Sermons tagged with Cross

Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm making grace a part of your Sunday morning. If you're watching online, wherever you are, whatever you may be doing, thank you for joining us in that way. We are beginning our new series, or we're continuing in our new series, called You'll Be Glad You Did. And the idea is to take the wisdom of Proverbs, proverbial wisdom, written by King Solomon, who the Bible claims is the wisest man who ever lived, and to look at some of his wisdom and say here at the top of the year, if we confront ourselves with it, if we listen to it, I bet, I bet that by the end of the year, you'll finish 2026 being glad that you listened to the wisdom of Solomon here at the top of the year. You guys will have to forgive me. We've got a small contingent of Bills fans in the church, and they're all sitting in the front row with, I even forget the name of those pants, but there's a particular, what's the name of those kinds of pants, do you know? Zubas, yes, that look like zebra stripes, and then Susie's got on the best fan shoes I've ever seen in my life, so I just need to say that out loud before I can continue as if there's nothing happening right in front of me. But we're looking at this proverbial wisdom, and one of the reasons I wanted to do it, and one of the reasons I wanted to spend a month looking at the wisdom of Proverbs is because one of the best things I've ever done is to take very seriously reading the book of Proverbs. You've heard me say, hopefully multiple times, that the greatest habit anyone in their life can develop is to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. And I still believe that to be true. And there was a season where for three years, every day, I read a Proverb dated as just read a chapter. It's a great place to start. And if you want to read your Bible and you don't know where to start, you don't know how, that's where I would encourage you to begin. If you are someone who reads your Bible, I will tell you that most days for three years, I read whatever proverb was commensurate with that date, that day, and then read whatever else from the Bible I wanted to read that day. And those were some of the richest three years of my life. I immensely enjoyed it and never got tired of reading those Proverbs. So that's a good place to start. And if you hear nothing else from me today of any value, but you leave here and you go read Proverbs every day for the next year, I promise you, you'll be glad you did. This morning, we're going to look, did you like that, Tom? This morning, we're going to look at a proverb about generosity. And I said this in the Gracevine this week. I send it out. And if you're here and you don't get the Gracevine, you don't know what that is, and you would like to receive it, just please fill out a connection card or email me, and we'll get you on that distribution list. But I said in the Grace Find this week that we were going to be talking about a proverb on generosity. And those of you who are my church friends and church people, you know that generosity is pastor code for give us some money. Generosity is code for I'm going to preach a sermon compelling you to give to the church because we need to get some stuff done. And I want to ally that fear this week. Maybe that's why it seems a little bit more thin this week than last week is because I sent that email out. Those of you who have been here for a long time can attest to this. I've never preached a sermon trying to get you to give to grace, nor do I think that the New Testament teaches that you need to give 10% to your local church. I don't even think the New Testament teaches you need to give 10%. I think it just is a good marker based on something that happened in Genesis with Melchizedek and Abraham that we'll talk about later. But I don't even think the New Testament teaches you that. So you'll never hear me preach a sermon trying to compel you to give to grace. So that's not what we're doing this morning. But what you will hear me do, hopefully, repeatedly, is preach sermons on generosity. And the sermon on generosity would make particular sense this morning as it relates to the strategies and desires of grace, because you guys are well aware, we just had a big push towards this building campaign, and we're're hitting go and we're going to try to be in there by the end of next year. So that's particularly relevant to our church. But that's not what I'm preaching about this morning. I can tell you that next week one of our elders, David McWilliams, who's faithfully operating the camera back there, is going to give us an update. We had end of the year giving. We have some very good, exciting news to share. He's going to give us an update. We just want another week to get all of our numbers together so that what we present to you will be the most accurate thing possible. We don't want to talk in what ifs and hypotheticals. We want to talk in precision. So David's going to do that next week. By the way, David has been serving with Jim Adams for a year now as elders, and we still have yet to bring them up here and pray over them because I'm not good at planning things like that. Also, just while we're here, Wes and Doug served for six years, and I was supposed to bring them up here and pray for them too. I've not done that yet either. So Wes, David, Doug, Jim, sorry. But as we think about generosity this morning, I think this proverb allows us to frame it up in a very robust, encompassing way so we can think about the idea of generosity from a more holistic view. So let's look at Proverbs chapter 11, verse 25, which simply says this, a generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. I don't think that we think about generosity the way that Solomon frames it up here. First of all, he says, a generous person prospers. And we should be careful there because we're tempted to kind of fall into a health and wealth gospel that says, the more that I give, the more that will be given back to me monetarily. The more money I give away, the more God will bless my bank account. And that's really terrible teaching, and it ends up making poor people poorer. So that's not what we want to do. So we have to understand what prosper is. And we have to open ourselves up to maybe it means more than just prospering financially. And one of the ways that we prosper is what follows. He who refreshes people will be refreshed. The people who refresh others will be refreshed themselves. I think that opens us up to what prosperity there actually is. But I like this verse because it doesn't tell us how to be generous. It just tells us to be generous. And that the more you give to other people, the more you refresh others, the more you restore the souls of others, the more you look out for others, the more you care for others, the more your soul will be refreshed. And I think that's a really helpful and valuable way to think about generosity. And the truth of it is, God has always wanted his children to be characterized by generosity. God has always wanted his children to be characterized by generosity. All the way back at the beginning of the Bible, beginning in Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, where the laws are meted out for the ancient Israelites, for the ancient Hebrew people. God is very diligent and fastidious about making sure that his children are generous people. He says, care for the widows and the orphans and the aliens and the sojourners, which means care for those who can't care for themselves. Care for the widows because they have no way to make money and no one's paying for them. They need your help. Care for the orphans because they have no way to take care of themselves. Take care of them. Take care of the sojourners, the aliens, the people who are foreign, who are coming to your country from other places. We should always have a heart for them and their plight. So take care of them. And God gets so specific as to give this law in multiple places in the books of Moses. When you harvest your fields, leave the corners there, healthy, ready to be picked. For who? For the widows and the orphans and the aliens and the sojourners. Leave that there so that they can wean from your crop. That ethic, that ethos is there from God at the very beginning of the Bible. And then we see again, Abraham meets the king of Salem, a mysterious figure, the most fascinating figure in the Bible to me, Melchizedek. And he, upon meeting him, gives Melchizedek 10% of everything that he has. And this 10% law becomes called the tithe, and it gets written into Jewish law, Hebrew law, which we inherit in the New Testament. And it was so extensive that they gave, those who were being as righteous as possible, would give 10% of everything that they owned. They would literally empty the pantry and give 10% of the cream of mushroom soup can that they had and give 10% of the spices. They would give 10% of everything. That's how important it was to God to write it into law to do in that way that his people would be generous. Then we get into the New Testament and we see Jesus teach generosity over and over and over again. And listen, almost every time it's taught, it's taught to be generous in order to care for the have-nots. It's almost always taught as don't tithe to be obedient, don't tithe to be blessed, but give what you have to give to take care of the people who don't have something to give. This is the story of the widow's mite, where the rich man gives a bunch and the widow gives all she has, and it's two pennies. And Jesus says she just gave more than he did to the kingdom of God. We cannot argue with the idea that our God has always wanted his children to be characterized by generosity. With that in mind, I would like for us to consider how we can be generous. We're going to swallow the frog and do the obvious one first. We can be generous with our finances. We can be generous with our finances. This is the obvious one, and this is where our brain goes when we think about generosity. And so I'd like to talk about this, but then spend the rest of our time on other ways to be generous. But I was listening to a book recently, and some of you guys like to judge people for listening and not reading, because you're stuck up. And it was by an author named Scott Galloway, who is, it's difficult to define what he does. He sits on boards, he runs companies, he's a professor of economics at NYU, and he's someone that I find interesting and thoughtful. And he wrote a book called Notes on Being a Man, and that's something I've thought about a lot is I've got a son named John who's four and a half. And I don't know why the half matters. He's four. I'm a grown up. And then I have a daughter named Lily who's going to turn 10 here in a week. And I think a lot about what is it that I want to teach to John that I don't want to teach to Lily? What is it that Jen, my wife, should teach to Lily that she doesn't teach to John? And I don't have a good answer for that. And I would invite this, if any of you have answers for that, I want that discourse. Particularly if you're a little bit longer in the tooth than me. Then I really want to hear that. If you're shorter in the tooth, maybe just relax. But he wrote a book, Thoughts on Being a Man, and I would, the only criticism I have, I'm not recommending it to you. There's cuss words, so as a pastor, I cannot recommend it. But the only critique I have is I really think it would better be titled Thoughts on Being a Human. Because the things that he was espousing in there didn't feel to me like things that only men should think about. I think women should think about these things too. And Scott is a devout atheist. He has respect for people of faith, but he's not a person of faith himself, and he's open about that. But in his book, and he's become, by any stretch of the world's measure, very successful, all right? He's in his mid-50s, really successful dude, flying on private jets when he goes places, that kind of thing, all right? But here's what he said, and this is what I thought was interesting that I wanted to share with you. He said when he started his career, it was all about accruing for himself. It was all about what he wanted to get. It was all about getting rich and getting more for himself and just build, build, build, build, build. But that one day, once he felt like he had enough, there was this seismic shift in his mindset. And he became a lot more interested in being a generous person than being an accumulator. He realized it made him feel good. This is wild. It made him feel good to buy dinner. In his words, it made him feel like more of a man. In my words, I would say it made you feel like more of a grown-up. But the way that he phrased it was, it made me feel like more of a man to buy dinner for my friends, to take my friends on trips that I could afford and let them come. It made me feel like more of a man to give things away. And again, I'm not trying to be over-masculine here. I think it really makes us feel like more of a responsible human. But he said that there was this shift, and after that shift that he made this decision, that he made it his goal to give away more money every year than he spent. Not more money than he made, but give away more money than he spent on himself. And he said, in doing this, it makes me feel better about myself and about who I am. Makes me feel like a better human. This, to me, and if Scott were here, he might push back on this, but this, to me, is an atheist nodding towards the way his creator inclined him to be. What he was saying in his book was, when I refresh others, I am refreshed. And I realized it made me feel better to give away my resources than it did to accrue them for myself and my own selfish ends. And my challenge or my thought to the church this morning, because this is a room of largely church people, is if an atheist can stumble upon the simple joy of generosity and find in his own experience that he is refreshed by refreshing others, then can't we as Christians learn from that lesson and be people who seek to be generous? I told you the story a few weeks ago of the former student that I have, a kid named Alex. He's not a kid anymore. He's in his 30s. He graduated in 2010, and he and I haven't had a ton of contact since then, but I've always thought very highly of him and been glad that he's been in my life and that I had the opportunity to be in his. And he had a tough story and ended up not going to college. He had to watch his brothers when he was 19 years old. But he found a way and he became a general contractor. And some of you know the story, but just by way of refreshing, he reached out to me a month or two ago, and he just said, hey, I'm making good money now. That's not what he said, but that's pretty much what he said. I'm making good money now. I want to be generous. I want to give. I want to honor God the way that he's blessed me. I want to bless others. What can I do? And he, to answer that question, drove. He had a job in Charlotte. He lives in Atlanta. So he drove the day before the extra two and a half, three hours from Charlotte to Raleigh, met me, took me to Sullivan's where I got a bone-in filet, which is really great. And then we met in my office and I said, hey man, here's six nonprofits that I know of whose founders I know very well, who I trust and love. Let me just tell you what they do and you tell me where, and then you just do whatever you want. I don't need to know, but then you can kind of figure out where your heart's led, which ones of these capture you, yeah? And that conversation led to him having breakfast the next day with the founder of one of the non-profits and then giving that founder the largest single donation they've had in the history of that non-profit. That's cool, isn't it? Now listen, Alex also told me in that conversation, in our discourse about wanting to be generous, that out of this desire to simply be generous, he had a job in downtown Atlanta. They were building a building or they were refurbishing one or whatever. There was a job with a fence and the things and all the stuff. And he would go there every day. And he said on his way there, he would go to the ATM and get out cash. And keep it in his truck. Because there was homeless people surrounding this job site. And he would make sure to go around and give money to every homeless person that was there. Because he felt like he had the opportunity to do that and he wanted to do it. Now here's where our brain goes. Okay? And here's where mine went. Dude, that's not wise. There's a better way. I love your heart. There's a better way to give money than to do that. And that's why he and I were having the conversation. Let's think about a wise way to do it so we can make sure that that money's going to God's kingdom. We can make sure that's an effective expenditure. But here's why I tell you this story this morning. It's to say that what I truly believe, and this is just my opinion, you may disagree. What I truly believe is the spirit of generosity that led him to give in both situations, whether it's a large donation to a responsible nonprofit or smaller multiple donations that we really don't have any control over, in God's eyes are the same. Because it's not about what we give. And I don't even think, and I'm careful when I say this, because I do think we need to give to God's kingdom. But it's not about what we give, and I'm not always convinced it's about where we give. It's about the fact that we just give. So we should be generous financially, whatever that looks like for us. We should also, I believe, be generous with our time. This is not a way we think about generosity, but it is a way we think about our days. And the story that I will share about being generous with our time is actually critical of me, which is what I would prefer. I'd much prefer a story where I look bad than to tell you a story where I'm the hero. So I'll tell you a story where I look bad. In November, we went home for Thanksgiving, and I needed to preach that upcoming Sunday. My dad is a CPA. He has his own firm, and he was going into the office on Tuesday morning, and I said, hey, dad, can I come into the office with you? Excuse me. I said, can I come into the office with you on Tuesday? I need to write a sermon. I've got a couple things to do, and I'd like to get that done and be done with it so I can just focus on family this week. He said, sure. So we rode to the office together. And on the way to the office, I'm thinking about, and I think some of us can relate, I've got a lot of work to do. I have a very important task to write a sermon for 145 people to listen to. This is the most important thing happening in the whole world. Thank you for the laughter over there. That was what was intended. But that's where my head's at. I have to get this done. I have to do this. And there was some other things I needed to do. So I was really focused and I was in what we call in my family task mode. Like I'm not interacting, engaging. I'm just trying to get stuff done. And so we get to the office and we're walking in and dad stops. There's a car pulling in and he stops and he says, oh, that's so-and-so. And he kind of steps back. Like he's going to wait on so-and-so to get out of her car and come see us. And this is where, if you'd like to be disappointed in me as your pastor, this is a great place to start. I looked at dad and I said, what difference does it make? And he went, okay. And we went inside. Because my thought was, dad, this is just practical brain, okay, I'm sorry. Practical brain. I'm never going to talk to this lady again in my life. I don't know who she is. She only knows who I am because I'm your son. I don't want to talk to her. I have a job to do. I need to get done quick because my wife has the kids with her mother-in-law out on the town. And she'd really like me there as a buffer, frankly. She'd like me to be there. I need to go. So I need to get this done as soon as I can. I need to get in the car. I need to drive to Monroe and go to some stupid store I don't care about so that I can hang out with my family. That's what I need to do. That's the pressure that I feel. So when dad says that so-and-so, I think, who cares? What's it matter? And so he's like, okay. So we go inside. My sister works for dad and she had brought us Chick-fil-A biscuits that morning, which are the worst of all the biscuits. And they really are. They're the worst. And she has the Chick-fil-A biscuits, but I am grateful it's free biscuit, fine. And I said, Dad, where can I work? What conference room or cubicle are you going to tuck me into? And he says, well, you know, you can, one of those down there. He goes, but don't you want to eat first? And I said, again, practical brain. No, Dad, I'm visiting you for three days, all right? I don't need to have breakfast right now. I'm going to go eat the biscuit while I write the sermon and get my important work done. And so I said, no, Dad, I'd really just like to get to work. He's like, okay. So I go get to work, and I write the sermon. I text Jen. I'm done. Where are you guys at? I go to the thing, and we do the things. And then, this is why I'm telling you the story, that evening, Dad snaps at me about something that was pretty innocuous. And those of you who, I have a good relationship with my parents, but Dad and I can get on each other's nerves. And those of you, Kristen's nodding her head as she sits next to her dad. All right, perfect. Let's just unpack this right now, Sartoriuses. If you have grown kids, you know you can get on their nerves. If you still are fortunate enough to have your parents, they know how to get on your nerves, you know how to get on them. We got on each other's nerves. And I thought it was silly. And I finally, I didn't snap, but I just kind of said, I don't know what you want me to do. You know, we were talking about whatever. And I just, like, I needed to go. So I stepped away. And I came back after a calming down period of 72 hours. And it was like 15 minutes later, I said, hey, Dad, I'm sorry. That's not how I want to handle that, but here's what's upsetting me. And he said, I understand. And we started talking. And here's what I learned, and this is why I'm sharing this story. He said, son, essentially, you matter a lot to me. I talk to you a lot. I talk about you a lot to my employees. And it would have meant a lot to me for you to have taken the time to have met them and to be gracious with them. But you were too self-important and you couldn't. And that's why I'm upset. And I went. What a lesson. What a lesson. I don't like saying this, particularly on a permanent record. But he was right, and I was wrong. I was so focused on my tasks and what I needed to get done that I couldn't see the value in investing my time in people. And so I missed a chance. How much better would my afternoon have gone if I would have simply been generous with my time and honored my dad? How much more refreshed could I have been by taking the time to meet the different people that he wanted me to meet. How arrogant of me to think that I have nothing to benefit from small talking and exchanging pleasantries and shaking hands and learning names. What, honestly, what a jerk. And so it was a lesson. Be generous with your time. How many of us have opportunities throughout the week when someone imposes on our time and we have a task or we have a thing that we want to do, but this coworker has texted us, this coworker has popped in, this person has emailed us, this person has called us, this friend needs us. It might be dinner time, but they don't normally call at this time, so what are they calling about? How often do we have opportunities to be generous with our time that we miss for whatever reason? Maybe your reason isn't task-oriented self-importance like me, but maybe it's something else, but how often do we have the opportunities to be generous with our time that we miss because we don't think of those times as opportunities for generosity. We just think about them as impositions on our schedule and on our tasks. I'm reminded as I think of this, every time I read through the Gospels, I am amazed at Jesus' generosity with His time. Those of you who have read through the Gospels, can you recall the amounts of times that Jesus finishes an arduous day or week of ministry? Does the Sermon on the Mount, heals people, speaks to people, casts out demons, teaches, combats with the rabbis, and then once that's done, it says Jesus went off to a quiet place to pray. He went off to be by himself and to rest and recruit. And here's what stuns me is how many times in the gospels it says after finishing a day like that or an event like that, Jesus goes off to pray by himself and on his way to do that, someone says, Rabbi, can I talk to you? Will you talk to my mom? Will you come meet my son? They need you. And Jesus always, sure, what do you need? Yes, I would love to. Yes, let me talk to you. Yes, let me pray to you. Jesus is the greatest example of someone who is generous with his time. And I think, I suspect, that we can probably all be more generous with ours. The last idea about generosity I want us to consider is that we can be generous with our spirit. We can be generous with our spirit. We can be generous with our disposition towards others, with our assessment towards them, with the benefit of the doubt we are willing to give them. I had a friend in college named Paul Honeycutt. Paul Honeycutt and I, we played on the soccer team together and we did the landscape crew together. We were in charge of keeping the grounds of Toccoa Falls College pristine and we did great. It was a fun job. I got to do the zero turn mowers and the weed eaters every day and I loved it. And Honeycutt was this really interesting guy because Honeycutt was cool. Everybody liked Honeycutt. Everybody did. He had all the friends in the world. And at this stage in life, try to remember, you know, I've been in high school and now college and cool people are cool. Cool people, they make friends easily. They make friends well. And they tend to be a little bit exclusionary in the way they move through the world. If you're not as cool as them, they're not going to give you their time. They're not going to be as nice to you. It can get to be exclusive, right? And so that was my experience of cool people. And Paul was cool. Everybody liked Paul. But Paul was unique in that he was kind to everyone. We ran in the same circle, and I watched some people try to get into the circle, and other guys in the circle would kind of hold them in arm's length. I don't know if you're going to cut the mustard. I don't know if I like the cut of your jib. What a great phrase that is. But I don't know. So they kind of hold them away. But Paul was always the first person to welcome them in and to make them feel like a part of things and to be a good host and to be a generous person with his spirit. And I remember asking him one time, this is now 25 years ago, I think, and I still remember the conversation. I asked him something to the effect of, Paul, you're so nice to everybody all the time. How are you this nice to everyone? And Paul said this simple phrase to me, and I'll never forget it. He said, Nate, if they're cool to Jesus, they're cool to me. Isn't that great? If they're cool to Jesus, thanks Jeff. If they're cool to Jesus, they're cool to me. If Jesus likes them, I do too. And here's the problem for us Christians. Jesus likes everybody. How inconvenient is that? I don't know. I've thought about this over the years and I'm not going to make any declarative or definitive statements this morning. I really don't know how much space there is for us to choose to not like somebody. I don't know how much space there is for that. I don't know how much space there is for us to just hold a grudge against somebody. I don't know how much space there is to think the worst of somebody and write them off. Now listen, I want to be very careful. I'm not asking us to trust everyone and to make ourselves vulnerable to everyone and to return to painful relationships when they've burned us in the past and it's hurt so much. I'm not asking you to be unwise. Scripture says that we should be as innocent as doves and as shrewd as vipers, and I think that that absolutely applies. But what I am saying is, I'm not sure how much space we have to just choose to not like someone and write them off. If they're cool to Jesus, they're cool to me. And unfortunately, Jesus likes everybody. So I think maybe you don't have something to learn from my buddy Honeycutt, but I still do. And here's where I would say this too, and I say this carefully. Our country is very divided right now. We know that. By simply saying that statement, everybody in this room just tensed up about 25%. Here's my estimation of part of that division. Is that we are not generous in spirit towards the people who don't vote like us. And what I've noticed is our tendency is to think and assume the worst of them. But what if we would be more generous in spirit and assume the best of them? Not just politically. People who think differently than us. People who don't share the values that we do. People who don't root for the bills. What if we started to view generosity as being a way to assume the best of others, to believe the best of others, and to give them the benefit of the doubt whenever we could? Let me tell you what would happen. Not just on a church level, but on a personal level. It is refreshing to refresh others. This series is called You'll Be Glad You Did. If you will listen to the wisdom that Solomon wrote down, you'll be glad you did. This week, we have an opportunity to consider what kind of people we are in regards to generosity. And my main point is, how refreshing would it be to spend this year being more generous with your resources, with your time, with your spirit, with your demeanor towards other people. And here's what I would challenge you with. If you think about these things, and there's other ways to be generous as well, but if you'll just think about these things. How can I this year be generous with my finances? How can I this year be generous with my time? How can I this year be generous with my spirit towards others? I highly doubt you'll finish the year and think, I wish I'd have kept more of it for myself. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for this church body, for this family. Thank you for the love that we share and the community that we have. God, all of us in this room have been given resources. From your fullness, we have received grace upon grace in different ways. And I pray, God, that you would increase our heart and increase our desire to be people who are characterized by generosity. May we be people who are happy to give, who are happy to refresh others, and in so doing find that you refresh us as we do. Give us the eyes to see and the ears to hear opportunities for generosity. And give us the willingness to step into those. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for making grace a part of your Sunday. If you're watching online, wherever you are, whatever you may be doing, thank you for doing that and joining us in this way. This morning, we continue in our series called Gentle and Lowly, where we're looking at the character of Christ. Is that Kyle and Ashlyn back there? They're here. Look, with the new baby. Hey, guys. We continue in our series called Gentle and Lowly. I was going to say that we have more books on the information table. We do not. So if you don't have a book and you still want one, first of all, that makes no sense to me because we've been talking about this for three, four weeks. But if you don't and you want one, reach out and we'll tell you where to find one. Okay. But in this series, we are looking at the character of Christ. We are marveling at and learning about and from who Jesus was. And the second chapter of the book points out that Jesus was characterized by his compassion. Jesus was a man of compassion. And that's where I want us to focus this morning. And I want to do it in such a way where we kind of build a case for the compassion of Christ, because I want you to see just how prevalent it was in his character. And to me, the most prevailing instance of his compassion is found in the shortest verse in the Bible. Many of you know what the shortest verse in the Bible is. You may not know its address, but this will not be unfamiliar to you. It's John 11, 35, and it simply says, Jesus wept. Now, I meant to do the research this week and forgot, but syllabically, from a standpoint of syllables, it is not the shortest verse in the Bible. There is one verse with three words that are all singularly, they have one syllable, and it's actually shorter technically speaking. But this we acknowledge as the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept. Without the context of it, we might not know why that is profound, or we might not know why I find it to be the greatest example of Jesus's compassion. But here's why. Let me give you the context for it. Jesus, in his life, had what many theologians and scholars believe were some besties. He had his very good friends that were not the disciples, that were not a part of the 100 to 120 people that would travel around with them, with him and his disciples. But it was Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. These were, a lot of people presume, some of Jesus's best friends. It was kind of home base for him, and they lived in a city called Bethany. And this is, some scholars say, Jesus's favorite place on earth. These were his dear friends. I don't know if you're fortunate enough to have good dear friends, but when you're with close friends, you can be your complete, total, vulnerable self. That's what friendship is. And many people believe that that's what he had with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. And so one day, word comes to Jesus by way of Mary and Martha. He was two days away by foot. And they said, hey, Lazarus is dying. Can you come heal him? And Jesus said, yeah, I'll be there in a minute. It's a loose paraphrase. He waited two days, and then he began the journey. In the time of his journey, Lazarus passed away. So as he's approaching Bethany, they hear of his approaching, and Mary runs out to meet Jesus. And when she meets him, she asks the question that we would all ask. Why did you wait? You could have prevented this. My brother has died. What are you doing? Why didn't you come sooner? What was so important that you couldn't come do this for us? It's the question we would all ask. And that through history in different ways, we have asked at different times. And then after asking the question, Mary begins to weep. And Jesus' response to this question that makes sense to every generation was John 11, 35. Jesus wept. And here's where the profundity of this passage struck me for the first time. And I've told you guys about this before. You may remember this story. There's a pastor in California named Rick Warren who's been very successful, sold a lot of books, and his church does very well. And even amidst that success, his son at the age of 27 took his own life. And when he did, he stepped away and took a leave of absence for either six weeks or six months. I can't remember. And when he came back, he preached a series called How We Got Through What We Went Through. And I watched that first sermon back and he highlighted this verse. And he said, I'd love to understand why Jesus lets things like this happen. But he doesn't explain it to us because we're not capable of understanding it. And even if he did, it wouldn't take my hurt away. So what we have in Jesus is a Savior who doesn't offer us explanations. He offers us his presence and his hope, and he kneels and he weeps with us. And I found that to be an amazing point. And in this instance, when Lazarus dies, Mary weeps, and so does Jesus. But here's what makes this further compelling to me. Jesus knew the rest of the story. He wasn't wondering if he was going to go resurrect Lazarus, which he does. If you haven't read the story, I'm sorry, I just ruined it for you. But he goes and he resurrects Lazarus. He says, Lazarus, come forth. And he does. He comes out of his tomb and he resurrects him. When Jesus meets Mary on the road, Jesus wasn't wondering about what would happen. He knew that he was going to raise Lazarus. He knew that Mary and Martha would be overjoyed. He knew that he would have his friend back. He knew that. So listen to this. When he's weeping with Mary, he's not weeping because he is sad. He's weeping because he's moved with compassion and his friend is sad. That's the Jesus that we worship. He was so moved with compassion that because his not shed a man tear. The older I get, the more I cry. I cry so much that when I'm watching a show with my nine-year-old daughter Lily, and we're watching a kid's baking championship, and a kid has to leave once we get to the final four, she looks at me to see if I'm crying. And I am. I can't help it. We watch Hometown, which is a great show. I highly recommend it to everyone. Ben and Aaron are the best. We watch Hometown. When they do the home reveal and the people are thrilled at their home, do you know what I'm doing? I'm crying. But I'm not inconsolably crying. My nose isn't running. I've just got a couple man tears and I wiped them away. It's fine. And forget you if you judge me for that. I emit this salty liquid from my eyes and I'm moved by emotion. Those are not the tears Jesus was crying. He was weeping. His shoulders were heaving. His nose was running. He was a mess. And he was not a mess because he'd lost his friend Lazarus. He was hurting because Mary was hurting. And Martha was hurting. That's what compelled him. And I think that is remarkable about our Savior. To further my case about compassion being personified in Christ and him being a man of compassion, I have a litany of verses to go through. We're going to go very quickly, okay? But here's what we have. And me and Lynn, we worked on this before the sermon. We'll see how we do together. But here's the verses very quickly to show you the compassion of Christ. In Matthew chapter 9, what we see, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. In Matthew 14, when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and he healed their sick. And Matthew chapter 15, Jesus called his disciples to him and he said, I have compassion for these people. They have already been with me for three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry. And Mark chapter 6, verse 34, when Jesus landed, he saw a large crowd and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. In Mark chapter 8, I have compassion for these people. They have already been with me three days with nothing to eat. In Luke chapter 7, when the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, don't cry. There's more. Jesus at every turn was a man of compassion. And here's what strikes me about the compassion of Christ in those instances when he chose to heal and he chose to feed the 5,000 and he chose to spend time with one person. I think one of the more interesting questions about the life of Christ is, why did he not go around healing more people? If he had the capacity to heal and to make illness go away, why didn't you just teach them to wash their hands? Just basic science. Why didn't he go around healing more people? Why didn't he do it all day, every day? The only compelling answer to that question is because it's not what he came to do. What Jesus came to do was to live a perfect life, die a perfect death, and train young men and women to run the church that he was establishing. That's what he came to do. He came to live a perfect life, to die a perfect death on the cross for us, and to train people to run the kingdom that he was establishing with his ministry, which is what we call the church, which is where we sit now. That's what Jesus came to do, which means, and I know that this is a weird thing to say, especially for a pastor in this spot. It's not inconceivable to think about every miracle of healing as a distraction from his purpose. It's not altogether unfair to consider the feeding of the 5,000 a distraction from what he actually came to do. It's not unfair to think that the widow that he healed that was bleeding was a distraction from whatever his real mission was that day. And yet, being moved by compassion, he feeds the hungry. And yet, being moved by compassion, he heals the sick. And yet, being moved by compassion, he preaches to the masses. When we see Jesus perform these miracles, when we see him heal and we see him feed, I think it's fair to see those as times when he veered off the point of his ministry because he was so moved by compassion in his heart to help others, to serve others, to be distracted because his heart moved so much for the people around him in need. This was who Jesus was. If you don't yet believe that Jesus was a man of compassion, I would simply make this point. Jesus' dying words were words of compassion. We did a Good Friday service this last spring, and we focused on the seven things that Jesus said while he hung on the cross for you and for me. And one of the things that he said was, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The men, putting a spear in his side, driving nails through his feet and hands, putting a crown of thorns on his head, whipping him, blindfolding him and saying, you're a prophet, tell us who hit you. He said about those people, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. His dying words were words of compassion. And so here's the truth about Jesus. And here's what I want us to understand about his character and seek to emulate in ours. Hurt people hurt Jesus. Hurt people hurt Jesus. When Jesus sees people hurting, he hurts. When Jesus sees people suffering, he suffers. He suffers so much that he weeps, even though he knows the end of the story. He hurts so badly that he allows himself to be distracted from his divine purpose to execute this one. Hurt people hurt Jesus. And so, we talk a lot here about what the word sanctification means. And sanctification, as we understand, is the process between when we're saved and when we're glorified. When we accept Christ as our Savior and when we exist with Him in eternity. It's life. And through life we go through the process of sanctification. And sanctification, the easiest way I've ever found to understand it is to become more like Christ in character. And so, as believers, and some of you here are not, and that's fine. But this is a peek inside the curtain. If you are here as a believer, what God wants for you is to become more like Christ in character. Not in nature, because that's not possible, but in our character as we go through the years. And hopefully those of us who have been believers for a long time are slowly moving to be more like Christ and for our heart to beat with his. But if our goal is to be more like Christ in character, then we cannot do that without being people of compassion. We cannot do that without being moved by the hurt of others. So much so that we don't simply go, oh, that stinks. I hate that for them. But that we are compelled to go and do. We cannot be like Christ in character if hurt people don't hurt us to such a degree that we are activated to some action in service of God's kingdom for people who are hurting. How can we possibly, church, claim to be Christ-like if we are not people who are moved by compassion? Not just empathy. Not just seeing the floods and hurting for the people affected by them, but actually buying supplies or driving them out there. And that's just one example. And I'm not telling anyone that you should do anything except allow yourself to be moved by compassion. And we have stories in grace that I'm very proud of, of people being moved by compassion and doing great things. So here's the question for you this morning. How might we employ our compassion? How might we employ and deploy our compassion? We all have the capacity to be stirred. How might we employ it? Here's one of the things I'll tell you. When we think about compassion and being so stirred by the hurt of others that like our Jesus, we serve them and we help them because we can't stand it anymore. Here's one thing I'll tell you, and I can't presume or project my life upon you, but let me tell you about my day-to-day, okay? And you'll see if you relate. I wake up every day. I was going to make a joke there. I'm not going to make it. I'm going to be disciplined. I wake up every day. Most days take a shower, unless I don't have any meetings. Then I dress in basketball shorts and Crocs. But most days I take a shower. And then I take Lily, my daughter, to her private school. And I'm in the carpool line with a bunch of other people taking their kids to their private school. And I can only say that the car line at NRCA is not a place that moves me towards compassion. I don't weep for the people that I see. I'm in my ensconced, nice, safe bubble, right? And then I drive to church. And I get in the office. And I have this glorious hour where no one else is in the office. And I have it to myself. And then I loathe the first person that shows up and ruins my solitude. Usually it's Kyle. He's been mercifully on paternity leave for three weeks. Sorry, Kyle, I love you. And then I sit in my office and I have calls and I have meetings and I and I go to lunch yeah three times a week with someone and then Jen Jen jokes with me must be nice it's a nice life this last week I played in a golf tournament and I went to lunch twice look at me and then I go home or I go to soccer practice with a bunch of kids that whose parents $650 to play that season. That doesn't move me towards compassion. And then I go home in my ensconced little area. And we have dinner, and we watch Hometown, and I cry and my daughter makes fun of me. And then we go about our day. And I wake up the next day and I do the same thing. Here's my point. There's not a lot of spaces in my life where I encounter people who engender compassion. If your life is like mine, then you have to make a choice to go outside of your comfort zone and encounter people who engender compassion in you. You will not, most likely, come upon them honestly. You will not experience compassion if you do not choose to expose yourself to those who deserve it most. So if we want to be people of compassion, and if you're sitting here going, that is who my Jesus was, and I recognize that's what I need to do, then we need to be people who expose ourselves to being able to be compassionate and stirred towards hurt for others. If in our life, if what I'm saying is true, hurt people hurt Jesus, and in our life we have elegantly navigated a path to never encounter genuinely hurt people, then how can we possibly be hurt by their hurt? So we have to choose to engage outside of our bubble so that we might be moved as Jesus was. A great example of this in our church, and I've told this story many times. I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud that they call Grace home, and they predate me. They allow me to continue to be their pastor. But Suzanne and Wes Ward, some of you know their story, some of you don't. Suzanne was in youth group here. She grew up at Grace. And at some point, gosh, it's got to be six, seven years ago, if not longer than that, she went on a mission trip to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with her friend Cindy. And she saw in Addis an orphan crisis where families literally can't afford to keep the children that they're having, and so they have to give them up for adoption, and those children end up in orphanages. And she saw with her own eyes that the young girls, 17 and 18, who age out of those orphanages, not educated, not eligible for college, have very few choices about what they can do in life. And most of them ended up in the kind of work that you're assuming right now. And they were moved with compassion. And so they started a ministry called Addis Jamari. We partner with them. They were moved with compassion for the plight they saw in the Ethiopian, so much so that they did something about it and they started a house. And it was a house for the girls who aged out of the orphanage to come and to live in, where they're taught life skills and they're discipled and they're taught about Jesus and they're launched out of there going to college or having the capacity to get a job so that they can avoid the life that they would have lived had not Addis Jamari stepped in. And then to further it, they realized, you know what, if we can get ahead of this on the front end, we can prevent orphans altogether. And so they started what they call the FEP, the Family Empowerment Program, where for, I think it's $80 a month, you can donate that to Addis Jamari. And those $80, listen to this, this is amazing, allow a family to keep their child at home rather than having to give them up for adoption. How simple is that? That's like, what, eight lattes? That's easy. Also, Starbucks is stupid, okay? Germaine to nothing, sorry. And so they started doing that. And now, instead of just a home with three or four girls occupying it post-orphanage, they have what amounts to a daycare with 80 children every day, with programs for moms to educate them, to feed them, to take care of their kids, with counselors, like degreed counselors to work with their children and with the moms and with the dads. Compassion drove them to do that. So that's a big one. I don't think all of you need to go start a ministry in Africa. Actually, you probably should. But that's not the point. That's a big step. And in life, sometimes God moves us to make big steps. And we get moved and it changes the trajectory of our life. Suzanne is one of my heroes. She does not yet take a paycheck from Addis Jamari. And she works tirelessly for them. Every day. All the time. Because she's moved by compassion and believes in this. And some of us, God wants us to take steps like that. Others, first time I went to Addis Jamari, was in January, was it 2020 that we went, Karen? I think it was. I think it was. January 2020. Yeah, Andrea was there too. And we went over and Suzanne told me a couple weeks before, she was like, hey, it's just you and a bunch of ladies. So maybe invite somebody. And I had to think of the retired people that I knew that might be able to go. And so I invited a buddy of mine, Emil Lasavita. And I was like, hey, come to this. He goes, what is it? And I was like, it doesn't matter. Just please come with me. And he did. But when he saw the ministry, he was so moved by compassion that he got involved too. And now he sits on the board. Now he serves. He and I had a conversation last week where he called me about the future of Addis Jamari, and we talked about it. He was moved by compassion, so he acted. We have people who have been going to Mexico for 20 plus years to build houses for people less fortunate. Because when they went down there for the first time, they were so moved by compassion that they go back every year. We have people who have been doing that for 20 plus years. My buddy Keith right here, who, trust me, I do not like saying nice things about. The stupid Steelers jersey in church and the whole deal. Keith went years ago and was so moved by compassion that he's been a grandfather to someone who's grown up in that ministry. He's sent baby pictures. He's sent wedding pictures. They reunite every year. He's watched him go from this kid volunteering to this man who's in charge of all the construction of the houses now. He's the project manager. What happened was Keith went on a trip that he didn't want to go on very much, but his heart was moved by compassion and it changed the course of his life. There's at least one good thing you've done, Keith. If we want to be like Christ, we have to allow ourselves to be moved by compassion for others. And if we're going to be moved by compassion, then we have to make choices to expose ourselves to something that can move us in that way. So where I want to finish this sermon this morning is to simply challenge you with this. What step can you take towards compassion? What step can you take to expose yourself to hurt people that might hurt you in such a way that you begin to take steps of compassion as a result of that? And maybe you're already doing it, and that's wonderful. Lean into those places. But if you're not experiencing that, and you're not serving anybody outside of your bubble, and you haven't been moved by compassion for a long time to help and to sacrifice. Maybe the next step is to just think about how can I expose myself to portions of our society or our world that will compel me to do that. So let's think about that this morning.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here on Labor Day Sunday. Thank you for joining us. If you're watching online, must be nice. Maybe next year I can live stream from your place. But for those of us here, I hope we're having a good Sunday morning. This is the last part in our series in Moses that we've been going through all summer long. And so I believe that this is the 13th installment. It's 12th or 13th. So thank you for hanging in here with the life of Moses. And I hope that it's been rewarding for you and encouraging to you to go through that life and see how much we have to learn from this miraculous man and figure in the Bible. This morning, as I was trying to decide where are we going to land the plan on the series, where are we going to focus, I thought it most appropriate to focus on the death of Moses, because Moses has, I was going to say pretty unique death, but it is a unique death in Scripture and in history, I believe. And so I thought it would be appropriate to focus on that. Not only because that's where the story ends as we end our series, but I've always found the story of Moses' death to be one of the more puzzling stories in the Bible. It's one that it took years for me to wrap my head around and felt like I even understood God's actions in it. Because I think that there's some stories in the Bible where the actions of God perplex us a little bit. What we know about God, or more often than not presume about God, would lead us to believe that what he did is out of step with his character. It's out of step with who he says he is. We can't make sense of it. And because we can't make sense of it, we kind of think, well, maybe, maybe God got this one wrong. And I think that this is one of those instances. So before the death of Moses, Moses is punished. God tells him that because you did this thing, I'm going to punish you. And we see this punishment being levied in Deuteronomy chapter 32. If you have a Bible, you can turn to Deuteronomy. And I would tell you to go ahead and turn to Deuteronomy chapter 35, because we're going to cover almost that entire chapter before we're done here today. But in Deuteronomy chapter 32, we find this, and I'm going to read you a lot of verses, more didn't stumble over any of those names, so I am very happy. Second, more importantly, here's the context for what God has said. So, God says, you and Aaron sinned against me in a river, in a particular land a few years ago. Because you did that, you will not enter the promised land. And so here's the offense. You can find this offense in Numbers chapter 20, verses 1 through 13, if you're interested. The offense is they have been moving through the desert for, at this point, plus 30 years. 35 years, I don't know. They were in the desert for 40 total years, and this is towards the end of the journey. And the Hebrew people had this very familiar, consistent refrain and grumble, which was when things got hard, when food got scarce, when they couldn't find water, they would cry out and they would say, Moses, why did you bring us to the desert to die? We were better off as slaves in Egypt. We were better there. And they were upset that they had been freed from their oppressive masters to come and wander in freedom in the desert because now desert life is hard. And Moses, frankly, got tired of it, as anybody would, as any leader would, with people coming and complaining to you all the time about everything. And so he went to God. They came and grumbled to him. And so he went to God. He says, your people are thirsty. Can you provide water? And God says, yes, go to the rock in this river and speak to it or go to the rock in this place and speak to it and water will flow from it. And so Moses says, okay, got it. And he walks out and he gathers the people, the assembly around this rock and he chews them out and they deserve to be chewed out. You whiny little babies. God always provides. He's going to provide again. Here, look. And he hits the rock with his staff twice. Because the last time he brought water from a rock on behalf of God, that's how he did it. He hit the rock with his staff. But this time God told him to speak and he didn't. But in anger and frustration, he hit it twice and water flew forth from the rock and the people were satisfied. But God pulled him aside and Aaron after that. And he said, because of your impertinence, because of your sin against me, because you struck the rock and you did not speak to the rock as I instructed you, you stole some holiness from me. You impugned my holiness and my dignity. And because you did that, I will not allow you to reach the promised land. And just so we're clear on what kind of punishment that is for Moses, Moses is, according to Scripture, probably about 110 to 115 years old right now. He got called out of being a shepherd at the age of 80 and told to go lead God's people. He performed miracles. He led the plagues. He confronted the Pharaoh. God used him to destroy the Egyptian army. He performed miracles in the desert. He set up something to heal from snake bites that we didn't even get to in this series. He went on top of a mountain and met the very face of God, so much so that he shone for three days afterwards. He was the one charged with bringing the tablets down the mountain, with issuing the law to the people. The first five books of the Bible are the books of Moses forevermore. He had been a faithful servant and everything in him was journeying to the fulfillment of his life, which is going to be to enter the land that was promised to his forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he was going to get to be the one that did it, and he was going to finally get to set feet on this land that he had never seen in his whole life, and it's what he lived for as he served God. One day, I will be on the promised land. And God says, because you hit that rock two times instead of speak to it, you can't do that, which feels unfair. Does it not? The punishment feels like it very much outweighs the crime. And I hate it when that happens. I feel bad for anyone when that happens. And when I was a senior in high school, it happened to me. I was in class one day, Jen, I'm very sorry for this story. I was in class one day, and I had a friend, she was sitting a couple desks over, and I just got a wild hair that it would be funny to write her a little note and see if I could make her laugh in this class where we had a really strict teacher and you weren't allowed to do that. So I was trying to mess with her. And so I wrote her a note and in the note, I proposed to her that maybe after school, we'll meet at my car and we'll engage in teenage activities. Not married people activities, okay? It wasn't crass. Teenage people activities. Now, important to the story is I went to a very strict Christian school. That was not a lot. And it worked. She laughed. And then we laughed about it later. Well, fast forward six weeks. Some stupid eighth grade kid finds the note and reads it and is so deeply concerned in their conscience about it that they hand it to a teacher. The teacher confronts me. and she says, I don't know what to do about this. This could get you in big trouble. And I said, I can't tell you what to do with it, but it was a joke. I won't do it anymore. And she's like, okay. The next day, I get called into my principal's office, which happens to be my soccer coach. And he calls me in, and he says, Nathan, because I was Nathan at the time. By the way, my name became Nate instead of Nathan when I began to work at Macaroni Grill at the age of 19, and I had to write it on the table, and it's just shorter to write Nate. That's the only story there is for that. So he says, Nathan, I saw this note. It's completely unacceptable. And listen to me. I wish I still had it. I would let any of you read it. And you would think, this is funny. You would not think a teenage person deserves to be punished for this. But he was like, I don't know what to do with it. And I'm like, well, what's the normal punishment? He says, well, I need to suspend you. And I was like, oh, that's a bigger deal than I thought. And at my school, if you got suspended, you couldn't participate in athletics for three weeks. Well, I was the captain of the soccer team, and we were about to enter into the state playoffs. We won the state championship last year. We were probably favored to win it this year. And I was Allstate, okay? I was good. But being Allstate in that league is like being the best toy on the island of misfit toys, okay? I was never good. Sometime post high school, thinking I was good at soccer, we played a team that gave away scholarships and they were actually good at soccer. And I was oh I'm not athletic so not bragging I'm just saying in the moment this is how this is how big it was for me this was my moment right and he suspended me and I didn't get to play in the playoffs my senior season and it always felt incredibly unfair and to me that's what this punishment feels like from God. And if you're watching closely, yes, I am comparing myself to Moses. That's what this punishment feels like from God. And in my case, in my case, one of the things that helps me reconcile that is first of all, it really wasn't my principal that suspended me. It was my dad. Because my principal called my dad and made me read the note to my dad. And then my dad said, what would you do if he wasn't on the soccer team? And my principal says, I'd suspend him. And my dad said, suspend him. And he kind of hung up the phone. But one of the things that helps me reconcile that is knowing that there's probably a dozen other things that I did that deserve suspension that I did not get caught for. So it kind of worked out in the wash. But for Moses, that's not the case. This is what is said about Moses. In Deuteronomy 35, these are the last words, these are the last verses of Deuteronomy. These are the last verses of the books of history. I believe every Christian or faithful person who's lived since then who looks at the story of Moses, if Moses were to make an appeal and say, God, can you let me off with a warning for the whole rock hitting thing? Can we maybe look over that one and still let me put my toes in the sand of the promised land? Can maybe we still do that? I think all of history would be like, God, he makes a good point. Like of all the people that God should let off the hook, why doesn't he let Moses off the hook? And you would think that maybe he said that early on. He said that at the river when it happened or at the rock when it happened. But then eventually over time, it would wear off and he'd be like, all right, Moses, you're fine. Like you've lived a good life. You can still enter into the promised land. Like you'd think he'd let him off the hook, but that's not what he does. Look at the beginning of 34. This is the tragic story of the enforcement of that penalty. Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land. Now these words you're about to hear and read are, these are the tribes of Israel. These are, this is the territories of the different tribes. This is like someone taking us up on a mountain, God taking us up on a mountain and saying, that's where North Carolina is going to be. and that's where Virginia is going to be, and that's where South Carolina is going to be, and that's where Tennessee is going to be. That's what that means. So he says this. The Lord showed him the whole land, from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Eph He said to I'm not going to let you in. And then he didn't. He took him up like he said he would. And he said, I wanted your eyes to see it. This is what it is. This is what I promised on oath to your forefathers. This is where you've been leading my people. And I know that you thought you were going to lead the procession in. But I'm only going to let your eyes see it. I'm not going to let your feet touch it. And so I've struggled with what to do with this story. Because it seems out of sync with the character of God. But I do think that here's one of the things that we can take from this story. And it's a very simple thing, but it's true, and it's not something we like to confront very often. But the reality is actions have consequences, both natural and punitive. The things that we do have consequences. Both natural and punitive. And so when we commit a sin, when we make a choice, those choices have consequences. And that doesn't go away because we're thousands of years removed from this. It didn't go away when God applied the law to his people and said, if you were guilty at one point, you were guilty of all, which Moses did. You're guilty at one point, so you are condemned. That was the deal. It's a picture of why we need salvation, because we are guilty in at least one point. And that's why we can't get into the promised land by ourselves, because we have sin in our past. But that sin and those actions have consequences. And we don't like to think about that, and we don't like to deal with that. And I think sometimes we have an attitude of, yes, I've done this, but God, if you would please expunge the consequences from my future, that would be great. But the truth is that our actions have consequences. And those consequences are both natural and punitive. And if you're a parent, you understand what that means. This makes sense to you intuitively. When you're a parent and you're guiding your children to become who they need to become, who God created them to be, you have to either allow consequences or you have to apply consequences. Sometimes you watch your children or your child doing something and you know they're cruising for a bruising, right? You know this is going to end poorly. But you think that the best way to love them as a parent is just to let it play out and let them learn from their own consequences. One of my favorite things about grace is that every Sunday, all the little kids are running around the room and I think it's great. And it brings life and vibrancy to the church. And I don't mind that they bang into the wall. And sometimes we'll somebody, we have a kid one time that just took a marker and ran down that whole wall. Just the whole, just, they just, we needed a racing stripe. Okay. Um, I don't mind that. And they knock over people's coffee. They bump into us out there. I don't care. I think it's, I think it's fun. And one day I was in here and my son, John is four. And he was over in this corner and I was standing up there next to the doors. And I looked over and he was running up to a child that was sizably larger than him. And John likes to hit right now. He just, and he hits like that. And so he ran up to this kid and just hit him in the back. And instead of running over and grabbing him and say, we don't hit, you know, I thought, let's just see how this plays out. And the kid turned around and was mad and hit John back and knocked him on his butt and made him cry. And John came running to me. Daddy, so-and-so hit me. I said, yeah, I saw. This should teach us not to hit people that are bigger than us. Don't do that. Don't do that, son. You see me? I've never picked a fight in my life. You know why? Because I don't like to cry in front of other people. And so I could have run up and I could have stopped and not let the other kid hit my son. But I thought the best thing to do was just to let the consequences play out. And so sometimes we watch our kid cruising for a bruising and when they fall on their rear end, we pick them up and we go, yeah, don't do that again. The reason you're in pain now is because your actions chose it. Our actions have consequences. Other times as parents, we need to make the consequences punitive, don't we? We need to punish, to teach a lesson so that they don't do that again, to help them remember that that's not the way they're supposed to act or behave or the attitude that they're supposed to have. In our house, screen time's a big deal. You bring up screen time and there's tears right away before you even say how much screen time is going to be lost. And some actions require a punitive consequence. When they get older, you take the car keys or whatever it is. But as parents, we understand these things. That when we're in charge of a child and we're in charge of raising them, it is absolutely irresponsible to try to raise them in an environment in which their actions do not have consequences. It is completely unhelpful for life. And in understanding this principle, we understand that this is what good parents do. And so the other thing is, this story reminds us that God is our father and we are his children. God is our father and we are his children. God is the father of Moses and of the Hebrew people. And when Moses, one of his sons, sinned, God had to apply a punitive consequence. It was not a natural consequence that Moses experienced. By all accounts, he could have gotten there and gone across the river. But God applied this punitive consequence for this action to correct it. And to set an example for the rest of his children that no one gets off the hook. God is a fair God. But because God is our Father, he must also, as he looks down on us as his children, apply to us both natural and punitive consequences. God cannot run over and protect us from the larger child when we choose to take an action that we shouldn't. He's not going to do that. He will allow us to experience natural consequences of our choices. If we choose, and I know this from experience and unanswered prayers, if we choose to eat like a garbage can and avoid exercise for a couple of decades, we're going to end up in poor health. And we can't just pray that God will make us magically healthy. These are consequences of our actions. If we volunteer for everything and we say yes for everything and we overextend and we can't say no to anyone and we end up stressed and exhausted, that's not God punishing you. That's the natural consequence of your actions and your choices. But sometimes we like to blame God for things that we brought on ourselves. I remember at my last church, this was easily over a decade ago, and my last church, it was a larger church, it was about 2,000 people, and I was on staff. I was a staff pastor. And if you called the church and you said, I need to talk to a pastor, they funneled that call to me, which makes total sense because I ooze tenderness. And so I took a call this one day. I don't know why y'all are laughing so hard at that. Jeepers. It's a little funny. I didn't know it was that funny. I take a call one day from this guy, and it's like early 30s. And he says, hey, I just need to talk with a pastor. I just got something going on in my life. I just can't make sense of it. I was like, all right, what's going on, man? And he says, well, because I got this girlfriend that I really love. I'm like, well, that's good. And he goes, yeah, but I've also got some problems with drug addiction, and I'm kind of in and out, and it's a real struggle for me. And a few months ago, she gave me an ultimatum. She was like, you know, clean up or I'm out of here. And he goes, and I just messed up a couple more times, and she left me. And I'm devastated. And this is the kicker. I just don't know why God would allow this to happen to me. What? And I was nice. I didn't just be like, you're dumb and hang on the phone. But I tried to say, like, our actions have consequences. But I think a lot of times in life, something difficult will happen to us. And sometimes we can throw ourselves a pity party and we can think, why did God allow this to happen to me? Why did God make this happen to me? Why did God allow this to happen to me? And if we look, it's like, well, you took some steps to lead to this consequence. God didn't allow that business deal to go bad. It was a bad business deal. God didn't allow you to lose your job. You just underperformed for a few months or years and your boss got sick of it. Like sometimes there's natural consequences in life. Other times God does bring, we see in scripture, punitive action into our lives to correct our behavior and direct us to the right place. We know this is true because not only do we see it in the life of Moses, but we also see it in the life of David. When David, the second king of Israel, you may have heard of him. He's a pretty big deal. He got towards the end of his life. And in 2 Samuel chapter 16 and 17, David has this conversation with God. And he says, he says, Father, I want to build your temple. You'll remember from the story of Moses that God instructed them to build a tabernacle, which was a fancy tent with a big square tent in the middle. And the Holy of Holies was half of that tent. And that was where the presence of God rested. And it was built to be nomadic, to be able to take it up, move it, and set it back up. That was the job of the Levites, setting up the tabernacle, taking down the tabernacle, moving the tabernacle, setting up the tabernacle. That's what the Levites did. And so when they finally got into Israel, into their promised land, into Jerusalem, and David's sitting on the throne. He says, Father, I want to build you a permanent home. And God says, David, I can't let you do that. There's too much blood on your hands. That's a punitive consequence. I can't tell you exactly what sins are involved in too much blood on your hands, but David did a lot of killing. And if you read between the lines, he did a lot of sinning. And so God said, no, you're not the one to do this. You haven't lived the life of the person that I want to allow to do this. So you can't do it. That's a punitive consequence. And we know it's punitive because before he died, he gathered all the materials, everything that was needed, all the cedars of Lebanon and all the rocks from the quarry were put on the job site so that when the next king became king, he could say go and he could have the honor of building the temple. So by all accounts, he could have built it by the end of his life. This was not a natural consequence of his actions. This was punitive by God. The biggest result or example we see in Scripture of someone suffering a punitive consequence is that. It's Jesus on the cross. He was being punished. He was being punished as a consequence of our actions, of your actions. That's a punishment that we deserve. That's a punitive consequence that should have been laid on us, death. But God chose instead to punish not his children, but his child. Do you see? So we know in scripture that God exacts punitive punishments for consequences of our actions. Now, I don't know how to tell you how to parse out what in your life is a punishment and what is a natural consequence. I really don't know how to tell you to do that. I thought about it this week and I'm like, I'm not even going there. I don't know how to tell you to do it. I just know that both are true. But that far more often than not, the hard things that we are experiencing are natural consequences of our actions. And so we see in the story that our actions have consequences. Our sin has consequences. And it makes me wonder, I wonder what our sin has prevented us from. I wonder what our sin has prevented us from experiencing or doing. In the example of Moses and David, Moses, God took an opportunity from him. You will not enter the promised land. David, God took an opportunity from him. You're not going to be the one that builds the temple. The opportunity, the thing that Jesus had to give up is staying in his perfect divine form forever. He had to take on human form. He had to condescend to become flesh. And so if that's what happens with sin in the Bible is opportunities are removed from us. God's going to use us in smaller ways or in different ways. I wonder what I've missed out on because of my sin. I wonder what opportunities I've squandered because of the way I've chosen to behave and exercise my faith for the last decade. I wonder if you think it might be possible that you've missed some opportunities in your life because of some actions that you've taken in the past. And I don't know that God is ever going to take any of us up on a mountain and go, do you see what you missed? But maybe it'll happen in heaven, I'm not sure. But it makes me wonder, the story makes me wonder, what opportunities am I missing out on because of the actions that I've taken in the past? But here's the thing I love about this story that dawned on me this week as I sat with it and for the past couple of weeks. This isn't just a story about punishment. This isn't just a story about consequences. This is also a story about comfort. Let me show you. In a second, we're going to look at verse 5 in Deuteronomy 34. You'll remember the first four verses are God taking him up and going, this is the land of Gad, and this is the land of Naphtali, and this is the land of Ephraim, and this is the land that I swore on oath to Abraham.? I'm going to let you see it with your eyes. You cannot touch it with your feet. But then he takes him. He's the only person I'm aware of that died in the presence of God. And he's the only person in scripture that's buried by God himself in a secret grave that no one has ever found. And so what we see is that we have this God of consequences, but we have a God of comfort. And so in this passage, what I see is God holding consequences necessarily in one hand, because if he doesn't, he's not a loving father. But in the other hand, he holds comfort. And as he's exacting consequences on Moses with one hand, he's immediately comforting him with the other. I think that's amazing. So because he loves us, he holds consequence in one hand and comfort in the other. This is true of the story of David too. This is true of the story of David. When he says, David, no, you cannot build my temple. There's too much blood on your hands. The immediate thing coming after that, in the passage, the immediate thing that God says is, but I will allow your son Solomon to build it. And my son, the Messiah, will sit on your throne for all of eternity. Consequence, you can't build the temple. Comfort, here's what I can promise you. That's the passage that becomes the Davidic covenant. Consequence in one hand, comfort in the other. Now here's what's really cool. I told you the example of Jesus being punished for us. Consequence in one hand. But Jesus, but that's our punishment. Those are our consequences that he's holding. But in Jesus, we also find our ultimate comfort, right? We also find our ultimate comfort in Christ because on the cross, death was defeated. I did a funeral the other day and I got to say, as you get to say at funerals of people who believe in Jesus, this is not goodbye. This is goodbye for now. There's hope here. We know where she is. We know she's looking down on us. We know she loves us and that she's seen the face of her Savior and that we should be jealous of her and where she is. So on the cross, death lost its sting and sin lost its chains. And so it is the source of the greatest comfort for anyone in the gospel. That because of our actions, we deserve profound consequences. And whether they seem disproportionate to us or not, Jesus paid for those. And in that payment, he also becomes our comfort. And so God doesn't have to say, this is going to happen, but this is going to happen. He says this is happening. This, to me, is what the story of the death of Moses is about. I've told you repeatedly, everything points to Jesus. And I believe that this story points to the gospel in multiple and profound ways. And I want us to remember as we go, whenever we are experiencing consequences, whenever we feel like life is hard, life is dark, like life is deep, in our darkest days where our sin is so great that we feel we can't move. And I've had those days when I was so wracked with guilt for my sin and my choices that I felt ashamed of who I was and I didn't want anyone to know and I didn't want to look anybody in the eye. When we have those days and we are experiencing the consequences of our actions, we can always, always, always look to the cross and be comforted that God still loves us, that he covered this too, and one day we will be in eternity with him. Whenever we experience consequences, we are also offered comfort. Let's pray. Father, thank you for being a good father. It may be odd to pray and scary to say, but thank you for consequences. Thank you for the things that direct us. God, I pray that in our lives, when hard things are happening, that we wouldn't immediately blame them on you, but we would stop and assess ourselves and say, well, maybe this is my fault. God, if there are instances where we do think maybe we're being punished, God, I pray that we would trust you in that punishment and that we would remember in Hebrews that we're told that the Lord disciplines the ones he loves. We're so grateful that you're a good father. We're so grateful that every story can be woven in such a way that what we find is it's really pointing us towards your son and your love for us. Thank you for loving Moses the way you did, and thank you for loving us the way you do. In Jesus' name, amen.

Yo, it's not September yet. What are you all doing here? We're supposed to have more space than this in the middle of August. It's good to see everybody. Thank you so much for coming. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If I haven't gotten to meet you, I would love to do that in the lobby after the service, only because now is inconvenient. But just a couple of things behind the scenes I feel like I need to tell you. Rob, our bass player, walked by me and he said, go get him, pal. And I said, well, that's very nice. And then I was setting up up here and our worship leader, Aaron, tapped me on the shoulder, which is not typical. Normally he doesn't speak to me because my mental fragility is such that I can't handle it before a sermon. But he tapped me on the shoulder and I leaned back and he said, hey, just do good. And I, thanks buddy. Thanks for that. So we will do our best. This morning we are continuing in our series on the life of Moses. Last week, I kind of paused in the narrative because it had brought us to this place where the presence of God rested on Mount Sinai, and I felt like it was really important for us to also pause. There's this word in Psalms that we learn, this Hebrew word called shalom, and shalom just means kind of a holy pause. And I felt like it was important last week to just kind of take a shalom and pause on this part of the narrative that causes us to fear God, which is a good thing. And we focus on the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom. But the reason that the presence of God rested on Mount Sinai was to give the law to his people. So what happens is the presence of God, and this is in Exodus chapter 19, and I'll just tell you this up front, okay? I want you to understand this, and I want to acknowledge this for you. I'm not going to read verses this week. This is, I hate to say this, this is just here for show this week. I'm not going to open it and read to you, all right? And I feel badly about that. But I'm resting in the fact that what I'm talking to you about is in Exodus 19. And I'm resting in the fact that I'm going to refer to passages in Romans and Galatians and Acts and John and Matthew so that we are. This is going to be a biblical sermon, but I just, there was nothing that I found in my preparation that zeroed in on what I wanted to say enough that I felt like it was worth sharing. So we will be in scripture this week, but I'm not going to open it. And I know that I'm not doing that, but hopefully we'll get to the end of the sermon and you'll think, yeah, that counts as a sermon. That's the goal. But this week it's Exodus 19. And in Exodus 19, we get the law. And when I say the law, we often think of the Ten Commandments. And if you're to open your Bible and read it, I think a lot of us understand what was happening when Moses received the Ten Commandments. But we tend to think, I believe, that Moses got these two tablets of stone and God etched onto them the Ten Commandments and he walked down the mountain with those tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments on them. And that is true. But what we might not pick up from the story, at least I didn't for decades of being a believer, is that all the other laws were etched on those tablets too. There's 630 something laws in Old Testament law, in the Old Testament for the Hebrew person. And so when God gave the law, it wasn't just 10 commandments. It was 10 commandments and the other 6 hundred and twenty. OK, that's what was on the tablets. And so when Moses comes back down the mountain, he has the law in his hands and he's sharing it with the Hebrew people. And here's what I think is really interesting about this point in history. And I'm going to take some liberties here. But I wonder, why did God give the law to his people at this time? And I don't know if you've ever thought about that. But let me kind of help you with that process. When God created Adam and Eve, he made one law. He said, do whatever you want. Don't eat from the fruit of that tree. That's the only rule. Do whatever you want. Go nuts. Do whatever you want. Don't eat of the fruit of that tree. That was it. That was the only law. And then they broke it because they wanted to be like God. They forgot to fear the Lord. God could have at that point said, okay, you screwed up. Now there's sin. Now the fall has happened. Let me give you the rules. Let me tell you what you need to do to be right with me. You messed up. Let me give you the rules. He didn't do that. Have you ever noticed that? He didn't do that. He just said, now you're going to have to work for your food. Life's going to be a little bit more difficult. Things between you and I will never be the same. But he didn't give him the rules. Then, a little while later, he hit reset on the entire earth by flooding it. And he allowed Noah and Ham, Shem and Japheth and their wives to be the new Adam and Eve that repopulated the earth. And the reason that he did it is because he looked across the earth and he said, this is evil and no one follows me. And I'm, I'm, I'm saddened that I've created this. And so he hit the reset button. When he hit the reset button, did he then give Noah the rules? No. He could have. He didn't. He could have said, listen, I gave you guys a chance. You messed it up. So moving forward, here are the rules for following me. He didn't do that. Then there was the Tower of Babel. After he dispersed the nations and gave them different languages, could he have also given them the rules? Yes, he could have. Did he? No. Then, a while later, I know that this is hard for you guys because you haven't thought about this before, but I've thought about this for years. Then a while later, he calls Abraham from the land of Ur of the Chaldeans, the Sumerian dynasty. And he says, hey, Abraham, I know this is going to sound weird. I want you to pick up everything that you own and I want you to move and I'm going to show you where you're going to move as you get there. It would be like you selling your house, packing a U-Haul, and just driving in the general direction of Utah, trusting God to show you where to go. That's what he did for Abraham. And when he did that, and when in Genesis 12, he made his promises to Abraham, I'm going to bless you with people and with blessing, and one of your descendants is going to bless the whole earth. And your descendants will be like the stars in the sky. This is God we know now in retrospect, founding the nation of Israel. It's the very foundation of this people that God has chosen to love and center out amongst all of humankind. He starts it with Abraham. And he could have, at that point, said, by the way, Abraham, here are the rules. But he didn't. He could have said with his son Isaac, here are the rules. He could have said with his grandson Jacob, who was then later named Israel, by the way, as the father of this nation, I am founding on your faith. Here are the rules. And he never did it. He never did it. He waited for some reason until Moses was leading his people through the desert to finally give them the rules. So I think it's a really interesting question to wonder, God, why did you wait that long? Why now? Why here? And all I can say about that is this. In the past, I have paused a sermon and I've moved over here. And I've said, some of you will remember, Jeffy does, I heard him laugh. Some of you will remember, this is my reckless speculation box. When I'm here, I'm speaking to you from what I believe to be the authority of Scripture. And I would I would tell you candidly, it's my best understanding of what Scripture is. It's not the authority of Nate or the authority of God. It's just when I read it, this is how I understand it. And I'm sharing that with you. OK, but when I step over here. I'm reckless, man. They're like, this is just what I think. This is just what I suppose. This is not here. Here, I feel like I have some authority. Here, I'm just being an honest adult with you and saying this is what I think, but I can't back this up with paperwork. Do we understand the difference? Here, when I answer the question, why does God wait so long to give the law? What I actually believe in my core is that he gave it begrudgingly. I do not think he wanted to. And I think we have an example of this when he gives Moses divorce laws. And he says, I don't really want to give you divorce laws because I don't want this to be a part of your life. But practically speaking, I see the necessity of it. So here are some ramifications and some parameters for that practice. I believe that God gave the law begrudgingly. And here's why I believe this. And this is where I'll step back here. Because I do think that there's some scriptural authority for this. All God ever wanted was for us to trust him. All God ever wanted was for us to trust him and obey him. Why didn't he give Adam the law? Because he didn't want to. Because all he asked of Adam is just obey me. Just trust me. Just let me be the creator and you be the creation. Just obey me. Just trust me. Why didn't he give Noah the law? Because just trust me. Just obey me. Scholars believe Job predates Noah and all the others as well. Why didn't he give Job the law? Because just trust me. Just obey me. Why didn't he give it to Moses? Why didn't he give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob? Because I believe with all my heart that all God has ever wanted from us is to just trust him and obey him. But for some reason, the Hebrew people found that to be difficult. And for some reason, we found it to be difficult. And two separate times, God allowed the human experiment to exist with this impetus of trusting and obeying him. And it ended in the flood and it ended in the Tower of Babel. And then it came to his Hebrew people and he said, in my opinion, fine, here. Here's the law. And the law says, you want a path to my approval? Here it is. That's what the law says. When Moses comes down the mountain in Exodus 19 and he's got the tablets there, what God is saying is, do you want a path to salvation? To heaven? To eternity? To right standing before me? Is that what you want? Here. This is it. Follow the law. Go ahead. You want to know what the rules are? Here are the rules. And he gives them 630 rules. This is the path to be right with me. I've asked you over and over and over again, and here's what's so important, I think, for us. We feel this pull in our own lives, right? Just trust me. Just obey me. You don't have to all the way understand me. Just trust. We feel that pull, right? But God says, okay, you want law. This is the path. I've asked you to trust me. You've decided not to do that. You need to know the rules. Here are the rules. Here's the thing about the rules. And here's the thing about the law. And this is why I would be honest with you and tell you that this morning's sermon was really difficult to write because I've often said that the most difficult thing in preparing a sermon is deciding what not to say. And this morning, there's so much to say about the law and its import and how much it matters across the span of Scripture. I do not think you can overstate the importance of the law and its impact on the rest of faith and on what it was to be a New Testament Christian and even on how we understand our faith. If you want to be a Christian at all, with any knowledge of the Bible, with any knowledge of how your faith works, you've got to understand the importance of the law. I actually think it works this way. This is going to sound ludicrous. I believe in my email to the staff when I sent them my notes. I said, these seem unhinged, but just go with me. And even as I ran through them this morning, Zach, who's doing our slides, said, you're going to have to explain this one a little bit. And I said, yeah, I know. Okay, but here you go. The law equals Luke Skywalker's genealogy. Deal with it. I'm not even going to explain that. I'm just going to go on to the next point. No, here's the thing, and I've thought this a long time, and this is probably an outdated analogy, but I hope that it can hold up. I grew up, I was born in 1981. That makes some of you feel very young and others feel very old. I don't care. I was born in 1981. I was actually talking to a friend of mine this week. This is Jermaine to nothing, but I was talking to a friend of mine this week that I worked for when I was 19 and I think he was 22 and we were doing the same ministry together. And we both kind of had this realization at the same time, like we're the old dogs now, like we're both in our mid forties. We've been doing this for 25 years. We can't, we're not, we're not young anymore, which means frankly, I should be better at this than I am, but you know, here we are. I've thought for a long time, when I was growing up, Luke Skywalker and Star Wars hit me just in the exact right spot. He was a hero growing up. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia, they shaped my childhood. And if you don't know who they are and you don't understand this, I'm sorry for you. Do some work because it's worth it. In Star Wars, there's three movies. There's the first one, which is just called Star Wars. There's other movies that they've made since then with like J.J. Abrams. Who cares? Jar Jar Binks, get out of here. Nobody cares about those. Thank you, Jeff. The good ones. We're getting really close to an amen. I feel one coming. Maybe this service. Maybe so. That's right. I've never gotten an amen in the history of preaching at Grace, but if I denounce Jar Jar Binks and get one, that would be actually super funny. Sorry, I'm down the road really far on this Star Wars thing. There's three movies. It's Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and then Return of the Jedi, right? And at the end of Empire Strikes Back, at the very end of the movie, Luke Skywalker is like hanging off of this Death Star thing and he's having a confrontation with Darth Vader. And Darth Vader says the most famous line in movies, which is actually misquoted and not famous. We all quote it as, Luke, I am your father. That is not the line. The line is, no, I am your father. And if you have not watched Star Wars and the first two and a half hours of The Empire Strikes Back, when Darth Vader says, no, I am your father, it doesn't mean anything to you. But if you have, it means everything. And so I've often thought that trying to understand our faith by beginning in the New Testament and not understanding the Old Testament and the law is like trying to appreciate the impact of the greatest line in cinematic history without having watched the first two movies. Do you understand your Bible? The first two thirds of it are the Old Testament. When we start in the New Testament and our understanding of faith, we cheapen and shortchange our ability to understand that faith. And that an understanding of the import of the law is fundamental to it. Do you understand that the book of Galatians, the whole book, is about how to reconcile the law? And that if you don't understand what the law is, you can't possibly understand the book of Galatians? Do you understand that literally half of the book of Acts is an exercise in the New Testament church trying to figure out how to wrestle the law to the ground and what to expect of the Gentile converts into their Jewish faith. Do you understand that you can't understand Romans oratory and revolutionary the ministry of Jesus was if you do not understand the law? And so this morning, as we arrive at Exodus 19, and I think about myself as your pastor, and I have a responsibility to make sure we understand the import of the law. Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts. Because it's a big deal. It's important in how we understand scripture. And here's the greatest trick of the law. This one's pretty good. And this is another one that you're going to be like, dude, what are you doing? But just hear me out. The law sees dead people. A lot of you, I know, like to fill out your notes before I do the blanks. And I've decided a long time ago, I don't care. I'm not going to try to trick you. I'm not really thinking about that. I don't think anybody had this. I think I got you on this one. The law sees dead people. In 1999, here's another. At least it's not the 80s. I moved 20 years forward. In 1999, there was this movie. Gosh, I forget the name of it now. I even looked it up this morning, so I wouldn't. What was it? Sixth Sense. Thank you. Guy I don't know on the first row helping me out on his very first visit. Thank you very much, buddy. That's great. Come back any time. Sixth Sense. It had Bruce Willis. And there was this kid who plays the main character. And Sixth Sense stands out, and we all know it. We know what it is. Because it's like the greatest switcheroo in cinematic history. It's really amazing that at the beginning of the movie, they tell you that Bruce Willis is dead. And you are watching it in real time and you're like, no, he's not. He seems to be talking. He's fine. And you don't process it. And then at the end of the movie, so they've done this whole movie. And the kid who I think is Haley Jo Osmond, I think that's who plays him, thank you, I knew Liz Roberg would know that, that's why I looked over there, says that iconic line, I see dead people. And you realize, the last two hours of my life, I've misunderstood what was going on. And you realize Bruce Willis really did die at the beginning of the movie. And he's been playing a ghost this whole time. And when you watch Sixth Sense, I'm sorry a little bit if this is a spoiler alert. It's also been 25 years, so you make your choices. But when you watch that movie fresh and you realize at the end what you've actually been watching for two hours, it's kind of this moment where you go, oh my goodness, I didn't understand that. And it kind of blows your mind a little bit. That's what the law is. Because when God gave the law to his people, it was, if you want to be right with me, here's what you have to do. If you want a path to heaven. Here's the path. And so we took it for millennia to be the path. And the Hebrew people organized a religion around it. Saying we're going to be the best followers of this law that has ever been. And we're going to help everyone. When you break the law, here's what you do to restore yourself. And then you return yourself to trying to follow the law. Here's what we do. And they built a whole faith around that premise. If you want to be right with me, here's how you be right with me. And then Jesus comes along and he does the greatest switcheroo in history. And he shows us that the law sees dead people. And Jesus comes along and he says this about the law. You've heard it said that a man should not commit adultery. But I say to you that if you have looked at a woman with lust in your heart, you are guilty of that sin. And let's be very clear about this. I'm not making a joke right now. That makes every man in this room an adulterer. Okay? That's the law. Yeah, have you passed the test of not having actual intercourse with another person's wife? Great. But let me redefine this in such a way that you really understand the heart of the law. If you've left it after someone else, you're guilty. Whoa. That's a different standard. Jesus said, you've heard it said that you shouldn't kill someone else. You shouldn't murder. But I say to you that if you have hate in your heart for a brother, you are guilty of that sin. Which makes a portion of this room murderers. And so he comes and he doesn't. And I want to be very clear about this. Jesus does not redefine the law. He simply correctly defines it. And he shows us in his definition our inability to follow it. And what we find in Jesus's discussion of the law is that the whole law, and we find this in Galatians and we find this in Romans and we find this in Acts and we find this in Corinthians. This is everywhere, replete throughout the New Testament, that the entire point of the law is to show you that you can't follow it. That's the whole point. You think it's to show you how to be right before God, and really the point of it is to show you your inadequacy before God and your need for that. That's the law. The law sees dead people. It's not here to make a pathway for you to get right with God. The law exists so that you will know that you are incapable of following that pathway and will claim your need for Jesus who came and lived a perfect life and followed that law perfectly for you and died a perfect death to make a bridge to a God that you would never have access to if he did not come and perfectly fulfill that law for you. That's the point of the law. Jesus fulfilled the law and earned God's approval for you. The point of the law, friends, is to remind us of our need for Jesus. The point of God's standards is to show us that we can't meet them. The point of the cross is to remind us of the necessity of it. So when we arrive at this text in Exodus chapter 19, and we see the law brought down the mountain by Moses. And we understand it as a momentous occasion in the history of the Hebrew people and even in our faith. And we see that law as God providing a pathway to approval from him. Please understand that it is momentous. It does echo throughout the millennia. It is incredibly important. But it's incredibly important because its intent has always been to show you that you can't keep it. Its intent has always been to show you your inadequacy and your reliance on the perfect life and death of Jesus. And that the entire point of the law throughout all of history is to orient your gaze towards the cross and not towards yourself and your ability to obey rules. It's to surrender before God and say, I am not capable of that. I need this. That's the whole point. So please, church, when we think about the law, let's see it for what it is. Let's appreciate its import. But let us always, always allow it to direct our gaze towards the necessity of the cross and grow our spirit of gratitude for it. Yes? Let's pray. Father, you're good to us. We are so very sorry for inadequately following you. We're sorry for the ways that we let ourselves down as we think we're letting you down. We're so grateful for the grace that you show us in those moments. God, I pray that we would see this momentous occasion in Exodus as one that echoes throughout the centuries, but as one that is intended to point us towards you and towards your grace and towards your goodness and towards your mercy and towards your sacrifice. May the law forever point us towards the cross. May the law forever make us grateful of our Savior. And may the law forever make us grateful of what you did to make a path to be with you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning. Welcome to Grace. It's a good thing we turned out all the lights so you couldn't see that transition up here. You had no clue I was on the stage until the lights came back on. Just believe that. It's fine. Hey, if you are new, if you're visiting, my name is Aaron. I get to serve as one of the pastors out here, and honestly, I'm so blessed to serve as one of the pastors out here. If you're watching at home, online, thank you for tuning in. So glad that you all decided to join us today. As Sarah said a little bit earlier, at the beginning of the summer, we jumped into a series called Moses. And essentially all we're doing is we're going through the book of Exodus and we're looking at the journey of Moses and the Israelites as God rescued them from slavery to the Egyptians and is leading them towards the promised land. And so we're just, we're taking some of the stories, honestly, most of it's a lot chapter by chapter, and we're seeing exactly what we can learn from this. And I'm very excited to be sharing with you today. Nate, thank you so much for allowing me to teach. He didn't take the day off. He is still here. You don't recognize him because you see more of his face than usual. I don't know if I like it, but it's there. I'm just kidding. You look lovely, man. Keep it going. But hey, so I want to jump in today. I want to start off with, honestly, just a little bit of vulnerability. I want to put myself out there against my better judgment, mostly because of you, if I'm being honest, Chris. But I'm going to be vulnerable, throw myself out there, okay? I'm not a big fan of spiders actually I don't like spiders at all I believe that in the creation God allowed Satan to create two things one was spiders the other was Walmart like both of those things just avoid with everything you can and actually like I used to be a lot worse than I am now I used to be terrified of spiders to the point that I could even kill him I you where it started. I was sub-10 years old and my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to watch Arachnophobia. So if you need some good parenting advice, just let your kids watch a horror movie and just see how it scars them for the rest of their life. And then it got to the point where I couldn't even kill them because I remember I was at work one time and there was a big fat spider crawling across the ground so I stepped on it. I didn't realize that it was a pregnant spider. And so, yeah, yeah, you've experienced it before. They don't just die. Thousands of little spiders are like, this ain't for me. I don't like it. I don't like it. So Tamara then became the resident spider killer in our home. I can remember. Don't judge me. It's justified, but I can remember one time driving down the road. We were in Georgia at this point in time. We had somewhere to go. I don't quite remember what we had to do or what we were headed to, but I know a spider crawled across the dashboard. And what popped in my head was one of two things are going to happen. I'm going to wreck and kill us both, or the spider is going to crawl across the vent. It's going to blow in my face and eat me alive. So both of those things are very realistic. Both of them could have happened. So I knew it had to die, so I did the thing you have to do. I pulled over on the side of the road, got out of the car, and I said, Tamara, I'm not getting back in the car until you kill the spider. She's like, no, we're going to be late. You've got to get in the car. I hear what you're saying. I just don't see me doing that. I need you to kill the spider. And then she's like, fine, okay. So we had to wait for it to reemerge from the blower that's going to blow in my face and all that stuff. So she grabbed a paper towel, killed the spider. She's like, okay, fine, it's dead. Let's go. I was like, well, I hear you. But I kind of need evidence. I need you to show me the spider is dead. Because you may not have squished it hard enough. Maybe it's still running around. We need to see evidence. Then I need you to dangle it out the window so it's no longer in the car. Just in case it decides to resurrect and come to attack us then because you made it mad for trying to kill it. Because if that doesn't happen, we're staying where we are. We're not going to go anywhere else. Like you can drive. Just come back and pick me up after you kill the spider. Right? Like I think we've all had those moments before where we face something that's deeply uncomfortable. And it's like, yeah, I don't see me doing that. This isn't for me. Right? But if you've been following Jesus for very long, isn't it true? And wouldn't you say that you have those encounters a little bit more often? Like we all have next steps. One of our traits, you can read it on the lobby in the back, is that we are step takers. Every person in here has a next step in front of them. God has moving you to something. God is asking you to do something, whether it's something he wants to do in you or something he wants to do through you. And doesn't it seem like we often come to this place where God asks us to do something, and it's like, well, God, I hear you. I don't see me doing that. I don't see me taking the step that you're asking me to take. Like there's just too much uncertainty on the other side of that. I don't quite know how this is all going to play out. I need a little bit of evidence. The problem that we kind of run into when it comes to these being step takers is that we oftentimes confuse or we oftentimes mistake comfort for confirmation. I'm not talking about comfort like the AC seats, right? Like those should should be. Instead of EV vehicles like where your car shuts off automatically at the red light. That needs to be. The AC ventilated seats needs to be the thing that they mandate for all cars from this point forward. Because they're lovely. That's comfortable. But that's not the comfort I'm talking about. The comfort that I'm talking about is comfort in your security. Hey, God. I want to take this step, but you've got to give me a little bit more evidence that I'm going to be okay when I do. Hey, God, I hear you that you want me to go in this direction. You want me to do this thing, but honestly, I'm just not sure that's for me. I don't think I have the skill set for that. You've got the wrong guy. You've got the wrong person. You're barking up the wrong tree, God. listen, I want to go and I want to do the thing that you're asking me to do, but the thing that you're asking me to do, I just don't see it happen because I'm uncomfortable with this. God, I want to know it's you asking me to move in this direction, but I just, we chase this feeling of comfort and we let that be our confirmation that we need to step in a particular direction, that we need to do the thing that God is asking us to do, or even if it is God asking us to do it. We oftentimes let comfort be our confirmation, and the scary thing about chasing comfort is not necessarily what it leads you to. Although we've all probably experienced moments of pursuing comfort that have led us to doing things that haven't been good for our life. But the scary part about this is what it keeps you from. Like, do you know, listen for a second. Like, do you know you were created with a purpose, regardless where you are in your faith journey, regardless if you believe or not believe. I understand that. But you were created, you were specifically wired, because God wants to do something through you that would blow your mind. Like, I love how Paul says it in Ephesians. He says, hey, God is working in you to do something through you to impact the world around you that would absolutely stun you. You have no clue what's on the other side of that step. You have no clue what's on the other side of stepping in and leaning into that discomfort to experience God in ways you haven't experienced him before. And here's what's sad about it. Like, I've experienced this, right? What's sad and scary about these moments is you want to take the step. Like, I don't know what it is for you. Maybe it's initiating reconciliation with a relationship, a spouse or a friend or a child or a relative or something like that. Maybe it's taking a step in your job, maybe to leave a job, maybe to start a new job. Maybe it's to do something in ministry. Maybe it's to get involved with one of our mission teams. Maybe it's to go to Mexico, whatever it may be for you, I have no clue. But on the other side of that decision is this, God, I need a little bit more evidence that things are going to work out the way that I'm hoping they're going to work out. So how do you do it? How do you step in? How do you lean in to the discomfort? How do we keep that from preventing us from fulfilling and walking into the person and the life that God has created us to live? That's what we're going to talk about today. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to Exodus 17. That's where we're going to be camped out. I'm going to jump over to James at one point, but we'll come right back to Exodus. If you don't have your Bibles, we're going to put it on this fancy digital Bible in the sky, but let's jump in. The Israelites, like I said, we started from where Moses was confirmed as leader. God kind of called him, and he goes, and they rescued the Israelites. We are less than six weeks away from the Red Sea, where the Egyptian army was chasing them. They got pinned up against the Red Sea. The Red Sea split. They walked through. And it's even less time than that from what Nate talked about last week with the manna and the quail. Well, God just made bread appear from nowhere to excess. So they take the next step in the journey. And this is where we are in 17.1. The whole Israelite community set out from the desert of sin. Just a quick aside. That's not sin. Oftentimes when we read scripture like this, we try to make it say something that it doesn't say. It's not talking about, hey, oh, look, they're leaving sin. That's not it. It's a place, the desert of sin. And it says, traveling from place to place, as the Lord commanded, they camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses and said, give us water to drink. Moses replied, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test? But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and our livestock die of thirst? Then Moses cried out to the Lord. I love this. I love this prayer. Moses cried out to the Lord. What am I to do with these people? Look at these people you gave me. What am I supposed to do with them? He said that Moses cried to the Lord. What am I supposed to do with these people? By the way, when our staff gathers, like this is our prayer oftentimes. What are we supposed to do with their heathens? Again, talking about you, Chris. But what are we supposed to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me. I don't know what the Hebrew word is for, hey, Moses, you about to catch these hands? But I'm sure he heard it quite a bit in that manner. Like they were fed up. Like they were done. And what's incredible about this, the journey that they had experienced and they reached their breaking point. Like the word quarreled. Some of your versions, depending on what you read, it may say complain. But this is another level. Like they had reached another level of discomfort. They had stepped into a situation like, you know, we can't do this anymore. The word, this is the first time that it's been used because they were checked out. They had experienced a fatigue and a failure of their faith just because they were tired. And Moses even responded in a different way. Like when they came to him, Moses was now fearing for his life. He's like, no, no, no, this is out of hand, God. I understand you're leading us somewhere. I understand you're taking us on a journey, but I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation right now, Lord. These people are about to kill me. Everyone was checked. They had gotten to this place. If you had been here for many of the sermons throughout this series, you'd begin to notice this pattern emerge. They take a step, they're obedient, they encounter a challenge. They take a step, they're obedient, they encounter an impossible situation. They take a step, they're obedient, they're going where God is asking them to go. And now, there's no hope. The word test that is used. It was interesting to me because you see places throughout Scripture where it says, hey, test the Lord, right? Like we're invited to test God's will, to see, hey, is this really, you see Gideon do that? Gideon tells him, hey, I want you to go to the heroes. Okay, make the fleece wet. Like he's just asking, God, I want to make sure this is you telling me, but that's not what's happening right now with the Israelites. The Israelites aren't testing God's will. They're questioning his character. They believe one of two things to be true. They say, God, you brought us here and you abandoned us. And or you brought us here to kill us, you and Moses. And they were done. I've done everything you've asked me to do. I've taken the steps you've asked me to take. I've done the ridiculous things that you've asked me to do. And yeah, we've had some great experiences, God. But look, I did it and now I'm here. This is what happens when what you experience doesn't match what you expect. And now it's very easy for us to look at this and kind of throw rocks at them, right? Like, man, you guys, how could you possibly question? Like, you were just fed. You had more manna than you could possibly ask for. Like, you saw the seas split and then swallow the Egyptian army. Like, you saw the Nile turn to blood. You saw all of the places. Like, how could you possibly doubt that God is here with you, that God is working with you, that God is willing to take care of you. They had reached their breaking point, and they began to crave the comforts of familiarity. And this isn't just a Christian thing. Like psychologists and mental health professionals tell us that the majority of people choose to stay in the familiar versus venturing into the unknown. Even if the familiar is unhealthy, even if the familiar is a place they know they don't need to be, even if what's on the other side of the step is something that they crave, they choose to stay in what they know because of the uncertainty, because of the risk of what could be. And this is what was going on with the Israelites. They began to crave. Like, listen, listen, I know life with Pharaoh was hard. I know we were slaves. I know that things weren't good. But you know what? We didn't have to wonder when we were going to eat or what we were going to eat. We didn't have to worry what we were going to drink. We didn't have to worry where we were going to sleep. Like, I missed the comfort of just knowing. So God, like all of their confirmation that God was with them, that God is faithful, that God is good, completely went out the window because their comfort was rattled. Some of you know some of my story. I grew up in the church. My father was a pastor, and I remember one season in particular. It just got really bad. I remember going to church one Sunday morning, and when my father got up to start preaching, every single thing that he would say, from the hello, so glad you guys are here, you heard this echo from the crowd, and there was a guy who began just mocking him. Every single thing that he said, he would begin mocking. My dad knew something was about to go off. Not yet. It's a little bit early. Sorry. That's on me. But hey, way to pay attention. But he began mocking. I was going to let you come. I just didn't want you to stand up there for 30 minutes. Sorry. All right, let's start over. I've got to go back to the beginning. Hey, guys, welcome to Grace. I'm so glad that you're here. No, I'm kidding. But I remember when that started to happen. My dad knew something was about to go on. And so he asked me to stand up, and we just lived right down the road. He said, hey, son, I want you to go home. I was maybe 12, 13 years old. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to church today. This is great. But he sent me home, and what I found out later on is that the guy and his family were upset with my father because he was going to allow someone to become a member of the church who had been divorced and remarried. They didn't think that was okay. And so him and his family were pretty prominent in that church, and on that day when my dad asked me to leave, they ended up gathering around him like a schoolyard bully threatening to fight him. And what my family did in that point, maybe within a month, two months, I didn't sign up for this. God, this isn't what you told me I should expect. I don't want to do this anymore. Have you ever been there? The church has done a pretty horrible job, if we can be honest, about talking about the grittiness and the challenge and difficulty of faith. And because of that, the expectation of ease has crept its way into Christianity. God, it's not supposed to be this hard. God, I understand that you're good. I understand that you're faithful, but this? I didn't sign up for this. I don't want anything to do with it. There's a book called The Nuns. It's not talking about the little Catholic black hat ladies. It's talking about a group of people who sociologists and researchers studied for a little bit. On the census, it's the people who mark non-affiliated when it comes to like the religion portion. Hey, are you affiliated with the? No, no affiliation. So they're calling them the nuns. And what they found is there's this age range between about 30 to 50 to 55 years old who are marking not affiliated, want nothing to do with church, have no desire to go. It's just not a part of their life. But that wasn't always the case. They actually grew up, a large portion of the people grew up in the church. And they were painted this picture of what it means to follow Jesus. That when they began living their life, when they stepped into the real world, when they started experiencing the challenges, it wasn't what they were told. And they were told when they were a kid, hey, listen, just give your life to Jesus. Everything's going to be great. You'll get the promotion. You'll have money issues. Your spouse is going to be great. Your kids are going to stop throwing shoes at each other on the way to church. All you got to do is just follow Jesus and everything changes. You'll have the house, you'll have the yard, all the dreams that you want. It's right there for you. But when they experience something different, say, God, this isn't what I expected. I'm a little uncomfortable being here and I just don't, I don't think this is for me. Because clearly I'm either believing wrong or it's just not real. Like I'm not sure about this whole faith thing anymore. The only problem with that, man, you don't see that anywhere in the Bible. Anywhere throughout scripture, you don't see this promise of perfection or this promise of a great, easy life. You actually see the opposite. You see Jesus tell his disciples, hey, listen, the things that you're seeing me do, man, the things you're seeing me experience, it's going to be harder for you. You see John the Baptist, who was the, he ushered in Jesus, like he was the one who was the first one. This, this is the guy, this is the guy that the Old Testament promised, who's going to fix all the stuff, this is the guy, and he ends up in jail, he's like, well, this isn't what I expected, and he asked some of his disciples to go and just check, hey, make sure he's really the guy, because this is supposed to be different, like I'm not supposed to be dealing with the thing that I'm dealing with right now. Is he really the guy? Like, have you ever been there? I love what James teaches us. Jesus' brother writes a letter to the Israelites. And in James 1, it says this. It says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. What? James, I don't think you know how trials work, my man. Like that experience of joy, no, no, no, no, no. Because in your trial, when your faith is tested, it produces perseverance. There's purpose in that difficulty. There's purpose. And don't lean away. Don't let the discomfort, don't let the uncertainty push you away from what's on the other side of leaning in to the uncomfortable step, of leaning in to the place that God asks you to go. Because when you do that, when perseverance finishes its work, it does so that your faith may be mature and your faith may be complete. James says, listen, you're going to face moments that you didn't expect. You don't have to let discomfort push you away from what's on the other side because those moments are necessary in your faith journey. What James is teaching us in this moment is that it's impossible. It's not possible to grow your faith beyond your certainty. That's the next slide. I'll move through those verses, Laura. You can jump ahead. It's not possible to grow your faith beyond your certainty. When you shape your life and surround your day-to-day, when you're living in a moment where you don't have any questions, where you don't have any worries, where you don't have any doubts, where you don't have any fears, where you have no reason to call on God and lean and depend on God and who he is and his provision, no faith is necessary. We have to exercise our faith in order to see it grow. And what James is saying, don't run from these moments. Don't run from these places. Because if you lean in, like the step that God has asked you, if you just lean into that, just take the step, what you will see is you will see God show up. You will see God be faithful. You will see God in ways you never expected and you have never experienced before. And the result of that is a greater dependency, is a stronger faith, is a deeper faith, is a more unshakable faith. And James says, just, you can, you can just lean in, like lean into those moments. Now it's really important that you hear this. So, how does Nate do it whenever he says, is it do like this, and then I think he goes down like this? Like, it's really important that you hear this, right? I love you, man. But no, it's very important that you hear this. Because it's easy to confuse. Every bad thing that's happening in your life isn't a result of God leading you to that place. It's important to remember that we live in a broken world where sin exists, evil is present, and sometimes the pain, the challenge, the discomfort that you're feeling is a result of someone else's sin against you. But the beautiful part about what James is saying, the context in which James is writing this letter, he's writing it to Israelites who are being persecuted for their faith. They're being persecuted. Someone else is evil. What James is telling us in this moment is God's goodness and God's plans aren't only possible when he orchestrates it. God doesn't have to lead you to the place of discomfort for him to do something incredible. God is able to work and move and do in all things, in all situations. He's not limited to his own plans. And James says, so regardless what it is, regardless what season you're facing, you can lean in. And for our context, what we're talking about today, the step that's ahead of you, James says you can lean in. Because what's on the other side of that? It may take a while. But what's on the other side of that is a deeper dependency. And you have never been so secure in the steps that you're going to take than when you have a deep dependency on who God is and his provision for you. If faith is a gift from God, seizes of doubt and uncertainty are the box in which they're wrapped in. You don't have to run away from it. But how do you do it? I think God understands the human struggle. Like I said, you don't see throughout the Bible anywhere where it says, hey, listen, get it together. It's easier than this. Just believe. Which is why I think God didn't respond to the Israelites in this moment with rebuke. He didn't slap them across the head. He actually, Moses, he says, what am I supposed to do with these people? In 17, verse 7, it says this. I'm sorry, verse 5. So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massa and Meribah. Because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord, saying, is the Lord among us or not? I do think it's interesting that the remedy that God offered to Moses to move forward was another ridiculous task. Hey, grab the staff and go hit that rock and water's going to come out of it. God, that's not what rocks do. I don't think you understand that, but he did it. He took these steps, he struck the rock, and God provided for their needs. Just like us on this side of the story looking in, like, yeah, yeah, we knew that was going to happen. We know how the story goes. But it just serves as a reminder for us that, like, God's not calling you to a place where he's going to watch you fail. There's not a timeline on that. Like, the step he's asking you to take, like, it's as good as what you believe it could be, why he's leading you to that place. But I love that it's just not, like I said, you don't see throughout the scripture. I'm not convinced that, I'm not convinced that God asks us to have blind faith. Like I don't see Jesus just getting so mad because the disciples that are following him just don't believe. What I see him rebuke and correct is, hey, do you still not believe? Like, do you still not trust that I am right here with you after all that you've seen? And I think that's why God instructed Moses to grab the staff. The staff has made a lot of appearances throughout the journey so far, throughout the book of Exodus. And actually, it's going to be here for the remainder of the Old Testament, because it was put in the Ark of the Covenant, along with a couple of other things, with the manna from last week's message, and then the stone tablets, which are coming up in a couple weeks from the Ten Commandments. But also you had the staff that was in there. The staff represented more than just a wooden stick. It represented more than just stability. It was a representation of God's faithfulness in the past. The staff was what God used to convince Moses the direction he needed to go, that he was the one that he was going to be leading. The staff is what God used to convince Pharaoh that God was legit. And you better listen, man. Let his people go, right? The staff is what God used to turn the blood, the Nile River into blood. The staff is what God used to show, hey, listen, watch my faithfulness. The Red Sea splits and you find your escape. The staff is what God used throughout so much of their story. The staff represented. Do you remember? Do you remember what I did? Do you remember that previous step that you stepped into that you were uncertain about? And do you remember my faithfulness? So after my family and I walked away from the church, I had no thought of God. It wasn't a consideration at all. And I don't know any other way to say that. I just lived my life. There was never anything that made me think, I need to do something different here. Until I was about 19 years old, I had a car accident that should have killed me. And it was a miraculous moment that I didn't. But God reintroduced himself to my life. And I remember in my faith journey, I got to this point. I was like, okay, God, listen, I just want to serve you. I just want to do something. I want to go to the place that you're asking me to go. I hope it's music. I was a mediocre at best musician. Maybe still am. Don't laugh at that. But I was a mediocre at best musician. I hope it's music, God. But I'll legitimately do whatever you want me to do. I'll legitimately, I'll clean the toilet. I just want to serve you, Lord. And I remember I called some friends and I had them pray for me. Hey, listen, I'm searching for what God wants me to do, and I just need to know what direction to go. I need to know what step to take in my life. And I remember at this point in time, I was a night owner at a hotel. I was an assistant basketball coach for a high school, and I was going to school full time. I legitimately got maybe four hours of sleep a day during basketball season. It was even less than that with practices and all that. And the four hours, four to five hours, it was just so intermittent. But I remember after talking to a friend in Florida, man, there was like a two-week stretch where I legitimately could sleep no more than about an hour a day. Because have you ever had something on your mind so much that it keeps you awake? Like that's a real thing. And there was something, every time I laid my head down to go to sleep, there was a musical riff, there was a guitar, a chord progression. There was, that I had, it was just so eating away at me that I had to get up and go play the guitar. There was some lyrics that I was writing down or something was just something with music. It was so heavy on my mind that it legitimately kept me awake at night. And I remember getting out of the shower one day to get ready to go to the hotel for work, and I saw my phone had a missed call, and it was a voicemail. It was actually the guy that prayed with me in Florida. And I remember the moment, I had no clue what his voicemail said, but I remember the moment that I heard his voice. I remembered one of the lines from the prayer two weeks ago. And he said, hey God, put it on Aaron's mind. So much. What do you want him to do if he loses sleep at night? And I, man, oh, this is it. Like, this is evidence. Like, now I know where to go. I know what to do. I know God is with me. I know God has called me. I know God has chosen me to be a part of something. Like, I'm just so excited. And so I started that journey. And in the journey of being a pastor, in the journey of leading worship, I can't tell you how many times insecurity sets in. It says, you're not the guy. You're not the one. You're not good enough for this. Who are you that people are going to follow you or listen to you? And I'm not saying this because I need accolades or I need you to give me kudos. That's not the point. But what I have in my life, the gift by the grace of God, has given me a staff that I can cling to when my faith begins to slip. So, let me ask you a question. What's the step God keeps putting in front of you? What's the thing he's asking you to do for your marriage, for your family, for your ministry, for your life? What is the step that has caused you to pump the brakes? Because it's a little uncertain. Second question. What's your staff? And don't answer that too quickly. Spend some time thinking, where have you experienced the greatness and goodness of God in a way that it cannot be taken away from you? Where have you experienced the greatness and goodness of God that you can cling to it and let it be a motivator? No, no, no, no, no. I can lean in. I can go and I can do the things that God is asking me to do, not because of me, because I serve a faithful God. He will not leave me. Just step. Take your staff and go. Let's say a prayer. God, thank you so much. God, I thank you for man, I'm just struck by by your grace and your willingness and your desire to use us in ways that we could never imagine. God, I'm so grateful that for each and every person in here, regardless where they are in their faith journey, or if they're not stepping into faith, or they don't really know if they believe, God, I thank you that you thought of them, and you have a plan for them. And I just ask, God, that you would, just by the graciousness and the gentleness of your Holy Spirit, you would come alongside of us, God, and you would remind us that you would do for us what you did for Moses in this moment when he was terrified, when he had no clue what to do, when he thought he was about to die. You reminded him, hey, you remember the thing? You're not asking us to believe blindly, but you're asking us to cling to the faithfulness we've experienced, God, and we can all, all go back to the cross. In the text that Paul tells us, that if God is for us, who can be against us? And the evidence of this is the cross of Christ, that you, God, wouldn't even spare your own son for our lives. Thank you for that, God. We ask for clarity. We ask for wisdom. We ask for hope. In Jesus' name, amen.