to their family. And if you're an elder, there's three elders. If you're an elder and they find out, the Iranian government finds out that you're running a network, that there's other pastors underneath you, I was told that what tends to happen is you serve your 18 months and then within a year of your release, an accident happens and you're not there anymore. These men face beatings. They face arrest and ultimately they face martyrdom for their faith. So I was already prepared to be tremendously humbled when I walked into that room. And I had already thought about how ashamed I am of some of the things I complain about, having to sacrifice to build God's kingdom and to be a pastor when it isn't a fraction of what those men risk every day to build God's kingdom in Iran. So I already went in incredibly humbled by that. And then when we get there, it was pretty close to start time for session. And so we kind of say some hellos and we sit down. And then in the break between sessions, which those guys were getting it, we did four 90 minute sessions a day. It was a lot. In the first break, I'm walking down the hallway to find the restroom. And there's one, one of the hallway, and he's on his phone, and he looks at me, and he goes, and he walks up to me and gives me a huge hug. And while he's hugging me, and it wasn't like an American, like, how you doing, bro? It wasn't like one of those hugs. It was like how a grandfather hugs a grandson. Like, he just engulfed me, and I'm like, I guess this is what we're going for now. I guess I'm just settling into a Persian hug. While we're hugging in my ear, he says, my brother, my brother, every one of them came up and hugged me and learned my name and called me their brother, my brother, my brother. And it was so moving that by the time they were done, I had to get to the bathroom so I could close the door in a stall and just let myself gain my composure. Because I do not feel worthy of being their brother. Because what they do is so much harder than what I do. And those people that they pastor are your brothers and sisters too. And you'll meet them in eternity one day. They are our family. And it was incredibly moving to know that they so quickly regard me as their brother and you as their brothers and sisters. I was already ready and postured to learn from these pastors. As a matter of fact, that was the biggest thing that I went over there to do. My friend Rue had told me, which was very good for me. If you know me, you know this was an excellent exercise for Nate. He had told me as we were preparing, he was like, hey, listen, we're going to be in these sessions. I've got a translator. There's only one translator. He's working very hard. I've got a lot of information to get in. So, you know, just try to be really limited on interjecting or asking questions. Like, this is really not for you. It's for them. Like, you're an observer. And I said, got it. Speak when spoken to. And he was like, wasn't going to say it like that, but yes. And it was so, it was, y'all, I've never been around that many people for that long and used so few words. It was, I felt like Jonathan Poston. I just didn't say, I just didn't say anything at all, ever. It was crazy. You have a lot of time to think, dude. Like, I got to tell you. And so what I set myself about doing, because all I wanted to do is learn from them and their experience, is I had my laptop out and I wrote down every word they said. Every time an Iranian asked a question, every time they spoke up, every time they made a point. I wrote down the prompt that Ru had given so I would have some context for it. And then I wrote down their name and I wrote down a summary of what they said. Every single one. I've got a 9,500 word document on my computer of everything that they said all week long. So that I could listen to them and learn from them. And hear their hearts about ministry and how they do it. And here's my biggest takeaway from my time with those pastors as a group is just the vast difference in how the persecuted church behaves versus how the secure church behaves. There is a gulf of understanding and commitment between us, between American pastors, and the way that Iranian pastors think about their church and their mission. They use military language over there. The elders consider themselves the captains. The pastors, the foot soldiers. They have contingency plans in place. They are fighting a war. Discipleship over there isn't optional for them. It's urgent and necessary for them because Ruth would tell them, you are going to need to get beat up for the faith. And when you do, consider that suffering a gift from Jesus himself because nothing will spread the news of the gospel more quickly in your community than how you handle that beating. That was never said to me in seminary. They view themselves as soldiers in enemy territory trying to bring about a change as they build God's kingdom. They sincerely want to change the face of Iran. And I've said before that as you look through history, whenever you see a church in a persecuted area, that church is always thriving and always vibrant and always filled with the holiness and the fullness of God. And whenever you see a church that exists in a country or a culture where it's been allowed cultural primacy, where it's been set aside as this is our default setting. Think about Catholicism in the Middle Ages. Think about evangelicalism in the United States for the last 200 years. Whenever you see the church elevated to a place of cultural primacy, in walks corruption, in walks doctrinal issues, in walks power-hungry people, in walks greediness. In walks laziness. In walks the uncommitted. In comes the cultural faith that doesn't really mean it. When you are persecuted, you are lean and mean. And when you're risking your family and your reputation to step into that small church, you have to think twice before you do it. The bar of entry in American churches is so low that you can do it socially for your whole life and it not mean anything. So when I come back from seeing them and hearing them and writing down everything they said for five days, my overwhelming impression is just the gulf that exists between churches in persecuted countries and churches in secure countries. Which means that at Grace, it's our job to acknowledge that historical trend and to figure out how to be a church in a secure country that understands that our cultural Christianity is dying and should, but we want to rise from those ashes and taking on the mentality of a persecuted church. How do we do that? I don't know, but I know that that's our responsibility and I don't know what I'm going to do with that. I don't know if there's going to be a series or a training or just small things along the way. Or I don't know if I'll lose that conviction and just fall back into being fat and lazy and comfortable. I hope not. But we've got to do something with that. That's my takeaway from my time with the pastors as a whole. Now there's one pastor in particular that I want to tell you about this morning. And he actually illustrates the passage I knew I would be speaking about this morning. So if you have a Bible, turn to Mark chapter 9. We're going to be looking at verses 30 through 37. If you don't have a Bible, I would encourage you to pull out the one in front of you because I'm not going to have anything on the screen today. If you're using one of the blue Bibles, can you tell me what page this is on? Can you find it fast? And somebody just yell out the page. 1,000. I knew it. Perfect. All right. So page 1,000. Thanks, guys. That's the passage where we're going to be. This is the quintessential Mark passage. Okay. And I knew that I didn't want to prepare a sermon on this passage. I didn't want to prepare a sermon on this passage and not, do we have a different verse in the bulletin? Is that why you guys are laughing? Okay. I'll find out later. I didn't want to do a sermon on this passage without having that experience in Istanbul with the Iranian pastors, because I knew that if I were to write this sermon and then go over there and have that experience, I would want to change the whole thing. So I decided to wait until I'd have that experience and then come back and share with you what I learned. And so this is the quintessential Mark passage. The last two verses say that whoever wants to become great must be least, whoever wants to lead must be servant of all, okay? And so that is really, but there's one verse that summarizes the gospel of Mark, that's it. But I wanted to wait until this morning, and I'm waiting until now to bring it up in the sermon because there was one man that I met that personified this maybe better than anybody I've ever seen in my life, and that was the leader of their network of churches, a man named Yahya. I'm going to call him Yahya because that's what we called him. And to say Yahya sounds a little bit like an American going, I was in Colombia the other day. So I'm not going to do that crap. I'm just going to call him Yahya, okay, even though it's wrong, but we're going to agree to be wrong together. When I walked in and Ru introduced me to Yaya, and Yaya is probably in his early 60s, I would guess, maybe late 50s. When I saw him, he immediately looks at me, and Iranians have this thing they do where they go like this, my heart, my heart, I'm grateful for you. And he goes, like so many kind gestures. And he introduces himself, he holds out his hand and I shake his hand. He said, my brother, it's so good to have you here. Thank you so much for coming. And I'm like, are you kidding me? This is how many people get to sit in a room with persecuted pastors outside their own country and then get to meet the one that started this 20 years ago by himself? And this is only one network that Yahya leads. He has four or five groups of pastors that come to him for encouragement, for training, and he has his own churches that he leads. And the man runs a restaurant that's been in his family for generations. He's busy. Often, I put in front of you guys this verse from Colossians that says that we are led by Christ in triumphal procession and that through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. I have met maybe four people in my life, Yahya being the fourth, that is the very second I meet them, that's the sense that I get. This man is full of the Holy Spirit. I've never met this man in my life, but I know that he loves me. And I know that he loves everybody in this room. And I know that he knows God in a way that I have never approached. And I'm lucky to be in his presence. I think sometimes about the heroes that we'll meet in heaven. Those faithful believers who just quietly did God's work their whole life in far-flung places where they can't write books and they don't do podcasts and there's no conferences and we never hear about them. But they quietly and faithfully and humbly and lovingly did the work of God their whole life, built his kingdom. Yahya is one of these men. And it is one of my great privileges to have met him. And so as soon as I met him and got that sense of him, I watched everything he did. Like almost like a weird stalker, like I was locked in. I watched how he interacted with his pastors. I watched how he interacted with his wife, Vicki, and with his daughter. I watched how he caught food and made tea and let everyone else go first. I paid attention to when he raised his hand and when he didn't. I paid attention to where and why it seemed like he chose to chime in in the conversation for a man that knows all the answers to the questions that are being asked. And most people would use that as an opportunity to show off and to know the answers and to say the right thing. And maybe I'll let my staff talk for a little while, and then I'm going to come in and I'm going to give the really wise answer. He never did that. As a matter of fact, most of the time when he chimed in to talk, it was to repent in front of his other pastors and to say, we don't do this in my churches, and we need to, and I'm sorry. I watched the way that man holds leadership, and it is the personification of the verses that we have in Mark chapter 9. So let's go there and read them and then we disciples did not yet have a full perspective and understanding of who Jesus was and what he came to do. They expected that the Messiah was going to come, that he was going to rise into a position of political prominence, establish an earthly kingdom in Israel, and rule over all the world from Israel. Their vision was too small to understand that Jesus came to die and reconcile us back to the Father and establish a heavenly kingdom to exist for all eternity. Their imagination for who Jesus was and what he could do was too small. And we see that all through the Gospels. Okay, that's just a little sideline that I wanted to bring your attention to because when we start talking about Easter and the resurrection, that becomes really important. Verse 33, He took a little child whom he placed among them, taking the child in his arms, and he said to them, Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes by Yaya, so I brought this up with me. Now we're going to go back and we're going to look at this idea of whoever wants to be great needs to serve. Whoever wants to be first must be last. But before we do, just as further proof that Yahya is the personification of this. Look at those last two verses. He took a little child and he placed it among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to him, whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me. During the second break, Yahya was near me again and I said something to him, and he says, Yaya, John. And I go, John? And he goes, yeah. And I joked with him, and I said, Yaya is way cooler. And he laughed and whatever. But then I thought, he seems like a sweet man. He'll probably like to know that my son is named John. So I went, do we have the picture? Okay, I went up to him, and I said,, yeah. And he looked at me and I said, I put my hand on his chest. I said, John? And he goes, yeah. And I said, this is my John. And I showed him John. I showed him this picture. And yeah, yeah, it goes. And I kind of pulled it back. He goes, oh my God, let me see that again. And I pulled it back up and he zooms in on his eyes. And he goes, he has the most beautiful eyes. What a blessing. Oh my God, John, that is so lovely. Praise God. What a blessing. And he says, I will pray for him. I said, thank you, Yahya. Three days later, I got to a session. You can take that down. That's just going to be distracting because he's so precious. Three days later, I got to a session early. I'm the only American in the room, and the pastors are all talking, and they start kind of laughing. And Yaya's daughter, who apparently has worked on English, says, they're all talking about your son, John. They've all been praying for him every day this week. It's just humbling. Let me just be honest with you. That is not how I respond to pictures of your children. Okay? That is embarrassingly far from my character. And they meant it. They meant it. And those men who have so much to be concerned about. I asked Nathan, the refugee, I said, what's their level of concern when they fly back into the country? What's their stress level when they're going through customs just to get home? And he said, as high as it can be. They know that one of these days they're going to fly back in country and one of them is going to end up in a security office. And I said, can I please get a text to know that they all got home safely? And when I landed yesterday, I had a couple of texts on my phone telling me that they had. So we praise God for that. They have so much to worry about. And they choose to spend their time in prayer, praying for my son. And I was told, Nathan told me, he goes, you're lucky. He goes, they're not kidding around. There's people that we dealt with three years ago and they committed to pray for them. And whenever I see them, they still ask me about those people. They will ask me about John for the rest of the time I know them. That's what it is to be the servant of all. Whoever wants to be great must be least. And I watched the way he held his authority. I watched the way he held his authority with those men and women in that room. How he supported them and put them first, and how very different it is from most of the pastors in underdeveloped countries that I've been to. This is a very sad truth, but most environments like that, these men get really competitive and they make the church about their ego. They even come up with titles. If you're a church pastor, if you have one church, you're a pastor. If you have more, if you have two churches, you get to be a priest. And if you have multiple churches, you're a bishop. And, and if you're, if you're a priest and not a bishop, you can't talk to a bishop. And if you're a, if you're a pastor, you can't talk to a priest. And if you're a pastor and a bishop is talking to you, you better listen or you'll be out of the church. It's very territorial and it's very sad. But it's not too different than how Americans hold authority either, is it? When we get positions of authority, we think about the rights and privileges that will be afforded to us by that authority. We think about what sort of things can I get to do. I remember vividly when I was 27 years old, I got hired as a Bible teacher and school chaplain at Covenant Christian Academy in Loganville, Georgia. And I remember after I got hired, it was the summertime and I had to ask, can I go begin to get my room ready? They said, sure. And I walked into my classroom for the first time. And I remember looking at it thinking, this is mine. I get to do what I want to in here. I'm going to, I think I have to design a bulletin board. How much can I, what's the least amount that I can put on that and not get in trouble? I was excited to come up with my own class rules. I'm the authority here. I get to, what I say goes. And so I sat down and I tried to generate some class rules and I landed on one class rule. This will surprise none of you. The one, the one class rule I had in my classroom was don't be dumb. That was it. I had it on the bulletin board and those stupid teacher round letters that you staple on. I had don't be dumb on my bulletin board. That was the one class rule. This made discipline very easy because when Aaron is in my class and he does something, he shouldn't, he cheats or he throws something at someone else or whatever it was. I pull Aaron outside and I say, Aaron, is what you did dumb? And he goes, yes, Mr. Rector. And I go, okay, so I'm going to have to punish you. Yes, Mr. Rector. All right, great. Let's go back in. It was very, very simple. But all I cared about in being an authority was what I got to do. And often this is how we hold it. Different than Jesus. Different than Yahya. When we get positions of authority, we think, oh, what do I get to do with this? What good things happen to me? How can I leverage this to continue to grow my authority? And when Jesus gives authority, and when Yahya receives authority, the primary question he is asking is, Father, how can I use this position to serve the people that you've entrusted to me? How can I use this authority to build them up? If we understand leadership to be intentionally deployed influence, which is how I understand it, then how do we use our influence to give away more influence to the people who follow us so that they can rise above us? This is how he holds his authority. Next week, I'm thinking about preaching about how that is possible. But for now, I'm going to leave this there. I told you I wasn't preaching to you this morning. I'm not driving to a single point. I'm sharing with you what I took away from this experience. And those are the two things I took away. First, we must learn what it would look like to behave as a persecuted church in a secure church culture. We must learn to behave more like them if we don't want to die on the vine like the rest of American churches. B, we must learn, I must learn to hold my authority the way that Yahya does. I must learn to hold my authority the way that Jesus tells us to, with an open hand, seeking to serve the people that we are in authority over, not seeking selfishly to make that authority about ourselves. We need to be more like the Iranian church and our leaders need to be more like Yahya. Let me pray and we're going to do a song and then I have a really special treat for those of you that are here in person after that. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for the experience that you gave me. Thank you for impressing upon Rue to invite me. Thank you for the way that it's enriched me. And God, I just pray sincerely that grace can be enriched through my enrichment. That from your fullness flows grace upon grace. And from the fullness that you've given me, God, let it flow onto grace. That we might be a church that behaves more like there's something to do here, like there is a war to fight, that there is a battle to be won. And let us start that by holding our authority and loosely holding it like Jesus tells us to, holding it like my brother Yahya does. Make us more like them so that we might serve you better, so that we might reach future brothers and sisters and bring them into your family. Thank you for the week that you gave me. I pray that I would allow it to change me profoundly and that that change would be communicated and connected to this church at Grace and that we would be exactly who and what you've called us to be. In Jesus' name, amen.