Sermons tagged with Law

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

Good morning, everybody. It's good to see you. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. So grateful for this church and for Grace folks this morning. We are continuing in our series on Moses. This is the penultimate week. We'll do this week and then next week, Labor Day Sunday. And then we're going to start a new series. I don't, Gibby, what are we calling the series, or Carly? We're going to call it Gentle and Lowly? Okay. I never know. I just say here's what we're going to talk about, and then the graphics department, they tell me what it's called. It's going to be called Gentle and Lowly. It's based on a book by Dane Ortlund, which is, to me, a tremendously impactful book, And I know that some of our small groups have gone through it in the past. And so as a church, I think it's a really wonderful thing whenever we can have a shared experience and we can be reading through a book and everyone's thinking about it and we're talking about it. And this is an experience that we share. I think it's a good thing. So from time to time, we like to encourage those. And so the Sunday after Labor Day, we're going to start this new series called Gentle and Lowly. It's going to be an eight-week series. It's like a 16-chapter book, and I've just chosen to highlight eight of the chapters. But we're going to have a reading plan for that book, and it's available on the table which is which is right behind that wall right there and just grab those are ten dollars grab them on the honor system put put a 10 in the acrylic things that hang next to the doors or a 20 and then make change for yourself we trust you or just donate $20 for the book because someone else is going to steal one and you want to cover for them. You can Venmo me $10 and just we'll see if that ever makes it to the church. But we'll just, they're out there. Take them. Pay for them however you want. And then if we run out, we'll order more or you can order them online. But that's going to be, I think, an important thing for us in the fall. Before I just dive into this Moses sermon this morning, we do have a fun announcement. And I'll just be honest with you. I'm a mess about this. I talked with Kyle Tolbert, our student pastor, now family pastor. He's a dad now. Here's Hayes. I'm not faking it, I literally can't look at it. Jen, when we were worshiping, she said, did you talk to Kyle this morning? And I said, yeah, it was a huge mistake. Kyle worked. This is indulgent, and I'm sorry, but just so you understand why I can't keep it together right now. He worked for me at my last church. Kyle and I have worked together for 10 plus years. He's a little brother. And so this is great. Hayes is his name. Women care about this. He was eight pounds, eight ounces. I don't know why that matters to you, but you always ask, what did the baby weigh? It's like, who cares? But you do, so there you go. We're so excited. We're thrilled for them. Everybody's happy and healthy, so that's good. This is the reason for the tissues. Also, I don't anticipate crying during the sermons. I might. I might. I don't know. We'll find out together. Okay. Moses. A good friend said to me, last week we talked about the law and what that means and how it points towards Jesus. And I was on the phone with a friend who I care about very much and I trust their judgment very much. And they said, hey, and they were being honest. They said that was a good sermon. Always nice to hear. They said, but it really didn't have a lot to do with Moses. So like, what are we doing here? Because the theme is the life of Moses. And I said to him, yeah, sometimes I'll tell Jen what I'm going to be preaching about. And she was like, that sounds like a good sermon, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the series. So like, why are you doing that one? And I'll be like, I don't care. Like, I'll just do the sermon anyways. This also does not have a lot to do with Moses this morning. I'll just tell you. It's a little bit. It leans esoteric and professorial. And it's not. There are some sermons that are like, hey, how do we have better faith? How can I be a better dad? You know, like, how do I be a better employee or something like that? This is not that. The goal of this sermon this morning is for us to understand in a greater way the way that the Bible is miraculously woven together for this incredible, sovereign, articulated picture that God has intended since before time began. So you may not walk away from here being like, well, that's how I'm going to be a better father. But I hope that you'll walk away from here with a greater understanding of what the Bible is and what it articulates. And I think we find that focal point in the delivery of the law and God's request after that. So that's where we're going this morning. Before we go there, I want to take us back to 1992. In 1992, at some point that year, I became 12 years old, or maybe it was 1993. And my dad and mom made an agreement with me. It was time for dad to buy a new car. And so he said, hey, listen, I'm going to buy a new car. I want you to pick it out with me. Because when you turn 16, if you'll commit to washing it every other week for the next four years, when you're 16, I'll hand you the keys. That was the agreement. And so we went out and we looked at cars. We looked at a Mazda. It was stupid. We looked at a Mitsubishi Eclipse. Do you guys remember those? Yeah, there we go. David, did you have one of those or do you just like them? I wanted one. Yeah, me too, pal. Me too. I couldn't convince dad to do, he's a respectable accountant. He can't drive around in a sports car. That's not what accountants do. They drive Accords. And so that's what we bought. Incidentally, I did the math a few weeks ago. I've driven seven versions of an Accord. That's how big of a nerd I am and how much I like reliability. Those are my priorities. Anyways, we bought an Accord, but it was pretty cool. It was black. It was two-door. It's a coupe. It had a spoiler. It was a sport. That was the class, Accord EX Sport or whatever it is. And this thing for me, it's pretty sweet. And I used to love riding in it, knowing one day this is going to be my car. And so the agreement was, son, if you watch this every other weekend, when you're 16, I will give it to you. What we entered into there, and this is what I want us to understand this morning is, I entered into a covenant with my parents. And a covenant is this, and this is important to understand. A covenant is two parties commit binding actions to one another. A covenant is when two parties enter into an agreement and they commit binding actions to one another. Meaning, if you do this, I will do this. If you agree to these terms, if you agree to this behavior, I will agree to this behavior. And so between my parents and I, it was, if you wash this car every other week, then we will agree to give you the keys when you're 16. That will be our behavior. So we entered into a covenant. And it's important that we understand this morning what a covenant is because that's what the whole sermon is about. Just to tie a bow on the story of my covenant with my parents, I washed that Honda Accord about four times in four years. And when I turned 16, my dad sold it, bought a car that he wanted, and didn't give it to me. He kept his, yeah, yeah. He kept his end of the bargain too. And he should have. That's funny. I've been preaching to you guys for eight years. The only time I've ever heard applause is for my dad not giving me a car. Okay. That's what a covenant is. And it's important this morning that we understand what covenants are. Because I don't know if you know this or not about your Bible. And, you know, if you're here and you're not a believer this morning, I'm going to say things like your Bible and your faith, and it may not be yours. And I don't want to attribute that to you. But if you are a believer and you do believe in the Bible as God's word, then what I can share with you, or if you're just curious and you want to understand the Bible better anyways, the Bible is actually divided into five major covenants. Five covenants that God makes with mankind, with his people, with humans. And so I want us to understand what a covenant is, because whether you realize it or not, the faith to which you ascribe, that you give yourself to, the text that is the foundation of that faith is divided into five of those agreements. Agreements that are, I will bind myself to you by these actions and you will bind yourself to me by these actions. The five covenants are, you don't need to know this or write this down, but I just want us to have a framework for where we're going. And I've told you at the beginning that this is professorial, so I'm giving myself an excuse to be a little bit nerdy here. The five covenants that we break down the Bible with begin with Noah. It's the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant. Now let's go back. Noahic Covenant. It's the covenant with Noah. God floods the earth. At the end of the flood, he puts them on dry land. He puts the rainbow over and he says, I'm never going to destroy the earth like this again. I promise you that. That's God making a covenant with Noah. And what's interesting about this covenant is that it doesn't require a binding action from Noah. He just says, hey, I'm going to do. I'm going to do this. And so he does it. Then there's the Abrahamic. The Abrahamic covenant is in Genesis chapter 12. And he says, hey, Abraham, here's your binding action. Move. Go to this place where I will show you. But after that, there's no other binding action for Abraham. That's all he has to do. The binding action for God is, I will make your descendants like the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky. I will give you this land, Israel, which we still see God's faith in today. And then I will, one of your descendants will bless the whole earth. That's the threefold promise that God makes to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. That's the Abrahamic covenant where God says, you do this, you move, which Abraham already had. And I will do this. This is my binding action. Then the next one is the Mosaic covenant, which we're going to talk about this morning. We're going to see what that promise is and what the two binding actions are. Then after that is the Davidic. And the Davidic covenant is in 2 Samuel chapter 17 that he makes to King David where he says, the Messiah will sit on your throne. He promises that to David. Interesting about that covenant, no reciprocal binding action required. David, you don't have to do anything to keep this covenant. You don't have to do anything to make this true. The Messiah will sit on your throne. Then the last one is the new covenant. That's Jesus. And God makes a promise to us with Jesus, which is simply this. You believe in him. And I will redeem you. That's Jesus. And we're going to talk about that a lot more. But what I want us to see this morning is how those covenants all tie together and what the relationship is between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant, because I think it's very compelling. So let's look at that Mosaic covenant. What was it that God promised to the people? And what binding action did he ask of them? And what binding action did he promise in response to theirs? What is the Mosaic covenant? And I think answering that question is probably more important to you than you thought it was when you walked in this room. So let's look at it and let's understand the Mosaic covenant. Here's what's happening before God says this. We're going to go to two different places. So what's happening is God has descended on Mount Sinai. And we talked about this last week with the law and the week before that with the fear of God being the beginning of wisdom. But God has descended on Mount Sinai. His presence is before his people. And he's asked Moses and Aaron to come up and talk to him. And they go back down the mountain holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments. And they issue the law to the people. And they say, this is the law. This is what we do to make ourselves right with our God. And so it's this really kind of pregnant moment in the Old Testament and really in history. And so God gives them the law. And in response to the law, here's what he says in Exodus chapter 25 verses 8 and 9. And this is going to feel out of context, but I'll contextualize it for you. Chapter 25 of Exodus verses 8 and 9, as after he gives all of the instructions, and Zach, you're fine, just leave it up there. After he gives all of his instructions, here's what I want you to do, here's how I want you to follow the law. on from here. And he says, to host my presence, I want you to build an ark, which is just a fancy chest. It's a thing that opens that you put blankets in. But except for blankets, it's the staff and the law and manna. And then over this ark, they were told to build two golden angels whose wings touch in the middle. And the surface that those wings formed was referred to as the mercy seat. And this was the seat of the very presence of God for the Hebrew people and for our people. So after God, and this is what we need to pick up on, after God says, here's the law. If you read through chapter 24, what he's telling Moses is go down the mountain and go tell everyone that they have to obey this law. Keep faith in me. Put no other gods before me. Obey me. Follow these rules that I'm giving you. This is your binding agreement. And my binding agreement is this. I will be present with you. So here's the Mosaic covenant, okay? Obey me, and I will be present with you. That's the agreement. I just gave you all the laws. You walk down the mountain with them. You're going to read them to the people. And you tell them, if you follow these laws, I will be present with you. And just so we're clear, here's what that presence means. We have this in Deuteronomy. And Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible are the books of Moses, the books of the law. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy, that word means the law repeated. So Deuteronomy is kind of a synopsis of everything that just happened in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. And if you've ever done one of those read through the Bible programs, you know those can be tedious books. So we're grateful for Deuteronomy because sometimes it summarizes things in a more succinct way that makes them more approachable. In this case, this is true. So in Deuteronomy chapter 11, we see God again talking about the Mosaic covenant. And he says, this is just a snippet, but here's the sentiment. Talking about what it means, why it matters that God offers to be present with us. Chapter 11, verse 13, he says, so if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today to love the Lord your God and to serve him with your heart and your soul, then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn he goes on and he says, And he basically says, hey, if you obey me, I will offer you my presence. And in my presence, here's what that means, your fields will flourish. I will care for you. I will protect you. And if we just want to boil it down to really simple thoughts so that we can understand it together and move on with the greater principle, then what we do is what God is saying here, hey, if you'll obey me, I'm going to do God's stuff for you. Right? I'm going to protect you. I'm going to make sure you flourish. You're going to win wars like this nation will exist. So what we see here in the Mosaic covenant that happens at length in Exodus 19 to 25, we see synopsized for us in Deuteronomy 11. But the ethos of it is, here's the binding agreement. If you obey the laws that I just gave you, then I will offer you my presence. And here's what we might not understand about God's presence. When we see it in this context, he doesn't mean just today. You know? He means for eternity. The Hebrew mind didn't, they didn't grasp that. And our minds at first blush don't either. But God means it for eternity. You obey me and I will offer you my presence. Not just now for protection, but in eternity so that we no longer fear sin or death. Right? I had somebody this week, a dear friend at the church. I was on the phone with her yesterday. And she lost her mom. It was an expected thing. But in speaking with her, I said, how you doing? And she said, I'm good. Mom's in the presence of God now. So when God says, I'm offering you my presence, build some space for it, he doesn't just mean today. He means forever. So the Mosaic covenant is you follow my laws in this life and I will be present with you for all of life, for the next one too. That's what this means. And I don't think we noticed that at first reading, but that's what it means. And so here's the thing that's always been tricky for me about the Mosaic covenant. I know we're very far in the weeds now, but hopefully you're thinking along with me. A covenant is when two parties agree to binding actions. And one person's or one party's fidelity to that action necessarily binds you to yours, right? But here's the problem with the Mosaic covenant. And here's what it's hard to make sense of. I can see some of you smiling. You know what I'm going to say. They didn't do their part. We didn't do our part. They didn't follow the law. God said, here's 630 laws. Follow them perfectly and I will offer my presence to you. And they immediately, golden calf, while God was still on the mountain and they could see his presence, they immediately got right back to the business of sinning and breaking the law. No one has ever kept their part of the deal worse than humans. Ever. They broke it. They didn't perform their binding action, but God continues to perform his because he has a fidelity to this promise. And so we go, well, why did God keep his side of the deal? Why did God's presence remain with his people? Why does God's presence remain with us? And why do we have access to God's promise still, even though we haven't performed our binding action? And it's always bugged me as I've thought about it, because the others, Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic, those covenants, God says, I'm just going to do for you. The Mosaic covenant is the only covenant in the Old Testament that requires a performance from the other side. God says, your binding action is existing. My binding action is to do this for you. And then he does it. But for the Mosaic covenant, he says, no, your binding action is to obey me perfectly. And mine is to offer you my presence. And then we immediately fail. So why does God continue to offer his presence? Here's why. Because he knew this. One day, someone will fulfill their part of the deal. God knew what they did. He knows what we might not immediately think of when we read the Mosaic Covenant. And a casual reading of Exodus 19 through 25 might not bring us to this point, but it's important that we express it now. God knew that one day he was going to send his son and that his son was going to fulfill the covenant on our behalf. He was going to perfectly execute the law to excuse anyone who had never done that, which is everyone, and be redeemed by God. God knew. So when we ask the question, why does God remain faithful to this promise to which we remain unfaithful? Because he knew that one day someone would be faithful to it and that that would fulfill the binding action. He knew he was going to send his son Jesus to fulfill the promise that we fall short of. And what's wonderful about God's foreknowledge in that is to be able to see this, that this feels like a clumsy point, but I'll tell you more about it. Everything points to Jesus. The Mosaic Covenant is designed to point us to Christ. Last week, I did a whole sermon about the law, and I said the whole point of the law is to point us to the cross. The whole point of these covenants is to point us to Jesus. God made the Noahic covenant. He said, I'll never destroy the world like this again. You know how he knew he could make that covenant, that promise? Because he knew that he was going to send his son who was going to redeem the earth back to what it was intended when it was created. And he knew what was happening at the end of time. The Noahic covenant points us to the relief and the redemption of Christ. When he promises Abraham, I'm going to make you a great nation and one of your descendants will bless the whole earth. Do you know who that descendant was? Jesus. The Abrahamic covenant points us to Christ. The Mosaic covenant, follow this law perfectly and I will always offer you my presence. And who followed that law for us was Jesus because we can't do it because the law points us to our need for him. And when he makes the Davidic covenant, do you know who that points to? Do you know who the Messiah is that's going to sit on the throne of the universe? Jesus. And the new covenant and the New Testament, I don't know if you know this or not, but the whole new testament is about Jesus. All of it points us to Jesus. The covenants that make up the Bible and our faith all point us to Jesus. He's the point. It is to him that our gaze should be directed. And if we read the Bible carefully, what we find is that every part of it is trying to gently grab our little baby faces and point them towards our Christ and point them towards our Savior. The point of the Mosaic Covenant is to focus us on Jesus. And here's what occurred to me this week that I just think is frigging awesome. Okay. Do you understand that Jesus fulfills both sides of this covenant? Think about the Mosaic covenant, what it is. Think about what I just articulated to you. You follow my law perfectly and I will offer you my presence. Jesus followed the law perfectly by being present with us. Do you see? He followed the law perfectly by being present with, by offering us his presence. And then in an ongoing way through the Holy Spirit, he is with us every day. Jesus is with us in this moment here. Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be also. Jesus is here with us now. His presence rests and resides in this room. He is with us. The promise that God made his people is true. And it's true because Jesus fulfills both sides of that promise by both following the law perfectly and fulfilling it for us. And also by being present with us here in this day, in this moment, and not just present here, but present in heaven, advocating for us, whispering in the ear of God, the father, bringing us into eternity where we will spend forever with him in his presence, which is what is promised in the Mosaic covenant. And I don't have anything for you to go do this week. So this week, think about this. I don't have an application to this sermon. I just want you to see how beautifully woven, not just scripture, but history is by the intentionality and the sovereignty of our God who knew when he made this binding agreement with us that we would not do our part. And he already knew how to fulfill both sides of that promise by allowing his son to become human and to fulfill it for us and be the very presence that he promised for all of eternity. And I happen to think that's pretty neat. Let's pray. Father, thank you for making promises with us when you know that we can't keep up our part. Thank you for loaning things to us when you know that we won't pay you back. Thank you for agreeing to deals that you know we will not hold up. And then for loving us anyways. And for holding up our part too. Thank you for the promises that you made to Noah and Abraham and Moses and David and to us. Thank you for upholding them. Thank you for that odd music during my prayer. God, we love you. We are grateful for you. We are grateful for the ways that you love us. And God, I pray that maybe today we would just be astounded by your love. In Jesus' name, amen.

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

Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks so much for making grace a part of your Sunday morning. If you're watching online, wherever you are, whatever you may be doing, thank you for your presence there and here. It is with some excitement that I get back into the pulpit this weekend. The elders several years ago made a decision that I would get a stay from preaching in the month of July, and our staff carries the torch. And I don't know about you guys, but I thought Aaron and Aaron and Kyle each preached the best sermon I've ever heard them preach, and I thought that they carried the torch well in July. So I'm very grateful to have such a deep bench here at the church that can serve us in those weeks. And then Doug Bergeson preached last week, and he did fine. But I'm very grateful that we have those voices in our church, and I'm very grateful for when we get to hear from other voices. I'm also grateful that I get to continue on this morning in our series in the life of Moses. We took a brief break last week for Ministry Partner Sunday, but this week we're jumping back into Moses and we're going to carry Moses through the end of the month into Labor Day weekend. And then the second weekend in September, we're going to begin a new series called Gentle and Lowly. I will tell you more about that. There's going to be a book. We're all going to read it together. If you'd like to, I think it's really going to bring us together as a church. I'm very excited for that series. But before that, we have this, where we are continuing to look at the life of Moses and how God used him to lead his people out of Egypt and eventually into the promised land and establish this new nation. As we look at the portion of the story on which I want to focus this morning, I want us to attempt to shed a mindset and adopt a new one that may be best illustrated by my daughter this past week. This last week, I had an opportunity to go on a cruise. My parents are cruise people. They like cruises. Some people are cruise people. You're weird. Some people are not cruise people, okay? But we went on a cruise, and as part of this cruise, it was a really wonderful experience. My sister and her three girls and her husband came along as well. It was one big family, and it was a really, really great experience. The last full day we were there, we docked at Royal Caribbean's private island called Coco Cay. Perfect day at Coco Cay. Except it rained the whole time. So our joke was, it's a pretty okay day at Coco Cay. Coco Cay is home to, there's this Daredevil's Tower. And off this tower in the middle of the island spit five different water slides. The apex is Daredevil's Peak, which is the tallest water slide in North America. And Lily did it. My nine-year-old daughter chose it, and she did it, and I was so proud of her. There is nothing that that has to do anything at all with my sermon. I'm just proud of Lily for choosing to do Daredevil's Peak because I did it and I was, you know, you cross your feet and your arms like this and I'm like wiping off my eyes because I'm trying to save my contacts so I don't have to walk around in a fog for the rest of the day. And I'm giggling to myself thinking, and I said out loud, holy crap, this is fast. Holy crap, this is fast. But she did it. Great. Here's why I bring that up. Because on your way up the stairs, there's different slides that you can do. And the very lowest is like some sort of racers. The idea is that you start each one at the same time and you see who gets to the bottom first, which spoiler alert, it's whoever's fattest. That's who gets to the bottom first. That's how that works. I won a lot of races this week. And there's like this burgundy-ish slide that's enclosed, and then there's a yellow slide that's open, and you kind of like slosh on the sides of it. And as we were going up the stairs, Lily said, Daddy, we're going to do this later, but don't do the yellow slide. And I said, why, baby? And she goes, because I think I saw on YouTube that people fly out of it. They just fly like right off the sides and they just, just careen into Daredevil's Peak, right? And this was a legitimate concern of hers, that Daddy, please don't do this slide because you might fly out of it and die. There's, there's legitimate danger at the top of the slide. And I just remember thinking, sweetie, you don't know how liability works. There is no one on the planet that is more incented to make sure that no one flies off this slide than Royal Caribbean. They're insured for this. That's not going to happen. You could find someone who weighs 450 pounds, put them in a speed suit, grease them up, and they're still not flying out of that slide. Okay? No one's flying out of that slide, but I thought what a quaint, wonderful thing it is to be nine and to believe that you are in such peril at the top of this slide that you may not make it to the bottom. When's the last time you had that kind of wonder and naivety in your life? When it was a possibility to do a water slide and it end fatally. Of course we're not scared of that. Of course I know that I'm not going to fly out of it. Of course I know it's perfectly safe. Of course I was never scared at any point to do any of these slides because they're insured by American companies, which means you're not going to die on them. But Lily didn't know that. She still has this nine-year-old sense of wonder where danger is possible on water slides. And there is something about life that chips away at our wonder, isn't there? There's about life we're becoming an adult means that we don't awe at things anymore it means that we don't wonder at things anymore it means that we instantly explain things away and if we can't instantly explain it away we know that there is a way to explain it away. We just need to acquaint ourselves with it. And it makes me sad that I can't stand at the top of a water slide with a sense of trepidation in my heart. I was trepidatious about keeping my breakfast down before I did Daredevil's Peak. It turns a lot, and I thought I might get sick. But at no point was I scared for my life. At no point did I think something catastrophic was going to happen, but what must it be like to be nine again and to be fully convinced that Dad shouldn't do the yellow slide because it may not be safe. Grownups, we've lost that sense of wonder. We've lost our ability to marvel. And we very readily explain things away. But I bring that up and I acquaint us with that mindset of the wondrous child because I believe that the passage that we are going to read today stirs up within us that wonder if we will let it. As I read through Exodus, getting ready for this series, and I arrived at this passage, I'm going to be in Exodus chapter 19, verses 16 through the end of the chapter, through 25. And I read this passage. It kind of had this profound impact on me. On the trip, like you do, I read a book. When you go on vacation, you read a book. And so I was reading a book, and this book, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, is particularly profound. And there was one chapter where it ended with this old man knowing that his children were tricking him into retirement and that he was going to go into retirement and die, and he was content with this choice. And he asked his eldest child to keep his knowledge of that away from his other kids. Let them go on thinking they're tricking me. And the way that it was written was so profound that it felt like I would cheapen the book and the thought if I simply turned the page and continued to read. So after I read that portion of the book, I read it again, and then I shut the book, and I put it on the nightstand, and I turned off the light, and I just ruminated in it. Because there are some portions of some stories that get cheapened when you continue on without reflecting on them. And I think this morning, in Exodus chapter 19, we arrive at one of those moments. That if we just continue to charge ahead, reading the life of Moses, we miss the profundity that is bound within these words. If we do not reflect on it. Further, not only do I want us to reflect on it this morning, but I want us to do our very best to reflect on it with the wonder of a naive nine-year-old. I want us to do our best to marvel at these words, to put ourselves in this situation, and to allow the words to sweep us up and to respect what is happening in this portion of the story. God is about to give the Ten Commandments to the Hebrew people. And next week we will look at the law and the commandments and we will talk about why they're so important and so meaningful and how they are the fulcrum on which a huge portion of the Bible rests in teeters. We'll look at that next week. And it would be tempting to get to this part of the story, get to Mount Sinai in the presence of God and just move right into the law because that's the headliner from this part of the book. That's the headliner from this part of the story. But I don't just want to rush headlong into the law and miss how profound the precursor is to that deliverance of the law. The Hebrew people have been wandering through the desert by this point for some time. Months, years, decades. And they come to this mountain called Mount Sinai. And clouds and smoke come to rest over the mountain. And God tells Moses to tell the people this is now a holy place. Do not let anyone touch the mountain. If anyone touches the mountain, they are to be stoned or run through with arrows. This is holy ground. Can you imagine being an ancient Hebrew person, having escaped from Egypt, watched God part the waters and then collapse them in on the Egyptian army and the top 600 chariot drivers in their country. Demolish the army and make you safe. And every day you wake up and you pick up manna on the ground and you feed your family and God provides for you every day. Can you imagine what it would be like? And then, and you're led by a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. And then one day you're in front of this mountain and cloud and smoke comes to rest on the mountain and you are told this is holy ground. You cannot touch it. And you're not American. You don't understand science. You don't have all the learning that you have. You cannot explain this away. The only thing to explain it away is this is miraculous and that is from God. And you marvel at it and you awe at it because you have not, your wonder has not been chipped away at by your education and by your experience. And then on the third day, this is what transpires. And this is where I think it's worth taking a holy pause to reflect on what's happening in the narrative. I'm going to read you more verses than I normally do. I simply think that they're all important. And so read said to the Lord, The people cannot come up from Mount Sinai because you warned us yourself. Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy. The Lord replied, Go down and bring Aaron up with you, but the priests and the people must not force their way through to come up to the Lord, or he will break out against them. So Moses went down to the people and told them. I know that this may seem obscure to point out on a Sunday morning, but to me it's not obscure at all. To me, it's halting. It's poignant. It's important. God brings his very presence down to the top of the mountain. He has not brought his presence anywhere since the Garden of Eden. But he brings it down here now. And for three days before he brought his presence, there was smoke and fire and clouds covering this holy ground. And then he descends onto it himself and he calls to Moses, come and speak to me. And before he gives Moses the law, which is the reason that he came, he just simply says to Moses, go and tell them, don't come here. This is holy. This is sacred. And I know that it's so hard for us to do, and our American 21st century minds that are so smart, and so educated, and so smug. But can we not envision what it must have been like to marvel at this mountain where it says smoke is lifting from it like a furnace because the presence of God is on it? And there is this man that we revere and he is leading us named Moses. And he's called to the top of it. And he comes down with a message for us. Our imaginations are too atrophied to appreciate this. This point would be better made in the second and third grade room than it is here. Because we're too smart for this. We're too developed for this. We've lost our sense of wonder. We know water slides are safe. And so we read passages like this, and I'm afraid that we miss it. And we go, what's the point? This is the point. Do you see how awful and terrifying God is? Do you see how big He is? Do you see how marvelous He is? Do you see how awesome, in the very sense of the word, that He is. Do you see how awesome in the very sense of the word that he is? And so I think if we just read this and we go, yeah, yeah, get to the commandments, we cheapen the narrative and we miss what's happening here. Because what's happening here reminds me of one of my favorite Proverbs, Proverbs chapter nine, verse 10, where it simply says at the beginning, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This passage personifies, exemplifies, illustrates that point better than any other passage I know outside of the book of Revelation, where it just grabs you and it shakes you and it makes you pay attention to who our God is and how big he is. How fearful must we have been if we were there? If we can imagine what it must have been like to be in the desert and to watch this mountain shake violently and to see smoke rising off of it and to know that our God that we worship, that we just sang to, is present there. How much would that stir us? And how much fear would we have of who that awesome God is and what he must be capable of? It is something that we have lost in 21st century church. But to me, it illustrates and personifies that passage in Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And many of us have probably heard that passage before, have heard that idiom before. Even if we didn't know it was from Proverbs, we've heard that phrase, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And what we tend to do is we try to defang it by making fear mean reverence and awe. It doesn't really mean afraid. It means that we just revere God. And I want to be very clear about this this morning. No, no, no. Fear means being afraid. When we were doing the water slides, back to this well, when we were doing the water slides, about halfway up the tower, there was these slides called dueling demons. And at the top of them, there was a capsule. It was clear plastic and it would open hydraulically. And you would step into the capsule and it it would close, and there's water running down your back, and your feet are crossed, and your hands are here. And at some point or another, the sadistic slide worker is going to press the button, and the bottom's going to drop out. Okay? That was the ride. And it was super fun. I was laughing the whole time. It was great. Lily said she wanted to do it. She had said she wasn't going to do it. But she said she wanted to try dueling demons with her cousin Charlotte. And I was like, great, babe. And so we get up there. We wait in line. And it's her turn. And she goes, and I want to watch her in the capsule. And the thing opens like a coffin, you know. And then, and she took one step into it and paused and like looked around. And I was getting ready. I knew she was going to turn and look at me. And I was getting ready to like, babe, you got it. You can do this. You're all right. You know, like I was going to talk her into it. But when she turned and looked at me, the color had left her face. And she just went. And I just, all toughness left. Baby, come here. Come here. You don't have to do it. Walk down by yourself in shame, but you don't have to do it. You don't have to do this. I'm still going to do it. I'll see you at the bottom. I'm not going to miss my opportunity to duel the demon. But when I saw her, I knew she was afraid. She was scared. There's no talking her into this. Fear of the Lord means being afraid. We don't soft pedal it with reverence first. We are actually afraid of him and what he can do. We actually tremble at his might. I don't know if you read it, if you caught it in the narrative, but it's said that the whole camp trembled. The tough, grizzled old men. The women who have seen everything and endured more. The whole camp tremb idea that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, let us not soft pedal it first into reverence. Let us understand first that it is an actual sense of fear where the color leaves our face and we understand what it is that our God is capable of. And we don't talk about this a lot, particularly not in American churches, but he can smite us. He can put his thumb on us and end it. You know your mom used to say, I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it? God actually means it. We should be fearful of God. That's where our relationship with him should start. And when we skip that step, I think we shortchange ourselves. I actually have thought about it this way for years. And I don't know if this will resonate with you or not, but for me, the way that our progressive understanding of who God is isn't very dissimilar from my progressive understanding of who my father is. I was born in the 80s, and when you're born in the 80s, your parents hit you. They spanked you, okay? That's what you got. I got spanked when I was growing up. We don't do it now. If we do it now, we don't talk about it. But I will say that there are times when my children act in such a way, and I think this is why we invented spanking. You have no fear, and you need a knot jerked in your tail. My dad didn't just spank me. And one of the biggest mistakes I made was when I was eight years old, my mom broke the wooden spoon on me and I laughed at her. It was belt after that, from then on out. And if I had anything in my life to do over again, I would strongly consider going back to eight years old and crying and pretending like that hurt. Because the belt was the worst. Not only did we get spanked with the belt, but my dad had a couple of moves perfected that I can't even do to this day. I called it the no-look slap and grab, but when we were in the car, I'd be in the back seat, and if me and my sister got sideways, dad could, without looking, without breaking eye contact with the road, reach back and slap. He had some sort of radar to know where my left thigh was. He could reach back and slap it and grab it and squeeze it. So now I'm dealing with the sting of hitting my leg. And then he squeezes it and he has these fulcrum grips on my leg. I'm in incredible pain. I have no idea what words he's saying or what words I'm using. I'm just trying to get this done with, right? And then he had this other move where he would grab my arm and twist it and just kind of jam my shoulder into itself and walk me across a room. And I'm going like this. It was easier to be a parent in the 80s, I think. But when I was little, I was scared of my dad. For better or worse, maybe I need to work this out in therapy. For better or worse, I was scared of him. I didn't get sideways because I didn't want to get hurt. I watched my mouth because I didn't want the no-look slapping grab. I didn't want to get spanked. I was scared, and so that kept me in line. But eventually, somewhere in middle school, I realized, defects is a thing. He's not going to hurt me that bad. He really is not going to do anything. Or I can report him. I got a leg up. But by that time in my life, I just wanted to make him proud of me. I didn't obey him because I was scared of getting the belt. I obeyed him because I wanted to make him proud. And then at some point in my life, I realized that he was proud of me, that he was proud to call me his son. And my mom was proud to call me her son. And then the knowledge of their pride in me made me love them all the more. And so fear begat reverence, begat a desire to make them proud. The fact that I knew that they were proud of me begat this deep love for them, that they loved and accepted me for who I was no matter what and it was unconditional and I don't think it works very differently with our Heavenly Father but we can't just jump straight to love we have to experience fear and from that fear a desire to make our Heavenly Father proud and from that desire realize that he is proud of us that that He does love us as much as He ever will. And then from that comes this unconditional, reciprocal, grateful love from us towards our Heavenly Father. But it has to start with fear. That's why it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And I think that that gets a bad rap, this idea of fearing our God. Why would our God want us to be afraid of him? Why would he ask that of us? Because in the 21st century church, in American church, we skip fear and we go straight to the cross. We skip fear and we go right to Christmas and right to Easter. I am forgiven because he was forsaken. I'm accepted. He was condemned. And we get to move right to God. We get to move right into God's presence. We never experience the fear of him. It's like growing up with your grandfather when all he ever wants to do is spoil you. But you forget that your dad has to discipline you. We forget that. And we skip straight to love. And we forget to fear our God. We forget scenes like this in Exodus 19 where we should be awestruck by him and wonder and marvel at his largesse and at his might and at his wrath and at his vengeance and at his anger. Those don't make us comfortable, so we move on from them. But I believe that we cheapen our relationship with our Father God when we are not aware of them. So why does God insist that fear is the beginning of wisdom? And how can that be a good thing? A few points to this end. First of all, fear appreciates grace and mercy. Fear helps us appreciate grace and mercy. Here's what I mean. Back to the well of the cruise this week by way of illustration. This was a, my parents were saying, a once-in-a-lifetime trip for our family. My parents are big cruisers. They like to do it, and so they wanted to bring Amy and I, Amy's my sister, and our families along. And so we did the whole thing. And it was really nice, and Dad did it right. And we got to stay in a suite. And that's pretty, I'm not trying to brag, I'm just telling you that we stayed in a suite. It is pretty awesome. There was a curtain dividing our king-size bed from the height of bed, so that was fancy. And we had our own balcony and a chair that you could read on and watch the ocean, which was really, really cool. We had, there was a private suite lounge that your key card got you access to, and from 4.30 to 8, there's free Cokes, so it was awesome. We would go there every day and get Cokes before dinner because at dinner, if you wanted a Coke, they would upcharge you like $5.50 or something. So we'd go get a free Coke and then take that to dinner. But it was like a really nice experience. And at one point, we had told each of Jen and I each did a cruise when we were teenagers with our families. And at one point Lily said, uh, mommy and daddy, when you did cruises before, did you stay in rooms like this? And it was like, no, no, we stayed in an interior room that was tiny. It was like a cave and it was damp. And you had to shuffle sideways to get into bed because there's no space. And you slept sweaty against your sibling. That's what you did. All right. That was traveling when we were growing up. Because when we were growing up, we didn't have grandparents that had been moderately successful. So mom and dad had to foot the bill for vacations. Jen, growing up, went to vacation in Seaside Beach every year before Seaside Beach was bougie and awesome, back when it was just run down like all the beaches in North Carolina. I hate North Carolina beaches. And your barbecue sauce. I'm just throwing that out there. Yeah, I know. They got a house that was a few blocks off of the beach that somehow or another through the Southern Baptist Church relationship network, Jen's dad found this older lady, and he would come down. He was pretty handy. And in exchange for doing a certain amount of projects, his family could stay in the basement a few blocks off of the beach. So she grew up vacationing by trading handiwork for a location that was a bike ride away from the beach. And Lily's staying in a suite with free Cokes in the afternoon and a private dining room going, isn't this how everyone travels? And it's like, no, no, this is not how, this is not how rectors travel. Somebody gave us a courtside seats one time to an NC state game. And we were sitting, Lily and I were on the floor sitting behind the television announcer booth and they were turning around and interacting with her during the commercial breaks. And at one point in the game, I grabbed her and I said, Lily, do you see up there in the shadows the seats against the wall that are really high up and you can barely see? And she goes, yes. And I said, those are rector seats. Okay? These are not. Do not get used to this. But it was just funny to me, Daddy, did you stay in rooms like this when you were a kid? No. No, I didn't have rich grandparents. I stayed with the poor. I stayed in poor people rooms. And we went on one. And it was a treat. But she doesn't understand that. And that's something to work out. Something that Jen and I have to navigate. But to her, what we just did is normal. That's what we're used to. But because I stayed in the dank cabin cave when I was a kid, I can have a deeper appreciation for the sweet. Because it was like Lord of the Flies and I had to fight for one glass of water amongst a bunch of overweight people trying to get to the same trough when I was 16. I can appreciate access to water all I want on a ship. She can't appreciate that. She doesn't have that perspective. And my point is, New Testament Christians are a lot more like her than they are like the Old Testament Christians. New Testament Christians don't know what it is to fear God because we meet Jesus right away. We meet someone who describes himself as gentle and lowly. We don't know what it is to suffer. We don't know what it is to be fearful of God. We've never sat at the base of the mountain and watched it violently shake while we tremble with our friends at the might of our God because we go straight to the cross. We go straight to Christmas and we go straight to Easter and we see Jesus meek and mild. We are the rich billionaire trust fund babies of history born into this soft world where we never have to fear God. And so we read passages like this and they're foreign to us because that's not our God because our God comes meek and mild and, and he loves me, and he died for me, and he accepts me, and I call him Abba Father, and he calls me up into his lap. We forget the awful God that comes before that. We forget the fear-inspiring God that comes before that, and we end up acting like spoiled brats towards our God because we forget to fear him. So fear appreciates grace and mercy. When I have grappled with the reality that not only do I deserve a punishment for my sin and for my disloyalty to God, but that he is also highly capable of meeting that out and has chosen not to, and instead has chosen to show me grace and mercy in the form of his son and watched him die for my betrayal to him. It is only then when we swim in those waters and acquaint ourselves with that reality that we can properly appreciate grace and mercy. But we're so quick to jump to grace and mercy. And we figuratively ask our parents, has it always been like this? Did you travel like this when you were a kid? Because we're spoiled. And so I think that fear is good because it refocuses us on our gratitude for grace and mercy. And it shows us how important those things are. Fear is good because fear reminds us of our place. It reminds us of our place. When we say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and we say this is actually a good thing. Why? Because it reminds us of our place. Jen pointed this out to me this week. Do you understand that the original sin in the Garden of Eden was essentially choosing to not be afraid of God anymore? It was losing this fear of God. The story goes that the serpent whispered into the ear of Eve. There was one tree. There was only one rule. God said, do whatever you want. Just don't eat fruit off of this one tree. And the serpent appears to Eve and speaks into her ear and says, do you know that God actually doesn't want you to eat of that tree? Because if you do, you'll know the difference between good and evil and you'll be like him. He's just trying to hold you down. He doesn't want you to be like he is and So what happened in the language of what we're talking about this morning is he whispered in Eve's ear You don't have to be afraid of him You can do what you want You don't have to fear God you are like him and so the original sin Was have to fear God. You are like him. And so the original sin was refusing to fear God at the beginning of wisdom. Do you see that? And I love the way that the Bible starts out, and this is why I say that fear helps us keep our place. The very first sentence of the Bible, do you know what it is? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And I'm firmly convinced that it does not begin that way just because that's where the story starts. I'm firmly convinced that the Bible begins that way because it sets up from the very first sentence, the essential relationship in all creation. I am the creator, you are the created. All sin in our life is when we do this and we put ourselves on level with our creator. Anytime we sin, anytime we do anything that displeases God, all we've done is we've said, yeah, you're the creator, but I think I'm equal to you. So I'm not going to follow your rules. I'm going to follow mine. Everything in life that is messed up begins with a fundamental disjointment of this relationship where he says he is the creator and we are the creation and we go, nope, I'm not scared of you. This was the original sin of Eve. When the serpent whispered in her ear, you don't have to be afraid of him anymore. You are like him. And so she lost the fear of the Lord. So the fear of God keeps us in our place. It reminds us that he is all-powerful creator, and we are subservient creation. When Job got upset with God in that book, and he confronts him in Job 38, God's response is, hey Job, you forgot your place. So when we have fear of God, when we read Exodus 19 and we allow that to take us back to our nine-year-old selves and tremble at the might of our God, it also reminds us to keep our place. Last good thing I'll say about fear and why God insists on it is that fear makes knowledge a privilege. It makes knowledge of God a privilege. We presume that we should know who God is. We presume that we have a right to him. We presume that he should share himself with us. But that is not the case. Do you understand the miracle of the condescension of God? Do you understand what that is? Here is a figure that for the first time in history, since the garden of Eden descends onto a mountain, it burns with smoke. It shakes violently. It makes everyone around him tremble. And thousands of years later, he condescends by sending his son and our frail form to be with us, to sit in the muck and the mire. The miracle of God's condescension to us, to be one of us, to live as us, to be tempted as us, to love as us, and then to die as us for us. We start with Christmas and we start with Easter, so we take it for granted. But put yourself in the shoes of the people surrounding that mountain and imagine that thousands of years later, this being that's shaking the foundations of the earth and is causing fear and everyone that I know is going to send his son in human form to live the life of a pauper, to love me perfectly, to die perfectly, and to pave a way for me to get to know that cloud, Testament Christian mindset that grew up thinking that they always vacation in suites. That grows up thinking that God could never possibly be upset with me. He loves me. I'm forgiven. I'm concerned for the spoiled Christians that don't take time to understand what it means to fear their God and how mighty and awesome he is. I'm concerned for the church as life chips away at our wonder and we're no longer scared of water slides because we can explain it all away. And I just thought it was worth it this morning to try my best. And I don't mean this in any disrespectful way. But to try my best to grab your face and make you look at the might and the wonder and the awe of your God. For once, before we skip to Easter and we skip to Christmas. Look how wonderful and terrifying and miraculous he is. And let's be grateful that he uses that for us, not against us. That he chooses to love us. That he chooses to save us, that he chooses to condescend to be a part of us. We cannot read Exodus and see God descend on Mount Sinai and not pause and acknowledge that we are spoiled spiritual brats that do not often enough reflect on the awe-inspiring wonder, might, and wrath of God. And so this morning, let us do that. And may we always see ourselves at the foot of the mountain. And in so doing, come to appreciate all the things we love about our Heavenly Father all the more. Because I think so often we skip to the things we love about our God and we forget this foundation of fear that is the very beginning of wisdom that deepens our appreciation for him. So may we this morning together sit at the base of the mountain and tremble. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for what you chose to do with the Israelites in descending upon Mount Sinai. God, I'm not sure why you chose to reveal yourself in that way. I'm not even sure we've handled it the way it needs to be handled this morning, but I know, God, it gives me pause. I know, Father, it makes me wonder at you. And I hope that just a little bit of that wonder was communicated. And I hope that we are moved by it. I hope that we will not be so inoculated by your love that we forget your wrath. God, give us a deep appreciation for that so that we may approach you with more gratitude. So that we might marvel at the fact that you love us, that you know us, that you care about us, and that you're proud of us. God, help us more and more to see ourselves at the foot of that mountain, marveling at who and what you are. In Jesus' name, amen.

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