Sermons tagged with Culture

Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks so much for making grace a part of your Sunday. This morning, as we were getting ready for the service, I looked at the chairs and I went, it's the summer months, crowds are going to start to dwindle. I don't want people to show up in the room to feel cavernous. So I took a chair off of the end of each row. Yeah. And then I was talking with Shane and Phil, who've been here longer than me. And they said, hey, next week, maybe leave all the chairs in there. And I said, yeah, I'm going to consult with you two before making any more rash decisions about this. So I'm as surprised as you are that it's crowded here. And my standard joke is if you had a hard time finding a parking space, or if you had to make your own, you know what time it starts. So that doesn't feel like it's my problem. Welcome to Grace. Several years ago, I was at my previous church. And at that church I served essentially as an associate pastor, but one of my roles was to serve as the family pastor. Hang on, this is driving me nuts. I was not the IT guy, just the family pastor. One of my roles was to serve as a family pastor and in a larger church staff, it was a larger church at the time, the family pastor oversees the children's ministry and the student ministry and the people who run those ministries. So in that capacity, I had a guy that worked for me named Alan. He was a youth pastor. And Alan, it was getting to be the summertime, and we told him that he could hire some interns for that summer. And one of the guys he hired was a kid named Aaron. And I don't really know. Aaron was young, in his early 20s. I don't really know how he found the church. I think he just kind of started coming and volunteered and wanted to get involved in the youth ministry program. And Alan wanted to hire him as an intern. And so I heard that he got hired. And so I kind of went and met Aaron. And he was one of these guys that just immediately upon meeting him, I thought to myself, I don't like this dude. I like this guy. I don't like him. I don't like the way he chooses to present himself to the world. I like the way he looks. I like the way he talks. I'm not going to describe any of those things, lest I offend some of you. But the biggest thing I didn't like about this guy that rubbed me the wrong way was that everything he did, everything he did, he may as well have worn a t-shirt every day that said, please like me. And he was one of these people that had gotten involved in youth ministry because in my estimation, he had never been around people that liked him a lot. And he thought, well, then I'll shoot fish in a barrel. I can win middle schoolers over and get them to like me. So it was like he was in ministry as his own personal ego project to make himself feel better about himself. So he wanted to be cool. He was never cool. So I'll go into youth ministry so kids will like me and I'll feel cool. And I'll be honest with you. I've been at this a while. It takes one to know one. Early on, I had to repent of that same attitude of I just want to be respected and I want people to like me. And I think a dirty little secret of being in professional ministry and all I did is go pro with my faith. Okay. That's all I did. We're all supposed to be ministering. We're all supposed to be Jesus's ambassadors. I just decided I'm going to take my talents to the professional level and get paid for this. Okay. But everybody's supposed to do the same thing. And a lot of the people who get into ministry early on, it's an ego project. I want to feel important and respected, and God sanctifies that and massages that out of us. So hopefully we can minister out of a gentle and contrite spirit and a humble heart and genuinely want to usher people towards Jesus and towards his kingdom. But what I sensed in this guy, Aaron, was that he was off the charts, look at me, like me guy. And I thought it was gross and I didn't like it. And I went to Alan and I said, dude, I said, I like that guy. It doesn't need to be around youth ministry. Nothing nefarious was going on. I didn't suspect anything nefarious. I just suspected that his motives for ministering were wrong. And I didn't want that around our ministry. That's not why we get involved in what we're doing. I was like, I don't like him, not comfortable with him. You need to get rid of him. And he kept defending him, but all summer long, he was just one of these guys that immediately when I met him, I didn't like him. And it makes me wonder if when I start talking about people that you just don't like, if any of you can think of somebody right now that you just don't like. And I would ask you, besides the older gentleman that greets at the front door, Ron Torrance, that's mine that I'm thinking of right now. So y'all aren't allowed to pick Ron, you have to pick somebody else. I think everybody in this room has somebody they can think of when I say, who's somebody that you just don't like? And now maybe immediately our minds will go to celebrities or people that we've never met, but we've seen in different medias and we just don't like them. I'm not talking about them this morning, although that is an ancillary application of this. I'm talking about people in your life that you know that you don't like. Now, some of us are like Kyle. This morning, I asked Kyle for some sermon research before the service. Hey, man, can you think of anybody that you just don't like? And he was like, I'm sure if you gave me a minute, I could come up with somebody, but no. And then there's other people I talked to this morning were out of nowhere. I was like, hey, don't you know so-and-so? And he says, he's a good buddy of mine, and he says to me, yeah, I do know him. You would not like this guy. I can't stand him. So there's people on different, and I said, you're going to like the sermon this morning, dude. There's people on different ends of the spectrum, but no matter where you sit on that spectrum, we can all think of people that we've met in our life that we don't particularly care for. Sometimes very justified, sometimes small, silly reasons. I don't like their attitude, whatever it is. I don't like the cut of their jib. Whatever it might be, we have people that we don't like. And because that's a reality of life, because the reality of life is from time to time, we will meet people, we will be surrounded with people, we will be in close contact with people that we don't particularly care for. A co-worker from time to time, our spouse, our parents can rub us the wrong way sometimes, our children can rub us the wrong way sometimes. But there are people, those people we kind of bring back into the fold because we need to, but there's some people that we will just write off. Like, I just don't like that person. Don't want to deal with that person. A neighbor that is your mortal enemy, whatever might be going on in your life, we have those people that we simply don't care for. And a question that has come up often in my life as a Christian is kind of this theoretical question, is it okay as a Christian to not like someone? Is that all right? And so that's really the opening question of the day. There will be some people you simply don't like, but is that okay? There will be some people that you simply don't like, but is that, as a Christian, is that okay? Now this comes in the middle of a series, or This is actually the last part of the series called In Light Of. We've been going through Romans since February. We went through the first eight chapters, which meticulously build a case for humanity's need for Jesus. And then there's the culmination of those chapters in Romans 8, where we do need Jesus very much, and then promises are made to us that nothing can ever separate us from his love. And in light of this wonderful truth that Jesus accepts us, loves for us, paved a way for us to spend eternity in relationship with Almighty God, how should we then live our lives? So every week we've been looking at a different chapter in Romans 9 through now 15. In light of that truth, how should we live our lives? And so this week we come to Romans 15, and I believe it asks this question, or at least it answers this question, one that we deal with from time to time. As Christians, is it okay for us to have people that we simply don't like? Now, if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, thank you so much for being here. And I have good news for you. I'm not preaching to you this morning. If you're not a believer this morning, you are free to not like whoever you want. You do not have to hold yourself to the standards of this. But if you're a Christian, that may not be our answer. So to that question and to the unavoidable reality that from time to time there are people in our life that we simply don't like, is this okay? Are we allowed to do that? Paul writes this, Romans 15, verses 5 through 7. May God, who gives endurance and encouragement, give you the same attitude of mind towards each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 7. Accept one another then, just as like people? And sometimes it's for very justifiable reasons. But as we approach Scripture and say, is it ever okay for a Christian to simply not like someone? This is the instruction. Accept others as Christ accepted you. What does he say in verse 5? He wants to give you the same attitude of mind towards each other as Christ has towards you. So in two different ways, when we ask the question, is it okay to have people in my life I simply don't like? And I want to be very clear here. Obviously, obviously, we're not asking the question, can I be openly mean to them? I don't like them. Therefore, I feel like it's my right to ridicule them and belittle them in the workplace until they quit in shame. We're not preaching against that. I'm going to assume you know that. If you don't know that, there's a great fourth and fifth grade class right over there that might be on your level. Obviously, we know it's not good to ridicule people, to treat them poorly because we simply don't like them. Hopefully, we are of an elevated morality and sense of character that even when we don't prefer somebody, even when we don't like somebody, we find it within the magnanimity of our generous character and spirit to be nice to them from time to time. We have probably executed that. That's how we get around in society, is we learn to at least be cordial to people, even if we don't prefer them. And we tend to think as Christians that this is an okay model. As long as I'm not a jerk, then I'm fine. But that's not what Romans says. What Romans says is we should have the same mind towards others that Jesus has towards us. That we should accept others as Jesus accepts us. Which is different than if you just don't like somebody, try to be nice to them. No, no, no. We should think of them as Jesus thinks of us. So let me ask you this. How do you think Jesus accepts others? Do you think that Jesus is in heaven? And when some cranky old lady dies, he looks at Paul and he's like, Paul, I can't think of a name that's not offensive right now. So I'll choose one that is. Karen just died. Paul, you're welcome. Thank you for being the foil for that joke. Paul, look at this. Karen just died. And both Jesus and Paul go, oh, geez, this is going to be a handful in heaven. Do you think there are people that pass away that Jesus is like, I was really hoping that they wouldn't accept me because they were going to be Satan's problem. And now there's eternity with this person. I'm going to talk my ear off. Do you think Jesus does this? Don't you think he likes people? Don't you think he likes you? Do you think that when you get to heaven, you'll be like, Jesus, man, that I could be. I've already given the example of Aaron, and we're going to come back to that story and redeem it a little bit. But you think I'm going to get to heaven and be like, Jesus, like, for real, dude. Aaron, he was the worst, right? And you think Jesus is going to be like, I know, thanks for bearing that burden for me, brother. No, no, obviously Jesus likes everybody. And some of my Bible scholars in the room may go, well, hang on, he didn't seem to like the Pharisees very much. And I'll give you that. He was stern with the Pharisees. But we also see a Jesus that when one of them came to him in John chapter 3 named Nicodemus and wanted to talk with him and ask him more questions, and he asked to meet Jesus at night. Why? So that his Pharisee peers wouldn't see him meeting with Jesus and so bring shame upon his good name. He wanted to meet with Jesus in secret, and Jesus knew that. And what did he do? He didn't say, no, I don't care for you. I don't like your kind. You want to talk to me? You talk to me in the middle of the day in front of everybody. No. He said, all right, let's talk. And he had an open, honest, generous conversation with Nicodemus. Well, he didn't seem to like the Pharisees very much. Okay, well, he was stern with them from time to time. But do you not think that Jesus wanted to see them in his kingdom? Do you not think that Jesus knew who they were inside and out and wanted to see them come to faith and use the influence that they had been given to usher other people into that faith? Do you not think he saw the best in them and wanted the best for them? I think it's a really, really difficult argument to make that Jesus simply doesn't care for some people. That Jesus has an attitude towards people of, you know, I really don't like them very much, but I'm going to be nice to them if they're around. I'm going to try to think positively of them, which should really inform the question for us, am I allowed to simply not like someone? Well, all I know is that we're instructed in Scripture to have the same mind towards others that Jesus has towards them. And we're told to accept people as Jesus accepts them. So let me bring this more personal, if we're still having a difficult time with the concept, and ask you this question. How did and does Christ accept you? This is a really important question. Because you're here this morning, it's a Sunday, most of you woke up and showered, you put on decent clothes, you're presenting yourself. This is an environment in which it is imminently easy to be liked. All you have to do is shake the hands of people who look at you. If someone says good morning, you say good morning back. If someone says, how are you doing? You say, good, I hope you are, or good, how are you doing? It's really easy to put on the facade. Just be nice to everybody, you'll leave likable. It's harder with the people you see every day. It's harder at home. And it's harder for the people who know you the best to like you the most. That's why we love to be fully seen and to be fully known. To be fully seen by your spouse and to be fully known by them is this great picture of love, to really know your kids and know what they're capable of and understand all the ugliness in them and go sweep it aside and love them deeply anyways. And for people to offer you that is exceptional love. And it is very rare for someone to know us deeply and yet still like us. That's what makes friends and spouses so deeply important and meaningful in our life. But even those people who know us the best don't know us completely. They don't know every racist thought we've ever had. They don't know every pretension that we hold. They don't know every time we look down on someone else and so elevate ourselves. They don't know what we really think of that person that posts that thing on Facebook. Even the people who know us the best don't know everything that's happening in us all the time. And the reality is that for most of us, we think and feel pretty confident that if they did, they would not still like us. Jesus knows all of those things. And Jesus likes you, accepts you completely. He knows what's worst about you. He's been with you through the Holy Spirit. His presence has been brought into your lowest moment where no one else was and that you never talk about. And Jesus is excited for you to come to heaven with him. He likes you. So I would ask you again, those people in our lives that we don't like, we're told by Scripture to accept them as Christ accepted us. So how did and does Jesus accept you? And I love thinking about this. Jesus accepted you when you accepted him, knowing everything that you would be and become after that, the good and the bad. And he still likes you. He still wants you around. So that's how we are supposed to accept other people. This is difficult, right? And I know that some of us might go extreme with this. Do you mean that Jesus really likes the terrorists from 9-11, Nate? He really likes them? I believe that Jesus loves them. I believe that Jesus was hurt deeply for them. I believe that Jesus saw impressionable young men that were deceived by evil and led to believe things that were fundamentally untrue to a place where their life was defined by hate, which is the exact opposite of what Jesus wanted for them. So I believe that he grieved for them, that he did love them. Many of us in our life have people who have hurt us deeply. Nate, it's easy for you to say that I'm not allowed to not like somebody, but you don't know what my dad did to me. You don't know what my mom was like. You don't know what my ex-husband did. You don't know what my ex-wife did. You don't know how awful my brother was growing up. You don't know that. I have a right to my disdain. I have a right to my dislike. You probably do. You probably do. All I can tell you is that Paul prays that we will learn to accept them as Christ accepts us. All I can tell you is that Paul tells us that we should have the same mind towards them that Jesus has towards us. Now here's, and I want to say this before I move on. I believe those extreme examples are the exception, not the rule. I believe when I asked you to think of somebody in your life that maybe you just don't care for, that for most of you, that answer was not from some place of deep wounding and hurt. For most of you, it was an answer similar to me. I didn't like this guy. He just rubbed me the wrong way. I never did prefer him. But for both examples, how do we find a path towards that generosity and magnanimity of spirit where we can actually find a way to like people that we don't like? Well, I would like to invite you to learn to ask what I think is a very important question. What are their actions telling me they really need? When I see someone acting in a way that I don't like, what are their actions telling me they really need? When I was looking at Aaron and I immediately decided I didn't like him, not Aaron Gibson, our worship pastor, I still don't like him, but Aaron from the example, the youth intern. And I immediately, I decided I didn't like him. Why did I not like him? I didn't like him because he was trying to get approval from kids and that's not where you should get approval, man. That's not the reason to get in here. So you need to get your fragile ego out of here. I didn't like him because he wanted approval and acceptance. Because he wanted to feel like he was enough. He had never felt before in his life like he was enough. And he didn't, And here's the thing. Everybody wants that. Everybody in this room wants that. Everybody in this room might as well tattoo across their chest or across their forehead, am I enough? We all wonder that. So how could I not like somebody for asking the same question that I do? It's just that some of us figure out how to get that question answered in more socially acceptable ways than he did. But if I would have stopped and just said, what do his actions tell me that he needs and wants? I would have very quickly arrived at, Aaron just wants to be enough. And that's not really something worth condemning him for. Maybe I should show him instead of withhold from him. I've seen clips going around recently about people losing their minds in public places. Groups of people losing their minds in restaurants, yelling at waiters, yelling at owners, throwing things in Chipotle, yada, yada, yada. And it's easy to watch that and be like, those people are completely unlikable. And that's the most mild way I can summarize my thoughts in that moment. We have every right to disdain them and their behavior. But if you ask this question, what do their actions show me that they need or want? What their actions show me is that they want to feel respected. They want to feel like they have some sense of control. They want to feel like their needs are valued like everyone else's. And for whatever reason, something's happened in their life to make them think that nobody cares about them. And so rather than sit back and quietly take it, they're going to be vocal about demanding it. Who among us does not want to feel in control from time to time? Who among us doesn't want to be respected? Who among us is happy with taking a backseat to everyone else if that's the paradigm that we feel like we live with? And so when we ask this question, what do their actions tell me that they need? It gets us to this place of empathy and understanding, which kind of paves the way to liking them. And so I want to ask you this question. What would happen if we chose empathy over disdain? What would happen if we chose empathy over disdain? If when we see somebody that, and we go, I don't like them. I don't like people who vote that way. I don't like people who post that way. I don't like people that agree with that, that are of this political party. I don't like people who whine about this or carry on about this. I don't like high maintenance people. I don't like low maintenance people. I don't like tough people. I don't like weak people. Whatever it might be, the people that we don't like. Stop when we feel ourselves not liking someone. I want you to test this out. For some of you, it's going to happen very quickly. You're going to be leaving the aisle and the person in front of you is going to be going slow and you're going to feel rage well up within you. Why are they moving so slowly? Pause. What are their actions tell me that they need? Time, you jerk. That's what they need. They're old and they need time. And you will be too one day and you will need time. So relax. Next time you feel yourself tempted to not like someone and give in to that, pause. What do their actions tell me that they need? And is what they need really that condemnable? With the people that have hurt us deeply, what do their actions tell me that they need? Some of us, I'm sure, and I don't want to speak too lightly about it, but what we know from research and experience, some people grew up with a dad that was violent. What do those actions show you that he needs? He probably needed a good dad too. He probably didn't have that either. He probably needs to be understood. He probably needs somebody to love him enough to sit him down and say, hey man, this is not the way you should be, but he's never had anybody who loved him enough to say something. I'm not trying to excuse away abusive behavior at all. I'm just saying that there is a way to begin a path towards empathy by asking ourselves, what do their actions tell me that they need? And then beginning to understand what motivates the bad behavior, not defining them by the bad behavior. At the end of Aaron's tenure, he finished being an intern, and he wanted to come on as a youth assistant in a full-time capacity. And I wasn't going to let that happen. And so he asked to meet with me to know why we chose not to hire him. And I told my youth pastor to take the meeting. I didn't want to do anything. No, I'm just messing around. I took the meeting. And leading up to that meeting, I thought to myself, you know, I have to love him enough to tell him the truth. I have to respect him enough as a human to tell him the truth. And we met and he said, why can't I move forward at this church? And I said, and I told him, I said, man, here's what I think. I think that you need to take a break from youth ministry because I don't, I don't think that you're really happy with yourself. And I think that you're in this to try to gain the respect of others, but getting the respect of some students is really not going to make you feel okay about yourself. So I think that you need to get involved in a small group of your peers. You need to let God speak to you. You need to pause and consider whether youth ministry is really the career that you need to take or if you're just doing this for selfish reasons. And once you've reconciled with those things, I think you should move forward with whatever path God gives you. But right now, I think you're trying to get into ministry for the wrong reasons and you're going to end up crashing and burning. And he thanked me. And he went on and he, honestly, he followed my advice. He did what I told him I thought he should do. He took some time off, got involved in another church, met a nice girl, decided ultimately to go back to school to get a Bible degree and to get into ministry. But he called me years later and he said, I just want to thank you for that conversation because you were right. And God did have some work to do on me. Now here's what's really important. That story works out like I'm the hero, but I never tell those stories because I'm not. Here's where I failed him because I let my dislike get in the way. I could have had that conversation with him in May. And I could have been a part of helping rehabilitate him, helping him grow through that. And in September, he didn't have to experience the rejection that I imposed on him because I refused to love him enough to tell him the truth about himself. And because I was a coward, and because I didn't love him enough, I was happy to just sit and dislike instead of asking myself, what do his actions tell me that he needs? And then acting according to that empathy rather than disdain. I withheld from him. And the other way I withheld from him, and this is awful, nobody needs my approval. Nobody cares what I think about them. I'm not here to claim that. But if you just think about the dynamic, here's a young 20-something kid, he's 21 years old. I'm at the time 36 or 36. No, I was 34 or 35. And I had, by all measures, accomplished what he wanted to do with his career. I was what he wanted to be. Now, that's just a position. It's not me personally. It's just the position. We understand the dynamics of someone early in their career, seeing someone that's progressed in their career going, I want to learn from that person. Meaning because of my position, realizing that all he wanted was to be told that he's enough, I could have gone to him and I could have said early on, hey dude, Jesus loves you. You are enough. I think you're going to be great. Here's your challenges to what greatness could look like. Here's where your character may be getting in the way of what God wants to do with you. But I believe that if you're willing to be open about that and move on from them, that God can do some powerful things with you. So you stick by me and we're going to tackle this together. How much better does that look than just simply choosing to not like him for justifiable reasons for the five months that he was in my care? What does choosing to not like him win me? What did I prove to him? What did I prove to myself? What benefit is it to us to have people that we've simply reconciled to ourselves? We're not going to like them. None. But here's the benefit if we do. I'm skipping two points in your notes if you're following along. The last thing is the result. Verse 7, complaining about. The result of refusing to dislike someone, even when it's justifiable, but offering them grace and searching for empathy instead and seeking to understand what their actions tell us that they need and loving them for what motivates them, not judging them for their behaviors. The result of that is that people bring praise to God. The result of that, if we can practice that here, is to create an environment where everyone feels loved and everyone feels accepted and everyone feels like they're part of the church and everyone feels like they're welcome here and everyone wants to be a part of what they are. And because they're so accepted here, they will accept other people. The result of that is not just about grace. It's about the kingdom and the community of God. What if God's children would quit seeing it as an option to simply not like people because we can and we don't want to? But what if the kingdom of God took upon itself to see people with grace and with empathy and to understand what lies behind the behaviors and to love the person that has the same motives we do, to like, to be loved, to be known, to be respected, to be cared for? What if we began to see people for that and how we were instead of seeing them as the world was and looking for reasons and excuses to disdain them? How much more attractive and fragrant would our faith be? How much more praise would be brought to God if we would simply quit letting ourselves dislike people for reasons that ultimately don't matter and start making ourselves ask for God's empathy, for God's acceptance of them, for Jesus's mind towards other people that Jesus has towards other people. What if we started becoming people like that? What if the kingdom of God started offering empathy like that? How much more praise would be brought to the God that we all serve? So let's stop not liking people. Let's knock it off. Let's find paths to empathy so that we can accept everyone with the same mind that Jesus does. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for these seniors that have graduated and are moving into a new phase of life. God, I pray specifically that you would be with each of their moms as they worry here for the next several months, probably in a continued way. Give them your peace of spirit as their children go and step into these new phases. Lord, I pray that we would be a people who like folks the way you do. That we would find paths to empathy and understanding so that we might think the best of them. So that we might love them well as you do. God, where there are roadblocks to this, where there's difficulty there, where we just have a person that we just can't get around to liking, I pray that you would help us begin to break down those walls and show them your love and your acceptance and your grace and your goodness. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good morning. It's good to see everybody. My name is Nate and I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks so much for making grace a part of your Sunday. If you're watching online, wherever you are, whatever you may be doing, thanks for doing that. If you're hearing this as you're catching up through the week, thanks for making it a point to catch up. I am, this is not a new phrase to you, very excited about this series. This might be my favorite verse that I've ever talked about. We had some good friends over last night who've been at the church longer than us. They were here when we got here, so they're part of the problem. But they were making fun of me because they were talking about this new series, and they were poking at me a little bit. Nate, every series is your new favorite, and every series you're excited about. And here, I will say that that's not true. I didn't care at all for the last series. So not every one of them is my favorite. But I will also say that I really mean it this time. I've really been looking forward to this series. But this series is going to be a little different. It's called A Letter to Rome, Painting a Picture. So we're going to go chapter by chapter through the book of Romans. And what I want you to know about Romans and where we need to start is that Romans is the most technical book in the Bible. It is the most exhaustive, clear, exceptional description of the gospel in all of scripture. Not even just in all of scripture, but in the history of the world. If someone said, I know nothing about the gospel of Christ, to where should I look? Romans. Just read the first eight chapters of Romans. It is a systematic approach and building of the gospel and its necessity and why Jesus died on the cross and what that means. It's an incredibly important book. We have some people here who are attorneys, and you know this better than I. I don't exactly know what it is to cobble together a legal argument to win a case, but the book of Romans is probably the closest thing we have in Scripture to what a legal argument would look like. It's a systematic approach to understanding the gospel. And so here's what we're going to do together. This series is called Painting a Picture, A Letter to Rome. Fine. We're going to go through chapter by chapter until it culminates in Romans chapter 8 on Easter. That's our Easter message. And this is already intimidating and disappointing to me because I did a series a few years ago called The Greatest Chapter and we spent eight weeks in Romans chapter eight, and I didn't think that was long enough. And now in a truncated 15 to 20 minute sermon on Easter, I have to capture Romans eight? No thanks, but that's what I've signed myself up for. We're going to culminate there because Romans eight is the most triumphant, declaratory, wonderful chapter in the Bible. If you want to debate with me about there being a better chapter in the Bible, I don't want to be your friend. It's the best chapter in the Bible. Now, I don't really mean that. I'm sure there's some other great arguments, Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1 and Ephesians 3, but Romans is really good. It is my favorite. Shut up, Zach. We're going to culminate there because it's just this triumphant celebration of what the gospel is. And I'll tell you the Easter message. It's going to be Romans chapter 8 verses, I think, 38 through 42, but don't quote me on that, where he finally declares, after eight laborious chapters of explaining the gospel. Jacob, you don't have to check it right now in real time, dude. You can just let it lie. Although, nod your head if I'm right. After eight chapters of walking us through what the gospel is, Paul concludes, for I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor demons, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, It's the greatest climax of a discourse in Scripture. So what we're doing is building to that on Easter. To do that, this series is going to look a little bit different. Most of the time when I preach, I try to preach to a point. I try to give you one thing to go home and think about, one thing to talk about with your small group, one thing to discuss on the car ride home. And there's going to be other things that I say, but I'm trying to drive to a point. For this series, I feel like it's a little bit different. I feel like my job is to do my best to articulate the point of each chapter. To make sure that we understand why did Paul write this and what is he attempting to drive home. So I'm not necessarily driving, excuse me, to a particular point as much as I'm just trying to bring clarity around what Paul is saying in the chapter. Because of that, I want you to know this too. The two greatest TV shows in human history, and this is inarguable, are Seinfeld and West Wing. Those are the two best. Everything else, third, fourth place. We can talk about it after. Those are favorites. But here's the difference between those two. Seinfeld, you can just turn on any season you want. Season four, episode 13. And you can fully appreciate the content of the show and enjoy it. It's fine. West Wing, if you were to turn it on, if you were to just go home, turn on Netflix, and season one, episode eight, you have no context for what's happening. You cannot appreciate the episode. You've got to go back to the first episode and watch all seven before you get to eight to adequately appreciate episode eight. You have to. So sometimes when I preach series, I think about them as Seinfeld series and West Wing series. And I don't do a lot of West Wing series because as much as I love you guys, most of you are what I affectionately think of as every other weekers. All right? It's difficult to do. I know. It's difficult. I'm here every week because I get paid. So I don't blame you. And you'll never hear me preach a sermon trying to guilt you to be here every week. That's just how I process the congregation. So I get hesitant to do West Wing series because I don't know if you're going to listen every week. And I don't want to disengage you by week three because you haven't caught up. But I'm going to do that now. Every sermon is being preached to lead to the next one. And then once we get to Romans 8, do you know what the series afterwards is going to be? We're going to change the name on you so you don't notice it as much. It's going to be called In Light Of. Francis Schaeffer, a great philosopher and thinker, wrote a book called How Should We Then Live? In light of the gospel, how should we then live? That's what Romans 9 through 16 are. So after Easter, you know what we're doing? After going chapter by chapter through Romans 1 through 8? 9 through 16, baby. We're just hanging out in Romans. I hope you don't get tired of it, because I'm not gonna. But every week, I want you to understand, if you miss, I'm gonna ask you, please listen. Because we're painting a picture. We're building an argument. We're following Paul's arguments so that we understand the structure of the gospel. And it's really important to me to try to honor that. But if I'm going to try to honor that, what I would ask of you is to try to honor it by following every week. Unless you're Carl and Suzanne and you don't even live here, you don't have to listen to Carl. You can do whatever you want. But that's what this is going to be. It's going to be a little bit different, but I want to ask you to follow along. Okay, that being said, that preamble over, let's look at Romans 1 and wonder what is the point of it. What point is Paul making? I would start it here in verse 8. There's a little preamble. He introduces himself. But then he says this in Romans 8. I'm also going to tell you, you have a bulletin. There's two points there. When I ran through the sermon this morning, it was like 52 minutes. So I'm not going to do those points. I'm going to try to get you out of here sooner than that. But when I don't fill them in, don't get upset. We're just going to look at verses today. Romans 1.8 says this, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. We don't have the same opportunity that the church in Rome did. We're very aware that we sit in a small church in a small corner of God's kingdom. Rome was able to make a global impact with their faith. But I just wanted to pause there because he's writing this letter to them and he says, first, I thank my God when I remember you because your faith is known all over the world. And I can't help but wonder if Paul were to write a letter to grace about what he's known and what he's heard and what grace has done well with. What would he write and be grateful for? If Jesus were to show up and see our church, for what would we be known? And this is actually what I want you to think about in your small groups this week. Aaron Winston, please put this in the notes. For what do you want your church to be known? We say that our mission is connecting people to Jesus and connecting people to people, and I think that we have some fidelity to that and that we do that well. But if Paul were to observe us and write a letter and say, I'm grateful to you, here's why, would he even say that he was grateful or would he just get on to us? This is what keeps me up at night. Have I been leading a church for darn near 10 years now and we're getting a ton of things wrong? And if Paul had to write us, he would not congratulate us, he would chide us. We should be sensitive to that. But my question here in the beginning of the letter is, for what do you want your church to be known? I hope you talk about that in your small groups this week. And then the follow-up is, what is my role in bringing that about? For what do I want my church to be known, and what is my responsibility in making that a reality? So that's where he starts, and he spends some, the first half of Romans 1 is basically introductory. I'm grateful to you. I'm writing you because I love you. Now let's get into the meat of it. And the meat of Romans 1, I believe, starts in verse 18. We're going to put verse 20 on the screen, but I'm going to read from 18 through 20. Here's what Paul writes. This is the NIV. In the ESV, the English Standard Translation, it says that God has revealed himself in nature so that no man is without excuse. So the point that Paul is making here, and he's building towards one that we will conclude on, the point that he's making is people are wicked. People have sinned. People deserve the wrath of God because we have a divine creator who shared himself with us and we fundamentally rejected him. And whatever you think sin is, whatever you would look at, not yourself, but someone else and go, yeah, they are sinful, however you would define that, whatever you think of when you think of sin, fundamentally, this is sin. The very first sentence in the Bible, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I am convinced that the Bible doesn't start with that sentence because that's the beginning of the story. I am convinced that the Bible starts with that sentence because it sets up the fundamental relationship for all of time, which is this. God is the creator. We are the created. We are not on his level. The fundamental sin in the Garden of Eden, if you eat this apple, you will be like God. And Eve went, oh, I can do this? Whenever we sin in our life, however you define that, however you think the Bible defines that, here's the root of that sin. God is Lord. I am the creation. But I want to be my own authority. So now I'm here. That's the nature of all sin. And so that's what Paul is saying that people are doing. They no longer accept the authority of God. They are their own authority and they have thrown off the rule of the universe. And to that end, he says, but they are not excused for this because God has revealed himself in nature so that no man is without excuse. And this brings up, I think, a really important point. And this passage in Romans, whether you know it or not, is the epicenter for the answer to one of the greatest questions in human history. It's a question that every thoughtful Christian has ever asked. And if you've never asked this question, I'm not calling you unthoughtful. I would just like to suggest that maybe you haven't thought of this yet. Which is, if someone is born in Kazakhstan into a Muslim culture and goes their entire life without ever hearing the name of Jesus, what happens to their immortal soul? Because we know our Bible, and we know that the Bible says, when you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. Nevertheless, what happens to the tribal person born in the heart of the Amazon or Africa or one of the stands in the middle of the world who goes their entire life without hearing the name of Jesus? How does God assess them? Do they just get born and then spend eternity separated from God because they lost the lottery on where they were born? And can we not acknowledge this morning that we have hit, as Americans, we have hit the all-time global historical lottery for where we were born. We are history's spoiled trust fund billionaire babies. We are. We are, we are, Roman senators would look at your $350,000 home and be like, how do you exist in such opulence? You have warm water just on command? There's ice here. I put my food in this box and it stays cold. Like, I'm not going to elaborate on it, but we've hit the jackpot on wealth. And then on top of that, this is quite literally the most Christian nation that's ever existed. Our nation was founded by faithful men who founded us on Christian principles. Now that's debatable about Thomas Jefferson because he did some stuff to the Bible that's messed up. But for the most part, Christian principles. We were born into comfort and we were born into faith. You're not going to see anyone this week in Raleigh who's never heard the name of Jesus. We have every opportunity to respond to the gospel. But there are nations of people, the vast majority of people who have existed in human history have lived and died without hearing the name of Jesus. So then we ask, what does God do for them? How does God assess them? And we get some insight on this. I should have done the research and been able to name chapter and verse, but because of David, King David's sin with Bathsheba, God claimed the life of the son that was a result of that sin. And in his lament of the loss of that son, David expresses in scripture that he will see his son one day in paradise. And so for many theologians and scholars throughout history, this is indicative of what's become known as the age of accountability. Meaning, my son John is four and a half, he's never confessed with his mouth and believed in his heart that Jesus is Lord any more than he's confessed with his mouth and believed in his heart that Santa brings him presents. So how do we delineate that faith, right? So scholars have introduced us to this idea called the age of accountability. Meaning if something terrible were to happen to John this week, which I don't even like postulating, we believe that God in his goodness would have grace on his ability to understand and call him to eternity with him. So this is kind of a known thing, the age of accountability. Now here's where it gets really interesting to me, is you kind of extrapolate that out. When I was growing up, across the street from us, we had a neighbor named Kelly. And Kelly had a lot of pretty severe special needs. And when she was 19 years old, her daily playmate was my seven-year-old sister because that was her mental capacity. So then the question becomes, to what does God hold Kelly accountable? To what does God hold Lily accountable? To what does God hold John accountable? To what does God hold Nate accountable? And to what does God hold the Uzbekistan native who's never heard his name accountable? It's a good question. But here's what I know. I'm about to say something I'm not sure of and invite you guys to disagree with me, but here's what I am sure of. That Romans tells us that God has revealed himself in nature so that no man is without excuse. Meaning, when we get to heaven and we, if we have the capacity, even in our glorified bodies with our glorified minds, to understand the logic and the reasoning and the thinking of God, if he blesses us with that, and we can go to heaven and we can go, God, how did you assess all the souls that existed for so many years who never even heard your son's name? Whatever he then communicates to us based on this passage, I've revealed myself in nature so that no man is without excuse. Whatever God says to that answer when we get to heaven and we have the mental capacity to understand it, we will go, oh yeah, that makes total sense. You are a good and loving and gracious God. That was fair and righteous and good. We will not get to heaven and hear God's logic on salvation and go, buddy, I got to tell you, I think you did that wrong. That will not be the response. It will be that is righteous and good and true and just. So here's the idea that I want to introduce. I've done this in the past. When I stand here, I feel a sense of fidelity to do my best to tell you the truth and to not misrepresent anything. But also I know that one of the strengths of grace, one of the things that makes us good, is that you have a willingness to disagree with me. You don't need to believe everything I say any more than I need you to believe everything I say. Our friends last night were commenting on the fact that like, yeah, sometimes some stuff comes out of your mouth and I think, I don't think I would have said that, which I totally get. I've heard about that before. I find myself in the position of apologizing for clumsy words. This is, I don't have any notes, guys. Like I don't, nothing's telling me what to say. So sometimes stuff comes out that shouldn't. But even in that, you are grown adults with the Holy Spirit. You don't need to agree with me. Nor do I feel any responsibility to drag the church along with my ebbs and flows of theological understanding. You have yours and I have mine. I'm not trying to convince you that I'm right all the time. And a good strength is for you to be able to disagree with your pastor and still not find fault. I mean, obviously, if I said something crazy, but still not find fault in the fact that we simply understand that differently. I think that's a strength of the church, not a weakness. With that being said, I'd like to step over to my reckless speculation box and not be held accountable for anything I'm about to say. All right? There, I think I'm probably right, but I'm going to be wrong about some stuff here. I don't know. Maybe. But I've shared this with small groups over the years. And as I encountered this passage, and I don't think you can preach Romans 1 without talking about what's in verses 18 through 20. This idea that God's revealed himself in nature so that no man is without excuse because it beckons one of the greatest questions to ever exist in Christendom. So we have to talk about it. And as I've read it, I've developed in my own theology and thinking, you assess this for yourself. I'm not insisting I'm right. This is just how I think about it. What I refer to as a sliding scale of salvation. Where I personally believe that God in his goodness, based on Romans 1.20, holds people accountable for what they can know. He holds them accountable for what is possible for them to know. Meaning, if someone is born in Madagascar and lives and dies without ever hearing the name of Christ, I think God's standards for them and what he holds them accountable for are different than what he holds Harris accountable for. Because Harris has known the name of Christ. So that's how I interpret that. In my reckless speculation box that you cannot hold me accountable for, I think that there may be a sliding scale of standards for salvation based on what we can know and how God holds us accountable. So that's how I answer that question. Now. Now you can begin to hold me accountable for my words again. Andrea, I am actually going to make these points. I said I was going to skip these. I'm not. Here's what I think happens in the Christian brain when I say something like that. I say that God holds us accountable for what we can know. So because we're born in America and we live and die hearing the name of Christ, we can know him. And I think some of us, not all of us, but some of the more depraved in our audience, like Greg, think this. Well, then why do I have to be born in America and follow all the Christian rules? Why can't I be born somewhere else and do whatever I want and then not be held accountable for it because I never heard the name of Jesus as I lived? I think we can all relate to that question. And when we ask that question, it belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be saved. Salvation is not fire insurance. Getting saved is not just, I'm going to white knuckle it and grit my teeth and follow the rules the best I can to keep my God happy until I get into heaven. Salvation is not, am I in or am I out? Bless you. Salvation is being beckoned into the very presence of God. Heaven is not the place where we go to meet our family members, although we do. It is the place we go to see the face of our Savior. It is the place we go to be in the very presence of our Creator. And by having the privilege to know Jesus and to grow up in a place where we're introduced to Him very early and we're welcomed into His presence as far as our memory goes back, is to have, listen to me, is to have the very opportunity to begin to experience heaven on earth because we walk in the presence of Christ. So being saved is not about not burning. It's about yearning for the presence of Jesus. So when we hear, oh, you mean somebody can be born in another country and perhaps not be held accountable to the same level that I am? That seems not fair. They get to do whatever they want and I have to follow the rules? Listen, I love you. You're missing the point of what it means to be a Christian. What it means to be a Christian is to exist in the presence of God, to know that you're loved fully and deeply, and that he can never love you more than he does right now. And the Christian experience is progressively accepting that more and more. It is not a prayer we pray to avoid punishment. It is a revelation that we have that invites us into heaven on earth. So the advantage you have being born where you have been is that you don't have to wait as long as they do to begin to experience heaven and Jesus now. He invites you into it today. I said this, the miracle of the gospel is the invitation to exist in God's presence. That's how we should understand what salvation is. And just candidly, I would tell you, I'm not trying to run anybody down because I certainly understand the thought process that brings us to this place, but I would invite you to think more deeply. If salvation to you is this in or out thing, do I get to go to heaven or do I have to go to hell? You don't understand it yet. It's about being ushered into the presence of God. So now, we don't get saved to avoid punishment. And I think that's a big misnomer about how we think about salvation. Now that is not the ultimate point that Paul is driving to. Paul is driving to this point in verse 28 through 32. And buckle up because these are some doozies. Paul is talking about how people have kind of fallen from grace and begun to just do whatever it is they want to do and how our society or how their society has become depraved and has led what Paul would in Philippians, is led by their bellies. Here's what he says. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, because God has revealed himself, right? So now they've said, no, we reject that. We're going to do whatever we want. So God gave them over to a depraved mind that they do what ought not be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. Davis, obey Janice. All right. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God's righteous decree and those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them. Paul just lit everyone's face on fire with that. But his point is to say, hey, this is the condition of humanity. They not only ignore the God that is revealed to them, but they act in rebellion to him and his decrees, knowing that they are acting in rebellion. And then on top of that, they celebrate it when other people join them in their rebellion. They not only go on sinning, not caring, but then they celebrate it when other people do too. And here's what's remarkable to me about this passage. It was written circa 65 AD and was true of the Roman culture when he wrote it. It's true of the American culture in 2026. It hasn't been not true of our culture any year of my life. I was born in 1997. It has not been not true of my culture in any year of my life or yours. Those words were true then, they're true now. Our society sets its own rules, does what it wants, decides what it thinks truth is, rejects the authority of God, then they celebrate the fact that they're doing it, and when I say they, I mean we, because we do it too, and then we even celebrate those that join us in our rebellion. It was true then, it is true now. Here's the tricky part about our culture. There are some sins I could mention by way of example to prove my point. Where half of the room would go, yeah, get them. And the other half would be like, you should not be saying this right now. And then I could flip it and pick sins that the half that just agreed with me is now disagreeing with me, and the half that was just disappointed with me is going, yes, those are sins too. It's not easy to be a pastor all the time. But here's what I know is true. That where Paul lands the plane here in chapter one was true in Rome when he wrote it. And it's true of us today. And here's what he's driving at. I love you. I care deeply about you. People are sinning and running wild, and this doesn't make any sense because God has revealed himself in nature so that no one is without excuse. Everyone can be held accountable to their revelation of who God is. And the end of it is they are so rebellious, your culture and your society are so rebellious that not only do they reject God and his decrees, but they celebrate people who join them in it. That's where Paul finishes. So that's where we will. And we'll pick it up in chapter two next week. Let's pray. God, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the book of Romans and your servant Paul. God, I honestly, earnestly pray that I would simply do it justice as we go through it. It's such a soaring, wonderful book. I pray that you would develop within us a deep appreciation for it and its truths. And where it is encouraging, that we would be encouraging. And where it is confrontational, that we would confront. But God, I just pray for grace as we move through this season and into the spring and ready ourselves for the wonderful celebration of Easter, that you would walk with us through this series, and that you would use the book of Romans to speak to us and to teach us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks so much for 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.

Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and I'm very excited for the series. I hope that you guys had a good Thanksgiving. For the Rectors, it's a whirlwind. It's six and a half hours to Atlanta on Monday, five hours to Dothan on Wednesday, six hours to Greenville on Friday, and four and a half hours to Raleigh on Saturday, which is 22 hours of travel. So if you see my children and they look a little bit addled, that's why. But they did great and we had a great time and we saw family and I hope that you did too. But now that we're past that, we have arrived at my favorite time of year at Grace. I love this time of year at grace i i love uh getting to celebrate next week uh as mikey said is uh christmas sweater sunday so i hope you'll bring out your best um i've seen some of yours before and i know they're pretty good so maybe you've upgraded but i hope that we'll all have a good sweater to wear for next week my favorite sunday of the year is fami jammy sunday We'll be like them. Which is more pointedly Amo La Civita every year. I'm looking at you, pal. Let's put something on this year, buddy. But I love this season. I love the Christmas series. I love how fun it is. And for me, obviously, we're celebrating Christmas. We're celebrating what that is. We're celebrating the arrival of Christ. But I also, in my head, as I kind of celebrate the end of the year, I celebrate what God has done at Grace. I celebrate who you are and who we are and God's presence here. I celebrate the people who are committed to this place and who love it so much, and all that God has done. So I think it's a perfect time of year to kind of not only celebrate Christmas and what that means and the arrival of Christ, but to also reflect on what God has done in our church and in our church family and look forward to what He's going to do in the future. To that end, we've got a meeting on December the 14th, immediately following the service to update everybody on the building, where we're at, and exactly what it's going to take to get us where we believe we need to go. And I think we're a lot closer than people suspect. So I'm optimistic for that meeting and I'm hopeful that you'll make it a priority to be there. I also know that that's on the same Sunday that we're doing the kids caroling. So there's going to be grandparents and stuff like that here. So to the young families, I would encourage you maybe bring two cars that day and one party can stay behind and attend the meeting and then the rest can go out to eat with grandma and grandpa and then you can can catch up later, because let's be honest, that lunch is overrated, and you probably just want to be here. Anyways. This series, here we go, is it, was, Wassailing, here we go, Wassailing. As Aaron mentioned, it was either Aaron or Mikey, I don't pay much attention. A few years ago, either last fall or fall before last, we did a series called The Songs We Sing. And we looked at the songs that we sing as a church, some of the hymns and praise choruses that we do, and we found them in the Bible. And we said, let's kind of imbue them with more meaning by looking at these songs. And it's a Christmas series that I've always wanted to do. And so this year we're going to do that. We're going to look at a Christmas carol each week and look at how it's imbued with meaning through scripture. We're going to climax this on Christmas Eve, looking at the greatest song that's ever been written, in my opinion, Oh Holy Night. And so I'm very excited to do that, but we've got some good songs along the way. And we have a song that we're focused on this morning that if you were paying attention to the video, you already know what it is. Or if you've looked through the notes to try to see what the fill in the blanks are, you already know what it is. But I'm not going to tell you yet if you haven't done either of those things. The first thing I'm going to do is make the opening point. This is the least expected opening point that I'm going to put on the screen in the history of Grace Raleigh, okay? A few weeks ago, I had a point that said something like, faith is like a Brazilian steakhouse. And Carly, who I send the notes to, who puts them on the bulletin, emailed me back and she said, I can't wait to see what this is about. And then I sent her this week's notes and she said, I never thought you would top Brazilian steakhouse, but I'm about to. Here's the first point of the sermon. Be like Keith Cathcart. Yeah. Where's Keith? Hey, buddy. Don't let him go, Keck. Be like Keith Cathcart. Here's my second point. Sort of. Okay. Now that we're clear. Now listen, before I just dump on him for the rest of the sermon, let's be clear. Keith is a really good friend of mine. I love Keith. I have a policy in my house. I do not pay money to a handyman of any kind until I've gotten permission from Keith. When there is something wrong in my house, I call him and I say, I think I need to call somebody to come fix this. And he will often say to me, if you call somebody to fix that, I will not be your friend anymore. I cannot respect you as a man. Keith has stood on the safe confines of my deck while I was up on my roof with FaceTiming him, showing him some flashing underneath some shingles and he helped me repair it. And we did, we fixed the leak. Did we not? Yeah, we did. So he's a good buddy. He's also the greatest evangelist I've ever met in my life. And this is true. Keith evangelizes like no one I've ever met. He espouses his beliefs more zealously and more effectively than any Christian I've ever known. The problem is he's an evangelist for the Steelers, not Jesus. Although I'm sure he does evangelize for Jesus from time to time. He's an incredibly effective evangelist for the Steelers. As a matter of fact, to prove it to you, I texted him earlier in the week. And I said, hey, I'm not going to tell you why. I just need you to text me pictures of people you've converted to Steelers fans. I just need three or four pictures. Dude sent me 20. 20 pictures. And he said, this is just the beginning. He got so excited about it. He's going down to Mexico to celebrate Christmas, to do a Christmas celebration with our ministry partners there. And he printed up terrible towels that say Feliz Navidad. And he's going to hand them out to 200 children and get them to wave them at once. And he told me it's going to be the greatest moment of my life. Just so you don't think I'm making this up, I wanted to share with you some of the people that Keith has evangelized for the Steelers. So let's take a look, Lynn. This is a young man at our church. He did not grow up in Pittsburgh. He does not care about the Steelers, but now he does. His mom made the mistake of going to Mexico with Keith and the rest of the team. They didn't just go to Mexico together, let's be clear. Sorry, Miel. There was like a whole group of people. They all went together. That's funny. He converted him. This is Patrick. Patrick did not, he's wearing, I don't know, Patrick, are you in the service this morning? Yeah, there he is. He's wearing that jersey. I didn't even tell him to. He didn't even know that this was happening. He's caught the virus, okay? Keith gave him that jersey. He's so proud of himself. Look at that dumb grin on Keith's face. Look at him. He's evangelizing for the Steelers. What's the next one? Is this Chucky? Oh, no. This is a guy. This is a random dude from Home Depot. That's who that is. That is Casey. Casey. Thank you, Keck. Keck is also in Steelers gear. Did you purchase that gear, Keck? Or did Keith? He puts on his hat. Yes, that's a random guy from Home Depot that is now a Steelers fan because of Keith. Who's the next one? Chucky. Chucky is the foreman in Mexico. Now this, I'll give Keith some credit as much as it pains me. Keith has been going to Mexico for darn near 20 years. And he met Chucky when Chucky was in seventh grade and was a volunteer working to get a home for his family. And he has gone through the years and he is now the foreman of the work crews for Faith Ministry, the ministry with which we partner. Every year, Keith goes down and he spends time with Chucky. And every year, he gives Chucky more Steelers crap. He has gotten birth announcements, wedding announcements, engagement announcements. That is like a surrogate son to Keith, and that's a very special person to us here at Grace. So I don't want to make light of it, but also, look at that. He's got all kinds of Steeler stuff. Can I tell you this? He even got me. Here I am. I went, too. I figured if I was gonna be in Pittsburgh, I needed to look the part, so I shaved down to a mustache, which I would say looks awesome. And here's the worst part. Do we have it, Aaron? He got my children. He got them too. But do you know what I did with those towels? Last time we had the hootenanny and we had the grill, the Blackstone needs a towel to clean up the grease I use those just so we know all right that's enough of that Keith is the most effective evangelist I've ever met in my life he loves the Steelers he wants everyone else to love the Steelers and he and it's a point of pride and joy when other people love his team too. And it's harmless and it's fun. But he, as I was thinking about the song this morning, he embodies this song better than anyone I've ever met, which is this, Go Tell It on the Mountain. We know this Christmas carol. Go tell it on the mountain. Go proclaim it. Here's the chorus of the carol. Let's look at it together. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. I love this carol. I thought it was the right place to begin the series. I don't know how you guys do it in your house, but at our house, after Halloween, the first weekend after Halloween, we decorate for Christmas. I know that's crazy. I know. But here's what Jen and I say. There's nothing wrong with a little extra Christmas in the house. We love our living room with lights and a tree and the ambiance. And during the year, we got our TV up on the mantle, you know, like you're supposed to do in 2025. And then bracketing the TV, we have these potted plants that are fake that have like different like plumes coming out of them like you're supposed to. But at Christmas, they're reindeers, and it's cooler. And then instead of just this naked mantle, there's garland with lights on it. And so it's just festive. And then we turn on the gas fire that emits zero heat whatsoever. And it's more cozy in there. So in our house, we decorate for Christmas the first weekend after Halloween and the first school day after Halloween we get in the car and Lily will say, Daddy, can we listen to Christmas carols now? And we do. On the way to school we listen to Christmas carols. We've got a playlist. We've added to it over the years. She has her favorites. I have mine. If you haven't listened to Barbara Streisand's version of Jingle Bells, it's the best in the whole wide world and I love it. I highly recommend. But one of my favorite songs that we listen to in the car together is Go Tell It on the Mountain. It's fun. It's festive. It's energetic. And it really gets across the point of the season. This idea of go be an evangelist. Here's what Keith does for the Steelers. As he goes and he tells it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Everywhere he goes, he's going to tell you about the Steelers. He's going to give you a terrible towel. He's going to give you a jersey that you don't want, that your children are going to wear, and now your host. But he's going to go and he's going to tell. And that's what this song is about. Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell people about Jesus. And this is a fundamental part of our faith that we don't talk about often enough. I'll be the first person to admit that I'm bad at evangelism. I don't do it as often as I should. And before I get into the sermon too far, making a crude analogy that's clumsy, it's far easier to evangelize for your team than it is to evangelize for your Savior. Because there's not a bunch of social emotional baggage wrapped up in your team. Keith doesn't go tell people that they should root for the Steelers and then get the response, I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but the fans of the Steelers are hypocrites and they hurt me. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have existential reasons to believe that the Steelers don't exist. I've tried to root for the Steelers before, but I have this and this and this reason why I just can't do that anymore. You tell someone to root for the Steelers, and they're like, no, I like the Falcons, and you're like, I'm so sorry for you and your life, but I understand. But you tell someone to convert to your Savior, and it becomes a lot more complicated and a lot more deep. And so it's a clumsy comparison. And the point of the story isn't to guilt Keith into sharing Jesus with the same zeal that he shares the Steelers. Although, Keith, maybe. But it's a clumsy comparison if you want to make it one-to-one. Nevertheless, evangelism and going and telling it on the mountain is a fundamental part of what it is to be a Christian. And here's how I know that this is true. I don't know if you've ever thought about the disciples in this way, but I have a cousin. I was just with him over his cousin-in-law, actually. He's an OBGYN, and he had to go through a ton of school to get to practice as a doctor. And the last part of school that you do when you're pursuing the medical field is residency. You go and you follow actual doctors who are licensed. And you that's what the disciples were doing. The disciples were in residency with Jesus. They were being trained by him. They were being prepared for ministry. And this is not the point of the sermon, but just by way of thought exercise, I doubt that you've ever considered, why didn't Jesus, if what Jesus came to do is come and live a perfect life and die a perfect death, why didn't he die on the cross when he was 21? Why didn't he die when he was 18? Why didn't he die when he was 30? Why didn't he just come down here, live a sinless life, die a perfect death, and be our perfect sacrifice, which is what we believe that he was and is? I'll tell you why. Because he wanted to spend the last years of his life training young men in residency to take over the church. To do what he did. And so that's what the disciples were doing. They were in residency learning how to lead what would be known as the church. Because the church didn't exist as an idea before Jesus implanted it into the minds and the practices of the disciples. And when he left, he said, now go and spread the good news to the corners of the earth, to all the nations. Go to the ends of the earth and tell them who I am, baptizing people in my name. Go make disciples in Jerusalem and Judea and all of the ends of the earth. The reason that Jesus didn't just live and die was to train the disciples. You understand? And fundamental to that training was evangelism. It was so fundamental that 30 years after the death of Christ, when Mark and Luke, and Mark wrote the gospel on behalf of Peter, and Luke wrote the gospel to, oh, blessed Theophilus, to explain to this man named Theophilus what was going on, and then to explain to humans for the rest of time what was going on. It was so important to them that they included this story in Mark chapter 6 and in Luke chapter 9. Two of the disciples thought that this part of their training was so important that it needed to be recounted. In Mark chapter 6 and Luke chapter 9, you can look it up if you want to. I'm not going to read the verses. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. He said, go in pairs, go into the surrounding towns, cast out demons and heal, and tell them the good news of the gospel. Tell them who I am. Tell them what I've done. Tell them what I'm going to do. And we often, those of us who know our Bible, associate that with the end of the story, which is if they don't receive you, shake the dust of that town off of your sandals as you go, which is to say, like, I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore and go. And we like that because that way, if evangelism doesn't work, we don't have to feel bad and whatever. But the point of that story, the point of that recounting, the reason that it's included in the gospels, the reason that Peter and Mark and Luke felt compelled to include that in their narrative and in their recounting of their experience with the Messiah is to say the point is we were told to go and tell other people about Jesus. We were told to go and evangelize. And so it is unavoidable that part of our Christian experience is to tell people about the Jesus that we love. Now listen, I want to be really clear here. If you're new to the faith, if you're questioning the faith, if you're here kicking the tires to see if faith is for you, I'm not preaching to you this morning. This is not for you. I don't want you to feel an ounce of responsibility for the things that I'm about to say. I just would invite you to soak it in and know that this is what we're about. But if you're a Christian, if you're not kicking the tires, if God is your Father and Jesus is your Savior, if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he said he did, and is going to do what he says he's going to do, then this is for you. And this should compel us. A fundamental part of your life, of your faith, is evangelism. Is to tell people about your Jesus. And I know that this makes us deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. It's an uncomfortable conversation. But that does not negate the fact that it is a biblical imperative, that it was a course requirement for the residency of the disciples, and it is an expectation that Jesus himself places on you to go tell it on the mountain, to go tell it everywhere, to go tell people about the Jesus that you love. And in our culture and in our context, go tell people why you still love him. Go tell people why you stayed in church and they left. Go tell people why you've come back to church after wandering for a while. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. Go tell people about the sense of peace that he's given you. Christians, go tell people about the sense of worth that he's given your soul. Christians, go tell people about the purpose that he's given you in the waning years of your life. I know many of us are at the point of our life where we're thinking, we're not thinking about a cruel, we're thinking about legacy. What do we leave behind? Go tell people what you want to leave behind and why. Go tell people what you want to build in your building years and why. If you're young, go tell people what you want to do with your life. And why? Go tell people how you want to raise your kids and what you want them to do. And why? Go tell people about your Jesus and why you're sticking with it and why you're still doing it and why you still have faith and why you still bother to get up on a Sunday morning and to do your makeup and to do your hair and to tuck in your shirt and to blouse your sweatshirt, which is something I just learned this morning. Go tell people why you bother to do that instead of sleep in. And don't just keep it to yourself as this personal private thing that's my business and not their business and I don't want to offend anyone. No. Go tell it. Go tell people what Jesus has done for you. If you serve in the community, tell people why you do. If you're kind to someone at the office that other people are not kind to, tell people why you're kind to them. If you pray for your grandchildren, tell people what you hope for your grandchildren and what you pray for them. I think in 2025, this idea of evangelism, it used to be when I was growing up in the 80s, evangelism was like, go tell people the good news. Go tell people about this Jesus. They may have never heard of him before. He forgives their sins. And he omits their shame. He erases it. And he's conquered sin and death so that we don't have to be afraid of him. So that we don't have to be afraid of it. Go tell them the good news. Go tell them that Jesus exists. And it was this idea that you could sit down with a person and be like, let me tell you about the person in this Bible that the whole Bible is about. It's about Jesus. Let me tell you about him and how he erases all of your guilt and shame for all of your life and accepts you for who you are and makes a passage into heaven for you for eternity. And then the idea was that they would hear that and be like, my gosh, I've never heard that before. That's incredible news. I'd like to be a Christian. Is that true now? The people in your life that you know who either don't believe in Jesus or are not actively engaged in faith, they have a reason. They have a reason. And it's a good one. I don't know what it is, but it's a good reason. The people that you know in your life who are atheists, when I was coming up, do you know what I was taught? Atheists are dumb. And if you'll just do a couple easy arguments with them, you'll win, and they'll convert immediately. Have you guys found that to be true? The atheists in your life probably, some of them are dumb, just like some of you are dumb. But most of them are pretty smart. And some of you are pretty smart. Begrudgingly. Evangelism is different in 2025. But I think an interesting way to engage the conversation is to say, here's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. Here's why I'm still here. Serving my God, praising my Jesus, worshiping my Lord. And I think that's an interesting place to start the conversation. But the larger point is, we can't get around the fact that evangelism is an essential part of Christian life. And I bring that up because Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Christmas is the perfect time to go tell it. Our whole world rallies around this holiday, right? Our whole world commercializes this holiday. This is when all the holiday stuff starts. This is when they start telling you to buy presents. This is when Lexus every year comes out with the most ridiculous ad campaign I've ever seen with a red bow on a $75,000 SUV as a Christmas present. Listen, I've often said I don't believe in reincarnation, but if it's true, I want to come back as a member of a family that gives away Lexuses at Christmas. And if any of you are giving Lexuses as Christmas gifts, consider the building campaign. It could help. Our whole culture rallies around this holiday. We commercialize it and we make it about gifts and all the things and family and decorations and lights and we celebrate. But Christians, we hold the truth of it. I am not going to say that Jesus is the reason for this season. I will not preach that. Although he is. We hold the truth of what this season is about. It's about Jesus. It's about his arrival. When I preach on Christmas Eve, it's going to be the phrase, long lay the world in sin and error pining until he appeared and the soul felt its worth. Oh, that's the most compelling line ever written. That's what Christmas is about. It gives us a sense of worth and purpose and hope and joy. And we know that better than anyone around us who doesn't love Jesus and who isn't spiritually engaged. So Christmas is the easiest and best time of year to go tell it. And let me tell you an easy way, the easiest possible way to go tell it and to evangelize your friends. This is going to sound self-serving, but I'm going to explain it. The easiest, I can't think of an easier invite than a Christmas Eve service. Can you? How easy is it? I've got some friends. I'm not setting myself up as moral exemplar. I'm a terrible evangelist. But one thing I have done in my life is Lily was a part of a soccer team for years. My daughter Lily, she's nine. She'll be 10 in January, which is nuts. And I coach. I have a soccer background and I coach. And I got to be friends with the coach and her husband, Heidi and Trey, and their daughters, Josie and Hannah. And Lily decided to quit. And I was like, I like this community. I'm going to keep coaching. And I'm also convicted that I asked you guys to volunteer. This is an organization that runs on volunteers. And so you guys give up an extra day to volunteer here. And I get paid to be here. And I don't volunteer anywhere else. So I thought maybe I should practice what I preach and volunteer somewhere. So I coach. So I kept going. And people are like, you're just a creepy guy coaching nine-year-old girls, and your daughter's not on the team. I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Don't worry about it. But I volunteered, and I enjoy that relationship with them. And there's another coach on the team, a guy named Vishal, who's from Pakistan. And I enjoy him too. And I've developed a relationship with him such that I told him when I get back from Thanksgiving, he actually said, let's get drinks or let's get wings or something like that. And so I'm going to go out and spend some time with what we call Coach V. And I was actually in the lead up to this, I realized I need to invite Heidi and Trey to the Christmas Eve service. And here's why this is such an easy invite. They're people of faith, but they don't go to a church. It's marginal for them. But they probably want to celebrate Christmas Eve somewhere with their family. There's a chance they want to go to church somewhere. So why not just invite them to Grace? And it's actually funny, we've joked about them coming to Grace and they said, we kind of like you being our friend and not our pastor. And I'm like, I kind of like you being my friend and not someone who comes to my church. It's nice. But I bet you have people in your life where it would be a really easy invite to just say, hey, I don't know if you're going to celebrate Christmas Eve anywhere. I don't know if you're part of a church right now, but you can come to my church. And at that service, can we show them that we take our Jesus very seriously and we don't take ourselves very seriously at all? Can we model for them what church can be? Can we show them who our Jesus is? Can we use that service to go and tell it? And now here, this is very important to me. I'm not preaching this sermon to get you to invite people to Christmas Eve, okay? I don't care, and I don't think you understand how true this is. I don't care how many people come to the Christmas Eve service. I'm gonna have a good Christmas with my family either way. I'm not trying to get butts in seats I never have. I've never, ever, and some of you know you've been here for all eight years, stood up here and tried to compel you to invite people to grace for the sake of grace. I've never done that. And I never will. But it does occur to me, invite them to Summit's Christmas Eve service if you think I'm full of it. I don't care. Go to a Christmas Eve service with your neighbors. That's not the point here. I'm not trying to fill up our services. But what I am presenting to you is the easiest of opportunities. Is it easier to invite your neighbor, your coworker, a family on your kid's ball team, an associate, whatever? Is it easier to go, hey, I don't know if you wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve in a church but if you do come to mine it's gonna be pretty okay and here's how I know it's gonna be pretty okay the sermons like 12 minutes that day and then it's all songs all right so we know we're in good hands Aaron's got it is it easier to invite them to that or in March? Hey, do you want to come to church with me on Sunday? Yikes. That's a tougher one. I hope you will. I'm just saying, I'm just acknowledging what we all know. So it's never been easier to go tell it than it is this Christmas season. So I hope that you'll consider that as a way to kind of open the door to conversation with some people that you care about. And I hope that maybe you'll leave her thinking about who can I invite to the Christmas Eve service. And again, if you think this is remotely self-serving, take them to Summit. I couldn't care less. I would, I would, listen, I would rather you invite people to Summit's Christmas Eve service and go with them and let them experience church there than I would you come by yourself having never invited anyone. Okay? But if you want to bring them here and let us show them what it's like to worship Jesus together and celebrate who he is, what a wonderful introduction into church. There's never been an easier time or season to go tell it. Now, I don't just want us to go tell it this season. I want us to continue to do it. So three very quick ways because I just realized it's 1056 and I'm going to move very quickly through these. Three very easy ways to be an evangelist. Okay? First, this sounds cheesy but it's true. Wear it. Wear it. Keith, did you wear a hat this morning? Yeah. What is it? Nah. Keck, you, listen, you don't have to spend more than 15 minutes with Keith to know that he's a Steelers fan. All right? Huh? Always. Always. That's right. It's on his car. If you go to his house, it's all over his dumb basement. Well, I don't even think he has a dumb basement anymore. He has like an apartment because he's building a house. But it's all over his stupid apartment. It's on his clothes. It's where he wears it. You go to his office, it's all over the place. It's everywhere. If you experience Keith, you experience the Steelers. And it reminds me of this verse in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14, that says, We are led in triumphal procession by Christ, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God. I love that verse because it's this idea that passively from us wafts this knowledge of God passively from, from Keith, unfortunately wafts this love of the Steelers. You just, it just is infectious. He just does. And what if we love Jesus in such a way? What if we wore it? And this is, this is so funny. I wrote this point before I knew I'd be wearing a gray sweatshirt that we're currently selling this morning. We're not commercializing this. I'm not making any money off of it. Actually, I get 5% of every sweatshirt. So please. Wear your gray stuff to the gym. Wear it to the soccer field. Put it in your office. So that when people come in your office, they know this person loves Jesus. Put it in your home. Put verses on your walls so that when they come over to your house, when your neighbors come over, they know passively this person loves Jesus. This family loves Jesus. This home is oriented around Jesus. Make it so that wherever people go in your life, when they encounter you, whether it's in your car with what you're listening to, with what you're wearing to different things, and I'm not actually saying that you should wear a grace logo every day to work. That would be ridiculous. But I think you get my point. Put it out there that if you know me, you know I love my Jesus. Regardless of church, wear it. Make it visible so that people passively know who you are allied to. Second is live it. Live it. In Matthew 5, 16, we find one of the most challenging verses in Scripture which which says, Let your light shine before men so that they might see your good works and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. This is more than passive. This is if someone were to follow you through your day, just by seeing you move in and out of conversation and people, they would see that you are so different, that you are so other, that you are so holy, that they would want to know more about you and glorify your Father who is in heaven. If you want to be an evangelist, spread the good news of Jesus and what he's done for you. Live that out. Be kind to the cashier. Be patient in traffic. Be considerate of the co-worker that no one else likes. Be even-handed in your dealings. Have character in your deals. Be honest in your negotiations. Do not backstab your co-workers. Be forthright even when it's hard. Tell the truth even when it's inconvenient. Be loving to your spouse even when they're being a jerk. And they deserve to be clapped back at. You can talk to Jen about how to do that if you need some examples. Do not yell unnecessarily at your children. Do not lose your temper. Be people of a meek countenance and kind such that others see your good work and so glorify your Father who is in heaven. Live it out. The last way we evangelize is to love it. Do you know why Keith tells everyone about the Steelers? Because he loves the Steelers. And when you love them, it brings him joy. It's a maniacal, twisted joy that's harming to humanity. Nevertheless, it's what compels him. And here's what I would say to you as a challenge. If you find yourself convicted because you're not someone who evangelizes for your Jesus, maybe, maybe it's a love issue. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to soften it. Maybe if you found yourself loving him more, you would tell other people about him more. I know the reason that my buddy tells people about the team he loves is because he loves them so much that it brings him joy when you love them too. And if we don't love Jesus so much that it brings us joy to see other people begin to love him too, then maybe we don't love him enough. And if we want to be evangelists, instead of looking out, what we need to do is look in and ask the Father to cultivate a love for him and what he's done in our hearts, so much so that we are so compelled to go and tell it. So I'm going to invite up Aaron and pray. And we're going to sing Go Tell It on the mountain together. And we're going to mean it. Yeah? Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for Keith, I guess. Thank you for a Jesus who loves us so well, loves us so much. I pray that we would be so compelled by that love that we would go and tell other people about it. God, there's no easier time of year to spread the good news of your glory to our friends and to the people that we care about so much. So I pray that you would give us the wisdom and the insight and the courage to do just that. And that this season we would invite, we would compel, we would introduce, we would be courageous, and we would engage in conversations that maybe we're fearful of, but we know that we are so compelled by our love for you and our love for them that we want to see them love you. Help us to do that, Father. In Jesus' name, amen.

You don't even like the pack. What are you talking about? Of course, you're the most obnoxious in the room when your team's not even NC State. For those that don't understand what's happening right now, maybe you're new to the church and this doesn't make any sense to you. I'm a Georgia Tech fan. I grew up in Atlanta. Thank you. Yeah, good. My lone friends in the room. And listen, I will be the first to admit that over the years, I've been the pastor for eight years. I've given a lot of crud to the pack. I've made a lot of jokes. And even my Georgia Tech friends was like, you should open up with a joke at NC State's expense. I'm not even going to repeat the joke because I don't want to make it because it's dishonorable. I lost a bet with John Massey. John, raise your hand. He's the hero of the church. Yeah, there we go. He was going to have to usher in my Georgia Tech sweater this morning, except we lost. And so now I'm preaching in this. And I want you to know that more neutral things were offered to me. And I said, no, I want maximum red. I want a big logo. It needs to be as obnoxious as possible. I want to pay my bets. But that's what I'm doing. Here's the funny part about the bet. My wife wasn't here this morning when I got the options. I was brought some options, and I wanted to choose the most obnoxious. And so I grabbed Michelle, who's doing our announcements this morning morning and is just overall an untrustworthy person and I And I called her out to the lobby and I said before the service started and I said Michelle you need to be my wife this morning Jen's not here. She can't tell me do I look too fat in this and she said you look great and I told Jen I think she was lying to me and she's furthering my humiliation and having to wear this. But to my NC State friends, great game, wonderful atmosphere. We went to the game last night, and congratulations. That was a good win for you guys. This morning, we will continue with Daniel. I feel like stopping to pray, because now we're just like friends at a brewery talking about a football game. So let's do that. Let me just stop to pray to reset our mindset and then we'll dive into Daniel. Let's do that. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for friends and for fun and for football and for sports and all the things that unite us together. But God, we acknowledge that nothing unites us more than you. And so we pray that we would be united in you and in your presence this morning as we enter into the story of your servant, Daniel. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, I think I can start to preach now. Now, the book of Daniel is one, and I had shared this with you guys several months ago, that one of the things we did, we meet as a staff and we plan our series together and we just kind of go, where do we need to take the church? And I kind of went back through the last five years of what we've covered as a church and noted the areas of the Bible that we had never touched before, the really significant areas of the Bible that we had never touched. And maybe you could even construe that we were negligent in not touching those. And so we just wanted to include those as we moved forward. And one of the places that we hadn't touched since I started here was the book, excuse me, of Daniel. And Daniel is a really impactful, prophetical book in the Old Testament. Now, here's the thing with Daniel. I'm not going to tell you that I'm preaching through the book of Daniel because I'm not. Because Daniel's 12 chapters long. And I see some of you nodding your heads. You know the book of Daniel. The first six chapters of the book of Daniel are what we refer to as narrative. It's a story. This is just a recounting of the events that happened. The last six chapters of Daniel are prophecy. They're eschatological prophecy, which means in reference to the end times. And just between you, me, and the gate post, they're crazy. They're really hard to understand. So here's what I'm going to do is just not talk about them. We'll just let them be confusing together. And if anybody has questions, we can talk about those questions together. But what we wanted to do is focus on the narrative portion of Daniel and ask, what can we learn from Daniel's experience in Babylon? And this is an interesting series because we're going to do this one week in Daniel here and talk about Daniel and his diet in chapter one. And then next week we have a morning of worship that I'm very excited about. I love a morning of worship. And then we'll pick it up with Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who you know is Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And then we'll look at Daniel and the lion's den. But we've not done those stories together as a church. And I think that we need to. And then after that, we're going to start our Christmas series, the name of which I do not know yet, but I do know what we'll be covering, which is kind of the songs that we sing. And we'll be looking at Christmas carols and what they actually mean and where they come from some scripture. So I'm very excited about that. So that's where we're going for the rest of the year. This morning, we arrive at Daniel. And so let me give you some context for what's happening at this moment in history, not just for Daniel, but for the nation of Israel. And then we'll look at some passages in Daniel to orient us in the story. Big, big overview. The nation of Israel is brought by Moses and then by Joshua conquering the land of Canaan and they claim it. Then they establish a nation. And after they establish a nation, it's ruled by Joshua and then some judges. And eventually Israel cries out for a king. And God says, I don't want to give you a king. And they said, well, we're going to be a middle school girl, and we're going to hold our breath until our face turns blue, and we're going to demand a king. And then God was like, okay, I'm going to give you one, but you're not going to want it. And then Saul was the first king. And then David, who we know, we know his story, David and Goliath, we know David, was the second king. And then the third king was Solomon. Solomon was the son of David, and he was the wisest man that ever lived. But after Solomon, his two sons, Jeroboam and Rehoboam, took over the kingdom, and there was a civil war and a split. And then from then, the nation of Israel existed as kind of this third world country that never gained international prominence and always struggled financially and spiritually and militaristically and all the ways. Militarily, that's probably the word that we want there. And all the ways, right? And then, eventually, the dominant powerhouse of the time takes over. And so Persia, Babylon, comes and conquers Israel. And when they conquer Israel, one of the things they do is they take the best and the brightest. They take the Ivy League students and they bring them back to, and the NC State students, and they bring them back to Babylon, and they begin to train them for service in the court. And part of the deal for that training is we have developed, Babylon, this is their perspective, we've developed a diet that is going to make you maximally healthy and helpful within the court, and we need you to adopt this diet. The problem with the diet was it went against the dietary restrictions of the Jewish heritage and of the Jewish faith. There were things that Daniel and his friends, Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah, were asked to consume that went against their conscience and their faith. And so they found themselves at this crossroads where they're essentially slaves and they're being asked to consume a diet that goes against their morals. So what do we do? And that's where we pick up the story. I'm going to read you a lot of verses this morning, but I want you not to hear a summary from me. I want you to hear exactly what's happening in the text, and then we will talk about it together. If you have a Bible, while I take a sip of this water, open it to Daniel chapter 1, and we're going to start in verse 8 and go through 15. If you don't have a Bible, it's in the seat back in front of you. Starting in verse eight, here's Daniel's response to the diet he was prescribed. But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now, God had caused the official to show favor and compassion on Daniel, but the official told Daniel, I'm afraid of my lord, the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other men your age the king would then have my head excuse me because of you daniel then said the guard whom the chief official has appointed over daniel hananiah mishael and azariah please test your servants for 10 days give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the Okay, so this is the story of Daniel in Babylon. And we'll pick it up in verse 18 in just a few minutes. But in a brief interlude as we learn the story, and just so we recap that together, because sometimes when people just read passages to us, we kind of lose track. He's been put in this class of young men, my best guess is early to mid-20s to serve in the court in Babylon. And the king, Nebuchadnezzar, has left it to his officials to determine the best diet for these men to serve him well. And they've prescribed that to Daniel. And Daniel has said, please, can we not eat of that diet? Can we eat just vegetables and water? And give us 10 days. And in 10 days, you just tell us how healthy we look. Tell us what our skin looks like. Tell us how vibrant we seem. Tell us about our energy level and our sleep patterns. You watch us and you tell us how healthy we seem. And if we seem healthier, then let us just continue to consume this diet. If we don't, then we'll adopt yours, but just give us a chance. That's the premise of what's happening. Yeah, we understand that. Okay. So then here's after the chief official agrees to that, which was by the way, um, kind of him to do. Because he wasn't like, I could get fined or I could get detention. It was, if this doesn't work, the king will have my head. So it was high stakes. This is the favor that Daniel had built up by being a good guy. But he granted it nonetheless. And this is the story of Daniel entering Babylon is they said here's our standards of diet we would like you to adopt them and Daniel said can you please allow us to maintain our own and the results of that was they were healthier and King Nebuchadnezzar didn't find anyone else that could measure up to their excellence or their health. So the question is, as we read that as a church in 2025, what do we learn from that? And here's where I'll be honest with you in the challenge of the sermon this morning. This sermon, whether you realize it or not, maybe this is new information to you, but some of you, I suspect, already know where we're going with the content, which is Daniel and Babylon were surrounded in an atmosphere with different standards. We have to choose God's standards. What do we do? That's the sermon, and's what you preach. And oftentimes when I encounter passages and I find the cliche or the trodden path on which to go to preach it to you, I try to deviate and choose a new path out of respect for what you've experienced as listeners and churches before. But this morning and for this week, I found it important to just go ahead and tread the trotting. Go ahead and walk the path that has been cut for us because I think it's important and I think it matters. And so what I would have you understand this morning is, like Daniel, we are living in Babylon. Here's what I want you to understand. Daniel was a citizen of Israel. He was a Jewish man. He had Jewish parents. His lineage went back through the decades, maybe the centuries of Israel. And when he was taken to Babylon, he finds himself in a foreign land to which he does not belong, whose customs he does not know, whose rules he does not adhere to. He's an alien, a sojourner, and he doesn't belong there. And here's one of the things that I believe that Christians don't think about enough. I've made this point in previous sermons for previous reasons. But as Christians, we are aliens. We are sojourners. We are not citizens of the United States of America. We are not inhabitants here. We are citizens of heaven. Whether or not you understand this fully, when you decide to become a Christian, which is to faithfully acknowledge that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he said he did, and is going to do what he says he's going to do, then you transfer your citizenship from whatever country you were born in into the nation of heaven. And so if you're here this morning and you're a believer, you would call yourself a Christ follower, then what I would say to you is you may by happenstance be a resident of North Carolina. You may by happenstance be a citizen of the United States. You may even be one of those super cool people who are always a little bit pretentious about it that have dual citizenship and you have a British passport. Good for you. But ultimately, when you become a Christian, your citizenship transfers to heaven. You're a citizen of heaven and an alien and sojourner here. And so like Daniel, we are not residents of Babylon. And here's why this matters. Because what we see in the story of Daniel is that the Babylonians had standards that they had established, that they believed in, that they espoused, that they thought were good. And they took those standards and they said, Daniel, Mishael, Hananiah, Azariah, now that you're here, live according to these standards. And Daniel said with all courage, I'm not a citizen of this place. I'm a citizen of Israel. In our vernacular, I'm a citizen of heaven. Those standards are not my standards. And here's the courageous part. Will you give me 10 days to live according to my standards? And if they don't work out better than your standards, I'll adopt yours. But can I live according to mine? And so the very easy lesson here, as we look at the story of Daniel is, if it's true that we live in Babylon, but we are not citizens here, what standards of Babylon that everyone else is adopting, are we tempted to adopt? To fit in, to get along, to go along, to not ruffle feathers. I mean, one easy standard is in Raleigh, I should become an NC State fan. I will not. I will be a Georgia Tech fan. And I don't even like being a Georgia Tech fan. It stinks. I'll tell you that for free. But all kidding aside, our communities, our culture impresses standards upon us from Babylon that are not the standards of heaven, our citizenship. Our culture impresses standards upon us about what's okay to consume, what's okay to watch, what's okay to joke about, what's okay to say, what's okay to participate in. Those standards are presented to us externally from the outside in. And then we're challenged as citizens of heaven to just go ahead and go along to get along, get along to go along, to adopt those standards. But they're different than the standards of heaven. Our culture has different standards for us and for themselves. And I say themselves intentionally to make it separate from our culture as a church. We are not citizens of Babylon. We're citizens of heaven. But what I want you to understand this morning is that Babylon has some standards that we don't have. And let me also say this transparently and honestly to you. This is a hard sermon for me to write. Because I never, ever want to preach in such a way that I am convicting you and asking you to get on my level. It is always, here's my conviction as I interact with this text. If you want to enter into this conviction with me, go ahead. And so I'll be the first to admit to you. I don't get it right all the time with adopting the standards of heaven versus the standards of Babylon. Sometimes the jokes or the language that I'm willing to use on a Wednesday are not exactly what heaven would choose. And I've adopted the standards of Babylon. Sometimes in what I consume is not the standard of heaven, it's the standard of Babylon. And so I stand before you honestly and hopefully humbly saying, if you feel like you haven't mastered this, neither have I. But I've always said to you, let's not soft pedal what the text teaches us. Let's bravely encounter it together and allow conviction where it's deserved. And so what I would tell you this week is, for me, and I know some of you pretty well, so I know you're in this boat too, buddy. For you, maybe we don't do the best job of parsing out the standards of heaven and the standards of Babylon and making the choice of Daniel and choosing the standards of heaven. And so this mourning is intended to be a compulsion towards holiness, towards choosing to be like God. Holiness is defined as other, different, outside of. God is described as holy, holy, holy, because he is other, he is different, he is outside of, he is different than us. And so as citizens of heaven, we are called to be different too. And there are myriad texts I could pull from the New Testament to illustrate this for us. But the one I would highlight for you this morning is 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 1, where it says, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and soul, perfecting holiness out of reverence to God. We are called to be holy. We are called to live according to the standards of heaven, not according to the standards of Babylon. And that's what I want us to see this morning, is we are not called to live to the standards of everyone around us all the time. We're called to live to the standards of heaven. And here's a short aside I would say. And I've debated about this because this is a little bit more in your face than I typically like to be. So I'm going to say it over here. I don't know if you remember, but I've set this up in previous sermons as my reckless speculation box where I'm allowed to just say things off the cuff here and you can't get mad at me. Over there is where I'm actually preaching and you can get mad at me for those things, but here you can't get mad, okay? We agree? Great. Here's what I've learned in life. Here's one of the things I've seen. And I don't mean it to be critical. I've just seen it. You take it for what it's worth. The older you get, the more your life contracts. The older you get, typically happens, what I've seen, maybe I'm wrong, but what I've seen is your circle around you gets smaller. And due to that, your circle around you tends to agree with you about everything. And then all of a sudden, you've reached whatever age old is to you, whether it's 45 or 95, and everyone around you agrees with everything you think too, and then you all look at each other and you go, we've nailed it, and everyone else is dumb. When we do that, and we don't take in new information, and we don't learn new things, and we don't have other standards, we adopt the standards of everyone around us and we become subject to Babylon. Okay. Here's the thing about the standards of Babylon that's really, really tricky. On the surface, on the surface, their food is better. On the surface, what Daniel was being offered was meat and probably potatoes and some sort of curry. I don't know. It was Persia. There was something over there that was better than what we have here. It was awesome. And wine. That's what he was being offered. And he said, no thanks. I'd like green beans, Brussels sprouts, and water, please. He said, I don't want any of that. I want just vegetables. And so on the surface, the diet of Babylon is more attractive. And this is something I personally struggle with mightily. Part of my job, and Jen actually makes fun of me for this. Part of my job is to go to lunch with people. I don't even care what we talk about. Let's just go to lunch. You say whatever you need to say, I'm going to enjoy this nice meal. Part of my job is to go to lunch. And I go to lunch once or twice a week. And when I go to lunch, I love food. I love food. I love it. Last week, I scheduled a dinner with somebody at Coquette. Coquette? Coquette? I don't know. Coquette. All right, great. Brasserie. And do you know what I did? Like right away, like as soon as it was scheduled and I got some free time, I got on my phone, I Googled the menu, and I decided what I was going to get. I got the scallions. They were terrible. Don't get the scallions. Scallops. I didn't just get a plate of scallions. That's a great point, Linda. Also, I would just say, objectively, if there is an option for just scallions, don't get those. Not so great. But I like to look forward to the food that I eat. And when I go to a restaurant to meet somebody, I want to get the French dip. If you go to Winston's, they've got an incredible French dip. It's really good. And the fries are good. And you get a side of horseradish because you don't care about your heart or living past 60 and you dip your fries in the horseradish and it's great. But the wise thing to do is to get the blackened chicken salad, which is also very good, but it's still salad. Like it's still what rabbits eat. And I don't want that. I want the French dip. I want the steak frites, right? I want the buffalo chicken wrap with the homemade fries and the blue cheese. That's what I want. And so that is more appealing. But here's what I know. And let me make this point in my notes before I say this next thing, because I think it ties in. Just for the record, God's standards bring us true freedom. God's standards bring us true freedom. So I want to talk to that for a minute. God's standards bring us true freedom. Here's what I know. And I know this experientially. You may not know this and I'm not applying this to anyone, but here's my experience. Is when I, for three months, eat what's most appealing in the moment. I have the French dip or I have the steak frites or I have the buffalo wrap or whatever it is in the moment lunch is better also I need a nap that afternoon and in the future my blood pressure is higher and my heart rate is higher and my health is lower and my energy rate is less and my sleep is worse and my indigestion is more when I make the decision to have the most attractive thing in the moment. And what I also know from the rare times that I've been able to do it is when I make the wise choice about what I'm going to consume, that my energy level is higher, my mental acuity is better, my energy is higher, I feel more capable and healthier. And even, if I can just be honest with you, my skin looks a little better. I don't know who cares about that at all. I just know it's true. So here's my point. Babylon has more attractive options in the moment. But if we choose the wise thing, we're going to be healthier in the long run. If we compromise our morals in the short term, and we consume the show that we really want to watch, or we engage in the conversation that's easiest to engage in, or I would say this too, we engage in political discourse the way that the world does in the moment, it satisfies us in the short term. But I could give you example after example of ways to compromise our heavenly values for the sake of Babylonian values, where in the moment, it's more attractive to indulge in this behavior because it's less attractive to stick to heavenly values. But in the long term, what I want you to see is you will be healthier long term to adhere to heavenly values than you will to Babylonian values. And I don't think that there's much difference in this story about the long-term health of Daniel physically than there is about taking it and applying it to the long-term health of us spiritually. If you want to be healthy spiritually, if you want to be free spiritually, eat the moral salad now so you can have the energy and the health and the longevity later. That's, I think, what we learned from this. And here's the thing, and this is what I said I was going to speak to, God's standards bring us true freedom. I think that we think that if I live according to the standards of heaven and not according to the standards of Babylon, that I'm limiting myself. I can't indulge in that pleasure. I can't experience that thing. I can't do that thing that everybody else around me, all my coworkers, everyone else in my life, they get to do it. Why can't I do it? I should be allowed to do that thing too. And so we think that following heavenly standards limits us and limits our freedom. And so we try to be good soldiers and sign up for that and go, yeah, God, I'm going to live it myself and live a worse, less enjoyable life now because it's the right thing to do and I'm just going to sacrifice for it. And what's actually true is when I spend six months eating French dips, I feel like crud after that. And I don't have the energy. And I don't exercise. And I don't have the joy and the vibrancy of life. And I don't feel as up for wrestling with John, my son. And I don't feel as eager to lay in bed with Lily, putting my nine-year-old daughter down and listening to her talk about her day and the one time during the day where she's willing to share. Because I'm too tired. When I choose unhealth, I'm not as willing to take the phone call from someone at Grace who's going through something. I'm not as willing to make the phone call to someone who's going through something. And so what I find in my life, and you decide if this is true for you, is that when I make short-term decisions to live my life according to the standards of Babylon, rather than according to the standards of heaven, that in the long term I experience less freedom than I would have if I would have chosen heaven in the first place. Does that make sense? And so this story from Daniel that seems simple and innocuous, I believe actually has a lot to teach us. And it's simply this. You're not citizens of here. You're not citizens of the United States. You're not residents of North Carolina. You're citizens of heaven if you're a Christian. And we have different standards for health than our community does. And we think erroneously that choosing those standards offers us less freedom. And what we learn experientially and from the story in Daniel is that the greatest freedom is found under the standards of heaven and pursuing holiness. And that's what your heavenly Father wants for you. So let's pursue those. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for your servant Daniel and everything he means to us and what we can learn from him. Father, I know that there are ways and places in which most of us or all of us choose the standards of the place where we find ourselves versus heaven. And so I pray that we would be people who choose the standard of heaven and we would reject the standards of Babylon. Let us be healthier for it, physically, spiritually, mentally. Let us be better servants and followers as a result of those choices and give us the courage and the foresight to be people who choose your home, our home, over this temporary one. In Jesus' name, amen.