Sermons tagged with Empowerment

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

As we take a hard right turn into a Mother's Day sermon, I do like to acknowledge this on Mother's Day. Mother's Day is hopefully for many of us, if not most or all of us, a day in which we experience some sense of gratitude and some sense of joy. I hope that today is a day of joy for you. I hope that today you get to celebrate a mom that was and is good, that you have many fond memories of her, that she's an easy person to celebrate, and it brings you joy to be able to do that today, and hopefully it brings her joy to be celebrated. And I hope that your kids can celebrate you, and I hope that you can reflect on what it is to be a mom and the blessing that it is and all of those things. But I also know, in part because mine and Jen's story for a long time was that she desperately wanted to be a mother and she was not yet. And so every year this day would come around, and it would be difficult to go to church. It would be difficult to go to places where mothers are celebrated, and the celebration reminds you of what you are not. And sometimes the celebration reminds you of what you had but no longer do. And so Mother's Day, while being a day of joy, can also be a day of grief, a day of sometimes sadness, and a day of hardship. So if Mother's Day for you is difficult, first we love you and are praying for you and hope that Mother's Days in the future will be brighter. Another thing that I decided to do on Mother's Day a few years ago is I don't really do a Mother's Day specific sermon for a few reasons. There's only so many mother's passages you can find in the Bible. It gets a bit redundant. And the other reason is I'm not one, so I feel like having the room full of women and preaching to you about what it means to be a mother is a little bit, well, it's a stupid idea. So a little bit out of touch. That's what I was trying to think of, but stupid idea fits. But this morning we continue in our series, and I'll also say this amidst a long preamble. I know that at least a third of you are here not because you care at all about what I have to say. You were here for the babies. Everything else is white noise. So I'm going to go quickly for you and get you to your brunches, I promise. But I would like to spend our time today making a simple point that I do believe is actually in line with motherhood because we're going to be talking about the passage in Romans that says we should live our lives as living. We should offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. And I don't think that this idea of being a living sacrifice is imposed on any human more than it is imposed upon a mother. Because there is just this part of being a mom where you just give yourself wholly to your children. And so perhaps the understanding of this passage is unique and worth celebrating on this day. But the reason we are here this morning is because in the spring we went through Romans chapters 1 through 8 that kind of meticulously built the case for the gospel and our need for Jesus and established it as true. And so this series is called In Light Of, and it presupposes that you accept Romans 1 through 8 as true, that you've accepted God as your Father and Jesus as your Savior. So if that's you this morning, then this is for you. If that's not you this morning and you're kicking the tires on religion, then this is for you to kick and test out on your own. But I'm not preaching to you. We're just kind of giving you a glimpse into what we Christians believe and how we think we should live. And so this series is called In Light Of, meaning in light of the truth of the gospel. Francis Schaeffer, a thinker in the mid-20th century, put it this way, how should we then live? So in light of the gospel, how should we then live? And we've been looking at how Paul answers that question in each chapter of Romans 9 through 16. And this morning we arrive at Romans 12. And his answer to how should we then live is this. Because they feel low, and we're going to have to read the Bible in a minute. Let's jack those puppies up. Don't be scared. There we go. So Romans 12, 1 and 2 says some interesting things. It says, offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. I think that's an interesting phrase. And then it says, be renewed, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, not conforming to the patterns of this world. And I think both of those are pretty interesting because I think a lot of times, and you've heard this before, but a lot of times when we hear the term worship in a church setting, we think of what we just did where we're singing songs to God and that is worship. But this is the critical passage on theology of worship and what it means to actually worship God. He says, do it with your whole life. Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice. This is your spiritual act of worship because it's not just worship to sing to God, but it's worship to love others in the name of God. It's worship to love others, to give of your time, talents, and treasures in the name of God. It's worship to be calm when the people around you are escalating. It's worship to model to your children what it means to be a godly father or a godly mother. It's worship to sacrifice yourself for the sake of your spouse. It's worship to sacrifice your time for the sake of others. It's worship to give of yourself and to offer it to others or something else in the name of God because God inspired it and so you give. We talked last week about the fact that we don't serve God out of this crippling sense of ought and duty, but rather out of an abundance of gratitude. And so when we exist in a place in which we are so grateful for what God has given us and what God has done for us, it is right and good to turn that and offer that to others. And living in that sense of gratitude and offering yourself as a sacrifice is a holistic, embodying way of worshiping with your whole life every day, not just in moments where we would mentally ascend to the fact that we are praising or worshiping now, but living a life of worship is what God asks of us. And then he follows it up, Paul does, with, he says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, not conforming to the patterns of this world. And I think that's an interesting thing to put there because it's an implicit admission and what Paul admonishes us with at the onset. That to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, to not prioritize ourselves and to prioritize the others around us all the time and consider that worship to God as it flows from gratitude and humility because of what he's done for us. That's counterintuitive to what the world tells us to do. The world tells us, this is a phrase I learned years ago, it's cheesy, but it makes sense. The world tells us to get all you can, can all you get, and then sit on your can. That's what the world tells us to do with our life. But the Bible says, no, no, no, go serve others with everything that you have, with all of your capacity, go offer it to others at all times, and I'll take care of you and whatever it is that you need. And so doing this transforms and renews our mind to make us begin to think differently because the world says, sure, give to others. Sure, be nice. Sure, be kind. But you have to look out for yourself. You have to set borders and boundaries and take care of yourself. You're the most important person in your life, so you need to look out for number one. And there is a degree to which we ought to care for ourselves. But what we'll see, hopefully, as we move through is that by caring for others, we actually care for ourselves the best. And it runs counterintuitive to what the world would have us believe. And so this morning, I thought it was incumbent upon us to ask what a sacrifice really is. What does it mean to sacrifice something? What are the crucial components of that word? If I am to offer myself as a living sacrifice, what does that mean and what makes something a sacrifice? And I would submit to you this. You're welcome to disagree with me, just preferably not vocally during the sermon, but you're welcome to silently and mentally disagree with me. But here's what I would proffer to you. To sacrifice is to give something completely and unconditionally. To sacrifice is to give something, anything, completely and unconditionally. If we offer the sacrifice and it's an incomplete sacrifice, we offer part of ourselves but not all of ourselves, then what we've just done is we've retained control. And we've undercut the nature of what sacrifice is. If we retain control, then we've turned it into some sort of a bargain. And then we are unable, if we retain control by offering an incomplete sacrifice, we're unable to offer it unconditionally. Because when we offer a conditional sacrifice, that's called a payment, not a sacrifice. When we offer it conditionally, it means as long as these standards are met, I will continue to offer it to you. But once you stop meeting my standards, then I won't. If we give to a nonprofit, and I'm not assigning rightness or wrongness to this because there is some wisdom in this mindset, but if we give to a nonprofit sacrificially, but then that nonprofit starts to do things that we don't like or we don't approve of, then we withdraw that money. We're no longer giving it sacrificially. It's to bargain when we give sometimes. If we give in that way, I'm going to give to you as long as you meet my standards. Well, now that's a bargain. Now we're still retaining control. So something that is a true sacrifice is to offer it completely and unconditionally. And I found this to be true. I learned this several years ago when a buddy of mine asked me to help him move. And it was still in our 30s. It was loosely acceptable for this to happen. It was loosely acceptable because I'm not in my 20s. I'm not going to be lured with pizza and Gatorade. That's not like a great deal. Like come help me move, like sweat for four hours and I'll give you a sports drink and pizza as a thank you. And I'm like, I'll tell you what, I'm going to give you 50 bucks to try to hire a mover. And then I'm going to buy my own pizza and not sweat. How about that? But my buddy asked me to help him move. And I've asked people to help me move before too, but I have policies. I have strict policies. If I ask you to help me move, this is my solemn promise to you. When you come to my house to help load the U-Haul because I'm too cheap to hire movers, when you do that, the only things remaining in my house will be things that require either two of me or one of Zach to lift. That's it. Two of me or one of him, but there's nothing left in the house that I can pick up on my own. So that's my deal with you. And it takes like an hour, hour and a half. So my buddy asked me to help him move his name, um, for just, uh, anonymity. We'll call him Justin Wojak. So Woj was asked me to help him move. And I was like, yeah, dude, absolutely. You got me on Saturday. Saturday's yours. And I show up at Woj's house, me and this other dude named Rusty, who's now my brother-in-law. And Rusty and I show up and I don't expect that it's empty and there's only two man jobs in there, but there is a certain decorum, right? Like you should be packed. How about that? How about there's not stuff in your cabinets, but their house looked like it looks when you go, when you come home on like a Saturday night after a busy week and you've just been letting it accrue because you know, after church on Sunday, I'm going to get this clean and we're going to get ready for Monday. It was a disaster area everywhere, right? Like if our house looked like that, I'm just saying Jen wouldn't sleep for three days. She just couldn't do it. She would have to clean it. There's stuff everywhere. Like they said, can you help us move the playroom? And there's just toys all over the playroom. So I'm looking around and I look at Rusty and I go, dude, Woj isn't ready to move. He needs to clean and then pack. He asked us to help him come pack him. So I went to Woj and I said, all right, dude, listen, I was going to give you my Saturday. You're not ready for my Saturday. I'm going to give you the best two hours of my life. It's 10 o'clock. You have me till noon. I'm going to give you the best two hours of my life. After that, it's your responsibility to pack the rest and I will come when you're ready to move. That's the kind of jerky friend I am, but I said that for real and in all sincerity, and because he and I are good buddies, he was like, that checks out with your personality, and I did it. For two hours, I gave him the best I had. I'm dumping toys in the toy chest. I'm wrapping tape around it. I'm carrying it to the truck. I'm doing everything I can, but he was not ready to move. And so I thought I was giving him, I was sacrificing my Saturday for him, but I didn't know that it was incomplete and unconditional. Because when I showed up and he didn't meet my conditions, I no longer gave him six hours. I gave him two and I retained control by making it incomplete. I didn't really sacrifice anything for him. He didn't meet my standards. It didn't make sense to me, so I didn't give it over to him. It wasn't true sacrifice. And so when Jesus calls us to sacrifice ourselves, to live as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him. What he means is that every day we offer ourselves completely and unconditionally. Not incomplete and thus retain control, not conditionally and thus use a bargaining chip and expect a payment. Completely and unconditionally. The truth of it is we are called to live every day in complete and unconditional surrender. We are called to live every day in complete and unconditional surrender. Now, that is a remarkably high bar for what Jesus expects of us. Remember, the question today is in light of the glorious truth of the gospel, in light of the life and death of Jesus, how should we then live? Romans 12 makes it clear. We should live in such a way that we exist in complete surrender to Jesus every day. Completely and unconditionally. Now, as you hear that, you think to yourself, hopefully, I mean, not hopefully, maybe some of you are like super holy, but most of us normal people hear that and we go, I'm nowhere close to that. I've already lived selfishly today. I lived selfishly before I got in the car. And maybe you're sitting here wrestling with what is it even like to offer yourself completely and unconditionally because we'd never do that for anyone, for anything. So how could I possibly attain that level of holiness and sanctification that I can fully and completely surrender myself to Jesus every day. And then once you start asking that question, our brains typically do something like this. They typically go, well, it's probably hyperbole. But just offer yourself. Just kind of live with the mindset of a servant. And then you're doing it. We do this with the verse when Paul says at the end of Thessalonians, pray without ceasing. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean I need to be bowed and prayed all day long? No, it can't possibly mean that. It means to be in a mindset of prayer, just an ongoing conversation with God throughout the day. That's pray without ceasing. That sums it up. Meanwhile, there is a sect of monks in the 1600s who got so distracted from the fact that they couldn't obey that, that they started a monastery for the whole point of praying without ceasing. Now, the kingdom of God would struggle to advance if all Christians did that. But that was the right thing for them. But what we do when we see these incredibly high bars of holiness in Scripture, when we're confronted with them, what we do is we begin to soften them until they feel attainable. Right? God puts the target here. We're like, that's really far away and small. Let me draw a big one right here in front of me. It's like when you were a kid. I don't know if you remember, I'm a child of the 80s and we played duck hunt and you're supposed to stand back from the TV and shoot at the ducks. But eventually there's multiple ducks and because you don't want to fail, you're up against the screen just touching the glass, nailing those ducks. This is what we do with morality and holiness. It's like, that's really hard, but if I can reduce the standard and stand closer to the screen, then perhaps this can be easy and attainable. But here's what we do with that at Grace. Here's what I try to remind you of whenever we're presented with these high standards of holiness. It is not up to us to lower the standard until it becomes attainable. It is incumbent upon us to have the courage and humility and intellectual honesty to look it in the eye and understand that without Jesus and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we will never hit the target and then surrender to the impossibility of the standard, accepting that it is only Christ working through us that can even help us approach the standard. So we do not dumb it down and soften it up to make it more attainable and pleasing and make ourselves feel better. No, we see it for what it is and cry out for the empowerment of the spirit and the grace of Jesus and the guidance of the father so that one day we might move incrementally closer to offering ourselves completely and unconditionally every day. Now, how do we do this? How do we offer ourselves completely and unconditionally? And for this part, this is going to be a little bit different, but it was so good that I felt like it needed to be read and it needed to be heard. So I'm going to invite up one of our elders, Nancy Lasavita. Nancy has three sons. When she's done, I'm going to rank them according to how much she loves them based on private conversations with Nancy. I asked her, and actually, if you'll do this, while I'm talking, there's a Bible in the seat back in front of you. Would you please take that Bible out? And on page 1123, you'll find Romans chapter 12. If you have an app, use that. I've asked Nancy to read the whole chapter from verse 3 down to verse, I believe, 21. And we don't normally do that. That's why I'm asking you to get out your Bible and read along, because here's why. As I was doing research for the sermon and wanted to make sure I had a holistic view of these first couple verses that we're covering in depth, I wanted to know the whole chapter. And as I read it, I thought, man, they need to hear this. This is what it is to live lives of sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. And I know that if you're reading along, you're more likely to continue to pay attention. So let's have this read over us, read it along, read along with it if you can, and then we'll close out in a few minutes after that. So Ms. Nancy, please take it away. Thank you. For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, Verse 1. We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophecy in accordance with your faith. If it is serving, then serve. If it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement. If it is giving, then give generously. If it is to lead, do it diligently. If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Amen. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, it is mine to avenge. I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heat burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Thank you, Nancy. You should clap. There was like no stuttering at all. You had to hear the chapter. And I would encourage you to do this. If this sermon, if this message, if this idea impresses upon you at all, I tell you often there's no more important habit that anyone can develop in their whole life than to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in prayer. If that's something you do or you want to seek to do and you want to answer this question, how do I offer myself as a living sacrifice? Read this chapter every day this week. Just read this chapter. Let it pour over you. There's 14 sermons in this chapter and it still wouldn't do it justice. If you have trouble showing mercy, show it. If you're born to lead, lead in the name of God. If you're born to serve, serve in the name of God. Don't consider others lower than you, but consider them more important than yourselves. Be willing to associate with people who are lower on the socioeconomic rung than you. There's so many challenging things in here, but if you want to answer the question, how do I offer myself as a living sacrifice, this is how you do it. And I had a couple thoughts as we look to wrap up and we consider this task. The first is simply this. This is a high bar and it's incredibly challenging. And if you tried to do all these things at once, if you haven't thought about all of these things, if you haven't thought about what it is to offer yourself as a sacrifice every day, it can be a lot. It's like taking a cold plunge and having to sit in it for 12 hours. If you try to do all this all the time every day and go from zero to a hundred, then you will fail quickly and miserably and you will do none of it. So rather, the standard is the standard and we have to seek to attain it or be grown to it by God. So we don't want to back off of that, but we do want to be realistic about what we can do in the short term. And so here's what I would offer you. If this is kind of new stuff for you, you're not used to this, then pick one thing. Pick one thing. As I encountered this, I'll just tell you what my thing was. I do try to do some of this, but I wanted to add more. And one of the most glaring things that I see, and I hate to tell on myself like this, but maybe it'll be good for me, is I can get in what my family calls task mode. And when I am in task mode, there is no point in my life at which I am less interested in having a conversation with you at all, about anything. When I'm in task mode, I'm trying to get stuff done. And sometimes for a pastor, that's not a great mode. On a Sunday morning when I'm stressed about the service and I'm moving through the lobby and someone's like, oh, Nate, let me tell you about my mom. Nope. And then I just, I have important things to do and your mom's dumb. And then I just go, which is terrible. So I'm trying to hear that when I don't want to and go, okay, God, I'm going to offer myself to this. When I'm someplace, my friends who know me, I'm the king of an Irish goodbye. I kind of look around, I've talked to everyone, I'm going to get in my car and it'll be 30 minutes before they all know that I'm gone and they won't know how long I stayed. Now what I'm trying to make myself do is stay here and have three more conversations. Just stay here. What are you in a hurry to be at? Stay here and connect with people and offer yourself and see what you have to learn from this. Pick one thing. If you struggle showing mercy, pick places to show mercy. If you struggle to be personable and give of your time, make yourself stick it out a little bit longer. If you are a yapper and you just get your claws in people and you just talk to them a long time, maybe don't do that. Maybe let them go, you know, yeah, there you go. We usually don't do the flip side of that, do we? But maybe consider that inconsiderate, you know? Pick a thing. Sorry, I could go on. Pick a thing. Read the chapter. Pick a thing that doesn't come natural to you and allow God to begin to work through that. And what you'll find is it brings you joy. Last thing I'll say is this. We said at the beginning that this runs contrary to what the world would tell us. That the world tells us essentially to live selfishly and look out for yourself. And I will only offer you this anecdotally. But I think that there's actually more help found in giving of yourself to others. And here's how I know this to be true personally. I want to juxtapose two days in my life. The first day would be a day when my family's going on vacation. They're headed out of town. And that day, you know, Jen usually takes the kids at one point in the summer and I can't, I have to work. And so I stay back. And so this is how that day goes. I wake up and I'm incredibly diligent in helping the kids get packed and bathed and all the stuff like, let me help you. I'm just helping. And then they get in the car and I pretend to be sad and they leave and yes, sweet freedom. And then I like, what do I want to do? And if the bed is, if Jen made the bed before she leaves, I go and I unmake it because I hate that. I like getting just back into the bed. I don't want another chore to remove pillows before I get into bed at night. I just want to get in the bed. So I go unmake it. And then, and then I'm like, I know I'm going to want a steak later, so I go to the butcher shop. I get a steak and some potatoes or whatever, and I bring that back for dinner. And then I just spend the day doing whatever it is I want. Maybe I golf. Maybe I lay on the couch and I play a dumb game on my phone. Maybe I turn on an action movie where there's blood going everywhere, and Jen would be disgusted by it and say, I don't know why you watch dumb things. And now I don't have to tell you why, because I just get to leave it on the screen and do whatever I want to do. And I just do whatever I want to do all day. And it's a glorious day. And then I make myself a steak and I continue to watch something else. And then eventually I go to bed and it's way too late and I get up and whatever. And after, for the first 10 hours of that, that's great. But very quickly, I miss my family. And I've actually thought to myself, it is not good for man to be alone. I should have some responsibilities. And then there are other days, and these are more typical days, where I wake up and I'm a part of the school thing and I'm part of getting kids to school. And then I work and I do. And sometimes I'll go and I'll pick up a kid and take them here. I'll be home early because Jen has a thing and then you go home and as soon as I get home, Johnny looks at me, Daddy, you want to wrestle? And I'm like, no, I want to lay. But then we wrestle. We got a specific bed set up for it. We have to turn on sports while we wrestle because that's what guys do and then we wrestle. And then Lily wants to tell me about her stuff and then I'm helping with dinner or helping with the. And then Jen might look at me and go, hey, do you want to go on a walk? And I'll go, yeah. And then we go on a walk. And then you get the kids down and you sing and you do the things. And then one gets up and you put them back into bed. And then at the end of the day, it's quiet. You can talk to your spouse. And I go to bed. Do you know on which day I go to bed happier? The second one. Have you ever had those days where you can just do whatever you want all day and you don't think about anyone but yourself? When you put your head on the pillow at night, how happy are you? Because I know for me, after a day and a half of that, I always kind of look around and go, I feel down. I don't want to do anything because I've been serving myself. That's empty. That offers nothing. It's the days in which I've been poured out like a drink offering and given of myself, whether I wanted to or not, that I go to bed with the most earned tired and the greatest joy and the most optimism for what tomorrow can be. Offer yourselves as living sacrifices. Find small ways to begin to do it as God sanctifies you towards the bar. And what you will find at the end of those days is greater joy and greater satisfaction and greater optimism for what you can do the next day. Last thought. What if, thinking about the kids that were up here today and the kids that are over there waiting for me to wrap up. What if the children of grace got this, get this before we do? Because we did. What if you figure out now that this is the way to live? And because you figure it out now, the kids who are over there see it in you and get it way before you ever did. And you model for them what it is to live as a sacrifice and they grow up knowing that. How much more will that generation be used than our generation? How much more can we impact through legacy by getting this now? So grace, happy Mother's Day. Moms already understand how to live as living sacrifices. Now let's all of us do it for God. Pick one thing and grow towards the bar. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for the kids and the families that are represented here and everything that you're doing in and through them. God, I pray that we would raise ourselves and our view to this standard so that we might be used by you as we sacrifice for others. Let us experience the joy of pouring ourselves out. In Jesus' name, amen.

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

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

Well, good morning, Grace. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here, and every now and again, as your pastor, and as a part of Grace, I just kind of get overwhelmed at how good God is to us. So this isn't the sermon, but one of my favorite parts about communion is just getting to see everybody walk by, and I get to know names and stories. And Jen commented to me, we've got about five very pregnant girls in the church right now. And each of those babies was prayed for fervently and is being prayed over. And what a blessing it is to see that happening. Bert, I'm about to start crying. If you could get me some tissues from the coffee bar, that would be great. I'm being serious, Bert. Snap to it, please. We've got folks in the church fighting cancer with relentless faith, recovering from strokes with faith. We've got faces, thank you, sir, that I'm happy to see every week, including birds. We've got tremendous friends and friendships and communities. And we are just tremendously blessed. We are chock full in our children's spaces. We are parking people at big lots. And it's just an exciting time to be a part of grace. And it's also a humbling time to be a part of grace in this community. So I just wanted to express that and hope that you feel it too. I also wanted to pray at the beginning of my sermon, so this kind of works out, because we've got a team going to Mexico Saturday. How many years have we had a relationship with faith ministry? A lot of years, decades. We've got some really sweet relationships down there. Unidos, unidos. Right, Jeff? He's got the t-shirt on. How many people are going this year? Okay. So we're going to pray for them. We're going to express some gratitude for grace. We're going to pray for the families that are about to grow. And we're going to pray for those fighting hard through difficult times. And then I'm going to try to get it together and give you the sermon I'm supposed to give you this morning. So let's pray. Father, we're grateful for this place and this family. Me, maybe most of all, this morning. We thank you for the love that's represented here. We thank you for the young women who are about to be young mamas and the young men who are about to be fathers. God, we thank you for those in our midst who are fighting hard with faith through challenges that they did not foresee and do not welcome and yet embrace as a part of a journey for you. We thank you for the growth that we see in our children and our children's ministries. And we just pray, God, more than anything, that we would be good stewards of those young souls for the time that they are entrusted to us. And I pray the same thing over everyone else that calls Grace home, that we would take good care of the folks that you have entrusted to us. We lift up our team going to Mexico and we just pray that you would continue to further those relationships and that those who are going would be moved towards you and that those who are going for the first time would be indelibly impacted by what happens there. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright, let's try this again. Run the bumper again. Let's just do that for funsies. I'm being serious. Do it. I'm going to mute my mic and blow my nose, and then we're going to have like an actual sermon. All right? Thank you. Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. This morning we are finishing up our series called The Traits of Grace where we're answering the question, if you're a partner of grace, which we don't have partners, we have members. We walked through that for a week. So if you're confused, you can listen to that sermon. If you're a partner of grace, this is what we want you to become. This is what we're trying to build you into. If you were to ask what should define someone who's been a partner of grace for many years, it would be these five traits that we've been walking through for the last five weeks. And so this week we arrive at what I believe to be the ultimate trait of a partner of grace. I think all the other traits build to this one. And so I'm just going to come right out the gates with it. If you're taking notes, you can write this down. At Grace, we are kingdom builders. At Grace, we are kingdom builders. We've got these five traits now emblazoned on the wall over the glass doors and the windows out in the lobby. As you walk out the center door, the one in the dead center on purpose is kingdom builders. This is something that we want every person at Grace to become. And this idea of being kingdom builders began to germinate for me about a decade ago in a staff meeting at my previous church called Greystone Church. Greystone is a church in suburban Atlanta. It's one of these kind of big multi-campus churches where you get simulcast out to multiple campuses when you preach, that kind of deal. And we took a staff retreat down to a lake house. And there's about 25 or 30 of us. And we're sitting in this brainstorming session where the lead pastor, Jonathan, who in many ways has been very gracious with me over the years. We're sitting in this brainstorming meeting where he's asking this question about Greystone. What defines people at our church? What do we want to instill in them? What defines us as people? What's in our DNA? And I kind of broke in and raised my hand and I said, I think we need to build a church of kingdom builders. And I kind of explained why I thought that, which is going to be some of the things that I explain to you in a minute. And Jonathan, like he listened to me. He was kind. He goes, yeah, that's great. That is super important. And then he didn't write it on the whiteboard. And I don't know if you've been in those meetings, those brainstorming meetings where you have an idea, you feel like it's a good idea, you say it, and whoever's in charge of the meeting goes, that is good. That is very good. Thank you so much for sharing that. Does anybody else have any ideas? And it doesn't go on the whiteboard. And when that happens, it's infuriating. And I know because I watch my staff get angry with me when I don't put their ideas on the whiteboard. When you do that, it hurts a little bit. So I thought maybe he didn't understand me right. So a few minutes later, I kind of approach it in a different way. You know, I'm nothing if not persistent. And he's like, yes, that's a good idea. Not right now. And then we move on again. And I thought maybe, I know, I know what'll do it. And so I explained it in a different way and because this is a Mike Tomlin's he's a coach of the Steelers he says that young young people getting involved in their profession have all the ideas and none of the responsibility that was me I had all the ideas and have any of the responsibility of execution so I mentioned it again until finally he said, Nate, we've heard you. It's a great idea. That's not going to work with what we're doing. We don't need to talk about that anymore. Okay. That's kind of what it takes sometimes for me to hear you. So I said, okay. But I couldn't let go of this idea that this seems so clear to me. And then about, I would say, seven years after that, I'm in a meeting at my church with my staff asking the same question. What are the traits of grace? What's important to us? What do we want to produce and who do we want to become? And I hadn't thought about it in a while, but it occurred to me. And so I said, hey, I just want to throw this out there. I think we were meant to be kingdom builders. And I explained why. And the staff responded enthusiastically. Yeah, that's good. Put that up there. And I know that often when there's someone leading a meeting and there's people who work for that person, that they are incented to support the ideas of that person. So that might not be authentic. But I will also tell you, and Aaron Gibson's in here somewhere. He will tell you if I'm lying, that sometimes I present ideas in staff meetings and it's just met with crickets. Just uncomfortable silence because no one wants to tell me it's a bad idea. And I go, okay, that didn't get any traction. We won't do that one. So I do feel like I can trust him. And then I presented it to the elders and the elders liked it too. So that became one of our traits, kingdom builders. Then maybe about a year after that, I was in a conversation that I believe I've told you guys about before with someone who was going to become a very good friend. And this guy was pressing me on grace and on my leadership. And he was saying, what do you want for grace? What do you want grace to be? What do you want to be true of grace in five years, ten years? What's your vision for grace? What's your vision for your leadership? What do you want to be true of you? What do you want to be true of you in five years, ten years? And I answered by saying, well, I've had these experiences in the past and I don't want to replicate those for people who work with me or for people who come to church with me. I've seen church do these things. I don't want to do those things. And after a while, he stopped me and he said, I've heard a lot about what you don't want to be, but I have no idea what you do want to be. And I realized in that moment that I had really never had a greater vision for grace than simply being healthy. And that grace required a greater vision than that. So I chewed on that for months. And finally, I came to this conclusion that this is why this idea has been germinating all along. Because I believe that grace needs to be filled with people who are passionate about building God's kingdom. I believe that the best work that we can do is to produce people who want to spend their lives building the kingdom of God with every ounce of energy that they have. And really what I would say is I want to produce a church full of people who are or are becoming John the Baptist. I want to produce people who have the same mindset that John the Baptist had, who are becoming more and more like John the Baptist in practice. And here's what I mean. Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest man ever born of a woman, which means Jesus thinks that John the Baptist is the greatest man to ever live. That's an incredible statement and a remarkable stance, and it's worth wondering why does Jesus think that, and I think, I think that this is why. John the Baptist, about 30 AD, was an elite rabbi that was allowed to have disciples. So I don't know how much you know about Jewish culture and Jewish context, but at this time in history, in Judaism, the rabbis were the pastors. Rabbi simply means teacher. And there was presumably hundreds of rabbis in Jerusalem at the time of John the Baptist, but there was this elite class of rabbis, the best of the best, that were allowed to have disciples, and John the Baptist was one of these elite rabbis because we see him having disciples with him. And he had built, in our words, in our terms, in our context, a very successful ministry. He would not, John the Baptist would not identify this way or with this, but in our context, the way to understand him best is to say that John the Baptist was a very successful pastor. If he were a modern day pastor, he would be invited on all the podcasts. He would speak at all the conferences. He would have a large church with multiple campuses. He would have this huge ministry. He'd be a best-selling author. And listen to me. I don't think that anything that I just said defines true success for a pastor. I have a much deeper respect for men and women who humbly serve their community in the name of God, in the being virtually unknown but faithfully pour their life out into a community and manage to retire as a pastor because they kept it between the ditches the whole time. I have a much greater respect for those people, for those men and women, than I do for people that have skyrocketed into Christian fame. Not that I don't respect that. I just don't think that's how God measures our success as people, how big our ministry is. But by the world's standards, what I want you to see is that by every measure, John the Baptist was a popular pastor with a successful ministry. He was baptizing people. People were following him and listening to him every day by the hundreds. Hugely successful and locally famous. And then Jesus comes on the scene. And John the Baptist actually baptizes him in the Jordan River. And Jesus and John the Baptist are cousins. And just so we're clear, John the Baptist is different from John the Apostle. John the Apostle was a disciple of Christ. He was the disciple whom Jesus loved. He wrote John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Revelation. That's a different John. John the Baptist is the cousin of Jesus who paved the way for him and was prophesied about and who was eventually beheaded by Herod. Different Johns. And people started peeling away from John's church, again, crude language, but for us to understand, started peeling away from John's church and going to Jesus' church. And some of his disciples come to him, and they go, hey, you're losing members. People are not following you anymore, they're following Jesus. And this is John's response. And I think the heart of this response is why Jesus thinks John the Baptist is the greatest man to ever live. Verse 26, chapter 3 in the book of John. And said to him. And they say, John, that guy that you baptized, Jesus, people are following him now. They're leaving you and they're following him. And John the Baptist says, good. That's the way it's supposed to work out. See, John had spent his adult life building a kingdom, amassing a ministry, building a following, establishing a name for himself, becoming successful. He had spent his life building a kingdom. And then Jesus comes on the scene and Jesus begins to peel off portions of that kingdom for himself. And John's disciples come to him and they go, hey, this kingdom that you've been building, it's shrinking. And John says, no, it's not. It's growing. It was never my kingdom. Those were never my people. I was always just holding them for Jesus. I'm part of the bridal party. He's the groom. When he shows up, I don't get disappointed because everyone's paying attention to him and not me. That's dumb. I did a wedding yesterday and I'm in line to walk everybody in and the groomsmen are talking about, is it right over left or left over right? And I looked at them and I said, doesn't matter. No one's looking at you at all. John the Baptist knew his place. He's in the party. He's not the party. And so when Jesus shows up and his disciples say, hey, he's taken your kingdom. John the Baptist says, no. He's just claiming what's his. It was never mine to begin with. They were never following me. I was a conduit to Christ. I was never baptizing them in my name. I was always baptizing them in his name. And then he says that remarkable phrase, he must become greater and I must become less. That rings true in so many different scenarios for so many different reasons. And I would say in our life, one of our great challenges as Christians is to really understand what that means, that he must become greater and I must become less in every situation. So here's what I want you to see this morning. And here's why I believe this idea is so crucial and critical. Because I talk about people trying to build ministries, talk about people trying to build kingdoms, and I know that at least over half of us, if not more of us in here, we're not trying to do that. We're not trying to build a big ministry. We're not trying to build a big kingdom. We've got very humble goals in our life. But what I want you to see this morning is this. We are all building a kingdom, all of us. The question is, whose kingdom are you building? We are all building a kingdom. Make no mistake about it. The question is, whose kingdom are you building? Even if you're sitting here and you're going, my life is small. I have humble goals. I want to raise a good family. I want my children to love me when they grow up and want to come back home. I want to love my spouse and love and serve them well for the remainder of my days. I want to be a good friend to the people around me. I want to be a good part of the church that I love. We might have humble goals, but make no mistake, that's still our kingdom. It's a kingdom of safety and security and affection and compassion. It's how we leave our mark by leaving children behind us or a family behind us. So even if we have humble goals, we still have goals of building kingdoms. And oftentimes those kingdoms are our own. We're not building those for God's sake. We're building those for our own sake. Others of us are on the other end of the spectrum. I have a friend that I talk to often. He's a couple years older than me. He's like 45. And he talks about how driven he feels all the time. How even if he had the money to retire forever right now, he's like, I don't think I could just do nothing. I don't think I could just bounce from pleasure to pleasure. I have to build something. I have to wake up every day and spend time knowing that I'm building something that matters. He very much struggles with rest. He relentlessly pursues the building of his kingdom. And some of us have big lofty goals. We want to build the company. We want to build the ministry. We want to leave the legacy. We want to climb the ladder. We want to get to this position. We want to do this thing and make these impacts. Whether or not we build a kingdom operates irrespective of our ambition. Do you understand? No matter how ambitious you are or are not, you will spend your life building a kingdom. The question I want to put in front of you is, whose kingdom are you building? I would remind you of what Jesus says in Matthew. Do not put about it. Friendships rarely echo for eternity unless they're intentional. Family in and of itself doesn't echo for eternity. The company that you build doesn't echo for eternity unless you're using it for the kingdom of God. The wealth that you amass, the friends that you get, the power that you hold, the impact that you make doesn't echo for eternity unless it's for the sake of God and his kingdom. So God says, invest your life in things that will ripple throughout eternity. Don't invest your life in things that are buried with you. It's this hugely important principle. And it's important to me that you understand as I hope to compel you to consider what it looks like to build God's kingdom with your life. I don't want to talk about it in vague terms of building God's kingdom. I want us to understand exactly what it means to build it. To build God's kingdom is to actively and intentionally, this isn't in your notes, but you can write it down if you want to. To build God's kingdom is to actively and intentionally grow the kingdom in breadth and depth. It's to actively and intentionally grow the breadth of God's kingdom and grow the depth of God's kingdom. When we grow the breadth of God's kingdom, that's evangelism. When we grow the depth, that's discipleship. Evangelism, telling other people about Jesus, bringing them along with us. I tell you all the time, as much as I can, the only reason you are on the planet and not in heaven right now after you became a Christian is so that you can bring as many people with you on your way to God's kingdom as you possibly can as you live your life. So we're constantly looking for ways to expand the breadth and the reach of God's kingdom by sharing our faith. And in the South, this is really easy for us. You might think it's really challenging to share your faith in the South because it's saturated with the gospel. I actually think that makes it easier because I try to tell you, if you have friends or family members who live in the South and don't go to church, they don't claim a faith, I would be willing to bet you lunch that they have a good reason for that. It's not because they've never been invited. It's probably not because they don't have any experience with church. It's because whatever experience they do have with church wasn't good. Whatever experience they do have with pain and struggle has made them move away from the faith, not towards it. But if we went to your neighbors right now who are still at home, have no interest in going to church this morning, it wasn't even a thought for them, should we go? It's a Sunday for them. And you said, why isn't church a priority? They wouldn't be like, why is it what now? Why isn't what a priority? Why don't you know Jesus? Who? They know. They have answers. So in the South, if we want to be effective evangelists, our antenna are always up to have conversations with people about spirituality because here's what's really interesting in the Southern United States. Your explanation for why you're still in church. Your explanation for why you're still here. Your explanation for why you still claim a faith, why you've chosen to prioritize it, and it's important to you. And if we can have conversations not about, here's why you should be a Christian, here's why you should get back in church, but conversations about, here's why I still believe, here's what faith does for me, here's what I see and why I can't walk away. If we can have those conversations, we can start to open people's minds to a different church experience and a different experience of Jesus and their personal lives and maybe move them towards the kingdom of God and grow that kingdom in its breadth. And then as kingdom builders, we grow it in its depth. We grow the depth of the people who are Christians. We make disciples. At Grace, we call this being step-takers. Understanding that discipleship is nothing more than taking the next step of obedience that's been placed in front of you. And so we come alongside young mamas and we say, hey, here's what I've learned in my journey of being a mom. We come alongside young men and we say, here's what I've learned in my journey of being a father. We come alongside young divorcees and we say, here's what I've learned in my journey as a single woman or a single man. We come alongside parents. We come alongside young believers. And we walk them through that area of life and we grow them in their breadth, in their depth. So when I say, what is it, when I talk about building a kingdom and using our life to build God's kingdom, that's what I'm talking about, is using our life to grow it in its breadth and in its depth. We should go through life with our antenna up at all times, looking for opportunities to do just that. And this idea of what it is to build God's kingdom and how devoted we should be to it is really what the Christian life is. And the Christian life is a progressive revelation of this truth. It's a progressive revelation of what it means to build God's kingdom. And really, what the reality of it is, that that's the only reason that we're here. And I'll tell you where this started to occur to me and change the paradigm in a way that I thought about my faith. I was 17 or 18 years old at a summer camp called Look Up Lodge, and the speaker was a guy that really impacted me named Greg Boone. I can't remember if it was my first or second summer there, but at one point he wrote, he drew a circle on a whiteboard, and he said, I want you to tell me the things in your life that matter to you. Tell me about the different parts of your life. What does your life consist of? And so we said family. He draws a family slice. And then we said sports, friends, faith, hobbies, college, education, whatever it was. And so we kind of made this pie chart of all the different areas of our life. And Greg says, it's interesting that you made this sliver of faith. That's your Christianity. That's the part of you that's devoted to God. And we're like, yes. And he goes, okay. God's not interested in your slice. He wants the whole dang pie. And as adults, we do this too. We offer God a slice and he wants the whole pie. I bet if I sat down with you, just like somebody could with me, with no context, and I said, hey, I got a thought exercise for you. Can you draw a circle on a piece of paper? And you did that. And I said, okay, can you just draw up a pie chart of your priorities in your life? And could you try to make the slices proportional to how much you actually feel they're important? You know, we draw a big family slice, right? Some of us would draw a big church slice, big career slice, hobbies, interests, curiosity, whatever else is in there. I'd be interested to know, and only you know this, I've no doubt that virtually everyone in here would have a faith slice. How big would that be? Would it be a sliver? Would it be a huge chunk? Regardless, God's not interested in either of those. He wants the whole pie. He wants all of you. Do you mean God intimately cares about how I conduct myself in business meetings? Yeah, I do. I do because you're his agent in those meetings and through you should spread the fragrance and the knowledge of God. We should be salt in people's saltless lives. We should be lights in darkness. Do you mean that God cares about how I behave in traffic? He actually does. That one stings. Do you mean God cares about how I father? About how much I participate in church? About how much of my finances I give? About how I behave with my friends? About what I watch on TV and whether or not that helps me run my race and build his kingdom? Do you mean to tell me that God cares about what books I read and which people I spend the most time around? Yes, he cares deeply about all of those things. He cares where you live. He cares who your neighbors are. He cares how you carry yourself. He cares about your reputation in your community. He cares about everything, not just your church attendance and not just how much you read his word and not just how much you pray, but he cares about how you treat the person when you're on vacation that you will never interact with again in your life. That interaction matters deeply to God because it is indicative of your character and whether or not your light is shining and the fragrance is spreading. Those things matter to God. That's why I say that this realization of what it is to be a kingdom builder is a progressive revelation throughout your whole life. When I understood the pie chart analogy when I was 18 years old, I thought I got it. Intellectually, I'm there. And every year that goes by, I realize that God is asking me for more, that I've been holding back from him, that I've been considering my piece of the pie. And let me show you how powerful it is when it finally clicks with us, that we are here to build God's kingdom and not our own. I want us to look at Peter, and it's actually Gibson that gave me this point. I thought it was a great one. Think about Peter in the Gospels, what we experience of him. Peter was one of these guys that he was ready, fire, aim, right? Just the first one to speak. My dad likes to say about me, my family calls me Nathan, and he likes to say about me, Nathan having nothing to say, thus said. That's what he says about me. All right. Zach knows what I'm talking about. Nathan having nothing to say, thus says, there are those of us who are just wired, ready, fire, aim. I got it. I'll go. And we see this in Peter, which is why I love him so much. He's the first one. Jesus is walking on the water. Jesus is like, okay. Or Peter says, well, I'm walking on the water too. And he walks on the water for a little bit. And then he sinks. And everybody's like, oh, Peter doesn't have any faith. And it's like, you sissies are still in the boat. At least he got out, you know. Jesus says, Peter, I need to wash all of your feet. And Peter goes, you will never wash my feet. And he says, if I don't wash your feet, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. And Peter says, well, then don't stop at my feet. Go all the way to my head. He requests a sponge bath from Christ. That's the boldness of Peter. Jesus says, you will deny me. Peter says, I will die before I deny you. And then in his weakness, he denies him three times. Whenever Jesus would ask one of those really hard questions, who do you say that I am? And all the disciples would clam up and not make eye contact and please don't look at me. Peter was the first one to be like, you sissies, I got this. And then he'd answer. And sometimes he was right and sometimes he was wrong, but he was always the one willing to be out in front. He was always brash. He was always courageous. He was always the leader. And so we see flashes of this giftedness in Peter that's not directed in the right way just yet. And then after Jesus dies and comes back and finds a despondent Peter on the banks of the Sea of Galilee and restores him to ministry. Beautiful. He spends 40 days with the disciples encouraging them. And then he leaves. And he says, I'm going to go to heaven. And I want you to go to the ends of the earth and I want you to baptize them and make disciples. I want you to go. He didn't use this language, but it's our language this morning. I want you, Peter, to go and your job is to grow my kingdom through this thing we call the church in breadth and in depth. Go evangelize to the whole world and go make disciples of them. Grow the kingdom in breadth and depth. And then he sits in the upper room for 40 days waiting for the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes, he realizes what his job is. They go out on the porch. They preach. 3,000 people become Christians that day. And then we get this wonderful picture of the early church in Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47. And day by day, God added to their number those who were being saved. So now this movement is off. Now the kingdom has exploded. And the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders of Israel at the time, take notice of this. They're like, we've got to stop this. What are we going to do? And so they bring in Peter and John, and they put them on trial. Defend yourself. Two chapters later, they bring in Stephen to defend himself, and he becomes the first Christian martyr, and he's stoned to death. Eighty days prior, Jesus had to defend himself on the same charges, and they crucified him. So make no mistake about it. In this defense for what they are doing, their lives are at stake. They've just healed someone, and the authority of Christ, they are preaching the gospel of Christ, and now they're being put on trial in front of the Sanhedrin, and I want you to see their amazing response. Also, if you're looking at the clock, I'm going long. Suck it up. Acts chapter 4. You're going to see verse 9, and I'm going to start in verse 8. name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He says, it's on you. You want to know whose name it's in? It's in the name of Christ, that guy that you murdered. That's what we're doing this in. Incredibly courageous, speaking truth to power, completely vulnerable to the death penalty. They do not care. They're stepping. He is Peter. He's a leader. He is brash, ready, fire, aim. But now he has purpose and he's speaking with incredible courage. Verse 11, Jesus is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone. Salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. When they, the Sanhedrin and the people around them, saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished. And they took note that these men had been with Jesus. When they saw the courage and the eloquence of Peter that day, they knew we can't touch these guys or we're going to have a riot on our hands. So we've got to step away and try to play this a little bit differently. With his life on the line, Peter boldly proclaims the gospel of Christ and speaks truth to power. And what we see is these flashes of giftedness in the gospels where we get a glimpse into the character of Peter. Now he has a place to put it. Now he has traction in his life. Now he has understanding and context for, oh, that's what these gifts are for. And now he can use them courageously and fearlessly and correctly with efficacy to do his job and grow the kingdom in breadth and in depth. So here's what we see from the example of Peter. And here's what I want you to feel in your life. With the realization of purpose comes the application of our gifts. Each of you, each of you are gifted in some way. I know this to be true because the Bible says it over and over again. Paul talks about in Corinthians that the church is the body of Christ, and everybody is a part of that body, and everybody has a part to play. We're told in Ephesians, I remind you all the time that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them. You have a good work to walk in. We're told in Ephesians chapter four that we have the gifts of Christ, of pastor, apostle, shepherd, evangelist, or teacher. Every one of us is one of those five things. We have those gifts. And when we can match those gifts with purpose, we light the world on fire. When we align God's divine purpose for our life with the gifts that God has given us in our life. And we have the narrative traction in our life of a purpose that is larger than ourselves to build God's kingdom. And we look at our gifts and what he's given us and suddenly we have an alignment of purpose and giftedness and we understand for the first time why God made me this way and how we are to use those gifts to build his kingdom. We light the world on fire. That's when magic happens. That's when we add day by day to those who are being saved. That's when you get up in the morning excited about what God has for you. Can I just say to you that if you have noticed in your life that you've been spending your days bouncing from distraction to distraction and from pleasure to pleasure and you're walking listlessly through your days and you're not super motivated for what you're doing, can I just suggest to you that maybe it's because you're living your life, building your own kingdom and you you realize it stinks, and that what you need to realize is that God designed you to build his kingdom, and he's gifted you to do that. And if you can figure out what that means and how your gifts can align with purpose, you will never wake up again wondering how you should spend your day. You will know because you will be directed because when our purpose is revealed, we have an application for a giftedness. So here's my prayer to you. Here's my prayer for you and the prayer that I want you to pray. God, show me how I might be used to build your kingdom rather than my own. God, show me how I might be used to build your kingdom rather than my own. And here's what I really like about this being kind of the apex trait of grace. I'm going to say this and then I'll wrap up. As I was considering what kind of church do we want Grace to be, where do we want to push people, what's our heart, how do we want to grow, what's our focus as a church? You know good and well some churches answer that question and they say missions. We're a missions church. That's what we're going to do. If you're involved with this church, we're going to move your heart towards missions to give and to serve in that way. Some churches say next generation. We're going to focus on the next generation. We're going to invest in our children and in our students. And if you're a part of the church, we're going to move you in that way. Some churches say foster care and adoption. We're going to push everybody in that way. Some churches choose local impact and local ministry. We want to make a big impact in our community. And different churches choose different paths. And I have no critique for any of those paths. but as I thought about this, I didn't want to limit your vision for building God's kingdom to whatever my passion of the day was or whichever direction the wind was blowing in the elder board. We didn't want to limit what people should do with the giftedness that God has given them. If this means you need to leave and start your own church because you've got that fire in you, go and do it. We love you. We support you. If this means you need to move and start a ministry somewhere, go and do it. We support you. But if we can be your home base as you go out into the community and in the world and build God's kingdom, we want to continue to foster that within you and build a church of fierce builders of the kingdom of God. And that can look different ways for different people. For my wonderful father-in-law, they got a lake house. And I remember when they bought this lake house, they were like, we're going to use it to serve the kingdom. And I was like, I bet you are. Sure you are. What, are you going to pray on the boat? But every weekend, while his daughter was in college, 10 or more kids would come and they'd spend the whole weekend being fed and pulled around on the boat by, they called him Professor Benson. He was not a professor, but they were in college, so fit. And they came every weekend. And when those kids graduated, he got invited to weddings. And when they had their first baby, he got texted pictures. And when I had the chance to speak at his funeral, there was a row of about 20 of them that had traveled from all over the country to come pay their respect to John. He used that lake house to build God's kingdom. I know a man who's been successful in business. And he's taken that success and he uses that company to support people who spent their professional years in ministry and now don't have the means to take care of themselves in retirement. They're on the payroll even though they don't do anything because he has a heart for them and how they spent their life. He uses different people in his company to do the finances for nonprofits for free and they give away large portions of their profit, more than 10% to other ministries and he uses his business acumen to sit on the board of nonprofits and help them become effective in their ministries. He has a vision for what it is to use his giftedness to build God's kingdom, not his own. Or maybe, maybe what God has for us to do right now is to build up those children, is to patiently, daily, with consistency and godliness and grace, build the character of our children so that they might enter into the world with a larger vision for what this life can be and simply what they want to do with it. And maybe we can build the kingdom like my mom did. I don't know what it looks like for you to build God's kingdom. But I do know that it's how you should spend the rest of your life. I don't care if you're 85 or 15. Let's pray that we would be a church full of passionate kingdom builders and just see how God lights the world on fire around us. Let's pray. Father, thank you for imbuing us with purpose. Thank you for giving us something to live for that's bigger than ourselves. God, I pray that we would each have a passionate vision of what it is to be used by you, no matter how big or how small that vision might be. Lord, show us how we can use the gifts that you've given us to have a metamorphosis like Peter, where we see these flashes of our giftedness and how you've created us. But God, then we get some traction with some purpose, and our gifts align with that. Let us experience what it is to wake up every day excited to be used by you. And God, where we are building our own kingdoms, we repent and we apologize. And we ask you to help us, reorient us towards your kingdom. We pray all these things in your son's name. Amen.