Sermons tagged with Discipleship

Grace, good morning. This is a really special morning because we have the founding pastor of Grace, Craig Holliday, who's going to be sharing with us for the sermon. In 2017, when I came to Grace, I reached out to Craig because he was the founding pastor and I wanted to learn more about his experience and his relationship with Grace. And from the very start, he's been so gracious to me and so kind. He began to come back to Grace and refer to me as his pastor, which is incredibly flattering and generous of him. He said he wanted to help in any way that he could, served as a greeter and an usher, and I've always been so humbled by his participation in Grace. Back in March of 2020, he was scheduled to share with us and preach his first sermon back since leaving Grace, and I was so excited for that, and then COVID hit, and then the son of a gun moved to Costa Rica, which wouldn't we all love to move to Costa Rica? And several weeks ago, I was talking to Craig, and I realized that I was going to be out of town this weekend, and there would be an opportunity for someone to to speak in my stead and I thought it would be a great chance for Craig to come back and share his heart with us. So I've asked him to share his heart for Grace and his experiences that he's had and his heart for what he hopes happens at Grace in the future. So I'm really excited for you guys to get to hear from Craig. I'm excited to watch it. I hope it blesses you. I know it will bless me. Let's welcome Craig. All right. Well, to say I'm excited is an understatement. I remember back 27 years ago was the first time I stood to preach in front of this congregation, and I was excited then, and I'm just as excited today. Nate asked me to speak a couple of weeks ago. He said, you know, we're not in the middle of a series or anything. I don't need you to cover a certain topic. So what I'd really like to hear from you is, why are you excited about grace? Why have you been excited? Why are you? What are you expecting and looking forward to about grace? And that was an easy one for me. It took me straight to the mission statement of this church. And we'll go into that in just a moment. But Nate has been very generous to me. We've had a great relationship. Actually, he didn't give you the full story then just a moment ago. I've been offering to preach for quite some time now. Yeah, been offering to preach. And, you know, he first got in town, and the church was smaller and didn't have the full staff. I was like, Nate, you know, I want to help you in every way I can, any way I can. I'd be glad to be a greeter, be glad to preach. And Nate thought about it, and he said, well, that's very generous of you, but I know that you haven't been preaching a whole lot lately in these last years. Well, they went through some times with other associate pastors and interim pastors, and now I've been here. Craig, to put it bluntly, they've gotten used to a certain standard. And I'm just not so sure after all these years you're quite ready for it. But, you know, maybe you can go preach some other places and get it back under your belt, and then we'll have you back. And I said, great, great. So a couple of years go by. I have another chance to meet with Nate and let Nate know, you know, hey, Nate, I have been getting to do some preaching in some other places and been really good. I'm feeling pretty good about things. I would love to fill in some time for you. Surely you need a vacation or a break or anything else. He said, well, I'm sure that you have probably gotten a little bit better. It's come back to you a little bit, but we've got this really, really high standard. See, it's not just me preaching now, but Erin Winston's come in, and she's been preaching, and well, I mean, you know, they expect a lot, and I got the picture. Got the picture. You know how this goes. Came along a couple of years later. Nate, I know I'm ready now. I'm ready. Don't you think I'm ready? He said, well, now I got Gibby. And so I just don't need you, Craig. I just don't need you. I mean, we've got three really high standard people. And, you know, I don't want you embarrassed in front of the church that you started. And I said, well, Nate, think about it this way. If you give me the chance to preach, at least then the congregation's going to realize just how good they do have it with you. And he thought about it for a second. He said, you know what? You got a point there. You're ready to preach. So here I am. Well, of course, none of that's true, but what is true is how gracious Nate has been to me. Many times when a pastor leaves a church for whatever reason, they go on and are at other churches because they don't want to get in the other pastor's way. And I had done the same thing for a number of years after having to leave Grace. And when Nate arrived, one of the very early things that he did was to have me to lunch and said, Craig, you know, enough time has gone by. If you want to come to Grace, you're more than welcome. And I can't tell you how much that meant because this is home. Always had been. No matter where I was, this is home. And so I'm glad to be back again, and I'm so thankful to Nate, to the church, to the elders, and to all of you for having me today. So what's so good about grace? As I said, I could start listing a whole number of ministries I could go through. I could talk about the children's ministry. I could talk about what happens up here in worship. I could describe for you a week of one of the mission trips. I could tell you about the Bible studies. There's so many things and people and events that I could tell you that excite me about grace. And of course, there's one hanging up on the wall out there, a picture of a new facility. What excites me about grace? I'm glad grace is going to a home. And by the way, just let me remind you briefly, you're not building a church. You're building a home for the church. That's just going to be the facility. You are the church. We all got fooled as kids in Bible school when they told us that thing, here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors, here's all the people. That ain't the church. That's the church. You are the church, and you're just going to be blessed by the chance to be in a new space to do ministry. What really excites me about grace is the right focus. Always has been, always will be, and that focus is Jesus. Is Jesus. Keeping our eyes on Jesus. And all the decisions we make and all the movements we have and all the things that we plan, keeping our eyes on Jesus. And in doing so, this church has made it a priority to see that first we want a commitment to Jesus from each individual person, for everyone to make an acceptance of Christ into their hearts, to grow deeper in that relationship with Jesus, not just to get saved, but to continue to grow and mature and learn as a disciple of Christ. And finally, in that same statement of connecting people to Jesus, we't help all of the members learn how to bring others to know Jesus as well. Whether that's directly telling the gospel story, whether that's inviting people, any number of ways, it's the entire church's job to multiply those who know Jesus. That was the Great Commission. Go into the world, make disciples of all nations. So our mission is connecting people to Jesus and connecting people to people. I want to take you through two Bible stories today of people connecting with Jesus and connecting with each other and see how they might apply to us. And the first one comes to us in the book of Luke. And I've got this up on the screen because for this, I'm using the New Living Translation. I usually use the NIV, but the New Living Translation. Let me just read it to you. A woman in the crowd had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding. She could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe and immediately the bleeding stopped. Who touched me? Jesus asked. Everyone denied it, and Peter said, Master, the whole crowd's pressing up against you. But Jesus said, Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me. When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble, and she fell to her knees in front of him. And the whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him, and that she had been immediately healed. Daughter, he said to her, your faith has made you well. Let's step back and take a little deeper look at this passage and understand about this woman who comes to an intimate, deep connection with Jesus. She suffered with bleeding, probably some menstrual issues for 12 years, and we learned in some of the other Gospels that she has been to multiple doctors. She's probably used up all her financial resources, and she can still find no cure. And for this woman in that day, it goes far beyond the physical issues that she's dealing with. It becomes a social issue. It becomes a spiritual issue as well. Because you see the law of Leviticus that was being lived out in those days was that if any woman going through that time was not to be around others, they were considered unclean. And so this woman, instead of being unclean for a few days or unclean for a week, had been unclean for 12 years. You can imagine what that means for her life on a daily basis, walking down the street with everybody knowing, moving away from her, no one to say hi to, no one to interact with. You can imagine what that does to her faith, feeling, Lord, you've left me in this position. Why? Why? And yet she still believed in Jesus. She had heard that Jesus was coming to town. The news had gotten around about the healings that he was doing, and he was probably coming to do more, and she was intent to be one of those out there to be healed. It says, coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. She knows the power of Jesus so well from what she has learned and heard and experienced that she doesn't even need to meet him. She doesn't have to have a hug. She doesn't have to even talk to him. She says, if I can just touch the hem of his robe, I'll be healed. Perhaps he's not wanting to get Jesus unclean either by touching him. If I just touch the hem of the robe, I'll be healed. What faith. And immediately the bleeding stopped. And when it did, Jesus says, all of a sudden, in a big crowd who have been following him around everywhere he's been going, all of a sudden Jesus stops and says, who touched me? One of the other disciples are like, come on. He says, look, we're packed in here like sardines. Look at all these people around. What do you mean, who touched you? Lots of people have been touching you. He says, no, someone deliberately touched me. It wasn't a casual bump. It wasn't an accidental. It was something that had been planned out, thought out. She, with purpose, had touched him, and I felt healing power go out from me. She'd heard about Jesus. She'd thought about Jesus. She'd acted on what she'd heard and thought and knew by reaching out to Jesus. When the woman realized she couldn't stay hidden, she began to tremble, fell to her knees in front of him. Here's the unclean woman that's been ostracized by the community. And Jesus not only heals her, but he goes one further step. He says, I'm not only going to heal you, I'm going to use you to minister right now. As the whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and had been immediately healed. And then Jesus does something beautiful here. He looks at her and he says, daughter, daughter, you won't find that word used anywhere else. It's not woman. It's not child of God. It's not Mary. It's daughter. It's that intimacy of you are mine and I am yours. We are one together. Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go. Go in peace. See, folks, when Jesus enters into our lives, he is about so much more than simple salvation. Well, I shouldn't say simple. He's about so much more than salvation. Jesus wants to be a part of every aspect of our life. His care for us goes into every aspect of our life. All the joys that we have, all the lows that we have, the highs that we have. Let me ask you a direct question. If Jesus were here sitting next to you and looked over at you, would he call you daughter? Would he call you son? Too many times we find that churches are filled with people who know all about Jesus but don't know Jesus. And if that mission statement of this church is going to be true, connecting people to Jesus, it has to start with the people who are sitting right in this room, the people who call Grace home, the people who are partnering and even watching online right now. It has to start with your personal relationship with Jesus. As I said, the woman in the passage had heard, she decided, she accepted, she acted. Now, I'm not going to go into all of this right now, but there's so many different stories and ways of how we come to know and accept Jesus. Some of you can't remember a time you didn't love Jesus. You grew up with Jesus in your family, and Jesus is just part of it. Some of you, like myself, had a dramatic experience where you're off at a camp, and there's an altar call, and you raise your hand, and it's a specific moment in time, and you get the goosebumps and all the things that goes with a dramatic story. Folks, neither one's better than the other. The question simply is, if asked right now, is Jesus your Lord and Savior? Have you made that known to him? I choose you, Jesus. Grace's church mission to connect people to Jesus has to start with us. That we don't just memorize the menu of what it looks like to be a Christian. We actually taste the feast and participate in what it means to be in that relationship. And then we have to connect deeper. We have to continue to grow that faith. The mission of grace about Jesus is not just to connect people to Jesus. It's also connecting us to each other in our deeper relationship. And there need to be ways and parts and programs of the church that help us do that. Because as we connect with other Christians, we're growing deeper in our own faith. My challenge today is for you to grow in seeing that your life needs to influence others to grow in Jesus. Whose life has changed because they bowed you? Whose life has been influenced to draw closer to Jesus because of you? I'm seriously asking the question. And for grace to be healthy, not only as it is now, but moving into the future. That's continually got to be one of the questions that is part of this mission. How is that happening? How are each of us doing it? If we asked your coworkers, would they even know you're a believer? If we asked the buddies down at the golf club, would they recognize that Jesus is in you? Whether you verbally shared it or not, Jesus needs to ooze from everything we are. Jesus needs to just be part of our being. So we needed our mission, as it says, to connect people to Jesus. The second thing that we need to do as a church and seek to do is we seek to connect people to people. As I've said to you, we grow deeper in our faith often when we're growing with others. There's so many ways in which being with other people is so important, and I'm going to give you another story from the Gospel of Mark about how important other people can be to our faith. Mark 2. When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room even outside the door. And while he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him into Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, my child, your sins are forgiven. But some of the teachers of the religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, what is he saying? This is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins. And Jesus knew immediately what it was they were thinking. So he says to them, why do you question this in your heart? Is it easier for me to say to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven or stand up, pick up your mat and walk? But so I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins. Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, Stand up and pick up your mat and go home. And the man jumped up and he grabbed his mat and he walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, we've never seen anything like this before. We'll go verse by verse, but let's pick up some of the highlights through that passage. As Jesus has returned home, it says the news has spread quickly and the crowds were continuing to grow around him. He's at a house teaching one day when this event takes place. He often was. He would be in people's homes and he'd be in common areas. And he's at somebody's house to preach. And the crowd has gotten so large that they don't all fit in the room. They don't all fit in the house. There are people outside the house as well. And in those days, the homes were made of stones on the walls, but the roofs were mainly thatch and mud. They weren't nearly as solid as the sides were. They often also had a set of staircases going up to the roof area as if it was a terrace or a big porch up top. So that's the setting where we find that this is taking place. And Jesus is preaching God's word to him. Now, off somewhere else is a paralytic. A paralytic who needs what's happening over there, but can't get there. Now, there's a part of the story that's here I don't know the answer to. I wish I did. I don't know whether he willingly went or whether he was being taken there against his will. But for however it happened, these other men knew what he needed and knew that what he needed was Jesus. Knew that what he needed was Jesus. And so they've picked up this mat and they've carried them over to this home where Jesus is teaching. They've likely gone up the stairs and then it says they lowered him through a hole in the roof. That had got to be some kind of scene. Jesus sitting there teaching and crumble, crumble, crumble. Jesus teaches a little bit more, and that side caves in. I wonder how many people started moving out of the way, thinking maybe this isn't the right teaching going on here. But eventually the hole opens, and they lower the man down to Jesus, where he says, your sins are forgiven. See, the man needed to be healed from his paralysis, and he was. But the greater thing that Jesus came to do was to forgive him of his sins. He needed to give him the full treatment. Jesus wants to enter into our lives and give us the full treatment and be involved in all the aspects and areas of our lives that need help. This is one of the few places where Jesus in this gospel is called son of man as a title for himself. Usually when healing is taking place, it's the son of God to say, you know, God has these miraculous powers. But they wanted to also emphasize that here, this person who empathizes with humanity because he is one, the son of man, the one who knows what it is to feel bad, the one who knows what it is to come up against struggles, he is the one also who is forgiving you and taking part in that with you. Our faith is not meant to be lived on a solo basis. Can you be a Christian on a solo basis? Absolutely. Should you be? No. That's not God's intention for us. God's intention for us is that we live out our faith in community. And there's so many obvious benefits of living out in community and reasons we would want to connect people to people. We learn from one another. We encourage one another. We may challenge someone. We may even feel led to convict someone where we see something going wrong in their lives. We're there for each other in a number of ways, and that happens in life without Christ, but even more so is it important with Christ that we interact with each other. Let me give you just another simple example of why connecting us with each other is important. I think worship's a lot better with people. Now, the singing gets better and better. I would take a guess that those of you watching at home online probably are not singing out with gusto during the songs. Anybody been at home and done that? I would bet that those of you watching online, and I'm not saying that's not a good thing sometimes, but I bet some of those of you who are watching at home, when there's a prayer time, that's a time you're shuffling around or grabbing something else. You're not really engaged and focused in. But when we come together as a community, worship is better. The singing's better. The praying's better. We feel better being around other people and other believers. COVID exploded online worship. And at the time, it was a great thing. So thankful we had it. But since that time, across the country, church attendance is down 30%, in large part because of people continuing to worship online. And what I want to say very directly to you, those of you who are here and those of you who are in that camera, it's time to get your butt back in church. Online is when there's something that prevents you from getting here. It's not the easy out, the easy choice. Come back and be a part of this fellowship. One thing that I want to highlight for you as what I see is the best way for us to connect to people and within our community is small groups. Small groups. I cannot say enough good about small groups. Those of you who have been in one or are in one know what I'm talking about. Small groups where you intentionally are getting together with a smaller group of folks and you're intentionally sharing the faith, you're intentionally sharing scripture and prayer, but you're also intentionally sharing life. That's when we can influence and mold and meld with each other. And I will tell you that this church is going to get bigger and bigger. Not only is it growing because of the health of the church and the great ministries that are here. When you open up the doors just up the street, people are coming just because they want to see what's there. This church is going to be growing. And that's nothing to be scared of. In fact, be encouraged by it. Because here's the truth, folks. In a given church or any community, you may know at best, I'm going to be generous and say you might know a hundred names. You might have a casual interaction with maybe 50 people. No matter the size of the church, you've probably got about 20 that you would call, yeah, they're pretty good friends. No matter the size of the church, you've probably got three to five people that you would say, yeah, that's who I'm tight with. That's who I'm tight with. Are you tight with three to five people from this church right now? If not, you need to be. Are you not only getting that for yourself, but are you giving of yourself to three to five people in an intimate relationship? If you're not, you ought to be. Our mission is connecting people to Jesus. Our mission is connecting people to people because people connect Jesus to other people. Life can be so fun sometimes. It can be so difficult at times. I've asked this question in years gone by, and I'll ask it again. If something, a tragedy comes, there's an emergency that happens in your house tonight. There's somebody who's had something they need to go to the hospital for. Who from this church are you going to call at 4 a.m.? And it can't be Nate. Who are you going to call? Who have you developed a relationship with that you can say, I need you to come over and keep the kids because I've got to take Lucy to the hospital? Who have you developed that kind of relationship when there's been a death and you need to say, I just need somebody to be with me. Can you come over? Who are those three to five that are yours? If you're not that tight with others, you need to be, you need to get involved and connected in small groups. Bible study is great. Mission servant teams, great. Worship teams, greeters, all those great. Do they make connections that are deep? Not usually. And that's why I'm saying to you, in addition to all that, small groups is where it's at. The paralytic man found himself in a position where he couldn't do for himself what needed to happen. He needed other people to get him to Jesus. I share with you this part, and I chose that parable because being a Christian does not take away all life's problems. But scripture says in your life you will encounter many problems. And I can think of several events in my own life. I had to leave grace when I became disabled from a neck injury and had some personal issues going on as well. It was not long after that that I went through a divorce. Add to that depression. Boy, was I in a whammy of a space. I couldn't get myself where I needed to be. But thank God I had a group of tight friends and believers from the church community who were there with me. Said, we will get you through this. We will carry you. And I'm going to tell you, it didn't make those things go by quickly. But I can't imagine having to have gone through those without a group. Part of my story that some of you know, some of you don't, is that I lost a son in 2019. He just turned 17 years old. People ask me, was that a crisis of faith for you? And I say, no, actually. From God's mercy, it was not a crisis of faith, and here's the reason it wasn't. Number one, I knew my child was saved. We'd had a direct conversation about that less than a month before. The second thing was that I know God's got the big picture and that he's going to get me on. But the third reason that really got me through that time, and you never get over it, you just get better, got me through that time once again was my community of friends and believers who were there whatever I needed. Sometimes even when I didn't know I needed it. They were there to pray. They were there to bring meals. They were there to let me cry. They were there to help me have a fun time and learn that it was okay to be enjoying life again. I don't want to end on such a downer, but I use it to say to you folks, this connect to people to people is real. Take hold of it for yourself and want it for others. Want it for the people who are already here amongst you. Want it for the people who are yet to come. Keep Jesus the focus. And this church is going great places, greater than it's already gone. What's so great about grace? Jesus. Let me pray. Father, I'm thankful for this church. I'm thankful to be able to call it home. I'm thankful for the brothers and sisters here who also call it home. It is a great church. But we know that before we can give ourselves any credit for that, it first and foremost goes to you, the glory and the honor and the praise. Before we can say it's because of this or that that we get good or accomplished or any particular program, we have to know it's because of Jesus. You've kept that the focus in the years gone by. I pray your blessing on the years ahead that'll be one no less than one that focuses on Jesus. In his name we pray. 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.

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

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

All right, well, good morning, everybody. Thanks for being here. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and if I hadn't got a chance to meet you yet, I would love to do that. Thanks for coming on Time Change Sunday. I know that we're all, our wagons are dragging a little bit, but that's all right. Before I just launch into the sermon, I do have a bit of a retraction to print. Last week, I maliciously and falsely accused my wife, Jen, of smoking a cigar in college. We did not agree on the story, and that afternoon, she texted her friend Carla, her roommate, and I know Carla very well, and she asked her to confirm her side of the story, and Carla said, no, I was there. You pretended and gave it to me, and I'm the one that smoked it. It was a black and mild. It was disgusting. So I was wrong. Jen, as usual, was right. She's at home now with a sick kid. So anyways, if you see her, let her know that her character has been restored. One thing that is true that Jen and I do, and I bet that you've had the same conversation with your spouse if you have one of those or you're a good friend or something like that but I don't know about y'all but for us every time the a Powerball lottery gets up but like a ridiculous amount like 330 million dollars or something like that like so much it gets so big that your mom starts buying lottery tickets just in case it's God's will that she have that money to use it for his kingdom. You know, that's how we Christians justify the lottery ticket purchases. But every time we see that, when we'll see the billboard or mention it or something like that, then what conversation do we immediately have? Right, nodding heads. What would we do if we won the money, right? So then we get to have that fun conversation, and it goes, by now we've had it enough times that it goes in some very predictable ways. Out of the gates, you know, you have to sweep aside, get rid of the practicalities. Like, don't tell me how you're going to invest it. That's boring. Don't be a nerd. Like, what's the fun stuff you're going to do? What are the extravagances that you're going to allow yourself? And it always starts small with us because we're trying to be humble because we're trying to be humble people. We're not going to be ostentatious. But the one extravagance I always lead with, this one's consistent for me, is a private chef. I want a private chef to just live at my house and make me food all the time. That's what I would like. Jen will eventually admit that she wants to get a condo in Manhattan. And those are our extravagances. And then I'll be like, and maybe, you know, I mean, the car's got a lot of miles on it. So maybe I need a new car. Maybe you need a top of the line Honda Odyssey. You know. You guys know that's what I want. Maybe for travel, we should just buy into a private jet, like a share, not our own, but maybe we'll just share. We try to stay humble, and then as we have the conversation, it just gets more and more absurd until we're the Kardashians, so then you just laugh and whatever. But those are, that's fun to do. That's a fun game to play. What would life be like if? And then you imagine this life that maybe you would have one day, and I don't know what you guys would do if you hit it big, but it's fun to play that game of imagining what life could be like if. But one of the things that we all do, even if you're not ridiculous like Jen and I and daydream about what it would be like to win the Powerball, what I am convinced of is that every person in this room, every person who can hear my voice, does have plans and hopes and dreams for their life that are real, that are substantive, that actually matter to you because they're actually attainable. This is so ubiquitous in our culture that we have a name for it. It's the American dream. People move to this country in pursuit of what you have access to because we live in a place where we are allowed to dream our own dreams, we are allowed to make our own plans, and we are allowed to begin to pursue those. And so everybody here has hopes and plans and dreams for their life. And those are less funny. Because I'm probably never going to have a private chef. Probably not. I might be able to hire one for ad night to make me stay. I'm probably not going to ever have a private chef. I'm not going to mourn that. We'll probably never have a condo in Manhattan. I'm not going to mourn the loss of that potential condo, but I do have hopes and dreams in my life that if they don't come to fruition, I will mourn that. If I don't get to do Lily's wedding, that's going to make me sad. If I don't get to meet my grandchildren, that's going to make me sad. If I'm not still married to Jen in 30 years, that's going to make me sad. So we all have hopes and dreams that we marshal our resources around, that we pursue with our life, that we intend to execute. And some of us are less detailed than others. Like I've got a good friend in Chicago, and they were as meticulous as when they were first married before they had kids, they moved to Chicago and she had an opportunity to get her master's at Northwestern, get her MBA there, which is an expensive prospect. And they basically said, hey, if we do this, and we're going to borrow that money, then we are committed to both of us having full-time jobs and using our resources to pay for a nanny. That's just how our family is going to be. And they said okay, and they executed that plan and they've done that. And now they have three kids and a two bedroom condo in Chicago off of Lake Michigan. And their plan now is in 2026 or maybe 2027, they're going to move to the Atlanta suburbs to be closer to his family, to be closer to his mom. So they've got their plans mapped out like that. And maybe that's how you do your plans, and maybe it's not. But you all have them. You all have, if you have kids, you have hopes and dreams for your kids. It could be as minuscule as the kind of job you want them to have. It could be as broad as the kind of person that you want them to be. If you're married, you have hopes and dreams for that. If you have a career, you have hopes and dreams for that. But we all do this. As soon as we kind of come online somewhere in adolescence and realize that one day our life is going to be our own, we begin to imagine how we want to build it. Nobody in this space doesn't have plans and hopes and dreams for themselves, however broad or humble they might be. And I bring this up because the passage that we're looking at today in Mark chapter 8, if you have a Bible, you can turn to Mark chapter 8 verses 34 through 37 is where we're going to be focused. As we continue to move through Mark, we arrive this morning at one of the most challenging teachings in scripture. It's this incredibly high bar of demand that Jesus sets on our life. And it is one that we may not even be familiar with. It's one that I am certain that we don't consider enough, that we don't come back to enough, that we haven't wrestled with enough. It is one of the most impossibly high bars that Jesus sets in his ministry. And what we see in that bar is this, is that God has a dream for you, and it's better than yours. You have hopes and dreams for your life. You have things that you want to see come to fruition. Maybe you want to have a long marriage. Maybe you want to have a good career. Maybe you want to be a generous person. Maybe you want to be a good friend and a good member of the community. Maybe you want to see your kids flourish. These are all good things. Very few of you, if any, have terrible dreams for your life where you want to go do evil things. I'd like to be like Vladimir Putin. I don't think anybody's doing that. We all have good things that we want to see come to fruition. But here's what I'm telling you, and here's what I want you to begin to think about this morning. God has different plans for you, and they're better than yours. All right? With that preamble, let's look at, bless you, let's look at what Jesus has to say as he's teaching the crowds and the disciples, and let's look at what this high bar is for us. Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Here's what Jesus says. He gathers the crowd around him. He gathers the disciples around him. And he says, if anybody wants to be my disciple, they must take up their cross and follow me. Now there's a lot about that statement that we need to understand. As kind of an aside to the flow of the sermon to where I want to go, I do want to stop here. And I want to look at that word that Jesus chose to use. Whoever wants to be my disciple must take up their cross and follow me. Whoever wants to be my disciple must do what I'm about to ask you to do. And one of the things that we've done in Christianity, in Christian culture and church world, is we've taken the terms Christian and disciple and we've made them mean two different things. We've said that a Christian is someone who's got their foot in the door. A Christian is someone who's going to go to heaven. They are saved. They are in right standing before God. They believe God is their father and Jesus is their savior. The way we talk about what it means to become a Christian at grace is to simply believe that Jesus is who he says he is. He did what he said he did, and he's going to do what he says he's going to do. And once we believe those things, we are ushered into the kingdom of God as a Christian. And then at some point in our life, if we want to begin to take our faith very seriously, then we can become a black belt Christian, which is a disciple. Yeah? Like, Christianity is like discipleship light. We've separated those words. We've made them two different things. I'm a Christian. Are you a disciple of Christ? I don't know. That's pretty serious. Let's not get crazy. And listen, you know I'm right about that. And here's the thing. That is not how Jesus defined those terms. Jesus never used the word Christian. They were known as the followers of the way for years after his life. We made up Christian. Jesus called them disciples. And that's what he told the disciples to do. The end of his life, the great commission, go into all the world and make disciples. Right. Not Christians. Not converts. We think Christians are converts and disciples are people who take it seriously and try to make more converts. And to Jesus, he says, no. You are all the way in being a disciple of mine, following me, becoming more like me in character, doing the work that I do, becoming a kingdom builder, building the gospel, reaching people with the gospel. You are all the way in, or you're not following me. But we've made it possible to be a Christian who's not a disciple. And I just want to point out this morning, it's not the point of the sermon, but I just wanted to stop here and point out, that's not how Jesus defined it. So if in our heads we separate those terms, then we don't understand them the way that Jesus does. And we should have to decide if we think we're right or he's right. But he says, if you want to be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me. Meaning, you must take up your life, you must take up your sacrifice, you must take everything that you have and walk it to Calvary with me. And sacrifice your life with me for the sake of the gospel. The way we say it here is you must become a kingdom builder. Quit trying to build your own kingdom. Start getting on board with building God's kingdom by growing it in breadth and depth. He says, if you want to be my disciple, it's not about getting in the door and becoming a convert. It's about taking up your cross, taking up your life, taking up everything you thought you wanted, laying it down at the altar and following me and letting me do with your life what I would like to do with it. And he says it. It's very clear. It's explicit in the text. For the sake of the gospel. And he even uses the term, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me will save it. Jim Elliott, famous missionary, I believe in the 40s and the 50s and the 1900s, died trying to reach some Ecuadorian tribal people who were cannibals. And he said, prior to that trip in his writings, that he is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. It is absolutely in keeping with this teaching of Christ. If you call yourself my disciple, here's the tax. You give up your life. You give up, listen to me, you give up your hopes and your dreams and your plans. You give up the career you thought you wanted. You give up the goals for your children that you created. You give up who you thought you were going to be. You give up your finances and your time and your treasure. And you set those aside. And you go, Jesus, what would you have me do with these things? Are these the things that you want in my life? Or do you want now to choose a different life for me? But that's why I say that this is an incredibly high bar. Because he says, listen, if you want in, if you want in, let me tell you what the tax is. Let me tell you what it's going to cost you. It's so funny. When I was growing up, I used to hear this phrase all the time. Salvation's a free gift. Can't be earned, can't be deserved. And I'd always go like, yeah, but it does cost you something. Jesus tells you. It costs you your life. That American dream that you have, you've got to give that up. That's what Jesus is demanding. In fact, what we see from this text is Jesus insists that we trust his dream more than our own. Jesus in this text insists, you've got to trust my hopes and dreams and plans for your life more than you trust your own. That's the tax. You've got to give up your own. You've got to let me replace my vision for you for your vision for you, and you've got to go. And you've got to get to work sharing the gospel for the sake of the gospel. That's what he asks us to do. And this is a remarkably high bar, particularly for those of us who come into faith as adults, or even for those of us who begin to take our faith seriously as adults, because the toothpaste is out of the tube. We're already down the road. We got a mortgage. We got things that we're responsible for. We already have our life ordered, and so it's a really difficult thing to hand our life plans over to Jesus and go, if you want to change them, if you want me to do something else, if you want us to go somewhere else, to live somewhere else, if you want to change the way I raise my kids and what our values are, if you want to change the way I'm married, whatever you want to do, do it. I trust you. And in a sense, give up our plans for our future. That's a really tough ask. I sat with someone this week, a dear friend who in the last several years, her marriage has just become really, really bad. Just really awful and hard. And it's to a point now where it's very clear that the best thing for her and for her children are to not be in the house with him. Because that's not a good environment. And that's a really tough decision to make. And as I sat with her this week, she said, you know what? I'm not even really sad about him. I fell out of love with him years ago. But I'm grieving the life I thought I was going to have. And finally admitting that I'm not going to have it. She sat in the playroom and watched her children divide up the stuffed animals, deciding which ones were going to mommy's house and which ones were going to daddy's house. That was not her plan. That was not what she wanted to experience. When she walked down that aisle, her hopes and dreams and plans for her life were to be with him for the rest of their life, to see their grandkids and go on trips with them together. That was their hopes and dreams. And so now she's in the middle of mourning what she thought she was going to have. And so it's, I'm acknowledging, it's a big ask, midstream in life, to hand over everything that you had planned for yourself to Jesus. And so you do with this what you want. And if that causes you to mourn something you thought you wanted or you thought you needed or you had marshaled your resources around pursuing, then so be it. But Jesus says, go ahead and mourn. Get it over with. Because we've got work to do. And it's here that I want to say this. As we listen as adults and we try to process this and think through it and how to integrate it into our lives, what do we do with it if we want to apply the truth? As I mentioned a little bit ago, the reality of it is that the older you are, the more challenging this instruction becomes. Until you retire, then it's like, whatever you want, Jesus, I've got all the freedom. At least that's how I assume retirement is. I don't know. But the further down the road you are, the harder this gets to be obedient to. You know, I think about Zach and Haley over here. I just did their wedding in the fall. They don't look at them. They don't know anything about anything. They don't know nothing. But they're also at the cusp of life and can respond to this in a way that has more freedom than the way that others of us can respond to it. So we acknowledge that. Here's what else that implies because we have a lot of parents in the room who are still raising children. You can get ahead of this. You can get ahead of them creating their own hopes and dreams for themselves. You can start to raise them, reminding them all the time, God has plans for you. God made you on purpose. God's gifted you to do things in his kingdom. And it's my sacred duty as your parent to guide you to those. I remind you guys all the time of the verse in Ephesians, Ephesians 2.10. We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we might walk in them. My most sacred duty, I believe, as a father, is to tell Lily and to tell John as often as they will listen, you are Christ's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, that you might walk in them. My sacred duty is to help you see those good works and walk in them. It sounds counterintuitive, especially for Americans. I don't want John and Lily to create their own dreams for their lives. I want their biggest dream for their life to be to walk with God. Hold me close and teach me to abide. We just sang it. I want their biggest goal for their life to be to abide in Christ. And that one day, when they get to heaven, to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. That's what I want for them. I'm really not very interested in them creating their own dreams. Because God has bigger ones for them that are better than theirs. And this makes sense, doesn't it? So I'll get there in a second. But to the parents, you raising your kids, you have a chance to get ahead of it now and to help them become young adults who know my life is not my own and God has plans for it and his plans are better than my plans so I'm going to follow them anyways. We can get ahead of this, guys, for the rest of us, as we try to integrate these things into our life. The problem is, that's exactly what we tend to do, isn't it? That's exactly what we tend to do. This isn't revolutionary information. It might be packaged in a way that we haven't thought about in a while, but it's not revolutionary information that Jesus asked for our life and wants us to live our life according to his plans. But when we hear that, trying to be good Christians who we don't yet know if we're disciples, we try to integrate Jesus' plans into the nooks and crannies of our plans, right? We try to take the life that we're already living and the path that we already chose. And then we try to work Jesus into those things so that being obedient to his word and choosing his dreams over ours doesn't cause very much pain. So we don't have to mourn a possible future. So we don't have to change a lot of things. So we don't get too uncomfortable. We just do a tiny little course correction and we feel better about ourselves because now we're giving Jesus this part of our life when that's not what he asks for. Take up your cross. Deny yourself. Follow me. If you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. If you don't, you will lose it. And here's the thing that I was thinking about as I was thinking through this. As we think about the idea of choosing our plans for our life or choosing Jesus' plans for our life. Your plans, I know this is a little whatever. So go with me or don't. But my hunch is your plans are just an amalgamation of who you were in childhood and who your parents were and who your friends were when you were in high school and college and you were developing your values. Your plans are just a hodgepodge of stuff that you receive from the people around you. If you had good parents, you wanted to be like them. If you had bad parents, you didn't want to be like them. And so that's at the correction of your life. If you had good friends in high school and college that had decent values, they pointed you in one direction. If you had bad friends, they pointed you in another direction. Very few of you ever sat down with a legal pad and research and wrote out a plan for your life in a thoughtful, meaningful way. Your plans are an accident, man. That's my point. Whatever you think you chose you wanted to intend, no, you didn't. No, you didn't. You stumbled into it by accident of birth and culture. But we cling so tightly to the plans and the dreams that we have for our life that were made by flawed, finite brains. When what Jesus is offering to us are plans that were made by a perfect, divine brain that sees everything all at once. And yet we still stubbornly and ignorantly choose our own. C.S. Lewis once said that the kingdom of God is like you're a child in your backyard. He said making mud pies, which I guess is what you did for fun in like the 1910s, is you're like, mom, I'm going to go play with mud. Okay, be safe. He said it's like being offered to go on a one-year holiday, on a one-year vacation around the world to see all the greatest sights in the world, and instead we choose to sit in the backyard and play with mud. Here's the thing about these plans that Jesus has for you, about his desire for you to spend your life building his kingdom, not your own. And here's why it's okay for him to ask him to give up everything you thought you wanted for what he wants, because they're better than yours. And Jesus is not a tyrant. He's not a dictator. He's not interested in making your life worse at all. In fact, we have verse after verse in Scripture that assures us that Jesus actually wants us to have a good life. One of my favorite verses that's in my office, I use it a lot, it brings me comfort a lot, is John 10.10. The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy, but I have come, Christ says. I have come that you might have life and have it to the full. Jesus wants you to, literally, he wants you to have the best life possible. Now here's the deal. He probably doesn't define best life like you currently do, but his definition is better than yours. A couple more, and then I'm going to make a point and we'll wrap up. David writes in two different places in Psalms. In one place he writes, better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere. And then in Psalm 1611 he says, at your right hand, God, there are pleasures forevermore. In your presence there is fullness of joy. Does this sound like a God who's interested in making you miserable? Does this sound like a God that doesn't have better plans for you than you do? Your plans are an accident. His are intentional and divine. Lastly, in Scripture, I often point out to you the Ephesians prayer, Ephesians 3, 14 through 19. We did a whole series on it last January. I pointed it out at the onset of this year. It's my prayer for grace and my prayer for you. And the heart of the prayer is that everything that happens in your life would conspire to bring you closer to God. That's the prayer. But I always stop when we go through it at 19 because you have to stop somewhere. But if you keep reading and you get to 20 and 21, you see one of the most amazing, encouraging little passages in scripture. It says this, it says, now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. To him be the glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. He finishes up that segment of the letter by offering the prayer to God, by him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine. I know it's a high bar for Jesus to set, to say, I want all of your hopes and dreams. I want all of your plans. I want you to sit down and prayerfully consider with your career if that's what I want you to be doing. Prayerfully consider with your finances, is that really how I want you to invest in those? Is that really the future that I have dictated to you, or is that what you want? Jesus asked that we sit down and we think through these very difficult things that the answers could potentially make us deeply uncomfortable. But here's what we know. He's going to hand you better plans. He's going to hand you better dreams. And here's what I know experientially. I would never ever pretend to be someone who's always living life according to Jesus' plan. I would never ever pretend to do that. And you may be thinking, you're a pastor. You've committed your life to Jesus' plan. Not really. I became a pastor because I wanted people to respect me and think I was cool. That's why I became a pastor. Just full disclosure, that came out in counseling like six years ago. I know that that's true. God has sanctified those motives. Now I don't care what you think. That's not true either. But God has sanctified those motives and helped me not do this for myself and for the sake of others. So I know what it is to not live according to God's plan. I know it very well. But I've been blessed in my life that there have been pockets where I did accept his plan over mine and I did live his plan for me rather than my own plans and I can tell you without reservation or hesitation or exception when I am living my life according to God's plan my life life is richer, fuller, better, more lovely, more wonderful, more alive. Without exception, my friendships get deeper. Without exception, my marriage is better. Without exception, I find it easier to get up and I'm more motivated to do the things that God has put in front of me that day. Without exception, I hold my children tighter. Without exception, I cry more happy tears and experience a fullness of life that never comes when I live by my plans. And I don't want to paint a falsely rosy picture here. You can live according to God's plans and experience pain. You can mess up and pursue your own plans that weren't God's plans, and as a result, you're in a ditch somewhere. As a result, your life got sidelined. As a result, you were in the middle of great pain and hardship. But make no mistake about it, that's probably not because you were ardently following God's plan for your life. It's probably because you're following your own and he's trying to get your attention. But those of you who have lived your life according to God's plans for even a season cannot deny that that season in your life was one of the best ones. And that those seasons are some of the best ones. And there will be pain in the midst of living according to God's plan. We do not judge the raindrops of tragedy because we're believers. But, on balance, if you invest your life following God's plan for you rather than your own, if you take up your cross and follow Jesus and give up your life for the sake of the kingdom, I promise you, you will live a better life if you do it. I promise you it will be more rich and more full and more lovely. I promise you it will be immeasurably more than you can ask or imagine for yourself. I promise you. So as we finish this simple thought, and then I'll pray. Jesus is asking for your life. Do you trust him with it? Do you trust him with it? Let's pray. Father, you are lovely and good and wonderful and we are grateful. God, it is a scary thing to hand our hopes and dreams over to anyone else outside of our control. But Father, I pray that we would trust you with ours. Help us trust you with our children, with our careers, with our financial goals, with our friendships, with all the things we want to accomplish, all the things we want to acquire, and all the things we want to accumulate, God. I pray that we would trust you with those things. Give us the strength and the courage to ask hard questions and to receive hard answers and replace our cruddy hopes and dreams with your incredible ones and help us be people who live our lives for you. In Jesus' name, amen.