Sermons tagged with God

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. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. If you're joining us online, thank you, or catching up, thank you for doing that. Clearly, you're all getting in your pre-Thanksgiving Sunday because you intend to skip next week. So let's make the most out of this week, and thank you for being here. As we finish up our series in Daniel, we arrive at the third very famous story. So in the first week, we talked about the Daniel diet, Daniel choosing not to eat according to the dictates of the Babylonian empire, but saying, hey, can I set my own standards in what we talked about for holiness for myself? And so we looked at that first week about choosing holiness and choosing our own standards. And then we had a morning of worship. And then last week, we looked at Abinadab, Mishael, and Hananiah, better known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and the fiery furnace and this idea of even if faith, even if God doesn't do what I expect him to do, I will continue to remain faithful to him. And now we arrive at the last famous story of Daniel, and there's more famous stories. The handwriting on the wall, that phrase comes from the book of Daniel, so there's other famous stories there, but Daniel in the lion's den may be the one that it's most known for, and so that's where we find ourselves this morning. And so as we approach that story, a couple things. When we plan out series as a staff, I kind of have an idea of where I want to go each week. And as we planned this one, I knew where I wanted to go with Daniel and his diet. I knew the holiness, choosing holiness in Babylon. And I knew where I wanted to go with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, even if faith. And I write up a document for the people who make the graphics and for the people who make the videos and for Gibby as he's attempting to assemble worship music around what we're doing. And I kind of summarize everything. And week by week, I'll give a summary. And for this week, I said, I don't know, but I'll figure it out. So I didn't know where I wanted to go with Daniel and the lion's den. And it's probably not where you think I'm going to go this week. Because there's a lot of angles that you can take. Consistent devotion. And I say all the time, the most important thing anybody can do in their life is to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in God's presence through prayer. I say that all the time and I try to remind you guys of that because I believe it to be true. You can go with character and what you do behind closed doors is who you are. You can go with when you're alone in the lion's den, God is still with you. There's a lot of approach angles to the story and things to take away. And I don't think that what I'm going to talk about this morning is the only thing to take away, but I think it's what grace needs to take away. And because I want you to understand how we're approaching the story, I want to tell you about two different conversations. One was with a friend of mine, a very good friend, who's another pastor of a church in Georgia. His name is Ken Sermons. For some reason that I don't remember, I called him Keith Hermans. And we went to a pastor's conference together, and I registered him for this conference in Orlando a few years ago, and I him as Keith Herman's and so he had to wear a name tag that said Keith Herman's the whole time which delighted me and then we went to Star Wars the Star Wars area of Disney World together where I had bought us matching t-shirts and we also happened to wear the same color shorts and there's a picture if you look at my Instagram of us in Orlando together and it I don't think at first glance you would assume that we were two pastors just going to a conference together okay but I remember going to that conference with Keith and we sat in the auditorium of the church that was hosting the conference and it was this big monolithic auditorium 3,000 seats stadium seating lights and camera and screen and stage and all this production and so many people in the room and they're doing at, at pastor's conferences, you have to do worship. Whether you want to or not, you have to stand and sing. It doesn't matter. They treat us like we treat you. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, sing this song, and then we're going to preach. This is what they do to us too. And I remember leaning over to Ken because his church is about the size of our church. And I just said, this is so far from everything I love about being a pastor. It's so impersonal. It's so produced. And there's no way as a pastor you can stand up and know the people that you're preaching to. Because it's 3,000 people. And I'm not critiquing those churches at all. They're serving a purpose in the kingdom. But as for me, I don't enjoy that. Every week, whether you realize I'm doing this or not, I call out names. Amel, Jeff, freaking Tom. I call out names. Alice Ann, hello, from Tennessee. Wonderful. Because we're a family. Because we're close. Because the way that I get to pastor you is familiar. Mayor Steve. I get to do that. And I don't want to not do that. And if you're a visitor here, I was told at my last church that when I preached, when I preached at my last church, there was however many people, 650, 700 people in the audience. And then we were simulcast out to three other campuses, two other campuses. And so I was told, don't say anything that a first time guest will not connect with. Don't use names. Don't say anything that they don't have context for. And I've just chosen a grace that I'm going to celebrate when Jan O'Sullivan and Ann Erb are here and they're with us and we've set out your special chairs for you that we set out every week because we love you. We're going to celebrate that. And we're going to be a family. And if it's your first time here or your second or third time here and you're like, I don't know about grace, just know we love each other. And as part of that, I'm going to talk to us as people and as individuals. So here's another conversation that I had. This one was with my dad. And my mom gives me flack because I talk about my dad more than I talk about her. So, Mom, Donna, I'm sorry. I love you. I love you. I love you more than Dad. You're far less annoying than him. Okay? But as we've gone through this building campaign that we've been languishing in for five years, we're going to have a meeting about it on December the 14th. I hope that you can come. I'm tired of it, and you are too. So let's see if we can't get to the end of this joker. But as we've gone through it, my dad has been on boards and has piloted efforts and campaigns to get buildings out of the ground for churches. And we've talked a couple of times. And when we'll talk, he's like, have you considered this? Have you considered this? Have you considered this? Do you need to do this? And he's giving me his advice and counsel, which is warranted because he has more experience than me in this space because he's done it a few times. But every time he asked me if I've considered this, I say, yeah, dad, we, we, we put a committee together. And on that committee, we have two career, um, corporate real estate agents. We have another career corporate real estate agent that we're calling on for advice, but they're not sitting in the committee, but we're talking to them. We have a corporate banker that is in charge of corporate loans at his bank, which is a pretty good bank. We have two general contractors who are advising us because they've done this professionally. And dad quickly realizes, which is very difficult for him to do, that the expertise in the room is beyond his. And at every turn at Grace, when we need to make a decision or we need to do something, what I realize is I'm surrounded by leaders. I'm surrounded by experts with influence. And one of the things, I share that story because then my dad says, how do you get all of these people to come to this church? And I say, I have no idea. I think it's the music. Or the children's ministry, which thanks to Kyle is great. Aaron's old news. This is wonderful. But here's my point. I have been aware of for a while that we have an unusual confluence of influence in this church. We have an unusually high capacity church. There are more of you per capita. If we were to go to another church and compare just per capita, what are your direct reports? What are your professional accomplishments? What kind of manager are you? What kind of CEO are you? What kind of leadership do you exhibit in your life at Grace? And this is just true. And this is why I shared the story of Ken, of, hey, that church is so far from what I want to be because it allows me to know you. And here's what I know about grace. And this is why I'm approaching the story this way this morning. We have an unusual confluence of influence here. We do. We have more people who are high capacity than if you were to just randomly gather 225 folks per week into a room. Our potential here and our influence here is outsized compared to that. And that's honestly, so what? Who cares? But it is also true. And so I want us to acknowledge that we have, I'm talking as I look out, I'm talking to many people who have direct reports, who there's an org chart and your name is on it and under it there are more names. I'm talking to people who have started businesses. I'm talking to people who have developed leaders. I'm talking to people who have been to leadership conferences and care deeply about that. And as I say that, that we have an unusual confluence of influence here, as I say that, there are some in this room who would check out and go, well, I'm a stay-at-home mom, so this one's not for me. Do you not think you're influencing those kids growing up with you? Do you not think you're influencing the people that you are in a small group with? Every person in this room has influence. At different capacities and for different reasons. And we find ourselves at different rungs on the ladder. But every person in this room has influence. I was, this is a funny right turn, I was on the streets of Istanbul in March with my friend Ru. And Ru had just done a session with Iranian pastors. Ru trains pastors who serve in countries where faith is illegal. Christian faith is illegal. And we were going back and forth on leadership and what it was. And we arrived at this definition of leadership. And those of you who have been to leadership conferences and have thought about it and have read books, you can try this on for size and see what you think. But here's what we concluded. Leadership is intentionally deployed influence. Leadership is intentionally deployed influence leadership is intentionally deployed influence it's acknowledging I have influence over the people around me I can impact the people who are here I have direct reports and I can influence them and this works vertically and. Maybe I have a vertical position where there are people below me and I can influence them because their job requires me to allow me to influence them. Or maybe it's horizontal. I have people on my team. I have no authority over them, but I can exert influence with them and through them. So leadership, I believe, is acknowledging that we have influence in different places in our lives and then intentionally deploying that to an end that we desire. There is the context that I want you to have as we approach the story of Daniel and the lion's den. Here's the story. Many of you know it, but let's review. Daniel was taken captive by the Babylonians, we assume in his late teens or early 20s. And he was put in with a group of other captives to be trained for service in the Babylonian government. And he served under King Nebuchadnezzar. And then Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by Belshazzar. So he served under Belshazzar. And then Belshazzar was slain by King Darius, who is the king of the Persians and the Medes, who took over the Babylonian empire and set up the Persian empire. And even if you have no idea what the Bible says about anything, if you're a student of history, you know that Darius was a big deal and the Persian empire was a big deal. And that's where Daniel finds himself. And so we find Daniel likely as an older man who spent his life in government service. He's been doing it for a long time. And when Darius takes over, when he kills Belshazzar and claims the throne for himself, he looks at Daniel and he says, you're good. I want to keep you. It makes me think of Jen's dad, John, who was a VP of something or other at Bell South and then AT&T bought them out. And every vice president except for John from Bell South got fired. And then they put him in charge of all the AT&T properties over all the world. He was on the phone at 4 a.m. one day because there was a flood in Hong Kong. That's what he was doing. He was the one guy they kept. And so Daniel was the one that got kept by King Darius. And there was, it says, the text says there was 120 satraps, which is a foreign word to us. We don't know what that is, but that's essentially a governor. We're going to divide up the Persian Empire into these different provinces, and a satrap oversees that province. And then over the 120, there was three satraps. And then over the three, there was one. And it says that Darius wanted to make Daniel that one. He essentially, in our terms, wanted to make Daniel the managing partner of Persia. This was a big deal. He had garnered and gathered a lot of influence over the years. He had shown himself excellent. And he wasn't just rewarded by the first king, Nebuchadnezzar, by the second king, Belshazzar, but the third king realized his talent and elevated him. Darius made him the managing partner of Persia. And the rest of the satraps got jealous and the administrators and the governors. And so they went to Darius with this ploy, with this plot. And they said, hey, for 30 days, let no one in our empire worship anyone or anything but you. And if they do, let's throw them in the lion's den. Listen, this is just an aside. Why do kings have lion's dens? What are they doing with those? Seems like a lot of upkeep. You need a zoologist of some sort. Probably a veterinarian. You know. I don't know what you have to do to take care of lions. But he had a lion's den. And they said, and it was well known apparently. And they said, if people don't worship you for the next 30 days, put them in the lion's den. And then there was an edict released. This is what they said. This is what they said to Darius. Just so we're on the same page in the text. Daniel chapter 6 verse 6. And satraps went as a, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered in accordance with the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed. So King Darius put the decree in writing. So they went to him with this ruse and they appealed to his ego. And they said, may you live forever. You're the best. Let's put in writing that for the next 30 days, everyone has to worship you. And if they worship anybody else, they're going to be put to death in the lion's den. Put it in writing so it's true. And he did. They appealed to his ego and he signed it. And it went into practice. As soon as the decree was issued, the very next thing in the story is Daniel goes to his house. He goes to his room in the city and he opens the windows. And he opens the windows so that he could face Jerusalem. And you may not know this, and I did not know this before I went, but in 2013, I had the opportunity to go to Israel. And one of the things I learned over there was that all of the temples in Israel are built facing the temple in Jerusalem, the temple. And there is some sort of orientation within every temple that exists on the planet that faces it towards Jerusalem. So it's a very Jewish thing to face Jerusalem where God is. At this time, there was still the Holy of Holies. It was the presence of God. And so Daniel opened his windows, not to show that he was praying, not to be bold in what he was doing, but because he wanted to face the very presence of God. He was a man of humble faith. And so he opens the windows and he prays. And the jealous satraps see him doing this and they go to King Darius and they say, your servant Daniel has refused to worship you. He's worshiping his Hebrew God. And Darius is in a pickle. And to his credit, he's torn about this. He realizes his decree and what he needs to do. But he also loves Daniel. But he goes and he gets Daniel and he puts him in the lion's den. And it says that he had a sleepless night because he was hoping for the heart and the health of Daniel. And he says he wakes up the next morning and he rushes to the den and he sees that Daniel is healthy and alive and intact and in joy. He says, remove the stone. And he calls Daniel out and he celebrates with Daniel, and then hear, Darius, Cyrus, Daniel persists. His leadership persists. His influence persists. And when I read this story to get ready to preach to grace, the thing that jumped off the page to me, and this is why I have this story of the conference at the beginning and what it must be like to preach to 3,000 or 4,000 people and how much I love preaching to the people of grace. The thing that jumped off the page to me was not to reiterate devotion, was not to reiterate consistency. It was the juxtaposition. Knowing that we are a people of influence, knowing that we are a high-capacity people that impact the lives of others when we leave this space. It was the juxtaposition between how Darius and Daniel used their influence. Darius used it to point to himself. They came to him and they said, oh king, may you live forever, which is stupid. No one lives forever. That's just a silly thing. The fact that your ego needs that is automatically ridiculous. But they said, may you live forever. And then they proposed that everybody should worship you for 30 days. What kind of a leader wants that? A sycophant. It's kind of unbelievable. But he used, Darius was a man that had incredible influence. Absolutely incredible influence. He was a leader. He had intentionally deployed influence. He was someone that impacted millions of people. And what did he use that influence for? To point to himself. Worship me for 30 days. And so the juxtaposition of Darius and Daniel, to look at Daniel who had garnered influence over the course of four different kings, four different reigns. I don't know what your experience is in the corporate space, but if you've had four different bosses, you know how difficult it is to ingratiate yourself to a different person after a different person after a different person and to be one that rises above that means you must be someone of great potential and so that's what Daniel did and then he had an opportunity to use his influence and how did he use it by opening his windows and praying and pointing himself towards God. And pointing other people towards God. In Darius, we have someone of great influence and impact who uses that influence to point people towards himself. In Daniel, we have someone of great influence and impact who uses that influence to point people towards his God. And so the question before us this morning is, how are you going to use your influence? With your direct reports, in your career, in your company, in your school, on your team, with your clients, with your children, with your family, in your small group, with your friends. You have influence. How are you going to use it? Are you going to use it like Darius to point people towards yourself? With your grandkids? Or are you going to use it like Daniel to point to God? How are you going to use your influence? And that question would be enough of a landing zone, but I think it begs another. How do we cultivate that influence? How do we become the kind of people who impact the people around us towards God? If we can acknowledge that we have influence in various lives and in various ways, and we want to use that influence, not like Darius, but like Daniel, how can we use it to push people towards God? And how do we develop more of it so that we might push people closer to God. Here's what I would say. Influence is developed by displaying character over time. Influence is developed by displaying character over time. Character, I've been told since I was young, is what you do when no one can see what you're doing. What do you do alone? Do you pursue God? Do you pray? Do you do the little things, the small acts of kindness to someone that you have nothing to gain from except to be kind to them. This influence in our lives and with the people around us is developed by small acts of character over time. Think about your workplace and the people you work around. Think about the people that you trust the most. Think about the people that you respect the most. If you think about the people that you respect the most, isn't it true of them that what you've seen is over time they make the right choice over and over and over again? They say the hard thing when it needs to be said. They do the honest thing when it needs to be done. The people that you respect the most, haven't they over time displayed character? And every time you display character, isn't that a little bit of money in the bank on what influence is? One of my heroes in my faith and in my life is a man named Israel Gonzalez. I can feel it now. I might get emotional as I share his story. Please excuse me. Israel is a hero of the faith for me. He's a hero in life. From about 2008 to about 2013, I got to take some trips to Honduras. And in Honduras, I met Israel. Israel is a pastor. And he's an immigrant to Honduras from Nicaragua. And he married a woman who's a doctor. And Israel felt compelled to plant a church. So he planted a church called Christian Community Honduras. I don't know what it is in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. Andrew, you could help me out with that. I have no idea. Or probably Doris. She's more reliable than you. And out of Christian Community Honduras, he discipled a young man. And he trained him and he raised him up to be a pastor. And he sent him out to plant a church. And the way that you plant churches in Honduras, which is a deeply traditionally Catholic nation and is also always in the bottom three of poverty in the Western Hemisphere. So he's in a city called Ciguarapeque. And in the mountains and hills surrounding Ciguatapeque are these villages and towns. And he goes into those villages and towns. And you have to literally, this is foreign to us, this sounds weird to us, but you have to ingratiate yourself to the town elders. And so to do that, he throws parties. And if you go on a mission trip, that's what you do, is you throw a party in these towns. And you serve hot dogs and you serve ice cream and you hang out with the kids. And I would go and get out of the van and throw a soccer ball up in the air. And 40 kids would come running and you just play soccer for forever. And then the other people who speak Spanish would minister to the parents and to the grandparents and to the adults in the village. And it was a wonderful experience, but he was doing that to gain traction with the village elders who would then approach him and say, we'd like a church here. They would have to ask for a church. And then he would take someone he had been training at his church and send them out to be the pastors of those churches. And this is his model of ministry. The other thing he would do, and this is incredible, the other thing he would do to ingratiate himself to the village is in Honduras, because of the poverty, they're cooking on open flame indoors, and that would cause smoke inhalation and cause people to die of lung cancer at accelerated rates. So Israel, and this is true, invented a stove, invented an oven that reduces smoke inhalation by 90%. He had it studied by Duke, and he had it studied by the University of Indiana, and he got a patent for a patent for it a patent thanks Tom I'm just looking at you helped he got a patent for it and you can give to Israel an amount of money that will allow him to buy the materials and build a stove and they go into these villages into the favored mothers of the. And they take out their old stove and they rebuild this new stove so that they don't have to breathe in smoke. And he does this to ingratiate himself to the villages so that he can build churches there. So that the gospel can go out. He uses his influence to point towards God. And here's a couple amazing things about Israel. If he did that in America, we'd put him on podcasts. We'd put him on stages with a thousand people. We'd make him famous. We'd give him money. And oh, by the way, with the extra money that he gets from the stoves, they built a clinic and his wife left her practice and she practices free medicine on the people in Ciguatapeque. Not for nothing. If he did all that here, he'd be a celebrity. But because he doesn't on Honduras, he's nobody. And I can't wait to get to heaven and meet more people like Israel. But let me tell you about his influence and what character does. These small acts when no one else is watching. One visit to Honduras, it was the last day, so it was R&R day. And you guys who have been on mission trips know that Americans demand at least one day of tourism at the end of serving God. You have to do it. Otherwise they won't come the next year. So we did our American day of tourism and we went to a waterfall. The waterfall was an hour away from Ciguarpeque, outside of what I would anticipate Israel's range of mission to be. And there wasn't enough room in the van, and so I ended up riding in the car with Israel. And we had a good conversation. I don't remember the conversation. It was his broken English and my non-Spanish. But we talked. And at one point he said, hey, brother, I have to make a pit stop. I hope you don't mind. That's fine. I was actually, I was really ticked. I was like, Israel, we've got to get to the waterfall. But no, he said, I need to make a stop. So we pull up. We're in this kind of community. And if you've spent time in third world countries, you know that that homes kind of double as bodegas. Sometimes homes are homes and their residences and their places of business. And this was one of those places. And we pull up in front of a home and the garage is open. And you can see the garage looks like essentially a makeshift convenience store. And it's over there and Israel's in the driver's seat and I'm sitting right here and he rolls down my window and he yells something at the proprietor. And the man looks and says, oh, hello Israel! And then turns and he yells something into the house. And immediately this kid, this teenage kid comes out of the house. And the first thing you notice about this kid, that any of us would notice about this kid, is that they were extremely special needs. So this special needs kid comes out of the house and sees that Israel's there and begins to make noises of excitement. And then get this, goes to the cooler, opens it up and gets out a Mountain Dew. He knows Israel's order. It's funny, but catch that. Israel's been there before. He's got a lot of Mountain Dews here. This kid's excited to see him. And he walks to the car with a Mountain Dew, and Israel gets out and he hugs him. And they have this moment in excited Spanish that I don't need to hear the words to understand. And I'm sitting there, sorry, in the passenger seat, marveling at this man who has made friends with a kid who lives an hour away from him, who will never give to his ministry, who he will never train to be a pastor and send out into the villages, who he has absolutely nothing to gain from. An hour away. He's not making a show in the middle of the city and going, hey, everybody else who can see me, look at the way I love. No one will ever know about that. And if I weren't in the car, 100% chance Israel stops there anyways. What kind of man is it to use your influence like that? To love like that? To point people towards God like that? In the story of Daniel in the lion's den, I see a picture of two men using their influence in different ways. I believe at grace we have an unusual confluence of influence. And I believe that we can use it to point towards God. And I believe that we can use it to be the kind of man that Daniel was, that Israel is, and that with what we have here, we can deploy all of our assets to point people towards God and who He is. Yeah? Let's pray. God, thank You for Your servant Daniel. Thank You for Your servant Israel. Thank You for this room and this body of people that does have great influence. And God, I pray that as we consider our influence, that we would use it to point people towards you. May our coworkers be better, be more inclined towards you because they worked with us. May our employees be closer to you and more inclined towards you because they worked for us. May our families desire you more because they were in a family with us that you assigned us to. Father, use us. Pull us towards you. And help us bring people with us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thank you for joining us at Grace. I was late into the service this morning. Anecdotally, I'm just indulging myself. This has nothing to do with anything. I was just happy with the moment. When I was growing up, I got in trouble at church all the time. Me and my best friend, PJ Smith, we got kicked out of every ministry that ever existed at our church because we were troublemakers. And my senior pastor, a guy named Buddy Hoffman, used to, in Sunday night service, back when we encumbered our pastors with having to preach two sermons on one Sunday, he would call me out, Chris, stop talking to Karen, or do I need to get Donna to come down here and sit between you two? Like that kind of stuff in the service. And as a 12-year-old, that's mortifying. And I just remember that as what my pastor did. And I was next door refilling my water and getting ready to come over here. And there was a kid that got a little sideways. And the teacher had to pull him out. And the kid wasn't really listening to the teacher. And so I had to crouch down and get real stern with said kid and say, you're going to get right. And he says, she's not my mom. And I said, yeah, you're right, but she's your teacher. And if you don't listen to her, I'm going to go get your mom. And it was just like, and she said, thanks, Nate. I was like, you're welcome. Also, Carly, it was your, no, I'm just kidding. It was not, it was not, it was not. This morning, we're in our second part of Daniel, where we're going through the first portion of the book, the narrative portion of the book, and looking at these stories and asking what we can learn from them and what they have for us now. This morning, we arrive at the story of the fiery furnace, one of my favorite stories in the Bible, in the Old Testament, and I'm thrilled to arrive at it now. It's a story about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but years ago, I went to Honduras on a mission trip, and I got to know a man named Mark Searcy, who's a custom home builder in western North Carolina. But in his teenage and 20, in his late teens and 20s, he was a missionary to Haiti and has this missionary background. And he's really southern and really. And one of my favorite humans I've ever met. And he's, he told me that, uh, that I'm not going to tell him what, I'm not going to tell you what he calls, uh, Nebuchadnezzar. I'll tell you if you ask me after the service, I'll tell you, but I'm not going to tell you from here. Uh, he, and he said that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are the demon names for those boys because their real names were Benadab, Mishael, and Hananiah. Those were their Hebrew names that all meant some sort of praise to God. And they were renamed by the Babylonian government, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, what we know them by. And those are their demon names because those give praise to the Babylonian gods. And I'm not sure how convinced I am of Mark's perspective, but I do think it's interesting that there is, that there have been a dad, Mishael and Hananiah. Those are their God given, the names given by their Jewish parents that give praise to God. And I do think it's good as we remember the story to know their real names. But in the Bible and in the story, they're referred to as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So we will refer to them as that. And here's the situation. Last week, we talked about the exile and basically Jewish slaves being carried to Babylon to serve in their court and that they took some of the elite, the cream of the crop, young men, and they installed them in the government. They put them through a training process and then they installed them in the government and gave them different roles. And so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have been prepared for that, and they've now been installed in their roles, and they've reached the upper echelons of government. And as such, they've made their peers jealous of them. So there are native Babylonians that are now working with them or even under them that have become jealous of their progress and of their success. And that's the environment. And in the midst of this environment, there's an edict that goes out. King Nebuchadnezzar erects a gold statue of himself. And there's an edict that whenever music is played, and in the Bible, this is where in Daniel chapter three, I'm going to look at some verses in a minute. So if you have a Bible and you want to turn there, that's where we are. But it says in the Bible that whenever these instruments, the lyre and the harp and the whatever, and the trumpet and whatever are played, then you should bow and worship the golden image or just bow towards the golden image and worship Nebuchadnezzar, who has now deified himself. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego don't agree to this. Whenever the music plays, they don't worship. And I was thinking about this as I was rereading the story and reacquainting myself with it. It's difficult to believe that they would stand in the city center obstinately going like this and saying, we're not going to worship. It's more easy to believe that they would discreetly and respectfully move off to the side and just kind of let everyone else do their thing. I certainly don't know what the situation was, but I seriously doubt they made a big show of not worshiping. I think they just didn't worship. But some of their peers noticed this and told on them. They went to King Nebuchadnezzar and they ratted them out. They told on them. And this is a lesson for all the, everybody, if you're in here and you're under 15, raise your hand. Snitches get stitches. All right. That's a real thing. Don't do this. Don't tell on people. That's for you. They told on them. And they said, hey, whenever the music plays, these people aren't worshiping you. They're not honoring you. And the text says that Nebuchadnezzar was enraged. He was an emotionally volatile man from everything we can tell from the text. Nebuchadnezzar was enraged, and he calls them in. And he's furious at them. And he says, I've heard you guys. I've brought you in. I've supported you. I've trained you. I've elevated you. I've progressed you. I've given you success. I've given you affluence. And as a thank you, you refuse to worship me. He's furious at them. He says, if you don't worship me, I'm going to play the music. I'm going to turn on Spotify. And if you don't worship me, I'm going to burn you in the fiery furnace. That's the threat. So that's the situation and that's where we are. And this is their response to King Nebuchadnezzar. And I think it is a remarkable response. Daniel chapter three, verses 16 through 18. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to him, King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we. That's the most important phrase in the story. But even if he does not, we want you to know, your majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. So he brings these young men before him. He's this enraged king surrounded by guards. And he says, if you don't worship me, I'm going to throw you into the furnace. I'm going to burn you alive. And their response is, we do not need to defend ourselves against you in this matter, which is difficult to parse out. And different theologians would say different things, because with this limited story we get from the text, it's difficult to know exactly what their intent is. And so this is a guess. But my guess is that they believe that Nebuchadnezzar knew of their faith. That they believe that he knew, like, hey, we're worshipers of the Hebrew God. We're not worshipers of other gods. We don't need to defend ourselves against you. I don't think it was defiant. I don't think it was, no, no, no, I'm not going to talk about that with you. You don't deserve that. I'm not going to answer that question. It was, it was more of, I believe, you know who we are. You know who we worship. That's not going to change. And that God that we worship is going to protect us. Throw us in there. He'll protect us. And even if he doesn't, we're going to continue to believe in him. And we will not worship you. That's their response. When they responded in that way, Nebuchadnezzar is so angry that he looks at his guards and he says, make the furnace seven times hotter, which is a hilarious command. Because if you're on fire, you're on fire. You know, does it get worse if it's seven times? Like if your arms on fire and then you make it seven times hotter, is that a worse fire on your arm? Like I don't understand that. And I also don't understand in ancient Babylon how you gauge what seven times hotter is. But that's what he says. Make it seven times hotter. And it was so hot that one of the guards that bound them and threw them into the furnace burned up himself because he got too close to the flame, which is a really tough way to go. But that's what happens. And he throws them into the flame. And then he's watching them in the flames, expecting to see them burn up. I don't know if there was like a bulletproof, like double-pane glass that was heatproof that he could see through, or if it was just like an open furnace. I don't know how it worked, but he's looking in and he's seeing them, and he notices something. And this is what the text says, Daniel 3, 24 through 26. Then King Nebuchadnezzar leapt to his feet in amazement and asked his advisors, weren't there three men that were tied up and threw into the fire? They replied, certainly, your majesty. He said, look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods. Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace there three people in the house, but only are there three people who are unharmed, but there's a fourth. And the text just says he looks like a son of the gods. And here's a thing that I like to do with the Old Testament. We don't know who that was. We don't know who the fourth person was in there with them. It could have been an angel. Some people think it could have been Jesus himself. And here's what I do as a highly trained theologian. Whenever... Shut up. That's great. I'm a very lowly train. I'm not a pastor, theologian. That's crazy. Anyways, just the snicker from the 26 year old was deserved. It was deserved. Whenever we have the opportunity in the Old Testament to put Jesus in a place, we should. So maybe it was an angel. But I think it was Jesus. I think he showed up with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And he said, I'm with you. You have faith in me. I'm with you. And he protects them from the fiery furnace. You can extrapolate that out however you like. But I think Jesus was there. I think Jesus was there in the form of Melchizedek when Abraham showed up in Salem and gave a tithe to him. For me, it's just cooler to allow Jesus to show up wherever it seems like he does. So who knows who is there? And who knows who wrote Hebrews? But let's make guesses. And I think that was Jesus there in the furnace with them. When Nebuchadnezzar sees this, he calls them out. Come out right away. And the ties that bound their hands were done. They were burned up, but they were unharmed completely by the flames. And his response, if weadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel and rescued his servants. They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own god. Therefore, this is important, I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of them must be cut to pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rub is, if you honor God, you will get a promotion. He sees what happens. Also, that's false. He sees what happens and he calls them out. And he says, he gives praise to this God that he was moments ago committed to defying. Do you see? And so that's the story. And then God gets the glory. So that's the story of, and that's all the rhyming I'm going to do. That's the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace. And it's a wonderful story. And typically, when I preach a sermon, I'm really, whether you've noticed it or not, doing my best to try to get us to like one point to think about. I'm trying to drive the ship to this one thing for us to consider. And I'd love to do that with this story, but here's the problem. It's too grand of a story to reduce to one point. I've also been your pastor now for eight years, and this is the first time I've preached on it. I don't see myself getting back to it anytime soon. So instead of just saying one thing, I want to pull out three things from this story that we learned for us to consider this morning. And I would encourage you to weigh them with equal weight and to decide and determine this morning. We don't have the capacity to apply three things to ourselves and do three new things in our lives and all the things. So one of these three things, I think and I hope and I and I pray will connect with you. And I would invite you to just grab onto the one that does. And maybe you'll get to the end of them and be like, is there a fourth one? I don't, none of those mattered, but hopefully one of these three will be something that relates to you. So the first thing we see in this story is simply this. Holiness matters. Holiness matters. It matters in life. It matters to God. It should matter to you. Holiness matters. Last week, this is what we talked about. We talked about Daniel being trained by the Babylonians and being offered this new diet. And with this diet, he was encouraged to eat stuff that was outside the purview of the Jewish laws in which he grew up. And so he said, I'm going to refuse that and choose this vegetarian vegan diet. And let's just see how it goes. So he chose holiness. And when I say holiness, here's what I mean, because this is what the Bible means. The word holy means different and more accurately, it means other. So when we say holy, and when God said, when we say about God, holy, holy, holy, what we are saying is different, different, different, other than us, set aside from us, not the same as us. And so when we say we act with holiness, we pursue holiness, what we're saying is we're pursuing being different. And what we talked about last week is we're pursuing being different from the society in which we find ourselves entrenched. We are not citizens of the United States. We are not citizens of North Carolina. We find ourselves residing here. We are aliens in those places, and we are citizens of heaven. And so our behavior and our standards should be not in line with the given standards of North Carolina or Raleigh or North Raleigh or wherever it is you find yourself. Our standards for ourselves should be in line with what scripture says and who God tells us to be. That's what holiness is. Now, I had lunch with a friend of mine this week. And, excuse me, and he he was saying how does a leaf get up on this stage like all the way in looky there I had lunch with a friend of mine and he was saying that he enjoyed last week's sermon but that he wanted when I got I got to the holy part, to the diet, he wanted to say, what's the diet? Give me the standards. Tell me what to do. He's like, I don't know how everybody feels, but sometimes I like to get kicked in the teeth on Sunday morning. Like, make me feel a little bit bad. Like, ruffle my feathers a little bit and tell me what the standards should be. Tell me what we should watch and what we shouldn't watch. And tell me what we should think and what we shouldn't think. And tell me what practices in my life, like get on to me a little bit. And I said, I'll never do that. I'll never do that. That's not what I'm here to do. Because holiness, this is going to sound odd, is gray. It's different things for different people. I'm never going to get up here and tell you what it looks like to be holy as if I am that. You guys are smart, responsible adults with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Most of you. I believe in your capacity to decide what holiness is for you. I'm not going to sit up here and list standards off by which you should live. I'm going to trust you to establish those for yourself. And here's one of the reasons. I've given this example before. Years ago, I found myself, and I still do, as a big fan of NBA playoff basketball. I hate the regular season. I think the mid-season tournament is one of the dumbest things I've ever encountered in my life. That joke's going to land with 5% of you, but you know who you are. But I would watch the NBA playoffs because I like it. I like sports. I watch all the sports. And I like the playoffs. But the playoffs would keep me up because of the West Coast games until 1, 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning. And by watching them every night, I was getting up later than I needed to. And sometimes it would cause me to either miss my quiet time, which you've heard me say a hundred times. The most important habit anyone can develop in their life is to wake up every day and spend time in God's word and time in his presence through prayer. You've heard me say that over a hundred times, if you've been here for any length of time and by staying up late and watching those games, it was causing me to wake up late and either have a truncated quiet time or none at all. And so it was impacting me spiritually. So it became unholy for me to stay up watching basketball games. But I'm not going to stand on this stage and tell you it's unholy to watch sports. That's how it's great. You have to determine how your behaviors impact you and how they push you to God or not and what diet is right for you. But here's what I know based on this story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is that holiness matters. Here's the second thing I know from this story. God is always working for his glory. God is always working for his glory. You see in the story that they get into this scenario where they've been told on. It's a bad scene. And they could have justified their way out of it, couldn't they? They could have said, God, I'm going to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar so I don't die. And so that I can remain in this place and influence in the right way. I mean, if I die, they're just going to replace me with a godless Babylonian. You don't want that to happen. So like, I'm just going to do this. I don't mean it, but I'm going to bow down. They didn't do that. They were in a tough spot. And they had this standard because they chose holiness of I can't bow down to Nebuchadnezzar. And at any point, God could have intervened and saved them. But he waited until the very last minute to save them in the fiery furnace. And so they were in this predicament that was preventable, but God didn't prevent. He allowed his servants to continue to suffer. And what we see at the end of that is that God was working for his glory because what's the result of the story? The result of the story is Nebuchadnezzar declares, no one will ever blaspheme the God of the Hebrew people. No one will ever blaspheme the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And by allowing them to go through this difficult phase and rescuing them at the very last minute, God made his own name great. Do you see? It was declared throughout Babylon because of that. There's an edict that went out that we will honor this God now. So it's important for us to hear from the story that whatever God is doing, he's doing it to work his own glory. I have a friend who, when he graduated, he got in with an accounting firm. And he began to just work and work diligently and work hard and do what you do in that stage of your career and kind of rise in the ranks and yada, yada, yada. And he ended up making partner with two other folks. And so now he's a partner with two other people, but he feels a sense of injustice because they don't work as hard as he does. They have this kind of mentality that once you make partner, now you have employees to do the work and you get to make the money off of what they do. And he felt like, no, you have to outwork your employees. And then he looked at his partners who he viewed as lazy and they are not working as hard. And this frustrated him and it caused years of frustration. And then eventually what happened was, and he's, by the way, going to church, he's a deacon at his church. He's, he's one of these people and he's getting frustrated with the situation because it feels unjust and it feels unfair. And he's like, God, I'm honoring you. Why are you, why is this happening? And then there's a personal fallout and he actually gets kicked out of the partnership and he has to start from scratch. And so he finds himself in his mid-30s with children starting from scratch and going, God, how is this happening? Why is this happening? This seems unfair. But he starts from scratch and he builds a new company and develops new partners. And you fast forward another 15, 20 years after that, and his firm exists and gives 20 to 30% of their profits to nonprofit organizations building God's kingdom around the globe. And he has people on his payroll whose entire job is to do the finances of nonprofits for free. He had to go through a hard time and be recalibrated. But it was to be recalibrated for God's glory. So that this person could be, so that my friend could be used to bring glory to God in his kingdom in a greater way. Some of us in here may find ourselves going through times that seem hard and seem preventable. God, if you wanted to fix this, you could. God, if you wanted to rescue, you could. God, if you wanted to restore, you could. If you wanted to repair, you could. If you wanted to heal, you could. And maybe he's not. But God doesn't work in days. He works in decades. And he works in centuries. And here's what I know about God based on this story and many others. God is always working for his glory. And he will involve you. In that path. If you stick with him. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So God is always working for his glory. Here's the last thing. And this one. I said consider them with equal weight. But this is my favorite one. And I stole this one from a friend of mine who I hadn't talked to in years. And I actually called him this week and I said, Hey dude, he's a guy, his name's Alan Smith. He's on staff at my last church. He's still there as a campus pastor. And he and I worked together. And I remember him preaching this sermon. This was the first sermon that he preached. It was on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when he had a chance to preach at the last church. And I called him this week and I said, dude, I'm preaching that story. And I remember the point you made. And I'm totally stealing it. But I'm going to give you credit. Like just so you know, I'm not going to pretend like this is my idea and my insight. and we had a good catch up and whatever. But this is not from me. This is from Alan. Not that Alan. This is from another Alan. Here's the question that I come out of with this story. And this is the thing I want to leave you with. Do you have, even if, faith? Do you have, even if, faith? I told you those words were the most important words in the story, and I told you that we were going to come back to them. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, Nebuchadnezzar, O king, if you throw us in the furnace, our God will protect us. But even if he doesn't, we will still worship him. Do you ever see the power of that? I believe my God can heal my dad. But even if he doesn't, I'm going to worship him. I believe my God can repair this. But even if he doesn't, I'm going to worship him. I believe that my God can make this better. But even if he chooses not to, but even if he doesn't, I will remain faithful. Do you know how hard it is? Many of you have walked through it, and you know what even if faith is. Do you know how hard it is to feel let down by God and say, but even if he lets me down and he doesn't do the thing that I think he's going to do or that I want him to do or that I need him to do or that I'm desperate for him to do or that I'm weeping for him to do, even if he doesn't do it, I will still choose him. That's even if faith. I had a conversation this last week and it made my week, man. I used to be a high school teacher. And Honeymoon is a football coach, Mike Devine. And I got really close with a particular class. And there were some of the kids, some of the guys that I got really close with. So close that I'll tell you this. One of my greatest regrets, this guy's name's Alex Williams, and we went to the lake. I took them to my in-law's lake house. And we were joking about getting tattoos, and I don't have any tattoos. We were joking about getting tattoos, and Alex said, I'll get a matching one with you. And I said, what do you want to get? And we decided that it would be great to get 100% awesome written on our butt cheek. I wish I had that tattoo. Golly, what a miss. That would be great. But I don't. But Alex and I were that kind of close. And in his junior and senior year, Alex's dad was dying of cancer. And I have a vivid memory of bringing in some of the other men and dads from the class into my classroom. And we gathered around Ron. And we prayed for God to heal him. And God did heal him. He just healed him in eternity. He didn't heal him here. And so Alex lost his dad. After losing his dad, his mom, understandably so, kind of went off the rails. And his two elementary age brothers had to move in with Alex at 19 years old. And he found himself as the caretaker for them. He had a hard go. And Alex always loved Jesus, but this was a hard season. And I lost touch with him for a while. I would see him on Facebook. He's got a wife. He's got a young family. He seems to be doing well and be thriving. And I got a Facebook message, which I don't check very often because it was two weeks old. But he reached out to me and he said, hey, I'm doing okay in life. And I want to give to people who need it. How do I do that? And so I said, this is a great conversation to have, dude. Let's talk. And we talked and he said, and this is, you guys will find this funny. Um, and it's sad that it's true. He said, you're the fourth pastor I've talked to. I'm involved in the church. I've talked to three other pastors. Can you guess where they told me to give my money? And he said, I knew you wouldn't do that, so I called you. And I said, 10% of everything we give goes to you. We had a great conversation. We caught up. We shared stories about the time I got too excited as a football coach and punched him in the stomach in the middle of a game. Not because I was mad, because I was pumped up. I was like, let's go get him. And I accidentally hit Alex. Anyways, it was a wonderful conversation. And he's coming to Raleigh. He's doing a bid on our church. He's a general contractor. He might build our church. Who knows if that's what God is orchestrating. But he's going to come here, and when he comes here, I'm going to lay out in front of him six nonprofits that I know of and say, whatever God directs your heart, get involved in these. But these are good people and they're doing good things. And I'm so thrilled to be able to do that. But here's the point of that story. That's even if faith. Isn't it? Even if you don't heal my dad. Even if my mom goes off the rails. Even if I adopt my brothers at the age of 19. Even if I have to go through trials and I can't go to college. I will find a way, and when I do, God, I'm going to honor you. As soon as you give me the means, I'm going to honor you. That's even if faith. So that's the question that I would leave you with today. Do you have even if faith? Let's pray and we'll take communion. Father, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for this wonderful church and group of people. Thank you for the way that you allow us to love you and one another. Thank you for speaking to us through the stories of the Old Testament and this morning, hopefully, through the story of Ben-Hadad, Mishael, and Hananiah. Thank you for your servants then and your servants now. God, as we move into this time of communion, we just pray that we would reflect and be grateful for the way that you love us, for the way that you're always working for your glory. I pray that we would pursue holiness and that we would, if we don't have it now, progress towards an even-if faith. It's in your Son's name we pray these things. Amen.

Good morning. How are you guys doing today? Hey, if you are new or if you are visiting, my name is Aaron, and I get the privilege to serve as your worship pastor out here, and I can't tell you how glad I am that you're here today. If you are watching online, I'm half as glad that you're watching just because you're not present, and you're probably stealing your PJs, so it doesn't really count. But no, so, so glad that you guys decided to join us. Nate, thank you so much, man, for allowing me to share what's been on my heart over this last week or so. Well, we'll see. We'll see. Let's see. Let's pray and go home. Hey, so if you're just joining us, I've missed over the last couple of weeks, we've been in a series called Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs if you're an efficient person. And what we did is several months ago, we sent out a request from our small groups. Hey, give us some questions. If you could ask the church anything. If you had any questions that went unanswered. Maybe you grew up in church. There was just some confusion surrounding this. What questions would you ask? And so that's what we've been doing is we're taking some of these topics, some of these questions that were presented, and we're talking about them with you guys. If you guys wish you would have had input, then you should be in a small group. It's just another good reason for that. And so today, what we're talking about is why does an all-powerful God need our worship? And it's a great question. And again, as your worship pastor is one I'm extremely excited to talk about. There is a little bit of a weight to this, though, because as a worship pastor, if I don't do a good job in explaining to us why we need to worship, I may not be a worship pastor tomorrow. So there's a lot more than the next 30 minutes riding on this, all right? So I'm going to do my best to get us there. But it's a fantastic question. Just because the question itself presents this contradiction that we have to wrestle to the ground. Why does an all-powerful God need? Like from the beginning of your Bible, the first words in your Bible talk about how God is the creator of all things. He is all-powerful and in need of nothing. Yet we see throughout scriptures that he wants and needs our worship. It even goes so far to say is he is jealous for our worship? He commands our worship. It just sounds icky, right? I mean, because I remember writing through this sermon, I wrote down that line. Why does God command our worship? It just, there's something about that that feels off. So why? What's the purpose of that? And before we get too far into this, I have to make sure that we're on the same page with what we're talking about when we say worship. It's one of those things that seem to have gotten lost in translation. Some of you remember, because you remind me of it often, when I was trying to impress my wife by speaking Spanish, and I just wanted to tell her that I want to go to Five Guys. And instead, I said, I want five men. That's not what I meant. Like, I said the exact words, but it didn't mean the same thing, right? And so that's happened with worship in our life. Like, we tend to reduce worship down to the acts. Stop laughing. It's not that funny. I'm trying to preach. Nate said I have to do good. I may not have a job tomorrow, and you're distracting me by making fun of me. I hear it. No, but we have a tendency to reduce worship down to singing. Maybe you include in it the acts or the spiritual disciplines, right? Like you'll include praying, reading your Bible, quiet time, going to church. And those are certainly acts of worship. They're certainly involved in worship, but they're actions that come from a deeper form of worship that we read about throughout the New Testament. The word that's predominantly used to describe worship in the New Testament is proskuneo. And it literally means to kiss towards. And it's used to convey this idea and this image of bowing down to surrendering to the will of. It's the same thing that would happen. That's the word that would be used as if you entered a king's court and you bowed before. You would be surrendering to the will of. You would put your hope in. It's so much more than just singing. The worship we're talking about, the worship that God is jealous for, the worship that God asks for from us is a surrendering of our will. A surrendering to his will. It's what we center our lives around. It's what we center our lives around because it promises something that fulfills us. It's the thing that we center our hope and our dependency on. That's the worship we're talking about today. But even that, you have to dig in just a little bit. Why does it matter to God if he's the center of anything? Why does he have to be the center of my world? I mean, we know people like that, right? If you're married, ladies, your husband, when he's sick, is very needy. He has to be the center of attention. And what do we do? Like, it's exhausting. We attribute to people like that that we try to avoid. We say, they're really needy and they need a lot of attention. Maybe we use the words controlling. We say, hey, I just don't want to. They don't care very much about anybody else. They're pretty self-absorbed. And those are uncomfortable questions to sit with. Like how is God any different than that? So that's what we're going to talk about today. Paul addresses this exact question to the people in Athens. He's going on one of his many missionary journeys, and he comes into the town of Athens. And Athens, I haven't been there, but just from the things that I've read about, it would have been an absolutely incredible city to visit because of the architecture. It was just stunning, and the art that existed. I had a chance to go to Paris several years ago and went to the Louvre and got to go into the area that had all the ancient Greek statues and just all of that. Some of them were gold. Some were made of marble, silver, yet stone that they were used of. And those lined the streets in Athens. It would have been an incredible sight. But Acts 17 verse 16 tells us that when Paul walked into Athens, he was greatly distressed. Like some versions of your Bible will say, his spirit was shaken. It just, he was rattled to the core. Because for the Athenians, like they weren't just statues, they weren't just works of art, they weren't just pretty things to look at, but they were, they represented gods. Gods and goddesses. And that it was affectionately known as the city of idols, idols. Like I've heard it said that if you were to go to ancient Athens, that it was easier to run into a god than it was a person. I've heard it, I saw one source that said there were over 30,000 statues and idols that were throughout the city in Athens. And Paul was just rattled by this. He was rattled by seeing all of these objects of worship. And so what he started to do was just tell people about Jesus. He started to proclaim the good news. And some of the philosophers and the Stoics in the area, they said, hey, we want to know about this God you're telling about. Clearly, we're open to all kinds of forms of religion. We have them all over the place. Tell us about your God. I need to know a little bit more detail in here. And so what Paul ends up telling them is as he's talking about their God, he does talk that God wants our worship. But what he points out to them is that God wants our worship because he wants something for us, not from us. When God commands our worship, it's because he sees a need that he's trying to fill. And this is what he says to him in Acts 17 in verse 22. Paul then stood up in the meeting and said, people of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with the inscription to an unknown God. So you were ignorant of the very things that you worship. And this is what I'm going to proclaim to you. So it wouldn't be a Paul type approach without some kind of dig in there. Like, I don't know what kind of man tries to persuade somebody. Hey, you're just a little ignorant. That's all. That seems like a rough way to start. But Paul is typically a very upfront, very direct, very kind of pull no punches type of preacher, right? Like he's very quick to rebuke. He's very quick to just say what you're doing wrong, but he doesn't seem to take that approach here. The very first thing that he does is he acknowledges, hey, man, I see how religious you are. I see the high esteem that you hold your objects of worship, and I see how much they influence and impact your life because all of the gods, all of the gods represented something that they would want. And so the Athenians' life was shaped around pleasing the gods. You would see festivals thrown. You would see them being marched down the street. You would see songs being sung about them. You would see altars. You would see incense burning. Like all of these different, like they just held in such high regard. And what Paul comments on is, hey, listen, I see that you want deeply. And I see that you hold in a high place all of your objects of worship. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. And what they were doing is they were shaping their lives around the promises of these idols, of these objects of worship. They were trying deeply to not offend them. You don't want to get on their bad side. You don't want to do the things that are going to make them not bless you. You also want to do the things that they're going to provide in their pursuit of comfort, in their pursuit of pleasure, in their pursuit of fulfillment and meaning. Their lives were shaped by the gods they trusted. Now, for us, it's hard to relate to something like that because we don't really worship objects like that in the western part of the world, right? Like if I walked into your house, I wouldn't see you rub baby Buddha's belly for good luck. That's just not a thing that we do. We don't bow to Athena. We don't bow to Apollos. And honestly, that's the thing that makes it a little bit more difficult to point out the things that we worship. The things that I was talking about earlier, the things that we surrender our will to. But we don't bow to the will of Athena. But we do have a tendency to bow at the altar of success and status. We don't go out of our way to please Apollos or Zeus. But we will shape our lives around the pursuit of power and influence. And here's the thing. This is what makes these so tricky, is they're not bad things. Like they're good things. Comfort is a good thing. It just makes a crummy God. And this is what Paul is pointing out to them. Hey, you have these desires. You're looking for these things to find fulfillment. You're looking for these things in your life that you feel like are going to offer you value and offer you worth. But look at what's shaping you. Like I love the way that Augustine talks about this. He says that it's a matter of disordered love. Like, it's not that we love the wrong things. We love the right things, but in the wrong order. Because whatever's at the top of the list, like, that's what has the steering wheel. That's what determines our steps. That's what determines who we become. That's what we are placing all of our hope in. And whatever's at the top of the list, it will cause us to make sacrifices, even for things on our list that's just a little bit lower. And so Paul, when he walks into Athens and he sees them so heavily invested in pursuing something, it's not a matter of if we worship. It's a matter of what. It's a matter of who we worship. And this is what Paul is pointing out to the people in Athens. And this is what he says. In verse 24, it says, and this is what I'm going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he's the Lord of heaven and earth, and he does not live in temples built by human hands, and he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. So right there, Paul immediately answers our question, right? That God's not in need. And I can kind of see this picture of Paul standing around looking at the statues. And what he's telling the Athenians is that God is the only one worthy of your worship because he's the only one who can carry the weight of your worship. Like I kind of have this picture of him standing around and he's looking at the statues, maybe surrounded by some of the idols while he's talking to the people. And he says, like this, like you created this. Like this wouldn't exist if it weren't for you. Like you gave this thing shape and it's the thing that you're going to trust to shape your life. Like you legitimately have to dust your gods. What kind of God is that to trust with your life? What kind of God is it? He has no power. And so what Paul is doing, the way he, I think he approaches the topic the way that he does, not with a firm slap, but it's just this empathetic, no, no, no, I understand you have a longing for something. You have a longing for fulfillment. You have a longing for purpose. You were born with an understanding and an awareness of your needs. That need creates pursuit in your life. What you were pursuing to give you that value, man, it's powerless. It wouldn't exist. Like it was created by you. And he contrasts that with God. But look at the God that I serve. Let me tell you about him. He's the creator of heaven. He's the creator of earth. In him, he is the guy who we actually get our breath from. He gives life. Like, he wasn't created. He is the giver of life. He doesn't need you to build him a house. Like, he exists everywhere. He was there before the foundation of the world. And what Paul points out is that, no, God doesn't need anything. But he says it in such a way that compels them to offer their worship, to direct their worship to the only one who can actually satisfy, the only one who can actually do something, the only one who can actually give them purpose, who can give them fulfillment, who can give them satisfaction in the things that they pursue. I don't know what it may be for you. I don't know what it is that has kind of crept in and we have placed our hope in and has grabbed a hold of our heart. Like to find that you can ask questions like, okay, what is it that you feel like I only have value and I only have worth if fill in the blank? And if this thing is taken away from me, like the bottom falls out. And what Paul is pointing to is like, man, aren't you tired? Aren't you exhausted and perpetually disappointed? Like what you're pursuing is a good thing, but where you're going, the direction you're moving forward to try to grab it, like it's, are you not constantly let down at the empty promises of the things you lift and raise to the position of God. I love Timothy Keller. He calls them counterfeit gods. They're full of promises. And so we devote our life to them. They become the center of our pursuit. The way we treat people is impacted by the highest desire. The sacrifices we make are chosen by the highest desire. And I don't know, have you ever been on the other side of that journey? To where something is so heavily pursued, and then maybe you grab it, but you look at who you became to get there. And it wasn't worth it. It left you wanting. It left you needing. Like you thought it was going to provide the satisfaction. You thought the promotion, you thought the raise, you thought the job was going to give you everything. You thought, okay, I'm going to, all I need is this. And then once it arrives, like it arrives, it feels like you're running this race with a moving finish line. You just never can quite get there. And what Paul says to the Athenians, no, no, God doesn't need your worship to give him value. That's like saying that a waterfall is benefited by you pouring a glass of water in it. Like it's the appropriate place. But it does nothing for the water. That's actually the source of the water. And this is Paul's argument. He's, hey, would you, it almost reads more like an invitation than it does a rebuke. Like, are you not exhausted? Like, your pursuit of the career, has it cost you to sacrifice relationship with family? Like, your pursuit of image management, has it cost you to be overbearing and just focusing on the behavior of others? And just, like, is it costing you more than what it's promising to give? That's the question that Paul is putting in front of him. And I love, I love how he finishes that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. He is not far from any one of us, for in him we live, and in him we move, and in him we have our beings. As some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. Like, so what Paul is pointing out, hey, you were created with an awareness for more. You were created with an awareness that you need something greater. You were created with an awareness for more. You were created with an awareness that you need something greater. You were created to pursue more. You were created with an awareness of your limitations. And just that causes us to move towards something. It causes us to yearn and long for something. And what Paul says is all of the things that you've elevated to the status of God, all of these statues, all of these things, hey, you weren't created for them. You will never find, you will never find the satisfaction that you're longing for. You will never find the purpose that you're hoping for. You will never find you being the person you desire to be by elevating these gods to a position in your life that causes you to bow to their will. You were created for God. You were created by God, for God, to be loved by God, and to find fulfillment in God. It's not that all of these other things don't matter. But it's that you're not dependent upon them. You aren't dependent on them for survival, or you aren't dependent, like if they were taken away, you're like, no, that's okay. That's okay. God's in control. I trust him with my life. I trust him with my tomorrow. I trust him with my right now. I am going to continue to offer him my praise. I am going to continue to allow him to be the center of my world. I'm going to continue to allow him to be the one that I place all of my focus on. This is Paul's argument. And what he's telling the people of Athens, and I think he would tell, how he would answer this question. The question that we started out with is God doesn't command our worship because he's controlling. He does it because he's loving. Like I think about this story that we talked about it maybe, I think, in the last series, Mark's Jesus. And in Mark 10, you see this, you may remember, you see this picture and this story of the rich young ruler who goes to Jesus. And he goes to Jesus and he's asking him, hey, listen, I really want, I want to follow you. I want to serve you. I want, I legitimately want to inherit the kingdom of heaven like it's promised. I want to live that life. What do I need to do? And I love the text where it says Jesus looks at him and he loved him. And what he told him is the thing that has a grip on his heart. He said, listen, as long as that's number one, it's never going to let you live the life that you desire because that's what's shaping you. And what's heartbreaking about that story is it says the guy walked away like money had such a grip on his heart. It says he walked away grieving because he just couldn't let go of what he worshiped the most. He couldn't trust God the way that Jesus was asking him to trust him because of the promise that wealth provided. Like I said, I don't know what it may be for you. It's hard to identify. Because with the Athenians, it was a transactional type of worship. It was all external. I'll do this for you, and you do this for me. But for us, it's something that happens internally. It's something that grabs our heart. And it's disguised as good, because it is good. It's just not a worthy God. I can tell you, there was a few years ago in my life, I don't remember exactly what the situation was, but I know control started to get really, really big. Like there was anxiety that was brewing in my life, and I felt like I needed more control over everything. And so I remember reading through the scriptures, and I came to the text where Jesus, just before he started his ministry, he spent 40 days in the wilderness. He spent 40 days and what stood out to me is he spent 40 days before he began, he spent 40 days in the place where he had to depend on God. He had to be in a place in the desert where he depended on God and as he came out of that, he lived the life that he lived. And so what struck me is like, man, is that what happened in my life? Have I gotten to the place where my dependency on God has fallen below my dependency on something else? And so I did this. It was more of a, it was just a little spiritually intentional journey. That's why I went out backpacking. I don't know anything about backpacking. Never backpacked, but I did it by myself. The only thing I knew is don't come across people because I don't trust them in bear's bite. Like that's the extent. And if you don't eat, you'll starve. So I went with about a 60 pound bag on my back. But it was all with the intention, I need to put myself in a place where I depend on God. Because when I find myself depending more deeply on God, I find freedom. So what Paul is inviting the Athenians to do, hey, rest. He's inviting them to place their trust, their hope, and center their life around God. He's inviting them to a deeper dependency on God. Maybe as we're starting to talk about the things that are idols, it's popped in your mind. Maybe there's something right about that. Yeah, yeah, no, image management's definitely something. Oh, yeah. What's funny is even religiosity can become how holy I look, how good I seem to people. Doing the right things, like that can become something we depend on. Family can become like they can't carry the weight of our worship. Your family, your spouse, your husband, your kids. Listen to me, listen to me. They cannot carry the weight of providing fulfillment, purpose, and meaning in your life. They weren't designed for that. Your work, it can't provide meaning and purpose and fulfillment and value in your life. Because if it's gone, so is everything that came with it. And Paul's invitation is, hey, aren't you exhausted? Depend on God. And so what we're going to do, in one second, I'm going to invite you to stand and just sing this song. And you've heard me say before that our songs, our songs are important. But our songs, when we come together, they're simply prayers put to a melody. Sometimes they're prayers that are saying, hey, God, you're awesome. God, you're great. And oftentimes they're also prayers that say, hey, God, I need you in this area of my life. And there's this line that I want us to focus on in this next song. It simply says, God, I depend on you. I depend on you. And listen, just to make sure that I still have a job tomorrow, singing is important, okay? You got to do it. You got to do it. Otherwise, you got to hire me. But well, and here's the other sad point behind it. If you don't like singing, like I know we got some folks who just wait for the second half of the service, like whenever the message is there and the good stuff happens, you just kind of hang out in the hall. Listen to me. You're going to hate heaven, right? You know what you're going to do? You're going to be singing the entire time. You will be miserable. Because there's no way, there's no lobby outside. That's outside the gate. You don't want to be there, get you behind inside and sing. Like, it's worth it. But I'm going to invite you to stand and just make this your prayer. Maybe it's something. God, I just, I have a hard time shaking this object of worship, this misplaced worship in my life, Lord, and I want to depend on you. Can you help me? Will you help me depend on you? So let me pray for us, and then let's see. Father, thank you so much. I thank you, Lord, for your love, for your faithfulness and for your kindness. God, I thank you for planting in us an awareness of our need for something greater. God, I just ask for you to help. Help us to keep you the center, not meaning that we don't pursue other things, not meaning that other things aren't important to us, but we place them in their appropriate order. And we allow you to shape our life. We allow you to determine who we become. And God, we don't worship you because we get something from you. We worship you because you're worthy. We worship you because you're holy. We worship you because you are the only one who is worthy of our worship. We thank you. We need you. Amen.

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